Happy Easter....

I hope this finds you with family and friends on this fine Easter day...

We spent a boring Saturday doing cleaning and packing of our junk, or stuff..... depending on how you look at it...

It was overcast most of the day but still nicely warm in the mid 80s..  We will be heading out fairly soon, but are watching the weather back in the Mid West...

Don't want to show up just in time for a 30 something day with snow showers.......  So our plans remain flexible.....

Retired Rod

Enjoying the summer weather here... And the end of basketball.. for Kansas

As a current Kansas resident....... when not in Arizona..... we had more than a vested interest in the number one seeded basket ball team from Kansas University....  It made the tournament fun to have a team in the hunt.....

But tonight in spite of leading the game most of the night, Michigan went on a hot streak at the end of the game and forced an overtime... And then won the game.....  Kansas is gone.

So single elimination gives no second chances to re enter the fray.....  Indiana, Georgetown, Kansas  all gone.... And probably better than some of the teams that remain.  But its the tournament as it is currently structured.

It was in the upper 80s today and seemed like summer..   I was out working in the back yard trimming and spraying the remaining weeds...  I have worked as hard on a rock yard this year as I would on grass..  Maybe harder...

And guess what....?  The sun was out and shining in Kansas City melting all that snow from last week..  So it will only be a matter of time and the mowers and weed equipment will have to come out there.....

But not to be let down, they are calling for some more freezing temps in the first part of next week..  And snow showers..  So we wonder just how fast we should go back....

But for this afternoon, I rode the bike all the way over to downtown Gilbert on a wonderful summer afternoon....  It is to be into the 90s in Arizona next week which will make mid afternoon riding more uncomfortable...  Our seasons are changing......

But on the basketball front, my alma mater the University of Iowa is still in the NIT tournament and scheduled to go to Madison Square Garden for their final four...  I know it is kind of the looser's brackets, but hey at least we still have a team in the hunt...  Too bad none of the games are on TV..........  Or at least the stations I get....

We are packing out our stuff to the garage getting ready to depart sometime in the near future... but like always we will know when that will be when we get there.....  Loyce has packed a lot of winter quilt store bargains into stacks of bags that will need to be loaded somewhere ............

Retired Rod

Mixed Brand Parts...... And more Minions.......

The lake I called "Rodney", was mostly dry this morning....  Still damp in places but I didn't sink in as much...  Lake Rodney came about because I was dopey enough to nick one of the black half inch irrigation lines with my shovel the other day....... somehow on the bottom where I didn't notice it.

Then I went over to my favorite store.... (Home Depot) where I bought a roll of new pipe and the pipe menders that slide over the pipe to put two pieces together......  And I worked on it for a couple of hours trying to get the pipe to slide inside the menders...

I did get one end to slide on by pounding on it with my hammer...  But putting the other side in just wasn't happening......  This morning when things were dryer, I still couldn't get a piece of the original  pipe into the mender sleeve......  I gave up......

In desperation,  I went back to my favorite store with a piece of the original pipe in hand.......  The old fellow standing in the aisle said well of course that won't work....  what you have there is Rain Bird Pipe and that's different ....... thicker walled and bigger around.....

Rain Bird takes an inside barb fitting, and if you push real hard, it will go into the Dig pipe you bought yesterday and mend your system......  Price....?  $2.49..  Why didn't the fellow yesterday know about this?

Once back home it only took about 15 minutes and the pipes were all mended and not leaking..  And with the water back on the drips were dripping and the pipe was dry.....  So don't mix brands of irrigation fittings and expect them to work right out of the bag................!

Now I have a hodge podge of fittings and pipe sizes and brands all connected together in a row...  Maybe if it drys out a little more, I will go bury it under ground so folks won't come see it and laugh at me.

We will have a gardener this summer, and the less he knows about my shoddy work the less he will be tempted to dig stuff up and charge me for his work.....

Later in the morning I ended up over at Valle Del Oro RV park attending their last of the year Country Market...  Been meaning to go over there all year, but never seemed to get it done...

I wandered around and talked to a lot of folks and purchased a chinese pocket knife  and some socks to try made from Bamboo.....  Evidently you can rough up the wood fibers and make them into socks...  But what about the poor Panda Bears that need to eat that Bamboo.....?   I guess this is a different type of bamboo....

Oh, and late in the day I did go cover over that hole where the pipes were exposed....  And the water is still on.......... Lets hope for no more Lake Rodney.......

Retired Rod

By the way the Minion Blimp has been flying all over South Phoenix... Made the news and everything.....  Official Web Site..

A Bigger Lake!!

The lake was even bigger this morning, so I was out testing it turning on each zone, and then wading along the wall back to the middle of the bushes I had added...     The sprinkler runs at 6 AM for about an hour or more, so it was off by the time I was checking things out..

Of course I didn't have such a lake until I planted that tree over the weekend, so something in that hole had to be wrong....  We didn't even have any water coming out of the little spray that was supposed to be for the tree..........  Ooops...

But the tree was the source of the lake........  I was digging out the mud around the tree ball on the side where the pipes went by... But couldn't really see anything wrong...  I finally got a sponge and absorbed the muddy water until the pipes were visible... Still nothing...  With my fingers I scraped the mud away from the pipes on the bottom too...

By now I have mud on my face and knees and big mounds of gloppy mud where I had excavated the pipes with a garden hand shovel...

Eventually I decided that there was a nick in the bottom of the pipe for the bushes...  Not much bigger than an eighth of an inch, but somehow I must have done that with a shovel....   And I was being as careful as possible........  but obviously not careful enough..

I went over to that favorite store and bought some mender connectors and some extra pipe...  Then worked for a while, but it was just too gooey and muddy to get things fixed....

Then about when I was giving up, the phone rang and it was Camping World....   The coach was done, come and get it!!  And bring bushels of money too...

So it did make a difference that I had gone over and begged for quicker assistance....  They had promised Thursday, and delivered Wednesday...

We went right away and picked it up...    And even did some preliminary loading of belongings here at the house before taking it back to storage tonight...

But the weather in KC was below freezing and snowing when I looked a little while ago, so perhaps it isn't a bad thing that I have to work on that irrigation system tomorrow....

I left it off for now, so things can dry out a bit in our North side yard...  Maybe when I am not sinking into the mud so far I can have an epiphany as to how to get the new connectors together and sealed back up....

But that's for tomorrow....!

Retired Rod

Minions from yesterday and an irrigation lake...

For those that read yesterday's blog before I was informed, you might want to know that a comment from  Ingasmile informed me that the blimp was made to look like a Minion...  From the movie Despicable Me...



