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Terra had been tasked with running girls camp this year for the 4th year girls.  I haven't really figured out yet the ages of the girls, but I think they were 15ish.  The 4th year a girls camp (at least for this stake) the girls actually go camping.  The other years the girls stay in cabins in the mountains and call it "camping".  On the way up there, we had a little car problems.  After the last couple years - I am finding it difficult to remember all of the different episodes of vehicle trouble I have been able to enjoy.  So in an effort to immortalize the experiences I have been advised to share it here.

Prior to girls camp, we acquired a new vehicle.  Some consternation goes into that decision - put sufficed to say, we ended up getting a truck.  Because we were setting up a camp in them middle of no-where we needed to bring all of the equipment to do so.  This requires the use of our trailer.  As luck would have it - 1-year has been insufficient time to make the bronco function properly.  So, we purchased another vehicle that could do what the bronco is still not up to and pull the trailer up there.


On the way, we ended up loosing the transmission in the car.  Luckily Mylinda was following us up and when the vehicle suddenly lost power, I steered it off the road, and when I was almost off the road, the back tires locked up and we skidded to a halt.  Further, we happened to be within cell phone service territory, so we called Mia and Wyatt for a bit of help.  Wyatt went and grabbed the donkey (the trailer was still up at his house) and Mia grabbed Symantha's green bronco to come and get us.  Once there we loaded the truck on the back of the trailer and hooked up this little trailer to the bronco and we headed up to Eagar.  After they bailed us out, Terra and I commandeered Symantha's bronco and used it to ferry 3 trailers and 22 girls around the mountain.

Wyatt took the truck to have the transmission looked at and it turns out that some of the planetary gears welded themselves together and that caused the locking up of the rear wheels.  The transmission could not be rebuilt, so was replaced.  The transfer case also needed replacement as all the interior parts were rusted and the oil pump was broken - rotated around and ceased to provide lubrication to the


bearings.  Long story short it was ready to go on Tuesday so we came back up the next weekend and picked it up.  In the meantime, while we had Symantha's bronco - the ignition switch quit functioning.  It would no longer turn off the vehicle, but would still start it.  So, since it has a standard transmission, I would just stall the vehicle to shut off the engine then get out and disconnect the battery so it would run dead.  This worked while at camp, but after I brought it home I had to remove the steering wheel from the vehicle and fix the linkage from the key to the ignition module.  As it turns out, this week was a bad week for vehicles, but it was a good week at camp. 

I had low expectations for the camp but was unpleasantly supprised by the way it turned out.  We had a good group of girls and although I didn't know what to expect, Terra did.


Some of the activities we had planned for the week were:
*Paint ball (shooting dueling targets)
*Archery (shooting stationary targets)
*Canoing
*Hiking
*Repelling


The archery and the hike were our responsibility.

The bows were borrowed from someone that Terra knew, and we aquired some styrofoam targets to shoot at.  When we were looking for targets, we found one that was manufactured in Monticello, Arkansas.  I didn't know there was a foam factory there, but since we had previously lived there, we aquired it and used it to shoot at.


The campout was held at Luna Lake.  We sayed in the group camp sights on the north side of the lake.  The campsites were not as bad as I thought they wouldl be.  This would even make a good spot to try for the Labor Day campout.  The only downside to the sight is that it is a by reserve only spot.

We would need to reserve it (and pay a fee for using it) in advance of when we had planned to go. 

Speaking of the Labor-Day camping trip - this year Terra and I have been tasked with locating a place to go.  We have had an idea, but haven't scouted it out to see where we will exactly go.  We have had a request for permanant toilets, but finding a place on the internet has prooved harder than I thought.  I will keep looking, but it may require driving up to the Payson area and seeing what I can find while driving around.  There is a natural bridge located somewhere around the Pine/Strawberry area, and I was thinking that his might be a good spot to try.  The only real downside to it I have found is its proximity to Phoenix and so finding a lonely spot might be hard.  Time will tell.




Here are a couple of other itemes that I thought you might find of interest.  This is a boiler tube that ruptured in one of the coal fired steam units at the plant I work at.  This tube rupture is called a "fish mouth" for obvious reasons.  This boiler operates at 3,100 psi, and this tube is a water wall tube around a man-way door in the bottom of the furnace.  When a tube ruptures that contains water - rather than steam - the boiler feed water pumps cannot keep up with the water demand and load drops almost immedatly.

This tube had thinned due to errosion of ash across the tube.  This tube is bent around a door opening in the lower furnace and protrudes into the furnace.  From technical papers and reasearch on boiler tube failures, these types of boiler tubes can thin to about 90% wall loss before they fail in this manner.  Since this tube is original to the boiler, it has lasted a long time.  The unit was put into service in 1978 and has ran almost continiously since that time. 

This tube was replaced with a straight tube (blocking access through the man-door) and all of the bent tubes around both furnace openings (west and east side) will be replaced with originals during the next overhaul in the spring.  The boiler was down about 3 days for the repair.

Since we don't have an authorized inspector (AI), we rely on our insurance carrier (FM Global) for that service.  To be an authorized inspector, you need to take a class offered by the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessle Inspections (NBIC) and pass the test at the end of teh 2-weeks.  I am sure there is also a fee that needs to be paid on an annual basis.


Ever since I built the shop, I have been waiting until I built some sort of stand to hold the vice so I could move it over from the garage.  It has been 2 years, but yesterday I finally took the time and built a stand for the vise out of some scrap steel.  The top is 2 pieces of 4" channel welded together and the stand is a piece of 3" square tubing.

It turned out well, but one problem it has is the legs of the stand.  They laid out well, but when I welded them together, the heat on the top drew the channel upward.  This unfortunate (but should have been anticipated) event caused the end of the legs to not all touch the ground at the same time.

I guess that in the future I may need to add some jack bolts to stabilize it, but in the meantime - I just put some wood blocks under them to stabilze the feet.  At any rate, the vise finally made it to the shop.


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