Decompressing......

 7:41 am - Wednesday - October 14th - Sportsman's Beach, Walker Lake, NV - 40° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover 2%, wind 8 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE, our Newell and I were on the Clinton/Mukilteo Ferry..... 

........at the south end of Whidbey Island, WA...headed towards Seattle, then south on I-5 to I-90, then east to US-395 then south on the 'Mother Road'.  The view this morning.....

When we arrived at Sportsman's Beach Sunday afternoon it was getting cloudy, and Monday was totally cloudy all day, so Tuesday, when we awoke to clear, blue skies it  was like we were in a different place....

A little snow on the local mountains on the west side of US-95

.....in spite of the sunny skies it was just 38° F at 7:44 am, and really didn't get over 50° F until after 1 pm.  In spite of the cold temp I was outside servicing the Newell, and Kohler 7.5 kw generator.  I haven't had to add oil to the 6v92 since last April in Bishop, CA on our way north for our 5th summer at LPG&RVR, and I haven't added coolant for at least 2 years.  The Detroit Diesel was down just 2 quarts of oil (holds 22), and the large, rear facing radiator was about 1/2 gallon of coolant low (holds 24 gallons).  The Kohler was about 1/2 quart low on oil, and about a third of a gallon low on coolant.  Other than walking down to the local dumpster to dispose of our trash for the past 4 days that was the extent of my outdoor activity.

TLE and I spent most of the day reading, and for me at least one big nap.  I've had several great naps since we arrived here at Walker Lake, and that is exactly why we wanted to stay here and spend 3 days doing nothing except decompressing from a summer of four day work weeks.  Of course, there will be work in our future, but on our schedule, and just a few hours a day, winter weather allowing.  

Speaking of weather forecasts, the long range forecast for this winter will be El Niño conditions, which I believe means we'll have more precipitation in the southwest.  The El Niño conditions tend to strengthen the southern rain track, which means more snow at the higher elevations in Arizona (where we will be), Utah, and New Mexico, and the current conditions support much higher than normal precipitation in these states.  We will see how that forecast plays out this winter.  I've already seen reports of snow in the mountains above Flagstaff, and we actually had snow in the local mountains here at Walker Lake.

TLE made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, which is a perfect cold day meal.  For our evening entertainment we watched last week's Survivor and Amazing Race episodes, and were in bed by 9:30 pm.  It was a perfect decompression day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cold, cloudy, windy, and a little rain/snow......

 7:44 am - Tuesday - October 13th - Sportsman's Beach, Walker Lake, NV - 38° F, humidity 37%, cloud cover 1%, wind 8 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 58° F.  On this date in 2019 my oldest son, Chris, and his wife, Rochelle, paid us a visit at Ramona Oaks RV Resort to help TLE and I install our new, automated Winegard satellite dish.  They've had the exact Winegard automated dish for years, and it has worked well for them, so that is what we bought.....

Chris and Rochelle's Fleetwood diesel pusher

Getting ready to install the dish

Discussing options with Chris

Installed!

.....our previous Winegard satellite dish was of the 'crank up' and aim variety, and was only standard definition.  We wanted to move to high definition with DirecTV, hence the new satellite dish.  We originally subscribed to DirecTV in 2004, however, sadly it has gotten too expensive (over $160/month), so we have cancelled our subscription, and moved to YouTube TV (streaming - free the first 21 days, then $45/month until March of 2027, then $75/month after that), which, by the way, we love!  The view this morning.....

.....we've got sun and warmer temperatures today!

We awoke to heavy cloud cover Monday morning with the sun just peaking over the mountains on the eastern shore of Walker Lake....

......it was bitter cold, and the stiff 13 mph breeze made it seem even colder.  Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, we spent the morning indoors.  It seemed as if it would rain any minute, but we only got a few scattered sprinkles off and on during the day.

