As you can see, we have a new look to our blog.

We hope you like it and have a Happy New Year!

Snow

It was really windy and COLD last night. Cold enough that the hills behind us got a dusting of snow.

This photo was taken after noon when most of the snow had melted. This is the first time I have seen this and the second time it’s happened in about 7 years. The whole day was windy and cold but at least the sun was shinning. Yesterday was rainy and windy all day. Havasu is having a New Years party down town where they close off the streets and have bands playing and 2 firework shows. We were going to head on down there until the weather turned to REAL COLD. It is supposed to be in the low 30s on New Years Eve. I think we will pass.

The lights work

We just arrived in Havasu. It is about 8:30p and dark outside. I wasn’t even sure the lights on the motorhome worked until now. I never drive at night. I pulled over about 1.5 hours from here to get out and checked all the lights. Man! This thing with the car attached and all lit up looks like a Christmas tree. Everything worked just fine. The reason we arrived so late is because we took the motorhome in to the shop for a brake recall at 6:30a this morning and didn’t get it back until 2:30p California time. Then we had a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us. I was hoping to get out of the shop by noon but you know how that goes. The recall notice said it was a 3 hour job. 7 hours later the motorhome was done. We needed to get back here today because there is another storm coming in and I would rather drive 2 hours in the dark than 4.5 hours in a storm. So giving time out for breakfast, lunch and cruising the mall I spent about 11 hours driving today. Fortunately my site here in Havasu is a pull in site so when we arrived I just pulled in, car attached, and shut it down for the night. I will get it setup properly tomorrow…between rain showers.

Redlands Elks Lodge

We arrived in Redlands today shortly after noon. It doesn’t matter what time of day we run through here, the traffic is always a mess.

At least the snow on the mountain in the background made nice scenery.

We are setup here at the Elks Lodge for the night so we can run the motorhome in to the shop bright and early tomorrow to get new brake calipers. There is a recall on our chassis and it is not going to cost me a cent. I called the shop to make sure they can get us in and out quickly so we can get back to Havasu before the rains start tomorrow. This means we will have to get up and about 5:30a. It is either that or drive back in the rain on Wednesday. I don’t drive in the rain.

Cheap Junk

Today I decided to pick up a new radiator cap for the motorhome. Now you can’t just go down to your local auto parts store and pick up one without knowing exactly what you need. Seems they don’t have a lot of stuff in their computers for motorhome and if it ain’t in their computer they are at a loss. So I did my homework and found out the one I have on the motorhome is obsolete (of course), but I did find the replacement. So I went to the parts counter and told the guy exactly what I wanted, brand and part number. He took a quick look in his computer and said $3.99 and headed back to the parts shelves. Now I thought I must have misunderstood him. There is no way a Delco radiator cap is going to only cost $3.99. Out he comes with a box, opens it up and pulls out a cheap piece of junk that resembled a radiator cap. This thing must have been made out of stamped tin. It was so lightweight a good breeze would have blown it off the counter. I told him that’s not what I asked for. He said it was from China and is just a good and if I had a problem with it I could return it to any of their stores for a refund. I think I would rather install a good quality cap rather than take a chance that I will have a problem and have to find a way to get from the side of the road in the middle of the desert to a parts store to return it. I will wait until I get back to Havasu and find the right part.

No More Rain

We got hit pretty good last night with rain. I think it rained hard all night. I say think because I finally put earplugs in to get some sleep because it was pounding so hard on top of the motorhome. There was a lot of flooding here in San Diego County.

This is a photo of Qualcomm Stadium where the San Diego Chargers play. The Chargers aren’t playing but they do have to get it cleaned up for the Poinsettia Bowl game tomorrow night (good luck). Tomorrow we should see some sun. It is supposed to be partly sunny and cool. Hopefully I can get things cleaned up a bit around here. The next rain will come Friday night but should only be a drizzle.

I guess it is raining just as hard in Havasu. Our neighbor says the walking path in front of our property has turned into a river and the 9th golf hole sand trap just beyond the path is now a lake. Susan and I have seen that happen during the summer monsoons but since our neighbors head north for summer this is new to them.

