Happy Halloween!!!

Yes, the last day of October was made for kids, big or small... Not much of a day for the kids here though, as we had nothing but cold and rain all day, but as I sit here and type at 6:30, just when the kids will be out, it has stopped raining so here is hoping...

Unfortunately, Judy has been sick for the past few days, and we will not be able to get out to watch the kids as they trick or treat the neighbours. Seems she has a bad case of the flue maybe... had to take her over to London this morning so she could try and give it to the Dr. and his Staff. Tonight she is all bundled up and taking life easy.

So, the kids brought Halloween to us tonight via high tech media... here is an instant message video I received from Kristina just a few minutes ago, starring Charlie and Gwenny.

Thanks guys, and we hope you enjoy your evening out. Kristina took the kids over to the Early Years Centre this morning all dressed up to have a little party with all the other kids that show up.

Looks like they had a great time this morning...

Now, it may be a lot warmer down in Tennessee, but that does not stop them from taking part in the festivities!

 

Emmie is all dressed in black, and that is Paige all dressed up as "Viperene", from Monster High... good thing Jenn mentioned that, as Pop Pop is a little behind on times when it comes to kids shows...

Paige got to dress up at her school today, and a few people apparenty thought she might be Lady Gaga...now your talking! Love the boots Paige!

Nothing scary about the picture above... Jenn posted this School Book Picture of Paige, from her School today. Judy and I are certainly blessed with our 4 Grands, with more to come yet!!!!

Till tomorrow...

 

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BEEP BEEP BEEP... Arghhh...

Later yesterday afternoon, we were in the RV staying warm like everyone else around here, and all of a sudden beep beep beep...... what the?????

Turns out it was our Propane Detector going off... what??? Quickly we opened up all our doors, and windows to get some fresh air inside the unit. Next we tried to see if we could find out what was leaking propane! We could not really smell anything inside the RV.

I tried to ventilate our detector to stop the beeping and it did for a bit, and then started all over again! Yikes! We spent it seemed a couple hours horsing around with the crazy thing, before we determined it was probably the detector that was causing problems as there was no obvious propane leak. As the unit is wired directly into the 12 volt power system of the RV, it is on all the time, so it got to the point where we could not shut it off! I ended up taking it off the wall, and clipping the wires to disable it! Time to get some sleep!

Today I was all over getting this problem fixed. Judy headed off to London for the day, involved with testing for her exercise program. I went to Home Depot and they had a new propane detector in stock for $69.00 but it was powered by electricity. This is a problem in the RV as you do not always have power! I looked around elsewhere and found nothing... Decided on calling Forest City RV in London...

We have used this Dealership for repairs and parts, and find them to be very good. They had a new "Safe T Alert" Detector in stock for $91.00 which will fit right into the spot where our existing unit sits! Perfect!

I got it home and in 20 minutes, made the simple installation myself. Only 2 wires, a red and black to connect, using the existing wires in the RV which are on their on 12 volt circuit. Oh, and yes, you mount the detector right down near the floor, as propane gas is heavier than air, so sits on the floor! Very important!

OK, so I was wrong... it is a red and white wire, but it is black coming out of the detector. It is simply the ground wire, while the red one is the hot wire. Anyways, got it installed, and working, and tested, and all is good again. Best part is there are no alerts happening!

As Judy was in London all day with the Cruze, I was on my own to get to Forest City RV, which meant breaking out the Honda! Now, you have to be a tuff Canadian to drive the 50 klm return trip at about 8 deg. C. but I made it no problems! Don't think the bike ever did warm up much!

This morning while in Woodstock, I stopped by to have a coffee with Kristina, and to see what the kids were up to. Had a great visit, talking to them about Halloween coming up tomorrow... Gwenny will be a butterfly, and Charlie is going dressed as a dinosaur... check out the video below, as I ask Charlie what a dino says!

I met up with them again, as Kristina planned to take them to Micky D's for lunch, as she wanted to get them trick or treat pails for tomorrow night... they give them away with a happy meal. The kids also have a blast playing in the indoor climbing centre.

Gwenny loves doing "selfies" with me now... so we did one! I might be a little partial, but what a great looking little girl she is!!!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Can you ever have enough tools???

Big shift in our weather, made this a nice and enjoyable summer like day, with the temperature hitting 20 deg. C. While it did rain in the later part of the afternoon, I was able to get all my work I wanted to do today, before it all started.