Around 12:30 pm we decided to drive into Hawthorne to get a few necessities at the local Safeway Supermarket (Albertson's), drive around the town, and then get a late lunch at a local pizzeria called Old Nevada Pizza on E Street (US-95).  We had to wait about 30 minutes as they were busy, so to pass the time I ordered a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, and then another when the pizza arrived.  It is rare that I drink two beers in one sitting, but it seemed like the thing to do.  The pizza was amazing, and we were glad we chose Old Nevada Pizza, plus the second brew was free....doesn't get much better than that!

After lunch we headed to the local truck stop to get our 5 gallon propane bottle filled....it's been a good 6 months that it has been used by the Sea-B-Que, and our propane fire pit, but it only took 2.5 gallons....amazing.

From there we headed to Safeway where we were in and out in about 15 minutes, and then over to the fuel station to top off the VW.  The tank had only 20 miles on it when we started south on Saturday, and since TLE has only been driving 60 mph she was just under half full.  We got over 33 miles per gallon over 270 miles....not bad.  We were home around 3 pm where it was getting colder by the minute, so while TLE took the two small bags of groceries inside I turned on the Predator 5000 dual fuel generator to power up the coach, and finish charging our lithium battery bank.  It's been very cloudy since we left LPG&RVR and they were down to 75%, which is not bad considering how cloudy it has been.

It began raining around 8:30 pm, and rained for 2 or more hours before we went to bed.  This morning (Tuesday) we had snow on the local mountains....

....yup, it is time to head south!  Our travel plan is as follows: Leave Walker Lake Wednesday, drive 119 miles to Tonopah, NV.  Thursday leave Tonopah, NV to travel 123 miles to Amargosa Valley, NV.  Friday leave Amargosa Valley, NV and drive 159 miles to the Travel Centers of America in White Hills, AZ.  Leave White Hills Saturday and drive the final 122 miles (stopping briefly in Henderson, NV to shop at COSTCO/Trader Joe's) to The Wilson Wilderness.

Thanks for stopping by!

Most likely we will not return this way again.....

 8:40 am - Monday - October 12th - Sportsman's Beach, Walker Lake, NV - 49° F, humidity 42%, wind 13 mph out of the north....heavy cloud cover with a chance of rain later today.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were camping on the shores of Ririe Reservoir......

....just north of Idaho Falls, ID.  By the next morning the area would be blanketed with snow....  

....that was totally unexpected!  The view this morning....

....it is supposed to rain today, and it certainly does look like rain.

We began our first day post LPG&RVR at Honey Lake Rest Area, as has been our tradition for the past 5 summers.  We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise....

.....it was the first time we have awoken at Honey Lake Rest Area knowing we would not, most likely, return this way again in the Newell.  It was very bitter sweet, but that seems to be the way it is when you turn a page in your life, and head in a different direction....a direction you did not see coming a couple of weeks ago.

To power up the coach Sunday morning I started the Kohler 7.5 kilowatt on board generator, which we rarely use, but as it always does, it fired right up.  As you will recall, it is a propane generator, and not subject to the hazards of varnishing gasoline, so it is very reliable.  While it hummed effortlessly in background I composed, and published the 5,396th blog post of our 15 years of nomadic wanderings.  On a side note, as of this morning, October 12, 2026 we have had 5,918,105 page views of our blog over that time, and are on track to break through the 6 million page views mark  sometime in the next 30 days....maybe even this month.  Once the missive was published it was time to begin getting ready to move further south to Walker Lake Recreational Area.

Normally, we follow US-395 south through Reno, Carson City, Minden, Bridgeport, Lee Vining all the way to Bishop, but we chose to take a different route this time around on US-95.  As we approached the US-395/I-80 interchange we took the off ramp eastbound on I-80 to connect with US-95 south.  Since TLE was driving the VW there were no pictures taken of our journey, but I can tell you the entire 188 miles was without incident.  We took a 15 minute rest stop in Silver Springs, NV, and then continued south to cover the final 77 miles to Sportman's Beach on the shores of Walker Lake (just 16 miles north of Hawthorne).

We arrived at the campground around 1:30 pm, pulled into our chosen site, turned off the big Detroit Diesel 6v92, and then took in the view....

