D minus 4 - Last things

Thursday was the beginning of last things......our last tandem ride before we put her into her rack in preparation for travel.  There was a  significant chance of rain in early afternoon (80%) so we headed out around 10:15 on the tandem figuring to be back before 1 and avoid the pending rain.  As we rode northeast on the SART we could feel the temperatures dropping, and the dark clouds over the mountains looked ominous, but we forged on.  We covered the 12 miles to the end of the trail in about 50 minutes and were ordering our Subway lunch just one hour after leaving the coach.

On the ride back we began to feel the odd sprinkle of moisture here and there, but we made it home just before 1, and just before the rain.  The weather guessers were very accurate this day....indeed.  Within 20 minutes after we got home it began to rain, and rained pretty much the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.....never hard, but steady.

Sunday I will take my last ride, this trip, to the top of Mt. Rubidoux......I will miss the feeling of exhilaration as I crest the summit....I will miss the expansive views north, south, east and west as I wind my way up the mountain....I will miss the fast plunge down the mountain trail dodging around the many hikers going and coming......and, I will miss the ability to ride safe bike paths on a daily basis.   

Also, on Sunday I will write my last "D minus" blog.....then I will have to become original once again and come up with a new original title every day.....no doubt some of you are waiting for that to happen.....:D

We had a few errands to run so we got right to it after our ride.....first stop was to visit the local West Marine to buy a couple of gallons of Chevron Delo 100 40 wt oil for our Detroit Diesel 6V92.....back in November I poured the last of the Delo 100 in to the oil reservoir  I bought when we were in Savannah last March.  Even though we have three gallons in the reservoir right now I like to have some in reserve.  That three gallons will last us quite a while at one quart consumed every 14-15 hours of operation.  Typically you will not find this single weight oil on the shelves, even in West Marine, but with West Marine there is always some in the local warehouse, and that was the case Thursday.......my two gallons will arrive at the Riverside store from the local warehouse Friday.

We ran a couple of other errands while it continued to rain, and arrived back home about 3:30.  Since it was raining I spent the next hour scanning a bunch of documents that have been accumulating over the past two months.....mostly 2013 tax documents that have arrived since we got home......a perfect indoor job for the occasion.

At 5 pm we headed over to the Kiosk to attend the potluck being put on as our "goodbye" party.  We had a nice turnout considering it was still raining, and it was great to be able to say our "until next times" to everyone at the same time.

That bittersweet feeling has arrived again as we prepare to depart, but is even more poignant this time, because we are leaving our kids and grand kids behind once again as we venture out seeking new views and adventures.  If it is even possible I think this departure will be more painful than two years ago.  On the other hand we will be staying on the west side of the Mississippi for the next 12-14 months, and will be able to see our kids and grand kids this summer when they come up to Lake Tahoe this year on vacation, and next winter when we return for our daughter's wedding.

We watched the beginning of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and were surprised how devoid of spectators the venues were the first day.....the figure skating venue seemed about half full, and at the "Slope Style" snowboard competition it seemed the only spectators were from the news organizations covering the Olympics.

That was our last Thursday in RJRP.......thanks for stopping by!

D minus 5 - Boxed Gloves

The count down has resumed.....

About 3 weeks ago I ordered a new glove box for our 2001 VW Beetle....the one it came with was damaged.  I found one quickly on eBay, and bought it for $100.  It was shipped out a day, or two later via USPS from North Carolina.  I followed the tracking as the box worked its way across the U.S. and saw it was out for delivery January 23rd, but within a couple of hours the next entry appeared....."Undeliverable  As Adressed".....what?  I went to the 91730 USPS the next morning to see if the package was still there, but was advised in no uncertain terms that if that was what the tracking said it had already been returned to the sender. I notified the seller, and told him to watch out for the package and resend it as soon as possible after correcting, of course, whatever addressing issues had prevented its delivery.  Two weeks later, Wednesday, I checked in with the seller to see if he had received it back, or not.  He advised he had not, but said he would go down to his local post office and see what he could find out.  He had them call the 91730 USPS, and was told the package was still there.......come on!

About an hour later, just on a hunch, I checked the tracking again, and what do you know?  It was marked as delivered.  Apparently the call spurred someone there to actually look up the name and see what the address was, and what do you know?.......they found me and delivered it just across the street to my son's office.  As it turned out the seller had neglected to put the actual street number and street name on the shipping label.  Well, all is well that ends well.  I drove up to my son's office and picked up the glove box and returned home to install it.....and that took just 15 minutes to swap out the damaged one with the used, but in excellent condition, glove box.  I also ordered a 2001 VW Beetle owners manual on eBay, which I should have by Friday.

