Back in Havasu

We are back at our RV lot at the Havasu RV Resort. We left this morning about 8:00a California time. There was no rain but we didn’t see much sun the whole trip. Funny thing, the desert is supposed to be a hot place. The further we got into the desert the colder it got. The weather is supposed to be cool here in Havasu for a while.

Well is it or isn’t it

Being we are leaving Monday, at least that’s the plan, I have been keeping an eye on the weather forecast. Earlier all the weather sites I check said rain Sunday into Monday. Then they shifted to Monday into Tuesday. Now some are showing only 20% chance of rain Monday into Tuesday and some are showing No Rain Monday or Tuesday. It looks like, even if it does rain, it won’t be much and we should be out of it by the time we get to Palm Springs. I believe we are leaving Monday as scheduled.

I hope Christmas was good for all of you. It was good for us. We are looking forward to a new year. Hopefully our expenses in 2010 will be due to travel instead of repairs and maintenance like in 2009.

Oh No more rain

If you remember, when we traveled from Havasu to here in Vista we were concerned about rain. Fortunately he rain stopped the morning we hit the road. Well now I look at the weather report for the day we head back to Havasu and it says rain. Hopefully we will get a break like last time. If not we will wait a day for it to clear.

Christmas Cookies

Yum! I like Christmas cookies.

We put our Grandson to work today. Like he hated it… He had a ball decorating Christmas cookies. This has become a tradition.

What just happened

The night before last I was looking at my DirecTV account on line. I noticed that, since I have been a good customer, I am eligible for a free receiver. Perfect I thought since our present receiver is giving us troubles. So I called to make sure it is in fact free and there will be no shipping fees, setup fees, extra monthly fees, or other hidden fees. I was assured it is in fact free and there will be no hidden or added fees. I said, Thanks I will order one online. Tonight I went online to order and it now shows it is not free and in fact it is $69.00. So I called again to ask what happened to free. They say it was never free. I argued enough that they transferred me to “Programming”. They also said it was not free but it is $49.00. I said I was looking at it online and it says $69.00. They said they could send it to me for $19.00. I said I would not pay for it since it was free the other night. Then he says he can send it to me for free with $10.00 off my next 6 bills. I said, “What”! He then asks if I also want Stars free for the next 3 months. I said, “Why wouldn’t I”. He said, “OK you will be receiving the free receiver in 2 days and $10.00 off your next 6 bills and Stars free for 3 months”…What just happened?

RV problems

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why RVs are built so poorly and their quality control is little to none. I read and have talked to plenty of people that have bought new RVs only to have to return them to the dealer or manufacturer for repairs. In most cases, not just minor repairs but major things that should have not happened in the first place and at the least should have been caught by the manufacturers quality control. Also many RVs are sold by dealers with known defects or broken items that the dealer won’t fix until the unit is sold and the customer returns it for repair. Now an RV is simply a house married to a vehicle. I have not heard of as many problems with a new house or new vehicle so why an RV? It doesn’t seem to be isolated to the lower end RVs either. I know of many high end RVs that have as many problems as entry level units. What’s even worse is many of the problems are not rectified on the first visit or second or third.

We went for it

I told Susan last night that if it is raining in the morning, we were going to stay put and not head for California until Monday. Last night it was very windy and the rain started. I though as I lay there in bed listening to the wind and rain that we are not going anywhere in the morning. When we woke in the morning the wind was still blowing and it was still raining. Then everything stopped. The wind died and the rain stopped and the sky started to clear. I said, “Lets give it a try”. We had a rain free drive and sun most of the trip. We are now in Vista California and ready to spend Christmas with family. I’ve got a lot of cleaning to do. The motorhome and car are a mess from the wet roads. I even had to stop at one point and climb up the ladder to wipe off the backup camera because it was so dirty I couldn’t see the car.

Packed and ready

We are packed and ready to travel. The plan is to head for Vista, CA tomorrow. There is supposed to be a storm coming through tonight and tomorrow morning. Hopefully it won’t be too bad or we will wait until Monday. Looks like we will be driving right through it since it is coming from the west and heading toward us. The rain is supposed to end in Vista about 10:00a and hit Havasu at around 11:00a. We are leaving Havasu around 8:00a and should arrive in Vista about 12:30p so we will be driving right through the middle of it.

Cold

I took one last cruise around the resort in the golf cart today before we undecorated it and return it to it’s owners. Man is it cold. I just about froze my…well, hands off. It’s getting close to noon and it’s still in the 40s. It is supposed to start warming up a bit in the next few days but of course there is rain on the way. We are planning to leave for California Sunday morning but if there is a lot of rain in the forecast we may wait a day.

I noticed while driving around town that there is a lack of Christmas tree lots here in Havasu, perhaps because of the humidity. It is still dry around here and I am sure the trees would dry out quite fast.

That had to hurt

This morning I was on my way up to the office, I got about 2 RVs away when I heard a bang and glass hitting the ground. I knew it had to come from my place because no one else was around at the time. I hurried back and noticed glass on the ground. At first I couldn’t figure out where it came from until I looked up and saw this.

