Biggest day in weeks....

 5:53 am - Monday - August 24th - LPG&RVR - 56° F, humidity 35%, cloud cover 64%, wind 14 mph out of the south....cloudy today with a forecast high of 86° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were near Coupeville, WA....

Chilled Rose

....on Whidbey Island taking an e-bike ride to Greenbank Farms where we had a picnic.

As you know, I had issues with a program on my computer Sunday morning which I use to compose my daily blog, so I didn't publish about Saturday's shenanigans until late Sunday afternoon.  I had time after work to fix the issue that I did not have Sunday morning.  At any rate, all is now well again in the blogosphere world.  I really hate when my stuff doesn't work....lol!

Sunday was a typical laid back Sunday.  By 11 am around 12 RVs had departed.  Golf began slowly, but by the end of the day we had had our biggest cart rental day in quite a while, which saw 17 of our carts rented.  By 3:30 pm only 9 had been returned, so I'll have 8 to wash first thing Monday....a nice problem to have.

In between all of that I set one sprinkler to run most of the day down at the 'Night Office', made several repairs to our drip line system which we use to water trees other than junipers.  As you know the junipers are an invasive species, and are water hungry, so in order to keep our non-juniper trees alive we must irrigate them once a week during the summer.  That took most of the morning.  As I made several runs back to the 'Caddy Shack' for needed replacement parts for the drip lines I continued staging more carts.....two, or three at a time because I was skeptical that we would rent as many as we did.

Soon it was 12 pm, and time to give TLE her 90 minute lunch break during which I answered a couple of phone calls, sold a visor to one of our members, checked in one RV, and sent 3 folks out for 9 holes of golf.

Remember that bush I trimmed a few days ago?  Well, the owner's wife decided she really wanted the bush cut down, so Dennis (owner) cut it down himself (thankfully), but asked me to haul away the cuttings to the burn pile.  That was a big bush, and it took three large trailer loads to get it all removed.  By the time I finished it was almost 3 pm, and I had those 9 carts to wash/stow before quitting time.  I managed to park the final cart in the cart shack at exactly 3:30 pm....perfect!

The day time high was forecast to be 90° F, but due to the cloud cover late in the day it only reached 86° F.  I'm fully acclimated to the higher temps now, and really don't notice the heat unless it gets well over 90° F now, which is great, but now we're heading back into the lower 80's and high 70's between now and early September.  The morning chill is lasting longer, and the sun is not rising until after 6:30 am now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Two rounds and out.....

 6:04 am - Sunday - August 23rd - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 18%, wind 13 mph out of the west.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2011 TLE and I were in Dallas, TX....

.....at a college reunion....we were so young then!

I was just beginning to compose my latest missive this morning when I ran into a problem with a program on my computer that allows me to connect to my cell phone and retrieve pictures stopped working.  I didn't have time to fiddle with it so I decided to wait until after work to figure out what was wrong when I had more time.  I was able to fix the issue, so here goes with my post about Saturday.

 As is our daily habit when working we were up at 5:30 am to get ready for our 2nd of 4 workdays this 8 day cycle.  It did not cool off much overnight, at least not to the degree to which we are accustomed.  It didn't get under 70° F until very early morning, so I did not sleep well, and neither did TLE.  Nevertheless, the 'show' must proceed.  I left the Newell about 7:15 am (about 10 minutes early) to turn on the irrigation for the 10 back in sites, and the 10 tent sites.  We haven't done it for a couple of weeks, so it was time.  Once I did that and flipped the sign down at the 'Night Office' I returned to pickup TLE and deliver her to the Clubhouse.

As I had on Friday I staged the 5 Club Car electrics, and then the 6 EZ-GO gassers.  We ended up renting 14 carts in all.  I spent part of the morning moving sprinklers around the 'Night Office' grass, staging more carts, and mowing the parking lot grass, but that was about it.  I gave TLE her lunch break at 12 pm, and then washed 9 carts before heaving for home to change clothes and return for the weekly putting contest at 4 pm.

