Up at 5:00AM this morning, I’m going up to Bonita Bay for a bike ride. Yesterday I talked to the Bonita Bay Bicycle Club about joining them for a ride and was told to be at the Tennis Center by 7:45 AM. Since our regular alarm clock was on the fritz and the “Punky” Alarm was set for 6:50 AM I had to rely on my internal clock to wake me up. Well, it sorta worked, heheheh!
I had made some arrangements last night to have my riding clothes ready so I was out of the house in plenty of time. Heading north on Airport-Pulling Road I got about three miles away before noticing my sunglasses were still back at the coach. Not good. Since there was plenty of time I turned around and went back, picking up my sunglasses and a banana.
Since it was still early, but after 6:00 AM, I swung over to Joes Diner and had breakfast, a 2-2-2. Two eggs, two pancakes and two pieces of bacon - couldn’t eat it all, even washing everything down with coffee. Finishing my breakfast I got back on Airport-Pulling Rd and headed north.
Its about a twenty mile drive so I had allowed about 45 minutes. But with limited traffic the trip only took half an hour. I got to the Tennis Center about a quarter after seven and waited for twenty minutes until the club president, Claude, arrived. He had me sign a release and then introduced me to the other club members as they arrived. Most were in their late fifties or early sixties so I fit right in.
Just before heading out we split into two groups, the “A” level riders who average about 24 mph and the “B” level group which rides about 20 mph. I joined the second group since I hadn’t been out on a serious ride since we left Denise’s house (Antioch, Wisconsin) last June. Good thing I did. Turns out my group had planned to go out for about 45 miles.
It was a nice day for a ride, about 75 with a light overcast and a slight breeze coming in from the gulf. The ride from Bonita Bay went south to Naples following many of the side streets which are lined with resorts and very expensive homes. Most major roads have a dedicated bike lane, the side roads have limited traffic but it’s not like riding in the NW, everything is flat. Good for me as we were moving at a pretty good clip in a pace line most of the way.
Arriving in Naples we came into the heart of town and stopped at “Tony’s Off Third” for coffee and a scone. Thirty minutes later we were back on the road following a different return route north. We finally made it back to the Tennis Center at Bonita Bay averaging over 16 mph for the ride including our stops for lights and stop signs. I think our average pace was around 21 mph while riding.I got back home around noon and had a bite to eat with Tina then made a call to “Toms Mobile RV” to have someone come out and check out the Generator which had refused to start. The service technician, Dean, showed up about an hour an a half later. He listened to the clicking when the starter button was pushed, got out his creeper, went under the coach and a minute later came out and started the generator. Turns out it was a loose ground wire.
As he was writing up the invoice, I mentioned that Tina had been experiencing difficulties with the washer/dryer during the drying cycle. Since he had to bill us for an hour of shop time, Dean offered to look at the unit. I mentioned that I saw water in one of the storage compartments where the dryer hose was located thinking it might be part of the problem.
Turns out there is a water leak. With all the access panels removed, Dean finally found a problem with the hot water hose fitting to the shower and was able to replace the fitting and fix that problem. Then it was ck to trying to diagnose the dryer problem. After tracing the wiring, checking the breaker panel for voltage and eliminating several potential ideas, Tina said that it seemed to happen when the A/C was running. Dean ran a couple of tests and finally figured out that the voltage was dropping at the dryer with the A/C on.
This eventually lead us to the outside power pole where we had plugged in our 50 amp power cord. After testing the power outlet, it seems we had a bad connection. So Dean went down to the office to let them know they had a faulty power outlet and we decided we’d do laundry early in the morning with the A/C off.
Ten minutes later, a camp maintenance man and Dean returned. Seems the problem was known to the Park and they had pulled new wires and set up a new power pole about five feet behind the one I was plugged into but it hadn’t been identified for our site. We turned off the power at both boxes, pulled my power cord out of one and plugged it into the “correct” box then flipped the breaker switches back on.
Problem solved. Dean was there for about three hours but only billed us for an additional hour of labor which was a good deal as we actually didn’t know about the water leak, so we got three problems resolved.
Dinner was steak and roasted green beans with pine nuts. Deeeelicious!!
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