A little 'Lido Deck' time.....

 8:41 am - Friday - May 23rd - LPG&RVR - 55° F, humidity 37%, wind 7 mph out of the north by northwest.....mostly clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Grand Junction, CO having dinner at Rockslide Brewing.....

....we were staying the the local Elks Lodge and hadn't been able to order, and eat food at a restaurant for almost 3 months due to the Wuhan Flu.  The restaurant was packed, but they also had outdoor dining, which we prefer anyway.

I'm sure you've noticed we have not been doing our out and back walk for over a week now.  My knee was just acting up too much to do that walk, and until I can get in to see Dr. Fyda, my orthopedist in Reno, and get a cortisone shot I'll have to wait a little longer before doing that walk again.  I'm still doing my knee exercises, and without the 2 mile walk, have been able to walk pretty normally without pain, so I'll have to be content with that for now.

Thursday was the first day we've had temps over 70° F for a while, so I got out our anti gravity chairs, which have not seen much action the last 7 months, and set them up on the 'lido deck'.  Additionally, I deployed our TCL flat screen, outdoor TV so we could watch golf in the afternoon.....

....you can see the TV on the Rubber Maid chest by TLE (I put a cover on it overnight).  TLE loves watering, and tending to her flower beds each morning, especially on our non work days when she can take her time....

.....it won't be long until we have flowers adding a splash of color to our 'lido deck'!

Before sitting down to watch golf I had two more small projects to attend to in the trailer.  One was to fix the eye protector screen on my bench grinder that I broke some time ago.  I've attempted to glue it back together using super glue, but after 3 failed attempts decided to think on it, and come up with a different way to fix it, and that morning an idea came to me....

.....I decided to cut a piece of flat aluminum to place across the broken area, drill two holes, and screw it back together.  It worked!  After attaching the aluminum piece I then added super glue to the crack to kind of weld it back together.  I checked this morning and it is once again just as solid as the other one.

Finally, one of my LED lights in the rear of the trailer has been hanging askew for some time, so I decided to drill a couple more mounting holes to level it out, and succeeded....

....and with that final repair my work day was done.  Time for some 'lido deck' time!  I spent a couple of hours napping, and watching the 'Charles Schwab Challenge' in Fort Worth, TX.

Around 3:30 pm TLE and I drove our cart over to the Clubhouse to do some putting together....something we hadn't done for quite a long time.  She was a little rusty, but by the end of our session was putting much more consistently.

TLE had been defrosting, and marinating some chicken thighs all afternoon, so right after we returned from putting I lit the Sea-B-Que, and then grilled them at 300° F for about 25 minutes until they reached 165° F.  They came out wonderfully.  TLE added a side salad and BBQ'd beans. I wish I had taken a picture.

We watched the recorded finale of season 48 of 'Survivor' after dinner.  This was an unusual season with a very satisfying conclusion.  We would have been happy with any of the final three winning.  It was the only time I can remember when each of the three finalists received at least one jury vote, but in the end Kyle won.  TLE and I both thought he had a slight edge over the other two, but you can never tell what a jury will do.  A nice conclusion to a very nice day two of our four day weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

Five things to do.....

 8:28 am - Thursday - May 22nd - LPG&RVR - 56° F, humidity 33%, wind 9 mph out of the northwest......mostly clear skies today with a forecast high of 70° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were spending a few days at Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho.  While there we were able to observe a partial solar eclipse.....

.....I was trying to take a picture of the eclipse, but it didn't come out, however, in that red blob below the sun you can see the eclipse....how that happened I don't know.

I always have a bunch of small projects needing my attention around the Newell/American Trailer floating around in my head, and Wednesday seemed like as good a day as any to cross a few of them off that mental list.  First up I finally installed a power strip/surge protector I bought way back in January off Amazon....

....surprisingly this took me more time than the other projects combined....lol.  When we were staying overnight at the Hotel St. Michael in Prescott, AZ this past January the hotel room had some of these deployed around the room.  In addition to the regular 120 VAC outlets there are also USB ports.

