A productive Monday....

 5:56 am - Tuesday - September 15th - LPG&RVR - 40° F, humidity 29%, cloud cover 5%, wind 13 mph out of the south by southwest......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 79° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE had just arrived at our home for the next 12 months.....

....Seal Rocks RV Cove.  Our employee site was on the hill behind the office (foreground), and this was our view, and was separated from the rest of the campground.  One of the best workamping jobs ever.....great place to live for the next 12 months.

For the second consecutive day it got down to freezing overnight, and we were met with frost on the putting green as we arrived at 7:30 am for our first of four work days.  Due to the frost there was a 90 minute frost delay for those wishing to play a around of golf.  As a result our first golfers did not tee off until 9:30 am.  There were six carts left over from Sunday for me to wash, but it was too cold to take care of that until closer to 9:30 am.  I initially staged 4 carts for the 9:30 am folks, and then later an additional 12 carts. By 3:30 pm 8 of them were still outstanding.

I spent time repairing the hose on the air compressor in the 'Caddy Shack'.  It had developed a leak last Wednesday (my last work day), and I had to cut off about 4 feet of the hose, and reattach the shortened hose so I could blow grass off the two Husqvarna mowing decks, and didn't have time to splice the four feet back to the hose that day.  In the interim I found a coupling to splice the two pieces, and was able to restore the full length of hose.  

Next up I was able to repair the right front wheel of the 2 bag Husqvarna with two new bushings.  As you will recall I discovered the bushing on the outside of the wheel had broken, and I didn't think we had any other bushings, so I borrowed the right front wheel from the defunct John Deere mower which had two good bushings.  As it turns out we do have four of those bushings, so using a chisel I pounded out the remains of the old bushing, and pressed in the new one.  While I was at it I replaced the inside bushing as well, since it had worn unevenly for a period of time before I discovered the problem with the outside bushing.  It was actually a pretty straightforward repair.  By that time it was almost 12 noon, so I put away my tools, and headed inside to give TLE her 90 minute lunch break.

The office was pretty busy during that time with phone calls to answer, and customers to check into the RV park, so the 90 minutes passed by quickly.  Soon I was back outside washing and stowing golf carts.  I made one pass around the golf course since our Marshal (Claude) is off Monday through Wednesdays.  All was well, and folks were obeying the rules.  By the time I returned it was almost 3 pm, and there were a few more carts to wash and stow, so I took care of them, closed up the 'Caddy Shack', and was home by 3:30 pm.

As of this writing (Tuesday morning around 6:22 am) we have just 10 more early mornings left, and 12 more days off work, plus another 5 months after that of no early mornings until we return for our 6th season here at LPG&RVR.

Thanks for stopping by!

A couple of firsts.....

 5:49 am - Monday - September 14th - LPG&RVR - 33° F, humidity 47%, cloud cover 1%, wind 6 mph out of the northeast.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were just across the Columbia River from Astoria, OR....

You can see the Astoria-Megler bridge in the background

.....after having having spent a week driving US-1 from Port Townsend through the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  We would arrive at our home for the next year (Seal Rock, OR) later the next day.

Sunday was another great football day.  It was NFL day, and there were quite a few good games throughout the day.  Although I had the outdoor TV up and running on the 'lido deck' it was too cold, and breezy to spend much time outdoors.  The temp had dropped from 81° F on Saturday to 65° F Sunday.  The overnight low was 30° F (7 am Sunday), which meant we had to move our many plants into the trailer Saturday night for the first time since we arrived April 27th.  We planned on taking another 1 mile out and back walk when it hit 60° F, which did not occur until 1:30 pm.

Just as the afternoon NFL games were about to begin we took our walk averaging 3 mph again (20 minutes and 10 seconds) burning another 166 calories.  After returning from our walk we sat on the 'lido deck' for a few minutes cooling down from our walk, but eventually had to head indoors as the cool temp combined with the stiff breeze made it feel much colder than it was.

That was pretty much the 4th day of our four day weekend.  We did watch the Sunday night game between the NY Giants and the Dallas Cowboys played in New Jersey.  Jim Harbaugh is the NY Giants coach this year, and has apparently worked wonders with their defense and offense.  The Cowboys were favored, but the Giants won 28-20, and it didn't really seem that close.  This was the first time the NY Giants have won a season opener against the Cowboys since 2016, and it was the first time since 2006 that both the NY Jets and Giants both won their opening day games.

Thanks for stopping by!

In the money again!

 8:10 am - Sunday - September 13th - LPG&RVR - 44° F, humidity 40%, cloud cover 7%, wind 14 mph out of the north by northwest.....clear, but hazy skies this morning with a forecast high today of 65° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were in Bar Harbor, ME....

....we were up at 5 am to make the 20 minute drive to the summit of Cadillac Mountain to watch the sun rise.  Every day during the summer hundreds of people would make this pilgrimage to watch the sun rise, and we are glad that on this day we would be counted among those.....spectacular!

