In my post last Thursday, I said I was looking forward to some relaxation. I mostly got my wish, but there were a few things that needed to be done. A change of address isn’t as simple as it sounds. There were several notifications that had to be made – financial institutions, insurance companies, pharmacy, vehicle registration and driver’s license, voter registration – I’m still coming up with things.

I also had a couple of small projects to tackle. Just before we arrived here in Siuox Falls, I was driving up I-29 with the cruise control set. As we neared the city and traffic volume increased, I tapped the brake pedal to cancel the cruise control – this usually works best as I can then press the resume button if I want to go back to cruise control without having to reset it. This time the brake pedal didn’t cancel the cruise control and I had to turn it off with the button on the steering wheel. I made a mental note to check it out after we settled in.

When I was dropping the trailer in our site, I set the engine speed to high idle. I did this by simultaneously pressing the cruise control “on” button and the “set” button. This increases the idle speed to about 1,000 rpm and keeps heat in the combustion chambers. Idling a big diesel slowly for extended periods can allow the cylinders to cool too much and unburned fuel can collect on the cylinder walls – eventually it’ll make its way past the piston rings and dilute the oil in the crankcase. Stepping on the brake pedal drops the engine speed back to the normal idle speed – around 650 rpm. Except this time it didn’t. I dropped the idle speed with idle control rocker switch and parked the coach. I had Donna check the brake lights – as I suspected, the brake lights weren’t working.

The control module for the cruise control receives a signal from the brake light switch. When you press the brake pedal, the brake light switch closes and activates the brake lights. I thought the brake light switch on our coach was probably a pressure switch hydraulically actuated by the master cylinder. I was surprised when I crawled under the coach on Thursday to find it wasn’t so, it was a simple, spring-loaded mechanical switch on the brake lever arm. The brake pedal is attached to a lever arm that’s shaped somewhat like a boomerang. The center of the arm is mounted to a pivot point and the other end of the arm is attached to the master cylinder pushrod. A switch is mounted against the lower portion of the arm – with the brake pedal in the normal (not on) position, the arm presses against the switch and opens it. When you step on the brake pedal, the arm moves away from the spring-loaded switch and it closes, completing the electrical circuit to the brake lights and sending a signal to the cruise control module.

Brake light switch

I had Donna step on the brake while I observed the switch, It was stuck in the open position. I pulled it closed and it started working again. I sprayed some WD40 on the switch rod and had her work the pedal a few times. All was good, job done.

Friday Donna rode her bike on the bike path. The paved path is only about half a mile from Tower Campground and runs along the Big Sioux River. It was hot out – the thermometer hit 86 degrees with high humidity. I mostly puttered around and relaxed with a book. In the afternoon we rode the Spyder to another local brewery – Granite City Food and Brewery. The place has a good reputation, but I found the beers to be average at best. I think they’re known more for the food they serve.

Speaking of food, later Donna fixed shrimp fennel and feta which she served over rotini. Yum!

Shrimp with fennel and feta over rotini

My friend David Hobden bought a new motorcycle and I’ve been following a road trip he’s on with his motorcycling buddy. Dave got a 2017 Indian – I think it’s the Chieftain model. They rode from Colorado Springs, Colorado down to Louisiana. The other day I saw a guy here in the park with an Indian Roadmaster. I talked to him for a bit and found out that the rights to the Indian name were obtained by Polaris and they have been building Indian Motorcycles since 2014. The Indian name was used by a few different manufacturers in the ’90s and early 2000s – some of them weren’t very well-engineered motorcycles.

Polaris made Victory motorcycles and their engineering is proven. The new Indians look like a great motorcycle, worthy of the name. The original Indian Motorcycle company made great bikes from 1901 to 1953. Interestingly, another guy here at the RV park has an antique Indian that he rides almost every day. One evening Donna and I walked down to his site and checked it out. It was a 1946 model. I’ve ridden motorcycles since I was a kid, but I don’t know if I could handle this one. The throttle is on the left grip, not the right. That’s because you need your right hand to grab the shift lever next to the fuel tank to shift gears while working the throttle with your left hand and the clutch with your left foot!

1946 Indian

Shift lever and knob next to the fuel tank

Saturday I set up the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker grill and prepared a rack of baby back ribs. That was my big project for the day! The temperature reached the upper 80s and I mostly stayed cool and read a book. Donna has been braving the heat and either walking the river trail or biking every day. I read two books over the weekend and watched the Moto GP race from Austria on Sunday. I got ambitious in the early afternoon and cleaned the Traeger and the Weber Q and relined them with aluminum foil.

Saturday evening Donna and rode I the Spyder to the fairgrounds and went to the PRCA rodeo. We enjoy rodeos – it’s an All-American experience although several Brazilian cowboys are on the professional circuit nowadays.

Monday I started packing and organizing the trailer. I had one more project – it was time to service the Spyder. Nothing is easy on the Spyder. You have to remove body panels – the tupperware – to get to anything. Then the engineers have packaged everything so tightly that the simplest tasks are a struggle. For example, the oil filter element is housed under a metal cap on the left side of the crankcase. The cap is held in place by two cap screws. Fine, except they routed the shift linkage and an oil line right in front of the cap. The lower screw cannot even be seen. I removed and installed it by feel only and had to wiggle the filter element out past the obstructions. Oh well, it’s a once-a-year task and I got it done.

Today we’ll be pulling out of here. I think we’ll dry camp overnight at Ditty’s Diner in Kimball as we head west. We already checked and they allow overnight parking in the large lot by the diner. Rain is forecast to move in from the east early this afternoon. Hopefully we’ll outrun it as we move west.