Join us now that we have retired and are now fulltiming in our 1982 Newell Classic Motorcoach, and traveling across the width and breadth of the USA. I know, it looks like a bus conversion, but it was built from the ground up to be a motorcoach!! (Photo by Steven Dempsey)
6:23 am - Tuesday - March 22nd - GNHS - 56° F, humidity 65%, wind 8 mph out of the west......cloudy with a chance of rain today with a forecast high of 64° F. On this date in 2019 I repainted the chassis battery bay on the driver side of the Newell......↴
The inevitable day of beginning to dismantle our encampment here at GNHS arrived with a flurry. Pretty much all of Monday (daylight portion) was spent beginning to take down some things, and stow away other things. I removed the Edison lights from the popup dinging canopy, I removed the solar LED lights from the umbrella, stowed both the air compressor, and portable firepit in the passenger side engine bay, took down my flag pole, and began the very big task of reorganizing the trailer for VW insertion in the next couple of weeks. TLE began to remove her oveflow pantry area at the rear of the trailer and find places inside the Newell to store those items.
Just before lunch I decided the black tank needed some attention, so I connected everything needed to dump the tank, then dumped it, flushed it three times, and then put everything away. I'll only have to do that one more time before we haul anchor. After that I topped off our fresh water tank to the 150 gallon mark. The water pressure here is a little low, and we turn on the water pump when we take showers to increase the water pressure....works pretty well, and I only have to refill the fresh water tank every 10 days, or so.
By the end of the day things didn't look too different on the 'lido deck', and inside the trailer, but enough was accomplished to satisfy me. Over the next couple of days (Tuesday and Wednesday) I'll spend most of my time inside the trailer stowing stuff, and moving things around.
TLE pulled out a couple of filets for me to grill on the Sea-B-Que for dinner. They came out a perfect medium rare, and TLE provided sides of a baked potato, and sautéed mushrooms......
.....after savoring every single bite I pushed back from the table and declared the dish 'restaurant quality', and it was.
7:49 am - Monday - March 20th- GNHS - 55° F, humidity 63%, wind 2 mph out of the west by southwest.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F. On this date in 2015 TLE and I were boondocking at Lone Rock watching 'March Madness' games on the outdoor TV courtesy our solar panels, and 2000 watt inverter....not much has changed in the last 8 years.....↴
Whenver we assume a rental day will be easy because we have only a 2 hour rental, and a 4 hour rental we end up being wrong about 1/2 the time, and Sunday was one of those 'wrong' days. We had two advance bookings Sunday.....a 2 hour 'Bat Cave' tour, and a 4 hour Pinnacles tour with both departing around 10 am. They were both to middle aged women with children, so what could go wrong, right?
After getting our customers on their way I settled in to begin watching some March Madness. Around 11:30 am we got a call from the 4 hour rental lady who had rented RZR #1 advising she had a check engine light. I told her how to 'cure' it, and she was able to do so. I told her to call back right away if the check engine light returned. Within 10 minutes it had, so with TLE's help we located their satellite tracker....they were on the Canal Road out between Syphon 23 and 24....about 25 minutes away. Since we had an extra RZR I loaded my tools and a drive belt into #4, and headed out. I reached them in about 20 minutes. exchanged RZRs with them, and then got to work. Within a few minutes I had the clutch housing removed, and found the problem.....the drive belt was about 5 minutes from breaking. I removed the old belt, installed the new one, and replaced the clutch housing in about 20 minutes. I was back at the COA office by 1:30 pm.....not too bad!
The bad drive belt
You may recall that I just replaced the drive belt on RZR #1 last Sunday....doh! It appears we have another primary clutch which needs rebuilding, so it will be out of order for a few days until we can get the parts.....now we are down to 3 working UTVs....lol. Hopefully we'll get RZR #2 back from COYNE in a couple of days, and can get the primary rebuilt on #1 to get us back to 5 working UTVs by Thursday, because we'll need them.
On the 'March Madness' front, there was another upset Sunday.....#7 seed Michigan beet #2 seed Marquette 69-60. There were a couple of other minor upsets, but that was the main one. Overall, Sunday was a good day. The rescue was probably the easiest one I have performed to date. Can it be I'm getting better at it? Only time will tell.
We've got about 9 days until we fly to Georgia, and when we get back on April 3rd we'll have 5 days to get ready to haul anchor for our travels north. To be sure not too much is left to the last 5 days, as we'll be working some then, we're going to begin to break down our encampment Monday.
