Happy Birthday, Carl!!!!

Carl had planned to stop celebrating birthdays (the lady who leads the "Rockin' Cardio" class at our resort in Mesa says that the issue is not getting *older* but rather "celebrating birthdays") -- but, regardless, we couldn't miss out on an opportunity to celebrate Carl!

The evening before his birthday, we stopped by Portillo's, this time, not for Italian beef...

... but to cash in on the Free Cake on his birthday!

That looks good!

"Oooohhh!"

That looks *really* good!

It was YUMMY!  (He got two forks and I got to share!)

On his birthday day itself, we cooked a steak dinner with beef fillets that Regina and Jimmy had given us from Poplar Springs Farm in Virginia...

That looks yummy too -- steak, broccoli, rice, and mushrooms!

We ended the day seeing grandson Blaise's team win at Little League, and ice cream (or milkshakes) at Oberweis Dairy. (No pictures from those events.)

Happy Birthday, Carl! We're glad to get to celebrate *you*!

A visit to White Pines State Park

One of the places that Carl and his family enjoyed going to White Pines State Park for hiking and to enjoy their Sunday Buffet. We invited friends Candy and Greg to meet us there on Sunday...

There are log buildings...

... built by the CCC back in the 1930s.

We went to enjoy the buffet -- unfortunately, something was wrong with the steam table on the day we were there, so they had a reduced menu and seating in the banquet room (not in the lodge proper).

The buffet was okay... and we got 20% off since it was a reduced menu -- although it wasn't quite as good as Carl remembered it.

Information about the restaurant, cabins, and theater.

A funny teeshirt in the gift shop!

Selfie station on the grounds

It had rained quite a bit in the previous days, so we weren't sure whether the trails would be muddy or not...

... but they were okay, and nicely shaded.

The trail we ended up on had quite a few stream crossings -- we weren't sure about whether it was wise to try them...

... but once we started, it continued to be a challenge to our "older" bodies' balance and agility!

Greg demonstrating great balance in the middle of the stream

Carl contemplating his next step

Candy elegantly showing her balletic skills!

While the grounds around the lodge and cabins were well maintained (kept up with mowing), the trails had a number of trees down across the paths which had obviously been there for a while and which probably should have been cut and moved. 

As we left the park, we drove through the campground. The campground has no services (no hookups) so is primarily intended for use by tents. There were a few folks there in tents, but it wasn't at all full.

Carl was surprised and a little disappointed by the lack of things he had been looking forward to (good buffet, good hiking trails) -- but he reminisced about fun family times there shared with Sue and their children -- and it was nice visiting those places in his memories!

Visiting with friends - Laura and Val

We knew that our friend from Venture Out, Laura, was going to be in Illinois for part of the summer, and we had wanted to get together with her and with another friend, Val. We arranged to meet up with them for a dinner at Chicken Salad Chick (try saying that 3 times fast!).

There were a lot of choices!

Our group at dinner

There were some signs (actually in the restroom)... you need to say them out loud to get the effect:

We had not been to a Chicken Salad Chick before (though we've seen them in a lot of places around the US). We enjoyed the food and most of all, the company!

Thousand Trails Pine Country

We moved to Thousand Trails Pine Country back on June 2. The Kane Country Forest Preserve campgrounds only allow camping for up to 14 days out of any 21 days, so we would need to be out of Paul Wolff campground for at least a week. We used to move to Big Rock (the other Forest Preserve campground) for our "week out", but when we upgraded our Thousand Trails membership a couple of years ago, we got access to the Pine Country campground which we can use for no charge. Staying at Big Rock would cost us $41/night. We will actually be out of Paul Wolff for 11 nights (because we want to be sure to be able to stay there during the time of Carl's daughter Pamela's party), so staying in Pine Country saves us about $450.

Pine Country is about the same distance from family in the Elgin or Lake Zurich area as Big Rock would be, but further from locations like Carol Stream or Batavia. It is still a doable trip to those areas too.

And, the campground is nice -- as is the case with most Thousand Trails, the infrastructure (particularly roads in the campground) could use attention. But the sites are in pretty good shape (especially in the front where they put most of the "transient" folks like us).