Since the rains were off and on all day today, Susan and Landen spent the day baking goodies.

This is pretty much a tradition with Landen since we have been fulltiming and coming back for Christmas.

Still raining

It has not stopped raining since my last post. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same as today. Here at the Elks Lodge we have no sewer hookup so once a week I unplug, suck in the slides, and head for the dump station. That was the plan for today…I say was. It just hasn’t stopped raining. We are not full and I think we can last until Thursday when the rain is supposed to be gone. At least that’s the plan for now. Surprisingly the three of us (Landen included) have survived cooped up in the motorhome all this time without going wacko. I have my computer, Landen has his PSP game, and Susan is cooking…Yum! Cinnamon buns, candy, and cookies.

Getting tired of the rain

OK, it’s been raining for almost a week straight now. I have had enough. The problem is it is not supposed to let up for a couple more days. There are times when the rain slows to a drizzle but it is cold and windy and just plane miserable. We can’t wait until we get back to Havasu. Sure it is raining there too but now so much. Our grandson has been with us for the last couple of days and he is getting rather board being cooped up inside the motorhome.

Settled in at the Elks

We got a bright and early start this morning and headed 15 miles up the road to the Elks Lodge. We had our Grandson stay with us over the weekend. He and Reese (our daughter’s dog) had a great time.

Reese enjoying the Sunshine

The kids sleeping

Hanging our waiting for mom and dad to come home

I was on alert on the trip to the Elks since I had a problem with the brakes on the last trip. I had absolutely no problems this trip. Good thing the next trip is to get the recall done.

I wasn’t here at the lodge more than a hour and I was already working. As you may know, I always jump in and help out around here when we stay. After finishing up the host handed me the key to one of the golf carts and said, you know where the tools are. It will give me something to do for the next 2 weeks.

We made it past the bomb house

I was worried that we were going to get stuck in traffic because they decided to burn the bomb house today.

Once we were getting close to the section of highway they were closing I had a brainstorm. I have a link in my favorites for a website that shows the speed sensors on the freeways. So I pulled up the closed section and it indicated everything was up to speed. How can that be I thought. It is only an hour after the predicted opening time and the traffic is sure to be messed up for a couple of hours after. I decided to take a chance and push on. To my surprise the freeway was free and clear.

One of the things we are going to do while here in California is get the brake recall done on the motorhome. There is a problem with brake calipers sticking on these Workhorse chassis and when they do the brakes drag and over heat. What make them stick is hard braking. The caliper piston gets hot and swells in the caliper, not letting the brake release. Well the last part of our journey was a 50 mph stretch with signal lights at every intersection. Of course everyone turned red just as we were approaching so it was accelerate up to 50 mph then brake to a quick stop over and over again. Then we smelled the brakes getting hot. They never did seize but they did get hot. We are now at our daughter’s house for a couple of days.

They are going on a trip and we will be dog sitting.

Not so favorable weather

Ever wish for not so favorable weather on a travel day? Well this is exactly what we are doing. I’m not talking about travel weather. I am talking about house burning weather. They have been putting off and putting off burning the Bomb House because the weather conditions weren’t what they were hoping for. Now the burning is scheduled for tomorrow, which will screw up our travels. Even if they get it done and open the freeway before we get there, I am sure the traffic will still be a mess for hours. We had a chance because the lawyers wanted to delay the burn to gather more evidence but a judge turned them down. We are packed and ready to head out of here in the morning.

Correction

Susan informed me that we didn’t win second place in the golf cart parade. We won first place in the day parade. There were two parades, one in the daytime so everyone could see the carts, and one after dark with all the carts light up.

The bomb house is screwing us up

We are heading for California on Thursday. Some of you probably don’t know but there is a house along our route that was used as a bomb factory. They are planning to burn the house down. The problem is they have put it off until Thursday and they will be closing off a portion of the freeway I planned to go through. This only means we will have to take a slightly different route. Not too much of a big deal except it will extend our travel a bit and the traffic will probably be a mess.

