The end.....

 8:09 am - Sunday - October 4th - LPG&RVR - 56° F, humidity 20%, cloud cover 62%, wind 6 mph out of the south....mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were near Coupeville, WA.....

....staying on the property of Bob and Karen F....long time college friends.  We had been there a year before, and found out that their John Deere loader/backhoe had quit running a few months earlier.  I promised him then (2020) that we would return and help him get it running again.  It took about 5 days to figure out why it wouldn't run (a shorted wire to the fuel shut off solenoid), but we did get it running, and operating again.

Well, I owe you posts about Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  These days were the final four days of our season here at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort, and there is a certain sameness about workdays, so I will recap each day in this single post.

Wednesday, September 30th - 

We decided ahead of time that we would not be getting up at 5:30 am for any of the final 4 work days.  Instead, we decided to sleep in until 6, or 6:15 am. People were not going out to golf until after 9 am, and sometimes not until 10 am as it is just too cold until then.  I chose not the write the blog those four days as it takes me about 45 minutes, and I didn't want to rush around to get ready after writing the blog.  We were on our way over to the Clubhouse by 7:45 am each day instead of the usual 7:20 am....that extra 25 minutes was nice.

We ultimately rented 11, or 12 carts Wednesday.  Instead of being off work by 3:20 pm, I was off work at 3:45 pm.  It was a routine day, but there was no mowing, no trimming, just staging carts, and doing busy work most of the day.  I did spend time in the trees on each side of the driving range clearing those balls as has been my habit the last month, or so.  While I was walking around shagging those balls the thought came to me that this was to be our last season here at LPG&RVR.  

TLE and I had been discussing a 6th summer, and going back and forth most of the summer, but this moment of clarity settled it for me.  After finishing clearing the woods of range balls I headed back to the Clubhouse to tell TLE what I was thinking.  Pretty much, without any hesitation, she agreed that is was time to end our tenure, and refocus our efforts to finish the work at The Wilson Wilderness, and live out the rest of our days there.

I took a ride around the course one more time to take some final pictures just before TLE's daily lunch break.....

....I will miss this view!

Thursday, October 1st - 

Again, we rented 10-12 carts over the course of the day, and around 10:30 am I headed out to the driving range to clear it for the final time this year.  As I walked around shagging the balls off the driving range I began to come to terms with our decision, and felt better and better about our decision to give our notice that we would not be returning for a sixth summer season.  All that remained was to inform Dennis and Kellie Tate of our decision, and that was the hard part.  They were not around most the day, so I decided that Friday would be the day to give our notice.

Once again, I was off work by 3:45 pm, returning around 4:50 pm to get the availability from TLE, and any envelopes for late arrivals (after 5 pm) to post down at the Night Office, plus flip the sign.  By the time I returned TLE was outside waiting for her ride home.

Friday, October 2nd - 

We were at work by 7:45 am once again.  Around 8:30 am Dennis arrived at the Clubhouse, so I walked over to give him the news of our decision.  It has been a privilege to work for Dennis and Kellie these past 5 summers.  They have both been so gracious, supportive and appreciative during the past five summers that I really hated to disappoint them.  They, of course, knew about 40 acre off grid property at which we've been working the past two winters, so didn't seem too surprised at our decision.  I then headed over to Claude's Wanderlodge to give him the news.  As you may recall he visited us here the second and third summer we were here, and loved where we lived, so much so, that he applied for a job here beginning with our 4th summer here.

We rented 15, or 16 carts Friday, and I stayed pretty busy all day long.  TLE got a call from one of our customers that their Yamaha cart had died at the 12th tee boxes, so I picked up another Yamaha and headed out to trade carts with them so they could finish their round, hoping I could get it running, but I was not successful, so I called Claude to come out and tow me back to the Clubhouse.  He was there in less than 15 minutes, and we were back at the Clubhouse 10 minutes later.  As it turns out the no maintenance battery had given up the ghost.

