Chaos......

7:24 am - Monday - October 7th - LPG&RVR - 46° F, humidity 44%, wind 1 mph out of the southeast.....partially cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 83° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were in Manhattan walking down 5th Avenue from the World Trade Center to Times Square and back.....had coffee at Bryant Park.....

While, officially, the sun rises at 7:05 am now, it just came over the Warner Mountains at 7:32 am (Monday, October 7th).  The sun now, officially, sets at 6:34 pm, but it dips below the western mountains around 6:20 pm.  Of course, those times will change as we continue to edge ever closer to the winter equinox.  The point is, the days are rapidly getting shorter....at least the daylight portion is.

Sunday we officially began to put away our 'stuff'.  The Adirondack chairs are now stowed in the trailer for their trip south a week from today.  I took down one of the tool tables in the trailer, restowed the tools in tool bags, then stowed the two anti gravity chairs.  Now we only have the camp chairs on the 'lido deck', along with the green tables.  By next Sunday they will be stowed away, along with all of the artificial turf, the Sea-B-Que, the umbrellas, the sun screens, etc.

The trailer interior is in chaos right now, but by the end of Monday some order should be restored....

By the way, TLE's wild flowers have been exploding the last few weeks

The space previously occupied by one of the tool tables

I don't know how all that stuff fits in the trailer....lol!

....I worked at organizing the trailer off and on all Sunday, and by the end of the day I felt like I had gotten enough done.  The first day is always the slowest as I have to remove things, like the bicycles, so I can get at other things, and move stuff around.  I'll take down the Bluetti battery bank Monday, and stow its components in the through bay.  Right now we have our suit cases in there, which will be moved to the trailer, so reduce the weight being carried by the trailer.

We're going to store most of our hoses, golf clubs, and the 5 gallon bucket of golf balls in the Night Registration Office over the winter. I really don't like to play golf when were are in SoCal, or Arizona as the courses are too busy, and slow.  It's just not fun, so no point in hauling them back and forth like I did last year when I only played the one round of golf, which was only 9 holes, in Brawley.  It took us close to 3 hours just to play 9 holes....lol!  Very frustrating, and not as much fun as it should have been.

We've got a couple more days of 80's, then we drop into the 70's for the last 5 days of our tenure here.  The weather where we are headed is actually quite similar to Likely, and should also be into the 70's by the time we get there next weekend.  Time is moving quickly, and there is no time to waste if we want to insert the VW into the trailer next Sunday....time to get crackin'!

Thanks for stopping by!

The rest of the story.....

7:49 am - Sunday - October 6th - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 41%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southeast.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 83° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE arrived in Jersey City, NJ right across the Hudson River from Manhattan.....

When last I left off I was describing the damage done to one of our 'new' Yamaha EFI gassers by the miscreant customers.  I had a feeling that when Dennis and José found out about, and inspected the damage that the customers' fate would be sealed, and I was not wrong.  When I arrived for work Saturday morning Dennis was already there and told me that they would meet with the customers that morning and 'send them down the road'.  In other words, they would be asked to vacate their two RV sites and leave.  WOW.....I was hoping for that, but did not think it would happen.

The three customers had reserved a 10 am tee time, but when they arrived around 9:40 am they were met by Dennis and José and told they would not be playing golf then, or any other day for that matter.  They tried to protest they had not rented the damaged cart, but Bob (mechanic), TLE and I knew it was one of the two (#80 and 81) they had rented, and finally the younger of the three admitted they had.  TLE keeps duplicate records in the office showing to whom each cart is rented, and they both sowed 80 and 81.  They still denied damaging the cart, but the evidence was pretty plain.  The discussion went on for the better part of an hour, but in the end they were packing up their RV's by 11:45 am, and gone by 12:30 pm.  

I spent  most of my day acting as Course Marshal, which made it a very pleasant and laid back day for me.  I staged 16 carts to begin the day, and we ended up renting 22....a very nice Saturday for the golf course.  I only had to speak to one twosome about staying on the green grass all day long.....a very nice change from Friday.....

