Busy? Sort of....

 6:46 am - Sunday - February 18th - GNHS - 54° F, humidity 72%, wind 5 mph out of the north by northwest......partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were watching the sun set in the Anza Borrego Desert......

Saturday was a busy day for COA....we had 5 all day rentals.  TLE, Hunter and I were on the job by 8 am.  There is always quite a flurry of activity between 8 am and 9:15 am when we have a lot of all day rentals, but we got them all on their way without too much confusion. Whenever we have multiple all day rentals we hope they don't all show up at 8:30 am, and they didn't.  Each group slowly trickled in over 30 minutes which made it easy for us to process them, and their 'paper work'.  It appears we'll have 7 all day rentals on Sunday, so that will be our biggest day since New Years weekend.

Once our customers were out in the field we all settled in to await their return.  Theoretically, they can keep the RZRs out until 5 pm, but they typically will begin to return sometime after 3 pm, which allows us time to fuel, and wash each one, and still clock out by 5 pm.

TLE and I took a 1 mile out and back walk around 2:30 pm averaging 3.4 mph.....

Hmmmm....I thought I was smiling....lol!

....when we weren't walking we were sitting on the 'lido deck' reading....like I've said before, this is a very easy job.  There's a flurry of activity between 8 and 9 am, then a lot of time in between sitting, hoping there are no accidents, and no rescues, then it gets busy again around 3 pm as the customers begin to return.

True to form our first customer returned around 3:15 pm, and by 3:30 pm I had fueled and washed that RZR.  I ended up washing 3 of the 5, and Hunter the other two, but we got them all done, and put away by 5 pm....not bad.  Another day without incident....just happy, smiling customers.

By the time I got out of the shower, and dressed the sun set had passed, but I captured some of the afterglow around 5:30 pm.....

.....so, we've got about 40 days remaining in our winter job, then it's time to begin the trek north to LPG&RVR.  This year we'll be able to take more time to drive the 800+ miles, so that will be nice.

Thanks for stopping by!

Drama free.....

6:40 am - Saturday - February 17th - GNHS - 50° F, humidity 80%, wind 2 mph out of the east by northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I finally made it to Key West, FL, the southern most point in the U.S.A..... 

For the first time in 10 days TLE and I worked.  It felt somewhat weird to be getting dressed in work clothes, and greeting customers after another long hiatus.  We had just two rentals Friday.....a multi day (3 to be exact) all day rental, and a 1/2 day rental to some folks from Palm Desert.  We got both of them out at their scheduled times (9 am and 10 am), and then it was time to relax....lol!  Hard work, right?

While our customers were out Hunter and I began to get our rentals for Saturday ready by checking oil levels, adding oil, blowing dust out of air filters, checking tire pressures, and wiping them down after 10 days of sitting.  We actually have 6 rentals going out Saturday, and 5 of them are multi day rentals, with one single all day rental, so we'll be busy both Saturday and Sunday.

Once the prep work for Saturday was finished I took off on a 1 mile out and back walk.....TLE decided to take a day off....I managed to up my average speed to 3.6 mph walking solo....

.....our 4 hour rental returned on time at 2 pm.  Once they were checked back in I took the 4 seat General down to the fuel station to top off her tank, and then to the wash station to wash her, and get her ready for Saturday.  Once again our multi day, all day rental returned on time, and by 5 pm I had that RZR fueled and washed for Saturday.

As I wrote yesterday, we are entering the President's Day long weekend, and the park is sold out.  The RVers began streaming into the park around 8 am, and the onslaught continued well into the early evening. Along with being sold out comes the attendant rise in noise level, but we are used to that.  We know that by Monday things will be back to normal when the weekenders return to their workaday lives.

When I wasn't working I was reading my current post apocalyptic series 'Bunker', and still enjoying it.  Nothing else to report on for Friday.  It was just one of those routine, drama free days we love here at Colorado Outback Adventures.

Thanks for stopping by!

Intrusion.....

 6:53 am - Friday - February 16th - GNHS - 52° F, humidity 89%, wind 4 mph out o fthe northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 70° F.....first time we'll hit 70 in a long time!  On this date in 2015 TLE and I spent the day in and around Sedona, AZ....what a magical place....

Found a restaurant with a view

Alas, another day off work was had Thursday.  We're coming up on President's Day long weekend, and the park will be full, plus we will be busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a lot of advance bookings, but Thursday was our 9th, or 10th consecutive day without working.  I'm pretty sure one here is complaining.

TLE and I took two more of our 1 mile out and back walks averaging 3.4 mph both times.....

⇧ First and second ⇩ post walk pictures 

....we both managed to get in our toning exercises after the first walk. With the completion of our second 1 mile walk we have now hit 80 miles of walking this winter, with most of it happening since Christmas.

