My last work day?

 7:34 am - Thursday - September 30th - Seal Rock, OR - 59° F, 82% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the southwest......overcast, drizzly today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were having lunch at O'Brien's in Newport, RI.......beautiful, sunny day......

Wednesday was my swan song for spreading gravel.  I had hoped to finish the last three sites (18, 19 and 43), but rain on Monday and Tuesday nixed that goal completely.  However, I was able to return to site 18 on Wednesday.  When I left off working on 18 a week, or so ago I had barely begun to raise the rear of the site.  By the time I finished hauling one bucket load of gravel after another the total count came to 16 loads.....that's the most gravel I have put in any one site.  Not only did I raise the rear of the site about 1 foot, I widened it about 3 feet from front to back.....

....the gravel pad in this site used to be quite narrow with a large hump, or crown running down the middle, but now it is level from side to side, and from front to back.  I wish I could have worked my magic on its sister, site 19, but with all the rain the week my vision has suffered an untimely death.

On the 'getting ready to haul anchor' front TLE and I got a lot done Wednesday.....with the exception of a few items, which will be moved to the front of the trailer Thursday, it is ready for VW insertion.....

The portable fireplace will be moved into the Newell Thursday afternoon.....

.....our suitcases will be stowed in the VW.....

.....not sure about the bundles of wood 

yet....we may not have room for them....

.....the beach chairs will also find there way into the VW

....additionally, we rolled up the artificial turf, and will pull it into the trailer late Thursday afternoon.....

The 'lido deck' is no more.....just a pile of wet gravel now

.....we were able to get the underside dried out, but had to put a tarp over it as the forecast for Thursday calls for rain, and as I write, it is raining.  We also deployed all the awnings once again to dry them out from the rain a couple of days ago, and then stowed them all, including the patio awning which is now secured in travel mode for the first time in 6 months.

As I write it appears my final work day will be called on account of rain, meaning I will have worked only 2 of the 5 days I was scheduled to work this week due to rain....reminds me of last winter.....time to move to dryer climates.  And thus ends our tenure here at Seal Rocks RV Cove....it has been 1 year and 2 weeks since we arrived.  SRRVC will go down as one of the top two, or three workamping jobs we have done over the years, and the location will be right up there with Lake Tahoe.  

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Farewell breakfast.....

 7:34 am - Wednesday - September 29th - Seal Rock, OR - 46° F, 93% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east by southeast......overcast today with a chance of rain later, and a forecast high of 60° F.  On this date in 2016 good friends Guy and Sue, who own a 1984 Newell, which I assisted them in finding, arrived at Tahoe Valley Campground on their first trip as Newell owners......↴

We were up an hour earlier than normal Tuesday morning. Why?  Well, our managers, Terry and Michele, were hosting a 'thank you'/farewell breakfast for us workampers at 7:30 am in Newport at the 'Pig and Pancake' restaurant.....

Left to right:  Moi, TLE, Fred, Linda, Michele, Terry, Greg, Gina

.....we were in the VW by 7:15 am heading into Newport in the rain.....it had rained all night, sometimes quite hard.  We had a lovely breakfast, and were on our way home by 8:40 am......TLE had to be at work by 9 am, and I had another rain day.  We will truly miss these people, who over the past year have become good friends.  While we are excited to be returning to our 'Vagabonder Supreme' lifestyle, we are a little sad to be leaving such a wonderful place, and people.

Unexpectedly, the skies began to clear around 11:15 am, so I immediately headed outside to begin taking down the rope lights wrapped around four of the several trees which border site A-3.  I thought it would take a lot of time, but it ended up taking me less than 30 minutes.  The hard part began after I finished taking down the last rope string.....cleaning one year's worth of pine sap off the individual strings, and that took me a good part of the afternoon to accomplish using Acetone, and a rag.....what a gooey mess!  Once they were all free of pine sap I coiled them up, and secured the coils with Velcro straps.  

All that remains is to fold up the artificial turf between rain storms, and then pull her into the trailer for the first time sine we first arrived at SRRVC just over one year ago.  Only two work days left, and it does appear I will work at least Wednesday, but Thursday is in doubt as there is rain forecast.  So far the Friday (our departure day) forecast is for clear skies.

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And then there were three.....

