That rascally 'Wayward Wind'.....

 7:55 am - Saturday - April 4th - TWW - 46° F, humidity 12%, cloud cover 12%, wind 20 mph out of the east by northeast.....cloudless, blue sky right now with a forecast high today of 69° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I arrived at Goosenecks State Park.....

......in Southern Utah.....you might have thought this was Horseshoe Bend near Page, AZ, but you would be wrong.  This is the San Juan River near Mexican Hat, UT.  We stayed for almost two weeks....one of the top 5 boondock sites from our 14 years of travel.  The Newell and trailer are literally parked about 50' behind me in this picture.  The view this morning....

....we are in our 7th day of wind, but today should be the last....we hope!

It was still too cold, and windy to caulk the barn roof Friday, and frankly too cold and windy to do much of anything outdoors.  We were expecting to hear at any time that the replacement auxiliary turbo coolant pump had been delivered to our PO Box in Seligman, so we remained indoors awaiting the notification.  It finally came around 11:30 am, so we got dressed and headed into Seligman arriving there without incident around 12:30 pm.

First stop was the General Store to buy some large, flat washers to aid in affixing the insulation board to the inside of the shed doors, some clear, half inch diameter tubing for my gas syphon hose (the OEM hose's walls were too thin, causing it to kink, and restrict the flow of gasoline), and a vent housing for the shed (we're going to install one of those turbine roof vents)....

The washers and 4" diameter 'roof boot'

4" diameter roof vent pipe - the land provided, but will have to shorten it

4" diameter roof turbine vent - bought last winter

....I'm always amazed that this little hardware store has precisely what I need 99% of the time!  From there we headed to Westside Lilo's for lunch before hitting the PO Box, and Family Dollar.  TLE and I both had salads (Cobb for TLE and a Chicken Caesar for moi), a side of onion rings, and coffee....their coffee is so gooood!  While we were eating I noticed a picture of Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives) hanging on the wall next to our table, who apparently ate at Westside Lilo's back in 2019....

.....he apparently came there for their famous Carrot Cake, which we sampled way back in 2024 when we first visited Seligman to see the property Phyllis eventually purchased.  It is the best Carrot Cake I've ever had!

While TLE shopped at the Family Dollar I headed over to the Post Office to retrieve our packages from the parcel locker.....

......the new auxiliary turbo coolant pump looks like a perfect match to the now defunct one, so weather and wind permitting I will attempt to do the R & R Saturday, or Sunday.

Didn't really do any work outside, or anywhere on the property before, or after we went to town Friday due to the wind, but now we have the necessary parts to begin to complete several ongoing projects. By the time we finished unloading the car and putting things away it was almost 4 pm, and the end of another day at TWW.

Thanks for stopping by!

An inside job.....

 8:07 am - Friday - March 3rd - TWW - 41° F, humidity 18%, cloud cover ZERO %, wind 14 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were visiting Monument Valley.....

....in Northern Arizona just south of the Utah border.  We did the sunset tour, which we highly recommend.  One of our 'Bucket List' items.  Does not seem like 11 years ago.  The view this morning....

....the sun has moved so far to the north now that is comes in my bedroom window first thing in the morning (drivers side window) even with the window awning deployed.

We had planned to caulk the metal roof on the barn Thursday, but it was extremely windy, and cold.  Caulking can be difficult when it is warm enough, but the cold just makes it more difficult, so we postponed that activity until another day when it is much warmer, and there is no wind.  We've had wind here at TWW since before we returned form our dental appointment trip, and it is getting a little old.  Nevertheless, it is the Spring, and it is typically more windy than not in the high desert this time of year, so it is what it is.

Charles and Phyllis left for Phoenix around 9 am, and shortly thereafter I got to work on a job which allowed me to be indoors.  Phyllis had delivered a number of shelves from a shelving unit they had dismantled down south to use on the Baker's Cart she brought up months ago, so I spent some time cutting them to 18" in length to fit the cart....

