Happy birthday to her!

 7:39 am - Wednesday - March 1st - GNHS - 51° F, humidity 61%, wind 13 mph out of the south.....heavy cloud cover, raining today with a forecast high of 57° F.  The view this morning.....↴

......and on this date in 2008 TLE completed the purchase of our 1982 Newell Classic.  Ironically, she was delivered, brand new, to the original owner, Leonard Law of Denver, CO on this same day 41 years ago.  We have now owned her for 15 years, and lived full time in her for the past 12 years.....↴

2016

2009 - Creede, CO on the shores of the Rio Grande

2012 - Flaming Gorge

2008 - Olympic Peninsula

2012 - Near Seaside, OR

2010 - North of Ventura, CA on Rincon Parkway

2023 - GNHS

Elaine and I were talking last night how we have lived in our Newell full time since February 1, 2011.  For 12 years our 1982 Newell has been our untraditional home.  No matter where we may be at any given time, when we close the curtains at night, we are 'HOME'.  Our view changes from time to time, but we are always home.

In mid February of 2008 TLE and I set foot, for the first time, inside our 2008 Newell.  At that point owning her was just a dream in our hearts, but within two weeks of being introduced to her for the first time, she became our own on March 1, 2008.  At the time the U.S. was in a deepening recession/depression.  Property values were plunging daily, and within a couple of months all the equity in our home had evaporated, and yet we still managed to garner together the funds to buy her from her second owner, Fred Hornbacker, of Palm Desert, CA.  Acquiring her was the first step in our long range plan to retire, and be traveling the width and breadth of the U.S. in her on a full time basis.  Owning, and living in her has changed our lives for the better.  We are not the same people who tentatively moved out of our home of 25 years, leased out that home, and began our full time adventure back in early 2011.

Okay, enough reminiscing for now...what did we do on Monday, February 28th?  We haven't done a 'BIG' shopping in several weeks, and our freezer, pantry and refrigerator are getting a tad bare.  After washing the VW we headed out for the 45 minute drive into La Quinta arriving at the Home Depot around 10:30 am.  

I've been trying to update the tool bag in the VW to have all the tools, and materials needed to repair her when we are away from the trove of tools I keep in the trailer.  Everything on the Beetle is of the metric persuasion, so I have a selection of metric Allen wrenches, open/closed end metric wrenches, and metric sockets of the most common sizes needed to work on a 2001 VW Beetle.  The things I did not have in that tool bag, but needed, were electrical tape, zip ties, and a pair of Vice Grips, so I bought them.  Additionally, we needed some more quarter round trim for our upcoming flooring project.

Once that was done we headed over to the COSTCO fuel station to take on 7+ gallons of premium unleaded at $4.69/gallon.....it is going UP again....why I have no idea.  Then it was into COSTCO proper to buy a few thing we only buy there.  

By the time we finished the COSTCO shopping it was 11:30 am, and time for lunch.  There is this place called 'Burgers and Beer' (southwest chain)......

....we've driven by this place several times over the time we have been shopping at the La Quinta COSTCO, but never stopped in for lunch, so we decided this would be the day.....

....we decided to sit at the bar and have lunch there.  We both ordered a draft 'Mango Cart' brew.....16 oz for TLE, and 22 oz for moi......

 

....the place has a sports bar motif, and dozens of flat screen TVs playing tennis, college basketball, golf, etc.....

Not very full at 12 noon....still very slow service

.....what a great choice we made....brew wise!  Unfortunately the food did not live up to the quality of the beer.  Yelp gives them 3.5 stars on over 400 reviews, but we would not even be that high....2.5 to 3 stars is where we would be.  The hamburgers were not bad, just not memorable.  The service was slow, and the side Caesar salads we both ordered in lieu of the Steak Fries were under dressed.....not nearly enough Caesar dressing....without the dressing it is just Romaine lettuce and croutons.  Oh well, you can't always bat 1000, right?

Once we finished our disappointing lunches we headed south on Jefferson to the local Ralph's supermarket.  We prefer this store to all the others in the area as it is very high end, well stocked, has a great ambiance, and a Starbucks kiosk inside.....of course, you know what I bought, right?  A Grande Moca Frappuccino for the drive home! By the time we finished filling our shopping cart, and had passed through the checkout line it was 1:45 pm, so we knew we would be home around 2:30 pm, which we were.

We're in for another wind event Wednesday, so we've stowed our awnings, and are hunkering down as I speak.  Got good news from Kyle...we got our much delayed fuel delivery on Tuesday (we were down to less than 1/16th of a tank), and the new electric fan for the #8 KRX.  On the disappointing side, the new transmission for #9 KRX will not be in El Centro until March 26th, so that means she will be basically sidelined until near our departure date.

Speaking of departure dates, and our return to LPG&RVR, they are experiencing the wettest winter in about a decade.....lots of snow and wind this winter, and it continues as I write.  It will be interesting to see how things look when we arrive in mid April.

In closing, one of my favorite Beatle songs....

Happy birthday to our 1982 Newell Classic

Thanks for stopping by!