2nd Pinellas Bike trip, Lesson Learned, and RV Maintenance

May 04 Saturday, 2013   

We had a lot of rain this week.  It was actually nice for a change to just hang around the RV.  It seems that here in Florida it never really is a complete rain out when it rains either.  A lot of the rain just forms here and doesn't come from somewhere else.  So, mostly we had on and off rain Tuesday afternoon through Friday and it is very overcast this morning too.

Sunday we went to the Blueberry Wine Festival in Plant City Florida.  What a great day we had!  The weather was absolutely beautiful too.  The festival is held on a small family blueberry farm that also makes wine.  The crowd was estimated at 6,000 which is a lot of people in a somewhat small place. The temperature was just about 90 by 1 pm and there were 2 separate people taken to the hospital from the heat and, we think, too much to drink in the heat.  We got under the big tent early and took residence near the entertainment.  We had lunch of pulled pork, corn fritters with Mozzarella cheese and much wine.  It just doesn't get much better.  Well maybe the nap we had when we got back!

Inside the big tent a the Blueberry wine festival.  We were just a little toasted and baked!

We took advantage of the excellent weather last Monday and biked another portion of the Pinellas trail.  This time we parked the truck about ½ a mile east of the trail and started the trail at the 8 mile mark in the town of Dunedin.  Dunedin is on the Gulf Coast at the entrance to Honeymoon Island (previous BLOG Post).  

We biked the trail going South through the town of Clearwater before stopping for lunch.    We stopped at an Irish Pub called O'keefe's.  The food was very, very good.  Patty had the Shepard’s pie and I had something new for me, the Wexman Steak.  The Wexman is as follows: Grilled Flank steak cut into ¼ inch slices covered with grilled onions and cheddar cheese.  This steak with onions and cheese is then placed on top of a pile of grilled mashed potatoes.  The end result is a plate with melted cheese covering the whole mass of taste goodness.  Lastly, the whole thing is lightly covered with a Guinness brown gravy!  I really need to make this myself sometime.  

We added new bike seats for this ride.  We needed more padding.

This is a little hard to see, but this is 4 wheel bike for 2.  It's sort of like the the Flinstone car.  They had a radio and GPS.

Cool wall mural in downtown Clearwater.

Former railroad crossing on Pinellas trail

O'keefe's for lunch.

Interesting painting inside O'keefe's.  It is said that the painting is of the  owners wife!

The next best part was that we could bike back the 8 miles to our truck after we ate.  The total trip for us was a new record of 16 miles.  It was also 86 degrees when we arrived back at the truck!  We were ready for the AC now!

The next few days it rained.  It rained really hard most of the day on Tuesday.  This gave me time to do some stuff around the RV that we have been planning for a while.  First was the door to our bedroom.  The door doesn't have a stop to hold it from wandering closed and if opened real hard it might damage the wall.  So I installed a magnetic latch that also serves to keep the door from hitting the wall.

The magnetic door latch.

Patty and our new friends Christiana and Crystal decided to go to the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg on Thursday.  The museum was having a Tarot card show.  Patty was going to be gone most of the afternoon and since it was raining, I was going to catch up on some needed RV maintenance items. 

First maintenance item was disinfecting the fresh water holding tank and exercising the water pump.  We have a 65 gallon fresh water tank that we haven’t used except to keep the pump and tank clean until we need to use it.  We have so far always used city water.  We are planning to boondock this year where we will need to use the fresh water tank.

In order to sanitize the fresh water tank I needed to put about a cup of bleach into the tank and then fill it up with water.  After the tank is filled with the bleach and water solution, I let it set for a day and then drain it out.  After I drain the tank I refill it and will use the water with the pump for a day so everything gets exercised a little and drain out the remaining water.  I try to do this once every 3 months.

