Santa Rosa Lake State Park

We had a rough travel day to this campground east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Somehow, our steps wriggled off the retaining pin and dropped down during travel. It could have been worse. We noticed it at a gas station and spent about an hour bending the steps back into place, sufficient to get them folded in and stored again

Then we devised a temporary solution to tie them off with trimmer string and a couple of wire twists.  After the temporary solution, we made it to the campground, which was at best just okay.  

The good part was that an unusual cold front came through and allowed us to relax comfortably outside and then sleep with the windows down. We both slept a solid eight hours before waking up to a beautiful dawn.

We left early the next morning for Oklahoma..

Elephant Butte Lake

Our first night of the trip was spent at Elephant Butte Lake State Park in New Mexico. We arrived on Sunday afternoon, and there were a lot of hung over, badly sunburned campers preparing to head back to work after the weekend.

We had a delightful meal at Bigfoot restaurant. Green Chili Cheeseburger with a fresh salad and a 1614 dark ale on tap from New Belgium. Then we made the short drive to Truth or Consequences brewery for some live music and a Dark Skies Oatmeal Stout. 

We liked Truth or Consequences. During the middle of the band’s set, the entire block lost power. The band stopped but the beer didn’t stop flowing on the “honor system.”

In the morning we had a beautiful sunrise and were on the road to Santa Rosa State Park (New Mexico).

Elephant Butte Lake

Propane on Fridge Fixed?

Tucson's summer is well under way with highs hitting the low 100's on a regular basis.  It's easy to settle back into our summer rhythm of getting up early for walks and pickleball, while enjoying the evenings as things cool down.  Tohono Chul Botanical Gardens are about 15 minutes from our house. We are members, and have been enjoying local music on the weekends. 

We are making final preparations for our trip north, and I had a new mobile rv mechanic out to evaluate why my propane fridge keeps losing its flame.  It took him about 45 seconds to diagnose the problem, and then another hour to address another fridge problem that had gone unnoticed and was unrelated to the propane.

After removing the housing to gain access to the burner, he found that the lighting electrode was 5/16" away from the gas instead of the 3/16" that it's supposed to be at.  Additionally, it was bent, which is interesting.  The previous owner claimed not to have ever used the propane feature of the fridge.  If he was telling the truth, it had been bent for at least a couple of years.  It's not something that just happens to that degree through usage, I guess.  

Anyway, even when the fridge operated under shore power, it was losing its battle to stay cool during the afternoon heat when temperatures rose into the low 90's during our trip to Silver city.  So I purchased a double fan set on Amazon when we got back but couldn't figure out a great way to mount it because it was too big.  The tech said that two fans were overkill, and that we only needed one.  In fact, the factory fan was half the size of one of the Amazon fans.  When the tech went to mount the fan in the upper vent compartment, he discovered that the factory fan wasn't operating/dead.  So, in theory, that explains why we were having trouble with the fridge warming up during the late afternoons.  The solution was to separate the two Amazon fans, and to wire one of those fans to the fridge thermostat in place of the dead factory fan.  Zip tying was involved in the mounting process, but the tech made it work,  He used a lighter to make the area hot enough, and the fan activated and was moving a lot of air.  

Just as he was packing up to go, I asked the tech to look at one other problem we were having.  The Lance has a front awning, which we will probably use when it's not windy. The awning works fine.  However, the awning has a light switch inside the trailer which is right next to the light switch for the light above the kitchen table. Unfortunately, the awning light switch has a short, which knocks out a fuse for all of the lights in the front of the trailer, including the bathroom lights.  Twice, I've accidentally pushed the awning light switch and caused our inside lights to go out.  

I thought it would be an easy thing for him to tighten up a wire or something to fix the short.  Unfortunately, this last task for the tech doubled my tech repair time.  It wasn't the switch.  It wasn't the wire in the awning itself.  It wasn't the wiring in the converter.  We ended up on the phone with the Lance factory troubleshooting.  It was their conclusion the problem resided in a circuit board under the bed, containing a relay that wouldn't close.  Those things are expensive, and we weren't going to have it by the time of our departure anyway.  What we ended up doing is shutting off the battery power, which fortunately closed off the open relay, allowing us to change the fuse and get the lights back on in the trailer.  The tech made the awning light switch inoperable so that I couldn't accidentally turn it on again.

The tech looked at me and said, "Well, if there was one thing in your trailer that doesn't operate, I guess having the awning light not work isn't the worst thing in the world.  If you want me to replace the circuit board when you get back in the fall...."  Um, no.  The Scamp didn't even have an awning.  I think I can get along without having an awning light on the Lance.

The real test will be the long trip to the Upper Midwest ahead. Having a fridge that operates with propane gives us a lot more flexibility for nights without electric hookups.

Sam Baker

 About 15 years ago, I stumbled upon a songwriter named Sam Baker who had released an album called "Cotton."  I liked almost every song, not because he was a great singer or a great musician but because he was a great songwriter/wordsmith.

One of the good things about A.I. is that I can use it as a starting point to find out about subjects that I've lost track of over the years.  As I dug in deeper, I learned that Sam's story was much more interesting than I knew.  

From Wikipedia:  "In 1986, Baker was traveling by train to Machu Picchu in Peru when a bomb placed on a luggage rack above his head by the Shining Path guerrilla group exploded, killing seven other passengers including the three people who had been sitting with him. Baker was left with numerous injuries, including brain damage, a cut artery, and blown-in eardrums. His injuries required 17 reconstructive surgeries. He has a constant case of tinnitus and the fingers of his left hand were left gnarled. He did retain enough dexterity to grasp a guitar pick and over time, re-taught himself to play his guitar left-handed."

My favorite song on his "Cotton" album was "Mennonite."  Sam doesn't have much of a recent YouTube presence, but that song is on his channel.

It turns out he's released more albums for me to dive into since "Cotton.  His Youtube channel "Sam Baker" led me to the discovery that he's also an artist.  This is primarily a note to myself not to forget songwriters like Sam or lives like Sam's for that matter.  He talks about planting seeds of kindness in his interviews.  How someone planted seeds that helped lead him out of the darkness that he encountered in Peru.  These are things that give me hope in our current times.