Saint Ana strikes again.....

6:48 am - Tuesday - December 31st - New Years Eve - Ramona, CA - 56° F, 39% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the east by northeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 66° F.

We began another abbreviated work week Monday.  We worked a full day on Monday, but Tuesday, New Years Eve, we will be off work at 2 pm, and no work on Wednesday, New Years Day.  Originally the weather guessers said we would have rain Monday.....they said it for a week leading up to Sunday afternoon when the forecast suddenly changed to heavy cloud cover with NO rain......I'm not complaining.....I'm ready for a week, or two without precipitation.....bring it on!

In anticipation of rain on Monday I dismantled the second bench Friday afternoon, and took the boards into the maintenance building to keep them dry so I could work upon them Monday while it rained.  While it did not rain, it was bitter, bitter cold......bitter, cold, blustery, Santa Ana winds all the day long.  It was a very good day to be working inside.

Since I was still applying the second coat of paint to the boards from the first bench the saw horses were not available, so I stood the boards for the second bench upright against the wall to scrape off the old paint....it was actually much easier than working on them laying flat on the saw horses........

One board done 

....one to go.....

.....the work proceeded steadily all morning, and right up to 3 pm when I removed the last of the old paint from the second board.  I'll spend a couple of hours sanding those boards Tuesday morning before applying the first coat of paint.  By that time the second coat I had applied early that morning on the boards from the first bench was dry, and it was time to reinstall them, so I spent the last hour of the day at the pond doing just that.

Marnie was not feeling well Monday so TLE went to work at 9 am, and worked right up to closing time, 5 pm.  I was off at 4 pm, but returned to pick up TLE at 5 pm.  

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Screwed.......

6:54 am - Monday - December 30th - Ramona, CA - 42° F, 82% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the east.......heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 55° F.  It was supposed to rain today, but now it looks like it will just be cloudy.

On Sunday we cleared out the rest of the Christmas decorations, and I carried them up to the trailer to be put back into storage again until next year.  It was cold all day, and so it was the perfect day to spend inside putting the shower back together. 

When we had our "Where is that water coming from?" emergency last week I removed the wood trim panel below shower pan to look under the shower to see if if the drain was leaking, but it was not.  I left the panel out to help everything dry properly, and to reinspect a couple of times to be sure it was staying dry, but after almost a week it was time to put it back together.  I had been thinking about how I would put it back together since I took it apart.  Previously the top of the panel was held in place by aluminum rivets, which really didn't work very well, but since it came that way I continued to use rivets whenever one would come loose.  They really did not hold things in place, so when I had to remove everything I decided it would be put back together differently.  By differently I mean put back together so it could be taken apart more easily just in case I need to get back in there in the future, so instead of rivets I used stainless steel, and brass screws.  It took about 2 hours, but the end result was well worth the effort.......↴

.....now if I need to get in there again I can have it apart in minutes, not an hour like last time.  Drilling out rivets just takes too much time.

Once I had put it back together, and vacuumed the area I was done with work for the day, and settled in to watch some NFL football.  The morning and afternoon games were interesting, but the night game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks was amazing, and really came down to the last inch......that's how close Seattle came to winning the game on the last play of the game.....1 inch short of a touchdown on the last play of the game.....it took about 5 minutes of video review by the officials to determine the whether it was a touchdown, or not.

 As we slide down the calendar to the 365th and final day of 2019 we cannot help but reflect upon the events of the passing year, and all that happened to contribute to who we are, and where we are today.  The year did not turn out like we planned it, but it turned out the way it should have.  We are where we are supposed to be, and we are happily, and excitedly looking forward to what comes in 2020!

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Doin' the ocotillo.......

8:09 am - Sunday - December 29th - Ramona, CA - 32° F, 92% humidity, wind - CALM......partly cloudy with frost on everything this morning....forecast high today is 58° F.

We had originally planned to pull anchor to travel down to Ocotillo Wells to welcome in the New Years next week with some of our kids, but since New Years was on a Wednesday this year, along with Christmas, and the kids were already off work after Christmas, and not after New Years they decided to head out to Ocotillo Wells on Friday.  We were down when we thought it would be a 4, or 5 day deal, but tearing down everything to be only gone for two nights is a lot of work for us, so we decided to just drive down to Ocotillo Wells for the day to spend time with the kids, and my brother Philip, and his wife Jeannie.

There was an ample amount of frost covering the front and rear glass on the VW when we were ready to leave a little after 9 am, so we had to deal with that first before we could drive.  It's about 70 miles to Ocotillo Wells, and our drive would take us through Warner Hot Springs, Ranchita, and finally Borrego Springs.....one of our 'happy places'.  Along the way we came to the overlook just as you begin the long descent into Borrego Springs......

