It's rarely ever as bad as you think.....

7:40 am - Thursday - November 21st - TWW - 33° F, humidity 36%, wind 8 mph out of the southeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2018 we were having dinner with Amazon friends at Brothers BBQ in Campbellsville, KY....some of the best St. Louis Spare Ribs ever...

We needed to cut a corridor between two juniper trees near where we are going to place the new solar array.  There are three junipers on the driver side of the trailer with a corridor in between them where the sun is shining throughout the day. The corridor needed to be widened to assure continuous sun exposure to the new solar array panels.  TLE acted as my assistant moving branches as I cut them with one of our Stihl chainsaws.....

....before we trimmed the trees back the branches were almost touching across that gap you see.  The new solar array pole will be installed in the foreground.  It took us a little over an hour to widen that gap, and now we are ready to pour the concrete base for the new solar array.  One of the two trees on the right in this picture was dead, so we cut many of those dead limbs into useful firewood, managing to kill two proverbial birds with one stone, as they say.

Next up was to assemble the new shelving unit we received on Tuesday.  There is a lot of stuff under our bed that will be moved out there over the next few days.  Having already assembled one of these shelving units before helped speed up the process this time, and we had the shelving unit assembled, and in place within 30 minutes.....

....I might mention that we did not work continuously on these projects, but took breaks every hour, or so.  My tendency is to work without stopping all day, and then end up exhausted at the end of the day, so taking 20 minute breaks helps preserve our energy levels, thereby enabling us to actually get more done each day.

Next up I needed to pull the six spark plugs on the Jeep CJ-5 to clean them, and re-gap them.  The other day, when my brother was here we drove the Jeep out to meet them and lead them into the property.  Upon return to the property I parked the Jeep in front of the garage and went on about spending time with Philip and Jeannie.  When I went to put the Jeep away that night it would hardly start, and then ran very rough.  It sounded like it was only firing on 3 out of 6 cylinders, so I suspected a few fouled plugs.  As it turned out all 6 plugs appeared to be kind of oily, so I checked the oil level, and found that there is too much oil in the oil pan, which is probably the reason they became fouled.  Anyway, I cleaned, and checked the gap on each plug before reinstalling them.  By the way the gaps were all right on the money at .35. I'll need to drain a couple of quarts of oil out, and that should solve the fouling problem.

Anyway, the moment of truth was at hand....would the Jeep CJ-5 start, and run smoothly again?  It took a little coxing, but she fired up, and ran, and idled smoothly.  What a relief!  If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know my tendency is to imagine things are worse than they are, when most often the solution to most problems is quite simple.  I was imagining I would have to take the Jeep into a mechanic to fix, but in the end I was able to diagnose and fix the problem myself without involving the professionals...lol!

The outside temp got to a 'blazing' 62° F Wednesday, and as a result the temp at sunset was still in the high 50's, and there was no wind, so TLE and I decided to have a sunset fire.....

We actually have some wild life in the area

....there is still un-melted snow on the ground from last Saturday's snowfall.....

.....and some un-melted ice on the driveway in front of the garage......

.....it was a perfect evening for a sunset fire....not even a breath of wind.....

....and a few contrails lit up by the setting sun.....

.....by 5:45 pm we were back inside the warm confines of the Newell, and another day at TWW had come to an end.

Thanks for stopping by!

Amazon Christmas....

7:40 am - Wednesday - November 20th - TWW - 27° F, humidity 40%, wind 7 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2015 we enjoyed our final sunset at Rincon Parkway (north of Ventura)....the sky was on fire that night....

We were expecting Charles and Phyllis some time mid morning, along with their handyman, Matt, however Matt arrived around 8:45 am, with Charles and Phyllis following 20 minutes later, so we were still in our pajamas....lol!  

Matt was back at TWW to go under the raised foundation of the house to see if any of the plumbing was leaking, since we had lost water from the upper 2,500 gallon tank.  The upper tank needs to be close to full when priming the new water pump.  Last week they were unable to keep the pump primed, so they checked the upper tank to find the water was down quite a bit.  There were leaks originally detected in the plumbing for the two 2,500 gallon tanks and those had been fixed a few weeks ago, so now the leak is either under the house, or in the ground between the tanks and the house.