7:18 am - Sunday - March 19th - GNHS - 60° F, humidity 33%, wind 2 mph out of the east by southeast.....completely cloudy right now with a forecast today of 77° F. On this date in 2017 TLE and I were at Badwater (Death Valley)....temp was 111° F, but it was dry heat.....lol....I don't care, HOT is HOT.......↴
What a great Saturday we had. Four rentals.....three all day, and one 6 hour. All returned ahead of time, and everyone had smiles upon their faces. No rescues, or as my friend Johnny Bench used to say "No runs, no drips, no errors!". All four of our UTVs were on their adventures by 10 am at which time we settled in for the day, occasionally watching the progress of each satellite tracker on the big computer screen in the COA office.
In between there was 'March Madness' to watch....always looking for the next big upset, and boy did we ever get one! Number 1 seed Kansas was upset by #8 Arkansas by the slimmest of margins......72-71. Many picked Kansas to go all the way, but they only made it to the round of 32. On the other hand, and there is always an 'other hand', my #2 seeded UCLA Bruins prevailed over Northwestern in their round of 32 matchup by 5 points to advance to the 'Sweet Sixteen'. It is crazy to see that two of the four #1 seeds have already fallen from their pedestals leaving only Houston (came from way behind to win their round of 32 game) and Alabama in 'Sweet Sixteen'. Looking forward to more round of 32 games on Sunday....there will be 8 starting at 9 am, and ending sometime after 8 pm, so you know what I will be doing.
I neglected to mention in yesterday's missive that Charles and Phyllis departed GNHS Friday morning to head back to Phoenix before heading out for their summer travels. They will be following the Lewis & Clark trail from St. Louis all the way to Astoria, OR beginning sometime in April, or May I believe. We had a great time with them, and were blessed by their ongoing journey of rediscovery after 40 years of separation. Hoping to see them again at LPG&RVR this summer.
I've been reading a blog by good friend Christina Rothwell lately called 'The Bear and the Cat'. It's about the experiences of she and her husband Dave in St. Joseph, MO running an AirBnb, and just life in general . They live upstairs, and the downstairs is the AirBnb. She is really a great writer, and makes me laugh....a LOT! She doesn't write every day, but often several times per week. What I love most about her blog is she writes exactly likes she talks. If you are interested in good composition, and lots of laughter check it out!
AirBnb (first floor)
We've got just two advance bookings for Sunday, but you never know about those rascally walkup folk, so time to get dressed and see what today brings us.
6:47 am - Real Saturday - March 18th - GNHS - 57° F, 50% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 76° F. On this date in 2015 TLE and I were boondocking at Long Rock, UT (Lake Powell)......one of our top 5 favorite boondock sites ever......↴
Friday was a bust UTV rental wise....no advance bookings....no walkups. We opened the office at 9 am, and closed it at 12 pm. Since I had already fueled, and washed all the UTVs after their rentals on Thursday I had nothing to do, so that is what I did....nothing. Well, there was the computer crash situation first thing Friday morning, but I was able to pull a rabbit out of the hat, and get it working again, and what do yhou know? It is still working this morning. I did spend time looking at new laptops online, and have kind of settled on the Microsoft Surface Pro 7.0....it can be used as a tablet, or connected to a keyboard, and it has touch screen....all the things for which I am looking. Plus it has 16 gb of RAM, and a 256 gh SSD, and Windows 10 pro. They have generation 8 out now, but it is quite a bit more expensive (about double)....I don't need a powerful laptop, just one I can easily transport, and do my blog on each day....
.....the eBay seller was asking $350, but I put in an OFFER for $325, and guess what? Just as I was writing about it, the seller accepted my offer, so I will be the proud owner of this baby late next week!
Some of you may recall that I am an avid 'March Madness' watcher (annual NCAA mens single eliminatin basketball tournament held each March), and it began this week! I spent time watching numerous round of 64 college basketball games Friday, and there were a couple of upsets, but the most spectacular was #16 Fairleigh Dickinson (who has ever heard of them) upsetting #1 seed Purdue by 5 points....that must have busted a bunch of brackets....lol! Once the office was closed the rest of my day was spent watching one 'March Madness' game after another.
