DIY stuff.....

7:55 am - Monday - March 11th - GNHS - 60° F, humidity 60%, wind 4 mph out of the west.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were awakening to a beautiful sunrise in Townsend, GA.....

Sunday was departure day for Charles and Phyllis, and it was also the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.  They had planned to leave between 9 and 10 am, but with the loss of that hour, it became sometime between 10 and 11 am....lol.  With the sun now rising at 7 am, instead of 6 am it was easy to sleep until 7 am.  We usually begin changing our clocks Saturday evening around 9 pm, which quickly becomes 10 pm.  We have 4 clocks in the Newell which need changing, plus all of my watches (8), plus a clock in the trailer, and in the VW.  The clock on the Newell console never changes because we've only been driving the Newell the last couple of years during DST...lol.

Around 10:15 am we got the text from Phyllis that they were rolling their wheels, so we headed outside to say our 'until next times'.  Soon we were all alone again, and will be for the foreseeable future.  It has been a busy 6 weeks of socializing....probably the most we have done in that short of a time span in a long time.

The final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, played at Bayhill Club and Lodge in Orlando, FL each year, was on, so TLE and I had that playing in the background as we spent time reading.  Scotty Scheffler ended up winning, handily, by 5 strokes.  At one time he was ahead by 6.....kind of reminds me of Tiger Woods during his dominant years.  Everyone else was playing for 2nd place.

Around 12:30 pm I headed outside to install the second new fog lamp on the passenger side of the front bumper....

....now that I know what I'm doing it took less than 45 minutes beginning to end.  Now I need to connect the wiring, and I'm finished with another long delayed DIY Newell project.

I've written about my trailer tires on numerous occasions.  You may recall that the first two plus years on the road we went through a number of tires on the trailer due to inferior quality of the Chinese tires.  I read an article about a guy who was having the same problem with the tires on his Airstream trailer.  He had switched to Michelin Light Truck tires, and suddenly the tire separation problem he was having (same problem I had) stopped.  During the summer of 2015 I ordered four Michelin Light Truck tires through Amazon for $124 each, and that was the last time I had an issue.  Those tires will be 9 years old this summer, and while they still look brand new they have aged out to the point where I'm just rolling the dice every time I roll my wheels, so it is time to replace them.  The same goes for the tires on the VW....they are at least 6 years old, and are not Michelins, so I called National Tire Concierge about a week ago to have them locate the 8 tires I need, and set an appointment to have them installed this week.  In preparation for that I have removed 3 of the trailer tires, and pulled out our spare tire for the trailer and put them into the rear hatch of the VW.  I didn't think they would fit, but TLE assured me they would....

....and what do you know?  They did fit, although barely....lol.  She really has outstanding spatial skills!  If I had 'bet the farm' that those 4 tires would not fit I would have lost the farm.  By the way, the tire I left on the trailer will become the new spare tire.  The old spare tire, while it, also, still looks okay, is close to 12 years old.  We should get the call today, or tomorrow that the tires are in, and then we will head up to Parkhouse Tires in Thousand Palms to get them installed.

After removing the old trailer tires, and putting them into the VW with TLE's help I was done with DIY projects for the day.  It has been getting steadily warmer the past 10 days, and the overnight lows are only getting into the low 60's now, so it took me a while to cool down after all that activity.  The day and night time differential is around 12-15° F, so no heaters are being run at all right now, day, or night.

We spent the rest of the day, and into the evening reading.  Time is now short, and we will begin to dismantle the 'firepit deck', the 'dining/gaming deck', and eventually the 'lido deck', plus take down the sail shades, and the numerous yard lights (solar and otherwise).  Then I will need to organize the trailer in preparation for insertion of the artificial turf, and the VW.  I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Thanks for stopping by!