Tonight was the golf cart parade here in the resort. There were 14 carts involved. We had a great time.

Who won the best of the parade? We didn’t. We got 2nd place this year.

A lot to haul

Our neighbors had a friend come visit today. This is the rig he showed up with.

Not only does he pull a 40 foot fifth wheel but the truck also has a sleeper behind the cab. Oh, and not to mention the car. The fifth wheel hitch on the truck is special made to retract into the truck bed so he can drive the car off the back.

Today Susan spent the day decorating the golf cart for the Christmas parade we are having.

She took first place last year so she has to try extra hard to keep the honor this year. The twice pipes (dual exhaust) was my idea.

I just saw some empty wrapping paper tubes lying around, and with a little Mexican chrome (aluminum foil) whala! It’s still a work in progress.

Bypass the bypass

Last night I was doing plumbing all night in my sleep. This morning as soon as it warmed up a bit I tackled the leaky bypass valve. As you can see in this photo

I cut the input and output to the valve and connected them together, bypassing the valve. To my surprise my fix didn’t leak. I hate plumbing jobs. They always seem to leak. I had to lie there on my back shinning my flashlight into the access hole looking for the leak because I couldn’t believe it. After I was convinced there was no leak, I got out my shop vac and dried everything out. I waited and no more drips so I cleaned up and put everything away. After patting myself on the back and a few hours later I went around to verify no more drips. DAMN! WATER! It dripped in three places. Fine, I thought, I fixed one leak and created more. After cleaning up the water and checking everything I found the problem. The bypass valve has one input and two outputs, so you can divert the water either to the hot water tank or the cold water side. I didn’t do anything with the cold water side because the valve is set to the hot water tank side. The cold water side should be turned off. Seems it leaks through the valve and out the open tubes I cut, so now I need to decide what to do about that.

What a fricking nightmare

I have had an annoying drip from my water heater bypass valve since we arrived back from our summer trip. Seems in order to get the elbow coming out of the valve to face the right direction, they couldn’t tighten it completely so they gooped silicone around it. Surprisingly it lasted 7 years. My problem is I have a four inch access hole to get to it and as you can see it is a fricking nightmare

of fittings and plumbing. In my feeble attempt to fix it I just added more patch in the form of Plumbers Epoxy. The gray substance is my patch. This is a two-part putty that hardens when combined. It hardened but apparently didn’t stick to the fittings and still leaks. Tomorrow I am going to attempt to just bypass the bypass valve and go straight to the water heater, eliminating a lot of the mess and hopefully the leaks.

Maintenance day

I spent the day doing more maintenance on the motorhome. I was able to scratch a few more things off my list. Seems like I end up adding items faster than I scratch them off. Today I flushed the water heater and checked the anode. It was surprisingly clean and

the anode did not need replacing. Also today I had to replace another string in one of our day/night shades. I have replaced all the strings at least once in all the shades and some twice. They get a lot of use.

I have enough string to replace all the strings for as long as I own this RV. The other day I did the oil change that came due while on our trip last summer. Since I run synthetic I wasn’t worried that I went a little over my normal 3000 miles. The next item on the list is to fix the water leak at the water heater bypass valve. It is not bad, just a slow drip but is annoying. I wanted to get all this stuff done before we head over to California in a little over a week.

Cold no good day

Today was cold and blustery. The wind blew all day and the chill cut right through your clothes. I stood outside in the sun for a while but it was still cold. I spent most of the day inside doing computer maintenance. I had to bring in all my flowers this evening so they won’t freeze. The wind is supposed to subside tomorrow so it should be a better day. I hope tomorrow will be a better day because I have a water leak I need to tend to. It is actually suppose to be in the 70s by Friday.

Friends for Thanksgiving

This week we had some friends come visit for Thanksgiving. They arrived Wednesday and just left this morning. This is the first time they have been here in the resort and of course they fell in love with the place…

how could you not. They are looking forward to coming back.

Thanksgiving was great. We had about 13 people in our party and the food was great.


