Logical Disconnect

One more thing about yesterday’s post -

The picture above shows the visible portion of what is known as the battery bypass or battery disconnect switch.  As the name implies, it is there to remove the battery from the circuit when the trailer is not in service.  Most modern RVs have several items – thermostats, sensors, etc. – that are always on and require 12 volts to operate.  They don’t use much juice, but will eventually run a battery down if the trailer is in long-term storage.

In all of our years of camping, I have never used the battery bypass switch.  Our pop-up trailers did not have one, and our last two trailers were always plugged in to a power outlet when parked at home.

I probably added an extra half hour to my trouble-shooting Tuesday when I accidentally moved the battery bypass switch to its OFF position, but I’m not complaining about that.  My gripe is that the label on this switch is about as confusing as it could possibly get.

Nothing in the literature that comes with the RV tells you how to operate this switch – probably because it should be a no-brainer.  It’s a two-position switch – how difficult could that possibly be?

OK. 

It is a two-position switch – either ON or OFF – anyone should be able to deal with that… ON means the contacts are closed and OFF means they are open, right?  But wait,  the label clearly says Battery Disconnect – does ON mean that the switch has done its job – i.e., the battery has been disconnected?

As if that wasn't confusing enough,  the switch is operated with a removable L-shaped key.  If it is in the position pictured above, with the leg of the L pointing toward the right, you would probably assume (correctly, as it turns out) that the switch was in the ON position.  It seems to be pointing toward the ON on the label – all’s right with the world.  But -  from this position, you can only turn the switch 90° clockwise which leaves the L of the key pointing down – away from the OFF on the label. 

It’s enough to make a grown man whimper, if not break down and cry.

This is clearly one of those situations where thinking and logic can only get you in trouble.  The correct way to deal with this switch is to check it with a voltmeter, or – better yet - never touch it at all.

NO VDC

Back in March, and again in May, I mentioned problems with leaks in our fifth wheel – wet carpet due to rainwater getting in.  Thankfully, I can report that those problems have been resolved.

That does not mean that everything was OK. 

When I picked up the trailer last time, I had a hard time hooking up - the battery was almost too low to operate the landing gear.  We assumed (incorrectly) that someone had left lights on while the trailer was in storage.  Once I got it home, I pulled the battery, charged it for 24 hours and reinstalled it.  It looked like everything was working fine.

Sunday, Honey asked me if the trailer was OK.  Something (she’s spooky that way) told her that I needed to check it, and sure enough, nothing requiring 12 volts would work.

After working for a month and a half, the battery was dead again.

It turned out that the converter – a replacement and supposedly an improvement over the original – was trash.  It had lasted just long enough to outlive its warranty.  Once it was replaced – with one that’s supposed to be bigger and better than the last one – everything is back to normal.

German Marbles

One day when I was about seven or eight years old, my father gave me an unexpected gift. 

We weren’t poor, but we were far from wealthy, so any present that came on a day that was not Christmas or my birthday was unusual to say the least. There was nothing special about that day, so this gift came as a total surprise.

I could hardly contain my excitement as I opened the box to find it contained 200 more-or-less spherical balls.  They varied quite a bit in size, but ranged from about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

I was confused – dumbfounded – I had no idea what they were or what they were for. Dad explained that they were German Marbles and that they were really special.  I tried to hide my disappointment, but I doubt if I did a very good job.

Google German Marbles and you will find pictures of some of the most beautiful glass marbles ever made – clear glass with gorgeous swirls of color – but there were also German Marbles made of clay. 

Those clay marbles were what I got.  They all had flat spots and the colored glaze had so many bumps and pits and pockmarks that they often looked like the surface of the moon.  None of them would roll straight, even on the smoothest surface.

German Clay Marbles were mostly made in the 1800s.  Thinking back about them now, I suppose that they were actually genuine antiques and probably very valuable.  The only use I could find for them was to pay off losses when we played marbles “for keeps.”   My friends objected, but I stuck to my guns, and it wasn’t long before all 200 were gone.

Andrea

The young woman in the picture is Andrea Kowch.

