It’s been eight days since the truck was temporarily traded for a new Blazer EV and we’ve since returned the loaner, and just today traded back so they can work harder on the truck.
I was told that the problem with the new battery was that it was a bad battery. I found that interesting. We traded the loaner back for the truck and it worked fine for two days before it went belly up again. That was last Friday. I couldn’t unlock it with the FOB.
So, I measured the voltage on the battery and got a stunning 3.36 VDC reading on my handy meter. That’s not quite enough to turn the engine and, apparently, not enough to respond to the key FOBs.
I walked back to Emmert and told them what I discovered and asked them where they would like me to park the truck when I brought it back. They all hung their heads in wonder that I was having such a problem.
I walked back home, hooked up my new battery charger and let it run on high amps for an hour and was blessed with the engine’s roar when I tried to start it. I drove it back to the dealer and left if running in their driveway while we did the car exchange once more. I suppose I could have just walked home, but I’m getting tired of doing that so I asked for the Blazer EV again. They complied.
My opinion is that the truck’s computer is suspect. We should know on Monday what’s up. I’m thinking they need to take the truck back and give me something that’s going to work a while.
Yup. I’m still sucking air, as my friend Junior used to say. That may surprise some of you since I have a history of harming myself in various ways. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened lately.
Except for my left shoulder. It’s kind of wonky and I’m scheduled for physical therapy to address that malady. That starts on May 8th. If I can still use my keyboard then, I’ll tell you all about it.
Before I go too far into this, I’ll admit that there may be some repetition about previous posts. You have permission to skip the repeated info.
Let’s talk about our truck. As you know, it sat idle in our driveway while we were off sampling the weather in Arizona for the last part of 2024 and a bit of 2025. I may have mentioned the issues we encountered previously, but things have progressed. For the last few weeks it’s been unreliable about starting. The first episode was during a trip to Portland for something I don’t remember, maybe a Costco visit, then lunch at Chang’s Mongolian BBQ. After lunch it wouldn’t start.
It would lock and unlock with the FOBs but the big START button did not function. Therefore, the engine didn’t start. I decided to try the remote start feature which worked fine, but I could not get it out of that mode. That means I couldn’t put it in gear. It’s supposed to shift modes when you press the unlock button after the remote start, but that didn’t work. That meant the truck wouldn’t let me put it in gear no matter how hard I tried.
So, I called AAA for a tow back to St. Helens so they could figure it out. While waiting for the tow truck I kept trying stuff and finally wound up slapping and pounding on the dash in the vicinity of the START button. That apparently caused something to wake up because it actually started the next time I tried.
Feeling lucky, I called the tow truck driver and cancelled the tow and away we went, directly to Emmert where I handed them all the keys and walked home. I was losing faith in that rig.
A couple days later, they reported that there didn’t seem to be a problem because it started every time they tried. Feeling brave, I drove Max to Wiggle Buttz, a dog store, to have his nails trimmed. He was. begging for a trim. When the toe nails were trimmed we jumped in the truck to go home but it wouldn’t start. I only tried once. Then we walked back to Emmert and I gave them the keys again and told them where the truck was parked and we went home.
It was during this period of being truckless that we went to Seaside for the weekend. Diane wanted to see the super low tide in person. So, we went and had a good time. Max got to spend time on the beach running just as hard as he could and, though it rained a bunch, we enjoyed the stay like we always do.
Diane took her Mom’s fancy walker to the beach and discovred that it glides suprisingly easy over the sand.
So, while Max and I played, she sat peacefully watching the surf up close.
Max was perfectly content laying on the table watching the surf from a distancd.
Can’t say I blame him because the beach was very busy with folks carrying clam guns that apparently are very popular during low tide. I’ve never seen Seaside Beach like this before.
Looking north there were a few TeePees people had built and we chose this one for our next home.
We took one long walk, about 2 miles to Norma’s and back just to get this required photo of us at the Seaside Turnaround.
Emmert called and told me they had analyzed about 40 error codes that all pointed to low voltage and deemed that we needed to replace the battery. I said sure, so they did. That was Friday, a week ago but we were at the beach in Seaside so couldn’t get it until Monday.
I went back to the dealer, paid the $580.00 that wanted for the new battery, and they gave me the keys. I happily went to the truck planning for a leisurely drive home, but it wouldn’t unlock with the remote.
