mountainborn

Thanks, Aubrey ! We have never had the cover off of our thermostat. We are now in North Dakota with snow on the ground and this might come in handy.

Good report Sherry. Betty and I want to visit the DC area, and that campground sounds great.

After sitting at above 10 K feet elevation for well over 100 days, our black water reading became suspect from time to time. We restored accuracy by waiting till the black tank was nearly full, to empty it, then immediately refilling with rinse water. The factory installed rinse/flush system is probably the best solution. When we left to travel to the next job in North Dakota, we added a bag of ICE to scrub the inside of the tank, which restored the accuracy by a better cleaning than a simple rinse. Our volt meter has never been extremely accurate, but it has also never totaly wrong. It's not a precision instrument, but instead is intended to give us a general look at the battery condition. Our solar panels kept the battery voltage in the neighborhood of 13.2 daytime, and at night down to 12.2 . The fresh water tank sending unit has never read 100%, though we know that it is full because of the overflow. On the bottom end it will start to suck air at about 8%. I guess that for us, the bottom line is, that we understand that the readings are a best, a rough estimate of our consumption or replenishment. That gives us a "heads up" to start thinking about a place to dump or to refill.

While on a weather break from the beet piler, we went out to dinner up in Grand Forks. By the time we headed back home, about 2130 hrs., I-29 was covering over with snow. When we got back to the Hillsboro RV park, we had an inch plus of snow on our awning and it was sagging. We lowered the awning to a steep angle to facilitate snow removal, then about midnight cleared the awning again before turning in for the night. These photos were taken 10-15-2009 at 0800 hrs.

Porta potty humor on the beet pile ! Blog update with photo at: http://www.mountainborn.blogspot.com

Betty & I will be in Fla New Years day, for a wedding, then South Texas for beach camping for free, no reservations needed. We will be South of South Padre Island at Boca Chica State Park, for most of Jan and Feb.

EMAIL status update sent this date: > After a fabulous Summer Hosting at Trujillo meadows, we made a hurried trip back to Arkansas, changed out our clothing to be ready for the far Northern climate of North Dakota. Put new tires on the Jeep, ect.. We had seven days at home and it was rush, rush all the way to get it done. This was followed by eleven hundred miles of driving, straight North to our reporting location at Hillsboro ND, with a short detour to Springfield MO , to Bass Pro Shop to gear up a bit for the North Dakota weather. We did dally somewhat, driving a sixty mile stretch of old route 66, and finding a few geocaches along that route. Photos and narative at our blog located at: http://www.mountainborn.blogspot.com The day that we finished our orientation and signed stuff for our personnel packages, we were to be off until the harvest start. But we had never seen a beet piling station before. He, he, so we drove to our assigned site to take a look. We stopped in at the scale house, and within minutes we were in safety vests, hard hats and safety glasses ! A brief tour of the facillities quickly turned into a few days of training at the pre-pile. We had started learning job skills with lots of hands on experience ! After a few days off, the harvest started and quickly snowballed into a full blown eighteen hundred trucks a day, beet piling event. We are well into the second week now and have had a shut down from freezing temperatures. Betty and I caught up on our sleep and went shopping for grocerys and a couple of clothing items to make those 12 hour nights a bit more comfortable. It is midnight here and we are still on our night shift sleep / wake cycle. As I write this Betty is catching up on our laundry and I am getting ready to pay bills. Hope all is well with you and maybe it won't be long til' we are camping again. harm & bett

That might work. Also, I've got a device on my boat that warms the engine compartment with hot air. I'll research it when I get home (I'm in Maine now) and see if it has possibilities. Maine, MAINE ! Brother, you be careful up there ! Them folks ain' got no idea abour puttin' newspaper on a table in the back yard and they likely thank that a Cajun hollerin' "AAAAeeee, Fa do do" is some kind of evil chant. However, on the other hand, they does do sea food well !

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention to ya' Oscar, we has also got a bad cat tresspassin' problem. And my buddy Poco ain't much help with the problem, cause' that dang ol' cat is bigger than him ! Here is a look at his foot prints while he was a' prowlin' round' our place. The track can be seen just above the bear bite ( Colorado, you remember ? ) patched place on our car top carrier. If you was here to help us, my buddy, we could stretch that dang cat out for sure ! And stop his prowlin', pilferin' ways ! Some times when I come out of the Oliver's door his smell is so strong that I can nearly taste it. It's just horrible, I tell you ! Your buddys, Dillon & Poco