 6:28 am - Tuesday - September 28th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 94% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the south.....overcast, raining....don't know how it's only 94% humidity.  Forecast high for today is 56° F.  We're up early because we're meeting our managers for our farewell breakfast at a restaurant in Newport at 7:30 am.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were having lunch at a brew house in Providence, RI.......↴

Fred and I were rained out of work Monday, so that leaves little about which to write.  It rained all day, sometimes torrentially.  There can be no doubt that the rainy season has returned to Coastal Oregon with a vengeance.  As is always the case, office work is never 'rained out', but when TLE did return from work we drove into Newport to do a final BIG shopping.  Due to supply line interruptions the shelves in local grocery stores are beginning to look bare once again as people begin to stock up on the necessaries......TP, paper towels, and Kleenex.  And don't forget food stuffs which have a long shelf life.....they are being depleted a rapid rate.  Nevertheless, we were able to get everything we wanted except for our preferred TP.  After stopping off at the Fred Meyers fuel station to fill up our VW gas tank for the first time in weeks (with our .50 cent/gallon discount obtained by shopping at Fried Meyers we took on 10 gallons at $3.16/gallon.....the least we have paid since January), and then NAPA to pick up a few automotive items we were home by 1 pm.

I managed to get the black tank dumped in between rain showers, and all of the extension cords connecting all of our outdoor lights coiled up and stowed away in the trailer.  I also hauled four bundles of firewood inside the trailer to dry out, and our Adirondack chairs for the same reason.  If the forecast by the weather guessers is accurate we will get a lot of rain again on Tuesday leaving only Wednesday and Thursday to finish taking down the yard lights, and then roll up the 'lido deck'.  That turf has been outside here at SRRVC for over a year!

The heavy, torrential rain returned, and woke me up several times during the night, but we find ourselves in a lull as we prepare to head into Newport for our farewell breakfast with Terry and Michele.  In 3 days we will be heading up the road to our next adventure.

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19-9

 7:34 am - Monday - September 27th - Seal Rock, OR - 54° F, 100% humidity, wind 8 mph out o fthe south.....heavy cloud cover with rain in the forecast all day, and a forecast high of 58° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I visited Canyon Falls in Yellowstone for the first time.....pictures do not do it justice, but this one is my favorite from that day......↴

For one last time Fred and I met first thing Sunday morning at the WDS plant to clean the filters.  We lingered over the task talking about the last 6 months....usually it takes us 25 minutes, but on this day it took us 40 minutes.  From there we picked up the trailer, Stihl pole trimmer, hand trimmer, string trimmer, hand blower, and lawnmower heading to site #2 to make her look pretty again.  There have been customers in that site almost continuously for the past 6 weeks, and she needed a lot of attention.  We finished site #2 right at 12 pm, so the first of our last 5 workdays was in the books.  

After returning the tools to the Tool Shed, I headed for home to find TLE already deeply engrossed in watching the final round of the Ryder Cup.....singles match play involving 12 singles matches.  The U.S. only needed 3.5 points to get to 14.5 points for the win, and the Europeans needing an impossible 9 points (meaning they would have to win 9 of the 12 singles matches Sunday) to get to 14 points and force a tie, thereby retaining possession of the Ryder Cup.  As it turned out the U.S. secured those 3.5 points pretty early on, and then another 4.5 points to close out the win 19-9.  It was a very exciting afternoon, and probably the best Ryder Cup I've watched in some time.  Of course, it is always more exciting when your team is winning, no?

I headed out to the trailer following the conclusion of Ryder Cup play, and proceeded to stow our three bikes in to their travel positions, plus our four camp chairs bringing to a conclusion the reorganization of the trailer interior, and making it compatible for VW insertion Friday morning.  To finish things off I applied a coat of gloss black Rustoleum to the wheel well cover I had prepared for painting the day before.

The next 4 days will pass quickly, no doubt, and soon I will be composing a missive on the road somewhere in Washington State.  As I write I has been raining since 5 pm Sunday, and the weather guessers say it will rain all day today.....looks like one of my last four days of work will be a rain day.  The rainy season has returned, and soon the burn ban for burn piles will be lifted, however, we will not be on hand to witness that day.

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The installation.....

