Range day.....

 7:20 am - Tuesday - June 30th - LPG&RVR - 54°  F, humidity 34%, cloud cover 2%, wind 12 mph out of the north by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 77° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were overnighting in Sheridan, WY.....

Left to right: 1982 Newell Classic, 1999 Newell and 2002 Newell

....with our friends (Forest/Cindy - middle Newell, and Tom/Darlene - far right Newell) while on our way to Alberta, Canada.

Mondays after a busy weekend means a lot of range balls to harvest. In this case the 55 gallon barrel was virtually empty....

.....the day began slowly with me putting out just 3 of the Club Car electrics.  Ultimately we would rent 13 carts, so that was a pretty slow day for us.

On the other hand I had 17 dirty carts left over from our very busy Sunday to clean, fuel and stow.  By the time that was done it was almost 9:30 am.  I knew from past experience that it would take more than 2 hours to clear the driving range, and woods on either side so I called Claude (off work on Mondays) to see if he was willing to help, and he was.  We began clearing the range at 10 am sharp and finished a little after 11:30 am, so by myself it would have taken close to 3 hours.  We garnered 6 five gallon buckets of balls, each filled to the brim.  By the time we unloaded the buckets from our carts and I filled them with water so they could soak over lunch it was time to give TLE her lunch break.

Unlike Sunday, Monday's lunch break was very unbusy.  I sold 4 rounds of golf, and answered 3 phone calls.  When I headed back outside to work there were only those first three Club Car electrics to clean, so there were still 10 outstanding at 1:30 pm.  I spent the next hour washing and drying those 6 buckets of balls, and still only had the three Club Car electrics to wash, so I washed and stowed them.  By 3 pm there were still 10 carts outstanding so I headed home for a one hour break, returning at 4 pm to find 7 more carts needing their spa treatment.  Within 40 minutes I had them washed and stowed leaving just 3 carts for Steve to wash Tuesday morning.....much, much better than 10!

I then headed down to the 'Night Office' to flip the sign, and post the availability.  TLE opted to walk home after she was done, and was home by 5:15 pm, and thus began our next four day weekend.

There were three round of 32 matches (knockout round - win, or go home) and they were all close games.  The first game between Brazil and Japan was decided by a late goal in 'added time', and the next two matches (Germany v. Paraguay, and Netherlands v. Morocco) both went to 'penalty kicks from the mark'.  Surprisingly, Germany lost 4-3 in 'kicks' to Paraguay (major upset),   and Morocco won 3-2  in 'kicks' over Netherlands.....both big surprises.

Thanks for stopping by!

A cold, blustery day.....

 5:51 am - Monday - June 29th - LPG&RVR - 39° F (!!!), humidity 43%, cloud cover 64%, wind 8 mph out of the north by northwest.....cloudy this morning with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I made a quick stop at Devil's Tower on our way north to Alberta, Canada....

.....this was our first time visiting there....we were there again in 2020 for a couple of days.

Sunday began cold and cloudy and pretty much stayed that way all day long.  I wore my hoody sweatshirt all day long, and as has been the case the first two days of this four day work week, I wore long pants, and a long sleeve shirt.  I was greeted by 16 unwashed golf carts at 7:30 am.  Thankfully, no one was scheduled to tee off until 10 am, so I took my time washing and detailing them, then put them away.  By 9:00 am I was staging carts for the day, and by 9:30 am people were showing up for their 10 am tee times.  I enjoyed being able to take my time cleaning the carts, and even had time to refuel some of them, and used compressed air to blow the dust out of the engine compartments.

Once I was sure TLE had enough carts for the next hour I spent time rolling up the numerous hoses we use to water the dry areas of the parking lot grass, and then the 4 very long hoses we use to water the entire 'Night Office' grass area.  There are two hose bibbs down there to water about an acre of grass, so two of the hoses are close to 200' long, and take quite a while to coil.

By the time I returned to the Clubhouse TLE needed more carts so I staged 10 more carts.  By the end of the day we had rented 25 carts, and by 3:30 pm only 7 of them had returned, so I will have a boatload of carts to wash Monday morning.....it is what it is.

I was home relaxing prior to returning to the Clubhouse to give TLE a ride home when I got a call around 4:40 pm from her advising one of the Yamaha gassers had quit running out at the 10th hole.  The 10th hole is about 700 yards from the Clubhouse, so I called Claude, who was also off work, and asked him to meet me out there so we could tow the disabled cart back to the Cart Return area.  In all it took us about 30 minutes to get the cart towed back to the Clubhouse where I hooked up a charger to the battery for just 5 minutes.  Sometimes the something weird happens in the electrical system, and they act as if the battery is dead, when it is not.  A little extra 'juice' for a few minutes is enough to get them started again, and reset the sytem, and that was the case this time.  This happens once, or twice a month with different Yamahas.  Not quite sure what the issue is, but it is rare, and fixable.