After composing my latest missive I headed out to the 'lido deck' to dump our black tank realizing at the same time that I would only be performing this ritual a couple more times before we haul anchor and head south for the winter.  I'm pretty sure I've mentioned previously that we have great water pressure here at LPG&RVR, so it only takes about 10-15 minutes to thoroughly dump and flush the tank two, or three times.

After another successful dump/flush TLE and I headed out to do another 1 mile out and back walk; just the fourth of the summer.....

....we managed to complete the out and balk 1 mile walk in 19 minutes and 46 seconds averaging just over 3 mph, plus another 166 caloric units were consumed.  We've really beeen lazy this summer, but we need to get back to walking on a regular basis.

Upon our return I changed clothes and headed out to the 'lido deck' to watch some college football, and were there ever some great games to be watched.  In all I counted three significant upsets of top 25 teams beginning with Michigan (unranked) outlasting the University of Oklahoma (#11) 17-10, unranked Oklahoma State defeating #6 Oregon Ducks 39-31, and #4 Texas beating #1 Ohio State 24-23 on a last minute touchdown and extra point.  Texas was down 23-3 to begin the second half, but scored 21 unanswered points to win at the buzzer.

Saturday was also our final weekly putting contest of the summer before the final next Saturday (September 19th).  There were only 15 putters, and normally we would have run a double elimination format, but the annual Likely Fire Department steak dinner was at 5 pm, so we went with single elimination.  I'm happy to say that the magic that was mine last week continued this week, only this time I came in first place!  I still can't believe it.

Around 5 pm TLE and I headed over to the Fire Department dinner.  I think well over half the people there were from LPG&RVR (customers, residents, members, and employees).  For $30/person you get a larger than life Rib Eye Steak (TLE and I were hard pressed to eat half of ours), baked potato, corn on the cobb, salad and dessert.  When we arrived there was a line out the door, and it took us a good 15 minutes to get to our table with our food.  At the end of the dinner there is a raffle drawing for three prizes: 1st place is an expensive hunting rifle, 2nd place was an expensive wine refrigerator, and 3rd was a $200 gift certificate for the Likely General Store (we won that prize two years ago).  When it came time to draw the much coveted hunting rifle DeWayne Matthews (Fire Chief) asked a lady from the audience to make the draw.  You can't make this stuff up.....she drew her own raffle ticket out of a box of hundreds of tickets.  She only bought ONE raffle ticket.  How cool is that?

We were home by 7:30 pm, just in time to see most of the 2nd half of the Texas/Ohio State game, and then transition to the late game (8 pm start) featuring my USC Trojans vs. Louisiana.  As expected my Trojans won handily 49-30, but I was in bed long before the game finished sometime after 11 pm.

Saturday was quite a day....thanks for stopping by!

Two for ones......

 7:44 am - Saturday - September 12th - LPG&RVR - 57° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 37%, wind 21 mph out of the south by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were in Cape Blanco, OR.....

In those rock formations in the background (above) you can see what appears to be a caricature of a whale (below)

....in our 15+ years of travel we have found the Oregon Coast sunsets are consistently the most beautiful, and amazing we have seen anywhere.  Between Cape Blanco (Fall of 2014 & 2015) and Seal Rock (10/2020 to 10/2021) I have enough sunset pictures to make up a dozen calendars.

I still owe you a 'what happened on Thursday' since I dedicated yesterday's post to 9/11, so I'll do my best to describe Thursday's happenings first, before I transition into Friday's happenings, so you'll get a 'two for one'.

Thursday, September 10th:

In less than 3 weeks we will be able to sleep in every day until late April 2027, but for now we are in those 8 day cycles where we can sleep late on four of those days, but need to be up by 5:30 am on the other four, and Thursday was one of the four days every eight days that we do not have to rise early, so we didn't.  By the time I finished, and posted my daily blog about Wednesday's events it was after 9:30 am.....how delicious!

The only substantial thing I accomplished Thursday was to install a new center console in our 2001 VW Beetle.  The center console is like an arm rest, but it does have a lid can open to access whatever one might put in there like current registration, insurance cards, etc.  The one that came with our Beetle had a damaged hinge, which prevented it from being adjusted to whatever height you prefer.  It would remain in a given position for a few minutes, then fall.  I found a previously owned on on eBay about 10 days ago when we were at Holiday Market shopping.  I had finally had it with the malfunctioning one on the way into Alturas, so as soon as we arrived at Holiday Market that day I began searching for a replacement on eBay.  The replacement arrived on Wednesday, so around 10 am Thursday I removed the old one, and installed the new one....

.....the old one was black on top, but gray on the bottom.  This one is all black, but unless you knew there was a difference you wouldn't even notice.  In all it took me about 15 minutes beginning to end to install the 'new to us' center console.  Over the years I have replaced the right door 'card', the grab handle on the passenger side, and the glove box; all off eBay.

Once that was done TLE and I did something we have rarely done this summer....take a 1 mile out and back walk.....

.....we averaged just under  3 mph for 1.01 miles taking just 20 minutes and 36 seconds to do the walk, burning a meager 168 caloric units.

I spent the balance of the day relaxing on our 'lido deck' until late in the day.  With temps back into the low 80's I can use my anti gravity recliner all day long.  I spent time reading, and napping as is my custom on days off work.  

