Tuesday, May 25, 2021

A Third ODYSSEE!

The odyssey continues with another trip to Newport Beach to rebuild the blower box to lift the MONSTER out of the water.  A third vehicle has been christened ODYSSEE, my Ford F150 pickup.  It will make the next trip across the country with the new blower motors, and bring back the motors originally supplied.  Claria and I will head west on Thursday, June 3.  Stay tuned!  

ODYSSEE #3 was ready to hit the road for

the next odyssey, a road trip to Newport Beach, CA

with the parts necessary to rebuild the blower

 box for the MONSTER boat lift.
 







Thursday we spent the night in Monroe, LA, Friday we had lunch with a dear friend from M20 racing days in Dallas, and proceeded to Abilene, TX for the night. Saturday night had us in Willcox, AZ at the Arizona Sunset Inn, an old motel located on business I10 on the old main drag through town.

This motel has been completely updated, was spotless, and you are served breakfast to your order from a limited menu, REAL hospitality.

On Sunday we joined Ann and Lovable Bill, sailing friends from D boat days back in 1957, for brunch at Hacienda Del Sol Guest Ranch Resort.
                                                                                    

The last few miles in this leg of the trip was to Mary and Larry's home in Carefree where Claria will stay while I go over to Newport Beach to rebuild the blower box on the MONSTER boat lift next Tuesday. 

We did successfully rebuild the blower box with the new blowers, but they did not produce the pressure promised.  So we continue to have problems getting the boat out of the water. this picture sums it up!
Once again we packed up to head back to South Carolina.  I drove back to Carefree on Saturday, June 12.  On Sunday we enjoyed one more get together with Claria's cousins, David and Mary, Tom was in Minneapolis.  We left for home on Tuesday morning, June 15.






Our first stop was a quick stop in Albuquerque, NM for a simple pizza supper with my first room mate at Hamline back in 1957.  Ron and I have kept in touch since we both graduated from the University of Minnesota with 5 year engineering degrees in 1962. Our wives, Marcella and Claria have gotten to know each other as we have visited each other at both of our homes.  As the sunset to the west, we got back on the road, we drove to Tucumcari, NM for the night.

From there we had two long days of about 13 hours each with delays from construction and accidents, getting home just before midnight on Thursday, June 17.  It's always tougher to drive against the time zones and lose an hour each day. 

That wraps up this trip!

 
Let me add a quick conclusion to the saga in Newport Beach.  I made a third trip to the job to clean up some minor problems, but still could not lift the boat.  Two major problems with the boat and one suggested improvement to the lift.  The project is on hold while negioations continue on how to best proceed.

 

Friday, April 16, 2021

ODYSSEE in California

 I started a new page, can't seem to put any additional posts on the first page.  And we did enter California at the bottom of the last page.  We spent Sunday night at Stafford RV Park just before we entered Avenue of the Giants. 


Once we completed the 32 mile drive through the Avenue of
Giants, we got back on Hwy 101, which is a 4 lane highway with
a 65 MPH speed limit, and headed for Newport Beach.  















We skirted around the North side of San Fransisco to I5 which runs down the Central Valley.  With few places to stop, we took advantage of California's rest area policy which allows overnight stops of up to 8 hours, for our Monday night stop.  Tuesday we drove the last 170 miles to the job site, getting there about 1:00.  Everything was ready for our loads to arrive Wednesday morning, so we went to John Wayne (Orange County) airport to rent a small car to use for the next 8 days, and then to Waterfront RV Park in Huntington Beach, 5 miles north of the job site.

Wednesday morning the excitment started at the job site when the first truck arrived at 10:36 to be                                                   
unloaded. We had a 90T truck crane set up to unload and reassemble to lift. 

Reassembly was completed on Thursday.           





On Friday we brought in a 350T crane to lift the now reassembled lift that weighs 42,000# into the water.  Once rigger with 4 large straps, the lift took about 5 minutes.

At 3:30 we had the blower box hooked up to the four tanks, we opened the valves to the "lower" position and the lift sank empty in about 15 minutes, started up the blower motors and opened the valves to the "raise" position and the lift came up to the full raised position in about 10 minutes. The project manager was pleased with the results, ran up to his office trailer, and returned with two beers to celebrate. "let's relax over the week end and get ready to setup the boat on the lift on Monday".

Relax we did.  Zsolt, the project manager called about 10:00 Saturday morning and proposed he and his wife Whitney pick us up and show us around, find something to eat, and a beer.  We had an errand to run and agreed to the offer when we returned.  They showed up about 1:00 at our RV site, and we had a delightful afternoon, first to the Sherman Gardens,


and then to a Mexican Bistro where we had Fish Tacos
and a glass of locally brewed beer.  Then a quick run to 
the project site so Whitney could see the "lift" she had 
heard so much about, floating proudly in the water.  Zsolt insisted on entertaining us, even though he was our customer and I wanted to pick up the tab for at least some of the afternoon, "Chuck, you saved my life, if I hadn't found somebody to build this lift I was going to attempt it myself, and based on what I see you designed, I would have failed miserably." It's been an interesting and challenging 
project, and without the great input from Zsolt, we couldn't have succeeded either.  We have developed a very respected relationship between two visionary engineers.  And I expect, our friendship will continue beyond this job.





We got back to the motorhome about 5:00 and the "ladies" next door were celebrating two 50th birthdays.  As soon as we got back, we were invited over to meet the "party" gang and to have our picture taken...

More pictures were taken on their cell phones that they promised to email to us, stay tuned!

Sunday, Claria and I took a ride in our rented car down to Dana Point and back, and had a delightful lunch at Salt Creek Grille. 

Monday, April 19, Chuck was back on the job site to make a few adjustments to the lift before the boat arrived to start the process of setting it up on the lift.  A couple of lifts were tried, but it was apparent we needed to move the boat forward some for the correct balance.  We'll work on it tomorrow.

Tuesday didn't go so good, our 2HP blower motors were working hard to get the bow of the boat raised and could not get it high enough to get the stern raised so the bow would level out.  Mitch arrived late in the day. We decided we needed some larger motors, were able to find two 3HP blowers to hook up to the outside wing tanks which we could pick up first thing Wednesday morning.

With the two 3HP motors temporarily hooked up to the outside tanks we tried again, still not quite enough power.  The decision was made to go back home and build a new blower box with 4 larger motors, the temporary field fixes weren't quite working and would not fit in the present box, so let's fix it correctly. 

We did determine the lift fit the boat and was strong enough to lift the boat past the point of maximum bending forces, all good.  The boat was ready to be lifted if we had enough power.

Thursday about noon we left with the motor home and started east towards Joshue Tree National Park.

We arrived at the North Entrance to Joshua Tree National Park at
 about 3.  As we entered the park we inquired to see if there were
any camp sites available, there were none.

 

The northern part of the park has most of the interesting rock formations and unique trees the park is named for.



 


With no camp site available, we took the road south towards I 10, hoping to figure out where to spend the night.  Near the south entrance, we pulled into the south visitors center for dinner.  Our last option for a place to sleep appears to be in a rest area, most of the western states allow motor homes to park for the night.  Heading east, we found a rest area just inside the Arizona border, actually a nice rest area.




Up the next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast, and continued east towards Claria's cousin Mary and Larry's home in Carefree where we were going to park the motor home for two nights. 

.  Lunch on Saturday with three cousins sitting on one side of the table, Claria, Tom, and Mary.

Sunday morning we moved to cousin David and Milly's home in Peoria.  David fired up his pizza oven and Tom joined us for a tasty dinner of special pizzas.

Monday we turned in the motorhome, spent the night at a hotel near the airport, and early Tuesday morning we were aboard our South West flight for our trip home.

Saturday, April 3, 2021

ODYSSEE will be on the road!

We are renting a Cruise America 25' motorhome  in Spokane, WA. for our next odyssey.  This trip is a business trip to install a 110,000# capacity floating boat lift that The Boat Float gang has built for Newport Beach, CA at a residence at the end of Via Lido Island.  We are combining some pleasure visits into the trip as well. 

The trip starts with a visit with Chuck's cousin, Shirley who lives in Spokane on Monday, April 5, for dinner.  Stay tuned as this trip unfolds!  

The motor home has been christened ODYSSEE with a decal left over from our boating days mounted on the back bumper - that is the transom - right! 
.    










Our first stop was a visit and dinner with my 90 year old cousin that we hadn't seen for 23 years. We spent the night in her driveway, enjoyed a wonderful breakfast which included a visit from her daughter Janet, and headed off to Washougal, WA about 8:30.


As we approached the Columbia River, we chose to drive west along the north shore of the gorge, the day was clear and it was a beautiful ride.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
For several miles we could see Mt. Hood on the Oregon side.

We arrived at the plant where this monster lift is being built a little after 3, as you see this floating structure, 30' wide, 74' long and when finished, 15' 4" high pretty well dwarfs me!                                   


On Wednesday evening we enjoyed dinner with Darrel, a second cousin of Claria's.  It was a great "catch up" that lasted until they kicked us out of the restaurant.                   
   
Thursday we took a break to have lunch at PUFFIN on the docks of a marina operated by the Port of                Camas/Washougal. Manufacturing of the lift has            moved along on schedule and we will start loading        on two drop deck stretch trailers Friday afternoon,          April 9.

Friday is a pretty nice day, partly cloudy to              sunny by noon.  Claria could finally go take a walk along the Columbia River a block south of the plant.                     
    
The excitement started at about 1:00 when the first truck arrived to be loaded.  Six lift trucks, and 3 hours later we had both halves of the lift loaded, 


heading out of town.
With the loads heading south, we headed for the Oregon Coast for a scenic drive south.  We met the coast at Lincoln City and spend Friday night in a Walmart parking lot.  The pictures are taken as we went south.



We got to Waldport and found Salty Dawg Bar and Grill for breakfast.  On their restroom door was a sticker from the Salty Dog in Hilton head.

Continuing down the coast.....




Then the Heceta Head Lighthouse, the historic Alsea Bay Bridge...



And more scenic coast...














Heceta Lighthouse and Siuslaw River Bridge...

And more coast, down to Gold Beach where we spent the night at Oceanside RV Park...  

On Sunday we crossed into California and the Redwood National Park.