Wind wind wind

It’s been downright windy here the last couple of days. We are getting a bit tired of it and it doesn’t look like it will let up soon. Oh Well, I guess it could be worse as I look at the weather across the nation.

I had quite a scare in the stock market the other day. I have a good chunk of money invested in the market and as I watched the other day the market took its worst plunge ever.

I kept thinking, don’t panic, we are in it for the long run and it will come back. Turns out that it came back as fast as it plunged. Although it was still at a great loss, it could have been worse. The scary thing is no one knows what happened. There is a lot of speculation but nothing definite yet. Today was a good day as the market saw it’s biggest jump since 2005 but still has a ways to go before it pays back everything it took last week.

The resort here in Havasu is about a mile from the Havasu Airport where a number of small planes fly in and out everyday. There is no official rule but they are not supposed to fly over the resort on their approach or takeoffs. Sometimes, however, It appears they are going to land right here in the resort. We all say it’s a matter of time before one does just that. Well the other day I was sitting outside when I heard a plane go over that sounded like it was having a problem. Shortly after I heard a BOOM! I wondered what it was but didn’t give it another thought until I started hearing sirens. I took a look around to see if I could tell where the sirens were headed when I spotted a cloud of black smoke rising from the airport. Sure enough the plane I heard crashed at the airport, flipped over, and burst into flames. Fortunately the student pilot made it out with only minor injuries.

Sure is thinning out here at the resort. Most have headed out for the summer, a bit early in my opinion. We are going to head on over to California next month to pickup the grandson for a summer of travels. He is pretty excited about that.

Dodged a bullet

Sometimes you have to spend a little money to save a lot of money. Today I did just that. We have a very limited calling plan on our phone and have been able to live within those limitations for a long time. But things in life change and so did our calling habits. We have been receiving and making a lot of calls outside of the Verizon network during this last billing period and have greatly exceeded our allowed minutes. I was looking at an additional $400+ this month over and above our usual bill. So what I did was bumped up to the next plan, which not only gives us twice the minutes but also allows us to add 5 out of network numbers to call without using our minutes. Now the reason I dodged the bullet is because during the change over I was given the option to start this new plan beginning with the present billing period. So the additional minutes are now covered. So for only an additional $20 a month I saved over $400 in just this month.

Crazy day

Today was a mess…Weather wise that is. We were supposed to have some guests visit us and stay for a week here at the resort but they emailed me and said they would wait a day or more for the wind to subside. Wise move since today was a mixed bag of weather. Last night the wind blew so hard I was wondering if we were going to have a tornado or something. The motorhome was shaking and rocking quite a bit. It blew in to the morning until about 8:00a when suddenly it stopped, the clouds went away and it started to warm up. Then as suddenly as the nice weather came it went away. The wind roared again and even a few raindrops fell.


These photos were when it was sunny here but raining off in the distance. This went on most of the day. It made for kind of a useless day. I did get the refrigerator defrosted though. It’s not supposed to get any better for the next couple of days.

Fun weekend

It all started Thursday with the run over to Laughlin Nevada for the River Run Bike Rally. I wrote about that in the last post. This weekend was also the 5th annual Desert Storm Boat Race on Lake Havasu.

Friday morning I want down to the channel for the boat parade. I ran out of space on my camera’s memory card. There were so many boats I couldn’t get them all. I was there for about 4 hours and decided I had seen enough…for the day. I knew I would be back before the weekend was over. I was right, because Friday night we got a call from a friend inviting us for a day on their boat to watch the time trials from the water. Getting up and personal, as close as they let us, was a thrill. Some of these guys were blowing past us at over 170 mph, top speed was 175 mph done by a 50-foot Mystic Catamaran. THAT’S FAST ON THE WATER. Each boat/team had to pass a technical inspection, which consists of checking for approved helmets, life jackets, safety shut off switch and every person on board had to pass a breathalyzer test. Later we took a ride down the lake and back. There were SO MANY boats on the lake. Some of them were going past us like we were going backwards. I posted pictures, check them out. After Thursdays rainy weather, the rest of the weekend was fantastic with temps pushing into the 90s.

Bike Run

This weekend is the 28th annual Laughlin River Bike Run. Lots of nice bikes and this thing they call the Hoss Fly.