TLE and I watched a documentary that evening on Nolan Ryan, the pitcher, on Amazon Prime. It's over an hour (1 hour 42 minutes), but if you are a baseball fan it is well worth it.  It gets 5 stars on Amazon.  He pitched well until age 44 when he tore a tendon, or ligament in his right elbow, and retired.  He pitched 7 no hitters during his 27 year career, the final one at age 43.  He played for the Angels, Astros, and Rangers during his amazing career.  At his prime his fast ball could hit 108 mph.  He holds around 56 Major League Baseball records.  He won over 300 games, and had just shy of 5,800 strikeouts in his career.  Randy Johnson is in second place strikeouts wise, and he is 1,000 strikeouts behind Nolan Ryan.  Anyway, if you are so inclined, check it out.  The title of the documentary is 'Facing Nolan'.  I believe you can find it on Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and an abbreviated version on YouTube.

Friday, September 11th: 

I had a hair appointment Friday morning at Kaleidescope at 9 am, so we were up right at 7 am....no sleeping in until 7:30, or 8 am on this day.  It seems like my hair is growing at a faster rate than a few years so, and getting a haircut once a month is no longer working.  I'm going to have to reduce the intervals between haircuts to avoid an out of control coif.  Anyway, we were on the road in the Beetle before 8:30 am, and I was enjoying the convenience of the new center console that works as it should.....lol.  We arrived at Kaleidescope at 8:50 am, the same time Sheila arrived....great timing.  On this day TLE was also getting her hair length, and bangs adjusted, so she went first.  By 9:35 am we were on our way to do our weekly shopping making stops at Dollar General, and Holiday Market where we found two large London Broil steaks on sale from $36 down to $18....killer deal.  It's like buy one, get one free (2 for 1).  They'll go into the freezer to be enjoyed at a later day, perhaps after our return to The Wilson Wilderness.

We were home by 11 am with virtually the entire day still in front of us.  After helping put away our purchases I retired, once again, to the 'lido deck'  where I remained until almost 5 pm reading, napping, smoking a cigar, and listening to music (Classic Vinyl, channel 26, Sirius/XM Radio).  The mosquitoes are slowly disappearing as the overnight lows begin to eliminate them  I think I got one bite all afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have you forgotten?

 7:25 am - Friday - September 11th  - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 39%, cloud cover 2%, wind 15 mph out of the west by southwest.....partially cloudy this morning with a forecast high of 84° F.  On this date in 2001  Islamic Terrorists flew passenger jets into the twin towers in Manhattan, NY, and into the Pentagon in Washington D.C......

....today's blog will be brief, and a tribute to those 2,996 innocent people who's lives were snuffed out by those terrorists 25 years ago.  So many seem to have forgotten.  The question is "Have you forgotten?".....

"HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?" - Darryl Worley

....I haven't.  Please take some time today to reflect on what happened a quarter of a century ago, and what we are facing today, and in the future.

Thank you for stopping by!

Time for the 'until next times'.....

7:35 am - Thursday - September 10th - LPG&RVR - 63° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 92%, wind 15 mph out of the southwest.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Gardiner, MT where we lived that summer while working at the General Store in Mammoth Hot Springs.....

....Mammoth Hot Springs is in Wyoming, so we were crossing state lines twice a day 5 out of every 7 days.  We came home from work on this date in 2017 to find two deer in repose on our artificial turf....how cool is that?  Our RV site was right on the Yellowstone River....what a great summer it was!

As I sit here wondering what to write about Wednesday I realize that as of today, September 10th, we have exactly 12 days of work left, and 12 days of days off work; 24 days total, or 3 weeks and 3 days....lol.  When you break it down like that it seems so short, and it actually is.  Sometimes you get wrapped up in the ebb and flow of day after day working, or relaxing that the time slips away from you, and suddenly our 5th summer season here at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort is slowly slipping into the rearview mirror.  It has been another great summer season spent with 'salt of the earth' folks.  Some of those folks will begin their annual migration back south for the winter this weekend, so there will be a steadily increasing 'until next time' scenarios playing out over the next few weeks, and on top of that, I saw more geese heading south.

TLE celebrated the 38th anniversary of her 39th birthday on Wednesday, and had a steady stream of folks stopping by to deliver her their birthday well wishes.  Sunny, who is the restaurant concessionaire for the foreseeable future, made her a special birthday dinner of her choosing, which was a double/double Smash burger (I got one too!), but I get ahead of myself.

In spite of the limited warming trend we are experiencing right now, it is very cold in the mornings, and I find myself wearing my hooded sweatshirt until well after 9 am most mornings.  It is right on the edge of being too cold (first thing) for shorts.  Since the forecast high was 90° F I added a short sleeved t-shirt to my work attire ensemble.  Upon arrival at the 'Cart Return' area I found 5 carts left over from Tuesday awaiting their daily spa treatment.  The tee times sheet indicated we would need at least 10 golf carts staged to begin the day, so I staged them, then washed/stowed the 5 holdovers from Tuesday.  In all we rented just 12 carts Wednesday, and by 3:30 pm all but two had returned.

