Bachelor man - Day #5 - Father's Day

With the exception of TLE being missing physically from this Father's Day this Father's Day was one of my favorite of all time.  I woke up watching the U.S. Golf Association's U.S. Open......I watched/listened to it while typing the blog, watched/listened to it while putting the Sturmey-Archer  hub back together for the Hercules women's bicycle, and watched it while reclining in my outdoor lounge chair all afternoon......what did I do in between?

 The Hercules is operable again!

After finishing the Hercules I put on my bike clothes and took a 16 mile ride out Lake Tahoe Blvd., down Sawmill to US-50, out to the end of the bike path in Myers........

 The path along Sawmill

 The path along US-50

........and back to the South Lake Tahoe Flea Market..........

SLT Flea Market

......where I found a few things I apparently could not live without......

Hammer - $1, phillips head - $1, vice grips - $4, nail set - $1......SCORE!

......then it was off to Alpina Coffee Cafe for a very late breakfast......it is Father's Day after all, so it's okay to have breakfast for lunch, right?

Alpina Coffee Cafe

......as I alluded to earlier, I spent the afternoon ensconced firmly in my outdoor lounger watching the U.S. Open on the outdoor TV.......it was great to see Dustin Johnson finally win his first golf Major!

Shortly after the end of the U.S. Open I switched the channel over to ABC to watch game 7 of the NBA finals.  It has been a very strange series with the first 6 games all being blowouts by the winning team.  At one point the Cavaliers looked finished when they went down 3 games to 1.....no team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the finals.....BUT.....there is a first time for everything, and the Cavaliers ultimately prevailed 93-89 in a very, very, very closely fought game.  It was like watching a 'Rocky' movie with every punch being answered with a counter punch.  Both teams kept punching until there was no time left......

......TLE arrived home from her 5 day sabbatical about 6:30 pm after an uneventful flight home, and a brief shopping foray to T.J.'s and Costco.  TLE, I apologize for all the yelling and screaming during the game!

My tenure as Bachelor man comes to an end after 5 days, and life has returned to normal.....thanks for stopping by!

Bachelor man - Day #4

At last.....Saturday......last day of my work week........I spent most of the day patrolling the entrance to the park making sure arriving customers didn't get backed up too far.....as you can see in the picture below it is still cold, but not too cold that I couldn't wear my traditional cowboy hat.......after all, a Ranger must wear a cowboy hat, right?

You may wonder what I do all day as I drive around TVC......maybe not, but you're going to find out anyway.  I work off two lists as I make my rounds......'Who's Departing'........I check off those who have departed (indicated with a 'V' for vacant next to their name and site number if they have departed, and an 'O' for occupied if they have not yet departed)..........

......departure time is 11 am each day and on busy days with lots of arrivals I need to be sure the sites with arrivals scheduled are vacant by 1 pm.  The next list (Who's In The Park) is usually 4, or 5 pages long, or more, on busy weekends.  On this list I verify that sites which are supposed to be occupied are, note sites which are vacant, but supposed to be occupied, and note sites which are occupied, but are not yet checked in.  We close the office at 10 pm, so people arriving after that time go directly to their sites and register the next morning.  If they have not done so by 10 am the next morning I stop by their site and give them a friendly reminder.

.......I got called away from patrolling the entrance a number of times to pump propane, check the cable TV reception at various sites......it's almost always a problem with the customer's wiring.......settle a couple of disputes about where a site began and ended, remind customers that from 10 pm to 7 am is our 'QUIET' time in the park (we had a few noise complaints from Friday night), etc.  4 pm came quickly and it was time for me to head for the barn.......I changed clothes and then made myself a cocktail to unwind from the busy week....

.....only one more day as Bachelor Man before TLE returns from her 5 day sojourn in SoCal.....YAY!  Miss you honey!

Thanks for stopping by!

Bachelor man - Day #3

Friday had so much promise.....the promise of getting the 50 amp power restored to our site.....the promise of a lot of new arrivals (109) bringing us to 75% of capacity......the promise of three more days until TLE returns.....the promise of warmer temperatures.  All of those promises came true, except the one of fixing our 50 amp electrical service.....it was just not to be.  Adam and I had good intentions, but duties around the park interfered.......Adam was called away time and again to work on other electrical issues for customers, as it should be, and I was called away to spend a lot of time directing traffic along our main entrance road.  It doesn't take long for things to go sideways at the entrance on a Friday, so continuous supervision is required to keep traffic moving.  Our electrical issues will have to wait until Tuesday when things calm down once again.

