There's No Place Like Hondo for the Holidays

Christmas, New Years, (why is that a Holiday anyway???) and soon after that, my (Paul) 60th Birthday. Funny... I don't feel a day over 59...










We finally escaped Livingston after 6 loooooong weeks. 

If you remember all the way back to the last blog post, we had to wait a few weeks to get the HOW into a reputable shop to find out what was wrong. When that day finally arrived we limped it in for its service appointment.  The mechanics noticed right off that the catalytic converter was glowing. They thought at first that some blockage downstream in the exhaust path caused the cat to overheat, which in turn told the ECM (Engine Control Module) or in the case of the HOW, the PCM (Power Control Module) to go into kind of a safety mode to avoid damage to the engine. There wasn't anywhere that carried replacement catalytic converters for 15-year old RVs, so we had to limp it back to Rainbows End, four miles (uphill) up the highway while one was ordered. 

The new cat arrived in three days, but by then not only was it the day before Thanksgiving, but they had no openings to install it for two weeks. This garage is well known for its quality service, and since they're the only game in town, they are booked up weeks in advance.

We passed our time for two weeks and finally it was our day to get the HOW back to the shop. The mechanics removed the old cat and checked downstream for blockage. Nada! They reset the error codes in the computer and ran the engine a bit. The check engine light came back on and the computer threw the same codes as before. The cat was not the problem, but was collateral damage resulting from something else. They trouble shot from the COPs (Coil on Plug) backward towards the battery, and found that there was a complete circuit going into the PCM, but there was no ground coming back out on the way to the COPs. No ground equals open circuit. Open circuit to the COPs means no power to the spark plugs. So there was no spark on the entire bank of 5 cylinders on the driver's side.

Since the computer was wonky, it continued sending fuel to those dead cylinders, and since there was no spark, the unburned fuel exited the cylinders on the exhaust stroke and sent it through to the catalytic converter. The catalytic converter's job is to get hot enough to ignite any unburnt fuel that happens to make it into the exhaust system. When you dump half of the raw gas needed to propel a vehicle down the road, (in the HOW's case that's usually about 7.5 MPG), into the exhaust that cat gets hot enough to glow orange. That amount of heat will disintegrate the ceramic honeycomb inside the cat.

Now... if you can't find a cat for a 15-year old RV locally, there ain't no way you're gonna find a PCM. It would have to be sent to Houston to be rebuilt. This time we were assured that as soon as the computer came back they would get us in and install it and the new cat. In the mean time, the mechanic rammed a pipe through the old cat so it was kinda sorta usable and told us that since we needed to be able to drive the HOW, (after all it IS our house), he'd come by the next day to pull the PCM so it could be sent out.

Back to Rainbow's End. Again...

While we waited, we figured we'd replace the 15-year old toilet, so we ordered on of those. Finally, after some calls back and forth to the shop so they could give the computer rebuilder guy detailed information about the HOW, so he'd know what he needed to do to match the computer to the motorhome, the PCM came back, and it got installed along with the new cat and a shiny new toilet. They drove it around, I (Paul) drove it around, and all seemed well with the HOW. 

Turns out there was a technical bulletin on the very problem we experienced on our computer. What sucked was that the tech bulletin was released a couple of years after many vehicles with the same computer were already out on the street. It wasn't a recall, but more of a heads up to the dealerships, that if they see vehicles with the problem, they should swap out the PCM at no cost. Of course there is no recourse this long after the fact.

Well, so it goes. We headed south to get back on track with our plans to spend some time on the Gulf of Mexico, before heading to Hondo. We gave up on the idea of going to Arizona since this little delay ate up a lot of our winter budget.

We arrived at Galveston Island State Park, weeks late, but glad to be there. I was on Galveston Island decades ago on one of the Cheap Trick tours I worked. It was dreary, wet and cold then, and it was dreary wet and cold this time! We got down to the beach the first afternoon so Penny could see the ocean. 

After that it rained and got really cold. It rained so much that some of the campsites flooded. It never dried out enough to return to the beach; even for the one stretch of a couple of hours of sunshine. 