Next I used silicone caulk to reseal a seam on the right rear window awning (TLE's bedroom window awning), then used the last of the Sunbrella swatches I got from ZipDee many, many years ago to cover over a rub hole in the patio awning.....

.....caused by the plastic wheel on the top of the entry door that keeps the sharp edge of the door from contacting the awning fabric.  The problem is that after 43 years the wheel has begun to create a wear line that eventually wears through the fabric.  ZipDee sent me, free, many years ago several fabric swatches I could use for just this kind of repair.  The Sunbrella fabric is made out of silicone, so I use silicone caulk to glue the swatch to the fabric.  As you can see in the picture above I have made other repairs over the years....

.....my next repair project of the morning was to install a new snap on the sun shade.  The one to the left ripped out of the sunshade fabric, and since TLE didn't want to take the sunshade down to sew up the hole I just moved it to the right a few inches.....

You can see the old snap location on the left, and the new one on the right

.....after finishing that snap I headed into the trailer to work on tightening the quarter turn latches on the aluminum cabinet mounted on the passenger side interior wall of the trailer.....

I installed these cabinets, as well as the work bench back in 2011 when we were at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park living for a year before heading out on the road.  They are very durable.

.....the latches have been opening while in transit, especially on our trip back north to LPG&RVR, so it was time to figure out how to tighten them....

.....they're not as straightforward as they look, and it took me about 45 minutes to figure out how to properly adjust them so they stay latched while in transit.  I do run a fabric strap across all three doors when we are traveling, and it has been held them mostly closed when the latches open, but I don't want them to open in the first place.  They are all tight once again.  I love working on small projects like these, and on this particular day was able to get a lot of them done.

 By the time I finished fixing the latches it was almost 12:30 pm, and time for a snack, and nap.  The weather Wednesday was delightful, and I actually wore short pants and a t-shirt for much of the day....looking forward to many more days of being able to do that.  We're running the electric heaters for shorter durations each morning, and not at all at night now.  It seems like we've been living in winter conditions since early November of 2024.  Time for warmer weather!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mission accomplished.....

 7:57 am - Wednesday - May 21st - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 29%, wind 12 mph out of the west by southwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 77° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Telluride, CO for the day.....

Bridal Veil Falls

.....we spent a lot of time during the summer of Wuhan in rural America (northern Arizona, southern Utah, western Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho) where life was still pretty normal, and one could usually visit a local restaurant and eat purchased food on the premises, and where face diapers were mostly not being worn.

Ah.....the last day of our four day work week....our 'Friday'.  As I mentioned in yesterday's missive there was a lot of mowing to do Tuesday, but first I needed to make around of the golf course to check on the goose/duck leavings at the #3 tee boxes, and the condition of our four sand traps, so after staging 12 golf carts I headed out to do just that.  On this day there were very few goose/duck leavings, so that took me about 5 minutes, and the 4 sand traps showed no signs of human activity, so it took me just 30 minutes to get back to the Clubhouse.

I immediately retrieved the Stihl string trimmer and began clearing a winter's worth of weeds from the fuel station, around the 'Caddy Shack', and the entire golf cart repair station.  From there I headed down to the five employee sites to trim them before I mowed.  Next I returned to the Clubhouse to retrieve the 2 bag Husqvarna to mow those 5 employee sites, and then drove down to the 10 backup sites along the meadow to mow them for the first time in 10 days.  I was able to mow 9 of the 10 sites (one of them had too much law furniture on the grass).  The grass around the 'Night Office' was in similar condition so I began mowing it hoping I could finish before lunch, and I did.  I was back at the Clubhouse for TLE's lunch break at 11:58 am....

The 'Night Office' and tent site grass areas are now nicely sculpted, once again

.....things were pretty quiet during TLE's lunch break, and the time passed pretty quickly.

