Living Our Dream

Errands and Eats

Wauchula, FL - Events of Friday, December 9 to Thursday, December 15, 2016

On Friday, we had some errands to run over in Bradenton, which is about an hour to the west. Anna Maria Oyster Bar has several locations in the Bradenton area, one which is farther north near Ellenton. That's the one we usually frequent because it is located right off I-75 and is easy to get to. However, our errands on Friday took us close to the Anna Maria restaurant near Cortez so we stopped there for lupper on the way back to Wauchula because Cortez our favorite Anna Maria location.

Anna Maria Oyster Bar near Cortez

The reason the Anna Maria near Cortez is our favorite is because they have tables that have sand and seashells embedded in them.

Sand and seashells embedded in the tabletop at Anna Maria Oyster Bar near Cortez

We again had fried clam strips ($9). Margery had onion straws for her side ($1 extra), and Paul had red potatoes.

Paul digging into his fried clam strips

Paul had another small project recently that kept him busy for a couple of days. For quite some time we had been occasionally getting water dripping from under the front cap of the 5th wheel. The occurrence was somewhat random; but since most of the time the drips appeared after a rain, Paul figured rain was getting in somewhere. He made several attempts to re-caulk a number of spots on the roof, some areas along the side seams of the front cap and also around the dryer vent; but the random drips continued.

When water recently started to drip more frequently even when it wasn't raining, Paul started to think it might be coming from one of the water lines that goes to the washer instead of from rain intrusion. Unfortunately, the way the washer and dryer are installed in the front closet, you can't reach or even see the hookup valves or the hoses for the washer without removing the dryer, and you can't reach the screws that hold the dryer in place without first removing the washer. Since there was no easy way to get to the valves and piping for the washer to look for leaks, Paul decided to cut an access hole through the wall that separates the front closet from the compartment where the washer and dryer are located.

A week or so ago, Paul got out his hand-held jigsaw and cut a hole through the wall. With the new access, the shutoff valves are within easy reach.

Easy access to shutoff valves

Paul stuck his hand in and felt the hose connections for the washer and found the one for the hot water was wet. He tightened the connection with pliers, and we haven't had a drip since.

To finish off the access hole, Paul put wood strips around the perimeter of the hole between the layers of thin paneling that form the wall...

Access opening for washer shutoff valves

...then added a door to keep things in the closet from falling through the hole and ending up behind the washer.

Door covering the valve access opening

On Tuesday, we had another errand to run in Avon Park which is about half an hour to our east and just north of Sebring. Margery had an appointment for a pedicure. Paul dropped her off and headed to Sebring to make a stop at Home Depot for some supplies he needed for another upcoming project.

Paul picked Margery up in Avon Park after her pedicure, then we headed back to Sebring for a late lunch at Dee's Place located in the downtown area. There is plenty of free on-street parking (we got a spot right in front) and a free public parking lot right next door.

Dee's Place

Dee's Place serves good diner food at reasonable prices. They are open from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m. (1 p.m. on Saturdays), and they are closed on Sunday. Lunch salads and sandwiches cost around $7. Regular burgers are $6.69 ($.40 extra for cheese), and he-man burgers (half pound) are only $.50 more. All sandwiches and burgers include your choice of fries, slaw, potato salad or macaroni salad. We both opted for he-man burgers with cheese and potato salad for our side. A half-pound burger is a big burger, but for only $.50 more we couldn't resist.

Margery with her half-pound burger

The burgers are all hand made and cooked to order. They were BIG, they were juicy, and they were delish! We'll definitely be going back to Dee's. After our late lunch, we headed back to the co-op to relax.

Paul put down vinyl flooring in the shed we had at Blueberry Hill to make it easier to sweep out the interior and keep it clean, and he wants to do the same thing to the new shed we just ordered for our co-op site. On Thursday, we headed out on another errand to Brandon, Florida, to check out the Lumber Liquidators store there. Lumber Liquidators sells discount flooring of all kinds including self-adhesive vinyl plank flooring, which Paul thinks will be easier to install than one-piece vinyl flooring he used for the shed we had at Blueberry Hill. We're not quite ready to buy the flooring yet, but we wanted to know what they had in stock so we will be ready to make our decision when we find out exactly when the shed will be delivered.

