Almost like home.....

 9:12 am - Sunday - June 4th - LPG&RVR - 63° F, humidity 41%, wind 2 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.  On this date in 2011 TLE and I were riding our bicycles along the Santa Ana River Trail near Riverside, CA......↴

As it should be on days off from work, TLE and I slept in until after 7:30 am Saturday.  This is one of the joys of this job we have at LPG&RVR.  We work hard for four days, and then sleep-in for four days.  After the whirlwind drive to Redding, and back it felt like 3 of our days had already been used, but we really still have 3 days left on our four day weekend, and sweeter yet, two of those days are real weekend days meaning all TV's are tuned to the latest PGA tournament....Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament in Ohio at Muirfield Village where all the top names in golf are playing this weekend.

After typing my latest 'day in the life' post TLE and I took a walk up Likely Place Road to Hamel Way to take a look at the 12 new full time sites which were just completed, just recently inspected by the State of California, and declared fit for occupancy.  People who have been on the waiting list for a few years have been moving into those new sites pretty steadily since then....

Our post walk picture

It has occurred to me that I write about weeding and raking sand traps, mowing tee boxes, and removing goose/duck leavings, but have rarely posted pictures of those specific sites, so today I will endeavor to take you on a tour of my golf course responsibilities.....

Tee boxes at the 3rd hole after goose/duck 'leavings' removal, and mowing

I mow all the grass from the entrance to the four 3rd hole tee boxes (blue, white, red & yellow) to the end of the yellow tee box....takes about 30 minutes just for this stretch

The 12th hole is about a 100 yards to the east of  the 3rd hole, and this is one of the sand traps I weed and rake

This is the blue tee box for the 4th hole which I mow around

The sand trap at the 4th hole

The blue tee box at the 15th hole (the lone restroom, other than the one at the Clubhouse on the golf course is in the picture)

The sand trap at the 15th hole.....the largest of the four.....about the size and depth of a wading pool

The blue tee box at the 16th hole

White tee box at the 16th hole

Red tee box at the 16th hole

Yellow tee box at the 16th hole

I mow the grass between the entrance of the 17th hole down to the yellow tee box in the distance

Blue, white, red 7 yellow tee boxes at the 17th hole

And last, but not least, the sand trap at the 18th hole

.....I neglected to take pictures of the 10th hole tee boxes, which I also mow, but I will on Tuesday.

I spent some time weeding the grass for our site (#55), and then pulled out one of the anti gravity chairs to watch some of the Memorial Tournament....I'm pretty sure there was at least one nap during that time.

Around 3:45 pm TLE and I drove over to the Clubhouse for the weekly putting contest....

The participants

The venue

....win, or lose the weekly putting contests are always fun, and festive.  Most everyone brings an adult beverage, and we all laugh, and have a great time.  Mike Bratzler, who conducts the weekly contests, plays the National Anthem, while we all stand with hats in hand.  He's played the Chis Stapleton version the past two weeks, and that has to be one of the best renditions I have ever heard.  On this day I putted well, and got to the 3rd round where I beat myself on two consecutive holes.  Nonetheless, the quality, and consistency of my putting in the first two rounds encouraged me, and, frankly, on the first 3 holes of the third round.  The longer we are here, the more LPG&RVR feels like home....

Chris Stapleton's Super Bowl LVII (57) 

performance of our National Anthem

.....we were home, with smiles upon our faces, by 6 pm.  

Thanks for stopping by!

You can't always get want you want......

 8:01 am - Saturday - June 3rd - LPG&RVR - 56° F, humidity 56%, wind 0 mph out of the north......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2012, our first year on the road, we were riding our bikes near Spokane Falls in Spokane, WA.....↴

"You can't always get what you want".....Rolling Stones

Just before we left Thursday afternoon to drive the first leg of our trip back to Redding I got a call from A-1 Smog in Redding advising they had finally found the correct hose which connects the airbox with the smog pump, but it would not be in until noon time (via UPS).  We had reservations again at Shasta Pines Motel in Burney, and it was too late to cancel them, so we left anyway at 4:15 pm for our drive to Burney, and arrived there safely as I reported in yesterday's missive.  Our original plan, had the hose arrived before Friday, was to leave Burney at the crack of dawn Friday to be at A-1 Smog by 7 am, their opening time, get the emissions stuff installed by 8 am, get our smog certificate, and be back on our way home shortly thereafter, but you don't always get what you want, according to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but sometimes you get what you need.