I didn’t try anything else before taking the keys back to the service desk to report this failure. We went back to the truck and the service writer couldn’t get it opened with the remote, either. He pulled the manual key out and opened the door but there was a disturbing absence of dome and dash light when the door opened. This was an indication that the $580 was not well spent even though their specific testing of the old battery revealed it was bad.
After scratching our heads in unison for a bit, they said they would like to keep it for another few days to see what more they could find. I said, “sure, if you can give me something else to drive because Diane and I both have places to be at the same time. They wound up giving me one of their rentals, a 2024 Blazer EV which is pretty nice. I drove it home and tried to get the truck out of my head for a bit.
Today is Saturday and the truck will be there until Monday at least. I checked yesterday and it was in the shop, which is good, but they still had no clue what the problem is. That wasn’t encouraging.
So, I think we’ll just go out and burn up all that electricity stored in the EV’s batteries. It tells me we can go 216 miles before it requires a charge. Perhaps we’ll find out if that’s true.
In the mean time, Max is glad to be home and that the crick has dropped low enough to go wading like normal. One of his favorite things to do after a walks is to take a dip in the crick.
Before I start this one, please forgive me if the dates are wrong but I have no sense of time anymore. Every day’s Saturday, or Sunday, but never Monday. Anyway, Diane and I took our trailer to the Sherwood Elks Lodge for a few days. We did a lot of visiting, watched the crews behind us put a bridge together, visited the local thrift stores, and gave Max a lot of walks around the parking lot. It rained pretty good during this visit.
Before the trip started, I took the trailer around the block and did my best to scrape the passenger side of the trailer off as I left first stop sign I encountered. It wasn’t pretty, but there was mainly a transfer of creosote from the pole to various parts of the trailer. I did manage to scrape the handy dandy assist handle into oblivion and had to buy a new one. Thankfully, I was able to remove most of the creosote. All that remains to make everything OK is to figure out how to bend the door back into shape so it’s easier to close. There is a solution. I just haven’t had time to deal with it.
This is the crew we mingle with. A great bunch of humans.
After spending many days at home after that trip, Diane wanted to visit Seaside to see the King Low Tide. Diane said that isn’t a proper description of the tide tables but I’m going to “King” anyway. Even though it’s just a really low tide. This morning was the first day and it’s supposed to do the same tomorrow morning. That would be Monday, not something I usually talk about. The only problem is it happens before 0900 in the morning. That’s early for me. The deal breaker for tomorrow is the rain. I will walk Max in the rain but I won’t walk a mile to see a low tide in it. Maybe when I was younger.
Diane has decided to use her Mom’s walker since it was still brand new. It was about 10 years old but her Mom refused to use it, so it was still new. We brought it to the beach with us to help Diane with her “failing get around bones” and it did. We took some long walks. It was a good time and will something we can continue through the summer at home. I’m looking forward to that. Here’s proof of low tide.
Tomorrow we go back home for a while. Maybe we’ll be able to clean up the garage a little. Also, maybe someone will drop by and make an offer on our RV. We no longer need it. Any takers?
I know it’s true because we just attended his birthday party. Another reason I know it’s true is because Jennifer made a cake.
It was pretty exciting with all the little kids running around. It’s funny how you can forget how noisy 3-5 of them together can get.
Jeran made a variety of pizza’s for everyone to eat and I’m happy to report that I only had one piece. I could have eaten more but it just wasn’t a good thing for me at this time. By abstaining, I’m sure I’ll sleep better tonight.
We left a little bit early because Max called to let us know he needed to go outside. He wanted to go to the party but there’s a strict “No Dog” policy at Jasper’s house and Max knows it. However, he likes to push the envelope a little and I figured he’d be calling just to let us know he’s thinking about us. It’s always good to get home.
There’s a lot of commotion surround this update and I just completed a session with my favorite son, Jeff, in an attempt to correct the issue he’s having with his phone .He has an iPhone 13 pro max which should have tolerated the update, but he’s been plagued with power issues since the install. As a consequence, his phone deteriorated until it was useless. So, he took a chance and allowed me to see what I could do.
Not having a clue about what I was doing, I pushed a bunch of buttons and cycled the phone on and off until it wouldn’t stay on for more than 5-10 seconds. That’s worse than it was originally. Though it’s worse, it was progress, kind of. After all that, I left the phone alone for a little bit and we talked about alternatives. I do not remember if anything useful that came from that discussion but at the end I decided to try one more time.