.....it was just as I had imagined it....a beautiful high desert lake with a million dollar view for just $6/night!

Once we were leveled I turned on our 2,000 watt Renogy Inverter so we could watch a few games of NFL football.  Around 7:30 pm I walked outside to take a picture looking south toward Hawthorne, NV..... 

....you can see the city lights in the distance.

We'll hang out here at Walker Lake until Wednesday when we will continue our journey south on US-95 through Hawthorne, Tonopah, Goldfield, Beatty, and the Amargosa Valley on our way to Kingman, AZ. where we will transition to US-66 which will take us the rest of the way to The Wilson Wilderness.

Thanks for stopping by!

Escaping the gravitational pull of LPG&RVR......

 8:06 am - Sunday - October 11th - Honey Lake Rest Area - 40° F, humidity 36%, cloud cover 50%, wind 8 mph out of the east by northeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 60° F.  On this date in 2023 TLE and I were flying back to Medford, OR from Missoula, MT....

.....we had a 3 hour layover in Salt Lake City (above) before continuing to Medford, OR where we landed about midnight.  We spent the night at a local hotel before driving back to LPG&RVR.   The view this morning.....

....at the Honey Lake Rest Area near Janesville, CA.

The final hours of getting ready to haul anchor always seems to be in slow motion.  There are a 'hundred' little tiny things to do before that, and it seems, to me anyway, overwhelming.  The thing is those hundred little things can be completed quickly, and faster than one thinks, but it does not appear to be so at first blush.  Here is a list of the things TLE and I had to accomplish before dropping the trailer tongue on the hitch:

- TLE organizes the interior of the Newell for travel so things don't fly through the air and hurt someone.

- Put TLE's plants in the trailer

- Transfer my golf clubs from Club Car Villager #20 to the trailer

- Fold up the entry steps from the trailer, and Newell and put them in the trailer

- Wash and then fold up the tire covers from the Newell and put them in the trailer

- Wash the VW

- Wash the Newell front, driver side, and back (the passenger side was mostly covered by the patio awning all summer and was not dirty)

- Coil up the garden hose TLE uses to water her plants, and I used to wash the VW, and put it in the trailer

- Turn off the city water, and disconnect the three water filters, and put them in the trailer

- Disconnect the sewer line

- Disconnect shore power

- Stow the work bench table

- Return the golf cart to the Cart Shack

- Take down the solar security light over the entry door to the trailer

- Take down the flag

- Take down the solar light which illuminates the flag at night, of course

- Program our destination into the Garmin

- Fire up the Detroit Diesel 6v92, which has been mostly dormant for almost 6 months

- Back the Newell to the Trailer tongue

- Drop the trailer tongue on the hitch

- Connect the two load leveler bars from the trailer to the hitch

- Connect the anti sway bar from the trailer to the hitch

- You are now ready to haul anchor

I am very certain I have forgotten at least a dozen things....well, maybe 4, or 5, but you get the picture.  I took an hour break between 10 and 11 am, then continued with the above tasks until around 1:30 pm when the trailer was now safely connected to the Newell.

We were on the road by 1:55 pm.....I drove the Newell with TLE following in the VW.  We covered the approximately 88 miles to the Honey Lake Rest Area without incident by 3:30 pm, parked, leveled, and then breathed a heavy sigh of relief.  We had now successfully escaped the gravitational pull of LPG&RVR, and it was now time to relax, and decompress from a week of taking down site #55....

....after a snack prepared by the hands of The Lovely Elaine I turned on the inverter and sat down to watch some NCAA College Football.  My USC Trojans where on the road at Happy Valley, the home of Penn State, and I was able to watch the game in its entirety.  They won 31-23.  For the first time in almost 6 months I am showing a new location for our 1982 Newell Classic.  We are on the road again.  Sunday we travel 188 miles to Walker Lake, NV where we'll spend a few days decompressing, and enjoying a lake front view.

Thanks for stopping by!

The people along the way......