That's the hose A-1 had a hard time finding, but finally did after I sent them this picture

Since we didn't need to be at A-1 by 7 am we slept in Friday morning until 7 am, had a leisurely cup of coffee, got dressed, and drove back 4 miles on Highway 299 to where it intersects with Highway 89, then another 6 miles to Burney Falls State Park to see Burney Falls.  We arrived there around 8:30 am, paid $10 to enter the park, found a parking spot, then walked down a short hill (lots of steps) to view the waterfall.....

See how long my hair was?  Check out the 'usie' down below

....we spent about 30 minutes enjoying the falls, which were flowing at maximum due to the heavy snowpack melt going on right now.  We've wanted to stop here for years, but it is about 20 miles out of the way, so we never did until Friday.....sometimes you get what you need.

We left the falls around 9:15 am thinking we would be in Redding just after 1o am, but two long construction zones undid those plans.  Our plan had been to be in Redding around 10 am to get our shopping out of the way before we arrived at A-1 at noon.  We didn't hit Redding until after 11 am, but we still wanted to get our shopping done.  Our first order of business was to stop at Trader Joe's to retrieve our $120 bag of scotch and vodka we left in the shopping basket the week before, then it was over to the local Supercuts where I got a haircut whilst TLE did her grocery shopping at the Safeway across the parking lot.  We both got done at the same time!

Next up was a stop at COSTCO to fill our now depleted gas tank at $4.13/gallon for premium.....the best we've paid in California in a while!  On a side note, ever since I replaced the four ignition coils, and 4 spark plugs in the VW the mileage has increased.  We used to average around 27 mpg on the highway, but now we're getting over 31 mpg consistently...even in the mountainous terrain which separates Alturas from Redding.  TLE needed to exchange some clothing she had bought at COSTCO the week before, so we took care of that next.  By the time we were back in the car it was 12:15 pm, and we were already late for A-1.  We arrived there at 12:25 pm, gave our keys to Sarah, one of the front desk ladies, and took our seats in the waiting room.....

Check out that haircut....much better!

.....TLE always has a ready smile....me, not so much....lol.  I was really happy we were there, and our car was being fixed, but I guess my face did not show it....lol.  Gabe said the work would take about an hour, and once the new emissions stuff was installed they would retest the car, and we would be on our way home......providing it passed.  Well, a few minutes after taking this 'usie' we got the news the car did PASS!  We paid our bill, and were on our way home by 1:30 pm....perfect! A big shoutout to the folks at A-1 Smog for getting our car fixed, and our smog certificate......BIG thanks to Brent, Sherry, Sarah, and Gabe for your efforts in making this a successful trip!

We stopped at the local Starbucks to get two Frappuccinos (a vente mocha for moi, and a grandé vanilla bean for TLE) for the drive home.  The total mileage home is about 164 miles.  We knew we had two construction zones to pass through on our return trip, but by the time we got to the second one the workers had quit for the day, so there was no delay!  At about the 105 mile mark we stopped at a burger place in Bieber, CA called Old Mill Grill (5 stars on Yelp on 40 reviews) for a couple of burgers....we hadn't eaten all day, and we were both getting a little peckish, or 'hangry', if you will.  We both ordered their Cross Cut Burger with onion rings....very easy choice when you read the description.....

It is just that tall, and it definitely takes two hands!

.....there are probably 8 tables in the dining room...the ambiance is reminiscent of the long past logging days in Big Valley.....

.....I also had a chocolate milk shake....OMG.  If you ever find yourself in, or near Bieber, CA check this place out....amazing comfort food!

After our hour interlude we continued on our way home, arriving back at LPG&RVR around 6:30 pm.  What a delightful trip, and even though we did not get what we wanted, we got what we needed, including that elusive smog certificate, and a visit to Burney Falls....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

In sync......

7:42 pm - Friday - June 2nd - LPG&RVR - 70° F, humidity 38%, wind 5 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 71° F (now past).  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were boondocking with two other vintage coaches....a 1984.5 Bluebird Wanderlodge owned by my goof friend Claude Banker, and a 1984 Newell Classic owned by my in-laws....Glenn and Laureen Parker near Driggs, ID.....↴

As out of sync as I was on Monday with the work load, I was completely in sync on Thursday.  Everything just flowed from beginning to end.  As you will recall TLE worked a full day for Office Kathy on Sunday, so now that Kathy was once again in the 'pink' of health, she worked for TLE on Thursday, giving TLE a 5 day weekend.  I've worked with Kathy before, and it is not much different than working with TLE as I do most of the time.

