Unfortunate early winter. Trailer testing done.

Before heading down for Thanksgiving, I managed to get a little bit of stuff done.  I went and started the winterizing of my equipment, beginning with the push mower (since it is the only thing I have that runs right).  On my way back, I realized that I never finished cleaning up the stuff from the trench.  Oops.

 

The push mower really didn't want to start, but it did, and it ran like crap the first minute or so after starting because it was kind of chilly out.  To my surprise since I don't normally leave lots of gas in my equipment, it was completely full.  Since I run everything empty every winter (I have had too many issues with fuel stabilizer over the years), I finally went out and mowed for the first time since July.  I only did spot mowing; so I did the tall stuff on the hillside that hadn't been mowed since the first mowing of the season, the strip of thick stuff on the drain field.  

 

I also did the side over by the tiny home, which hadn't been mowed since June-ish.  It really needed it.  

 

I also took a pass off the stuff encroaching on the driveway.  

 

From there I just let it finish running out of gas, there wasn't much left.

 

After that, my help for the carport bailed for the weekend, so I took off to KY.  I remembered to turn on my gas furnace, just in case.  I am not sure I trust the mini-splits yet.

 

The sunrise in Maryland was quite nice.   The actual sunrise picture I took was completely blown out though, not sure what my phone was doing.  

 

A couple of things happened while I was down there.  I fixed the back door on the girl's place.  Realized that I didn't have enough stuff for the dishwasher cart, though I put the finishing touches on the design.  

 

I also got the ball rolling on their Christmas present, a new heat pump.  It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it will pay off in the long run for them, even despite not being a terribly efficient unit.  The furnace and AC in the place were original from 1985.   

 

The other big thing was the camper.  I helped Dad fix the awning clips and took it for a ride.  This was to gather the last data point I needed before making the decision on the box truck versus building a custom trailer; fuel economy estimates.  I have a pretty good idea of what I can expect from a box truck (~15mpg, maybe a little less if I don't do aerodynamic improvements).  I knew what hit naturally aspirated engines took when towing, but my truck is the new twin turbo smaller engines that are seemingly all the rage nowadays.  

 

I did a two part trip.  The first was to drive most of the way to West Virginia on the interstate.  I then took country roads (route 60) back to my parents.  Annoyingly on the trip all my drinks and everything were frozen since I had left them in the truck all week.

 

The results were a bit disappointing.  The truck towed really really nice, other than Ford's defaults for trailer brakes was to not use them which is stupid.  I set the cruise at 60mph, which is roughly where I used to run in the Tundra while towing.  I almost couldn't feel the trailer behind me, and had plenty of power, even enough to pass people.  That said, the gas mileage was significantly less than I had hoped for.  On perfect flat ground the highest instantaneous was 12.  The average with the hills and whatnot thrown in was 9.4mpg.  I expected interstate to be bad, but not that bad.  

 

The way back I averaged around 11.5-11.6mpg (I could math it out, but have been too lazy too), and the whole test averaged 10.3mpg (the computer claimed 10.6mpg, but the actual was a tiny bit lower).  The way back is country roads, where speed limits range from 45-55mph but you go through all the little towns.  11.6mpg is actually better than both my Tundra and my Dad's truck, but I was still expecting better.  My truck's baseline is 24mpg empty.  The Tundra's baseline was 18-19mpg, and my dad's truck is 17-18mpg.  So the drop for my truck while towing is quite a bit steeper.  I had intended to run a second test in tow/haul mode, but these results were poor enough that it wasn't worth the time or fuel.

 

My truck only has a 3.5L V6 with twin turbos on it, and on paper it puts out a lot more HP and tons more torque than the V8 it replaced, but when those turbos spin up the gas mileage drops like a rock, and with a trailer they were spun up nearly the entire time.  Just goes to show that there really isn't a substitution for a larger engine when towing.  But this data point more or less made the decision to go box truck really easy.  For a recap, see this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1joS0cnFslyhG_VrULZ0k2euPrD8esFoRLtT72rFiR0Y/edit?usp=sharing  but in short, I concluded that the trailer was better as a long term house, mostly because the size limitations were not an issue, but had distinct disadvantages when traveling; the box truck was more travel friendly, but because of the parking situation, had significant trade offs with regards to living space.

 

The drive home was quite pleasant, albeit a bit windy.  

 

I got home before the first big snowstorm of the season.  Because it was dark when I got out of work on Monday, I pulled the tractor down (it was up by the shed still).  I still don't have the snowblower on it, but figured I could use the bucket, at least for the bit down by the road.  Turns out when I pulled it down I knocked the tire completely off the rim, and it would no longer take air this morning.  That is annoying.  Fortunately we only got around 8", so I just put the truck in 4WD and drove over it.  It will make an icy mess, but oh well, I don't have much of an option at this point.  The tractor started right up though, which was a relief since it hadn't started in months.  