Disinfecting the fresh water tank uncovered a surprise as well.   In order to get bleach into the fresh water tank, I needed to put the bleach in the water hose entering the RV.  The best place to do this is at the whole house water filter.  I turned off the water to the RV at the spigot and opened up the water filter housing to take out the filter and then to put in the bleach.  To my surprise, the filter was GREEN and all of the water on the outside of the filter was also GREEN.  It seems that the water going into the RV was at least not visibly green.  Yikes!  I removed the filter, poured out the green water, put in the bleach, closed up the filter housing, and then switched the RV water valve into position to fill the fresh water tank.  Lastly, I turned on the water to fill the tank.

As the tank was filling I did some research on the internet to see what the cause and fix was for the green water.  I got help from another RV-Dreams member who said to find out where the green algae was coming from.  It was either coming from the city water or from my hose as he suspected.  His suggestion was to use a white cloth; I used an old but clean white sock, to put over the city water spigot and then the hose and run water through it and see if the green appears on the white cloth.  The sock did not turn green when I had just city water going through the sock.  But just a few seconds of hose water running through the sock it turned green.  

So I had my answer that the algae were in my water hose.  As to where it comes from, my hose was mostly in the Florida sun all day.  The water for the most part is lying motionless being heated up by the sun causing the small amounts of algae from the city water to multiply in the hose.  To fix it I could clean the hose with bleach or get a new hose.  I got a new hose for $9 at WalMart. I also cleaned my other hose with bleach as well as the new hose to just make sure.  It was also recommended that in the future I put a little bleach in to the hose and then flush it out just before I use it.  I also now have a short 10 foot hose instead of the 15 foot I was using so that there is less hose in the sun all day.

Anyway, that was my new RV lesson learned.  

My next task was to run the on-board Cummins generator with a good load on it for an hour.  This should be done to keep the generator lubricated every month.  This time I had some time as it was raining so I decided to check the generator manual to see when any servicing was going to be needed.  The first service is at 20 hours operation or one year.  After the first service it is 150 hours or one year to the next.  I have just 12 hours on the generator in 9 months!  As I said before, we do plan to use it more this year out west.  

As I was reading the manual I found that my remote start panel located inside the RV has an hour meter on it to tell be how much the generator has been used.  I, up to this point, didn't really pay any attention to the hour meter.  The meter had always had 0.0 on it so I thought it was for giving a diagnostic code.  Now I started to give the meter my full attention.  The damn thing was not working!  It was a warranty item for sure. 

Depending on what the issues are, I try to fix stuff that is simple and shouldn't have any further ramifications if I fix it.   I wasn't sure if this hour meter met this criteria yet.  At first I decided that it was too complicated for me and I should leave it alone.  Then I thought I will just take a look at the wiring behind it and see if there is a wire loose or not connected.  No such luck on the loose or not connected wiring, all looked good. 

Now that I have it apart, I decided to check the installation manual to see if there was a wiring diagram so I could see how the thing was supposed to work.  I found on the internet that the hour device is very simple.  It just counts time when it has power on it which means it needs to have the run switch in line with it to function.  I also found on the internet that this switch is commonly wired backwards by RV manufactures in which case it won't work.  Ah, but how to tell if it is wired backwards?  

The device has just 2 connections with one being marked with a + sign.  The wires are colored brown and orange which doesn't give me any clue as to how it should be wired.  I was in luck though; the installation manual had a wiring diagram.  The diagram however did not have the wire colors, damn!  However, after studying the diagram I noticed that the + wire went to 2 places on the start switch and the other wire went to the generator.  Looking at the hour meter itself, the position marked as + was going in to the wall toward the generator and the other was connected to the start switch in 2 places.  This was exactly backwards from the diagram. 

I was a little nervous, but I switched the wires on the device and started the generator.  No sparks, a good sign.  The hour device only has one digit after the decimal point so I knew the meter would not show anything until 1/10th of an hour had passed which is 6 minutes.  Just as the wall clock showed I had ran the generator 6 minutes, the hour device showed .1.  I had fixed the meter!!  We would never have let a rail car or locomotive be shipped like this!

The generator remote control and hour meter in side the RV.  Note the .1 on the meter!

