Why We're Not Working Right Now
May. 28th, 2011 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeWe made the round trip to Wilsonville with the other three tires today. (Lisa got a second jack so that we could have two wheels off the ground simultaneously, and we installed the two new tires on the rear axle.) Just a few minutes after we got home, however, a massive thunderstorm hit Mehama. I don't mean the usual Oregon rain, but really nasty, noisy stuff with thunderclaps so close that I thought the church across the street had been hit.
This is a short video clip shot from the front door of the trailer. That's not a stream out there, but the road in front of the trailer, about ten minutes after the storm started.
Lisa's parents' Vanagon is currently parked outside the trailer because she'd been using it regularly (until recently) to shuttle her father around during his recuperation from his cracked hip. Here's what things looked like looking across the Vanagon to the church's parking lot.
The awning over the trailer kept the worst of the rain and hail off the trailer, although it was still quite loud. This photo taken out the front door shows the hail accumulation after about ten minutes just beyond what the awning protects. The hail never got beyond large BB-sized chunks, but there was a lot of it.
We're hunkered down inside hoping the storm will subside before it gets dark so we can install the new tired on the forward axle and so Lisa can install the new breakaway switch. As we started the get-the-trailer-roadworthy project by taking off wheels, Lisa wanted to check the trailer brakes, and pulled the breakaway plug. Nothing happened. This is bad, of course, since the brakes should automatically engage when this happens. Lisa eventually determined that the brakes were okay, but the switch itself had broken. While we were at Camping World yesterday, she asked for a new switch, and the guy behind the counter handed us what was handy — more cheap Chinese junk. While we were waiting around to pay for the tires, Lisa found a better quality (metal instead of plastic) American-made switch, and we had them swap it into the order. It's only a few dollars (this isn't a terribly expensive part, particularly when you consider the stakes involved), and we'd rather pay for top quality for parts on which you may be betting your life or home.
This is a short video clip shot from the front door of the trailer. That's not a stream out there, but the road in front of the trailer, about ten minutes after the storm started.
Lisa's parents' Vanagon is currently parked outside the trailer because she'd been using it regularly (until recently) to shuttle her father around during his recuperation from his cracked hip. Here's what things looked like looking across the Vanagon to the church's parking lot.
The awning over the trailer kept the worst of the rain and hail off the trailer, although it was still quite loud. This photo taken out the front door shows the hail accumulation after about ten minutes just beyond what the awning protects. The hail never got beyond large BB-sized chunks, but there was a lot of it.
We're hunkered down inside hoping the storm will subside before it gets dark so we can install the new tired on the forward axle and so Lisa can install the new breakaway switch. As we started the get-the-trailer-roadworthy project by taking off wheels, Lisa wanted to check the trailer brakes, and pulled the breakaway plug. Nothing happened. This is bad, of course, since the brakes should automatically engage when this happens. Lisa eventually determined that the brakes were okay, but the switch itself had broken. While we were at Camping World yesterday, she asked for a new switch, and the guy behind the counter handed us what was handy — more cheap Chinese junk. While we were waiting around to pay for the tires, Lisa found a better quality (metal instead of plastic) American-made switch, and we had them swap it into the order. It's only a few dollars (this isn't a terribly expensive part, particularly when you consider the stakes involved), and we'd rather pay for top quality for parts on which you may be betting your life or home.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 05:40 am (UTC)As for the hail, that's pretty typical. I've lived around here a long time and I don't recall hailstones being bigger than pea sized, which I hear is not the case everywhere. Sometimes we get quite a lot of them at once, though!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 06:05 pm (UTC)