Also waiting for me at the office were the axle straps I mentioned a week, or two ago that I will need to tie down the car in the trailer.  The T'Bird had built in tie down points, but the VW doesn't.  So it's all coming together just fine.....we are ready to roll in just a few more days......I love it when a plan comes together!

Before, during and after all the glove box excitement I was continuing my quest to get the trailer organized and ready to receive the VW, and it looks like I am finally there.  Now it is just a matter of putting the bikes away, and rolling in the VW.

Before, during and after all of the preceding TLE was on several quests of her own......major shopping, cleaning, washing of clothes and bedding, and salsa preparation.  She does that stuff so well I just get out of the way and cheer her on.  That salsa is so strong it was making my eyes water a couple of yards away.....looking forward to sampling it at Sharon's engagement party on Saturday.......not sure if I mentioned it, but Sharon is having her engagement party on Saturday evening, which is why we have stayed an extra 10 days in RJRP.

We are getting that electric, tingly feeling of anticipation we always get just before we roll the wheels again after a long layover.  We will have been here just 5 days short of 3 months.....a little longer than we planned, but to say our time here has been rewarding would be an understatement.....it has been a wonderful time of re-bonding with our kids on a different level than when we left two years ago.  Our relationship has changed, and for the better.....not that it wasn't good before, but our relationship has evolved into an adult friendship.....they are still our kids, but I see them differently now.....it's good.  Plus we have been able to spend time with our grand kids.....they have changed so much in 2 years!

Thanks for stopping by!

D minus 6 - and holding

I mentioned yesterday that we might stay one more day, and that has been decided, so we are on hold for one day, then the countdown will resume with us lifting off this coming Monday, the 10th.  I have to have two new steerer tires installed on the coach, and replace the one 8d house battery that went bad back in November.  If all goes according to the plan, and the Jello does not object, we will be one our way to Arizona by Monday afternoon.

Tuesday was my last day in the Kiosk......as we expected it was quite slow, but who is complaining?  Around 9 am I headed over to do my cleaning part on the two cabins, and was back at the Kiosk by 10:30.  TLE was just reading a book to pass the time and suggested I go ahead and take off letting her finish out the shift.  She had a salon appointment at 2 pm, and I wanted to visit my son's office to pick up some mail and deliver some items from the trailer back into storage, which meant if I wanted to get a bike ride in I would need to do it before we left at 1 pm.

I finally got my act together around 11:20 and headed out on a 13.5 mile ride doing my usual loop, but dropping by the Subway on University after summiting Mt. Rubidoux which accounts for the extra 1.5 miles.  I arrived at the Subway around 12:20, and found the line of patrons out the door.....it took me 25 minutes to work my way through the line, and by the time I got back to the coach it was 12:55, which meant I had to rush through my lunch, get dressed and be in the car by 1:10.......yes, I was in the car by 1:10, and everyone got where they were going  on time!

TLE left me at my son's office while she went to get her hair done, which was great because I got to spend time talking with Chris and Rochelle for a while, and Chris showed me how to use the "note" feature on my Samsung Note 3 phone.  TLE returned about 3:30 and we headed back to RJRP arriving there just after 4.

We had a big night of TV watching......not only did we have three recorded programs from Monday night (Almost Human, Castle and Intelligence), plus we had four live shows (Justified, NCIS, NCIS L.A., and Person of Interest).......being able to fast forward through all the commercials allowed us to watch 7 hours of TV in 5 and a half hours.......lol.

I apologize for the brevity of my recent posts......as we get close to our departure date our focus narrows significantly as we spend most of our time getting ready to utilize the wheels on our home to change our view once again.

Thanks for stopping by!

D minus 6 - First Saturday

My friend Tom calls Monday "first Saturday".......according to Tom there are six Saturdays, and one Sunday after you retire.  He has really embraced the idea I posited to him when we were on our summer journey together that "every day feels like Saturday", and I like that.  He has taken that idea a step further.  We will be arriving at his new home in Arizona in about a week, and we are looking forward to visiting with he and Darlene a lot and seeing their new retirement home.  They have been spending a lot of time since they returned from their summer journeys working on the house.....doing a lot of the remodeling themselves.

It actually rained quite hard Sunday night about 10 pm for about 30 minutes.....the most rain we've seen since late November, but still not very much considering California is in the middle of a very severe 4 year drought right.....they would need about 3 weeks of that kind of rain just to get even.

Since it rained I headed out to wipe off the VW first thing after finishing my daily blog entry......the rain had already washed the car, so all I had to do was dry it off.  Of course my neighbors always protest saying all I am doing is guaranteeing it will rain again.....well if that is all it takes to break the drought I am happy to do my meager part.

Next up I continued to straighten up the trailer in anticipation of our departure on Sunday......or maybe even Monday.....we may just leave on Monday instead of Sunday....it's still up in the air......I may have to adjust the countdown, or put it on hold for one day....we'll see.