After lunch I washed a few golf carts, then I headed back down to the tent sites (4-10)  behind the 'Night Office' to mow them for the first time in 10 days.  The grass was just as long as the back in sites, and the 'Night Office' grass, so it took me until 2:45 pm to finish mowing them.  By the time I returned to the Clubhouse, refueled the Husqvarna, and cleaned it the time was 2:55 pm.  There were 7, or 8 golf carts to wash, and I still had those range balls from Monday to finish cleaning, so I knew I would be still working until well after 3:30 pm. By the time I headed for home it was close to 4 pm, but everything I wanted to accomplish Tuesday had been accomplished.  Now Dave and I are caught up on mowing for the time being.....lol.

We invited Claude over for a sunset fire around 7:30 pm (sunset is now close to 8:10 pm), and we talked until after 9 pm before Claude bid us adieu and headed back to his Wanderlodge for the evening.  It was a good 'work week', and that was a nice way to wind down before beginning our four day weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

A busy one.....

 5:46 am - Tuesday - May 20th - LPG&RVR - 35° F, humidity 48%, wind 10 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 68° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were touring the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado.....

.....with Glenn and Laureen during the summer of Wuhan.

Monday was a busy day for me.  I mowed around the tee boxes at holes 3, 10, 15, 16, 17 and 18.  I cleared the driving range for a second day in a row in advance of its mowing Monday afternoon, gleaning another 1.5 buckets of balls, mowed around the putting green, and checked the water levels in all five Club Car electrics (that's 30 batteries @ 6 per cart).  The beginning of the day itself was like many of the preceding days.....cloudy, cold, and blustery.  In spite of that we rented 9 golf carts to customers, and I know there were 5 to 6 members who went out in their own carts, so for a Monday it was a busy day on the course.

To begin the day I staged 5 golf carts, adding another 4 later in the morning.  Since Claude is off duty as Marshal Monday through Wednesday I made around of the course after staging the carts to rake the four sand traps.  Claude has done a wonderful job of weeding them, so all I had to do was rake them on this day.....

Sand trap at hole 15.....no weeds, just raking

 .....once back I hopped on the 2 bag Husqvarna and set out to mow around the aforementioned tee boxes.....

Blue tee box at the 15th hole

......by the time I returned to the Clubhouse it was 11:45 am, and I hadn't shagged the range balls off the driving range yet, so I asked TLE to give me 45 minutes before she went to lunch, and she graciously agreed.  I was back to the office right at 12:30 pm, and she went to lunch.

As the day progressed the clouds began to break up, the breeze abated, and we ended up with a very nice afternoon.  After lunch I washed four carts which had been returned, then began the task of checking all 30 batteries in our Club Car electrics for water level.  As it turns out they've been very thirsty the past three weeks, so I had to add a lot of water.  By the time I finished with the 5th cart I had gone though 4 gallons of distilled water.  It was algo 2:45 pm, and I had just 45 minutes left until quitting time, so I hopped back on the 2 bag Husqvarna, and mowed the #10 tee boxes, then around the putting green.  

By the time I finished mowing, and putting away the Husqvarna it was after 3:30 pm, so I headed for home.  There were still 4 carts out on the course, so I determined to return at 4:45 pm to take care of them before ferrying TLE home for the day.  Thankfully the four remaining carts had been returned by 4:45 pm, so I washed them, and stowed them making this just the 3 time since we returned in late April that all the carts have been in the cart shed at 5 pm.

There is a lot of mowing yet to be done, and I will do that Tuesday, so our final day of our four day work week will be filled with mostly that, and should go pretty quickly.  The weather is beginning warm up once again, and by Sunday, our next work day, we'll have an 80+° day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cold and breezy.....

 5:45 am - Monday - May 19th - LPG&RVR - 39° F, humidity 56%, wind 8 mph out of the northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 66° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were on the Million Dollar Highway north of Durango approaching 11,000 feet in elevation in the Newell....

.....probably the highest elevation at which we have driven the Newell in our 13 years on the road.  We were in first gear for a long time!

Sunday was another cold, sub 60° F day.  When the sun was behind the clouds it was freezing, and when the sun was out it was quite pleasant.  I wore my jacket, gloves and watch cap most of the morning.  Winter just does not want to let go of Modoc County.  Eagle Mountain looks like it may have snow until late July....