I am going to miss these big view when we head south in about 8 days

....Saturday was also the day of the annual BBQ ribs cookoff.  This year we had 9 entries, which made for very difficult judging, but we had a great time.....in the picture below TLE is just to my right.....you can see the wine glass in her hand....

....Mike Bratzler won for the fourth consecutive year....by the way the judging is blind....all entries are assigned a number, so no one knows whose is whose.  There might have been a 10th entry  but my friend Mike (mower Mike) Picot arrived late.  We all tasted them anyway, including Mike Bratzler, who declared after receiving the first place prize that if Mike Picot had arrived on time he would have won, and then graciously transferred the 1st place prize to him....I agree that Mike P's ribs were the best, but I never saw that coming. What a great bunch of people who have become very good friends over the past 3 years.

Last Tuesday when we were in Likely ordering tacos from the food truck I took a bunch of pictures I failed to publish, so I will now.  These were all taken from the large parking area next to the fire station.....

New restrooms donated to Likely by the city of Alturas....will give people a reason to stop in Likely going north, or south....right across the street from the General Store

It is right next to the fire station

This old, unused church building was moved from the east side of US-395 to the west side (next to the fire station), and after a new foundation is built, it will be lowered down, remodeled, and used as a church once again....things are happening in Likely!

A very old sign next to the General Store.  The restaurant, which is in Alturas, is still in business

Old home located behind the fire station

Old barn located on the east side of US-395 behind the General Store

Thanks for stopping by!

Not what I had planned.....

6:02 am  - Saturday - October 5th - LPGRVR - 47° F, humidity 54%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies forecast for today with a high of 83° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I had just boarded the Port Townsend to Coupeville Ferry (Washington) in the Newell.....

.....they put us at the very front....nice view!

Friday was supposed to be a laid back day for me.  I had planned it that way by getting all the mowing done on Wednesday and Thursday.  I would take some time checking the water levels in the Club Car electrics batteries, make numerous marshaling rounds, and do a little irrigation down at the Night Registration office.  Nothing too hard, right? 

I began my day by staging 8 golf carts as it would be a busy day.  Ultimately I think we rented 13, or 14.  I then headed out on my first round of the day, stopping at each of the 4 sand traps to rake each of them.  They hadn't been raked for about a week, but they came out nice.....

The 18th green is healing nicely

18th fairway

On my second marshaling round of the day I 'ran' into DeWayne mowing the rough on the 15th hole.  He stopped to let me know there was a threesome just finishing the 4th hole that were driving their carts way beyond the rough into areas where they were not supposed to be.  I caught up with them on the 5th hole as they were playing the hole for the second time...a NO, NO.  You pay for 18 holes, you get to play 18 holes....not 19, or 20 holes.  Anyway, I stopped to ask them to stop playing holes twice, and to keep their carts in the fairway, warning them that a second violation of the carts use rules could result in their golf round being ended prematurely.  They apologized, and promised to do as I said, so I left, and headed back to the Clubhouse where I continued checking water levels in the batteries of the Club Cars.

It was a nice morning, and I would interrupt my battery tending with frequent trips down to the Night Office to move the sprinklers.  My day was going just like I planned.  I gave TLE her break for lunch at 12 pm.  The hour passed quickly and soon I was back on my cart making another marshaling round.  I had to stop a twosome on the 6th fairway who had driven their cart into the out of bounds area....about 50 feet outside the rough.  They are supposed to be in the fairway.  Then on 15 I had to warn a foursome about the same issue.  As I was passing by the fourteenth hole I looked down the fairway to see another group way off the fairway with their two carts, so I headed down to talk to them.  As I got closer I saw it was the same threesome I had spoken with on the 5th fairway.  When they saw me coming they quickly moved their carts back to the fairway.

I got out of my cart to warn them again, fully intending to let them go with a second warning, but as I walked up to them one of the players began to curse me, and launched into a 3 minute, profanity laced tirade.  Once that began I decided their day was over.  The other two golfers were apologetic, but the one guy was having none of it.  He advised he was going to finish his round, and I told him he was not.  He had two choices:  1) drive his cart back to the Clubhouse, or remove his clubs, and walk back.  After another minute, or two of more blustering he and his two friends began the drive back to the Clubhouse.  

