What Are You Doing Today?

Connie Bennett said:
I spent the day watching episodes of the Route 66 documentary. I never traveled the entire route from Chicago to Santa Monica, but I have been on sections in Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Parts of Route 66 are still drivable and it seems there’s a resurrection of the route. I sure hope so. When people say something is as American as baseball & apple pie, they need to also include Route 66.

There are several parts of the documentary that can be googled if any one is interested 🤠

Annnnd IT RAINED🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️. I got a good thunderstorm and a quick cooling down to 77 degrees —— 👍👍. That said the thunderstorm tore a roof off 35 miles east, before it got to me. This was an east to west storm, which is not that common where I live.

Nashville hit a real temp of 101 today. Thankfully I only saw a real temp of 94. I know the humidity will be back, but the storm this afternoon did a great job of cooling until sunset💦💦
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We are seven miles from Route 66. There is a lot going on with the Centennial celebrations.
 
Currently, (6AM) I'm on our desktop here writing to you folks and my wife is on her laptop entering bills into her Ledger, that I paid and printed out receipts for.
A little later, going out to breakfast again. Then, if we have enough energy, will go over Boat/RV Storage, hook-up our boat/trailer and take it over to the water hose on the property and try and start the engine. It's been a good year since we've started the boat engine. If we can't get it to start, later (in a week or so) we will take it to the same marine service we took it to when we lived here before and see what they can do.
Next Saturday, when it's pretty hot here, we are thinking about driving up to Estes Park, which is next to RMNP, and seeing some Elk. A lot of them hang out in Estes Park this time of year.
 
Ken Anderson said:
As someone who spent more than a year hitchhiking, and sometimes driving, around the country, particularly from Michigan to California and back in the 1960s and early 70s, I thought it really sucked when they replaced Route 66.
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About 1966, I got on Route 66 east of Tucumcari and stayed on till I skirted around Albuquerque. If you happened to see a bushy (sort of afro) dark haired girl, around 16, that you couldn't decided was hippie or cowgirl and she was driving a blue Ford pickup pulling a cattle trailer filled with Herefords from Texas and headed to Colorado, then that would have been me. Being by myself, although armed with a hidden 45 Colt, I didn't pickup up hitchhikers. I made 10 trips that summer. I loved that section of 66 and had a favorite diner in Moriarty. I always gave hitchhikers the peace sign and then the thumbs up, indicating I was unable to pickup hitchhikers.

Today, I have no idea what I will do. The bombs last night were continuous from 9 PM till 1 AM. Some were so powerful, they shook my house. I guess we won the war, since my flag is still flying. This is the first 4th, I can remember, that I didn't hear a single siren. I am still belching the over Cajun spiced Brats I grilled up yesterday. :sneaky:
 
Cody Fousnough said:
Currently, (6AM) I'm on our desktop here writing to you folks and my wife is on her laptop entering bills into her Ledger, that I paid and printed out receipts for.
A little later, going out to breakfast again. Then, if we have enough energy, will go over Boat/RV Storage, hook-up our boat/trailer and take it over to the water hose on the property and try and start the engine. It's been a good year since we've started the boat engine. If we can't get it to start, later (in a week or so) we will take it to the same marine service we took it to when we lived here before and see what they can do.
Next Saturday, when it's pretty hot here, we are thinking about driving up to Estes Park, which is next to RMNP, and seeing some Elk. A lot of them hang out in Estes Park this time of year.
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Have you ever been to the Estes Park Elk Festival? I think it is in early October.
 
Faye Fox said:
Have you ever been to the Estes Park Elk Festival? I think it is in early October.
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No. However, we've been into RMNP in Sept/Oct for the "rut" and seen quite a few Elk. In 2022, we decided to go to RMNP for the "rut", but my wife can't handle going up high on Trail Ridge Road anymore, so we turned around and headed back to Estes Park. Found out that Bulls and Cows and be seen at the golf course, so drove there. Yep, there they were! One with a huge rack among his cows. BTW, we are now members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
I don't have anything in particular planned for today. I think my husband is going to run the gasoline generator for maintenance, which he does every month or so. We like to make sure that thing is reliable during hurricane season.