So since I haven't been to a movie in eons...  No wonder I didn't know what it was....  But now that I think about it some of the folks that were out of their cars looking at the blimp had little kids with them.....  Makes more sense now...

My yard improvements seem to have a problem...  I added three little sprays to the irrigation system, and we have a flood going.......  I thought I added the same little red flagged end drips, but...........

So back over to that favorite store today (Home Depot)  where some poignant questions yielded that the little red sprays are 4 gal per hour at 25 psi...  Seems that most yard companies leave out a pressure regulator..  So the systems run wide open.....  About 70 psi..  That way they can put a lot more drips on each line...

This only requires one valve and a more simple timer.....  So I can't just put in a pressure regulator without putting in a lot more pipe and a bigger timer... So I bought some 1 gal per hour sprays...

So if it is running at three times the pressure that would be three gallons during the time it is on...  But this isn't scientific  as pressure doesn't relate to flow directly like that.

So I guess I will just have to go look and see how big of a lake I am creating tomorrow...  Perhaps I will be after the 1/2 gal per hour heads next.....

It doesn't surprise me that folks have found a way to do things cheaper, in order to take the extra money for themselves...  Its the American way!

You just have to have someone let you in on the little secret......

Retired Rod       Oh, no call from Camping World.......

Minions...Camping World and other joyous experiences..

Camping World must have been over whelmed this morning as they didn't answer the service department phone calls...

So I jumped on the motorcycle and drove the 12 or so miles over there..  I waited in a line of folks to get up to the service counter..  They found my ticket after some looking, but didn't know if the parts were in....

They told me they were last Thursday......  But today, they had just come in... amazing how their story changes to make things convenient..

But now I must re enter the service line and wait for an available time to get installation...  The fact that I have waited for a couple of weeks now means nothing as they do things....  So perhaps by the end of this week.....  If nothing goes wrong, and the parts they got are actually the ones they need....  I did my very best to not loose it on them....  I never got mad or said anything, except that we were hoping to get on the road and couldn't because they had our coach....

So, we will more than likely be spending Easter right here in Mesa......

This blimp was tied up over on the Mesa Gateway airport this afternoon...  I took the picture with my phone and I think this is the back side of the picture as there was an eye in the middle of the yellow part on the other side....  I couldn't get around to that side without hiking on the controlled part of the field...  Think G men coming out of the bushes.......

The blue part was blue jean type overalls and there were shoes at the bottom....  The very front has whiskers and that eye on the other side....

No markings that I could see, so folks do you know what this blimp is set up to be or advertise....?

Yea!!!! reader  Ingasmile  knew exactly that this is a minion from the Despicable Me movie.......  Of course as an old person the movie and its Minions.....went right past me.....!!  The hair I called whiskers is supposed to be on the top of his head....

I didn't pick up a rake or shovel all day long....  There is still gardening to be done, but a couple of days away from the project is in order.....  LOL

Retired Rod

The Tree and Kansas Wins.....!

Its just a small tree right?  But notice that its all planted in the ground and the rocks are spread around its base......  Its Done!!!!

The motor cycle never moved all day...  And I started digging when it was still 66 degrees outside this morning....

The hole had to be 18 inches deep and about 15 inches around...  And I didn't use any water in the hole either...  Just strong arm digging...  The water tends to ball the clay all up and make mud pies...  Then once the sun dries it, it becomes like rocks....

All of this desert soil is different no matter where you are, and I think ours was graded with earth movers when they made this sub division..  That broke it all up into fine particles which then set like concrete when they got wet...

Pardon me here I'm ODing on my hard work here...... even Biscuit is out checking it out.....

But of course all work came to an abrupt stop when Kansas was playing the NC folks in the afternoon....  And they again scared the crap out of us when they looked so flat and out of it during the first half...

They got way behind.....  But the Jayhawks play in spurts... and Bill Self must have the right stuff to start those spurts, because when they took the floor in the second half they exploded...

You see the NC coach used to be the Jayhawks coach...  And we all were quite peeved when he left for North Carolina...  But he was never able to motivate the Kansas team like Mr. Self......

I don't think there is a person in Kansas that would have Roy Williams back........  Well, there is always someone...

Retired Rod

I got to thinking.....

I didn't have any plans this morning since I had put that last bush in the ground...  But during the night I was thinking.... how it might be nice to have something over in that front corner inside the fence on the back side of the wall...

The landscapers told me that since that area wasn't visible from the patio or from the inside of the house windows, they wouldn't improve that part...

Well, how about a bush or something....?  But if I put in Bougainvillea they grow like crazy and will cause me to have to trim them up all the time....  Hmm, what to do.....

But I never opened the box I got from Fed Ex yesterday so I went out in the garage and tore open the cardboard...  Its the cover to put over the goldwing for its ride back to Kansas..  The cover I had for the scooter is way toooooooo small...  So in the process of trying the new one on the bike, I realized that the big long radio antenna would have to come off every time or even at least fold over which it does...  We bent it in the trailer on the day the bike was new learning to fold it as the salesman didn't know how either..

So back inside I got to thinking.........  I need a rubber shorty antenna like my ham hand held...  But looking on the internet proved that no one must think those are cool because they don't sell them as an option....

So I headed out on the bike to go see what they had at the auto zone...  I needed one with an 8mm stud mount...  They had them too, but only with a 6mm female thread... Seems that is GMs way..  And the box had a bunch of adapters......  for cars....  But I bought it anyway..  We'll figure it out later... I reasoned...

Then I went over toward the old part of Mesa where I had spotted an A & P Garden Center...   At the center, a young fellow told me that they usually put trees in  high walled corners.. To break up the height of the walls...  But its in between the houses.....  OK, so more of an ornamental tree....  So it doesn't grow up to be thirty feet around...

We settled on a desert bottle brush which is a cross between a bush and a tree......  But I was on the bike so I would come back later....



On the way home I was thinking.....  about how to mount that rubber antenna on the bike......  I need a stud that will screw up inside the antenna and then down into the bike mount...  6mm on top and 8mm on the bottom...

I looked it up on the internet when I got home...  And they make such a thing.....  





This time in the car I went to the hardware store and looked thru all the drawers.....  of weird parts......  and found just what I wanted...  True Value comes thru again...

Now for that tree... which takes the trailer over in storage..  Its notoriously slow getting thru the gate, hooking up the trailer and then opening and closing the gate again..  Can't leave the gate unattended and open for one second, as they have had unauthorized folks come in that way...

It was about 15 miles back over to the nursery....  And I bought a bigger 15 gallon root ball tree that had to be laid over inside the trailer..  The door barely went closed...  It will take me days to dig the hole....

