 |
| Serendipity Ranch |
Since we were this close we had decided to make a stop in Hobart OK and check out the motorcycle campers we had been researching. One of the things about riding is it gives you some time to think. It seems whenever I contemplate a new purchase, I start the mental process of how we will use it and how we might modify it to fit our needs. It seems everything needs some modifications to make it satisfactory. This line of thought brings up two fellas I should tell you about. We have some time before we reach Hobart OK sot it is a good time to you about Tim and Jerry, I met Jerry thru Ruthie when we were quite young, he stood up in our wedding and then due to service, children, work and life we drifted apart. Sometime during this separation a change came over Jerry (you'll see)
Many years later after the children were older we became reacquainted at Ruthie's school reunion. ( Ruthie would know which one, I don't ) We started hanging out again, trips, cards, golf Having a great time. We even built our first project trike in his garage. People have mentioned I might be anal, however they have not met Jerry. When he has a project the engineer in him makes it a monumental undertaking. This example might help. Last year, lets say June, Deb his wife mentioned that he was overhauling a windmill. I was impressed, I knew Jerry had every tool available, a hardware store supply of goodies and the skills to rebuild anything. Was he now involved in the new wind turbine wind mills that were starting to dot the landscape? This could be quite an undertaking? I knew one of Jerry's son's climbed and worked on mobile telephone towers but I just couldn't see Jerry climbing one of those things. It surely couldn't' be the old water windmills that the Amish were slowly taking down for the metal. No! It was a John Deere lawn ornament. He had determined that the blades weren't balanced and it was not turning properly. He completely disassembled it, installed bearings, balanced the blades and improved the assembly as only an engineer can. However he has a few other projects in his shop that have improvements planned so it is not a simple in and out procedure. It does not leave his shop until it has the "Jerry stamp." A few weeks ago I asked Deb if the windmill was on the lawn, she said no. Thought I would just check as of the writing of this post. Deb answered and I said " look outside in the garden and tell me how that wind mill looks? Well that's a long story, bottom line it's still in the shop. Jerry got on the phone, "Brother Vern" how's it going? We exchanged a few pleasantry's and he asked the purpose of the call. I called to check on the windmill and ask if I could mention you in the blog? He didn't' mind and told me some of the reasons the windmill wasn't done, he had been working on his neighbors John Deere lawn tractor and it seemed to go from one problem to the next. His own John Deere had also been taking up some of his time since he had to make some modifications ( of course) it seems they stopped making the air filter for his tractor and he would have to do some metal fabrication to make another work. He mentioned he was very close on the John Deere ( maybe that's the problem) windmill being back on line. The frame and part of the blades were painted, the hub now had a high speed bearing in it, and the blades were perfectly balanced and ran true. He didn't say but I think it is probably just a matter of putting it all back together and a supervised test run in a licensed wind tunnel. So how does this affect me? If he is turning a part on his metal lathe, contemplating a bid or play in cards, lining up a golf putt or adjusting a micrometer. You nor anyone else is going to hurry him, for that moment and as many moments as it takes the world revolves around Jerry. He is a good influence on me, when I repaired engineering (fitting, right?) copiers I would mentally switch from my type "A" turbo mode to my "Jerry mode" and for whatever time it took for the repair it was "by the book", you can't do a better job than that! Now what about Tim? And what do they have to do with the camper? As part of our investigation for the perfect camper for our needs Shelia from Roll-A-Home ( from now on just RAH) had gave us the emails of a few of their satisfied owners. We followed up with several and received lots of helpful hints from both email and phone calls, lots of nice people out there. One of these emails was from Tim. He had a lot of nice things to write about his RAH and also included a link to a motorcycle forum where he had been submitting some of his motorcycle and camper modifications Click here! and scroll half way down the page. Almost turned my stomach! He had picked up his "new" RAH and as soon as he got it home started tearing it apart to modify and improve it. Modify the tongue, jack, add air compressor, change the bed, add a power inlet, a charging station for electronics, led lighting, it's brand new Tim, maybe a refrigerator/freezer? It's a motorcycle camper Tim! How about solar charging? Another Jerry? I'm thinking yes, the link to the start of the forum post be prepared shows his modifications to his motorcycle and on page 13 starts the mod's on his camper. You have to like one or the other or just be intrigued with people like Jerry and Tim or perhaps "Tim the tool man Taylor" Arh arh, I can make it better, faster, more lights and switch's. At the time of this post it was the most popular read on the forum, 18 pages and 529 posts. In one of our exchange emails I mentioned that if I did get a RAH, I wasn't going to let him know where I kept it. I bet these two had their toys apart on Christmas morning. Jerry still remains a close friend ( of course he hasn't read this yet) and some day I hope to meet Tim. (if that's his real name.) Better yet they should meet each other. Just think of what they could accomplish by putting their heads together, maybe even fix "the government", No, I guess not, some things just don't react well to reason and logical thinking. There I feel better now, compared to these two, I'm not anal I just like things a certain way, mine! However with the proper tools and funding I think I could be one of them. Great guys. Hmmmm maybe I'm jealous or perhaps this blog is my obsessive compulsive moment? See, there I go again, why couldn't I just say " Here are two great people that make things better!
We met Billy and Sheila the owners of the Roll-a-Home business, the story is that they had been looking for a small camper and ended up buying the business and moved it from Wisconsin to their home in Oklahoma. Nice people, they tried to answer all of our questions, showed us how they were constructed and set one up for us to look at.
 |
| Interesting use of an old tanker! |
If you aren't familiar with these small campers, they can be towed behind small cars and motorcycles. There are many different brands and styles. Some fold out, pop up or are assembled with poles and canvas. Some have king size beds and storage areas. The one we are looking at is unique because there is a slide out to make the bed king size. We liked what we saw.
This would take some thought as we already had a camper. It seemed like it was easy to set up, and had adequate storage, (we have a habit of packing to much, I have vowed that the bocce ball set will never take another trip with us.) Satisfied we returned to our home ward path. We had some scheduled work back in Minnesota and we were trying to stay South as long as we could and still make it home on time. We headed North out of Hobart and turned East on the freeway. Not far up the road we stopped in Weatherford OK. Worthy of mention is T-Bone's steak house here, wonderful meal and service.
No comments:
Post a Comment