I arrived at the office/store around 7:20 am to find that Robert (our manager) had arrived earlier than usual and had already turned off the alarm (thank you) and opened the front doors, so I was just a matter of going about the rest of my morning routine.......if only that had happened.  We have been having issues the past few days with our 'print server'.  We print a lot of documents every day and having a dependable printer is imperative.  A few days ago we began to experience long delays in print jobs sent to the server actually printing.  It got to the point where we stopped trying to print receipts (promising to deliver them later when we got our printer issues resolved), site tags, etc.  By Friday morning even our reports were not printing.  Each day TLE, or someone else will print three reports for me to use in my rounds......"Who's In The Park", "Departures" and "Arrivals".   We tried for quite a long time to get them to print, but were unsuccessful.  Ultimately I had to use Robert's computer, which has it own dedicated printer to print my reports.  

Unfortunately that left the office staff in the same predicament for most of the day until Victor (our assistant manager and resident "IT" guy) returned from his two days off to diagnose the problem.  As it turned out the entire issue was a faulty ethernet cable connecting the printer to the router.  Once replaced everything began to work better......the computers stopped crashing, and a hundred print jobs waiting in the que finally printed.

Meanwhile I spent most of my day, as I noted previously, directing traffic, taking people to their sites, helping customers back into difficult sites, which I am sure probably saved a couple of marriages.

We had a couple of people out sick so there was no one to relieve me at my normal quitting time of 4 pm......finally by 5 pm my relief arrived and I headed home to the coach.....I was one tired puppy.  In fact, I fell asleep in my recliner shortly after finishing my dinner awaking about 9 pm to go to bed.

Ahhhhh........two more days until the return of TLE.....thanks for stopping by!

Bachelor Man - Day #2

After successfully disarming the alarm system Thursday morning I checked to see how many 'ARRIVALS' were scheduled......89!  That was on top of the Wednesday's total of 69, which is really high for a Wednesday.  Once again the temperature may have broken 54 for the high, and even though the winds from the day before had calmed significantly it was still quite frigid.  After completing my first round of the day I picked up a shovel from the maintenance yard and headed for my site to do some excavating.

About 2 hours after we arrived here at TVC on April 30th one leg of our 50 amp power quit working.  When you plug into a 50 amp outlet you actually are getting 100 amps......there are two 'hot' legs in a 50 amp outlet, each supplying 50 amps.  When one leg is not providing power half my coach has no power......in this case the front heater stopped working, and a few outlets in the rear of the coach.  Initially I thought something was wrong with the front heater, but once I realized other things were not working I surmised there was a problem with the electric pedestal in our site.  My initial solution was to get out my two 50 amp extension cords and plug into the vacant site behind us, which I did......that extra 50 amp extension cord I found at the Salvation Army in Fontana back in April sure came in handy!

A few days later an electrician came to help diagnose the problem.  After a couple of hours of checking each pedestal (sites 426-433) it was determined that the problem was somewhere between site 427 and 429.  The pedestals are all 'daisy chained' together with my site (426) being the end of the line.  As a result both my pedestal and the pedestal in site 427 have a problem with the 50 amp outlet, so the solution is to excavate between 427 and 429, remove the faulty cable and replace it with a new one......

The cables are exposed at site 429

 The distance between site 427 and 429 is about 35'

Site 427 excavated

......the plan was to expose the cables at the base of each pedestal, then reconfirm which cable is bad, then (after turning off the power) pull the bad cable out of the pedestal.   The next step will be to use the new cable (see the cable handing on the pedestal in site 427 in the middle picture above) to jump between both pedestals to confirm that replacing it will solve the problem.  Once that is done, and we have confirmed that power is restored, we will complete the trench between both pedestals, and bury the new cable.  That will most likely happen Friday morning.

As a side note, the electrical contractor gave us a bid of $3,000 to do the work.  That is way too much......the work is all labor....we already have the replacement cable, so we decided to do the work ourselves.......I figure there is about 6 hours of labor at the most, and even if the contractor's per hour labor charges were $100 it shouldn't cost $3,000.