I guess I'll do some cleaning and put a roast on for dinner.
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Is the Generac on permanent hold?
 
John Brunner said:
Is the Generac on permanent hold?
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Yes. We got several companies to give us estimates, but we have so many issues to overcome that we finally gave up. There are so many rules about set-back from buildings, no windows within so many feet of the generator, gas line relocation, adding another gas meter, the electrical panel is on the opposite side of the house, blah, blah.

It was going to be a huge ordeal and we could never figure out a suitable location for the generator. One company proposed running a new gas line all the way around the swimming pool; another was going to tunnel under the driveway. It all just got too overwhelming.

As long as we are physically able to roll out the gasoline generator we will continue to do that since it has always worked OK in the past. The biggest annoyance with that is dealing with cans of gasoline. When we can no longer do that, we'll just drive to our son's house and let the food spoil.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Yes. We got several companies to give us estimates, but we have so many issues to overcome that we finally gave up. There are so many rules about set-back from buildings, no windows within so many feet of the generator, gas line relocation, adding another gas meter, the electrical panel is on the opposite side of the house, blah, blah.

It was going to be a huge ordeal and we could never figure out a suitable location for the generator. One company proposed running a new gas line all the way around the swimming pool; another was going to tunnel under the driveway. It all just got too overwhelming.

As long as we are physically able to roll out the gasoline generator we will continue to do that since it has always worked OK in the past. The biggest annoyance with that is dealing with cans of gasoline. When we can no longer do that, we'll just drive to our son's house and let the food spoil.
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That's what has stopped me from getting a generator. Not only the storage of the gas, but keeping it fresh. I have no motivation to engage the cycle of emptying old cans of gas in my car so I can then go refill those cans...lather/rinse/repeat just on the off-chance there will be some extended outage. There is no sense messing with that stuff for a short-term outage, so by definition you need to have a lot of gas on hand if you're gonna do it at all.

If I had a larger house where I could put batteries and the equipment, I would have solar. A friend went that way when he downsized. If you have a gas/propane stove and gas/propane on-demand water heater, the only electricity they consume is when the flame is ignited. He had his new place mega-insulated and installed a couple of wall mounted propane heaters. Then the only power consumers are air conditioning and television.

He did not go roof-mount...his panels are mounted billboard style on wood backing in his yard. I was shocked at how few of them is required...and he sells excess juice back to the power company.
 
John Brunner said:
That's what has stopped me from getting a generator. Not only the storage of the gas, but keeping it fresh. I have no motivation to engage the cycle of emptying old cans of gas in my car so I can then go refill those cans...lather/rinse/repeat just on the off-chance there will be some extended outage. There is no sense messing with that stuff for a short-term outage, so by definition you need to have a lot of gas on hand if you're gonna do it at all.

If I had a larger house where I could put batteries and the equipment, I would have solar. A friend went that way when he downsized. If you have a gas/propane stove and gas/propane on-demand water heater, the only electricity they consume is when the flame is ignited. He had his new place mega-insulated and installed a couple of wall mounted propane heaters. Then the only power consumers are air conditioning and television.

He did not go roof-mount...his panels are mounted billboard style on wood backing in his yard. I was shocked at how few of them is required...and he sells excess juice back to the power company.
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We don't store any gasoline, but when a hurricane enters the Gulf we start paying attention. If it looks like we'll be impacted by the storm, we buy a few 5-gallon cans of gas. Our generator runs the freezer, refrigerator, window a/c unit, TV and a few lights. It burns about 5 gallons every 12 hours or so and is really noisy, but it beats sitting in the heat and dark for a week.

Usually gas stations are up and running soon after the storm passes so we have never had a problem buying gasoline. I'm planning to send a bunch of meat from my garage freezer home with my son's family next week. There is no reason for me to have so much food here for the 2 of us any longer, and I probably should get rid of the big freezer.

One other obstacle to the Generac is our wood privacy fence. That adds to the "can't put it there" list since the fence is on both sides of our property and there are additional setback guidelines for the generator.
 
