Pumpkin Patch RV Resort, May 12, 2024

Yeah, we're still here. Amazon and the USPS are not our friends.

In the process of installing the new solar panel to replace the one that New York took, the steps on the 14 year old ladder on Miss Mosey decided that they were done. EJ deemed them unsafe and no way was I to climb up on them. Oh boy! Another project!

I don't want to replace the whole ladder since those are made for the specific RV model and a generic ladder that might be available locally would entail more modifying than i was willing to under take. Amazon to the rescue. I thought! In my research for a solution I discovered that most RV ladders are made in a common width and that there were manufacturers that made steps to fit these common widths which in our case is 13 inches.

So on 5-7-2024, I placed the order to be delivered to Pumpkin Patch and Amazon promised 2 day delivery which fit our plans perfectly since we were due to leave on the 10th. That would give me an afternoon to get the new steps installed.

But instead of arriving on the 9 as promised, Amazon said they were having problems getting the steps which would result in delayed delivery. Then once they got the steps they bounced around various Amazon facilities before being handed off to the USPS. Uhoh, that raised the red flags. I have not had good experiences with the USPS delivering packages. 

The package arrived in Maine at the Eastern Distribution Center (this is the USPS facility) in Hampden, ME, which is about 25 miles from our location. What was really funny was during this fiasco Amazon was claiming they had sent it to the USPS all the while the USPS was saying they were waiting on Amazon to give it to them. Our package, the steps, languished at the Eastern Distribution Center for 2 days.

I was resigned to not receiving the steps until Tuesday 5-14-2024. These steps were starting to get real expensive as we are having to pay to stay here at Pumpkin Patch until they arrive. But then, something magical happened. The post office delivered them today, a Sunday two  days earlier than I expected. 

The missing replacement steps.

Obligatory cat pictures follows:

(The stare!)

New York 1, Miss Mosey Zero

  Pumpkin Patch RV Resort, Hermon, ME, May 6-17, 2024

 April 27, 2024

The above picture is for illustrative purposes, but it does give you, the reader, a flavor of the panic we experienced while traveling US-20 in New York. Immediately after a horrific sound of rending metal melded into a sound like we ran over something, EJ and I looked at each other and exclaimed "Holy shit!! What was that?" A glance in the side view mirror revealed a large shiny black and white flat object flipping end over end as it passed over the Explorer being towed by Miss Mosey. 

Of course, this being a 2 lane road with nonexistent shoulders meant there was no where to pull over to assess the damage. After 5 miles or so we found the Moondance Restaurant with a wide enough shoulder to park Miss Mosey. The adrenalin was definitely pumping as we set out to discover the havoc reeked upon our traveling home and car. I am picturing multiple shattered panels as this thing bounced down the roof and a broken windshield in Pearl (the Explorer being towed) as the panel smashed into her before flying off and shattering into a thousand pieces on the pavement

Unbelievably, other than a few scratches on the forward air conditioner cover, it appeared the flying solar panel missed both Miss Mosey and Pearl . While I was on the roof marveling at the lack of destruction, a red Ford pickup stops. The lady driving it explained to EJ what she saw happen.

Even though we were on a federal highway which is supposed to have a minimum 13ft-6in clearance over the road surface unless other specified by signage, we hit an overhead wire. Bare in mind that we only stick up above the road 12ft-6in. She said it was rather spectacular watching the solar panel spinning the air before crashing onto the pavement and disintegrating into a thousand pieces. She thought the wire we hit was a live electric wire so she called 911 to report it. She offered to take us back to the scene to recover whatever pieces were recoverable. Knowing that once a solar panel turns into a thousand pieces there is not much to recover,  we declined her offer.

She left and EJ and I were left standing waiting for our heart beats to return to some semblance of normalcy and a policeman pulls up. He wants to know what happened. So we explained what the lady had told us. Because it was a tree covered road, apparently the low hanging line blended into the shade and we never saw it. If the Ford pickup lady lady hadn't explained what happened we would still have no idea what occurred. The policeman explained we hit a "phone line or internet line" and that it was not a live electric line like the lady thought.

He wanted to know the dollar amount of the damage done to Miss Mosey. After we told him it would cost us about $250 bucks to replace the solar panel, he said he wasn't writing a report for less than $1,000 and beat feet out of there. 

We finished removing what was left of the panel frame and headed on to our destination Esperance, NY. We would be staying at an Elks Lodge with no hookups. but lots of grass and stuff for Gabby to explore.

This where the panel used to be... 

We decided we would spend 5 days at Pumpkin Patch RV Resort in Hermon, ME just outside Bangor. So we ordered a new solar panel to be delivered to Home Depot in Bangor. The idea was we would install it while at the RV park. Fortunately we carried spare brackets and hardware needed for the installation.

This is the new panel. I'm getting the mounting brackets and holes drilled in preparation for installation.

And now the new panel is installed and all is right with the world again. We are ready to continue boondocking.

Obligatory cat picture follows:

Just another bump in the road...

 Elks Lodge #964 Agusta, ME May 5, 2024

After sitting in the proverbial barn for over 6 months, it's time to hook up the battery charger and see if we can get this blog cranked up and running again. Of course we have a plethora of excuses to account for our laziness. The dog ate my notes (we have no dog), we didn't do anything interesting, or we could whine about the amount of mental effort it takes to string together a few random words and add some snapshots.

Anyway, we are casting all the excuses aside and sorta promising to be more diligent about  updating "Driving Miss Mosey". But (there's always a "but" isn't there?) upon getting all geared up to get this thing back on the road, we encounter Murphy's Law (if it can break, it will). We have a bump in the road of good intentions.

First a little history. Years ago, when we started this little hobby of blogging, we had to use the blogger.com editor to produce content. It was cumbersome and clunky. Then along came Live Writer, a tool designed to allow dweebs like me to produce computer code without knowing any computer code. Halleluiah! It was a glorious day! No more fighting Blogger roadblocks!

Back in 2016, Microsoft stopped supporting Live Writer. However, a group of Microsoft coders didn't agree with that decision and voluntarily continued to support it. These volunteers kept it running through 2019, then it continued to function although as an orphan for several more years.

Well, sometime in the last 6 months, Google decided to improve Blogger to "make" our lives easier. All they accomplished as far as I'm concerned, was to irretrievably break "Live Writer", the wonderous tool that allowed us to blog with ease. 

So in spite of our former "sorta" promise, blogging may be a little rocky for a while as we experiment with ways around this latest Google fiasco.

Obligatory cat picture follows: