I'm so glad I bought a generator.

I've never had a generator before. This spring - OK, it was still winter - I bought a Honda portable generator. Right now I'm Really Really glad I did. It's been kind of nice to be able to have AC power during the week when I want, use the computer more, not worry about the fans wearing down the batteries, that sort of thing. Definitely a luxury item, though, as I've been doing fine without one since 1995.
Then I had some work done on the engine. The kind of work that involved removing the motor. Apparently, when everything was put back together, someone missed the extra wire coming from the alternator to charge the house system. Not that I blame them. My mechanic's not an RV'er. Most people are TOTALLY unfamiliar with such things as coach batteries, battery isolators, converter boxes.

I have 3 good house batteries, so I can run unplugged for a pretty long time. Using the generator occasionally and plugging in on weekends, I did not even notice until last week that my batteries didn't seem to be holding up so well. But I spent 2 weekends in a row visiting my daughter and not plugged in. The second weekend, when I parked, my lights seemed dimmer. My battery gage read Fair, not Good as I would have expected. I'd just driven quite a ways. What's going on?

In the morning I used the generator to charge the batteries directly. After the weekend, I drove back to Greensboro for work. Soon, the gage was reading Poor. I ran the generator whenever I was home. Wednesday I went to AutoZone and removed my batteries for charging and checking. They were fine. They should be, they were less than a year old. I then checked what I should have checked earlier - hindsight is great, yes? I checked the gage with the engine running. Normally it would show charging. It didn't.

OK, now I know what the problem is, but it will be a while before I am back where the mechanic is. Having someone else fix it at $80/hour or so? I don't think so. I'll wait. But I'm really glad I had a generator, and I'll be using it a lot in the next few weeks.

SodaStream! One of my favorite toys.

This past winter I bought a SodaStream from Soda Club USA. It's a kitchen appliance that makes carbonated water, so you can make your own sodas. They are delicious, whether you use their concentrates or Real Fruit Juice of your choice. Besides being a way to make your own healthy sodas - I wrote all about that on my sister blog Sweet Enough Already - it's a major space saver in an RV. I've given a few as gifts and the people I gave them to love theirs as much as I love mine. Check it out!

Excellent Spring Weekend

Sometimes everything goes right. I finished work with energy left over, as our projects this week were light. The last store we did put me in Kenansville NC for 2 days. Right down the road from a park, a restored historical house, and a really nice little museum.

So Wednesday after work I went to the restored historical house, Liberty Hall. I watched the background movie, and was joined by 3 other ladies for the tour.
When we'd finished, we looked around at the outbuildings connected to the Cowen Museum. After a bit it occurred to me that since the buildings were still open, there might be someone still in the museum itself. I knocked, and sure enough, Ms. Cowan was vacuuming and let me come in and look around. She showed me lots of the cool things that were there before she finished cleaning and locked up. Then I parked at the park, ran my generator, recharged my camera as I'd gone through both batteries.



Thursday I returned to the museum to see the rest of it. It was a really nice collection and Ms. Cowan a fountain of information.
Then I drove to the campground I'd picked for the weekend - Neuseway Nature Center and Campground in Kinston.

For $10/night I expected something that looked rather like a small crowded trailer park. Nope: This is a small well-kept campground along the river, with full hookups recently installed and in excellent condition. I took the last open riverside site and it was perfect. A large class A motorhome between me and the bright night light. No one home in the campsite next door. Fire ring with wood from a previous occupant. Perfect weather. A nature center with live and taxidermized (Is that a word? It should be.) critters. A planetarium. Excellent fireworks display in town, clearly visible on Thursday night from my campsite. Friendly fellow campers to enjoy the weekend with.
I decided to dump all the productive "shoulds" and just enjoy it, and gee whiz, I'm actually being more productive after work this week.

Boondocker's Coffeemaker

I broke my beloved Melitta coffee carafe. You know, the kind that takes #6 cone filters & makes 10 cups of drip coffee without benefit of electricity? As it had been quite a while since I'd had that particular variety of klutz-attack, I was quite surprised to find these are no longer readily available in stores. I bought the one I broke years ago at the supermarket, so that was the first place I looked. Nope, and not WalMart, KMart or Target either. A friend nicely gifted me with a still-available single cup version, with a really neat cup. But my search continued.
I did find it on line, though, at ACE HARDWARE, and ordered one. It came today and water is boiling for coffee. YAY!
So what's up with the retail assumption that we all have lots of counter space to spare and can't pour water???