This morning I did a 30 mile ride on Las Vegas bike trails on the west side of town. It was chilly but fun:
In the afternoon, we briefly visited a Chanukah fair at the local day school. My favorite menorah was this tribute to the UK:
Tonight is the last night of Chanukah. Happy Chanukah!
Today’s highlight was installing a tri-fuel kit for the generator that I had purchased before we left home. By converting a generator to run on propane as well as gasoline, we will be able to run the generator much longer since the RV has 10 gallons worth of propane on board, whereas the generator’s built-in tank only holds a little over a gallon of gasoline.
Another advantage is that once we get home, I can bring out a natural gas connector and plug it into the generator so that during a power failure we don’t have to keep filling the generator.
The tri-fuel kit works by installing a fitting between the air filter and the air intake on the carburetor. A hose runs from this fitting to the propane carburetor which is installed on the outside of the generator. The propane carburetor regulates the amount of propane that is mixed with air and injected directly into the gas carburetor.
Here’s a photo of the generator after I’ve installed the kit. It’s using a quick release to the RV’s propane tanks. The circular object on the outside of the generator is the propane carburetor. The red hose at the bottom of the propane carburetor is how the propane gets into the gasoline carburetor in the generator. I had to drill a hole through the case to route the hose:
We recently ordered and received a book called “Watch it made in the USA”, which is a book that lists the factory tours that can be had in the United States. Looking at the list for Nevada, we saw that there was a local vitamin factory that gives tours. We called the phone number listed, and asked if they still give tours. We were told that yes, they do, and we were given their new address.
After stopping at Lowes and getting our propane tank filled, we went to the address we were given but couldn’t find the factory. Calling the number again, we asked where it was and it turns out that that phone number has been assigned to a local dry cleaners, as the factory closed a number of years ago. The funny thing was that when we called them the first time, and said that we wanted to take a tour, they told us to come on by. There was no mention of the fact that they were a dry cleaner.
The upshot was that we got to see a great sunset on the way home:
The end of last week is a bit of a blur. On Thursday we had our first Thanksgiving dinner in over a decade. If a hankering for turkey and stuffing should appear in November, we will have our big turkey dinner on Shabbos, not on a Thursday. Apparently in Las Vegas things are done a little differently than in New York. We had a wonderful time with my brother and his girlfriend and kids, my uncle and his wife and cousins, and my cousin’s girlfriend and her son.
Friday was spent at my parent’s house getting ready to reposition the RV to the Rabbi’s house. Shabbos is the community was nice, and this morning my brother and his kids headed back to Minnesota.
After that, we met Grandma DiAnn and her husband Barry for a trip the local natural history museum. The museum had an eclectic collection, including this rock fish in the marine room:
There were quite a few representatives in the mammal room:
The highlight of the trip was our son getting to hold a tarantula:
After the museum, we visited the local community Chanukah party. The kids painted ceramic trivets to be fired and returned to us later this month, and we stuck around to watch the mayor light the ice menorah:
It’s a welcome change to be in shirtsleeves at night in December!
Days have a way of slipping by here in Las Vegas as we spend time with my parents and attend to a number of little fixes and modifications that we’ve been saving for when we have a real garage to work out of. A few things also had to wait as I needed parts which I had shipped to my parent’s house. Amazon Prime is great with free two-day shipping, but it seems packages can’t be addressed to “BLM land outside of Joshua Tree National Park”.
Last night, we left our great curbside parking next to one of the community’s Rabbis and drove the RV to my parent’s house. Their HOA only allows one 72 hour stay per month, so we’re here until Friday afternoon, at which point we will go back to the Rabbi’s house.
This morning, on the way home from synagogue, we passed a group of cyclists on a group ride. They shouted their website to me as I was driving, so I went home, loaded the que sheet into my phone, changed into my cycling gear and hit the road. I was about 30 minutes behind them, and after 26 miles I had reduced the gap to 15 minutes at the finish. Here’s the route:
One of the issues we’ve had for weeks is that the generator only runs when the choke is partially choked. I was pretty sure that the issue was with one of the jets being clogged in the carburetor, but the jet’s hole is smaller than the diameter of a staple leg, so I had to order a set of very small drill bits to attempt the cleaning.
Here’s the jet on the container of mini drill bits. Something is clearly stuck in the jet:
After clearing the debris by gently augering the hole with a dril bit, the jet is ready to be reinstalled:
My brother and I started up the generator and it now runs flawlessly!
As long as we had the generator open, I installed an inline fuel filter I’ve been carrying since we left New York so that future fuel contaminants are trapped by the filter and don’t clog the jet again:
Meanwhile, Trish was making a feast of a dinner with Mom and my brother’s girlfriend:
Another productive and yummy day in Las Vegas!
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