Two and a half days of travel and we have arrived

Sunday morning Benno and I were busy doing our last minute chores before rolling out of our driveway. The truck had been washed and polished the day before but we had a light dusting of snow overnight so that clean appearance lasted just until the next intersection, where road salt and slush played their game. Oh well.  At least there was no more precipitation. There was not much traffic going to the Ambassador Bridge at the border but I found there were more cars waiting to pass through than it is usually the case for a Sunday morning. Monday was a holiday for both USA and Canada so that was probably the reason. We had a 45 minutes waiting time before it was our turn. 

Waiting in line at the border for our turn

After a brief inspection of the inside of our trailer (I don’t know what the border inspector looked at) we were given the go ahead and to have a nice day. It turned out to be a pretty good day and the driving was good. Not so much the roads though. The winter weather caused even more potholes to the already beaten up roads and highways in Michigan and Ohio. 

For travel we make sure to secure everything inside the trailer in case we bounce around and this time we really shook the trailer as we hopped along I-75. When we stopped in Sidney, Ohio to fill up with gasoline, I went into the trailer and found one drawer open and several bottles from the bathroom cabinet had fallen out and were lying in the sink. Also the two levers that adjust the horizontal blinds in my kitchen had sprung off the hooks.  They always come off and I should just give up and unhook them before we drive anywhere.  Benno had made some notes where we would fill up with gasoline on our way south. The gas prices vary quite a bit and by using gasbuddy we find the lowest prices in any state.  At the Murphy Gas Station in Sidney, OH we filled the tank of our truck and all of our jerry cans for US 2.039/gal. That lasted us until we filled up again at “Circle K” in Pelham, AL where the price was $2.079/gal.  I noticed price variations from $2.03 to $2.45. The further south we went the more the gas cost.

Georgetown, Kentucky

Sunday night we spent parked at the Camping World parking lot in Georgetown, Kentucky.  It is right next to the Interstate but traffic noise calms right down at night. Most Camping World stores have complimentary overnight parking for their customers and in the past we have had good experiences doing so. We were tired and called it an early night after eating my precooked dinner. It rained during the night but the rain stopped before we got up. Next morning we were hitting the road at 7 a.m. but I had made us breakfast first and did the dishes while Benno walked the dogs and stored the Honda generator.  We always eat an early breakfast and I made a pot of filtered coffee in the coffeemaker, toasted a sesame bagel for me and warmed up a third of a French baguette for Benno in the toaster oven. Those we eat with either cottage or cream cheese, smoked ham, imported Cherry marmalade and Guava jam. In addition we each have a small bowl of fresh fruit that is in season.

Monday’s travel day turned out just as long as the day before and the weather was good too with sun and no rain but lots of traffic. Along the way we made a few pit stops for a bit of shopping and to stretch our legs. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, we left the I-75 and rolled along the I-59 to Birmingham, Alabama to meet the I-65. For the night we ended up at Camping World in Calera, AL. close to Birmingham. The Camping World stores are usually located close to the Interstates so you can spot their super large flag flying next to the store. We needed a newer edition of the Good Sam RV Road Atlas and an entry doormat. After doing our purchases we asked to stay the night and were told that we could pick one of the full hook-up spots (power, water and sewer) if we wanted to, as they are complimentary to transient “Good Sam” members. Yep, what a service, right! There were quite a few rigs parked already and we thought it wasn’t worth the effort to back the trailer into the middle and to ask for the neighbors to move their cars so we would fit in.  There were enough level spaces in the parking lots and that suited us fine.

 Some of the parked RVs at Camping World

We parked along the large parking spaces

This morning after another good breakfast to start our day we got moving to our destination. The nice thing is that we gained an hour when we crossed the Alabama state line so we had some extra time this morning.

The drive was fine, lots of sunshine and the air-conditioning running in the truck with an outside temperature of 25C. We got to the RV park at "Hilltop RV Park" in Robertsdale, AL and are now parked at the same spot we had occupied a couple of years ago. In the afternoon when we were done with the hook-up chores we got a little sprinkle of rain, which made the air very humid so we ran the air conditioner in the camper to dry out. 

Stay tuned for some pictures to come from the park and our site and thank you all for your nice comments and wishes that made our day when we checked into our blog. We appreciated them.

This is it

Everything is packed, even Benno’s shaver. Last winter we were in a bit of haste packing our belongings and I somehow missed to transfer his electric shaver into the trailer. Benno had to resort to a blade shaver and after his trim he needed a nurse with a first aid kit :-)

Tomorrow we will drain our house hot water tank, drain the water plumbing and shut off the water supply at the street. The heating system will be lowered to 50F/10C and then we will be off. 

