Refrigerator "Water Leak"

RV refrigerator “water leak”

Our new to us rig suddenly had water running down the floor when we move out of our winter quarters in Casa Grande AZ.

We had no idea where it was coming from but at the next stop we traced it back to the refrigerator.

After mopping it up we found that the defrost tray under the cooling coils was full of cold water.

What the heck??

The refrigerator has an automatic defrost cycle to prevent buil up of ice on the cooling coil. When the ice melts it drips into the tray underneath and that has a drain in it to prevent the water overflowing into the refrigerator.

Except ours wasn't getting out of the tray.

I had to turn off the fridge and take the top shelf out before I could see the drain hole over on the left side.

I though about blowing the blockage out with canned air like you use on computers, but I didn't have any.

More thought and I came up with a roll of auto electrical wire. That fit insde the drain hole and I pushed it way down but it stopped. I didn't know if it was the blockage or something else in the drain tube.

Outside I removed the panel that covers the back of the fridge. Inside was pretty confusing.

Close examination showed a white tube going into an open black pan. 

On the bottom of the tube was a plug and some nasty gunge. 

After a little cleanup I saw there was a plug in the end of the tube. When I pulled it the water in the tube drained into te pan and the tray in the fridge emptied, Voila!!

Looking at the plug I saw it had a large hole in the top and a small hole covered by a little inverted “U” shaped plastic piece.

Inside the plug was full of a nasty spongy substance. By using a pin carefully I was able to pull out the stuff and clean everything up.

Once reinstalled everything was fine again. No more wet floors.

So what was going on here? The principle behind this is that the water drains from the catch tray down the tube and into the lower tray behind the fridge. Why? The amount of water involved will not overflow the catch tray so the water sits in that tray and slowly evaporates away avoiding water running across the floor of the rig or down the outside leaving a dirty streak. By the time the fridge defrosts itself again the tray is dry.
Simple! 
BUT and there is always a but. The damp tray can cause mold to grow which can plug the bottom of the tube,
So check the end of the tube once in a while.

Escapades 2019

We dug out the maps and sketched out a route for the summer thru California, Oregon and Washington the across Idaho into Montana. Now we only have one problem.

We want to get going!!

Our ambition was realized and we got going. Not far, just 80 miles or so to Tucson for the annual Escapades Rally put on by our favorite Escapees RV Club (www.escapees.com).

We met up with our great friends from the Shanty Shakers the San Diego Chapter of the Escapees. To get parked next to each other at the rally site we had to drive in as a convoy so to make things easier we all dry camped at a truck stop/bar/restaurant called the Spotted Bull eatery in Vail AZ, about 5 miles from the rally. There were 15 rigs in the convoy and when we got settled in we found all the other Shanty Shakers who were on staff, plus more who arrived on their own. We had nearly 50 people with us!

Dry caped at the Spotted Bull Eatery.

At one evening event Debbie Lupton introduced us to Clive and Jean Munro who are from UK and had just arrived 2 weeks before, bought a truck and 5^th Wheel trailer and were on their way to the West Coast. Naturally we adopted them! It turns out they are staying in Casa Grande after the rally so we will be showing them around that town too!!

Busy wasn't the word, we were just rushed off our feet all week with me teaching 2 painting classes, entering 3 photo's in the photo contest, volunteering at the sign up for the contest, attending a seminar, enjoying the RV dealer's Happy Hours, the Shanty Shakers Happy Hours, meeting friends from all over the place, meeting new friends, fiddling with our new RV Satellite TV installation and the Rooftop TV antenna with Scott Pearson, getting John Lupton to install our new surge protector and in return painting him a “Shingle” to place in his window.

The line for free booze at the RV Dealer's Happy Hour.

That didn't include all the entertainment put on for the rally or the Chili Cook-Off (nice Chili Suzanne!) or shopping for supplies for the painting classes!!

13 beginners at the Art Class

And 11 Intermediate painters too

We thought we stayed busy in Casa Grande!.

The shingle painting for John and Debbie

This has been a fun and very crazy week. It will be a pleasure to get back to normal next week but then again we will be off for the summer April 1^st and more adventures are around the corner.

I'm glad John was available to wire up this!!

Our past caught up with us when friends from our motorcycle days in San Diego showed up. Ralph and Crystal started full timing last May and we have been hoping to catch up with them.This was the time and they had fun along with Solo their Corgi puppy. Archie and Ellaine from the same group arrived unexpectedly too so we had lots of catching up to do.

Shanty Shakers sampling the free booze

Shanty Shakers drinking their own booze!