A number of people who signed up for the contest did not show, so I had several 'byes' and didn't hit my first putt until the quarter finals around 5 pm.  My lack of taking even a single putt while others putted through several rounds turned out to be a disadvantage.  In my first match I was down 2-0 after two holes, and then I began to putt better tying the third hole, and winning the 4th hole, but failed to win the 5th hole so I went from the winners bracket to the losers bracket....

....I putted well in my second round, but lost the 2nd hole to go down 1-0, only to pull even on the next hole at 1-1.  I tied the 4th and 5th hole with my opponent, so we went to a one hole putt off to break the tie....one putt, closest to the pin.  I made a terrible first putt, and lost the playoff hole....doh.  Two rounds and I was out.

TLE made stuffed mushrooms again for dinner....so delicious!  We read until around 9 pm and then it was time to hit the sack to rest up for our third day, which I have just now completed.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hard to believe.....

 5:56 am - Saturday - August 22nd - LPG&RVR - 64° F, humidity 25%, cloud cover 25%, wind 17 mph out of the south by southwest....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 89° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were near Vancouver, WA.....

....riding our bikes along the Columbia River....the Washington/Oregon drawbridge across the river from Portland.

It was back to work Friday for another four day shift.  The weather forecast was guessing that the temp would get as high as 91° F, but we had very heavy cloud cover all day long, which suppressed the temp enough that I do not believe it reached 90° F.  Every little bit helps.  

Initially I staged the 5 Club Car electrics as there were only 8 people signed up to play golf.  Then the walk in folks began to arrive, and before we knew it we had rented 11 carts.  Not a very busy Friday by LPG&RVR standards.  Once the carts were staged I grabbed the cordless hedge trimmer and headed up the hill to the residential area to trim a large bush between two of the houses.  The last time I had to trim that bush was our first year here, so it is not really a very fast growing bush.  In all I spent about 30 minutes trimming that bush, then raked up the clippings and hauled them to the burn pile.

Around 10:30 am I hopped on the 2 bag Husqvarna and headed down to the #4-10 tent sites to finish mowing them before proceeding to mow tent sites 1-3, and then all 10 of the backup RV sites along the meadow.  That took me to TLE's lunch break time.  I do not believe I answered a single phone call in 90 minutes, and sent out just one couple to golf; that was our 11th cart.  By the time I returned to the 'Cart Return' area after TLE's lunch all 5 of the Club Car electrics had returned so I began washing them, and while I washed them 2 of the 6 EZ-GO carts we rented had also returned.

In between washing carts I ran 4 different sprinklers down at the 'Night Office' grass, and one at the parking lot grass, and made multiple trips down to the 'Night Office' to move those sprinklers  from place to place.  By the time 3:30 pm rolled around I had washed all but 2 of the 11 rented carts, so I'll have the final two to wash first thing Saturday.

The 15 day weather forecast shows no more temps in the 90's, just 80's as far as the eye can see.  There are just 9 days left in August, and then we will have just 4 the weeks of September left in our sixth summer sojourn here at LPG&RVR.  Hard to believe, but there it is.

Thanks for stopping by!

No cigar.....

 5:52 am - Friday - August 21st - LPG&RVR - 58° F, humidity 23%, cloud cover 73%, wind 14 mph out of the south.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 91° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Oregon.....

.....checking out Mt. Saint Helens, some Dick's Lava Rock Porter, and that smile!

The fourth and final day of our four day weekend arrived Thursday.  The daily high was forecast to be 94° F, and I'm pretty sure it go there.  Jose came by with Club Car Villager #20 saying it was fixed, so I took it for a drive to verify it.   Regretfully, it was not fixed, and within 10 minutes it quit running again.  Same issue....it would turn over but not fire.  I left it where it died, called Jose to let him know, and headed back to site #55.

A while back our reverse osmosis ultraviolet water filter died, meaning the ultra violet light bulb had burned out.  I ordered a replacement and received it some time ago, and assembled it, but was quite certain that the rubber gasket which seals the unit to keep water from leaking out would not do the job.  I decided to attempt to install it to see if I was right, or wrong.  Unfortunately, I was right, so I had to reinstall the old ultraviolet light filter, and go back to the drawing board.  I found an exact match to the old one on Amazon and ordered it.  It comes sealed, and requires no assembly....just connect the two small hoses, and plug it in.  I should have gone with that one in the first place, but it was twice as much, and the one I chose came with a second UV light bulb making it possible to just replace the bulb if first one goes bad, and they always go bad eventually.  Should have gone with the more expensive OEM one....doh!

