September 11 - 27, 2026 - Mexican Standoff - New Rear Airbags for Homer - Lake Lot Weeds - RV Club Luncheon - Hahn State Park

My Blog Reflection

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.

Chinese Proverb

September 11, 2026:

Often one does not have to travel far from home to see interesting things in nature. Last night something caught my eye out the window as I walked into the kitchen. This is what I saw about fifteen feet from the deck.

The snake stayed frozen there watching the cat while the cat watched the snake being as still as a statue. It was a Mexican Standoff. After about twenty minutes the snake started to very slowly slither down the tree, going around the backside and out of the cat's vision. The cat watched and then slowly moved around the tree to keep the snake in sight. The snake then slowly slithered off the tree and into the grass. Within a couple of minutes he disappeared from our view on the deck. He was headed to the woods. The cat just watched it all. After the snake was about ten feet from the tree the cat lost interest and left. It was so cool. In case you are interested the cat belongs to our neighbor but rarely comes over here.

Homer needs his rear air bags replaced. They are old and leaking thus providing no lift or suspension help. A few weeks ago my regular repair shop quoted me $1,200.00 to replace them. I thought that was outrageous and passed. While out and about today I found a small shop that told me to purchase the bags and they would install them for $75.00 per hour labor. Good deal. 

September 12, 2026:

I found a replacement set of bags for $70.00 on Amazon and ordered them. They will arrive on the 17th. 

September 15, 2026:

While the house was getting cleaned, Kelly, Alexa, and I went out to the lake to mow the grass, weed eat, and spray weeds. We hadn't been out there all summer due to the heat and we were genuinely shocked to see how bad it had gotten. Here are a couple of pictures of the weeds in the driveway and surrounding area. We had never let it get this bad before. You can barely see the stairs or picnic table in these pictures. There were weeds along the perimeter that looked like corn stalks.

While I mowed Alexa sprayed the entire driveway with a chemical I bought which is supposed to keep the weeds killed for a year. We will see how that works. Alexa then did some weed eating around the stairs and wall but the weed eater kept choking up. We decided to call it a day and come back next week and tackle it again. It is supposed to be cooler next week as well.

September 18, 2026:

We drove to Pierre Marquette State Park in Illinois for a luncheon with our RV club friends. The entire membership attended with the exception of one couple who had another commitment. I neglected to take any pictures. 

The park lunch was great and we had a great two-hour visit afterwards. The guys visited in one area while the women visited in another. Typical. LOL. We had this luncheon because our summer campouts were cancelled due to the extreme heat. Our next campout is being planned for June 2027. This seems like a long time off.

The air bags for Homer arrived. I will call and get him scheduled in for installation. They came from Canada so I assume they were made there. I hope they are a perfect fit as advertised.

Well later in the day I learned that these airbags are incorrect. They have two bolt holes on the bottom and only one on the top. i ordered another set that have two bolt holes on each end. Hopefully these will be correct. They are to arrive on Monday.

September 24, 2026:

It was slated to be a beautiful weekend so we decided to take Homer to Hahn State Park. We hadn't been there since Kellen was two years old.

We arrived at the park at noon and got the last site available. I was surprised to learn that all sites are now reservable. I think our Site 19 was open because it is a buddy site with a handicapped site. Being a buddy sire doesn't bother us. Two women and their kids were in the other site tent camping. No problem. 

Upon check-in we purchased five bundles of wood. You get six sticks for $5.00.  A nice block of wood was left at our campsite as well. I immediately walked around the loop looking for wood left behind but all pits had been cleaned out. I brought a box of kindling and cardboard starter so we should be good.

We were the only motorhome in this loop and the only "oldsters" here. Most are young families and young couples and mostly tent campers. The kids are all five to fourteen years of age and they are busy all the time. Here is Homer settled in to relax for the weekend.

At this campground now instead of cards posted at each camp site, they have a board posting the occupied sites. This helps if you are driving through with no campground host on duty. You can easily see what is available, if anything. Red means occupied.

By having the big board they have eliminated "occupied" signs on a post on each site. I like that. Instead each site entrance has a circle painted on it with the site number. While this is nice I found two things odd. Most numbers were yellow painted on white, which made them a little hard to read, and most numbers were painted at the opposite angle from which you were driving on the loop. This makes them them harder to read. Here is a picture.

At one end of the loop apparently some numbers had been repainted using a green color, much better but still the numbers were painted at an odd angle as you drove by.