We did get to enjoy some of the local flora. There was some kind of little burs that stuck on and on everything: shoes, socks, feet, tires, you name it

As is often the case, the morning of our departure was gorgeous. While we were driving to the park exit we noticed that at 35 MPH, the engine RPMs were only around 1700, and the rig was shuddering. Now I know that when a vehicle's computer is reset back to its default, it can take some time to "learn" how you drive. After a while that went away and all seemed fine again. Once we got up to highway speed I noticed that whenever the How downshifted to go up a hill, it shuddered like before. THAT did not go away.

We decided we had better give up on the rest of our Gulf tour, and beat it to Hondo where I could check it out. After lots of Internet research, I was able to ascertain that one of two thing may be wrong. One is that the transmission fluid is bad. When we were driving the rig in its disabled state, the engine would rev up to the 4000 - 4500 RPM range, and wouldn't shift properly. I'll have the fluid flushed and replaced, and then drive up into the Hills Country so I can do a shakedown. If that ain't it, I'll find a way to reprogram the PCM since that controls the transmission as well as the engine. If that ain't it either... I'll cross that bridge if I get to it.

Wish us luck, and stay tuned...

We have all been here before... We have all been here before.....

It's like deja-vu all over again. 

It's November, and here we are at the Escapees Rainbow's End RV Park in Livingston, TX. We came here to vote, and we were only planning to stay for two days, and then move to the Lake Livingston State Park for two days.

Pylons in Still Water 1

That was the plan, and it worked out pretty well. We got to Rainbow's End, voted, and went to the state park. With our Texas State Park Resident Card, we were able to stay at a reduced price. Sorry, but I (Paul) didn't take any pictures. As nice a park as it was, there was just nothing to shoot. You can only have so many pictures of trees and water. Instead, I've posted some pictures we took at various times during the last few years. You can click on each image to see it in a larger format, and please, remember that you can see some of my other work here. Clicky <-

At The Cliffs Insane Terrain Off-Road Park, Marseilles, IL

On Wednesday it began to rain, and it rained pretty hard all night, turning everything to mud. Not the ordinary kind of mud, mind you, but the My Cousin Vinnie kind of mud. Now I had thought that the mud at The Cliffs Insane Terrain Off-Road Park in Marseilles Illinois was the thickest, heaviest, slipperiest,  sticks to everything and is impossible to get off mud that there is,  but this stuff was worse! I was wearing hiking boots and could not stomp, wipe or wash the stuff off of them. I had to let them dry before I could chip the stuff off, and then take the stiffest brush I could find to clean off the rest. It took me an hour to clean those boots.

Girl in a Purple Dress
(I shot a shot of a shot being taken at a shoot)

On Friday morning, we were packing up the jack pads and leveling blocks, when we noticed that the HOW's exhaust didn't smell right. It had a kind of alcohol/ chemically smell to it. I shut off the rig, and we continued working. Once we were done, I restarted the HOW and right off the bat it didn't sound right. It usually starts with a big VAROOM and a fast idle before settling down to its normal speed. This time, when it started, it went from Off, to a low idle, and the Check Engine light came on. Additionally, the exhaust sounded throaty and had a lower pitch than it usually does. When I pulled away, the engine had very little power; the poor HOW could barely pull itself up an incline. I had to floor it and let it rev to around 4500 RPM just to go 40 MPH. We stopped at a small store and unhooked the toad to lighten the load on the engine. We called a local RV and Auto repair place, the only one anywhere close, and found out that they couldn't get us in for two weeks! A few people recommended a nearby garage that worked on cars and trucks. While Penny called the garage, I checked for all the obvious problems: blocked air intake, leaking or low fluids, loose wires... I found nuttin'.

Penny shot this Roadside Joint in rural Mississippi

We limped over to the garage and the guys there read the engine codes. The codes told us we had no power to any of the spark plug coils on Bank 2. That means cylinders 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 were not firing. We had half an engine. The mechanic did some trouble shooting and was able to confirm that this was indeed the problem. Unfortunately he couldn't fix it. Penny called back to the RV Shop to see if they might be able to squeeze us in as an emergency, but they had already closed. She called Rainbow's End to get us somewhere to stay until we could figure out what to do.