Eagle Mountain

.....everything is so green, and one would think Spring had arrived, but not so much.  I know we'll look back fondly on these cold days with fondness in July and August when the daily temps get into the 90's.

I staged 12 golf carts to begin the day, and another five later in the morning.  Eventually we had 20 golf carts on the course Sunday, in spite of the cold, breezy weather.  About mid morning I decided to begin clearing the driving range of range balls in advance of its scheduled mowing Monday afternoon.  We don't do any mowing on the weekends (as a rule), so I had time to do it.  On Monday and Tuesday I'll be mowing a lot, as well as marshaling (Claude works Thursday through Sunday each week as marshal), and won't have the needed time to clear the range then.  That took me close to noon time, and TLE's lunch break.  I managed to fill three 5 gallon buckets with balls, which is a lot for this early in the season.

Scottie Scheffler was just teeing off when TLE left for lunch, so I was able to watch an hour of Round Four of The PGA Tournament.  Scottie began the day at 11 under par with a three stroke lead.  At one point he had dropped into a tie with Jon Rahm at 9 under par, but rebounded to 12 under par, and by the 18th hole had a SIX stroke lead over the field which had fallen back to 6 under par, with Jon Rahm falling back to 4 under par with two double bogeys, and a bogey in the last 7 holes.  Winning by one or two strokes in a Major is pretty good, but 6?  Anyway, Scottie won his third major in as many years, and is on his way being one of the top golfers of all time.

With Claude doing the marshaling this season I have been able to spend more time around the Clubhouse like Sunday.  The furthest distance I got from the Clubhouse all day as going down the hill to flip the sign first thing.  I don't feel like I'm double timing every task to get it all done before 3:30 pm every work day.

I was off work by 3:30 pm, and home watching the final two holes of this year's PGA Tournament, after which  I took a long, hot shower to warm up my extremities, and was just getting out of the shower when TLE arrived from work.  Speaking of long, hot showers,  there weren't any of those at TWW, and I really missed them.  Taking long, hot showers meant we would have to refill our fresh water tank every week, instead of every other week, so the showers, of necessity, were short, and sweet to preserve water.  I didn't realize how much I missed those long, hot showers, so I'm taking them a lot this summer....lol!  TLE was home by 5:20 pm, as another work day at LPG&RVR had come to an end.

Thanks for stopping by!

One more rain day.....

 5:51 am - Sunday - May 18th - LPG&RVR - 38° F, humidity 52%, wind 15 mph out of the north by northwest.......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were at a Rest Area north of Ogden, UT.....

.....while traveling south on I-15.

Saturday was another rain day for moi.  The office work continues unabated, day after day, but for those of us who work outdoors, there are interruptions from time to time due to weather.  TLE and I were awakened Saturday morning around 4:45 am to the sound of thunder, followed closely by rainfall......not hard, but steady.  It would continue raining for 5 hours, along with the lightning and thunder.  TLE went to work around 7:45 am in the VW, while I stayed home.....way to wet to drive to work in the Club Car.

Finally, just after 9:30 am the rain stopped, so I gathered myself, got dressed, and headed over to the office to see what interest there was in golfing by our customers.  There were just a few takers as the rain, and thunder had been replaced by cold winds out of the northwest.  I washed three carts left over from Friday afternoon, talked with a few people, then headed back to the Newell around 11 am, promising TLE I would return at noon for her lunch break, and my second hour of work.

During lunch I answered one phone all, and sold three buckets of range balls, but that was it. The rest of the time I spent watching round 3 of The PGA.  At the beginning of the rain delayed round (the first golfers did not tee off until 11:45 am PDST.....2:45 pm east coast time).  When the round began the leader was Johnny Vegas (from Venezuela) at 8 under par with Scottie Scheffler at 5 under par.  When the round ended Scottie was 11 under par, and Johnny Vegas was 6 under par.  The closest rival (Alex Noren - Sweden) was at 8 under par.  They traditionally call Saturday 'Moving Day' on the PGA tour, and was it ever.  Scottie was 5 under par for the final 5 holes, three of which are the hardest holes on the golf course.

