July 14th - August 1, 2026 Water Fun - Wally B's - Sun Shade - Magic House - Lake Perry - Dinosaur Museum - Graduation Dinner - Trip Home

My Blog Reflection

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

Yogi Berra 

July 14, 2026:

Erin and the boys flew in from California for a two week visit. We picked them up at the airport and once home just relaxed after their trip. Erin will be working online everyday except Fridays so we will be entertaining the boys a lot.

July 16, 2026:

It has been REALLY hot. Erin says it is hotter here than in the desert where she lives. We gave Free the hose and he cooled himself off for over an hour. He had strict instructions not to squirt Grandma or Grandpa and fortunately he headed that warning.

July 17, 2026:

For my birthday and Father's Day, Erin bought me a gift card at "Wally B's", which is a restaurant/bar near Sam A. Baker State Park. This purchase was a mistake. She intended to get it at a place we had already been. We knew nothing about the place but since it was a nice day we invited Bob and Ronnie along for lunch. We all loaded up for the hour and a half drive to the "Wally B's". We all had a good meal and enjoyed the place. It was a pleasant surprise.

After lunch we drove a few miles to Sam A. Baker State Park to see the damage caused by the recent flooding. It wiped out the entire campground. We couldn't get close enough to get pictures. We stopped at a little parking area nearby so Free and Kellen, and a few of the ladies, could get out and throw some rocks.

July 19, 2026:

I took down the sun shade and repaired it again. This time, in addition to gluing it on the seam, I put rivets on the end where it starts to pull apart. The seam should now hold together better. I hope to get one more year out of it.

July 20, 2026:

Free has a major head of hair. Here he is showing me his hair in the middle of getting it washed.

July 21, 2026:

We took Free to the Magic House in St. Louis. It has been greatly expanded since we were there last. He was kept busy for over two hours. One of the displays is that of static electricity. You touch a ball and your hair stands out. Here is a picture of Free and Alexa. It didn't work so well on Free because his hair sticks out all of the time. It worked on Alexa though. Then there is a picture of me. It really worked on my straight, flat hair.

July 22, 2026: 

While I cut the grass Alexa and Kelly took Free out to Lake Perry to swim in the pool. I would have gone along and cut the grass on the lake lot but Kellen has the truck in St. Louis for the day.

July 23, 2026:

I loaded the lawn mower on the trailer to cut the grass at the lake. Alexa loaded her kayak on the trailer as well. We got to the lake and Alexa took Free out on the lake in the kayak. He enjoyed it after he figured out it wasn't going to turn over. They came back in and played in the water for a while.

July 24, 2026:

I took Free to lunch and then to see "Toy Story 5" at the Perry Park Center. I don't think there was enough action for him. After the movie we got an ice cream cone at "Whirl-a-Burger. He wanted a cone. I should have made him get a cup. He was a mess with ice cream running everywhere.

July 25, 2026:

Alexa and Erin went to the movie in Cape. Kellen took Free to the Science Center in St. Louis. Kelly and I had a little respite. LOL

July 30, 2026:

Kelly and Alexa took Free to the Dinosaur Museum in Ste. Genevieve. He really enjoyed it. Here are a couple of pictures. One of him next to a leg bone and one of him holding a piece of petrified dinosaur skin. 

July 31, 2026:

We had a graduation dinner for Kellen. We had ribs, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and fresh tomatoes. Here is a picture of Free helping Grandma put rub on the ribs. He is definitely a little ham bone.

There weren't any leftovers. After dinner Kellen received a few gifts and more importantly some major money. He is busy applying online for jobs. It is a much different process than when I was interviewing fifty plus years ago. After an hour break we all had ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, which was delicious.

August 1, 2026:

Freedom was busy playing. At one point he put a bucket on his head and marched around the living room. He made a great soldier. According to him he is great at everything.

Erin and the boys spent much of the day getting their laundry done and packing for the trip home. At 4:00 p.m. we loaded the truck and headed to the airport. They had an hour and half drive to the airport from our house, then an hour and half Uber ride from the San Francisco Airport to Tracey, California. They had a good trip but were exhausted by the time they made it home. 

Free starts kindergarten on Monday. I had him promise to send a picture in the morning before school and call me in the evening to tell me how the first day went. He is good at remembering things so we will see if he follows through.

It was great seeing the three of them for two weeks. There is talk of all of getting together at Christmas like last year. We will see.

 

June 29 - July 11, 2026 Homer Solenoid Replacement - Military Museum Stands - Fireworks - Dinner - Relay - Welge Bridge Walk -Quilt Show

My Blog Reflection

The legal system can force open doors and sometimes even knock down walls. But it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me.

