Postcard from New Mexico- 6

Posted on Monday, 7 May 2012 by bruce10b

7 May 2012

Santa Fe

Bought fuel for the truck today. Yikes! Over 55 gal at $4.16/gal. We usually need 25-30 gal for a single day, so this was a shocker.

And I carefully added the Racor Diesel Conditioner +. Even managed to get most of it in the tanks. I had previously used a Power Service diesel conditioner from WallyWorld and wasn’t too sure if I was really doing the right thing.

Local restaurant

Crumbpacker’s in South Santa Fe

When we first stopped here at Santa Fe Skies RV Park in 2009, there was a great pizza place just up the road (NM-14). Sadly the south Santa Fe location of Back Roads Pizza is closed (the original on 2nd St is still operating).

First a sandwich shop opened which was a disappointment (Bisbee Deli?) and didn’t last long. That was replaced by the current food, pastry & coffee place called Crumbpacker’s. It’s an excellent restaurant and I expect it to become even more popular. They’re open for breakfast & lunch, serve coffee drinks (espresso, etc) while they’re open, and they have some great pastries. Open at 7:00 and closed by 3:00 PM. Admiral recommended and it’s just a couple miles North of the park.

Fruit cheesecake… wow!

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Postcard from New Mexico- 5

Posted on Sunday, 6 May 2012 by bruce10b

6 May 2012– Santa Fe

The truck

We may at long last have the Banks issues behind us. Spear’s Auto Center in Cedar Crest ordered a replacement main Banks harness and installed it a few days later (last Thursday). I’ve put a few miles on the truck since then and it feels like we may have put Paid to that worry. The truck runs smooth, all the power ranges work, mileage is consistent, no hesitations, no fault codes from either Ford or Banks. Just seems to run as it should!

Time to fuel-up.

The new glasses

I wonder if you recall this from an old childhood rhyme:

“I see!” said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw!

That’s pretty much how I felt when I first looked through the new lenses in my glasses. Seems to be clear vision without all the head twisting and searching for focus. Looks like LensCrafters came through again. Hallelujah! And Celia can read the road signs again. Yee haw! I’ve got my navigator back!

The dogs

Got the girls over to Paws Plaza Saturday (they’re on 4th just off Cerrillos). They’re a doggie day care center that also does grooming. Our girls had to be bathed and have their nails trimmed and this is our preferred place to go. Felt sorry for Michelle, the groomer who had the daunting chore of making them look presentable. She said Annie was really dirty which is not a surprise: if Annie finds herself going somewhere she doesn’t want to go, she just lays down on her back no matter where she happens to be.

With the dogs clean, Celia wanted to get to the vet for a quick health check and to also make sure we have some proof of rabies vaccination just in case we head up to Canada on the way back. That made it a good time to get more dog food. Sadly, the Smith Veterinary pantry was bare. They ordered more of the special-diet food for us but it can’t arrive before Wednesday. So we have a new departure date.

The rig

Celia has the rig as spotless as humanly possible. Walls scrubbed, windows washed, dust vacuumed from the nooks and crannies, throw rugs washed. I was afraid to stand in one place too long for fear of going for a spin in the washing machine myself!

All this Spring cleaning is a must-do after accumulating road grime from using the rig 24/7. Going to make a nice start to our trek East.

The groceries

Of course no road trip can start unless you get to do some extra shopping. [ Aaarrrggh! I hate shopping! ] The pantry is bursting with ‘stuff’ and I’m wondering if we’ll ever have to see the inside of another WalMart as long as we live! Which is nonsense of course… we’ll go there again before we hit the road. A good thing is we ran into Celia’s friend Nora and we were able to update each pther before we had to move on.

Given the choice, we always try to shop first at a Trader Joe’s. TJ‘s is a semi-specialty store owned by a German corp (forgotten the name). Their prices are set nationally instead of locally (all the market will bare). If you’re in a pricey area like Santa Fe, they can be substantially cheaper than a big super market like Albertson’s. Things like nuts, cereal, soy ice cream, organic olive oil, organic fresh veggies, nitrate-/nitrite-free luncheon meat, etc. can all be expensive in the usual chain store (if they have it at all).

The schedule

I had hoped we’d be on our way this coming Wednesday morning, 9 May. Looks like that can’t happen now. The extra 4 bags of dog food (40 kg) should arrive on Wednesday, so we hope to be on our way on Thursday, 5/10. ‘Should‘ is the operative word… it’s a euphemism for ‘I don’t know when the dog food will arrive but I hope it’s Wednesday‘. So I’m reluctant to make any reservations till I have the bags stowed in the basement

To put a positive spin on things, we’re supposed to have T-storms starting Monday, so maybe we’ll get a few of those out of the way before heading East.

The photos

Yeah, I know. I’ve been remiss in posting photos. We have a serious bandwidth problem and uploading images makes it worse. When we get a better location I’ll edit earlier posts and sprinkle some photos throughout. Mea culpa!

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Postcard from New Mexico- 4

Posted on Sunday, 29 April 2012 by bruce10b

29 April 2012

Santa Fe

Getting closer to D-Day. Maybe.

