"There's alot more of America to find, when you leave the freeway far behind..."
Howdy ya'll!
Welcome to the tale of the Redneck Express! If this is your first time here, turn back the clock to the beginning and read about how it all started and where we've been!
Well, once again, Old Man Last Year has stepped down from his throne in the hall of time and let Baby New Year take over the reigns, most likely after recounting to Baby New Year just how messed up the past 365 days were and how he's glad to be off to Florida (once it warms up) to retire and join the other "Long Years" playing shuffle board and drinking daiquiris and watching the oiled up girls in the "very skimpy" swimwear play in the sand.
While the Old Man Last Year and Baby New Year take care of our chronological needs, I find myself holed up in my camper, dealing with what can only be described as the "Worst. Christmas Present. Ever."
Namely, the sinus infection from Hell.
One of the fun kind, if there is such a thing, you should know it well, we've all suffered from something similar at some time in our lives.
The kind where you have to keep a box of tissues handy for every time you bend over to keep from leaving fun and wonderful new "drip" marks on your shirt.
The kind where a bottle of Oxycontin and sweet oblivion sound like a far better option over trying to stay awake through the day.
You know the kind.
It's the kind where you yell at the bottle of antibiotic pills the doctor prescribed you because you're not free from its grip an hour after the first dose and then find a quiet corner and cry because the pain from the inflammation hurts so bad.
Most of us, if we're lucky, haven't suffered from one of these devil infections since we were kids, and only exists in the dark recesses of our memories like the old bogey monsters that used to haunt us from our closets and from under our beds.
How did I come by this Satan Sinus Infection?
Well, on the Tuesday the 21st of December, Dawn and I went to her work's Christmas party over at Kellogg Lanes in Milwaukie, Oregon. Dawn got sick that night, by Christmas Eve, I was coming down with it myself.
Having a fever bad enough that standing up is a challenge definitely imprints itself on your mind.
Throughout Christmas it wasn't terribly bad, it wasn't until Sunday evening that the infection took off and I ended up in bed for two days feeling like someone had used my face for a wrestling mat.
I managed to push myself through two more days of work (Losing half my hours for the week was NOT beneficial in anyway), and now here I am, enjoying new years slightly cracked out on cough syrup and Extra Strength Excedrin staring laser bolts at my antibiotic bottle for not bringing instantaneously relief (Though it appears to have started working, as the symptoms have finally started to lessen a little) and writing in my blog.
Perhaps I'm whining a bit too much, I'm not certain. Christmas was good, I enjoyed making people smile, but my nose feels like sandpaper and I'm going through a box of tissues in 48 hours and right now, I really am wishing I was well and out carousing and smoking big cigars and generally enjoying the holiday.
Speaking of doing nice things, before I left on Friday (Christmas Eve) to spend the holiday with my family (Who are probably cursing my name now for being the plague bearer :p), I spent the morning making up personalized Christmas Cards for everyone in the RV Park, and hanging them in sandwich baggies on everyone's doors with chocolates before heading south.
So, what's the main focus of this post?
I did a little remodeling work on my bathroom today.
First off, I junked my original medicine cabinet as its door had deformed from water exposure in the shower and would no longer shut.
I couldn't find another of the same model of Zenith Medicine cabinet, so I upgraded to this model:
This cabinet is a tiny bit narrower than the original, but its taller, and deeper than the old medicine cabinet and has one distinct advantage, the shelves are adjustable.
I've actually managed to collate all of the different medicine cabinet related items that I used to have tucked into nooks and crannies throughout the camper into the new cabinet with room for a few more left over.
To keep my cabinet from getting soaked like the old one, since they both have the same door construction, I took out my old and in need of replacing shower curtain and installed the new one, then cut the old one down to size to make a mini curtain to go across in front of the medicine cabinet.
Using a cheap curtain rod from Wal-Mart, I threaded the little curtain rod through the eyelets on the shower curtain I'd cut to fit and hung it in place.
