Thursday, August 13, 2015

50 Amp Power Problem

 

Blairsville, Ga (high 82, low 60)

We’re keeping busy around here, but haven’t been on any hikes yet.  Al has been having problems with both of his knees.  One is bad enough that the doctor is ready to do a knee replacement.  Al wants to see how it does this summer and if he is able to do any mountain hiking. He hasn’t been able to find out because his “good” knee is giving him more problems than the bad one.  It’s been very hot up here this year, so we haven’t been very interested in hiking anyway.  This is the third summer we’ve been here and it’s by far the warmest we’ve seen.  We’re hoping this unusual heat wave will end soon.

We took a drive over to Highlands, North Carolina.  It’s supposed to have some really high end RV resorts and expensive houses.  They must be hidden because the only thing we found was a little touristy town with shops and a lot of people.

This building appeared to be some kind of apartment building.  I loved the beautiful flower boxes.

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It’s a picturesque little town, but the crowded streets reminded me a little bit of Key West, without all the fun and interesting people.  There were no bars, so that might explain the lack of interesting people.  :)

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The kids seemed to enjoy this fountain.

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The ride to Highlands was very scenic and we stopped often to stretch our legs and take some photos.

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We came upon this place that appeared to be like a dry waterslide.  The people you see on the right of the picture were standing on some sort of escalator thing that gave them a ride back up to the top of the hill.

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Once on the top, they got in an inner tube and rode down to the bottom.  It looked like fun.

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We made a stop in Dillard Georgia to pick up some fresh produce at Osage Farms.  Everything is fresh picked, delicious, and reasonably priced.

 

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We’ve been going for our morning and evening golf cart rides looking for bears, but have only seen turkey and deer so far. 

Al is always on the look-out for rocks, so if he sees any along the road, he stops to grab a few. He’s using them as borders for our trees and planters.  The recent grading of the road brought up quite a few nice rocks for his collection. 

Al rock hunting

Most of you know, we have another Rv site just down the street, that we rent out.  On Sunday, our new renters came in in a big Tiffin bus with 4 slides and a tag axle.  It was the largest RV we’ve had in the site, and I was happy to see that they fit just fine.

The problem started a few hours after they arrived.  The 50 amp circuit breaker shut down.  We assumed they had overloaded the circuit because they have 3 ac units on the rig and it was pretty warm outside.   It happened again a few times so we decided we might need to replace the breaker. 

Al doesn’t like to mess with electricity.  Fortunately, one of our friends here is a retired electrician and he agreed to change the breaker.   He thought we might need to pull the meter in order to change the breaker, but as it turned out that wasn’t necessary.  It turned out there was a crack in the breaker, which I’m sure explained the problem.   for my records:   we used a 50 amp double pole General Electric breaker that we found at Home Depot.   

Changing the breaker would have been easy, except for the fact there was a big motorhome that was close to the pedestal and not much room to work.   Our friend Pete had to crawl down under the slide and get on his knees to open the box to be able to get to the breaker.  He has bad knees, so it was pretty hard on his body. Poor guy.  He wouldn’t take any compensation for his work….but we’re going to figure out a way.   Thanks Pete!  (Pete is a long time reader of my blog, which is how we met him in the first place)

 

The other day, we took a drive to one of our favorite shops in nearby Hiawassee.  Al found a cute bear wall decoration that he couldn’t resist.

 

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We also found a smaller one just like to go with it.

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I love the 3 dimensional look.

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There are a lot of artists here that do some amazing work.  It’s always fun to visit the shops and see all the art.  

Yesterday, we finally took the time to sit outside and read. 

I found another good book about hiking the Appalachian Trail. This one is called Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman.  He made the hike after losing his wife to cancer.  I am really enjoying it, especially when he talks about places nearby.

I’ve read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, which by the way has been made into a movie to be released after Labor Day.  It stars Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.   If the movie is half as good as the book, it should be a great and funny movie.

I also read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, but it’s about a thru hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. 

If anyone has any other thru hiking books they recommend, let me know.  I’ll be needing a new book soon.

8 comments:

  1. You'd think the people in the MH could have pulled their slides in for Pete while he was replacing the breaker. It's been hot here too, but looks like it's trending cooler next week.

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  2. Maybe the more moderate hiking you and Al do it might help strengthen his knees and resolve the pain issue.
    Glad to hear that it was a quick fix for the breaker. I also agree with Laurel about the MH owners pulling in their slide to make it easier for Pete.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  3. Were the renters not home when Pete got there? That's the only reason I can think of for not pulling in the slide. It's nice to have friends who can handle jobs like that. I sure wouldn't want to touch anything electrical, that's for sure! Sounds like things are going well. :)

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  4. Bummer about the knees. Isn't it just our bad luck that we finally have the time to do things like hike and our bodies start to break down! Craig has had a bit of trouble with one of his knees on and off. I'm feeling tops this year, as long as we keep it to three miles and not much elevation change.

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  5. always nice to be friends with an electrican

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  6. Nice that you got things straightened out, too bad the tenants did not pull in their slide for Pete.

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  7. I'm sure your renters were happy that you corrected the problem so promptly. Nice to have friends who are talented.

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  8. I had a TON of AT Thru Hiker memoirs but let them go before we went Full time. There is a relatively new one out about a man and his EIGHT year old son who do it. I think that would be interesting. Sorry to hear about Al's knees. It's true we all should have retired at least 10 years before we did. The heat in the mountains here isn't bad at all and the breezes are great but at the foot of the mountain it's in the mid 90's which is hotter than usual there. VERY nice of your neighbor to help you out with the 50 amp. Take him out to dinner???

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