Surfeit of doubles.....

7:11 am - Saturday - November 18th - GNHS - 56° F, humidity 98%, wind 2 mph out of the west by southwest.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 77° F. On this date in 2015 TLE and I were enjoying our 7th Rincon Parkway sunset.......↴

We finally had a rental, albeit a 1/2 day rental, Friday.  It was just Hunter and I opening the office.  I needed to wash the company van, wash and dry 4 RZRs, and wipe down 4 more as a result of our rain Wednesday.  As you know, from reading yesterday's post, we had heavy fog for a few hours Friday morning.....

.....but by the time our 1/2 day rental was to depart (10 am) the fog had lifted leaving us with a beautiful, sunny, cloud speckled day.  Our 1/2 day customers arrived at 9:30 am, and were on their way just before 10 am.  

At this point I got busy washing the company van, then four more RZRs.  It occurs to me I have not shown before and after pictures of how dirty the RZRs can get, and what they look like after I give them their spa treatment, so here are a few.....

Before

After

....it takes me about 15 minutes, sometimes less, to wash, and dry one RZR.  The company van, on the other hand, takes me about 40 minutes.....its one of those large passenger vans that has a lot of 'real estate' to clean.  Once I had finished with the van and the four dirty RZRs I got busy wiping down four RZRs which had been previously washed, but got spoiled by the rain.  Once those were done I clocked out for an hour, and came back when the 1/2 day rental returned.  Amazingly, the rental was not really dirty.  We had enough rain that all the dust settled for at least a couple of days, so no need to wash it.  By the time Hunter and I had clocked out we had logged just over 4 hours of work.

I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon engaging in one of my favorite activities, deploying yard lights.  This time my target was the COA* office.  I think they turned out quite well....I managed to catch the 1/4 moon just over the office.....

.....we chose the 'viewing deck' to watch the Chocolate Mountains to the east be lit up once again by the setting sun....

.....the actual sunset was worthy of being memorialized....

....after the sun set TLE suggested we play a few rounds of Backgammon, so I obliged her.....the dice were with me this night, gifting me four wins out of four games....I rolled so many doubles we both began shaking our heads.  With so many doubles strategy becomes secondary as you just kind of ride the wave of good luck....

She was still smiling

.....we ate our dinner burritos while playing....TLE's idea.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Exploring.....

6:57 am - Friday - November 17th - GNHS - 52° F, humidity 100%, wind 2 mph out of the north by northwest.....heavy fog this morning....that's weird...sunny later with a forecast high of 75° F.  The view this morning.....foggy.....

On this date in 2017 TLE and I were enjoying our 6th Rincon Parkway sunset....this was a long one......↴

Normally we would have been working Thursday, but with the big Thanksgiving blowout coming next weekend (really begins around Tuesday, or Wednesday) this weekend will be a slow one rental wise.  As of Thursday morning we had just one booking, and that was for a 1/2 day on Friday....nothing for Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday yet.  At any rate, with the blessing of our bosses in Durango, Hunter, TLE and I did not open the office.

There are three hot springs resorts on Mineral Hot Spa Road.....Fountain of Youth, Bashford's, and Glamis North Hot Springs.  Of the three Fountain of Youth is the largest, the nicest.  Whereas GNHS and Bashford's are kind of rustic, funky places catering to the offroad crowd, FOY is very upscale, and gentil with paved, lighted interior roads, a very adequate grocery store, and a restaurant to compliment the hot springs.  We have never checked it out, so we decided Thursday would be the day to do just that.

FOY is about 3 miles from GNHS, so we opted to drive over in the VW around 11:30 am for our first visit.  Our first stop was the Sunset Grill which offers copious amounts of alfresco dining.  TLE ordered their Rueben, and I there BLT.  To chase my BLT I ordered a Modelo Negra (beer).  Mine came with fries, and TLE's sweet potato fries.....

Internet photos

The Rueben

The BLT

.....TLE loved her Rueben, and she is a pretty strict judge of such things.  She has ordered Ruebens all over the USA, so she knows when she's got a good one.  The portions were so large we ended up taking half of them home.  After lunch we drove over to Freddy's Market, and were quite surprised at how well it was stocked.  I would rate it somewhere between a mini-market, and a grocery store.....very nice.  FOY is a full on 'snow bird' destination, and there are a lot of Canadians who migrate here each winter.  There are hundreds of sites with park models, mobile homes, and RV's.  As one might imagine, there are hundreds of electric, and gas powered golf carts carrying these senior citizens to and fro, and one must be careful whilst driving a full size car, that one does not back into one zipping behind you as you are backing.....I almost hit two while doing just that....lol.

We were home by 1 pm, and within a few minutes I was taking a beer induced nap.  When I was young I could drink a couple of brews for lunch and never miss a beat.  Now, one beer is like taking a sedative for me....lol.  After the nap I went outside to tighten some of the ropes we use to hold the 'sail shades' in place.  As is often the case, rope stretches for a few days, and therefore needs to be tightened up every couple of days for the first week, or so.

Around 4 pm I walked over to the hot pools to take another soak.....TLE demurred....I was mainly going for a quick soak, and to watch the sun set, so I wasn't gone long....maybe 40 minutes.  Upon my return TLE suggested we enjoy another fire, so I put some more wood in the portable firepit, and within minutes had had a great fire....

.....around 5:30 pm I noticed the sunset was still ongoing, so I snapped a couple of pictures.....

....then took a picture of all the rope lights TLE and I deployed Wednesday....

.....then a couple more looking from the outside into our 'lido deck'.....

....and with that another GNHS day came to an end.

Thanks for stopping by!

A diversion.....

