Winter won't let go....

 7:38 am - Thursday - April 3rd - TWW - 33° F, humidity 77%, wind 4 mph out of the southwest......partly cloudy this morning with a forecast high of 47° F.  We had a dusting of snow overnight....

.....but it will be melted within the hour.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were enjoying the Pacific Ocean  at Vandenberg  Surf Beach near Vandenberg Air Force Base (outside of Lompoc, CA)....

....partaking in some vino and cheese.  One of my favorite memories from the past 13 years.

Wednesday began cold, and blustery, and continued that way all day long.  I didn't even change into my work clothes, although I did do some work continuing to organize the trailer for eventual liftoff on the 20th.  I moved a lot more stuff from the trailer to the garage for storage over the summer, and a few things from the garage back to the trailer such as our anti gravity chairs.  

Charles and Phyllis arrived around 1 pm for their two day stay this week, so we'll be on our own this weekend.  I decided to use the Central Machinery band saw, for the first time, that came with the CONEX when Phyllis bought the property a year ago this month.  I wanted to cut some of that angle aluminum I bought in Flagstaff into smaller 2.5" long pieces to use to brace the two 300 amp hour Cloud Energy batteries in place in the battery bay, so they will not move when we travel.  I needed to change the band saw blade to one that would cut metal, and it took me a while to figure out how to do that, but after an hour, or so I had the new band saw blade installed, and had the 4 pieces of angle aluminum cut within 5 minutes.  At least, now, I know how it works, and how to adjust it....

....an speaking of things I did in the CONEXT Wednesday, I also installed a new shop light.....

....it is a 4' LED shop light, and is perfect for the space.  By the time I finished in the CONEX it was getting close to our 3:30 pm dinner time, so I cleaned up, and put my tools away. TLE made a casserole for dinner including a side salad.  Charles provided the wine, and as always, a good time was had by all....good food, and conversation is always a great way to end another day at TWW. 

We were hoping to get a second coat of paint on the greenhouse this week, but with wind, and then the under 50° F days it has not been done.  The weather continues to be uncooperative adding snow/rain overnight, and sub 50° F temp days Wednesday and Thursday.  We do think we can get the old water heater out of its cubbyhole, and the new one in place Thursday before the rains returns for the afternoon.  

We are coming into a warming trend again.....

.....so we should be able to get a lot more done after Friday....we'll see.  We've got a few more very cold overnight lows still to come, but then things take a turn for the better!

Thanks for stopping by!

A fortuitous decision......

 7:17 am - Wednesday - April 2nd - TWW - 35° F, humidity 52%, wind 10 mph out of the south....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 46° F.  Was supposed to be raining this morning, but now it might rain late this afternoon for an hour.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were at Seal Rocks RV Cove, OR enjoying the morning view of the Pacific Ocean from our 'lido deck'.....

....an unusually dry, clear day for April on the Oregon Coast.

We had a need to restock our pantry, so we headed for Flagstaff around 10:00 am to do just that.  Of course, any visit to Flagstaff means a stop at Savers Thrift Store, which has to be our favorite thrift store ever.  I'm pretty sure we have never left that store without something with which we could not live....lol.  We arrived at Savers around 11:30 am, and spent the better part of an hour browsing.  TLE found a couple of Skorts (shorts/skirt), a flannel shirt, and a couple of dresses.  I found a 'T' square, another pair of suspenders (Duluth Trading), a battery powered clock for the trailer, and three shirts (2 long sleeve, and one short sleeve).  With it being Seniors Day (10% discount), 3 items with 'yellow tags (50% off marked price), and the 30% discount coupon in our digital account there we saved over $47 off their always great prices.

Next we headed to the local Home Depot, which is just 3 blocks from Savers, to restock a few of my trailer supplies (things I keep on hand all the time).  I bought 1 gallon cans of Acetone, Naphtha (mineral spirits), WD-40, as well as some angle aluminum, masking tape, and two sided tape.  My inventory of all these items was near zero.  Additionally, I bought an LED shop light for the CONEXT, and 1 gallon jugs of coolant and 15-40w motor oil for our truck.

From there we had planned to head to 'The Lumberyard' Brewing Company for a latish lunch, but decided to do our food shopping first at Fry's, then head to lunch around 2 pm.  That turned out to be a very fortuitous decision. Why?  Well, when we exited the store a little after 2 pm it was snowing quite hard, so we aborted the lunch, and headed directly to I-40 to get down to a lower altitude ASAP!  We almost always defer grocery shopping to the last thing we do before we head home since we are often buying produce, and other perishable items needing refrigeration in a short amount of time.  Within a few miles the snow had stopped, and we were back into sunshine, and mostly clear skies.  We arrived back at TWW without incident around 3:45 pm to, again, mostly clear skies, and lots of sun....completely different weather than Flagstaff.