We finished the week off with new old friends John and Christiana.  We met them at the Seminole RV Park in Davie Florida.  Since the park went to KOA just after we left they decided to move to Lake Como next door to us here in Paradise Pines.  Patty and I met up with them and the lot owners Crystal and Dave for dinner and drinks at Lake Como Friday night.  It’s great for us because we can just walk there.  We had a great time catching up on the antics at Seminole.  We made plans to get together again  this next week as well at our site this time.

Tonight we are going to dinner and a comedy show just a few miles from here.  Next week the weather is rumored to be dry so we will finally get a beach day in.

Just 3 more weeks till Disney!

Just a picture of the decorations on a shed here in the park I thought was nice.

Sandhill Cranes that were at our back window last week while we were having morning coffee.

The pool at night in our park

This was walking across the road when we went to Lake Como yesterday.  I think it is a tad poll.  If not, we found aliens!!

This is the thing blown up. Any ideas anyone?

Stay tuned!

Pinellas Bike trip to Gulf, Lost Wallet, and more Disney planning

April 27 Saturday, 2013   


It’s starting to get hot here now. The temperatures are just shy of 90 during the day and 68 at night. We went to the pool yesterday and the water temperature was 89, not very refreshing.  We are moving into Florida’s wet season now.  This is the weather I remember from the last time we were at Disney World in, we think, 2002.  It would be a beautiful sunny day and then in the afternoon all hell breaks loose for an hour.  Then the weather goes right back to the way it was, bright and sunny.  We are hoping it is not too hot at the end of next month when the grandkids get here.

We started the week, last weekend, still recuperating from the busy schedule when our friends were here the week before.  By Tuesday we were ready to go on another bike ride.  We took the Pinellas Bike trail that starts in Tarpon Springs just a few miles south of where we are here in Lutz.  The trail runs along the Gulf of Mexico and ends after 41 miles in Clearwater.  We rode just 7 miles to a nice restaurant at a marina and had lunch.  After lunch we headed back to our start in Tarpon Springs.

Cool how they used RR crossing signs as town limit signs on the trail.

Every few miles the trail has water fountains.

The restaurant where we had lunch.

Gulf of Mexico in the Background.  This before I knew my wallet was gone.

When I ride my bike I always put our truck keys and my wallet in the saddle bags on the back of the bike.  This trip was no different.  So when we got to the restaurant I took out the bike lock cable and my wallet.  I put my wallet on the seat of my bike until I could get the lock cable on the 2 bikes and around the rack.  Patty was helping me by pushing the bike in to the rack so I could get the lock locked.  You might have guessed by now, the wallet stayed on the bike seat while we went in to eat.  We were there about an hour when the check came. That is when I realized I had left the wallet on the bike seat.  We could see the bikes from our table when I stood up, no wallet on the seat!  I rushed out and checked the ground and again in the saddle bags, no wallet, damn!  When I got back to our table and was just deciding to go to the office to see if anybody had turned it in, a couple came up to me and asked if I had lost something.  After telling them yes, the woman pulled my wallet out of her pocket.   This couple was also biking and we had passed them on the trail.  They remembered us and our bikes so when they arrived to have lunch they saw the wallet and took it to keep it safe.  I find this absolutely amazing!  What are the chances that one, they remember us, 2 they stopped to have lunch at the same place we did.  We stayed a little while longer until they ordered and then we took the waiter aside and paid for their lunch.  We didn't let them know we were going to do this and we left before they knew we paid.

Just waiting for someone to pick it up.

This is the second time in the past 3 months I lost my wallet this way.  The first was in Davie Florida.  I was carrying groceries in both hands and needed to get my truck keys out.  I sat down the groceries and then took my wallet out of my pocket that was on top of my keys.  I put the wallet on the back of the truck and left it there as I drove down the road.  The wallet stayed on the truck for over 3 miles!  I turned around and went back to look for it just a little further down the road when I realized it was gone.  A guy found it in the middle of the road and called me to return it.  I had already canceled all of the credit cards and was in the process of figuring out how to get a new South Dakota Driver’s license when the guy called.  Anyway, it just goes to show that most people are good people and I am very complacent about my wallet.