By the time I put away the charger, and extension cord TLE was ready to head for home, and thus ended another LPG&RVR day.  Just one day left in our four day work week, and then the four day weekend begins!

Thanks for stopping by!

Unexpected rain.....

 6:06 am - Sunday - June 28th - LPG&RVR - 40° F, humidity 49%, cloud cover 34%, wind 9 mph out of the north by northwest.....cloudy this morning with a forecast high of 65° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were working the 'CLOSE' shift at the General Store.....

....in Yellowstone NP at Mammoth Hot Springs....the General Store is right next to the hot springs.

There was NO rain in the forecast for Saturday, but that is what we got for the second day in a row....

.....as a result we did not send any golfers out until 9 am when the rain stopped.  After that we put out 25 golf carts.  Just like Friday, I put them out 1, or 2 at a time just in case it began raining again.  Once there was a lull in customer traffic I took a broom and spent about 30 minutes brushing the cobwebs off the wood roof structure on the Clubhouse deck.  That was the easy part.  Then I had to clean off the dining tables, and then sweep the entire deck.

I neglected to mention that I had 13 golf carts to wash/stow left over from Friday, so in between staging golf carts I washed, and stowed those 13 carts.  That took me most of the morning, but I got them done.  Over the course of the morning/afternoon many of them were staged again as golfers continued to come out of the wood work.

By 3:30 pm I had washed/stowed around 13 returning carts, so I'll have a bunch to wash again Sunday morning.  I headed home to change for the weekly putting contest, and was back about 3:55 pm.  I did not put well Saturday, but I managed to last through 4 rounds before being ousted.  As always, we all had a great time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rain day.....

 6:22 am - Saturday - June 27th - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 61%, cloud cover 79%, wind 15 mph out of the northwest.....heavy cloud cover with rain this morning, and a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Keystone, SD.....

....with Tom and Darlene McCloud having ice cream....Keystone is where Mt. Rushmore is.

We were expecting no rain until late afternoon Friday, however, it began the minute we headed over to the Clubhouse to begin our workday, and continued until after 10 am.  A number of folks decided to play in the rain, but most waited for the rain to stop.  By early afternoon we had rented 20 golf carts, but that meant they would be coming back late, and sure enough at 3:30 pm only 11 had returned, meaning I'll have 9 to wash first thing Saturday.

During the day we received noticed from Rochelle, my daughter-in-law that their son, Chris,  and his significant other, Zoey, had had their baby......Lacy May....

....she came in at 10 pounds 5 ounces (!!).....already crawling...no, not really...and 20 inches in length.  Zoey is not a big woman, so this baby was delivered by C Section.  She is already wearing diapers for a 1 month old baby.  Anyway, our third great grand child is here safe and sound, and surrounded by love.

Since it had rained so hard until mid morning there was really no mowing, or trimming to be done until things dry out a little, so I hung around the Clubhouse staging one, or two carts at a time as customers paid for golf.  At that point we weren't sure if the rain was over so no point in pulling out a lot of carts only to get them wet, and have to them away again.

The clouds eventually parted around noon time allowing the sun to begin to dry things out, and that is when most of the golfers went out to play golf.  I was home by 3:30 pm, returning to the Clubhouse just before 5 pm to give TLE a ride home.  It began raining again around midnight, and continues until now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cooling down....

 5:51 am - Friday - June 26th - LPG&RVR - 60° F, humidity 48%, cloud cover 56% (looks higher than that), wind 17 mph out of the west....cloudy today with a forecast high of 72° F.....rain in the forecast for this evening.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Yellowstone National Park....

....getting ready to begin our jobs at the General Store in Mammoth Hot Springs in a couple of days....here we are on a bridge over the Gardiner River.

After not doing much the past couple of days I got ambitious Thursday.  I haven't washed the Beetle in a few weeks, so while it was still cool, I headed outside to do just that.  It took me a good 15 minutes just to clean all of the bugs off the front of the car.  The only thing that works when it gets that bad is one of those 'Magic Erasers'.....