The bathroom window was busted out of the casita. The best I can figure is a bird hit it. Although I did not find a damaged bird lying around, which is what I would expect after seeing the window. Anyway, it was dual pane, now it’s single pain since I just removed the broken outside pane and called it done.

Tonight was the golf cart parade. They judged the carts in 4 different categories.

Yep, Susan won the owners award. I say Susan because she did all the decorating, with some help from our neighbors. I just did the driving. We had about 15 carts in all. We weaved our way through the resort tossing candy from the carts to the viewers.

Blustery day

It started out last night with lots of wind. But that’s not unusual for Havasu. We do get a lot of wind. This morning when we woke it was looking like rain but the wind had subsided a bit. Finally early morning it started to rain. As the day progressed the rain got worse. Susan was not too happy since yesterday she decorated our borrowed golf cart

for the Golf Cart Christmas Parade here at the resort. We parked it under the neighbor’s patio but the wind and rain still took its toll on it. The parade is Wednesday so she has time to freshen it up a bit.
Since today was not a good day to hang outside Susan spent the day baking banana bread for all our friends. I spent the day nursing the convection oven since it’s fan motor is on the way out. I had the oven partially disassembled and had to keep nudging the fan to keep it running. I have oiled the motor a number of times in the past but this time it didn’t help much. I need to replace the fan motor but can’t see an easy way to get it out. I could just replace the oven but it’s a matter of $50 for a fan motor or $500 for an oven. I figure since I have to remove the oven to replace it I will probably find a way to replace the fan once its removed.

Freezing?

It wasn’t long ago that we were complaining about the heat. Now the weather forecast is calling for below freezing weather tonight and tomorrow night. The desert does get quite a wide swing of temperatures. It has been real windy all day today and will be tomorrow. Yesterday was beautiful with no wind and warm.


We finally got a TV for our patio. I did my usual research (my engineering background) and decided on a Samsung 32”. I found a series 5 at Costco for the same price as the series 3 that our local Walmart was selling. About the only difference is the contrast ratio, which is double on the series 5, which is best for outdoor use. It arrived yesterday, which meant wiring up the casita. I was smart enough to have the cable routed under the concrete and throughout the casita so all I had to do was add the connectors and hook it all up to the dish. Oh I also had to call DirecTV and get a new box turned on. This was absolutely painless. I actually got a hold of someone at DirecTV that was intelligent. Well it’s pretty much all hooked up but it was too windy to sit out and watch any TV today. Looks like the first opportunity won’t be until Saturday.

No turkey cooking for me

This is the first Thanksgiving in about 5 or more years that I didn’t cook a turkey on the BBQ (Weber kettle). Every year for the last 5 or more years we have had Thanksgiving dinner at a campground with friends and family. This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house and I didn’t have to do the cooking. Susan helped out with the cooking but she likes that kind of thing.

Internet price or real price

Lately I have had a problem with Internet ad pricing. It seems that when you go to a stores website, the prices you see aren’t necessarily the real world prices. Susan and I spent a day shopping for a table to set a TV on for our patio. After searching many stores we went home to think about it and settled on a nice table available at Kmart. I went online to get the dimensions and found it was on sale for $20 less than we saw it in the store. Off to the store I went to get a good deal. After it rang up at regular price I questioned the Internet price and was told that price is an Internet only price however they ended up giving it to me for the sale price anyway. I wasn’t as lucky with Walmart. I spotted a TV for $100 less than the store price on the Internet but Walmart said they won’t even attempt to compete with their Internet price, needless to say they didn’t sell me a TV today. Radio Shack has it on the Internet for the same price as Walmart’s Internet price but our local Radio Shack doesn’t even carry that model. Another was a refrigerator for sale at Home Depot. Their Internet price is $60 Higher than their store price…Go figure. By the way, I went back and looked at the internet ads and can’t find anything that says these are Internet only prices.

It’s starting to cool

The cool weather is coming to Lake Havasu. As you may know Susan and I spent most of our summer with our grandson here in Lake Havasu. It got really hot, around 122 degrees to be exact. For the last week or so it has been very comfortable but for the last couple of days it has been cooling down. Looks like it’s getting time to burn the dust out of the heaters. The desert can get real hot and real cold depending on the time of year.

Sunsets are fantastic. The park is about 2/3 full and there are more coming in everyday. The parties are in full swing.

We had a block party the other night with entertainment from a one-man-band and had a great time. Yesterday was the first of weekly pool volleyball games.
This weekend is the NASCAR race in Phoenix but we are staying home. We already spent our NASCAR money for this month in Talladega.

New Photos

OK, I finally uploaded my Talladega photos to our photo site. Check them out here or click on the thumbnail in the left column. Unfortunately some of them came out blurry because it was raining and I was taking pictures through the van window. The camera wanted to focus on the raindrops on the window.

Happy campers again

We made it back to Havasu today with no further problems with the motorhome. It’s nice to be back and without having to worry about the motorhome, we are happy campers again.
We are already invited to a cocktail party tonight so LET THE FUN BEGIN!

