Would you like to own a Newell?

8:02 am - Saturday - September 14th - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 36%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southeast.....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were overnighting at 'RV Park at the Bridge' on the Washington side of the Columbia River....you can see the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which connects Washington with Oregon, in the background (right).....

 .....we would arrive in Seal Rock, OR the next day where we would live for the next 12 months.

We were up just before 7 am Friday, which is kind of against my 'religion' on non work days, but I had an 8:45 am haircut appointment at Kaleidescope in Alturas.....who made that appointment, anyway!?  We left around 8:20 am, and arrived, without incident, a 8:40 am.  I was in the chair 2 minutes later, and by 9 am we were back in the VW headed for Rite Aide. 

I'm sure you have heard that Rite Aid has been in bankruptcy proceedings, and for a while we thought the Alturas Rite Aid would be closing as the shelves got pretty bare for a while, but they seem to be restocking, and the pharmacist told TLE that they will be remaining open....there is no other pharmacy in Alturas....the nearest would be either Reno/Sparks, NV< or Lakeview, OR.  From Rite Aid we headed over to Holiday Market for our groceries, and were home by 10 am.  

Ever since we took down the 'dining/gaming deck' I've wanted to try and make that area more level, so about an hour after we got home I set about to do just that using just a rock rake I keep on Club Car Villager #20.  Below is the 'before' picture, which I always seem to forget to take, but did not forget this time.....

Before.....

....and after

......I worked on leveling that 10' x 10' pad, on and off, until mid afternoon, but finally got it level, or what passes for level in site #55.  It was high on the right side of the picture, so I raked dirt from the right side down to the left side, and moved one of the umbrellas down there after I finished watering the loose dirt so it will compact over time.  We'll be getting rain all day Monday, so that should put the final touches on the compaction......

....I also rolled up a couple of pieces of carpet, and stowed them in the trailer.....

......and while I was at it I installed a decal on the side of our trailer....I've always liked this motto, "Live Free or Die", which is the motto of New Hampshire.....the "Don't Tread on Me" part comes from the Revolutionary War, and the Gadsden Flag.....both mottos are associated with the independent spirit of early Americans......

.....TLE had me grill a couple of filet mignons for dinner to which she added a side of roasted potatoes......red skin, and sweet, with some onions for good measure.  We ate inside, but retired to the 'lido deck' around 6:30 pm to watch the sun set, while once again employing the portable propane firepit.

In closing I would like to announce that my good friend Steve Ward is selling his 1982 Newell Classic 38' motorcoach (2 feet longer than mine).  As I have written here (many more pictures of the interior) back in 2019, this Newell is one serial number different than mine.  They were both delivered to their original owners in March of 1982, and both owners had the same last name, so we are assuming they were related.....

Steve and Patti Ward....current owners...at a Newell rally in Creede, CO back in 2009

.....the coach has spent its life in the western USA, and the past 30 years in the southwest.  It is currently in Hemet, CA.  Steve found this Newell in Yuma, AZ back in 2008, where she had been sitting unused for about 10 years, and brought her back to life.  There is no deferred maintenance, and all systems work as they should.  It has a basement fridge/freezer like we do, plus an ice machine in the kitchen.  The rear A/C will have to be replaced as it has quit working recently.  The tires are around 7 years old.  It has a Detroit Diesel 6v92 TA (turbo aftercooled, 350 horsepower), and an onboard diesel generator.  The 6v92 is a mechanical engine, meaning there is NO computer, or electronics.  He is asking $20,000....that is way below the market for Newells of this vintage.  As you can see, it looks almost identical to mine.  If you are interested, please leave a comment in the comment section.  This Newell will go fast, so don't hesitate too long to contact me.

Thanks for stopping by!

A few repairs......

 7:21 am - Friday - September 13th - LPG&RVR - 38°F, humidity 68%, wind ZERO mph out of the northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 79° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were on Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island (Bar Harbor) in Maine watching the sun rise....

Sun rise here in the Pitt River Valley is around 6:40 am now, and within a couple of weeks it will be around 7 am.  During our four day work shift each week it is still very dark when we get up to get ready for work, so sleeping past sunrise is a pretty big deal on days we don't work.  I'm looking forward to waking up with the sun every day this winter.  Oh, and by the way, we have just one month as of today (Friday) before we roll our wheels southward.