By now it was 5 PM and the trailer had to go back over to the storage lot again..  And deal with the gate, again...........  But the tree is beside the house and I got home in time to watch the Kansas team Wichita State beat number one seeded Gonzaga......

Reflective part of motorcycle jacket glares at the camera but  you can still see the rubber antenna where the three foot long one used to be...

Oh, and the antenna worked perfectly on the back of the bike.  It won't drag on the inside of the trailer or the cover now......  All of this because I didn't have any plans, but got to thinking........

Another bush

I was outside digging the next hole for the last bush around 8 AM this morning...  It was before the night moisture went out of the ground, and the digging was much easier....

If you get right after the dig and don't stop because you are hot and wait for the ground to dry out in the meantime the whole process does a lot better...  I dug the hole until the empty pot from the first bush would fit into the ground...  But then I was hot...

Later in the evening I went looking for the irrigation pipe, and again it was deeper than I thought it should be...  But tonight the bush is planted ....

In the middle of the day I was out on the Motor cycle at Home Depot finding some mistake plugs for the irrigation..   If you poke a hole in the half inch black pipe and it turns out to be in the wrong place, you need these plugs...  They fit into the hole you poked but do not have hollow insides, so they plug up your mistake..  I hadn't made a mistake yet, but felt I should have some on hand as it is only a matter of time ......

Also I needed a new tape measure to mount on the board above the bench in the garage...  Some of these things just go with a house and cannot be relied upon to be in a travelling box...

That's when I got to thinking about being here in an RV versus having the house...  Unless I was looking for hose parts, or an occasional tool or fitting, I never went to Home Depot...  Not while here in the RV...

But once I had this house, I have been there almost every day...  Well not really, but it seemed that way last summer while we were installing blinds and ceiling fans.  Or painting or cabinet pulls...  Or now replacing frozen plantings.......

In an RV you never worry about planting anything....  well unless you feel like you will have the same spot for next year...  Which we did until we cancelled our reservation...    Still I didn't plant anything...

And tonight we were scared out of our wits, watching the basket ball tournament...  Kansas looked horrible..  They came very close to letting a number 16 seed, Western Kentucky team beat them...  They were behind at the half and only played marginally better in the second half..

Iowa played in the NIT and won, and Iowa State Killed Notre Dame, but that will be short lived as their next opponent is Ohio State.....   If they win that one it will be like slaying Goliath.......

I've rambled long enough..........

Retired Rod

Just one bush!!! ?

After riding all the way over into old Mesa downtown yesterday, the bike stayed parked all day today.....   Not that I didn't think about leaving, but I just had no where to go..

But I did go out and dig around in the hole that I had dug looking for the irrigation hoses....  And I finally found them too...  About 6 inches farther back from the wall than I was digging.  And just a little deeper than I had been willing to believe they were...

So that caused a trip to Home Depot where I purchased a couple more  Oleander Bushes..  And yes we know they are poisonous to dogs....  and people too for that matter....  Biscuit has no interest in the ones we already have so what's a couple more...

Also I purchased some quarter inch irrigation line and a few barbs and drip sprays...  Also a hand held punch thingy to push holes in the existing half inch pipe...

So with the water system in hand, I started in earnest to dig a hole for a 5 gallon bush.....    It was hot, and the clay was like concrete...  So sloooooowww...  I  gave up and came in and cooled down..  And then giving up all together...  I got a shower...

Well late in the day it went all overcast and looked like it could rain any moment...  And me with my big pile of dirt  that I didn't want wet..........

So I went back out in the now cooler air, and started tossing that digging bar for all I was worth..  Took about another hour but the bush is now in the ground....  Ground cover rocks are spread back around the base and a new sprinkler drip is installed...

But I purchased two bushes........  Have to start again looking for that irrigation hose over where the next bush goes..  Thankfully it got dark......

Tonight it was watching some of the NCAA March Madness...  I seem to get all the channels on direct tv so I'm set to waste some serious time.....

Oh, and I did call the Camping World folks again today, and got someone to answer the phone...  But they couldn't find me in the system...  Had to get my number.... admitted that they were calling Kansas after I explained that calling my home phone didn't work and had given them my cell number...   the last time I was there....

On the second return call, they said the parts should be in today but that I didn't have an appointment to get the work done......  What??  My appointment was 9 days ago.......!!!!!  Well maybe some day next week we will get to it..........  Perhaps it is Camping Zoo......

Retired Rod

In search of a cycle jacket..........

Yes, turning off the anonymous comments eliminates all that spam... Second day of no nonsensical blather just to post a web site location as a blog comment...

And no nasty comments either...  And no call from Camping World about the bad jack or when they might get a new one....  Nothing.....  not even a missed call...

I was out digging around in our yard looking for the irrigation hosing...  I know about where it is because I took a picture of the trench before they buried it...  But I don't know exactly where, or how deep...  I'm afraid to just dig away with the heavy digging bar as I will cut the pipe for sure...  So I was just scraping a trench with the small spade and some hand garden tools...  Never found it...

Maybe tomorrow...

I was inside trying to find a cooler cycle jacket on line...  I had tried this once before last summer, but gave up when they didn't have my enlarged size......  XXXXXX   well maybe not quite that large...

I got to looking for apparel stores in Mesa and found a Cycle Gear store over in old downtown.....  Road trip on the bike.....!  It took most of the afternoon to get over there in all the traffic..   I remember when I first got this new bike and was determined to not ride in tangled up traffic.....  Well that's all over with...

Anyway the store turned out to be a brother of one we have in KC....  I hadn't recognized the name, but the second I went in I knew exactly the chain it was part of...

They specialize in mostly store branded products from Eastern Asia.  Not that most everything is from there now, but the store brand is obviously of lesser quality....

I looked around for quite a while, determined not to miss anything, and they did have some name branded stuff, but it was priced way high...  I drove back empty handed...



So tonight I ended up ordering on line..  I can only hope it will fit me...  but they have 30 day no questions asked returns...  With clothes its such a crap shoot because you only know if you like it when you handle it...

A slow day with a big long bike ride in the middle...  Up in Kansas, I would be riding out in the country going to a small town restaurant with the guys....  Here it is miles and miles of city, with stoplights on every corner....  But its too cold to ride in Kansas so kwit ur bitchin...

Retired Rod

No bad comments, weeds, and Camping World has no clue..

For the first time in quite a while, I didn't spend the day clearing out comments that weren't appropriate for family consumption...  In fact I didn't clear out a single comment all day...