Next stop will be the Canadian USA border at the Ambassador Bridge at the Detroit River.

We’ve been monitoring the weather, but it seems we have to take whatever we’ll be getting.  The temps have been up and down here.  Last week we had freezing rain, which was very pretty to look at in the tree branches but not so pretty if you had to drive to anywhere.  

Then we had a little bit of a snow melt with above temps and again freezing nights.  Well, it is still February so we should not complain but making long distance travel plans is difficult. 

Tonight the forecast is calling for a bit of snow, which was not in the prediction two days ago. Bummer.

Wish us well and hope we make it as far south on our first day to reach some milder weather. 

Next update hopefully somewhere nice.

Do you think we are ever going to make it out of here?

It sounds like a broken record and oh so boring as weather forecasters are calling for more snow every day. It has been snowing, snowing and snowing and the snow piles are growing to a point that it will be July by the time they are melted. Just this morning Benno was trying to locate our parked travel trailer in the snowdrift with a 10-foot pole :-)

Seriously, we are pulling your leg.  However, the big boy snowplows and big frontend loaders were coming by to master the onslaught and we were even lucky, because most of the snow bypassed our location. Windsor was not so lucky and got hammered. That concerns us because we are still planning on taking the trailer south sometimes this month.  The best we can do is monitor the weather here and along our planned route to see if we can catch a break for traveling.

Here is a picture we took today after cleaning up yesterdays snowfall. The roof of the travel trailer even has a little snowdrift.

My garden shed is sporting long ice cycles and the birds are hiding in the neighbor’s trees from the elements.

Even Reggy and Elsa, our two Dachshunds are getting bored. They sit by the window while dreaming of long walks in green grass somewhere warm. They do beg to go outside to romp in the snow but that activity doesn’t last very long. 

So while we are hibernating at home there is no reason we could not barbecue with snow piled up outside. Besides, we have to empty the freezer before we leave. The BBQ is stored in the garage and with both windows and the side door open to let the smoke out, Benno manages to grill the meat just fine without standing in the cold.

I had a pork loin that we wanted to use up and one of my favorite recipes for that is to marinate it before grilling.  The leftover marinade I also use for the cutup potatoes to fry separately on the stove.  A loin of that size is quite a lot for two people, but after grilling it can be refrozen, easily rewarmed in the microwave, or eaten cold sliced up on a sandwich. The day I cut that loin to 1” thick slices I usually take two thick slices from the end, cut them in the middle to butterfly them then tenderize them with my meat tenderizer (hammer) and fry them breaded for dinner as schnitzel, while the rest of the loin, after trimming it off the fat, is used for marinating.

The marinated pork chops will be very tender this way and the potatoes are also very tasty. If you like BBQ sauce, top the grilled meat with a little “Diana Gourmet Rib and Chicken” sauce. Try it!

Ingredients for my marinade:

½ cup each of olive oil and ½ cup canola oil

1 tbsp. each of Italian seasoning, curry powder, paprika powder, mustard and steak seasoning (I use Club House La Grille or the Weber steak seasoning)

2 medium sized yellow onions, halved and sliced

Adjust the quantities for the marinade to the portion of the meat, but the marinade can be stored in the fridge for a while before using.

Hopefully on my next update I will tell you that the camper is packed and the truck is warming up ready to roll. We can't wait!

Our Honda Generator gets an hour meter

About a week ago, Bill, from "On Our Way" and Patsy, from "Chillin' with Patsy" treated themselves to a new 3400W inverter generator at the famous Quartzsite RV bash in Arizona. While reading about that, it triggered in my brain the thoughts of how is our sleeping, packed away Honda 2000i generator doing? I should get it out and fire it up. It also crossed my mind that it might be badly in need of an oil change. 

We bought this inverter style generator in 2014 at Wana Engine Center in Shipshewana, Indiana on our way to Arizona, because this dealer had the best price and it came with a long-range 5 gal. external fuel tank. The supplied fuel hose has also a connector for another fuel hose in case you double up the Honda 2000i with a Honda 2000i Companion to increase the Watts to 4000.