I returned to the Clubhouse at 3 pm to wash a few more carts, and put them away.  By 5 pm there were still two of the five rented golf carts on the course.  I participated in the weekly putting contest, making it to the second round only to lose to my opponent (Greg Plumlee, whom I bested last Saturday) in a one hole playoff after being tied at the end of 5 holes.  I headed for home around 4:30 pm, followed by TLE in the VW around 5:10 pm.  I think I worked around 3 hours total Saturday.  Sunday will mark 3 weeks since our return to LPG&RVR with May disappearing into the rearview mirror rather quickly.

Thanks for stopping by!

Curtains.....

 5:53 am - Saturday - May 17th - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 66%, wind 17 mph out of the northwest.....heavy cloud cover with rain, lightning and thunder for most of the morning, and a forecast high of 56° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were having lunch in Durango, CO with Glenn and Laureen during the Wuhan Flu.....we found one restaurant open offering takeout only.....

....so we ordered burgers, fries, and draft beer, then headed down the street to a lone table I had spotted when we were parking.....

This table actually belonged to Colorado Outback Adventures, for whom we worked at Glamis North during the winters of 2022/23 and 2023/24

....it was the first time we had been able to eat restaurant food at a table not our own since February.  Glenn and I had been able to get our first haircuts since late March at a Sports Clips earlier that day.

As I write today's missive it has been raining pretty hard for an hour and a half, and that should continue until almost noon time.  Along with the rain we are seeing flashes of lightning, and a lot of thunder.  I think this is the first time we've had a lightning/thunder storm here at LPG&RVR during the summer.  The sun has been 'up' since 5:45 am, but it looks like 9 pm at night right now.  I don't think much golf will be played this morning.

When we went shopping in Alturas Thursday one of the things we bought at ACE Hardware was a new shower curtain to cut down and cover the window in our shower.  I last replaced that window curtain 2, or 3 years ago.  The original curtain that came with the coach lasted over 40 years, so we bought a fabric curtain this time hoping for more longevity.  TLE cut it down, and hemmed the edges, then I attached the hardware....

....the last time I replaced the curtain I had ordered new hardware, and was glad I had it as the tabs on the old buckles showed signs of breaking.  I didn't expect to have to replace the curtain so quickly, but I'm glad I ordered them when I did.

My knee continues to improve, and as I write, it is feeling 100% better than it did on Wednesday.  Nevertheless, I continued the ice and heat treatment, and did some of the knee exercises I've been doing since last July.  Just enough to keep the knee loose.

After installing the new window curtain I spent about an hour in the trailer organizing the spare parts/fasteners I hang on the inside of the unused, side ramp door in the trailer so they are more visible and accessible.  Why?  Well, it took me a while to find the curtain hardware even though I knew it was there.  It was hanging behind some other stuff, and not visible.  Now pretty much everything on that wall can be easily seen, and accessed without moving a lot of other stuff.

When we were at Holiday Market Thursday we scored two top sirloin steaks at 1/2 price ($6.99) as they had 'aged' out, so TLE cut them up to make kabobs, which I grilled on the Sea-B-Que for dinner.  Aged meat is so, so tender!

We spent a lot of the afternoon watching The PGA.  The cream is beginning rise to the top on the leaderboard with Scottie Scheffler just 3 strokes off the lead now after two rounds.  Should be an interesting weekend of golf.

Thanks for stopping by!

Learning the ropes....

 8:37 am - Friday - May 16th - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 47%, wind 8 mph out of the north by northwest.....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Durango, CO.....

Thursday I had to surrender and give my knee a day to calm down.  I've got 2 weeks until my appointment at Great Basin Orthopedics where I hope to get my second cortisone shot in as many years, so I need to pace myself so I can at least do my job with as little discomfort as possible.  That will mean resting my knee on each four day weekend between now and May 29th.