I didn't get any private emails either, so perhaps that is meaning that all that wanted to comment were able to...  I do have a SIL that will comment as anonymous, but she will give me the devil when she determines what has happened...  I'll get her around it then...

I spent the morning out mixing weed and grass killer and spraying the surface of the rock ground cover..  We have an abundance of spring emergence here, and pulling them out, just causes them to come back with twice the vigor...

I have never used this product, but they sell it by the pallet full over at Home Depot, so it must be correct for our local problems...  In a hand sprayer, you mix a quart of the product in a gallon of water..  I wandered all over the yard, but was careful not to spray any part of our bushes... Still I worry that the spray will drift.....

In the afternoon, I rode the motorcycle over to Camping World, after not having any luck getting them to answer their phone..  Or being put on an indefinite hold....

While I was at the counter, the phones were going crazy...  And they didn't know who I was or that my coach was sitting right outside the door...  After looking in the computer, they found the ticket for my work...

They couldn't find where the jack had come into the parts department, or the fellow who would know how to trace the order....  Seems he was gone... although I didn't know if it was for the rest of the day or just while I was there...

The counter man said he laid the ticket on this fellows desk with a note that I had come in........   ...........   ................?  Can we see where this is going.?  Sure glad I didn't pay in advance like they wanted.....

I rode back to our side of town and went to Wendy's for my sandwich...

That was about it for anything productive here...  I see that Kansas is having rain and snow mix for the rest of this week, so I wouldn't be leaving with the coach anyway, but one of these days...............

Retired Rod

Nasty comments....

I have watched and read all kinds of comments being posted on blogs..  Other folks blogs and my own...  But here recently we have been having really nasty vulgar sexual comments placed on this blog..

I killed them as fast as possible, but they are making it thru blogger's spam filters even though they contain words that would immediately qualify as vile vulgar nasty sexual matters....  I find it amazing that blogger isn't able to stop a comment that contains several F bombs in every sentence....

So for now, I have eliminated anonymous comments on the blog..  I know others have taken this step as well...  If it is a problem, you can send me an email by looking in my profile for the email address....  I will post your comment for you...  OR just sign up for a Gmail account even if you never plan on using it and you will instantly have a signon to post a comment...

I know that some folks are really opposed to Google as a company and do not want anything to do with a gmail account...  The opposition arises from Google's use of your personal information to make money...  They tend to sell everything they know about you and your browsing trends, and folks don't think that is the right thing to do...

Also Rick Doyle has a really good post on how to obtain an OpenID, which will allow you to post on a large number of venues by only registering once...  His post on this subject is available Here ..

Once these nasty folks move on to other addresses, I will turn the anonymous posting back on..  I do not want to discourage comments as I get relatively few comments the way it is...  But I do not feel that sexually filthy comments can be left on my blog for even one second...  And it will take me longer than that to find them.... and delete them...

If you have further suggestions on how to handle this, please leave those ideas....

Retired Rod

Commemorative Airforce Arizona Wing

My friend Rich is a retired corporate pilot, so we decided to stop by the Commerative Airforce Museum and hangars on the corner of Falcon Field in North Mesa...  We were there for several hours...

A Russian Mig 15 and an old Cessna twin.....

Douglas A 26 Invader

An F 4  from the Viet Nam era......

We were enjoying this old plane because it has a transponder under its dash panel to respond to modern day radar...  Also on the left of the stick is an Icom VHF radio to talk to the tower...  Neither item would have been present back in  the day...

 One of the Red Baron Pizza Stearman planes...  The Schwans Company shut down this program several years ago...  So here is one of the planes...

P 51 Mustang

A better picture of the A 26

A Stearman Model 75

Outside of the active hangar was the B 17

Sentimental Journey....    The aircraft's history here...

Machine Gunners positions in the tail of the plane...  Below the yellow flask, you can see the top of the Ball Turret...  

 The B 17 had just landed..... And they were working on one of the engines...  Seems its timing wasn't the same on the back set of cylinders on engine four...  Phone calls were being made.....

B 25 Mitchell   This is the same type of plane flown by Jimmy Doolittle on his raid to Tokyo...  The plane looks almost new.... Restoration was done in 2009.

The crank shaft of a radial engine that was being restored....

Most of these planes are in restored condition and remain flyable today... You can pay your money and head out in the plane of your choice..  It does take several paying people to fund one of these flights...  And rides in the front of the B 17 can be up to $899......  But then aviation gas is $7 a gallon and is used rapidly by four radial engines......

We spent several hours in aircraft bliss................  But eventually had to come home and take the girls out for supper over at the Farm Grill...

I have blogged about that before, but it was a very pleasant evening sitting outside under the giant trees, with our home grown meals.....

And I happened to think that none of us had anything green on, when some of the other patrons came in with full Irish regalia....  But on Sunday night it was a tamer st patrick's daty than in other years...

Retired Rod

Friends arrive and we go to Tortilla Flat.

We had our friends from Des Moines here today...  Different friends than the ones we had back in January...

Rich and Sally have not come to visit where we winter before, so we were glad that they could come and stop by...  Rich is a ham and one of the fellows that I go to Dayton, Ohio with in May....

We ended up driving out to Tortilla Flat...  The restaurant there is an old bar and grill with thousands of dollar bills stapled to the walls inside....  In fact, I wasn't able to find any surface that didn't have these dollars fastened to it....  They are signed and dated... and usually defaced with some kind of art drawing...  But, of course if taken off of the wall, they are still very much legal tender...

Also the bar stools are old saddles mounted on poles in the concrete...  They aren't the most comfortable, but for the effect of it they look unique..  With some gift shop time and an ice cream cone thrown in, it was a fun afternoon...

We drove thru Tortilla Creek that spills over the roadway a little East of town..  It was about 2 inches deep and spilling over the West side of the road, thru the rocks and boulders in the creek bed...  Folks were wading in the creek carrying their shoes, but I would have bet the water would have been rather cold..

Coming back in the early evening was like driving thru a painted green desert...  The sun was golden as it reflected from the rocks and spires...  Shadows from the saguaro cactus were long and gave things a weird feeling as the sun descended over the far mountains...

Alas I didn't have my camera, and I'm not sure it could have done much in the dwindling light...  Only the bright sun in the far West would have shown up...  Hopefully my description will paint a picture for you...

We topped out at a nice 84 this afternoon as we were sitting on our patio, and it was about 75 while we were driving back from the Flat...

These days are rather hard to beat....

Retired Rod

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Quilt chauffeur... yet again

Nothing new here tonight, as I spent the center part of the day as quilt show chauffeur..  We didn't even know about this show in downtown Mesa until the other day when the quilters/bloggers had their luncheon...