I’ve discovered over my copious free time on this planet that if you think good things about an electronic device and talk nicely about them in their presence, even when they’re bad, they will eventually yield and cooperate. It just takes time.
With this knowledge fresh in my mind, I talked with the phone a little while, making eye contact at all times, and tentatively touched the on/off button to see what would happen. Magically, it started to power up! The apple logo lit up and I found myself holding my breath as time progressed because it was nearing the moment when the logo previously dimmed, then went away. Happily, it stayed on and continued to boot up and presented me with the home screen.
Then it went blank.
Thankfully, I kept my cool and didn’t say anything bad about the phone, but it stayed off. Before diving into the hole of self-pity, I touched the screen softly and was rewarded with the return of the home screen. It was alive! There was hope!
At this point, the phone was still attached to a power cord that was not plugged into a power source. It was just hanging on like an overly long umbilical cord and that only disturbed me a little bit.
With the success of attaining the home screen we thought it would be interesting to see what might happen if we removed the cord. Since it was imperative that I not jostle the phone we silently agreed that Jeff should remove the cord. I glanced at him as he tentatively gripped the cord and slowly removed it from the phone. I think at this point we were both holding our breath, waiting for a negative response.
Time passed, and nothing changed! It was still working. We looked at each other and I decided to see if it would object when I moved it. Slowly, I inched my hand down to the arm of my chair, giving my muscles a little rest, and everything remained OK.
It was like a miracle because there was no empirical evidence that we did anything close to defining a repeatable solution. Neither of us had any idea how we got to this point in our troubleshooting exploit, so we just called it a win and Jeff went happily on his way.
I learned later that Jeff’s phone failed again so he pursued a surefire solution by getting a new phone. His was obviously flawed in some way and he was part of a huge iPhone community that had troubles with this particular IOS upgrade. So, he now has a 16 pro max that is immune to failure. I know that’s true because Alibabba.com is selling them for some very reasonable prices,
With that happy ending I will end this and move along to something more interesting like, has President Trump really been a KGB agent since 1987, or was Bob Ross really a political cartoonist and all those videos of him painting happy clouds featured his reclusive twin brother Norman?
If I was still counting days, this would be 175. Yes, it’s been a week since my last post and I have to admit that I feel like I’m falling down on my job. But, the journey is over for a while so I can relax a little, right? The problem with that is that I need something to write about. To do that requires me to contribute a little brain power to these efforts. Let’s see what happens.
First, there’s Max, who doesn’t have a problem with moving around a lot. Any time he gets outside, he plants himself close to his next possible ride. Close enough that he’s hard to ignore. It works, and he gets in his trips around town in addition to his walks around the block, so he knows we see him.
As you can see, there’s a travel trailer parked under the car port and, as far as I know, it hasn’t leaked. I haven’t had the courage to unlock the door and stick my head inside to find out. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.
While taking stuff out of the RV Max assumed one of his favorite positions. I think he was channeling Laurie and Pat, hoping they would show up. We explained to him that they aren’t here, but they think about him a lot. He sat on the back of that couch for an hour or so until we closed it up. Funny guy.
Monday I used my air compressor to blow off 6 months of dust that collected on the air cleaner filters on the furnace. It was pretty fuzzy so I did it when Diane was not here. Actually, it was part of the instructions that I do the cleaning after Diane exited the premises and wouldn’t be back for a while. Max doesn’t care about stuff like that so he was allowed to stay with me and watch the fun.
Also on Monday, Max had a bath. A shower, really. He’s not fond of getting clean, but he loves the part about buffing him off with a towel. He must have heard about the need for a bath because he escaped for a little while and came back partially covered in mud. My first impression was that he found some deer poop and had a good time smearing it all over himself. But, it ws just dirt and it came off easily with the shower wand. That made Jerrie happy.
On Tuesday, I think, Diane drove herself to town (Portland) for her CT Scan to see how things are looking with her lungs. I thought she had an appointment scheduled with her doctor but can’t find it on the calendar so will have to find out when that is. We both want to know if we’re going to be visiting Arizona again this year, or if we’re going to get a sauna instead. Might just do both. You will hear about it as soon as I know..
Diane got her hair cut a little bit on Wednesday. The last trim she got was in Coronado, I think, and I did a pretty good job. Made me proud. I offered to do it again, but she nixed that very quickly. That’s OK because Tracey is her friend and they get to talk which is good. Sometimes I go there and just sit in the waiting area and listen to them. They know I’m there because there’s no way to sneak into the shop. Most of the time they just let me stay as long as I want and sometimes I even get a haicut, too.