Thursday we went for another bike ride of about 9 miles.  It was time to have the oil changed in the truck and we needed to get a bank check to send in for renewal of the RV and truck registration. Patty has a bank account with PNC so we found one within 4-5 miles of the Ford dealer so we could bike there while the truck was being serviced.  It really is great that Florida has so many bike/hiking trails.  Seems you can go everywhere on these trails.  It was a nice ride as the trail was wide enough for both us to ride side by side.

We went through one of the brush fires they have here in Florida.  The smoke was blowing across the bike path near the Ford dealer.

We went out to eat at the Bonefish Grille.  The Bonefish Grille is a Florida chain.  This was our second time and the food is pretty good.  We really wanted to have King Crab legs though.  The Bonefish Grille didn't have they so we just had regular fish.  For the past 4 months Publix has had King Crab for $18/lb, which is a very good price.  We had them once down in Davie a few months ago and just now wanted them again.  We have been to 3 local Publix and none have them now.  We are now on somewhat of a mission to get King Crab.

Off and on the rest of the week we have been planning the Disney vacation with the Grandkids.  We are making a fairly detailed plan that can be modified as we need to.  The thing about Disney is that it is very big with a lot to do.  If you don’t plan you just wander around seeing things that are easy to do/see.  We didn't know this but the weekend we are there it is Gay Days at Disney from Thursday – Sunday.  We aren't too much concerned about gays but we are about the extra people creating big lines.  The good thing is that Gay Days is centered in one of the parks each day so we just need to avoid that park on that day.  Another reason for the plan.  We have made a few meal reservations months ago for the more popular restaurants so we sort of need to be in the areas where the restaurants are on the days we have reservations.  Even if our schedule goes out the window, we still can use the plan to be aware what we need to do or where we need to be.

Tomorrow we are going to the Blueberry Wine Festival in Tampa.  We are still trying to get a good deal on a dinner cruise and we want to go to the beach on Caladesi Island State Park.

Stay tuned!

New Bike Trip and Friends Visit From NJ

April 20 Saturday, 2013  

Since the last post after getting my bike fixed we took the bike trip over to Honeymoon Island.  We also have continued the pace of eating out.  Last week we ate at home just a couple of meals which is not typical for us at all. 

Last Saturday we finally got to a West Coast beach in Florida.  We loaded up our bikes and drove 24 miles to a strip mall just 2 miles from the causeway that leads to Honeymoon Island State park.  It was a beautiful day with just a few clouds and a light breeze coming of the Gulf and temperatures in the in the low 80s.  One of the things we really like about Florida is the numerous bike paths.  Florida really makes it easy to be outside.  We parked in a closed bank parking lot and got our bikes ready to ride.  We packed a collapsible cooler with water and a freeze pack to keep it cold and then we were ready to go.

Honeymoon Island on the left.  We biked the causeway in the center.

Ready to go!

Patty has new mirror.

Our path crossed the 41 mile long Pinellas bike bath that runs from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater.  We plan to bike some of that before we leave the area.   Once past the Pinellas trail we headed out on to the 2 mile long causeway that connects the mainland to Honeymoon Island State park.  The causeway was very scenic as we had the deep blue Gulf waters dote with palm trees on both sides of us.  There are small pull off areas along the causeway for people to stop and enjoy the beach for free.  These areas were hopping with people.  There is a small draw bridge near the center of the causeway where the path gets a little narrow.  More on that on our return trip back to the truck.

On the causeway.

Free beach along the way to the island state park.

Just into the park we met up with this turtle.

The bike path ends at the entrance to the state park.  It cost $2 each to enter the park on a bike; not bad.  The traffic in the park is light and the speed is slow so it wasn't a problem biking there.  The island park road is about a mile long with beach parking lots along the south side.  At the end of the road there are several nature trails for hiking.  We decided to continue our trip on one of the nature trails.

We locked our bikes up on a guardrail near the entrance.  While getting the bikes locked up I felt a familiar burning on my toes.  I was standing on a fire ant nest.  In fact there were nests all around the area!  I seem to find these ants where ever we have gone in the south.  Anyway, after shaking off the ants we proceeded down the walking/hiking path in to the woods.  The area is mostly slash pines that mostly just grow in Florida and cabbage palms.  It also looks like they are trying to get rid of invading plants by burning them off.   We walked about 2 miles round trip on the trail.