There are several Lumber Liquidator stores in the area, and the reason we chose to go to the one in Brandon is there is a Bahama Breeze located nearby. We had just gotten an email coupon for $10 off a $30 purchase at Bahama Breeze, so we decided to take advantage of it and stop for lupper after our visit to Lumber Liquidators.

The Bahama Breeze in Brandon is a small one, and it is located in Brandon Town Center Mall. The restaurant isn't at the outer perimeter of the mall like we thought it would be - it is right in front of the mall.

Bahama Breeze in front of Brandon Town Center Mall

Going to a mall 10 days before Christmas probably wasn't the best choice because parking was hard to come by, especially for a long-bed, dually pickup truck. We finally found a space some distance from the restaurant and squeezed the truck into it. Thank heaven for folding mirrors.

We had an order of Firecracker Shrimp for an appetizer. Paul ordered a Cuban sandwich with a cup of Bahamian Seafood Chowder, and Margery ordered a Smothered Pulled Pork combo, which comes with a cup of soup (she also chose the chowder). The pulled pork is served with chunks of chorizo sausage atop a bed of fried, cheese-stuffed yucca balls and topped with caramelized onions, guava barbecue sauce and cheese.

The chowder was excellent. We shared the Cuban sandwich and the Smothered Pulled Pork, which were also yummy. We topped off the meal by sharing a Chocolate Island, which was also delish.

Paul with our Chocolate Island

From Brandon, we headed back to the 5th wheel for an evening of TV. With the holidays coming up, things will be getting pretty busy so we probably won't have another post for a while.

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Finally Repaired

Franklin, KY - Events of Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The RV mechanic called on Monday to confirm the parts were on order and were scheduled to come in Tuesday morning. He had to drive to Nashville to pick them up, so we didn't hear from him until late Tuesday morning that he had the parts in hand and was on his way. He showed up in the afternoon. He had all the old parts with him, or at least what was left of them, so he had already checked to make sure the new parts were correct.

Installing the new bearings in the new hub was fairly easy because the new hub came with the races already pressed into place. Paul picked up some pointers on packing wheel bearings with grease by watching.

While the mechanic was there, Paul also asked him to pull the other three hubs and inspect the bearings. The others all looked fine, so our conclusion was that the bearing that failed was either bad right from the beginning or it got some contamination into it when the hub was assembled to the axle at the factory or the person who assembled it didn't tighten the castle nut properly. Having the nut too tight or too loose could lead to premature bearing failure. Paul also picked up some pointers on how to properly tighten the nut.

The mechanic ran into a little difficulty when he went to reinstall the brake caliper because when the bearing failed and the wheel was riding at an angle it bent the mounting flange for the caliper. After a couple of smacks with a big hammer and we were good to go. The spindle and wheel are properly aligned, and it's only the caliper that was slightly off kilter. That may result in uneven brake wear, but that's no big deal.

The mechanic left the hubcap off because he recommended pulling off at a couple of rest stops during our next several travel days to check the temperature of the hub to make sure it was okay and wasn't running hot. He also recommended checking the temperature of the brake rotor to make sure the brake wasn't dragging.

Repair complete

The repair bill was just under $1500, which was a little higher than we had hoped, but it wasn't unreasonable considering the cost of the parts, all the time the mechanic spent tracking down parts and running to pick them up, and that he came to where we were staying to make the repair. Not only did we agree to pay for overnight shipment, but we also agreed to pay for next-morning delivery rather than the normal afternoon delivery. The shipping cost alone was $184 because of the heavy weight of our parts. It was expensive, but we wanted to make sure there was time to complete the repair on Tuesday and not to have to stay over another night. The mechanic also did extra work inspecting the bearings on the other three wheels. He was very good at keeping us informed of his progress, and he addressed all our concerns along the way. If you are ever along I-65 between Bowling Green, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee, and need RV service, we recommend calling Mobile Diagnostics and Repair at 615-654-4557.

After the mechanic left, we decided to head out to Wildfire BBQ located a little south of town for lupper. We tried to go there after we got back from Bowling Green on Monday, but we arrived about 2:15 only to find out they closed at 2:00 on Mondays.