Between the beginning of the day, and the end at 3:30 pm I replaced the right front wheel on the 2 bag Husqvarna as the existing one had a bad bushing, so the wheel was wobbling on the axle.  I borrowed the left front wheel from the defunct John Deere mower as it had two good bushings.  We'll have to get a new bushing for the wheel I removed.

Later in the morning I helped TLE install a new printer (a Brother) to replace the old Epson, which is beginning to fail.  They've had the Brother being stored down at 'Night Office' for over 5 years, and it is still in good working order, it just needs to have a new black toner cartridge installed.  It has been ordered, and should be here next week.  Otherwise we were able to install the appropriate 'drivers', and get the computer to connect to it, so all we need now is the new toner cartridge.

I gave TLE her lunch break at 12 pm, and stayed very busy for the 90 minutes answering numerous phone calls, and checking in 6, or 7 RVs.  At 12 pm it was getting warm, but not bad, but by 1:30 pm it was hot.  10 of the 12 golf carts had been returned so I busied myself with getting them washed, and stowed.

When 3:30 pm finally came around I was more than ready to head for home to take a shower, and a nap, in that order.  Sometimes I take the nap first, but it was hot, and there was no way I was going to live with myself without washing off the dust and sweat from another hot LPG&RVR workday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Propane guy....

 5:50 am - Wednesday - September 9th (TLE's birthday) - LPG&RVR - 49° F, humidity 27%, cloud cover 9%, wind 8 mph out of the south....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were cruising Highway 1 on the Olympic Peninsula.....

Meet Nate and Tammy!

....when we spotted a 1969 Newell just ahead of us.  We both pulled into a turnout to talk about our Newells, and take tours.  We love serendipity!

Tuesday the temps rose into the high 80's, and by Wednesday we'll reach 90 for the first time in 10 days, but by Saturday we'll be back into the 70s for good.  Tuesday was also the first day this four day work cycle I've worn shorts.  We were moderately busy Tuesday renting 13 carts, but we did see an influx of RV customers later in the day, so it should get busier from Wednesday forward.  I initially staged 10 carts thinking that would be enough, but there are always 'walk-ins'.  Once the 10 carts were staged I washed the 5 carts left over from Monday, then finished washing the range balls from Monday's harvest.

A little after 8 am a lady from the RV park approached me asking where propane could be purchased, to which I replied "In Likely at the General Store".  She was an older woman, probably in her late 70's, or early 80's, and was not able to remove the two 10 gallon propane tanks off her trailer tongue in the empty state, let alone reinstall them in their full state.  She asked if I would be willing to do that for her, and take them to the General Store to be refilled later in the morning, and I replied in the affirmative.  The gentleman who pumps the propane at the General Store was down in Madeline buying some hay for his cattle, and would not be back until sometime between 11 and 12 pm, and would let me know when he was back.  Just before 9 am I went down to her site (#11) to pickup her tanks, and await the call.

In the mean time I did some weeding, and then headed out to the driving range to see how many range balls were in the forest on either side of the range.  It took me about 45 minutes to fill one shag bag of balls from the forest.  I've found doing the clearing of the range in two shifts works better for me.  My right knee does not like the uneven surface in the forest, so on the usual days (Monday and Thursday) I only clear the range balls from the driving range proper, then finish the next day in the woods.  Much easier on my knee, which feels great most of the time since I started taking collagen a couple of years ago.  I still have the instability caused by loss of cartilage, but the pain is mostly gone.

I got the call from the General Store around 11:50 am, so I quickly loaded the two 10 gallon cylinders into the VW hatch, and headed over to the General Store to get them filled, returning around 12:30 pm....a little late for TLE's lunch break, but she understood.  from 12:30 pm to 2 pm it was quite busy in the Clubhouse office, and I was glad to see TLE returning promptly at 2 pm.  I managed to get 8 of the 13 carts washed and stowed before 3:30 pm, so will have 5 to wash first thing Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by!

A typical long weekend Monday....

 5:50 am - Tuesday - September 8th - LPG&RVR - 42° F, humidity 34%, cloud cover 10%, wind 6 mph out of the southeast......partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 84° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were in Cape Blanco, OR....

.....on a day off from being docents at the lighthouse.  This is called 'south beach'....so, so beautiful there, and such a great place to spend the Fall.

As I sit at my laptop on Tuesday morning it is still dark, and the sun will not rise for another 35 minutes yet (6:35 am).  It is pitch black outside.  By the time we head to work around 7:25 am the sun will barely have crested over the Warner Mountains to the east.  The sun gets lower in the southern sky each day, and here we are one week, and one day into September already.  When we begin our next 4 day work week next Monday we will be at the middle of the month, with just over 2 weeks remaining in our fifth season at LPG&RVR.  Yesterday, Monday, I saw formations of geese flying south, and a few trees have begun to change to their Fall colors.  By the 22nd of this month the sun will be setting at 6:58 pm, and the sun will not be rising until 6:49 am.  One of the things about living this far north here in California during the summer, and very far north in Arizona in the winter is you get to experience all four seasons.  There is a very definite Fall, a very definite Winter, a very obvious Spring and of course Summer, but not to the extremes that exist in our northern states.

