7:28 am - Bacon Friday - January 27th - GNHS - 45° F, humidity 50%, wind 4 mph out of the north....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 66° F. On this date in 2012 we were watching one of our last sunrises at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park near Riverside, CA before we began our fulltime travels on 2/1/2012......↴
Friday, January 27, 2023
A milestone is coming.....
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Behind the '8 ball'......update
8:26 am - Thursday - January 26th - GNHS - 55° F, 27% humidity, wind 21 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today courtesy another Santa Ana wind event.....forecast high for today is 66° F. On this date in 2018 TLE and I were riding on the Grand Canyon Rail Road from Williams, AZ into Grand Canyon NP with our daughter Meredith....↴
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
Misfire.....
7:40 am - Wednesday - January 25th - GNHS - 42° F, humidity 52%, wind 3 mph out of the northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F. On this date in 2018 our daughter Meredith came to visit us at the Grand Canyon....↴
Last week when two of the four ignition coils on the VW failed we were on our way into Mecca to have lunch at 'The Tacos Taqueria', and to do a small shopping, but that trip was aborted. Well, here we are a little over a week later, and we decided to attempt the drive once again. Since I replaced the two coils I have only driven the VW Beetle about 15 miles (to Bombay Beach and back), so we also wanted to get in a longer drive to be sure all is well, plus we really needed some Mexican food in the worst kind of way.
We began the 27 mile drive into Mecca around 11:30 am and reached 'The Tacos Taqueria' just after 12 pm without incident. These folks get 4 stars on 69 reviews....the 69th being my review. We have come to love these little 'hole in the wall' Mexican places, and have rarely, if ever, been disappointed.....
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Prescient......
8:18 am - Tuesday - January 24th - GNHS - 44° F, humidity 4-0%, wind 4 mph out of the west.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 68° F. On this date in 2019 TLE and I were visiting the Petrified Forest National Park for the first time......↴
The wind blew all night Sunday night, was still blowing over 20 mph as the sun crested the Chocolate Mountains to the east Monday morning, and would continue that way until after 3 pm. As Sana Ana wind events go, this one was rather short lived lasting less than 24 hours. The wind was directly out of the north most of the time, and was it ever cold. How cold was it you ask? We turned on all three gas furnaces, and all three electric heaters first thing to take the chill of the Newell interior. Within 20 minutes we were turning off the gas furnaces, but we left two of the electric heaters on for the entire day, and into the night.
With all of the window awnings, and the patio awning stowed we did not notice the wind too much during the night, but the wind gusts increased dramatically after sunrise making the coach rock back forth at times. As I write now (Tuesday morning) there is hardly a breath of wind.....it is so quiet I can hear those proverbial pins dropping.
As is our habit during wind events in the SoCal desert we stayed inside for 99% of the day. I did spend a few minutes outside first thing retrieving items which had been blown from the 'lido deck' into the UTV parking area, but that was the extent of my ambition for the day.
TLE and I watched the entire British Premier soccer match between Fulham and Tottenham, which was won 1-nil by Tottenham on a beautiful goal by Harry Kane in 'added time' at the end of the first half. Our boys had lost two games in succession, so it was good to see them back in the 'W' column with a clean sheet (no goals allowed).
Whenever our pantry and fridge begin to get a little empty TLE begins to gather food items together she has saved from other meals and put them together in soup form. For dinner she prepared what she now calls chicken/cabbage soup, and it was the perfect wintery day fare. To be sure there was a lot more in that soup than just chicken and cabbage, and it all tasted wonderful.
I mentioned previously that we watched the first episode of 'Utopia' on BritBox the other night. There are just two seasons, each containing 6 episodes. We watched a few more episodes Sunday night, and sat down after dinner to watch just a few more, but ended up watching the final two episodes of Season 1, and all 6 of Season 2. Wow! The series description was very cryptic, and we had no idea what it was really about. Knowing what we now know about the Wuhan flu, and all of the vaccination controversy the past 3 years, it was almost surrealistic to watch 'Utopia', which bears a striking resemblance to what we were all put through since January of 2020. I'll leave it at that, except to say this.....this series ran from 2013 to 2014, and there are just the two seasons....it is kind of chilling how prescient this series was and is.
Thanks for stopping by!
Monday, January 23, 2023
Laid back Sunday.....
7:59 am - Monday - January 23rd - GNHS - 48° F, humidity 25%, wind 17 mph out of the northwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 62° F.....Santa Ana winds blowing fiercely....was windy all night long. We had to stow our patio awning for the first time in almost 2 months. On this date in 2019 we overnighted at the Route 66 Casino and Hotel just off I-40, 21 miles west of Albuquerque, NM....first time back in Mountain Time since April of 2018......↴
Our two KRX 1/2 day rentals were not scheduled to begin until 11:30 am Sunday, but I was outside Sunday around 9 am to refuel one RZR, and wash three RZRs from Saturday's 3 all day rentals. Since I had time, I took my time to thoroughly detail RZRs #1, 4 and 5, and was finished around 10:30 am.
Our customers arrived just before 11:30 am to complete their paperwork.....
....then collapsed my golf driving net and put an orange cone on it to keep it from blowing away in the night (it was still there this morning). Around 8 pm TLE and I stowed the patio and window awnings as it was getting quite blustery out of the northwest, which is not a good direction of wind for our location. As I write the coach is rocking in the wind, and will continue to do so for the next 6.5 hours (it is 8:30 am right now), so we'll be spending that time inside....glad we don't have any rentals today!
Thanks for stopping by!
Sunday, January 22, 2023
The photo shoot.....
7:48 am - Sunday - January 22nd - GNHS - 36° F, humidity 57%, wind 3 mph out of the southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 62° F. On this date in 2013 TLE and I were watching our 26th sunset at Cedar Key, FL.....we were there for 5 weeks, and loved every single minute of it.....↴
Saturday, January 21, 2023
Easy Friday......
6:49 am - Saturday - January 21st - GNHS - 42° F, humidity 61%, wind 7 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 64° F. On this date in 2013 TLE and I were picking up our 2002 Thunderbird from a Ford dealership in Chiefland, FL where they replaced two ignition coils....sound familiar? I had forgotten about this.....they charged close to $800 to do the repair....I replaced two on the VW myself for under $100......↴