Only three left.....

 7:11 am - Tuesday - February 4th - TWW - 47° F (the highest overnight low in 2 months), humidity 52%, wind 11 mph out of the south by southeast, and will get into the 20's this afternoon....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE were visiting the 'Desert Bar' near Parker, AZ with Steve and Candy Landry....

....what a cool day that was!

As I wrote yesterday, the dominoes are dropping rapidly here at TWW.  Monday saw several more dominoes fall in advance of our move to our permanent site.  Before we could do anything we needed to dump our black tank, and then fill up our fresh water tank with whatever water remained in the IBC water tote, in order to reduce its weight as we would be moving the tote to a new location closer to the permanent site. Once that was done it was time to move the tote....

.....with TLE's expert hand signals, and help I was able to pick up the tote and move it....

.....once that was done we began the process of building a new, level pad for the cedar shed.

Using the new pallet forks Charles bought we raised up the shed off the concrete blocks upon which it was setting, and pulled out the blocks so we could move them to the new pad we were building.  We were able to lift it without any issues, so we're confident we'll be able to successfully move it to the new location on Tuesday.  Of course, we'll remove all of the weight from the shed to make the move more easily.  I used the Ford 420 loader to scrape the new cedar shed site, then we put down underlayment, and then a layer of quarter minus gravel, then another layer of the larger grave (whatever that is called)....

....now we are ready to move the shed, coach and generator to their new locations!

TLE and I worked pretty much non-stop all day long, and by 2 pm we were both out of gas, and ready to call it quits until the big move Tuesday.  As I write, Ken, from Yavapai Bottle Gas has arrived, and has moved our 120 gallon tank to its new location, so there are only three more dominoes to fall.  Stay tuned for Tuesday's exciting move!

Thanks for stopping by!

Toppling dominoes......

 7:22 am - Monday - February 3rd - TWW - 43° F, humidity 56%, wind 9 mph out of the southeast......mostly clear today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2012 we tilted our new solar panels for the first time.  They can be tilted either direction, but we usually park with the Newell nose facing west, so they are normally tilted to the driver side of the coach.....

.....on this particular day we were facing east at Jojoba Hills Escapee Park near Temecula, CA, where the panels were installed.

Wow, what busy day Sunday was!  Charles and Phyllis planned to head back to Phoenix around noon time, so we were outside early getting the things done for which we needed their assistance.  The big event of the day would be moving Phyllis' sister Newell to a new, temporary location while I build a pad for it near our new pad over the coming weeks.

While TLE and Phyllis trimmed a tree near our new site to make room for the 120 gallon propane tank, which will be moved on Tuesday, Charles and I began to disconnect the sister Newell from the solar panels, and the Eco-Flow solar charger, and move those items to the new, temporary location.  In order to start the sister Newell we needed to run the block heater for about 40 minutes.  As you know these old Detroit Diesel series 92 engines are cold blooded, and need a little heat injected before starting them in the winter, so I connected the large Champion dual phase generator to the coach (it has a 50 amp plug, so the coach is getting 100 amps of power).  Around 11:30 am I started the sister Newell, air it up, and with the guiding help of Charles and Elaine I backed out of the site where it has been parked since early November.  I had to back up quite a ways before I could drive forward to the new site.  Once the coach was moved the area where our new site is, as well as the trailer, became visible once again from our Newell.  As you can see, we've deployed or artificial turf for the first time since we arrived....order is being restored....lol.....

.....Tuesday we'll move our Newell around the same circular drive way so I can then pull into our new, permanent site with the nose facing east.  Why east?  Well, we want to create a little courtyard between the Newell and trailer, and we want the passenger side to face the trailer.  

We repositioned the sister Newell next to the barn, and CONEX, and then reconnected the solar panels to the Eco-Flow solar generator, plugged in the coach.....

....using these two 400 watt, bifacial solar panels to keep the sister Newell batteries fully charged without employing the Champion dual phase generator is working well beyond our expectations.  Being able to keep the coach plugged in, and batteries fully charged without the aid of the Champion has saved a lot of fuel, and eliminated the attendant noise.  By the time we repositioned the sister Newell it was around 12:20 pm, and time for Charles and Phyllis to begin their southward journey home.  We'll see them again on Thursday when they hope to spend 3 days and 3 nights at TWW this week.