Thanks for stopping by!

No April fools here....

 7:40 am - Tuesday - April 1st - TWW - 41° F, humidity 49%, wind 13 mph out of the west by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 53° F, and a low of 30° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were having coffee at Cafe Dolce in Solvang, CA.....

It's been about a week since I completed the installation of the two new Cloud Energy Lithium batteries, and it was time to remove and replace the old Blue Sky Charge Controller with the new Victron MPPT 100 I 30 Bluetooth enabled charge controller.  The old Blue Sky charge controller is located in the right front corner of the coach next to TLE passenger seat, and that space is not conducive to old 75 year old bodies contorting themselves to fit and work without some difficulty.  Granted, there were only two screws affixing the old charge controller to the wall, and four screws holding the four large gauge wires (two from the solar panels, and two from the battery bay) in place, so how hard could it be?  Well, as it turned out, it was not that difficult at all.   I think TLE spent more time moving stuff out of the way that she stores there when we're stationary, than I spent making the changeover.....

The new Victron charge controller installed

.....one of the reasons I chose Victron is they offer Bluetooth, which enables me to monitor the state of charge from anywhere on the property.  Full charge on the Cloud Energy batteries is considered to be 14.2 volts.....right now (this morning before the sun has fully risen, they are at 13.36 volts with 81 watts of solar input.....that input will rise steadily throughout the morning as the sun rises into the sky to just under 400 watts.....

....the old Blue Sky charge controller was about twice the size of the new Victron.....

.....and for the first time in 13 years the Blue Sky digital monitor has gone 'dark'.....

.....to check the state of charge with the old monitor I had to be in the coach to read the display, now I can check remotely, and that is a big deal for us.  In all it took me 30-40 minutes beginning to end to make the switch, and another 15 minutes to download the Victron Connect app, and set the charge parameters.

TLE and I spent the balance of Monday moving some of our stored clothing (we have garment bags in the trailer with our extra/seasonal clothing) into one of the closets in the 3 bedroom house, and some other stuff from the trailer to the garage.  Our trailer will be much, much lighter when we hit the road in a few weeks.  Counting the weight of all the stuff we have removed from the trailer and Newell, and stored in the garage I would say we are down close to 1,000 pounds.  Just removing those two flooded cell 8d batteries probably saved over 300 pounds, plus we won't be hauling the Bluetti battery bank (three batteries weighing in a just under 300 pounds) back to Likely. We will be taking the Bluetti that powers the trailer, however.  Plus we won't be hauling the pancake compressor, or fireplace with us....they will stay here.  We have access to an air compressor in Likely, if we need one, and we cannot have wood burning firepits there, either, so no point in carrying around that extra weight, right?

Life is good, and that old, familiar 'hitch itch' is beginning to rear its head.  It has been a wonderful winter here at TWW with much accomplished, and still much to be done, but it is time to be moving again.  There is no sense of urgency here at TWW, and we just do what we're able to do each day, and let that suffice.  We're making great progress, and just living life in the moment.

Thanks for stopping by!

Change of disposition.....

 8:23 am - Monday - March 31st - TWW - 54° F, humidity 40%, wind 20 (?....hardly a breath of wind right now) mph.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 66° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were dining at Solvang Brewing Company in Lompoc, CA.....

.....a very cool, funky place.  We were staying a the Lompoc Elks Lodge for a few days.

When Charles and Phyllis left for their drive  back to Phoenix around 9 am it was very cold, and blustery.  It did not appear that we would be doing anything outdoors.  Then the clouds parted around 10 am, and everything changed for the better.  We went from preparing to be indoors all day, to making plans to drive into Seligman to pickup our mail, do some laundry, buy some produce, and stop off at the new coffee shop (Cottage Bakery) we visited a few weeks ago.  It' amazing how a little sunshine can change your entire disposition.

We've been doing our laundry in the house until a few days ago when a large leak appeared on the pressure side of the house water pump, so until that is fixed we're back to doing laundry in town.  However, we only wash the clothes in town, and then bring them home to dry in the house dryer.  

We arrived in Seligman around 11:00 am, stopping first at the Post Office to get our Amazon package from one of the parcel lockers.  While I retrieved the package, TLE walked next door to Family Dollar to buy a few things, then we headed directly to Seligman Laundromat to put in two loads of wash (takes 34 minutes to wash the clothes), then walked around the corner to Cottage Bakery for some coffee.  Brian (the guy who did the welding for me) was running the shop on this day.  Business has been good, according to him, and that makes us happy.  We sat sipping our Sumatra coffees while talking with Brian, and another customer for about 30 minutes before heading back to the laundromat to retrieve our now clean clothes.  After putting the clothes back in the car we went next door to buy the aforementioned produce, then headed for home where we arrived without incident around 12:30 pm.