 7:23 am - Thursday - November 16th - GNHS - 54° F, humidity 96%, wind 3 mph out of the west by northwest.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 76° F.  On this date in 2019 TLE and I were at the Angelika Film Center in Poway, CA watching a double feature.....'Midway' and 'Ford vs. Ferrari'....we had free coffee before Midway, and lunch at their cafe before Ford vs. Ferrari.....↴

Ford GT-40....the subject of the movie, Ford vs. Ferrari

Wednesday began and ended with heavy cloud cover, and just as the weather guessers forecast, it rained for several hours during the afternoon, and into the evening, but I get ahead of myself once again.

I enjoyed my hot pool soak so much Tuesday afternoon I went back for seconds Wednesday morning.  The skies were heavy with clouds, and the smell of rain as we walked down to the hot pools to enjoy the hot mineral water, and the threatening weather.  As is the case on a Wednesday morning before 9 am, we had the pools to ourselves....

.....TLE chose to just soak her feet while I luxuriated in the 104° F (the temp varies slightly from day to day) mineral water.  While TLE read, I listened to the Etta James Channel on Pandora.....what a great way to begin any day!

We were back home by 10 am, at which time I changed into dry clothes and went out to deploy the last 5 strings of solar rope lights.  We've been here almost a month now, and it was time to add the final touches to our site environment.  With TLE's help I wrapped 5 palm trees around our parking lot with the solar rope lights, and true to form I neglected to photograph them last night, but I had a good excuse....it was raining....lol.

The rain came a couple of hours later, and continued and off for much of the afternoon....

....it rains so infrequently here at GNHS in the winter that it is kind of a shock to the senses when it more than sprinkles.  There were times when it was coming down quite hard.  We get so used to crystal clear, blue, sunny skies all the time, that when it rains it is really a nice diversion.  With the advent of the rain our outdoor activities consisted mainly of putting things we didn't want to get wet in the trailer, or under the dining canopy.  Otherwise, we spent the balance of the day indoors enjoying the pitter patter of rain on our aluminum roof.

That was our Wednesday....thanks for stopping by!

Staying busy......

7:32 am - Wednesday - November 15th - GNHS - 56° F, humidity 50%, wind 4 mph out of the south.....quite cloudy today with a chance of rain this afternoon, and a forecast high of 75° F.  On this date in 2022 I was soaking in 106° F mineral water in one of the individual tubs....↴

.....which, ironically, was what I was doing this Tuesday afternoon, a year later, but I get ahead of myself.

On our non-work days we make sure we are not getting out of bed before 7 am, most of the time, and Tuesday was no exception.  It was after 7:15 am when we decided to begin our day.  As is my custom I got a cup of coffee, and sat down to compose my latest missive.  I like writing on days when I have no obligations as I can take my time, and be more creative, and colorful.  

After finishing, and posting I headed outside with TLE to take care of a few pressing issues, one of which was we needed to trim back the tree at the front of the Newell.  With TLE's help in holding the ladder, and passing pruning tools (pruning hooks, pruning saw, hand pruners) up to me I was able to cut the tree way back.  There were two reasons for trimming the tree: 1) When the winds blows from the northwest the branches brush up against the windshield, and front cap, and 2) the overhanging branches continuously deposit a kind of dusty pollen  that sticks to the windshield, and front cap.  Once the branches were sufficiently trimmed I washed off the front of the Newell, and she looks a whole lot better now....

....she sure cleans up nicely!  Next up was a second attempt to deploy our third 'sail shade' triangle.  We have three of them, but this one is slightly larger, as we bought it several months before the other two.  Each side is about 4" longer, which makes it impossible to connect it to the other two, so we had to figure out how to deploy it, and still get maximum shade benefit from it.  I think our solution worked well.....

.....while it is connected to one of the other two 'sail shades', the other two points of contact have their own mooring spots....

.....one corner attaches to the patio awning, and the other to the back of the office.....

.....next up was the last wind event blew a couple of composition shingles off the office roof leaving bare wood exposed.  GHNS has no replacement shingles, but in that same wind storm some shingles blew off the 'Roadrunner' building, which is next to the office. They are larger than the office shingles, so I cut one down, and placed it over the exposed wood making sure the upper end was overlapped by the shingle above it.....it's not perfect, but it doesn't rain that much here, either........

......the office used to have one of those wind turbines on the roof, but the all important turbine was lost years ago in another wind storm.  Last winter I drilled a hole in a square piece of plywood, and placed over the aluminum duct using the 1" shaft upon which the turbine used to reside to hold it in place, and keep the infrequent rain out of office.  With each successive wind event the hole in the plywood wallowed out a little bit more until it was a wobbly mess last week.  A few days ago (I neglected to write about it) I found another suitable piece of plywood to replace the old piece, drilled another hole in it, but this time attached a 2 x 4 between it and the roof to stabilize it, and keep it from flopping around in the wind. So far it is working.....

....as I wrote above, exactly one year ago today I was soaking in one of the individual hot tubs, although I did not know this at the time, I decided to take a soak around 4 pm....exactly one year to the day.  Within 30 minutes the sun was beginning its final slide to the horizon......the view is wonderful as the setting sun slowly slips over the San Jacinto Mountains to the west.....

....it was one of those long, drawn out sunsets that just keeps evolving for 30, or 40 minutes.  As I continued my soak I thought about how amazing it is that we can change our view with the ever changing seasons, and enjoy such amazing, rural vistas no matter where our wheels stop rolling.  TLE opted to pass on another soak, so I had the place all to myself.  As I finish writing today's post I cannot help but comment on how  QUIET it is right now.  There is not a breath of wind, and there is not a single RZR running.....NICE!

Thanks for stopping by!