After they left TLE and I attached the new pallet forks, purchased by Charles, to the Ford 420 tractor bucket, which we will use to move our shed, and our IBC water tote.....

.....these pallet forks can handle up to 4,000 pounds (2 tons), which is way beyond what we need, but one thing I've been learning the last few months is whatever you think you need when you're living off grid, double it.  I was originally looking at 2,000 pound pallet forks, but Charles said we should get the 4,000 pound ones, and he was right.  The same thinking has been applied to how many solar panels we think we need.  I thought I only need 300 watts of solar panels for our Bluetti AC200MAX solar generator battery bank, but it turns out we needed at least 600 watts, and that has worked well.  The same for the Bluetti AC200P solar charger which powers the trailer.  I originally thought I only needed 300 watts of panels, but the addition of the two 325 watt panels keeps that battery charged at 100% most of each 24 hour period without the aid of a gasoline generator.  By adding 3,200 watts of solar panels to the already existing 3,200 watt house system now keeps the house powered 24/7.

It seemed like we hardly took a break all day long, but at the end of the day we had a lot to show for our effort.  We are now one step closer to moving the Newell into our new site.  There are still a lot of dominoes to topple, but with enough pre-planning it is moving pretty smoothly.  It was such a nice day (mid 60's) that we decided to have a sunset fire for the first time in ages, and we are so happy we did....

....sunset was at 6:02 pm, but this sunset continued to evolve for at least 40 minutes.....

.....we headed back inside around 6:45 pm....what a day, and what a night!

Thanks for stopping by!

Head over heals.....

 7:33 am - Sunday - February 2nd - TWW - 40° F, humidity 66%, wind 8 mph out of the southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were witnessing one of the most amazing sunsets ever at Cedar Key, FL.....the water looked like the sky.....

....it was difficult to determine what was up, and what was down.

Saturday began the countdown to moving our Newell to its permanent site here at TWW.  We needed to move one more bucket of gravel to finish leveling the site, and move the two 325 watt solar panels which power the trailer Bluetti AC200P solar charger so the cables which connect the panels to the Bluetti would not be in the drive path when we back up Phyllis' sister Newell to move it to its temporary parking spot.  On Sunday we'll move Phyllis' Newell to enable us to back up our Newell in preparation for moving into the permanent site.....

That 2" x 4" x 8' board is the width of our coach, and where the front wheels of the coach will rest when it is moved into the site on Tuesday.  That pad  where the 2 x 4 rests has been raised about 4" to help level the Newell front to back

Perfectly level from side to side now

.....Charles and Phyllis arrived for their weekly visit around 10:20 am, just as we were getting ready to move the gravel.  With them they brought a new seat cover for our 1969 Chevrolet C50 flatbed/dump truck.  Once TLE and I were satisfied with our work on the new gravel pad we headed over to the flatbed truck to remove the old, ratty, disintegrating seat cover, and install the new gray, corduroy one I ordered from Amazon.  It was a perfect fit, and within an hour we had the new one installed.....

....considering how old this truck is the cab is in pretty good condition.....no broken windows, both seat belts are functional, the original floormat is intact, no rust, and no holes in the floorboard.  I need to connect the temperature gauge to the sending unit, check all the turn/brake light bulbs, and reconnect the tachometer.

TLE and I scraped most of the snow off the concrete apron in front of the garage so what remains will melt more quickly, and compacted more snow on the circular driveway in front of the house to accomplish the same end....

Concrete driveway is almost clear of snow now

More dirt than snow now on the circular driveway

....I spent the rest of the day making sure all the batteries on Phyllis' Newell are fully charged in advance of the move on Sunday, putting away tools from the new permanent site construction, adjusting the positions of the two 325 watt solar panels we moved to be sure they get the sun as early as possible each day from their new location, plus cutting a few more branches off the tree opposite where the two panels are sitting to make sure no shade is cast on those panels late in the day.

We had dinner in the house around 4 pm.....Buffalo wings, and cauliflower rice with corn, peas and carrots....yummm!  We spent the evening watching another episode of 'Silent Witness' with them in the living room, bidding them adieu for the night around 7:30 pm.  And thus ended another day at TWW.  We have now been here around 3.5 months with about 2.5 months to go.  A lot has been accomplished, but so much has yet to be done.  That it has been 3.5 months since we arrived does not compute.  It feels more like a month.  We're loving our time here, and have fallen head over heals in love with Northern Arizona!