After taking time to refill our fresh water tank from our 275 gallon IBC water tote (we needed over 100 gallons to refill the tank), I spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around in the trailer while watching the final round of the PGA's Texas Children's Houston Open, and then some more 'March Madness' basketball.  The Final Four roster is now set.....all four #1 seeded teams made it to the final four this year....Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn.  That hasn't happened for many, many years.

Well, it is March 31st as I write, and tomorrow will be the first day of April, meaning we have less than 3 weeks until we haul anchor.  We've got a mixed bag of weather this week with temps in the 40's, and rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, then the sun will return, and temps will back into the 70's and 80's next week.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Digging through Caliche......

 7:33 am - Sunday - March 30th - TWW - 47° F, humidity 33%, wind 8 mph out of the south.....cloudy today with a chance of rain, and a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were running the zip line course at "Out of Africa" near Cottonwood, AZ.....

Well, doing any spray painting this weekend has been taken off the schedule by the daily winds we've had the past few days, so we did the only other thing we could do.....dig post holes for the new posts to which we will affix the new 6 foot welded fencing that will surround our refurbished greenhouse.  As you know, digging any holes here over 12 inches in depth means you must contest with Caliche rock (a soluble accumulation of calcium carbonate which is found in arid, and semi arid areas such as Arizona and West Texas).  We knew we would have our work cut out for us since these post holes had to be dug to a minimum of 24 inches in depth. We needed to dig 5 of these holes, and managed to get 3 of them dug before we had to head into town to get more water.....

The post in the distance (northwest corner), and the post in the foreground had lots of Caliche rock through which to dig.  You can see the white Caliche rock dust next to the post hole.

The post hole at the southwest corner of the greenhouse plot had NO Caliche rock, and took about half the time to dig as the other two.

......we have two posthole diggers so Charles and I were able to dig two holes at the same time.  The going was tough, as expected, but we had the first two holes dug in about an hour.  While Charles went to hookup his truck to the water trailer I began to dig the third hole.  Surprisingly, there was NO Caliche rock in the third hole, and I had it done in about 30 minutes with Phyllis' help (when I was digging with the posthole digger she held the pry bar, and when I used the pry bar she held the posthole digger....saved me from having to bend over to pick them off the ground....every little bit helps!  Thank you Phyllis!).

After digging two post holes I was ready to head to the water station with everyone to acquire 1800 more gallons of water....we've been going through a lot of water lately!  We were there an back in a little over an hour, at which time I helped Charles pump the 1800 gallons of water into the upper tank at the water tower.  We use a Predator (Harbor Freight) water pump to transfer the water from the IBC water totes to the tower, and it is actually faster to transfer the water to the tower, than to fill the tanks at the water station....that little water pump really moves water quickly!  By the time we finished I was ready to change clothes, watch a little golf, and take a nap!

By the way, our little orchard of fruit/nut trees are beginning to bloom, and leaf out very quickly in the warming weather....

Around 3:30 pm TLE had me light the Sea-B-Que in preparation for grilling two large Top Sirloin steaks we've had in the freezer for a while.  TLE and Phyllis prepared cream cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers for an appetizer, side salads, and baked potatoes to go with the steaks, which turned out great....

The stuffed/wrapped jalapeños are kind of hidden behind my wine glass (Pinot Noir - Sonoma), but you can see a few of them on my plate

Medium rare....just like we like them!

.....of course, we're down to the 'Elite Eight' in this year's installment of 'March Madness', and there were two games being played Saturday.  The first, between #3 seed Texas Tech and #1 seed Florida Gators was a great game, and came down to the last 3 minutes, at which time Texas Tech was up by 10 points.  It seemed like they had a 'lock' on the game, but they managed to come from ahead to finish down by 5 points as time expired.  There is a chance that all four #1 seeds will make it to the Final Four this year.....I don't remember the last time that happened.  There will be two more 'Elite Eight' games on Sunday, which will tell that tale.

Thanks for stopping by!

The best news!!!

 7:26 am - Saturday - March 29th - TWW - 42° F, humidity 38%, wind 8 mph out of the south.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I (during our first year on the road, and our first time in Cedar Key) were watching another sunset in Cedar Key, FL.....

.....it was, and is still such a magical place, even after being hit by three hurricanes in the last 5 years.  Our last visit there was back in December of 2018.....can it really have been almost 6.5 years since we were there last?

We had plans to accomplish a lot on the greenhouse Friday, including spraying on the second coat of paint, but the wind had other ideas.  By mid morning, just about the time it had gotten warm enough to begin painting, the winds freshened into the 20's, and dashed any hopes of painting.  It was even too windy to properly mask in, and cover the 2 windows and glass door to protect them from the inevitable overspray.  Charles and I did manage to uproot, and remove a small tree that was in the way of the new fence line for the greenhouse using the Ford 420 loader bucket, and then pruned a couple of other trees back for the same purpose, so it wasn't a total waste of time. It appears weather conditions on Saturday will be more conducive to spray painting.