 6:53 am - Sunday - September 26th - Seal Rock, OR - 55° F, 82° F, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast.....overcast today with a forecast high of 61° F....chance of rain late this afternoon.  On this date in 2012 we arrived at the home of college friend John Dickerson who lives west of Fayettville, Arkansas.  John was married to Cathy McAuliffe the sister of Jack McAuliffe who is recognized as the father of American Craft Brewing.  He happened to be there at the time, and we got to visit a local craft brewery and talk about his influence on modern craft brewing.......↴

I was finally able to finish installing the shutoff valve on the hot water supply line under the sink.  The Sharkbite reducer fittings (1/2" x 3/8") arrived at the Post Office Thursday afternoon, and I picked them up Friday afternoon.  I spent time Friday night assembling the valve to the reducers, so it only took 15-20 minutes remove the temporary 3/8" x 3/8" coupling, cut about 6" off the bottom of the 3/8" copper tubing, then install the new valve assembly....

The assembled valve and my tools

....one of the great things about Sharkbite fittings is you can easily disassemble them using a small 'C' shaped plastic tool.  I still had the 1/2" tool from my tankless water heater installation back in March of 2020, but I did not have a 3/8" one, so I fabricated one out of a flat washer which had a 3/8" center hole.....

....amazingly, it worked perfectly!  Below is a closeup of the valve attached on each end to the 1/2" x 3/8" reducers utilizing PEX tubing I had on hand.......

.....and below you can see the shutoff valve installed...."no runs, no drips, no errors" as Johnny Bench used to say in the those Krylon spray paint commercials back in the 70's, or 80's....that means it didn't leak......lol......

.....next I moved out to the trailer to take down the tool bag table.....this is usually the last thing I do before we leave as I do not like bending over to get tools out of the bags on the floor.  Additionally, TLE and I moved the dorm fridge to the Tool Shed where it will be used to cool water bottles for the park workers so we don't have to go all the way back to the office to get water.  By the time the day was finished I only have the three bikes to stow into their travel positions, and we are ready for VW insertion.....

....it's beginning to look a little empty in the trailer.....the fireplace will go back into the Newell to its travel position on Thursday, and we will be hauling anchor Friday morning.  In addition to taking down the tool bag table I also prepped the wheel well cover on the driver side of the trailer to repaint it.  A number of months ago the 1 gallon bottle of Simple Green I had on hand for radiator cleaning leaked, and ate through the paint exposing the bare metal, which then began to rust in the salt laden air of SRRVC......that Simple Green stuff is pretty corrosive stuff.....I had no idea......

.....I used a wire wheel attachment on my Porter-Cable impact driver to remove the rust, and loose paint.  I'll probably paint it on Sunday.

We never really got any sunshine Saturday, so there was no sunset, but we did watch a lot of Ryder Cup on TV whilst working.  The U.S. ended the day up 11-5.  The U.S. only needs 14.5 points to win, so they have a seemingly insurmountable lead, but that's why they actually play the matches, right?  Who knows what will happen Sunday....is it possible Europe will win....of course, but is it probable......I don't think so.  Europe would have to win 9 out of the 12 singles matches to be played Sunday....that's a pretty tall order.  We shall see what we shall see.

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The take down.......

 8:25 am - Saturday - September 25th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM.....foggy, but that is yielding to the sun as I write.....forecast high for today is 60° F.  On this date in 2016 Vin Scully called his last Dodger game, and that game ended with a walk off homerun, and a Dodger victory.....no one calls a homerun like Vin Scully......

....the sweatshirt is a reminder of our great winter in Cedar Key, FL.....spent a lot of evenings at the Hideaway Tiki Bar.

Friday began the take down of our outdoor environment here in site A-2 at Seal Rocks RV Cove, and putting away the big stuff in the trailer.  The day dawned with crystal clear, blue skies, and remained that way all day. The high temp for the day was 72° F, but it felt like 90.....lol.

After breakfast I headed into the trailer to begin putting away the big stuff.....stow the bike stand, remove the dorm fridge, remove the bench grinder from my 'Workmate' and then fold it ('Workmate') up, and and stow it, and fold up and stow my 'back' machine.

While all of that fun was in progress I had the TV tuned to the 'Ryder Cup' matches being played in Wisconsin.  The U.S. ended the day up 6-2, a first day lead they have not seen since the 70's.

By 3 pm I had done as much as I wished for the day heading inside to watch the last two hours of the Ryder Cup matches.  By 5 pm it was obvious we would have a sunset, and that there would be NO wind, so I hauled some of our firewood down to the firepit in site A-3 (I stowed our portable firepit a couple of weeks ago when the 'burn ban' went into effect never thinking it would be lifted before we left, but lifted it was a few days ago) for, perhaps, our last sunset fire this time around.  The sun was scheduled to 'kiss' the ocean around 7:08 pm, so we were in our Adirondack chairs by 6:10 pm....we were not disappointed......