I then spent time trying to figure out where the water leak in our trailer roof is originating.  It is not a major leak, but I've been finding water on the floor near the front, drivers side of the trailer interior when it rains.  I bought some Flex Seal tape, and paste quite a while ago, but have never taken the time to install either of them as I was not sure where the is actually intruding.  Water always seems to migrate from the actual intrusion area to to where you finally find it, so I didn't want to waste the resources until I was more certain where to place them.  After the last rain storm I believe I was able to narrow down the point of the water ingress, so I cleaned off the roof area where I believed it was intruding and used a combination of the tape (4" x 5'), and paste to, hopefully, stop the leak.  I won't know if I was successful until the next storm, but at least the tape and paste will have sufficient time to cure.  If I've missed the mark there is always more tape and paste....lol.

Once the roof work was done I headed down to the hot pools/tubs for another delightful soak.  Once again I had the place all to myself....

....we didn't take or second walk until around 3:30 pm, and then I sat on the 'firepit deck' reading my book fully intending to take the usual sunset pictures, but lost track of time, and did not take those pictures.  They would have been lovely, I'm sure.

After dinner TLE and I spent the rest of the evening reading.  The new post apocalyptic series I'm reading is called 'Bunker' (the name of the main character, not a place), and has five books in the series.  I'm almost done with book three, and and liking it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Provisioning.....

 7:15 am - Thursday - February 15th - GNHS - 46° F, humidity 87%, wind 3 mph out of the southeast....partially cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 68° F.  On this date in 2010 TLE and I camped at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park for the first time.....almost one year later to the day we leased out our home, and became camp hosts there for one year, beginning our full time life living and traveling in our 1982 Newell Classic.....

Another day off work, what to do?  Oh yeah, need to do our weekly shopping in La Quinta!  As soon as I finished posting my latest missive around 9:30 am we were in the VW headed into the heart of the Coachella Valley arriving there without incident around 10:30 am.  We made stops at Walmart, COSTCO, the COSTCO fuel station, and Ralph's garnering another week's worth of produce, protein, and sundries to reprovision our pantry, and fridge before beginning the return trip to GNHS around 12:30 pm.  We were home before 1:30 pm, and putting away our purchases. The drive in revealed a lot of snow on Mounts San Jacinto and San Gorgonio.....

Mount San Jacinto standing sentinel over Palm Springs

.....by the way, our geraniums are flourishing here at GNHS.....

....you might recall that when we first arrived back at LPG&RVR last April they got frost bitten and almost died, but TLE has nursed them back to health.

Due to our early departure for La Quinta we postponed our daily walking until 4 pm when we took a 2 mile out and back walk averaging around 3.3 mph.  By 4:50 pm I was on the 'viewing deck' watching the Chocolates light up, and the sun set.  TLE was busy, at the time,  marinating a salmon filet we had purchased at COSTCO so we could grill it for dinner.....

.....I grilled the salmon for about 10 minutes until it reached 145° F, and it turned out great!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thinking about the unthinkable....

7:44 am - Wednesday - February 14th - GNHS - 46° F, humidity 70%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were spending four days on Marathon Key in the Florida Keys....half way to Key West......

So, as of Tuesday we've been off work since the prior Monday....nice.....8 days of just keeping our own company.  With a clear schedule we headed out first thing for our initial 1 mile out and back walk (the 53rd this winter) of the day averaging 3.4 mph....it was about 48° F at the time of our first walk, but there was no wind, and the sun was out.....

.....after my toning workout I headed down to the hot pools/tubs to reward myself with a 30 minute soak at 106° F....the water temp right now does not require that you add any pool water to cool it down.  I had the place all to myself once again.....

.....upon my return I sat down outside to read the final chapters of book 4 of the post apocalyptic series Downward Cycle, which I've been reading for the past week.  The end has a twist, which I'll keep to myself, but you will never see it coming.  Good read, good series, and I highly recommend it.  Very thought provoking, and makes you realize how unprepared any of us are if the power suddenly goes out, and never comes back.    We are so dependent upon electricity in our daily lives....it permeates every single corner of daily life, and without it civilization as we know it can crumble rapidly.

Unwittingly TLE and I have been preparing for a life without electricity, at least where electricity is supplied by the power grid as we know it, since we bought our Newell back in 2008, not because we are preppers, but because we loved the idea of living off the grid, and being independent.  When we first set out traveling the first thing we added to our Newell was solar power, and the ability to store the electricity produced by our solar panels.  We initially had two 150 watt panels installed on the roof in 2012, then two more 160 watt panels in 2015 for a total of 620 watts.  Our Newell is extremely low tech, so our electrical needs are not that great.  Our Newell is also equipped with a 160 gallon fresh water tank, which we always keep full in case of emergency.  Two winters ago we were able to live off the grid for almost 3 months with our solar panels providing the energy to run our systems, and were able to go over a month at a time on the onboard 160 gallons of fresh water.  Our focus has changed from liking to be able to live off grid, to actually preparing for the eventuality that we may have no choice in the future....something about which to think.  