By the time I reinstalled the old, defunct ultraviolet filter it was after 11 am, and time to get out to the 'lido deck' to spend some time reading before it got too hot.  By 2 pm it was getting too warm on the 'lido deck' (no breeze again), so I headed inside to finish the book I was reading.

Since I had given Jose back the loaner cart I was using when he brought mine back I needed to walk over to the Clubhouse with TLE when she went to pickup the cash drawer from Kathie to get another loaner.  We did that around 4:50 pm.  As we walked up I noticed Jose and Claude were working on my cart so I went over to see what was what.  They had just replaced the coil, and were reassembling the cart, so I hung around to see if they were successful in fixing my cart.  When Jose went to test the repair it started and ran fine, just like it had previously, however, within minutes it stopped running again....doh.....so no cigar....lol!  About that time TLE was walking over from the Clubhouse with the cash drawer in her hands so we picked up Club Car #11, and headed home, while Jose and Claude went back to the drawing board.  And with that day four of our four day weekend came to an end.

Thanks for stopping by!

It's been a month already?!

 7:49 am - Thursday - August 20th - LPG&RVR - 65° F, humidity 16%, cloud cover 64%, wind 11 mph out of the south by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 94° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Coeur d' Alene, ID.....

The view

Our RV site for a month

....staying for a month at River Walk RV Park right on the Spokane River, which is a drainage for Lake Coeur d' Alene.

We drive into Alturas once every 8 day cycle (4 days of work, 4 day weekend), and Wednesday was that day this cycle.  We like to make the drive early in the morning, usually no later than 9 am, as there are still ample shady parking spots at each store we frequent in which to park our VW while shopping.  It's kind of funny to say, but regardless of the time of year whether here n the summer time, or in northern Arizona in the winter, we are always looking for shade in which to park.  We were in the VW heading north to Alturas by 9 am, arriving at ACE Hardware around 9:20 am.  

You will recall that a month (I originally thought is was like 2 weeks ago, but I looked it up on my blog and found it was July 18th!) ago we had the issue with our Splendide washer/dryer combo machine where the drum would not drain.  After working backwards in our trouble shooting of the issue from the most complicated to the most simple solution we discovered the issue was a Band-Aid clogging the drain hose as it entered the gray tank....

.....when we removed the fitting to unclog it we discovered it was rotting away, but since we did not have the necessary replacement parts we cleaned them as best we could and reinstalled them.  Before heading into town I removed the old fittings to be sure we got the CORRECT parts we needed.....

.....it has worked fine since then, but I wanted to replace it with new parts as the old parts had a very limited lifespan left, so after some help by the ACE Hardware staff member we bought the replacement parts....

.....a brass 3/4" to 1/2" diameter male to female reducer and a 1/2"diameter male to barbed hose fitting.  This new fitting will probably last longer than I have to live.  The barbed section of the new fitting is over 2" long, so that slight split you see in the drain hose will not be an issue.

Next we shopped at Grocery Outlet, then finished at Holiday Market before heading for home where we arrived without incident around 11 am.  After helping TLE unload our purchases form the Beetle I set about installing the new drain parts, which took about 10 minutes, as it should have.

The forecast high for Wednesday was 96° F, so I knew I would not have long on the 'lido deck' this day.  I got my book, and headed out to the 'lido deck' to read, and managed to endure the heat until 2 pm before heading back indoors.  Had there been any kind of a breeze it probably would have remained pleasant for another hour, or two.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mechanical issues......

 7:38 am - Wednesday - August 19th - LPG&RVR - 61° F, humidity 29%, cloud cover 11%, wind 10 mph out of the west by northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 96° F.  On  this date in 2018 TLE and I were near Bar Harbor, ME....