While that was going on TLE and I were opening Amazon/eBay packages like it was Christmas morning.  It's been about 10 days since Charles and Phyllis were last here so there were a lot of orders in the pipeline that all came in within the past 3, or 4 days.  One of the packages had a, new to TLE, pair of Carhartt bib overalls....

....along with the cool, used,  Born work boots she scored at 'Saver's on Sunday, she is now, officially, ready for some outdoor work!  She looks kind of fetching with that braid, and bib overalls, doesn't she?  She also received a pair of Carhartt bibs with a quilted lining for when it gets really cold.

The long and the short of Matt's excursion under the house was that there are NO leaks to be found, so it has to be underground between the house and the tanks.  He will come back Thursday with a trencher to run a new water line from the storage tanks to the house, and disconnect the old underground line, so we should be good to go, but I've said that before, haven't I?

Everyone was gone by 1 pm, leaving TLE and I to our own devices for the rest of the day.  I took time to assemble three more of those food storage boxes for our long term food supply, which were in one of the boxes we received, so now we have six....

....they'll get filled in short order.  Additionally, we received a boot scraper to scrub the dirt, dust and mud from our shoes before we enter the coach. Keeping the coach floors free of dirt, and outdoor detritus is a full time job as we are in and out of the Newell many times during the day....

.....the final big thing we received is another metal shelving unit for the garage, which TLE and I will assemble Wednesday, plus Charles and Phyllis brought a new roof, and windshield for the Yamaha Rhino they had ordered recently.  Finally, I received several packages of 12 volt electrical connections to resupply my stock in the trailer....I've gone through a lot of those since we arrived.

Another task needing my attention was getting Phyllis' Newell batteries recharged.  I didn't turn off the battery isolator switches soon enough after they arrived and the batteries totally discharged, so I pulled out the large Champion 7,500 kw generator and let it do the work.  Within a few hours the batteries were good to go again.  Now I just need to remember to turn off those two isolator switches...lol!

We had a beautiful sunset, but no sunset fire, as it was too breezy....

.....and thus another day in TWW came to an end....so much to do, but so much time to get it all done.  Just have to keep plugging away, one day at a time.

Thanks for stopping by!

It's an inside job.....

 8:30 am - Tuesday - November 18th - TWW - 31° F, humidity 43%, wind 6 mph out of the north by northeast....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 52° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I attended grand parents day at Sierra Vista Elementary School in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.....our grandson, Brayden James, son of our daughter Sharon, and son-in-law, Rod....

The two grandmas.....Lilian and TLE

I worked pretty much all day long Monday, but never got out of my pajamas.  I was working inside the Newell, so why change out of comfortable clothing, right?  My first project of the day was to get my two prescriptions (blood pressure meds, and cholesterol) moved from the Rite Aid in Alturas to the online Amazon Pharmacy.  I was sure it would be complicated, but within 15 minutes Amazon had transferred them, and within 3 hours my prescriptions were being shipped.....wow!  Of course the question remains.....why didn't I do that sooner?

The second project was a phone project.  I needed to call Yavapai Propane to set up propane service here at TWW.  In just one month we've gone through half of our 60 gallon tank, so there is no way we are going to make it another 5 months.  Within 10 minutes I had an appointment for November 25th here at TWW to set up a 120 gallon tank, and plumb it into the Newell propane system.  The cost of propane is $2.59/gallon....about half what we pay normally....cool!  It was only 10 am and I had scratched two things off my 'TO DO' list.

The next project was to upgrade the LED lighting in the bedroom, which I wrote about wanting to do a couple of days ago. Again, I've had the LED strip lights for about 3 years for the project, but just never got around to actually doing it.  It's not that it is a hard job, it just takes about an hour for each side of the coach, and involves some soldering of connections, etc.  With TLE's help I succeeded in the upgrade, and WOW, it is ever way brighter in the bedroom now....

Before LED upgrade (passenger side)

After LED upgrade  (driver side)

Now there are three rows of LED lights...see how many more LEDs there are on the newer strip lighting

At night....about 3x brighter!  By the way, that comforter on the bed came from Savers in Flagstaff.....$13.99....really makes a difference at night!

....by the time I finished putting the alcove trim back, and putting away my tools, and materials it was 3:30 pm, and time for dinner.  TLE bought some thin sliced pastrami when we were in Flagstaff Sunday, and made hot pastrami sandwiches for dinner....a great way to end my work day....if it were the end...lol.  