While I have the truck out, I intend to go shopping and stuff tonight.  Before Thanksgiving, I was running a test of alternatives to the Kraft Deli Deluxe cheese.  It recently went up to $7.19 per pound, and I typically get two pounds a week.  It is the single largest line item on my shopping list.  Here were the results (scores were out of 10): 

• Cabot singles: 6 - Not enough cheaper to warrant a change
• Hannaford Deli cheese - 3 - This is still the buttery cheese that pushed me to Kraft in the first place
• Hannaford Deluxe - 6 - The cheese Aunt gets, it is rather weak flavored, but not bad. 
• Land o' Lakes pre-sliced - 6 - A decent cheese, but also not cheap, albeit cheaper than Kraft.  Slices were too thin though, so I consume a lot more of it.
• Walmart Deluxe - 8 - Probably the best cheese outside of Kraft.  A touch salty, but strongly flavored and about half the cost. 
• Market Basket deluxe - 1 - Disgusting, worse than eating straight butter. 
• Market Basket singles - 7 - It surprises me how different this was from the deluxe.  This was a weaker flavored version that tasted like the Walmart Deluxe.

Walmart is not part of my weekly rotation of stores mostly because I don't like going in there, and I already have three stores that I visit weekly.  That said, I do still get non-grocery stuff there, so I am there once a month or so.  So I think I will just buy Walmart cheese in bulk when I do go there, and if I run out, the Market Basket singles can bridge a gap if I don't want to run to Walmart that week.  I do have a few others to try, there are a couple of bulk options to try at Market Basket (Great Eastern Lakes cheese for example), but at least for now I will be moving ahead with Walmart cheese and Market Basket singles.  

 

The rest of this week will be spent dealing with snow, since it is too cold for the next week to melt off.  I definitely need to do something this weekend about the carport. My walk behind snowblower did not start, but I kind of expected that.  It is still up the hill, so I tried to pull start it (no electric) and it wouldn't go.  It doesn't start easy with the electric start though, so I am not surprised.  If I can't get it to start though, it might be time to buy an electric power shovel or something though.

Interesting ferry ride. Lots of turkey consumed.

Not too much happened last week, it was mostly unpack from the LAN, prepare for the next excursion.  As an addendum to my previous post though, winter definitely wants to come early this year.  It didn't stick for more than a day or two, but it is coming.  

 

I discovered something at work, I have never seen an ethernet cable with grease in it, but apparently burial rated ethernet is greased like this.  Interesting, and really messy to work with since I am making a bunch of patch cables for a new patch panel. 

 

I went to Krass' for a friendsgiving over the weekend.  I decided to take the ferry because Amtrak has jacked up their rates to where they aren't really really cheaper anymore, despite the fact that the ferry is quite expensive on its own.  The way down was quite nice other than the fact you have to drive through CT to get there.  

 

That is a big cleat.

 

After taking in the water for a bit since I had almost the whole outdoor deck to myself, I went and whipped up some dinner and started to disassemble the conversion.  I got the web of bungee cords that held the microwave and stuff on top in place taken apart.  I can see out the back again.

 

The friendsgiving was a lot of fun, and there was a lot of cheese.  Krass smoked some as well.  He used cherry, which came out better than the applewood that I tried.  I might have to try again.

 

Loki is getting long in the tooth, but still loves the attention.

 

Interestingly, there is still some color down on Long Island.

 

The ferry ride home was something else.  There was a gale warning, and the water was rough and reflected that.  Keeping in mind that this ship can hold at least 70 cars, so it is very big, the spray was reaching the passenger level above the car bay.  The announcer on the PA system at the end was them kicking people off the outdoor decks.

 

I tried but failed to catch a video of the cars bouncing the ferry was hitting the water so hard.  The boat was rocking really good too.  I did get a video of that.  For a ship that size, that is a lot of rocking.  

 

I tried to get video of the waves, but it didn't really come out very good, and the wind pretty much drowned out my voice despite the phone being about a foot from my face.

 

There weren't a lot of cars on it though.  Driving home through CT was only aggravating, it wasn't downright awful like normal. 

I still need to make a decision as to when I am driving down for Thanksgiving.  There is a possibility of heavy snow on Saturday (they keep going back and forth between rain and snow), and the latest report puts it on Friday, but if the weather is not going to allow me to work on the carport, I might drive down Thursday into Friday like I normally do.  If I can work on the carport this weekend I might drive down Sunday night into Monday

Back from the LAN, need a plan for winter.

There hasn't been an update for a while since I haven't really done much.  I went out to Aunt's and Uncles to finish up cleaning out his camper spot (he had already sold the camper).  I got a reminder that winter was coming; I had to take Route 9 across Vermont because I forgot to move my ez-pass, and the mountains in Vermont were already covered in snow.