Susan was smart and signed up for the clubhouse early because we anticipated the cold and windy weather. We allowed another group to use a part of the clubhouse because of the weather and didn’t want to leave them out in the cold.

It’s over

For this year at least. I am talking NASCAR. Today was the last race of the season and Susan is a happy race fan.

Her favorite driver took the championship for the 5th consecutive year in a row. This is a record that no other NASCAR driver has accomplished. It didn’t come easy. It was close for the last couple of races.

Susan’s parents have gone back home. They are real interested in buying a lot here in the resort. They are going to hash over some figures and make an offer on a lot they liked.

Sorry no prorate

After pulling the bad battery, I had a chance to check the warranty. Damn, only 2 years. How do they do that? How do they make a 2 year warranty battery last a few months over 2 years. I paid the full price for a replacement and now wonder how long it is going to be before the second one goes. At least that problem is past me, for a while at least.

Battery wows

It was time to check the batteries so yesterday I set out for some battery maintenance. I found one of the two chassis batteries wet on the top. Right a way I figured I had a problem. I popped the caps and found no water showing so I grabbed my bottle of distilled water. After cleaning the batteries with baking soda I started adding water. Oh No, about a quart of water needed in one battery. Not good, I thought. Today I decided to check to see if all was well. No joy, I heard the battery boiling and it was hot to the touch. So I disconnected it and just left the other one hooked up. I checked the voltage on the suspected bad battery and it was around 9 volts. Huh, shorted cell. Well tomorrow I will be taking it back to Walmart for a new one. Since it is just a few months over 2 years old I think I will be getting a free exchange. I kind of wish the other one was bad also since I would like to replace both at the same time.

Today Susan’s parents came out from California to visit for a while. Our neighbors are so cool they said her parents could stay in their motorhome since they will be gone for a few days. While here they are going to look at some lots here in the resort and give some thought to relocating. They think we have a pretty good thing going here and I can’t disagree.

Went to Chloride today

Where is Chloride you might say? It is about 20 miles north of Kingman Arizona. What is in Chloride you might say? Not much! The big attraction in Chloride is the murals painted on the rocks, and

yard art.

Chloride is, as most towns around here, an old mining town. Most of the town has burned down in the past and there are very few original buildings left. It used to boast a population of around 2000 in its days. Now the population is more like 250. Roy Purcell was a miner in Chloride in 1966,

while there he painted murals on some boulders about a mile and a half outside of town.

The road to the murals is a bit rough. His work led to worldwide recognition, which launch him on a professional career that continues today. He returned to Chloride in 2006 to restore the murals after the desert sun took its toll.

To view more photos of Chloride click on the thumbnail in the left column.

Ok Ok

I have been getting a little flack from some of our readers because It has been some time since I have updated our website. Well here is the update.
We have, well, I have been busy, busy polishing the motorhome. I noticed I have let it go too long and was beginning to pick up some oxidation on the drivers side so I got out the polish and gave it a go on a spot. Huh, Not bad, so I continued on. I don’t want to burn myself out so I have been at it for about 10 days now doing a little each day. It still is tough going though. It is getting easier because I am now over to the passenger side, which is not as bad as the driver side. Still a lot of work though! In the mean time I have been fixing and painting a few things around our lot here in the resort.
Most of our neighbors have shown up for the winter and we have been doing dinners hear and there along with going out to dinner in town. Our friends next door brought some friends with them when they came back and we have all been showing them the sights in the area. Susan went on a 5 mile hike the other day that just about kicked her butt. The 5 miles wasn’t a problem but it was up and down hills and through streams.

Here are a few photos I have taken in the last few weeks.

Stormy Skies

A trip to Oatman

Grave sites in the hills near Oatman

Note the crosses at the top of the rocks

And yet another

Well here we are, not 30 minutes after posting the last message, we just caught another mouse.