Thanks for stopping by!

Gooey, sticky......

 7:33 am - Saturday - February 1st - TWW - 36° F, humidity 40%, wind 7 mph out of the south by southeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2012 the first two solar panels were finally installed, and putting power into our house batteries....

.....today, February 1st, is our 'nomadiversary'.  We now begin the 14th year of travel in our 1982 Newell Classic, and our 15th year of living full time in her.

When you get as much snow as we got (6") there is a long transition between snow covered terrain, and snow free, dry land upon which to walk, and drive motorized vehicles.  Thank goodness snow is the exception, and not the rule here, because I'm pretty sure I could not tolerate living 4-6 months of each year with snow on the ground.  It's just not in my DNA.  The added complication to that much snow is when it melts the resultant water really soaks into the red clay here, and turns it into a gooey, sticky mess.  When TLE and I took our walk on Thursday out to the main road the entry road was still covered in snow, and the ground was frozen.  Thanks to my snow packing efforts with the Rhino the snow melted, but now we have the gooey, sticky red mud with which to deal.  When we took our walk Friday the road was soft, and spongy, and the soggy red clay stuck to our boots.  At times I felt like I was walking on platform shoes (remember those from the 80's?).  I think we spent more time after the walk cleaning that sticky, gooey mess off our boots than we actually spent walking.....seriously....

.....see what I mean (above)?  And that was not the worst part.  Overall, the entry road is totally snow free now, so the sun can begin the drying process, and we had a lot of sun Friday.....

The entry road is snow free....let the drying begin!!

.....I spent most of the afternoon puttering around the property doing small tasks.  I rehung the now snow free sail shade over the wood deck, this time closer to the house itself to keep direct sunlight off the front windows.  Not a big deal right now, but as we edge into Spring, then Summer it will keep the living room cooler.  I made sure the house, and chassis batteries were fully charged on Phyllis' sister Newell in preparation for moving it in the next couple of days.  I scraped 4" of snow off our still folded artificial turf (its on the ground behind the trailer where has been since we arrived 3.5 months ago), which will finally be deployed when we move our Newell to its permanent site on Tuesday.  I swept off the remaining snow on the wood deck, and opened up the umbrellas again....we'll be getting 4, or 5 days of temps in the 60's this week with lots of sun.  I straightened the large, round cap which covers the air cleaner on the Ford 420 tractor so it fits more snuggly.  I started up our 1969 Jeep CJ5....it fired immediately, and ran as smooth as a Swiss watch!  I fired up the 1969 Chevrolet C50 (I think I've referred to it as a C90, but there is no such thing), and it fired immediately, also.  I'm sure there were 5, or 6 other little things I did, but they don't come immediately to mind. Before I knew it the dinner bell was ringing, and it was time for dinner.

Thankfully, there is a lot of gravel in the areas around the house, and garage, so those areas can be driven, and walked upon mostly without threat of red clay sticking to everything, but once you get beyond the sunset fire pit area, and out towards the entrance gate it gets muddy quickly.  Anyway, with things beginning to dry out and we can get another bucket of gravel on the permanent site, and begin to move heavy equipment around the areas adjacent to the house and garage once again.

Thanks for stopping by!

Snowpack......

 7:42 am - Friday - January 31st - TWW - 26° F, humidity 64%, wind 7 mph out of the southeast....crystal clear blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 57° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were at an Escapee Park near Temecula, CA having our first solar panels installed....

....the guy on the roof is Mike Sylvester of 'The RV Guy'.  He worked for AM Solar out of Springfield, OR as a remote installer.  Regretfully, AM Solar is no longer in business as of June of 2024.  The view this morning.....

.....at 7:54 am our Eco-Worthy Dual Axis solar array tilted toward the rising sun....yesterday (Thursday) they tilted (see the red circle in the above picture) at 8 am on an, also, very clear morning.

We've been kind of snowbound since Sunday afternoon, and we hadn't been to town for 9 days.  We knew we had a lot of mail to retrieve from our PO Box in Seligman, so  we decided to walk out to the entry road to TWW  to see how bad the snow was out there.  The entire road, except for maybe 100' was still covered with 4" of crusty snow, which had melted, and frozen a few times over the past few days.  To be sure we could safely drive that road out to the main arterial road I hopped in the Yamaha Rhino, put it in 4 wheel drive, and headed out to the entry road to drive up and down it to pack the snow, and make the drive a little easier....

