Missing TV

No it didn’t get stolen.

It gets too hot on the patio for the TV. The specs say not to operate the TV over 104 degrees. Well, it is 104 about noon. So I decided since the grandson's game console uses an HDMI port only and none of the inside TV have HDMI it makes sense to move the patio TV inside and get some use out of it. So now Landen is happy he has his own TV for his games.

Normally I would not let him sit inside all day and play gamer but when it reached 114 outside it’s just too hot for him to play outside. He did go to the movies with Susan today while I wiped down the motorhome and flushed the holding tanks…someone has to do it.

Crash And Burn

Landen and I went over to the racetrack again today to run his car. We did a reprogram on the electronics because he lost braking and reverse. The test drive went well until he crashed and broke the right rear suspension piece. We packed up and headed on over to the RC shop to pickup a new part thinking, “How much can this cost”. I was thinking somewhere around $3.00. Was I surprised… $10.00. $10 was the price for a set of left and right but still. So I thought I would see if I could glue it back together.

I drilled the pieces and inserted a pin for strength and used a 2 part epoxy. I got to thinking that even if this held, it is a weak point and will most likely break sometime down the road so I got on the internet to search for a better price. I ended up placing an order from an Ebay seller for the left and right set for $3.74 with free shipping. We should be getting it in the mail by Thursday. Hopefully my fix will hold until then.

RC Truck Racing

Landen and I had a guy day today. We headed over to the local RC car track to run his Radio Controlled Car. He has one of those really fast RC Off Road Trucks.

He has never been on a dirt track and found that to be a different experience than running it on the streets.

There were lots of turns and jumps and his tires didn’t have much grip so the car was all over the place. After a while though he got the hang of it. I asked him if I could give a try and I was wrecking all over the place. After the track we checked out a couple of RC shops in town to see the new stuff. We also headed on over to the RC Airport to see if anyone was flying their RC planes. We found that the airport is only open on Saturdays so we might go back tomorrow. By this time it was lunchtime so we stopped at In and Out for a couple of Double Doubles.

HOT Summer

It’s been HOT. Everyday the temps are over 100 before noon. It drops into the 80s during the early morning for a while then starts heading back up to the 100s. Landen and I went to the Aquatic Center today for a couple of hours. Unfortunately (for me) it was Summer Camp Day. Bus loads of kids, good for Landen though. He had plenty of kids to play with. At the center there is a LARGE pool and a water slide. At one point the pool was so jammed with kids that I couldn’t move without running into one. I had to just get out and wait it out. The line at the water slide was too long to deal with. Fortunately the kids only stayed a short time then they packed back into the busses and left the pool to the rest of us. Landen is worn out…well so an I.

Back in Havasu again

We left California this morning. Since we picked up the “new” car (Saturn Vue)

we had two cars to bring back to Havasu. Susan wanted to drive our original car and I drove the Vue. Landen, our Grandson, rode with me. We made several stops

to check on each other and see how the trip was going. Everything went well and now we are back at the Resort in Havasu.

We had a great time at our daughters house in California. The weather in California was sunny and overcast at times. The temp in the high 60s was comfortable. We arrived in Havasu to sunny skies and 107 degrees. But then again, we are used to it so it didn’t feel bad.

Visiting Friends

Today I went down to the State Park we used to host at to see some old friends. After visiting friend I took a drive down the coast. It’s good to see the beach again.

It was a good day since I can now stand straight up. Let me explain, Before we left Havasu I messed up my back doing some work around the resort. I was laid up for 2 days before we left and was hurting pretty bad the day of travel. The drive wasn’t too bad since the seats in our Saturn are comfortable enough but I was really stiff at the end of the trip. Today I can finally stand straight up with no pain. I still have pain bending and twisting just right but it just gets better everyday.

