I am sort of getting the fifthwheel ready to hit the road

I am sort of getting the fifthwheel ready to hit the road and doing some things that just have to be done. Hitting the road if we do that is going to be some time after Christmas and we are paid up herein this RV park until January 6. So we will be looking at a good opening in the weather from Idaho down through Nevada. Yesterday I replaced the cover at top of the fifthwheel that covers the chase that allows the heat and fumes to rise escape from the RV refrigerator. It was falling apart after spending too much time aging in the sun. I in my mind thought this would be easy. I would just be able to purchase the cover or lid that screws into the plastic housing already fastened and sealed to the top of the fifthwheel. So a couple days ago I removed and salvaged as much of the lid as I could and bundled it like an archaeological find. Carefully loaded in to my pick up and drove to my favorite RV parts place. It is over in the town were we lived. Though there were several closer. The owner has become a friend as we have grown to know each other over the years. He is about my age and has been in the RV repair business all his life. And we both have a gift to gab. And I trust his advise.

I carefully unwrapped my archaeological find. Larry is unimpressed. I plead my case “Just sell me a replacement lid wit the same screw pattern.” He shook his head and he handed down his verdict. My idea would not work because the screw pattern had been changed a couple years ago and besides, “The whole dam thing needs to be replaced anyway. You know that.” I knew he was right because the screen over the housing was shot but I figured a little hardware cloth and it is good as new. But no! So he hand me a new vent housing, a tube of self leveling sealer with some smiling guy’s picture was on it. It must have been some sort of famous RV repair man. Or maybe a lost person advertised for his recovery on a tube of self leveling sealer. Sort of like the milk carton thing a few years ago. And my buddy says he will throw in the strip of putty tape to put it on with. I started shaking uncontrollable the thought of removing the old self leveling sealer and the low thirties. I never liked it when it was warm, I can just imagine with it will be like now. I started to explain my concerns and he stopped me mid-sentence and reminded me I have worked outside in the cold before and it would not be that bad. So suck it up and just do it. This only served to scare me more because I have been there before. But he settled me down and I paid my bill.

Next on this safari I stopped off at another buddy’s hardware - lumber yard and stared at a pegboard full of scrappers and putty knives. He asked me what I needed and I started to explain and he handed me a real cool scrapper tool. I put it on my account and headed back home. Well not home, we have no home, back to the RV Park. So yesterday I hit it hard after I figured the frost had left the roof. About an hour latter I had the housing removed and all the sealer and putty tape along with about thirty screws. Clearly the engineers of this vent did not want it blowing off. The other one went on very easy and the tube of self leveling seal worked great. No wonder the famous smiling RV repair guy was on the tube. I gazed at his picture. I think I like him and his product. “Thanks! Who ever you are.” And I saved about $100 shop rate. Larry, he might be a friend but he has his employees to pay and keep his doors open, and his hot rods painted. And with anything you do and do it right there is a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment especially after removing the old self leveling sealer at 34 degrees. And where as we live in the unit full time it is sort of hard to schedule a shop time.

After I got that done I discovered the vent covers over the 14 X 14 vents were not going to last out our proposed road trip. So back to the RV parts place. Today I mounted them. Today a cold blustery wind blew here today in the RV Park. It was one of those winds at acts like a snake. Its tongue flicking here and there and sensing where the openings are. So that it can invade. It slips past caulking that was left undone when it was warmer and doable and pliable. Now it is looking for anything hard, gapping and lifeless. It seeks to sneak in around the door and the weatherstripping that should have been replace. Or a door that just does not fit right. Oh this breeze is a crafty serpent. Tongue flicking and testing looking for any gap. Then it pushes in with a sharp noise where ever it senses it might make some head way. All in all our fifthwheel though aged a bit repels this serpent pretty well though there are a few chinks in the armor.

This RV life is sort of weird in that I am more use to stable friends and acquaintances. Parked over in the short term was a real nice guy and his wife and a yellow lab. They were staying here for a few days while they visited there son here. They have a huge motorhome and were really friendly. They were pulling out the other day and I walked over and said good bye. We discussed his route as he was going from here to Bakersfield Ca. He was concerned about Donner Pass and I reassured him if it is not safe or not passable they will let them know. Just hunker down there and Reno and gave them some real good places to dine if they have to do so. We assured each other we will see each other on down the road knowing that most likely that will never happen. Our next door neighbor since we have been here left this morning for Parump, Nv. Where they live they wanted to escape before another storm moved through. We are heading down that way and he gave me some good ideas about RV parks there in Parump if we want to base out of there while going to Death Valley and making a trip or two to Vegas before heading on down in to Az. But on the other side of the coin there is the huge new motor home that pull into the short term where the friendly couple stayed. As I was outside today doing stuff. He was fussing and messing with his pride and joy and it is a beautiful unit. He was looking my ways so I waved. He just stood there and stared like I was from the wrong side of the tracks. Oh well so goes RV living………

One of those mysteries..........

