Get 'er done!

7:55 am - Mountain Time - Wednesday - 39º F, humidity 69%, wind 3 mph out of the south.....clear blue skies once again!  Forecast high 69º F.........was very cold last night, but will be warmer today than it has been for a while.

I am officially back.......my cold is officially over.......I finally feel like myself once again.  That was one whopper of a cold!  I told TLE on Monday that Sunday had been my best day in a long time, and Tuesday, after 3 successive days of being able to work around the coach without an energy crash I am back!

Tuesday I spent time getting the box of engine wraps (blankets) I previously wrote about ready to ship via UPS to a fellow Newell owner with a different engine setup.  As was the case when I acquired them, I just asked to be reimbursed for the cost of shipping them.  Once the box was sufficiently taped and reinforced I used my fold up 'dolly' to move it out to the VW where TLE and I would load it.  We had an appointment to meet a couple for lunch who are going to work with us at Tahoe Valley Campground this summer (Michael and Mary) at noon......destination......Whitehorse West.  You will recall I visited there with my friend Tom for hamburgers a few weeks ago.  Since Michael and Mary (they will be our activities directors this summer) are hosts over at Cave Creek Regional County Park Whitehorse West was the perfect midway meeting point.

We left home about 11:15 am to make the 35 minute drive over to Whitehorse West arriving just before noon time to find Michael and Mary already there.  We had a lovely two hour lunch talking mostly about TVC, but also getting to know each other.  After our lunch I am convinced even more than before that we are hiring some really good people.  Over the course of the last 5 months we have been able to spend time on the phone with all those we are hiring interviewing them and getting to know them, but there is nothing like a face to face meeting to really get to know someone.  We bid adieu to Michael and Mary a little after 2 pm to make the drive over to a nearby UPS Store to drop off our shipment, then moved the car a few hundred feet over to BevMo to stock up on some adult beverages for our Quartzite sojourn, then we drove across town to the nearest Harbor Freight Tools store to buy a new portable generator.

A few weeks ago while visiting the local Wittmann Flea Market I noticed one vendor running a 2,000 watt generator which looked almost identical to a Honda, and was, frankly, just as quiet, but it was not a Honda.....it was a Predator.  Predators cost less than one half of what a new Honda costs.  We have had a first generation Honda 1000 watt generator for about 9 years, and it has served us well.  I bought it used off eBay at the time for $250, and have had to have it tuned up one time in 9 years.  It has served us well, but it was much louder than the current generation of Honda generators.  This new Predator is much quieter and has an Economy mode which enables the generator to run at a lower speed until a higher load is detected at which time it throttles up to a higher speed to support the higher load.  When we are blessed with sunny days with little or no cloud cover we do not need a generator to charge our batteries back to 100% as we have 620 watts of solar panels, but on cloudy days we sometimes need some assistance, and a small generator is a very efficient way to recharge our batteries.  We have a large onboard propane generator (7500 watts), which consumes 1/2 gallon of propane per hour, whereas a small generator an provide the needed power to charge batteries and operate our coach systems and consume about 1 gallon every 8 hours of operation, so unless we need to run our air conditioners we really don't need the overkill of the big generator.  We are looking forward to using our new generator over the next few months and the increased efficiency and much quieter decibel footprint.

We were home close to 4:30 pm.....it was a good day, with much accomplished......Wednesday will see us finish our preparations for our departure first thing Thursday morning.

Thanks for stopping by!