Thurgood Marshall

June 29, 2026:

The alternator has not been charging the house batteries as we drive Homer. There are two solenoids involved with the charging system. One switches to charge the house batteries when plugged into electric. The other controls the alternator sending current to the house batteries when needed. I had replaced the first solenoid a couple of years ago but not the second. The solenoids are in the battery compartment and not convenient to replace. John helped me get the batteries out and then the solenoid, which is pictured with the two large nuts on the end.

We were pretty sure the solenoid was not working but decided no matter what that I would replace it. The best I can tell it is the original so it would be 32 years old. We found an exact match on Amazon for $34.00 and I ordered it. It will arrive July 8th. Homer will be out of commission until we get the new one installed.

July 1, 2026:

John asked if I could make three wooden placard stands for the military museum. He sent me a picture of what he wanted which included dimensions. Over a couple of days I got them cut out, sanded, stained and varnished. Here is one of the three ready for delivery.

July 2, 2026:

We attended the Perry County Fireworks at the City Park. It was a warm evening but not uncomfortable. Here are a couple of pictures. The street lights sorta ruin the pictures.

It was a fabulous display put on by the City of Perryville and Perry County.

July 4, 2026:

The Wiseman family made it safely back to Mountain View, California, after  a visit to Missouri and camping their way back to California, stopping to see many sites. Here are the girls sitting on "Poppy" at home. They all had a great time.

John came over early in the morning and we installed the new solenoid. Unfortunately, it did not solve the problem. The alternator was still not charging the house batteries. I ordered a new relay switch, which is the only other possibility that we can see as causing the problem.

John asked me to make one more placard stand for the military museum. I started on that in the afternoon and while cutting out one piece the blade broke on the bandsaw. Luckily, I had another blade but I had never put one on. It was a learning experience. Thank you Youtube. I will be much better at it next time.

Alexa and Aaron came over for the holiday supper. Kelly cooked ribs in the oven and I was supposed to finish them off on the grill but rain nixed that idea. Kelly finished baking them in the oven. While the ribs were cooking Alexa made everyone a drink. Since I'm not allowed to drink alcohol anymore she purchased some non-alcoholic tequila and Orange Liqueur for Margaritas. They were pretty good. Non-alcoholic liquor is not cheap.

For supper we had ribs, corn on the cob, fresh green beans, potato salad, and cucumber salad. All were delicious.

July 5, 2026:

This morning I got on Homer's roof and trimmed back the pine limbs hanging on it or over it that were within my reach. I also cut a few branches getting close to the side. After that I sanded and stained the placard pieces. I will let the stain dry two days before coating them with polyurethane.

It was nice out so I put out Homer's awning to let it dry from the last rain. Within minutes, it began raining again. I should have looked at the weather forecast. LOL. I put the awning back up probably more wet than when I pulled it out.

July 8, 2026:

The new relay arrived. It is plastic and expensive for as small as it is. I hope it solves the charging issue. The names for the wires are little different so I will wait until John can help me get everything right.

July 11, 2026:

Today is the ribbon cutting for the new Don Welge Memorial Bridge, which replaces the Chester Bridge over the Mississippi, connecting Perry County, Missouri, and Randolph County, Illinois. The new bridge is named after Don Welge, owner of Gilster-Marylee, who worked tirelessly for over a decade to get Missouri and Illinois to build a new bridge. When I was a kid and when we first moved to town,the Chester Bridge was a toll bridge owned by the City of Chester. Don Welge got the toll eliminated years ago because his businesses have trucks crossing dozens of times daily.

Starting at 9:00 a.m. people were allowed to walk on the new bridge. Parking was at the Perryville Airport where we boarded school buses to the bridge site. We had gotten 5.5 inches of rain over night, it looked ominous, and rain was predicted, but I decided to go anyway.

I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and found that the crowd was not as large as I expected. Buses were loaded and unloaded quickly. Here are a couple of pictures on the Missouri side of the bridge where we began our walk. You can clearly see the two bridges.

Here is a picture of the towers and cables in relation to the old bridge.

The new bridge has one lane in each direction and a pull-off lane in case of a problem. The old bridge was barely wide enough for semis to pass.

We were allowed to walk to the middle of the bridge. Here are some pictures from there.

The crowd gathering on the bridge was much less than I anticipated. Perhaps the chance for rain kept some away, or perhaps many were coming later for the ribbon-cutting at 11:00 a.m. Here is proof I was there.