Bruce and Sue were working the information booth, Marty and Peggy gave a seminar on Veterans Benefits, John was on the sound crew while Debbie was setting up the rooms for seminars, Matt and Carol were coordinators. Rey and Ron were driving the shuttle carts. All in all a very active group of people and a joy to be with.

Got to go right now. More parties to attend!!

My photos for the competition
SW History 3rd Place

RV Lifestyle 3rd Place

SW Landscape

Winter 2018/19

If we don't see you or talk to you before the big day be assured that e wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas!

The New Year Girl

Oh wow, is it really that long since I posted a blog!! They say time flies when you are having fun and we have been having fun!

We hooked up with all our friends here in Sundance and got back into our winter activities. Shuffleboard, Darts, partying with the friends! Christmas and New Years were hectic what with parties, dinners, invitations to friends houses, the Elks. My liver was glad when we got it over with!

Shuffleboard Tournament

Busy Darts night

We have had a few chores to do on the new rig. A small leak in the bathroom drove me crazy for a while. I recaulked the roof penetrations a couple of times but because it doesn't rain much here it took several weeks to discover it wasn't really fixed! Eventually a product called “thru the Roof” from Home Depot seemed to have fixed the problem. But a month or so later we had torrential rain and it got back in again. I had puzzled over the difference between the Rexhall roof and the new one. It took me ages to realize the new one has no MaxAir rain covers! New ones arrived extremely quickly and another examination and application of Thru The Roof together with the new covers will hopefully do it, maybe.

New house batteries for the new season

The rig came with a built in vacuum system which didn't work when we tried it. I hauled it out from under the bed and a repair place in Phoenix replaced the control board. It probably would have been cheaper to buy a separate vacuum but the built in one doesn't take up much room.

It was a wet winter and COLD in Casa Grande

 Just to get out for the day we jumped into the Miata and after deciding that the Patagonia State Park was too far for a short winter day trip we decided to visit Maricopa which is about 20 miles from here.

On a whim we punched in “Dwarf Car Museum” into the GPS. We've heard other people talk about it and it was on a recent episode of Jay Leno's Garage.

What is a Dwarf Car? We these cars are perfect reproductions of actual vehicles but about ½ size. The gentleman who created them had no sheet metal experience before he began and his mechanical ability came from working on farm vehicles.

Can you believe this is made from old refrigerator sheet metal

Even more incredible is that these STREET LEGAL miniatures are made from metal reclaimed from old refrigerators!

And it's free to get in. Sure you can make a donation if you want but there is no requirement to do so.

If you saw a photograph of them you wouldn't know they weren't actual full size cars, it's only when you see a person beside them that you realize how small they are.

Suddenly you see how small they are!

Ed the creator of them is there just about everyday, and just comes up and chats about his work. He showed us the next one he's working on and one another guy is working on in the shop too. The way the steel is cut, shaped and welded to make the compound curves is amazing. They build them out of old refrigerator sheet metal! He calculates it takes about 3000 hours to build one of these. The engine and drive train comes from Toyota cars, with axles cut down to fit the width of the Dwarf Car.

We are getting ready for the Escapades RV Rally in Tucson in March. I'm teaching two art classes so I have to get all the supplies and handouts ready for that. I discovered Jerrys Artarama online and found they had a store in Tempe about 40 miles away. That's a very tempting place! We managed to get out without going bankrupt!!

Painting of Point Loma Lighthouse

I went to a “Quick Draw” event in Florence. You get 2 1/2 hours to produce a painting of your own choice. At the end of that they display the pieces and have a silent auction with the proceeds going to the Art Society. I painted an old favorite, Point Loma lighthouse San Diego from a photograph I took several years ago and it sold for $40! I even sold anther painting I brought along as a sample of my work. I think I'm only about $2 million down on the cost of all the supplies it's taken to get this far!!

We are in the middle of deciding whether we want to get satellite TV for the rig. We have managed this far with a regular antenna and DVD's from thrift stores. Our only TV “Need” is Formula 1 car racing. We both like to watch the races from around the world and unfortunately only ESPN2 show them. Last year we used “Direct TV Now which was iffy. Sometimes you couldn't get the race and other times we found we had the Spanish feed! It comes over the phone lines so if we streamed it to the big TV we used all our data up, otherwise it was watching it on our phones. We think that Dish TV will be about the same cost as Direct TV Now and we'll be able to watch other channels than we would get over the air.

