On the level......

6:16 am - Monday - September 9th - Ramona, CA - 52° F, 89%ea humidity, wind 3 mph out of the east (there's a change)....partly cloudy with a forecast high today of 83° F.  Love it being so cold this morning that I have to wear my slippers!  Today is the 30th anniversary of TLE's 40th birthday.  I will be celebrating mine in about 3 weeks....man, oh man we are getting old!  The view this morning......

Sunday was a very relaxing day after Saturday's shenanigans.  I was up between 7 and 7:30 am, wrote by blog in a very leisurely manner, and then around 8:45 am we headed out to Starbucks for some coffee and pastries......

.....TLE found a couple of easy chairs with a small table with just enough sunlight to keep us warm in the very cool morning air.  I always get the 'everything' bagel.  This has kind of become a semi regular occurrence on the weekends when we go grocery shopping early.....we have coffee and pastries, then go to Staters to buy another week's worth of groceries.  We were back home in time to watch some NFL football.  The early televised game was the Rams vs. Panthers game which was won by the Rams 30-27.  In the afternoon I watched the Giants vs. Cowboys hoping for a competitive game, but the Cowboys won handily 35-17, and it really did not even feel that close.  The evening game between the Steelers and Patriots was another blowout with the Patriots winning easily 33-3....oh well.

In between all of that I dumped our black tank in keeping with our new Sunday tradition, and walked over to our old site to watch Rich and Dave begin the leveling process of our site......

.....they actually got quite a bit done, and I expect Rich and I will finish it on Monday when I am back to work.

The weather was so delightful (81° F) that we spent the entire day outside (with the outdoor TV tuned to football, of course).  I puttered around spraying off dirt and leaves from our new picnic table, and the artificial turf piece we rescued a couple of months ago.  Later in the day I laid out our rope lights once again, and hung the red led patio awning lights to complete the setup of site #53.  I was not expecting Rich to get to work so quickly on our old site, and had planned on being in our new site for a few weeks, but now I'm wondering if we will not be back in our old site by next weekend.....we'll see.  We may just stay in site #53 until we're sure the summer heat is a thing of the past.  The 2 week forecast calls for mostly 80 degree days, and one, or two 90 degree days.  I may even begin to report for work later than 7 am again.

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A different point of view........

7:17 am - Sunday - September 8th - Ramona, CA - 61° F, 86% humidity, wind - CALM.....heavy marine layer this morning with a forecast high of 82° F.....11° cooler than Saturday!  The view this morning........

We were up Saturday way too early for a Saturday, especially real Saturday, but we had things to accomplish before it became hot.  The most important of which was to fill our hungry propane tank.  We last filled our tank sometime in mid January, so it has been almost 8 months.  That is by and far the longest we have gone between fillups since we went full time 8.5 years ago.  I turned over the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 at almost exactly 7 am, and within seconds the coach had reached 'ride height'.  We pulled out of site #72 where we have been for 4.5 months and headed directly to the propane fuel station.  After successfully completing a 4 point turn we were in position to satisfy the hunger pangs of our 60 gallon propane tank.........

......I know I mentioned that our tank began reading '0' about a week ago, and it was anybody's guess if we would make it to Saturday without running out of that precious fuel that fires our water heater (our water heater is gas only), but we did......

.....it took quite a while to reach the 'full' mark, but the pump finally clicked off at 61.9 gallons, which now becomes the most propane we have every taken on at one time in the over 11 years we have owned the Newell......

......within minutes we were parked in site #53, and beginning to haul the rest of our 'stuff' over from site #72.......

.......with the help of a borrowed golf cart we hauled most of the 'stuff' over while we had to carry the pop up shelter, and drag the artificial turf, but we got it done in pretty short order.....

.....and pretty soon our old site was empty.......

.....and all that 'stuff' was now at our new site......

......as soon as we plugged into the new pedestal I went inside to dial in our DirecTV, but I could not get the signal.  It appeared that we had plenty of clearance from the surrounding trees, but I could not get the signal.  After examining our position within site #53 we decided to move the coach forward about 3 feet, and that did the trick!

We have been sitting in one place for the past 4.5 months and over that time the top of the coach had gotten quite dirty, so my next task, while it was still shady, was to climb to the top with a hose and sponge to clean off the filthy roof.  It took over an hour, but after finishing that, and washing the Beetle I was done with labor for the day.....time for some college football!

I watched four, or five games in succession finishing with USC vs. Stanford around 10:30 pm.  For the first time in months we were able to open our curtains around mid afternoon and enjoy the view because the sun was not shinning directly into our front windows!

USC started slowly, but after getting down 20-10 they steam rolled the Stanford Cardinals winning going away 45-20.....I did not expect that.  

Well, as one might discern, we love our new site, and especially the shade in the afternoon......suweet!  Another piece of sweet news from Saturday is that the scale read 191.8 Saturday morning.....I'm on the move again!  Looking forward to seeing the magic number.....187....almost there!

