Finishing Touches...

Ahhhhh......no wind......just clear skies and sunshine!  A nice change, indeed!  I was up at my usual 6:30 am time slot to greet the new day after laying in bed planning my day out in my head.  There were a number of small things I needed to do to put the finishing touches on our remodel.....mostly some molding here and there that we did not have time to complete in Utah.  If you had seen the salon/kitchen area before I installed some quarter round, and other molding, and then seen it again last night you might not have noticed any difference, and that's fine with me.....but I noticed those little things left undone, and after a while it begins to bother me a lot.  I spent the better part of the morning working at a nice leisurely pace measuring, and making my cuts.  TLE thinks it turned out well, and so do I.

We had a couple of cabins being vacated Sunday afternoon, and needed to get one of them cleaned right away as we had another renter coming in late afternoon.  TLE sweetly offered to clean it by herself since I had been working all morning doing the finish work.  We'll have to clean that cabin again Monday afternoon, plus the second one for the crowd coming in for the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was able to watch several NFL game during the day, and enjoyed being able to watch without interruption.  They were all interesting games, including the nightcap between the Patriots and Broncos, which was marred by numerous turnovers, the final by the Broncos resulting in the victory for the Patriots in overtime.

The high temperature for the day was 67, which felt quite balmy compared to the weather of the previous 4 days, and as the daylight waned we were treated to another beautiful sunset.

Surprising to us was the fact that many weekenders did not leave the park Sunday afternoon.....as of sundown Sunday about half the park was still occupied.....maybe people are just going to hang around through the Thanksgiving weekend?

We stayed up until 11 pm to watch another episode of the Mentalist mostly to see if "Red John" was finally identified, and received his just desserts.....just in case you are a fan of the show and haven't watched last night's episode yet, I'll refrain from any further observations about it for now.  Since we have to get up by 5:30 to be at the Kiosk by 6:30 it will be a short night's sleep......sigh....

Thanks for stopping by!

Sticks and Bricks.......

As many of our readers know we still own our sticks and bricks home in Ontario, CA.....we have owned this property since April of 1986, and we had planned to sell it prior to transforming ourselves into nomads, but the real estate market crashed in early 2008 (nationwide....as we all painfully remember), and is just now beginning to come back.  We have been leasing it to two of our children since we began living in our coach back in February of 2011, and will probably continue to own it at least another year.  In the mean time there are a few things that need to be fixed before we head out on the road again.  Saturday I decided to tackle the first of 4, or 5 of those things......the roll up garage door.  As it turned out the fix was easy....two of the rollers had broken, so I bought two new hinges, and rollers and had them installed within 20 minutes, and the door was working once again. I replaced a few light bulbs, and took stock of the other things that need fixing.

The "sticks and bricks"

The hinges

The rollers

Before I got to the house I returned to  the Lowe's in Rancho Cucamonga where I bought a few items a few days ago.  I didn't realize until we got home that I left one item, a 12" X 24" piece of aluminum diamond plate, at the  "do it yourself" checkout stand.  I called them right after we got home, but it was already gone from the check stand.  At any rate I went directly into customer service, showed them my receipt, and told them my sob story.  The lady, Jayne, called their security department and had them review the video for the time I was there, and they were able to verify that I left the diamond plate at the check stand, so they gave me a replacement at no cost......how cool is that?

From their I headed home where TLE was awaiting my return so she could go shopping.  I worked on one project I had started while we were at my brother's home in South Jordan, but had not finished.  Back then I had cut a corner off the old table.....the same one I made the other shelf from......to use as a small wall shelf for any particular beverage I may be drinking while sitting in the recliner......here is the finished product.

T

I think it turned out rather nicely......how about you?  Yes, I even use it to hold my coffee cup when I'm at the computer first thing in the morning.

The weather most of Saturday continued to be cold, blustery and cloudy, but NO more rain.  Hoping for a nice sunny day Sunday to we can take a bike ride.