Friday was also the 60th birthday of good friend Duke Golden.  I met Duke our first summer here.  I was driving down the row of back in sites one day and saw him setting up his Starlink for the first time.  Since I had been thinking about getting Starlink I stopped to talk with him.  We had an immediate connection, began our friendship, and over the course of the next two summers golfed a few times with he and his wife Cindy.  I will miss seeing them every day each summer.  Anyway, they hosted his birthday party at the Clubhouse restaurant Friday night, and what a turnout there was!  Since we had an early workday (out last) Saturday we bid our adieus around 7:30 pm, and headed for home.

Saturday - October 3rd - My 77th birthday - 

In order to be sure that I would be able to wash and stow as many golf carts as I could Saturday, our last day, I worked a normal 8 to 5 day.  I gave TLE a one hour lunch break, then took mine around 1:30 pm, returning to the Clubhouse around 2:30 pm to begin washing as many of the 24 golf carts we had rented.  By 5 pm I had washed and stowed all but 11 of them, so Steve will have those carts to wash and stow on Sunday, the final day of the season.

Joel and Donna Nagy, also good friends, hosted an end of he season party at their site beginning at 5:30 pm.  I didn't arrive until after 6 pm as I needed to take a shower and a nap.  The 89° F heat Saturday really took it out of me.  As I arrived I was greeted with birthday greetings, and a birthday Bloody Mary from Joel and Donna.....I love Bloody Marys!  By the time I arrived most people knew we not returning next summer, so I spent time talking with the many friends we have made here over the years.  It was the perfect ending for our 5th summer season, but also very bitter sweet.  Pretty soon it was just Joel, Donna, TLE and I who remained, hugging, and saying our 'until next times'.  It never gets any easier to say 'until next time', and this particular time was the most difficult yet.

We are so blessed to have been welcomed into this wonderful seasonal community for the past 5 summers.  We never expected to be here more than a year, but felt compelled to return to Likely Place Golf and RV year after year until we had completed five summers.  When we depart in about a week we will leave pieces of our hearts here, and head south to The Wilson Wilderness different people for the experience, and the wonderful friendships which were forged.  The memories of our time here, and the people who befriended us will remain in our hearts forever.

The years we have left here on earth are getting more finite by the year, and now we begin a new phase of our life, and perhaps the final phase, living full time at TWW.  Thank you to everyone here that made our lives so much richer, and meaningful.....Duke and Cindy, Joel and Donna, Bob, Rich and Patrice, DeWayne, Glenn, Demitrius and Mary, Ron and Karen, Sunny and Art, Rich and Kathy (Jameson), Rich and Laurie, Greg and Terri, Mike and Debbie, Mike and Lynn, Pat, Jose, Dennis and Kellie, Buzz and Karla, John and Wendy, Rich and Kathie (Smith), Romero, and the many customers who also became good friends.....the list goes on and on, and I hope I have not left anyone out.  

Thank you for your patience in waiting for this installment.  From this point forward it will be regularly scheduled programming.  Thank you so much for stopping by!

A little delay.....

 6:25 am - Friday - October 2nd - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 25%, cloud cover 44%, wind 8 mph out of the west by southwest......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were in Port Townsend, WA....

.....at Port Townsend Hudson Point Marina....right on the shores of Puget Sound.

You have probably noticed I did not submit a post about Wednesday on Thursday.  I'm going to wait to post about our final for days on Sunday.

Thank you for your patience, and for stopping by!

Focused on the trailer....

 5:52 am - Wednesday - September 30th - LPG&RVR - 44° F, humidity 36%, cloud cover 1%, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 84° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Sydney, MT.....

....beginning our first 12 hour NIGHT shift at the annual beet harvest.  Three weeks of 12 hour NIGHTS.

The weather has been steadily warming since Sunday's winterish storm came and went.  Wednesday would be the last day of temps in the 70's for the foreseeable future.  As we move into October the Summer is beginning to rear its ugly head once again.  

We weren't out of bed until after 7:30 am Tuesday.  Beginning Wednesday we'll have daily high temps of 84, 87, 85 and 87° F for the last four days of the 2026 summer season at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort, which gives us the perfect bookend.  We worked the first four days of this season, and will work the final 4 days of this season.