It was a fairly tight fit getting the curtain rod to clear both the medicine cabinet door AND the light fixture. In addition, the curtain rod that supports the shower curtain that closes over the bathroom door was also in the same area. It took a couple tries to get it positioned so that everything would work smoothly.
But, now my medicine cabinet should stay nice and dry and the mirror will no longer suffer from hard water build up :).
So, besides feeling like pooh today, at least I did something productive :).
So, have a Happy New Year everyone, tip one back for me, I'm going to go curl up under my blankets.
The next morning, Dawn and I woke well rested and made our way to the 5th floor Restaurant to partake of their rather delicious breakfast buffet.
For those that when you think of a hotel breakfast think of a very small room near the main office that has stale bagels, rubbery egg-things, and room-temperature milk, this is about as great an about-face from standard hotel breakfast fare as you can get.
Multiple types of loaded fresh scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage…. name it, they had it, heck they even had an on-demand pancake making machine.
I stuffed myself silly.
After breakfast, Dawn and I decided that we’d head off and do our own agendas of things we wanted to do while we were up north. For me, I wanted to return to the town of Snoqualmie, WA and visit their Railroad Museum.
I had seen the Museum as night was settling in roughly 3/4 of a year ago when Dawn and I were visiting the Snoqualmie Falls and seeing the familiar pancake batter picture live and in person. I would discovered later on today that it was a good thing that we had, as the Snoqualmie Dam was being altered and the old familiar structures of the hydroelectric project were being “modernized”.
The day before when we had arrived, the weather had been a bit overcast, but not too bad. By today, it was freezing cold and wetter than a dog that had just climbed out of a lake.
A quick scan of the news stations revealed that we were in the middle of some major rain, with the potential for heavy flooding.
While our location in Seattle wasn’t in any way threatened by potential flooding, I-5 in Chehalis has this notoriously bad habit of flooding out every time a protracted period of rain sets in.
Once Chehalis floods, the only way back south is to go all the way east to Yakima, WA and then head south down Highway 12 or further east down I-82. Long, long way out of the way.
So, stoically, and not wanting to miss the only chance I was going to get for quite some time to visit the area, I bundled up and set out for Snoqualmie.
Even with the rain and the cold, the drive east bound on I-90 was smooth and rather uneventful. I tried to take a couple pictures of my crossing on the massive floating bridge that makes up the I-90 crossing of Lake Washington.
I’ve always found floating bridges fascinating, the fact that they’re not too far from being a more sophisticated variation of a bunch of barges all bolted together, but are as stable as if they were permanently built structures that reached all the way down to the lake bottom far below amazes me.
From Wikipedia
The Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge is a floating bridge that carries the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 across Lake Washington from Seattle to Mercer Island, Washington. It is the second longest floating bridge on Earth at 6,620 ft (2,020 m), whereas the longest is the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge just a few miles to the north on the same lake, built 23 years later. The third longest is the Hood Canal Bridge, also in Washington State, about 30 miles to the Northwest of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge.
Along with the east portals of the Mount Baker Ridge Tunnel, the bridge is an official City of Seattle landmark.[1] While the bridge originally had an opening span at the center of the bridge to allow a horizontal opening of 202 feet for major waterborne traffic, the only boat passages currently are elevated fixed spans at the termini with 29 feet of vertical clearance[2].
History
The bridge was the brainchild of George Lightfoot, who came to be called the "father of the bridge". Lightfoot began campaigning for the bridge in 1930, enlisting the support of Miller Freeman. The original two-way, four-lane toll bridge was designed by the engineer Homer Hadley (1885–1967) and constructed of reinforced concrete in 1940. The construction cost for the project was on the order of $9,000,000 including approaches. It was partially financed by a bond issue of $4,184,000.[3] Tolls were removed in 1949.[4] It sank in a storm on November 25, 1990, while it was undergoing refurbishing and repair. The current bridge was built in 1993. The eponymous Lacey V. Murrow was the second Director of the Washington State Highway Department and a highly decorated US Air Force officer who served in World War II. He was the oldest brother of CBS commentator Edward R. Murrow.[5]
Formerly known as the "Lake Washington Floating Bridge", the original bridge was built under a 1 1/2-year contract awarded to the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company (the project was led by engineer Peter John Jensen) in the amount of $3,254,000.[6] It included a movable span that could be retracted into a pocket in the center of the fixed span to permit large boats to pass. This design resulted in a roadway "bulge" that required vehicles to swerve twice across polished steel joints as they passed the bulge. A "reversible lane" system, indicated by lighted overhead lane control signals with arrow and 'X' signs, compounded the hazard by putting one lane of traffic on the "wrong" side of the bulge at different times of day in an effort to alleviate rush-hour traffic into or out of Seattle. There were many serious collisions on the bridge. The problems grew worse as the traffic load increased over the years and far outstripped the designed capacity. Renovation or replacement was essential and a parallel bridge, the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, was completed in 1989.
In 1990, while under construction, the original bridge sank due to a combination of human errors and decisions. The process started because the bridge needed resurfacing and was to be widened by means of cantilevered additions in order to meet the necessary lane-width specifications of the Interstate Highway System. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) decided to use hydrodemolition (high-pressure water) to remove unwanted material (the sidewalks on the bridge deck). Water from this hydrodemolition was considered contaminated under environmental law and could not be allowed to flow into Lake Washington.[7] Engineers then analyzed the pontoons of the bridge, and realized that they were over-engineered and the water could be stored temporarily in the pontoons. The watertight doors for the pontoons were therefore removed.
A large storm on November 22, 23, and 24, 1990 (the Thanksgiving holiday weekend), filled some of the pontoons with rain and lake water. On November 24, workers noticed that the bridge was about to sink, and started pumping out some of the pontoons. However, on November 25, 2,790 ft (850 m) of the bridge sank, dumping the contaminated water into the lake along with tons of bridge material. The bridge sank when one pontoon filled and dragged the rest down because they were cabled together and there was no way to separate the sections under load. Fortunately, no one was hurt or killed, since the bridge was closed for renovation and the sinking took some time. All of the sinking was captured on film and shown on live TV.
Precedents and lessons for the future
WSDOT lost another floating bridge, the Hood Canal Bridge, about a decade earlier under similar circumstances, and it is now known that another major floating bridge in Washington, the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, is under-engineered for local environmental conditions.[8] due to a combination of human errors and decisions.
Eventually, I made my way into the “tourist trap” ends of Snoqualmie that leads from I-90 up to the original town itself.
The outdoor temperature during my drive up had plummeted quite a bit, it wouldn’t be too long before the rain became snow up at the elevation of town.
Still determined to see it all, I located a parking spot nearest the Snoqualmie terminal and began meandering around with my camera, though keeping it carefully cradled to prevent the rain from getting blow on the lens.
Given the time of the year, the “Santa Train” was running full tilt up on the Snoqualmie Railroad. Sadly, all the seats on the train were sold out, but given the shortness of the train route, it wasn’t a great loss.
Once upon a time, the tracks of the Snoqualmie Railroad ran all the way from Seattle proper up to town, now only a tiny fraction of the track remains. All of the antique trains that had been carried up that now gone track forever trapped up in the hills.
As I wandered through the site, it didn’t take long before the photo shooting began.
This old diesel is still active and used from time to time to pull the Snoqualmie Excursion train.
For quite some time, the Snoqualmie Railroad used this old Mallet Locomotive to pull their excursion trains, its since been retired, its place taken by two diesel switch engines, one at either end of the excursion train.
In addition to a fairly sizable collection of locomotives that are still in operating condition, the Snoqualmie Railroad also has an amazing collection of classic rolling stock.