Our future plans include always keeping our 180 gallon diesel tank full wherever we may be so we can 'bug out' at the drop of a hat and go over a 1,000 miles if need be to get away from the large urban areas of California.  If things go 'south' a large urban area is the last place you will wish to be.  The other cool thing about our Newell is because it is so low tech, which means NO electronics/computers are required to run our entirely mechanical diesel engine, and drive train, which means it is impervious to an EMP attack, or gigantic solar flair.

Around 4 pm we headed out for our second 1 mile out and back walk (54th) of the day, again averaging 3.4 mph.  With the sun setting later and later now we're able to take our final walk much later in the day.....

.....around 4:45 pm we headed out the 'firepit deck' to enjoy another sunset fire....

.....once again the Chocolates lit up, but I apparently failed to get a sunset picture....just got side tracked....

.....after the fire we had dinner, then spent the evening reading.  I began a new 4 book series, another of the post apocalyptic genre.  I'll let you know how that one goes at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by

Rainy days and Mondays......

 7:38 am - Tuesday - February 13th - GNHS - 43° F, humidity 86%, wind 3 mph out of the northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 66° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were boondocking in the Verde Valley near Sedona, AZ on National Forest land.....

Click to enlarge

The lyrical refrain from a 1969 Carpenters' song goes "Rainy days and Monday's always get me down"....I'm not sure why that was the inspiration for a song, because, frankly, they never get me down.  In fact, I love rainy days and Mondays.....bring them on!  To be clear, though, I don't like rainy days, day after day....just occasionally.  Remember when we lived on the Oregon Coast (20 miles south of Newport) for a year back in 2020-21, and we would get 6,7, or 8 days of rain in a row sometimes.  You get to a point where waking up to rain on the roof is no longer interesting, or magical, and you really wish for a change.  Nevertheless, in general, rainy days and Mondays never get me down.  Mondays here at GNHS mean no work, for sure, most of the time, and this Monday was no different. 

1969 - The Carpenters - Rain days and Mondays

TLE and I took our first walk of the day around 11:30 am....why so late you might ask?  Well, we spent from around 9:30 am to 11:30 am fixing the 'dining/gaming deck' canopy.  When we left it was not windy at all, and the same when we returned from our visit 7 hours later, but sometime in between those rascally winds arose, and whilst we were gone visiting Chris and Rochelle there were some wind gusts  strong enough to partially collapsed the dining canopy causing damage to a couple of the arms.....ie, they broke....doh!  Anyway I devised a plan to repair the broken arms, and TLE helped me put things back together.  Since the side which was damaged faces north, therefore getting the brunt of the north winds, we decided to rotate it counterclockwise, thereby moving the damaged side out of harms way.

By the time we finished restoring order to our entire 'lido deck' it was 11:30 am.  Anyway, we began the out and back walk fully intending to just do a mile, but about 10 minutes out TLE proposed that we do the 2 mile out and back walk, so that is what we did.  We managed to average 3.4 mph over 2 miles, burning about 350 caloric units.....

.....upon our return we idled away some time in the Adirondack chairs on the 'firepit deck', and then both got to work doing our toning workouts.  After that TLE made me a chopped salad for lunch, and then I headed down to the hot pools/tubs choosing to do my soak this day in one of the tubs.....

.....we took our second out and back walk of the day around 4 pm, and stuck to the normal 1 mile out and back walk, averaging 3.3 mph this time.....

....soon after returning from our walk we were out on the 'viewing deck' to watch the Chocolates light up, and the corresponding sunset......

....the sun is setting close to 5:30 pm now, and by the time it sets the temps begin to drop precipitously, so we headed indoors for the balance of the evening, and another great Monday was in the books, and one was feeling 'down'....in fact, quite the opposite!

Thanks for stopping by!

What a super day!

7:26 am - Monday - February 12th - GNHS - 43° F, humidity 77%, wind 2 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were courtesy parking at the home of high a school friend, Patty, and her husband Phil, in Palmetto Bay, FL....had to back into that spot from way up the street.....

 We were up kind of early Super Bowl Sunday, but not to watch the Superbowl, but because Friday evening I was cruising Instagram and saw a post by our daughter-in-law, TAR*, that she and our son were boondocking at Ocotillo Wells, directly across the Salton Sea from GNHS.  It is about a 55 minute drive from here to their location, so I called my son (Chris) immediately to make arrangements to meet up with them, and we settled on Sunday morning.  He advised if we got there early enough he would make us breakfast....okay, that's a deal!