Our last shopping foray into Alturas was last Wednesday, so it was time to replenish our produce stocks, and pickup a few things at ACE Hardware.  Thursday was also the first round of the PGA Championship Tournament being held at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina.  The PGA is one of the four major golf championships held each year (The Masters, The PGA, The U.S. Open and The Open) where all the great golfers in the world come together to see who will pass the test.

We left for Alturas around 10 am making stops at ACE Hardware, Grocery Outlet, and Holiday Market before making the return drive to LPG&RVR.  We arrived home, without incident, around 12:3o pm.

It's been over 7 months since we last had all of our rope lights deployed, so I spent part of the afternoon rolling them out, and connecting them to an ON/OFF timer in the Newell electrical bay.....

You can just see the beginning of the white string of rope lights in the background of this picture

.....we have a shorter blue rope light string that I run along the passenger side of the coach, and a longer red rope light string we run around the border of the 'lido deck', which is proscribed by the scalloped cut of the artificial turf.  We have another very long white rope light string that runs from the right rear corner of the Newell back along the passenger side of the trailer, around its back then back along the driver side of the trailer and Newell.  The final string of white rope lights runs under the VW Beetle to discourage pack rats from taking up residency in the engine bay.  This is not a difficult task, but takes time.  Once that was finished, and I had turned on the power to be sure they all worked (they did), I took the rest of the day off to rest, and watch the PGA.

I alternated between icing my knee, and applying heat via heating pad for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and by the time I went to bed my knee was feeling much better.  I'll do some more of that on Friday while watching The PGA, and then head back to work Saturday morning.

Thanks for stopping by!

Where did my swing go?

 8:06 am - Thursday - May 15th - LPG&RVR - 43° F, humidity 40%, wind 13 mph out of the north by northwest.....high clouds today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2015 we got a few inches of snow at Tahoe Valley Campground....

As you know I've had issues with my right knee for about a year now.  As Dr. Fyda (orthopedist) told me last summer, the problem with my knee is my age.  I've got a little arthritis in there accompanied by some 'bone on bone' due to loss of cartilage which causes a lot of stiffness, and loss of range of motion.  I do daily exercises to counteract some of what is going on in there.  Last year I received a cortisone shot to reduce the pain, and swelling, and it worked.  In fact that pain did not return until mid April at TWW.  Since then there have been good days, and bad days, and Wednesday was a bad day.  Nevertheless, I did my knee exercises, then did our 2 mile out and back walk with TLE.  My knee was barking the entire time, but by the time we returned it had quieted down, and I was walking mostly without pain....

.....it was another mostly cloudy day with a slight breeze out of the west.  In spite of my discomfort we managed a respectable 3.2 mph covering the 2 miles in just over 37 minutes....

....once we were back I puttered around in the trailer repairing a bungee cord we use on the sun screen, and finally plugged in my bench grinder, after bolting it to the Black and Decker Workmate.  I've had the Workmate since 1979, and am amazed at what good condition it is in after 46 years.  If only my right knee had weathered those years as well....lol.

I finally headed over to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls with my Callaway driver.  I haven't swung that driver in 7 months, and was concerned with how well I would do.  Well, a 7 month layoff in any sport is not good, and really not good when the sport is golf.  I'm not sure how many balls I hit, but maybe 1/3 of them were shots with which I would have been happy out on the golf course....the rest were terrible.  Oh well, it's only the first day, and I'll go out and hit more on Thursday and Friday to see if I can round into shape my swing from last year.  You will recall that on one of my last days of work last October I went out to play 9 holes after work, and shot one of my best 9 hole scores of the summer.  I wrote about round that here.  Now I feel like I'm starting all over again.  As my good friend Charles Wilson says....."It is what it is", and it certainly is.

While I was searching for my 'swing' at the driving range TLE was doing a little gardening.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but she planted some more wildflower seeds in our three flower beds after our trip to Alturas last week, so we'll be having a new crop of flowers in about a month.  As the afternoon progressed the sun made an appearance for the first time in a number of days, and things warmed up considerably.  

Thanks for stopping by!