Entry steps stuck

Our entry steps have been dodgy for a while, making horrible noises when extending and retracting, and sometimes not fully retracting until they are nudged. I tried cleaning the tracks and lubricating several times, and even got a couple of techs to look at it, without improvement.

Recently, it’s been getting worse, where it sometimes wouldn’t move at all until I tapped the motor with a hammer (a recommended workaround). So it was clearly on its last legs.

When departing our home base, it did this again. I had bought a replacement motor, but it was too awkward for me to get to it in order to replace it, due to a cover plate partly over the motor. We had a service appointment coming up, so I figured I’d get them to replace it for me. I managed to get the steps to retract by tapping the motor, and rather than risk them getting stuck out again, I disconnected the motor, and secured the steps in place with a ratchet strap (probably not necessary, since the motor was still engaged with the step gearbox, but better safe than sorry).

Here’s the step motor:

Step motor

I disconnected the motor, a simple plug:

Disconnected motor

And added a ratchet strap to hold the step in, just in case:

Ratchet strap holding the step in, just in case

In order to get in and out in the meantime, I had also ordered some metal and wooden steps, which we used at our next campsite:

Temporary wooden steps

The good news is that the aforementioned service place, the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, was later able to replace the step motor, and it is now working like new again. It’s certainly nice to have this issue resolved.

Baseball: Mariners vs Dodgers again

The second of the two games we attended of the Seattle Mariners vs Los Angeles Dodgers at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

Mister Softee:

Mister Softee

Ice cream nachos:

Ice cream nachos

View from our seats:

View from our seats

Play ball:

Baseball

Nakagawa

Sushi and pizza:

Sushi and pizza

Baseball

Clayton Kershaw retiring:

Baseball

Removing the rubber for Kershaw:

Removing the rubber

Baseball

Baseball: Mariners vs Dodgers

We stayed a night in a Seattle hotel and attended two games of the Seattle Mariners vs Los Angeles Dodgers at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

T-Mobile Park

Edgar’s Cantina:

Edgar's Cantina

Nachos:

Nachos

Grasshoppers:

Grasshoppers

Jenn with a grasshopper (yes, we ate several; tastes kinda nutty):

Jenn with a grasshopper (yes, we ate several; tastes kinda nutty)

Selfie from our seats (mustaches were a meme with the team, with most players growing them; Jenn got some, but forgot them at home, and a nice lady at the entrance gate gave her one):

Selfie from our seats

View from our seats:

View from our seats

Jenn with her shiny jacket:

Jenn with her shiny jacket

The Mariner Moose:

The Mariner Moose

Seize the Moment:

Seize the Moment

Play ball:

Play ball

Baseball

The ballpark captures photos and GIFs of everyone’s seats:

Baseball

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

We visited the Seattle unit of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

Klondike Gold Rush

Banana Ball: Savannah Bananas vs The Firefighters

We attended a Banana Ball game of the Savannah Bananas vs The Firefighters, playing at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners.

Merch:

Merch

Pre-show:

Pre-show

T-Mo:

T-Mo

Banana Ball World Tour:

Banana Ball World Tour

The mascot Split tossing a football with the crowd:

Mascot Split tossing football with crowd

Fan Challenger:

Fan Challenge

Balancing a ladder:

Balancing a ladder

Man-nanas:

Man-nanas

Bananas:

Bananas

Firefighters:

Firefighters

Bananaball

Play ball:

Bananaball

World’s Slowest Race:

World's Slowest Race

Bananaball

Female pitcher:

Bananaball

Dancing ump:

Bananaball

Pat Monahan

Bananaball

A proposal disguised as a game:

Falling For You

Grandma Gladiators

Bananaball

Closing the roof after the game:

Selfie

Baseball: Tacoma Rainiers vs Reno Aces

We attended a game of the Tacoma Rainiers vs the Reno Aces at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, along with Jenn’s father, plus her brothers and their significant others.

An interactive map of the stadium and environs; there are two separate entrances and parking lots, and if you go out the wrong exit, it seems that you have to walk around the outfield to get back to your car (ask me how I know):

View from our seats:

View from our seats

Flyover:

Flyover

The mascot, Rhubarb:

Rubarb

Play ball:

Baseball

Exploring the ballpark:

Playground

Mural

Ballpark

Rhubarb:

Rubarb

Baseball

The game didn’t go great for the Rainiers:

Scores

But it was nice to hang out with fam.

Back from New Zealand

Speaking of home, a real-time update: we are back in the US from our trip to New Zealand. It was nice to see my family, and explore more of the country.

We took lots of photos during our trip, of course, so I plan to do blog posts about it. Probably one post for each day, since most days were traveling from one location to another, with lots of sightseeing along the way.

We still have a couple of months backlog of posts about our travels before the trip, plus the traditional yearly summary posts, so look for the NZ posts around the end of January.

Van on beachfront with lighthouse in background

Our Washington home

We stayed for a month at our official domicile, aka Mom’s house, in Shelton, Washington.

It was good to be home! An opportunity to catch up on dentists, doctors, optometrists, etc, and of course with family.

Dates:

Check in: 2025-09-04
Check out: 2025-10-04
30 nights

Weather:

Partly cloudy, rain
High temps ranging between 70-82°F, lows around 57-60°F
Wind gusts to 20 MPH in the area, though much less when sheltered amongst trees

Noise:

No road noise
No train noise
Occasional neighbor noise

Site:

Front in, concrete in front, gravel in back
Disconnected toad; parked next to coach
Fairly level; high in front; used hydraulic leveling

Utilities:

50 amp power, located on house in front of coach, used extension cord
40 PSI water from the house
No sewer hookup; used macerator and hose to dump into house septic system

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 80-230 Mbps down, 10-40 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
RoamLink: 13 Mbps down, 0.2 Mbps up, 160-215 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
AT&T: 10 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 40 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
House Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

House

Our coach parked in front of the house, with our Starlink dish on the flagpole, to peek over the trees:

Our coach at home

Using the macerator to dump our waste tanks (as previously documented):

Using the macerator to dump our waste tanks

The other end of that 200 feet of hose goes into septic tank:

Hose into septic tank

This time I kept the hose in place, with foam weather stripping sealing the gaps on either side of the hose; this let me just turn on the macerator and open the tank valves to dump, without having to go around to the septic tank to open it, insert the hose, then remove the hose and re-close it after each time:

Hose into septic tank

The RV electrical outlet box we added on the house last year had an issue, so we had it replaced with a better one, so were able to have 50 amp power:

Electrical box

Nice to have full hookups at home.

While there, we cooked some pizzas in my Ooni pizza oven, which had been stored in our shed:

Pizza oven

Pizza

I decided to take the pizza oven with us, as we’ll be staying in one place for even longer early next year.

It was good to be home!

Video

Video: Ephrata to Shelton, Washington motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 250 miles from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington.

Travel from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington

We drove our coach about 250 miles, about four hours of driving, from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading west (with the ultimate destination omitted for privacy):

Route

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

There was roadworks on the bridge over the Columbia River, with a 9-foot width restriction, so we considered avoiding that and taking a more scenic route, as follows, but it would have added 1.5 hours to the travel, and been more stressful with curvy highway roads, so we stuck with the above route instead of this alternative:

I-90 West and the aforementioned Vantage Bridge:

I-90 West Vantage Bridge