August 8, 2010

From Great Falls, MT, N47°29.386’ W111°19.942’

Day 66

We were finally able to tune into the Church’s webcast with very little problem. We had planned to go to the Montana State Fair after church, but a storm cell came through with a lot of wind and some rain. The sky remained gray and threatening looking with wind blowing. We didn’t go to the fair.

At the start of this trip I tried to open the generator slide and it wouldn’t work. Once we were set up in Fillmore, CA I tried it again. It worked that time. Earlier this week when we moved from space 80 to space 139, I wanted to put out our patio carpet which is stored in the generator slide out. The slide wouldn’t operate. The motor ran but the slide didn’t move. Today I remembered that there was some discussion of this problem last month on the American Coach Yahoo group. I checked the archives and found what was recommended for the problem. Apparently the culprit is some air in the hydraulic line that operates the slide. The solution is to open the line and operate the motor for a short period of time. I followed the procedure and sure enough after I reclosed the line the slide worked. Now this may not seem like a big accomplishment for some, I have a purple thumb when it comes to things mechanical so it feels pretty good when I open a can of getting it done. Now if I could just get the solar panels working. I’ll make a call to Kevin and post a description of the problem on the ACC list.

I went to see Glenna at about 6:30. She was sitting on the bed leaning sideways. She said her leg was hurting. I asked if she had pressed the call button for the nurse and told her about it. She had not. The nurse came in about that time with her Tylenol and a new pain patch. I had brought Gerri’s computer and was able to get tuned in to the Oakey Blvd Church webcast. Not much volume on Gerri’s laptop, but we managed to worship with the Oakey congregation and Glenna took communion.

I left the home at about 8:30 to go back to the coach for supper. Gerri had prepared a casserole with egg, ham, cheese and tortillas. It was delicious and made spicy with a little jalapeno hot sauce.

Tomorrow we plan to drive up to a town just across the Canadian border; Coutts, Alberta. We will see what is to be seen. I want to do a couple of geocaches in Alberta which is new territory for me. It’s about 120 miles each way and there are at least three caches along the way in reststops.