We were out the door by 8:30 am, and pulled into their boondock spot just before 9:30 am, after a quick restroom break at the local travel center....

Chris is a lot like his Dad in that he really enjoys creating his own unique environment when he is boondocking

....within minutes we were eating breakfast which consisted of BLT's and Chorizo.....Chris is a very good chef.  Chris and TAR have a 2006 Fleetwood Expedition with four slides.  It may be 18 years old, but it still looks brand new. They store it in an indoor facility, plus Chris is always updating it....he takes very good care of his stuff, for sure.

As is always the case when we have them to ourselves, we spent the entire time we were there (about 5.5 hours) talking.  Since we don't like driving in the dark, we wanted to be on our way home by 2:30 pm in order to be home in time for the Superbowl.  We could have stayed there and joined their watch party, but I knew the game would not be over until sometime between 7 and 8 pm, and especially did not want to be getting back home at 9 pm....we're old....lol.

It was time to say our 'until next times' way too soon, so we bid them adieu and began the 55 minute drive back to GNHS just before 2:30 pm.....we have met Chris and TAR out at Ocotillo Wells 5, or 6 times over the past years, and always cherish our time with them.....  

.....we arrived home around without incident at 3:20 pm, and within minutes the Superbowl had begun....

.....my only desire for the Superbowl each year is that the game be close, and interesting at the end, and this game pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs (please don't ever change your team name) ended up being just that.  San Francisco was the #1 NFC seed, while K.C. was a wild card team.  They had the beat the #1 seed for the AFC (Baltimore Ravens) to get to the Superbowl.  The game seesawed back and forth the entire game, but at the end of regulation it was tied 19-19....an unlikely football score.  So, for only the second time in Superbowl history the game went to overtime.  The Superbowl overtime rules have changed a lot since the last overtime game, and now they essentially begin a new half in overtime.  San Francisco score first, a field goal, after an almost 8 minute drive.  Then it was KC's turn.....they drove 75 yards and scored a touchdown with 3 seconds left in the quarter winning the game 25-22.  Now that was a great Superbowl.  That was the 3rd Superbowl victory for KC in the last 4, or 5 years....they're beginning to look like the New England Patriots.

By the time the post game show was over it was going on 10 pm, and our bed time....what a great day it was.  We are still basking in the afterglow of our time spent with Chris and Rochelle.

Thanks for stopping by!

*TAR = The Amazing Rochelle

Another day off.....

 7:05 am - Sunday - February 11th - GNHS - 47° F, humidity 55%, wind 5 mph out of the north by northwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and rode our bikes to First Round Draft and Sports Bar near Stuart, FL.....

We actually had two advance bookings for Saturday.....two 2 hour rentals at 12 pm.  Since they were only two hour rentals TLE and I deferred to Hunter to handle them, and get the hours.  We, on the other hand, enjoyed another day off work.....nice!

We took our first 1 mile out and back walk around 9:30 am.  There was a little wind out of the northwest, but TLE sucked it up and walked anyway.  We averaged 3.5 mph over 18 minutes, burning around 175 caloric units.....

.....we watched the final 20 minutes (including 6 minutes of 'added time') of the Tottenham vs. Brighton & Hove Albion, and it was a thriller.  Tottenham had given up a penalty kick goal early in the first half, but had come back in the 2nd half to tie the game 1-1.  They entered the 6 minutes of 'added time'  still tied, and as the clock hit 5 minutes and 50 seconds of 'added time' they scored the winning goal.....a great come from behind victory for the home team!

TLE and I both got in our toning workouts again....I'm up to 40 pushups (of the modified variety), and 40 situps now....started at 20 and 20 on December 26th.  With nothing else to do we both read most of the day.  By the evening I had read around 65% of book four of Downward Cycle....it is a little longer than the first three.  Still a page turner!

Around 2:30 pm we took our second 1 mile out and back walk of the day averaging 3.4 mph this time, but burning another 175 caloric units.  The winds which greeted us in the morning had mostly dissipated by that time.  We did have to lower the 'red wall' on the dinning/game deck, along with our flag, but had them back up late afternoon.....

.....nothing else to report for Saturday, except we did watch some of the WM Phoenix Open (PGA Tour).

Our son (Chris) and The Amazing Rochelle (TAR) are spending the weekend boondocking in their 39', four slide, Fleetwood Class A diesel pusher over at Ocotillo Wells, so we're going to drive over there today (Sunday) to spend the day with them since we have no COA advance bookings, with Hunter available for any walkup business.

Thanks for stopping by!