We are now just 10 days from flying to Georgia to visit my son and his family, and just three weeks away from hauling anchor and heading to LPG&RVR*.....my how the Winter has flown! Within a few days TLE and I will begin the task of putting our stuff away, and that promises to be a real barrel of monkeys!
Well, time to get dressed we've got a full rental day ahead of us (Saturday) with all four UTVs being rented, and the first one goes out at 8:30 am.
8:20 am - Bacon Friday - March 17th - GNHS - 59° F, humidity 38%, wind 5 mph out of the north.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 75° F. On this date in 2018 we were watching a Wittmann, AZ sunset.....↴
Woke up to computer problems this morning....."NO HARD DISC FOUND".....NOT GOOD! However, I opened up the back of my Lenovo laptop (the first time since I've owned it), pulled out the harddrive, cleaned the connections, then reseated it several times. Put it back together, turned it on, and it found the hard disc, and booted up to my home screen. WHEW!!! Guess it is time to order another laptop....I've had this one for 8 years, and it has worked well until this morning. At any rate, I need to get dressed for work at 9 am, and will have to get back to you later in the day.
11:20 am - Bacon Friday - March 17th - GNHS - 68° F, humidity 29%, wind 5 mph out the northwest......still partly cloudy, and the forecast high is still 75° F.
I've been thinking about updated my laptop situation from my current Lenovo for a few months now, so I am going to take this warning shot across the bow as a warning to get my butt in gear and source a new, more modern laptop. At this time I have to say this Lenovo (refurbished) has been the best laptop I've ever had, but I would love one with a touch screen, and with the ability to be used as a laptop, or tablet.
There were no walkup customers Thursday, but we did have 3 advance bookings for all four of our remaining UTVs. All four UTVs were returned ahead of schedule, and unscathed. I received a call from Genarro at COYNE in the afternoon advising the issue with the #2 RZR was a broken reverse chain, which is a known problem with RZRs, so it wasn't the result of abuse by the customer. Genarro advised it would be fixed in 'a couple of day's, so, hopefully, I can retrieve it on Monday. I ended up washing all four UTVs Thursday (the 3 RZRs two times each), and finished with the KRX around 5:30 pm.
Thursday was also the last day of Charles and Phyllis' sojourn here at GNHS, so we got together for dinner around 6 pm, and played a few games of Yahtzee. Charles won the first, and I the next two.....the Houghtaling sisters were shut out. As I have often remarked, Yahtzee is about 95+% luck, so it is not reflection on the skill of either.
7:31 am - Thursday - March 16th - GNHS - 52° F, humidity 85%, wind 2 mph out of the west....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F. On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Savannah, GA getting ready to watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade, which is reputed to be the 2nd largest of its kind in the USA.....only second to Boston......↴
I got the official word from Bob (COA partner) Tuesday afternoon to take RZR #2 down to COYNE to have them fix the transmission (no reverse) sometime Wednesday. When we awoke Wednesday morning it was raining as it had been for most of the night, and continued until about 9 am. Once we were sure the rain had abated TLE and I drove the COA van down to the storage yard to retrieve the flat bed trailer, then loaded the RZR. Once that was accomplished we changed clothes, picked up Charles and Phyllis and began the 1 hour drive south to El Centro around 10 am.
The drive was uneventful with us arriving at COYNE a little after 11 am. Since there was no operable reverse gear in RZR #2 TLE, Charles and Phyllis helped push her off the trailer, then I fired her up and drove her up to the service office. Once the service writer, Genarro, completed the papework Charles and I headed to the parking area where all the broken UTVs reside until totalled, or repaired to retrieve a few items from the blue KRX, which has been totalled. Those items included the GPS tablet holder, the jack, the mounting hardware for the jack, the fire extinguisher, and the satellite tracker, so they can be reused in the future.
Everyone agreed we should pay a visit to the local COSTCO, so that is where next we headed. COSTCO wasn't too busy for a Wednesday, and there was not much we needed to buy, so we were back at the checkout line within 30 minutes. It was closing in on 1 pm, so we all decided to get 4 of the $1.50 hot dogs they sell (includes drink) and have a quick lunch before heading back to GNHS.
We were home by 2:20 pm, and bid each other adieu until dinner time. I took a nap, then worked at reinstalling the Newell water pressure regulator, which I had removed to clean the internals the day prior. By the time I finished it was after 5 pm, and Charles and Phyllis had returned for dinner, which would be prepared by TLE on this evening....Jumbalaya. She used the 'Cowboy Wok' to prepare it, and we all sat there at the picnic table eating, sipping vino, and talking until after 7:30 pm.
