Where's Bertie? He's back in the same spot as he was last night, in the Stellplatz just outside the Ramstein USAF base.
Weather: Gloriously sunny and warm.
I may have been scathing of this Stellplatz yesterday, but it did exhibit one point of great merit overnight: it was peaceful indeed. A good night's sleep was had.
I opened the blinds this morning to the suprising sight of another motorhome next to us. No idea when they arrived!
Over breakfast I searched at length to find anything within a 10-mile radius that looked worth travelling to see. I came up with nothing. That gave us a day to kill and given the choice between sitting here or returning to Seewoog (the lake we were at yesterday), there was no contest - to Seewoog we went.
Always good to get your ducks in a row...
A day of pottering, knitting, walking and people-watching ensued, accompanied by a smattering of American accents from those around us. Most of the signs around here (including some road signs) are bi-lingual as well, which feels odd after our experience everywhere else in Germany.
Weather: Gloriously sunny and warm.
I may have been scathing of this Stellplatz yesterday, but it did exhibit one point of great merit overnight: it was peaceful indeed. A good night's sleep was had.
I opened the blinds this morning to the suprising sight of another motorhome next to us. No idea when they arrived!
Over breakfast I searched at length to find anything within a 10-mile radius that looked worth travelling to see. I came up with nothing. That gave us a day to kill and given the choice between sitting here or returning to Seewoog (the lake we were at yesterday), there was no contest - to Seewoog we went.
A day of pottering, knitting, walking and people-watching ensued, accompanied by a smattering of American accents from those around us. Most of the signs around here (including some road signs) are bi-lingual as well, which feels odd after our experience everywhere else in Germany.
Another view of the lake
As the parking area at Seewoog started getting busy at around 5pm, we took it as our cue to leave. We could have tried out a spot to the north of Seewoog for the night, but working on the principle of 'better the devil you know', we returned to Ramstein, arriving half an hour too late to enjoy the stream of national anthems being played over the tannoy at the air base next door (we assume it's a nightly ritual).
A sign showing the scheme of improvements being made to the recreational facilities at Seewoog. Note that No. 8 is the creation of 4 motorhome parking places. Pity they haven't got round to that bit of the programme yet.
As we've done so little today, I'll give an update on a couple of things Bertie-related:
1) Remember the issue with the bed making a noise when we were driving? The noise that went away for one journey only, and that was the journey when the Hymer technician was on a test-drive with us? I'll just go back a bit further in the history of this problem: it was a constant issue for the first two years we owned Bertie, then in January this year, when yet more adjustments were carried out on the bed, it stopped. It stayed stopped until May, when it suddenly reappeared and worse than before. It annoyed us on every journey until a week or two after its brief and mysterious disappearance on the day of our visit to the Hymer workshop. Being familiar with the workings of Bertie's bed mechanism, I wracked my brains to try to decide what was causing it and how it could have been silent for four months before returning. I decided the likely culprit was movement of the retracting spindle that forms part of the release mechanism against the ledge upon which it sits when stowed. The only explanation I could see for its period of silence was that it had been greased, but the grease had worn off. I eventually stirred myself to get the WD40 out and spray the relevant bits of the mechanism. And what do you know? The noise went away! It's been quiet for weeks now. What a relief!
As the parking area at Seewoog started getting busy at around 5pm, we took it as our cue to leave. We could have tried out a spot to the north of Seewoog for the night, but working on the principle of 'better the devil you know', we returned to Ramstein, arriving half an hour too late to enjoy the stream of national anthems being played over the tannoy at the air base next door (we assume it's a nightly ritual).
As we've done so little today, I'll give an update on a couple of things Bertie-related:
1) Remember the issue with the bed making a noise when we were driving? The noise that went away for one journey only, and that was the journey when the Hymer technician was on a test-drive with us? I'll just go back a bit further in the history of this problem: it was a constant issue for the first two years we owned Bertie, then in January this year, when yet more adjustments were carried out on the bed, it stopped. It stayed stopped until May, when it suddenly reappeared and worse than before. It annoyed us on every journey until a week or two after its brief and mysterious disappearance on the day of our visit to the Hymer workshop. Being familiar with the workings of Bertie's bed mechanism, I wracked my brains to try to decide what was causing it and how it could have been silent for four months before returning. I decided the likely culprit was movement of the retracting spindle that forms part of the release mechanism against the ledge upon which it sits when stowed. The only explanation I could see for its period of silence was that it had been greased, but the grease had worn off. I eventually stirred myself to get the WD40 out and spray the relevant bits of the mechanism. And what do you know? The noise went away! It's been quiet for weeks now. What a relief!
This is Bertie's living room. The bed is stowed against the roof, above the cab seats. The light-coloured panel in the middle of the front of the bed is a lever that is pulled foward from the bottom to release the retracting pins to allow the bed to be lowered.
This is Bertie's bedroom, with the bed dropped down for use. Blimey, even got matching bedding on it at the moment!
2) Remember the flooded garage we had on the third night of this trip? After that incident we put pieces of kitchen towel in various places around the garage, to try to narrow down where the water was coming in (i.e. which of them would get wet after rain) and on many occasions I've stuck my head into the garage (via the internal door) during rain to check for ingress. We've had a lot of heavy rain this summer (in our experience to date, it seldom rains for long in Germany in summer, but when it does, it pours, often accompanied by thunder) and not once have we had a drop more water in the garage. Mick came up with the theory that would appear to explain how this can be: when the ingress happened we were parked on a marked slope with Bertie's rear driver's side tyre downmost. His garage door on that side only secures with one lock in the middle (the other door is bigger and has a lock top and bottom). Being parked at such an angle applies tortional forces to Bertie's body which must have been enough to twist the body away from the top of the door. Also because of the angle and the position of the solar panel, water would have been cascading off his roof in that corner, thus channelling it into any gap between the door and its seal. We can only confirm this for certain by continuing to stick a head in the boot when it rains heavily if we find ourselves parked at a similar angle, but for now it doesn't seem to be a worrysome problem.
This engineering take is very wonderful! Keep it up. Reading Bertie's travels/travails every evening, and enjoying them immensely. Gorging on ice-cream as we speak. An essential food-group, oh yes.
ReplyDeleteNot only is ice-cream an essential food group, but it has its own separate tummy, so you can always manage some, no matter how big the preceding meal.
DeleteBertie does intend to introduce himself properly at some point. He just needs me to get around to taking some photos by way of illustration.