After staging 15 carts for Kathy I headed out to do my usual morning round of the golf course, and found everything to be copacetic....in fact, slightly better than copacetic....for the first time this season, there were no goose/duck droppings on any of the 4 tee boxes for hole #3!  I was back at the Clubhouse a tad after 9 am.  

One of the hose bibbs in the small Pavilion...#37....has been leaking quite badly for a few days, and in order to fix it we have to shut off all water to the upper portion of the RV park, which means we need to notify everyone before we do so.  We don't want to turn off the water when someone is taking a shower, or washing the dishes, etc.  Around 9:30 am Jose joined me at the small Pavilion to turn off the water and replace the hose bibb washer.  Beginning to end it took less than 10 minutes.....must less time than it did to go RV to RV to notify everyone of what was about to happen.

Next I got out one of the Stihl weed whippers to trim the grass around both Pavilions, and several of the full hookup pull through sites, which were vacant for the first time in a week.  Around 10:30 am I headed out to the driving range to clear the balls from the perimeter before running the ball machine up and down the range to pick up the rest.  I finished around 11:30 am, put the balls in buckets to let them soak until after lunch, then took my lunch break at 12 pm....unlike TLE, Kathy takes her lunch from 1 pm to 2 pm.  I only took a half hour lunch (I started my work day at 7:30 am so I could be done by 4 pm as TLE and I were making a return drive to Redding to get the aforementioned emissions work completed for our smog certificate....wow, that was a long parenthetical statement....lol!).  By the time I was back on the job at 2 pm I had just two hours remaining in my work day, but there was only the 5 Club Car electrics to wash, and not many golf balls.  I finished both tasks by 3:30 pm, and with 30 minutes to go on my work day I jumped on the large Husqvarna mower to mow three more of the full hookup pull through sites.  I finished just before 4 pm, put the Husqvarna away, and headed for home.

By 4:15 pm TLE and I were in the VW Beetle heading for Burney, CA to spend the night before continuing on to Redding Friday morning.  We arrived in Burney without incident at exactly 6:20 pm, checked into our hotel, then drove a block over to the local Subway to get a foot long sandwich for dinner.  While we were inside there was a pretty impressive cloud burst lasting about 20 minutes, followed by a brief hail storm.  We didn't get back into the car until almost 7 pm to drive back to the hotel.

Thank you for your patience!  We just arrived back home from our Redding trip around 6: 20 pm, and after putting our things away, I took a nap, then typed this blog post for your reading pleasure.  Stay tuned for Friday's eventful day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Clubbed.....

 6:14 am - Thursday - June 1st - LPG&RVR - 43° F, humidity 72%, wind 1 mph out of the northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I arrived near Driggs, ID at a wonderful boondock site on the Teton River with a view of the Grand Tetons......looking forward to a return engagement some day.....↴

Before I could stage the golf carts I needed to wash the two Club Car electrics (#'s 3 & 4), which were returned after 5 pm Tuesday.  Initially I staged 10 carts (5 Club Car electrics and 5 Yamaha gassers), and later in the morning the final 5 Yamaha gassers.  All 15 were rented over the course of the day, and at 5 pm 3 were still out on the course, so I'll have those to wash first thing Thursday morning.

It has been a while since anyone cleaned the 8 sets of rental golf clubs (6 adult, 2 child with 2 of the 6 adult being of the left handed variety).  Over time the clubs get switched around, and eventually we had one set of adult clubs with 3 drivers, and no fairway woods.  Anyway, after making my first round of the course I pulled them out of their storage closet, and took them to the Cart Return station to sort them out, and then clean them.  Most of the sets are called Strata, which are made by Callaway for just this purpose.  Of course, we do not actually rent them....if someone wants to play golf, but they don't have their clubs with then we loan them a set for free.  I spent about 90 minutes redistributing the clubs between the bags to be sure each set is complete as possible.  I found left handed clubs mixed with right handed clubs, which is not good.....lol.