I tried the other day to show Loyce where the convention hall was, but she felt best if I just took her there...  She likes that I will drop her off right at the main entrance, and then go park somewhere...

She was done before I planned, and when she called I was out buzzing around over on I 10 South of Ikea...  Had to high tail it back to central Mesa in heavy traffic...

We changed it up for a burger joint, this afternoon stopping at What a Burger over in the older part of town..  Since we were already there, it didn't run us out of the way anywhere..

But we both agreed that the burger didn't hold a candle to Fuddruckers... They drown the sandwich in mustard, which is an acquired taste...  I am out of practice...

Otherwise I planted one bush early this morning, before Loyce was ready to go quilting, and late in the afternoon  I managed to ride the bike up to Wal Mart for a few provisions....  It was more about the ride than the groceries...

I did manage to cut my thumb rather nastily tonight while making some supper...  I'd explain, but don't want to make you cringe..  But tonight I am typing with less than all fingers... I usually do the space bar with my right thumb...  but it is out of commission.....

Retired Rod

More Planting and Killing Kennedy finished.

We saw 93 today on the motorcycle dash temp gauge...  That is nicely warm...  Rick over in Desert Hot Springs calls these days frying pan hot.  Well......  not exactly...  We were here in Phoenix when it was up to 117 last summer...

But after some really cool days this spring, the 90s are nicely warm...

It was even warm this morning as I was out planting more of those bushes that are beaconing from their pots around the patio table...  They sit there quietly wishing to be planted or watered..  Loyce and I were both out in the morning mid 70s weather working on the yard...

Three more of the old dead roots were excised from their planting beds...  And carefully replaced with new vibrant live flowering specimens...  But it was getting hotter into the 80s as the morning became noon, so we quit..

I showered and decided as I was getting dressed that I should get another hair cut...  As a Navy man, I always have had the clean neck attitude about a hair cut... so since it had been over a month, today was the day...

Besides, that gave me the chance to ride the cycle over to the barber shop several miles away...  This time I carefully waited for another barber that isn't so forgetful as the fellow that did my do last time...  That fellow parted my hair on the wrong side and then cut it to match..  It hasn't laid straight ever since...

Then I had to go to Wendy's for that small burger...  and I just rode around some because it was so nice....  Tomorrow, (today as you read this) is to again be in the 90s but then it is to cool down again into the 80s with chances of rain, so riding while it is nice becomes the mantra..

 But the remainder of my evening has been spent on the Killing Kennedy book...  I purchased that one back when I was reading Lincoln, but it is harder for me to read....

Since I was part of that time, and watched the TV coverage first hand, it is all too real.... not a story..  We have visited the Kennedy Library in Boston...  And have been at Dealey Plaza and Parkland Hospital in Dallas..  That is much more first hand knowledge, and makes the book almost painful..

But I have finished it now about an hour ago...  I think each of us remembers where we were when we found out the President had been shot... I was a Junior in High School and was out on a lunch break at a local hang out..

Many of us had sandwiches at a local doughnut shop and they had a TV on the wall..  It took a while for the gravity of the happenings to sink in that afternoon... And I was actually watching the live coverage on Sunday morning as Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.. That took the news reporters by complete surprise, happening right before their eyes..

I was just 16 at the time as my birthday was the day after the assassination.  I was standing in line at the drivers license office getting my first license on that Saturday...  The shooting was on a Friday...... almost like yesterday..  but 50 years ago this year.

Where were you?

Retired Rod

More on the broken jack..

This is today's post, but somehow got the wrong date on it... I just caught it and reposted it to today....

I just hate to have these morning appointments when I am retired and not used to having to be somewhere at a certain time...  I know, I am spoiled...

But today it was the motorhome jack investigation over at camping world...  I've never used camping world for repairs, but thought what the heck let's see what they are all about.....

Of course our MH is stored about 7 miles away..  and we both had to go so as not to be stranded at the repair facility...  We were up and showered with coffee and breakfast over by 8:30...

Once over at the storage lot we had to deal with the gate...  Park in the middle of the street, and leave flashers on while traffic zooms by...... Do the combo on the lock and roll the big gate open...  Once inside lock it all back up for fear of passers by coming in when the gate is open... On and on...

We made it to Camping World in time, but with only a few minutes to spare...  Its probably fifteen miles from the storage place...  We left the coach with them once we were checked in...

I was apprised that it would be $129 just to check it out...  But that was only the cheapest part...  After a couple of hours (at JoAnn's Fabrics), we went back to get the bad news...

It seems that they had called Atwood and were guided thru computer diagnostics which confirmed all of my suspicions that the gears in the motor drive are sheared.....

I need another entire jack assembly...  $1095....  Oh, but because we are Good Sam members we get 10% off..  But then with tax and installation it somehow will spoil several hundred more.... Final bill to be presented....

And they wanted half of it down right now.....  Since we were talking the coach back to the campground........  to sleep in tonight...........  We are??  No...

Do you plan to leave it here......??  Well I can...  Oh, we'll keep it right out in front of the store locked up for the several days it takes to get the parts....  And since we have the coach, you won't have to pay the money down........

So not much trust, but since they have us over the barrel  and our keys, I guess they can hold us hostage for the money....  But would it have been any different over at La Mesa RV across the street?  Probably not...

Might not have gotten the 10% for membership...  And I would bet their labor rate is higher too....

So, we are wondering tonight how long it will be before the other three jacks crash and burn....  If one goes out, can the others be far behind?

Motorhomes are an expensive deal no matter how you slice them........  We haven't had a lot of out of the pocket expenses that weren't covered by warranty or insurance over the years....

But since it is  now 5 years old, is this just the beginning....?  I guess it will be what it will be.

Retired Rod

Quilters and Hamburgers....

The absolute highlight of our day was going to lunch with some of our fellow bloggers..  Ray and Cindy had contacted me to set up a lunch so we could meet...  And of course I like Fuddruckers, so there you go, we ended up at burgerland...

Here Sandy is looking at me and Jim is studying his phone..  Loyce is somehow telling a lie based on the grin on her face....  Cindy was setting next to me, but appears to have been gone when I shot this...

And unbeknownst to us Ray had invited Gordon and Juanita  Again Juanita is a quilter...  Do you see a pattern here.....?  Oops that was a pun..

How do these things happen? I didn't even get a  picture of Ray and Cindy, so I grabbed one from their site....



