My life was filled with joy this morning when I woke up to find my refrigerator cruising along at 36°. I don't recall being this happy since I was discharged from the Air Force in 1969. That was a short-lived joy when I discovered I had to continue serving in the National Guard for a couple of years. I should have read the fine print.

However, I'm hoping my current joy will last longer than that. The temperature in the freezer is zero, and a very stable  mid-30s in the fridge. My old propane regulator wasn't passing much gas at all.... Yes, I can think of funny things to say about that, too, but this is a classy blog, so I will keep them to myself.

But everything that runs on propane in the camper is running much better. For example, my propane stove has a higher flame than it used to, and the furnace gets hotter quicker than ever. It's like a whole new propane system in the camper.

Actually, Glenn, in one of his comments, had the problem pegged; he suggested my refrigerator problems could be the Lances propane regulator, but I didn't have enough knowledge of how the Lance propane regulator was supposed to work, so I didn't realize that the propane pressure was weak in the whole system, because the refrigerator not working right was the only thing I noticed.... So kudos to Glenn.

Theboondork

This is the high school my grandkids will be going to someday.... As long as they don't spend as much time in elementary school as I did.

A laid-back day today recuperating from the holidays. It didn't require much recovering on my part. The only useful thing I accomplished the entire weekend was putting a battery in the Arctic Fox, opening up the slides, and putting a new regulator in the Lance to see if that would help my refrigerator problems... And I have to say things are looking and sounding good so far.

And I say sounding good because somewhere along the way when my fridge started acting up this winter, I read on the Internet that just looking at the propane flame that runs the refrigerator isn't good enough. This person said that the sound the flame makes is the important thing, and if the flame is hot enough it makes a slight roaring sound that you can hear when you open the access panel to the refrigerator on the outside wall of the camper. I wasn't hearing the roaring sound, that he was mentioned, but because of my poor hearing there's a lot of sounds I don't hear.

The person then suggested that there are several things that can cause the flame to be weak and one of those things is the camper propane regulator going bad. Will naturally the propane regulator was the last thing I checked, and since there's nothing you can do to them, I just bought and installed a new one.... And guess what.... I can hear the roaring.

It takes more than one day to diagnose an RV refrigerator problem because it takes them so long to cool down, and stabilize. But I've got a good feeling about the repair I've done this time, because not only can I hear the flame in the refrigerator roaring, but the flames on my propane stove are bigger. So I'll give it some more time before I break open the champagne, but so far I'm very hopeful.

Since I haven't been going anywhere or doing anything, and the various flower gardens around the house still need to bloom, interesting pictures are hard to come by, which explains all the pictures of the grandkids. But it's normal for grandparents to whip out their wallets and show photos of the grandkids, so that's what I'm doing; I'm just doing it on a larger scale.

I've been too busy trying to get things done around here, to go somewhere and take pictures, like getting the Arctic Fox ready to sell and getting the truck in good enough shape to pass its emissions test so I can get a new tag.... danged Denver and their stupid emissions test, I think the Denver area is the only area in Colorado where you have to get an emissions test, but since Denver is technically my residence I'm screwed !

Theboondork

The tooth fairy is boondocking in the backyard. Partly because he's so busy here buying teeth, and partly because he doesn't have enough money left to leave.

My grandson on the left, is attending a one week kids basketball camp, at the local high school.

Strange flowers. I know the name of these flowers, but I can't tell anyone because it's a secret.

I took all four of my lithium-iron batteries out of the Arctic Fox last Fall and put them in the Lance. But I only had room for three in the Lance's battery box, so I only made cables for
three. The fourth one just sat around doing nothing except waiting for me to make new cables to hook it up in the bathroom, which is only about 6 inches from the battery box.

As was par for the course this last winter, I didn't bring a critical tool that I needed to make up battery cables for number four, so I'll do it while I'm in Denver as soon as I get around to it, but it's way down on my list of things I need to accomplish while I'm here.

I've said all of that just so I can say this; since I took all of the batteries out of the Arctic Fox, there was no DC electricity in the Fox, so I couldn't put the slides out, and I can't work in there with the slides in, because there's no room to walk. But this morning, I got busy and put battery number four in the Arctic Fox and hooked it up, which enabled me to put the slides out, so now I can cleaning up the Arctic Fox.

Slide-outs in an RV are a wonderful thing. They do away with the feeling of living in a tube and give most RVs an apartment-like feeling... But, and that's a big but, like everything else in life, a slide-out is a trade-off; you get the spacious feeling when the slides are out... and here's that big but.... they add another layer of vulnerability to an RV.

Anything mechanical can fail, and the way most RVs are put together, especially more inexpensive ones, failure is almost guaranteed. There are motors to burn out, gears to fail, sheer pins to break, tracks to jump off of, and on some RVs, not the Arctic Fox, thankfully, when the slides are in, you can't even get the refrigerator door open to put your groceries in until you put the slide out... Talk about inconvenience!

Due to the build quality of the Arctic Fox, I've never had a problem with either of its slides in the ten years I've used it. And since driving on bumpy dirt roads has been a big part of the Arctic Fox's life, I attribute that to the Arctic Fox being built on one of the strongest frames in the industry, so the frame doesn't twist as most RVs do. This means the slides stay in place on their tracks much better even on bad roads.

Many truck campers, especially the higher-end, more expensive ones, now have slides. But when I was looking for a truck camper, I was specifically looking for one without a slide. I don't need the extra room, and I don't need the extra time and effort to get the camper packed up and ready to go.

I have come to the conclusion, belatedly perhaps, that the more I simplify my life, the easier my life becomes, and the easier my life is, the less stress I have, and the less stress I have, the more freedom I have to enjoy my life.

Theboondork

My grandson watching TV. It's about the only time the kids slow down enough for me to take their picture.