They're back!

5:39 am - Thursday - June 5th - LPG&RVR - 46° F, humidity 40%, wind 1 mph out of the northwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2020 we were still at the 'Big Eddie' on the banks of the Teton River near Driggs, ID....

 ......had a pretty big fire that night....lol!

As I begin composing today's missive about yesterday the sun is just coming over the eastern horizon.  It's going to be a beautiful day here at LPG&RVR; just like the first three days of our four day work week.  There has been very little wind this week, and while the golf course has been very busy with 20+ golf carts being rented each day (not to mention all the members with their own carts), it still seems quiet, and laid back.  Not as quiet and laid back as The Wilson Wilderness, but laid back. 

Speaking of The Wilson Wilderness, Charles and Phyllis are back from their month long trip to Japan, and visited their property for the first time in over a month on Wednesday.  They sent this picture of the garden we planted before we left.  As you will recall we planted potatoes and onions.  We were concerned about the automatic watering system Charles installed, and how it would work....

.....well, the verdict is in.....it worked better than expected!  Not only that, but there were very few weeds!  We spoke on the phone with them Wednesday evening for about 20 minutes.

I staged 14 golf carts initially Wednesday, and we ultimately rented out 23...another 20+ rental day.  A number of folks played 36 holes.  I made my first round of the golf course, scooped duck/goose leavings, raked a couple of sand traps, then spent a couple of hours before lunch mowing the tee boxes for which I am responsible, turned on the sprinklers at the 'Night Office', and spent a couple of hours in the afternoon washing all but 3 of those 23 golf carts.  We're about to begin the fourth, and final day of our work week, then four days off work will begin.  I was off by 3:30 pm, took a shower, and a nap, then returned to the Clubhouse to drive TLE home around 5 pm.  While she finished closing the office I putted for about 10 minutes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wash, rinse, repeat......

 5:42 am - Wednesday - June 4th - LPG&RVR - 45° F, humidity 34%, wind 1 mph out of the north by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were visiting Emerald Bay near South Lake Tahoe......

With our big heads.....

....and without our big heads....lol!

.....we really miss that view, but life goes on, doesn't it? We do not, however, miss the overwhelming summer crowds.

As you have probably surmised, we're kind of into that 'wash, rinse, repeat' phase of the summer.  TLE and I are pretty settled into our work/weekend routine, and the days continue to pass into the rear view mirror rapidly.  There is a certain sameness to each day, whether we are working, or weekending.  We arrived here in late April, and it is now the first week of June.  Fortunately, we are having fun as time seems to relentlessly accelerate.  Summer is here, but the days are still pleasant even when it gets into the 80's.  We now sleep with all the windows open at night, and I mean ALL the windows.  When we're working we go to bed at 9 pm, and get up around 5:30 am.  It is still quite light at 9 pm, and will continue to get lighter as we edge towards the summer equinox, which is still weeks away.

As the days get warmer the need to hand water certain areas of the RV park increase.  Most areas have sprinklers, but there are still areas within those sprinklered areas that get dry, and need to be hand watered.  The area around the 'Night Office' has no sprinkler system, so we must put out hoses and sprinklers to keep the grass green.  For the first time this season I irrigated the 10 back-in sites, and 10 tent sites using the pond water.  The grass is growing faster, and needs mowing every 4-5 days now, so that workload is steadily increasing.  There will come a point where the grass growth decreases.

The golf course is noticeably busier this year, than last year.  Last year you could drive into the golf course without a tee time, and get one pretty quickly, but this year if you don't call ahead you may not be able to golf, and will have made the trip for nothing.  The same with RV site reservations; people are finding that the sites they've rented for years are suddenly already claimed by someone else.  At one time in the not too distant past you could make your reservations a month, or two in advance, but now you have to make them a year in advance if you want that special site you've had for years.  We're consistently putting out 20+ golf carts Monday through Friday, and on the weekends we're putting out close to 40 each day.