Both Cindy and Ray are quilters...  Cindy does a lot of the piecing together of the top sheets, while Ray has taken up the actual quilting process where a long arm sewing machine is used to sew the backing and batting to the top sheet...   That is a skill all of its own, and I am told he is quite good at it...

They travel to quilt shops all over in their travels, but he is just as interested in the products for sale as his wife is.....  That's different than fellows like me that end up sitting in the car while the wife is inside...

Cindy also said it makes the trips cost more too....  Well I can't say a thing as watches and motorcycles aren't cheap either...

We were still talking about our lunch late this evening as we were involved in different conversations most of the time...  Somehow Loyce was sitting at the other end of the table from me, and its hard to hear all of what is being said all at once so we came away with different perspectives..

We need to do more of this sort of thing, as it is beyond fun, and I always learn something...  Tonight we have a new Application on our phones for JoAnn Fabrics coupons thanks to Ray, so you just never know what you might learn....

Ray, Gordon and Sandie wrote nice blogs with better pictures about our luncheon today, so go visit their sites to learn more.

Retired Rod

Digging holes........

My plans for today were low keyed, but as the morning progressed I ended up outside in the back yard with the iron digging bar...  I was just going to dig out one root ball......

The ground was really wet, so the digging wasn't too bad but of course the roots have to be popped or cut to get them loose...  The bushes were only in the ground since last July, but its amazing that they have rooted as well as they did...

So then I had to set some of the plants I bought back into the holes... You know I couldn't just dig out the old plants and let it go...  By now I was a muddy mess...  But I needed a couple of smaller plants to go into the holes where the ground cover was planted..  It froze off completely...

So I ended up over at Home Depot in my muddy pants and shirt, picking out some more bushes to go in various other locations....  Back home, I planted two more bushes and decided to give up the project for now...  It will be several days before I can get back at it..

It was such a nice day that I got a shower and headed out on the Goldwing for Wendy's...  After that I went shopping at Wal Mart...  after riding all the way down to Queen Creek...  Not the closest store, but I found a shirt and some shorts................

It was almost dark when I put the bike away in the garage for the night....

I forgot, when I first left the house, the yellow low tire light was flashing...  I had to return and blow up the tires...  The back one was reasonably close, but the front was 5 pounds too low..  That is quite the sensitive tire pressure monitoring system...  but if it keeps me from wrecking........  its priceless.....

Retired Rod

Planning the coach jack repair.

It never even dawned on me that this was time change weekend....  I guess because we don't change time here in Arizona, I had spaced it off..

But it is important to us because we call other places and we need to be aware of the time where we are phoning.. And of course when we head out to go back to KC, we will have to change our watches twice....

But no matter what time it was anywhere else it was warm and sunny time here in Arizona..  And I headed out on the Goldwing for our local camping world...  I wanted to have an appointment for one of their mechanics to look at that electric jack that malfunctioned over in California as we were leaving..

Since the jacks were up, I just unplugged the control unit on the dash...  The control unit didn't think the jacks were retracted, and went into an alarm mode the second you put the coach in gear..  Telling me not to drive away with the jacks down...

There was no one at the service counter, so it wouldn't have done me any good to call, but once there, a nice lady made an appointment for me as soon as possible.... which turned out to be on Wednesday...  Parts will have to be ordered, so who knows how long it will take to get things fixed...

It was quite a ways over there as I took the city streets rather than the freeway...  I took my time coming back home, looking at used cars on some of the lots around superstition mall...  Using the motorcycle on Sunday when things are closed is a good time to look and not have to talk to sales people...   Not that I want to buy anything, but I'm always looking...

Once home, Loyce wanted chicken nuggets, so that sent me back out on the bike again...  I did see 70 degrees on the bike thermometer, but officially we were only at 66...  Still a really nice day to be out wasting gasoline in the motorcycle...

Still too wet outside to do any yard work....  But it is supposed to be in the 90s by Friday.......  It'll be too hot to do yard work then.....!!!!

Retired Rod

Why doesn't my thermometer say its cold outside?

Loyce gave Biscuit a bath today and I'm fairly certain that was the only work accomplished all day...  It was cold and in the 40s when we first got out of bed and we had breakfast early on...

But then the day became computer study and TV watching...  I ventured out into the back yard with Biscuit when she was out to do her job and realized rather rapidly that it was too soft and muddy after the rain to leave the concrete...

The South side of the house was flooded yesterday during the heavy rain, so I knew not to go around that side for a couple of days, but that is where the door to the garage goes into the yard.....  So no work on the yard was possible...

Besides it was just too cold outside as we never made much over 55 degrees all day...  That does bring up a funny story, as I kept looking at my outside thermometer and it said 67...  That couldn't be, as the computer said 45 early on..  And the heat was running inside....  So I queried Loyce where the temperature probe was outside....  She said its not outside....

I brought it in yesterday during the high winds so it wouldn't blow off of the table....   Well, OK then, now we know why it said 67, because the heater is set at 67....  It was setting on the book shelf inside the sliding doors...

It is to warm up tomorrow, so perhaps we can get out and do something then...  But for now, I am just really glad we aren't out boondocking or something like that..  When its in the 30s at night I am really glad we have this house.... RVs are cold below 40 no matter how you try and heat them...

Retired Rod

Weather Bound

During the night it began to rain....  and rain.....  and even rain in the morning....  But about noon it kind of cleared up and the sun came out.

Oh boy, I might get a cool bike ride in.....!!!!  Ya right, one look at the radar screen on the computer put the big kabosh on that idea....  we were in between lines of the storm..  And in not too many minutes the next row of storms was upon us..

The sky turned almost black and the wind knocked over the remaining pots with the unplanted bushes in the back yard...  The rain came down horizontal..   It was sucking our garage door in and out like a giant plunger...

Rain water ran under the door and into the garage...  Thank goodness I hadn't gone out on the bike...  It was barely 50 anyway so wet and windy and barely 50 would have been disaster....

So we had one of those inside days... reading computers and watching TV...  Until I couldn't stand it and went over for that small Wendy's burger....  no fries....!  But I did get the little senior diet coke that comes free....  I'll bet they just love to see me coming...  Cheap!!!

But on the way back here I saw a palo verde tree that had been uprooted and blown completely over...  Only about a couple of blocks away...

Then our weather man here in Phoenix was talking about a wall cloud  and how they had to abruptly land the weather chopper....  For those that haven't studied the weather, wall clouds are what cause the beginnings of tornadoes...

So some of my fellow bloggers are worried about the Midwest in April, but perhaps we need to be just as worried about Arizona in March....

Its still raining as I type this late Friday night....

Retired Rod

Biking and planting

I was out on the Goldwing again this morning just because it had been a couple of weeks since I had the opportunity...  Of course I used the excuse that I had left my shoes in the motorhome when we hastily drove it back to its parking spot last night...

Its only about 7 miles to the storage lot and it was 70 degrees out when I rode back this morning..  The lot is covered in pea gravel which is quite deep in places...

I used to ride the 650 scooter right up to the motorhome, but it only weighed 600 pounds...  This bike is over 900 so I left it out on the sidewalk.. If the back end does one of those wobbles and comes out from under you, it would be impossible to catch yourself in the loose stones...

Searching around in the coach I found several items that I had forgotten beyond my shoes... So I had quite an arm load to haul back out to the bike...  Its about a quarter mile from the gate to the parking space we have, so I was juggling most of the way back...

In the afternoon, I was back home here and began to plant a couple of replacement Hibiscus bushes in the back yard...  We have lost almost all of our plantings, including two large trees...   Digging out the old root ball for the bushes took me some time, and I had one of those heavy iron digging bars to boot...  Its just because I am old and stiff...  A young man would have had them out in a few minutes....

But tonight I have two new bushes in their place...  Just in time for the big cool down we are to get this weekend...  They are calling for temps in the high 30s with rain, but not for freezing...  I hope I haven't jumped the gun putting these in the ground as they can't stand freezing.......

Retired Rod

Leaving Yuma

It dawned nice and sunny this morning in the Sun Vista RV Park...  But then if you name your park Sun Vista (View) it had better be sunny right?

But in Yuma, I would bet there are very few cloudy days...  We had a lot of work to do, so there was no sitting around and watching the sun shine...

After some quick corn chex, I took Biscuit to the dog park...  This park makes no sense... The dog park is in the Very Back End of the park.. And yet the dog friendly sites are up in the front of the park...  And its about a mile or more between them...

And there are signs reminding you that you can't walk your pet on the streets that lead to the dog park..  So the only way to get there is to take the car...  Someone is a rocket scientist for sure..

And the park is quite empty...  For Sale signs litter the landscape on every other park model...  And a lady at the dog park told me that she had recently sold two park models and had taken a proverbial bath on their prices...  Most folks that I saw were in their mid 70s in age...  and older...

Are the young folks not RVing like they did...?  Perhaps it is the gas prices...  Diesel in California was almost $5..

It was after noon when we finally got everything cleaned up and loaded for quick disembarking at home...  Loyce puts a bunch of it in her car since that will be in the garage and much easier to move into the house...

I was washing out the tanks....  We don't use them on the last day so they will remain clean for storage...  Reminds us of traveling in the car.  How easily we get used to the convenience of the motorhome...

We had almost 4 hours of this, windshield time, but at least the desert is becoming very green.... And spring is just beginning...

We stopped for a quick burger in Maricopa at the McDonalds...  and I was immediately reminded how much better Wendy's meat is than Micky D's...  Must be fillers that taste so bland...

So as the sun was setting tonight, we had the food and personal belongings back in the house and the coach over in the storage lot...

I never want to come off of the road... but reality seems to come back and haunt me...  Loyce on the other hand is much more comfortable in the sticks and bricks...  So we have to strike a balance...

Retired Rod

Boats in the Harbor while Biscuit looks on from the car window..  Sunny and 80 in San Diego

Algodones for this year.....

So why would we want to stop in Yuma??  There is nothing here that isn't in Mesa.....  Well other than one thing..........   Algodones, Mexico...

Seems like every year we end up going over the boarder to get our fix...  A few junk trinkets and more prescriptions...  Oh, and some more vanilla..  for our DIL Melissa...  She uses it somewhat rapidly...

And we like hanging around Yuma when it gets cool up in the Phoenix area...  as it is usually about 7 or 8 degrees warmer here....

So today we got ourselves cleaned up and organized to go over the boarder....  all except Biscuit who was relegated to staying home in the air conditioned motor home...

We had gone to the dog park and she had played with a new friend and his lady master that ran around with the dogs....  As usual I just watched in amazement....

But back to Mexico, we arrived in the parking lot on the Quechan Indian reservation side of the boarder about 11 AM...  Our thinking is that the folks that went really early to avoid the crowds are just coming back about then...

And that works fairly well as we got a spot in the second row of parking, which is really the first row because the first row is all handicap blue placard spots...

We walked straight over the line, as there is never any problem getting into Mexico...  It's more like where have you been?  We've missed you....

Enclosed sidewalks with vendors...

This lady was quite talented...  Look at those empty cans of paint, no wonder she has a respirator...

And of course we went right to my favorite Pharmacy, strangely named Lake Tahoe...  But they seem to know exactly what you want and have usually found most of it...  Its across the street from the big Purple store that most folks seem to go to...

And of course we were bombarded with the usual offers for dentists and eyeglasses...  Like carnival barkers, there is a guy on every corner handing out cards....  But Nada Mass.....  Nothing more...

And for some reason we decided to walk around the big block where all the sidewalks are full of trinket sales booths...  We needed our head examined...

Loyce bought a basket and a plate... And she liked one of those painted tin Astec sun decorations... So I got to bartering...  The vendor said thirty five.....  I shook my head no...  Thirty two......  In Spanish I said Veinte.... (20)...

He kept at me as I walked away,  Thirty.....  Veinte.... I would reply...  Eventually he offered Veinte cinco.. in Spanish...(25)   I said Veinte....

Back and forth we went and I never budged from 20... Loyce thought we were nuts by then....  He finally bagged the thing up and I gave him the 20 bucks.  Still he wanted some more asking if we had any change in our pockets...  Loyce gave him another dollar and I think a quarter she had too....

And of course around the corner, a fellow thought we had paid too much and would have sold it to us cheaper...  
So after going back to get the vanilla that we didn't want to carry all around town, we got in the longest line we have ever seen, to go home....

The line goes so far back you can't see the end...

And once you reach the gate it goes a long way to the passport windows... again..

 

Today it was moving right along and only took about 45 minutes to get thru the passport windows....  What did you buy was the question...  I answered the usual!!!   Vanilla and prescriptions.....  She said "Have a nice day..."

We haven't even brought our purchases into the motorhome tonight...  Makes me wonder if it isn't more about the experience of going over and bartering, rather than actually purchasing stuff...

But we did get some really good deals on medications that will save tons of money in the long run, now that we are on Medicare and the poor coverage Rx plans that go along with it...

Retired Rod

Nice day in Yuma

We had a slow day today...  We are back in Arizona and our clocks show that the day is progressing faster than we were used to last week...  It amazes me how easy it is to shift forward when the day isn't progressing as fast as it feels like.... But!