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Winter hours.....

2:21 am - Saturday - September 7th - Ramona, CA - 92° F, 35% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the west......clear, blue skies.

Another Friday has come and gone, and we are one week into September.  Things will slow down now, and within a few days we will return to 'winter' hours closing the park each night at 8 pm.  Additionally, I will now only sweep and vacuum the pool two days per week....Mondays and Fridays, as there is virtually no one using it in the middle of the week.  While cleaning the skimmers I found a dead frog.......

.....I thought frogs lived in water?  By the time I finished raking the horseshoe pits, and blowing leaves off the mini golf holes it was time for me to clock out from work (12 pm).  

With the advent of winter hours we'll see our weekly hours reduced somewhat....maybe four 7 hour days, or five 5 hour days.....we'll see.  Looking forward to working fewer hours for a while.  I know once we get into some of our winter projects we'll be working more hours, but for now it is still too hot for many of those outdoor projects.

TLE was home a little after 2 pm.  Since we are moving our Newell Saturday morning to take on propane, and then relocate for a few weeks to site #53 we began to take down our lights, sunshade, and sail shades in preparation for that eventuality.  It took a couple of hours, but we had everything done by 6 pm......

Ready to move Saturday morning.....

....we were in bed before 10 am so we could be up and ready to move by 7 am Saturday morning.

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What I do......

2:23 pm - Friday - September 6th - Ramona, CA - 94° F, 31% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the west......sunny today with a few clouds and a forecast high of 94° F.

I write daily about my maintenance of the horseshoe pits, and mini golf course here at RORVR.  I thought it was time for some pictures to illustrate what I do each day......

 I do not have a 'before' picture, but the concrete aprons around each pit become invisible under all the dirt that is thrown about by the thrown horseshoes

.....it is not hard work, or even very time consuming, but I try to keep each of these facilities clean, and ready for us on a daily basis.  Most of the use of them occurs on the weekends as one might imagine.  During the week there are really no children around RORVR, only on the weekends usually beginning Thursday afternoon, and ending Sunday afternoon as our weekend guests head back to their workaday lives.  Nevertheless, I keep them looking good each an every day.  

I'm not quite why the horseshoe pits were built with concrete borders, or aprons around each pit.  I've never seen horseshoe pits built like ours.  And I have no idea why the rubber mat is placed in front of the pit....I've never seen that before, either.  When people are playing horseshoes the concrete aprons, and rubber mats become completely covered with dirt, so it is necessary for me to rake the pits level each time they are used, and then sweep the dirt off the concrete aprons, and rubber mats back into the pit.  The picture above is how they appear after I've done my work.

On the other hand, the mini golf course is really not affected by use.  It is the dozens of eucalyptus trees surrounding the 9 hole course that cause them to become almost unusable just hours after I have blown the leaves off of them.  In the first two pictures below you can see the debris that falls from the trees in just a few hours...... 

......in the picture below you can see the fine particulate matter that still covers the artificial turf even after I have blown away the leaves.  When the accumulation of the particulate matter becomes great enough I have to literally hand sweep them to get them clean, and ready for play once again.......

.....it probably takes me about 30 minutes to hand sweep all 9 holes, but they look so much better.......

In less than 24 hours these debris free holes will revert 

back to condition shown in the first pictures above

.....unfortunately this good condition is short lived, and by 10 am the next morning I am battling the leaves, and other debris once again.

I only worked until 12 pm on Thursday as the temp got over 95° F.  I spent the afternoon after work napping, and reading waiting for The Lovely Elaine to return home from her front office sojourn.  She made me a wonderful dinner of  baked Mahi Mahi....OMG that woman can cook.

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Combo post - Tuesday and Wednesday & an announcement

12:38 pm - Thursday - September 4th - Ramona, CA - 93° F, 37% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the west by northwest......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 96° F.

Seems like a pattern is developing here.....combo posts.  There isn't really a lot to write about during our work week.  It's basically wash, rinse, repeat Monday through Friday.  We do, however, have some news to announce from Wednesday.  TLE's sister, Laureen, and her husband, Glenn, have committed to spending the summer of 2020 traveling to, being in, and traveling back from Alaska with us......

Glenn and Laureen with their new to them 

1984 Newell Classic back in April of this year (Our 1982 is on the left)

.....we could not be more excited.  Glenn and Laureen were married about 9 months after we were in mid 1972.  We all lived in Pasadena, CA at the time, and over the years we have become very close with them.  I cannot imagine a better couple with whom to take on such an epic journey.  They called us Wednesday afternoon to talk about a few issues with their 1984 Newell which they are getting into travel condition, and about some of their plans.  I'm  not sure if I mentioned this when they purchased this Newell back in April, but it also has a Kohler propane generator just as our 1982 Newell has.  Until we found their Newell up near Sacramento I had not found another Newel Classic with this configuration.  We talked for over an hour, and now the planning begins in earnest!

