40 Years and some projects (10-19-14)

Paul’s 40th high school reunion took place while we were in Fresno.  His high school is in Sacramento, so we packed up neither the camper, nor the trailer, and drove the 140 miles north for the reunion.

Although none of his close friends attended, we still had a great time talking with people and looking at old pictures. After dinner they did the usual lining up of graduates for a more “formal” picture.






After a nice night of dancing, we headed to a hotel suite that is larger than our home. 

  Sunday morning we took a stroll through Old Sacramento. Along the side streets that were line with old buildings, we came across a sight that, at first glance, seemed very strange.  A dozen young ladies posing in doorways and assorted other places.

It turned out to be a photo shoot.  It wasn’t for anything specific- it was a mutually beneficial outing for young models and budding photographers.

And then …..we wandered into the largest and most colorful candy store I have ever seen!  I was in heaven and Paul had to drag me out of there- especially since the owner told us we could sample any candy that has a blue tag- and that was about a third of the store!  Yummy!



On our way out of town we drove by the house Paul grew up in.  He was happy to see that the two Redwoods he planted when he was young are the tallest trees in the area. 







Back in Fresno, the celebrating continued with the birthday party for our friend Kevin.  Kevin turned the big 6-0, but we don’t tease him because we are right behind him (some of us are closer than others though!).








We are wrapping up some of our projects on all of our rigs.  Two of them required Paul to climb under vehicles. The camper project was a planned one.  He was changing out some parts to the water system.

The truck project was not a planned one and was a little spooky.  The truck wouldn’t start one morning- it turned over, and then just died with no notice, and a warning sign came up on the dash.  Google to the rescue, when I punched in what the warning said, the results were all about the EGT sensors in the 6.7L Ford engine. Apparently in early production vehicles, the sensors go bad and need to be replaced with an upgraded version.

Luckily we had borrowed a car for the weekend and we still had it, so after a bunch of online searching and talking back and forth with the local Ford dealer, Paul took off to the dealership to get the new part. He was not a happy camper, with thoughts of what could have happened if we had been on the back roads of Alaska when the truck died. He did contact one of the directors at Ford that he used to work for, and discussed it with him.  Apparently they are aware of it and working on a solution.

One of our chores was to clean the carpets in the camper, but the carpet cleaner that we borrowed stopped working.  Karen and I relaxed with a glass of wine while Paul and Kirk pull it apart- to no avail.  It’s next stop was the dumpster.

Paul’s biggest project of the week has been a long time in coming.  The toolbox we have in the bed of the truck is enormous and at times it interferes with maneuvering the trailer in tight corners.

Paul decided it was time for a new one, but he couldn’t find exactly the size he wanted, so he bought one, and then modified it.

The new one doesn't sit as far over the top of the bed rail as the old one, giving us  much better turning abilities.  Unfortunately, it also doesn't go all the way down to the bed of the truck, and that’s a problem.  We need it deeper, to fit the boat engine.

So he cut the top part off and bought another piece of diamond plate.

He sleeved the new piece into the existing toolbox, and after some riveting and gluing….

Voila!  A custom made toolbox!