Thursday morning we finished taking down the 'dining/gaming' deck, but first TLE needed to make a few repairs to the dining canopy top, as well as the 'lido deck' sun shade, so I pulled her sewing machine out of 'moth balls', and put it on a table between the rear of the Newell, and the trailer.  It's been a little windy of late, and a few of the snaps, and grommets on the sun shade had failed, and there was a small tear in the dining canopy.  Once she had repaired the sun shade I reinstalled 4 snaps, and all 7 grommets.  The top of the shade attaches to the Zip Dee awning roller via snaps, and we secure the bottom with 7 bungy cords attached to metal stakes.

Additionally, I packed away our 'dining/gaming deck' TV, and then the Ozark Trails metal framework/canopy for the trip south.  I then reattached the sun shade to the patio awning, and things were back to normal.....

New grommets

New snaps

The 'dining/gaming deck' is now empty

....I continued working in the trailer to begin moving things around, and stowing other things in preparation for VW insertion in a month.  If I start now I'll have plenty of time to get everything done without having to put in hours of work over a two, or three day period of time.  On the other hand, the BBQ deck is still open for business!

For the first time in a few months we turned on the portable propane fire pit around 5 pm, and sat on the 'lido deck' until sunset, which arrives here at LPG&RVR around 7:05 pm now as the sun dips below the western mountains.....

.....we'll e heading into town in about 30 minutes for my monthly haircut, and our weekly grocery shopping, so time to wrap this up, and bid you adieu for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just four on Wednesday......

7:56 am - Thursday - September 12th - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 79%, wind 1 mph out of the north by northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were watching another Cape Blanco sunset.....

 In 24 hours we went from 85° F Tuesday to 69° F on Wednesday here in the Pitt River Valley, and with the drop in temperature came 6 hours of rain beginning at 3 pm....that was not expected, but much appreciated.  For the first time in a few weeks I wore pants, and only took off my hoody sweatshirt once for about 30 minutes.  There was this unmistakable chill in the air, which never left all day.

After 3 days of renting out the older golf carts we returned to renting the newer Yamahas, but I only staged 5 to begin the day, and we only rented four of those.  All four carts had been returned by 1 pm, and for the first time in months there was not one single person working on the course, or playing golf....I had the entire place to myself....

....with a lack of customers there was little to do so I decided to spend some time doing a deep cleaning of the forest on each side of the driving range.  I've done several deep cleanings this year, so there aren't a lot of unfound balls out there, but I did manage to garner half of a 5 gallon bucket of the errant balls.  I also managed to mow large grass area at the large pavilion after the current group departed around mid morning, and then spent the rest of my morning mowing tent sites 4-10.  The only area left un-mowed are sites 11-20....the back in sites, plus the grass around the Night Registration Office, and I'll leave that for my counterpart.

By 1:30 pm I had the four Yamaha gassers washed, and stowed along with the 5th Yamaha, which did not get rented.  This was probably our slowest day since last April when we first arrived.  As I wrote previously, the rain began around 3 pm, so my day was over.  I headed for home, took a nice, long, hot shower followed by a nap of suitable duration before returning to retrieve TLE from the Clubhouse a little after 5 pm.  Our days off this week are Thursday through Sunday, and on Monday (if it doesn't rain) we'll begin punching the 18 greens, the putting green, and the 'sod farm' green, which is a strip of putting green type grass about 20' wide, and 150' long out by the 8th hole.  There is also a comparably sized swath of fairway grass right next to it, but we don't 'punch' that.  We should be done punching the greens by October 1st, and then there are just two weeks left in the season.  The golf course and RV park will officially close for the winter on October 13th, and we'll be on our way south to begin our winter adventure.

The rain which began at 3 pm finally tapered off around 9 pm, and left the park nicely watered, and the dust settled.  It appears we may have more rain early next week, in which case the beginning of the green punching may be delayed a few days, but it will begin, for sure, next week.  And with the end of the season comes to an end the weekly irrigation of the trees which border the upper pull through sites, as well as the lower gravel pull through sites.  I didn't mow around the tee boxes for which I am responsible for the first time in weeks, so I may only mow them one more time before we leave.

