Sitting here in Rippon... Sounds like a good first line to a song.

At the truck repair shop (Burns Truck and Trailer Services) that the last truck shop (Righetti) sent me to. The Righetti diagnosis is crap in my fuel tank, We'll see what this place says when they finally get around to taking a look at it. Got her washed while I'm here waiting. I'm sure there's still more deplayafying that will need to be done, I have to get up on the roof and scrub that down and the underside and engine could use a good hosing off. I'll probably stop at a Camping World to return this crapass GPS (Magellan for RV's) and while I'm there I'll get their spa service that is a much more thorough cleaning than this was (And should be for triple the price)... Either that or if I'm heading back he way I came, I'll call one of the places in Reno that specializes in deplayafication now that their business is probably slowing down a bit.


I think I got the SiriusXM radio figured out the other day. Seems to be working pretty good, I even got most of the presets all programmed up. Changing CD's while driving a bus just isn't logistically possible and I think the most times I managed to leave a CD in before trying the radio and then opting for silence was 3½. Silence led to me singing little song snippets (of catchy old timey tunes I don't really know) over and over and over until the next stop when I would hopefully remember to change the CD... Didn't always happen and then it was another few hours before the next stop and oh boy the crap I'd be singing to myself then! On the way to Burning Man there was a lot of Black (Big) Rock Candy Mountain. And thanks to Ros, You Are My Sunshine is one that always ends up on repeat in those situations. The funniest part of the trip was 4 or 5 days in when I put on the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack for the first time in forever and both of those songs were on there. And there's just no way to listen to the radio on the road, sure I can check out local stations when I stop, but with stations often only staying tuned in for a minute or two, five if I'm lucky, it's too annoying to do very long. Sometimes I can get an hour when I'm driving through a major city, but even then there can be issues that make it not worth it. Today is the first day I've really stopped to listen to it for any extended period of time, I'm really liking it. I can't stand commercials (for more than 20 years I have mostly listened to two public radio stations that are commercial free) so that part is great and the selection is pretty cool so far too.


Burns lot; Day II


They never got to me yesterday, as is the way with most of the 'busy shops' it seems. Honestly, I'm not even sure if I'm here for the right thing anymore. I stalled 3 times putting The Beast in reverse trying to pull out of the driveway yesterday morning and two more times on the way here. Those were new behaviors. I have wondered all along why no one seems to be interested in the transmission even after I tell them that it chunks down to 4^th gear and goes even lower going downhill so I can't even get back up to a decent speed after cresting the hill because it wont coast. I guess we'll see what they say when they take a look.


Last night I finally hooked up the cool little USB outlet I bought in June or July to put in where the ashtray and cigarette lighter were. I still have to figure out how I'm going to permanently mount it, but in 20 minutes I got myself accessory power where I most need it, at my fingertips when I'm driving. No more putting my phone in a cabinet to charge it or mounting the GPS on the side window next to my head because that's the only place the cord will reach.

The first guy came to talk to me at 8:30, took a pretty decent history and had me move into position in front of one of their bays. At this point, I have been here 24 hours. Probably should have signed up for a week of wifi with the Love's next door, although if I did, I doubt the USB thing would be hooked up.
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I'm hold up for the night at a hotel around the corner from the shop. A couple of the guys took a look at it, I told them as much as I could remember from other shops and what I've observed. The mechanic ended up calling the guy from the last shop and they talked it out for a little while and he came out agreeing that seeing what's going on inside the tank is the next step. They had me pull it around to a bay with a lift and that's where I left it. He said it will probably take 5 hours to get the tank off. This ain't gonna be cheap. I wonder how many days I'm going to be here. It's all good if this finally fixes it.

Ripon; Day 3


This morning I got a call that my fuel filter was clogged as were my fuel lines and tank. Diesel fuel, when it sits for any length of time, grows algae. The Vogue, as I've come to realize, sat for quite some time. Now I know from the last fuel filter changing that you can't see what the filter looks like so I was wondering how they knew it was crudded up. I went over to take a look and this is what they had found:

THAT is the mystery filter!!! The one that all the other mechanics looked for but couldn't find!
How many mechanics looked and didn't find it? At least 6 that I know of before I got to Burns in Ripon. I wonder if it's the 19 year old original filter?
It's truly a testament to the Cummins B that it was able to make it over 3000 miles, up and down ALL those mountains with the trickle of fuel it must have been getting through this mucky mess and the holey lines.
You have no idea the giant ball of stress that was coaxing her across the Rockies and then again through the Sierra Nevadas. And now this has me sitting here giddily excited at the prospect of trying to climb out of this valley. If I do take 80 back and go through Cheyenne, I will probably stop and show this to the guys there.


Here's Mike, the kid that found the unfindable filter, with my (former) fuel lines.