Monday was a normal RV Park Monday after a long weekend (Labor Day).....you could almost hear the 'vacuum' begin to suck the weekend RVers out of the park.  By noontime it was a ghost town once again.  To begin the day I staged 6 carts not expecting to rent them all, but as the morning progressed we continued to rent carts, and by 2 pm we had 14, or 15 carts on the course.  Not a bad 'vacuum' day as 'vacuum' days go.  I still had 5 carts left over from Sunday to wash and stow, but I didn't wash them until almost 10 am because it was too cold.  There was frost on the seats of those 5 carts.

Around 10:30 am I headed out to the driving range to clear the range balls, so they could be washed, dried, and poured back into the 55 gallon barrel in the Clubhouse.  Our mower, DeWayne Matthews, is in Montana attending a wedding, so there was no mowing to be done.  If no mowing is to be done, why clear the driving range, right?  Well, the barrel was about 1/2 empty, and I didn't want my counterpart to have to clear that many balls on Thursday.  Thursday is supposed to be a light day for clearing range balls, and we both look forward to that.  Typically on a Thursday we pick less than a 1/2 bucket of balls.  On Monday I cleared over 2 buckets.

By the time I finished washing one bucket of balls it was time for TLE's 90 minute lunch break.  I think I answered one phone call, and sent out two golfers for 18 holes.  Otherwise it was pretty slow. After lunch I managed to wash all 8 carts which had been returned, washed and dried the rest of the golf balls, spent time talking with customers, and then stowed the 8 carts.  It was after 3:30 pm, and time to head for home for a hot shower, and a nap before giving TLE a ride home at 5 pm.  The temp got to maybe 74° F, and it was a very laid back kind of day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hours of cart washing.....

 5:52 am - Monday - September 7th - LPG&RVR - 35° F, humidity 43%, cloud cover 1%, wind 6 mph out of the east by southeast.....cloudless, blue skies today with a forecast high of 76° F.  On this date in 2022 TLE and I were living at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort....

....it was our first season there.  Here we are taking a walk out Likely Place to Jess Valley Road.  We never get tired of this view.

Sunday was TLE's second day of work this cycle, and my first.  As you will recall she substituted for Kathie Smith on Saturday so she could attend a funeral.  This is what greeted me at 7:30 am Sunday morning....

....24 golf carts left over from Saturday.  Apparently we pretty much rented every golf cart we had Saturday, which is a good thing.  Our first golfers were not teeing off until 9 am so I had plenty of time to stage what carts had been washed and stowed Saturday (about 10), then begin washing the dirty ones 8 at a time.  Sunday was not quite as busy as Saturday, but we did rent 23 golf carts, nonetheless.

It took me most of the morning to get all 24 carts washed, and eventually staged for rental.  By 11:30 am we had rented 13 carts, and I had 10 more staged, which ended up being just exactly what we needed.  From about 11:30 to noon time I used compressed air to clear the grass off both of the Husqvarna mowers.  A lot of grass collects on top of the mowing decks when mowing, and it needs to be cleared before they are used again.  

I gave TLE her usual 90 minute lunch break, and then headed back to the 'Cart Return' area to begin washing/stowing more golf carts. By the time 3:30 rolled around I had managed to wash/stow 18 of the 23 rented carts.  I'll begin Sunday by washing the remaining 5....much better than 24...lol! In all I washed 42 golf carts Saturday.

I was very cold Sunday, and I'm not sure it got much above 62° F before the temps dove back into the high 50's.  I ended up wearing my hooded sweatshirt after lunch until I headed home at 3:30 pm.  Instead of taking a shower as I usually do, I changed clothes, sat down in my recliner, and took a nap.  When I awoke at 4:30 pm I took my shower, then headed down to the 'Night Office' to flip the sign, then back to the Clubhouse to join TLE and Claude for a seafood dinner courtesy Sunny's Likely Place Grill.  The dinner was by reservation only, and the restaurant was packed!  We sat eating shrimp and crab's legs, laughing, and talking until almost 8 pm before finally heading home for the evening.  I wish I had taken pictures.

As is our habit on work days, we were in bed by 9 pm....thanks for stopping by!

Four in a row.....

 5:54 am - Sunday - September 6th - LPG&RVR - 45° F, humidity 56%, cloud cover 70%, wind 13 mph out of the southwest.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 65° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were serving as lighthouse docents at Cape Blanco, OR....

You can see a lit bulb, and one that is not....when one burns out the platform rotates to power up the standby bulb

....these are pictures of the amazing Fresnel Lens used to project a light beacon many miles out to sea.

TLE had volunteered to work for Kathie Smith (TLE shares the office job with her) so Kathie could attend a funeral down in Reno, so I had Saturday all to myself.  By 9 am I was watching NCAA College Football, and continued to do so throughout the day.  The temp at 8 am was around 38° F; too cold to do any work.  By 9 am it had warmed into the mid 40's so I began to reinstall the carpet, and wood trim around the toilet.  It took less than an hour....