 

I didn't get a good picture, but the wind was howling too.  There were whitecaps even on the smaller ponds. 

 

I got some more stuff.  

 

I have been doing some cheese exploration, since the regular cheese I get has gotten really expensive.  And I eat a lot of cheese.  This deli cheese was a dud.  

 

The CR-V went and got its new tires and whatnot installed.  I am hopeful that these tires are the last ones I ever have to put on the car, but we shall see.  I estimate it will be in the 160k-170k when these are toast, and I often get rid of vehicles around that timeframe.  Unfortunately the coolant leak (I had to put coolant in it twice on my trip) was the radiator.  I didn't think it was shifting bad, but the transmission service made a world of difference, and it now shifts much faster and firmer.  

 

On a side note, this was the first significant mileage I put on my e-bike since I got the pedals drilled out and fixed properly a couple months ago, and it seemingly worked well.  It was a bit chilly (especially the second ride where I didn't remember to wear pants), but the bike performed as expected.  My car had an almost identical twin when I went to pick it up.  Same trim too, it had the same sunroof and leather interior.  

 

I didn't do anything during the week, since it is dark before I leave work now.  I did check that I can lift one half of the carport, since I still need to figure out how move that before winter.  

 

Last weekend was the LAN, up in Vermont.  One of the days was nice and we went out for a hike. 

 

It went around a pond.  The water was surprisingly clear for the northeast at least.  It wasn't as clear as your alpine lakes out west, but for Vermont at a lower elevation it was nice.

  

There was a little restaurant on the water, though it was closed, presumably for the season.  The water was a bit on the chilly side, I would guess low 50s, maybe upper 40s.

 

The house for the LAN had a hot tub.  I made use of it.  I miss mine, and can't wait for the deck to be built to get it set up again. 

 

This weekend I am going to a friendsgiving on Long Island.  I had to drive in with snow on the ground this morning, so it looks like winter doesn't want to wait.  I need to get moving on at least the carport.  Once the carport is done, at least everything is covered and I can work on things a lot easier.  I am thinking I might just skip my final mow for the year; I don't have enough daylight hours, and at the present moment the only functional mower I have is the push mower, which is really hard to start when it is this cold out.  The following weekend is the traveling weekend for Thanksgiving.  I might take off Sunday night instead and see if I can get the carport finished or at least in place and ready for roofing next weekend.  I am pretty much out of time, which seemingly happens every year.

Some post-trip notes, winter preparation and projects

Winter is fast approaching, so I have started enumerating what I need to do before winter.  That checklist is at the bottom.  I wanted to be able to park one of the vehicles in the carport this winter, but that isn't looking probable.  Even if I finish the carport and move the excavator and other equipment from the carport up there, I won't likely move the tractor up there since it needs to be accessible for the snowblower.  So if the tractor is in the carport by the house, I am not sure if any of my vehicles will fit alongside it (it is only 12x20, the size of a single car garage).  Maybe I can finagle at least getting the front end of the CR-V or something in there, but I am not sure if it will fit side by side with the tractor.

For winter projects the biggest ones are the CR-V conversion improvements, and making sure I am ready to build the deck next year.  Here are the CR-V conversion improvements I had in mind: 

