More than expected.....

7:43 am - Sunday - November 11th - GNHS - 51° F, humidity 33%, wind 3 mph out of the west....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were celebrating another sunset at Rincon Parkway (just north of Ventura, CA)......↴ 

.....a very magical evening.

When we went to bed Friday night we had two bookings for Saturday.  When we awoke we had 4 bookings, and by the time the morning was finished we had sent out 7 RZRs (5 actual RZRs, and two 2 seat Generals).  Whenever we have that much rolling stock out in the field I get nervous.  I'm like a 'cat on a hot tin roof', so to speak, expecting the dreaded phone call at any moment requesting a rescue, or field repair.  And why not?  That was pretty much the case last year.  The more RZRs you rent, the more the probability increases that you will get that call.  Of course, there is the variable which has been added this year.....we are renting NEW equipment, and that, apparently, was the equalizer....every single unit returned intact, and there were no dreaded phone calls.

There was a problem, however.  Before we closed the office Friday night I made sure we had two clean RZRs for our scheduled rentals.  Because there were two additional bookings overnight I had to get busy washing two more RZRs first thing.  The three all days rentals from Friday were filthy, and trying to clean them with compressed air was out of the question, so I just began washing.  As I would deliver one more clean RZR to the staging area I would find out there was another walkup booking, so back I would head to the wash station to clean another RZR.  In all I washed 5 RZRs first thing Saturday morning, and then when Saturday's rentals started to return I began washing those.  In all I washed a total of 8 RZRs before the sun set Saturday, and there are still a few more to wash.  Fortunately, we do not have any bookings for Sunday, and as I type this morning (Sunday) there are still no bookings, but Hunter and I made sure everything that went out Saturday was fueled, just in case we have some walkups Sunday morning.  We have 3 that are clean, and I can wash more if need be, but I do not think that will be an issue, because, as I continue to write the Sunday vacuum has been activated, and the weekenders are heading back to their workaday lives.  Within hours GNHS will be a ghost town once again.  As we get further into the winter season we will be getting more Sunday bookings, but for now 90+% of our bookings are on Friday and Saturday.

After closing down the office I took another of those long, hot showers then retired to the 'fire pit deck' with TLE for Happy Hour drinks, and some suitable music courtesy the Etta James Channel on Pandora.  We were going to have a fire, but it is not quite cool enough in the early evenings to light a fire.  The time is coming, and we are prepared with 5 bundles of our favorite fire wood from Borrego Springs.  

As I was fueling the last RZR I got these pictures of the sunset afterglow....

....and as I was locking up the fuel station I noticed we are down to 1/4 tank of gasoline....time to order another delivery before next weekend....

......we're heading to Yuma, AZ later today (Sunday) for our annual dental appointments in Los Algodones Monday morning.  We'll have an early dinner with Rich and Marnie Aaron for whom we worked at Ramona Oaks RV Resort back in 2019.  That is still one of our most favorite workamping jobs ever.

Thanks for stopping by!

Uneventful.....

 7:44 am - Saturday - November 11th - GNHS - 48° F, humidity 30%, wind 4 mph out of the west......crystal clear, blue sunny skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were visiting the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto, Kentucky......↴

Before we began our work day I asked TLE to help me put the canopy cover back on its frame, and once that was done I attached the red wall panel, put the picnic table cover on again, and redeployed both umbrellas.  I would wait until after our three all day rentals left to raise the sail shades back into position.

We were on the job before 8:30 am Friday, and our customers showed up right at 8:30 am for their 9 am rentals....I wish all our customers were that punctual!  With 30 minutes they were all (3) on their way.  I took care of a couple of minor repairs to our unrented units....replaced a defunct fire extinguisher, and reinstalled a couple of the scissor jack mounts as they were no remaining in their desired positions on the roll cage.  

Once that was done I began to work on installing the new, heavier duty rope we had purchased at Home Depot on Tuesday on the two 'sail shades'.  Within a couple of hours I had replaced all four ropes, and had the sail shades back in position.....

I used large 'safety pins' to connect  the two triangles, and now there is no gap through which the sun can still shine

.....the 3 all day rentals all returned within 10 minutes of each other around 4:40 pm, almost dark, so we just fueled them and parked them.  We'll wash them Saturday morning.  And with that we put another uneventful rental day into the books.  Speaking of the sunset, we got a long, and beautiful one Friday......

.....after parking the rental units I headed inside for a long, hot shower, then retired to the 'lido deck' to sip some Scotch, smoke a cigar, and listen to Classic Vinyl on Sirius/XM Radio.

Thanks for stopping by!

Involuntary confinement, again......

7:07 am - Friday - November 10th - GNHS - 55° F, humidity 35%, wind 4 mph out of the west by northwest......ahhh....NO wind today....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Campbellsville, KY working at Amazon.....this is how our 'lido deck' looked then.....↴ 

The Santa Anas which began Wednesday continued without abatement throughout the entire day Thursday.  When TLE and I were outside it was to resecure things so they would not blow down the hill to the Salton Sea, otherwise we were inside trying to ignore the rocking and rolling of the Newell.  Fortunately, we had no rentals Thursday, but we did finally get a visit from our Polaris representative who spent the afternoon with TLE, Hunter and I going over their software programs, and how to use them.  The built in trackers on the individual RZR units are finally working, which was my main concern.  Now, if someone breaks down we can find them.

Fritz (the Polaris guy) arrived at GNHS around 1 pm, and suggested we go to lunch at the Ski Inn while we discussed the Polaris Advantage program.  By that time the winds were abating a tad, and we were able to dine alfresco in their large outdoor dining area.  By the time we returned to GNHS it was after 3 pm, and we then spent the final two hours doing computer/software stuff, and getting a good orientation to how things are supposed to work.  The best thing about meeting with Fritz is knowing that we now have someone to call, and ask dumb questions.....lol.

That was the highlight of an otherwise long, windy day.  Thankfully, as I write there is a barely discernable breeze coming in the passenger side salon window.  The absence of ferociously blowing winds is palpable, but it is a good palpable.  We have three all day rentals going out today (Friday) at 9 am, so it is time to get ready for a work day, and begin putting our 'lido deck' back together.

Thanks for stopping by!

The winds of November.....

 6:48 am - Thursday - November 9th - GNHS - 59° F, humidity 31%, wind 25 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, WINDY skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I visited the hot springs south of Bishop, CA called Keough Hot Springs.....↴

.....kind of a funky, off the beaten path kind of place....our kind of place.

The view this morning......↴

The current Santa Ana wind condition began Wednesday morning, but the winds were not too bad most of the day.  They were bad enough that I took down my flag, closed the umbrellas, and took down the 'sail shades', but not bad enough to take down the dining canopy.  In fact, as the afternoon wore on the winds diminished to the point where there was NO wind at 5 pm, and very little at 10 pm when we went to bed, but they came back with a ferocity overnight, which forced us to take down the canopy this (Thursday) morning, just a few minutes ago.  The weather guessers predict, no doubt, with the help of a 'Magic 8 ball', the winds will begin to diminish around 1 pm.....we hope the 'Magic 8 ball' is right....lol.

We had plans to do another soak in the hot pool, and take a walk, but the Santa Ana winds had other plans for us.  Instead, we spent most of the day cooped up in the Newell out of the wind.  I would venture out for brief periods of time to putter around in the trailer.  In fact, for the first time since we arrived I got out our Shop Vac and vacuumed the entire floor.

As I have done when confined to the Newell interior due to heat, or wind, I caught up watching the various YouTube channels I follow, while TLE read.  There were at least 2 naps that I recall, and a great pastrami sandwich prepared by the loving hands of TLE for lunch, otherwise we were inside pretty much all day, and it appears that this involuntary confinement will continue throughout Thursday morning.

Thanks for stopping by!

The nomadic wrinkle....

6:57 am - Wednesday - November 8th - GNHS - 62° F, 43% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were finishing our drive from Baker, NV to Carson City, NV just at sunset.  TLE got this amazing picture.....↴

Life in general, when you live, like most folks, in static location, can be difficult, but the nomadic life has its own set of wrinkles, and obstacles one must learn to deal with.  When we first hit the road back in 2012 I was not taking any supplements, and had no prescriptions about which to worry, but that all changed in late 2017 when I had my blood pressure related stroke.  From that point until the present I take a daily blood pressure medication, and a Baby Aspirin.  Since my clogged artery induced heart attack in May of 2019 I've added a Lipitor to my daily medication, and since the beginning of the Wuhan flu I've added daily supplements to boost my immune system.  I write all that to say this.....transferring prescriptions from one pharmacy to another can be daunting at times, and this latest transfer from the Rite Aid in Alturas to the COSTCO Pharmacy in La Quinta was way more difficult, and exhausting than normal.  When we left LPG&RVR October 12th I had two 90 day refills remaining on my present annual prescription from Dr. Mulvihill, and the current 90 day supply will be exhausted in just a few days.  I began the process of transferring my prescription last Wednesday by going into the La Quinta COSTCO Pharmacy with my prescription bottles to have them transferred from Rite Aid.  In the past it has been pretty seamless, but this time there were many phone calls by me, by the COSTCO Pharmacist, and by the Rite Aid Pharmacist to get it done, and it finally happened late Monday afternoon, and I mean LATE Monday afternoon....around 20 minutes before both Pharmacies closed for the day.  I needed to pick them up Tuesday, as we were already going to the La Quinta COSTCO to pickup TLE's new prescription glasses, and some medication for her.  To have to make that drive again on Friday, or Saturday would be very inconvenient.