After the hectic week we had last week the trailer was kind of a mess, so I spent part of the morning putting things away, then vacuuming the interior.  I won't be organizing its interior for VW insertion for another 10 days, thankfully.  As I found places for everything I realized how much stuff we have acquired this summer, and now I need to find a place to store all of the stuff we won't be taking with us to The Wilson Wilderness.  Once the trailer was back under control I got out our Toro leaf blower to blow a week's worth of leaves and other detritus off the 'lido deck' turf.  

By the time I was done with all of that it was just after noon time, so I got out my book (Kindle) and retired to my anti gravity recliner for the afternoon.  Of course, there was music playing in the background, and, of course, there was a cigar to smoke, and a nap to take.  I noticed that the sun is so low in the southern sky now that it dips below the edge of the patio awning after 1 pm and is now shining in my eyes.  I'll have to adjust where the anti gravity chair is positioned on my next days off work.

Around 5 pm I lit the Sea-B-Que to grill a beautiful London Broil for our dinner.  TLE added a side of smashed potatoes.  The London Broil came out a perfect medium rare, of course.  And that was essentially the end of our final four day weekend this season, and all that is left is to 'knock out' the last four day work week, and we can stick a fork in it!

Thanks for stopping by!

You just never know.....

 8:04 am - Tuesday - September 29th - LPG&RVR - 44° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 1%, wind 8 mph out of the north......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of  77° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Gardiner, MT.....

at Yellowstone RV Park, which is on the Yellowstone River, watching another Montana sunset.  We had just a couple of days left to work at the General Store at Mammoth Hot Springs before we would depart for new adventures.  The view this morning....

It's been a week since we last made a trip into Alturas to do our weekly shopping, so after lazing around most of the morning we headed into Alturas to do just that.  It was one of the first clear skies days we have had in quite a while.  I'll never get tired of the drive north on US-395 where sometimes you can see a mile ahead on this very straight section of the highway.  I think we passed just one car going into town, and none on the return trip.  We didn't see another vehicle until we were on the outskirts of Alturas.  

We didn't need to buy many things, so we made just two stops.....Dollar General and Holiday Market.  By the time we finished at Holiday Market it was close to 1 pm, so we decided to stop off at Rubio's Taqueria for some of their wonderful Street Tacos.  We haven't had any of their amazing Mexican food for a couple of months, and this visit will probably be our last until next Spring.  We were in and out in less than 10 minutes, then headed down to the city park near the local history museum where there are a few picnic tables, one of which is almost always in the shade.  We've followed this routine many, many times over the 5 summers we lived here, and are never disappointed in the quality of these tacos, or the location.  I always order mine with carne asada.

We'll probably make the trip into Alturas one, or two more times as we won't be leaving until closer to the middle of October.  We're going take a slightly different route south this year, and not drive through Carson City, Indian Hills, Minden, or Gardnerville down to Bishop on US-395.  Instead, when we hit I-80 in Reno we'll head east on I-80 to US-95 and take that south to US-93 to Kingman, AZ.  Diesel is really, really expensive right now at almost $6/gallon, so we're taking the most direct route we can, with as few high passes as possible....in fact I think the highest pass we'll traverse is down near Walker Lake at just 5,000 feet.  Taking this route will shave over 100 miles off our drive totaling out at 777 miles door to door.  Usually we're closer to 900 miles.  Avoiding those 5 passes south of Minden, NV will save a lot of fuel.

By the time we arrived home, and put away our groceries it was after 3 pm.  I had planned to spend some time on the 'lido deck' reading, but it was already getting too cool to be outside.  Speaking of cool, after Tuesday we'll have nothing but 80's for the balance of our stay here at LPG&RVR, with over night temps in the 40's.  Much warmer than last year at this same time.  I had already substituted our heated hose for our regular fresh water hose by this time.

