A little of this and a little of that....

One of the challenges in writing this blog every day is on days when we are stationary as we will be for at least 8 weeks is writing about nothing and making it sound like something.  I know many tune in every day because you are interested in the nomadic lifestyle, and how we deal with every day life on the road, or every day life living in a recreational vehicle....whether moving, or not.  I've come to learn that what may seem like nothing to me.....from my perspective.......can still be interesting to others, so on those "nothing days" I must endeavor to see it from you're perspective.  Tuesday was one of those "nothing days", so let's see what it might look like to you.


On Tuesday, as we did on Monday, we arose at 5:30 am in order to help open the Kiosk by 7 am.  We are required to be at the Kiosk by 6:30 for the 7 am opening.  Thank goodness we only have to get up that early 3 times this week, and twice next week.  I try to keep the early rising in perspective.....sure we have to get up 3 straight days, but then we can sleep in the next 4 days.  On the days we work we are not working 12 hour shifts, which is always a positive.....plus the temperature starts out in the high 40's, or low 50's instead of the low 20's.....a very big positive.  More positives.....we are parked on concrete, we walk to work, no hard hats are involved, no loud farm machinery, no flying sugar beets.....it just gets better and better, huh?

Since Tuesday was our second day we predetermined TLE would work the entire 5 hour shift, while I would be there one hour until I was sure everything was going to be calm, which  it was.  On Wednesday I will work the 5 hour shift, and TLE will leave after an hour.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, or not, but the day we were leaving Baker, NV TLE was doing a couple of loads of wash that morning.  Near the end of the second load the Splendide would not go into its spin cycle, the drum stopped turning, and was making funny noises, as well as emitting a smell like burning rubber, so we shut it off, and haven't used it since.  We both were sure the belt had slipped, or broken.  Well, Tuesday was the magic day for me to pull it out of its cabinet and get a firm diagnosis.  A little bit of  "dis-assembly" is required.....part of the cabinet face must be unscrewed and removed so the Splendide can slide out.  I was able to get that done pretty easily, and as I began to wrestle the machine out of it's cubby hole it occurred to me that I should first turn it on and see if it was still doing the same thing.

I switched the machine to dry mode and turned it on.....what do you know?  The drum began to turn immediately, there was no funny sound, and no bad odor.  Okay, now let's put it into spin mode and see what happens......surprise, surprise.....it immediately went into spin mode, and began to accelerate as it should.....I let it go through its entire spin cycle and then switch back into dry mode, and it worked flawlessly, just as it has for the past 5+ years we have owned the coach.   So, now the question is was the malfunction in Baker a one time event, or a real problem.....I don't know right now.  I'm going to take the attitude for now that if  "it's not broken don't try to fix it.  At least I know how to get it out, and what screws must be removed to accomplish that end.

I had expected the Splendide affair to take 4-5 hours, but since it took only 40 minutes I decided to take a bike ride.  21+ months ago I would ride my bike from RJRP (750' elevation) up to the summit of Mt Rubidoux (1,329' elevation) 4.5 miles distant in about 24 minutes.  The entire 8.5 mile circuit would take me 38 minutes.  Since my conditioning is a little the worse for wear, and neglect I was interested to see how long it would take me now.  

The entrance

The view

As you climb up the asphalt paved walk/bikeway the view continues expanding with every foot gained in elevation.  There are usually a lot of people walking to the top, and as you pass them they exchange greetings, and and in some cases shout an encouraging word.  As I neared the summit I looked at my timer.....32 minutes......wow, I am out of shape.  I used to average about 10 mph climbing that hill, but my average Tuesday was around 7.5.  At least I made it too the top without throwing up, but I've got a lot of work to get back in decent shape!

As I was finishing my ride back into RJRP TLE came out of the Kiosk to let me know someone in Reservations had slipped up and rented our site out for the Thanksgiving weekend, so we will have to move to another site for four days.....ugggh!  I've got more stuff out right now than I've had at any time since we worked at Amazon.com for 11 weeks a year ago....that's a lot of stuff to put away for a 4 day move.....while it's a little upsetting, it's not like I have a lot to do.  As compensation for the inconvenience the Ranger has given us two days off from Kiosk work next week as it will take part of two days for us to move out of site #258, and then back into site #258.  After TLE got off work we drove over to the new site and found it will fit us with no problem, so come next Wednesday we'll be rolling the wheels again, if only for a few minutes.

Around 12:30 pm we decided we should head over to clean our cabins (1 & 2) for the coming weekend.  I'm amazed at how quickly we fell back into a routine we had not performed for almost two years.......when we were here 21 months ago we could clean a cabin in about 40 minutes.....our time Tuesday was 45 minutes per cabin.....not too bad.  With Thanksgiving coming up next week the cabins will be turning over several times, so we'll be cleaning our two cabins at least twice next week, and I think one of them 3 times, but it's all good.

Later in the afternoon I set up the EZ-UP canopy for the T-Bird to at least keep part of it our of the weather while we are here, but that is one more thing we'll have to take down in a week.

Around 6 pm our daughter, Kate, and her daughter Charlie came over for  a short visit on their way home.....always good to spend more time with one of our kids and grand kids!

That was pretty much a description of what seemed like "nothing" from my perspective.....I hope some of you found it somewhat interesting.......oh, we did watch the usual NCIS, NCIS L.A., and Person of Interest.....if you watch Person of Interest were you completely surprised by the last 3 minutes of last night's episode?

Thanks for stopping by!