By the way, I finally took a picture of the 'Key Drop' box I fixed with 3 long wood screws.....

.....Tuesday was a typical Tuesday, and went by quickly.  I did a lot of hand watering, I mowed the three large grass areas up the hill in the residential area, and made numerous passes around the golf course as Marshal.  We put out around 25 golf carts, and by 3:30 pm I had washed and stowed all but 7.  I was back at the office around 5 pm to give TLE a ride home....just another 'wash, rinse, repeat' day at LPG&RVR.  My friend Claude (who is off Monday through Wednesday) was going into Alturas late afternoon to get a pizza, and offered to get us one, too, so that is what TLE and I had for dinner.  Thank you very much Claude!

Thanks for stopping by!

Order out of chaos.....

 5:53 am - Tuesday - June 3rd - LPG&RVR - 45° F, humidity 29%, wind zero mph out of the north.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were cycling by the Spokane River in, where else, Spokane.....

The first day back to work is always a little chaotic for me.  As has been the case the prior 3 summers the person who works opposite me has their own way of doing things, and that is fine.  As we have been taught from childhood, there are many ways to 'skin a cat', although the thought of skinning a cat holds no appeal for me, I get the concept.  Kathy (office) and Dave (my counterpart) just stage the carts in a random order each day, while TLE and I like to stage the golf carts in their numerical order, so it takes a while to 'untangle' them and get them back in order.  By doing it this way I don't have to communicate to TLE what carts are staged, because she already knows.  The only time I relate any cart information to her is if I'm not staging the electric carts for some reason.  After the first work day staging the carts is super easy, and fast.

Once everything was under control at the Clubhouse I headed down to the back-in sites along the Meadow to open the very large quarter turn valve at the base of the pond to begin irrigating the 10 back-in and 10 tent sites for the first time this summer.  The first time we do this it takes around 22 hours to flood all the back in sites, plus the 10 tent sites (I just returned at 5:30 am from turning off the valve this morning....Tuesday).  Once that was done, and all of the tenants had been notified, I headed out for my first round of the golf course.  There were more goose/duck leavings than the last time I checked, but it wasn't too bad.  After checking all four sand traps for human activity (there was none) I was back at the Clubhouse around 9 am.  

I spent the next hour connecting all the drip lines we use to water the trees around the RV park, then headed out to the driving range around 10 am to begin clearing the balls in advance of it being mowed.  It took me a little over an hour to harvest two 5 gallon buckets of balls...way less than I was expecting.  After filling the buckets with water and adding some Dawn dish soap I made another round of the golf course to check on the golfers, and just that fast it was time to give TLE her lunch break.

We initially staged 17 golf carts first thing Monday morning, and ended up renting 23....a very good Monday.  I spent my last 2.5 hours washing and stowing golf carts, as well as making another couple rounds of the course.  I found a few folks straying off the fairway, past the rough, and into the dirt so I reminded them to keep the golf cart in the fairway, and went on my way.  

By 3:30 pm I was finished for the day, and by 5:15 pm TLE joined me back at the Newell....thanks for stopping by!

Door stoppage....

 5:53 am - Monday - June 2nd - LPG&RVR - 44° F, humidity 26%, wind 2 mph out of the north.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were joined at our Teton River boondock site by my good friend Claude, and his soon to be wife, Gail in their 1984 Bluebird Wanderlodge, as well as Glenn and Laureen in their 1984 Newell Classic.....

Claude and Gail

The six of us around the fire that night

.....we had planned to be there up to 10 days, but it rained, and the Teton River, which bordered the boondock site on three sides, began rising, so we left after 5 days for higher ground.

Sunday was day four of our four day weekend, and we planned to spend copious amounts of time watching the final round of The Memorial Tournament to see if Scottie Scheffler could win for the 3 time in four weeks, but I get ahead of myself.