My last task for the day was to order new control boards for two of our Suburban gas furnaces, as well as new sail switches (micro switch) for all three.  I found the sail switches on eBay, and the Dinosaur control boards on Amazon.  While all three heaters are working well, its time to service them, and upgrade the control boards, so we can be sure they will operate at their maximum potential when it gets really cold this winter.  I have already upgraded the control board for the salon heater, and wrote about that here in 2016.  

And with that final 'inside' task completed my work day was now officially done.  We got a lot done, and I did it all in my pajamas....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

10 hour day.....

 8:01 am - Monday - November 18th - TWW - 32° F, humidity 47%, wind 7 mph out of the south....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 55° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were hiking to the top of Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, CA.....one of our favorite loop walks when we are in SoCal....

....we first hiked this trail back in 2011 just after we began living in our Newell full time.  We were working, and living at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park, which sits in the shadow of Mt. Rubidoux,  for a year before hitting the road as full time nomads.

The ambitious buying/shopping day we had planned for Saturday, but postponed due to snow, came to fruition Sunday.  We were up, once again, at 5 am to get early start, because we had a lot of miles to cover.  Originally, we were going to begin our drive to Prescott at 7:15 am, but we decided to leave at 8:15 am instead.  We had made appointments with 4 Facebook Marketplace sellers to buy their advertised items ranging from 10:30 am to 11:30 am. I've been wanting to buy a drill press, a bigger air compressor, and a bench grinder for our CONEX workshop here at TWW since we arrived, but until Charles and Phyllis gave us access to their 2004 Ford Expedition, we had no way of hauling some of these items back to TWW from wherever we might buy them.

The drive to Prescott takes us through Chino Valley, where our first buy of the day was located....a skeet launcher (think clay pigeons, or targets).  Our appointment was for 10:30 am, but we got there 30 minutes earlier than expected. We owned one back in the 70's when I had a Smith and Wesson 12 gauge pump shotgun, and would go out to the high desert near Lake Isabella in California and shoot clay pigeons with friends several times each winter.  Well, now that I have acquired another Smith and Wesson 12 gauge shotgun (semi automatic) we want to do it again.  The skeet launcher is spring loaded, and mounted on an old tire rim, just like our original one was, and only cost $20....

Skeet launcher

Our next appointment was to buy that drill press, and bench grinder I mentioned earlier....we arrived about 30 minutes early for our 11 am appointment.  The drill press is from 1978, and built like a tank...weighs about as much, too.....lol.  The bench grinder is vintage, also, but in excellent shape.  Mac, the seller, lives on the side of a hill, so moving that heavy drill press down to street level where the Expedition was parked was tricky, but together we got it done.....cost for both items....$180....killer deal.....

Craftsman 1/3 horsepower bench grinder

Drill press

......the appointment to buy the fourth item, the 26 gallon, 150 PSI air compressor, was scheduled for 11:30 am, but we were about 30 minutes early....thankfully Quincy was home, and after plugging it in to be sure it worked properly, I traded him $100 for the compressor....

Central Pneumatic 18 horsepower, 26 gallon, 150 PSI air compressor

....finally, our last stop was to buy Stihl chainsaw chaps and safety hat from the same guy I bought one of the Stihl chainsaws from a couple of weeks ago.  So, within 90 minutes of arriving in Chino Valley to buy the skeet launcher, we were done with our Facebook Marketplace buys.  We had planned to buy some things at COSTCO, but being a Sunday it was beyond packed, so we just used their restrooms, TLE returned a clothing item she had purchased a few weeks ago, and we were on our way to Flagstaff....  

Stihl safety hat and chaps

....we used to visit Flagstaff every couple of weeks when we worked at the Grand Canyon back in the winter of 2017-18, and really like its vibe, plus there is a great thrift store there called 'Savers', which is part of a large, Southwest thrift store chain.  TLE found a couple of things there (she always does, and for me pretty much the same) without which she could not live, and so did I. I found an ONYX by Brighton leather belt for $8.....virtually brand new. They cost $38 to $50 brand new....and it fits my slim midsection perfectly.....score....

.....by the time we finished shopping at 'Savers' it was around 2 pm, and we were hungry, so we headed to a local Starbucks for sandwiches, and coffee.....perfect for a cold Flagstaff day....