.....the after glow lasted for 30 minutes, and we were there for every single minute.  The air was so balmy TLE and I only wore t-shirts the entire time.  Life has been good here on the Oregon Coast the past year, and Friday evening just reinforced that sanguine feeling.

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The Jello jiggled......

 8:02 am - Friday - September 24th - Seal Rock, OR - 63° F, 68% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the northeast, and not a cloud in the sky.....crystal, clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 72°!  Our view this morning.....↴

.....on this date in 2018 TLE and I were riding our bikes along the Island Line Rail Trail which runs along the coast of Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT.....↴

I began my second to last Thursday replacing the final two signs at the 'triangle' near the restrooms, which I removed in order to shave those 2 feet off the island.  Combined with doing site checks, it took me about 2 hours to dig the new holes, and set the signs.  Once that was done I headed up to our site to scrape the picnic table there in preparation for painting it.  By the time I finished that task it was getting close to 1 pm, and time to put everything away.

TLE was already home taking her two hour break before the second half of her split shift.  After she left for work I headed outside to deploy all the window awnings to be sure they are dry before we depart in a week.  It was too windy to deploy the patio awning for the same purpose, so we'll probably take care of that on Friday.  After that I headed into the trailer to get really serious about putting stuff away.  I got a lot done over a couple of hours, but Friday and Saturday will be the big days as we begin to squirrel away all that stuff we have had out the past year.  By Saturday the dorm fridge will be gone, the bikes will be stowed in their travel positions, the bike rack will be reinstalled on the VW, and by next Thursday the portable fireplace will be back in the Newell.  

We are now just one week from lift off, and it seems almost surreal to be saying that.  The weather continues to be what I would call excellent, though typical 'Fall' weather, and one can feel that 'Fall' chill in the air each morning.  

While I was working I received a call from my oldest son with whom I used to share an office before I retired from the insurance business.  For years he has leased an office with a small warehouse attached to it, and TLE and I have been storing a few personal items there on steel racks for about 15 years.  We've whittled down the amount of stuff we store there to where what is left might partially fill the bed of a pickup.  We also store TLE's old Cannondale F600 road bike there, and our Cannondale tandem. At any rate, my son called to advise he is moving his office into a smaller space, and will no longer have the warehouse, so we will need to move our stuff before the first of November as he will not have room for it in his garage after he moves his stuff from the warehouse to his home rarage (a Jeep, a Razr, and other assorted sand toys).  The reason he is moving is he just got a notice from his landlord advising they are raising his rent $500/month effective November 1st, so it's not his fault for the short notice.  So, to make a long story short, our travel plans after we leave Seal Rock have changed dramatically, and we are still discussing what that will look like, so stay tuned as we sort out this latest curveball by Miss Serendipity.....lol....can you see the Jello jiggling?

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The Seal Rocks triangle......

 7:43 am - Thursday - September 23rd - Seal Rock, OR - 46° F, 100% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the northeast......clear, sunny day today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were taking a tour of the Rogue River in one of Jerry's Jet Boats with good friends Mike and Lizzie.......↴

I wrote some time ago I had done everything here at SRRVC there was to do, but that was not true, apparently.  Wednesday Terry asked me to retrieve the Massey-Ferguson to 'shave' off 2 feet of the 'triangle' which sits at the entrance to the Tent area.  He wanted me to shave off the side of the triangle which fronts the main road through the park to make that section a little wider so people backing trailers and 5th wheels into sites 6 and 7 would have a little more 'swing' room.  I neglected to take 'before' pictures, but I did take the 'after' pictures.  I think it turned out quite well.....

The triangle looking south...sites 6 and 7 to the left

One of the two entrances to the tent area....you can see the restrooms in the background on the left.  The landscape shed is on the right.

The triangle looking north....the other entrance to the tent area

.....I used the bucket blade to cut the two feet off, the moved all the debris and dirt to a pile in the overflow parking area where it will be moved later up to the 'burn pile' area.  I then hauled in gravel to spread over the cleared area, and reinstalled the two signs I had to remove to do the work.  In all it took me just over three hours.

