The drive went smoothly. We had a nice picnic lunch at the benches outside the museum after our drive.
We had to cut the picnic quickly, as Garrett said that he wanted to use the bathroom. This was a good thing, as he did have to go #2 and it was better on the toilet than in is pull-up.
We started off with the Tomb lid of Palenque. The last time we were there several years ago, they had a three dimensional model of the supposed ship. This time, they had a video presentation on it, which the kids enjoyed watching.
The decoding of the inscription on the tomb lid.
There was a painting of the reconstructed flying machine.
The kids learned about the Magic 12 and the events surrounding the UFO Crash in Roswell.
The kids also learned about various types of encounters and the cultural impact of the crash and the many resultant movies and other phenomenon surrounding UFOs.
Once we arrived in Texas, I ran over to my brother’s house and picked up the replacement slide motors that I’d ordered. I’d looked up how to replace the motor and it seemed fairly straight forward.
I had already removed the retention screw on the outside and popped it up out of the drive socket to push the slide in. I had Meagan drive the slide out while I pushed on the dead side about halfway out, to facilitate access to where the motor was, at the top right corner of the slide.
The dead DC slide motor.
It took a little finagling, but I did get the motor out. I got the new motor in, but was having some trouble getting it lined up and seated. I had Meagan pulse the drive switch briefly. The motor spun and seated itself and then we were able to operate the slide normally!
I put in the retention screw on the outside and fixed the bulb seals and we were back in business!
1 April – Day 1 – Departure (Jacksonville, FL to Lake City, FL)
Prior to leaving, my laptop had broken its hinges, and I had sent it back for RMA. I wasn’t sure that it would make it back in time, but, lo and behold, it was supposed to arrive in the morning on 1 April between 9 and 2. That would have been fine, as it allowed us to clean up and finish packing everything up. However, it didn’t show up until 6 pm, at which point we were discussing not leaving that evening. We decided to push, and started to bring the slides in.
As we brought in the slides, we found the front left slide would not go in. After some research, we found that there was a way to push in the slide manually. Meagan and I decided to give it a shot and stay on schedule. I popped the Schwintek motor, disengaged it and pushed in the slide. Had I been a bit more experienced with the procedure, I would have gotten the motor out and figured out which model it was.
On Saturday, I greased the bearings and discovered that one of them had some very dark grease. I came to the conclusion the bearing was running rough. Due to the holiday weekend, I wasn’t able to get parts for it. We made the decision to address the problem in Texas.
All in all, we got to the Lake City campground late that night, around 2230. The kids were exhausted and quickly fell asleep. We were going to be short on sleep and tomorrow we had a full five hours of driving. That’s not much if only adults are in the car, but for us, with all the kids and babies, we’ll be spending at least eight hours on the road.
Alan had a little helper this morning while cooking eggs for the family. Garrett came down and said, “I help. I help, Daddy. I help cook eggs.” He then proceeded to get the step stool and inserted himself in the cooking process.
Meagan and the kids went to the park for a home school group meet up. I took advantage of the time to get a little monthly maintenance done.
First up was cleaning out the lint on the washing machine. The model that we have, a Splendidie combo, has a procedure for washing out the lint filter. If you don’t do it periodically, it will block the dryer vent and throw an error code.
The maintenance cycle is to use an Affresh washer tabs (available at hardware stores or online), put the washer on cycle 11 until it stops filling, cancel the cycle, start it on cycle 12 until it fills (more) and stops spinning, then stop it, and drain the water out. There will be lint and other yuck left behind, which you wipe out.
The process takes 3 cycles to be done.
Wash cycle in progress.Lint balls wiped out of the washer after two cycles. A fair amount of trapped lint was caught.I also took the opportunity to remove and clean out the dryer hose. It’s not blocked, but there is a fair amount of buildup.I washed out the dryer exhaust hose and got a fair amount of lint out. As a bonus, one of the kid’s Nerf darts came out, which is mildly concerning.
I also did black tank maintenance, which normally happens every 3-4 days with our usage.
I cleaned the AC return filters and the bathroom exhaust fan with the mini shop vac. The fan tends to collect a lot of dust/lint and if not regularly cleaned, will get blocked and not vent the humidity from the bathroom.
I also took the opportunity to replace a broken seat latch on the van (2016 Sienna). This is one of the rear seat latch handles, used for stowing the seats. Some time ago it broke, so when you pulled up on it to stow it, nothing would happen.
The part was actually fairly cheap, about $30 online and took about 5 minutes to replace – 2 steel cables and 2 screws.
The broken handle. I used a spudger to pop the access panel off to reveal the screws.Close up of the broken handle. The two cams on the back had broken, so when you lifted the handle no force was applied to the cables, and thus the release mechanisms.
We did one of Jarek’s Cub Scout adventures, cast iron cooking. The requirement for him was to cook a meal over a fire. We started the fire using a flint and steel. Jarek learned a lot about building a fire and having the fuel ready to go. It was a good introduction to fire basics.
We made an impromptu stove with a couple bricks.
While waiting for the wood to burn down, Garrett came over and, being super cute, asked “Can I join?”
Arya got in on the cooking as well.
Burger cooking underway.
Randal got the first part of his third tooth out! We will be very happy when it’s all the way out, as the teething process has been a bit frustrating for all involved. Randal has been sitting up and crawling about now. He’s working on pulling himself up to a standing position. He’s done that once or twice so far.
A happy Garrett at Fox Meadow park during a home school meet up play session.
Garrett went with Meagan and Arya to dance class. While waiting for Arya to finish her dance lesson, he picked up a book and said, “This is my book” and took it inside to read.
2023 has come and gone, and now it’s time to look at at the many adventures we had! Below is the tldr summary of our year. Below it will be the year in pictures which we invite you to take a look at and enjoy the kids and their various shenanigans!
Parking the RV in the sand has always been an interesting prospect, as it tends to sink into the sand on one side or the other. This gets frustrating as the RV starts torquing itself as one corner sinks.
I had previously attempted to make a platform for the RV out of a 2×12, but it didn’t work out that well. Not to mention when we set it up, we were rushed at night after a long day of driving to get back to Florida. This led to a suboptimal setup. The boards weren’t really long enough or wide enough to accommodate the RV if it wasn’t perfectly lined up. Of course, as soon as I backed the RV onto the boards, they moved, and the RV was carving channels in the soft sand which complicated it further.
This was one of the metal feet for the hydraulic jacks that bent when the 2×12 board gave way under the weight of the RV. It was a less than stable platform.
I replaced the jack pad and placed my new footers for the jacks.
The new jackpads are constructed out of two 2 x 10 segments with a second layer of 2x10s running the opposite direction. This gives the rig a little elevation boost as well as greatly increasing the surface area the weight is spread over. This should, hopefully, reduce the sinking effect in the sand.
Ducky was working hard on his Legos. He took the napkin, and after cleaning his hands and face, wore it like an ascot. Then it fell off and he said *oh shi(p/t). Our neighbor, Jill, lost it laughing and I told her she was feeding the monster. A few moments later, Duckie roared, “I dragon – roar!”
