Leaving Wittmann........

7:23 am - Thursday - March 14th - Mesa, AZ - 39º F, 67% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the east by northeast......clear blue skies today with a forecast high in Mesa, AZ of 63º F, but we will not be here for that high.....we will be on our way to SoCal!  Roll our wheels in 3 hours!

I was up at 4:30 am Wednesday in advance of our desired 6 am departure time.....this is why I wanted to leave for All Aboard America on Tuesday so I would not have to get up at 4:30 am.  The wind blew all night, and the rain came and went right up until I turned the 6v92 over at 6 am.  We were moving within 10 minutes.  The one mile of dirt road was a muddy mess, but we made it to the pavement without getting stuck.  The key is DO NOT stop once you start moving.

Traffic for a weekday morning was relatively light and we arrived at All Aboard America just after 8 am......perfect.  Leo wanted us to be ready to move into the bus bay by 8:30 am so they could get an early start on the brakes.  We actually removed the VW from the trailer, dropped the trailer and had the Newell ensconced inside the bus bay by 8:25 am.....again, perfect!  

We had not eaten breakfast yet so TLE found a Starbucks a few blocks away where we each got a coffee and a pastry.  We spent the next 2.5 hours sitting outside (me in the shade) reading our books, and passing the time.  We knew at a very minimum they would need the entire day to get the scheduled work finished: reline the brakes shoes, either turn the existing drums, or replace them, plus install new bushings on the torque rod above the rear axle.    At worst the work might not be finished until Thursday, but we were hoping to be finished Wednesday.

Around noon we drove across town to meet our good friends Charles and Bobbie for lunch.  We haven't seen them since Acadia National Park back in September.  Originally we met at a local Thai restaurant, but they were, inexplicably, not open, so we drove a few blocks to their favorite Chinese restaurant arriving there by 1 pm.  We had a lovely lunch, and great conversation getting caught up on each others lives before bidding them adieu around 2:15 pm, and heading back across town to All Aboard America hoping for good news on the Newell.

We arrived there just before 3 pm to find they had installed new rear brake drums......

We have new rear brake drums!

.....the original drums had over 165,000 miles on them, and there was not enough left to "turn" them.  Additionally, one of the brake shoes was down to the rivets, and had scored the brake drum pretty badly. We were prepared for this eventuality, and we are really happy to have brand new rear drums, and brake shoes.  As it turned out the problem with the torque rod was not bad bushings.....the bolts affixing it to the frame were just loose, so Leo tightened them up and we were good to go!  The left axle seal was also replaced.  They had the dualies reinstalled by 4:15 pm, and we were able to move the coach out of the bus bay a little before 5 pm.  Since it was now in the middle of Phoenix rush hour we asked Leo if we could spend the night in their parking lot to which he immediately agreed.  In fact, he provided a 50 am hookup for us just outside the bus bay.....

She's a little muddy, but she'll clean up just fine

......after a long day it was time to close the curtains and relax for the evening.  We watched a couple of recorded programs, and then watched the current episode of 'Survivor'.  We were in bed by 10 pm looking forward to getting up with the sun once again!

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The Jello jiggled......

4:57 am - Wednesday - March 13th - Wittmann, AZ - 50º F, 89% humidity, wind 17 mph out of the south by southwest.....cloudy and windy today with a forecast high of 61º F.  Yes, we are still in Wittmann.....continue reading for the 'why'.

It rained all night Monday night, and most of the morning Tuesday.  We had planned to depart Wittmann for All Aboard America around 2 pm weather permitting (it was supposed to stop raining between 12 pm and 2 pm), but the weather was not permitting in the end.  There was a window of about 2 hours beginning around 10 am when we should have rolled our wheels.  There was no standing water at that time.  To my credit I did begin to roll up the hoses during that rainless period (fresh and gray water) in preparation for leaving, but just before I finished it began to rain again, and this time it was heavy enough that large bodies of water began to appear everywhere.  By 2 pm it was clear that if we wanted to leave it would be a slog through the mud for about 1 mile before we hit pavement.  So, we did what we do almost always when faced with bad weather......we stayed put.

Our appointment at All Aboard America is for Wednesday, March 13th.  We wanted to drive over Tuesday afternoon and spend the night in their parking lot, so we could get the work started on the coach by 8:30 am.  We can still be there by 8:30 am, but we will have to leave at the butt crack of dawn Wednesday morning now.....oh well....I didn't want to have to do that, but it is what it is......sometimes the Jello jiggles and you have to change your plan.

Everything is put away except for the step in front of our entry door, and the 50 amp cord connecting us to electricity, so it will take just a few minutes to stow those items once we fire up the Detroit Diesel around 6 am Wednesday morning.

