Going on four days.......

8:26 am - Thursday - February 17th - Newell House, AZ - 47° F, 39% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2013 we drove our T-Bird the rest of the way from Marathon Key to Key West.....↴ 

Sunset over Marathon Key that night

We went from 73° F on Tuesday to 61° F on Wednesday, and from crystal clear, blue, sunny skies to 100% cloud cover, with very chilly breezes out of the west.  I wore long pants, shoes, and a long sleeve t-shirt for the first time in 10 days.  Gotta love the desert in winter!

I returned to the VW brake job task mid morning and pulled off the left front wheel again to remove the incorrect rotor (already did that on the right front), but first tried to see if I was trying to install the pads which went with the rotors in an incorrect manner.  It didn't take long to reconfirm my original diagnosis that Amazon had sent me completely incorrect rotors and pads.  My friend Tom called Napa on my behalf, and using his generous fleet discount ordered the correct (I'll find out for sure Thursday) rotors and pads.  I'll be able to pick them up Thursday, and then finish, hopefully, the front brakes after 4 days.

TLE and I added two more miles of fast walking Thursday....we walk the first fast mile at 10 am, and the 2nd at 2:30 pm each day.  By the time we finish fast walking a mile....we're walking around 3.9 to 4 mph.....our heart rates are way up, and our respiration is right there, too.  We do our daily weigh in just before our first meal of the day (12 pm), and I lost another 8 oz.  I've been averaging .5 pounds lost per day for the last 10 days....amazing....at least for me.

Well, it's time to wrap up Wednesday's recap....time to drive into Wickenburg and get the new rotors and brake pads.  By the way, to return the incorrect pads and rotors is very simple with Amazon.....I just tell them I'm returning them as they are the incorrect parts, and they give me a QR code for the local UPS Store to scan.  I just drop them off, they scan the QR code, and they pack, and ship them back to Amazon....so easy!

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Best laid plans.....

 8:49 am - Wednesday - February 16th - Newell House, AZ - 50° F, 47% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the west by southwest....100% cloud cover today with a forecast high of 61° F....big temp dive overnight!  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were watching a spectacular sunset on Marathon Key, FL......↴

I've been waiting to call my Detroit Diesel 2 stroke mechanic over in Mesa, AZ for a month to get an appointment to get the oil changed, as well as the two thermostats on our big Detroit Diesel 6v92 engine.  When I talked with him a month ago he said he was busy until after Valentines Day.  When I call him I call his cell phone, and he always answers, but the first two times I called Tuesday he did not.....I was hoping he was not avoiding me.....nervous lol.  I finally reached him around 12:30 pm on my third attempt only to find out he was in the hospital recovering from hernia surgery (something I know a lot about), and would not be available to work on the Newell for another 4-6 weeks (recovery time recommended by the surgeon)....doh!  Now I'm back to square one.  Waiting the month is not a big deal.....I was going to be here at Newell House at least that long anyway.  Anyway, new plan.  I'm going to replace the two thermostats (one for each 3 cylinder bank on the 6v92) myself, and get the oil changed at a local 'Speedco' in Tolleson, AZ on our way out of town.  

I don't know what the thermostats look like, or where they are located, but I actually have an operators manual for the 6v92, so I opened it to the page showing what it looks like.....

The exploded view of the thermostat housing and thermostat itself from the Operators Manual

.....I then called my friend, Steve Ward, to ask him if he knew where they were located, and he said he did.  Following his directions I was able to find one thermostat housing on each side of the 'front' of the 6v92 (on a diesel pusher with a rear facing fan the engine faces the back of the engine compartment).....here they are.......

Driver side thermostat housing

The passenger side thermostat housing

......the one on the driver side seems to be easier to get at, while the one on the passenger side will be a little more difficult, but at least I will not be UNDER the Newell for this job. With Steve's help I found a thermostat kit....Steve has replaced his thermostats so he sent me a picture of the part number.....

.....so I used that to find a thermostat replacement kit on eBay, and ordered it......

Thermostats, seals, and gaskets

......it should be here in the next week, to 10 days, and then I begin another, for me, big project.

On the VW brake job front after spending parts of two afternoons doing the front brakes it appears Amazon sent me the wrong pads, and rotors, so now I am back to square one on that project.  I think I'll just run into the Napa in Wickenburg Wednesday and get them there.  Oh well, not every project can go off without a hitch.