Both sandwiches were toasted.....grilled cheese for TLE, and a turkey/provolone cheese for moi

....by this time it was after 2:30 pm, and we still had a 90 minute drive home, so we began to speed up our shopping foray with a stop at the local Fry's Supermarket (part of the Kroger chain) where TLE did a big shopping.  Next we had to fill the big fuel tank of the Expedition (17 gallons) before heading home.....we only paid $3.03/gallon for unleaded regular....the lowest we've paid in quite some time.

By the time we merged onto I-40 westbound at the Butler onramp it was 4:30 pm, which meant we would arrive back at TWW around 5:55 pm....about 30 minutes after the sun sets.  The 90 minute drive home flew by quickly, and by 6 pm we were unloading our purchases from the rear of the Expedition.

That was a 10 hour driving/buying/shopping day, but we accomplished a lot in that time span....thanks for stopping by!

Snow day.....

 5:58 am - Sunday - November 17th - TWW - 30° F, humidity 69%, wind 8 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 51° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were enjoying our 6th Rincon Parkway sunset.....

The weather report indicated a small dusting of snow overnight, but you never know how accurate the weathers will be.  Personally, I was hoping for NO snow.  We were planning to drive to Prescott Saturday, so went to bed early, and were up by 5:30 am to find this....

....it appeared we had received somewhere between 3 and 4" of snow overnight.  TLE and I are no strangers to snow as nomads.  As you know we spent an entire winter (2017-18) at 7,000' elevation at the Grand Canyon and awoke to snow many times.  This was a very 'dry' snow, but when it melted everything got muddy.  With it still snowing at 5:30 am, and so much snow on the ground we made a game time decision NOT to drive to Prescott, postponing that trip until Sunday.  Since we had declared a snow day, what better way to spend it than in the big house with a roaring wood burning stove providing wonderful warmth, watching NCAA college football....

....so that is what we did for the entire day.  We never got out of our pajamas....perfect! You can see there are kettles on the wood burning stove....we used that very hot water to make tea throughout the day, whilst occasionally adding wood to keep the stove at its hottest.  

I wasn't a total slackard Saturday.  I think I've mentioned that Charles and Phyllis have a Gen 3 Starlink setup, but it was kept outside when they are here for internet, but when they would leave it would be brought back inside, and disconnected.  Charles ordered the 'wall passthrough' kit from Starlink, but hadn't had time to install it, so I offered to do so Saturday, and Charles accepted.....

Through the living room wall out to the deck

Now the router and power supply can reside fulltime in the house....they are water proof, by the way, but it is better if they are inside out of the elements

The deck pass through is complete

....Starlink provides everything for the installation of the 'passthrough' including a tube of clear silicone to seal the hole, a long drill bit to drill the test hole, and the hole saw to enlarge the hole.  All you need is a drill.  I took me less than 15 minutes beginning to end.

TLE and I knew at the beginning of the day we would HAVE to dump the black tank, so around 1 pm, when the outside temps were at their zenith, we did the deed, returning quickly to the warm confines of the big house for the rest of the day.  It was nice to have a day off work, and just laze about.  TLE made dinner (mushroom/onion Alfredo) in the Newell, but brought it into the house for our dining pleasure.

My USC Trojans finally managed to hold a 4th quarter lead and win their game against Nebraska Saturday 28-20.  They'd played 9 games prior to Saturday, loosing 4th quarter leads right at the end of the game in 5 of them I think.  Their record was 4-5 coming into the game, so they are at least back to .500 at 5-5.  For me, that was the highlight of the day, although there were several other interesting games of the 'close' variety.

We're slowing adapting to the cold weather.  As you know, we don't sleep with any of our heaters running, so when we get up, usually around 7 am on most days, there is a mad scramble to get all three gas heaters on, and warming up the Newell interior.  Most mornings it has been in the mid to low 40's inside, but this morning (Sunday) it was 37° F....ugh!  Thankfully, those Suburban heaters warm the interior up pretty quickly.  After turning on the three heaters I hop back into bed with TLE to let the interior warm before getting dressed.....takes about 10-15 minutes depending on how cold it got during the night.  Right now it is a 'balmy' 68° F inside...actually quite comfortable.

Thanks for stopping by!