Yeah, pretty much a V-8 engine with a seat. Unfortunately it was quite a disappointment though. Between the economy and the increased police presents, the attendance was really down. The increase police presents is due to the shootout a few years back between the Hells Angels and the Mongols. The weather was cool and it was a bit drizzly. This actually made it a nice day since last year was in the 90s. Check out the pictures in the left column.

This is also the weekend of the Desert Storm Boat Race here in Havasu, where over 170 of the hottest and biggest performance boats are in town. We will have to go check it out.

Boat day

As I was standing in my drive yesterday, a neighbor drove up and asked,” want to go boating today?” Well duh! Remember the picture of the snake in the water a few posts back?

We spotted one yesterday while out on the lake. It wasn’t a rattler though. The last couple of days have been great as far as weather goes. A lot of the snowbirds have gone home and are missing out on all the good weather. This morning it was a bit cooler and cloudy so I took advantage of it and washed the motorhome. That’s a big job. Someday I will get up enough energy to wax it. Yeah right, I have been saying that for a long time now. By noon the sun came out and turn out to be a really nice day.

Back in Havasu

We arrived back in Havasu this morning at about 11:00a. We got lucky heading to and from Phoenix since the wind was at our back in both directions. The winds were pretty strong but didn’t bother us much. The weekend was fun with lots of racing action. Susan was happy even though her driver didn’t win. It is always nice to visit with our daughter and her husband and their dog Reese. I have uploaded our Phoenix NASCAR photos to our photo site. You can see them by clicking on the thumbnail in the column at the left.

We made it

We made it over to Goodyear Arizona today. It was a good drive. Seems every time we plan to go somewhere the wind comes up. Fortunately most of the wind was at our back today so it wasn’t too bad. Today was prep day. Susan was busy baking a bunch of goodies for the weekend and I did… well, nothing. Tomorrow we will head on over to the track to spend some time with out daughter.

Today was also a test day. I pulled the ABS fuse to disable the Anti Brake System in the motorhome before the trip. Everything was back to normal, No strange braking. Next step is to remove the ABS sensors, clean them, put the fuse back in, and road test it again. Un fortunately the next road test might be a while since I can’t just jump in and taker her for a ride.

All ready

We are all ready to head on out of here tomorrow. It will take us 3 hours to travel over to Goodyear Arizona where we will park the motorhome. The RV Park we are staying in is about 13 miles from the track so it’s about a 20 minute drive. We have infield passes so we can drive right into the infield where our daughter’s motorhome is. The wind has come up around here as usual. It’s supposed to be windy tomorrow also but not as bad as today. Hopefully we will get out of here before it get too bad. I hate driving in the wind.

The drive tomorrow is going to also be a test. Since the last time I had my brakes worked on they have been doing some real strange things. I have been told it might be due to the Anti Lock Brake system so I pulled the ABS fuse to disable the system. If the problem goes away I will know for sure it is the ABS that is causing the problem. We will see tomorrow.

Getting read to roll

Tomorrow we will be getting ready to roll on over to Phoenix for the NASCAR race. We will be leaving here on Wednesday morning. Susan can’t wait. Since we are only going for the weekend we won’t have too much to prepare for. I am not even going to put anything away here at the resort.

Snakes in the water

No I did not take this photo. It is a photo that came out in the local paper here at Lake Havasu. Yes it is a rattlesnake that someone spotted in the lake. It is a rare site but does happen. It is that time of year that the snakes start showing up. This time of year they are heading for the streets to warm up. Once it gets hot around here they will be hiding under the creosote bushes to keep cool. Fortunately we haven’t come across one of these guys yet.

Classic cars

You really need to click on these photos to get the full effect.

One thing Havasu has plenty of is classis and custom cars. I heard someone say we have the most classic and custom cars per capita in the US. Today I went to one of the many car shows here every year. There were no shortage of classics, custom and some of the strangest looking cars I have seen.

This is not a pile of junk found in a junkyard. It is a functional truck.

On the other hand, this is the best thing I have seen in quite a while. It is made by a company in California. It is built on a Corvette chassis and is a combination of (from front to back) a 57, 58, and 59 Chevy. It's called a 789 for obvious reasons. Check it out here http://www.n2amotors.com/. It is really something you have to see in person. Very nicely done. I talked to the owner and he said it is a pleasure to drive.

This custom job has a homemade V16.Actually it is 2 V8s mounted in line. No that is not a mirror on the firewall, it’s the second engine tucked up under the dash.