Today, Thursday, we have a relatively busy rental day with all four of our remaining units heading out for tours, so it is time for me to get dressed, and get one of the KRXs ready for service.
6:56 am - Wednesday - March 15th - GNHS - 59° F, humidity 90% (raining), wind 5 mph out of the southeast......heavy cloud cover, and rain....rained on and off all night long. Forecast high for Wednesday is 74° F. On this date in 2015 TLE and I were hiking the Airport Trail in Sedona, AZ.....↴
......the sounds this morning......↴
Sometimes things just kind of unfold they way they are going to unfold, and there is no use planning anything....Tuesday was just such a day. We began Tuesay with another slow walk around the park with Charles and Phyllis, and as we were nearing the end of the walk Charles suggested we drive into Niland for lunch at the Buck Shot Cafe, where TLE and I have dined previously. We've wanted to return for another meal, so we agreed to leave around 11:30 am for the 20 minute drive to Niland.
We left right on time.....I love punctuality....and after an uneventful 20 minute drive arrived in Niland. Our first stop was the YeeYaw Market where Charles wanted to fill up some of their fresh water containers at the local filtered water station. While he was doing that we walked across the street to read this plaque.....
.....I'm sure many of my readers have heard of 'Slab City', and this plaque describes how it came into being. The site of the now 'Slab City' used to be a Marine training base named Camp Dunlap during the war, and when it was dismantled the only things left were the concrete slabs upon which the various buildings stood. Camp Dunlap was named for Brigadier General Robert H. Dunlap, the father of the Marine Corp. Ultimately people seeking a different life style began to settle there, and 'Slab City' was born.....it has become a tourist attraction for the curious, and the home of 'Salvation Mountain'. At any rate, I say that to say this....we decided to visit 'Slab City' after lunch. TLE and I have never been there, even though we have been aware of its existence for a couple of decades.
The last time TLE and I ate at the Buck Shot Cafe I had their BLT, and TLE their Ortega Burger, but they also feature an interesting Mexican menu, so this time I opted for the 3 'cripsy' taco plate (shredded beef), TLE their Quesadilla, and Charles and Phyllis shared their 3 soft taco plate (chicken). All the ingredients were fresh, and we all loved our choices, so it is now official....the Buck Shot Cafe is a good restaurant, worthy of your patronage.
'Slab City' is just 3 miles east of Niland, and we arrived there in just a few minutes. We drove quite aways into the settlement, and I took a short video of what we saw....
....there were actually some interesting encampments with large, modern solar arrays, but for the most part the rest of the area looked pretty run down. I lost count of number of burnt out cars, and RV's.....I mean burned to the ground. There was actually an 'Internet Cafe', but it did not look as if it had been open in a while. There was also a 'Hostel' with a similar 'unused in a long time' appearance. There were many, many abaondoned encampments in various states of decay. Overall I was a little disappointed in what we saw. My impression was that 'Slab City' was, at least at one time, a thriving off the grid community.....I'm not so sure that is the case now.
On our way back to the main road we stopped to tour 'Salvation Mountain' which was initially created by Leonard Knight back in 1984 as a tribute to his Faith, to which he had come late in life.....
....to describe it as impressive does not do this man made monument justice, and the number of people there on a Tuesday was mute testimony to that fact......
....Leonard Knight created, and maintained 'Salvation Mountain' until his death in 2011 at 82 years of age. There is now some kind of trust that continues it maintenance to this day as I understand....
.....it was just one of those days that seemed to evolve, and we loved every minute of it, especially the time we spent with Charles and Phyllis.
We arrived back at GNHS around 2:30 pm, agreeing to reconvene at the 'lido deck' around 6 pm for dinner, which was prepared by the loving hands of Phyllis. We ate, talked, laughed, sipped some vino, and generally had a great time until around 8 pm when we once again bid our adieus until Wednesday.
Oh, by the way, I received a call from COYNE in El Centro regarding the status of the blue Kawasaki KRX #10 which was rolled badly a week ago.....the frame it bent, and it is officially 'TOTALLED'....doh! Additionally, it was decided by Bob and Casey (owners) that I will haul RZR #2 down to COYNE Wednesday to have the reverse gear repaired in the transmission....hopefully it is not a major repair.