TLE and I walked another two miles quickly on Tuesday, which brings me to my next topic.....on the weight loss front I have now lost 10 lbs. in 16 days....a new record for me.  For those who may be wondering, I'm on a weight loss program that includes intermittent fasting.  You can only eat between 12 pm and 8 pm, and only liquids between 8 pm and 12 pm the next day....so, out of a 24 hour period you don't eat any food for 16 of those hours.  Exercise is part of that program, hence the two 1 mile walks at a fast pace each day.  There are no food type restrictions, other than eating smaller portions than you would normally.  There is a tad more to the diet that I will relate once I hit the one month mark, and have met my first interim goal.....lose 20 pounds....I'm half way there after just 16 days.  Ultimately I want to lose a total of at least 25, if not 30 pounds before I will be happy.  Right now I feel better, sleep much better, and t-shirts which did not fit two weeks ago are now wearable once again.

We are now deep into Season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and loving it even more.....what a great series!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Simplicity......

 8:31 am - Tuesday - February 15th - Newell House, AZ - 49° F, 25% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today (again) with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2010 we were less than two years away from beginning our nomadic dream......we are at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park near Riverside, CA.....you can see our anti gravity chairs in the background....yup we've had them for over 12 years......↴

Does living fulltime in an RV ever get old?  Amazingly, no, not for us.  It just depends on your outlook, and what you want from life.  It's that simple, literally.  We love the simplicity being nomads has brought to our lives.  Sometimes we have a job, and sometimes, like right now, we don't.  Right now my job is to take care of the numerous maintenance projects about which I have been writing since we arrived at Newell House.  This lifestyle lends itself to living in the moment, if you let it.  Living in the moment, and being content with where you are, and what you are doing is really the key.  Do we think about the future?  Yeah, a little, but not as often as we did before we began our full time adventure.  Slowly, but surely we have moved from the hustle and bustle of the workaday world, raising children, owning a lot of stuff, and home ownership to owning very little, driving a 21 year old car, living in a 40 year old RV, and being content with a wardrobe which consists mainly of thrift store finds.  We have become much more self sufficient, and self reliant.  We have gone from living in the densely populated urban sprawl of Southern California, to small towns where there are no traffic signals, and maybe one, or two stop signs.  Where 'rush hour' consists of 3, or 4 vehicles on the road at the same time, in the same place.  Like many pursuits in life, this vagabonder thing is not for everyone.

Monday morning I awoke around 7:40 am knowing the only things I wanted to do (notice I didn't say 'HAD to do') were walk a couple of miles with The Lovely Elaine, and change the brakes on the VW, and I knew I didn't have to finish the brake job in one day, or even two days.....how nice is that?  The brake job will take how ever long it takes.  The rest of the day was devoted to enjoying the wonderful weather with which we have been blessed the past month, and spending time with friends eating, and fellowshipping.  You notice I didn't say talking.....talking is one thing, and fellowshipping is an entirely different thing.  Merriam Webster defines fellowship as:

Definition of fellowship

 (Entry 1 of 2)

1: COMPANIONSHIP, COMPANYlooking for the fellowship of friendly people

2a: community of interest, activity, feeling, or experiencetheir fellowship in crime— A. J. Ayer

b: the state of being a fellow or associate

3: a company of equals or friends : ASSOCIATIONa youth fellowship

4: the quality or state of being comradelymeaningful communication for building trust and fellowship

......just talking to someone does not get you below the surface.  When you fellowship you form bonds, camaraderie, and share common interests.  Over the span of my life, like most people, I have talked with, and to many people, but fellowship is something more precious, and rare.

I finally got around to working on the VW brakes around 3:30 pm.  I moved the VW to the concrete apron in front of Newell House where the late afternoon shadows had banished direct sunlight, and began to work on the left front caliper, brake pads, and rotor.....

Nice and shady!

New rotor installed

.....in advance of doing the brake job I ordered new rotors and brake pads through Amazon for front and rear.  I began with the front brakes because I knew one of those rotors was warped.....I could feel the vibration which occurs when you apply the brakes (I've been through this a few times over the years).  As I removed the brake pads it became evident they were only about 40% worn, and it is a good thing because Amazon sent the wrong brake pads.....

See the difference?

.....so I just reinstalled the old pads, and will return the incorrect ones to Amazon.  By the time I finished putting the left front brake assembly back together it was after 5 pm, and almost time for dinner, so I put away my tools, and headed into the Newell to take a shower, before heading into our  hosts' home for another dose of great food, and fellowship.

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Super duper Sunday.....