Beginning the downhill into Borrego Springs

We could see the Salton Sea from this overlook, but 

in the picture it looks a little fuzzy on the horizon

.....the view, which we have enjoyed several times over the years, is breathtaking on a clear day, which we had on Saturday......

.....I had chosen to wear my UnderArmor shirt along with one of my favorite flannel shirts, but by the time we arrived in Borrego Springs I could tell it was going to be warmer than I expected.  One of our favorite thrift stores, The Frugal Coyote, is in Borrego Springs and I was sure I could find an inexpensive short sleeve t-shirt there, but first we parked on Christmas Circle (round about) to use the very nice public restrooms before walking into town......

......but first we took a walk through Frederick's Ancient & Ethnic Art.....

....to take a look at the metal sculptures......

.....the prices for this objects of art were really, surprisingly, quite reasonable.....if we still lived in a 'sticks and bricks' home I would be tempted to buy a few.....lol.......

.....these are miniatures of the metal sculptures found in the area around Borrego Springs, which we wrote about here back in February of 2017........

.....next up was The Frugal Coyote where I did find a black t-shirt for $4.....TLE found another flannel shirt for her collection.  After paying for our finds we decided to walk next door to the Bighorn Fudge Company to buy a couple of cups of coffee, sit outside for a while enjoying the high desert air.

We arrived at our kids' desert encampment a little after 12 pm, and enjoyed the next few hours playing games (beer pong mainly) with them before heading back home around 3:45 pm......

My oldest grand child, Chris who at age 19 

has become quite a handsome young man

......leaving before 4 pm enabled us to make 95% of the drive home before it got too dark.  We made really good time, and arrived home just before 5 pm.....just in time for the kickoff of the second semi final bowl game between #3 Clemson Tigers and the #2 Ohio State Buckeyes to see who will face #1 LSU in the final on January 13th.  For the record #1 LSU had easily dispatched the #4 Oklahoma Sooners earlier in the day 63-28, and it wasn't really that close.....LSU scored 49 points in the first half.....all touchdown passes.

The game between Clemson and Ohio State was all that it was hyped to be.  Initially Ohio State got out to a 16-0 lead, but Clemson fought back scoring two late touchdowns before half time to trail by just 2 points as the half time gun sounded.  They went ahead in the 3rd quarter 21-16, but then Ohio came back to lead 23-21 as the 4th quarter was winding down.  Clemson got the ensuing kickoff at their 6 yard line and then proceeded to drive down the field in 4 plays to score a touchdown, and with the two point conversion went up 29-23 with 1:49 left on the clock.  Ohio got down inside Clemson's 25 yard line with 45 seconds to play, and then on the very next play the Ohio State quarterback threw an unfortunate interception which effectively ended the game, so Clemson will now advance to the final game on January 13th to play LSU....what a game!

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

8 months in.......

8:03 am - Saturday - December 28th - Ramona, CA - 33° F, 88% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the east....clear, chilly, blue skies today with a forecast high of 57° F.  The view this morning.......↴

After being off work for three days we returned for 'short Friday'......4 short hours, and it is weekend time.....time to recover from Christmas week....lol!  Also time to return to my pond bench project, but I get ahead of myself.  First up Friday morning was the pool.  It was windy while we were gone for 3 days, and while it was not bad, it was enough to put a lot of leaves in the deep end, so it fell to me to remove them.  I recorded the lowest pool water temperature in the eight months we have been at RORVR.....46° F!  Since the long aluminum pole attached to the net I use to remove leaves gets wet during the process I cannot wear gloves, and as the water gets colder it becomes a little painful, and I have to stop removing leaves periodically to warm up my hands.  It was also time to clean the brass fitting on the chlorine injector system which attaches to the water pipe recirculating the pool water through the filters.  The chlorine crystals had begu to build up again and were about to clog the fitting.  Since I caught it before it closed it only took 30 minutes to clean it this time.

Once I was finished with the pool my attention turned back to the pond bench near the entrance to the dam.  The two metal posts to which the wooden bench planks are attached were quite rusty after years of no attention, so I sanded them down, and then sprayed some Rustoleum gray primer on them to seal the rust before applying the same paint I am using on the bench planks.  Once that was done I applied a second coat of paint to the bench planks, and then began to take apart the second of 4 pond benches around the dam.  This one came apart much more easily that the first one.  By the time that project was complete it was 1 pm, and time to call it a day....another 'short Friday' in the books, and another week at RORVR.  

On Christmas day this week we also celebrated our 8th month at RORVR....it does not seem it has been that long.  As of Friday we have just 3 short months left in our commitment here before we head for Alaska.