Wildfire BBQ

Boy, are we glad we went back because everything was delicious. Margery had a pulled pork plate with two sides for $8, and Paul had a Pit Combo that included pulled pork, brisket, sliced pork shoulder and two sides for $11. Margery had cole slaw and onion rings for her sides, and Paul had cole slaw and potato salad.

Margery with her pulled pork plate

The homemade sides, the brisket and the sliced shoulder were all excellent, as was the johnny-cake cornbread (flat cornbread fried pancake style), but the star in our opinion was the pulled pork. It was smokey, tender and moist. Wildfire has several types of barbecue sauce - house mild, house medium, house hot (they keep it in the back so nobody uses it by mistake), sweet and smokey, and Carolina (vinegar based). We liked the sweet and smokey with a splash of Carolina.

After lupper, we went back to the rig for an evening of TV. The next morning, we headed out to complete our journey to Lower Alabama. We originally planned to make the trek from Ohio to Lower Alabama in 5 travel days with a layover for the weekend, but since we had to stop short of our intended destination on day 3 because of the bearing failure, we had a longer distance to go for the remainder of the trip after the weekend. Therefore, we split the remaining distance into three shorter drives. The shorter drives would give us extra time to pull off more often than usual to monitor the hub temperature. We'll tell you about the rest of out trip in our next post.

Heading South

Franklin, KY - Events of Wednesday, October 12 to Sunday, October 16, 2016

We pulled out of Scenic Hills last Wednesday morning and headed south toward Lower Alabama. We were originally going to skip our usual stop in Lower Alabama this fall and take a more easterly route through Charlotte and then follow I-95 along the coast into Florida. However, with Hurricane Matthew heading up the coast the week before we were scheduled to leave Ohio, we decided to go back to Lower Alabama after all to avoid the areas along the East Coast and any possible aftereffects of the hurricane.

Our first overnight stop was at Cedarbrook Campground in Lebanon, Ohio, which was about a three-hour drive. Cedarbrook has a little over 100 campsites, about a quarter of which are pull-throughs with the rest back-ins. Most sites have full hookups with either 20/30/50-amp electric or 20/30-amp electric, but some are water and 20/30-amp electric only.

The roads and pads at Cedarbrook are somewhat dusty gravel. Site spacing is a little close, but not too bad for a private campground. There is grass between most of the sites. There is free cable, and Wi-fi is available for a fee. The campground is pretty far from the interstate, so there is little traffic noise.

We got a pull-through site with full hookups and 20/30/50-amp electric. Our cost for one night was $51, which we thought was steep considering the sparse gravel, relatively narrow sites and the fact the Wi-fi isn't free. However, there isn't a lot of choice for campgrounds with pull-throughs at that approximate distance from Berlin. We used to stay at the RV facilities at the FMCA headquarters on the eastern side of Cincinnati, but that's not an option since we no longer have a motor home.

Our site at Cedarbrook

View of our row from the rear

On Thursday morning, we had another drive of about three hours to Grandma's RV Camping in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. We've stayed there a couple of times before. Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is relatively clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 20/30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi that was fairly fast. Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Our cost at Grandma's was $32 for the night.

Our site at Grandma's

View up the road from our site

We pulled out of Grandma's on Friday morning with a scheduled drive of almost four hours to our next stop in Cornersville, Tennessee, where we planned to layover for the weekend. When we pulled off at a Flying J just north of the Kentucky-Tennessee border to fuel up, Paul felt the trailer dragging as we were making our turn to approach the pumps. When he looked in the mirror to see if we had hit something, he saw the rear trailer tire on the driver's side sitting at an angle. Uh-oh!

We couldn't stop where we were because we were blocking the entrance/exit to 2/3 of the pumps, so we proceeded very slowly past the pumps to a parking area off to the side. Paul used the trailer's hydraulic levelers to lift the rear of the trailer to take the weight off the wheel so he could assess the situation.

Trailer wheel sitting at an angle

After removing the hub cap, we found the outer hub cover and the castle nut had both unscrewed and were stuck in a wad of grease inside the hubcap. The outer bearing had disintegrated.