Ever since we started travelling in our RV over 5 years ago now, I have carried 3 different tool boxes. Every year I seem to go through the same ritual, and sort my way through the tools, hoping that someway I can consolodate my tools to maybe 2 boxes! Worked on that job this morning, and sad to report I still have 3 tool boxes... oh well, maybe next year. I did manage to clean them all out and re-organize them a whole lot, and even threw some old tools out! Still have 3 boxes though... Even though it looks like a horid mess above, I got it all worked out, and just waiting for the next emergency fix-it job!

Judy and I got to try out a newer Kia Soul Automobile. Last evening, we had a problem with our Cruze in that the Brake Lights would not go off, and the TV Screen indicated a problem with our Stabil-Trac System. We immediately took it to the local Woodstock GM Dealership, Jameson's, anticipating we may have a problem showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon. Well, NO PROBLEM. Wendy greated us at the nice drive in Service Bay, and in a couple minutes had at Technician looking at the car right in front of us. He determined it was a problem with the Brake Pedal Sensor out of position or something, and check inventory for a new one. Not to be, and the closest one was in the U.S.A. They ordered it right away. Wendy indicated to us it would be a day or two for the repair, and that our car was not able to be driven properly, so within a couple minutes she arranged a rental car for us. This would be covered by our GM Warranty, so all is good. I got a call back at 4:00 this afternoon, and some how, they got the new part here, and had our car fixed, so I was able to return the Kia and pick up our Cruze. I was glad. I did not really care for the Soul. It looks a little too funky for my taste, and did not drive or ride near as good as our Cruze. It is also smaller inside, although I did like the idea of the hatchback for moving things around. I prefer the inside finishing of our Cruze also, although the Kia did not have a leather interior, or sunroof as we do. Also the screen for the back up camera was way too small in the Kia, and the picture was too dark. The Cruze has a nice, bright, 7 inch screen that makes a real difference to me. Judy drove it, and she liked it! Maybe we will be driving one of these next???

After lunch I worked on our Onan 5500 Watt Quiet Diesel Generator. It was time for an oil change. It has been almost a year. It took me about an hour and a half working away at this but it was really warm out, and I enjoyed the afternoon outside! Got the oil all changed up, and ready to go. Ran the unit for about an hour for exercise, and topped up the coolant level. It was down a wee bit, but don't know where she went...We hope to do some boondocking this coming winter, so we need this baby ready to perform!

Even with all the work, still managed to put in 11,500 steps today... trying to keep up with Rick and Tom!

Till tomorrow...

 

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All set to go...

Never got around to putting up a Blog last night, but it would have just told you that I spent yesterday afternoon finishing off the wiring job I was working on, to enable the brakes on our new tow dolly. I worked a couple hours, and got it all finished up and working.

Today, my plan was to actually test out the new brakes, by hooking the dolly on behind the motorhome, and doing a test drive. I started just after lunch and took my time. First I had to get the motorhome ready for travel. This takes about 45 minutes making sure everything is put away, and all slides are in, etc . Next, I made sure the dolly was all hooked up to the motorhome properly. Best take you time and do this one right!

Here you can see the Cruze sitting up all pretty and tied down. The yellow straps on the front wheels are a safety feature to help keep you car glued to the dolly. The car is easy to put up on the dolly, and is easy to tie down. Only the back wheels turn on the car, and as it is a front wheel drive car, no mileage accumulates on the odometer while you pull this way.

The Brake setup on the dolly was a little tricky. The Brake Controller is very, very sensitive and you have to make sure you adjust it as per the manual, which I was able to obtain on line. I had the power set too high for the electric brakes at first, and you can very easily lock up the dolly wheels upon stiff braking. (aughhh... which I did a couple of times with no problem...) I quickly made the necessary adjustments, and now all is good. We took about a 50 klm. ride up north on highway 59 to ensure all is good with the new tow dolly, which it was! Bring on Florida!

Our Gulf Stream Endura, with a good ole Duramax Diesel Engine, had absolutely no problems pulling the car behind. Overall the car and dolly are lighter than the Jeep we used to tow, so all is good that way. You can keep your eye on the towed vehicle with the back up camera on the motorhome if you want.

This morning we were in Town for a few minutes after our daily walking, and drove by a local park and spotted Kristina and the kids out playing in the early morning sunlight...