I finished with that task around 11 am, and put all the clubs away. I'm sure we'll have to do that once, or twice more this summer.  Next up it was time to begin mowing the tee boxes I am responsible for each week, so I pulled out the small Husqvarna and headed off to the 10th tee boxes to mow around them.  Part of this job involves mowing in areas where the larger mowers cannot go, which includes quite a bit of grass between the Clubhouse, and the 10th tee area, plus around the practice putting green at the Clubhouse.  It took me close to an hour to mow all that grass, but I finished just before it was time to give TLE her lunch break.  After her lunch, and then mine it was 2 pm, and time to mow the rest of the tee boxes (#3, 15, 16, 17 & 18).  I left the Clubhouse around 2:10 pm, and returned around 3:40 pm with a lot of grass mowed in between.  

By this time 12 of the 15 carts had been returned, so I began the task of washing them, and putting them away finishing around 4:40 pm, which was the end of my 8 hour shift (I go to work at 7:40 am).  Another busy day in the books!

I practiced my putting while TLE closed the Clubhouse office for another day, and we were home by 5:15 pm.  After another long, hot shower TLE and I were out on the 'Viewing Deck' enjoying a balmy evening.  The day began with heavy cloud cover, but by late afternoon the sun had come out making for a very pleasant early evening.  We tarried there with our adult beverages until after 6:30 pm before heading in for the night.  Sunset is now around 8:37 pm each day, and it will get later, and later until the summer solstice in about a month.

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. - We'll be driving back to Redding Thursday afternoon, and be back at LPG&RVR early afternoon Friday.  I'll write about Thursday sometime Friday afternoon.

Busy, busy.....

 6:18 am - Wednesday - May 31st - LPG&RVR - 51° F, humidity 93%, wind 1 mph out of the north by northwest.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and I were enjoying a pitcher of Payback Porter, and amazing fish tacos at The Classic Cue in South Lake Tahoe......miss that place......↴

We were on the job by 7:40 am, and I still had 6 five gallon buckets of range balls to wash, and dry, plus all the things I normally do on a Tuesday like a lot of mowing!  Before any of that can happen I needed to head out for my daily first round of the golf course to see how busy the geese/ducks have been on the #3 tee boxes, then check the four sand traps for weeds, and rake if necessary, and look for any flags downed by the overnight wind.  Speaking of wind overnight, we don't always feel it here in the RV park, but out on the western edges of the golf course it can get quiet brisk, and almost every time I make that first round I find at least one flag down....it is never the same flag.....it can be #5, #14, #15, #6, #7, or even #8.  I'm glad we don't always get that kind of wind in the park, or we'd be stowing our awning all the time.  Anyway, there was one flag down on this date....#15...all the other aforementioned flags survived, and remained in their holes.

I was back around 9:30 am, and immediately began to wash the golf balls.  How this works is I soak them in soapy water (Dawn works best) for a period of time....usually for just a few hours, not overnight.  Then I pull about 1/2 the balls at a time out of a given bucket, clean them, rinse them, then put them in one of the wire baskets from the ball machine to air dry for a few hours before pouring them into the 55 gallon barrel in the Clubhouse.  I can do 25 gallons of balls in about an hour.  On this particular morning the outdoor temp was in the high 50's and the water felt colder....lol.

Both pavilions had emptied overnight so I headed there next to mow both of them, then mowed the parking lot grass, the large grass area next to site #30, the large grass area at the group fire pit, and then 6 of the full hookup pull through sites, which were also unoccupied, plus 2 of the employee lawns.  I'll get the other two on Wednesday, or Thursday.  In all I disposed of 5 trailer loads of grass cuttings by 4 pm.

We only rented the 5 Club Car electrics on Tuesday....quite a contrast to Monday!  They were not all back  at 5 pm, so I had to return after 6 to at least plug them in for the night. I'll wash them Wednesday morning.

We got rain on and off all afternoon, and another of those 30 minute 'toad stranglers' around 4 pm.....it rained well into the evening, and was still coming down when we went to bed around 10 pm.  In spite of the rain I got the range balls dried, and put away before the serious rain began.  

In between the showers

This Spring has been different from last year when we got snow 8 times before Memorial Day.  We've only gotten snow 3 times this year, but it has rained, and thundered much more than this time last year.  The mosquitoes are out there, but not bad yet, and most of the deciduous trees have leafed out.

TLE and I were home by 5:15 pm, and barely got inside before the rainfall   began in earnest once again....thanks for stopping by!

Behind the '8 ball'.....

