Here we are, on the road: We’re in Santa Clara, California

December 22, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Chuck & I would like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas…May Christ fill you with His love..

I would like to wish Dorothy W a very Happy Birthday on the 23rd of December..She is going to be 75!! Dorothy, you are such a nice person, so thoughtful and kind!!! We are so glad we got to meet such a great person…Happy Birthday…Hugs, C & L

12/22/13 Chuck’s report

We are here until sometime after Christmas, having fun being with Susy and Katie. We’ve been able to pick up Katie after school and Susy comes over after work everyday too.

First, we wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We are lucky enough to be with our daughter and grand daughter, too bad our son can’t be with us however. I hope you are able to enjoy the time with whomever you are with and enjoy the season. But remember the reason for the season, as my sister says, it is CHRISTmas and for sure not Xmas.

Last Sunday we went to a local casino with Joe and Alice to watch the Seahawks football game. They had two big screens there, one was showing the San Francisco and the other was showing the Seahawks. I think the Seahawk crowd was over 50 folks and there were only 6 watching the 49ers. Not sure what that means but I was surprised because we are much closer to San Francisco than Seattle. But anyway, we were able to see another good, winning effort by the Seahawks over the Giants.

We headed home, had to walk Misty, then later we decided to have In N Out burgers four our dinner. We called Joe and Alice but found they had already stopped there for their dinner earlier, missed seeing them by that much again.

We left Palm Springs on Monday morning and got to Bakersfield Orange Grove RV park with no issues. Lorraine made a good chicken noodle soup for dinner, really good stuff on a travel day. Next morning I picked a few oranges, I was able to fill a grocery bag from just one spot, some of the trees are still pretty loaded with oranges.

We left Bakersfield on Tuesday and continued our trip to here in the Bay area. We got set up then drove over to pick Katie up from school. Later Susy came by and brought BBQ from place North of here, good stuff.

Wednesday Lorraine went to the lab for some needed blood work before her physical next week. Because it was a fasting blood test, we found a place to eat soon after. After a couple of shopping stops we went by to pick up Katie from school again.

Thursday it was my turn for a fasting blood draw before my physical next week. Then I had an appointment to get a steroid injection in my shoulder and hip. I wasn’t looking forward to that too much but sure hoped it would help me move a bit easier after the injections. I had a good visit with the doctor, he talked about all kinds of things for over an hour. Finally I went out to tell Lorraine everything was ok, just visiting with the doc, ha. Anyway, he recommended that I not get an injection in my shoulder, I’ve had 6 or 7 already and he doesn’t like to give that many, says it could cause some problems. But he did shoot me in my hip and it seems to be helping although I probably won’t see full benefit for another two days or so.

Before we left for the VA, Lorraine had put pork steak in the slow cooker for our dinner that evening, yum. There sure wasn’t too much left over.

Friday Lorraine wanted to pick up a couple items from the mall. I agreed to go along and walked the mall while she was shopping then met her and we continued walking the rest of the mall. I was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn’t a mad house with too many people but it was full. At least this time we found a parking spot without having to park in the bank’s lot like last time.

Once again, Lorraine put the slow cooker to use, this time she made a good beef stew for our dinner. I like her slow cooker or at least the food she takes out of it!!

Yesterday Susy and Lorraine headed out to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Katie stayed with me and we played a few games and some make believe with her Little Pony stuff. We also made a quick trip to the park where she played on the swings and such for awhile too.

Lorraine has noticed for the last 4 or 5 days that the ice maker wasn’t producing as much ice as normal, always something. I read up on it and found a test button on it. When I pushed the test button, the ice maker would dump a load of ice cubes then return to normal position and refill with water. So it seemed that everything mechanical worked fine except it didn’t dump after the water froze. The information I found suggested maybe a low temperature in the freezer was the cause but everything seemed to be still frozen and the indication showed it was at –2F.

Friday evening Susy and Katie wanted ice cream after dinner and when I took out the ice cream carton, we found the ice cream was almost the consistency of a shake, not frozen. I put a thermometer in the fridge and freezer and found the freezer temperature was just 31F, barely freezing. But the display still showed the temperature was at –2F like normal. Once again, back to the internet for more research on issues. I was unable to find anything to help me so I called Samsung’s help line. They were able to help me ---NOT, only they would set me up for a repair man to call on Monday and maybe come out to see us after Christmas.

I called around to a couple of local appliance repair places, finally found one that was able to come out and check it on Saturday. Just before Lorraine and Susy headed out, here comes the repair guy. I was almost able to understand him, he was Russian I think. He checked out a few things then said the coils inside the back wall were frozen and I needed to unload the fridge and freezer and leave the doors opened to allow warmer air into the fridge to melt the ice in the coils. He showed me where we had a small patch of ice built up on the back wall of the freezer, that was the first indication for him of the problem.

I was a bit unsure about his “repair” but agreed to give it a try. Actually, I emptied the freezer and put all the stuff in our unused freezer in the basement, good thing we haven’t sold it yet. Then I put Lorraine’s hair dryer in the freezer compartment while Katie and I were at the playground. I never did unload the fridge portion, just left the doors closed while it was unplugged and the freezer compartment opened.

After I figured the ice had melted from the coils inside the wall, I put a thermometer in the fridge and freezer to keep track of the temperature and the freezer didn’t cool to less than 80F. Shoot, now what. I unplugged the fridge, opened the freezer compartment for awhile to let it cool to room temperature then tried it again. Finally I saw the temperature in the freezer start dropping, slowly, a degree at a time. When we went to bed last night, the fridge was at 36F but the freezer still was at 45F but dropping.

When I got up this morning, first thing I did was check the temperature in the freezer, it was at 0F and the indication showed the normal –2F again. Maybe there was something to what the repair guy said after all. He did say that Samsung has an issue with the drain lines from the coil area plugging off and not allowing any water to drain when it self defrosts causing the exact issue we were experiencing.

I just had to bring in some stuff from the basement freezer for Lorraine so I went ahead and brought up all the freezer stuff and loaded the freezer. Now I’ll keep an good eye on it for the next few days, hope everything is good now. If so, lesson learned, defrost the freezer before calling in a repairman. If that is the “repair”, I’m glad it wasn’t more of an issue. And now to wait for the next thing to get my attention, its always something.

The temperature has been pretty nice here for our stay this time. We’ve been getting into the 60s, almost 70 yesterday and maybe a couple of degrees warmer today they say. And no rain in sight for the next 10 days, even though they could sure use some rain around here. We do get a heavy dew every night and it gets cool enough that Lorraine likes to have the space heater going towards her feet along with the heat pumps keeping the temperature up in the rest of the coach. But with the sun shining on our dark colored rig during the day, we have the air conditioners running during the afternoon. Perfect, need something to take the cool off at night and need the air conditioners during the day. Sorry about that to anyone who reads this and is in the hold of old man winter, its bad some places. I heard there have already been 8 winter storms across the nation already this winter, global warming my a$$.

We will stay here until after Christmas then head back to Palm Springs for two weeks. We are still working on our traveling plans from there but are really leaning towards going to Yuma once again this winter. At the very least, we will probably go to Yuma for a couple of weeks before moving on to wherever we land for the rest of the winter. Tough life, huh?

Now to add a few pictures.

On the road from Palm Springs. That’s a Joshua Tree on the right.