New glasses please!

All the appointments are done and last Tuesday we went to LensCrafters to order new lenses. Lenses cost a lot more than I remember the last time in 2010. All together it was about 12 days of diesel fuel for 5 pair of lenses plus one pair of frames- almost $2,400 after the 30% discounts. Yikes! As far as I know there’s still no safe way to drive if you need glasses and don’t have the right ones, so we paid the piper.

The biggest gripe for me was that the previous pair of clear progressive lenses (ordered from Eye Associates) were not ground to be centered in front of the eye: I have to turn my head slightly to the right (eyes to the left) and incline my head to find the best focus at shorter distances. I have the same problem with my sun glasses which also have progressive lenses. Plus I noticed that the lenses of my sun glass are starting to delaminate. Which is odd because they weren’t supposed to be laminated in the first place. Progressive lenses are not for everyone, but maybe a contributing reason is that not every optical lab knows how to make and install them! I’ve had good luck with LensCrafters in the past, so my expectations are high.

Housekeeping

With our lenses on order, it’s time to once again clean and rearrange the basement (and maybe I’ll discover where I put my knife sharpening tools- the Admiral is getting really cranky about dull knives!). My biggest problem is finding room for dog food. Lots of dog food! Annie has to eat a special diet as the higher fiber content of most dog food is an irritant to her gut. So we feed them both the same gastro-intestinal formulation made by Royal Canin. We go through a 10 kilo bag every 24 days, so we need about 7 bags of this pricey stuff to get the girls through the summer. It’s only sold by vets and I don’t want to mess with finding it as we travel. I try to buy the Royal Canin on the internet when I can and did get 3 bags from PetFlow.com, but the remaining 4 bags will have to come from Smith Veterinary Hospital here in Santa Fe.

Btw, Smith Veterinary is somewhat iconic in these parts. Remember Smokey Bear, the mascot of the US Forest Service? The original Smokey Bear (not the cartoon bear!) was orphaned in a fire in Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico, in May 1950. He had burns on his feet and abdomen, so the USFS brought the cub to Santa Fe where Dr. Ed Smith, the founder of Smith Veterinary, treated his burns. Today his grand daughter Kathy and her husband Mike Dobesh, both vets, run the veterinary hospital.

The Admiral has been doing some spring cleaning and has managed to fill the back seat of the truck with odds and ends of clothing, exercise mats, place mats, extra cups, etc. You wouldn’t think getting rid of a few extra clothes would make much difference, but the 2 wardrobes and the bedroom storage cabinet are actually useable again. Big improvement.

The truck. Again.

My biggest concern is the truck. It will have to go back to Spear’s Auto Center. Scott found the biggest problem with the Banks tuner (a pushed-back pin in the main harness), but it appears there’s another connection problem somewhere. Frequently, not too long after having started the truck, the engine will hesitate for a moment. After that hesitation it runs OK, and (maybe it’s my imagination) the mileage seems to improve. Plus there’s sometimes a code coming from the Banks equipment that says there’s an ‘Engine Position Sensor fault‘. Whatever that sensor is, it sounds like an intermittent. So I’m convinced there’s another problem in the wiring that started when everything was disconnected back in November.

Streaming video

I bought a video-streaming box (ROKU 2 XS) in hopes we can download a movie here and there. Works with all the major sources. Getting movies on DVD from NetFlix will be a problem while we’re moving. An internet friend in NYC got one of these ROKU boxes and thought it was a winner. Probably is if you have a good internet connection, but the flaky connections we have in RV parks may present a challenge! It was cheap enough ($90, free shipping) that I thought we could experiment.

The countdown

It all depends on the truck and Scott Spear. If he gets lucky and can find the bad connection, we can be on our way about 9 May. If it proves to be as difficult as most ghost problems, it could be longer. In any case we don’t want to get on the road until it’s resolved.

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Postcard from New Mexico- 3

Posted on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 by bruce10b

18 April 2012

Santa Fe

We’re plowing through the necessary steps of getting on the road headed east. I’ve got a new prescription for eye glasses and Celia will get hers in a few days. Celia is done with the internist and has her replacement prescriptions. So with us nearly ready, it was time to get the truck to the doctor too…

Cedar Crest

While we were wintering in Arizona we got Ford’s newest Power Control Module firmware installed (factory recall); the high pressure fuel pump replaced (warranty); and a new engine wiring harness installed (warranty). But after all this free warranty work, the Banks tuner was not working properly. Each time the dealer tried reconnecting the Banks system, the truck didn’t run right and started throwing codes (error messages).

