Ran into town to return the unusable inflator as well as another item to Walmart. The weather wasn’t good enough to ride, and Hubby wasn’t up to it, and for some reason, neither was I, so we decided to have a more leisurely day.

Took a very quick trip down to the post office in Richmond this morning to pick up a package I had been waiting for, and when I got back, I decided to try out the new tire inflator. Once again, I managed to bring one tire up about ten pounds, then when I put it on the other tire (waiting more than a half hour for it to cool down as instructed,) it ran for about 10 seconds and died. Not enough to do the job. Oddly, the box said it would go up to 150 pounds, but then in the fine print, on the very last page of the “instruction” book, it said it had a 100 psi limit. Really?! Isn’t that a great big opening for false advertising?? Anyway, this sucker’s going back, again. I’m really getting tired of all these inflators saying they can do one thing and then they can’t. Seems like such a simple thing. Anyway, I got online and started researching bigger inflators, but ones that are still fairly portable and lightweight, and I have a few more ideas about that. Anyway, that killed the morning, and then we spent the afternoon dialyzing, not much else to be said!

Had a nice quiet morning while the clouds cleared out slowly during the day. Too wet and a bit damp and chilly to ride, so we had a leisurely morning, until I decided to break out my new tire inflator and pump up the trailer tires. I’ve already sent one of these back, so I’m hoping for better results with this one. Sorry to say, it was just as bad. I managed to pump one tire up ten pounds, then turned it off after the requisite 10 minutes and let it rest while I reconfigured the horses electric fence. I waited until everyone left before spreading out, but the area where the horses have been in over the weekend is starting to be overgrazed so I extended them along woods a bit. They escaped at one point and ate a bunch of nice clover, but with the help of a local guy named John, who walks his German Shepherd Sam here every day, we got the fence out and the horses back in. Then I went back to the tires. No sooner than I started pumping the second tire than the inflator’s air hose popped off. Really?? This thing is supposed to be rated up to 250 psi, but the hose falls off at 110? Unfortunately, I lost even MORE air out of my tire, so now instead of being ten pounds down I’m almost twenty. Grrr! Knowing I wouldn’t likely get a refund, and I don’t have time to wait for them to send me another one (as if I’d want one anyone, piece of crap) I decided to throw caution to the wind and try to fix it myself. I took it apart, and after several attempts, managed to get a small hose clamp on it well enough so that it didn’t leak. I put it back together, then plugged in the electrical cord, and it started smoking from where I plugged it in. I stopped it and took it apart again, only to discover one of the wires was practically broken off. I tried to solder it, and managed to improve it, but it didn’t hold. Then I tried to put a screw in it, which sort of worked, but when I plugged it in and turned it on, it was smoking again, and I could smell burning. Shut it off and that was it, $30 down the drain. Now I have no choice but to find something locally, which isn’t too easy, since I need something that will EASILY pump my tires to 123 psi (they’re BIG tires!), and those are usually big and heavy and expensive, all things I’ve been trying to avoid, but as the saying goes, you get what you pay for! And this piece of junk wasn’t even worth the price I paid for it! Anyway, that killed most of the afternoon, and finally Hubby and I settled down for another evening of Dish recordings, since our cell phone signal is still so intermittent up here. Okay for phone calls, but data, not so much. A small price to pay for this beautiful, and now quiet once again, park campground!

Had a few bouts of rain last night, then more storms came in throughout the day. We sat out in the screen room for the most part of the morning, working on logistics for the next month or two, before starting his dialysis session mid-afternoon. Even though we were between storms then, we lost power in the middle of our session, so we put on the inverter and ran the rest of the day on that. Good thing I had decided to put the inverter/charger on the night before, I had left it off most of the week to test how effective our new solar panel kit would be (and it’s been working okay, but we won’t really know until we’re boon-docking), and the batteries had been a little low, but they were at full capacity when the power went off. We got through through the evening without any problems, didn’t even have to turn the generator on, and the power came back on about 10:30, just as we were getting ready for bed. A quiet, rainy, pleasant day!

