July 30, 2005 - Auburn, NH
Barb's at sister Donna's house for the weekend. Ma doesn't like leaving home, but was headed for Laconia, NH, with Donna when Barb offered to spend the weekend with her. Most the sisters have "cabins" someplace either in northern NH or Maine where they spend time during the summers. Fun for everybody. Barb gets Ma to herself for a bit, and I get to catch up on some e-mail and the website here at home.
And here's home. Calef Lake Camping Area as it's called, just outside of Auburn, NH. Great park and wonderful people running it. The owner is working right alongside the maintenance people keeping the place looking good. Most the sites are seasonal, and many of the trailers here appear to be permanent/semi-permanent. The weekends are busy with kids all over everything, the way it should be. During the week it's somewhat quieter, and at night it's totally quiet except for the frogs. Well, the frogs the kids haven't captured yet anyway. This is the very first time we've been parked in the trees like this and still have great satellite signals. The cost is quite reasonable considering we're in New England. Kind of dicey for 40-footers to get into the site as there's a tough turn, but other than that it's fine. The other MH you see belongs to Bob and Karen who are home about as much as we are. Travis their dog is standing there wondering what I'm up to. Rocks are the bane of the area. Stone fences all over the place, and lots of big ones like this are just worked around, like this trailer managed to do.
The little stream that drains the lake runs right past our site and is home to lots of little mosquito fish, turtles, and many frogs. While not "big rig friendly," the park is friendly nonetheless. We're in one of only two sites that can take a 40' unit. Every morning the young people who work on maintenance here are raking the beach, getting rid of anything that washed up during the night and removing footprints and sand castles. It's a private lake, so the requirement for fishing licenses is questionable.
This arch-typical New England house with its "breezeway" connecting the garage and the house sported something that isn't arch-typical, but it sure caught our eye. Pretty cool, eh?
One day while Barb and I were sitting outside our Road Abode watching the birds, frogs, bugs, and turtle in the creek, she noticed that there were a couple of young trees across the creek holding hands (see the arch?). And then sister Donna's new house. Donna is 17 years younger than Barb who was the youngest of 5 girls when Donna was born (nope, no boys). Ma was 47 at the time, and it sort of came as a surprise to everybody as she had a few grandchildren at this point. Well, long story short, Pa died, and Ma and Donna lived in the old house (the one all of them were raised in) until they bought this one a year or two ago. Ma has her own room on the ground floor, as well as a room in each of sisters Lorraine, Jennie, and Carol's homes. The arrangement seems to work well for everybody, including (and especially) Ma. This weekend, Donna and David and their daughter went up to Laconia where they have a "cabin," so Barb deserted me to stay here with Ma as mentioned. Ma will be 92 this October and is sharp as ever, but living alone at that age isn't smart.
This swing is a favorite of everybody. It's more of a glider than a swing--a gift from one of the sisters to Ma. Inside the house, Donna and Carol are fussing with something at the counter, Carol's husband Guy and Ma have their backs to the camera, and Donna's daughter Jillian is "helping" at the counter. I'm staying out of the way.
Ma's cat is saying his prayers. Good thing too. I'd been gently teasing him a little, and then he wandered off. I paid no attention to him, and as I got up to go someplace else, he attacked! Grabbed me by the leg (he has all his claws) and bit me!! Gently, to be sure, but very much surprised me!! I warned him to look out for himself as I have a good memory. Of course, after the picture was taken, he was checking me out to see what was up. We now seem to have an interesting relationship. Neat cat; he comes when Ma calls, will play with Barb, but ignores me. Except when I'm reading, then he messes with my book or the paper or whatever. If I try to pet him or scratch his head (which Ma swears he likes), he takes a swing at me and leaves. Cats are great, don't you think?
OK. Enough of fun and games. Let's get something serious done. The Road Abode has a set of gauges like any good RV will have that tell you (well, they're SUPPOSED to tell you) the quantities of fresh water, sewage, and sink water in the various tanks. And except for the fresh water, they've always worked just fine. The factory has made changes and "repairs" to the gauge system numerous times. And the last time we were there they did it yet again. And by golly it worked...for about two weeks! So I called James at the factory and fussed about it and told him I was going to rig a sight gauge for the fresh water. He responded favorably to the idea, and suggested I take the line for the fresh water tank drain, and tap in there.
There's something you should know about Foretravel motorhomes. They're different. Not only the coaches themselves, but the way the manufacturer treats the customers after the sale. We bought this unit used, but you'd never know it by the way we're treated at the factory. And they have two people, James and Danny, whose jobs it is to answer the phone 24/7 to solve problems for you. Occasionally I need to leave a message, but the call is always returned, and between the two of them, they seem to know everything about all models. Great customer service from these guys.
Back to my project. In the picture on the left you can see that there's no accumulator tank, just the pump. When we bought the coach it came with a one-year warrantee on everything except cosmetics. And it was almost four years old at the time! Anyway, the water pump quit and I told them I wanted the variable speed pump and they installed it at no charge. The three blue handles are valves that drain the cold water lines, the hot water lines, and the fresh water holding tank. I put a "T" in the line going to the drain valve, came off the "T" to an elbow and then to another elbow, and then up with clear vinyl hose to the top of the tank. You can see the water beginning to come up the clear line (left side of left photo).
A close-up of the sight gauge and the compartment all put back together with its "normal" storage, including that Bounce dryer sheet to discourage critters from making a home in there. Seems to work, as we've not had any since we started using them in all our bays. And in that last shot you can see that the water level is just above half. There's a brass cap on the end to keep junk out of the gauge, with a very small hole for air to get in and out as the level changes. That little brass thing on the wall above the waste basket is the thermostat for the bay heaters, and the red/white/blue arrangement next door is the water manifold where we can shut off any supply to the various faucets inside, hot is red and cold is blue, and the labels are white. The handle for turning the valves is stored right there as well, and that's a 110v outlet which is handy in the event I want to heat the manifold with some kind of electric heater rather than relying on the AquaHot system with its thermostat next door.
And a few more pictures of the Tonka Toy truck and a cute kid with his dad. Doug said it drove just fine, as the body was pretty light and didn't pose any extreme center of gravity problems. Still wish I'd been able to "test drive" it.