Uneventful Trip

Just the way I like it. We made it to our Daughters house in about 6 hours arriving at 2:00p. The trip went well and the car ran good. I haven’t had time to calculate the mileage yet but last trip out here we got 38 mpg in our Saturn SC2. I do know it cost more this time because of the price of gas. Last time it cost me $28 to do the 300 miles and this time the bill was $36. We paid $3.89 when we left Havasu Arizona and paid $4.25 here in San Diego California.

The weather will take some getting used to. It was around 85 degrees at 8:00a in Havasu and was in the high 60s at 2:00p when we arrived here. Good thing I packed some long pants and tennis. No more shorts and flip flops for a while.

I will have to cruise the beach while I am here. I do miss the beach.

California here we come

Tomorrow bright and early we are heading to California to pickup our Grandson. Those that follow our Blog know we do this every summer when Landen gets out of school. He loves to hangout with Nana and Papa for the summer and travel with us. We plan to hang out here until after the fireworks on the 4th of July then take the motorhome on a short trip somewhere. Not sure where just yet but I’m thinking the Grand Canyon area. Landen wants to get back home by the first of August so he can spend some of the summer with his friends. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he wanted to spend summer with his friends and soon he might not even want to hang out with a couple of old folks like us. We need to take advantage of having him travel with us while we can. We are just going to take the car over to California because we are only staying for 4 days at our daughter’s house then head on back here to Havasu. It’s a whole lot cheaper fuel wise to take the car than the motorhome. Also while in California we will be picking up another car. We bought a 2005 Saturn Vue so we will have 2 cars coming back. If the Vue checks out OK we will sell the other car. I know the people that own the Vue and know how it’s been taken care of so I am sure it will be a great car.

Welcome to my back yard party

Just can’t go through a holiday weekend without going down to the Channel and watching the crazies. Then coming back to our quiet calm paradise here at the resort.

Here are a few photos. Some I don’t dare post…

It’s getting hot

I have altered my work schedule. Now, instead of working 2 full days, I am now working 3 to 4 half days. I start early and knock off around noon. The place is starting to look real good. Everything is growing well and the manager and I have been trimming and cleaning up all the fall leaves. Unfortunately most of the “Snowbirds” have headed back up north for the summer so there are few left to enjoy.

Boats boats and Bigger boats

This weekend is the Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout on the lake. All the BIG boats are in town from all around the country. Today was the Desert Storm Street Party. This is where a lot of the boats are lined up along Main Street for viewing. There is some amazing engineering and artistry involved in these boats. Tomorrow we will go down to watch the boat parade through the channel before they head out on a poker run.Here are a few photos I snapped today at the Street Party.

Big trucks for Big boats.


These things are so big they have to be trailered on their side to fit the road.



Some crazy graphics

Big motors for big boats.


Seating for 5, how about a ride?

This is all you get when you spend too much on your truck.

Honest, I was taking a picture of the big screen TV mounted on the side of this truck.

Cool job

Where can you find a job where you go to work in the morning, knock off for lunch at noon, jump in the company pool for a couple of hours then go back to work. That is exactly what I did today. The temperature was just under 100 today but after trimming about 100 palm trees I was ready for a dip in the pool.

Big Boats and fast skis

This weekend was the boat/car show and high speed water ski racing.  There were lots of fancy pontoon party boats and some really big and really fast boats at the show.

Also there was a water ski race where these guys and gals were skiing at close to 100 mph on the lake.

This was our first 100+ degree weather this year and no wind so the conditions on the lake were perfect for the ski competition.

NASCAR? In Havasu?

Yep, NASCAR came to Havasu this Saturday night. Actually it was the NASCAR K&N West Series but it is an official NASCAR race. They brought out their own pace car, crash truck, flagman, and officials.

They raced on our 1/4 mile track that was freshly paved for the event. They said if all goes well they would make us one of their regular stops. All went real well. The crowds had a great time, the race went off without a hitch and we really let them know they were welcome.



It looked a bit sketchy for a while there because a big cold front came through Friday night and didn’t leave until Saturday noon. There was even a light dusting of snow on the hills behind us.