Looking north.....

....looking south, back toward TWW entrance

.....I finished packing the 1/2 mile of road surface around 11 am, and by 12:30 am we were driving the Expedition northward on the entrance road on our way to Seligman.  The main arterial dirt road that is somewhat maintained by Yavapai County (they run a road grader over it every two months, and it's been almost 2 months since their last pass), was in pretty decent shape, so we made it out to US-66 in about 10 minutes.  We arrived in Seligman around 1 pm, and headed directly for the Post Office to get our packages.  This time they were all in a parcel locker, so we were in and out within a few minutes.

Next we walked across the parking lot to the Family Dollar store to pickup some orange juice, and a couple of other items before beginning our drive right back to TWW, arriving back there by 1:40 pm....that's the fastest round trip to Seligman we've ever made.  By the time we began our final approach on the entrance road it was beginning to get a little muddy in one spot, but otherwise it was fine.  We'll have to address that muddy spot with a heavy dose of gravel in the near future.

By the time we changed out of our 'city clothes' it was well after 2 pm, and I was mostly done with outdoor activity.  The snow on the ground is melting pretty fast now......

....and we are hoping we'll be able to move Phyllis' sister Newell Coach in the next couple of days to make way for our move to our new site.  I need to add another bucket of gravel to the site on Friday, or Saturday to finish leveling it, and then on Tuesday we will make the move.

The snow on the north side of the coach has hardly melted as it is in the shade pretty much 24/7.....

....and until we move our coach I don't think it will melt.  And that, my friends, brings us to the end of another TWW day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cabin fever.....

 7:35 am - Thursday - January 30th - TWW - 22° F, humidity 87%, wind 4 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 51° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were visiting Manatee Springs near Cedar Key, FL.....

....it was very windy that day!  The view this morning......

....right at sunrise....it's going to be a beautiful sunny day!  Hope our snow melts quickly!

There has been snow on the ground at TWW since Sunday afternoon, and Wednesday was no different.  It had snowed overnight, and added about 1" of snow to what was left from Tuesday, so I had to go out and sweep the snow off of 18 solar panels once again.  While I was sweeping off the panels on the Eco-Worthy Dual Axis solar tracker the panels began to tilt toward the rising sun.....it was only 8:08 am.....a new record, and more evidence the sun is getting higher in the sky each day.  Sunset on Wednesday was at 5:58 pm....by Friday it will be setting at 6 pm....50 minutes later than a month ago.

The forecast for Wednesday was mostly cloudy.  In fact, the weather forecast showed 87% cloud cover, but we actually got sun for most of the morning, which is why I had to go out earlier than I was planning to clear snow off the solar panels.  Fortunately, we got enough sun to get all of our battery banks back to 100%.  Again, I was not expecting to get anything back to 100%.

While I was outside I took down the sail shade from the house deck since all it has been doing the last 5 days is catching snow, which is not a good thing.  I also cleared the snow off our Adirondack chairs, and the other chairs on the deck.  While I was at it I decided to climb the ladder to inspect the solar panels on the CONEX.  I had noticed when up there several weeks ago that several of the panels we not tilted at 45°, which is the optimal angle.  After checking the size of the bolts holding the tilt arms in place I climbed down the ladder and retrieved a couple of crescent wrenches from the CONEX and went back up to try to raise the one set of panels up to the optimal 45° angle.  It took about 15 minutes, but I got it done.  There are at least 2 other sets of panels which need to be tilted up to the 45° angle, but I decided it was just too cold, and wet, so I'll work on them another day when the sun is out, and it is in the 60's again, which is not really too far away.  In fact, by this weekend we'll have 60° F weather again for the next 4, or 5 days.

That was pretty much the extent of my work day, but at least I was outside for about an hour, which helped to alleviate the 'cabin fever' that is beginning to become an issue.  I'm an outdoor guy, and I need to be outside soaking up vitamin D, and doing something productive....lol!  This sitting inside for most of the day, every day, is not for the faint of heart.  On the other hand, we've made an appointment with Yavapai Bottle Gas to move our 120 gallon tank to the new site on Tuesday, February 4th, so there is going to be a lot of OUTDOOR activity around here over the next 5 days as we begin to move all the chess pieces around TWW chessboard so we can be ready to move the Newell Tuesday morning, after the propane tank is moved.