Wiring everywhere

Getting the cable company's equipment out and the wiring in the rig restored to where it was before they did the install was a major problem, it wasn't helped by the fact that the coax from the roof antenna was apparently bad so lots of time was wasted between them finding the cause of the lost antenna signal and 3 of us searching for fuse boxes after they blew the fuse that feeds the signal booster! We found 3 fuse boxes around the rig eventually and the one tiny fuse that had blown.

I was down to do the satellite installation. We renewed our Good Sam Club membership in January and they sent us a $25 gift token for Camping World. When we got there they had refurbished Dish receivers on sale for $50! We bought a use antenna and tripod for $45 on Craigslist, a signal strength meter on E bay and 50 yards of satellite grade coax from Home Depot. First I had t find where the outside satellite connection came into the cabinet inside the rig. YouTube provided the method of isolating which of the many it was. I hooked everything up and, and, NOTHING. No signal on the meter or at the receiver. “Total Signal Loss” message on the TV screen. Various calls to a surprisingly helpful Tech Center finally had me re route the coax thru the slide direct to the receiver and a small realignment of the dish before we were getting TV again.

The "Urban Sketchers" had a mor ing drawing in the junkyard

The sedentary life has advantages and disadvantages over wandering. I don't know whether doctors visits are an advantage. It was ten years since we'd had colonoscopies. That was a disadvantage!! Barb did her's one week and mine was the next. Now we have to wait another 5 years before we “Enjoy” that experience again. Wellness checks and a bone density scan for Barbara, then we were declared fit for the next 12 months.

Larry and Marylin Forbes dropped by a couple of times and stayed at Sundance this last time. They know lots of people who are involved with Escapades the SKP Rally coming up in March. Next thing we were invited to a Happy Hour at the home of Bill and Jan who it turned out live just down the road from us! Good time were had by all. Potluck dinners for the Shuffleboard and Darts players left us with full bellies and an urgent desire to take a nap. Oh the hell of being retired!!

A wet day out in Scottsdale

Suddenly it's March first. Escapades is only 2 weeks away and we leave in 4 weeks. Where the heck did the winter go? Even the weather is getting warmer after what is the coldest winter we'e had here in the last 5 years. We dug out the maps and sketched out a route for the summer thru California, Oregon and Washington the across Idaho intoo Montana. Now we only have one problem.

We want to get going!!

Transitioning from Roaming to Parked modes.

“Welcome Home” says the lady in the activities office.

It really does feel like home.

The sunsets in Casa Grande are always spectacular

Scary how fast time goes by sometimes isn't it? Were in the middle of December already and rapidly heading towards Christmas We've been to see our financial guy, got a spare key for the Miata that we've been promising ourselves we would do “When we get a chance”. New wheel covers have been bought and the arrangements for the rig to be in “Storage Mode” for the winter are all set. For the first time since last April the outside mats, chairs, the grill and my art easel are set up. Seems like the anchor is firmly planted.

Our friends Scott and Suzanne dropped by on their way to Texas for the winter. They are busy as always, having gone the “working on the road” route. Scott is trying to get his Mobile RV Technician business set up and having to get certified in different states to be able to work on propane systems etc.

Darts players hard at work

We dropped in on our first darts night and there weren't many people there. A couple of weeks later there are 30 or more. Lots of familiar faces and long talks about what we all did this summer. Shuffleboard is going again and the crowd is growing every week. The skills we developed last season have rusted a little but we are getting them back every time we play.

My camera club has had it's get together and we had our first assignment. “Black and White” was the theme so I'm spending more time looking for some image to catch my eye.

My black and white picture for the Camera Club

Art is back too with the Casa Grande Art Association “Studio Tour”. The local artists opened their studios and houses to the public. We wandered from one to the other looking at the paintings and crafts for sale. Living in an RV means you don't have any walls to hang pictures on and there is no spare room for statues or pottery, so the temptation is less.

A watercolor done at the Monday art group from a photo.

From the studio tour we went directly to Apache Junction for the Arizona Plein Air Society's “Paint Out” at the Goldfield Ghost Town. It's a tourist trap kind of place but the owner/manager of one of the restaurants invited us to paint from his balcony and provided us with burgers and drinks too. What a generous gesture. We got to paint “Superstition Mountain” which was spectacular but very challenging. A stop at the local Elks Lodge on the way home made a pleasant break in the journey.

A fello artist hard at work painting Superstition Mountain

The Goldmine Ghost Town

The Urban Sketchers all painted the fruit stand at Eleven Mile Corner

More art at the RV park on Thursdays, a new group called the “Urban Sketchers” are Tuesday and they led me to yet another art group who meet on Mondays! Oh yes and the Wednesday Casa Grande Art Assoc “Open Studio” rounds out the week. Meanwhile Barbara has been catching up on doctors visits, hair dressers, knitting for the grand kids and socializing. Then she joined the choir for the Christmas Concert. They sounded great.