Thanks for stopping by!

Order is restored.....

5:39 am - Wednesday - September 11th - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 67%, wind 2 mph out of the west.....cloudy today with a chance of rain this afternoon, and a forecast high of 69° F. On this date in 2017 TLE and I were watching the sun set over the Grand Tetons near Jackson, WY.....

 Tuesday was the last of the 80 degree days here at LPG&RVR.  I'm almost back to normal energy wise, and am rarely blowing my nose now.  It's amazing how one day you're wondering if you will ever return to normal, and the very next day you can finally say you are.  

Once again I only staged the older golf carts, and it is making a difference.  The ones that were hard to start, and ran a little slower than normal, are now starting much more easily, and running at a normal speed now.  They just needed to be exercised.  Let's  face it, our tendency is to stage our best golf carts first, and only use the older ones when we are at maximum capacity, but all mechanical things have one thing in common....they must be used on a regular basis to work properly, and I had not been doing that.

The growth rate of the grass all over the park has slowed significantly.  We are only mowing the rough once per week now, and have only been mowing the driving range once a week for a long time now.  Nevertheless, things do need to be mowed at least once a week, so I continued my mowing Tuesday, and managed to get the large group area mowed, the parking lot grass mowed, and the only pull site I missed on Monday (it was occupied), as well as trimmed around all the grass areas which I had mowed on Monday.

I continued to make rounds of the course as marshal, and found repeat offenders who were still not keeping their carts on the green grass.  A third warning will result in termination of their round, and not being allowed to play golf here in the future.  We take fire very seriously here at LPG&RVR, and golf cart abuse always poses a fire risk, especially right now when everything is so, so dry.

I was home a little after 3 pm in anticipation of the receipt of our new Starlink system via FedEx.  Their website promised delivery between 11:50 am and 2:50 pm, but it actually arrived at 3:15 pm, so not too bad.  I had just finished taking down the old Starlink dish when the FedEx guy arrived, so I just transitioned to installing the new one, and within 10 minutes we had internet once again, and order has been restored at Site #55.....not only Starlink wise, but health wise, too. 

I hit a new low on my weight loss journey.....177.6.....at 4:o2 pm Tuesday....

Thanks for stopping by!

Writing checks......

 5:45 am - Tuesday - September 10th - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 50%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast......partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were overnighting at a Walmart in Rock Springs, WY.....have overnighted there several times over the past 12 years.....

....taken across the street from where the Newell was parked, at a local Starbucks during a rain shower.

Sunrise is now around 6:40 am, and sunset is now at 7:18 pm....the days, they be gettin' shorter rapidly.  As I sit here at my Microsoft Surface laptop at 5:55 am composing my latest missive it is pitch black out side.....still 45 minutes from sunrise.  Six weeks ago I would have been seeing the sun over the Warner Mountains to the east already.

With advancing age healing comes more slowly, and deliberately, and that is the case with my summer cold.  When I began taking the ZICAM 10 days ago I was sure I would be over this cold in days, but here I am still blowing my nose.  I do feel much better, my energy levels are increasing, and I'm sleeping great at night.  It is what it is.  My 75th birthday is just a few weeks away now.  That is a number I was sure I would never see.  I remember a line from a 60's Who song, My Generation, where the lyricist writes "I hope I die before I get old"....when you're 17 years old you never think you're going to get old.  It is just an abstract concept then.  Then, one day, you wake up and you are old.....at least I'm pretty sure 75 qualifies as old these days.  I guess the key here is that maybe I'm old in body, but I'm still young in my mind.  Unfortunately, my mind keeps writing checks my body can no longer cash.....lol.

We rented 14 golf carts Monday, which surprised me a little, but that is good for the golf course.  My biggest issue as marshal these days is getting our customers to keep their carts on the green grass.  These are gas golf carts with hot mufflers and tail pipes, and we don't want them starting a fire by driving through tall, dry grass looking for an errant shot, but they keep doing that, and I must keep reminding them that they do not want to be 'the guy' who starts a fire here.

