Again the title says it all! Did some reading, the new NOOK is great. Did some computing, the new NOOK is Linux /Android based so is begging to be modified especially as I now know the “secret” way to restore the factory settings regardless of how bad I get it wrong (barring physical abuse!!). Also did our usual walk.
The place has really emptied out, although it’s meant to fill up for US Thanksgiving which is this Thursday
Decided to treat ourselves to breakfast, and a visit to the Brunswick farmer market. Unfortunately it is not really the growing season now, so the farmers market was pretty small. We also toured around the older residential area of Brunswick which had some nice properties, much like the type I was expecting to see in Savannah.
Came back to the real world with a trip to Lowes and WalMart!!
The trailer has finally been washed, it may have taken a month, but it is now clean. Well that’s not exactly true as the area where I started a month ago is now showing signs of being not so clean. Keeping this beast clean will be a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge (i.e. a never ending task).
For those of you who know the trailer, you will recall that the TV rises majestically out of the work surface at the rear of the living area. This is all well and good IF you have all the cables well secured. With all the toys that we have connected to the TV, that is a lot of cables. When we first arrived I managed to pinch one of the HDMI cables in the mechanism, took a bit of intricate work to fix it, but fix it I did. This resulted in the TV remaining in the up position temporarily until I secured the cables. Four weeks later, after securing (I thought) the cables, I tried again. This time I snagged the other end of the HDMI cable! I also managed to fix that one, and finally got everything secured. TV now goes up and down with no further damage.
First order of work today was to continue to search for the elusive leak in the storage area. Pretty much the only thing I hadn’t checked was the water inlet for the black water tank. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, this particular connection receives a garden hose and the water is routed to a series of fine nozzles inside the septic waste tank to allow a thorough cleaning. Previously you had to stick a hose down the toilet and wiggle it about (where are emoticons when you need them). Any way this was the cause of the leak, so I need to do a little plumbing to sort this out.
We made up a picnic lunch, chucked the bikes in the back of the truck and headed out to the beach at St Simon Island. it was low tide, and this meant the beach was 30-40m wide, with about half of that being damp, hard packed sand. Ideal for bike riding, neither of us had ever been bike riding on the beach before (only horseback riding). The going was very easy, unless you wandered into the soft sand. All in all I figure we cycled about 5 miles.
When we got back I went to the office to pay for the rest of our stay, the owner being the nice guy that he is gave us a pro-rated monthly rate for the next couple of weeks which saved us some $$$$ and means we will now stay here til Tuesday the 9th.
Finally got back to the ongoing job of washing the outside of the trailer, after nearly 4 weeks the job is about 85% complete! (why do today what you put off until tomorrow). Lyn gave the inside a clean and finished off the laundry.
In the process of removing the laundry basket from the storage area Lyn discovered that the flooring was wet. After emptying out the storage area and removing the protection around the water pump it became obvious that there was no obvious leak! Left the access doors open all day, and it dried out. Played around with running the water, but still no leak. Took the opportunity to move the pump a few inches to increase the storage area, we’ll see what happens tomorrow, it may just be a humidity thing.
Well, we chose the right day to go to the zoo. Today was overcast with showers, can’t really complain as it is only the second wet day since we got here.
Nothing overly exciting, we did the grocery shopping in the morning, Lyn then did the laundry and I fixed an annoying rattle on the truck.
Another clear blue sky day, once Lyn had managed to sort out her lost paypal password, we were good to go. The destination was the Jacksonville Zoo about 60 miles to the south. The quickest way would have been I95, but we decided to stay off the freeway and go the back routes. Most of the towns we passed through, and there weren’t many, had a population of around 1000. Dotted along the roads were either what appeared to be high end gated communities or not so desirable trailer parks with not much in between.
We got to the zoo and the parking lot was not overly busy, which was good. We also arrived at the same time as two busloads of kids, not so good.
The parking was free, unlike the zoo at the centre of the universe, and the admission was $14 which wasn’t too bad. The zoo didn’t appear to have a very large foot print , but was well laid out usng all the space available. I covered primarily Asia, Africa and Australia. Overall well worth a visit.
Not much happening today other than one of the bearings on one of the chairs dying. The beating itself is a metal wheel with a ball bearing centre that is housed in a small (1″ x 1″ x 1″) plastic box and sits between the wooden base of the chair and a heavy plastic ring that sits on the floor. There are 5 bearings per chair. Contacted the RV dealer who in turn contacted the manufacturer. Turns out that they can’t supply just the bearing block, the will have to supply the complete wooden base. The base is a circle of wood about 1.25″ thick and a diameter of around 30″. The bearing blocks just push fit into the wood…. go figure!!
Global warming you say, it’s 3C outside and dropping…. I didn’t sign up for this! especially when the temperature back home is 1.5 degrees WARMER!
Good news is that the hydro is free so we can crank up the heating, and that daytime temperatures make it up into the 20’s. Another stay at home lazy day, some computing, reading and walking….. life’s tough
The week-end has arrived……. no different from any other days really (sorry workers!)
For those computer types among you I am trying out Linux instead of Windows 7, so far it is reasonably impressive, far better than it was when I last used it 20 odd years ago!
Finally got back to the task of cleaning the trailer, I am please to report that in just over 3 weeks I have managed to wash the truck and about 60% of the trailer!
This afternoon we went out to Blythe Island, a Regional park about 10k from here. It is on the banks of the Brunswick river and has a manatee habitat there, although it still appeared to be under construction. Unfortunately the manatee head south from here at the end of October so none were seen. The park had a nicely shaded campground with nearly all the requisites for an easy life bar one: no internet! Both Lyn and I agree that an internet connection is a necessity for long stays. The park also had some walking trails which gave us our daily exercise.