Later that evening we met our very, very good friends Paul and Kayre at a new local Italian place....Brio Tuscan Grille.  Yelp gives them a solid 4 stars, and it is very good....we would give them 4.5.  Paul and I first met back in the mid 90's on a group mountain bike sponsored by a local bike shop, and became good friends.  Together we have logged a couple thousand miles of mountain bike trails locally, and at Mammoth Mountain.  Nothing like a lot of pain, suffering and blood to bond two guys together.  Over the years we have each helped the other after serious crashes.....they say there are two types of mountain bikers.....those who have crashed, and those who will....it's not a matter of "if", but WHEN it will happen.  We enjoyed a leisurely 2 hour dinner with non-stop conversation.  It is located in the Victoria Gardens shopping center if you are interested in trying it out....I understand this is a chain, but this is the first one in California.

Internet photo of Brio

On our way home we dropped off the turkey TLE had bought earlier in the day at our "sticks and bricks" home for my oldest daughter to put in their refrigerator.....we just do not have room for a 17.5 pound turkey in our small refrigerator.....:D

By the time we got home there was only one late NCAA Football game on between Oregon State and Washington.....I watched part of the UCLA game before dinner (UCLA lost), and part of the Texas A&M vs. LSU game, but considering it was Saturday I did not get a chance to watch much football....believe me when I say.....this will not be the case on NFL Sunday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Santanas.......

One of my least favorite things about Southern California are the Santana Winds that swoop down out of the high desert and down through Cajon Pass at random times during the Fall and Winter months.  After rain all day Thursday the Santana Winds struck about 3 am Friday morning, and continued on all day Friday sometimes gusting up to 40 mph.....not too bad by Santana standards, but bad enough to make us finally get up around 5 am and put the patio and window awnings in. When we still lived in our sticks and bricks home the high winds, sometime up into the 70-80 mph range, would cause our home to shake as if there were an earthquake in progress.  I went back to bed, but I don't think I really slept.....I just lay there refusing to get up too early.

The forecasters (guessers) said we would have wind until 10 pm Friday evening, and that is we got, mixed in with a little rain toward late afternoon.  This was the first wintery day we've had since we arrived in RJRP, and it was cold!  I had some plans to do some work outside, but I quickly decided to work on some projects inside the coach instead.  The wind continued to buffet the coach all day causing it to rock quite a bit from time to time, but we were "as snug as two bugs in a rug" inside our dry, heated environment.

Friday's, of course, mean the weekenders will be coming back into the park.....it's like someone flipping the vacuum switch back on, but in reverse, as you watch RV after RV arrive in the park .  With a few hours our secluded, lightly populated community turns into a small teaming city with all the urban sounds......loud radios blasting, lots of vehicles going hither and yon, little kids riding every sort of human powered conveyance you can imagine.  Normally, in the past, on the weekend before Thanksgiving RJRP has been relatively quiet, but since we have been gone the past 21 months that has changed.  The park has become so popular that it is pretty much full 52 weekends out of the year now....just more so on the big holiday weekends....summer, or winter.

Our neighborhood is filling up again

Because of the inclement weather we did not do much else Friday....TLE read, and I puttered around....hoping for better weather Saturday and Sunday so I can get to those outdoor projects!

Around 4:40 I looked out the window to see this amazing sunset that my small phone camera tried hard to capture properly, but it was way better in person.

Not much else to report for Friday......we watched an episode of "Bones" and were in bed before 10 pm......just a couple of old fogies I guess....:D

Thanks for stopping by!!

It never rains in California......

From the 1972 Albert Hammond song......"Seems it never rains in southern California.......Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before.....It never rains in California....But girl don't they warn ya.....It pours, man it pours...."....and that is precisely what it did Thursday......and what it is still doing as I write this entry Thursday evening.

It's funny....we haven't had rain since the day we left Sidney, MT..... sure we had snow up in South Jordan, UT, but no rain.  Of course, the rainy season in SoCal officially starts in October.  Of course, you know I love the sound of rain on the riveted aluminum roof of our Newell.....that thin sheet of aluminum separates us from the elements so effectively, but allows us to be closer to them without the exposure.

Every time I woke up during the night I heard the rain pitter pattering on the roof....sometimes ferociously, most of the time gently.  Each time I drifted back off to sleep with a smile on my face.

Around 6 am I heard the coffee maker start, and within a few minutes I could smell the seductive aroma of coffee wafting back into the bedroom....that's one of the cool things about living in a small space....you're not far from anything, including the coffee. Once I heard the familiar "beep...beep" signifying the coffee maker was done with its task, I lay there thinking I only had to walk a few feet to have some of that coffee.  Of course, that didn't last long before I was actually walking those few feet to have some of that coffee....so much for sleeping in, huh?

