A customer!

 6:42 am - Saturday - November 12th - Niland, CA - 46° F, 49% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I drove over to June Lake from Mammoth Lakes to have dinner at one of our favorite Eastern Sierra eateries.....the Carson Peak Inn....one of the top 5 Filet Mignons ever....I first ate here in the Fall of 1962 when on vacation with my parents, and have returned many times over the years......↴

......the view this morning......↴

We were at work by 8 am, and by 10:30 am we had rented one of the 4 seat RZR's (I've been misspelling it previously) for 6 hours.  I spent time changing out the air filters in the Kawasakis as the new ones finally arrived via UPS.  I spent time wiping down two of the 4 seaters (it rained the other night, and because of the dust that is always present, they looked terrible.  I had already wiped the others down on Thursday.  Additionally, we finally got the Otter cases for the GPS tablets, so TLE and I installed them, and then put one of them in the tablet holder on the dashboard of one of the RZR's......fits perfectly.....much, much better.  Before we installed the Otter cases the tablets would sit askew in the holder....now they stay put......

....we both fielded a number of in person inquiries by weekend customers about renting on Saturday and Sunday, so we hope they will return and actually rent.  We also spent time on the phone with Bob and Casey going over the operation, and talking about replacing the rear tires on one of the 4 seat RZR's....I'll do that on Saturday.

As it turned out, we had no other customers Friday, and since our 6 hour rental was not due to return until after 4:30 pm we closed the office at 1 pm.  If there had been any rentals going out at 1 pm (our latest rental time slot) we would have stayed open for the rest of the day, but no point in sitting around doing nothing, and no point in charging Bob and Casey for doing nothing, either.  By the way, Bob and Casey are just fine with that.  Additionally, if anyone needs rescuing they call the main number, and then Bob and Casey will call us....we remain on site, so I can be in the Mule, and on my way to rescue anyone in minutes.  If anyone comes by after 1 pm they are directed to call the reservation line (phone number on the door), or go directly to the website to reserve a unit.

I piddled around in the trailer for an hour, or so going through the wall cabinet removing some things for which I no longer had any use, and reorganizing it so I could find things more easily.  Often I get in a hurry, and just cram stuff in there thinking I'll straighten it up later, and I never do until it gets so bad I have to do something about it.

TLE and I returned to the office around 4 pm, in case our customer returned early, and they finally returned around 4:45 pm with the 4 seat RZR intact.  After bidding them adieu I put the RZR away....I'll wash it Saturday morning when there is more light.....as I was doing that I noticed that we were getting a nice sunset worthy of being memorialized, so I did so.....

.....it kind of evolved over 20 minutes, or so.....beautiful!

Thanks for stopping by!

An avalanche......

 6:26 am - Friday - November 11th - Niland, CA - 50° F, 43% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the north......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 70° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I visited Maker's Mark in Loretto, KY.....some very good bourbon.....↴

We did not expect much, if any rental business on Thursday, but we both ended up working about 4 hours.  TLE on office paperwork, and me washing the Kawasaki and Polaris units we used for our 4 hour tour on Tuesday, blowing out their respective air filters, and checking tire pressures. I applied lube to the adjustable seat rails on all six units, and to all of the door latches on the 4 seaters.  Since it rained the other night all the units needed a wipe down, and I got to all but the other two 4 seater RAZRs, which I'll do Friday morning.  We do have bookings already in the system for the 19th, and 20th of this month (four in all), so business is beginning to pickup.  We do expect some same day rentals this weekend (12th & 13th) as the park is beginning fill up again, and we've already had a couple of inquiries, so we're hoping to have a busier weekend.....we'll see.

The rest of the day I used our Toro blower to blow gravel away from the concrete deck in front of the Roadrunner building, and from in front of our office so we won't be tracking too many rocks inside.  I replaced the innards of a faulty gate valve in our water bay...the valve which controls water flow into the water bay from the city water connection, and installed a water shut off valve on the end of the hose for the water station so I don't have to walk all the way across the street to shut off the water each time I finish washing a RAZR (the hose bib connection on the pressure washer leaks, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.....believe me I've tried).  Additionally, TLE and I took down one of our sun shades as the temps are now in the 70's, and we would like a little more sun to get into the 'lido deck' area.  I'm sure, pretty soon, we'll be taking down the two sail shades as well.