Outer bearing disintegrated

Paul remembered reading in several of the RV forums in which he participates that people are having problems with bearings these days because the suppliers of the axles and hubs are using cheap, Chinese-made bearings. However, we didn't think we would have this bad a problem this soon. Paul was planning to clean, inspect and re-pack the bearings when we got to Florida this winter, and he would have replaced them all with US-made bearings if he found any problem at all. Obviously, he should have looked at the bearings over the summer.

We have CoachNet roadside assistance. When we called them, they said they would have a tech call us back to get more info. After waiting almost an hour for a callback, we discovered the tech had already called much earlier, but we had somehow missed the call. After calling CoachNet again, we had to wait almost another hour for a second call from a tech. They said they would send out a mobile RV repair service who would either make the repair or help us limp to a nearby campground or repair facility.

It took the mobile repair service about 45 minutes to show up. The mechanic said we needed a new hub assembly complete with bearings and a new grease seal. Since we have disc brakes, which are much less common than standard drum brakes, parts are harder to find. The mechanic had no luck finding parts locally late on a Friday afternoon so he had no choice but to chain up our axle so it wouldn't drag and secure our dangling brake caliper to allow us to limp to a campground while he continued to look for parts. When he had the parts, he would come to the campground to complete the repair.

Axle chained up with brake caliper zip-tied to the top

Dad's Bluegrass Campground is located one exit (about 4 miles) north of the Flying J, and they had sites available. The mechanic followed us to make sure we made it safely. We checked in and got settled.

The campground sat abandoned for three years, and new owners just re-opened it four months ago. The website says they are a work in progress, and they are making repairs and improvements every day to bring the campground back. All in all, the campground has good bones. The site spacing isn't too bad for a private campground, the 50-amp electric was strong and reliable, and there was good water pressure. The owner is super-friendly very hard-working.

In addition to RV sites, Dad's has a few tent sites and a few cabins. Almost all The RV sites are all pull-throughs, and they have full hookups with either 20/30-amp electric or 20/30/50-amp electric. The roads and pads are somewhat dusty gravel, and there is grass between the sites. 

Our site at Dad's Bluegrass CG

View looking up the road behind our site

The campground is close to the interstate so there is some traffic noise, but it wasn't as bad as Grandma's. Being close to the interstate was a good thing in this case because, not only was it easy to limp there with the 5th wheel, but close proximity to the interstate meant a good Verizon signal, which was necessary because the campground has no Wi-fi. Our cost at Dad's was $35 a night with a 10% Good Sam discount.

About the only drawback to Dad's is there are a good many long-term residents, and some of their sites are somewhat cluttered. However, the owner says the long-termers are keeping him afloat financially so we can't blame him for being happy they are there.

We got a call from the RV mechanic late Friday evening. He located the parts, but they had to be ordered, and it was too late for them to be shipped until Monday. We told him we would pay extra to have them shipped overnight for a.m. delivery Tuesday.

We are thankful God was watching over us through this ordeal. The incident happened while we were at a gas station instead of on the interstate. Who knows what might have happened if the wheel had come off while we were traveling at 65mph! And we're also thankful we found a decent campground close by instead of having limp the 5th wheel a long distance or having to wait out the weekend in the parking lot of an RV repair facility.

Except for the two-hour delay in waiting for a call back from a tech, which was partly our fault since we missed the first call, we are very happy with CoachNet. They pay for the initial service call, but the RV owner is responsible for any work that is done after the service truck arrives. CoachNet will also pay for towing to the nearest qualified service facility if required. However, the biggest service they provide in our opinion is finding someone, anyone, nearby who can do the repair.

We did our cleaning chores on Saturday morning then tried to relax the rest of the day. The campground has live bluegrass music on Saturday evenings, but we we were still too frazzled from the episode on Friday to go up to the pavilion to check it out. We relaxed some more on Sunday.