For a few months now TLE has been asking me to modify the door stop in the hallway between the bathroom and the shower so that the shower door would open 180° instead of the 90° it had been set at since 1982.  To accomplish that was not that difficult, but I have really worked hard to keep our Newell as original as possible, and was reluctant to make the change.  Nevertheless, TLE has continued to sweetly request this change on and off for the last 4 months.  Finally, Saturday evening, I relented, and agreed to make the modification.  First, here is what the door stop looked like since 1982.....

.....in order to make it possible to open the door 180° I had to cut out part of the door stop with my oscillating tool....

.....it probably took me less than 10 minutes beginning to end to made the modification, and now we can open the door 180° and keep the hallway open when someone is taking a shower....

.....after making the cut I applied some wood stain to the raw wood left after I removed the Formica clad stop.....

....and with that my work was done for the day.  The nice thing is we can still lock the door in the 90° position, if we wish to, but why would we wish to do so?

Once my tools were put away, and the work area was cleaned I spent the rest of the day watching the 4th round of The Memorial.  Scottie began the day with a one stroke lead, and he never surrendered that lead.  By the end of the 72nd hole he was 10 under par, and the closest rival was at 6 under par; another Tiger Woods like performance.  

We had planned to grill some steaks for dinner, but the winds freshened, and with 17-20 mph gusts we decided to wait for another evening.  Time to get ready for another four day work week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday in the park.......

 8:20 am - Sunday - June 1st - LPG&RVR - 60° F, humidity 37%, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2020 we had just arrived at a new to us boondock site on the Teton River near Driggs, ID.....

.....with a view of the Grand Tetons in the distance.  One of the coolest boondock sites ever!

Saturday was another day with a lot of time spent on the 'lido deck' enjoying the mostly cool breezes, watching The Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus.  The temp eventually did top out at 92° F late afternoon, but it never felt that warm.  Nothing like a breeze to change your perception.  There were no projects to complete; just relaxation to be had.....  

.....Scottie Scheffler started the 3rd round with 12, or 13 straight pars, then finished the final holes of the 3rd round with four birdies to take the lead at 8 under par; he had no bogeys on this day.  The other players struggled with the wind.  At one point Ben Griffin, who won last week, was at 10 under par, but then committed 4 consecutive bogeys to drop to 6 under par, rebounding on the final 6 holes to to finish at 7 under par for the tournament, and even par for the day.  We're looking forward to an exciting finish on Sunday.

Of course, Saturday is the day of our weekly putting contest.....

....hosted by Mike Bratzler, who does a great job of keeping us all loose, and entertained.  On this day I putted quite well in the first round, but then made a series of mistakes in the second round, and lost handily 3-1; it was not my day.  We stayed around until 5:30 pm (started at 4 pm), but headed home shortly after that as it was going to be a long time until the victor was determined.

The temperature dropped quickly from the high of the day to under 80° F by 7 pm.  Sunday we will see temps in the 80° F range, and is what we will see for the next week, so the two day heatwave is over for now.  Time to head out to the 'lido deck' and watch some more golf.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Creating our own environment......

 8:01 am - Saturday - May 31st - LPG&RVR - 69° F, humidity 20%, Wind 15 mph out of the west by southwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 92° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were taking a break at the Flaming Gorge Dam Visitor Center on US-191......

.....on our way north to Rock Springs, WY where we spent the night in the Walmart Supercenter.

We were expecting our first 90+ temp day Friday, and we were not disappointed.  The nice thing about the summers here at LGP&RVR is that the 'heat of the day' (high temp) doesn't arrive until around 3 pm, and then it quickly begins to cool.  We began our 2nd day of our 4 day  weekend deploying the two new 5' x 7' artificial turf pieces we purchased at Home Depot on Thursday.  I had this idea of how it would look.....

Before the addition.....

.....and after

.....and I was not disappointed.  Now I can walk anywhere in our site without the need for flip flops, or shoes, and since the new dining tent/canopy we will be purchasing soon has no floor the artificial turf will fill that need, also.

We also got our first wild flower blossom of the season Friday......