That black grill just below the license plate was chock full of deceased flying insects

.....by the time I finished it was getting warm, but I wasn't done yet.  There have been some nasty hardwater stains in the shower for a long time now, and nothing I've tried would make a dent in them, so I took the same 'Magic Eraser' I used on the VW and went to work in those stains (I've even tried CLR, but it didn't work either).  Much to my dismay, the 'Magic Eraser' did not have the desired effect on those stains.  Next I retrieved a pretty course 'Scotch Brite' from the trailer, and then used it in conjunction with 'Bar Keepers Friend' and that worked....

....it took a lot of 'elbow grease', and about 30 minutes to finally get rid of those hard water stains....that tub hasn't looked that good in a few years, and now I know how to get rid of them.

That was pretty much it work wise for me Thursday.  The weather was warm, and sultry, and not at all comfortable on the 'lido deck' so I spent the balance of the day inside reading, and watching FIFA World Cup soccer.  There were two upsets Thursday.  Germany lost to Equador 2-0, and the USA lost 3-2 to Turkey (I'm sorry, I'm not going to use their new, preferred spelling and pronunciation).  To be fair, the USA and Germany had already 'advanced' to the knock out round, and the USA was playing 9 new players who had not yet played in this World Cup.  The game was tied 2-2 with about 60 seconds to go in 'added time' when Turkey scored the winning goal.

It did cool down to just 85° F Thursday, then on Friday the temp will drop into the very low 70's, and by Saturday we'll see 60° F, and rain if the weather guessers are correct.

For dinner I grilled a couple of filet mignon medallions, to which TLE added a side salad, and a baked potato....delicious!  Time to get ready for the first day of or four day work week (Friday through Monday this time).

Thanks for stopping by!

To the shops.....

 7:40 am - Thursday - June 25th - LPG&RVR - 66° F, humidity 29%, cloud cover 39%, wind 14 mph out of the west by northwest....partly cloudy this morning with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Keystone, SD.....

....courtesy parking near Mt. Rushmore, which you can see in the background.

We needed to make a run into Alturas for our weekly shopping foray, so we designated Wednesday as that day.  We were on the road before 10 am, and in downtown Alturas by 10:20 am.  We had done a pretty big shopping last week, so we made just two shopping stops....Grocery Outlet, and Holiday Market.  TLE found a nice salmon steak on Grocery Outlet which we ended up grilling that evening.  The rest of the shopping was pretty routine, and by a little after 11 am we were heading back down Main Street toward home.  We made another quick stop at 'Java Doc' to acquire a large Mocha Frappuccino for moi....

....they are strictly a drive through affair, which is fine.  I should have taken a picture of the 'large' Mocha Frappuccino....it is enormous, and lasted me all the way home, and another hour after we arrived....life is good!

We were home at exactly 12 noon, and within minutes had all three TV's (salon, outdoor and trailer) tuned into the latest FIFA World Cup matches...yes I said matches.  There were two matches in each of the three timeslots Wednesday....12 pm, 3 pm and 6 pm, so we had double the viewing pleasure.  There were no big surprises Wednesday....the teams we thought would advance to the 'knock out round' with victories, or ties did just that.

I spent most of the afternoon on the 'lido deck' until almost 4 pm before succumbing to the rising heat, and retreating indoors for the balance of the afternoon.  Here in Modoc County at over 5,000' elevation the heat of the day does not arrive until 4, or 5 pm each day, and begins to dissipate pretty quickly after that.  Usually, within a couple of hours it is back into the 70's, so we've got that going for us.

It appears we have another cooling trend arriving tomorrow, Friday, which will see temps dip into the 60's and 70's for the next week plus, only getting back into the 80's after the 4th of July....nice.  In fact we may have rain again  beginning Friday night through Saturday afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Annual service.....

 8:30 am - Wednesday - June 24th - LPG&RVR - 71° F, humidity 25%, cloud cover 75%, wind 13 mph out of the northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 87° F, down from 90° F yesterday.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were visiting Devil's Tower.....

.....in Wyoming.  One of those ubiquitous bucket list items, right?

Something I have not done for over a year is service our two 44 year old A/C units.  That they still work, and work well, is remarkable to me, hence I am remarking.  A service basically consists of removing the filters, cleaning them, and then vacuuming the condenser coils free of lint buildup.  Considering it has been over 12 months they looked pretty clean, but that is the reason we use filters, right?  98% of the time we can only run one unit at a time as it just gets too cold.....

