Bees

Seem the bees are out in full force but the flowers aren’t. Therefore the bees have taken to artificial means for their nectar. As in artificial flowers or better yet humming bird feeders.

It is amazing how fast these little critters can suck a feeder dry. I think it only took 4 days to drain a half-quart of fluid from my feeder. Today I chased away the few bees that were sipping the last drops from my feeder so I can refill it. After refilling the feeder those little buggers were on it before I even got it hung back up. The poor little humming birds have to fight for a flower to get their share.

With the weather so cold in most of the country, I am glad we are in the Southwest right now. The weather has been great here.

Drip Drip

The pressure relief valve on my water heater has leaked since the motorhome was new. I finally added an expansion tank a few years back that cured the drip drip. However lately it started dripping again. Following the instructions in the manual, I tried re-establishing the air pocket at the top of the tank by turning off the water supply, opening a faucet, opening the relief valve until the water stops flowing, closeing everything up and turning the water back on. The only thing this accomplished was making it drip worse. I opened the valve and let it flush for a while, no help. I opened the valve and let it snap shut a few times, no help. I tapped on the valve, no help. It was time for a replacement valve.
Well I went ahead and replaced the valve today. It went a lot easier than I thought. The hardest part was finding a replacement at a reasonable price. One place wanted $30, I got one for $15 which is still robbery since they are only $9 at the hardware stores. The hardware stores just didn’t have the right model. The old one came out easy and there was enough clearance around the door latch to get the old one out and the new one in. After cleaning all the white stuff (calcium/lime) from around the hole and wrapping Teflon tape around the threads the new one went in just as easy as the old one came out. No leaks and no more drip drip.

A new decade

Well we have officially entered into a new decade, 2010. I hope everyone made the journey OK. We did. The last decade was good to us. We had good jobs and paid off the house in the first half, then sold the house for a BIG profit and started our fulltime journey in the second half. It’s hard to believe we have been fulltime for ½ decade and still love it. So far our investments have kept up with our spending even through this tough economy. We have always come out with a positive balance in our portfolio at the end of the year. Granted we spent a lot of money this year building our casita but I conceder that as an investment rather than an expense.
Havasu tried a new thing this year for New Years. They closed off most of down town and charged everyone (adults only) $15 to $20 to party in the streets, one drink included. There were 3 bands spread out through the town. As far as I know it was successful. I say, As far as I know, because we did not participate.

Instead we stayed close to home and went to a New Years party here at the resort. It was a lot of fun. We didn’t have to fight crowds, or brave the cold. The music was good, good friends, and good food and drink. Today was a typical New Years day. We did absolutely nothing. After a morning walk I sat on the patio all day and watched TV. Susan did the same after doing some laundry. The rest of our friends played golf in the morning then went to the Clubhouse to watch the game.

Well I hope this coming year will be a good one for everyone.

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!