Finally the weekend update

October 28,2009
Winds go away
We left Havasu with caution. The winds were still blowing pretty hard. It was tolerable however, until we got around Essex out on I-40. The winds really got bad, bad enough that I saw my awning trying to come out. I eventually pulled over to secure the awning a little better. I added about 15 or so tie wraps to it and got back on the road. Fortunately a short time down the road the winds died down a bit. Not all was well though. As I was looking at my speedometer I saw the tachometer drop to zero for a split second and felt an instant loss of power, then everything was good again. That was not good I though. I watched everything for a while and it seemed to be OK. Then as I was approaching my destination it happened again, then again, then again however it didn’t died. Once at our destination I let it idle as I always do when leveling and putting out the slides when it died. After sitting for a while it started and everything seemed OK again. Fortunately our friend where we are parked is a mechanic so I gave him a call at his shop and asked if he could bring home a code reader. Sure enough we found 2 codes in the computer. Looks like I will be here a little longer than planned to get some parts replaced.

October 29 and 30,2009
It’s off to Talladega
We headed for the airport Thursday evening to catch a “Red Eye” out of LAX at 11:00p for Talladega Alabama. After the 10 of us (5 couples) met up at the airport we boarded the plane and took off for Alabama. We landed at the Atlanta airport in Georgia at around 6:00a and rented a 15 passenger van and drove another 2.5 hours to the hotel in Birmingham Alabama stopping on the way for breakfast. It seemed that every exit off the interstate, there was a Waffle House, yeah that’s what it’s called, The Waffle House so we decided we had to give it a try. These places are so small that we didn’t think they could fit the 10 of us in so we headed on down the road and ended up at a Cracker Barrel. Nice Breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Needless to say, we were a bit tired so off the hotel for a little nap. After the nap we were ready to head to the track. At the track the girls did a little shopping at the venders trailers while the guys watched the Truck race qualifying. Then we headed on over to the short track for some dirt track racing. Since it had been raining a bit it was pretty muddy, not only the track but also the walk up to the track. After trudging through the mud and getting mud slung all over us from the cars going around the track we started looking like real rednecks. Back to the Hotel for a cleanup and a good nights sleep.

October 31,2009
Hallow-Daga
That’s what they were calling it, Hallow-Dega since it was Halloween at Talladega. On Friday we headed back to the track for some truck racing. We didn’t know if it was going to run since it started raining Thursday night and was still raining Friday morning. The weather report said it would clear but it takes a long time to dry the track so we weren’t sure. It worked out good though because since practice and cup qualifying were canceled we spent the morning cruising around the infield checking out the crazy setup everyone had. We even got into the drivers compound where the drivers motorhomes are. How you might ask? Well we just drove the van in like we were supposed to be there and no one challenged us. The infield is quite a treat. There were a lot of converted school busses, some done nice and some done “redneck”. After the infield “tour” we checked out the Motor Sports Hall of Fame to kill some time until the truck race. We had Hospitality tent passes for the Miller Light tent, which provided food and drinks including all the Miller Light you wish to drink and special seating for the truck race. Well the rain stopped and they were able to dry the track so the race went off. After the race we went for dinner then back to the track for a concert. The Talladega infield is One Crazy Place! Especially on Halloween. The costumes were a riot. It looked like a cross between a major street party and Woodstock with all the mud. What fun was that?

November 1,2009
Cup Race
This morning we finally got to eat at a Waffle House. What a treat that was. As I said earlier the place is so small that 4 of us got a booth and the rest were at the counter. After breakfast we headed on over to the track for more racing. We had great seats high enough that we could see the whole track. That is if your eyes are good enough. It is a BIG track and the backstretch is far away. You can see the cars but you can’t tell who is who from that far away. The race was great. This is much different that the other races we go to. The difference is the size of the track. It is so big that NASCAR requires them to run restrictor plates on their carburetors to limit their speeds. Even so they are still running around 200 mph. When they have a crash at this track, they call it “the big one” because they run in a pack and at that speed they can’t react fast enough to avoid getting in the crash so the crashes usually involve a lot of cars. This race was no exception. There were two “Big ones” at this race, both with cars ending up on their roofs. After the race we found a BBQ joint and had some good ol’ southern BBQ, including green fried tomatoes and deep fried pickles, some pretty good stuff.

November 2,2009
Back to reality
It was such a good weekend we hated to see it end but it was time to go. So we boarded the plane and headed back to California. I will post pictures to our photo site soon.

November 3,2009
Motorhome fixWell as I said earlier, the motorhome needed some fixing. One of the guys that went with us to Talladega owns the shop where I got it fixed. He ordered the part before we left so it was there waiting when we got back. I took it over to the shop this morning and they ran more diagnostics on it to make sure they weren’t replacing good parts. After installing the new part all the trouble codes went away. We were all happy to see that. The trip back to Havasu tomorrow across the desert will be the real test. I am sure we will make it ok.

Flyin' Hi

Believe it or not I am posting this at 37,000 feet over Dallas Texas. The wonders of Technology huh? We had a great time and are now heading back to the west coast. Went we get back and settled in I plan to update y’all on what’s been going on.

Stay tuned

So much fun

No we didn’t fall off the end of the earth. We have been so busy and are having so much fun that I haven’t had time to get to the computer. I will update you soon.

