Thursday September 22, 2016 Monte Rio CA.
I join the gang at Monte Rio
Ray invited me down to Monte Rio today. He was taking his neighbor out kayaking for the first time.
I found him, his wife, Elaine and his neighbor Karen putting their boats in the water. Because the river’s mouth is closed, the water level at Monte Rio is higher, so it’s like a lake and we decided to go up stream.
I forgot my hat and had to go back the car and get it so I got behind. The other’s are up by the Monte Rio bridge as I’m catching up to them.
I passed by these friendly mallard ducks which were under the bridge.
It was a nice day out as we slowly made our way up the river.
We just took our time paddling along.
We made it up to the golf course area which is off in the trees to the left.
We were starting to look for a shore to pull onto, but with the water high, there wasn’t much in the shore stuff that wasn’t under water.
We passed by this great blue heron just taking it easy in the flowers, keeping an eye on us.
And some otters
I spotted a couple otters feeding in the bushes and tried to get a good picture, but they wouldn’t cooperate and stayed mostly out of sight.
Time to turn around
We saw the otter’s just to the right of here and turned around and started back not much further than this.
These ducks swam out to bum some food from us.
It wasn’t long and we were back at the Monte Rio Bridge and pulled out at the boat ramp just below here to the right.
Rear output seals
I stopped at the parts store on the way home and picked up my rear output seals. I was planning to install them when I got home.
Can’t seem to get started on this job
When I got home, I had trouble getting started with the job, but I finally got all the tools out and crawled under the van. All I had to do was take the drive shaft off and remove the big nut under it to get to the oil seal, but.
I got the drive shaft off ok, but I couldn’t get the big nut off to get to the seal. I tried the impact wrench on it, but the nut wouldn’t budge, so I had to give up on that for now and put it all back together.
It’s not leaking very bad, so I added oil to bring the level up to full for now and will just have to keep an eye on it until I figure out how to get the nut off.
Greased the van instead
Then I got the grease gun out and greased most of the van’s grease fittings.
Getting ready to head out on a trip
After that, I put my kayak up on top and started loading the van for a trip.
I need to break the van’s new engine in some more, so I’m headed up to the Fort Bragg area tomorrow for a couple days, then I will return to Boonville to visit with Marty at his cabin for a few days. I will likely camp at Usal Creek for a couple nights.
So, I won’t have an internet connection for a bit, until maybe Sunday when I plan to come back through Fort Bragg on the way to Boonville.
Nice day.
