The Bad Cable Is Haunting Us And We Got Stuck

 I was too tired and too exhausted yesterday evening for another posting. So here it comes with a delay:

Our travel day was marred by the Tranny shifter cable hopping off of that gear lever. I tried with duct tape and it was working for some time, but then it was off again.

However, we made it around NEW YORK and got down into New Jersey. Our destination for the day "Freehold" was reached during mid-afternoon hours. Pulling up onto a gas station, the cable made more trouble. Of course, you can't find any professional help on a Saturday. Eventually, we got it going again and went to Walmart, where we set up in a place we had been in before.

The morning started by making a few phone calls to parts stores and one Sunday-open MIDAS place. The guy from MIDAS was unfriendly and not willing to fit us in on his Sunday schedule.

Other shops are opening Monday morning and that will be our next step. But, trying to use the day for something useful, I went to a parts store to find new bushings for the cable. After spending hours in a crampy position under the van, I gave up, The bushings were too big and didn't fit for the cable.

Using the old bushing and a bit of thin copper wire, I was able to reattach the cable to the tranny lever. At least it will get me to a repair shop on Monday. 

BTW.: While I was under the van, I heard Dixie whining a bit. She sure was wondering what was going on. Suddenly I saw her get down in front of the van looking at me, yes watching me. It was too funny, though I think she was seriously worried about my wellbeing.

It was, and is, all very frustrating. But the weather is lovely, it's sunny and above 70F. So what the heck?

I Was Counting The Hours And Suddenly It Was Time

 Is there really a hitch-itch anxiety? I just wonder.

Anyway, I've been counting the hours. From the time we had moved into the trailer I was on 100,000 Volt. It was really getting cold outside, so the furnace ran almost uninterrupted. When it was bedtime we turned it down, but not off.

After a peaceful night (could be the last one for a while) I woke up at 6:30am ready to meet the day.

We cut the umbilical cord to the house, aka power cable, and hit the road at 8:10am. Customs officer took a deeper than normal look at our trailer then wishing us happy travels.

Good Bye House see ya in 5 months

First part of the road showed signs of ice but as soon as we went south on US-1 the road was dry.

Town of Lubec, ME

Mulholland Lighthouse this morning

After a short Wally-Mart stop in Ellsworth, we passed Bangor ME at around noon time. had a stop at the Maine welcome center. When I put the van into gear after the break  my gear shifter went limp. 

What?

The same thing had happened just a few weeks ago and the cable down to the tranny had been replaced. 

I called our mechanic and he asked me to crawl under the van to take a look at the cable connection. Well, all looked really good down there, so this time the problem was somewhere else. Now, the cable is made up of 2 parts. One from the top (shifter) down where it meets the other part which runs to the tranny. The connection between the two of them is made with a male and a female connector.

The mechanic said that the male end had probably slipped out of the female part. A 2. crawl under the van while Bea was operating the shifter at the dash while I put pressure on the tranny lever, brought the two cable ends together again. The problem is that both ends are shielded from view as they sit in a sort of housing. But after round about an hour of mounting frustration, we got the thing going again. For the rest of the day there were no more problems.

We made it almost to the MA border. We have stayed in this parking lot before. It belongs to the New Hampshire Liquor Outlet along the I-95. If a similar place like this would exist along a major highway in Norway it would cause a national outcry and the authorities would have shut it down before it would have been built. LOL.

As the evening went by, a Canadian Motor Coach turned up here. We watched 55 passengers storm into the Liquor store for cheap booze. It was laughable.

495kms

So what's the plan for tomorrow? 

We will circumvent The Big Apple and come down into the lower part of New Jersey where we will set up camp at a Wally-Mart for the night. By the way it got a whole lot warmer today (Thank God!)

Thanks for following this far!

The Day After

 When you are having the 28th of October and you are living in the Maritimes of Canada, you won't expect to have summer temps. Instead you would have night temps near freezing and single digits C as day highs.

But October 28 was indeed a summer day at 23C with warm southerly winds and a general appearance as any good day in August.

But, naturally, it was the last day of such summer weather.

As we woke up the next day, temps had dropped to where they would usually be this time of the year. A cold northern wind blew across the island and made me choose my new winter jacket, before we headed out for a morning walk with Dixie. The beach was completely empty and due to the full moon, with the high water marks almost to the top of the sandy area. However, I discovered deer tracks. What is the reason for deer seeking to the beach? The seaweeds? Or do they lick the salt of the rocks? I don't know, but the tracks were the only sign of life that morning. Well, now I forgot the Cormorants which had placed themselves on top of the poles of the herring weir, some of them spreading their wings to dry the feathers.

Dixie was sniffing up the beach treasures, finding a couple of empty plastic bottles which she, due to her habits, carried along until a suitable spot for burying them in the sand was found. 

When we turned around I was facing the northern breeze and had to zip up my jacket. October had almost come to an end and in just a few days we would be rolling down I-95 towards warmer areas.

Ding-Dong Telephone!

For those of us who haven't been born into the digital age, we may experience the digital revolution as confusing, hard to understand and when problems occur, we can easily feel lost and without help. We have seen it in our direct neighbourhood, how seniors are struggling to understand their smart phones (that is if they have one). 

And even though we personally don't feel as seniors (but, of course,we are)  we are experiencing problems with our computers and phones. 

A good example may be Bea's Motorola phone. One morning she restarted her phone and it wouldn't connect to the internet, while the phone part was still working. After trying and retrying without avail, she jumped in the car and drove 60miles to the telecommunication store where I had bought her the phone about 18 months ago.

When she got back she had spent USD250 on a new phone but was told she could return it within 2 weeks.

Meanwhile the company would attempt to find out why the internet problem existed.

One evening a phone rep called and told us they had found the problem and she should return to the store to let them fix it.

Today was that day. The technician installed the SIM card into her old phone, and it didn't work. Finally he called for backup customer service. There he was connected to the wrong department 4 times. After finally getting the right person on the phone he tried another way, restarted the phone but nothing would re-establish the internet connection.

Then he came up with the last resort: A factory reset, which wipes out all of the clients data.

After spending 1hr. in the store, this last resort solution got the internet working again. He then returned the $250, Bea had paid earlier.

Of course, we could have done a factory reset ourselves, but it is the knowledge about how to solve problems in the digital world we are missing.

Interestingly, the lasting failure of connecting to the internet has now happened 3 times. 2 of these phones were mine, the last one still under warranty.  They gave me a new phone. Now, I wonder what a factory reset would have done.