For the record the wind has been blowing in the 15-25 mph range since just after midnight, but there have also been several rain squalls during that time.  I have no idea what the dirt road is going to look like when we roll our wheels in about 45 minutes (it's 5:22 am right now and pitch dark).....stay tuned for what happens next!

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Re-positioning for lift off.......

7:55 am - Tuesday - March 12th - Wittmann, AZ - 51º F, 86% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the east....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 56º F.  Rained all night.....still raining as I write this morning.  We roll our wheels in about 6 hours....hopefully it will not be raining then.

Rain was forecast beginning Monday afternoon.  The ground to the west and south of the Newell Barn can get rather spongy when it rains, so we had previously decided to move out to the front of the property in anticipation of our departure Tuesday to avoid possibly getting stuck.  The ground in front of the house, where we were for 10 days, or so, is pretty firm.

Whether we move 250 miles, or 250 feet the preparations are pretty much the same, and it takes about as long.  I started the final preparations for our 250 foot move about 10 am, but instead of rolling up our water hoses, I just drug them to the front of the property.

By noon I had fired up the big DD 6v92, and we were dropping the trailer on the hitch one more time.  Within 10 minutes we had re-positioned the coach to the front of the house, and within another 15 minutes our utilities were reconnected, and we were set for another 24 hours before our departure from Wittmann Tuesday afternoon.

Why are we waiting until Tuesday afternoon to roll our wheels?  There are two main reasons: 1) The rain should abate by then, and 2) we are only driving 75 miles over to All Aboard America in Mesa, AZ where we will overnight in their parking lot so we can get the coach into the service bay by 8:30 am on Wednesday.  We are hoping they can get the brakes relined, and the new bushings installed on the torque rod by the end of the day.  If not, they should be done by Thursday for sure barring any unforeseen circumstances.  Once the repairs are completed we will begin our drive back to SoCal where this almost year long journey began last April.

Once the coach was parked, leveled and connected to utilities again we decided to insert the VW into the trailer while it was still dry, which took just a few minutes.  Within a few hours of re-positioning the coach it began to rain, and that pretty much ended our outdoor activity for the day, which was fine with me as I was ready for a nap.  When you think about it we just spent parts of two days getting ready for, and completing a 250 foot move.......😊

We watched some recorded TV programs for our evening entertainment, and were in bed by 11 pm.....thanks for stopping by!

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Pneumatically speaking......

7:40 am - Monday - March 11th - Wittmann, AZ - 47º F, 68% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the northeast......partly cloudy today with rain on the way later today and a forecast high of 68º F.

I had very ambitious plans for Sunday.....polish all four ALCOA wheels, organize the trailer, and put away the turf in preparation for our planned Tuesday departure.  First up, while it was still cool, was to polish the the wheels......

 Before Mothers.....okay, but a little dull

 After Mothers....beautiful!

.....the front steer wheels each took about 5 minutes to polish, and the two deep dish rear dualie drive wheels took between 10 & 15 minutes each......much more surface to polish.  I used Tom's pneumatic polishing tool hooked up to his air system as the polishing tool requires 15 cfm (cubic feet per minute) to operate it and my small pancake compressor only puts out 3 cfm.....he got it at Harbor Freight and it looks something like this.....

.......next up was to begin to put stuff away inside the trailer so we could drag the artificial turf inside for our trip over to All Aboard America Tuesday, and ultimately back to SoCal later in the week.  By the time I finished, and it was time to insert the turf it was after 4:30 pm (there, of course, was a little resting during that time).

TLE made her famous lasagna for Sunday dinner, and lemon bars for dessert to take into the house for Sunday night dinner in Tom and Darlene's home.  Everyone currently residing at the Newell House was there.....Adrian, Karen, Wade, Susan, Tom, Darlene, moi and TLE.

Sunday was the first time in a long time that I pretty much spent all day working at one thing, or another, and I didn't even take a nap until after 7 pm.....I woke up just in time to go to bed!

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Lovely, light, luscious, delectable.......

7:46 am - Sunday - March 10th - Wittmann, AZ - 40º F, 67% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the north......sunny today with a forecast high of 69º F.

Saturday was a lovely, light, luscious, delectable day (from the 'The Duchess Bakes A Cake', substituting 'day' for 'cake')....hahaha....I've always wanted to use that phrase in a sentence!  The air was crisp....the sky was blue, and there was almost no breeze.....a decidedly t-shirt, shorts and flip flops kind of day.  So what kind of outdoor activity might be inspired by such great weather?  It seemed to me like a great day to finish wiping down the Newell exterior.  It was so good to finally have the energy two days in succession to do something physical that I took up the challenge and did just that.