Funny how kids do not get overly concerned about the weather being a bit cool. It never slowed them down one minute in the park. They were playing on this climber, making a "nest" out of leaves at the bottom for Charlie to sit in...he did! Chris' Mom drove by and stopped as well! Popular place this park. Best part was Kristina invited us all back to her place where she served us all up a big ole bowl of Chili for lunch! Thanks Kristina, we enjoyed!

Till tomorrow...

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Tekonsha???

Last week, when we purchased our new Tow Dolly, we hauled it home behind our Motorhome. We had lights on the new Dolly, but I did not have my Brake Controller installed on the Motorhome, so no brakes! This is not a big problem, but I wanted to get my brakes hooked up for when we haul the Cruze. You gotta be able to stop!

I had removed the Brake Controller 5 years ago, as I never thought I would never need it! Ya, right!

The Dolly has electric brakes, so you need to use a brake controller to turn the brakes on. Above is a pictures identicle to our controller that I removed 5 years ago. There are 4 wires that lead into the controller, which I had stored up in the dash. They were still there, so I just had to re-connect the controller. Once I finished, I connected the dolly to the motorhome, but, alas, no brakes! I had to get my fancy electrical tester out, to determine that for some reason, the main wire leading back to the dolly which controls the breaks, for some reason, was dead in the water. Now, it is a long way from the front cab, to the back trailer plug on the motorhome.

First thing I did was run a test wire from the controller back to the plug, which I spiced into the plug. Connected the dolly, and tried it. It worked. This confirmed that I had a bad wire. I made a trip to Canadian Tire to pick up a new 50 foot 10 gage wire to fix this proplem.

At this point, I am about 3/4 finished in this job, and hope to finish it off tomorrow. Once the wiring is all fixed, I will have to set up the brake controller to make sure it does not do silly things, like lock up the dolly wheels every time you hit the brakes! After the brakes are all set up, it will be time to properly fit the Cruze to the Dolly, and see if all the moving parts work right! That was about it for today, other than a nice 5 mile walk on the track!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Adventures on Wonderland...

This morning Judy was up for taking Gwenny and Charlie on an adverture, so she picked the Adventures on Wonderland Building over in London.

As you can imagine, this is one of those adventure playgrounds that seem to be very popular with all the kids these days, however this one has been in business for 14 years now! Gwenny sure loves any slide, no matter what the colour!

The kids ended up playing for 3 hours inside this facility, just having a ball. It is designed for the young ones, along with things for the older kids. You almost have to drag the kids out of here when you leave.

I shot a few short videos of some of the trouble the kids got into today...

The kids are all about these little car rides, no matter how bumpy they are!

This is a neat toy above... it is an interactive floor video game. The kids can make it work using their feet, and it displays many different games. The one above is a puzzle they figure out using their feet.

It was a lot of fun to watch them rip around having a ball with all the different things to do, and at a very reasonable $11.00 for admission for both of them for the day.

I was laughing this morning, when Shawn sent me a picture of Emmie and Paige, as they were "swimming in the new pool"... What I said???

Seems the Pool Company has a big, big hole dug where all those fallen trees use to lie, and the kids were practicing their swimming strokes in it! One step at a time!

Till tomorrow...

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Yesterday, I was busted!

Sometimes you wonder how small the world really is... I forgot to mention in yesterdays Blog, that while Judy and I were at Action Trailers over in Strathroy, we were busted! We were finishing up the paper work and getting ready to leave the Office, when a Gentleman walks in and says, "Hey, I read your Blog, RVlifeonwheels is it not?" Hard to believe... His name is Andy, and he went on to say he had been reading for some time now, out of an interest in RVing. He still works and does some RVing in spare time, and wants to do more! It was nice meeting you Andy, and happy RVing down the road to you!

 

At 11:00 this morning, Judy and I were off to Woodstock, to do some Community Service... The Church we attend has taken a week of making the local Meals on Wheels deliveries for the VON. We had to make 6 deliveries today, which took us about 1 hour to do. Maybe I can get a job delivering pizzas????

Judy and I were next off to the Dentist Office. Our final check ups prior to our pending departure for the south this winter. Check ups were all good.

Did a little work on getting my Brake Controller set up again in the Motorhome. Might be able to complete tomorrow if the weather stays as good as it has been!

Till tomorrow...

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"Hello Dolly"...

What a gorgeous fall day here in Ontario, well at least the south west section where we are... it was nothing but sun and nice warm temperatures.

Judy and I were busy this morning, as we were heading over to Strathroy for a visit to Action Trailers.