Frustration

I got so frustrated today. We woke to another beautiful day. Absolutely NO wind. The weather reports said by 11:00a the winds will start and be 30+ sustained and 50 to 60 gusts. Well…11:00a came and went with no wind. Hell we could have been in Barstow by now. I finally got on line and checked the current weather in Barstow. 35mph sustained and 50mph gusts. That made me feel a little better. It wasn’t until about 2:00p that the winds got to Havasu. We are now (at 7:00p) experiencing some pretty good winds. The question now, will they still be here in the morning when we want to leave? The weather report says 12mph but it also said high winds at 11:00 this morning. I know how wrong “The Weather” can be.

Missed opportunity

Today was an absolutely beautiful day, just perfect for a trip to Riverside. But we are still in Havasu. We are still shooting for Wednesday even though they are still predicting wind. Thursday is supposed to be a good day. If when Wednesday gets here and it looks bad we may wait until Thursday. We really want to take the motorhome because…well, it’s nice to be home, no matter where you are.

Not a happy camper

Today was NOT supposed to be windy. Well guess what? The wind is blowing hard and gusting even harder. We are leaving Wednesday for Riverside California. Usually the winds will last about 3 days around here so I was not too concerned at first but since this wind was not predicted I decided to check the weather report. NOAA Weather Service says, “Winds increased this morning as a strong surface pressure gradient developed.” It goes on to say that a strong storm will pass through Tuesday and Wednesday with wind gusts over 60mph. Not good for driving a motorhome. We may have to re-think this. We really don’t have to be there until Thursday since we are taking a “Red-Eye” out of LAX on Thursday night. But NOAA also says the local gusts will continue Thursday into Friday. We might just have to leave the motorhome here and take the car to Riverside.

Starting to get busy

They are rolling into the resort more and more everyday. The cocktail parties have started. Yesterday we had our first owners meeting for the season. It went surprisingly well. You can imagine how these meetings can be when you get a bunch of ol’ farts from different cultures around the country and Canada together with their different ideas.

Last night after the meeting a few of us headed into town for the Relics and Rods car show. There were over 900 pre 1070’s cars involved.

This is another one of those events where practically all of Havasu show up. The streets were packed and there were lots of Really Nice Cars. If you drove it in the past, it was there. One of the hits of the show was this truck.

It is powered by a Detroit Diesel V12. This thing is all hand built by one man and is something to see. There will be a video interview of it on YouTube soon. I will post it as soon as I see it. It’s still a work in progress. Here are more photos.

A shortened Nomad

Converted to a Motorhome

Well already I had a problem with the new furniture. The stitching on one of the cushions is coming apart. I grabbed the cushion and off to Home Depot I went. Of course they sold out all their stock so an exchange was out of the picture. The manager however called the company and arranged for a new cushion to be delivered to us here at the resort. Then he handed me the one I brought in and said, “Here, sew this up and you will have a spare.” Nice!

They’re coming back

People are starting to come back to the resort here in Lake Havasu. They are coming in at the rate of a couple a day. We are taking another trip over the Halloween weekend and I am sure when we get back the park will be pretty much full again.

That means the wildlife will be heading back into hiding. This guy was a little upset that the lizard he was chasing ducked under the pot and he couldn’t flush it out.

Well, the sun has taken its toll again. It was time to replace our patio furniture. I started looking around and checking prices, looking for a good end of the summer sale. We got a pretty nice patio dinning set last year from sears for half price. I set out to pick up a $20 item from Home Depot and came across this set.

Not quite half price but a good price anyway. I went back to get Susan to show her and get her approval. We got lucky and found a buyer for our old set the same day so we didn’t have to find a place to stash it until we could get rid of it. Now if we can just keep the sun from destroying this set for a few years. Now that we have a covered patio and I am going to install some sun shades we should be good to go for a few.

Made it back

We pulled into Lake Havasu about 12:20 this afternoon. It was an uneventful trip, which is a good thing. We did run into a bit of dense fog going over the Cajon Pass on I-15 but it was short and I only lost sight of the truck in front of me for a couple of brief seconds. The rest of the trip I had the cruise set so it was just sit back and steer. I am glad to be back in Arizona where the price of gas is close to a dollar less per gallon. I had to stop about 100 miles from the border for fuel but only put enough in to get me to Arizona where I filled it up. I like to park it with a full tank. As usual we had a really great time at the track. Got to see some friends which I only see a couple of times a year, usually at the track and got to hangout with our daughter and her husband. That’s always a good time. I took a few photos (check the thumbnail link in the sidebar NASCAR Oct 09) but for some reason the camera had a hard time with the focus so I had to trash some.

This is one of our friends spot at the track. Yeah they are a bit of a fanatic but the really know how to have a good time. I guess they got themselves on ESPN with all their NASCAR paraphernalia. Last year a photographer came by and we all got our pictures taken at their spot to be used as advertising. Somewhere my mug is probably plastered on a billboard or in the back of a magazine. Well, a few more folks have arrived here at the resort and I expect more will show up in the next few weeks. Let the parties begin.

Extenze

The NASCAR weekend is over. We are heading back to Havasu first thing in the morning. Susan is a happy race fan as her favorite driver, Jimmie Johnson,

Extenze his lead in the Race for the Championship. Sorry for the pun…

Jimmie's Burnout in the backstretch right in front of us after the race.

It was a pretty good race for California, which usually hosts some of the most boring races during the whole series. There were still plenty of crazies in the infield. That’s one thing California has going for it. It makes quite a show at times.

We arrived

We arrived in Ontario, California yesterday about noon. It was a good drive, nice weather, little traffic, and they are fixing more and more of I-40 along the way so there are only a few spots of rough road. I usually move it on over to the hammer lane where the road is in better condition. There is little traffic so I don’t have to worry about holding up traffic. I just keep an eye out behind me for upcoming traffic and pull over when necessary. This place is pretty much full. We were lucky to get a good spot.

On the move

Tomorrow we will be on the move again. We are heading back over to California for the NASCAR race in Fontana. We usually get there on Tuesday so we won’t have a problem getting a spot for the weekend. Where we stay, they don’t take reservations so by getting there on Tuesday we have never had a problem. This morning I thought I would give them a call since I know some of the people and see if they can save my favorite spot for us. Well it’s a good thing I called since a bunch came in yesterday and there was only one spot open. Even though they don’t take reservations, they will save the spot for me. It’s good to know people.

The last couple of days, it’s been pretty windy here. I was hoping the wind would stop for our travel on Tuesday and it looks like we are in luck. Today is a perfect day and tomorrow is suppose to be the same. The temperatures are dropping here. No more 100+ days. This morning it was 61 when I got up at 7:00a and I hear it was in the high 50s earlier. Our air conditioners are finally getting a break along with our electric bill. It won’t be long before I will be burning the dust out of the furnace.

Speaking of burning, I had to fix our convection oven again yesterday. The fan that circulates the hot air stops working about once a year and I have to partially disassemble the oven to oil it. Susan doesn’t use the gas oven. She cooks everything in the convection so it gets a lot of use and since the fan is basically in the heat the oil gets burned off after a while. I have been oiling it with the same Mobil-1 synthetic oil that I put in the engine. This has worked pretty well. This time however I didn’t have any on hand so I used some regular “Dino” oil I had. That was a mistake. Now when Susan cooks anything in the oven it smells like an old oil burning car. I am hoping it goes away soon or I will have to go in again and clean it out and use the synthetic. From what I can tell, it looks like a major oven removal and disassembly job to go in and replace the fan. And if I did the new one would probably do the same thing.

Well we are pretty much packed up and ready to head out in the morning.

It’s been a while

It has been a while since I posted last. Not much going on right now. We are waiting for next week when we head for California for the NASCAR race. We were going to do our annual river trip…sounds kind of strange since we practically live on the Colorado River, but last year we headed down to Parker Arizona just about 30 minutes away. We took a drive the other day and found all the reserved sites are taken for the next few weeks. We could take our chances and drive down in hopes to get a non-reserved site, which is most likely possible. The catch is, there is no cell service there and our friend’s daughter is about to have a baby. We decided to put the river trip off until further notice.

Tuesday we plan to head for Fontana California, well actually Ontario is where we will be staying, for the California NASCAR race. I say plan because we are in the middle of a windstorm right now and are expecting another one right behind this one. They should be gone by Tuesday but you know how the weather can be. I really don’t want to drive in 25 to 50 mph side winds. We don’t need to be there until the weekend so I can hold of a day or two if needed.

People are starting to trickle in here at the resort. I hear that some of the northern states are already getting a dusting of snow. That means the Snowbirds will be heading on down soon.

Gunner the roadrunner

During the summer when there is not a lot of people or dogs around the wildlife comes out. We sit and watch as the rabbits, quail, dove, and roadrunners roam around the common area. We also have scorpions and rattlesnakes but fortunately we haven’t seen any of the bad guys…yet.

This is Gunner. The Manager named him. Not sure where the name came from but Gunner the Roadrunner has a bit of a ring to it. This guy comes by several times a day to visit and will follow you around if you are walking around. He no doubt is looking for a handout. We threw him a pretzel one evening but he didn’t care much for that. Roadrunners are more meat eaters and he was probably looking for something more like a little hamburger. It won’t be long before everyone starts to arrive and Gunner and his friends will go back into hiding.

100+

We are back in the 100+ temperatures. We arrived in Havasu today about 1:00pm after our usual stopover in Bakersfield last night. It was a good drive but I did see a pretty gnarly semi truck crash. I don’t know when it happened but the wreckers were there trying to figure out how to haul it off. It looked like something out of the TV program Wrecked. The driver had to have gotten hurt (I hope he’s OK) since the cab was pretty messed up.

We had a great time in the Morro Bay area even though we only had 3 sunny days. The rest were foggy and cool. We covered the coast from Pismo Beach to just north of San Simeon. The bad part…I went through about $400 in gas. The California prices are killer. The good part…Stocks have been good to me in the last 10 days.

Ready to go

We are just about all packed up and ready to head back to Havasu tomorrow. Yesterday we headed back up the coast to San Simion and checked out the Elephant seals.