In all I spent about 2 hours doing the initial digging to expose the cables......the rest of the day I spent along the entrance road to the park directing traffic, and avoiding a traffic jam as the 'ARRIVALS' came in bunches at a time.  When I clocked out at 4:24 pm we still had over 40 'ARRIVALS' to go.

I don't really think about being a bachelor, or feel like one until I get home after work and there is no TLE.  Usually I don't do well by myself.....I like being around people, but this time I am enjoying the solitude in the evening.  I sat outside, by myself, smoking a cigar and sipping some single malt for about an hour before heading in for the night.

Game 6 between the NBA finals between the Warriors and Cavaliers was another barn burner with the Cavaliers defeating the Warriors once again to tie the series at 3 games apiece setting up another historic game 7 back in Oakland on Sunday evening.  Seth Curry not only fouled out for the first time since 2013, but was ejected for throwing his mouthpiece at a fan.  Game 7 should have a lot of fireworks......we'll see.

I was in bed by 9:30 thinking about how busy Friday will be......thanks for stopping by!   

Bachelor man - Day #1 - The two simoleons

I waved goodbye to TLE about 7 am as the VW disappeared around the corner and out of sight for 5 days.  Our 6th grand child, Jolene Rose, entered this world June 6th and it is time from grandmother to meet her in person, so TLE has flown down to Ontario, CA until Sunday to get some face time with our precious Jolene Rose.

Meanwhile, back at the 'ranch', I spent the day freezing my extremities.......they say the high temp for the day got to 55, but I would beg to differ with that.......for most of the day we had a 20 mph wind, which I am sure when modified to account for 'WIND CHILL' was somewhere in the low 40's.......

 Back to winter wear

Collar turned up once again

.....ultimately I ditched the cowboy hat for my watch cap, and about 2:40 pm we had SNOW FLURRIES.......yes, you read that correctly......SNOW FLURRIES on June 15th!  But wait.....once again I forge way ahead of myself.....

Twenty minutes after the VW disappeared around the corner with The Lovely Elaine ensconced in the driver's seat I headed for the office/store to open for the day.  On my way to the office on my Intense 5.5 I spied what I thought at first was trash on the ground......I am a compulsive trash picker upper so I stopped to pick it up.....as I bent over I realized it was a dollar bill......I had barely picked it up when I saw another one just a few feet away.....okay, that's weird.  I began to think someone was laying down a trail of dollar bills to lead me off on a wild goose chase, so I just pocketed the two simoleons and headed for the office........

The two simoleons

......TLE always opens the door each morning, and heads directly for the alarm keypad to disarm the alarm......I hate alarms as I usually set them off, so always leave that task to TLE, however, on this day it fell to me.......after opening the door and walking to the back of the office/store I stood before the dreaded keypad with the little 'Post-It-Note' firmly gripped in my left hand......TLE had written the four digit alarm code on for my convenience.  The note gave four numbers with the word 'OFF' following them......she explained I must key in the four numbers and then press the 'OFF' button......okay, simple, right?  I pressed the four digits on the keypad and then looked for the 'OFF' button......dang, where is it?  It was then I realized how small the printing was on the buttons.......where is that 'OFF' button?  I paused so long the screen went blank again, and I began to expect the alarm to begin blaring any second.......I kept my cool, and calmly looked over the keypad finally finding the 'OFF' button, then had to re-key the 4 digit code before successfully pressing the now located tiny 'OFF' button and avoiding the alarm.

From that point on it was 'all downhill'......Sally arrived shortly thereafter and proceeded to go get the computers up, count the money, etc......I headed for the maintenance yard to pick up the Ranger cart, and get ready for my day.

After completing my first round of the day I met Miguel (head Ranger) at one of the walking paths in Section F to repair part of the fence that defines the path.....one post had rotted out, and another was leaning way over.  We had to remove the threaded rod we use to bolt the pieces of the fence together to remove the rotted out post, then dig out the piece in the ground, dig the hole a little deeper, then put the new post in and bolt everything back together. In all it took us about an hour to finish the repairs.