I followed, and upon arriving back at the Clubhouse called Dennis, the owner, and asked him to come down to the Clubhouse to deal with this guy.  In the end he allowed them to go back and finish the last few holes, but advised them he would be talking with them on Saturday after he had a chance to talk with me and with DeWayne.

In the interim, carts began returning, and soon there were 8 carts ready for their daily spa treatment.  I finished with the Club Car electrics around 3 pm, and began washing carts.  Soon one of the carts used by the threesome was returned.  Bob, our mechanic, came over to inspect it for possible damage, and we found that the right front steering arm was bent, and the whole wheel assembly was very wobbly.....it is not supposed to wobble.  We found bad scratches along the fiberglass body, also on the right side, and the right rear wheel was bent.  It appeared they had hit a rock, or stump, indicating they had been off the fairway again.  

The rest of this story has not yet been written, but I suspect when Dennis talks with them Saturday that they will not be using any of our carts again.  Dennis does not tolerate golf cart abuse, and this was about as bad as I have seen.

At any rate, that is how my Friday ended.  99.9% of the people we deal with here at LPG&RVR are pleasant, friendly, and obey the rules.  It's that one tenth of one percent that leave a sour taste in ones mouth.

Thanks for stopping by!

10 days until lift off.....

5:36 am - Friday - October 4th - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 41%, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast (seems to be zero mph to me right now).....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with windy conditions this afternoon for a few hours, and a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2013 we were working the sugar beet harvest in Sydney, MT.....11:30 pm, and 29° F....we worked a 12 hour overnight shift....

I had the outside job....cold, muddy, dark.....lol!

TLE in the scale house with one of the sugar beets....she had the inside job...warm, dry, well lit....her porta potty was even heated!

On our second day back to a normal work schedule TLE and I rented 12 golf carts, and 10 of them were back before 3:30 pm.  Thursday was a warm day....88° F.....but I didn't really notice it.  I'm finally used to the warmer weather, and it is almost over....lol!  Within a week it will get into the 70's and finally stay there.  Between now and then we have a string of 81° F days forecast, and if you think about it you will say that's about right for Fall weather.  We've had very low humidity for the last two weeks, and today (Friday) is no exception.  It is around 47% right now, and will get into the teens before the end of the day.

I still had a lot of mowing  to do Friday, but before that I needed to clear the driving range of golf balls so it could be mowed for the first time in about two weeks.  I began that task around 9 am, and by 10 am I was done with two 5 gallon buckets garnered.  I'll do one more deep cleaning of the forest on both sides of the range next week, and that will be it for this season.

At 10 am I mounted the 2 bag Husqvarna and began to tackle the remaining mowing.....the large grass area surrounding the Night Office, and all 10 of the back in sites (11-20).  By the time I was done it was 11:30 am, and I needed to make a marshaling round of the golf course before lunch, returning right at 12 pm.  

At 1 pm I made another marshaling round of the course, then hopped on the 2 bag Husqvarna again around 2 pm to mow most of those tee boxes for which I am responsible.....3, 15, 16, 17 & 18.  It takes me exactly an hour to mow them all, and I was back by 3 pm.  I washed and stowed the 10 carts which had been returned, and headed home at 3:30 pm......just 5 work days left this season, and 10 until liftoff!

Thanks for stopping by!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

 5:59 am - Thursday - October 3rd - LPG&RVR - 45° F, humidity 53%, wind ZERO mph out of the south by southeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 88° F....the last of the high 80's days.  On this date in 1949 I was born to Arthur and Virginia Hockwald.....

I am now, officially, 75 years old.....three quarters of a century has passed since I was welcomed into this world by my parents.  Up until the diagnosis of arthritis in my right kneed with some loss of cartilage, I felt no different than I have for the past 30 years....in fact I feel the best I've felt since before my heart attack back in May of 2019....other than that knee thing....lol.  At any rate, I returned to my normally scheduled job duties Wednesday morning with a certain amount of joy, and a bounce in my step.