On Thursday Diane had a meeting with the church ladies, and Friday she had an eye appointment.
On Friday I also got to do something for Jennifer using the truck. I drove way the heck and gone into the woods above our house, but not far enough to encounter snow. We loaded up a free freezer and took it back to her house and got it installed in her garage. Jeran came along to do the heavy lifting while Diane stayed at Jen’s to watch cartoons with the Little’s. We all had a good time and I only got in trouble a couple of times for trying to help move that thing. To facilitate the transfer, we got a trailer from Don’s Rental. There was no way we were going to get an upright freezer high enough to get it safely into the truck. The trailer worked nicely. It turns out that when someone else does the heavy lifting, it’s pretty easy to get stuff like this done.
This morning Pastor Ingrid cooked pancakes at the church for whoever wanted to walk through the church door, so I went about 9-ish and had breakfast with a few people we haven’t seen in a while. It was a good visit, the pancakes were awesome. Thanks, Pastor.
When I got back Diane convinced me to take Max around the block once more, then I drove her and the truck to Scappoose so we could fill the truck’s gas tank, and she could get her Spring Rolls at Simms Restaurant. She’s been craving those things for many months and couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Sunday, after church is when we usually make that trip. It’s a ‘thing’ with us. I usually get Lomein with shrimp but having just eaten a late breakfast, I settled on tempura shrimp. They were really good.
Oh, and we also had egg flower soup. And tea.
That’s pretty much up-to-date as I can get so I’m going to quit.
Saturday was spent fiddling with the truck, trying to make it run. I failed, but I did manage to get all the dash gauges lit up a couple of times, and made the system ring some bells. I don’t know what they signified, but I made it happen. That little bit of success gave me something to think about because all that happened when I connected my fancy battery charger and put it in “Car Start” mode. All that means is the system is jolted with 50 amps that should work to start the engine, kinda like jumping the battery from another vehicle, like we used to do when we were kids. Everyone had a set of jumper cables. I still do, but I’ve also got AAA. They’ve got longer cables.
That old charger didn’t work, but I wasn’t surprised. It has resided in the battery compartment of the RV for a few years and has been subjected to all kinds of toxic chemicals during that time. I’m sure that wasn’t good for the little buttons that makes it tick. Sometimes they would work, sometimes they wouldn’t, so I figured it was beyond my ability to fathom any other reasons for its to malfunctioning nature.
With this knowledge I took a trip to O’Reilly Auto Parts and got a new battery charger. One that has a 250 Amp kick instead of the measly 50 Amp I had. It also has wheels so I can drag it around and keep it off the ground. Also, it’s too big to fit in the battery compartment so it won’t be breathing all that bad air. It’s staying in the garage.
To make a long story short, it worked. I was able to get enough juice in the battery to the point where the system determined that it was still alive and responded to the button that starts everything. It cranked up and purred like a kitten. I was so happy.
I believe the problem about the battery going dead was caused by the automatic levelling system that lives on the back axle of the truck. There are air bags back there connected to a small compressor that only knows two things; 1) The air bags are low on air, and 2) The air bags have too much air. Actually, the compressor doesn’t know anything. It simply responds to the external stimulus supplied by a magnet, a proximity switch, and gravity. It’s that simple.
The compressor is connected to a switch that is connected to the frame in such a manner that when the air bags deflate, a magnate moves up, or down, in relation to a stable sensor that triggers the electricity to the compressor. When weight is added to the truck bed, or a trailer is attached, the compressor pumps up the bags until the rig is level. When the weight is removed, air is released to make it level. Simple system. The problem is that there’s no way to turn it off. It’s on all the time. So, when it sits idle for 5 months that bag inflation/deflation status is controlled by the weather. In this case it was mainly cold so it was constantly pumping the bags up and did so until the battery was totally drained. That’s my theory.
If I’d had a brain before we left, I should have disconnected the battery, but I didn’t. I suspect I could have installed an on/off switch on the compressor, but that would have been too easy.
The good news is that I can still install the switch, and the truck is back in action. I’ll put that on my TODO list. All I have to do is find it. I think it’s in the garage somewhere..
Our children are happy about the resurrection because they have things they want to move, and the truck is what they need. I’m happy to oblige.
