01-31JUL14 - Sultan, WA

July started with more sunshine & record heat.  Although it didn’t take up to much time, we did remain focused all month on making all the final preparations for the burial & family gathering for Dan’s youngest brother Gary James Ryan who passed away in November of 2013.  As we mentioned in our BLOG back then, the remaining siblings (Dan, sister Sharon, & brother Shawn) decided to postpone final arrangements until everyone was back in the Seattle area.  The siblings also decided to have Gary interred at Tahoma National Ceremony on 01AUG, with a family Remembrance on 03AUG.  One of the key things accomplished was sister Sharon overcoming her fear of flying; & us picking her up at SeaTac airport late 31JUL!

Early Saturday morning, 12JUL, we headed into the Seattle Center for the Urban Craft Uprising which we went to last year (see below BLOG).  Corrie was in line so she got SWAG; Dan was parking the car so he didn’t.  In our opinion it was not as good as last year.  The few food vendors present all seemed to advertise – gluten free, dairy free, no nuts, no fructose, no corn syrup, no GMO.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2013/08/01-31jul13-sultan-wa.html

 

From the Uprising we went to the third annual Polish Festal at another part of the Seattle Center.  This was much more enjoyable.  For lunch we shared a sample plate of pirogues, polish sausage, stuffed cabbage, sauerkraut & hunter’s stew.  Then it was back home to escape the heat & sun.

Wednesday, 16JUL, we took the RV to Poulsbo RV in Everett to have our old Converters removed, and an Inverter installed.  Why –

---older rigs like ours usually had Converters for charging the house batteries & the starting batteries; very few older rigs had Inverters, now Inverters are pretty much standard equipment

---Converters are very poor at charging batteries to full capacity & will shorten the life of the batteries

---charging AGM batteries (that we just installed in February) with a Converter can void the warranty; since we spent bucks on all new AGMs, we don’t want warranty issues down the road

 

---lastly, an Inverter allows the running of 120v AC equipment off the house batteries without starting the generator; once the installation is completed we will be able to run light AC loads like the TV, satellite dish, laptop & charge phones for hours without starting the generator; although we rarely dry-camp, this capability would have made our JAN trip to the Everglades National Park much more enjoyable when we were forced to dry camp for three days

Monday, 21JUL, we received a phone call from Dan’s cousin Sheila saying she would be at her mom’s (Aunt Madeline) house that evening.  That resulted in a spur of the moment visit with aunt Madeline by us.  Sheila’s friend Alan was also there & we had a great time.  First we played Mexican Train Dominoes, which we have discussed several times in this BLOG.  We have mentioned that everyone plays the game different even when reading the same rules?  Aunt Madeline took the cake though!  She had several sheets of different rules that she had typed up over the years!  It was interesting to say the least?  For dinner Sheila recommended takeout from a Thai restaurant she had used once.  She couldn’t remember the name, but knew where it was.  Turns out it was Vietnamese, not Thai; but excellent food anyway!  A great day was finished with ice cream w/fresh wild blackberries from our property

The rest of the month was spent:

>>mowing & gardening, battling with invasive blackberries

>>Dan installing a motion detecting security light on the pump house; we have been carrying this security light in our house hold goods unused for 20 years & it worked

>>Corrie continued cleaning & re-staining our big deck

>>on Thursdays Dan volunteers with Habitat for Humanity

>>Corrie finally has had enough of our kitchen cabinets & had Dan install sliding shelves in the lower cabinets

>>Dan installed keyless remote security pad for the smaller garage door on the shop/RV garage building

>>more difficulties with new laptop involving the dreaded Windows “Blue Screen of Death”, back to the local computer tech

>>Dan looks into replacement engine for old lawn tractor, no joy engine has been out of production for several years

>>installation of (wireless) ADT home security system

>>Dan cleaning mold off the lower eaves of the shop/RV garage in preparation for painting to try & prevent future mold

>>Wednesday, 23JUL, was record rain day for July; after almost three weeks of sun & heat - one day of rain makes it the 3^rd wettest month of July on record; so the next day, Thursday, Dan is at Habitat for Humanity as heavy rain fell

>>Corrie heads east of the Cascade mountains a couple of times to spend time with cousin Sheila in Cashmere, WA

As stated at the beginning of the BLOG we finished the month by picking-up sister Sharon up at SeaTac Airport for tomorrow’s interment of youngest brother Gary James Ryan.