Around 11:30 I headed out on my a bike ride.....I didn't ride on either Saturday, or Sunday, so it was good to get back on the bike and feel the wind in my face again.  I started out thinking I would just do my normal 12 mile ride through Fairmont Park, around the lake, up to the summit of Mt. Rubidoux, then down the SART.....at about the 9 mile mark I decided I would ride all the way to Van Buren, up to Limonite to get my footlong club at the local Subway shop, then home.....just as I dismounted from the bike at the trailer I noticed I had hit 20 miles right on the mark....no more, no less....EXACTLY.

I arrived home to TLE cleaning the mini-blinds that hang over the sink.....they do get quite grimy from all that goes on in that area......so while she continued cleaning I ate my lunch and then took a nap......watching others work does make me drowsy.

Tuesday will be our last Kiosk day, our last early rising day, and my last day cleaning cabins.....TLE did her part on our two cabins Monday afternoon while she was in the cleaning mood.  I'll do my part during our last shift in the Kiosk.

Nothing else to report about Monday.....thanks for stopping by!

D minus 7 - Super Bust

Like many of you I spent the last two weeks in anticipation of an exciting, well played, competitive Super Bowl.  What we got was one team, the Seahawks, disproving the age old adage that goes "You can't beat a dead horse".  The Broncos "died" sometime just before the flip of the coin, and then the Seahawks proceeded to beat them up one side of the field and down the other for 60 minutes.  It was a mismatch of galactic proportions.  Little did we know that the real Super Bowl was played two weeks ago in Seattle where the Seahawks defeated the 49ers in a closely fought, competitive match worthy of a Super Bowl......this game was not worthy of the name.....I'll let it go at that, because to say more would continue the unfortunate "beating of a dead horse".

In other news......we did our last Sunday duty in the Kiosk....it was largely uneventful, and by the time Carolyn arrived at 9 am she let us go an hour and a half early.  We spent the rest of the morning running a few errands, doing a little shopping, and then spending the rest of the day awaiting the beginning of the ugly horse beating.

I mentioned yesterday my sister, Jill, gave me a "thumb drive" chock full of pictures from our collective past.  I spent several hours prior to the start of the Super Bowl Bust pouring through those pictures, being transported back to my childhood.  I came a across some pictures from 1953 when my parents took my sister, Jill, and I on an extended trip around the western U.S. pulling a trailer with their 1952 Chevrolet convertible.

Boondocking some where in the west

Incline Beach - Lake Tahoe - on the same trip

The sign says it all

So, my exposure to the nomadic lifestyle began at an early age.....I was just 4 years old on this trip, and Jill was 2.  It was the beginning of annual summer pilgrimages pulling a trailer to Lake Tahoe to live for two heavenly weeks on the shores of Incline Beach, and the beginning of my love affair with "homes" that had wheels.  Like most 4 year olds I have very few cognitive memories of that time, and most all of them are about that epic trip.  I have one specific memory of being at Bryce Canyon at a place where I believed we would fall off a cliff.....I found a picture that documents that memory.

Here I am at that spot I, which I remember to this day, with my head buried in my arms.....I could not bear to look over that precipice. 

Jill and I on the beach at Incline Beach circa 1953

We continued that annual pilgrimage to Incline Beach until 1959 when Incline Beach Trailer Park was sold to a developer who turned the area into the touristy Incline Village we know today.  Over the intervening 54 years we have been back to camp, or rent condos dozens of times, and to this day it is still in my top 5 places to visit.  Can it get better?  Sure....this summer we will spend from just before Memorial Day until just after Labor Day at Lake Tahoe.

Thanks for stopping by!

D minus 8 - DBSB

Saturday this time of year is known as the Day Before the Super Bowl.......it was also the day of my baby brother's 50th birthday party celebration.  But wait......I get ahead of myself.

Sometime very early Saturday morning the dreaded winds out of the north returned....not with a vengeance, but just enough that we had to take down our sun screens.  The one thing it did was scrub the skies clean of haze, and lower the already pretty low humidity to extremely low.

We trundled off to our last Saturday Kiosk duty at 10 am......well, let's make that "I" trundled off to take the first 2 hour shift with TLE promising to follow at Noon to finish out our shift.  Normally on a Saturday 8 days removed from the last trout stocking of the lakes it is quiet, but Saturday was anything but quiet.  There was a steady stream of people arriving for a wedding being held next door at Crestmore Manor.....the wedding party had rented two of the cabins to use as changing rooms.  Additionally, there were quite a few people either extending their stay one more day, or arriving to claim previously made reservations.  That's all good, because keeping busy keeps Mr. Time moving along.

At one point I looked down at my watch and noticed it was a couple of minutes after Noon and no TLE.....I called her and found she was just around the corner.....she said she had to see the end of some home improvement show, which was why she was a little tardy.

