Two perfect days in a row?

 6:49 am - Saturday - May 23rd - LPG&RVR - 52° F, humidity 37%, cloud cover 28%, wind 1 mph out of the southeast.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were in South Lake Tahoe.....

....and this was the view we saw that morning at Tahoe Valley Campground.

Friday was day of projects and firsts.  My laziness has created a backlog of small projects which need attention, and Friday seemed like a great day to start shrinking that 'to do' list.  That first word in 'to do' as used implies a future act, and the future always seems to be just out of reach, but not so Friday.

First on my mental 'to do' list was to repair the solar light we hang from the patio awning.  A week, or so ago we had bad winds one afternoon while we were at work, and the safety pin which affixes that light to the underside of the patio awning came unfastened and resulted in the light dangling in the breeze, twisting and turning repeatedly, causing the wires which feed sun generated electricity to it's battery to come apart.  To rejoin them would mean complete disassembly, which I knew would take time to do, so with no obligations at any time Friday it was the perfect time to dig into it.  Ultimately I soldered the black and red wires back together, used shrink tubing to insulate them, then reassembled the light....

....and rehung it.  These lights are pretty simple, and it now works again as it should.

I began a project for TLE a couple of months while we were still at The Wilson Wilderness, but never finished it until Friday.  I needed a few more small Phillips head screws to complete the task of fastening the sheets of stainless steel to the underside of her stove top cover.  You will recall I attempted to reglue them a few months ago, but the glue failed, even though it was warranted to be 'heat resistant'.  My final solution was to fasten them in place using the aforementioned very small Phillips head screws...

....it turned out well, and TLE approves, so project finally completed.

While I was in the trailer working on these projects it occurred to me that I hadn't paid a tag fee for the trailer in a long time.  It's one of those California Permanent Plates, that are renewed online every 5 years.....

....you never get anything in the mail on these plates, and must remember to pay the measly $10 fee ($2/year) every five years.  The last time I remember paying the renewal fee was back in 2017.....9 years ago.  Well, I went to the California DMV website, and entered the trailer information to check its status, and was advised no fees are due at this time, and will not be due until February of 2027.  I checked my phone calendar and found that I had set a reminder for the middle of January 2027 to pay the renewal, so all is good for another 9 months....whew!

A few weeks ago I found two perfectly fine camp chairs sitting by the dumpster down by the Clubhouse, and decided to take them home.  All that was wrong with them was they were missing the Masonite inserts for the folding 'table' each one had.  Well, I ordered some Masonite off Amazon (you can get pretty much anything from Amazon!), and it arrived a few days ago, so I decided to make that minor repair to the chairs....

.....the hardest part was cutting the rounded corners.  The Masonite pieces I ordered were already the prefect width, so all I had to do was shape the corners and install them.  I cut out a template using cardboard, then overlaid the cardboard on the Masonite.....easy peasy!

With the completion of that third 'to do' list project I declared the rest of the day would be spent in my anti gravity chair watching golf....the first time I've done that this season....

....and that is what I did until almost 5 pm.  Is it even possible to have back to back 'perfect days'.....I'm not sure about everyone else, but I did!  Life is good here at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort.

Thanks for stopping by!

A perfect day.....

 7:55 am - Friday - May 22nd - LPG&RVR - 58° F, humidity 23%, cloud cover 8%, wind ZERO mph.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were working at Tahoe Valley Campground in South Lake Tahoe...

....this is good nomadic friend Art Young whom we originally met at Amazon during the Peak Season of 2014.....little did we know then that within a couple of weeks we would be on our way to finish the summer in Yellowstone NP with Art.

I'm not sure if I have given an update on the status of my right knee in some time.  You will recall that during the summer of 2024 I began to have a lot of pain in my right knee, and eventually travelled down to Reno to  Great Basin Orthopedics to have it examined, and receive a diagnosis.  As my doctor said...."Clarke, the problem with your knee is your date of birth....".  In essence I had developed Ostio Arthritis in the joint, and was suffering from some 'bone on bone' due to loss of cartilage over 7 decades of life.  At the time I was given a cortisone shot, which immediately, and I do mean IMMEDIATELY, reduced the discomfort, and pain to ZERO.    Over the course of the next 12 months, as the cortisone shot lost its effectiveness, the pain began to return in March, and by May of 2025 I needed another cortisone shot, which, once again, provided immediate relief, but by August I was in pain again.  At that time Kathy (she ran the restaurant until the end of the summer of 2024) advised I should also be taking collagen......