About 2 pm our computers went down......at the same time we were having our weekly staff meeting so I had to keep an eye on the entrance for arriving RV's so we could just send them directly to their sites until our internet connection was restored.....in all it was about an hour before they came back up, and it was during that hour that we got the aforementioned flurries, during which time I was mostly outside dealing with frozen extremities.  Anyway, as I said, the computers did come back up and by 4 pm I was on my way home to thaw out.

I took a 15 minute very hot shower and emerged completely thawed out and ready for a nap.  TLE prepared a number of meals for me so I don't have to worry about cooking.  On the top of the pile of oven dishes in the fridge was an uncooked enchilada casserole.  She had explained all I had to do was put it in the large toaster oven, which she preset to 350 degrees, turn on the timer to 20 minutes and let it cook, and that is exactly what I did, and at the end of 20 minutes, precisely, it was done.  I got out an 'ICKY' IPA to pair with the casserole and sat down to watch a recorded episode of 'Person of Interest'.  The casserole, as always, was perfection.....thank you TLE!

I was turning out the lights by 9 pm, and in bed asleep by 9:30.......4 days until TLE returns........thanks for stopping by!

B.M.

I thought the days of wearing my coat and gloves all day long were past, but I was wrong.  We are back to temps in the 30's at night, and highs in the 50's......at least for a few days more.  Meanwhile the park was pretty full for a Tuesday......probably about 55% full.  After making my morning rounds I returned to painting the traffic markings along the entrance road with bright yellow.......

.......I started with refreshing the other two stop limit lines and the word "STOP" on the ground in front of each limit line......

......then I worked along the entry road putting directional arrows with "RV's" on the ground in front of the arrow trying to get folks pulling, or driving RV's to pull to the right lane and park before registering.  In all there are five of these spaced out over the length of the entry road now....we are hoping this will reduce some of the confusion on busy days.....it seems we always have a few folks who decide they should park right in the middle of the street, which, of course, blocks traffic.

By the time I ran out of paint it was 1 pm, and also time for my lunch break.....in fact, way past.....usually I go at 12 pm.  After lunch I ran my final round of the day, then spent my last hour deep cleaning tent sites in Section E.

TLE spent the evening getting ready for her 5 day trip to SoCal to spend time with our daughter Kate and our new grand child, Jolene Rose, she'll be back Sunday afternoon......so I will be BM (Bachelor Man) for the rest of the week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sturmey-Archer

Since our planned bike ride for Sunday was aborted due to high pollen count, and TLE was feeling much better we decided to ride our singles Monday.  We first rode over to Moonhouse BrewHouse for some coffee and pastry......TLE had a croissant and I a couple of blueberry muffins.........

......this is our second visit to Moonhouse....we love sitting outside on the front porch enjoying the view of the local mountains......

.....one thing to keep in mind about Moonhouse is you cannot be in a hurry.....since each cup of coffee is brewed individually at the time you order it does take a few minutes, but the wait if worth it.  I chose the Ethiopian dark blend and TLE their French Roast.

Next we road northwest on Lake Tahoe Blvd. to the stop sign at 'D' Street where, thanks to our friend Claude who visited with us last week, we picked up a new bike path we didn't know existed.   The path veers away from the main road more than a hundred yards in spots going northwest to the intersection with Sawmill where the path continues all the way back to US-50 where we turned left (east) to head back to TVC.  

In all we covered some 8 miles before returning to TVC......TLE had some more wash to do, as well as a small repair job for Victor on his sleeping bag.....one of the seams had come loose and he was losing down feathers.  I headed for DIY to buy some snaps so I could put the last snap on the sun shade I installed over the door to the trailer......there are five snaps on the sun shade, and after breaking at least three during the installation 10 days ago I came up one short.

I wrote previously about doing a mechanical restoration of a vintage Hercules bicycle for a friend.........I decided to finish taking apart the Sturmey-Archer 3 speed hub to remove the broken axle and see if I could locate a replacement online.......

 Sturmey-Archer type AW 3 speed hub

 The axle as it should look

As it does look

.......after removing the axle I went online and found a replacement on eBay for $12.  If all goes well I should have it by this Saturday, and be able to put the hub back together.

Replacement ordered off eBay

By the time I finished ordering the new axle the temps were dropping once again, so I headed inside to read for a while......Monday was a perfect 'off' day!

Thanks for stopping by!