Car's busted

When we got here yesterday, I unhooked the car as usual and Susan jumped in, fired it up and parked it as usual. After getting everything setup Susan jumped in the car to go see the Grandkids, turned the key and…nothing. Everything worked find but the starter didn’t make a sound. I poked around, pulled a few fuses to check them and a after determining they were all good plugged them back in and turned the key. It started right up like a brand new car. Hum, maybe a loose fuse. Susan got in the car this morning to head for the store and the car fired right up. Good I thought must be OK. No such luck. She called me from the store…No start. I got one of the guys here to give me a ride there and Susan a ride back while I stayed with the car. I tried the fuses again, No good. I checked cables, Plugs, Relays, Fuses, Nothing. Finally I got out a screwdriver and rapped on the started. Fired right up. Looks like its time for a new starter. After 5 years of driving and dragging it all over the country, this is the first time we have had a problem. I can’t complain too much.

Cooler weather

We are now in Vista California. It is much cooler here. Right now in Havasu it would still be over 100°. Here in Vista its 70°. Susan wasn’t here long before she was off to pickup the Grandson. It will sure be nice to hang outside again.

You got to be kidding

It got down to a cool 90° last night, and a high today of 114°. Now that is in the shade mind you. The motorhome’s outside temperature sensor is tucked behind the front cap, out of the sun. We have had enough. Tomorrow we are getting ready and come Tuesday morning we are out of here. They are saying this may be a record breaking summer for Lake Havasu City. Lake Havasu City already has the honor of having the highest temperature ever for a populated area of 128°. We are not hanging around for the new record. Here it is 9:00p and it is still 103° outside. We are able to keep the inside of the motorhome comfortable but what good is it to sit here inside the motorhome all summer. Susan is anxious to see the Grandkids and her parents anyway.

Not happy

112° at 7:00p. We are surviving OK but I can’t say much for my Geraniums. Even though I flood them everyday they are still not happy. Come to think of it, I am getting pretty tired of it myself. I am an outdoor person but can only spend a couple of hours outside before it’s just too hot. One of our air conditioners has not been turned off for about 4 days straight. The other runs about 10 hours a day. We are looking forward to Wednesday when we head for the coast.

I was just looking at this picture today.

Hummm

By the way, the guy got our upholstery done the same day. He did a great job and only charged me $175. I wrote him a check for $200 for doing a good job.

Trying to keep cool

With the temperatures reaching 115° here our friends invited us out on their boat to cool down. We had a blast all day on the boat running down river, then up river. It is interesting how running along the river, we hit hot spots and cool spots. The water temperature also changes quite a lot along the river. In the lake it was very comfortable but up river a bit it was rather cold. Either way, it sure felt good. We have decided enough is enough. Next Thursday we are heading for the coast. They are having a heat wave there but 80°+ is better than 115°.

What happened here

You might ask. This morning I disassembled the couch. We are getting it re-upholstered. After 5 years of use it was getting a little tired. I contacted the factory to see if I could just get the skins and recover it myself but they discontinued that design and didn’t have any available. They did manage to find some left over material to send me. They sent me enough to do the whole motorhome probably twice, FREE. They also refer me to the company that makes their covers. I asked if they had the pattern and if I sent them the fabric if they could make me one. Nope, couldn’t help me there either. So we found someone here in Lake Havasu City that will pull the original cover and use it as a template. The guy said he will probably have it ready tomorrow.

New Wireless-N

The manager of the resort came by today and handed me the new technology IEEE 802.11n wireless card. You might be familiar with the Wireless-B or Wireless-G technology but the Wireless-N is new. In fact it says on the box Draft, which tells me it is so new, that is probably isn’t a standard yet. Anyway the reason she gave it to me is because she just installed a Wireless-N router in the office and wanted me to see if it will reach to our lot. It not only reaches, where my Wireless-B did not, but also it is 3 times faster than the Wireless-G router they have along side the new one in the office. The signal strength is weak, about 15%, but it hangs in there and is FAST. I am getting about 1755 kb/s download and 487 kb/s upload. This might not mean anything to you but it is fast. My old card picked up one wireless networks in range from my motorhome and this one picks up 10. Linksys says it is has a Rangemark of 4X and a Speedmark of 12X. Perhaps if I was closer to the router and had a 100% signal instead of the 15% I would get the 12X speed. If you are thinking of buying a new wireless card or upgrading your existing one I would recommend the new Wireless-N technology. It is downward compatible which mean it will also connect to the old technology. The card I am using is the Linksys WUSB300N. Oh by the way, the card she gave me is on loan. I will be buying one when the time comes.

The heat is on

The temperatures have reached the 100+ mark here. It really isn’t too bad yet though. I guess I have gotten to where I can tolerate it more. When it gets up to the 120s that might be a different story. We can maintain a nice cool temperature inside the motorhome with the air conditioners running. I still spend most of my time outside, however I have spent more time inside than usual these days. They had a Pizza party for the people still here on Saturday. On Sunday the last of the people that we hang around with in our area of the resort have left. There are still a handful of people left but we are spread about all over the resort and most stay inside where it is cool so you don’t see many. If it weren’t for all the Casitas that everyone built here we would have a hell of a view since there are no RV left around us. We plan to stay until after the 4th of July then we will head for the coast to visit the grandkids and cooler weather.

The hard drive crash

We are back in Lake Havasu now. We came back Sunday after enjoying 5 nights at the Parker Strip. We have no trips planned until after July 4th although this doesn’t mean we won’t do any.
Just before we left for Parker I had a major computer hard drive melt down. The computer locked up and after doing a hard shut down it would not come back up. I did everything I could think of to recover it but to no avail. I installed a second copy of Windows XP and was able to get into the drives and backup all my files to my external hard drive. I tried wiping out the drive and reinstalling Windows but it would not let me finish the install before it failed. Apparently the spot where it initially wants to install Windows is bad because installing a second copy was successful. I spent 2 days loading back in all my programs and configuring the system to my liking. I now have a dual boot system. One works and one locks up. It looks like its time for a new hard drive.