Walkin', ridin' and soakin'..........

6:30 am - Thursday - December 29th - GNHS - 54° F, humidity 100%, wind 5 mph out of the south by southeast.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2011 TLE and I were riding our Tadpole Recumbent Trikes (Terratrikes) on the Pacific Electric Trail near Rialto, CA....we were just a block from the Fontana/Rialto Elks Lodge, which we would join years later.......↴ 

.....and the view this morning.......↴ 

So weird to wake up to rain soaked ground here at GNHS.  The rain overnight was long enough, and steady enough that the VW was still wet, so I went outside to wipe her down before the sun came up, and turned the moisture into water spots.  It was surprisingly warm at 7 am, which portended a pleasant, balmy day, which it was.

Even though Wednesday was not a work day for us, we are, obviously, within 20 feet of all the action, and there was a lot of action Wednesday for Casey and Torrie.....4 RZRs went out, and one KRX.  On the maintenance front, Kyle replaced the clutch in RZR #10, and all five tires on KRX #5.  It had become difficult to put RZR #10 into park, which is a sign of a clutch going bad.  Additionally, as you know, we've had an inordinate number of flat tires on the KRXs, so when Casey drove down to COYNE in El Centro on Tuesday he bought 5 new tires to see if they would do a better job surviving the local terrain.  The old tires were 6 ply, and the new ones are 10 ply, which we are hoping will make the difference.  In the mean time, all the tires Kyle removed from #5 can now be used to replace any irreparable tires on the other two KRXs

About mid morning TLE and I took a walk around the park....

The view from the top of 'snob hill'

.....and around 11 am I decided, for the first time since we arrived at GNHS, to take a ride on my Haibike SDURO down Mineral Hot Spa Road to Highway 111 and back.  It is exactly 3.76 miles from my trailer to the turn around at Highway 111, so I rode 7.52 miles in about 31 minutes.  I would have preferred to ride my Cannondale Bad Boy, but Mineral Hot Spa Road is extremely rough....emphasis on the word EXTRMELY.....so I chose to ride the full suspension bike to smooth out the ride.

After my return TLE and I sat down with Casey and Torrie for some chips, salsa and conversation.  We wanted to know what their future plans are for GNHS, and much to our delight we found out they definitely plan to return next year with all brand new UTVs!  We told them if they came back we would definitely come back, too.  So, at least tentatively, we will plan to return next winter, and if all the stars align as we hope, we will leave from here to finally make the drive to Alaska in the spring and summer of 2024.  There is still a lot water to pass under the proverbial bridge, but that is our long term plan.

After such great news I headed down to the hot pools to take a nice, long soak.  The large hot pool was the perfect temperature, and it was devoid of other homo sapiens, so it was the obvious choice.  I like the individual tubs, but it takes about 10 minutes to get one filled, and at the right temperature, so if the large hot pool is available, and hot enough I can get to soaking much more quickly.

TLE created some amazing hot pastrami sandwiches on marble rye for our dinner fare, and then we watched the first 4 episodes of the 3rd season of Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime.....by the bye.....it is very good, and so were the hot pastrami sandwiches!

Thank you so much for stopping by!