After taking all of the pictures I wanted I started walking back. Here is a view of the Missouri approach for the old bridge and for the new bridge. A major difference. The difference in elevation will keep the slough from flooding the entry to the bridge, which it did in the 1993 flood.

Here are a couple of pictures of where the cables attach to the bridge.

One cable end had the cover off and was covered in plastic. I took this picture to see what was inside. It was hard to tell but it appeared to be a mechanism to tighten the cables as needed.

The cover laying nearby.

The towers for the new bridge dwarf the old bridge, which is eighty years old and in terrible condition. Next week travel will be started only in one direction on the new bridge as some minor work is finished. No date was given when it would carry all traffic. 

A made the entire trip without getting a drop of rain on me. The overcast sky was actually a blessing for this type of event in July in Missouri. I am glad I went for this experience. Interestingly, there were a couple of people in the crowd who were present with the old bridge was dedicated eighty years ago. 

Here is a picture of the ribbon cutting by, I assume, Don Welge's widow, with the Welge family surrounding her. The ribbon cutting was set for this day because it would have been Don Welge's 91st birthday.

A major milestone for this area of Missouri.

After I got home we went over to Alexa's and fed the cats, since she is in Nashville. From there we went to the Presbyterian Church to view the Quilt Show. I was amazed at the number of quilts displayed by local artists. Here are a few pictures. 

Most quilts now are done by machine. I was told the machines are $10,000.00 and up. Yikes!

These two events were a nice way to spend a Saturday. I will watch for notice of when they plan on blowing up the old bridge. I want to be there for that as well.

 

 

June 13 - 25, 2026 Replacement Floor Tile in Homer - Alexa Garage Shingles - Wiseman Family Visit - Father's Day - Alexa's Garage Soffit

My Blog Reflection

What strikes me is that there's a very fine line between success and failure. Just one ingredient can make the difference.

Andrew Lloyd Weber

June 13, 2026:

We went to the movies in Cape Girardeau. While in Cape we ran by Menard's so to purchase some replacement floor tiles for Homer. The tiles I put down about seven years ago yellowed terribly. Last year I replaced all of the easy tiles with new ones, i.e. the ones that did not require me to unbolt the couch, the dinette, and the toilet. This left a visible row under the couch. Here is a picture, although it doesn't really pick up how yellow these tiled turned.

Here is a picture after I replaced the yellowed row. It looks a lot better. I'm hoping these replacements will not yellow. I hate doing things over and over.

Here is a picture of the yellowed tiles left under the dinette. This picture better highlights the yellowed tiles. Ugly!

I had to unbolt both dinette seats to replace the yellowed tiles that were visible. Here is a picture when completed. A big difference.

I also needed to replace a couple of tiles in the bathroom. Unfortunately this meant taking up the toilet. There were twenty tiles in a box and I was short by four tiles. The project went on hold.

This is a good picture to show just how yellowed the tiles became. Isn't that awful? I hope they were a new batch and that doesn't happen with the replacements.

June 15 - 16, 2026:

While waiting to obtain more floor tiles, I went over to Alexa's and we worked on replacing the broken and missing asbestos shingles on the back of her garage. 

Here are some "before" pictures.

Asbestos shingles are very brittle to work with, even when new. These fifty year old shingles were worse yet. These shingles are no longer available but Alexa found four from the house (which are a little different) in the garage that we could use.

I reported some time back that on the left side of the back of the garage a vine had grown between the downspout and the wall of the garage. This vine was in excess of four inches thick and had made its way up under the wall shingles, under the soffit, and even under the roof shingles. Earlier in the year we had cut off what we could get to. This still left some vine wood clinging to the downspout on that side of the garage. Here are a couple of pictures. You can see how the vine grew under the wall shingles. 

Before we could put up any shingles we had to patch a large hole in the wall and cover everything with felt paper to make it waterproof.

Using a couple of the the "newer" shingles and pieces of the old shingles we were able to complete the wall. Here are two "after" pictures.

The final repair was replacing one broken shingle on the bottom of each side of the front of the garage. 

The entire project took about eight hours and was frustrating due to the materials we were working with. Now we need to repair the rear soffit that was torn loose when the vine was cut out and replace the two back downspouts.  

Kelly was taking a friend to Cape Girardeau today so she picked up six more tiles from Menard's so I can finish the Homer floor tile project. I will be glad to get it completed as well.

June 16 - 17, 2026:

After finishing up at Alexa's I started working on finishing up the floor tile replacement in Homer. Here is a picture in the bathroom after I pulled up the toilet and the tile under it. You can readily see the ugly yellow tiles left to replace.

The new pieces went in quickly and this is the final result.