TLE whipped up a delicious beef stew for our dinner, after which we retired to the 'lido deck' to play Backgammon.  I got off to a hot start winning the first four games handily, but then the dice turned against me, along with my faulty strategy, and I lost four games in succession, so we ended up 'even Steven' at the end of it all.  As I've said previously, Backgammon is about 80% luck, and 20% strategy, but when someone is rolling doubles consistently, and you are rolling 1 & 3, 1 & 5, and 1 & 2 on every toss of the dice the game turns into an avalanche against you....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Smart, or dumb?

6:46 am - Thursday - November 10th - Glamis North Hot Springs, CA - 50° F, 58% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were enjoying a fire in our portable firepit in Campbellsville, KY where we worked our first Workamper job at Amazon.....↴

Wednesday evolved into a chore day pretty quickly.  TLE realized she had not defrosted our Dometic fridge for far too long, so began her day dong just that. It's about a 3-4 hour process requiring the turning off of the fridge, the emptying of the fridge, the removal of accumulated ice, and then mopping up of melted ice (water).  She puts most of the perishables into our Igloo ice chest, and then the rest in the pullout Norcold chest cooler.  Once the fridge is ice, and frost free once again, she turns it back on and reverses the process.  Most of the 3-4 hours is just watching ice melt...almost as exciting as watching butter melt...lol.

I spent time installing our new TCL 32" LCD Roku TV in the trailer.  Now that we have reliable, constant, steady WiFi from our Starlink dishy I can just stream whatever I want in the trailer, without the necessity of the wireless setup I have now that transmits the DirecTV picture into the trailer.  The old Infinity TV in the trailer was not, obviously, a smart TV, and was about 7, or 8 years old, and still works great, but its not smart, and no one, today, likes a dumb TV....lol.  It took me about an hour to remove the old TV from the articulating arm on the wall, and then attach the new TCL.  Once that was done it was just a matter of signing into Roku, and letting Roku download all the channels we stream from the other 3 Roku TV's.

Once that was done I decided to adjust the water pressure regulator in our water bay, which controls the water pressure allowed into the coach.  As I mentioned a few posts ago we had to take showers using the water in our fresh water tank in the water bay due to low water pressure here.  Well, I discovered that part of that low water pressure issue was self induced.  I had adjusted the pressure downward on the regulator back when we were at the Fontana Elks Lodge last March/April as they have extremely HIGH water pressure, and forgot about it as we had the same issue in Likely.  The end result of my adjustment is we now have adequate water pressure to take a shower using the city water supply, which is nice because that is way less complicated.....lol!

Shortly after that I headed over to the hot pools to get a good soak in while it was still uncrowded, and what a great soak it was....within minutes the aches and pains I was feeling were gone, and life looked just a little big better.....

......when I soak in the individual tubs, which has been every time so far, I take soak for about 30 minutes in total, but take a short break at the half way mark to take a swim (2 laps) in the 98° swimming pool, which cools my body down, and then I soak for another 15 minutes.  By the time I finished people were beginning to arrive...perfect timing.

I spent the balance of Wednesday organizing my work bench better, and removing water spots from the right rear corner of the Newell from our stay at LPG&RVR.  The sprinklers in our site just barely hit that corner, and over the course of the summer left calcium deposits, which are hard to remove, but I'm using CLR (Calcium, Lime and Rust) remover.  It takes a number of applications, but the spots are almost gone now.  Next season at LPG&RVR I'll just park the' coach about 5 feet further forward, and should have no problem.

It gets dark before 5 pm now, and we've been heading out to the 'lido deck' earlier due to that.  We played a complete game of 'Phase 10', which I won on the last hand by going out before TLE.  It was a close game, but luck just fell my way at the end.  After the game we spent another hour enjoying a fire, then headed inside to watch the latest episode of 'Survivor 43'.

Thanks for stopping by!

The long ride.....