The pool is open and looks nice.

There is a creek that flows through the campground separating the front section (where the transient sites are located) from the area further back (where lots of seasonal sites are located).

Looking over into the stream -- it is quite pretty.

Gracie in her pullthrough site

We put more miles on the Jeep while staying here, but it is a good option for staying at a cheaper cost!

Continuation of the fermentation story

I wrote a few weeks ago about Carl starting a fermentation project (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/05/starting-fermentation-project.html). He started the sauerkraut on May 9. 

He had also started some onions (a mixture of red/purple onions and vidalia (sweet) onions) on May 26, but that was only to need a week or so of fermentation. The onions were *very* smelly -- we had the odor of onions in the rig for most of the week. I thought at first it was just from cutting up the onions and the waste in the trash can -- but we had emptied the trash and onion smell doesn't usually stay around *that* long. The tops are not placed firmly on the jars during their fermentation stage (on the counter) because of the pressure they build up -- the fermentation process releases carbon dioxide. We found that some of the liquid would bubble out of the jar with the onions and the paper towels we had placed under the jars would get the onion smell. Carl would check the paper towels each day and they had to be replaced a few times.

Last week, on June 3, he decided that it was time to check his projects. He had ordered a pH tester, and we had gotten distilled water to rinse the testing device and keep it moist during the testing.

The scientist in his laboratory -- with the opened jars of sauerkraut...

... testing the pH.

Testing another jar's pH. The pH told him that it was safely fermented and had become acidic.

When the vegetables start the fermentation process, the brine is at about a level 5, slightly acidic, an unsafe zone where bacteria could grow. During fermentation, the brine becomes more acidic, creating an environment where bacteria will not grow (it needs to drop to an acidity of 4.5 or lower).

Applying the smell test.

He found that the sauerkraut and the onions were ready -- after fermenting 3.5 weeks for the cabbage, and 8 days for the onions. One jar of cabbage produced a less tart sauerkraut -- Carl figures it may not have gotten as warm as the other jars (we don't have a very controlled environment on the counter in the motorhome) so it experienced less fermentation than the other jars. He says that the onions are more mild tasting than they would have been raw, but he isn't as impressed with those as he is with his sauerkraut.

Our trip to Alaska

I've mentioned in several posts that we are heading to Alaska later this summer. We are actually going on a Fantasy RV Tours Caravan -- going with a group tour where the tour company has done the planning, making the campground reservations and booking some of the special activities for our time. It is a 61-day tour. We will be going with a total of 25 RVs on this trip. While we will spend the night in the same campgrounds with all of the other 24 RVs each night, we will not necessarily be traveling right together with one another -- in fact, I think that the caravan company asks that no more than 3 RVs travel together so not to cause traffic delays for other travelers. 

This is an overview of our route as I have it stored in RV Trip Wizard. We start near Couer d'Alene, Idaho on July 6, and 61 days later, end in Prince George, British Columbia. Along the way, we'll be in Calgary for the Calgary Stampede (with tickets included as part of the tour), visiting Jasper, Lake Louise, the Columbia Icefields, Chicken, Alaska, Fairbanks and North Pole, Alaska, Denali National Park, Anchorage, Homer, Haines, Juneau, and many other spots!

If you want to see more about the trip, it is documented here: https://www.fantasyrvtours.com/RV-Tours/Alaska/Tour-Package/TPC/61AUA/TPD/070624/TCID/61AUAP-070624/rl/0

This is the first time we have ever done a caravan or organized RV tour. We are interested to see how we like it. The cost seems high, but we've heard that, if you add up the costs of all it includes, it would cost us the same to do it outside the caravan. That may be true, but I am pretty sure that they are going to be staying in nicer campgrounds (and not boondocking for free) than we would do if we went on our own, so it may be more expensive than it would have been for *us* to do it on our own... but we're saved the planning and time to do all the bookings. We have heard from participants in other tours that they make lifelong friends on these tours. 