When you go back East, and the day is older than it seems like...  That is really tough, for me anyway...   So we just hung back and didn't do a thing today....

Really, it was a big deal that I went to the dog park in the back of this RV park and sat on the chairs in the shade...  Biscuit ran with the other dogs for a while, until they all went home...  So once she let me catch her we left too...

She just won't come to any of us when she is totally free...  That's a problem that we work on continually....

Anyway, we did go out and find a Wendy's late in the afternoon as it had been several days since I had a burger....  But that was it for all day... But the pace here in this RV park is like that laid back and easy going....

Maybe tomorrow...

Retired Rod

Leaving San Diego

I'm sitting here rereading the post from yesterday and remembering my time aboard the Midway....  You never really leave the Navy.....  You may get out of active duty.... but you are always a sailor...  And in my case a SeaBee construction sailor..

I stood there watching folks scurrying all around the various spaces that were open for the tour..... wondering if they appreciated all of the history that this particular ship was present during....   It was built for the invasion of Japan, and many of the visitors today are Japanese..  Would their parents and grand parents have been killed had that invasion been necessary??  I probably shouldn't think like that, but my father was in the Pacific theater aboard ship in WWII so I can't help it...

Back to today's events....  We left San Diego...  Packed it all up and drove out of town...  But not without incident...  As I was bringing up the Jacks, one of them didn't latch correctly...  It just went on running...  I went out and looked and it was completely up...  So I turned it off manually...

And of course when I shifted into gear, all the alarms and bells went off on the dash that the jacks weren't up...  No amount of pushing button corrected this error...  As I have done before when encountering jack issues, I had to take the controller board out of the dash and disconnect its wires..

We drove back over here to Yuma without any problems, but I was scared to put down the jacks here because we may not get them back up...  Our jacks are electric, and directly geared to the worm screws in the legs...  The fact that the motor just runs on means that the gearing is broken or a shear key is severed..

We landed at the Sun Vista RV Resort out by the Wal Mart...  This is a full service park with lots of Park Models and paved roads...  It is a bunch nicer than where we stayed overnight on our way out...

You can always tell, when they issue a name tag to you, that they intend for you to stay a while and involve yourself in the activities..

We backed in and made ourselves as level as we could get without the jacks...  Hope the wind doesn't decide to blow.........  We'll only be here for a few days...

Retired Rod

USS Midway CV 41

Let's visit the USS Midway  aircraft carrier  CV 41.  Its been a museum since 2004, and has been in service since 1945..  Its moored here in San Diego along the city piers just South of the cruise ship docks..

Along the starboard side the ticket windows are by the ships island..  It costs $19 for general admission and $16 for seniors..

Inside the bow of the ship these are the anchor chains under the bow...

We found the search and rescue area of the ship that had Helicopters on the flight deck above...  This is the ready room for the pilots..

Inside the main hangar deck, they must have had a party the night before because it was still all set up for the guests..  As the day progressed they took down all these tables and chairs...  and the stage too.

Up on the flight deck we wandered among the planes on display..

This is an F 4 Phantom and I remember them as they flew missions over Viet Nam....

F 14 ... I think, as I am not good at recognizing all the different planes...

I wanted to go see where they drove the ship......  So I walked toward the island..

This is the center line of the Angle Deck where they recovered the planes..  They did not have any arresting cables stretched across the deck, as I'm sure that would have been something someone could trip on...  They said the cables were 2 1/2 inches in diameter and were positioned 5 inches above the surface..

Is this a Gruman F8?  It doesn't have the drop wing shape of the F4U Corsair....   Sam in St Louis, was stationed on several carriers, and chimed in on a comment below that this is a A1 Skyraider... by Douglas aircraft...

The Island and an A 6 Intruder to the right of the picture...

Inside the Island this was the captains meeting room...

He had this lounge area in his living quarters...

Older turbo prop Airborne Early Warning and Control   E-2 perhaps...  See the control tower office above the planes tail section...?

Maps and charts...

Radar Room... This room was completely dark with colored lights..  The radars were still spinning and had aircraft plotted on their screens..

And as a Ham, I was interested in the radio room....

Pictures of all the commanding officers...

These were the actual radios....  These were the receivers and the transmitters were in stacks in the next row....

More of officer's country...

This is the Air Boss's chair that I have my arm on....  The seat where the lady is facing me is the Mini Boss...   A mini boss sits in that seat for a year before he is moved up to a boss..

Looking forward out of the Mini Boss's window at the bow and launching catapults...

Looking toward the stern from the Air Boss's window...  This would be the same as the control tower on a land based airport...

Just a few steps forward we found the main Bridge...  This is where you drive the ship and the main captain has a chair to the port side...

The docent is explaining how they ran the ship from this platform and that there was always an officer of the deck on duty here when the Captain wasn't present...

The Engine Order Telegraph...    Set the RPMs on the dials at the bottom...

Now here is the steering wheel...  And what I found interesting was that the sailor standing this watch couldn't even see out of the main bridge windows...  The midway has been remodeled several times and the bridge has been extended forward...  But the wheel house is still in the old position in the center of the room...

So I went looking for the other end of that engine order telegraph...  Down in Engineering... That would be the engine room to us land lubbers..

First I found this control room where they must have controlled the boilers...

But here is one of the steam turbines...  HP stands for High Pressure...

And this board is the other end of the Engine Order Telegraph..  These wheels control the amount of steam allowed to enter the turbines...  One wheel to go forward and the one on the very left to go backward..

The senior chief docent that was there in the engine room was adamant that all forward revolutions had to stop before the reverse wheel was turned on...  They had chains and padlocks on the wheels even now..

This next gray box is a giant reduction gearing mechanism..

More of the steam piping from the boilers.....  This is engine room three, and I was told that there are four of them in total as there are four propellers on the rear of the ship...

This ship is 1000 feet long, and I had walked almost all of it several times, so my legs were shot...  Loyce had given up and went back to the car a while ago, so my tour was over....

If I got some of the planes named wrong or you were stationed aboard a carrier and my descriptions are in error please leave a comment, and I will fix it...

This blog could go on forever as there is much to learn about a ship of this size...  But remember this is 1945 technology and I was reminded that it was the analog Navy, and since we are now in a Digital age that is why the ship has become a museum...

But this ship launched many of the sorties that flew into Iraq on Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s...  She was in service for more than 50 years...

In 1975 she was one of the ships off of the coast of Viet Nam as the helicopters rescued people from Saigon...    The stories seem endless....

USS Midway CV-41 Wiki

Retired Rod