It got down to 65 degrees in Homer overnight. Perfect sleeping weather. In fact I slept eleven hours, which I never do, although I have always slept well in Homer.

September 25, 2026:

Before eight in the morning kids of all ages were riding bikes in all directions like ants on wheels. At least four additional kids were on scooters. They were really quiet, just riding to have fun. This is a perfect place to ride because it is a one-way loop of smooth asphalt and virtually no traffic.

After a leisurely breakfast and showers we walked the loop and found nine sites unoccupied. Later in the day tent campers arrived on all but two of them. I hate that people reserve sites and then don't show up.

The weather remained perfect all day.  There is no internet but we can make calls and send messages. There are lots of dogs but all are kept on leashes and none of them bark except one dog across from us who barks at every dog that goes by.

There are nineteen campsites in this loop and no dumpster or trash cans anywhere. I thought that was crazy since most are tent campers. 

By noon Kelly could not help herself. She had to sweep the concrete on our site. While doing so the plastic holding the broom handle onto the broom broke on our ten year old Dollar Tree broom. A  screw fixed that. I carry lots of tools and hardware in Homer for such fixes. 

The fob quit working to open the front doors on Homer. I took it apart and it is so old it uses these 12 volt batteries instead of the newer nickel sized batteries. 

I can't complain. We've had Homer eleven years and this is the first fob battery replacement.

This evening was the first time we've had the Pyromid out to grill in several years. Kelly brought a nice ribeye steak for supper. We were discussing when we bought the Pyromid and decided it had to be at least twenty years ago. It is so nice for Homer because it is all stainless steel and it folds flat for storage.

Here is a picture of the steak as I started grilling it. Only four minutes on each side and it was delicious. We couldn't even eat half of it. You can see it is not a big grill but is all the two of us have every needed.

We had a nice campfire each night with the wood we bought. It was cool enough that the fire felt good. We like to sit around and poke on it. LOL

A couple of years ago Erin bought Kelly and I a blow-up camplight. It is nice because folds flat and takes up little room. It can be charged by solar or by the USB port. It has been laying on the dash on Homer for about a year so we decided to try it out. It worked great. It has several settings for intensity. Very handy.

We went to bed and were sleeping when Kelly advised that my CPAP wasn't working. I had noticed it blowing some air out the front of the mouthpiece but thought nothing of it. We turned on the light and found that the two pieces of the mouthpiece had fallen apart. No fixing this with duck tape. I think I have another at home.

September 27, 2026:

Sunday morning the campground cleared out quickly as everyone took down their tents, packed their rigs, and headed home. This is what the site board looks like on a Sunday afternoon, lots of spaces (Green) for the coming week. "Basic Sites" means no electric, water, or sewer, thus mostly tent campers.

Our campsite was adjacent to Pickle Creek. The creek runs along a bluff and it is beautiful. Here are a few pictures. In the first one Kelly is hunting for a good rock to take home and polish.

I liked this tree, one of many just growing out of the rock ledge.

It is a beautiful park we hadn't been to in years. We really enjoyed our weekend there.

August 6 - September 4, 2026: Anniversary Celebration; Closet Shelves & Light; Home Wash & Wax; Refrigerator Fan; Campout Canceled.

My Blog Reflection

Fools aren't willing to learn from anyone - not even from the wise, while the wise are willing to learn from everyone - even from fools.

Sofo Archon

August 6, 2026:

Our 55th Anniversary was on August 6th. For our Anniversary Dinner we had a salad Kelly made and Imo's Pizza. Both were good and made for an evening about as exciting as we get these days. LOL

August 7, 2026:

We went to supper with John and Carlene, and Donnie and Mona Clements, at "Al's Place" in McBride. The food is always good there. Kelly and I split a catfish platter. Everyone was happy with their meal.

August 8, 2026:

August 8th I worked with Alexa in making shelves for her hall closet. The chimney takes up most of the closet but these shelves will help greatly with use of the space. She wants to use it as a food pantry. Here is a before and after picture. I let Aaron due all the work in the tight quarters.

Once the shelf supports were installed and shelves cut Alexa painted everything white. 

There is a wire rack on the closet door and Alea wants to purchase another to mount on the chimney for storage of additional small items. The closets in this house are quite small so she has to make the best use of the space she has.

