Desert View - Day 26 - Life below freezing

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5:33 am - Wednesday - December 6th - Grand Canyon - 27º F, humidity 18%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast......forecast high for today is 43º F with sunny skies....it won't get above freezing until 10 am today.

So, Tuesday has become our Friday here at the Desert View Watchtower, and now that we have adjusted to our schedule it is beginning to feel like 'Friday'.  TLE had the 'open' shift, so that means I had the 'close' shift.  I saw TLE off to work about 7:20 am....I was still typing my blog entry for the day.  The daily temp didn't get above freezing until after 11 am, and as a result our water line froze to the point where very little water was coming out of the faucet.  The freeze point must either be where my heated hose connects to the heated hose bib, or where my heated hose connects to the Newell.....I'll have to work on getting more insulation on those connections and see if that makes a difference......  

......at any rate, at 9:12 am it was still only 29º F, which means it must have been below freezing for 5-6 hours for it to freeze. So, what do you do when your water source freezes?  Well, if you planned in advance for this possibility your fresh water tank in your heated water bay would be full of fresh water so all you have to do is turn on your water pump to have water pressure once again.  Thankfully, within 30 minutes the sun was high enough in the sky to hit the water spigot and unfreeze it.  I have no doubt that as the winter progresses this will happen more often, so I will need to be sure my fresh water tank stays topped off for the rest of our stay here at 7,400' elevation.

As we continue to edge toward true winter and sub freezing temperatures here at Desert View I get private messages periodically from friends and family wondering why we have chosen to deliberately spend the winter in a cold place when we have wheels on our home and are able to literally move our home to virtually any location we desire....why not spend the winter on the Gulf Coast, or in the SoCal desert, or in Florida for that matter?  Well, we've spent the winter in all those places and thought it would be interesting to spend the winter at altitude in a place where it would be cold, but there would not be a lot of snow.  We have spent time in cold places over the past 6 years, but not entire winters.....maybe just 7-11 weeks at a time like we did back in 2012 when we worked at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY, or in 2014 when we worked at Amazon in Fernley, NV.  We are not new to extended stays in cold climates, or sub freezing temperatures day after day, and our Newell is certainly equipped to flourish in all four seasons, which includes winter.  The great thing is we don't have to do this year after year, but only when we choose, and only for the length of time we choose.  Over the past years we have acquired and retained proper cold weather clothing and footwear, so we are prepared in that regard, also.  I don't think we are  being naive about what we face this winter, and to a certain degree we are looking forward to the challenge.  Now, there is the off chance we will regret our decision.....but it is 'our' joint decision.....if, for some reason, we decide we have made a mistake we will face up to it and change our view, but I'm pretty confident we are prepared.

I was at work by 12 noon, and TLE was on her way home shortly thereafter.  It had been slow all morning and that trend continued most of the afternoon.  Except for a few flurries of customer activity I spent most of my time straightening display racks, reading my book, dry mopping, cleaning windows, and talking with fellow employees.  The time seemed to pass quickly, and I was on my way home by 5:25 pm walking briskly in the already sub freezing temperatures once again.

Since we are in the holiday TV programming void known as the 'holiday season'all the series we watch are on hiatus, so we decided to begin watching season 6 of 'Longmire'. This is the last season of this Netflix Original Series show, and the much awaited, and much delayed season 6 is finally ready to watch.  We managed to watch 4 episodes before we headed off to dreamland....we have to get up early to drive over to Grand Canyon Village for our oft delayed Delaware North orientation meeting which begins at 8:30 am.  We will leave Desert View at 7:30 am  Wednesday to make the 40-45 minute drive over.  The meeting should only last about 4-5 hours, so we'll do a little more exploring of the west side of the park after our meeting.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission.