Flooring - Day 3

 8:04 am - Friday - July 7th - LPG&RVR - 64° F, 46% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the north by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 86° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and and I were in Keystone, SD checking out some wood carvings....BIG wood carvings......↴

Before we could resume our flooring project on Thursday there was a hair appointment in Alturas to keep, and some small shopping to be done.  We were off in a cloud of dust by 8:30 am to make the 20 mile drive into Alturas, arriving at my hair stylist (Kaleidescope) about 8 minutes before the appointed 9 am.  While I got my ears lowered TLE drove over to Rite Aid to pickup a few things.  I was done in about 15 minutes, and by the time I made the block and half walk to Rite Aid TLE was in the checkout line....perfect!

Our next stop was ACE Hardware, of course, to pick up a couple of things for our flooring project, and then on to Holiday Market where I saw something I haven't seen in the two summers we have been here.....a Tesla parked next to the Tesla charging station being charged.....

.....we were back home by 10:30 am, but before we could get back to the flooring TLE needed to put away the groceries, and I needed to dump the black tank.  By the time all that was done it was after 11:30 am, and getting warmish, so we turned on the A/C and got to work. 

What remained to be done were about 7 special cuts  (by that I mean no straight lines), and probably a dozen straight, 'easy' cuts.....easy being an extremely relative term.  Even though we were using the old vinyl planks removed from these 7 'special cut' areas as templates the old planks were 4" wide, and the new ones are 6" wide, so lining them up properly can be difficult, and the 'difficult' revealed itself in the form of the 'Hockwald Way' when I spoiled the first two planks I was attempting to cut to fit the first cut of the day.  Time to take a deep breath, and be a tad more methodical.  Ultimately I got it done, and then things began to move along.  In all we managed to get just 2 of the special cuts done, and 6 of the straight cuts done before we called it a day around 2:30 pm.....

....additionally we redid the stairway treads......

....the last 30% is taking us longer than we had hoped, but like I wrote yesterday, we've resigned ourselves to it taking as long as it takes to get it done right.  Here is what is left to do....

From the fridge to the bathroom entrance

The bathroom

The area in front of TLE's closet

The area in front of my closet

....we hope to finish the final cuts on Friday morning, but we shall see how fast the work goes, and hope for the best....the end is in sight!

Thanks for stopping by!

Flooring - Day 2

7:18 am - Thursday - July 6th - LPG&RVR - 61° F, 57% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the west.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 89° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were having dinner at the Classic Cue in South Lake Tahoe, CA......a pitcher of Downtown Brown to begin the festivities.......↴

Well, now we're into day 2 of the floor renewal in our Newell.  The hard part has been done.....the demo, and the cleaning, and now it's time to begin laying down the new planks.  Installing the new planks is a different kind of hard, which involves a lot of kneeling, which is hard on 74 year old knees.  We both employed kneeling pads to reduce the discomfort, but there is no way to really mitigate the discomfort over 4, or 5 hours.

We began by taping over the seems of the linoleum, and any imperfections in the surface with blue masking tape, then drew a straight line down the middle of the coach from the front center console to the foot of the bed, and then began laying one plank at a time from front to back along that line.  Once the middle line was in we began laying planks in both directions from the center line we had established.  It went quickly until we began to have to cut planks to go around the corners of the kitchen cabinets, etc., but by 12:30 pm we had about 70% of the coach done, and the salon about 95% done.  All that remains now is to make all the many cuts in the kitchen, and bathroom.....

Looking from the salon back to the bedroom

Looking from the bedroom up to the center console in the driving area

About 70% done now

....by 12:30 pm we were both sore, and tired, so we cleaned up the work area, and moved the recliners back into the salon for the afternoon and evening.  We'll finish the last 30% on Thursday.  We're very happy right now that we have a 4 day weekend to get all of this done.  Initially we though we could get it done in two days, but decided to take as long as it takes, and not exhaust ourselves each day.

That's it for today...getting ready to head into Alturas (Thursday) for a haircut, and shopping.  We'll get back into the floor installation upon our return.

Thanks for stopping by!

The demolition.......

 7:20 am - Wednesday - July 5th - LPG&RVR - 59° F, humidity 43%, wind 0 mph out of the southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were rafting on the Truckee River with two of our children, and their future spouses.....↴

As I have been alluding all week, Tuesday, July 4th was the beginning of our four day weekend, and the day we chose to begin to replace our 10 year old vinyl 'wood' flooring.  As is often the case we were up earlier than we would like on our first day after getting up before 6 am for four straight days.  After enjoying a cup of coffee we began to move out the salon furniture (two recliners, and my computer work station), and the area rugs, then began the demolition of our old, worn out flooring......

.....after furniture and area rugs were removed I began to remove, and number key planks with unique cuts, so I could use them later as templates when we install the new flooring....

.....next we removed all the wood trim pieces, and then began the hard work.....pulling up vinyl planks which had been glued in place 10 years ago.....

....gradually the linoleum moisture barrier began to reappear......

.....and by 11:30 am we had removed all the old vinyl planking, then, using Acetone, cleaned most of the sticky residue off the linoleum in preparation for the installation of the new planking Wednesday.....

.....we then brought back in the furniture, and area rugs.....in spite of the Acetone bath we gave the linoleum moisture barrier there were still some sticky spots, so we covered those with some red shop rags I've had for years (they were still unused)......

......we turned our rear A/C on by 9 am, and when we finally finished Tuesday's work we turned on the front A/C and then sat in our recliners cooling down, and watching the end of the 4th stage of Le Tour de France.  

We spent the better part of 4 hours on our knees using putty knives to separate the old planks from the moisture barrier, and some of them were quite hard to remove.....when I say 'some' I'm talking about roughly 40%......the other 60% came up easily, but we spent 90% of our time removing the 40% that were stuck like glue to the floor.  TLE was a trooper, as she always is....she never complains, and just puts her head down and gets to work until we're done.  Thankfully the hard work, the preparation for the new flooring, is over.  Now all we have to do is put down the new planks, and reinstall the wood trim pieces, which we'll do over the next two days.

After a suitable cooling down period we got dressed, and drove over to the Clubhouse to have lunch.  We split a 'Smash Burger', and chased it and the fries with a couple of Lost Coast Tangerine brews.  Drinking a beer after that hard work is like taking a sleeping pill for me, and minutes after we arrived back at the Newell I was taking a nap.  I think there were several naps taken during the afternoon.

It is projects like this flooring project that bring to the forefront of my mind how old we are both getting....we'll both be celebrating our 74th birthdays over the next two months.  We've been living full time in our Newell for 12 years now, which is mind blowing all by itself.  This is the third time we've replaced our flooring since we bought the Newell back in March of 2008.  We spent quite a bit more money on this new flooring than we did 10 years ago, and are hoping it will last for a long time....another 10 years would be nice....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 247th birthday USA!!!

6:38 am - Tuesday - July 4th  - LPG&RVR - 55° F, humidity 56%, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 89° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and I were riding bicycles around South Lake Tahoe with daughter Meredith, and her good friend Amy who drove up to spend the 4th of July with us.......↴

.....happy 247th birthday to the USA!!!

Mondays are range ball days, as you know, and even though the high for the day was forecast to be just 90° F, it was a hell of a day to be clearing the driving range.  Here's the deal.....the worst place for mosquitoes is the driving range.....since no one really spends much time out there they don't spray it for mosquitoes, however, the driving range tee boxes are sprayed.  At any rate, since the mosquitoes are so bad out there I always wear long pants, and a long sleeved t-shirt.  When it is in the 70's or lower wearing pants and long sleeved t-shirts is not an issue, but when it is in the 90's, and a tad humid, it becomes a trade off.....hot and uncomfortable, or lots of mosquito bites.....I'll take hot and uncomfortable over mosquito bites any day.

We don't close the driving range until 10 am, so I had other things to do like wash the 8 golf carts left over from Sunday, stage 15 carts for our customers (31 went out in all), then head out to the course to make my rounds, and while I was at that, change out the 18 flags on the flag poles at each hole.  Ours are yellow and black checkers.  The old ones are a few years old, and beginning to fade, so it is time to freshen them.....