While TLE was busy cleaning up after breakfast I headed out to the garage to do some more sifting of stuff I don't need anymore.   As I was standing at the work bench I was looking at the hydraulic brake assembly I had removed from my Intense 5.5 mountain bike over the weekend.  I had been unable to properly adjust the front brake, and thought the problem was air in the hydraulic line, so I had taken it off and planned to take it in to a local bike shop to have the line bled.  As I looked it over again, I noticed the brake pads looked very thin....almost paper thin...so I replaced them with a new pair I had on hand, and what do you know?  That solved the problem!  Waiting a few days saved me $20 bux!

 We decided to head into Rancho Cucamonga around 11:15 to drop some stuff off at the local Goodwill, and while we were there we found a few clothing items we couldn't live without.  From there we headed to Rubio's for some fish tacos, then on to Radio Shack, and Lowe's for some home improvement stuff.

After Lowe's we headed over to my son's insurance office to drop off some stuff we want to store as we are not ready to get rid of it yet.  In addition to finding my son, Chris, there, we found his wife, Rochelle, and daughter, Cynthina, there.  Rochelle and Cynthia recently passed the test for their insurance licenses, so now it is a total family operation.

After that we headed over to the local Walmart where TLE found the toaster oven she has been wanting for some time, and then headed home arriving just after 3:15.....I headed immediately for the garage to work on a few things, and TLE set about installing her new Black and Decker toaster oven.

 

In keeping with the Mexican food theme of the day TLE made taco salad for dinner, which included the unveiling of a new craft beer we bought back in Park City at Squatters.....Outer Darkness Russian Style Imperial Stout Ale which comes in an enormous bottle holding 1 pint, 9 fluid ounces of 10.5% ABV.  To my brother, Dwyer, who recommended I buy it.....thank you!!

It rained on and off most of the evening, and was still sprinkling when we went to bed at 11.  About 3 am the wind came up....yep those famous Santana winds that sweep through SoCal on a regular basis.  When the gusts started hitting 35-40 mph we grudgingly got up and put in the awnings.  The guessers are saying we'll have wind all day, with another storm system coming in tonight.

Life is good!  Thanks for stopping by!

Hump Day

I know I usually start my posts with the weather report.....so here goes.....we woke up to heavy cloud cover, and based on the weather forecast for rain Wednesday night, and most of the day on Thursday, what we saw made sense.  Once again it was nice to step out of the coach into temperatures in the mid 50's.  The overnight temps inside the coach with NO heaters on hasn't gotten below 71 so far......just a couple of weeks ago it would get into the mid 50's inside with the heaters on low.  When it gets that cold it seems as if your feet will stick to the cold floor when you get up in the middle of the to use the bathroom.

Wednesday was our third consecutive day on Kiosk duty.  Frankly, we like opening up more than closing, especially on days when it has been 12 days since the fishing lakes were restocked.  Riverside County stocks the lakes with trout every other Friday.  On days just after the lakes have been stocked the cars filled with fisherman wind around the block before the park gates are opened, and it gets rather hectic at the Kiosk for about an hour as they flood into the park.

The view towards the park entrance

 Mt. Rubidoux lurking in the distance

 The park store......there is a miniature golf course next to the store, hence the name "The Gopher Hole"

On the job

TLE stayed with me until 9 am when Carolyn arrived.....she is one of the paid full time staff members with whom we work, and one of our favorite people.  The rest of my 5 hour shift went smoothly, and I am getting more comfortable every day with being there on my own without any backup.  Now we are "off" for four days, and get to sleep in again....well, maybe TLE will sleep in....I don't seem to get much past 6:30 no matter what time I go to bed.

I spent a big part of the afternoon working in the trailer sorting through more stuff, and adding to my discard pile.  It will probably take a couple of more days to finish sorting through things.  I also decided to permanently mount one of the old Panasonic LCD TV's I removed from the coach in the trailer, so I will no longer have to carry my outside TV out out there anymore when I want to watch sports while I work.  I've got a few coach projects I'll be working on while we are here including fixing the speedometer, and tachometer, so now my work space is set up just like it used to be at my sticks and bricks home....bring on the projects!