7:18 am - Wednesday - November 9th - Glamis North Hot Springs, CA - 62° F, 47% humidity, wind 16 mph out of the north.....mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 69° F.  Rained on and off from 6 pm Tuesday until the early morning hours Wednesday.  The view today.....↴

.....and on this date in 2015 TLE and I were soaking in the hot pool at Keoughs Hot Springs just south of Bishop, CA.......↴

Should the need arise, and one of our customers breaks down out in the desert, it is my job to go and 'rescue' them.  It could be a flat tire, or they've rolled the RAZR, or they killed the battery, or.....use your imagination....people have been known to do some stupid stuff with ATV's.  At any rate I need to be able to find them in about 60+ square miles of desert, so it is needful for me, and TLE to learn the different trail routes, and landmarks so we can get to them in their time of need in a somewhat timely manner.  On Sunday we had arranged with Kyle to give us a RAZR tour beginning at 8 am on Tuesday (his day off).  To be sure we did not find ourselves in need of rescue we took two of the units....Kyle drove one of the Polaris 4 seaters, and TLE and I chose one of the red Kawasaki 2 seaters.  We loaded the 'go bag', a 3 ton floor jack, and tow straps into the backseat of the 4 seater, and were off, literally, in a cloud of dust for our '4 hour tour'....lol.

There is a long, long sandy wash called Bradshaw Wash on which you can hit speeds as high as 57+ mph....ask me how I know...and there are twisty, windy, sandy, dry water courses that you can run as fast as you dare....there are a lot of hair pin turns when you least expect them....ask me how I know that....and there are places where you must put your unit into LOW, 4 wheel drive mode to crawl slowly up extremely steep terrain, and over large rocks, and boulders....aka: Rock Crawling.  There is literally something for everyone out there.  Both TLE and I were very impressed with how smooth the ride is, and how stable these ATV's are while traveling at high rates of speed over rough terrain.

Kyle would stop along the various trails we rode to explain where we were, and to point out landmarks, such as an old 70' high railroad trestle, or a large rock promontory (the beginning of what 'they' all the Pinnacles'), or the long, narrow wash full of giant loader tires used as bombing targets during WWII.  We rode way up past the the train trestle, and the Pinnacles before turning around, and then heading up the Pinnacle trail to 'Annie's cabin'....

.....I didn't take a picture of the exterior (why I don't know), but I did take a couple of the interior (above).  It is actually stocked with canned goods, has a bunkbed, and a wood stove for people who might become stranded overnight in the area....pretty cool.

From there we headed over to a 1/2 mile long 'rock crawling' trail and proceed to climb stuff I probably would not attempt on foot.  If I hadn't seen Kyle go up and over some of those large boulders I would have bet everything I own it couldn't be done, and when he made it I followed, and managed to get up and over without any form of human, or animal life being harmed.  When we got to the first summit Kyle did a u-turn to face back down the steep incline, and then parked.  I followed suit, but as I began the turn it felt like the Kawasaki was going to roll over sideways, so I, incorrectly, stopped, and if Kyle had not been there to put two hands on the driver side of the Kawasaki we might have tumbled down the hill.  At any rate, lesson learned....when performing a u-turn on a steep incline don't stop in the middle of the turn....nervous lol......

....as is often the case, pictures to not really relate how steep this incline was...we are standing at the top of the hill looking down at our RAZRs which are facing downhill....the grade was close to 20%....maybe more.....

......the view was spectacular in both directions, and, of course, there was, of necessity, an 'usie' taken.....

.....Kyle is 31 years old, and younger than our youngest child by 5 years.  Out there on the trail age was immaterial....we were just peers having a great time.

Next up we crawled back down the boulder strewn trail to the beginning of the Pinnacle trail where Kyle set us loose to find our way back to 'Syphon #24' (one of the places you can cross over the Colorado River canal that carries water to thirsty SoCal).  We had a GPS enabled tablet with the various trails shown on the GPS map, and had to find our way, on our own back to 'Syphon #24, where he would meet us using the tablet,  and landmarks.  With help from the the tablet, and the various landmarks Kyle had pointed out we found our way there, but not without getting off the trail a couple of times.  Even though we got lost temporarily, we were able to find our way to Syphon #24, arriving there about 10 minutes after Kyle.

Our next, and final stop before heading for home was the 'Desert Oasis', which looked exactly like you would expect a desert oasis to look like......dozens of palm trees, shade, and a cold, clear, running spring.....