 8:23 am - Monday - February 14th - Newell House, AZ - 44 F, 25% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the east by northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today, again, with a forecast high of 79° F......the forecast for the next 12 days looks great......

....on this date in 2013 we were in Marathon Key, FL at the Jolly Roger RV Park.......↴

I haven't watched a PGA tour event for several months now, but this week I began watching the Phoenix Open on Friday, and finished watching the 4th round on Sunday.  It was a great tournament with probably 7 guys having a chance to win at the end, however, at the end of 72 holes there were two golfers tied for first (there easily could have been 5).....Patrick Cantlay, and Scottie Scheffler necessitating a sudden death playoff.  It took 3 extra holes to determine the winner, which was Scottie Scheffler, who also won the FedEx Championship last year.  

From golf I transitioned directly to Super Bowl LVI (56) pitting the L.A. Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals.  Both teams were number 4 seeds, and had to knock off pretty good #1 seeds to get to the big game.  Even though I am a SoCal native I really didn't care who won the game....I just wanted a close game at the end, and that is what I got.  Why am I not a Rams fan?  Well, I was until they moved to St. Louis (where they won their only Super Bowl until Sunday) in 1995, and didn't return until 2016.  For many, many years there were no teams in L.A., and my loyalties wandered elsewhere.  I became a Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks fan during that interim, and still am.  All that being said, how cool would it be for the Rams to win the Super Bowl in their own, brand new stadium?  Just as the last 6 playoff games came down to the final minutes, this one did also with the Rams prevailing 23-20 as the clock hit ZERO.

Other than Sunday being basically a sports day for me, I did take two 1 mile fast walks with TLE, but that was the extent of my outdoor activity.  Monday it will be back to project completion for me.  The VW needs new rotors and pads (front and back), and the final parts arrived Sunday, so I'll take a shallow dive into that project Monday and/or Tuesday.  

Thanks for stopping by!

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Transference........

8:15 am - Superbowl Sunday - February 13th - Newell House, AZ - 46° F, 21% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 79° F.  On this date in 2015 we were boondocking on NFS* land near Cottonwood, AZ.....↴ 

When we first began our fulltime journey back in 2012 I was on NO maintenance medications.  I never had to think about transferring prescriptions from place to place as we moved around the country.  Now, 10 years later I've had a stroke (December of 2017), and a heart attack (May of 2019), both of which necessitated ongoing prescriptions for the foreseeable future.  Getting those prescriptions in 90 day doses became a necessity.  Initially I used COSTCO's pharmacy for those prescriptions, and that worked well until we spent the summer in Southwest Harbor, Maine where I used the local pharmacy.  Once we left there I moved the prescriptions back to COSTCO, and it remained that way until we spent a year in Seal Rock, OR where the nearest COSTCO was 90 minutes away, so I transferred them to the local pharmacy in Waldport.  The costs of those prescriptions really went up at that pharmacy (Hi-School Pharmacy), so I checked with the Fred Meyers Pharmacy in Newport and found their prices much more in line with COSTCO's.  Fred Meyers is owned, along with many regional supermarket chains, by Kroger.  When we repositioned to SoCal back in October of 2021 I was able to transfer them to the local SoCal chain called Ralph's, and then here in Wittmann, I just transferred them Saturday to the local Fry's Food and Drug in Surprise.  Moving them between COSTCO's and Kroger supermarkets is really quite easy, and usually takes a few minutes, just like Saturday.  By the way, we can also transfer our 'gas points' from chain to chain, also.

So, I wrote all of that to write this.....Saturday it was time to do a little grocery shopping so we left Newell House around 11 am to drive into Surprise where our first stop was the local Fry's Food and Drug.  While TLE shopped, I made my way over their pharmacy, handed my prescription bottle to the nice male pharmacist, and within 3 minutes everything was transferred.  I'll be able to pick up my next 90 day prescriptions on Monday, which will last me to almost June.  At Fry's we also have enough gas points to get 40¢ off per gallon up to 35 gallons.  The current diesel price is $3.75/gallon, so that's a nice discount.

From Fry's we headed over to Safeway where TLE buys our Peppered Bacon supply.  It's not as good as the Peppered Bacon we bought at Ray's Food Place in Waldport, OR, but it is darn close!  We were back home by 12:30 pm.

Just before we left to go shopping the winds came up so we had to stow the patio awning while we were gone, but by the time we returned the winds had abated to the point where we could redeploy it, so upon our return we did just that.  When it is clear, and warm like it has been the last few days we need to have as much shade on our passenger side as possible to avoid turning on the A/C, which, so far, we have been able to avoid.