 6:15 am - Tuesday - May 30th - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 89%, wind 0 mph out of the west by southwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I hiked to the top of Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island, ME (near Bar Harbor)......↴

There are some days when one just never gets into sync with the workflow, and Monday was one of those days for me.  I felt like I was behind the proverbial 'Eight Ball' from the moment I arrived at the Clubhouse to stage the first 15 golf carts, until the moment I picked up TLE from work just after 5 pm.  There was a lot to do Monday, it being a National Holiday, and LPG&RVR being exceptionally busy anyway.  In addition to the initial 15 golf carts I later staged an additional 9 carts, of which 6 were rented, so 21 went out.

Monday was also the day we clear the driving range of golf balls so it can be mowed, and due to the busy Memorial Day weekend the range ball barrel was all but empty, so that meant there would be an enormous amount of balls to retrieve.  In all I filled 6 five gallon buckets with range balls.  I began around 10 am to retrieve those balls around the perimeter using the 'Shag Bag', but before I could use the ball machine to pick up the rest TLE called me to advise there were a couple of issues in the park which needed attention, which only further served to put me out of sync. By the time I returned to clearing the driving range it was almost 12 pm, which is when TLE normally begins her lunch hour, but DeWayne was going to mowing the range at 1 pm, so I had delay giving TLE her lunch break until I finished with the range at 12:40 pm.

I really needed my hour lunch as I was already tired from the hectic morning, so I didn't get back to work until 2:40 pm, at which time I found 13 of the 21 golf carts had been returned, plus I still needed to get the balance of the golf balls soaking in soap and water.  Once the golf balls were in water I turned to begin cleaning all the carts, which took me until 4:40 pm to finish, and I still hadn't cleaned the balls.  At that point I knew there was no way I was going to get 6 five gallon buckets of balls cleaned, and dried in 20 minutes, so I decided to defer that job until Tuesday morning.  I managed to get 20 of the 21 carts washed before 5 pm...the final cart did return right at 5 pm, so that will be added to Tuesday morning's tasks.

Thankfully, half the park's occupants departed on Monday, and the rest will leave on Tuesday, so the course will be a little less busy, and being that I will start Tuesday still behind the 'Eight Ball' that will help me somewhat in catching up.....I hope.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Sunday well lived.....

6:16 am - Monday - May 29th - LPG&RVR - 46° F, humidity 73%, wind 0 mph out of the west by northwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of 73° F, and rain this afternoon.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were in Spokane, WA for a wedding....we visited the grave of my mother, Virginia Gale Hockwald for the first time since her death a year prior (think Wuhan Flu).....here I am with my two brothers......↴

Left to right:  Philip, Dwyer, and moi

TLE and I finally 'slept in' until after 7:30 am Sunday.  That was nice!  I was so involved in how nice it was to 'sleep in' that I walked out to the salon, poured a cup of coffee, and sat down in my recliner, never even thinking about writing my daily blog entry....lol!  Which goes to explain why it was not posted until 12:10 pm, when I did finally remember.  Getting old is not for the faint of heart.

Office Kathy was still under the weather, but another LPG&RVR worker, Lynn, offered to open the office and take care of business so TLE would have at least one day off work before beginning her next 4 day work week.  I spent time in the garage (trailer) repairing the ball washer for our golf car, which TLE nearly scraped off the side of the golf cart when she got too close to a dumpster whilst dumping a bag of trash a while back.  I used some two part JB Weld to put her back together, then remounted it on Club Car Villager #20.

I did a little weeding in our yard, swept a weeks worth of leaves off the 'lido deck', 'lower deck' and 'viewing deck' turf, and then took another MTB ride around the perimeter of the golf course.....

....just as the day before, I got sprinkled upon about half way around the course.  I was getting a little overheated as I was climbing one of the hills near hole #5, so the rain was a welcome interruption in my 25 minute ride.

Our grass was mowed while we were in Redding/Klamath Falls, and it is looking almost dandelion free after just a few weeks......

.....the 'lido' and 'viewing' decks are looking great, and that tilting umbrella on the 'viewing deck' does a great job of keeping the sun out of our eyes when we sit to watch the sun slide to the western horizon, which we did shortly after I took this picture.....

.....we sat on the 'viewing deck' until after 6 pm, then TLE got out those filet mignons she bought at Fred Meyer for me to grill on the Sea-B-Que, and we had another delightful 'lower deck' alfresco dinner to close out Sunday's festivities.  We didn't head inside until after 7 pm.....a nice, relaxing day!

Thanks for stopping by!