Thanks for stopping by!

Snow life.....

7:49 am - Wednesday - January 29th - TWW - 24° F, humidity 92%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 43° F.  The view this morning.....

.....we're actually getting sun pretty early this morning (Wednesday), and the solar array has already tilted toward the rising sun at 8:08 am....a new record.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were having a last dinner with my brother Phil, and his wife Jeannie in Riverside, CA before beginning our full time travel adventure.....

We awoke Tuesday to a winter wonderland at TWW.  The snow ranged in depth from 5-6" around the property.....

5"

.....we weren't expecting any sun Tuesday morning, and expected to run the Predator 5000 for much of the day, but much to our surprise we were getting sun showers by 9:30 am, so I headed out to sweep snow off the 12 ground based solar panels, and the six elevated panels on our Eco-Worthy Dual Axis solar tracker.  By noon time all our battery banks were back to 100%....something we did not expect.

I shoveled a pathway to the house front door, and that was pretty much the extent of my outdoor activity.  By late afternoon a lot of snow had melted, however, it began to snow around 5 pm, and continued snowing until around 8:30 pm.  Think we got about an inch during during that time.

Living in the snow is fun for about 48 hours, but then it begins to get a little inconvenient after that.  By the third day you just want to be able to get outdoors and do something productive, but everything we want to do is more easily done without snow blanketing the entire area.  On the other hand, a snow day is the perfect time to catch up on the many YouTube channels to which I subscribe, and that is what I did for the rest of the day.

As you must surmise, we decided to spend the winter here at TWW (5,500 feet elevation) knowing there was a possibility of snow, and cold temperatures.  We made that decision with our eyes wide open, and have no regrets about that choice.  In fact, our experience here has far exceeded our expectations in many respects.  We would have liked to get our permanent site done more quickly, but it is what it is.  By this time next week we should, barring any unforeseen circumstances, be in our new site.

As I close today's missive the sun is shinning brightly, our batteries are being recharged, and life is good.....

.....thanks for stopping by!

Dichotomy....

7:03 am - Tuesday - January 28th - TWW - 26° F, humidity 80%, wind 2 mph out of the east by southeast.....snowing this morning, and a forecast high for today of 40° F.  The view out our front door this morning.....

.....close to 6" of snow now.  On this date in 2015 we were in Wittmann, AZ at the property of good friends Tom and Darlene McCloud watching an amazing sunrise.....why was I up so early?....

We were expecting snow early Monday morning, but what we got instead was a lot of sunshine.  We had imagined being holed up indoors most of the day, but when you get that much sun you have to be outside doing something, so that is what we did until about 1 pm Monday.  

My first task was to wipe off all the solar panels on the property at ground level....that is about 18 solar panels.  There are 14 on the roof of the CONEX, but I avoid going up there anymore than necessary, and it wasn't necessary to do that Monday.  Next TLE and I preemptively dumped our black tank not know what conditions we would face Tuesday, or Wednesday, and it was about 2/3's full.  Better to dump early, than to do it with snow covered ground.  We did that the winter we were at the Grand Canyon, and it is not a fun process when everything is frozen!

We created 3 new burn piles last week, but were waiting for no wind to light them, and Monday morning was just such a morning....zero wind.....

TLE putting out small grass fires

.....once we had piled on cuttings from the three separate burn piles, and it had burned down to what you see above I left TLE to tend to what was left, and headed over to drive rebar stakes into the ground around our new site, to which I attached two lengths of string running the length of the site on both sides.  To the string I attached 'levels' to see how much more gravel we need to add to the downhill side, or east side of the site, to bring the site closer to level.  I didn't take a picture, but we'll need at least one more bucket of grave on the downhill, or eastern edge of the site.  

By 12 pm the clouds were rolling in, and by 1 pm it began to snow...and it snowed until around 9 pm.....

....fortunately, we got enough sun that all of our battery banks, including the house were at 100% when the snow began.  Tuesday will be a different story, however.  I envision a lot of Predator 5000 run time then.

Monday was certainly a dichotomy.....we went from sunny, balmy weather to heavy snowfall in a matter of hours.  As I write this morning (Tuesday) the snow is still coming down, but very gently.  The forecast is showing partly cloudy this afternoon, but it sure doesn't look promising right now from where I sit....

....thank you for taking the time to stop by today.  Goodbye for now from the very snowy TWW!