After I had the generator removed from the trailer’s basement during our cold spell of below -14C temps, I transported it into the ice cold and unheated garage to fire it up. First turning the on-off rotary knob to the on position, then flicking the choke to on and after that opening the fuel caps vent, I jerked the starter cord once, twice, three times, and then I lost count. What the heck is wrong with the bugger? I figured I had to stay calm, no swearing and no bad words and to work things out in my mind because there is always a reason for trouble. Normally the generator fires up at the first pull but today it was stubborn. I had not used the generator for a while. The last time it was in use during a power outage after a thunderstorm last summer. The conclusion was to take the generator to my little heated shop, suck the old gas out of the tank and fill in fresh high-octane super gas. Then change the spark plug and give it another try. 

That is what I did and after filling the gas tank with super gasoline and with the new fitted spark plug it took a couple of pulls on the starter cord to bring the generator to life, purring away as it should be. I like to mention that the old motor oil did not look too bad and I replaced it with 10W30 full synthetic motor oil from Castrol.

I have extreme good experience in using synthetic motor oil with our previous “Diesel Duck” Trawler’s main diesel engine and the 3 cyl. - 6KW diesel generator. Synthetic oil keeps a better oil film on cylinder walls after engine shut down, this prevents a dry run with wear at start up, this oil does not thick down in cold weather like mineral based motor oil, it is more slippery and causes less abrasion on internal metal parts of the motor and stays fairly clean and gives the engine a longer lifespan.

Looking at the old spark plug it crossed my mind that I didn’t know how many hours we had used this Honda until now. Trying to count all the overnight stops with the trailer on the road in the winter 14/15 and the stops winter 15/16 – 16/17. Each stop was at least 3 hours of generator use in the evenings for dinner and TV time, plus approximately an hour in the morning for breakfast time, which amounts to 4 hours use at each stop. Oh boy, how many stops did we have plus all the hours we used the generator as a standby during power blackouts over the years here at our house. I could only guess, but definitely too many hours for this engine oil and spark plug. I remembered that I did the recommended initial oil change at the approx. 20 hours with a 10W30 Honda motor oil that we had purchased at Camping World way back in Arizona. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an hour meter on the generator like we had on the 3 cyl. 6KW Diesel generator on our trawler was my thought. With an hour meter you don’t have to guess and you know always when an oil change is required or maintenance is due. I have seen small hour meters offered at Honda dealers for sale for this generator and a search on Google showed that Amazon had a pile of offerings of the same product and for a lot less $$. Amazon Hour Meter Link

These hour meters are very easy to install. A wire wraps around the spark plug cable and another is mounted to bolt for ground and the tiny meter is fitted with stick-on tape on the outside of the generator’s housing. These tiny hour meters have a non-changeable battery mounted on the inside. The meter cannot be opened up and the battery shall be good for a lifetime. But reviews mentioned they do have problems and sometimes the lifespan has lasted only 2 years or less.

I opted to use a generator powered hour meter with mechanical counter. Its footprint is a little bigger and it needs a 12-volt or 120-volt supply from the generator to function.

To power up the meter a couple of wires need to be hooked to it from a 12 volt or 120 volt source at the generator.

A meter-mounting hole of 2” must be drilled at a location that has enough clearance to handle the meter’s rear housing with the spade connectors. 

In contrast, these meters are known for not going on the fritz and are very reliable.  Below are pictures of the installation.

I removed the 4 mounting screws from the inverter control panel and flipped it out to access the mounted components. Of interest for me was the 12 volt charging outlet, where I spliced my grey cable with the red and black wire to the 12 volt supply wire, which linked the outlet to the internal rectifier mounted next to starter cord reel. In case you have decided to use a 120 volt hour meter you could use the two free terminal screws of the 120 volt duplex outlet to hook the hour meter supply wire up. (red is the hot wire and the white is the neutral wire)

The top picture shows the mounted 12 volt rectifier location inside the 

maintenance access opening.

The lower picture is a close up of the rectifier. The wire plug is removable. Here you could as well splice into the 12 volt wire to get a 12 volt supply to your 12 volt hour meter. The owner manual has a wiring diagram listed which gives you the color code for the wires.

The top picture shows the proper location for the hour meter with enough space inside 

to house the hour meter.

The picture below is the final picture showing the mounted hour meter ready for action!

Hour Meter Update

The cheap meter that I had installed (above) had a major flaw. It counted too fast. To put it mildly, it counted 10 times faster then the actual time. It would show after a nine hour running time already 90 hours. Oh man, I didn’t want this Honda generator to age that quickly! So I didn’t waste any time returning it to Amazon and ordered instead a digital Bosch 2” diameter hour meter from them. After testing this new Bosch instrument it counted properly to my satisfaction.

I learned again that it does not always pay out to use extreme cheap products.