On Monday we were able to make an appointment to bring it in to the shop a week from that Wednesday. Fortunately, here at Rainbow's End we have everything we need for an extended stay: water, electric, sewer, laundry and most important to this blog, Internet, (no TV, but that's what DVD's are for.) A lot of the places we stay at are too far out in the boonies to get any kind of TV or cellular coverage, so no phone, no Internet; incommunicado. 

There is a church here we like, First Baptist of Livingston, and that's HUGE. At the second service, the music is upbeat and singable, the attenders are fully engaged in worship, and the pastor is actually feeding Christ's sheep. Not the kind of church we find in most places we go.

A Step of Faith

Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come

about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.                                          Hebrews 11:1 NIV

So here we sit, wasting away again outside of Livingston, searchin' for our lost...  whatever we lost...

Stay tuned.

... Just About a Mile from Texarkana ...

We actually did see them old cotton fields, but they weren't back home, they were in central Missouri. We however, ARE back home... in Texas! Right now we're on the eastern shore of Wright Patman Lake, near Texarkana, Texas. This part of Texas is known as the Piney Woods Region and it encompasses most of the eastern portion of the state. Weather-wise it's late Summer-like with only the earliest foliage beginning to yellow. We'll be meandering about the region until just after Election Day.

On our way here we spent a couple of days at another COE campground in Missouri. This one was at Wappapello Lake in the Mark Twain National Forest. Very nice park.

While we were there, we did a little sight-seeing at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. According to http://www.nps.gov/ozar/index.htm

 Ozark National Scenic Riverways is the first national park area to protect a river system. The Current and Jacks Fork Rivers are two of the finest floating rivers you'll find anywhere. 

Spring-fed, cold and clear they are a delight to canoe, swim, boat or fish. Besides these two famous rivers, the park is home to hundreds of freshwater springs, caves, trails and historic sites such as Alley Mill.

The park is really big; almost 81,000 acres of forested land along 134 miles of it's two rivers. We only visited one site, Big Spring. 

Big Spring produces over 280 million gallons of water a day, enough to fill Bush Stadium (in St. Louis) in only 33 hours! This makes it one of the largest spring in the United States, and among the 10 largest in the world. 

When rainwater containing carbonic acid, (from water vapor combining with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), percolates through the ground (from up to 41 miles away), and comes in contact with limestone deposits, it dissolves the limestone, forms caves, underground streams, and creates a calcium bicarbonate solution. When the water collects, the calcium bicarbonate in it mixes with oxygen releasing the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. This leaves calcium carbonate suspended in the water. This mineral suspension gives the water its milky blue hue. When the water flows out of the ground, it becomes the spring. The Current River maintains this milky blue appearance for miles.

You have to see it to believe it, but since you're not there, click on the pictures below, and BELIEVE it!

Big Spring emerging from its source underground (from opposite riverbank)

Big Spring emerging from its source underground (from above)

Big Spring becomes a mineral laden, slightly acidic river

and then heads off to become part of the Current River

Big Spring flow at 1/4 second

 We want to go back and explore the park in depth and maybe paddle both rivers. It's a must do!

Going South

We've worked our way south through Illinois, heading for warmer climes. We had to make a couple of one-night stops in order to find some warmth, but once we got to Southern Illinois, by golly we found it.

Outbuilding in Central Illinois

We spent 4 days at the South Sandusky Army Corp of Engineers (USACE, or COE) campground on their Rend Lake Project. Rend Lake is a 13 mile long by 3 mile wide 18,900 acre impoundment surrounded by 20,000 acres of land.

Just a Small Part of Rend Lake

The campgrounds are well maintained, and gorgeous, as is typical for COE managed areas. They offer a wide variety of campsites,

Nice Park-like Setting

from manicured backyard types 

Bottomland

to more rustic wooded bottomland ones.

Full Hookup Site

We spent 2 days in a full hookup spot on the eastern shore of Sandusky Cove and then moved to a electric only site on the northern shore of the same cove.

It was sunny and warm during the day and cool at night. We were at this same site (the second one),  a couple of years  ago when a tornado blew through, knocking down lots of trees. The Corp has since cut up the fallen trees, but left the wood on the ground. They're encouraging campers to gather it and burn it as firewood, and we were happy to take them up on the offer. Also, when people depart from their sites, they leave their unused firewood behind for others to gather. This worked well for us as the folks across the way from us left a lot of nice hardwood all split and ready to burn. We had a couple of campfires, but we still left quite a bit of that nice wood for the next guys.