Where the spring water comes out of the rock

....there are probably a couple of acres of palm trees of all varieties growing along the route of the small creek ending where it disappears into the sand once again. 

We were back at the office around 12 pm with big smiles upon our faces.  We both had a blast, and are so grateful Kyle took the time to take us on this amazing ride in which we covered 35-40 miles of trails....what a cool job we have!

We both were covered with a heavy layer of trail dust, and both took off our outer garments just outside the Newell door, shook them out, and then put them directly into the Splendide for a thorough washing.  Next up were showers, and then a nap for moi.

Late in the day it began to sprinkle, which turned to a slow, steady rain which came and went into the early Wednesday morning hours.

Thanks for stopping by!

The big shopping.....

 6:28 am - Tuesday - November 8th - Glamis North Hot Springs, CA - 63° F, 69% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 76° F.  On this date in 2013 we were somewhere between Fallon, and Carson City, NV driving at night....something we rarely do....and caught this amazing sunset......↴

Monday was our first day not working after 5 days of a whirlwind learning curve with Bob and Casey.  Unfortunately, with DST making the sun rise an hour earlier than before we were awake before 6 am....doh!  It kind of threw my whole day off, but oh well, it is what it is.

We hadn't yet driven south on US-111 to Niland, Calipatria, and Brawley, and we needed to do a BIG shopping, so we began our drive down to Brawley around 9 am, stopping in Niland to check out the new grocery store there (its only 17 miles from GNHS, so might be an option for a few necessities in a pinch), before continuing south through Calipatria, which is actually a pretty large, and seemingly more prosperous town than Niland appears to be, arriving at the Vons Supermarket in Brawley just before 10 am.  

This is probably one of the nicest Vons we've ever been in (they even have a Starbucks), and amazingly well stocked!  We took our time walking up and down each and every aisle.  When we finally reached the cashier station the large basket was full....ouch, that was expensive.....can you spell 'INFLATION' ($301....no alcohol, and to think we actually saved $54 by using our Vons Club card during checkout)?!

We were back on the road by 11 am heading north, reaching Niland just before noon time, so we decided to stop off at a local diner called Buckshot Deli and Diner (4.5 stars on 104 Yelp reviews).....

.....they essentially serve two types of food.....Hamburgers, and Mexican.  TLE had their Ortega Burger, and I their Chile Relleno.  Both dishes were above average, and all the ingredients were fresh.  We would be right at 4 stars on this one.  An humorous side note.....the server brought our check, and then cleared the table. After she left I looked at the bill and was shocked to see a total of $77....wait, what?  I called her back over to the table and asked if there wasn't some error on the check, and then put down this on the table.....

......the $77 check was a joke....we both laughed, and then she gave me the real check for $31.....lol, she got me!  They apparently do this to all new customers....very cute.

We were home before 1 pm, and had all of our purchases inside the Newell within 10 minutes, but it took TLE another hour to put everything away....lol.  I took a nap, and then puttered around in the trailer putting stuff away that I had taken out of the cabinet, and putting tools away that I had left out on the workbench.....very, very unlike me, but the last 5 days were hectic, so I forgave myself.

TLE and I spent another lovely evening on the 'lido deck' playing Backgammon until almost 8 pm.  I was hot on this night taking 5 out of 6, or 7 games.  Usually we play pretty evenly when it comes to Backgammon.  Now 'Phase 10' is another story.....TLE whips me 3 out of 4 times, but the games are getting closer.

Thanks for stopping by!

On our own......

7:21 am - Monday - November 7th - Niland, CA - 60° F, 65% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I had just arrived at the Desert View entrance of Grand Canyon NP to work at the General Store for the winter......↴

Bob and Casey headed back to Durango, CO early Sunday morning, leaving TLE and I to run the operation.  We had one half day rental scheduled at 9 am, so we were up, dressed, and opening the office by 8 am.  While we awaited the arrival of our guests I began to disassemble the passenger door on one of the 2 seater RAZR's which was very hard to open.  In order to open the door one had to lift up, and then pull out hard.  I figured the hinges needed a shim to raise the door every so slightly.  I've never had one of these apart, but as I began to remove screws and fasteners it became clear they were designed intuitively, and would be easy to reassemble.....