So I'm having the tank steam cleaned, all new fuel lines run and BOTH of the filters changed. I'm so happy with Burns at this point I gave them 2 more things to fix from the list while I'm here, speedometer and tailpipe. Hopefully, even with the add-ons, they are going to have me back on the road tomorrow!


Before I go, I have to say, it's been weird not sleeping in the Vogue. I really wasn't sure going in how I was going to like the RV bunk size mattress or having the cabinets right there over my head. There's been a learning curve there along with everything else, but it sure has started to feel like home. It needs a cat though.

Spent the afternoon cleaning (deplayafying) inside the RV.  Got most of the leather cleaned and conditioned, scrubbed down all the cabinets and non-papered walls in the bathroom and hallway, and I opened up the Fantastic fan and cleaned the blades and the screen.  It's amazing just how much of that stuff sticks to everything!  I really am going to have to powerwash the engine and undercarriage with vinegar.  Heck, I'm sure the whole thing could use it a couple of times.
The outside got it's first rain bath since leaving the playa, it rained for several hours this afternoon.  Still needs a really good wash but I'm sure there was a nice stream of Burning Man remnants flowing down the street this afternoon.
Anyway, feels good to still be making progress on the moving in even though I'm paused on the moving around part.  I'll be weighing the anchor on Monday or Tuesday, might go spend one night at a campground to top off the batteries and dump/clean the tanks, who knows how long I might be in Rippon.
My cousin Karen is coming to visit tomorrow.  We're making Ice Cream.  I'm sure I will have put on 20 pounds in my 2 weeks here.  Which reminds me, there are Krispy Kremes.  Chow.

It's not even 9:30am and I'm sitting outside enjoying the first cup of good fresh roasted coffee I've had in ...uh... I'm not even sure how long it's been at this point, the roaster wasn't getting up to second crack temperature using it outside at the higher altitudes.

Which wasn't the point at all, Although droll to some, to me the big deal of the day is that for the first time ever in the Vogue, all of my clothes and other launderable items are clean, folded and put away!  I brought WAY too much stuff!  I've been going through and throwing things away as I fold but there's still just too much.  I am carrying enough bath towels that I could have run a community shower at Burning Man and given everyone in camp a clean towel when they were done and still had enough left over to offer showers to random hotties off the street.  Do I really need to be able to go 3 or 4 weeks without wearing the same pair of shorts twice?  Or jeans?  T-Shirts get a pass, obviously, but I still left hundreds in Philly including dozens of FolkFest shirts (Don't worry, I brought enough Fest shirts with me that I could probably go a month without wearing the same one twice* (*caveat there being I have 3 of the shirts from most years... But probably only brought one or two)).  I have a Fest shirt on now, 2004.  And I have way too many storage bins!  I have a huge storage bin full of unused storage bins and there are more bins that didn't fit in that bin.

So I'm finally starting to get settled in, I've even done the plastic removal and major vacuuming of the carpets and furniture (next year I WILL have the plastic down BEFORE Burning Man!).  There's still one more pile of crap to tackle that I will hopefully get started on today.  I can do some major rearranging now as well since yesterday I figured out I can lock all the outside storage compartments!  Yes, they have been full of stuff and unlocked for months and I had not one but two copies of the key to them all on my daily use keychain.  It's a long story (but aren't they all?).  And with Fest and Burning Man in the rearview mirror for this year, there's a ton of stuff in the cabinets that can get put into some of those bins and get put away for next year, freeing up valuable cabin space for important daily use items that haven't found a home yet (like the bins of kitchen utensils and spices still sitting on the table).
Not to mention probably being able to consolidate the massive snack cabinet in with the other food cabinet at this point.  It's funny how empty the fridge has become too, after it seemed odd to me having it packed so full like it was.  I'll get to use the fridge braces I bought that were totally unnecessary when it was packed in like sardines. I think the smaller fridge will work out well for me, it always seemed like such a waste running that huge house fridge (which was actually on the small side) when I was probably only using 10-15% of its capacity.

How do I know that this thing I am doing, this thing I have wanted to do for so long... is, now that I am doing it, really where I want to be?  After a month in the Vogue full time, When offered a bed in either my uncle's or my sister's house there wasn't even a split second of consideration before I pointed at where the Beast lay sleeping and said, "No thanks, I brought my house with me."  And I have to admit that thanks to a ridiculous sale, I now understand why people spend a fortune on high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.  I have used my sisters shower a couple of times, it's weird not turning the water off to lather up.

On Monday we hit the Cummins/Allison repair shop and hopefully a fuel pump (or less) will do the trick, otherwise they will probably send me to another shop who specializes in RVs.  It'll be nice to get on the road with a degree of confidence I haven't had since the Poconos.  And if I'm lucky, with a speedometer and cruise control.  I know she still needs a lot of work and it'll be an ongoing and expensive struggle... But aren't most things that are worthwhile?  I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of the benefits of a life on wheels but I have to say that was one of the most amazing months of my life! I am excited about the prospects that lay before me.