On my way home I got a call from Costco informing me that our new prescription glasses were ready for pickup....yay!  As soon as TLE arrived back "home" from the Kiosk we jumped in the Beetle and headed for Costco.  On a typical Saturday Costco's parking lot is about 70-75% full, but on this particular DBSB Saturday the parking lot was at 100% of capacity, or very close to it.....I guess everyone was out buying their Super Bowl munchies....I have never seen it quite that bad.  Thank goodness we were only there to pick up our glasses, and not buy anything.....those checkout lines looked ominous!

We barely returned from Costco and it was time to get ready to head into Temple City to my brother Philip's 50th birthday party.....actually it was a combined party for he and Jeannie (his wife).....Jeannie turned 50 back in September.

Left to Right: TLE, Jeannie, Philip, Jill and moi

If this outdoor party had been last weekend the outdoor temps at 5 pm would have been balmy, but since last weekend a semblance of winter arrived and the temps were already dipping into the 50's as the sun set.  Philip and Jeannie had a couple of beer tappers on hand, and carne asada, chicken asada, etc. so we all made up some "street tacos" to munch on.......we had a delightful time, but were headed for home by 8 pm since it is our duty to open the Kiosk Sunday morning at 6:30.......nevertheless, Sunday will be our last Sunday opening.....only one more Kiosk day remains......Tuesday, then we are free to get packed up!

My sister,Jill, gave me an 8 GB flash drive at the party with 100's of old pictures from our childhood, many of which I do not remember ever seeing.....here are a few that I found interesting.

 Jill and I horseback riding near Rosarito Beach in Baja California

 Me in front of my Dad's 1961 Thunderbird near Olancha, CA

 Me sitting on the shores of Lake Tahoe (Incline Beach) circa 1956-56 doing what I love to do.....stair at the lake

With my first full size bike at our home in Pico Rivera, CA......notice it had headlights.....I loved that bike!

My first Dodger game at the L.A. Coliseum circa 1958

That was our Saturday......thanks for stopping by!

D minus 9 - 24 and 36

Friday was two anniversaries in one.....it was the 2 year anniversary of us traveling full time, and the 3 year anniversary since we moved into the coach to live full time.  On Saturday we will sign the 4th one year lease of our sticks and bricks home to our kids and their friends......life is good!

This also my weekly "weigh in" day......still good news to report!  I hit the magic 190.0.....another 2.4 pounds in the lost, but not to be found department!  I'm not quite done yet.......I'd like to lose 4-5 more pounds.

OMG.....only 9 days until we leave RJRP?  The countdown has started in earnest.   I have to start cleaning the trailer up to get ready to roll.....where did all that stuff come from, and where am I going to put it?  The way it looked first thing Friday morning there is no way the VW would have fit......we would have had to slide it in sideways.  Of course, that is the way it looked two years ago when we were leaving RJRP the first time, and somehow we got it organized in time for lift off then,and I'm confident we will manage the task again this time.

I was hoping to find one more bike this week to part out, but one just hasn't come along that fits my criteria, so it's time to put away the boxes, and packing materials once again.  I'm hoping I can find at least one bike while we are in Arizona in February.

The weather Friday continued to be quite chilly, and initially when I was out in the trailer putting things away I was all bundled up to stay warm.  TLE was off shopping at Target, Trader Joe's and other establishments......I knew she would be gone for a few hours, but around Noon I was thinking I would have to get on my bike to get my footlong, but TLE called offering to pick it up on the way home.....cool!  That gave me more time to get more done in the trailer.

Around 11 a reader of our blog, Dan, who was spending a couple of days here at RJRP as he and he wife, also an Elaine, migrate south from Seattle to Borrego Springs for the winter.  He is also an avid cyclist, and had just returned from his conquest of Mt. Rubidoux.  He had read about my love of this local mountain and just had to check it out.  As I say oft.....you meet the nicest people in this nomadic life!

Finally a little after 2 I had gotten to a stopping point, and got dressed for my daily ride.  Just as happened a few days ago I hit the 10 mile mark....just a couple of miles from home....and decided to keep riding, adding another 6 miles to my normal 12......this time I rode north on the SART 3 miles before turning around and heading for the barn.  By the time I got "home" after 3:30 it was getting quite cold, and I was wishing I had worn something a little warmer.

Around 4:30 I got a notification on my phone that an bike stem, which had not sold in my original auction, had sold after being relisted automatically for the 3rd time by eBay, so I boxed it up, printed a shipping label using PayPal and ran it over to the USPS just before they closed.

We watched "Bones" that night, and then a recorded TCM movie called "Walk, Don't Run" released in 1966, starring Cary Grant in his last movie of his 38 year career, Jim Hutton, and Samantha Eggar....a very funny movie!

Thanks for stopping by!