....once that was done I pulled the throw rugs, shook them out, and then proceeded to sweep the entire coach free of the outdoor elements which had invaded our home over the past few days.  By 10 am I was done with my work for the day, and settled in to watch more college football.

TLE came home for her lunch break, and I returned to the Clubhouse with her to practice putting in preparation for the weekly putting contest.  Including Saturday (September 5th) there are just two Saturdays left to qualify for the final to be held on September 19th.  Every person who has placed first, or second during the summer in any given contest is eligible to putt on September 19th for the 2026 putting championship, and I had not yet been 'in the money', so to speak (finished 1st, or 2nd).  I've made the putting final all four previous years, and in fact, last year (2025) I was in the money five times, but this year I kept falling just short, so I spent a good hour putting; something I haven't done this summer.

I returned home around 2 pm, to continue watching more college football, and then around 3:50 pm returned to the Clubhouse to see what the 'fates' had in store for me.  There were 22, or 24 putters on this Saturday, and through 6 rounds I had not lost.  I lost the 7th round after leading 1-0 through three holes, but my opponent had a hole in one on the 4th, and 5th holes to edge me out.  I then went to the losers bracket to win my next 3 matches and get to the final against the only guy who had beaten me.  He promptly holed out on holes 1 and 2 to go up 2-0, and my fate was sealed.  I made all my second putts on the remaining 3 holes, but so did he.  Nevertheless, I finished 'in the money' in second place, and have now qualified for the final in two weeks.....whew, that was close!  On this day I putted well, and did not beat myself.  I was beaten by a guy who made 4 hole in ones in four consecutive holes against me (4  & 5 in first match, and then 1 & 2 in the second match).  I putted the best I have putted this year, but just lost to a guy on fire for four holes.

Thanks for stopping by!

A repeat performance.....

 6:42 am - Saturday - September 5th - LPG&RVR - 35° F, humidity 47%, cloud cover 28%, wind 11 mph out of the south......clear, blue skies this morning with a forecast high today of 71° F.  On this date in 2010 TLE and I were in Pismo Beach, CA.....

.....we were spending the weekend in Ventura at an RV park there over Labor Day Weekend, and decided to drive up to Pismo Beach for lunch.  We still had the 2002 T-Bird Retro back then.

Just before I went to bed Thursday evening I noticed the small throw rug in the bathroom was damp.  When I felt the carpet around the Dometic toilet it was damp....doh!  This exact same thing happened a few months ago, and it turned out the water supply connection needed tightening.  I was a simple fix, and hasn't leaked again until Thursday.  This time I decided I needed to take the whole assembly apart, clean up the connecting 3/8" nipple threads, apply some new Teflon tape, and then reassemble....

....on the left (in this picture) is the braided supply line which connects to the RV supply line (gray PVC on right).  There is a galvanized 3/8" nipple in between the braided line and the PVC line.  That is what I removed, cleaned, and rewrapped in Teflon tape.  Once it was reassembled I turned on the water, and there was NO more leak.  In all it took me about an hour beginning to end.  The carpet piece was still drying out yesterday afternoon so I will reinstall that on Saturday.

A few days ago we received the new ultra violet light filter for the reverse osmosis system I wrote about a few days ago.  This new ultra violet light filter is the OEM part, which is what I should have ordered originally.  It took me less that 10 minutes to remove the old OEM filter, and install the new one.....this time NO leaks.....

New ultraviolet light filter installed and working!

.....will I ever learn the lesson that you ALWAYS replace OEM parts with OEM parts.  Cheaper is NEVER better.

I spent the rest of the day reading, and watching college football.  Yes, college football is back as of this weekend.  My USC Trojans won over Fresno State 39-0, and it wasn't really that close.

Thanks for stopping by!

They guessed wrong.....

 8:05 am - Friday - September 4th - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 56%, cloud cover 56%, wind 10 mph out of the west by southwest....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 60° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were at Cape Blanco, OR....

.....watching another sunset.  Over the 15 years of our nomadic wanderings we have spent a lot of time on the Southern Oregon Coast.

We literally had no plans for Thursday as the weather guessers predicted we would have rain here in the Pitt River Valley from 5 am until 2 am Friday morning.  That, my friends, did not happen.  Did it rain?  Sure about 5 minutes every couple of hours.  The end result was the same as if it had rained continuously....we did nothing all day long.  Every time it started to rain we thought this was it, but then it would stop 5 minutes later.  Every time I would go outside to do something it would begin to rain, chasing me back inside, and then stop after just a few minutes.  All that being said, it did rain just enough to settle the dust for a few days, and that is a good thing.

I did, however, have one rainy day project I was saving for Thursday.  TLE and I keep very few hard copy files.  Ever since we have been on the road we will save paperwork that we get in the mail, or otherwise, and when there is enough to justify setting up our scanner we'll do it all at once, then shred the paperwork, or sometimes burn it.  Until we are ready to scan we store unscanned paperwork in a pouch behind the driver seat....