The front A/C....Rotary Duo-Therm Sunchaser XL

These units are no longer in production

....the only time we run both at one time is when it is over 100° F, and then only for an hour, or two during the heat of the day.  Typically, just running the rear A/C unit keeps the salon at a comfortable 76° F.  To be sure they both get exercise on a regular basis TLE will turn on the front A/C when she takes her lunch break on days we work, and it will run for 3, or 4 hours until I get home.

Anyway, that was the extent of my physical activity for the balance of the day.  As has been our habit for the past 10 days we watched more FIFA World Cup soccer matches, or fútbol matches as the rest of the world calls them.

On a side note, with the end of the War with Iran world oil prices per barrel have fallen from a high of $110/barrel to just under $70/barrel as of this morning....down over $3/barrel since Tuesday...

....which means gasoline/diesel prices per gallon should begin to drop, also, which will make our return trip to northern Arizona much more affordable in October.

We normally eat dinner around 5 pm when we are at LPG&RVR, but we wanted to eat alfresco so we delayed our dinner until 7 pm when the temperature would be back down in the mid 8o's, and the sun much lower in the horizon.  TLE made Missouri Pot Roast sandwiches, served on a Kaiser roll.  We invited Claude for dinner, and had a great time as we always do. 

You may not know that Claude and I, when we were much younger, used to do long range, multi day bicycle tours.  I recorded those trips in 'journal' form and posted them on Crazy Guy On A Bike (crazyguyonabike.com).  This link will take you to four of those journals, if you are interested.  Our longest tour was just under 500 miles from Indio, CA to Lone Pine, CA through the Mojave National Preserve, Baker, CA, up through Shoshone, CA, through Death Valley, over the Panamint and White Mountains to Lone Pine, CA....I entitled the journal "Mystical Mojave Meanderings".....check it out....

.....it does not seem that this was 18 years ago, but it was.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's begin the 'LONG' weekend.....

7:47 am - Tuesday - June 23rd - LPG&RVR - 69° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 3%, wind 13 mph out of the west......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were near Spearfish, SD....

....hiking up to Lookout Mountain with David and Denise Zonker, goof friends we met through the Newell users group.

What can I say?  The first day of our four day weekend is always special.  We completely disengage from our workaday life here at LPG&RVR, and just relax.  I rarely, if ever, leave our site on the first day of or long weekend, and this 1st day was no different.  I did a few things around our site, then we turned on the first FIFA World Cup match of the day between Argentina (defending World Cup champs) and Austria.  We expected a competitive game, and that is what we got.  In the end, however, Argentina prevailed 2-0 on two Lionel Messi goals, his fourth and fifth goals of this current World Cup.  I spent the 2nd half of the match in my anti gravity recliner on the 'lido deck' smoking a cigar, and napping.  

Now, to my credit, I did dump and flush our black tank before I even composed yesterday's missive, so I wasn't a total slacker....just a 90% slacker...lol!  Even though the day's high was 90° F, there were balmy breezes flowing through the 'lido deck' most of the day, which lessened the impact of the mid afternoon heat.  I was out there until almost 3 pm before the heat convinced me to choose the cool confines of the air conditioned Newell over the less cool confines of the 'lido deck'.

We had pizza for dinner Sunday night.....pizza from the Clubhouse restaurant.....and might I add further, anchovy pizza.  Sunnie makes the best thin crust pizza!  Anyway, I said that to say this....we had reheated anchovy pizza for dinner Monday night.  I'm kind of on the fence about reheated pizza....I really prefer cold pizza to reheated pizza, but I went along with TLE's desires on this evening, and it was pretty good.....not as good as Sunday night's, but pretty good, nevertheless.

The mosquitoes are still not very bad just 12 days before the 4th of July weekend, which is noteworthy, because they are usually getting bad by now.  I didn't get any mosquito bites during my multi hour sojourn on the 'lido deck'.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fathers Day.....

8:26 am - Monday - June 22nd - LPG&RVR - 68° F, humidity 20%, cloud cover 7%, wind 9 mph out of the northwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE was making breakfast on the 'lido deck' in Tahoe Valley Campground.....

....while we watched the FIFA World Cup on TV in South Lake Tahoe, CA, and today in LPG&RVR we'll be watching FIFA World Cup soccer on our 'lido deck' TV....same stuff, just 12 years later.