Check out this fat boy.
Today we spent the day in Pismo Beach and Avila Beach. We have had a great week here in Morro Bay. The weather had been mostly fog and overcast but we have had a couple of perfect days with lots of sun and low 70 temps. Last night late we even had a little rain. By morning it was over and things dried up pretty fast. Well tomorrow we will be heading for Bakersfield for a night then over the mountain to Havasu on Wednesday. I hear the weather in Havasu has cooled a bit to the high 90s and low 100s. Maybe it will start cooling down a bit.

Finally got a chance

I finally got a chance to write something. We have been busy here in Morro Bay.

The other day we spent the day cruising shops and walking on the beach. Later that evening we headed up to San Luis Obispo for their street fair.

Of course you can’t visit SLO without seeing Bubblegum Alley.

Sure it’s disgusting but kind of cool to see.

Yesterday we did the night tour at Hearst Castle. On our way we spent the day in Cambria. As many times as I have been through there, I have never stopped. There are a lot of cool shops there. We found a park on the beach for lunch and then hit some more shops.




If you ever get a chance, you need to see the night tour at Hearst Castle. I have done just about all the day tours and always wanted to see the night tour. They combine all the day tours in this one and have volunteers dress in the era so you feel like you stepped back in time.

Today is NASCAR day so it is an R&R day.

Morro Bay

We arrived in Morro Bay about 11:00 this morning. It’s been go go go since we arrived so I haven’t had time to write much. I will post more hopefully tomorrow.

Oranges

We are now in Bakersfield at the Orange Grove RV Park. We are on our way to Morro Bay for a week and this is our favorite stop over. We are only going to be here for one night then it’s off to the coast in the morning. We are…were traveling with our friends from Havasu. It started out good but the kayaks he had tied to the roof of his truck decided they didn’t want to go and tried to abandon ship on the freeway so He decided to take them home. Fortunately we weren’t too far along. So he turned back and we continued on. When he got to Bakersfield about 1 hour behind us he decided to continue on to the coast so we are going to meet up with them tomorrow in Morro Bay. I think it’s crazy to drive 8 to 9 hours a day when you don’t really need to.

Unfortunately it’s too early for the oranges to be ripe. Orange Grove RV Park is literally in an orange grove. They cleared all but 3 trees per site to build the park and they encourage you to pick oranges when they are in season. Of all the times we have been through, I think they have only been ripe once. We did find a time when they were still green on the outside but orange and sweet on the inside. Susan tried one today and said they are sweet but kind of dry still. Anyway the weather here is nice. It is about 90, a little humid but not bad with a light breeze, a lot better than the 105+ in Havasu. The drive was good and being the last day of the holiday weekend I thought the traffic was going to be terrible but it was good. Maybe less people are traveling these days.

On our trip here we traveled over the Tehachapi Mountains. Last time we came through here it was snowy at the top and grassy on the foothills. This time it was dry and brown. Not a pretty site. We traveled about 35 miles as the crow flies from some of the terrible fires in Southern California but didn’t see or smell any smoke.

Well I am able to update the web site today because although our Verizon aircard is struggling here (VERRY SLOOOO) the WiFi here at the park is one of the fastest I have come across. We will see what happens when we get to Morro Bay.

Midnight Monsoons

Summertime in Havasu is also Monsoon time. We have a number of Monsoons roll through this time of year. Usually we can see them coming and prepare for them by putting away all the awnings, rolling up the windows in the car and battening down anything that will blow away. The problem comes when they come through in the middle of the night. Last night was one of those nights. I woke to the sound of the palm frowns rustling from the wind. I laid there for a while to see if it would calm down but it only got worse. Finally I had to get up and go outside to secure everything. Just all part of living in the desert.

No more feeding the Burros

This summer we took our grandson to Oatman here in Arizona. Anyone that has been to Oatman, or is familiar with Oatman knows that they are famous for the Burros that come to town everyday looking for a handout from the tourists.

Even the merchants sell carrots for feeding the small donkeys. Well no more. I guess someone did a study and found the burros that are hand fed carrots all day are not as healthy as they would be if they were to venture out and rummage the desert for food on their own. The merchants have been asked to no longer sell carrots for feeding the burros and signs have been erected around town to not feed the animals. I will expect this may be a big blow on the tourist trade in Oatman since the burros will soon no longer come to town in hopes for an easy meal.

Monsoon

Friday we had a sever weather warning for unseasonably high temperatures. Saturday we had a nice rainstorm come through. Tonight we had a sever thunderstorm pass over. Usually storms go around Havasu. In fact most of the storms today did just that as seen in these photo.


Note the frowns on the palms. The wind was blowing mighty hard.

Then one hit just about dinnertime. We sat at our dinette and watched out the window as it came over. For a while there I thought we were going to loose a window to the nickel sized hail. The wind was slamming the hail against the window pretty hard. We watched as our patio furniture slid across the patio into the motorhome and Susan’s favorite pot blew over and cracked even though I had a pretty good size rock in the bottom. After the mayhem we were treated to a lightning show that rivals a good fireworks show. I went out and snapped a bunch of pictures in hopes to get some shots.





I missed the million dollar shot of a big lightning bolt going right through a rainbow. That was cool.