While we were working on the closet shelves at Alexa's, Kelly made spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes that Donny and Mona gave us. They love to grow the tomatoes and always have many more than they can eat. This is a second batch of sauce. Kelly and Alexa made a batch earlier in the week from the tomatoes Bob and Ronnie gave us. Kelly freezes the sauce in jars and we just take one out as needed all year long. Alexa will have a nice stash as well.

August 9, 2026:n

I sprayed the weeds in our landscaping this morning before it got hot. Later I cut the grass. Boring. I have never cut the grass this often in August before.

August 14, 2026:

I helped Gary with a little plumbing project this morning. All went well, which is always good. I will cut the grass again this afternoon.

August 17, 2026:

There is electricity near Alexa's hall closet so we installed a motion sensing light that comes on when you open the door. It does a great job of lighting up the entire closet.  As we were wiring the light Alexa asked if we could install an outlet inside the closet. She could then hang her battery-powered vacuum inside and leave it  plugged in to keep it charged. With a quick trip to the hardware store we obtained what we needed for that install. Here is a picture of the shelves all painted and stacked with food. The light was absolutely necessary to see what is inside.

August 22, 2026:

I cut the grass again today. With the rain we have been getting it needs to be cut about every four days. A week ago I bought myself a battery-operated pump to pump gas out of the gas container and up and into the mower's gas tank. It works much better than for this old man to hold the five gallon tank up while pouring into the mower's tank, which is fairly high.

Granddaughter Wren, who is in first grade and loves to play soccer, started playing for a new team today. She is a really good soccer player for her age. She is the one in blue.

August 23, 2026:

RV refrigerators work by heating ammonia with electric or propane. As the ammonida expands from heat, it cools down the fridge.  When it is really hot outside these non-compressor refrigerators have a hard time keeping up, particularly if the refrigerator is on the sunny side the of the RV. 

The fridge has an access panel at the bottom which has vents in it. This is to allow air to come in and move upward and come out the vent in the roof of the RV.  A fan mounted in the back of the fridge will help the natural convection process by pulling air in from the outside. Any additional air flow will help cool the fins in the back of the refrigerator. I will use a computer fan for this project because I have several on hand. I ordered a thermostat so I can set a temperature for it to come on and go off based on the weather. In cooler weather it will not be needed.

August 27 - 28, 2026:

Alexa wanted to pay me money or pay for an oil change for the use of my truck picking up furniture in Nashville, Tennessee, last month. I told her instead I would appreciate her helping me wash and wax Homer. She was agreeable to that and we started early in the morning. 

I got on the roof to clean it. It was much worse than I expected. Homer had been sitting under the pine trees for two months and needles and pine tar was everywhere, in addition to regular dirt. I got about half the roof washed and was shot. Alexa came up and helped finish. She then washed Homer from head to toe and began waxing the sidewalls. 

I use a wipe-on product called "Poli Glow" on the front and back fiberglass caps to make the fiberglass shine. The lower section of Homer, which is painted blue, has gotten very dull despite yearly waxing. I decided this time rather than waxing this area to use "Poli Glow" on it as well. This ended up being a good decision. The sides shine much better now. Here is a picture with the now shiny blue lower area.

Here is a picture of Homer standing proud after being washed and waxed.

He looks pretty good for being 33 years old!

August 30, 2026:

The fan thermostat arrived and I used my 12 volt converter in the shop to figure out how to set the temperatures. Unfortunately it only displays in Celsius so I have to keep converting the temperatures to get what I want. 

I then installed the fan, the thermostat, and a switch in the back of the fridge. I put a switch on so I can turn the fan off when going down the road, etc. Here's a picture of the install. The fan is black with a silver grill and the thermostat is the white box to the right of it. Next campout we will see if it helps.

August 31, 2026:

Our RV club had a campout scheduled for this week at Babler State Park west of St. Louis. The organizer called everyone and it was agreed that we cancel due to the extreme hot weather predicted. The entire week the temperature will be 95 degrees with a heat index of up to 110 degrees. It is no fun camping in that heat. I was disappointed because Homer is all cleaned up and nowhere to go!

September 4, 2026:

There isn't anything to blog about. It is just too hot to do much of anything and definitely to hot to do anything outside. It is the Labor Day weekend but we will not go anywhere. I need to cut the grass and weed eat the lake lot but I won't do it on a holiday weekend and I REALLY don't want to do it when it is this hot. Our lot used to be mostly shade but the ice storm a couple of years ago destroyed our Elm trees.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.