I worked the full 7 hour shift on Tuesday, but Wednesday the temperature got to 98° F, and that combined with higher than normal humidity, had me quitting work by 12 pm.  About 2:30 pm it clouded over and rained for about 20 minutes.   Then it stopped, and it was even more humid.....I was going to say "if that is possible", but of course it is possible.....have you ever been in East Texas in August?

It has only been cooling at night into the high 60's lately which makes for warmer sleeping temperatures.  Often our bedroom temp only gets down to 78° F now, where just a few weeks ago it was getting into the low 60's, and a couple of times into the high 50's.

Now that sites 43-51 have had new electrical pedestals installed our neighbor on the passenger side of the coach has moved back to his site in that area.  With his site being vacant we will be moving our coach out of our current site Saturday morning, filling up the 60 gallon propane tank (the gauge says it is at 'zero', but there is still enough gas to run our water heater) at the propane station, and then moving into site 53 across the street while our site and the just vacated site are re-leveled.  We'll be out of our site for about 10-14 days while the leveling work is being done, and then we will move back into our site for the balance of our stay here at RORVR.  We have awaiting this day for about 6 weeks, and I was beginning to think we would have to move to fill our propane tank and then move a second time to get our site leveled.

Life is good, and thank you for stopping by!

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A combo post....

2:34 am - Tuesday - September 3rd - Ramona, CA - 94° F, 37% humidity, wind 13 mph out of the west by northwest.....forecast high for the day is 95° F.

I'm getting behind again, so I will try to catch up today by writing, first, about Sunday's events.  Hmmmm....it was hot again Sunday so we stayed inside all day.  First up was a couple of recorded English Premier Soccer matches, then some reading, then some general TV watching.  Nothing else to really report about Sunday, but that was the essence.

We were back to work on Monday, and looking at low 90's temperatures.   I began working at my normal summer start time......7 am.  I have gotten somewhat used to the temps in the 90's, but it still leaves me very tired at the end of the shift.  I worked on reclaiming the pool area from 7 am until almost 11:30 am.  Rich reported that there were between 70 and 100 people in the pool area both Saturday and Sunday.  As you will recall I swept and vacuumed the pool Sunday morning, but by Monday morning it was dirty again, plus the deck was very dirty sporting numerous food spills, bird dookie, discarded chewing gum, and a few cigarette butts.  There are numerous 'NO SMOKING' signs around the pool area, but you know people, right?  They will do what they want if you are not around policing them 24/7.

The horseshoe pit area showed a lot of use, and it took me longer than normal to get it ready for use again.  Most of the time (about 95%) people put the horseshoes back, but on this occasion they were just left in the pit area, so I had to put them away.  The mini golf course was buried in eucalyptus leaves, which did not surprise me as it was a little windy on Sunday afternoon.  By the time I finished with the mini golf area it was time to clock out for the day.  

We are in the "dog days" of summer right now, and the days have all taken on a certain sort of sameness.  We look forward to the end of summer, but we've got a few more weeks of hot temperatures before we see some relief.  All that being said, we are still very happy to be where we are, and still loving the people with whom we work.

On the weight loss front, I have stalled out at 194-195, but the big thing is I am maintaining my 22 pound weight loss, and still looking forward to dipping under the magic 190 mark in the next few weeks.  The wound on my side resulting from the removal of the zero stage melanoma is healing quite nicely, and my right ear is also healing quite well.  I'm actually getting used to my new look.....it kind of looks like Mike Tyson took a bite out of my ear.

Thanks for stopping by!

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24 hours.....

11:12 am - Sunday - September 1st - Ramona, CA - 85° F, 50% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the west by northwest.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 95° F.

Saturday was kind of a wash for us.  We knew it was going to be a hot one (forecast high of 97° F), so we just stayed inside all day.  Years ago, maybe a dozen, we used to binge watch the TV series "24".  At the time the premise used by this series was totally unique.  It was shot in real time, meaning that each of 24 seasonal episodes covered 60 minutes of time.....one hour.  Each season covered just a single 24 hour period in the lives of CTU agents (CTU = Counter Terrorism Unit) in the L.A. office.  Keifer Sutherland played the part of Jack Bauer, a bad ass CTU agent, who did not believe in coloring inside the lines......he did whatever was necessary to end terror threats.  There were eight seasons in all, and the series ran through 2010.  We used to buy the DVD set at the end of each season and watch all 24 episodes starting just before New Years Eve each year, and usually finishing sometime early morning on New Years day.  We would usually finish about 3 am on New Years.

Well, it has been 9, or 10 years since we last watched seasons 1 and 2, so we began watching them about a week ago, and finished the last 14 episodes of season 2 around 7 pm Saturday evening.  It's been so long since we watched "24" that it was almost, but not quite, like watching them for the first time.  It's probably the first time in a long time we have just done nothing on a Saturday, and it felt good.  I think I walked outside briefly for about 2 minutes one time all day long.

And that was it for Saturday.....thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!