When we awoke Tuesday morning I was still awaiting the text confirmation that my prescriptions were ready.  COSTCO had promised they would be ready early afternoon, so our plan was to head into La Quinto around 11 am, regardless of whether I had gotten my text messages from the Pharmacy.  When we left at 11 am I was still waiting, but we had a few stops to make before COSTCO so no worries....hopefully.

Our first stop was at a local nursery (Bob Williams) so TLE could shop for some plants such as cilantro, flat leaf parsley, jalapeño pepper, Anaheim chili, bibb lettuce, garlic, chive, Rosemary, and one geranium.  Next up was Home Depot, and by the time we finished there it after 1 pm, so we headed to the local In 'N Out Burger place for lunch......

You can still get a good lunch for under $20

Do those In 'N Out Burgers seem a tad smaller to you?

.....just about the time we sat down to eat I got the COSTCO text messages regarding my prescriptions....they were READY!  On a side note, for those of you who are In 'N Out Burger aficionados, does it seem that the burgers are a little smaller than they were a couple of years ago?  TLE says they are smaller, and I think they are, too, but the difference seems so slight I can't be sure.  To be sure, even if it is a little smaller, it is still a great burger, and those fries are that for which one might die, in a figurative sense, of course.  Anyway, if you have any knowledge of whether this is true, or just our imaginations, let me know.

At any rate, after lunch we headed to COSTCO where we first fueled up the VW again at $4.89/gallon for premium unleaded, then headed into the store to pick up our prescriptions.  Next up was a stop at the local Ralph's Supermarket to do a big shopping.  We were on our way back home by 3:15 pm, arriving without incident around 4 pm.

I occurs to me that I have not provided any pictures of the Polaris 2 seat Generals we are renting this year.  They are quite different from the 2 seat Kawasaki KRXs we rented last year....

.....I liked the ride of the KRXs last year, but these Generals have a smoother ride, are way more comfortable, plus they have a pickup/dump bed, and a winch to boot.

After our 5 hour shopping trip to La Quinta we were both tired, and decided to forego the 'viewing deck', and 'dining/game night deck'.  In the end it was a successful nomadic day for TLE and I.....wrinkles, or not.

Thanks for stopping by!

First soak....

6:57 am - Tuesday - November 7th - GNHS - 69° F, humidity 62%, wind 6 mph out of the west by northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were in Bishop, CA having a late lunch at Mountain Rambler Brewery......↴ 

It is so nice to wake up to sunshine coming in our bedroom window at 6 am....not that I want to be out of bed at 6 am, but it's nice to wakeup to light, and not darkness.  Darkness just makes it feel earlier than it really is.  I know it's all in my mind, but it is what it is.  Light is better.

After posting my latest missive TLE and I walked over to the hot pools to do a morning soak before the sun got too high in the sky....

.....this is our first soak of the season as it has just been too hot to deliberately immerse your body into 104° F water.  Early in the morning there is still shade over the large hot pool...perfect!  Plus, we have the whole place to ourselves.

After returning from the hot pool TLE and I began the process of cleaning all of our mini-blinds for the first time in quite a while.  I put two screws into the wooden fence behind our site on which to hang them, and then TLE cleaned them with warm water, and Dawn dish soap.  We have six sets of mini-blinds covering the interior side of our Newell windows, so we began with the smallest ones....the kitchen, and the bathroom.  The mini-blinds over my desk, and the two in the bedroom are the largest.  We'll probably to the salon ones next, then finish with the bedroom ones.  By the time we finished with that task it was time to retire (for moi) to the 'lido deck' to watch another British Premier match between Tottenham and Chelsea....

.....Tottenham began the day as the last undefeated team out of the 20 Premier teams, and it began well for them with a goal in the first 10 minutes.  Then a second goal was scored....we thought...but it was called back for offsides.  That was the beginning of the end for Tottenham.  By the time the dust had settled at the end of the match Tottenham was playing with just 9 players due to 2 red cards, and lost 2-1.

By the time the match was over I had retreated to the cool confines of the salon as it was getting hot outside.....87° F was the high for the day, but is the beginning of a cooling trend for GNHS. By the end of the week it will be into the 70's where it will remain for for foreseeable future.

By 4:15 pm we were sitting in our 'viewing deck' chairs watching the Chocolate Mountains being lit up by the setting sun....