Still fighting mice

Last night we were awaken to the sound of another mouse in the walls. I have not figured out where they are getting in. I have placed traps at all the places I think they would enter and none have caught a mouse. The ones inside the motorhome however have seen a lot of action. After banging on the wall last night to chase the mouse out, I checked the traps inside the motorhome. One was occupied. I dumped the mouse and reset the trap and went back to bed. Later in the night I heard another trap go off. Sure enough we got another. That makes 5 total in the 2 months we have been back. So far they haven’t got into anything and have caused no damage. We still don’t want them around. I guess the good thing, we have had mice where others here have seen scorpions and rattle snakes.

Another day on the lake

We spent the day on the lake again today. I know…but someone has to do it while everyone else is at work.

Actually it was a well deserved day of rest. I have been spending the last week polishing and waxing the motorhome. I have only got one slide out and half of one side done so far. Doing it all by hand, it’s time consuming and a lot of work. Actually I am only working on it for about 1 to 2 hours each day.

Bear on the loose in Havasu

No Really. Check it out, Click Here. What next?

That was close

You know it was close when you see the flash and hear the crash a split second later. I am talking about lightning. We had a heck of a storm last night. I didn’t expect that. I guess I should look at the weather reports a little closer since things can change quickly around here. It all started out as a few raindrops on the roof of the motorhome but in a short time it turned into a full blown thunderstorm. Even though the thunder rumbled into the morning and the skies were iffy all day, it still managed to get up over 100 degrees today.

Lee wrote in a comment on my last post, “I broke your rule 4 days in a row.” For thoes of you that don’t know, a fulltimer’s rule about traveling is known as the 2X2X2 rule. That is, travel no more than 200 miles (or 2 hours), be off the road by 2:00pm, and stay for at least 2 days. Well lee, all I got to say is, I know you passed within 15 minutes of us and you could have broke that drive up a bit.

Potty touch continued…

Remember I spoke about the potty touch? Today I sat in one of my newly re-skinned chairs and guess what? Yep.


I had just called the shop anyway to redo them because I was not happy. The bottom sling was way too loose and little did I know, they didn’t use the right size spline, hence the reason it pulled out of the chair. The guy that picked them up couldn’t believe what he saw. He agreed the slings were too loose. They were supposed to have them corrected by today but I didn’t hear from them. I figure they have to order the right size spline.

Potty touch

That’s what a co-worker of mine used to call it. You know, when everything you touch turns to KaKa. This seems to be what I got lately. Everything seems to be falling apart around here. Today’s was the humming bird feeder. After cleaning and refilling it I was screwing it back together and the neck of the GLASS bottle snapped off. Yes glass. The base is plastic and it won over the glass. I am trying to eliminate a few things on my To Do list but I’m afraid to touch anything. Ha! As I am typing this Susan looked out the window and noticed that two pictures fell off the patio wall and of course they broke.

We got the chairs back. Here is the before and after photos.

Hopefully they will last a bit longer than 2 years this time. The place that did them assured me this is better material than the last. I guess my next project is the chase lounges. I think I have decided to change the color so now I need to not only fine the right color vinyl but I have to find paint to match. I thought I found the right paint but after looking further into it I noticed it was for indoor use..Huh.

Got a mini air show today.

Four of these guys came over in formation and after passing over the airport they split off one by one then came around and landed. The airport is only about ¾ mile from us as the crow flies. Pretty cool!

It seems to refuse to cool down around here. Today was still 108 on my patio. At least it is under the 100-teens. I have been waiting for cooler weather to get some things done around here.

Got it

I got my new camera so I am back in business. I am totally happy with it and am glad I did the research. If I had it to do again thought I might have got another model. There is a model that is exactly the same as the one I got with the exception of Resolution, Zoom, and Cost.

The resolution on mine is 14 mega pixels as opposed to 12 on the other model. You might say, that’s better. Well, it is if you intend to print wall sized photos. I realized that even though my last camera was capable of 7 mega pixel, I only used it at 3 mega pixels. Here are 2 photos,

This one at 3 mega pixels

and this one at 14.

I can’t tell the difference. Even when I enlarged them and looked closely I could tell very little difference.

My new camera has an optical zoom of 8 and digital of 4. The other model had an optical zoom of 5 and digital of 4. Not much difference as you can see in these 2 photos. I was focusing on the power pole.