Fire ant nest!

Osprey Trail

Osprey nest.

Slash pines on Osprey Trail.

Prickly Pear Cactus in Bloom.

After the hike we went over to the main beach and had a beer and a snack.  Then we decided to take a walk on the beach and get our first feel of the Gulf water.  The sand there is hard packed like Daytona Beach making it very easy to walk on.  We walked at the edge of the water for about ½ hour before deciding to head back.

The trip back was just as scenic as was the trip into the park.  However, at the drawbridge where the path narrows, there were many walkers making it difficult to bike past them.  Then, one large guy on a trike with one of those hat umbrellas on his head came the other way forcing Patty into the guard rail and she went down on her left knee.  This time she only had soft tissue injuries and was able to complete the trip back to the truck.  We got her cleaned up and it seems that was well and would just need time to heal.  Whew!

That was a great day!  Our total trip of biking and hiking was 12.5 miles.

Sunday was cloudy with a little rain so we did some domestic stuff.  We got some groceries, beer, and we rented a steam cleaner for the RV carpets.  

Monday our friends, Cindy and Rob, from New Jersey arrived to spend the week with us.  We are centered in the middle of the 3 biggest nudist resorts in Florida and probably the best known in the country.  We have Lake Como directly next and behind us.  It is the oldest being built in 1941 and the cheapest to visit.  Next to Como is Paradise Lakes about a mile away.  Paradise lakes is a little more expensive but have many more amenities.  Then there is the nudist flagship for the past few years, Caliente.  Caltente is a short 6 miles north of us on US41.  Caliente is expensive with lots of amenities and attracts a somewhat younger crowd.  We managed to get a visit to each of the resorts over the 4 days Cindy and Rob were here.  A good time was had by all!

More wood carvings on the nature trail at Lake Como

Wood Carvings at Lake Como Nature trail.

Great picture of Patty at Paradise Lake Resort.

Cindy and Rob.

Caliente Resort. View form our dinner seating.

We found this nice Dahon folding bike at Lake Como that had a free sign on it.  This is now Cindy's new (to her) folding bike. We will bring it up with us to NJ in June.

It was interesting that the week wore us out.  It felt just like being on vacation as were our friends.  We are now used to doing stuff on a much slower time frame.  We don’t need to rush to do things on any real schedule most of the time.  We really didn't feel it until after they left and this morning.  We feel like we used to after we were on vacation.  We need to recover too!  Thanks to Cindy and Rob for a good time and letting us join their vacation.
  
Next week we are planning to bike the Pinellas trail  and at some point make it to Caladesi Island State Park.

Stay tuned!

Caliente, Bike Maintenance, and Wings

April 13 Saturday, 2013   

In the last 10 days we have gone out a lot for us.  We went out 4 times for dinner, once for lunch and one breakfast. This last Thursday we accomplished going to the last of the big three resorts here, Caliente.  We went on Thursday as it is ladies night.  Drinks are free for Patty and they are ½ price for me.  It’s a damn good thing as a half price glass of wine is $3.75!  It is, however, a big glass of wine, but still!  We had dinner which was a little better than average food.  Service was slow though.  After dinner we went to the 3 bars they have.  To our surprise, there were a lot of 20 something females at the bars (with 50 something dates).  This is not the usual experience at other clothing optional places we have been.  So, the total cost for dinner, dancing, and drinks was $130. Not too bad considering!

This is the only picture I have at Caliente!  The pictures were too dark.  This is interesting as  there is a feud between Caliente and the Woods Resort just behind this wall.  All we heard it that the Woods got the land ahead of Cliente which made Caliente mad.  Seems very childish! 