While I was at it I took the pictures of site #10 I failed to take the other day when I leveled it.  As you can see, the current tenant did not have to do any leveling to use the site.  Usually motorhomes in this site must use blocks, and/or jacks to raise the front end to be level front to back. Often, when using jacks, the front tires were off the ground.....not anymore.....

A rare Airstream Class A motorhome

....I was home a little after 1 pm realizing there are just 6 more work days left before our scheduled departure.  So far the weather forecast for October 1st and 2nd looks great.....no rain forecast so far.  At present our departure date is fluid, but we are leaning towards leaving on Saturday morning, October 2nd, but it is still a possibility that we will be on the road Friday morning, October 1st.

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Marching onward.....

 7:30 am - Wednesday - September 22nd - Seal Rock, OR - 54° F, 100% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south.....overcast, foggy this morning with a forecast high today of 62° F.  On this date in 2017 it snowed at Mammoth Hot Springs where we worked for 4 months that summer......↴

With all of the sites in which I need to spread gravel full Tuesday I reported for work in time (11:30 am) to do the check-ins and check-outs, and worked just an hour.  The day was a 'hot' one for Seal Rock, OR.....72° F.  It's amazing to me how 72° F can be so uncomfortable to a boy who grew up in SoCal, and would have loved a 72° F day in late September, but when you become acclimatized to temps in the 50's and 60's all summer it changes your perspective.

I continued to put things away Tuesday.  The table which has been standing on our 'lido deck' for 6 months was almost frozen with corrosion, but with the use of Aero Kroyl, a super penetrating spray, I gradually worked the metal legs loose, and was able to collapse them once again for stowing in our through bay.  The little, round, green tables were also stowed away leaving just the Adirondack chairs to stand sentinel.  Soon we'll be rolling up the artificial turf, and rolling up the rope lights, and the 'lido deck' will be no more.

I also hauled another load of cardboard, the residue of numerous Amazon/eBay orders, up to the barn.  In a few days I will begin to stow away many things in the trailer such as the bench grinder, my three tool bags, the table upon which they have sat for 6 months, the bikes, and on it goes.

While we are anxious to change our view, and begin a new adventure, a small part of us does not want to move.  We are comfortable here.....we are safe here.....there are no unknowns here....as we get older we think more of those things, but the bigger part of us still wants to get out and see new places, meet new people, and continue to explore.  How many years do we have left before physical limitations render us no longer able to roam free as vagabonds?  All we know is that number becomes more finite with each passing day.  In a very few months we will celebrate 10 years on the road, something we never anticipated when we first began our endless wanderings.  Each day as I post where we were, and what we were doing on that particular date, such as today four years ago when we were slogging up the Gardner River Gorge during a heavy snowfall in the Beetle to work at the General Store....it does not seem like four years have passed, but the evidence is undeniable.  Time marches on without our consent, so we need to keep marching onward, too.

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A brief update.....

 8:35 am - Tuesday - September 21st - Seal Rock, OR - 59° F, 63% humidity (wait, what?), wind 13 mph out of the east by northeast.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 72° F (WOW!).  This is the first time the temp has been over 70° F in 2 months, and the first time since we've been here that the humidity has been under 70%!  On this date in 2018 we arrived at the Elks Lodge in Burlington, VT for a 5 day stay.  Vermont was the 45th state we had entered in our Newell since we began our full time travels in February of 2012......↴

On Tuesday I was at work before 10 am, and spreading gravel a little after in site #10.  This site is high in back, and high on the left side as you face the site from the street.  My goal was to remove dirt and gravel from the rear of the site, moving it to the front to lower the back and raise the front, then bring in the gravel to level from side to side, and pave the entire site.  In all it took me about 2.5 hours to finish the job....I wish I had taken pictures, but became so engrossed in the process I forgot.  Only two sites remain now....sites 18 and 19.  I've already begun work on 18, and hope to finish it in the next few days.

After work I removed another strand of solar lights from the trees on the driver side of the coach, so there are just two strands left there.....they will be taken down, and stowed by the end of the week.  All that will remain then are the rope lights wrapped around the trees in site A-3, and they will begin to be taken down this weekend. Time is getting short!

We began watching another Netflix series entitled 'Broadchurch' the other night.  There are three seasons, and it, so far, is excellent!  Check it out!

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Something else.....