After pulling the small tree out of the ground Charles asked me to take the tractor out to the entrance to level the area right in front of our entrance.  You will recall that I dragged the whole access road the other day, but the area where he needs to swing wide with the water trailer to enter the gate was a little off canter.  And that is where the day really took a nose dive.  Just after I finished grading that area the tractor sprung a large coolant leak at the rear of the engine, so we had to put it away quickly.  Looks like a rear engine seal has failed, or something....bummer!!!  

With it too windy to do much outside I kept myself busy finishing the cleaning of that Coleman grill, and when it became too windy to do even that I headed inside to watch golf for a while before dinner at 4 pm.  TLE and Phyllis made corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage for our communal dinner....I wish I had taken a picture....lol.  

We're headed back into the 50's for about 5 days before it warms up into the 70's again, and about a week of overnight lows in the 30's before it warms back into the 40's, and 50's at night.  By the 1st we'll begin, in earnest, packing for our trip back north for the summer.  Our days at TWW are now quite finite, and we're about to change our view again, without going through escrow.

On my left shoulder front....instead of doing the three hour round trip drive Friday to Flagstaff to review my MRI results in person, I arranged for a video conference with David Brown, PA.  The original appointment was for 8:15 am in Flagstaff, meaning we would have had to leave TWW around 6 am to be there on time.  The video appointment was still for 8:15 am, but I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to keep it.  As I suspected, the MRI showed I have advanced arthritis in my left shoulder, and a very small tear in the rotator cuff.  PA Brown advised by the time most men get to my age they have some sort of rotator cuff damage.  Since full range of motion has returned, and I have NO pain he recommended no further treatment unless things take a turn for the worse.  That, my friends, was the best news possible!  Of course, he recommended I start acting my age, and not pretending I'm 19 to avoid future pain....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

More road work.....

 6:59 am - Friday - March 28th - TWW  - 53° F, humidity 35%, wind 9 mph out of the south.....heavy overcast this morning with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were overnighting in Kinards, SC on our way to Ashville, NC....

After making that run in the Rhino out to the east/west arterial early Thursday morning to video the work I had done, I realized that TLE and I would need to take a couple of rock rakes out there to smooth out a few areas, plus fill in some holes, and remove some large rocks that the Gannon dislodged.  After finishing my latest missive TLE and I did just that.  Imagine raking 1/2 mile of dirt road...lol!  The first 200 yards needed a lot of work, but things sped up after that and soon we were back at TWW cooling down, and proclaiming we were done, workwise, the the day.  In all we spent around 2 hours raking, and smoothing.  Some of the dislodged rocks were so large it took TLE and I to move them off the road.  Well, that's a bunch of rocks I won't have to dislodge with a pry bar at a later date!

After resting in the cool confines of our Newell for a while I decided to dive into a small project I've been putting off for too long.  When we arrived at TWW back in October we found an old, neglected Coleman gas grill in the garage which was totally encrusted with grease, and seemed to be destined for the trash, but I had just ordered a steam cleaner on Amazon to use to clean the fins on our rear facing radiator from time to time, and thought it would be able to do the job, so I set the grill aside for another day.  Additionally, there was an old diesel container that was still in pretty good shape, but had been sitting outdoors with a lot of gunk inside it.  Once again I thought the steam cleaner would clean it out, and make it usable again, so I put about a 1/2 gallon of diesel in it to help loosen some of the gunk, and set it aside for another day. Well, that day finally arrived...lol!

The Coleman grill needs a little more work, but it is 1,000% better than when I began to steam clean it

All you need is a bucket of water, plug in the unit, and within seconds you've got pressurized steam....so simple to use

....once again, the land provides.  I had an extra pour spout, and vent cap, so now I've got an extra diesel can.

TLE made cornbread, and chili for our communal dinner with Charles and Phyllis.  They arrived sometime after 1 pm when I was in the middle of steam cleaning.  We ate around 3:30 pm.  They'll be here until Sunday, I think.

I spent the evening watching the 'Sweet Sixteen' round of the NCAA 'March Madness' basketball tournament.  There were no upsets, so four of the higher seeded teams have now advanced to the 'Elite Eight' to be played this weekend.  There will be four more games to complete the 'Sweet Sixteen' round on Friday.  The game between Arkansas (#10 seed in their pool) and Texas Tech (#3 seed in their pool) was the only game on Thursday with a chance of an upset.  Arkansas led by as many as 16 points at one time, but Texas Tech slowly clawed their way back into the game, tying it as regulation time expired.  Texas won in overtime by 2 points....what a comeback!  My brother-in-law, Glenn, who attended Texas Tech will be happy.

Thanks for stopping by!