Last Tuesday we went out to a local landmark, the Columbia.  It is a local chain with 5 restaurants in the Tampa area that serve Cuban cuisine.  We went to the one on the boardwalk in Clearwater Beach.  This restaurant chain was started by Cuban immigrants over a hundred years ago in Tampa.  The original family still own and run the place.  The food was just OK but it was a nice dinner out.  Probably wouldn't go back though.  The restaurant is located on the sound side so there is no sunset which we wanted to see.  In the coming weeks we are going to do dinner cruise in the Gulf so we can see the sunset during dinner.

Us at the Columbia restaurant.

Our waiter making sangria at our table.  It was very good!

Patty’s cousin Lee came for a visit last Sunday.  He has lived here in Tampa for the past 10 years working for a local TV station.  We had a nice visit and then went to another landmark restaurant in the area called Skippers Smokehouse.  This place was started by three military guys from Desert Storm.  They become friends while stationed in Alaska and decided to start a fish take out place in Tampa when they got out.  The fish take out place became a large restaurant with a stage for entertainment.  The place reminds us of the Le Tub in Hollywood FL on A1A.  They both expanded with materials that were just laying around.  The restaurants are also built around the existing trees giving them a real relaxed feel.   This place is not about the food; however the fried mushroom appetizer was large and very good.  We will go back for Grateful Dead Thursdays.

We also went out for happy hour with 10 of our neighbors to the Bonefish Grille.  It’s a Florida chain that serves seafood.  Good food and relatively cheap with great service.   

I am going to change the subject to biking and my bike needing repair.  The last time we were out I noticed that my left pedal was broken.  The pedals that come with cheap Wal-Mart bikes are made of plastic as was mine.  I bought two new metal pedals on Amazon which arrived last Monday.  Yesterday we planned to go biking on Honeymoon Island in the Gulf after I changed out my pedals.   Ah, but the original pedals were really stuck together as the metals were aluminum and steel.  I used tons of WD40 with no luck.   I went to the store and picked up a narrow wrench to get better leverage which finally worked!  Now, for the really ugly part.  I just couldn't get the left pedal to thread into the crank arm straight.  I got the right pedal in with no problem.  So now instead of going for a bike ride we were off to the bike repair shop.  At least that was a good experience.  The bike shop, Carrollwood Bike Emporium http://cbebikes.com/, took me right in and rethreaded the crack arm.  The total cost was just $16 and took 15 minutes from the time I walked in.  I should have had them do the entire job and then we might have been biking instead of driving around and me cursing at the bike!

Mark's bike repair shop.

Mark's bike at a real bike shop.

Yesterday was the chicken wing competition here at the park.  There were 8 entries and we didn't place in the top 4!  We entered the contest when we arrived here 4 weeks ago.  Ever since then we have been trying to perfect a good recipe for wings.  We started with our old recipe which is a traditional Buffalo recipe except we grill the wings.  I like the wings to be somewhat dry so I experimented with re grilling them after rolling them in the Buffalo sauce.  There were other subtle changes also like cooking them slow on indirect heat.  Last week we came up with a pretty good wing.  At the last minute I added a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.  They were great or so we thought.  Now we needed to make 3 times as many wings for the competition.  We slow cooked the wings then rolled them in the Buffalo sauce and then rolled the now wet wings in parmesan cheese.  Then we put the wings back on the grill to give some crunch.  They turned out just OK in our estimation.  The problem was that the wet wings picked up way too much of the cheese which overpowered the wing taste.  Next time we will roll them in the cheese after the sauce has dried some on the grill.

Today or tomorrow we are planning to bike on Honeymoon island in the Gulf of Mexico.  We are going to park on the mainland side of the causeway and bike to the island about 2 miles over the bridge.  Then we will bike around the island and take in the views.
Monday our friends, Rob and Cindy, from New Jersey arrive for the week with us.   Hope the weather holds as it has been somewhat rainy the past couple of days.  The weather reports are routinely wrong here In Florida.  Seems that bad weather just appears out of nowhere.   Anyway, the prediction is for very hot, 90s with high humidity!,  We shall see.

Spring rain in Florida

 

Random picture of an old train station in Lutz.

The Breakfast Nook where had a great breakfast.  Note the sign about alligators.

Stay tuned!