....that pouch was overflowing with paperwork needing scanning, so I removed it all and began to sort through all of it separating it into three piles....scan, store, throw away.  The purpose of the scan pile is obvious....it is stuff we need to save by digitizing it.  The 'store' pile is full of owners manuals for appliances, and other equipment we have purchased in the past couple of years such as our Predator 5000 dual fuel generator, the Eco Worthy dual axis solar tracker, Bluetti batteries, etc.  I will need to find a place to store these manuals. After about an hour of sorting I had a stack of 'throw away' paperwork which was larger than the scan/store piles combined....

....the pile on the bottom is the scan pile, and the pile on the top is composed of owners manuals.  Now that the paperwork is manageable I'll do a second sort, and winnow out more to throw away, such as duplicates, etc.  That was my project for the "rainy day".

The temp never got higher than 53° F, and it was windy on top of that, so even without the promised rain, it was a day, if one was not required to be working, to stay inside where it is warm.  We passed the time reading, and watching some YouTube videos, stopping periodically to listen to the rain on our riveted aircraft aluminum roof.  Our electric heaters remained in the 'ON' position until we went to bed.  As I write Friday morning the sun has broken through the clouds, and soon we will be able to see if Eagle Mountain attracted any snow.

Thanks for stopping by!

No plans? Yeah, right!

 8:10 am - Thursday - September 3rd - LPG&RVR - 53° F, humidity 89%, cloud cover 95%, chance of rain 100%, wind 7 mph out of the north by northwest.....heavy cloud cover with occasional rain showers, and a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Yellowstone National Park.....

....working at the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store.  I worked in the fountain that summer serving ice cream.  We had a surprise visit from long time Whatsnewell readers Jill and Gary.  They began following our nomadic adventures when we worked the beet harvest back in 2013.  The view this morning....

We, initially, had no plans for Wednesday other than to relax after our four days of work.  Sure, there were a few small projects I wanted to tackle at some point, but I was flexible.  I could do them Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday....lol.  As I was in the process of trying to restore order to my disheveled coif TLE called out from the Salon advising we should probably go into town to do our weekly shopping 'today' as Thursday it would be raining, and by Friday the Labor Day weekend crowds would be upon us.  I immediately replied that we should, to which she replied, "Let's go around 11 am".  So, in a manner of speaking, the 'die was cast', and our 'no plans' day suddenly had plans.

I like our days off work as I can linger over the current iteration of my daily blog posts.  I didn't begin to compose the 'what happened on Tuesday' post until around 8 am, and didn't finish until almost 9:30 am.  On days off work I can be more creative, and expressive with an endless amount of time available, but on days we work I tend to get a little more stilted, and perfunctory with the composition.  When we work I get it done in about 25 minutes, or less, and am not always happy with the end result.

We were in the VW a little after 11 am, and arriving at Dollar General ( we skipped ACE Hardware) around 11:25 am.  By the time we finished with Dollar General and Holiday Market it was getting close to 12:30 pm.  You will recall that a couple of weeks ago we checked out Double A Coffee Community for the first time, and loved it, so we decided to revisit them on our way out of town.  We both ordered Americanos (large for moi, and small for TLE), and decided to split their Hot Pastrami Panni sandwich....

Look at that layer of lean pastrami!

.....Halloween is still 8 weeks away, but the decorations are already popping up everywhere.  Dollar General has a whole aisle dedicated to Halloween decorations, and Holiday Market a whole 'end cap'.  Personally, I don't get it.  Anyway, we had a delightful interlude sipping our Americanos, and consuming our hot pastramis on this chilly, blustery day.

We were home by 1:30 pm unpacking the Beetle, and stowing away our purchases.  Speaking of purchases I did buy 4 metal sunflowers to put in one of our flower beds.....

....by the time I put away a few of our grocery purchases in the trailer I was getting much colder, so I headed indoors for the balance of the day.  Sometime around 4 pm I got inspired and decided to tackle a couple of small projects, such as finding out why the display on our brake controller would not shut down as it always has for the 16 years it has been installed.  I had to unscrew the Technosha Prodigy brake controller (for the trailer brakes), and then unplug the cable.  Once I did that, of course, the display went dark.  When I plugged it back in it showed the normal 'NC' meaning no connection to the trailer, which is what it should show, and within minutes the display went 'dark' as it should.  Hmmm, that was easy....

....the display is once again 'dark' as it should be. I next turned my attention to the switch which turns the recessed LED strip lights around the salon on and off.  They would NOT turn on the other morning, and I couldn't figure out why at the time.  I thought maybe the switch was defective, so I rotated it in order to unscrew it from the wall when it began to work again.....doh....

When the switch is rotated downward the lights work, but when it its normal position facing outward they do not.....hmmmm?

....normally the switch faces outward, but as I rotated it counter clockwise to get at the phillips head screw the lights turned on again.  Obviously, it is not the switch, but some issue with the wiring connected to the switch.  Well, at any rate, they are working again.  Further investigation will be necessary to determine what the wiring issue is.

In just a few minutes I totally (in the case of the brake controller) fixed one problem, and partially fixed another (in the case of the light switch).  Time to take my victories, enjoy them, and relax again....lol....so I did.