As you can see the snow is gone and the hills are clear again. We went from 80 degree sunny skies to the low 50s with 30 MPH winds and rain. Fortunately it blew out Saturday noon and all was well. Today it was back in the high 70s, sunny, and a light breeze. We are looking at high 90s by next weekend. This time of year the weather can go from one extreme to the other in a mater of hours.

As you can see today was a beautiful day.

New Link

I just added a new link to MY RV LINKS in the right hand column. It’s titled Lake Havasu City. Click on it any you will see why we decided to make this our home base and why we spend so much time here.

No boat race

Yes there was a boat race this weekend, but I didn’t see it. As I said earlier, the trials Friday didn’t happen due to wind. Saturday’s race went off OK except I was working. Since the Work Campers here at the resort have gone home I have taken on extra days to help cover the gap. Today I talked to a few people that went down Saturday to see the race and they said it wasn’t worth fighting the crowds for. So I decided to just stay home and do a few things that needed to be done on the motorhome.

Grand Prix Racing

Today was supposed to be practice and testing day for the Grand Prix Racing East vs West GP Challenge Hydroplane boat race. But the 20 MPH winds didn’t cooperate. These boats travel about 140 MPH on the water and that can mean trouble. We headed on down to the lake in hopes to see some boats running but

they didn’t even get them in the water before it was all called off. This is the first time these boats will be running here on Lake Havasu. They usually run in the Northwest and Canada. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day with winds around 5 MPH so the race should run. We will be heading back down to catch some racing.

Followers

Hey, I see that my list of followers has finally shown up, see right column. For quite a while the title Followers has been the only thing that was showing. Now there are actually photos with names. Welcome back y’all!

The wind was short lived. It only lasted a day and now it is beautiful here again. Too bad it’s time for many to head back up north. Won’t be long before it’s only Susan and I again. We are NOT going to spend the summer here again…well the whole summer. We will be heading to California the first of June to pick up our Grandson again this summer and will travel with him for a few weeks. After we drop him off back home for school we will probably come on back here. This will be in August so yeah it will still be HOT.

WIND

Man was it windy today. It got up to over 30 MPH and everyone was securing their belongings. I took a cruise around the park and secured a few items for people that have already left for the summer. Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day.

We use Verizon for our cell service including our wireless Internet. Here in Havasu Verizon does not exist. We are on Extended Network on our phone and I am able to pick up 1 bar of signal for my Aircard from the Verizon tower 6 miles away across the lake. This all sounds good but a lot of the time it doesn’t work well. Just about every call gets dropped at least once. My Aircard works most of the time, although slow, but there are times it can’t find the Internet. I called Verizon yesterday to see if there was anything that can be done. The service tech told me he could put in a service ticket but it would get rejected because I haven’t updated my roaming since December. I explained to him that I couldn’t update my roaming because I am on Extended Network and can only do that while on a Verizon Network. He offered no help there. Huh…Great customer service! Today I traveled to the end of the island here in Havasu to see if I could pickup a Verizon signal on our phone to update it. I was successful in doing this to activate my Aircard but this time I could not find a Verizon signal. Either their tower is out of whack or their signal strength is weaker than it used to be. But they won’t look into it until I update my roaming!

No NASCAR?!

As you all might know, Susan is a big Jimmie Johnson fan. So she if she can’t watch NASCAR she is not a Happy Camper. Today about a half hour before the race, she tuned the TV into the FOX network to watch the race and this is what she found.

Seems DirecTV is at it again, battling with the networks and apparently lost this one, and on NASCAR day no less. I told her not to fret, we will just head up to the Club House and watch. After confirming it was on in the Club House I got a brain storm. My next door neighbors are hooked up to cable and since their utility pedestal is only about 10 feet from my patio TV…

A cable splitter and a few feet of cable solved that problem. In a short period of time we were watching NASCAR on our patio TV.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about Clint Boyer crashing Jimmie out of the lead close to the last lap.