Sunday was Fathers Day.  I always look forward to hearing from my kids on Fathers Day, and wishing my two sons, and two sons-in-law happy Father's Day.  This will be my 55th Father's Day in that capacity.  TLE and I had 5 children together....2 boys and 3 girls.  There has never been a day since our first child, Chris, was born that I have regretted having children.  Having children has a deeply positive effect on one's life.  When a man gets married, and has children he is no loner making decisions for himself, and every decision he makes affects 3 or more people depending on how many children you have.  In my case every decision I made affected 7 people.  That is a lot of responsibility.  You no longer live solely for yourself, but for something bigger than yourself.  As I look back over the 55 years of family life I am sobered by how well our children are doing raising families of their own, being apart of a community, working good jobs, etc. I see the values we instilled in each child being manifested daily. We now have 10 grandchildren, and a very, very soon to be 3rd great grandchild.  While we are at the end of adding grandchildren, the number of great grandchildren will continue to grow as our grandchildren mature, find mates, and raise families.  In a couple of weeks TLE and I will fly south to SOCAL to visit our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.  The obligatory pictures will taken of our large extended family, and we will look at those pictures and think "except for TLE and I finding each other no one in those pictures would exist in that family context"....that is very sobering.  Intact families with a mother and a father, and several children are the bedrock of our civilization.  Please do not interpret this as a political, or religious statement....it is not.  It is simply a strong opinion forged over 5+ decades of living life as a father who is still married to the the mother of his children.  While my opinion may be considered anecdotal I believe it is representative of the hundreds of thousands of families just like ours which are also thriving, and building the next generation.

The day began slowly, but by the end we had rented 25 golf carts.  Other than taking care of staging golf carts, and then washing/stowing them I spent time moving sprinklers down at the 'Night Office', and the large grass area in the middle of the parking lot by the Clubhouse.  The grass by the Clubhouse does have automatic sprinklers, but there are spots that get too dry, and need an extra dose of water during the week.   This is due, primarily, to the several juniper trees in middle of the grass area.  Juniper trees require an inordinate amount of water to live, and tend to deprive every other green thing around them of the necessary water to sustain life.  The 'Night Office' grass is a different story....there are NO automatic sprinklers down there, so all watering is done manually, but there are no juniper trees competing for the water.

On the US Open front only three players finished under par....all the rest were even, or over par.  Wyndham Clark began the day at 7 under par, 6 strokes ahead of the nearest competitor, but as the day progressed the lead narrowed to just one as he finished 3 over par for the final round, however, he hung on to win with a four under par final score.  Sam Burns finished second at 3 under par.  Scottie Scheffler finished in fourth place at even par.

I was off work by 3:30 pm, and thus began our next four day 'weekend'.  I returned to the Clubhouse at 5 pm to give TLE a ride home.  As is almost always the case the four work days passed by quickly, and we begin the work of making the next four days pass as slowly as is humanly possible....lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday in the park.....

 5:56 am - Sunday - June 21st - LPG&RVR - 49° F, humidity 39%, cloud cover 6%, wind 9 mph out of the northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 86° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were in Bar Harbor, ME.....

Left to right: Moi, TLE, Stephanie (Hilary's daughter), Bob and Hilary

.....having an alfresco dinner at the Bar Harbor Inn with my sister and her family.

After the rain on Friday, Saturday gave us partly cloudy skies, and temps edging back into the 80's.  I don't normally do any mowing on the weekend, but I was behind due to the rain on Friday, so after staging 10 golf carts I headed out to the course on the 2 bag Husqvarna  to mow around those tee boxes for which I am responsible.  I began with #10, then made a 10 minute drive out to the #3 tee boxes to mow around the pond sides of each tee box, then over to the #16 tee boxes, and finally the #18 tee boxes.  I was back to the Clubhouse a little after 11 am. 

I took about 30 minutes to lube both Husqvarna's, and use compressed air to clear each mowing deck of grass residue, then it was time to give TLE her lunch break.  I answered quite a few phone calls, and checked in a couple of customers to the RV park, and sent out two people to play golf, and with that 90 minutes had passed.

I was done mowing for the day, so headed down to the 'Night Office' to set a few sprinklers to run until 5 pm, and did the same at the large parking lot grass area.  After that I began washing golf carts as they returned, while making periodic trips down to the 'Night Office' to move sprinklers around.  We had about 17 golf carts rented Saturday, and 10 of them had returned by my 3:30 pm quitting time.  

I was signed up for the weekly putting contest to I headed for home to take a quick shower, change clothes and head back to the Clubhouse in time for the 4 pm starting time....

Sitting with good friend Greg Plumlee and his gransdson, Tyson

....I hadn't had a putter in my hand for over two weeks, so I had no idea what to expect, but I surprised myself making it to the 4th round, and the final four (the last round before the final) where I lost to DeWayne Matthews, good friend, fire chief, and rough mower.  I putted about as good as I have putted this year, but DeWayne was hot right off the bat getting a hole in one on the first hole.

Thanks for stopping by!

A 20° drop overnight.....

 6:04 am - Saturday - June 20th - LPG&RVR - 53° F, humidity 66%, cloud cover 18%, wind 11 mph out of the west by southwest.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date sometime in June of 1971 TLE and I were at Manhattan Beach......

....we went to Manhattan Beach every Sunday that summer....we were married August 29th, 1971.

The weather guessers felt we would have rain Friday morning sometime, and as we drove to the Clubhouse to begin our work day it felt, and looked like rain, but you just never know, however, on this day they guessed right.  I had barely staged the first 5 golf carts when it began to sprinkle, which turned into rain, and then into a downpour.  We were not expecting that.  It wasn't until 10 am that we tentatively sent our first golfers out on the course.

Once we knew it was not going to rain anymore I staged 5 more carts, then headed with Claude down to the back in sites along the meadow to trim all 10 sites, as well as along the cart path.  It took us the better part of an hour to trim everything....without Claude it would have taken me until after lunch to get it all done.

I then turned to cleaning the 1/2 bucket of balls I harvested from the driving range Thursday, and by the time I finished it was time for TLE's lunch break.  The 90 minute lunch break was pretty laid back....a few phone calls, and a twosome to play golf.  After lunch I headed back down to the back in sites to mow them, which didn't take that long.  By 2 pm I was finished, and returning to the Clubhouse to begin washing carts.  In all we rented just 10 carts Friday.

After a very hot Thursday (96° F) the temp dropped 20° overnight, which made for a very pleasant work day.  On the FIFA World Cup side of things the USA  won their second match 2-0 over Australia to mark the first time in their World Cup history to win 2 consecutive games.  They are guaranteed to advance out of their pool (D) into the 'knockout round', which means if they lose they will be finished with the tournament.....kind of like 'sudden death'.  For now they have one more 'pool' game before the knockout round.

I was home by 3:30 pm taking a long, hot shower, then a nap before returning to the Clubhouse at 5 pm to retrieve TLE.....thanks for stopping by!

Higher than high.....

 5:54 am - Friday - June 19th - LPG&RVR - 63° F, humidity 52%, cloud cover 79%, wind 9 mph out of the west by northwest.....cloudy skies this morning with a forecast high of 77° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were taking our first tour of Yellowstone National Park.....

....here we are near the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance to YNP.

Our first day of our four day work 'week' was hot, hot, hot!  The forecast high was 91° F, but it got closer to 96° F.  I'm barely getting used to temps in the high 80's on work days, and I was not ready for 96° F physically, or mentally.  There weren't many folks signed up for golf Thursday, and ultimately we rented 13 carts.  After staging the first 10 I headed out to the driving range to clear it of range balls.....Monday's and Thursday's we mow the driving range.  Usually I don't clear it that early (9:30 am), but it was going to be hot, and I wanted to be done well before lunch time.  In all I garnered about 2.5 gallons of balls, which is not much, but I was able to clear the range in about 45 minutes....nice!

After that I had planned to mow the employee sites, and I eventually did, but Claude needed help repairing his Husqvarna string trimmer.  Three of the screws which attach a plastic guard to the bottom of the motor had stripped out the holes in the aluminum casting so they needed to be re-tapped.  I have both metric and SAE tap and die kits.  The screws being used are metric, but the holes into which they are inserted were virtually threadless, so we needed to use a larger tap to rethread the holes, meaning we needed slightly larger screws.  We found some suitable screws (SAE) matched them to the proper tap (12/24's), then rethreaded the holes.  The new, larger diameter SAE screws worked perfectly.  We used a little Loctite on the screws to keep them from vibrating loose again.  In all it took about 35 minutes to effect the repair, but we were successful.

Claude was going to trim around the employee sites so I could mow, but since his trimmer was out of use for a few hours to allow the Loctite to dry sufficiently, I used another trimmer to get the job done finishing just a few minutes before TLE's lunch break.  Right now she is beginning her lunch break at 11:30 am each day, and returning at 1 pm....that give me 2.5 hours to get everything done in the afternoon which needs doing.  First up was to mow the employee sites, which I finished in about 30 minutes, then it was time to begin washing/stowing the 13 carts we had rented.  There were 8 to begin with, and as I continued washing and stowing the rest arrived.