We will be putting a lot of miles on Gracie this year -- when looking at the three parts of our trip in RV Trip Wizard, it is apparent that we're covering a lot of distance:

Arizona to Idaho via Virginia -- 110 nights, estimated at 6500 miles

Caravan - Couer d'Alene, ID to Prince George, BC -- 61 nights, estimated just under 5800 miles

Post-caravan from Prince George, BC to Mesa -- 48 nights, estimated at just over 2800 miles

That will put us at a total of just over 15,000 miles for the year, about 50% more than last year's 10,291 miles on Gracie.

Another maintenance task

When we were at the farm in May, we retrieved our large torque wrench to be able to check the torque on Gracie's lug nuts. Since we had had the front tires replaced in January, and one of the rear wheels was also removed to correct a leaking valve stem, we wanted to make sure that the torque was correct on those wheels specifically.

When we were at the farm, Jimmy taught/reminded us how to use the torque wrench. It has settings for us to be able to torque at the rate that is recommended (450 foot-pounds). He recommended that we release the setting when it is not in use to maintain the springs in the instrument. We also needed to get new sockets as the lug nuts on Gracie are not the same size as what Miss Doozie (Dwayne's and my coach) had. Jimmy helped us get lug nut covers off 3 of the nuts while we were there on the farm (he could just grab them with his hand and had enough strength to pull them off)... we didn't have that capability, so we knew it was going to be a bit of a chore. In addition, it is better done when Gracie is sitting fully on her wheels, not on the jacks with the potential that one or more tires would be off the ground. We decided to work on it last Sunday before we left Paul Wolff campground to move to Pine Country for our required time out of the Forest Preserve campground.

On Sunday, we had to be out of Paul Wolff by noon, and were not able to check in to Pine Country until 1pm. It was about an hour's drive, so we could take it easy, leave right at the required exit time, and have a relatively easy drive to Pine Country.

But first, we wanted to have Gracie all closed up and ready to move, and have her off the leveling jacks -- so we got everything closed up inside, and got her ready to move. Then we started working on getting the lug nut covers off.

Let's just say that our hand strength is nothing close to Jimmy's. We tried various techniques to get them off -- non-slip material with a channel lock wrench (one challenge with this is that you are squeezing down on the covers which makes them tighter while you're trying to pull them off), using rubber mallet to try to move the cover sideways a little and then a screw driver blade to help to pry them off (this worked pretty well), and, what I finally found worked the best is to just have on nylon gloves (to give a little more grip), use an adjustable wrench that was just barely large enough to get over the cover, work the cover back and forth to make a little edge at the wheel, and then work the screwdriver blade under the edge and pull with a gloved hand. I could get all 10 covers off a wheel in about 5 minutes with this technique.

We checked 4 of the wheels while at Paul Wolff, but decided that we needed to head out and we'd do the rest once we got to Pine Country.

I don't have any actual pictures of our efforts, but I have a couple of staged pictures...

Here Carl is demonstrating the torque wrench on a lug nut, ready to check the torque. When we actually were checking the torque, I held the head of the wrench with one hand and the bar going to the socket with the other hand, to ensure the socket stayed on the nut, while Carl exerted about 150 pounds of force downward on the wrench until it clicked, indicating the desired torque was achieved. Then I moved the socket to the next nut needing checking. Since I was actively holding onto the wrench, I couldn't take a picture of the activity at the same time!

You can see that the length of the torque wrench is about 3 feet -- to get 450 foot-pounds of torque, we need to apply about 150 pounds of pressure on the wrench -- let's just say that is a little challenging to accomplish!

We did check the torques on all of the nuts. The nuts on the wheels which had not been removed earlier this year were all solid (they did not move at all). The lug nuts on the 3 wheels that had been removed and replaced earlier this year did move a little, but not much. We figure that we will re-torque again after we drive to Idaho (about 1700 miles), and anticipate/hope that none of the nuts will move then. In preparation for that, we've left the lug nut covers off for now, so we don't need to replace and remove them again. We might leave them off for the trip to Alaska because it might be that, if they are at all loose, they would get lost while we're on what we anticipate to be rough roads on our journey. We'll discuss later what we think is best to do for the trip.