Near sunset we took a long walk around the perimeter walking path here at the park making circuits for a little over one mile, then headed inside for the evening.  The forecast for Thursday is 60% chance of rain, and, in fact, the rain really began around 10 pm Wednesday night.  Before heading off to dreamland we watched Revolution, then Survivor, which recorded while we watched Revolution.

We are gradually getting settled in here at RJRP, and looking forward to doing some riding of the local bike paths, which will include, of course, some of our favorite eateries along the way.

Thanks for stopping by!

A little of this and a little of that....

One of the challenges in writing this blog every day is on days when we are stationary as we will be for at least 8 weeks is writing about nothing and making it sound like something.  I know many tune in every day because you are interested in the nomadic lifestyle, and how we deal with every day life on the road, or every day life living in a recreational vehicle....whether moving, or not.  I've come to learn that what may seem like nothing to me.....from my perspective.......can still be interesting to others, so on those "nothing days" I must endeavor to see it from you're perspective.  Tuesday was one of those "nothing days", so let's see what it might look like to you.


On Tuesday, as we did on Monday, we arose at 5:30 am in order to help open the Kiosk by 7 am.  We are required to be at the Kiosk by 6:30 for the 7 am opening.  Thank goodness we only have to get up that early 3 times this week, and twice next week.  I try to keep the early rising in perspective.....sure we have to get up 3 straight days, but then we can sleep in the next 4 days.  On the days we work we are not working 12 hour shifts, which is always a positive.....plus the temperature starts out in the high 40's, or low 50's instead of the low 20's.....a very big positive.  More positives.....we are parked on concrete, we walk to work, no hard hats are involved, no loud farm machinery, no flying sugar beets.....it just gets better and better, huh?

Since Tuesday was our second day we predetermined TLE would work the entire 5 hour shift, while I would be there one hour until I was sure everything was going to be calm, which  it was.  On Wednesday I will work the 5 hour shift, and TLE will leave after an hour.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, or not, but the day we were leaving Baker, NV TLE was doing a couple of loads of wash that morning.  Near the end of the second load the Splendide would not go into its spin cycle, the drum stopped turning, and was making funny noises, as well as emitting a smell like burning rubber, so we shut it off, and haven't used it since.  We both were sure the belt had slipped, or broken.  Well, Tuesday was the magic day for me to pull it out of its cabinet and get a firm diagnosis.  A little bit of  "dis-assembly" is required.....part of the cabinet face must be unscrewed and removed so the Splendide can slide out.  I was able to get that done pretty easily, and as I began to wrestle the machine out of it's cubby hole it occurred to me that I should first turn it on and see if it was still doing the same thing.

I switched the machine to dry mode and turned it on.....what do you know?  The drum began to turn immediately, there was no funny sound, and no bad odor.  Okay, now let's put it into spin mode and see what happens......surprise, surprise.....it immediately went into spin mode, and began to accelerate as it should.....I let it go through its entire spin cycle and then switch back into dry mode, and it worked flawlessly, just as it has for the past 5+ years we have owned the coach.   So, now the question is was the malfunction in Baker a one time event, or a real problem.....I don't know right now.  I'm going to take the attitude for now that if  "it's not broken don't try to fix it.  At least I know how to get it out, and what screws must be removed to accomplish that end.

I had expected the Splendide affair to take 4-5 hours, but since it took only 40 minutes I decided to take a bike ride.  21+ months ago I would ride my bike from RJRP (750' elevation) up to the summit of Mt Rubidoux (1,329' elevation) 4.5 miles distant in about 24 minutes.  The entire 8.5 mile circuit would take me 38 minutes.  Since my conditioning is a little the worse for wear, and neglect I was interested to see how long it would take me now.  

The entrance

The view

As you climb up the asphalt paved walk/bikeway the view continues expanding with every foot gained in elevation.  There are usually a lot of people walking to the top, and as you pass them they exchange greetings, and and in some cases shout an encouraging word.  As I neared the summit I looked at my timer.....32 minutes......wow, I am out of shape.  I used to average about 10 mph climbing that hill, but my average Tuesday was around 7.5.  At least I made it too the top without throwing up, but I've got a lot of work to get back in decent shape!

