New Parking Site: Electricity Complete!

Aaron and my dad have made great strides the past week with the new parking area!  Over a few days' work they were able to complete the rewiring needed to provide 50 amp power to the new parking area.

We are very fortunate that for whatever unknown reason my grandfather had run a very thick 200+ foot wire from the chicken coop to the tractor shed where we're setting up the new parking spot.  This wire far exceeds the specifications needed to transfer the power we required.  Thus the electrical project had two basic steps: first, upgrade and replace the breaker panels and under-rated wire between the garage and the chicken coop, and second, upgrade the breaker panel at the garage and run a new wire to the new parking location.  

We wanted all the new wire run between buildings to run underground, so the first step was to cut a trench from the garage to the chicken coop, which my dad accomplished in pretty short order with a spade and post-hole digger.

The trench from the chicken coop 
(foreground) to the garage (background).

Aaron hooked up the new circuit breaker inside the garage and ran wire through a hole in the back of the garage, down the new trench, and up the side of the chicken coop to a new breaker box there.  

Hooking up the new circuit breaker
panel in the garage

Routing the wire through the new box
on the outside of the garage - it was 
HARD work getting that thick wire to
turn the corner!!

Wire routed!

Additionally, they took the existing wire that used to run up to a connection point atop a pole and ran it through another trench to connect at the new breaker on the chicken coop.

Working on taking the existing wire
off the old rotting pole

Running the wire through the trench from the pole
to the chicken coop and hooking it to the new 
circuit breaker panel

They finished this work in just two days.

Next it was time to upgrade things at the tractor shed.  My dad again went out and dug the trench with a spade and post hole digger.

Trench from our parking spot 
(foreground) to the tractor shed
(background)

Aaron upgraded the fuse box inside the shed to a breaker panel and then they ran a wire out to a post my dad set in the ground.  Aaron affixed a new RV receptacle to the post, with switches for each of the new outlets: 50A, 30A, and 20A.

Working on wiring inside the tractor 
shed

Finishing up the wiring for the RV
receptacles

It's our own personal little campsite!  At this point we could actually go ahead and move the RV near this new panel for better ease of getting on and off the farm, even without the concrete pad in place.  We haven't moved the RV yet, but if we decide to take a quick camping trip somewhere we'll go ahead and park it near the new location.  

We're waiting now for quotes from some folks to put in the concrete pad at the new location.  The quotes will determine how much of that work my dad and Aaron will do themselves and how much will get hired out...stay tuned!

Finishing Fiberglass, Shock Absorbers, and a Big New Project

It's been a while since I've posted...simultaneously it seems that so much and so little has happened.  On the so much side, of course the pandemic has taken a turn for the worse here in the USA...I just looked back on my last post and my optimistic comments "We're keeping an eye on national park, state park, and RV campground re-openings and we hope we'll be able to get back on the road soon-ish.  After these repairs, mostly all the must-do things we have left on the RV are retouching paint in various places, so conveniently we're nearly ready to go from a repair standpoint as well."...needless to say with the virus surging most places and some states rolling back their reopening plans, our plans to get on the road are being rolled back as well.  Though RVing is the latest craze now, committing to being full time on the road seems dangerous when you never know when the state you're in might decide to close campgrounds...or just close them to non-residents.  We're hoping we can start making some short trips soon... more on that later.

On the so little side, as I did mention in my last post we're nearing the end of things we hoped to accomplish while at my parents' farm.  Aaron did finally finish the fiberglass patching job under the bedroom slide, and so far it's looking great!

Filled, smooth, and ready for paint

Prepping the surface

All done and painted!

We also finished patching and painting the smaller spots on the rear of the RV.  We ordered special paint that promised to match our colors exactly - this was taken just after painting so it hadn't quite dried to the final color yet.

Aaron also decided to replace the shock absorbers and some kind of rods under the front of the RV.  Our ride has been fairly rough and he believes (I think rightly so) these were the culprits.  First he ordered new shock absorbers and got them installed with a LOT of banging to break rust welds holding them in place.

Breaking the old shock absorber loose using an 
old flywheel puller my grandfather made

Old shock absorber finally out

It was a tight fit under the wheel well!

Installed!

Aaron had also ordered some new rubber bumper for some kind of rod...I think Freightliner (the manufacturer of our frame) called it a down rod?  This thing:

It is part of the suspension somehow.  It turns out that this was bent and cracked (you can see the bend in the picture) and broke when Aaron took it out to replace the rubber bumper.  All the components were rusted together...it was in bad shape.  You can't really tell where the rubber bumpers go in the photo because they're basically totally missing.  So, since this was broken, we had to order ANOTHER part from Freightliner and Aaron had to install that.

Working on the install

Freshly installed!

So, with all these installs, our ride should (theoretically) be a LOT smoother when we finally do get back on the road.

Now finally...speaking of getting back on the road, we (with my dad) have started on a BIG new project on the farm!  My dad decided he wanted to make sure we can get the RV to the farm even if the field we've been driving across is non-driveable, so he's been working on some upgrades!  First, a new concrete parking area at the end of the driveway - so we don't have to drive across soil to park the RV.  So far we've outlined the area we want to pour concrete and my dad has moved the fence back from that area.

The poles outline the edges of the concrete space.
We'll have two series of concrete pads as wide as the
dirt you see, between the two posts at the front 
of the picture.

The old fence went by the trees; the new path
will connect the post in the foreground to the 
slim post you see midway back.

As a first step my dad rebuilt the gate support

My dad's talking to a company about getting concrete poured once we get the path dug up.

The second part of this was filling in the huge dip at the foot of the driveway.  Both times we've come in the driveway the frame has scraped bottom, roughing away some of the metal.  My dad already had some contractors come out to fill it, and it looks great!

Before: see the dip illustrated by the straight beam

After: so flat!!!

Today Aaron and Dad are looking at rerunning some wires to provide electricity hookups to the new parking location.  

And the GREAT news on this is that as soon as the concrete pad is finished, we'll be able to move the RV to the new location and start taking some short trips locally to some nice socially isolated campsites in nearby state and national parks...assuming there's still room at them!  We're hoping that if we travel Monday-Friday and come back for the weekends we'll be able to find some sites.  It's not quite the life we anticipated, but there are still plenty of places to visit near here that we haven't been, and will keep us close enough to the farm to beat a hasty retreat if we need to.