At the start....Cadillac South Ridge Trail

Almost there

The reward

....hiking to the top of Cadillac Mountain.  We hiked both the north and south trails that summer.

We slept in until after 8 am Tuesday, and that is easy to do when it is so quiet.  Sunday my Club Car Villager #20 began to give me problems.  It ran fine driving over to the Clubhouse at 7:30 am, but when I went to drive it about 30 minutes later it would turn over, but not start.  I called Bob, our former mechanic who still lives here, and he came down the hill to help me diagnose the issue.  He got it running again for me, and I drove it around the park taking care of a few errands.  It ran normally the entire time.  Then I parked it again at the Clubhouse, and 5 minutes later it would not start again....same issue.

Later in the day I noticed there was no fuel in either of the fuel filters so I called Bob again, to tell him what I discovered and he suggested the fuel line might be clogged at the gas tank, so I blew compressed air backwards through the line, but it would still not start, so he suggested I replaced the fuel pump, which is easy to do....maybe a 20 minute job.  I did that and it began to run again, and ran well.  I headed for home at 3:30 pm thinking I had fixed the issue, and when I returned to pickup TLE at 5 pm it was still running fine, but as we were driving home it stopped running again....doh!  I managed to get it running and drove home and parked it.

Monday morning I went out to see if would start and it didn't.  First thing Tuesday morning I decided to walk over to the Clubhouse and get another Club Car and the tow bar to tow my cart over to the 'Caddy Shack' so Jose could work on it when he has time.  I'm now driving Club Car #1, a two seater, until Jose can get it running again.  

Upon my return to the Newell I retrieved my book and headed out to the 'lido deck' to read, and listen to music, and that is what I did until almost 4 pm when the heat of the day, and lack of a breeze drove me inside where our AC was keeping the interior at a comfortable 76° F.  

Claude's freezer stopped working in the past couple of days so he had some defrosted Top Sirloin steaks he gifted us to grill that evening.  Around 5:30 pm I lit the Sea-B-Que and grilled them to a perfect medium rare.....

....those Top Sirloins were so tender! TLE added a side salad, and some type of macaroni salad, both of which were delicious.  Thank you Claude for the unexpected steak dinner!

Thanks for stopping by!

Not the norm.....

 8:24 am - Tuesday - August 18th - LPG&RVR - 67° F, humidity 20%, cloud cover 25%, wind 9 mph out of the north by northwest....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 91° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were in Walker, CA.....

.....having lunch at Walker Burger....best burger in the Eastern Sierra, and about 90 minutes later we were standing at the top of Conway Summit....

....enjoying the view of Mono Lake, and Lee Vining, CA.  We were on our way to Mammoth Mountain to mountain bike with friends for a few days.

We were up around 7 am Monday morning, which is kind of early for us on the first day of our four day weekend, but I had promised Claude I would drive into Alturas later in the morning to pick him up at the local auto body shop where he going to have some work done on his Chevy pickup.  I was on the road just before 9 am, and picking him up at 9:20 am.  We were back at LPG&RVR by 9:45 am....that was a quick turn around.

I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the 'lido deck', and I mean the rest of the day.  I didn't renter the Newell until after 5 pm.  Even though the high temp of the day was 89° F there was a steady, cool breeze blowing all afternoon making it possible to remain outdoors.  I read, napped, read, and napped some more.  

TLE made stuffed mushrooms for dinner accompanied by a nice side salad.  I'm here to tell you that was a restaurant quality dish.  I wish I had taken pictures, but alas I did not.  Not long after we finished dinner I noticed we were getting an interesting sunset....

Looking northwest

Looking more southwest

Looking west

Looking north

.....it's rare that we get a sunset which stretches across the entire sky.

The park continues to be very unbusy.  I do not remember an August like this the previous four summers.  Since the 4th of July weekend this place has been mostly a ghost town.  We'll get busy for a day, or two, but then it gets quiet again.  Not sure if it is the price of gasoline, or all the fires, or a combination thereof, but what we are experiencing right now is not the norm for this time of year.  Time to wrap this up, and head outdoors for another day on the 'lido deck'.

Thanks for stopping by!