This is what I take...I get it from Amazon....it is a 'gummie'....I take one per day, but they recommend 2 per day

....I'm not usually a 'believer' in supplements, but was hurting, and thus added collagen to my daily pill taking routine.  Dr. Freyda will only give one cortisone shot a year, and once it doesn't work anymore it is either time for a knee replacement, or you see how long you can take the pain.  Well, here is the interesting part.   I noticed in late 2025 that I was not needing to take Tylenol as often for my knee pain, and by early 2026 I noticed the pain was all but gone.  I still had occasional stiffness, and a little discomfort, but nothing like before.  To be fair, I still have Ostio Arthritis, and I still have instability in my right knee due to cartilage loss, but the pain is pretty much not an issue anymore.  I was stunned, to say the least.  As I write in late May of 2026 my status is pretty much unchanged.....no pain, just occasional stiffness, and mild discomfort.  I have now been taking a collagen supplement faithfully since August of 2025.  It took about 15 months to have an effect, but it seems to be working.  I have no idea if it would work for you, but it has worked for me.

TLE and I slept in until after 7 am, as is our custom, Thursday.  It took me a while to write two blog posts in order to get current once again, but by 9:30 am TLE and I were on our way into town to do a big shopping.  We hit all of our favorite stores.....ACE Hardware, Dollar General, Grocery Outlet, and Holiday Market.  As a bonus, we stopped at 'Java Doctor' for Frappuccinos to consume on our way home, where we arrived a little after 12 pm.  It took quite a while to put away all of our purchases. 

TLE's garden is looking great after just a few weeks.  All three planters are weeded, and brimming with flowers much earlier than last summer....

....around 1 pm I headed over to the putting green at the Clubhouse to practice putting, and spent time talking with customers who passed by, as well as Steve, who is my 'stunt double'....lol...actually he works my job during my four day weekends.  He's doing a great job, but still getting settled into the routine.

Around 5 pm I fired up the Sea-B-Que to grill a salmon steak TLE purchased during our 'big shopping' spree.  She added white rice, and some sort of grilled honey cream corn (?), which was delicious.....

.....we're trying to eat alfresco every opportunity we have when it is not windy, as it often is in the afternoon.

Thursday was the perfect first day of a four day weekend, and I cannot think of anything that might have made it any better than it was....the temp was in the high 70's with a balmy breeze, and no mosquitoes....am I right, or am I right?  Okay, time to begin day two of our four day weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

A busy fourth day!

 8:02 am - Thursday - May 21st - LPG&RVR - 58° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 16%, wind 3 mph out of the north....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Tahoe City.....

....having lunch at the Bridgetender Tavern and Grill, right across the street from 'Fanny Bridge'...I'm sure you understand why it is called 'Fanny Bridge'.

Okay, now for Wednesday's happenings.  As we edge toward this year's version of Memorial Day the park is pretty empty, but by Thursday it will begin to fill up quickly.  Time to get everything mowed when there are very few RV's around which to mow, so after another quick round of the golf course I got busy doing just that, and by lunch time I had mowed the small Gazebo, the large grass area by site #30, the group fire pit grass, all five pull through, water/electric sites, 8 of the 10 full hookup sites, all 10 of the back in sites, as well as tent sites 1 through 3.  Now that the 2 bag Husqvarna is fixed I can get a lot of mowing done in a short period of time.  

I gave TLE her usual lunch break, and was not nearly as busy as Tuesday.  After lunch I headed out to finish the final two full hookup, pull through sites, then headed out to the golf course to mow around those tee boxes for which I am responsible.  I was back in a record breaking 45 minutes.  I still had about 40 minutes of my work day left, so I washed and dried the golf balls I had garnered from the driving range on Monday, then washed the golf carts which had been returned.  I was home a little after 3:30 pm taking a long, hot shower, then a nap.  I returned early (around 4:45 pm) again to take care of the rest of the golf carts of which only one had not yet been returned.  Once again, by the time I finished stowing the final cart TLE had finished closing the office....perfect timing!  Let the four day weekend begin!

Claude came over around 5:20 pm with a platter of freshly grilled 'London Broil', some chips and olives.  The 'London Broil' was perfectly seasoned, and melt in your mouth delicious.  We ate and talked about an hour before Claude headed for home....his 4 day work week begins Thursday....

....are we a handsome gang, or what?!  Thanks for stopping by!

A day behind.....

 7:27 am - Thursday - May 21st - LPG&RVR - 55° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 16%, wind 1 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Telluride, CO....

....with Glenn and Laureen Parker....found a place serving food with alfresco dining....a rare find during the early days the Wuhan Flu fiasco.

I owe you a post about Tuesday.  I had good intentions Wednesday morning to write the post when I got home from work, but I took a nap instead.  So, before I write about Wednesday I will give you that Tuesday post.  The problem I have as I add one year upon another to my total trips around the sun, is that if I don't write about the prior day the next morning the things I did on that day get mixed up with what I did that day, but I'll do my best to recap Tuesday as accurately as I am able.

I began Tuesday staging the six new EZ-GO golf carts (all gassers by the way), then another four Yamaha gassers.  By the end of the day we had rented 14.  After that I headed out to do a round of the course finding minor goose/duck leavings.  I also found a lot of goose feathers which indicates they are molting.  The four sand traps still looked untouched from Monday, so I was back at the Clubhouse within 40 minutes.

We've been down to one string trimmer since the end of last summer, and since Claude uses the only one we have quite a bit I was having difficulty getting any trimming done around the Clubhouse.  There were a couple of string trimmers in the Caddie Shack, which had not been used in the four previous seasons I've worked here, so we all thought they were inoperative, but we thought wrong.  I pulled out of of the two and found there was NO fuel in the tank, so that was a good sign that it hadn't been hung up with gas still in the fuel system, which would gum it up.  I added fuel, and after a few pulls of the cord it started running....WOW.  I then lubed it, and proceeded to get a lot of trimming done.  I guess one should not assume anything, but I get caught in that trap on a pretty regular basis.

By the time I finished with the trimming it was time for TLE's lunch break.  I was kept very busy during the lunch break checking in 10 RV's, selling a hat, and a golf bag towel, answering numerous phone calls, and sending a few people out to play golf.

I did a lot of watering around the park Tuesday, and spent some of my last two hours moving sprinklers, and then washing/stowing the carts which had been returned, and was off by 3:30 pm, as usual.  I returned to pickup TLE early (around 4:45 pm) to find more carts had been returned so I washed/stowed them finishing just as TLE finished closing the office for the day.  So far I have not worn shorts, or a t-shirt this four day cycle as it has been too cold.  Maybe I will be able to do that on Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Back into the 60's....

 6:01 am - Tuesday - May 19th - LPG&RVR - 34° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 5%, wind 1 mph out of the northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 71° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were driving the 'Million Dollar Highway' out of Durango, CO....

Descending into Silverton, CO

....the road is a narrow, windy, and twisty with 1,000 foot drop offs.  Our highest point was 11,200' elevation with two other summits just under 11,000'.  We were often in first gear climbing and descending.

Monday was significantly warmer than Sunday with a forecast high in the mid 60's, but it was still cold.  After staging our six new EZ-GO golf carts I headed out to make a round of the course.  On days I work, and Claude doesn't (he works Thursday through Saturday every week as course Marshall) I take care of the goose/duck leavings, and rake the four sand traps....

This is the sand trap at the 15th hole....Claude is doing

 a great job of keeping the weeds at bay

Still very cold at 9 am

.....by the time I returned to the Clubhouse it was time to clear the driving range of balls so it could be mowed later in the day.  It took me about 90 minutes to glean two 5 gallon buckets of balls as many of them were in the woods on either side of the range, and past the 250 yard marker on the other side of the dirt road which crosses the rear of the driving range.  I didn't return to the Clubhouse to give TLE her lunch break until 12:10 pm.

The restaurant is not open on Monday's so it was pretty quiet while TLE was at lunch.  After her return I headed out to do some weed eating around the Clubhouse area, then jumped on the 2 bag Husqvarna and headed down the hill to the 'Night Office' to mow the grass there.  By the time I returned it was after 3 pm, and there were 6 of the 9 carts we rented Monday awaiting their daily spa treatment.  By the time I finished washing and stowing them it was well after 3:30 pm, and time to head for home.  After a nap I headed back to the Clubhouse around 4:55 pm to pickup TLE, and head back home for the day to celebrate 'hump night' (the night in between day 2 and 3 of our four day work cycle).  Tuesday and Wednesday will much warmer with temps getting back into the 70's so there should be a lot more activity on the golf course.

Thanks for stopping by!

The last of Winter?

 6:03 am - Monday - May 18th - LPG&RVR - 34° F, humidity 35%, cloud cover 52%, wind 2 mph out of the north by northwest.....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were riding our bicycles along the Animas River.....

......in Durango, CO....there is a place where one can 'surf ' the river in Downtown Durango.

We didn't go to work until 7:45 am Sunday morning since no one was signed up to play golf until after 9 am.  The temperature at 8 am was around 37° F with a blustery wind which I am sure made it feel a few degrees cooler.  I staged 5 of the Yamaha gassers being pretty sure no more than one, or two of them would see action Sunday.  Then began the task of sorting out all of the golf carts. 

We have a new guy, Steve, who now works opposite me, who started work Thursday, and he did a really great job of clearing the driving range of those 55 gallons of golf balls, and washing the 14 carts left over from Wednesday.  Unfortunately, he didn't know we were going to move 6 of the very old Club Car square front golf carts out of the shed to make room for the 6 new EZ-GO golf carts we acquired in the off season, so all the carts were packed into the shed like sardines.  It took me the better part of an hour to remove the old carts and park them over by the 'Caddy Shack', but finally, around 9 am, order was restored.

That is about the time it began to snow.....

.....that lasted for about 30 minutes, and then the sun came out for a few minutes.  Then it began to snow sideways.....

....for the next 3 hours it went from this to sunny, then back to this over and over again.  I could only spend 10-15 minutes outside at a time before returning to the warm confines of the Clubhouse to get warm again.

The restaurant was busy all morning, and into the late afternoon serving customers.  When you get weather like this at a rural RV park people get a little stir crazy sitting in the RV's, so they take a break and head to the restaurant to order a meal, and kill some time.  I managed to stay somewhat busy all morning, and then gave TLE her lunch break at 12 pm.  I sold one sweat shirt, checked in a couple of people, and took a phone call, but that was the extent of it.  Instead of going right back to work at 1 pm, I headed home to take my own lunch break, returning at 2 pm for the final 3 hours of my shift.

Upon my return I found the only two carts we rented had been returned, so I washed and stowed them, and I was pretty much done with my day.  It was too cold, and damp to mow, or do anything out on the golf course, so I watched some of the final round of The PGA.  It wasn't until around the 13th hole that one player began to separate himself from the pack....Aaron Rai from Britain.  Ultimately he won by 3 strokes finishing at 9 under par, and was the first one to get to 7 under par in four days.

TLE and I were on our way home by 5:05 pm.  It was still very windy, as it had been all day long.  We had all three heaters running for several hours to keep the Newell interior warm, and cozy.  An thus ended the very wintery day of May 17th....will it be the last?

Thanks for stopping by!

Winter again?

 6:10 am - Sunday - May 17th - LPG&RVR - 35° F, humidity 41%, cloud cover 60% (looks like 100%), wind 11 mph out of the north by northwest.....heavy cloud cover this morning with a forecast high today of 56° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Durango, CO with Glenn and Laureen ordering food from the only open restaurant....

No sit down dining

.....as you will recall, this was at the beginning of the Wuhan Flu scare, and you could not eat inside restaurants....only take out.  We found a table down the street and ate our food....almost normal, right?  The view this morning....

.....in two days we have gone from idyllic weather back to winterish conditions.....it will only get to 56° F today, and there is a slight chance of SNOW!  Winter will just not let go!

Saturday began cold, and remained cold all day long.  I do not think it ever reached the forecast high of 61° F.  I had visions of sitting outside watching The PGA, but they were quickly dashed when I stepped outside around 9 am to breezy, chilly winds.  We spent the better part of the morning inside the warm confines of the Newell with the front electric heater running continuously.  

I drove over to the Clubhouse around 12 pm to practice my putting for the upcoming putting contest at 4 pm, and it paid off to some degree as I made it through four rounds before being ousted.  The previous two weekends I only made it to the second round, so this was a big improvement.  On top of that I did not beat myself for a change....I lost to a better putter.  Instead of my usual Hawaiian shirt and shorts I wore long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a puffy jacket over that to stay warm.  I wore the jacket for most of the putting contest.

TLE and I stayed until the end of the putting contest, which we don't usually do if I have lost, but she needed to be there to pickup the cash drawer as we go back to work for another four day shift beginning Sunday (we work Sunday through Wednesday this week).  We were home by 5:20 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!