Now that I have delivered my Intense 5.5 to my son Tim there is a little more room in the trailer, and to expand upon the available space I decided to move my Ancheer back machine down to the patio area of the Newell so it will be more readily available to utilize.  I also put away our two anti gravity chairs as they have not been used by us in about 6 weeks since the temperatures began to reflect wintertime.  About 3:30 pm I decided to get my Haibike SDURO out and run a couple of circuits around our fire trails.  I wanted to test out the adjustments I made to the front and rear shocks in air pressure, and after two circuits I give my adjustments an A+.....I'm now getting maximum travel out of both shocks, and the ride is even better than it was when I first got the bike.  In all I covered about 3.8 miles of fire roads.  Just as I arrived back at the trailer the sun set behind the local hills, and the temperature drop was startling!

About 5 pm TLE and I settled in to watch the 'Holiday Bowl' featuring the USC Trojans vs. the Iowa Hawkeyes.  It was a close game through the middle of the 3rd quarter, 28-24, in favor of the Hawkeyes, but USC's starting quarterback was injured, and the replacement quarterback did not do well committing several turnovers, and the Hawkeyes pulled away to win 49-24 with USC never scoring another point.....oh well.

We watched the season finale of 'The Crown', and then one more Hallmark Christmas movie for good measure before calling it a day around 10:30 pm.....that is way past my bedtime!

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

The day after Christmas.......

6:44 am - Friday - December 27th - Ramona, CA - 34° F, 85% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east by northeast.......clear, very cold morning with a forecast high today of 55° F.

We awoke Thursday morning knowing we would have about a 5 hour window of no rain in which to make our way back to Ramona and RORVR.  It pretty much rained all night, stopping about 6 am. As I was typing my daily blog post using my ZAGG Pocket keyboard in conjunction with my phone......

Using my ZAGG Pocket keyboard to 

compose my latest missive

......Crosby spied me and came over to see if he could help in any way.....he loves his grandpa!  We managed to be in the Beetle heading south on I-15 a little after 10 am.....TLE caught this great shot of snow in the Corona Hills as we slipped south of SR-91.....

......the traffic, as one might surmise, was very light on the day after Christmas, and we arrived home without incident just before 12 pm.  Within a couple of hours of our arrival the rain began to fall at RORVR once again.  

The Newell interior was quite chilly upon our arrival, so we turned on our three electric heaters, plus our three Suburban gas furnaces convert our home from a meat locker back into a habitable space.....within 10 minutes order is restored, and we are settling in for the afternoon to (for me) take a couple of much needed naps, and enjoy the rain on the aluminum roof.  Towards evening we watched 3 episodes of 'The Crown', the story of the life, and times of Queen Elizabeth.  We are in Season 3, and the timeline is now into the 70's. If you have not watched this series, and enjoy history, you will find this series very compelling......we have thoroughly enjoyed it up to this point. 

In closing.....my favorite picture from Christmas day......

......Crosby doesn't let many feed him, but he let me.....it doesn't get much better than this.

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Christmas day, 2019.....Merry Christmas to all!

7:27 am - Thursday - December 26th - Ontario, CA - 42⁰ F, 82% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the east by northeast......cloudy, rainy today with a forecast high of 49⁰ F.

Christmas 2019 was like so many other Christmas days over the years.  Our entire family gathers Christmas morning at the home of Chris (our son) and Rochelle to have Christmas breakfast, then exchange and open Christmas presents.  Each Christmas Chris makes Chicken Verde Pazole (chicken and hominey) soup, and each year we say that was the best ever, and Christmas 2019 was no exception.  We have been gathering at their home for 16, or 17 years now, and it has become quite a Christmas tradition.  Each year our family grows  little, and this year we had 20 persons in our stairway Christmas photo......

 20 in our annual stairway Christmas photo this year 

(Jameson is missing....taking a nap)

.....each year I turn to TLE and remark....."Except for the two of us finding each other 52 years ago, no one in this picture is connected....this scene does not exist".....it is kind of sobering to think how our choices so many years ago have shaped what our life looks like today.  I'll let the following pictures tell the rest of the story.......

......from Chris and Rochelle's home we headed back to Tim and Laila's to prepare for Christmas dinner at their home.  At Christmas dinner we get together with the other side of the family.  Frankly, the two families are competely interchangeable.....it feels exactly the same.....

......we had prime rib, and turkey for dinner with all the fixins'.  By the time the last guests left it was close to 7 pm, and we were all tired, and there was no way the tiredness could wipe the collective smiles off our faces......it was a great day spent with family and friends!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!  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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

The Eve of Christmas......

7:05 am - Wednesday - December 25th - Ontario, CA - 45⁰ F, 90% humidity, wind - CALM......forecaast high today in Ontario is 52⁰ F.

Christmas Eve dawned cloudy, but no rain.  By 10 am the sun had broken through, and the rest of the day was bathed in sun.  We are off work from Tuesday through Thursday so we can observe Christmas with our children.  We began our drive north to Ontario around 11 am finding traffic very, very light.  Even the traffic through Temecula was lighter than normal.

