Visiting In Mesa for Thanksgiving. Repairing a Cabinet Door.

November 27, 2010. Bill Williams River, NWR.

We hope you all had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving. For the holiday, Joyce and I decided to drive to Mesa, Az. to visit with my father and Karen. We had 4 days off instead of our usual 3 day on/ off schedule as the volunteers for the refuge don't work on the holidays. We drove the 200 miles in our truck as it has a nice padded flat bed in the back seat that I had built for the dogs before we started on our full time RV adventure. 

I had planned to take my computer and get caught up on the blog as I have fallen behind. However, I left the computer at home! Although I had remembered to shut off the water to the RV, I forgot to turn off our electric water heater. Just as a precaution I called our neighbor and asked him to turn it off for me as we would be gone for a few nights. I always try to shut off the water and the electric water heater when we are away in case of a water leak in the rig.

My father and I relaxed outside with Rico and Maggie as we waited for the turkey feast. The day before we had driven to Camping World in Mesa. We walked through some of the open RVs on display paying particular attention to the new Carriage Cameo fifth wheels. I didn't see anything that I liked better than the one that we have. I picked up a few things at Camping World to include some cabinet door supports and a spare anode rod for my water heater. 

Joyce and Karen were busy in the kitchen preparing the big meal.

The Thanksgiving meal was fantastic and of course, we over ate. We are so thankful for so much in our lives including the opportunity to live the full time RV lifestyle.

My father and Karen own a couple of lots in a RV/ park model community. It's amazing to see some of the very large but very bloated cactus in their park. The cactus are watered with drip lines.

A water bloated Saguaro Cactus

Another water bloated cactus

Joyce and Karen got up early and did the Black Friday shopping thing while dad and I slept in and stayed home with the dogs. As soon as they got back, Joyce and I loaded up the dogs for the long drive back to our rig at the Bill Williams River NWR. We were due back to work/ volunteer Saturday. We had a great time and hope everyone had a joyous holiday.

Back home I repaired one of the cabinets in our 2010 Carriage Cameo using the new cabinet door support. The cabinets were originally outfitted with these very strong hinges that make the door hard to flip open and close but can hold the door open. The hinges are mounted on the thin face of the cabinet with only two screws thus lacking rear support for the hinge. After time, the hinges begin to pivot and bend on the weak unsupported end at the two screws attached to the cabinet face. It's not real evident in this photo but this hinge is slightly bent.

Poorly mounted heavy spring loaded hinge

I replaced the hinges with common cabinet hinges from Home Depot. I then added this piston style cabinet door support that I had purchased at Camping World. They work great in holding the cabinet door in the open position or keeping it in the closed position.

I have 6 flip open cabinets in our fifth wheel that use the improperly mounted heavy hinges. I'll gradually replace all of them with the above hardware. I noticed that the new Carriage fifth wheels we saw at Camping World had even more of those awful hinges.

The first year anniversary of our new lifestyle was in October. I'm working on doing a first year recap so bear with me and I'll get it posted soon.