 7:19 am - Saturday - October 10th - LPG&RVR - 40° F, humidity 51%, cloud cover  43%, wind 11 mph out of the north by northwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2023 TLE and I were near Deer Lodge, MT....

.....spending time with my sister and brother-in-law at their home at Rock Creek Cattle Company.

Friday was a busy day, and we accomplished a lot.  All of the stuff outside the trailer Thursday morning is now inside the trailer, and all the sun shades are stowed.....

....all that remains now is to move TLE's plants into the front of the trailer on that rug in the picture above.  All that stuff you see in the background is why the VW cannot be inserted this time around.  Saturday morning (today) we will stow the patio awning, and all the window awnings, wash the VW, wash the driver side of the Newell, dump the black tank one more time,  disconnect the utilities, drop the trailer on the Newell hitch, and head south on US-395.  All of that will take a few hours, which is fine as we are only driving 85 miles Saturday to Honey Lake Rest Area, so we don't need to leave until 1, or 2 pm.

We saw our last sunset Friday night at LPG&RVR....

....and will see our last sunrise Saturday morning as we change our view for the first time in almost 6 months.  Around 4:40 pm we headed up the hill to visit with Duke and Cindy Golden to have drinks and say our 'until next times'....

.....we were home a little after 6:30 pm, at which time TLE made hot pastrami sandwiches for our latish dinner.  Life is good, and within 24 hours we will begin our final journey in the Newell south to The Wilson Wilderness. The memories of the last 16 years of our life living in the Newell, and 15 years of fulltime travel are swirling around in my mind as I write this morning.  Duke and Cindy are typical of the people we have met along the way, and we will remain in contact with them, just as so many others.  We still have contact with the friends we made at our first Amazon gig back in 2012.  It is exactly 14 years to the month since we met Michael, Liz, Jim, Sharon, Richard and Pat at Amazon....the first of many, many nomads we still call friends today.  

Okay, time to begin the final hours of the take down of site #55....thank you, as always, for stopping by!

The big push.....

 7:56 am - Friday - October 9th - LPG&RVR - 53° F, humidity 25%, cloud cover 16%, wind 16 mph out of the southwest......mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 82° F.  On this date in 2011 TLE and I were in Spokane, WA.....

....specifically on South Hill riding bicycles with my sister (Hilary), and brother-in-law, Bob.

For the first 4 days of our post LPG&RVR life we did a little everyday towards preparing for our departure, which now appears to be October 10th, so Thursday needed to see significantly more progress towards our goal of being mobile once again, or the 'BIG PUSH' as we call it.  Why October 10th?  Well, there is a tropical storm off the coast of SoCal, which will push a lot of rain inland beginning Sunday, or Monday, and we want to be in Walker Lake by Sunday just ahead of the rain.  We'll ride out the rain, if it materializes, at Walker Lake, then continue our journey south to TWW.

We began the day doing small tasks so we could get to the big stuff, and it worked out well.  By 10 am we had emptied the rear of the trailer so we could begin to haul in the various smaller artificial turf pieces to be followed at the end of the day by the large 'lido deck' turf piece we've had since 2014.  Following are some pictures of the progress, ending with the large turf piece in the trailer.....

Taken around 1:30 pm after we had finished the bulk of the work...all that remained was to clear the 'lido deck' and drag the large turf piece into the trailer, which we did around 6:20 pm.

The Sea-B-Que and its table have been stowed

All the turf is in the trailer!

This all that is left outside the trailer to put inside the trailer Friday morning

The stuff in the foreground (except the Predator) will be moved to the middle of the trailer, and TLE's plants will go at the front of the trailer for easy access, and watering.

The large box on the right is the new 12 volt AC unit we bought back in April and had delivered to LPG&RVR. That will be installed next Spring, so we'll have off grid AC for the summer of 2027.

All the turf pieces are now in the trailer

....we waited to move the large turf piece until almost sundown to avoid direct sunlight...it was a warm day, and by the time 1 pm rolled around we had more than our share of working in the direct sunlight.  The final item put into the trailer was the Rubber Maid outdoor storage chest.