I was expecting it to take me a couple of hours, or more to finish, but in reality it took just an hour and all that remained to do was to polish my ALCOA wheels, which I will do on Sunday.  I think the last time I got out the Mothers Aluminum Polish was two years ago when we were also here in Wittmann.

After finishing the exterior of the Newell TLE and I drove into Surprise to first visit the local Autozone where I would buy an extra can of Mothers for my ALCOA project, and then over to Walmart to do a 'big shopping'....the cupboards are getting bare!  On the way home we stopped off at Wells Country Store to get my 5 gallon propane tank (the one I attach to our Sea-B-Que) filled.  The last time I filled it was when we were still working at Smuggler's Den back in July.  It felt light to me, but it only took 2.8 gallons.  At $2.64 a gallon it only cost $7.41 to fill it up.  I think we'll stop there in the Newell on our way out of town to top off our on board 6o gallon propane tank.....it will never be cheaper to do at $2.64/gallon!

Wells Country Store....right across the street from the Wittmann Post Office

We were back home by 4:30 pm, and another day was in the books.  The time is flying by here in Wittmann, and in just a couple of days we will be rolling our wheels once again.  Two of my three surgeries are behind me, with just the cataract surgery remaining, and I already know what to expect from that.  Soon we will be heading northward to Washington State, and entering British Columbia around June 1st for our Alaska adventure.

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Life is good.......

8:35 am - Saturday - March 9th - Wittmann, AZ - 49º F, 50% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the east........clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 64º F.

The weather Friday was cold and blustery, which kept me inside for most of the day, but I did manage to spend about 2 hours outside during the warmest part of the day wiping down the Newel exterior once again.  It feels good to be able to do something physical again without getting exhausted in a short period of time, and wiping down the Newell exterior is definitely a physical activity.

On the 'exciting' front my brother and sister-in-law have agreed in principle to by the 1982 Newell Class I wrote about last week.  It is still a ways until the deal is done, but, barring any unforeseen circumstance should be a done deal within the next few months, if not sooner.

On the post surgical recovery front it has been two days since I had to take a pain killer for my most recent surgery.  I stopped taking the heavy duty pain pills within 48 hours of the surgery, but had still been taking Tylenol 2, or 3 times per day since then.  Being off completely is nice as I hate taking pills.  I was also able to shave for the first time since the Sunday before the surgery.  Feeling is slowly returning the the area of the surgery, and all of the stitches have now dissolved.   It will probably take the better part of a year for most of the feeling to return.  There will always be some numbness along the scar line and I will never have feeling in my right ear lobe again, but that's okay with me.....I'll trade that for having the lump in my cheek gone.

By 2:30 pm it was too cold to be outside, and due to the increasing wind velocity TLE helped me stow the patio awning for the balance of the day.  That's the first time we have had to do that since we arrived in Wittmann!  We watched some recorded programs, and were in bed a little after 10 pm.  Life is good!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Another appointment.......

8:10 am - Friday - March 8th - Wittmann, AZ - 56º F, 48% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the southwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of only 64º F.  We still haven't had to run our A/C yet here in Wittmann!

It got close to 80º F Thursday, but we still didn't have to turn on the A/C.  I know, I know.....80º is not that hot, and you would be right.  However, we have been living in very cold temps for over a month so getting re-acclimated to higher temperatures is taking a while.  Nevertheless, we have been running our Fantastic Fan to vent the hot air and pull in cooler air from outside, and it has worked so far.  Thankfully we are heading into a cooling trend again with temps in the 60's forecast for the next 8 days, or so.

We are once again nearing the end of our stay here in Wittmann, and it is time to begin putting a few things away.  Most of my work will be in the trailer as we have not put many things outside except for the artificial turf, which really helps us keep sand from getting inside the coach.  

I was able to set my appointment for my right eye cataract surgery for April 3rd at Pacific Eye Institute.  It's a little later than I wanted, but the only other opening they had was March 13th, and we will be at All Aboard America getting our rear brakes done that day, so April 3rd it is.   I also checked in with the camp host at the Fontana Elks Lodge and they have spaces available for us when we arrive there around the 17th of March.

Other than sitting outside and finishing a book I had been reading, and vacuuming out the VW (first time in about a month) I continued to spend most of my time recuperating from the latest surgery.  I am seeing more dramatic improvement each day and feel I will be ready to drive the Newell next Tuesday.

Being able to spend my time between surgeries, and the necessary recuperation time after the most recent one here at our friend's property in Wittmann has been a real blessing.  As I have remarked previously we have been coming here each winter/spring for several years now and it almost feels like home.

We were treated to a delightful Wittmann sunset Thursday night.......

......and that was pretty much our day....thanks for stopping by!

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