Being a Monday I was able to do some mowing utilizing the 2 bag Husqvarna.  Between 10 am and noon I managed to mow the 3 large grass areas in the permanent resident section up the hill, the large grass area around the small pavilion, the large grass area next to site #30, and 14 of the 15 pull through RV sites....not a bad two hour stretch.  After lunch I marshaled, with occasional washing and stowing of returned golf carts, as well as did some hand watering of dry spots in the various lawns around the park.  By 3:30 pm all but 2 of the 14 carts had returned, so I called it a day, and headed for home.

I received notice from Starlink Monday afternoon that our new system has been delivered to FedEx, and will be delivered to us Tuesday afternoon...again, not bad service.  As I conclude this missive I can see the sky lightening over the Warner Mountains with the actual sunrise still 30 minutes away.

Thanks for stopping by!

Milestones......

5:41 am - Monday - September 9th - LPG&RVR - 48° F, humidity 43%, wind 4 mph out of the south by southeast......clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were cruising through the Olympic Peninsula toward Forks, WA when we pulled up behind a 1969 Newell....small world.....

You can see our '82 parked just behind the '69

.....love serendipity!  Oh, and by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to The Lovely Elaine!  Today is the 35th anniversary of her 39th birthday.

I always say how tough the first day back at work after 4 day off is, and when you are getting over a cold, well that just adds another layer of tough.  Thankfully, it was a Sunday, and Sundays are more laid back than most days, however, we did manage to rent 18 golf carts over the course of the day.  Apparently, we are not the only ones who have come down with colds...I would say half the staff here at LPG&RVR have colds right now.

I spent most of my time Sunday circling the golf course as marshal, but did manage to rake two of the four sand traps during my rounds.  While we were off work the prior four days the golf course took delivery on six new to us 2020 Yamaha EFI gas powered golf carts, which we were expecting.  I'll take pictures of them Monday.  During the past few weeks we've been selling off five of the older 2010 Club Car gassers, and actually sold the last one ($2,600 each) on Sunday.  Who knew 14 year old golf carts were worth so much?

It only got to 87° F Sunday, but it felt much warmer than that to me.  By the end of my shift I was feeling better.  All but 6 of the rented carts had returned by 3:30 pm, so I'll have those to wash first thing Monday morning.  After a delightfully long hot shower I settled down in my recliner to take a much needed nap.  Sunday also saw me hit another milestone in my weight loss.....the scales showed that I have gotten down to 178.2 pounds....I haven't weighed that little since the early 90's.  It took me quiet a while to break that 180 pound barrier, but I have finally done it!  Congratulations to me for that, and for keeping off the weight I lost earlier in the summer!

Thanks for stopping by!

Recuperating.......

 5:45 am - Sunday - September 8th - LPG&RVR - 52° F, humidity 56%, wind 4 mph out of the south by southeast.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were visiting Flaming Gorge, WY.....

It is hard to believe this, but Saturday was the second week of NCAA college football.  In fact this weekend, beginning Thursday, was the beginning of another NFL season.  And what better way to spend a day recuperating than watching one college football game after another, which is what I did Saturday.  My USC Trojans managed to 'eeek' out a win....48-0...lol.  I wasn't a total slug as TLE and I did spend time removing the picnic table from the dining/gaming deck, and then taking down the tent, and canopy cover before it got too warm.

Even though it was a little cloudy, the air quality was crystal clear.  I don't think I mentioned that when we drove down to Reno and back Thursday there was smoke from forest fires all the way, so having clear skies return to the Pitt River Valley was pretty nice.

We're still waiting to get the email notice that our new Starlink has shipped, but I didn't expect anything with the weekend, and all.  Should be on the way to us by Monday, or Tuesday...we hope.  When you get used to havin internet on demand 100% of the time you get spoiled.  We can still stream programs using my cell phone, which allows me to 'cast' the picture on the phone screen to our TCL TV and not use any data, but it is not as convenient as just turning on the TV....lol.

We attended the annual LPG&RVR Golf Club dinner at the Clubhouse, and received the schedule for the opening and closing of LPG&RVR in 2025, plus the dates of all the tournaments.  The park will officially open May 1st, and close October 1st, so just a 5 month season this coming year.

TLE and I both continue to recuperate from our colds, but we both feel much, much better, and it's a good thing since we go back to work this morning (Sunday) for four days.

Thanks for stopping by!