....I was able to catch the afterglow of the sunset.  From there we moved to the 'dining/game deck' to grill a filet mignon for dinner, which was followed by 6 games of Yahtzee.  TLE added a side salad, and mashed potatoes, as well as some Malbec wine to chase the tender filets....

....we each won 3 games of Yahtzee, so to break the tie we added up the scores from our six games....TLE edged me out by 14 points over 6 games.....so close, but no cigar for me...well, there was a cigar smoked, but you know what I mean.  By the time we headed inside for the night it was close to 8 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!

Luck of the roll.....

6:40 am - Monday - November 6th - GNHS - 56° F, humidity 37%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 89° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I arrived at what I thought would be a multi day boondock site near the shores of Mono Lake.  The temps were balmy, the view was wonderful, and the site was perfect.  I tilted our solar panels for maximum effect......↴

...and settled in to enjoy a wonderful afternoon, and it was wonderful....everything for which we had hoped......

....the next morning we awoke to an outside temp of 17° F, and our batteries were sitting at just 60%......

.....I decided to plug the coach into our Honda generator until the sun rose to keep the batteries from draining any further, so I bundled up, and went outside to do just that when I found this......

.....apparently, when I had unhooked our cord the morning before I had failed to notice the plug had melted....how did I miss that?  Anyway, I couldn't plug into anything.  Well, that changed our plans, and you can read about how we solved this problem here.

On Saturday afternoon there were no reservations for Sunday so we suggested to Hunter that he could open the office for a few hours to see if anything developed, which he did, and we had the day off work.  After I finished posting my latest post we retired to the 'lido deck' to watch a British Premier Soccer match between Liverpool and Luton Town.  Luton Town is in 17th place out of 20 teams, and Liverpool is in 3rd, so all we were hoping for was at least a tie to keep Liverpool from tying Tottenham in the standings.  Luton Town scored a goal in the 80th minute to take a 1-0 lead, which lasted until the first seconds of added time when Liverpool leveled the match at 1-1, and that is how it ended.  It was a very good match, which we were not expecting......

Watching futbol!

....after the game I worked a little more on our 'lido deck' environment.  As you know, there is always 'one more thing' to do, and I had several 'one more things' I wanted to do.....

....I wanted to move the umbrella by the Sea-B-Que to the left to cover an area not covered by the 'sail shades (above), and, at TLE's request I needed to install our dual water filter system to assist the usual single filter (below). We didn't use it at LPG&RVR this year as the water quality is actually quite good there, and no need to over filter the water, and waste the filters....they are very expensive......

.....plus I wanted to finally deploy our flagpole utilizing the suction cups I bought last year.  As you will recall I needed to add a cargo strap last year to make sure they did not loose suction, allowing the flagpole to fall.  They worked rather well at LPG&RVR this past summer, so I decided to forego the cargo strap.  They were still holding at 9 pm Sunday night.....

.....and are still holding as I write this morning (Monday)....

....we also moved the firepit onto the artificial turf, but have it sitting upon 4 cement pavers to keep the heat from damaging the turf......

.....we ushered in another sunset from the 'viewing deck', then moved over to the 'dining/game night deck' where TLE prepared Orange Chicken utilizing the Cowboy Wok, which was also deployed at her request.......

.....another restaurant quality dish from TLE.....she steamed some wild rice, and cut up some spring onions which she sprinkled across the top of the dish.  We had some Saki left, so I got that as a bonus.....what a dinner!

For our second game night of this season we pulled out the Backgammon board and played 5 games.  TLE won the 1st and 3rd games on the final roll of the dice, and I won the 2nd and 4th games easily.  The 5th and final game came down to the final roll of the dice for me, and left me victorious in the rubber match.  Of the three games we play on game nights (Yahtzee, Phase 10, and Backgammon) Backgammon requires the most strategy, but even good strategy can be spoiled by the luck of the roll.  On this night the dice favored moi.

Oh, by the way, we did get a reservation for a two hour rental to begin at 2 pm, so Hunter handled that.  The interesting thing is the couple did not arrive until 2:30 pm in their Tesla whose batteries were down to 16% with just 37 miles left in  them after driving in from Riverside.  The nearest charging station is in Indio, around 47 miles from GNHS....doh!  They didn't have their adapter with them, which would have allowed them to plug into one of our electrical outlets....double doh!  Anyway, they had to call AAA to come and haul the Tesla back to the charging station after their ride was finished.....that was an expensive rental for them!  I am still wondering why they continued on past the charging station knowing they would not have enough battery power left to get back?  I would have called and asked us for a 'rain check' (which we have done before), plugged my Tesla into the charging station, and gone home to try again next weekend, but that's just me....lmao!!!  Well, they also rolled the dice, but they came up 'snake eyes'!

Thanks for stopping by!