Preparations for Red Rock Canyon State Park

It has been a few days since I last posted. While there hasn’t been a lot going on to prevent me from posting, there were just enough small things to get in the way. Sunday, the 10^th, saw us helping the wife of one of Jo’s co-workers. He is a member of the National Guard and they are preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan for a lengthy time.

Prior to his leaving for pre-deployment training, he purchase two new phones on the Verizon network because that system was the best for getting cell service at their home and around town where each of them work. Then, they set up for a 4G MiFi system for her internet service. So, Jo went to help get the lady’s computer set up for the MiFi and other issues.

At some point, I had noticed that a support strap on the Mobile Suites had broken. At both the front and rear of the kitchen slide, there are these flat straps which are about 5 inches wide that are equipped with “loops” through which wiring and other things are routed. Some time back, the one in the back had broken off right at the frame of the fifth wheel. Rather than cut the strap straight across and drill new holes to re-attach to the frame, I attached a commercial door hinge to the frame and then attached the strap to the other half of the hinge. That way, when the slides are retracting and extending, the strap itself isn’t flexing that much at the frame.

The broken rear strap.

The Re-attached strap to the hinge.

Well, this week I needed to do the same thing to the front strap on the kitchen slide. While it didn’t take as much time this time, due to me now knowing how to do it, I still spent about an hour and a half doing all that was needed to re-attach the strap. All of this was done after work. I certainly wanted it done before we went to Red Rock Canyon State Park because most of the tools and things I would need are here at the house. Oh, and all this lets me know that I need to re-assess what tools will be a part of the full-time RV’ing.

This evening, we went by the church and got the communion trays ready for Sunday’s worship service. Normally, we would do that on Friday evenings, but Jo is going to need to stay late tomorrow at work. After doing the communion preparations, we came home and I hooked up the water hoses and checked the Mobile Suites for water issues and to make sure that the hot water heater works.

While we will be in the canyon next week, we won’t have internet access due to being out of line of cell service. With luck, I hope to come back out on occasion and using a laptop and the MiFi that we have, I may be able to post some things while we are there. It all depends on what we find to do.

So, if you don’t see much activity next week, it will because we are enjoying ourselves at the park. At least when we come back out, I hope to have some nice photos to share.