By the time we finished dragging the large turf piece (in front of the Rubber Maid chest) into the trailer, and shut the ramp door we were filthy.  I took the first shower, and TLE and the second. And thus ended or 5th day of taking down site #55.  All that remains is to take down the final two sun shades, put the rest of our stuff into the trailer (much of what is left would normally have been put into storage here at LPG&RVR), disconnect the utilities, then back the Newell up to the trailer, and drop the tongue on the hitch.  

We are really happy we gave ourselves a week to get all this done.  As I write this morning I am well rested, and ready to finish everything today (Friday).  We'll deliver a few 'until next times' Friday evening, and then it will be time to haul anchor Saturday and begin our final trip in the Newell.  We'll take 7-8 days getting to TWW, spending at least 3 days camping at Walker Lake when the rain is forecast.  We'll travel, on average, less that 150 miles on days when we are moving.  This trip south will more than likely be the last trip we take in our 1982 Newell Classic which has served us well since March 1st of 2008.  Our days of endless nomadic wanderings will transition into fulltime off grid living.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Many last things......

 8:25 am - Thursday - October 8th - LPG&RVR -55° F, humidity 20%, cloud cover 0%, wind 5 mph out of the north.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were in NYC visiting Liberty Island, and the world famous Katz' Delicatessen.....

Look at that lean Pastrami!!

.....after visiting the Statue of Liberty we disembarked the boat at Battery Park, then took the subway up to up to 14th, then walked the final mile to Katz' Delicatessen, made famous by the 'When Harry Met Sally' movie starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.  The hot pastrami on marble rye was, and still is, the best hot pastrami sandwich we have ever eaten.  

Wednesday was filled with many last things....our last trip into Alturas, my last haircut by Sheila at Kaleidescope, our last visit to Holiday Market, and to ACE Hardware.  My haircut appointment was for 9 am, so were on the road by 8:40 am, arriving at Kaleidescope at precisely 9 am.  Within 15 minutes we were exchanging 'until next times' with Sheila who has become a good friend over the five years we have used her services. 

Next up was a visit to ACE Hardware to secure the proper replacement pieces for the shower drain line where we received help from Malachi in finding all the right pieces.  As we were checking out we told him this was our last visit to ACE.  He has been such a great help over the years in avoiding that dreaded return trip to get something we forgot.  You all know what I mean, right?

From there we stopped at Dollar General, then over to Holiday Market for our final shopping foray there.  By 10:30 am we were on our way driving south on US-395 back to Likely for the last time.  When we leave LPG&RVR on Saturday, or Sunday we will head south for the final time over Sage Hen Pass, across the Madeline Plains, and down to the Honey Lake Rest Area for the last time.

Shortly after arriving home I began the installation of the new shower drain line parts.....

.....instead of using glue I used GE clear silicon to seal the parts together. This way, if I need to, I can pretty easily disassemble them, and won't have to buy new ones.

Our main goal Wednesday in site #55 was to fix the shower drain line, and take down the dining canopy. We allowed an hour to take it down, fold it up per the instructions, and put it its bag.  The last time we did this it took us close to an hour to get it folded correctly, but this time it took less than 10 minutes start to finish.....

....I then put away the four tables upon which we kept our emergency food pantry, and many tools.  Once that was done it was well into the afternoon, and it was getting warm.  Time to take a break, which we did!

TLE and I were able to take showers now that the drain line is repaired, which we did around 3:30 pm, then headed up the hill to the residential area to have drinks with Richard and Kathie (Kathie is TLE's counterpart) for the final time.  We hung out with them until well after 6 pm before heading home

The Dodgers, while we were visiting with Rich and Kathie, managed to win their 3rd game of the NLDS to advance to the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers, just as they did last year before winning their second World Series in succession against the Toronto Blue Jays.  Will they 'threepeat'....I don't know, but we will soon find out.  Just 8 more wins for immortality....lol!

Thanks for dropping by!