The pieces I cut off the shelves to reduce them to the required 18"

....TLE and Phyllis plan to use this to sprout seedlings next Winter, so the shelves are very close together.  While I was so engaged TLE was harvesting some more cauliflower and broccoli for dinner.  That was the third time we've harvested broccoli and cauliflower since the plants matured a couple of weeks ago.

Later, using the Ford F420 diesel tractor, I moved the large tree trunk we cut down a week, or so ago, and hauled it out to the barrier we have been adding to all Winter, and as I was putting the tractor away I decided to drag some dirt away from barn doors on the west side of the barn.  There is been a sort of 'lip', or dirt curb in front of those doors since we arrived last Winter which makes it difficult to open the doors, but I couldn't do anything about it until we moved Phyllis' Newell. Now that we have moved it to another location it was time to scrape away that dirt, and level the entrance to the barn....

Now it's smooth and level....time to paint that wood!!!

That's the mound of dirt we moved in the foreground.  We'll have to figure out where to move that dirt, but that is for another day.

....it only took around 15 minutes to scrape, and then smooth the area using both the Gannon and loader bucket.  Without the tractor that would have been a multi hour task!  And with that I called an end to the our work.  It was around 2 pm, and time for a snack, and maybe a nap.  The winds freshened all day to almost 30 mph, so I was happy I had an indoor job for part of the day.

We're hoping the new auxiliary turbo water pump arrives at our PO Box Friday, so we can retrieve it, and begin the process and removing and replacing the broken one.  It arrived at Post Office in Prescott Thursday morning, so it should be in Seligman by Friday afternoon, but you never know, do you?

Thanks for stopping by!

Roof preparation.....

 7:04 am - Thursday - April 2nd - TWW - 44° F, humidity 38%, cloud cover 31%, wind 11  mph out of the south.....mostly sunny skies today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were enjoying the ocean....

at Vandenberg Surf Beach near Vandenberg Airforce Base, CA.  The view this morning....

Charles and Phyllis arrived around 9 am for their overnight stay.  Our goal Wednesday was to strip out all of the old caulking material used to seal the barn roof many years ago so we could reseal the center seam, and the area where the barn connects to the CONEX.  The old caulking was in terrible shape resulting in a lot of leaking whenever it snows, or rains....

.....as you can see, the center seam where the two roof panels meet is no longer sealed.  Charles and I spent the next 3 hours slowly removing that old caulk, and it was slow going, but in the end we were victorious...

Charles began at the west side of the barn, and I the east...it was a beautiful day to be on the roof.....nice and cool, if not a little too breezy.

.....due to the rain overnight we were not able to re-caulk the seam until everything dries.  We'll give it overnight and then seal it on Thursday morning with GE clear silicone.  One thing Charles and I know for sure is that old guys should not spend 3 hours on their old knees....lol.  To say we were a little stiff after three hours of kneeling is an understatement....lol.

After a short snack break I spent time in the CONEX removing the shroud from the the pump we've been using to water the potato growing beds out of the IBC water totes.  When I went to run it on Monday I could hear it humming, but the impeller would not turn, so I figured some debris had made its way into the impeller jamming it.  There were about 10 Allen bolts to remove, and they were torqued pretty tightly, but eventually they were all removed, and within seconds I had cleared the obstruction, and began to reassemble it....yes I tested it and it began run normally again.  After that I installed an electrical outlet strip on the front of the workbench to provide power for two battery chargers we have there.  We had been running an extension cord from the outlet on the back wall of the CONEX, but it was a little messy.  Finally, I straightened up the workbench, and put away tools which had been accumulating there over the past week.

From there I went to the garage to trim some tree branches away from the back of the garage where the three 100 watt solar panels for the solar generator are located so they will get sun earlier in the morning.  As it is the solar panels are managing to maintain the battery, and even recharge it when the deep freeze is not running, so the experiment seems to be working.

Around 4 pm we all convened in the house for our communal dinner, Spaghetti, prepared by the loving hands of TLE. Life is good, and we are making wonderful progress at making the barn useful once again.  Once we reseal the roof it will be 98% dry again, and we can use it without fear of things being stored there getting soaking wet.

Thanks for stopping by!