A message from Dillon the retired drug dog to his buddy Oscar the Smiley Dog. Hey, Oscar, I lost your cell phone number and my cell phone when I was muttin' around in the Tractor yard next door to the RV park where we are staying during the sugar beet harvest. So i'll send you this urgent request for an assist via the Oliver Forums. Oscar, I have found "wheel heaven" !! And I ain't ashamed to admit it, I am in over my head ! There are more wheels than a K-9 can handle in a day ! Here is a look: Oscar, there are 2 wheel drives and there are 4x4 six wheelers. Then there are 4x4 eight wheelers. Now, Oscar, maybe you can help me on thisun', wher should a guy mark this strange wheel ? There are even large all iron wheels ! Oscar as you can see, me n' ol' Poco has way more than we can handle here ! If you could talk Pete into truckin' ya' up here, we sure could use the help. We both know just how serious this wheel markin' business is ! And, I remember how we worked real good as a team chasin' them horrible ol' golden ground squirrels up in Colorado. Your buddys Dillon and Poco P.S. Hoping to see ya' soon !

A rainy day visit to the Fargo Air Museum. Blog update with photos of old war birds that still fly. Here is the link: http://mountainborn.blogspot.com/2009/10/birddog.html

Welcome to the Oliver Forums ! This thread might well be named "what do you tow with, it's tow rating and mileage, please". We discuss these things all of the time. Betty and I tow with a Jeep Wrangler 4 door, the mileage runs from 14 to 16 towing. Normally, that is. Give a head wind or a tail wind and it can go up or down about two MPG. We accept lower mileage and weaker acceleration when towing just to be able to drop our Ollie, and drive Jeep trails. It isn't for everyone though. I bet there are others that will respond to this thread also and give more input. Send me a PM if you would like to chat by phone. harm

In a current thread over on the Casita Club Forums is this video link to give a look at the general procedure before tackling the project, The axle bearings are lubricated through the center of the axle like our Oliver's are: http://www.etrailer.com/tv-repack_trailer_hub_bearings.aspx There is a simple quick check that I do just before each trip. Here is a video look at my simple check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7hOfOQUOIg Please note the date this video was posted. The Oliver factory has since upgraded the axle, tires and wheels. Our Ollie, being one of the older ones out on the highways, had the origonal 3500 LB rated axle with the five hole chrome plated steel wheels. The upgraded axle, wheels and tires gave us a couple of more inches of ground clearance, which we really appreciate since we tow with a Jeep and drive a lot of Jeep Trails.

Welcome to the Oliver Forums IBaker !!

The long range weather forecast was for heavy rain the first week of October, so the Sugar Beet Harvest was kicked off a couple of days early. We have a toll free number to call that keeps workers up to date on work dates and status. Sure enough the forecast was right. About 6AM on the 1st of October the rain came, We recieved our rain gear and finished up dumping the beet trucks that were waiting at the time, piling the beets to await their processing time. Because of the weather break we will go to East Grand forks Minnesota for lunch and a visit to Cabelas the outdoors outfitter.

As we arrived back to the campground from our all day long museum tour, we noted the campsites were all full and the windows all had a yellow sign in the window like we have, more last minute Sugar Beet Harvest Workers had arrived. Here is a look at the window signs:

Blog Updated with Photos of Replicated Ancient Norwegan Stave Church. A wedding took place while we were there ( brief Brides gown description included ) Here is a quick look: Here is a link to the complete article: http://mountainborn.blogspot.com/

Exactly, maximum moxie required !

We just got a call on the Beet Hot Line. The harvest start date has been moved up a day.

We came back from the museum in Moorehead via hwy 75 on the Minnesota side of the river and found this clever motorcycle shop sign. The name of the shop is "the Vroom Closet" and the sign is a motorcycle going in through a open door in the upstairs.

The next day we drove into Fargo/Morehead to see the Viking Ship. Was it ever cool ! We had lunch at a great family restaurant. On the parking lot side of "Mom's" family Restaurant we saw this:

It has been an exciting and very busy week at the Sugar Beet Harvest, Betty and I being the newbies will be working on the night shift from eight at night till' eight in the morning. I will be relief piler operator and Betty will be the boom operator. We will have a few days off before the harvest actually starts, so today we drive into Grand Forks for an oil change on the Jeep and to buy a few groceries.

Thanks Sherry ! The Lewis & Clark Trail has already caught our attention. Today we finished the orientation process, payroll, ect. got in four hours of training and will do more tomorrow. It is pretty cool to be operating that big ol' piler on the first day ! It is also pretty cool to have someone else pay for your full hook up campsite !

How a redneck can "outsmart" technology, but learns the hard way ! The tale of a fantastic fan episode in redneckland. Here is the link: http://www.mountainborn.blogspot.com

Here was our first look at our home for the Summer of 2009 as hosts of the Trujillo Meadows Campground at ten thousand feet plus elevation in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. So, what do you think ? Would you have done it ? We wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world ! He, he, by the way that's the top of the picnic table just barely showing above the snow drift, we didn't find the fire ring till' after we had been on the site for a couple of weeks and the snow had began to melt off faster !