Monthly Archives: November 2018

Back and Forth & Back and Forth

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In my previous post, I talked about projects that I had done recently to the trailer.  Recently in this context meant between the middle of August and the middle of November.  These were done during gaps in a major event in our family.  A bit of warning, this is a fairly lengthy blog post.

Since our grandson was born on August 31, we have tried to be there for all 2 of his birthday celebrations and we were planning on being there for his 2nd.  We had reservations to stay at an RV park over in SF.  Then we got a phone call from one of my mother’s cousins.  She stated that she had visited my mother and she did not seem to be doing that well.  We knew that she was having some issues that were getting more serious as she approached her 89th birthday.  We had been in contact via phone and text messaging on and off but she always said she was doing OK just a bit weak.  We were in contact with an MD at her rehab hospital that ended up transferring her to a regular hospital due to an infection.  There was also a plan to head to AZ after Atlas’ birthday to see her.

After I debating internally a bit I thought we should go to AZ to see how Mom was actually doing.  Roxie didn’t think there was any question to that, yes we should go!  Atlas, coming up on 2, would not comprehend the significance of that date until he was older.  Hannah (Atlas’ mom) definitely understood also!  So we were leaving for Arizona on Aug 27th!  It is a very long haul (11+ hours) to do the drive in one day so we thought we would find a cheap overnight somewhere but it was over 100° during the day and not much better at 2 am all along the route, except for 1 place.  Morongo Casino between San Bernardino and Palm Springs.  It is right in a location where cooler winds blow east into the Coachella Valley.  It was down below 70 degrees there overnight, and it was just about 1/2 way to AZ:

 

We got to Mom’s home in the afternoon and immediately went to the hospital where she was transferred.  She did not look as good as she had made us (Roxie, me, my sister and brother-in-law) believe.  She was not doing good.  She was, however, able to communicate in a minimal way and I know she knew we were there.  This started a few days of us back and forth to the hospital and her house.  I started finding any important documents as I knew that we would most likely need these in the immediate and distant future.  We tried anything medical that we, and the professionals, felt would help her recovery to get her out of the hospital.  After about 3 days we were preparing to go visit in the AM and got a call from the hospital that we should get there ASAP.  We got to the floor and I saw that door closed with a note on it.  I knew.

My mother was dead.  That is a very surreal thing to write. 

I knew it would come at one time.  We all thought she might match her mother (94) or father (97) but none of know.  She seemed at peace lying in her bed.  This started many things in motion as only a death can.  We had many people to notify and things to do.  Mother had a burial plan prepaid but her final resting place was in Redding (Northern California), with my father, and she was in Arizona.  It also happened on our grandson’s birthday, August 31.

The funeral homes were wonderful to work with and they were affiliated which made the paperwork much easier.  We had to transport her body from AZ to CA for the burial.  We had alway joked with mom that we would just throw her in the back of our truck and get her to Redding that way.  It turns out that you legally can do that!  We almost did it this time but it would have taken 3 days to drive it and it was very hot still.  We didn’t want any issues so we opted to have her transported via aircraft there and let the homes coordinate it.

We scheduled two services for her.  One was for her internment in Redding and the other was a memorial in AZ for friends of hers there.  Redding was scheduled for Sept 14.  This gave us about a week in AZ to handle legal issues and do some rudimentary house searching/cleaning.  After that, we did the haul back to Visalia (stopping at Morongo again), stop in Visalia for 2 nights then up to Redding.  Redding in one day is more doable but we were able to spend the night at a friend’s and it was much appreciated, you know who you are.

We spent a week in Redding for the service and to visit Roxie’s sister who now lives there.  We were able to see some of the amazing devastation of the Carr fire (so terrible).  We also stayed at the campground that my parents used to own, it was a KOA at that time.  

We were able to see our families at the service also

L to R: Atlas (Grandson), Lukas (Daughter’s Fiance), Hannah (Daughter), Aaron (Son), Paige (Granddaughter), Roger, Roxie, Desiree (Sister in law), Tiarah (Niece in law)

That part done, we heading back to Visalia for a while until going ‘back’ to AZ to have mom’s memorial and work with my sister to take care of all of mom’s belongings.

AZ via Morongo, a trip we were getting very used to.  About 70 miles west of Phoenix on I10, I noticed something coming down the road.  It got progressively worse until the haboob completely covered the road.  We got off the road, turned off our lights, no foot on the brakes and just waited.

We had about a week there before my sister got there and we attacked the house and its contents.  The weekend of her service, we were joined by my sister’s kids and grandkids to help out.  They were also able to be there for mom’s service.  We got to meet many of mom’s churchgoers and friends.  We also had a cousin reunion of sorts.

Jenny, Greg, Roger, Beth, Cindy

My sister and brother in law were helpful beyond measure in cleaning out the house and handling the disposition of items.  We donated, sold and disposed of a lot of items!  The yard sale was 4 days.  We made at least 6 separate donation runs.  Filled up a dumpster about 4 times.  But we got the house completely emptied and placed it up for sale.