We rehomed the gas generator to a family somewhat further out. The Generac covers our needs and then some using heavy duty extension cords. During peak usage hours the power coop cuts customers off to avoid purchasing power. Mathilda as we refer to the generator was installed by the power company on a house wall with a fence about ten feet off. We replaced the fixed glass of a bathroom window with a double hung. Code inspector was ok with that.
 
Marie Miller said:
We rehomed the gas generator to a family somewhat further out. The Generac covers our needs and then some using heavy duty extension cords. During peak usage hours the power coop cuts customers off to avoid purchasing power. Mathilda as we refer to the generator was installed by the power company on a house wall with a fence about ten feet off. We replaced the fixed glass of a bathroom window with a double hung. Code inspector was ok with that.
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If we have a Generac, it will be permanently wired to run the whole house using natural gas. No "extension cords" necessary. Our gasoline generator covers our needs with heavy duty extension cords, which is one reason we want to install a whole-house generator instead. As for codes, they are different in each state and in most municipalities.

Seems to me that the fixed glass window would have been safer than double hung since there are less seams to allow carbon monoxide to enter. All windows in our house are double paned and double hung. We can't have the Generac installed next to any windows.
 
John Brunner said:
That's what has stopped me from getting a generator. Not only the storage of the gas, but keeping it fresh. I have no motivation to engage the cycle of emptying old cans of gas in my car so I can then go refill those cans...lather/rinse/repeat just on the off-chance there will be some extended outage. There is no sense messing with that stuff for a short-term outage, so by definition you need to have a lot of gas on hand if you're gonna do it at all.

If I had a larger house where I could put batteries and the equipment, I would have solar. A friend went that way when he downsized. If you have a gas/propane stove and gas/propane on-demand water heater, the only electricity they consume is when the flame is ignited. He had his new place mega-insulated and installed a couple of wall mounted propane heaters. Then the only power consumers are air conditioning and television.

He did not go roof-mount...his panels are mounted billboard style on wood backing in his yard. I was shocked at how few of them is required...and he sells excess juice back to the power company.
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Our youngest daughter has roof mounted solar panels on her home near Austin. I don't believe they provide any emergency power, though. I remember them being without power during the ice storm of 2021.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
If we have a Generac, it will be permanently wired to run the whole house using natural gas. No "extension cords" necessary. Our gasoline generator covers our needs with heavy duty extension cords, which is one reason we want to install a whole-house generator instead. As for codes, they are different in each state and in most municipalities.

Seems to me that the fixed glass window would have been safer than double hung since there are less seams to allow carbon monoxide to enter. All windows in our house are double paned and double hung. We can't have the Generac installed next to any windows.
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Extension cords are for neighbors without generators. Minimal exhaust with natural gas.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Our youngest daughter has roof mounted solar panels on her home near Austin. I don't believe they provide any emergency power, though. I remember them being without power during the ice storm of 2021.
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I hear different things. A guy who installed propane generators told me that without line power, the battery recharging circuitry on solar systems cannot work. The web says that--per the Code--the panels shut down regardless of what type of solar system you have so that the voltage won't feed back through the lines while the utility workers are fixing them, and your batteries supply power to your house until they run down. There are products that will disconnect your system from the grid during an outage so your panels can continue to supply power to the home.

I was surprised that power outage coverage was not a standard feature. I would think it to be the main benefit. When I first moved here my electric company would do Net Metering (buy back power until your month's bill was offset) but they would not purchase anything more than that. That policy greatly reduced any benefit from installing a system. They have since changed.
 
John Brunner said:
I hear different things. A guy who installed propane generators told me that without line power, the battery recharging circuitry on solar systems cannot work. The web says that--per the Code--the panels shut down regardless of what type of solar system you have so that the voltage won't feed back through the lines while the utility workers are fixing them, and your batteries supply power to your house until they run down. There are products that will disconnect your system from the grid during an outage so your panels can continue to supply power to the home.

I was surprised that power outage coverage was not a standard feature. I would think it to be the main benefit. When I first moved here my electric company would do Net Metering (buy back power until your month's bill was offset) but they would not purchase anything more than that. That policy greatly reduced any benefit from installing a system. They have since changed.
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John - we have outages that can run a week and not once have we had a problem with the generator. The buy back fell prey to a merger. Oh well! Natural gas and no solar.
 
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