The three fiberglass pieces 

.....once I had the three fiberglass door panels removed it was easy to get at the hinges.  I simply removed the pins, and added one washer to the bottom of each hinge, then reassembled everything.  Beginning to end it took less than an hour, and the door opened smoothly with no lifting required....just like a warm knife through butter.....

....just about the time I finished our customer arrived to complete their paperwork, and provide a damage deposit of $1,500.  Once the unit is returned, and it is determined it is undamaged, the deposit is credited back to their credit card.  If you are under 25 years old (21-25....no rental if you are under 21) the deposit is $3,000.

While the customers are out we must be on site, and available to rescue them if the need arises (roll over, flat tire, won't start, etc.).  Once they left on their excursion I began to work on the other 2 seaters to lubricate the door mechanisms as they were sticking either in the shut position, or in the open position.  Once they were all lubed they worked flawlessly once again.  

I rewashed one of the four seaters I had done on Sunday as the seats were still pretty grimy, then washed the white 4 seater for the first time.....it sits at the entrance of our site with a 'Rent Me' sign on it.....

.....we took a lunch break around noon time knowing the rental would be back around 1 pm, and it was.  After checking the 4 seater over, and finding no damage we bid adieu to our happy customers, and I then took it to the wash station.  Once that was finished I repositioned the 5 RAZR's to block the entrance to the propane station from our side as we had a couple of people (one with a trailer) trying to take the short cut....

.....and we finally have a formal sign on our little office with phone # and website address.....

c

....complete with days and hours of operation.....we're official, and much more professional in appearance.

I mentioned the Polaris Mule that Bob and Casey brought for our personal use, and to use as the rescue vehicle.  We can haul jacks, tow straps, jump start battery pack, air compressor, and tools in the back.  It is a six passenger, which will enable us to transport people back to our office should the unit become inoperable for any reason....

.....TLE was off work shortly after 1 pm as we had no more rentals scheduled for Sunday, but I worked 2 more hours doing some service work on the RAZR's, organizing all of the tools/rescue equipment, and giving the Mule a thorough washing before calling it a day.  

We'll be off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but will be back at it Thursday through Sunday once again.

Thanks for stopping by!

The learning curve......

 6:51 am - Sunday - November 6th - Niland, CA - 51° F, 43% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 76° F.  On this date in 2015 we were boondocking on the shores of Mono Lake, CA......↴

As of Saturday the boys (Bob and Casey) had been here since early Wednesday morning, and we had not yet rented a RAZR, and even though Bob is a self professed optimist, he was kind of resigned to that being still the case when he and Casey depart GNHS on Sunday to return to Durango for a couple of weeks.  TLE has been busy every day learning their office routines, while I have been getting familiar with the equipment.

First thing Saturday I installed the required 'flags' on each of the RAZR's (I know three of them are Kawasaki's, but RAZR has become the generic name for these things like Xerox became the generic name for all copiers large and small, so when I use the name RAZR I could be referring to an actual RAZR, or one of the Kawasaki's)......

.....next up I set up our wash station on the far side of the Roadrunner building.....

The first one I washed

The pressure washer

.....we have to run our hose across the street to the hose bib behind the Roadrunner building.

I spent the rest of the day washing each of the RAZR's, and while that was going on we actually rented our first two RAZR's....one 2 seater for 2 hours, and another 2 seater for 7 hours, and before the end of the day we had rented one of the 4 seaters for a half day on Sunday, so things are beginning to get off the ground.   

As of Sunday (which is also the end of DST) TLE and I will be on our own, but just a phone call away from Bob, or Casey should we need assistance.  I think, for the most part, we are ready to handle things, but there will always be something that comes up for which we are not prepared, and that will be part of the continuing 'learning curve'.  

Saturday was our first full 8 hour day, and by the time we 'clocked out' a little after 5 pm we were tired, but in a happy place.  I took a quick shower, then went outside to light the Sea-B-Que in preparation for grilling another of those Top Sirloin steaks.  TLE added sautéed mushrooms, and spinach as sides, and we chased the food with a Zinfandel....the perfect end to a good day.

Thanks for stopping by!