Finishing projects.....

 7:03 am - Wednesday - April 1st - TWW - 43° F, humidity 45%, cloud cover 21%, wind 15 mph out of the southwest.....cloudy early, but clearing later this morning with a forecast high for today of 61° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were at Cafe Dolce.....

....in Solvang, CA having coffee.  The view this morning....

I was speaking yesterday about how the potato beds are exploding with greenery, but didn't provide any visual evidence, so here it is....

.....our first task of the morning was to continue our work at installing the insulation board in the shed.  When we left off we had the left wall to cover, plus a very small piece on the front panel next to the doors.  I was pretty sure these pieces would be easy to fit, and I was not wrong....

The left interior wall

The piece next to the left door

.....now all we have left are the doors, but before we can install them we need some long screws, and washers to affix them to the inside of the doors, and we'll pick them up Friday when we are in town to pickup the auxiliary turbo water pump from the PO.

Next, with TLE's supervision, and help I climbed up on the CONEX to replace some of the hardware I temporarily used to reinstall the guy wires for the wind turbine, which took even less time than I expected.  TLE was there to be sure I was careful, and didn't fall off the CONEX, and to fetch a tool, or two.

Finally, the main event of the day....refill our fresh water tank, and dump the black effluent contained in our black water tank.  We've got that down to a science, and had everything completed, and buttoned up within an hour.  We'll have to dump two more times before our departure, so time is getting short.

Around 2 pm we drove over to Dawn's home in the Yamaha Rhino to pick up 5 dozen pasture raised, unwashed eggs.  This will probably be our last visit there this season before we head back north.  By the way, the Rhino is running great!  Upon our return TLE and I headed over to the garage to bag up the fiberglass insulation we removed from the shed last week, and then began to close up everything for the night.  I started the Jeep CJ-5 again, and it purred like a kitten.  So nice to have it running as it should a year after I bought it.  I've had a few fuel issues with it, but in the end, the price I paid was a about half of what it was worth, so in the end it is still a killer deal.

While we were out at the greenhouse in the morning TLE harvested some more broccoli, and some cauliflower to use for our dinner.  She added some hollandaise sauce on the cauliflower and broccoli (delicious).  To that she added a couple of fried eggs on toast....what a great dinner....

So cool to be eating, for the second time, things we have grown right here at TWW!

....so, we're down to our last three weeks before we haul anchor for yet another trek north back to Likely Place Golf & RV Resort.  This will be our 5th summer, which seems kind of surreal to me as I write. As is often the case as I edge toward my 77th trip around the sun, time seems to be accelerating to the point where years seem like months.

As we went to bed Tuesday night around 10 pm it began to rain, and it continued raining all night long until around 5 am this morning (Wednesday).  We were not expecting rain, so what a pleasant surprise.  It never rained hard, but was steady for hours.  Just enough to settle the dust, and water the potatoes, but not enough to make the ground squishy...lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

And the answer is.....

 7:51 am - Tuesday - March 31st - TWW - 56° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 93%, wind 10 mph out of the south.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2023 TLE and I were in Georgia visiting our son Tim, and his family.....

....we were having lunch at Smoke Jack BBQ in Alpharetta, GA.  The view this morning....

When last we left off I had isolated the source of the sudden coolant loss in the VW Beetle, but did not know what the part was called.  I decided to join a 'New Beetle' forum to seek help in identifying the part, so I could order it, and install it.  Within an hour I had a response from a forum moderator advising me it was called an 'auxiliary water pump for the turbo'.  Unlike the water pump for the engine, this pump is easy to access, and I should be able to make the swap myself...we'll see.  I ordered the OEM replacement (Bosch), as recommend by the forum moderator, from FCP Euro for $70 shipped, and it should be at our PO Box by Friday....

....it was quite breezy all day Monday with wind speeds getting into the mid 20's at times, so outdoor activity was limited, but I did manage to finish the project of installing the two additional 100 watt solar panels to help charge the solar battery in the garage that will power the chest style deep freeze Charles and Phyllis brought back from Texas....