Our yard sale goodies

The park Yard Sale presented a great opportunity to get rid of some precious possessions (Junk) to make room in the new RV and to meet friends and neighbors as they browsed. (More on the new RV at a later date!)

New RV new license plate

Such a busy time, yet I am getting “Hitch Itch” which is the desire to be on the move again. It's a bit strange to be not picking out a place to stop for the night and a destination for the next day. I have to tell myself to sit back and relax, but it's not easy to make the transition. I began some basic research for next year which we have decided will be around Oregon and Washington. That made the itch even worse!

Our friends Paul, Karen, Bill, Terry, RuthAnn, Ed, Al and Marie have made sure we get out to the Elks Lodge for dinner regularly and to various parties, dances etc., which helps dispel some of the “wanderlust” too.

So this is where we are at.

If we don't see you or talk to you before the big day be assured that we wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas!

Yuma and Casa Grande

We made new friends at the rally and have plans to meet up again next summer with some of them. Right no it's time to think about moving on again to get closer to Casa Grande. Won't be long before we're back in Sundance for the winter!

The evenings had been getting cool in Albuquerque and heading south was in order. We overnighted in Las Cruces at a really nice park called the Hacienda RV Resort which was pricey at $45 a night but very clean and with lots of facilities. While we were there we called our old friend Jess who lives down the road in El Paso TX and we all went out for dinner at Cracker Barrel. We caught up on 2 years worth of news and the evening flashed by.

It was REALLY cold in Las Cruces down in the low 40's at night, so we decided to head to Yuma AZ for some RV accessory shopping and to warm up. The forecast was for 80's daytime and 60's at night there, much more to our taste.

Cold evenings in Las Cruces

Yuma has always been our “Go To” place for RV stuff as there are so many places there that specialize in RV related stuff. We were shocked then to find one of our favorites was gone. Al's RV seemed to always have what we needed, but when we got there the store was empty and locked up tight. There was no notice to say why. Another local store told us they couldn't make any money lately and had closed the business down. Our other favorite the Arizona Market Place was closed until November 1^st too and we didn't get the things we wanted.

Gene and Annette

So we went back to the campground (The Escapees KOFA Park) and caught up with laundry and other chores around the rig.

Celebrating 47 years together in Algadones Mexico

We posted on Facebook that we were in Yuma and our phone started ringing. Our friends Annette and Gene Stout from the Shanty Shakers in San Diego were also in Yuma. We all went down to Algadones across the border in Mexico and went for lunch and drinks to celebrate our 47^th wedding anniversary! It was so much fun catching up with all the news. The next day we all went for brunch and planned on dinner for our last night together before we head off to Casa Grande.

Shrimp La Diablo Algadones

Dinner was excellent and Annette was cleaning out their freezer prior to storing their rig for the winter, so she loaded up several bags of food for us to take home with us! We will be the stars of the snack table at our darts nights in Casa Grande for a couple of weeks.

The artists in Algadones will decorate anything, this is an insulated cup.

And then we were there in Casa Grande being welcomed at the gate, the office and around the park by people we've come to know over the last several years. Paul and Karen rolled up in their golf cart and we exchanged news, Mike dropped by and kindly gave us some beer he thought we'd like to try. Scott and Suzanne sent us a message that they'd be dropping by for a couple of days on their way somewhere.

It's like slipping on a familiar warm jacket when the temperature drops on an autumn day. That warm cozy feeling.

And then the activities to keep us busy. The Plein Air painters have several outings coming up, the Photo Club is next weekend, art on Tuesday and Wednesday, darts 2 evenings a week, shuffleboard 3 mornings. “Welcome Home” says the lady in the activities office.

It really does feel like home.

New Mexico adventures

Time to move on. We decided that New Mexico deserved some more exploring and perhaps we could ride the steam train at Chama. Off we go.

Well we made plans. That's not what we do but we decided that because the train ride looked pretty full to the end of their season in a month or so that we better buy tickets in advance. Not wanting to be stuck without a place to camp we made reservations in the campground too.

We left Amarillo and crossed into New Mexico, heading for Las Vegas (Yes there's a Las Vegas in New Mexico as well as the one in Nevada). Outside of Tucumari there is a LONG steep climb up to the plateau. The Rexhall was going 30 mph screaming flat out in 1^st gear in places. No problem, we're driven roads like this before.