It’s Still Hot

Yeah, we are back in Havasu. We took off last Wednesday morning about 8:00a and arrived in Havasu around 1:30P. Not much has changed here in Havasu. It’s still hot, about 110° today, and there is still no one here at the resort. Our plants are struggling from the heat so it’s a good thing we came back. I will have to soak them real good to see if I can bring them back. I think they will survive. We will be here for a few weeks then it’s back to the coast.

As you may know from our previous posts, it seems every time we come to Havasu we pick a mouse or two. I have always taken the reactive approach, this time I am taking the proactive approach. I have set traps at the most likely entrances and one under the kitchen counter. We will see if they are brave enough to invade us again.

Getting ready

I like my MiFi. So far it has worked flawlessly. It will be interesting to see how well it will work in Lake Havasu since the Verizon Broadband signal comes from across the lake and it can be hard to lock on to at times. The good thing is I can put the MiFi just about anywhere since I connect to it wireless. This means I will be able to place it where it gets the best signal.

We are about ready to head back to Lake Havasu. We have sat here long enough and are anxious to get back. It has cooled down to below 110° out there so it might be a little more tolerable. The manager at the resort called to tell us our plants are struggling so he will turn up the water a bit. It’s nice to have someone keeping an eye on things. So far it looks like Wednesday is travel day but you know how things change. Why Wednesday you say? Well because since there are no sewer connections here we have to put things away, pull in the slides, pull up the jacks, and driver over to the dump station once a week. Wednesday is a good day because we can get it done before all the weekenders get here.

Isn’t Technology great

It can also give you a big headache. Since my computer has been spending more time down than up and I am tired of having to fix it often, I went out and bought a new laptop. I am no longer the power user I used to be so I elected to get a computer just to keep records, cruise the Internet, and email. I found a nice Toshiba for $300. The problem is, PCICMA or PC Card as they also call it is no longer popular so they do not include a PC Card slot in these computers. Since my Verizon aircard is a PC Card it is useless with my new computer. It turns out I am due for a free upgrade with a new 2 year contract with Verizon so I started looking at the best fit for the new computer. What I found is this new MiFi card.

No I spelled it right…It’s MiFi. This is a battery powered aircard with a built in WiFi router capable of connecting 5 wireless devices to the Internet at one time. Since the old computer is still running (some what) Susan can connect to the Internet at the same time I am connected using WiFi. As you can see it is no bigger than a ½ deck of cards. You can slip it in your shirt pocket and have a WiFi router everywhere you go. Now comes the problem. I pulled it out of its box, hooked it to my new computer and set it up. Then I unplugged it and connected wireless. Everything worked great…until I tried to connect with my old computer. Seems the security measures they are now using are way too sophisticated for my old computer’s WiFi card. I consulted the Internet for a solution. Seem a lot of others are having this problem and a lot of them had solutions but none worked for me. After hours of thinking I knew everything I finally gave in and called Verizon Tech Support. Well it turns out I do know everything, at least more than Verizon Tech Support does. After over an hour on the phone with 3 guys from Verizon I said goodbye. Back to the Internet for help I went. Still no help so I dove in to the setup of the MiFi. After a while of trial and error I found a happy medium where now both computers are happy and connected to the MiFi.

Pretty Cool!

It’s getting’ better

I mentioned in my last post how I feel about Windows Vista operating system. Well It’s getting better. I am starting to get use to the difference and have searched the Internet for ideas on how to tweak the things I don’t like. I have changed every setting I can find to the “classic” setting and that helped a lot. I even found ways to load most of my old software even though it is not supposed to be compatible and it all seems to be working so far. If I was one that is satisfied with the “right out of the box” look and feel, it would probably be fine, but I have always liked to tweak things to my liking.

It’s been a while

Well, I guess it’s been a while since I last updated our site. We have been busy. We took our grandson to Knott’s Berry Farm the other day and he wore me out.

At 8 years old, that guy is not afraid of anything. He went on all the roller coasters except the ones that were down for maintenance. There were some that I only went on because of him (didn’t want to look like a chicken in front of the Grandson).

This is a photo of a few coasters entwined with each other.

He got burned out by the end of the day even though he didn’t want to admit it. We just got out of the parking lot when he was out for the night. What a great day.

Well after tearing into the old computer again, I decided it’s time.

So the hunt was on. For what I do I don’t need a super computer so I scouted out a couple of good $300 computers. I ended up with a Toshiba. It’s pretty nice computer although I am having a hard time getting used to the mouse, there is always something. The real pain it the ass is the operating system. Windows Vista is a real piece of crap. I keep loosing icons on my desktop, the scroll feature in iexplore just keeps scrolling and can’t be stopped until it reaches the end of the page, and half the folders are gone or renamed. I haven’t even tried to load my software yet. I am sure I will run into compatibility issues and am not about to buy all new software. If I could I would format the hard drive and put XP on it but I know that will surely give me fits. I let my Grandson loose on the new computer for testing.

I figured if there was a problem he would surely find it. He did find some comparability issues where iexploer had to shut down.

Well I will let you know how it goes.

Back in Vista, CA

It was just too hot and humid. Yes humid. This is monsoon season in Havasu and the afternoon thunderstorms were rolling through. 122° and 35% humidity is not good. Landen was missing his mom and dad so it was time to bring him back. We will hang out here until he goes back to school then…Well, I don’t know.

