Taking Inventory

Last night I went through my Quicken financial account to determine the age of all the batteries and tires on the motorhome, dolly, Honda and Mazda. everything is OK right now but the motorhome tires will reach five years of age this winter. That means we will have to replace them on the way home through Oregon where there is no sales tax. I will have to make sure I have a couple of thousand dollars left over from the fun we are going to have this winter.

We are towing the Mazda down this year because the air conditioning in the Honda packed it in a couple of weeks ago. I went cheap on repairs in Florida and bought a used compressor instead of a new one. It was a gamble that I lost but how much money do I want to put into a 25 year old Honda? The Mazda is running great. It's battery is five years old so I will replace it at the first sign of trouble. The Honda tires are due for replacement as well but that can wait until next summer. My rule is: tires, five years and batteries, seven years.

Reading George and Suzi's Blog this morning reminded me to check the water levels in the motorhome's two 6 volt house batteries. Like George, I do this twice a year unless we are parked in a hot climate when I usually add one more check to this schedule.

Another project is to replace the Starchoice receiver in the front of the motorhome. I recently bought one of the new smaller non-PVR receivers to replace the older, large receiver that is built into the entertainment center. The old one was awkward to work on because I had to take the front wooden panel off the entertainment center if I wanted to make any changes to the wiring. This new one will slip through the hole in the panel and will also receive a few more channels. Changing it out involves a call to Shaw Direct to make the change in registered receivers. We are allowed six so I will have to take one off the list before they will add this one to it.

The weather is turning here in Campbell River. It is raining almost every night now as well as many days lately. I am getting anxious to leave. Projected date to leave is November 1 (or so).