Failure to Launch

We're still in Illinois, currently at Rock Cut State Park, north of Rockford. We've been here for three weeks. The park is over 3000 acres, and has several campgrounds. We're the only ones in our campground during the week. As the cold is setting in, the animals are getting really active. I guess they want to eat as much as they can while there's still food to eat. The other night a pack of coyotes was just outside of our campsite, yipping and barking and making all kinds of noise. (Click this to link to some audio of what it sounded like.

I had another procedure to finish, and then wait for results, some additional tests, and wait for results. One doctor scared the $#!* out of us by telling us that I would explode and die if I lifted more than ten or twenty pounds, or left town, or anything more that sitting around waiting until I needed a liver transplant. That was two weeks after the doctor managing my care cleared me to lead a normal life. Travel, kayaking, the whole "Live long and prosper" thing. We were frozen in place. Stay? Go? We had to wait a week to talk to the main doctor to find out if something had changed, or was the other doctor being overly cautious.

After all that was settled we packed up the HOW, and tested out the Brake Buddy (a braking aid for the car towed (aka toad) behind the HOW), and all the electrical and mechanical connections. All systems go! Next morning, car won't start. Battery was bad. Jumped it and went to get a new one. By the time we got back to the HOW, it was too late to leave.

Next day, it poured. Day after that, it poured. Then it rained after that. Rain is a problem for the HOW because of a design flaw on certain model years of Fleetwood coaches. The manufacturer put the air intake right behind the grill, so at highway speeds in a hard rain, water gets sucked up and soaks the air filter. At best the the engine looses performance, at worse the filter collapses and the engine ingests water causing a hydro lock.  Hydro lock means new engine. Yikes! Fortunately I heard about this before, and I carry a spare in case I need to change it, but until I can retrofit it, I try not to drive in the rain.

In between showers, I was checking out the windshield washers when they quit squirting. Pump died. I pulled the failed one and set about finding a replacement. After WAY too many hours, I found a "universal" replacement. By the time I got back to... you guessed it; raining.

Since it was raining, we decided to finish some HOW-improvement projects. During the work, we noticed that the carpet on, under and next to the front slide was soaked. Slides are a mixed blessing. While they expand your living space a lot, there is much to go wrong. The seals wear out over time, but you really can't know when, until they fail.  Until we could have this looked at, we decided not to deploy the slide when it rains. When it's not, we aim a heater at the wet spots to help them dry.

When it cleared up, I went to install the replacement windshield washer fluid pump and found that it wasn't all that universal. Another hunt, another pump, this one truly a replacement, and guess what, rain.

Though all this, we've been tormented by a plague of Box Elder Bugs, Asian Lady Beetles, and flies. In case you're among the fortunate, who don't experience this twice a year display of biomass, let me describe it. 

Asian Lady Beetle
Image source: orkin.com

Asian Lady Beetles, like the more commonly known Lady Bug Beetles, are really beneficial insects. They are very effective at keeping agricultural pest populations in control, which in tern reduces the amount of pesticides needed. These little buggers are so effective that the USDA released zillions of them in Virginia and North Carolina in an effort to control aphid populations on tobacco plants. Along with the Fed, various State and local governments, as well as universities with agricultural departments also released the beetles. All these releases produced favorable results, but the beetles never reproduced, and soon died off. Ironically, in 1998, a freighter from Asia was docked in New Orleans. The ship was infested with Asian Lady Beetles. They escaped and have been spreading since.  In late Autumn, when crops are harvested, the beetles have no place to over-winter, so they move into anything they can, houses, barns, RV's... It wouldn't be so bad, but these ain't your Granny's Lady Bugs. For one thing, they bite, or pinch. Second, when threatened or squished, they release a really bad smelling yellow fluid. It's nasty! Third, there are boatloads of them per acre. 

Box Elder Bug
Image source: orkin.com

Now on to my personal favorite, the Box Elder Bug. These things serve no useful purpose that I can ascertain,  except as a pestilence.  On warm fall afternoons, the sunny side of a house, or RV, becomes covered with a living carpet of the things. It's creepy beyond belief. Fortunately, not as many of these bugs bother coming into the interior. Mostly they hide in cracks and spaces. Box Elder bugs stink too. Squish one and they let out a red fluid that stains anything and stinks.

The flies? Who knows. 

I think that'll do for today. I'll continue with the saga in the next installment.