As I was finishing my ride back into RJRP TLE came out of the Kiosk to let me know someone in Reservations had slipped up and rented our site out for the Thanksgiving weekend, so we will have to move to another site for four days.....ugggh!  I've got more stuff out right now than I've had at any time since we worked at Amazon.com for 11 weeks a year ago....that's a lot of stuff to put away for a 4 day move.....while it's a little upsetting, it's not like I have a lot to do.  As compensation for the inconvenience the Ranger has given us two days off from Kiosk work next week as it will take part of two days for us to move out of site #258, and then back into site #258.  After TLE got off work we drove over to the new site and found it will fit us with no problem, so come next Wednesday we'll be rolling the wheels again, if only for a few minutes.

Around 12:30 pm we decided we should head over to clean our cabins (1 & 2) for the coming weekend.  I'm amazed at how quickly we fell back into a routine we had not performed for almost two years.......when we were here 21 months ago we could clean a cabin in about 40 minutes.....our time Tuesday was 45 minutes per cabin.....not too bad.  With Thanksgiving coming up next week the cabins will be turning over several times, so we'll be cleaning our two cabins at least twice next week, and I think one of them 3 times, but it's all good.

Later in the afternoon I set up the EZ-UP canopy for the T-Bird to at least keep part of it our of the weather while we are here, but that is one more thing we'll have to take down in a week.

Around 6 pm our daughter, Kate, and her daughter Charlie came over for  a short visit on their way home.....always good to spend more time with one of our kids and grand kids!

That was pretty much a description of what seemed like "nothing" from my perspective.....I hope some of you found it somewhat interesting.......oh, we did watch the usual NCIS, NCIS L.A., and Person of Interest.....if you watch Person of Interest were you completely surprised by the last 3 minutes of last night's episode?

Thanks for stopping by!

As if......

 It's as if 21 months of water had not passed beneath the proverbial bridge......it's as if we have passed through a time warp........it's as if we have entered the "wardrobe" and are back to the time before we became nomads.....only we are not in Narnia, we are in RJRP.  Not much has changed......it's as if time has stood still.....many of the same people still work here at RJRP as we affectionately refer to Rancho Jurupa Regional Park, and everything still looks the same.....except we are not the same people who left 21 months ago.....we are now nomads.  We are not here for a year, or two years.    We are here for 60 days....maybe a little more.
  
Monday was our first volunteer work day here in Narnia....I mean RJRP.  Our day started at 5:30 am.......yes, that's what I said.....5:30 since we had to be at the Kiosk by 6:30 am to open the park for the day's business at 7 am.....what is that all about?  We're retired.....why are we getting up so early?  Well, by volunteering a mere 10 hours a week per person we get to stay here for FREE!  If we had to pay to stay here it would cost close to $1,000 per month for the water, electricity, sewer, laundry, cable TV, and WiFi connections, so I am willing to get up early 2, or 3 days a week to save that kind of money, and to be able to be here 2+ months visiting our kids and grand kids.

That's the Kiosk in the background (on the left)

We met our good friend Mike (we became good friends with Mike and his wife Terrie when we were here for a year.....Mike and Terrie are going on 5 years here at the park) at the Kiosk at exactly 6:30 and began opening everything up for the day.....first thing to do is raise the U.S., California and Riverside Parks flags to the top of their respective flag poles.  From there Mike gave TLE and I a refresher course in the Kiosk operations, computer software, etc.  Within a few hours we were back in the saddle, feeling comfortable once again.

Cabins 1 & 2

In addition to our weekly Kiosk duties we will also be cleaning a couple of cabins each week.  There are six cabins in all, and we'll be responsible for just #1 and #2 each week.  After we finished our 5 hour Kiosk shift.......by the way, in the future only one of us will be at the Kiosk on any given day.....we both went to today to get our training out of the way......we headed back to the coach.  TLE decided to go shopping, and I decided to take a nap.....I only got 6.5 hours of sleep Sunday night, and by Noon I was tired.  I was awakened about 1:30 when TLE returned.....I guess I was tired.

Once TLE had the groceries put away we decided to walk over and inspect our cabins to see how they looked after a weekend of use, and they don't look too bad. We'll tackle them tomorrow after TLE works the Kiosk....then we'll have just one more day in the Kiosk and we're done for the week.....not a bad gig.  And, it's nice to be back on familiar ground, of only for a couple of months.  It feels as if we never left.......well just a little bit....:D

It's good to be home......it's good to get caught up with the many people who work here on a daily basis, and to find out how their lives have progressed since we left 21 months ago.

Thanks for stopping by!