Both of our sites were located on peninsulas, so we had a 3-sided panoramic view from the HOW. 

View From the HOW

Fall Colors at Rend Lake

The fall colors were beginning to show what God's paintbrush can do.

Our Closest Neighbors

We were one of two occupied campsites in our loop, the other being some tents way down the road. Beautiful, peaceful, quiet; what more could we have wanted ...Pelicans? 





Yep! God brought us here during the fall migration stop-over of the American White Pelican. Some of North America's largest birds, rivaled only by the California Condor, these suckers have up to 9-FOOT wingspans. While we're not strangers to these birds, they're common along the Mississippi River, and we've even seen them flying along the Kishwaukee River, we've never witnessed their cooperative hunting behavior.

Unlike Brown Pelicans which dive from the air into the water to scoop up fish in their flexible bills, American White Pelicans swim along the surface and scoop up fish as they come upon them.

When they are in a group, they team up, swim in formation to, for lack of a better word,  herd the fish.

American White Pelicans Capturing Their Prey

American White Pelicans "herding" fish

Once the Pelicans have enough fish crowded into a small space, they dip their bills into the water and scoop up their prey.

Sometimes, they kind of half-fly/ half-swim to gather even more.

Game On!

Gotcha!

AGAIN!

It's truly a remarkable behavior.

I apologize for taking so long to get this episode published. For some reason I had to keep dropping into the HTML editor to get the text and pictures to behave. It took FOREVER! I don't know why, but I think that perhaps Blogger can't handle the amount of content I post, especially the size of the pictures. I could compress them but I want you, my readers, to be able to click on a picture and get a full size quality image. I may have to go with a more robust blog provider. We'll see...

Oh man, we into it now boys...

It's October and it's been too cold for my likin' for a while now. We gotta commence ta hittin' the road and moseyin' ta somewheres warm n' dry.

Even the geese are leavin'

I lied about posting pictures and stories from prior adventures. Sorry. Summer went by way too fast. Of course it was still Winter until mid-June. 

Every year Blackhawk Valley Campground has a series of charity events, usually to help out someone in the campground community. This year's beneficiary was a gentleman who has been having dialysis three time a week for the past seven years, while he waits for a donor kidney.

This year the campground hosted several theme-basket raffles, a garage sale, a poker walk, 

a rubber duck race 

and the main event, the 10th annual Labor Day weekend auction. Penny volunteered to organize it all. She and I, her handy dandy helper, put in countless hours creating posters and signage, sending out emails, making phone calls, recruiting volunteers to help out with the events, soliciting donations from merchants in the form of gift certificates for meals, goods and services, and camping related items, and who knows what all else.

This year people donated a Blackhawks jersey,
















a Bears jersey, 






















a Bears jacket, 


some really valuable watches, a U.S. Silver Certificate and two rolls of Wheat Pennies. 









The Weber Company donated two new grills, 






































The Home Depot donated a battery powered tool combo kit, 








and another company donated a Lift Assist Recliner.

These events take a lot of effort, and we couldn't do it without the tireless help of a whole bunch of volunteers who helped out with everything 








from setting up canopies, 

tables and chairs, 

to manning the food tent during the auction, 

and hosting poker walk stops, (complete with all manner of eats and drinks for walkers to buy for additional donations), to running the garage sale. 

The people here are generous beyond measure. 

They make up and donate theme baskets of every kind imaginable, 

donate new and like new items of all kinds, 

and then, turn around and bid on the very things everyone donated. 

Even in this sucky economy, they give sacrificially of their time and resources to help a neighbor in need. I am honored and proud to be a part of this community.

Our plans for Autumn are to leave Northern Illinois next week and meander our way down to the pine county of East Texas in time to vote in the November Elections. Much is at stake in our home state and nationally. We take our privilege to vote seriously, and as John Stuart Mill once said,  "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

After that it's down to the Gulf of Mexico, follow the coast to Corpus Christi, then up to Hondo for a few weeks of "HOW Improvement". Following a short stay there, we head West to Arizona for some boon-docking out in the dessert.

Stay tuned and HANG ON!