I staged 5 carts initially, and then proceeded to wash six others that were left over from Tuesday.  By 9 am my back was still fine, and my knee was loose, and limber.  It is amazing how a lack of green 'punching' can improve one's physical health, and mental well being.  I didn't head out to make my first round of the golf course until 9:30 am...we had no golfers teeing off until 10 am Wednesday.  By the time I returned to the Clubhouse it was 10 am, and time to begin mowing grass.  I haven't mowed any grass, and neither has anyone else, for over 10 days, and it was beginning to show.  Over the next two hours I managed to mow the parking lot grass, the large grass area next to site #30, 13 of the 15 pull through sites, the employee sites, and the large grass area at the group fire pit.  I arrived back at the Clubhouse just before 12 pm, and TLE's lunch break.

In all we rented just 7 golf carts Wednesday, and I rented two of them during TLE's lunch break.  After lunch I mowed the three residential lawns up the hill, and I was done mowing for the day.  I made 2, or 3 rounds of the course as Marshal, and found everyone obeying the rules.  By 3:30 pm I had just 3 of the 7 carts returned, and washed, so I'll have 4 to wash Thursday morning.  We now have just 6 work days left this season.

On the 'what is new' front TLE and I have become the proud owners of a 1969 Jeep CJ-5....

....it was fully restored within the last two years.  I wanted to own a CJ5 for about 20 years, and the right deal finally came along.  It was located in Prescott Valley, AZ so Charles and Phyllis picked it up for us, and we will see it in person for the first time in about 3 weeks when we arrive in Arizona for the winter.....oh yeah, we'll be spending the winter in northern Arizona.    We'll keep the VW, so we now own two cars again for the first time in 10 years.  The top is new.  It comes with half doors and full doors, has  a nice stereo system, and a beefed up roll cage.....

....the interior is immaculate, the tires are less than 18 months old, and this Jeep is ready to use!  We are very excited, and what a wonderful birthday gift to myself!

Thanks for stopping by!

On fumes.....

5:44 am - Wednesday - October 2nd - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 44%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I arrived at Port Townsend, WA and were staying overnight at the marina before taking the ferry to Coupeville (Whidbey Island)......

Did I ever need my day off on Tuesday!  I slept in until almost 7:30 am.  TLE actually got up first, which is an extreme rarity, and turned on the electric heaters.  By the time I got up the Newell interior was quite cozy.  Usually I'm the one quickly moving from heater to heater each morning, then getting dressed as quickly as possible as it is so cold, allowing TLE to get up when it is more comfortable....lol!

We needed to go into Alturas to do our weekly shopping, and make a stop at the local DMV to find out why our drivers licenses had not yet arrived.  It has been 7 weeks, and we should have had them 3 weeks ago.  Anyway, we were on our way into town around 10 am, and arrived at the local fuel station around 10:20 am to fill up the VW tank for the first time in a few weeks.  The low fuel light came on about 5 miles out of town, which I haven't seen for a long time.  I looked down at the tripometer to see our mileage was nearing 368....WAIT, WHAT?'  We've never gone that far on a tank of gas!  We ended up taking on 12.3 gallons, which is the most, by far we've ever needed....we must have been on fumes.  I believe the tank holds 12.5 gallons.  I'm glad that fuel gauge is, apparently, pretty accurate!

Our next stop was the DMV where we met Sonja, who is one of the most delightful DMV folk we have ever dealt with.  We told her our problem, and she said the new licenses definitely should have reached us several weeks ago, so she had us go to one of their touch screen computers and order replacement licenses, which we did, then she waived all the fees, and printed out temporary licenses which are good until November 29th.

Next up was a stop at Holiday Market....probably the next to last time we will shop there this year.  On our way home we stopped off at the food truck in Likely to get carne asada tacos (for moi), and a quesadilla for TLE to take home for an early lunch.  Those tacos are so good!

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on finalizing my 2023 taxes.  I didn't have all the W-2's in April so I filed for a 6 month extension, and that is up on October 15th, so time to get it done!