One of the mysteries that seems to plague me currently is a set of pick-up keys. They have disappeared, vanished into thin air. Yet I can not accept that they are missing as if raptured by God in these last days. They are somewhere, just not here in my possession. You should not loose stuff in a thirty foot fifth-wheel trailer. Our current dwelling, our home away from home. Oh, but wait, this is our home now. That and two storage units and a shop filled with our stuff. But then that is another very touchy story. One that causes Ellen to tear up out of the blue. I asked her what is the matter and I receive in reply, “We have no home!” Now normally this causes a man to fly in to action and fix the situation. However because of all the counseling training I have done and had done unto me I know I can not do that.

There are places where I can swoop in on the vine, yodeling like Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, to carry her away, or times I can appear from behind the curtain as the hot headed D’Artagnan in the The Three Musketeers pulling my blade to defend my lady. These times are not those times. I have been told and taught and taught that I must let her process her own feelings. And mysel,f I do fall into the grief and anger of the moment from time to time. Usually when looking for things stored in boxes we can not find. Or looking at our stored furniture and not knowing how well it will survive the cold of winter. Then I want and do roar in anger at times. However that said we are comfortable, we are warm and dry and all in all life is pretty good. We have no major medical issues we know of. I am no longer trapped on a train somewhere unable to return home. We sold our home in a down market.

So with all that said, what does that have to do with lost pick-up keys? As the politicos all say, “That is a great question.” And strangely, it falls somewhere in the line of the pick-up tool box and the fifth-wheel trailer. The toolbox is one of those silver boxes that sits across the front of the pickup box. It sits suspended from the rails of the pick up box. 90% hangs down into the pick up bed. It fastens in with a bolted J bracket and a bolt in side the box. They are easy to unbolt and get out. It was a the most surprising Christmas I think I ever received. It was like a pony! A present from Ellen five years ago. To her I needed a tool box in the pickup and I so agreed. I am a ranch kid. You never go anywhere with out a shovel, an ax, a Pulaski and a chain or two. Then there is the set of jumper cables and enough wrenches, pliers and screw drivers to disassemble all the components of a Mack Truck along side of the road. Well that is during the good weather. Then in the late fall and winter time you need a set or two of tire chains. Because of the roads to the Prairie and the winter storms I opt for a set for the front and a set for the rear because it is a four wheel drive. (Might as well use them all when you are going to get stuck). Now indeed all that stuff can be hauled very messy and dangerously on the floor of the back seat. However if you ever occur a roll over with all that stuff in the cab with you. If the wreck does not do you in, rest assured two sets of truck chains and a very heavy duty logging chain will. So for safety issues and other reason I have a tool box.

However, with all that there is a problem. I can not haul our little fifth-wheel trailer with my tool box mounted in the back. It, like most of these old units, is set up where they are close to the hitch and mounted very low. (The main reason I love to pull it. You hardly know it is there.) So I have to remove the toolbox when I have the little fifth wheel. It is because on a tight backing or turning maneuver the trailer will get the tool box. This in turn will damage the fifth wheel trailer, that also will damage the tool box and then that will damage the pick up. So if I have to move the little fifth wheel, I empty out the tool box, unfasten the fasteners, and remove it. I set it some where when finished moving the little fifth-wheel, put it back in, fasten it down, and put all the valuables back in it. WWHHHUUUW! Lot of work just for that.

Now if you are a serious fifth-wheeler you have a tool box that sets down inside the pick up box. But they are hard to retrieve things out of. So I opted not to get one of those because we just move the little fifth wheel camp trailer up in the spring to the ranch and out in the early winter back to the valley. That is all the further it goes now days. Then we got the big fifth wheel. The hitch sits a lot further a head to the front and it is higher. In fact the whole unit is higher. So I have decided to try using my old tool box and not get a new one that sets down inside the pick up box. So my last trip to the ranch I grabbed our old tool box.

I brought it down here to the RV Park and mount it. I never have locked my tool box up. I never figure I needed to. It went mostly to the ranch and back. But here in this new environment of RV parks and our road trip down south and who knows what to expect next. I thought it would be handy to be able to lock it up. The only key I knew of that might fit the tool box was on my primary key ring. However it had gone missing for several days. Ellen and I looked and looked for that key ring. Then she came up with the idea, “Have you looked in the car?” I told her I just had the car to the car wash and cleaned and vacuumed it. I would have seen it then. I did however remember seeing four keys sitting by themselves not on a ring in a hollow place in the console while vacuuming. One was a key to the shop up at the ranch the others the were unknown to me.

I went back out and unlocked the car got the loose keys from the console and tried them. The first one I tried fit, it turned it matched with the second. There was two keys that fit the toolbox out of the blue. Ellen can not remember how the four keys got there. She thought I put them there, they were just laying there in the console one day. She made several trips in and out from the ranch with them. They survived there with three grandkids and three dogs. They survived her sacks of sewing and yarn going to her gals sewing circle up there at the Prairie and on and on and they were never lost. To which I do thank the Lord for keeping an eye out for them. That they never got flipped out on the floor and lost. Lets face it lone keys are so venerable to being lost. Then there is the issue of two keys for my toolbox I never use just show up out of the blue. A toolbox or tool storage or just a tool locker that we never have locked in five years of traveling in and out of the Prairie with it. Then I decided I have to lock it up. So I guess my real question is where in the world did those keys really come from? Well let see I think I can rule out someone broke into the car and set them there………