This one is at 5x

And this one at 8x.

However, with the higher Mega Pixels and the capability of an Extended Optical Zoom plus Digital Zoom mode My camera is capably of a 67.5X zoom as opposed to a 39.1X on the other model.

Now that’s a big difference.

I use zoom a lot and am glad I got the extra 3x.

The last difference is cost. The other model was about $20 less than the one I got. I am happy with the model I got.

For your own research, the model numbers are
The one I bought Panasonic - DMC-FH20
The other mode - DMC-FH1

Be persistent

Sometimes being persistent pays off, sometimes it’s just a waist of time. This time it paid off. As I said before, our patio furniture is in need of some new clothes. I scoured the internet and found the best price for the material already cut and sewed. All I have to do is install it. Well this is all well and good but there is a problem…Of course! The measurements they want me to do won’t work with the style of chairs I have. So I headed down to a place in town that can order the pieces for me to see if they know how to measure it correctly. No joy with them either but they referred me to another place in town that will custom make them. Turns out I can get them done with better material including pickup and delivery for the price the other guy wanted for material alone. Not only that but they can do my motorhome upholstery and windshield screen also, yes those need to be done too.

Won’t be long and I won’t have anything left to do, YEAH RIGHT!

It’s never easy

Why are things never as easy as they seem? Today I decided to tackle the toilet job. We have been putting up with a leaky toilet for quite some time now. I ordered the parts a few weeks back and they arrived right away. Since Susan was off doing grocery shopping I figured this would be a good time. I have a tendency to turn a 5 minute job into a 5 hour job and this was no exception. After pulling everything apart I thoroughly cleaned everything before reassembling. Everything went well. 3 hours later I was ready for the installation. They sure don’t give you much room to work with these things. I did my best to attach the water line after mounting the toilet but of course it kept leaking. After several attempts I decided it was time to pull the damn thing out again and figure out what deal is. Turns out the rubber seal got catawampus. This time I connected the water line before mounting the toilet. This is not the correct procedure and was more difficult to do. Anyway, it’s in and we now have a brand new toilet…at least the innards.

Now on to the clock since the parts arrived while I was rebuilding the toilet. Everything went fairly well with that project except the hands from the old clock (which I wanted to reuse) didn’t fit the new one…Go Figure! No biggy, since the new hands are the same style as the old, except I ordered the clock with brass hands thinking I might like them better than the original black ones. So the new hands are on. If we don’t like the brass, I got some black spray paint. The real trick is to sync the chime with the time on the new clock. The old one was easy, there are buttons on the back to set the chimes hour and minutes. Not so on this one, and of course it didn’t come with instructions. I searched the internet and finally found instructions.

Summer Photos

I just added the photos of our summer trip with our Grandson to our photo site. If you take the time to scan through them you will see why he is looking forward to next summer. We sure had a great time.

Click on the thumbnail in the left column.

Ordered

I did it today. I ordered the camera today. After breakfast I was back on the computer looking further into cameras when Susan asked, are you looking at cameras again. That did it. I was pretty much set on which one I wanted so I pushed the order button. I mentioned to Susan that I placed the order and she asked, are you OK? I ordered this camera in spite of the last review I read. A professional wrote it so I took that into consideration. This is not a professional SLR camera, it is an inexpensive digital point and shoot. The review discounted the camera because of lack of manual control for a lot of the settings. I never used the manual settings on my last camera. I tried once and not only did it take me a lot of time to set everything (the photo op would have been gone by then) but the picture looked like crap. I am a point and shoot kind of guy. I know there are probably going to be things I don’t like about this camera but that is true with any of them. If I really can’t get along with it I can send it back.

It wasn’t long after I put the computer away that is was back in my lap. Now I am researching material to rebuild our patio chairs and loungers.


(These photos were taken with our phone since I drowned my camera.)

They take a real beating here in the Arizona sun. Turns out there are many choices in color for the new material. I tried my best to narrow it down to 4 colors and ordered samples.