....these newer panels are a slightly different design than the one that came with the solar charger, but my original mounting design still works with them.  With TLE's assistance I had them both mounted within an hour.  Now we can see if the three 100 watt panels are enough to keep the battery fully charged throughout the day, and so the battery can power the freezer overnight.  We've got a lot of cloud cover right now, so the experiment will not begin until Wednesday.

The potato beds are just exploding with green as the potatoes are growing at a rapid rate, and the plants inside the greenhouse are also flourishing.  TLE harvested a second batch of broccoli, and we should be harvesting some more cauliflower Tuesday.  So far no rabbits, or other nocturnal creatures have gained ingress into the confines of the greenhouse fence.  Now that the potatoes are maturing to the point where they will begin to attract attention we will see if our current defenses are adequate, or need more thought.

I spent some time straightening up the trailer, and CONEX, but beyond that I was indoors most of the day due to the wind.  We'll have a little more wind Tuesday afternoon, and then again on Thursday, but that appears to be it for wind over 20 mph for the foreseeable future. TLE prepared a lovely tuna salad with grapes for dinner, and thus ended another TWW day.  It is really nice to be back in the middle of no where, all by ourselves.

Thanks for stopping by!

Eventful....

 9:56 am - Monday - March 30th - TWW - 67° F, humidity 23%, cloud cover 55%, wind 16 mph out of the south by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2023 TLE and I flew to Atlanta, GA to visit my son Tim, and his family....

Left to right: Kathy (grandmother of Laila), Laila, Jennifer (Laila's mother), Bowie (daughter), Tim, Crosby (son), TLE and moi

....after unpacking, and taking a nap we headed out with Tim's extended family for dinner.

Sunday began innocently enough.  TLE and I wanted to get an early start on our drive back to TWW, so we were up a little after 6 am, packed, and on the road by 7:30 am.  We drove north through Wickenburg following US-93 to US-69 which took us on a scenic drive to Prescott.  We've never driven this way before, and really liked the drive.  Distance wise it is shorter than going up I-17 to Prescott, but due to the mountainous terrain the average speed is under 45 mph, so it takes about the same driving time as the longer way....

......we arrived in Prescott at the local Fry's Supermarket to do the last of our shopping around 9:30 am, and were back on the road by 10:30 am hoping to arrive back at TWW around 12:15 pm.  We stopped in Ashfork to top off our fuel tank then continued to Seligman where we picked up some mail, and a piece of hardware at the General Store for a project I'm trying to finish.  We were at the turnoff to the north/south arterial around 11:50 pm, and figured we'd be home by 12:15 pm.  That is when things became eventful!

We were about 4 miles from TWW when I suddenly began to smell coolant....doh!  I pulled to the side of the road, and got out of the car....I saw a long trail of spilled coolant behind the VW....double doh!  We found a safe place to park, turned off the car, and then began to formulate a plan.  I initially called our towing service and was advised they could have a tow truck there in about 90 minutes.  Well, we were less than an hour (walking time) from TWW, so we declined the tow and began the long walk.  I was pretty sure someone would come along to give us a ride, and I was right.  Within 10 minutes Bridget stopped in her 2008 Ford dually pickup and gave us a hitch to a point even with our property, and dropped us off to walk the last 5 minutes to the property....

You can see our Newell in the distance...not far now

TLE was showing her concern...I was just happy to be 5 minutes from home, and not an hour....lol.

.....we quickly retrieved the keys to the Ford Explorer from the Newell, then began the 5 minute drive back to the VW.  I hooked up a tow strap from the Explorer to the Beetle, and while TLE drove the Explorer I piloted the VW.  We moved at about 5 mph, and were back at TWW.....

....within 20 minutes.  By this time it was 2 pm, and we were tired.  We unpacked our luggage, and groceries, then sat down to watch the end of the final 'Elite Eight' game of the day.....UCONN vs. Duke (#1 overall seed).  I decided I was going to wait until Monday morning to figure out what happened to the VW cooling system to cause the loss of all our coolant.

When I turned on the TV UCONN was down by 19 points to begin the 2nd half.  Not looking good, but over the course of the next 20 minutes of game time UCONN slowly closed the gap until with 10 seconds to go in the game they were down by just 2 points.  Duke inbounded the ball, and then the receiver attempted to pass the ball up court, but it was tipped by the UCONN defense, and recovered.  With just .4 seconds on the clock the UCONN player attempted a very long 3 point shot and hit it to win the game....one of the most amazing comebacks in March Madness I have ever witnessed!  It was the only time in the entire game UCONN had been ahead.

This morning, Monday, I went out to the VW to figure out why we lost all of our coolant, and found the problem pretty quickly.....

....the nipple on the device above (right side inlet) broke, disconnecting the hose which carries coolant form the coolant reservoir to the engine, causing all the coolant to leak out of the VW.  Here is picture where I have drawn a red circle around the disconnected hose....

.....now I have to just figure out what that device is, order a new one, and replace it, and all will be well....I hope.  TLE and I always pray for uneventful when we are traveling, but sometimes the Jello jiggles, and the fun begins.  In the over all scheme of things this is a pretty minor issue, and we arrived home safely.  Now it is just a matter of ordering the part, and installing it.  That is was so easy to diagnose is a blessing.

Thanks for stopping by!

Saguaro Jane.....

 7:52 am - Monday - March 30th - TWW - 57° F, humidity 26%, cloud cover 43%, wind 6 mph out of the south.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE were riding zip lines.....

....at 'Out of Africa' (near Cottonwood, AZ) a combination African animals zoo, and zip line course.....a very cool day!

Well, once again, I have fallen a day behind my usual routine, and have not yet written about Saturday, March 28th.  We purposely made our dental appointments this Spring to coincide with the annual fund raising event Tom and Darlene hold at their home in Wittmann, AZ each March which raises money for Saguaro Jane, a local charitable 'food bank'.  Saguaro is the name of the well known cactus species which is found all over Arizona.  It is pronounced 'Sawaro'....

....after typing, and publishing my latest blog post I headed out to the Newell House to help Tom set up the tables, chairs and table covers, whilst TLE help Darlene with the final food preparations for the night's festivities.....

.....Darlene had been smoking/cooking a pork butt for about 18 hours at this point, plus making all sorts of desserts.  

The day passed by quickly, and soon it was 5 pm, and the guests began to arrive.....

You can see TLE, Phyllis and Charles sitting at the table on the left

....I think there were well over 100 in attendance.  The Newell House is so large inside you could have tripled the number of attendees, and still had room left over!  Charles and Phyllis arrived a little after 5 pm to join the festivities.  We met a number of new people.  In the bottom picture you can see Tom (left corner) talking with one of the guests.  

We first met Tom and Darlene in Newport Beach, CA in 2008 just after we had bought our 1982 Newell Classic.  At the time they were on an extended (several months) Newell trip in their 1990 Newell, and had stopped off in Newport Beach to visit the first Newell folks we met, Michael and Georgia Day, who are from Texas, but wintered in Newport Beach at Newport Dunes in their 1992 Newell.  In March of 2009 we took or first extended road trip in our Newell to Austin, TX for a Newell Rally, and were reacquainted with Tom and Darlene.  At the end of the rally we were invited to join them on their drive back to Mesa, AZ, where they lived at the time.  We courtesy parked in front of their home in Mesa for a couple of days before continuing our trip back to SoCal.  That was the beginning of a long friendship, which has only grown deeper over the years.

By 7:30 pm the festivities were winding down, and TLE and I bid adieu to Charles and Phyllis until we see them again on Wednesday.  It was a very successful evening, with great food and conversation.

On the 'March Madness' front there were no surprises in the first two games of the 'Elite Eight' Saturday afternoon/evening....#1 seed Arizona defeated #2 Purdue to advance to the 'Final Four', while #1 seed Illinois topped #9 Iowa easily to also advance to the 'Final Four'.  We were in bed by 10 pm.  We are so happy we were able to attend the Saguaro Jane fund raiser after missing it the past few years!

Thanks for stopping by!