3rd hole flag

....by the time I got back it was time to close the driving range, and thus began another 2.5 hour odyssey in clearing the range.  It used to be, when we were not so busy, that one would typically harvest a 1/3, or 1/2 a 55 gallon barrel of balls on any given Monday, or Thursday, which would take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, but now we are going through 55 gallons of balls in 3-4 days.  By the time I poured the last of the balls into a 5 gallon bucket to soak in water for a couple of hours I was gassed, and ready to give TLE her lunch break.  I, in turn, took my entire one hour lunch, which involved a nap.  By the time I returned at 2:30 pm I was refreshed, and ready for the final two hour push.  During that 2 hour stretch I would wash, and put away 29 carts, and wash/dry over 2,000 golf balls (I don't hand dry the balls, they just go back in the wire baskets to air dry for a few hours.....usually until the next morning).

I was finished at 4:30 pm, but TLE was at least 45 minutes away from being done, so I retrieved my putter, and three balls from my locker, and practiced my putting.  At last I heard TLE locking the office door, and it was time to head for home, and a nice, hot, long shower then head to my recliner to estivate for a couple of hours whilst watching the end of Stage 2 of Le Tour de France......

Thanks for stopping by!

Adjusting.....

 6:07 am - Monday July 3rd - LPG&RVR - 56° F, humidity 55%, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 90° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were watching 'Old Faithful' erupt......↴

Another 94° F day was had on Sunday.  Surprisingly I'm getting used to the higher temps pretty quickly this year, but 'used to' is a relative term.  What choice do I have?  Maybe I'm just being more accepting of my fate each day, and not fighting it like I usually do.

Sunday was also the day of the annual 4th of July golf tournament, and we put out 36 golf carts....pretty much every single operable golf cart we have.  When you have a shotgun start tournament like this (everyone begins golfing on a different hole, but at the same time) all the carts come back at the same time.  When I returned from my 1 hour lunch at 2 pm there were 21 golf carts awaiting my attention, and before I finished washing them, and putting them away I had processed 28 of the 36 carts rented for the day, so 8 more will await me first thing Monday......

Cart barn empty by 10 am

What I returned to after lunch at 2 pm

.....I didn't mention earlier that to begin July 2nd I had 18 golf carts left over from Saturday, so, in all I washed 46 golf carts Sunday.  In between I spent most of my time 'marshaling' around the golf course to keep order.  We don't like the carts driven off the fairways, or the cart paths.  Someone is always trying to get as close to their ball as possible, and sometimes that takes them into the brush, and that is a 'no, no'.  Additionally, some folks, in an attempt to park as near to their ball as possible get too close to the greens with their golf carts, and have to be reminded.  Another issue when we have families with young children here is you must have a drivers license to drive one of our golf carts, and there is always someone who lets their 10 year old kid drive while they golf.  Then, of course, there are the slow players who must be reminded to speed up their play.  This is the time of the summer when we begin to have more of these issues, so I was pretty busy making a round of the course every 45 minutes, or so.

I went to work at 7:20 am, but did take my entire 1 hour lunch....I needed every minute of that hour to gird myself for the last 2.5 hours of my shift, which ended at 4:20 pm.   As I mentioned above, I spent the entire 2.5 hours washing, and putting away golf carts.  While I headed for home TLE continued working in the office, which closes at 5 pm each day, 7 days a week.  I had about an hour before she would be ready to be driven home at 5:15 pm.  I was able to take a long, hot shower, then relax in the A/C cooled interior of the Newell until 5:13 pm when I got the text from her that she was ready.

Well, one more 90° F on Monday, and then it is time for another 4 day weekend.  This four day weekend will be full of work of another kind for TLE and I....we are going to remove the old vinyl flooring, and install the new, so get ready for a new Newell interior look!

Thanks for stopping by!

So close......