I was moving pretty slowly due to the heat, and taking frequent water breaks to get out of the sun.  By the time I finished stowing the final cart I was beat, and it was 3:30 pm, so I headed for home to take a coolish shower before retiring to my recliner for a nap before returning to the Clubhouse at 5 pm to pickup TLE.  As I write this morning I am still feeling the effects of the heat on Thursday, bur delighting in the fact that today the temp will only be 77° F.

Thanks for stopping by!

Typical....

 5:56 am - Thursday - June 18th - LPG&RVR - 54° F, humidity 27%, cloud cover 48%, wind 9 mph out of the west by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 92° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Yellowstone National Park.....

Standing by the 45th Parallel sign on the Gardiner River

Same location three years earlier - 2017

....standing by the 45th Parallel sign along the Gardiner River near the North Entrance....cold, and rainy in 2020, and hot, hot, hot in 2017.

Once again we slept until after 7 am.  It was to be another low 90's day, and there was no reason to begin the day any earlier.  It was also another day in which I did not leave our site (#55) all day long.  TLE did twice, but not moi.  We began the day watching FIFA World Cup soccer, and ended the day watching FIFA World Cup soccer.....aka: Football in the rest of the world.  There was only one draw (tie) out of the four matches, with all the other matches having winners.

On the international front the war with Iran has come to a conclusion, and the price of oil is falling like a brick down from $110/barrel in late May to $75/barrel on Wednesday, so fuel prices for our trip back south in October should be back in the normal range by that time.  It cost us over $800 in diesel to make the trip back to Likely in late April, but should only cost us in the neighborhood of $400 in October for the trip south.

Other than that it was a typical day four of our four day weekend.  One notable thing is in spite of the warm weather the mosquitoes are not too bad.  I think I got one mosquito bite in the last four days sitting on the 'lido deck' watching World Cup soccer.  No doubt they will get worse in the next two weeks as we head into the 4th of July weekend.  Time to get ready for the first of four days of work....thanks for stopping by!

The Rubio's itch.....

 7:46 am - Wednesday - June 17th - LPG&RVR - 67° F, humidity 19%, cloud cover 9%, wind 10 mph out of the north by northwest.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 92° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were dry camped at La Duke Springs Campground on the banks of the Yellowstone River....

The Yellowstone River is in the background

.....and frolicking in Yellowstone Hot Springs.  The hot springs were a 2 minute walk from the campground.  You can see Claude's Wanderlodge to the right of our Newell.

For the 3rd consecutive day we slept until after 7 am....just because we can.  Tuesday promised to be the hottest day of the week if the forecast high of 95° F was realized.  We left for our weekly shopping run around 10:15 am arriving in Alturas around 10:45 am at the ACE Hardware to buy a couple of things, then over to Dollar General to buy a few more things, and finally Holiday Market to do the main shopping.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it previously, but Holiday Market is an employee owned chain of grocery stores numbering around 21 as I write.  Their area of operation is Northern California.  There are three grocery stores in Alturas (four if you count Dollar General, but I don't), but we prefer to do the bulk of our grocery shopping at Holiday Market as they have the largest selection, and are always well stocked.

On our way out of town we stopped at Rubio's Taqueria, the go to place for street tacos in Alturas.  Their street tacos, in our never to be humble opinion, are in the top two or three we have had anywhere in the lower 48 contiguous states.  TLE ordered two of their pollo street tacos (chicken), and I three of their carne asada street tacos with rice and beans.  Once we had secured our orders we headed over to the city park next to eat them at one of the shaded picnic tables.....

Do we look like were are in the middle of our 77th trip 

around the sun?  I think not!

....it is truly the simple things in life which make life good.....a shaded picnic table, Rubio's street tacos, and The Lovely Elaine at your side.  As we sat there savoring every single bite we talked about this and that as we always do, occasionally commenting on how perfectly seasoned those street tacos are, and how fresh everything tasted....nothing out of bottles, or cans except for  the Dr. Pepper and bottle of water....lol.

Around 11:30 am, with our Rubio's street taco itch suitably scratched, we headed back to LPG&RVR to stow our purchases and spend the balance of the day watching World Cup matches, all of which were very entertaining.  France, Norway, Austria and Argentina won their matches handily.  Messi (Argentina - the defending World Cup champions) had a hat trick in the match with Algeria, which were all the goals Argentina scored on this day, so Argentina is off to a good start defending their championship.  The final match between Austria and Jordan ended around 11 pm, and we were heading to slumberland shortely thereafter.

Thanks for stopping by!

Shortest passing lane.....