• Build my own electrical wiring harness that doesn't fall out for the 12V and doesn't get mutilated when charging the Jackery (there is a reason a new car charger is on my christmas list).
• Raise the conversion a few inches so I can access stuff on the bottom without removing the bedding.
• Add a little more support so it doesn't twist.  After Acadia, I put a strap across the front because the top with the microwave was tilting heavily down towards the bed, even though the bottom was tilted the other way (so things didn't fall off).  I think this is because it only has supports at the back and in the corners; the middle is sagging and twisting.
• Reconfigure the base part to just be what I need.  I didn't use my 2.5 gallon water jug for example, but I had the second power center in use >80% of the time.  
• If possible, I would like to make it so that to change from "driving mode" to "sleep mode" doesn't require moving multiple totes, a cooler, the battery for that cooler, a bag, and the suitcase into the front seat from the back.  Ideally maybe just the suitcase and a single tote.
• Eliminate the cargo net, and replace it with something hard built that I can slide in and out quickly and painlessly.  Ideally remove the time suck of unclipping everything which is time consuming and a pain. 
• It would be nice to be able to remove the spider web of bungee cords I have holding trying to keep everything taught. 
• If I put hooks in and use carabiners, the smaller cargo net might be usable, but having the extra support while driving when not using the conversion might make it a bit easier on it. 
• I need to find a solution to the problem of a wet towel and possible wet carpet squares and the like.  This trip I just spread them out over the totes and stuff in the back, but on rainy days, I also had no place to put the umbrella, so it just got put on top of the towel, and the towel never dried, and then it mildewed.  Plus the umbrella never dried, so it pissed on my head after the second or third time when some of the water ran down inside the umbrella.  
• Something else that would be nice is find a way to leave the shoes outside when I go to bed.  I leave them outside when it is supposed to be dry, but I brought them in and plopped on top of the pile when it was raining.  This both smells bad (despite what cats think of my shoes), and is kind of annoying to have to pull them down and plop them out before I get out of the car.  I did try leaving them under the car, and that sorta worked for the shoes.
• I need to find a way to support the side a little bit more on the bed side.  I noticed several times when I woke up that things (most notably my butt) had started sliding towards the car door since there wasn't as much support on that side. Perhaps I could build a shoe holder or something on that side to hold flip flops (which I forgot on the last trip) that rests on the door sill plate for support
• It might be nice to fix the cut out for car molding too, since that piece has now all but completely popped off now, and sometimes pops in the night. I sanded and cut out sections to go around it, but they aren't sufficient.
• Come up with a way to move the lamp and holder for my glasses and whatnot to the front of the seat.  This way my lantern isn't sitting on my head when I sleep.  The lantern is easy enough to just flip to the front, maybe I can do something similar for the little holder I put my glasses, wallet and so on in.
• I don't know if I have space, but look into some sort of awning that can also double as a privacy screen for the tailgate.  The netting worked fine for keeping out bugs, but did little for allowing me to change and wash up without mooning the campground. 
• Add lips to some of the edges.  I did one set for the stove, but some on top for example might be nice too.
• Figure out why I continually pack waay too much food.  I usually count how many days and bring the appropriate amount with maybe one or two extra meals, but for each of the last several trips I have had waay too much.  The tote of dry goods I brought last time I didn't eat a single piece out of while on the road.
• Figure out why my car charger melted.  The XT60 on the Anker is a nicer plug than the DC8020, but my car charger for that appeared to melt. 

I know it looks like a lot of modifications, but most of these are tiny things, and many of them are gear and/or packing changes.  As noted above, this was the charging situation for the Jackery, because my other cable failed.  I ended up using the propane cylinder to try and keep enough space.

 

I also had a charging cable issue with the Anker.  It looks like it got melted, but it still works fine.  I intend to replace it anyways though since that doesn't strike me as being safe, even if the metal parts all appear undamaged.

 

Thankfully it wasn't an issue, but I noticed on the drive home that my tires were well past their prime and I am surprised I didn't have any issue driving several thousand miles on these.  To be blunt, it is a scary thought to think of having to change a tire on the road since I have to completely remove the conversion to get to the spare (which I have never looked at and might also be flat).  I have already bought new ones and they go on next week. 

 

Some interesting food notes.  Those containers I got recommended from Aunt worked far better than expected.  Even after three and a half weeks, my lettuce was still fine, and just starting to brown on the edges a little.

 

I also bought some bananas for the trip that I forgot to bring.  I was happy to note that even after three and a half weeks, they didn't turn to gelatinous goo.  Still rotten, but I didn't have to clean up them liquefying. 

I am also running out of room for souvenirs.  The side of my fridge where I put the magnets is full, and my shelf for shot glasses is also over full.

 

I also picked up a neat looking crystal thing from the caves in KY.  It joins my crab shell from Acadia, and the petrified wood from the Petrified Forest.

 

Some minor updates from before the trip.  This is where I left off with the carport.  I think I need to put it in place before I put the roof on.

 

The weekend before I left, I went and helped uncle clean a lot of stuff out of his camper and get it ready to sell.  The car was full.  I am headed out this weekend to finish everything up.

 

I did get everything but the tractor put under shelter before I left. 

 

I grabbed a freebie bike for Heather.  It needs a little work though, the rear shifter is frozen.

 

While I was in KY, I did do a couple of things.  I helped with their garage sale and fixed their storm door. 

 

In part because this vacation was so poorly planned, I have already started looking at my trip for next year.  I am leaning towards finishing up the northern central part of the country, so doing North Dakota, finishing up South Dakota, hitting Wisconsin, Minnesota, and so on.  I have also started planning my spring vacation, which is mostly what got postponed out of this year's trip, so Assateague island, Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mammoth Cave and so on.  As long as I don't wait until the week before to make reservations I should be good.

 

So with all that out of the way, here is the preliminary list of winter projects.  It is surprisingly short this year, though it always gets longer as I remember more things.

• Before winter:
• Finish carport
• Equipment prep (install snowblower, winterize lawn mowers) 
• Winter Projects:
• Prep for back deck
• Fix Craftsman mower
• Finish data gathering and decide on the truck vs trailer approach long term.
• Finalize designs 
• CR-V upgrades
• Fix bike
• Kitchen Island for Jess/Heather
• Clean/organize third bedroom.