I have been looking for a pair of Nike running, or training shoes......not so I can take up running, but just for a pair of casual shoes I can wear other than my Keen hiking shoes, which are anything but casual.   The place to look for Nike running shoes is the Lake Elsinore Outlet stores on the north end of Lake Elsinore, CA at the Nichols Road exit off I-15 where there is a large Nike store.  We arrived there around 12:30 pm to find, of course, a very packed parking lot, but lucked out finding a spot pretty quickly.  The Nike store was packed, but they had 12 cashiers processing people out with their prizes pretty quickly.  I found the shoes for which I was looking pretty within a few minutes.......

.......some black Nike Free Trainer VIII's.....I normally wear size 10.5, but according to Michaela, my sales assistant, Nike's run small, so I tried on 11's, and they fit perfectly....thank you Michaela!

We were back on I-15 northbound about 1:15 hoping to be in Ontario before 2 pm, but a traffic accident (someone else, not us) involving 5, or 6 vehicles in Corona near the Magnolia exit covering 3 of the 4 lanes brought the Interstate to a standstill.  It took us about 30 minutes to get by the accident, and then we were once again whizzing our way north to Ontario arriving at Tim and Laila's home about 2:15 pm.  

Tim and Laila are hosting Christmas dinner Christmas afternoon, so we found the dinning room table arleady set up......

......there will be turkey and prime rib for all!

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying our time with our grandson, Crosby, who has begun walking since our last visit a couple of weeks ago.....

........Tim ordered two pizzas delivered for dinner from our favorite local pizzaria.....Grazianos.   We were in bed before 10 am dreaming of Christmas morning.

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

The Eve of Christmas Eve.......

7:35 am - Tuesday - December 24th - Ramona, CA - 46° F, 96% humidity, wind - CALM......cloudy today with a forecast high of 54° F......rained most of the night.....it is now Christmas Eve.

It began raining Tuesday around 8:30 am, and continued on and off most the the day.  While we were getting dressed for work I noticed water on the floor at the foot of the bed......uh oh.  It's raining, and now there is water on the floor.  Of course, you know where my mind goes immediately.....the roof is leaking somewhere.  Then I was into troubleshoot mode......I traced the water into my closet, where I could see it was coming out from under the door that guards the rear Suburban gas heater.  I opened the small door to find the floor was wet from side to side.....

 The water was right there between the throw rug 

and the wood strip holding the carpet down.....

 ....it was coming from under that little door 

which guards the Suburban gas heater......

.....the water covered the linoleum sub flooring.....

.......ultimately I took everything out of my closet, and then removed all the screws holding the floor of the closet in place.......

.....the floor of my closet can be easily removed 

to access the heater area easily....

......once I had the flooring out of the closet it was easy to see where the water was ingressing into the heater area....it was coming from the shower.   Of course, my mind assumes either the drain has sprung a big leak, or the mixing valve is leaking......I took the baseboard panel out of the front of the shower to find the floor under the shower completely dry except for the area on the left side next to the gas heater.  I next accessed the mixing valve front and back and no leak!  The water is coming from somewhere right?  But from where?

Then TLE said "I think shower water is running along the tub rim, and down to the floor under the shower......."

.......and she was right.....it was the only possible explanation based on where the wetness began........my solution?  Add a bead of silicone caulk to form a dam and redirect any water flowing that way back into the tub.........

Silicone caulk dam

.....as often happens, I get ahead of myself......since we were getting ready for work I stuffed one of our old shower towels into the heater space to absorb the water, and headed off to work intending to return around 3 pm to begin the investigation.  All of the preceding occurred between 3 pm, and 4:30 pm.

I was pretty sure it was going to rain Monday, so on Friday I hauled the two 2"x 8" boards from the pond bench into the maintenance building so they would be dry on Monday, and give me something to do inside during the rain.  Since it was raining when we arrived at work I took care of opening the barn, and the pool before heading back to the maintenance building to begin prepping the wood for paint.  The painting part is easy.  Its the prep that takes so long, and on this day it took me from 10 am until sometime after 1 pm before I began to paint the boards.......I scraped and sanded them the rest of the time......

Ready for paint......

.....finished

.....I finished around 3 pm, and decided to call it a day an hour early as it was still raining, and there was nothing to do outside.  I retrieved TLE from the office and headed home to finish troubleshooting the water intrusion.

In the end, like many problems, it was something simple.  Thankfully these Newell Classics were built in such a way to make it easy to explore the nooks and crannies of the areas which you normally never see on a daily basis, and that foresight on the part of those building these coaches made this diagnosis relatively easy.

We watched the last MNF game of the year featuring the Green Bay Packers at the Minnesota Vikings, and it was a good game for the first 45 minutes (it was 10-9 in favor the Vikings at half time), but then Green Bay put together a couple of scoring drives and put the Vikings away 23-10.

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 which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!