Here’s proof of life for the truck:
I’m happy to report that the snow we outran to get home, has come and gone. Max thought it was fun for a while, as did we, then it went away and we’re OK with that. Here’s the new look around the house.
The creek is a little higher right now because of the melting snow in yonder hills. You can see Max getting reacquainted with the boulders that protect the stream bank. He remembers them all.
Today was for celebrating family. Diane said so. It’s the beginning of our monthly gathering to replace the more infrequent gatherings we’ve done for one holiday or another. She figures, and I agree, that as we get older, we need to do these things more often as long as we’re able.
I don’t have any group photos, but I’ve got these:
Here’s Jeff, the father of our Hill Children:
This is Jerrie Anne Diane, our youngest granddaughter.
This is Baylee with Jasper on her shoulders:
Cedric was hidden behind Baylee in the above photo. I luckily got him in frame later. He’s a hard guy to pin down. Cedric is normally the one who wears his little brothers out, but he had help from his cousins today.
Here’s Gilligan:
This is Diane, Lydia, and Jennifer – 3 generations of one branch of our family tree:
You can ignore Jerrie on the left of that last photo. She was introduced earlier.
This is Daniel and Jasper:
Here’s Siah, the youngest:
Now I’ll tell you who is missing: Jeran, Tiana, Heather, and Elisabeth. By my count, that’s 15 people and a dog.
I always have good intentions of capturing everyone in at least one group photo, but this one got away from me. Then some folks left before I realized my failure. I’ll get them next time. I guess I was too busy just watching everyone. Could be, too, that my brain hasn’t recovered from the faceplant I participated in while in Lodi.
Yeah. Let’s blame it on that.
It was a roaring good time made better by Diane’s Sloppy Joes, and her 30 lb custom made Mac’n’cheese.
As with all family events of this nature, no one went away hungry.
As I type this, the calendar tells me that it’s really Tuesday, not Sunday so I’m obviously running a little behind schedule. I’ve decided that I will stop this rigid daily schedule of info sharing and just scribble something when the mood strikes. It’s much easier that way because being on a daily routine makes it necessary to make stuff up when nothing happens to write about. This is true.
Today Diane is going to Portland, all by herself, to get a CAT Scan, then later this week she will visit her doctor for the results and to find out which kind of sauna would be the best alternative to a trip to Arizona. Yes, stuff like that makes my head hurt a little too.
These were decompression days. Most of it was spent trying to remember how the remotes work for the huge TV in our living room. It seems so odd to watch TV on such a big screen. For the last 5 months or so I’ve been guessing about what I was seeing. That got worse when I did a face plant which also bent my glasses all out of whack. Don’t think I mentioned that side benefit from falling down. Anyway, it’s a brand new world we’re in and the remote issue isn’t new. It was just waiting for us to pick up where we left off last August.
The main issue is the sound bar. I believe I conquered the sound bar problem on Friday. If not totally, it’s good enough.
Max got his first walk round his neighborhood on Thursday and he surprised me with his recollection of the yards where dogs lived that he always barked at. He didn’t skip a beat.
Jeff came over early and scraped away some of the snow in our front walk.
He did a lot with the driveway, too, and Max showed his appreciation.
Max adores, Jeff and vice versa.
Here’s a look upstream on Milton Creek. Looks pleasant, and it really is, but when the snow starts melting it will get pretty rowdy.
Here’s where Max stands guard to ward off water born predators. He’s either really good at it, or there just aren’t any becasue we’ve never been bothered by anything that came out of the creek.
Actually, you can see he’s looking up which is a dead giveaway that he’s looking for squirrels. There are many who live in the trees that surround us and he’s chased all of them at one time or another.
We got up this morning filled with anticipation about our trip home. We’re a day early because of the weather which was ominous for anyone traveling up I-5. The snow was due to arrive on Thursday and we did not want to have anything to do with that with all those angry drivers out there wanting to get wherever they plan to go at anyone’s expense but their own.
Since I’m writing this on my home computer, you can trust me when I say we made it home just fine. The drive wasn’t one to talk about other than it was safe and we didn’t run into anyone. And no one ran into us. That’s a win-win.
Getting home was awesome. We just parked the rig, took Max in the house, and didn’t do a thing the rest of the night.
Big sigh of relief.
I don’t have anything to add, so I’ll just share a couple of recen photos we received.
This our granddaughter Lydia with her youngest brother Siah:
This is Lydia with her other brother, Jasper. He’s a year older than the youngest:
Temporary Sanity ... 