As I was cleaning up I noticed that two tiles by the top step were yellowed so I decided to pull them up as well since I now had extra tiles.

The new tiles, although the exact same lot number, have a little more gray color in them than the last batch. Even though the color is off a little the gray looks better than the yellow.

A few days ago I had painted the yellowed vertical tiles under the top step black. This gives the steps more depth when stepping in and it solved the yellowed tile problem forever.

June 17, 2026:

It was EXTREMELY windy all day. As luck would have it, the wind tore part of the seam on the sun sail we had just put up on the 12th. The sun takes its toll on the thread on the seams. I took the sail down to keep it from getting torn any more. I laid it out in the garage out of the wind so I could work on it. I then went to Ace Hardware and got two tubes of a construction adhesive that is rated as having the best adhesion even on vinyl. I laid down two beads of adhesive on the seam. Here is a picture of the sun sail. The arrows point to where the seam came apart - on the end and ended in the middle.

The adhesive has to cure for twenty-four hours. The sun sail has some age on it so probably next year we will need to buy a new one.

June 19, 2026:

I put the sun sail back up. Construction glue has done the trick.

June 20, 2026:

The Wiseman Family, consisting of my daughter, Annie, husband, Adam, and daughters, Violet and Wren, arrived from California for a visit. The ladies flew in and Adam pulled their pop up camper here on a road trip with his mother for company. 

Violet did not feel well and, upon going to bed, vomited up violently. It was a nasty mess to clean up but Annie and Kelly got everything changed and washed in no time.

June 21, 2026:

For Father's Day all three grandparents gathered at our house for a brunch. Here is a picture of the group. The back row: Aaron (Alexa's friend), Mike, Kelly, John (Adam's step-dad), Kathy (Adam's step-mom), and Adam. Front row: Alexa, Wren, Carol (Adam's mom), Jay (Adam's dad), Violet, and Annie.

We had a great visit.

June 22, 2026:

The Wiseman pop up camper is named "Poppy". A camper is a new experience for the Wisemans. I showed Adam and Annie how the water system worked. 

We turned on the gas and could get anything to light. We put on a different LP hose on but no change. We then put on a LP hose that had a regulator and all worked great. The regulator on the camper was obviously bad. It was a double regulator. I had never seen one before. We spent the rest of the first day chasing down parts. We found everything we needed except one fitting. We were able to rig up the new double-stage regulator and everything tested out fine. I then showed them how to light the gas water heater and how to turn on the gas furnace. 

Inside the camper there are two plastic tracks that the door slides in when the unit is folded down. The glue holding up the strips had failed in several places. I cut wooden wedges to hold the plastic track in place while the new glue I injected set up. 

Adam and Annie both noticed that the trailer springs squeaked so we jacked it up and put grease everywhere we could get it inserted in the leaf springs. It should take care of the problem.

The camper came with two interior movable fans with lights. Adam replaced all inside bulbs with LED bulbs and found one fan light did not work. I took it apart and found a bad ground connection. I replaced the connector and all works well now.

June 23, 2026:

I was glad to help them get acclimated to the camper and to be able to help fix a few things that needed attention. It is a ten year old camper but has been used very little and is in marvelous condition. 

Here is the "Poppy" and the tow vehicle as I sat in a chair and watched Adam load everything up before folding it down and locking it up for travel.

Here are Adam and Annie ready to roll out.

From Perryville they travel today to St. Louis to visit with relatives. Tomorrow or the next day they will drive to Table Rock Lake in Southwestern Missouri to meet up with California friends who own a cabin there. After a few days they will camp their way back to California with a number of tourist stops to make on the way. This will be their first camping road trip in "Poppy".

Violet was still not feeling up to par and had been running a low grade fever the entire time they were here. Upon arriving in St. Louis they took her to an Urgent Care and found out she has a mild case of strep throat. They started her on antibiotics. Hopefully she will recover quickly. Adam said it is not a Wiseman vacation unless someone gets sick! 

It has been great fun having them here.   

June 25, 2026:

We got back to finishing up the work on Alexa's garage. We had to reinstall the soffit, which we damaged by pulling out the vines under it. We also had to reinstall the downspouts.  Here are a couple of pictures of Alexa pulling out the vines from beneath the soffit. We couldn't believe what was still up under there. One section of vine was as thick as Alexa's arm.

Here is a picture of me working on getting the soffit back in place.

Here is a picture of the back of the garage with the downspouts re-installed. All that is left on the garage project is to powerwash the garage and paint it when the weather cools off a little.

I have a project of installing a garage door opener some time soon.