There was a great Monday Night Football game on Monday night featuring the Philadelphia Eagles at the Chicago Bears.  The Bear's starting quarterback, Caleb Williams, pulled a hamstring last weekend, and one of their star receivers also was hurt, and not available for this game, so I wasn't expecting much from the Bears, but was I ever wrong.  The Bears steamrolled the Eagles 27-7, and it easily could have been 41-27....you just never know.  The Bears sent out Case Keenum, a 38 year old journeyman quarterback, who had been with 5, or 6 teams in his career, and hadn't thrown a competitive pass in 1100 days....close to 3 years.  If he never plays another game he will have this one to remember forever.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cold, rainy and windy.....

 8:17 am - Monday - September 28th - LPG&RVR - 43° F, humidity 38%, cloud cover 2%, wind 10 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and I were in South Lake Tahoe.....

.....enjoying the company of Sue and Guy Cobham.  They had purchased a 1984 Newell Classic earlier that year, which I found for them in South Dakota, and their maiden trip in the Newell was to come visit us at Tahoe Valley Campground.  We were able to get them a site right next to us.  The view this morning.....

.....no more clouds!

TLE had to open the Clubhouse Office Sunday morning, again, so she was up around 6 am.  I managed to stay in bed (you notice I didn't say sleep) until 6:30 am.  With the lights on, the heaters running, and TLE making coffee it was just too much to sleep.  It's not her fault.  Once I smell fresh coffee being made I have this almost Pavlovian response, and must get up....lol.

It began raining just before 7 am, and rained on and off for the rest of the day.  TLE was on her way to open the office by 7:50 am, and back by 9:20 am after Cindy had arrived at 9 am to take over until noon time when TLE returned for the balance of the day.

I, on the other hand, remained in doors where it was warm and cozy enjoying not being outside in the bitter cold, windy, rainy conditions.  That was left to other poor souls to endure.  It being Sunday meant there were NFL games to be enjoyed, and the final round of the President's Cup (golf) being played.  I wasn't sure how much of the President's Cup I would watch as the USA was in dire straits going into the 4th round on Sunday, and if they didn't rally I would be watching more NFL football than golf.

The format of the Presidents Cup is match play just like the Ryder Cup.  And like the Ryder Cup it is played every other year.  Essentially, it is the USA players against the Internationals (from everywhere in the world except Europe).  The Ryder cup is the USA vs. European players.  Coming into this President's Cup the USA had won the last 10 in a row.  They got off to a good start Thursday leading 3-2 after the first round, but lost all 5 matches on Friday to the Internationals who now lead the USA 7-3.  The USA managed to pull within 10.5 t0 7.5 points on Saturday.  There are a total of 30 points available over the four days....one point per match won, so the USA needed 8 points out of the 12 points available Sunday to win, and the Internationals only needed 5 points.  I did not expect the USA to be able to accomplish that based on the previous three days, but I was wrong.  They ended up winning 9 of the 12 matches on Sunday, and tying one to win going away 17-13.

There were some very good NFL games on Sunday including the Raiders coming from behind in New Orleans to win their third in a row to start the season, The Cowboys losing a game in the final two seconds to the Ravens, which everyone thought they had won, and the night game between the Rams and Broncos in Denver, in the rain in which the lead changed four times in the final 5 minutes of play with Denver coming out on top.

The rain came and went all day long, and I never turned off our electric heaters.  I think the high temp was around 62° F late Sunday afternoon, but it did not feel that warm to me.  TLE was home by 5:30 pm.  Kathie and Richard returned to LPG&RVR Sunday afternoon so Kathie will be running the show Monday and Tuesday, and TLE will get to sleep in Monday (which she did).

Thanks for stopping by!

The unexpected......

 7:04 am - Sunday - September 27th - LPG&RVR - 54° F, humidity 47%, cloud cover 90%.....very cloudy today with a chance of rain, and a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Yellowstone National Park.....

.....visiting Canyon Falls for the first time.  The river is the Yellowstone, of course.  We had to wait until well after Labor Day to be able to get into the parking lot.  During the summer the wait to find a parking spot was over an hour....sometimes more.  Well worth the wait!  I wrote about that here.