Thanks for stopping by!

Staying busy....

 8:01 am - Wednesday - September 2nd - LPG&RVR - 53° F, humidity 45%, cloud cover 90%, wind 15 mph out of the southwest.....heavy cloud cover today with rain on the way for Thursday, and a forecast high today of 63° F.  On this date in 2015  TLE and I were at Cape Blanco, OR (just north of Port Orford).....

....beginning our second Fall season as lighthouse docents.  Our favorite volunteer job ever.  How has it been 11 years since then?

To begin our fourth work day in this current 8 day cycle I staged 4 Club Car gassers of the 'round nose' variety.  These carts are some of our oldest, but not as old as the 'square nosed' carts, which is what the Club Car Villager #20 is that we drive.  They have been running well, but have not been run in over 3 weeks, so since Tuesday promised to be an unbusy day I staged them, and that is exactly how many carts we rented.

After all the manual watering I did Monday it was time to roll up all those hoses so I could mow them later in the morning.  The hoses down at the 'Night Office' are quite long in order to reach the furthest areas from the two hose bibs.  The two longest are over 150' long....each, and it takes a while to coil them.  

Next I began hauling gravel, three 5 gallon buckets at a time, up to the Clubhouse to fill in some low spots where water tends to pool during rain storms, and since we have what appears to be an all day rain storm coming Thursday, I will be able to see how effective the work I have done will be. In all I think I hauled 10 buckets of gravel before spreading out the piles.  Five gallons of gravel does not go very far, so I've been working on this project a little bit at a time for a number of weeks whenever I've had extra time, and I had a lot of extra time on Tuesday.

Around 10 am I headed back out to the driving range to clear the forest on each side of the range of golf balls.  I didn't have time Monday to do that, but I also knew there would not be many out there, and there weren't.  In all I filled one shag bag full of balls....probably about 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket.  By the time I gathered them, and washed them it was 11 am, and time to mow the parking lot grass and 'Night Office' grass.  There is probably over 2 acres combined of grass to mow, but it only takes me about 40 minutes.  By the time I returned the 2 bag Husqvarna to the 'Caddy Shack' it was 11:40 am, so I had enough time to clear the grass clippings off the Husqvarna, and refuel it before TLE's lunch break.

The temp never got much over 70° F Tuesday, and that combined with a pretty stiff breeze most of the afternoon made me rethink taking off my hooded sweatshirt late morning as it was pretty chilly.  By 3:15 pm all four Club Cars had returned with no issues, and within 15 minutes I was driving home to begin another four day weekend.

The park will be filling, beginning Thursday, for the Labor Day Weekend, and with containment of almost all the fires to the south of us we should should begin to see an increase in business for our last month.   US-395 between Likely and Reno has been closed due to fires 5, or 6 times in the past few weeks creating a lot of uncertainty.  The detours around the closures add 2-3 hours of travel time to LPG&RVR from the south, from which a goodly portion of our business is derived.

Thanks for stopping by!

Reverting to form....

 5:55 am - Tuesday - September 1st - LPG&RVR - 54° F, humidity 27%, cloud cover 26%, wind 17 mph out of the south....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Spokane, WA.....

.....having dinner on the deck at my sister's home....like TLE, my sister is a wonderful preparer of wonderful food.  It seems almost déclassé or jejune to call either of them a 'cook'.

After a rather nice weekend of cart rentals we slid back to our old ways (reverted to form) Monday renting only 5 golf carts.  I had 7 left over from Sunday to wash/stow when we arrived at the Clubhouse at 7:30 am.  After staging two carts (we only had one person signed up for a tee time at 8:10 am) and washing/stowing the 7 carts I set out a sprinkler between the putting green and Clubhouse deck, then a couple more at the parking lot grass, and all four sprinklers we use down at the 'Night Office.  I then spent a couple of hours moving said sprinklers from dry spot to dry spot.  Thankfully, we do not have a lot of dry spots right now as both Steve and I have been very diligent in doing the manual watering the past month.  

Now that the daily  temps have declined into the 80's the grass is staying greener with less watering.  In fact the temps this coming week are dropping first into the 70's (today), then into the 60's tomorrow (Wednesday), and into the 50's on Thursday when it is supposed to rain.  The temps will stay in the 70's until after the 10th when they creep back into the low 80's for a few days.

Around 10 am I used the 2 bag Husqvarna riding lawnmower to mow the employee sites, then spent the rest of the morning clearing the driving range of range balls so it could be mowed in the afternoon.  I managed to harvest two 5 gallon buckets of balls this time, a sure sigh of increased activity this past weekend.  Coming up we have the final summer long weekend called Labor Day, and before we know it we will be working the final 4 days of the 2026 season here at Likely Place Golf & RV Resort.

By 3:30 pm only 2 of the five rented golf carts had returned (more late afternoon golfers).  By 3:40 pm I had taken a shower, and was in my recliner taking a nap before returning just before 5 pm to the Clubhouse to ferry TLE home to close out the 3rd day of our four day work week.

Thanks for stopping by!