This is quite a large operation, that sells all kinds of different trailers, for any use really. They also happen to carry car dollies as well.

Above, an employee moves a dolly into place for us to try, using the tractor as a tool. We did not end up buying this one. We decided on the blue one you see below, made by a Company called Stehl Tow.

This is a pic Judy took of our new dolly just after we arrived back at our Park. We still have to do a couple things with it before we can tow the Cruze. I have to connect my brake controller back up on the Motor Home to activate the brakes. It has a nice set of LED lights on it that are working fine. This year, we plan only to bring our car south with us, and will leave our motorcycles at home. We will be in Florida for a while, but we plan on taking another trip out west to AZ and CA this winter as well, and decided we will travel light with just the car.

Hopefully we will get all the bugs out, and the manuals read before it is time to fly south in a couple of weeks!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Back to The True, North, Strong and Free!

Yesterday was a travel day for me, heading from Johnson City, through Atlanta, and then onto Toronto. Only about six hours of travel, with a nice lunch break in Atlanta, using Delta air services. Atlanta is their main hub in America and it is a pretty big, and very busy airport. There are a lot of different terminal buildings, but they have a great underground railway to move you quickly from one to another.

Shawn reports to me that the pool guys showed up yesterday morning, and were able to get a lot of the Bobcat work done, including removing the stumps from the big trees, and moving the large pieces of logs we had remaining on the ground.

Shawn also found a unique way of stacking his firewood. I think this is a European way of doing it... not sure but it looks neat.

It is kinda like a dome...

Above is the end result. It holds quite a bit of wood by the looks of it. Saves the old single line of stacked firewood tipping over on you maybe...

Today was a very wet, cold day here in the Woodstock area... this afternoon we took our Cruze into the Ray Cullen Chev Dealership in London as it was time for the first oil change, which was completed for free, as we have 4 years of free oil changes with the car. We had a small vibration noise coming from the engine area at low RPM, and they quickly identified an air conditioner coolant line that was pressed against the firewall causing the noise, which was quickly fixed.

After the car was ready, we motored out west of London, close to Strathroy. We wanted to check out a trailer sales Company that also sells car dollies. We are thinking of bringing our Cruze down to Florida with us, and it cannot be flat towed. We are going to bring our MH over tomorrow, and actually try the dolly out before making a decision. It is similiar to the one above, and includes a surge break so everything can stop when you want it to!

Till tomorrow...

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Seven p.m. this evening, and Shawn and I just got back into the house, after a few more logs bit the dust by way of the splitter. We also declared "Mission Accomplished", as the property is now ready for the pool guys to come in on Tuesday and start the installation process! This was our goal for the week and we achieved it! Felt good!

Shawn and I might open a new business... "Hollingers Fire Wood Sales", as we kind of made a bit of it today. That stump that Shawn is standing on above, will be coming out. It is left that high off the ground, as they will use the Bobcat to remove it...apparently it makes it easier being higher. That chain link fence will be removed as well, it is the old dog run.

You can split a lot of wood in a day with one of these... and no back aches!

One of Shawn's Friends came along this afternoon, and helped us out. He took a 1/2 ton truck load of firewood home with him, and you could not see the dent in the wood pile...there is a lot of fire wood, and a lot more to come! We will not get all the wood split today, but when I come back in mid November, may take another swing at it if the weather is good.

All clear above for the new pool... just have to get rid of the stumps. This is what we wanted!

Most of this got cleared out above, just a few big pieces left for the bobcat to move for us.

We had helpers today on the lot... Emmie above showing off her talents...

Paige was also in fine form out on the wood pile!

Check out the short video above of the kids with an imagination! That is one of Emmie's friends visiting.

The girls like playing in their big playhouse combo.

I sure had a great week visiting with the Hollingers in Tennessee this week. A bit of hard work never hurt anyone, and it was nice to be able to help them get the property ready for the pool work. As a surprise to me, they dragged me off the splitter this afternoon, forced me to have a shower and get cleaned up, and then we all headed out to my favourite restaurant, "The Olive Garden" in Johnson City for a big celebration dinner! It was awesome! I enjoyed!

This evening Jenn booked me into my flight tomorrow morning, as I fly from here to Atlanta, and then back to Toronto by 5:05 p.m. tomorrow night. Judy will pick me up at Pearson, just in time for us to go and enjoy dinner somewhere on the airport strip maybe... Jenn is also my guest photographer this evening, taking most of the pictures to see above.

 

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