This old US Army mess car was serving as a snack and beverage stand for those with tickets for the Santa Train. Given how cold I was getting, a hot cocoa sure would have been good…..
A lot of the rolling stock is in fairly good condition, however, the area around the station itself isn’t the only display yard of old Railroading equipment.
The Graveyard of Trains
Tracks to nowhere….
The Santa Train Arrives
As I was wandering around snapping my photos of the various trains on display at the Snoqualmie Station, I heard the familiar tell-tale sounds of a not too far off train on-coming. I quickly made my way around the station and into position just in time to capture a view of the Santa Train as it pulled into the station.
After watching the swarms of happy children boarding the Santa Train with their slightly harried parents, I wandered on through the rain to shoot my pictures of the Grave Yard of Trains, and along the way, I found this old log cradle.
The cradle was used to hold those old monster old growth logs so that they could be passed through the mill saws and cut to dimension.
An example log still sits in situ waiting for a turn at a mill that no longer exists.
After making my way through the Graveyard of Trains, I was back at the station, when a gentleman in classic Railroad Police garb chatted me up about the Snoqualmie railroad. We conversed about my Sumpter Narrow gauge railroad up in eastern Oregon, at around which point he told me where to find the Snoqualmie Railroad’s new Museum building and restoration shop.
A quick trip down the road towards North Bend, brought me here.
Sadly, there wasn’t anyone at the service shop and the museum looks like its still a work in progress, but hopefully when I visit again, the Museum will be completed. Can’t wait to see what they’ll have inside, maybe some of those poor old Locomotives sitting on the sidings will finally get a home inside somewhere dry.
As I was making my way back towards the car, I caught the sound of a horn once again and came up next to the crossing next to the service shop just in time to catch the Santa Train on its return trip to the Snoqualmie Station!
Having taken a picture of everything I thought potentially photographic, I made my way the rest of the way into the town of North Bend. The Santa Train was off at the Snoqualmie Station, but it wouldn’t be long before I heard that horn thrice.
The North Bend station is sadly not the original, but a rather nice reproduction of the original station that once stood in town. The track comes to an end not too far past the station, though at one time, it did run another five or so miles further along to the next town down the road.
After hanging around a little while to snap a few more photos, I packed up and made my way back towards Snoqualmie, I had one more stop on my agenda for the day, Snoqualmie Falls.
Well, Dawn and I are on the road once again, heading back to Seattle, WA for our annual Christmas Shopping Trip.
Sadly, this time around, the Big Redneck Express wasn’t able to go with us, instead we took little Redneck Express and decided to stay up at our favorite hotel, the Red Lion on 5th avenue.
Our plans this time out were to relax, enjoy being cooked for, and do some personal Christmas shopping.
With the memory of a bad accident lingering in our minds from the last time we drove something other than the Big Redneck Express up to Seattle, we opted to drive my 2-lane highway route that I had mapped out back around the time of the Fall Colors Rally a couple months prior.
The drive was quiet, but not quite as spectacular as when I had driven through this area two months prior. The brightly colored leaves were long gone, but, unlike during the Fall Colors Rally, we managed to drive the route to completion without any jaw clenching incidents of panic caused by maniac Washington drivers and we arrived smooth and without problem at our Hotel.
We spent the evening relaxing, watching videos we discovered on YouTube about the scientists that had been studying the inside of the concrete sarcophagus of Chernobyl, then went down to Elephant & Castle, the local pub/restaurant in the basement of the hotel for dinner.
We decided to have dinner considerably earlier than we normally do, figuring that it’d be somewhat quiet in Elephant & Castle. Instead, we ended up with an extremely rude waitress and a group of drunk fools who needed to demonstrate that their manhood required high power magnification and electron microscope to measure, sitting behind us showing just how well they could make asses of themselves.
Dawn and I discovered long ago that no matter what we do and where we go, whenever we try to have a nice dinner out on a “romantic trip” we will always get seated next to a group of individuals whose inability to talk at a normal level of volume or subject of discussion will end up ruining the dinner for us.