One of my ‘chores’ was to go through the immense number of photos and slides.  My mother saved a lot of old photos which was great!  She also had many recent photos.  All of these were combined in about 15 boxes with no order and no protection from elements.  There were probably 5-10 thousand photos like that to look through.  On top of all this, my father took many slide pictures.  He had about 120 carousels of slides, each of holds 80 slides.  He also had about 500 slides that were loose.  I gleaned through those.  In all the pictures, I was looking for ones with family in them.  I found many.

We ended up spending almost 4 weeks at mom’s house (in the driveway) the second time there.  We finally could go to Visalia (is that the ‘forth’ part in back and forth?) and let all of this hit us.  

It is hard to comprehend that my mom is gone.  She used to always text to find out where we were in our travels.  In the more recent times she didn’t always remember where we were so I would tell her again.  In going through her things we found out even more about her, some of it we should not go into here!

One interesting thing I found out is that my mother lies to authorities!  Look at these three photos:

The first photo shows a traffic violation that she received via a speed trap camera for speeding.  The second photo shows who was driving her car.  Obviously that is not my mother but it IS her boyfriend at the time!  The third photo shows her response.  She was not ‘aware of who was driving’ her car?  She blatantly lied to the authorities.

While we were all there cleaning out the house we would remember stories and incidents from her.  Even though she has passed, that is the best way to keep her memory alive.

A few projects

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Since our trailer was a 50amp model it came with two Air Conditioners.  This meant no Fantastic Fan above the bed.  This also meant there was no direct source for airflow to us, like no ceiling fan (in household terms).  When it gets hot it is nice to have a fan blowing on you.  I found a Vornado fan at Target that would work and we put it on the floor, blowing up to the bed.  This was adequate, but I wanted more.  I wondered how I could mount the fan on the wall but didn’t want it adding weight to the wall as we were driving down the road.  I put a hook in the wall where we can hang the fan when needed:

We have been having some issues with our walls in the trailer sliding inward as we travel.  Some of the movement is close to 1 inch.

These walls were very cheaply made in Airstream and no require reinforcement, Airstream just stapled the corners together and covered them with trim.  The first wall is the hallway wall for the bathroom that attaches to the wall in the bedroom (behind the bathroom).  I took a 1×2 and mounted it vertically and screwed the walls together:

Inner structure

Hall wall with structure screws covered by trim

Bedroom wall with structure screws covered by trim

Another location of poor wall construction is next to the refrigerator.  There is a small 45-degree wall there but all Airstream did was put screws through a panel and into the next.  These panels are really thin and don’t have anywhere to bite:

I shored these walls up with some better anchor points and re-attached them with screws:

The part of the wall that is most concerning to me is the wall between the bedroom and bathroom.  The first picture shows the gap.  I put some brackets in the floor and secured the base of the wall (we will see if that works):

One problem we have been having is with our Dometic thermostat.  It consistently shows a different temperature (hotter) that just a few inches away.  I attributed this to having a large hole in the wall where the thermostat attaches to the wall.  Behind this wall is the side of the refrigerator and a lot of hot space during the summer temperatures.  We found a few bamboo flooring samples from a local home store and moved the thermostat up (so we could see it behind the TV) and to cover up that large hole.  Also filling in behind the new bracket with some foam has solved the issue.

Another upgrade was the TV in the bedroom.  The old setup was a 22″ that came from the factory:

This was the only place for one in the bedroom since there was a sliding door on the other wall to close off the bedroom.  I removed that door almost a year ago as we did not use it.  The gave us the option to put a 32″ TV on that wall:

A huge upgrade was accomplished in changing our sliding doors in the hallway wardrobe.  One of the selling points, for me, was the large wardrobe that this floor plan offered (twice the size of the 30′ Classic).  However, the doors would continually jump off the tracks.  Some on Airforums found the same problem and posed some solutions.  None of them worked very well.  Airstream themselves moved away from the sliding doors in the next two model years and created hinge-attached swinging doors but they were almost $1400 for the parts!

Enter Willard Amtower.  He saw a post about the doors and contacted me.  He had full plans for creating new sliding doors with appropriate hardware to not jump the track.  I did it.  I did not use as nice wood that Uncle Bill did but it sure works great!  Heavy mirrors, heavy hardware and tracks to keep it in place.  We have done about 1600 miles on the new setup with no issues.  Here are some pics:

I was able to find a good handle match also (original and additional):

Uncle Bill also showed me one more trick.  Our water pump can be turned on/off in two locations, the kitchen and the bathroom.  This requires a 3-way switch so you really cannot tell if the pump is operational by switch location.  I was replacing the water pump because the backflow valve was faulty and I wanted a more efficient one.  Bill showed me that he simply added an LED indicator that was tied to the water pump.  When the pump was energized the LED was on:

I like it but I used an LED for a truck trailer side marker so it might be a bit bright.

So far, I am very happy with all these modifications.  Am I done?  I will never be done.