Kathie Smith's (TLE's counterpart in the Clubhouse Office) husband, Richard, had to be taken down to a hospital in Reno for tests, unexpectedly, early Thursday morning, and was not back yet on Saturday, so TLE had to open the office Saturday morning.  As a result I was left to my own devices for a few hours in the morning.  That gave me time to retrieve the rest of our tables, etc. from the large gazebo and move them back to our site.  It was around 34° F at 8 am Saturday morning when I dropped off TLE at the Clubhouse, and there was a frost delay until 9 am for golfers as the greens had a coating of frost, of course.   Once I had everything back at our site, I just left everything on the cart until it warmed enough to spend any more of time outdoors.  It took me less than 15 minutes to get all that done.

One of our permanent residents, Cindy Golden, has been training under TLE and Kathie for this summer for just such an emergency, so she came into the office around 9 am, and TLE was home by 10 am, only to return later around 4 pm to help Cindy close out the day.  As it turned out they had 45 golfers, rented a lot of carts, and she did a great job with the register balancing right to the penny at the end of the day.  TLE will open again on Sunday if Kathie has not been able to return, with Cindy coming in at 9 am to 12 pm, then TLE will handle the afternoon.  Kathie and Richard should be back sometime Sunday afternoon.

Of course Saturday is NCAA Collee Football day, and I had both the Salon TV and outdoor TV tuned to whatever game I was watching at the time.  Around 11 am it was warm enough to begin putting away the stuff on the cart.  We used the table on which the Sea-B-Que normally resides, so I set that back up first, and then returned the numerous chairs and recliners to their spots.  We still have three ice chests full of beer, and melted ice water to deal with, and I'll do that on Sunday, or Monday, weather permitting.

I spent the rest of the day watching football, napping and reading.  It was a perfect first day of our four day weekend.....thanks for stopping by!

The 'Pub Crawl'......

 7:13 am - Saturday - September 26th - LPG&RVR - 32° F, humidity 34%, cloud 68%, wind 11 mph out of the south....mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were in Cape Blanco, OR.....

....walking on South Cape Beach (south of the lighthouse) for the last time before heading north to Springfield, OR to have some solar panels added to our rooftop array at AM Solar (no longer in business).

Friday was jam packed with with things to do.  We rented at least 20 golf carts throughout the day.  I did some string trimming of the large gazebo, and the 15 pull through sites I had mowed the day before, ran a couple of sprinklers on dry spots around the Clubhouse wood deck, and down at the 'Night Office'.  Soon it was time for TLE's 90 minute lunch break.  I sent out a couple of golfers, and checked in a few RVs, but otherwise it was not very busy.  

After lunch I spent time hauling tables, and chairs over to the large gazebo where the our first annual Pub Crawl was to take place at 5:30 pm, and hauled more ice to keep all of the craft beer were were going to serve cold.  By 3 pm there were 8 golf carts to wash, and by 3:45 pm I had washed 12 carts in all.  Then it was time to head for home, take a shower, then finishing setting up our 'Pub Crawl' station.  It turned out pretty well....

Our 17 craft beer offerings

I strung some of our solar Edison lights

.....in all we offered 17 craft beer choices.  You can see our 'High Forest Pub' banner in the foreground.  In all we had about 20 stations offering whiskey, tequila, scotch, wine, beer (us), and a lot of pub food.  The first annual 'Pub Crawl' was deemed a resounding success, and folks where still hanging out when we headed home after 8 pm.  We left most of our station there overnight, but did bring home all the chairs, and ice chests.

Friday was literally our 'Friday' this four day work cycle, and it was a good week full of a lot of things I have now done for the last time this season....mowing, and string trimming among those final things.  I'll be clearing the driving range one last time next Thursday, and washing/stowing my last golf cart on Saturday.  I was able to spend time talking with a number of people who call LPG&RVR their home each summer, just as we do.  Life is good!  Now it's time to relax, and watch some NCAA College Football.

Thanks for stopping by!