 6:14 am - Sunday - July 2nd - LPG&RVR - 54° F, humidity 59%, wind - mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 94° F.  On this date in 2017 I had just stepped outside the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store to take a break around 8 pm.....the view is of Mammoth Hot Springs.....↴

Saturday and Sunday had temp forecasts of 94° F for each day, so that would be the warmest day so far this season.  When it gets over 90° F I switch from the heavier fabric collared shirts provided by LPG&RVR to  cotton blend, white t-shirts I had made up at my own expense last year.....they are much cooler, and make life on a hot day much more bearable.  I knew by looking at the 'tee time' sheet for Saturday that we would need every operable golf cart we have to satisfy the demand, and by 11 am all the carts had been deployed leaving the cart barn completely empty....

.....since the golf course was so busy I spent the better part of my day making round after round of the course to be sure play was moving along.  Initially the mosquitoes were kind of bad, but as it edged toward 90° F they seemed to go into hiding.  I began my day at 7:20 am so I could be off work before 3:30 pm in order to take a shower, and change clothes in time for the weekly 4 pm putting contest, and by that time I was more than ready to be done for the day as the heat really got to me.  I managed to get all 5 electric carts, and 7 of the Yamaha gassers washed and put away for the day before it was time to head home.  I'll have a lot of carts to wash Sunday morning!

My good putting of the past two weeks continued again Saturday finding me in round four 1 putt away from going to the final.  I was tied  with my competitor after 5 holes so we went to a one hole, one putt, closest to the pin putt off.  I put my putt about 2 feet from the hole, but my competitor was about 6" closer.....foiled again!  Nonetheless, my putting was spot on....even when I made poor first putts I was able to sink the second putt from 4-6' consistently.  I even had another hole in one in my first round.

TLE and I were not home until almost 6 pm, and I was tuckered.  While she made dinner I relaxed, and after dinner I took an hour nap.  We were both in bed shortly after 9 pm, and both slept soundly all night.  We were able to turn off the A/C at 9 pm, and with the ceiling vent fan running the bedroom stayed cool all night.

Thanks for stopping by!

Over 90.....

6:09 am - Saturday - July 1st - LPG&RVR -  54° F, humidity 62%, wind 1 mph out of the southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 94° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were on Highway 191 in Montana heading for Billings, MT, and eventually Alberta, Canada.....our friends took a picture of the Newell pulling our trailer......↴

Friday was the first day over 90° since summer officially began, but the humidity was low, and surprisingly it did not bother me that much.  It might have been how busy the day was, I'm not sure, but I didn't think about the heat too much, and it didn't have an adverse effect upon me.  The 'tee time' sheet was pretty full, and TLE thought we would eventually need 19 carts.  At the end of the day we put out 27 golf carts, and at least 9 still not back when I finished my day a little after 5 pm.....a 9 hour day for both TLE and I.  Judging by the looks of the 'tee time' sheet last night for Saturday we will put out every golf cart we own, and probably will send out a few for a second time.

Miracle Bob (our cart mechanic) had carpel tunnel surgery last week, and is still recovering, but life marches on, and we have a number of carts in 'sick bay', so he, with my help, worked on three of them Friday.  One of them needed a new starter belt, another needed the starter belt tensioned, and a third needed a new starter solenoid.  I spent two hours wrenching for Bob as he told me what to do, and have now gained some more knowledge about fixing carts.

Being Friday I needed to do my golf course mowing, which includes the tee boxes I mow, so around 11 am I began with the tee boxes for #10, plus the grass around the putting green, and along both sides of the cart path leading to tees 1 and 10.  I finished just before TLE's lunch break at 12 pm.  After giving TLE her break, I took a 30 minute lunch, then headed out immediately to mow the rest of the tee boxes.  I got back just before 3 pm, and was able to wash 18 of the golf carts before it was time to head for home.

TLE had a big day in the Clubhouse office, and didn't get home until after 5:30 pm.  By that time I had taken a hot shower, and was ensconced in my recliner recovering from my first day back at work, which is always the hardest day for me.  TLE prepared a delicious steak salad for dinner, and we watched another episode of 'A Touch of Frost' before heading to bed shortly after 9 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. - Today is the birthday of our youngest child, Tim....he is 37 today....I cannot believe that.  On top of that my oldest grandchild, Cynthia, turned 30 last week.