Down to my last bale of hay, I managed to locate a source not too far away using Facebook Marketplace, and took the 45 minute drive down there, where I found some beautiful bales, heavier and better packed than much of what I’ve seen in the area, for just $4.50 a bale. I ended up take 18, hoping we’ll use enough to be able to carry what’s left over to our next stop! Went over to Tractor Supply on the West Virginia side of the river, then into Steubenville to the Walmart. I realized when I came through that we’ve been here before but I couldn’t remember when. Of course, that’s the beauty of keeping an electronic journal, all I had to do was a quick search, and discovered that when we stayed at Harrison State Forest back in September 2015, Steubenville was the nearest city and therefore where we did our shopping then, too. On the way back, I stopped at the Richmond Post Office where I was having several things sent General Delivery, but they were closed for lunch. I waited the 25 minutes only to have them tell me they hadn’t received anything yet, but the woman there was nice enough to take my phone number, offering to call me when anything arrived, which I thought was wonderful. Got back to camp to discover that the solar panel kit that we had ordered last week had arrived, as well as Hubby’s medication (which our nurse sent UPS, since we’re both fed up with Fedex!), so after getting Hubby on his machine, I set the solar panel up. I have to say, it was one of the easiest installations ever, it was just a matter of opening the box, opening the folded solar panel, locking the legs down, plugging it in one end and clipping the alligator clips onto the battery, just like that. So easy! It was a nice sunny day today after yesterday’s rain, so we’re looking forward to seeing just how much it will supplement our power system. If it can cut down on our generator usage, we’ll be able to do a lot more boon-docking, which will give us a lot more options where we can stay, as well as saving us some money in so many ways. Fingers crossed it does the job! Finished up an uneventful dialysis, including the new medication that’s supposed to help his iron levels, and settled down for the evening. Had a few problems with the cell phone signal, so the movies were a bit more disjointed than yesterday, but we did manage to get us to bedtime. Looking forward to a ride tomorrow!

The rain came in late last night and it was still drizzling this morning as we slept late. Not much we can do in the rain, so we decided to take a day just to recharge our batteries, not doing much of anything beyond essential chores, and spent the day reading and watching old movies, as I’ve managed to find a sweet spot for the phone and the booster, just enough to mostly get through a movie without interruption. A much needed rest day!

Slept late this morning thanks to the peace and quiet here, then got up and started doing the rest of the setup after my usual chores. Put up the screen room, which was the main thing, then started to try to locate the best direction for a cell phone signal, and proceeded to try to figure out a system that would work better. I took a spin around the campground trying to send an email with some attachments that I was having trouble with, but never could find a spot any better than ours. I ended up putting my 4G booster in the truck, taped a magnet to the top of the trailer so the antenna would stick up there (the highest point I could manage), and powered it up inside the truck. That managed to get me one bar of 4G, which helped a lot, but it still teeters in and out, so the movie we tried to watch during dialysis went great for the first hour plus, then faded for a bit, until we finally gave up in the evening and went back to the Dish PVR. That’s fine, we need to clear it out, then after we pick up the satellite dish at the house in October, we can fill it back up again with some movies. It was a good dialysis session, and other than that, it was a quiet day, though it clouded up and started to sprinkle, and there much rain in the forecast for tomorrow, unfortunately, so I likely won’t be riding tomorrow. But there’s lots of sun forecast for later in the week, so let’s hope the forecasters are right for a change!

So we sat around all morning waiting to hear from the clinic, as Fedex was supposed to be delivering a new medication for Hubby that we needed to get before leaving tomorrow, and finally decided we’d be better off being closer to the clinic when it arrived, so I found a nice little restaurant called Pete’s nearby, where we had a spectacular breakfast. By then it was after 1:00, so we went to the clinic and learned that Fedex had come and gone, picking up a package but not dropping one off. I HATE FEDEX!! Since it was too late to do anything else but top off with fuel (though I tried to get a replacement carpet for our screen room, but Home Depot didn’t have the right size), we headed back to camp and got Hubby started on his dialysis session, already much later than usual. Met some interesting ladies who stopped by after their ride and we chatted for some time about various Ohio camps that we’re thinking about going to, carrying on until it was almost dusk, then got the horses taken care of and settled down for the evening. REALLY looking forward to getting out of here tomorrow! We are NOT having any fun here at all!