I'm looking forward to returning to my normal 4 day a week job on Wednesday.  That will seem like a 'cake walk' compared to 'punching' greens for 8 of the last 12 days.

Thanks for stopping by!

8 days a week......

8:17 am - Tuesday - October 1st - LPG&RVR  - 48° F, humidity 29%, wind 2 mph out of the southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 89° F.  On this date in 2011 I was at soccer fields in Moreno Valley, CA....I was the center on two matches, and an assistant referee on two others....it was hot....

Well, it has been a couple of days since I posted, so let's get started.  Sunday was the second of my two days off from 'punching' greens, and I spent most of it doing relaxing.  I actually felt pretty good Sunday, which surprised me just as much as it did Saturday morning.  Nevertheless, resting was the order of the day.  I anticipated that we would have one last day of 'punching' greens, but there were four left (#2, 10, putting green & the sod farm), and we've never done four in one day.  I guess I was optimistic, or was it that my body could only only do it one more day?   Could we finish in just 8 days?  We'll see.

At any rate, other than working on a small project in the trailer for about an hour in the morning I spent the day ensconced in my recliner watching the final match play round of the President's Cup, and wasn't it exciting?  Yes it was!  Twelve individual match play rounds were scheduled for Sunday, and we only needed to win 5, and tie a 6th to win.  The International squad had to win 9 of the 12 matches to win, so they were at a definite disadvantage.  In the end it was too big of a disadvantage.  The USA team won 8 matches, and tied a 9th to win handily.

For dinner TLE had me fire up the Sea-B-Que one more time to grill two lovely filet mignons, to which she added a baked potato.  The steaks were oh so tender, and cooked my moi to a beautiful medium rare in just 9 minutes at 500° F.

Fast forward to Monday morning. TLE still had two more days off work before returning to her job on Wednesday, but I had to get up, and gird myself for what I hoped would be my last day this season 'punching' greens.  I reported to Clubhouse for work around 7:45 am to find that José had already 'punched' the putting green, and had already raked all the plugs into 7, or 8 neat piles.  Apparently he did that Sunday afternoon.  Anyway, I could see he was serious about finishing Monday.  By the time we all drove out to the 10th green he had already punched half of it, so Mike and I began loading the plugs into the John Deer Gator dump bed to haul them away.  We managed to clear the 10th green of the plugs by 8:30 am.....

The 10th green finished...punched and sanded! 

....next up was green #2, but José sent us back to the putting green to clear those plugs before joining him at the 2nd green.  We finished with the putting green by 9 am.....wow!  At this point I was becoming more convinced that we would finish all four greens Monday.

By the time we got back to #2 he, again, already had half the green 'punched', so we got to work clearing those plugs, and finished around 10:15 am.  While we were clearing the plugs from #2 DeWayne and John had been spreading sand on #10 to fill all of the holes, and were ready for us to scrape off the excess sand shortly after we finished clearing the plugs from #2.  We had #10 scraped by 11:45 am, so we took a lunch break.  That is the first time in 8 days we actually had one green scraped before 12 pm.

José bought us all lunch, which was a clear sign we would finish Monday, because he always buys us lunch on the final day....YAY!  We went back to work around 1 pm reporting for work at the #2 green, which was ready to have the excess sand removed.  From there we proceeded to the putting green, which was also now ready to be scraped, and had it done by 3 pm.  By this time I was out of gas, but we only had the 'sod farm' to punch now, so we all headed there to do just that.  Within 60 minutes we had punched the 10' by 200' sod farm green, and were done!  José and DeWayne remained behind to sand the sod farm green, while the rest of us headed for home.....it was 4 pm, and we were all ready for long, hot showers.  As you know, we have never done four greens in one day this season, but we did it Monday when it counted!

The nice thing about finishing the annual punching of the greens Monday is that I still have Tuesday off before returning to my regularly scheduled job.....staging carts, washing carts, and 'marshaling'.....on Wednesday.  We now have just 7 work days left with 4 days off work separating the 4th and 5th workdays.  We'll be packing up in earnest those four days, and will officially roll our wheels southward on October 14th.

Thanks for stopping by!