We also did two more 1 mile walks around Newell House to keep up with our exercise.  So far, over the last two weeks, I'm down 6.5 pounds just from eating less and moving more.  Additionally, for those who might be interested, we've begun watching "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" on Amazon Prime......what a great series!  The character development, and acting are superb, and it is very funny.  We've just begun Season 2, and I believe Season 4 began production this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

*NFT = National Forest Service

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Being reminded......

8:36 am - Real Saturday - February 12th - Newell House, AZ - 66° F, 14% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2016 we were having dinner at one of our favorite Riverside, CA eateries.....the Salted Pig......↴ 

.....on this date in 2012 we had ridden our Cannondale tandem bicycle from Bullard, TX to Teaselville, TX to have some coffee and pastry at Deep South Café & Grill.....↴

.....on this date in 2013 we were courtesy parked in front of Patty and Phillip Garland's home in Palmetto Bay, FL.....↴

.....on this date in 2015 we parked next to Newell House for the first time.....they had just finished the exterior, and were building out the interior at this time.....↴

.....on this date in 2017 we were boondocking off Rockhouse Road near Borrego Springs, CA.....↴

.....on this date in 2018 we were living, and working at the Desert View entrance to the Grand Canyon.......↴

.....on this date in 2019 we were, of course, in Wittmann, AZ at Newell House enjoying time by the fire on a chilly evening.....↴

......on this date in 2020 we had hiked up to the rock snake sculpture near Borrego Springs.....it wasn't long until the Wuhan Flu outbreak would change the world......↴

.....and, finally, on this date in 2021 we were southbound on US-95 just north of Tonopah, NV on our way to Newell House during our one month hiatus from SRRVC*.......↴

.....so, why the extensive trip down memory lane today?  Well, when there is not much else about which to write it is nice to remind myself of where we have been over the 10 years of travel.

Friday was another lazy day.....I did nothing notable, but did watch an hour or so of the latest PGA tour event, which, ironically, is the Waste Management Phoenix Open.  TLE and Darlene made us delicious stuffed, bacon wrapped jalepeño poppers for dinner.  As always, we talked, laughed (a lot) whilst enjoying great food prepared by loving hands.  A great way to finish a lazy day.

Thanks for stopping by!

*SRRVC = Seal Rocks RV Cove

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to buy a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Living in the present.....the moment.....

 8:27 am - Friday - February 11th - Newell House, AZ - 51° F, 32% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2012 we went deep sea fishing with our good friend Ernie Prociw......we caught one mahi mahi......↴

Thursday was a lazy day for me, and I don't feel guilty at all about that.  The only thing I did all day was take two 1 mile walks around Newell House with TLE.  Other than that I spent the entire day disengaged from the project world.

We've never been to our friend Charles' home as he lives about 45 minutes from Wittmann, and we usually just meet somewhere in between for lunch when we are in town, but since TLE's sister, Phyllis, was slated to back in town again we suggested we meet them for dinner at Charles' home Thursday.  We left home around 4:30 pm, and after a completely uneventful, 'rush hour' light drive arrived at his home around 5:15 pm.  As often happens I became caught up in the moment, and neglected to take pictures of our evening, but Charles kindly obliged us with a few pictures of his own.

We began the evening sitting by a wonderful backyard firepit imbibing some wine, munching on some low cal snacks, and conversing non-stop before adjourning around 6:30 pm to a patio on the other side of the house for an alfresco dinner..... 

....for the record Charles is a wine connoisseur, and has a wonderful wine cellar.  We began the evening with a lovely 2007 Stags Leap Petite Syrah with a nice finish, then progressed to a full bodied 2013 Silver Mountain Syrah for dinner, and a delicate, silky smooth 2012 Silver Mountain Pinot Noir for desert.  What a delightful evening of wine tasting, and good fellowship!

As Charles quipped "Three dead soldiers"....

For dinner Charles and Phyllis prepared a great coleslaw as a side to mini pizzas....all very low calorie, which we appreciated.  It makes us happy to see Charles and Phyllis moving forward toward the future, while living in the moment, as their renewed relationship slowly blossoms, and letting the past remain in the past.

As has been the case each of the prior two times we met for lunch, the conversation never waned for 3 hours.  Around 8:30 we announced we needed to be on our way home, and after trading until next times we were in the VW on our 45 minute drive home.  What a fine way to end a relaxing day!

Thanks for stopping by!

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