I am having major computer problems. As you probably know I have pulled apart my computer several times to repair the power connector. Well now sometimes it won’t boot. It’s time for a new one. I am going out tomorrow to start looking. In the mean time, I am backing up immediately after doing anything important.

Trust

I always hate it when I need to trust someone else with my vehicles. That is why I try to do everything I can myself. If I don’t do it right, at least I know what to do to correct it since I have been in there. Tomorrow we take the motorhome in for some brake work. The shop is an authorized Workhorse shop and has good reviews. I check these things out, but there is still that doubt. We are having the work done tomorrow and the next day we will be heading for the coast of California. I would sure hate for them to miss something and have it show up on the road. I am sure they will do a great job.

Dodged another

Not only are we experiencing 100++ temperatures here in Havasu, but there has been thunderstorms all around us. None had hit us yet but we get the humidity and winds from them and an occasional sprinkle. The other day I got all the awnings in and things secured just before the 35+ mph winds hit. I watched as some poor sole was trying to land his small plane at the nearby airport. He made about 7 or 8 passes before getting up the nerve to put it down. It was strange watching a plane fly over sideways as the wind blew him across the sky. Today we dodged another one.

You can see the rain falling out from the bottom of this cloud. We have been wanting to head on over to Las Vegas but that’s where all the storms are.

The air conditioners have run so much that they are getting pretty dusty inside. I need to shut them down and cleaned them so they will not have to work so hard and probably cool better. I am a little reluctant to shut down the front one since it has been running for over a month straight now. I’m kind of afraid it might not want to come back on and we really need it right now.

It’s done and I’m back

Our computer got struck with a virus. Not only that but the power connector broke again on the computer too. That meant that I first had to disassemble the computer and re-solder the power connector again. After that I spent a lot of time trying to get rid of the virus. All I did was get deeper and deeper into trouble. Finally after I got rid off the virus, the damage was done. I ended up reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything back on the computer. Now I got a clean, lean machine. Hopefully it will hold up for a while now.

It sure has been hot around here. Yesterday it was 102° at 8:00am and again at 9:30pm, and even hotter in between. It’s running about 117° outside right now. It does drop to around 88° at night though. We are managing to keep it reasonable inside the motorhome. Boy are our air conditioners getting a workout. We haven’t turned one of them off in…well I don’t know how long. The other we are able to turn off at night. We are heading for Las Vegas in a couple of days. Yes it will be hot there too but at least we will have things to do that can be done inside where it’s cool.

2 in one night

Seems every time we come here we pick up a mouse. This time was no different. You would think I would learn by now and set traps as soon as we arrive. But Noooo. The other night we were awaken to munching in the walls. I got up and thumped on the walls but he just went to another location and started munching again. I got up again and thumped some more and finally he left for the night. But not before snacking on our bread. So I set some traps in hopes to get the little bugger the next night. We didn’t hear any munching last night so I figured I must have got him in the trap at where I thought he was getting in. This morning I checked the trap where the bread was and there he was. Huh, I thought. Somehow he got past the entrance trap. Just for the heck of it I checked the trap I placed in route from the entrance to the bread. Wow, another one! Then I went outside to check the entrance trap expecting to see another explaining why

these 2 guys didn’t get stopped at the entrance point. Trap still set and baited. They must have come in another way. Anyway I re-baited the traps and we will see if we got all the intruders for now.
Also the rabbits have found our Hibiscus plants. At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I though maybe they had some kind of disease since I would find leaves and pieces of the branches lying on the ground each morning. Otherwise the plant seemed to be healthy. They would sprout new leaves with no problem but soon they were lying on the ground again. Then one morning the manager said while she was doing her walk in the early morning she spotted a rabbit sitting in one of the pots munching on my plant.
I guess these critters were here before us. At least I haven’t found any scorpions or rattle snakes, Yet.

Dry heat?

I thought the desert was supposed to be a dry heat. The humidity was around 55% this morning. With 100+° That can get a bit uncomfortable. Good thing Landen has discovered the computer in the clubhouse because that gives us an excuse to escape from the heat for a while. He spends about an hour on the computer while I grab a book out of the library in the clubhouse. Shortly after lunch the humidity dropped to about 10% and the temp climbed to around 110°. But it’s a dry heat. An oven at 110° is a dry heat too but it’s still HOT. It’s amazing though how much more tolerable 10% humidity is over 55%, no matter what the temperature is. If I can sit outside without dripping and with a nice breeze I can handle 110°. Our weather radio has been going crazy today with

Sever Thunderstorm warnings and Flash Flood warnings. I even had to get up sometime in the middle of the night to shut the radio off after I was awakened to a warning. Fortunately it has been all around us and we got nothing today other than the humidity. For some reason everything seems to go around Lake Havasu City instead of through it. Fine with me. You sure can smell the ozone in the air around here though. That’s not too good for my new tires. Both air conditioners are getting quite a workout. One runs 24 hours and the other about 10-14 hours a day. They do a pretty good job keeping it comfortable inside the motorhome.