So, we worked our way through dinner, helped along by alcoholic beverages of our own, and returned to our room. The waitress didn’t get a tip, though I was tempted to write a “tip” on the receipt, but was talked out of it by Dawn.
For those of us that are users of RVs, one of the common hassles we face is tank treatment chemicals for our Black Tanks.
Most of us, myself included, usually tend to get whatever's cheapest off the shelf at Wal-Mart or whatever the smarmy salesman at the Dealership or Camping World can pawn off on us for a rather inflated markup.
For me, I've been using Thetford's Campa Chem Liquid (6 pack of 8oz bottles) for the past several years.
Mostly I use it when my camper's docked in its stationary position, so the 30-odd gallon holding tank is doing black tank duty solely. It takes roughly a month for me to fill a 30 gallon tank using just the toilet.
30 days of fermenting black tank contents is not a pleasant smell, even less so when the toilet is mostly used as a urinal.
This is not a smell one normally wants to be trapped in the bathroom with while showering. For me, I've discovered that placing my foot on top of the toilet flexes the plastic seams just enough for the fantastic fan to draw a little taste of the black tank's bouquet into the shower while I'm washing.
In the winter, this isn't that bad, in the summer, you can't add enough campachem to the holding tank to kill that smell off.
It wasn't until I attend the Fall Colors Rally and attended Torklift Rob's product demonstration table that I found this neat little product.
Chempace "ODOR-EZE"
At the time I kind of gave it the non-committal grunt that for me usually means, "I'll believe it when I see it" and took a bottle home with me.
It wasn't until a few weeks later after the camper had been unloaded and tucked it back into its site for the winter that that wonderful holding tank bouquet revisited me and I remembered the little bottle of tank treatment I had brought back from the rally.
Figuring that I'd have about as much luck as my experiment with treating the holding tank using Pinesol (Which worked great till the urine overpowered the Pinesol and I ended up with a worse stench than before) I added the bottle to the half full tank and let it do its thing.
After the first day, I noted the tank was stinking a little less and figured that was about the extent of the chemicals abilities.
A few more days after that I noticed the tank had stopped smelling altogether. At last, blissful relief I can shower again without stinking myself out!
This product actually worked vastly better than the CampaChem, in that it actually eliminated the urine odor, something the CampaChem mostly just tried to mask.
Now, here's some other neat things I've discovered about Odor-Eze, unlike CampChem, it uses no Formaldehyde, so its good to use in California, and parks where traditional tank treatment chemicals may be banned.
AdventureRV, Tweetys, and Camping World do not carry the Chempace product lines. I will update this post if and when I find new online stores that sell the Odor-Eze product line.
You can also find Odor-Eze at these fine local dealers!
R'n R RV - Spokane, WA RV's NW - Spokane, WA Torklift RV - Kent, WA Coumbs RV - Olympia Broadmoor - Richland, WA Bretz RV - Missoula, MT Blue Dog - Hayden, ID Blue Crick - Airway Heights, WA Longview RV - Longview, WA B. Young RV - Milwaukie, OR Wager's Trailer - Salem, OR Johnson RV - Sandy, Or Allied RV - Sacramento, CA Guaranty RV - Junction City, OR Nelson's - Boise, ID Thunder RV - La Grand, OR Island City - Island City, OR Western Rec. - Prineville, OR Jerry's RV - Bend, OR
Originally, I had wanted to do something similar back in 2008, but between a tight budget for Christmas that year plus needing to move at the time it never happened.
At least not until now, this is for you Dak.
(Please forgive the slightly blurry quality of the pictures, I was attempting to do a 1/3.2 exposure time without a tripod and this was as clear as I could get it!)
I think it came out okay, even though its not loaded on the truck right now.
For me, I've been using Thetford's Campa Chem Liquid (6 pack of 8oz bottles) for the past several years.