Our truck in the service bay

So the time had come to go see the New Mexico diesel and Banks expert in Cedar Crest. Spear’s Auto Center helped friends Mike & Susan get their Banks-equipped 2003 Ford diesel (7.3 liter) running better than it had in the 8 years they’d owned it. Scott Spear listened to my tale of woe to get a few clues, reconnected the Banks harness & modules, and guess what? It didn’t run right and started throwing codes. [ Sound familiar?! ]

One short call later to Banks Tech Support and Scott had a few ideas of where to look. Off he went again into the bowels of our truck and, sure enough, pin 39 of the Banks harness wasn’t seated properly… the source of the problem. Possibly a pin that hadn’t been seated properly when the harness was first built. It’s something I’ve dealt with in an earlier life, but we’ll never know. Took another 1/2 hour of contortion and liberal use of magnifying glass and elbow grease, and Scott had it fixed. Yee haw!

That’s Scott on the phone in the back

Now the truck seems to run great and we’re still getting good mileage. What it does with a load (the trailer) is still a mystery, but that day will be here soon enough.

When all was said and done, I felt really good about going out of the way to see Scott and his dad Gary at Spear’s Auto Center. It was well worth the extra miles and was money well spent. These guys are good and they’re Banks dealers. In our case, that’s a big deal. We still have a few months or 14,000 miles of warranty left, but in another 14,000 miles (or July, the month the warranty was activated in 2007) I’ll probably talk to them about what else they can do to improve our fuel consumption.

A customer’s car… in for service.

Diesel Conditioner

Btw, I was told these Ford diesels need to be fed a diet supplement of diesel conditioner to keep injectors operating properly. They said most diesel conditioners (a chemical product added to the tank before pumping in the diesel, so you have to estimate how much fuel you’re going to pump) should be OK although they weren’t so sure about the Power Service product WalMart sells. But conditioner from Racor, MotorCraft, AMSoil and a few others is supposed to be good. I chose Racor instead of the Power Service conditioner I’d used previously (it had started developing a whitish sediment…??) and bought enough to get us to the east coast and back.

Of eyeglasses and cameras

I’ve been having a hard time using the viewfinder on my new Sony NEX-7. The eyecup is pretty stiff and mashes the lens of the glasses against my eye. The alternate is to remove the glasses or use the 3″ screen on the camera back which washes out in sunlight. A few days ago I found a listing for Hoodman PhotoFrames. These titanium frames (I wonder if they’re really titanium or if that’s the color?) allow you to have your optometrist install lenses with your prescription, either clear or colored. When it’s time to shoot, just flip the lens up out of the way and hold the camera to the eye… no eyeglasses in the way of the too-stiff eyecup. Sounds good, but we’ll see just how good!

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Postcard from New Mexico- 2

Posted on Saturday, 14 April 2012 by bruce10b

4/14/2012

Santa Fe, NM

Getting settled has been a breeze compared to earlier trips here. We didn’t kill one another while I backed the rig into the space (I wish I were better at that!), and before we knew it we were done and off the road before working folks started coming home. The dogs would have appreciated getting out of the truck a little quicker since it was time to eat, but they forgave us!

Even the sewer connection went easier: I pulled the sewer hose out of the boom. That way I could run it directly which put it further uphill. The park’s sewer connect-point is too close to the rear of the rig with a sideways slope to the site making it a challenge to keep the hose from falling off the support. Of course, if you have a hose connection that starts at the rear you’d wonder what I was going on about.

2 of my 4 appointments are out of the way: the dermatologist got to play with his liquid nitrogen, and the internal medicine doctor confirmed that, contrary to rumors on the street, I really do have a heart. I have an eye check on Monday and dentist on Tuesday and, barring a surprise, The Captain will be nearly ready to go as soon as he gets new glasses. And the Admiral is working her way through her to-do list including a doctor visit and lab work. So we’re moving along.

While we were out and about I stopped at Chavez Jewelers. Among many other items Chavez offers, they’re Citizen watch dealers and I need a new watch band for my titanium watch & band. The band fit so loose that it would slip down over my wrist where it got stressed when I bent my wrist. That foolishness finally broke a pin and the pin isn’t replaceable. So now I get to buy a $200 titanium replacement band. But the watch has been flawless for the 9 years I’ve had it, so I’ll spend the $$$.

Santa Fe Skies added a dog park this past winter, right in an unused space between 2 solar arrays. It now has the Kelly seal of approval. She did laps at near light speed, pausing only long enough to christen it with urine. (I guess you realize dog pee is really canine Pee-mail, right?). Kelly is a happy camper! Annie is reserving her opinion. She just strolls around sniffing “stuff”. And has war games with Kelly as they pretend to kill one another. Life is grand in the dog park!

Celia arranged for us to have dinner with friends Carol & Jay. We haven’t seen one another in 6 months, so it was fun catching up. We had dinner at a new place recently opened by the chef that owned Josh’s. The Ranch House, across from Outback, has the same great BBQ but with much nicer surroundings. Pardon the pun, but I pigged out on pulled pork. Like the old Josh’s (now closed), you have to arrive early (5:30 PM works) cuz it has big crowds!

And taxes are done. I hate doing taxes more than getting a cortizone shot in the ankle, so I put it off till Friday (but why did I pick Friday the 13th?!) and had everything e-Filed by 3:00.

Still have to arrange for the truck to be looked at by Spear’s Automotive in Cedar Crest- they’re a Banks dealer. It’s beginning to look like the pacing item.

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