On Monday, we decided we might as well make the best of a bad situation and do a little sightseeing. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

5th Wheel Project: Install New Kitchen Faucet

Berlin, OH - Events of Thursday, July 28 to Friday, July 29

The 5th wheel came with a high-arch, pull-down kitchen faucet that we liked very much. It was a single-handle model, which is what we prefer; and unlike the finish on the bathroom faucets that had deteriorated, the finish on the kitchen faucet was still in excellent condition. Therefore, when Paul replaced the bathroom faucets a couple of weeks ago, we hadn't given much thought to replacing the kitchen faucet even though we were having a minor problem with it.

Old kitchen faucet

The problem we were having was we were getting an extra dribbling of water when the faucet was supposed to be set to stream. It worked okay when the faucet was being used on the spray setting, and the faucet didn't drip when it was off so it was more of an annoyance than a big problem. Paul thought the dribble was being caused by debris or hard water deposits preventing the diverter from shutting off completely, and he thought he could fix it by disassembling the head and cleaning the seals.

After Paul finished the bathroom faucet project, he got to work trying to fix the kitchen faucet. He ended up disassembling the head 4 times to check and clean the O-rings and seals. He even applied silicone plumber's grease to the seals twice in an effort to get them to seal better. Every time he put the pull-down head back together and tested it, the dribble was still there so it was on to Plan B.

Plan B was to replace just the pull-down head. The old kitchen faucet wasn't made by a name-brand faucet manufacturer so it was difficult to find replacement parts specifically for our faucet. Paul checked Keim Lumber and Orme Hardware to see if he could find some sort of universal replacement head locally. No luck. He did find some universal heads online, but unfortunately, the method of attaching the head of our old faucet to the hose was different from all the universal heads. Therefore, replacing the pull-down head with a universal one would also require replacing the hose, which brought up other issues like finding a replacement hose the right length and finding one that has the right threads on the end opposite the pull-down head where the hose attaches to the faucet. Not only that, but most of the universal heads didn't get very good reviews.

Paul eventually gave up on the idea of replacing just the pull-down head and ended up replacing the whole faucet. He saw a nice Delta faucet at Orme Hardware when he was there looking for a replacement pull-down head, so he headed to Orme last Thursday to pick it up. The Delta faucet was almost identical in size and shape to our old one so we knew it do a good job of reaching both sinks. The other good news is the price of the faucet at Orme was $21 lower than the exact same faucet on Amazon, $87 lower than the same faucet at Home Depot, and $127 lower than the same one at than at Lowe's.

After turning off the water and removing the old faucet, Paul test fit the new components into the existing holes in the counter top. The hole for the spout was about 1/8" too small, but that wasn't a big deal since solid surface counter tops like ours are made from acrylic-based resin and mineral fillers so they can generally be worked with woodworking tools. Paul enlarged the hole with a sanding drum and his cordless drill.

Paul enlarging one of the holes in the solid surface counter top with a sanding drum

Once the hole was enlarged, it was fairly easy to install the components and to hook up the water lines. The entire job only took about an hour and a half, and at least half an hour of that time was enlarging the hole. And there were no leaks on the first try!

New kitchen faucet

We're very happy with the new faucet. It looks almost identical to the old one, except the base of both the spout and valve lever housing on the new one are sleeker. That should make the new faucet easier to clean to prevent soap film and hard water deposits from building up like they did on the base of the old one. Another plus for the new faucet is the magnetic docking feature that keeps the pull-down head securely in place when not extended. The other good news is the new faucet comes with a lifetime warranty on parts and on the finish so we should be covered if there is ever a problem.

We recently heard from old friends, Deb and Bob, from a church we attended in Pittsburgh years ago. Not only do they follow our blog, but Margery keeps in touch with Deb on Facebook. They told us they were headed to Scenic Hills in their camper for the weekend, and we made plans to go to dinner at Der Dutchman with them on Friday afternoon.

Paul, Margery, Deb and Bob outside Der Dutchman

It was good to catch up with Deb and Bob. Fortunately, the restaurant wasn't too crowded so we spent a long time after dinner chatting. 

We had yet another trip to Pittsburgh planned for the following weekend. We'll tell you about it in our next post.