 7:50 am - Tuesday - June 16th - LPG&RVR - 66° F, humidity 19%, cloud cover 11%, wind 12 mph out of the northwest....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 95° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I returned to Gardiner, MT to visit with Kristen Dodge with whom we worked at the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store back in 2017.....

....she was working at the 'Two Bit Saloon' in Gardiner.  We had a great reunion which included a couple of brews, and a Ruben sandwich.

Between Likely, CA and Alturas, CA there is what I believe is the shortest passing lane in the USA.  This is not hyperbole.  It is so short that as soon as you can enter the passing lane there is a sign right there saying 'DO NOT PASS'.  All of the signs announcing the passing lane to the 'DO NOT PASS' sign are within 100' of each other....here is the sequence.....

In this photo you can see the series of four signs....you can see where the passing lane begins ahead on the left side of the picture 

.....I'm not sure why this passing lane is even here. By the time it is legal to enter the passing lane you see the 'RIGHT LANE ENDS' sign, and a few feet further the 'DO NOT PASS' sign.  This passing lane is located about 2 miles north of Likely, CA on the southbound side of US-395.  I thought when they repaved this section of highway last summer they would eliminate this passing lane, but they did not....lol.

Once again, on day two of our four day weekend, I did not leave out site.  TLE and I watched four more FIFA World Cup matches.  All of them were ties (0-0, 1-1, 1-1 and 2-2).  The 0-0 match was between the SMALLEST country in the World Cup, Cape Verde (never heard of it---population is 530,000), and Spain, the team favored to win the 2026 World Cup.  Spain could have scored 5 goals in the first half, but the Cape Verde goalie repelled every shot on goal.  Because of the 'David verses Goliath' feel to the match it was one of the best matches we have ever seen.  Spain controlled the ball 76% of the time, basically playing the entire game inside Cape Verde's third of the field, and yet this tiny country somehow earned a point (each team in a draw gets one point).  Most of the matches in this World Cup have been competitive with only two, or three being one sided affairs.

I was able to remain outside on the 'lido deck' until almost 2 pm when the temp hit 88° F on its way to a high of 91° F.  We'll probably head into town on Tuesday for our weekly shopping foray, but for now just hanging out at our site is perfect.  Today, Tuesday, we will see the highest high of the week....95° F, and then by Friday we'll be under 80° F again.

Thanks for stopping by!

'Lido deck' time.....

 7:58 am - Monday - June 15th - LPG&RVR - 69° F, humidity 16%, cloud cover 7%, wind 10 mph out of the north by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 93° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I arrived at the RV park in Gardner, MT where we would spend the summer living....

....while working at the General Store in Mammoth Hot Springs, WY.  It was about a 15 minute drive to work.  The park is right on the Yellowstone River, which you can see in the right background.

When the weather allows I pretty much spend the first day of our four day weekend ensconced in my anti gravity chair on the 'lido deck', and Sunday was no different.....

.....there were 4 televised FIFA World Cup matches on Sunday, and we watched them all.  I watched them all mostly on the 'lido deck'.  Of course, there were 2, or 3 nice naps thrown in for good measure.  As is also often the case TLE and I slept in until well after 7 am.  I do not believe I left our site the entire day, or even interacted with anyone from the park.  After four days of almost non-stop social interaction on the job I need at least a day to decompress, and clear my head.

We're finally in the part of the summer when we no longer need to turn on heaters first thing in the morning to make the Newell interior hospitable.  In fact, we leave all the windows open all night.  The only time they get closed now is when we turn on the A/C.  The high temp Sunday was 91° F, and the next three days will get progressively hotter until Friday when it drops back into the low 80's for a few days.

Around 5 pm TLE had me light the Sea-B-Que so I could grill another steak.  While the steak was grilling I rolled out our new, red perimeter rope lights.  We've been using bright white rope lights for the past several years, and they are really bright at night, which is their purpose.  They keep the rodents at bay, and literally out of the various basement bays we have.  That being said, they are really too bright for our neighbors so I am experimenting with rope lights of the red variety to see if that mutes the brightness somewhat.  We ate our dinner in the airconditioned confines of the Newell as it was too hot at 5:30 pm to be outdoors.

Around 9 pm I went outside to see how the new red rope lights looked....

.....in the first picture you can see the contrast between the new red rope lights and the bright white section that runs under the VW to keep out pack rats.  In m opinion, the red lights are less glaring, and the light does not carry as far as the bright white lights, but should provide the same rodent repelling qualities as the brighter lights....we'll see.  All in all, the first day of our four day weekend was pretty much perfect.

Thanks for stopping by!