At the top I glanced down and the temperature needle was in the red. Hurriedly we pulled over and I took a look under the hood. Couldn't see much. Obvious signs of overheating like light smoke of course, and the coolant header tank was empty. We let it cool for ½ hr then I filled it up again. There were no signs of leaks so maybe we got away with it.

We pulled into the Las Vegas Elks Lodge and when we got out there was coolant dripping from under the engine. When I investigated it was coming from on top of the engine, not the radiator or that area.

We started calling around. Nobody in Las Vegas could look at it. Santa Fe was 60 miles away and the Ford Dealer recommended an independent company Hal Burns. We took a chance, filled the engine up with coolant again and drove to Santa Fe. The engine overheated again 1 mile from the mechanic. We let it cool and filled it up and made the mechanic's place.

Sunset at the Santa Fe Elks Lodge

They couldn't look at it immediately so they said we could stay the night in their compound and they had an electric hookup for us.

The diagnosis was a cracked cylinder head.

While the problem was being resolved we decided to drive in the car another 60 miles to Albuquerque. We did some exploring and shopping, sampled some local brew pubs and restaurants including the best Indian Restaurant I've been to in 35 years in the States. Namaste. Great food and very friendly people.

We realized that the balloon fiesta was on here the next week. Not knowing when our problem might get resolved we asked for reservations at the hotel into the next week. We could always cancel them without it costing us anything. The price jumped from $70 a night to $180 once the Fiesta started!!

And then the no plan kids struck lucky again. The RV problem got resolved (see the bottom of the page!) and we saw on Facebook that the “Boomers” RV club had a cancellation for a spot at the Fiesta, camping right at the Balloon Park itself!! How lucky could we be?

The next thing we knew we were at the park, right on the front row. And guess what? The site for the Happy Hour was right in front of our rig!! Amazing.

Lining up to get into the RV area. reservations only.

Next morning we were up at 4am and heading out to crew for a balloon pilot who was on his own. 5 of us piled into his van and we went to find a launch point that would hopefully position him to drop a marker on a target on the flying field.

A cold morning, as the launch crew gather. "Our pilot" Brian closest on the right

It was FUN! The pilot (also Brian!) was with a couple of other teams and they found a good launch point. It was the lawn of a beautiful house with an big apple orchard. The owner kindly let about 6 balloons fly from the lawn right in front of her front window, and told us to help ourselves to as many apples as we wanted too as there was a bumper crop this year.

Beautiful Adobe home where we launched right off her front lawn!

We all helped pull the balloon envelope, basket, burner etc out of the van then helped as it was inflated. Brian invited one of the helpers to fly with him and off they went.

Barbara holds open the mouth of the balloon while they fire up the huge burners.

We followed in the van and Brian made our job of finding and retrieving him easy by landing in a parking lot across the street from the Balloon Park. We helped deflate the envelope and pack everything back in the van.

Another crew prepping for launch

An excellent day and more proof that the less you plan the better the experience.

"Dawn Patrol" every morning at 7am at the flying field

The following day we crewed again but the wind was stronger and the majority of pilots wisely decided to stay on the ground. We ran around the field with our phones and cameras taking pictures of the ones that did fly.

With our new friends Tim and Linda outside the NASA exhibit

Called "Zebras" they control launches at the flying field for safety purposes.

Every evening we had a happy hour and people related their adventures crewing and sometimes flying. Lots of fun. We had a “CARE” auction and raised some money for that worthy cause.

That evening I started sneezing and coughing and a nasty cold hit me. We had to cancel our plans to crew for the next few days and hung around in the rig. Luckily our front window faced across the street towards the flying field so we sat with the heater on and watched the fantastic “Shapes” fly.

Mass launch of "Shapes" as well as regular balloons

Amazing creations

Corcadova the Christ Statue from Rio De Janeiro

Darth Veda and Yoda

A happy Goldfish swims by the from window of our rig

I got over the cold almost as suddenly as it hit me and by Saturday we were catching up on laundry and doing the dump/fill routine at the local Flying J truck stop. Those places are great for RV'ers as they have dedicated RV islands and for a price you can dump the holding tanks and refill your fresh water tank. Better yet is if you are a Good Sam member your card gets you a discount on the price of dumping and also on gas or diesel.

We made new friends at the rally and have plans to meet up again next summer with some of them. Right now it's time to think about moving on again to get closer to Casa Grande. Won't be long before we're back in Sundance for the winter!

OK we were keeping it a secret so we could surprise a few people, but the resolution to the RV problem was buying a new (to us) RV!! More later!!