5th Wheel Project: Replace Bathroom Faucets

Berlin, OH - Events of Friday, July 8 to Friday, July 15, 2016

We have always liked single-handle faucets because you can turn on the water and adjust the temperature quickly with only one hand. Our 5th wheel came with a single-handle kitchen faucet, but the faucets for both the shower and bathroom sink had two handles. We have been thinking about replacing both bathroom faucets almost since we first picked up the new 5th wheel. Because the faucets were brand new, however, and since installing the shower faucet looked a little difficult because of limited access to the plumbing behind the shower wall, Paul put off the replacement.

Then last winter we noticed the satin nickel finish on the shower faucet, the handheld shower head and the slide bar for the shower head was beginning to flake off leaving those items with a dull, mottled finish. It was disappointing that happened in such a short time, but it gave Paul the impetus he needed think a little more seriously about replacements. Paul researched different brands and styles of faucets and came up with a list of components last winter, but it took him until just recently to finally order all faucets and parts we need.

Old shower faucet with flaking satin nickel

Old shower head and slide bar with flaking satin nickel finish

Paul ordered the major components for the project from Amazon (shower faucet trim, handheld shower head, slide bar support for the shower head, and bathroom sink faucet) and from faucetdirect.com (shower valve and wall-mounted elbow for the attachment of the hose for the shower head).

The parts came in the week after July 4th, and Paul tackled installing the new shower head and slide bar on Friday of that week. The installation of the slide bar was pretty easy because the new bar Paul chose has mounting supports whose position is adjustable. Therefore, he was able to just unscrew the old bar, adjust the position of the mounting posts on the new bar, put on dab of silicone sealant, and screw the new bar in place using existing screw holes. The shower head was even easier - just unscrew the old hose and attach the new one.

New shower head and slide bar

We're very happy with the new shower head. It is a Moen Reliant with three sprays - a gentle, wide angle spray; a concentrated, hard spray; and a pulsing spray. We've had handheld showers in our RVs dating all the way back to the 1970s from the inexpensive white plastic ones that come in entry-level travel trailers to the highly-rated Oxygenetics shower head we put into the motor home we used to have, and this one is beyond a doubt the best one we have ever had. It has excellent flow on all three settings even with low water pressure.

Over the next few days, Paul picked up fittings he thought he would need for the rest of the project at Keim Lumber in Charm and at Orme Hardware in downtown Berlin. As Paul pre-assembled some of the components, he found he needed to make several more trips to get all the right parts. What's plumbing without at least two trips to the hardware store? Matching new fixtures to existing plumbing is always a trial and error process.

By late Monday, Paul thought he finally had everything figured out, so he began on Tuesday morning with the easier installation of the bathroom sink faucet. The installation went well, and within an hour or so it was complete with no leaks.

Old sink faucet

New sink faucet

Although it was still early in the day when Paul finished installing the new faucet on the sink, he held off starting on the shower faucet because we were planning to go to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to visit with Lora, J. Michael and Lydia. In case something didn't go right with the installation, he didn't want to leave the the project unfinished.

We headed out to Pittsburgh on Wednesday morning and arrived before noon. As usual, we had a good time playing with Lydia.

Grammy playing with Lydia while Freeway looks on

It has been only about two weeks since we last saw Lydia, and we can see changes in just that short amount of time. She is building a big vocabulary, and her pronunciation of words has improved. She can repeat almost anything she hears, so we have to be careful what we say. She has been able to speak in phrases for quite some time, but now she speaks in full sentences most of the time.

We finished off our visit to Pittsburgh with a delicious pepperoni pizza for Lora, J. Michael and Margery and half an Italian sub for Paul from Hunner's Pizza. We got back to Scenic Hills a little before dark.

On Friday, Paul tackled the job of installing the shower faucet. He started by removing the old faucet, which was fairly easy.

The scary part was when Paul had to use a hole saw to cut a 3" diameter hole in the fiberglass shower wall for the new faucet. It was difficult to maneuver the new faucet into place because, not only is there is very little room behind the shower itself, Paul had to work through a small opening in the back of a narrow closet.

Small access opening in back of a narrow closet

After Paul got the faucet installed and made all the water connections, he turned on the water. Hooray, No leaks!

New shower faucet

Paul cleaned up and put all the tools away then relaxed most of the rest of the day. We planned to do some sightseeing the following week. We'll tell you about it in our next post.