I do think she is attractive, but what first got my attention was the fact that her last name could almost be a phonetic spelling of mine. 

I came across this photo – and lots of her paintings – while surfing the net this past weekend.  Andrea is an award winning painter from Michigan and I really like her work.

You might not. 

Her work is dark, stark and sometimes creepy.  Even the happiest of her scenes seem to have some ominous undertones.  I’m not sure how significant it is, but (except for her Hiawatha illustrations) all of her subjects are women.

Here is an example:

She has a WEBSITE and a FACEBOOK PAGE, or you can see lots of her paintings HERE.

Double Feature

I have no doubt that my old pal Kirk Dabney can put on his coat of many colors and interpret these, but I had two equally strange, and apparently unrelated dreams last night.

In the first one, three of my former coworkers and I were somewhere near Brenham at the home of a man who owned a brewery.  We were there for a business-related dinner, but never got around to eating because he kept urging us to sample his latest brews.

Also present were the brewer’s wife, three grown sons and two daughters.  The youngest son was a drug addict and the younger daughter was sweet but seriously mentally challenged.  Somewhere in her late teens, this girl was the baby of the family and they were all fiercely protective of her.  I scored major points with the brewer when I was able to make her laugh.

Our hosts were gracious, everyone was friendly, and we all were having a good time, but even my dream self kept wondering why they were hosting four copier repairmen.  I (my dream self) also had a strong sense of deja vu – I knew that I had been there and done that all before – I just didn’t know why.

The other dream was a bit more straightforward. 

I was back in the Army and I and two other guys were delivering a Zodiac inflatable boat to a National Guard unit near Brownsville.  When we got there, the Guard Colonel commandeered the truck and trailer we had used to haul it there.  We were still trying to figure out what to do about that, and how to get ourselves back to Ft. Hood when I woke up.

One more point for what it’s worth – the brewer in my first dream made some really great beer.  My favorite, a dark ale, was so wonderful that I can almost taste it now.

Ghost Town

If the picture looks like some tourist snapped it at some old ghost town in the American Southwest, it is probably supposed to, but it would be hard to be more wrong.  It was actually taken by Australian photographer Shane Thoms at an abandoned amusement park in Japan.

The place was called Western Village and closed in 2007 after failing to compete with the Japanese Disneyland.  Built in 1979, seventy miles north of Toyko, Western Village included a cowboy saloon, jail, post office, shooting gallery, a fake Rio Grande.  There is even a 1/3 scale replica of Mount Rushmore that was added in 1995 and allegedly cost the park $27 million to build.

Thoms is a guy who thinks abandoned theme parks are more fun than the ones in operation.  You can see more of his photos from Western Village HERE.  and even more photos Posted Here by a group called Haikyo.org.

Twister

A tornado hit an RV park yesterday, killing two campers and leaving one in critical condition.  It left a path of downed trees and overturned RVs in the Cherrystone Family RV Resort in Cape Charles, Virginia.

We know, or should know, that tornadoes can strike anywhere, but I never thought of Virginia – particularly the Atlantic Coastal Area of Virginia – as a tornado prone area.  Tornadoes usually bring to mind the “Tornado Alley” that stretches from the Panhandle of Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and maybe Arkansas and Illinois.

But Virginia does get tornadoes.  NOAA records show the state averages about seven tornadoes a year, most of them in July.  The death toll from Virginia tornadoes since records began is about seventy.

What county in Texas do you think has the most tornadoes? 

Logic might tell you it would be somewhere on a line from Wichita Falls to Dallas, but according to the Insurance Council of Texas, it’s Harris County!

Harris County has recorded 210 tornadoes in the past 58 years. In a distant second was Hale County located just north of Lubbock with 118. The next three counties reporting the most tornadoes were Texas coastal counties. Galveston County has had 108 confirmed tornadoes, Jefferson County has had 99 and Nueces County has had 93.

Of course, tornadoes are only recorded if they are reported, and a lot of tornadoes probably touched down in unpopulated areas.  And a lot of the coastal tornadoes were spun off during Hurricanes.

Still, it’s something to think about.