.....next up we wanted to install our newly purchased shower curtain.  We've been using the same brown shower curtain which came with the Newell since we bought her back in March of 2008.  I'm not sure why we stuck with that one for so long, but once we replaced the window curtain in the shower we knew we had to, finally, replace the shower curtain...

.....TLE also fashioned a new tie to hold the curtain open when not in use to which I added the necessary snaps.....

.....once that was done it was time to take our positions on the 'lido deck' in our anti gravity lounge chairs to watch the Memorial Golf Tournament being held near Columbus, OH at Muirfield Village (a Jack Nicklaus development)......

.....of course there were a couple of naps thrown in for good measure.  By 1 pm it began to get uncomfortably warm on the 'lido deck', so we headed inside for the balance of the afternoon to continue watching the tournament.  Our 43 year old AC's continue to blow ice cubes, and kept us quite comfortable all afternoon.  I might add that we only run one AC at a time, otherwise it gets too cold....a nice 'problem' to have.

It is so nice to have our site finally setup the way we like it....at least for now.  We love just spending time in our site on our four day weekends, which feels so isolated from everything else going on around us.  Having such a large 'lido deck' makes our home feel much larger than it really is.  We've been able to create our own environment out of a site that most people would not want, but with all the stuff we carry with us we are able to create an inviting, comfortable living space outside of the Newell interior.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lovely cortisone....

 7:10 am - Friday - May 30th - LPG&RVR  - 58° F, humidity 28%, wind 8 mph out of the southeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 92° F.  On this date in 2020 we visited Dinosaur National Monument.....

.....with Glenn and Laureen.  We were on our way north from Meeker, CO enjoying life in rural America during the Wuhan Flu.  As I've written previously, life was pretty normal in rural America during the early months of  the flu.  We spent two nights near Vernal, UT.

We were up around 6 am Thursday morning, so we could be on US-395 southbound to Reno, NV by 7:30 am for my scheduled 11 am orthopedics appointment with Dr. Fyda.  When I visited Great Basin Orthopedics back in late July of 2024 he gave me my first cortisone shot in my right knee.  As you may recall he had diagnosed me at that time with Osteoarthritis, and some bone on bone (lack of cushioning cartilage in the joint), but said a knee replacement is still in the distant future.  Well, nothing has changed....it it still there, just getting slowly worse.  We will know when that time arrives when the cortisone shots stop working.

We covered the 163 miles in just under 2.5 hours, arriving in Reno at 10 am.  Before heading to my appointment we did a small shopping at the Smith's Grocery Store (Kroger), which is about 3 minutes from GBO.  We were out of the store in the VW heading to GBO by 10:25 am.  I always like to show up early for doctor appointments as there is about a 50/50 chance we'll be taken into the small room early, and that was the case on Thursday.  By 10:40 am I was getting a fresh new set of X-rays on my right knee, and by 11:15 am I had been given my second lovely cortisone shot.  Within 10 minutes the stiffness and soreness disappeared from my knee, just like last July.  That first shot worked for about 9 months, until early April of 2025.

Since we were in Reno where we have access to Home Depot, COSTCO and Trader Joe's we headed to Home Depot right after topping off our fuel tank.  We bought a couple of extra pieces of artificial turf (5' x 7') for the 'dining/gaming deck, and a tension rod for a new shower curtain we're installing in the Newell shower.  Next we visited Trader Joe's, then it was over to COSTCO.

By the time we finished at COSTCO and merged back onto US-395 northbound it was exactly 1 pm; we got a lot accomplished in just 3 hours.  The drive back to Likely from Reno always seems to take about 20 minutes less, even with a rest stop at the Honey Lake Rest Area, as there is usually way less northbound traffic....why I don't know.

We were gone just under 8 hours, and the entire trip was without incident.  We're just glad its over, and now we can relax for the final three more days of our 'weekend' before beginning our next 4 day work week on Monday....thanks for stopping by!