 7:48 am - Monday - September 20th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM.....sunny today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2018 we standing atop Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.......you can read about that here....↴

As is the case every other Sunday lately TLE worked the afternoon shift, so I joined her in that endeavor.....kind of makes the weekend seem a 1/2 day longer when you don't go to work until 1 pm.  Since I was working by myself I retrieved the Massey-Ferguson loader and began moving fresh gravel to site #18 in bring it into a more level condition.  I wish I had come in earlier, as the incoming customer for site #18 arrived just 30 minutes after I began my work, so I had to rake out what gravel I had dumped there and move onto something else.

"Something else" ended up being scraping the picnic table in site A-3 (next to us) in preparation for painting it.  I've been meaning to get to the two tables on the hill (including our table in site A-2), and Sunday was the perfect day to begin that task.

I was finished with the A-3 table around 3 pm, so drove over to the Landscape Shed to drop off my tools, parked the golf cart at Terry and Michele's site, and headed for home.  TLE had beaten me there by a few minutes.

And thus we have begun the final two weeks of our one year and two weeks stay here at Seal Rocks RV Cove, marking the longest we have ever stayed anywhere since beginning to live full time in our Newell Classic back on February 1, 2011.

As a side note, we began watching the 2018 Netflix series the other day which might interest some of you.  It is called 'The Bodyguard', and is set in London.  There is only one season at the time consisting of 6 episodes, but it is really very good.  Check it out!

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Shark bites again.....

 7:48 am - Sunday - September 19th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 100% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the south....partly cloudy as I write with a forecast high today of 60° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were somewhere east of Missoula heading east to the beet harvest in Sydney, Montana......↴

We were expecting rain Saturday, and that is what we received....

.....I had been saving a rainy day project for just such a day as this.....install two Sharkbite water shutoff valves on the hot and cold water lines under the kitchen sink.  The only internal water shutoff valves we have in the coach are for the hot and cold water for the Splendide washer/dryer, and the cold water line for the toilet.  The bathroom sink, kitchen sink, and shower have nothing of the sort, which is kind of a mystery to moi, but I have been determined to rectify that issue for a long time.  A couple of months ago when I installed the new kitchen faucet I decided to ordered a couple of those valves to install at a later date, so while TLE headed into Newport to shop, I set about to install the two valves, and be done before she returned....of course nothing is ever that easy.

As you will recall, back in March of 2020 I utilized Sharkbite fittings to install our new tankless water heater, and found them quite easy to use, so I ordered two 1/2" valves off Amazon assuming the copper lines under the sink were the same size.....why wouldn't they be?  I brought my pipe cutter into the coach and began to slowly sever the hot water line, and within a few minutes was ready to install the first 1/2" Sharkbite valve.....it would not slip onto the pipe.....wait, what?  As I examined the valve and copper tubing I realized it was 3/8", not 1/2".......doh!  This is not good, right?  I cannot turn on the water for anything in the coach, or there will be a flood under the kitchen sink, so I must solve this problem within a couple of hours.  I go back online to see if there is even such a thing as a 3/8" x 3/8" (both ends push to fit) Sharkbite valve, and there is no such animal.  I check many sources (Amazon, eBay, etc.), and they do not exist, so now I'm hoping I can find a 3/8" x 3/8" coupling at the local Ace Hardware store, and just reconnect the copper line I have just severed.....

The 1/2" Sharkbite shutoff valve

....TLE was home about 30 minutes later, so I hopped in the Beetle heading south to the Waldport Ace Hardware store to, hopefully, buy the needed 3/8" x 3/8" Sharkbite coupling.....frankly, I'm must hoping they have one in stock.  Fortunately for me they did have two in stock so I bought one ($13....ouch) and headed back home to undo my mistake.  The 3/8" coupling worked as it should, and my wife was a happy woman once again......

The Sharkbite 3/8" coupling is within the red circle

.....once order had been restored, and water service was restored to the coach I went online to do some more research.  Since no one apparently sells  the required 3/8" x 3/8" Sharbite water shutoff valve I search to see if I could find a 1/2" x 3/8" coupling, and what do you know, they do exist!!!  I can install two of them to get up to the 1/2" size pipe I need to install the the shutoff valve.  I still have 1/2" PEX tubing leftover from the tankless water heater install, so I'm set.  Once I'm sure my solution will work I will order two more of the reducer couplings and install them on the cold water side.

After all that unnecessary excitement on a Saturday I settled into my recliner to watch unlimited NCAAF college football.  My USC Trojans started slowly, but after a quarterback change scored 45 unanswered points to best the Washington State Cougars 45-14.

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