And there are 8 exhaust headers under each door. He said with 2 distributors he has it timed to where each cylinder fires 45 degrees apart. First one cylinder on the front engine then one on the back engine and another on the front and so on. No 2 cylinders fire at the same time. Last year I was at a show where he brought his dual inline V6 car. In that one he uses a 12 cylinder distributor from a Jag V12.

I missed it

I missed the walk today. Every Thursday here at the resort they have a hike somewhere in the area. I wrote in the last post about the trip to the Stagecoach Trails Guest Ranch. Today they headed up to the mountains near Kingman. I have been through there before in a car but would have liked to go on the walk today. This is the last walk until after the summer.

So much to do

We have been busy here in Havasu the last couple of days. Monday a bunch of us at the resort piled into 15 vehicles and headed on into the desert for the Stagecoach Trails Guest Ranch in Yucca Arizona.

We had to travel off the main highways on dirt roads for what seemed forever to get there. We stopped along the way for some hiking and photos of the desert scenery. Check out our photos by clicking on the thumbnail in the left column. Cool Place!

Today we loaded up 5 boats for a day on the lake. We headed for the far south end of the lake where we stopped for lunch then motored around the bend to view the Blue Herons.

After that we explored the lake a bit including the famed Copper Canyon and the London Bridge Channel. Spring break is just beginning and there are already lots of partiers on the lake.

My new boat

Yeah I wish! As I said to my friend, “I would like to take a ride in this thing…it would scare the hell out of me, but I would like to go.” If you look carefully, you can spot me standing next to it.

This was one of the Hot Boats at the 19th Annual Boat Show at Lake Havasu State Park.

These boats are too wide to travel down the streets so they have to use these special trailers with hydraulic tilt to haul them. And at 44 feet long, 12 feet wide, and two 1,250 hp motors on board, you aren’t going to haul this with your average family pickup. A lot of the big manufacturers were at the show which is not unusual as a lot of them are right here in Lake Havasu City.

Tuesday is the official start of Spring Break here at the lake and the weather is shaping up for it. It went from the 60s last week to the 80s this week. We are supposed to go out boating Thursday, hope it’s not too crazy out on the lake.

Humming bird rescue

Today I was sitting outside the motorhome and I saw something out the corner of my eye. It was a humming bird struggling to fly.



I scooped him up and now he was my responsibility. I can’t just watch him suffer. Well I was in luck. I caught the curiosity of my neighbor and soon there were more neighbor around. Apparently one has some experience with this situation because she brought out an eyedropper and started feeding the little guy. Soon he was warm and feed and looking a lot better. Looking too young to be on his own we called the Humane Society and they agreed to take him. They said to call in a day or so and they will give us an update. Maybe we can get him back after he is well and he will be our resort hummingbird.

Rain again

Man it seems like we have been getting a lot of rain this season. It’s raining again today. The good thing is the desert is going to look fabulous this spring. Lots of rain always brings out the desert flowers. It’s already looking green. We noticed the green when we were coming over the hill from the north coming into Havasu from our NASCAR trip in Las Vegas.

Zonie

I am officially a Zonie. That’s what we used to call people from Arizona that would show up in California during the summer. When I say I am a Zonie, I mean I went to the Arizona Motor Vehicles Department and got my Arizona drivers license. Since we own an RV lot in Arizona and are severing our ties with California I decided to get an Arizona license. What a simple process. I simply filled out the short form, handed them $10, stood on the line for a photo and the machine spit out my license. That’s it, no driving test, no written test, no eye test, no questions asked.

Nice drive

We are back in Lake Havasu City. We left Las Vegas this morning about 8:30a and had a good drive. No rain and little wind. Our time in Vegas was great. The weather was sun, rain, wind, and cold but we didn’t let it get us down. We were with friends and family so we had a great time. Pictures will be posted soon.

At the track

We took the long 12 mile trip over to the track this morning. We are staying in one of the parking lots outside the track for the race where we will be on generator power for the weekend. Our daughter has an infield site and we are going to be spending the days with them. We were suppose to head to the track yesterday but Christina couldn’t make it here until today. We were supposed to have dinner inside the track with them tonight but they got a late start and didn’t make it in time for dinner. No problem, we will have dinner at our motorhome and head on into the track tomorrow morning.

Sin city

We are in Las Vegas Nevada today. We were expecting bad weather but we got up this morning and the weather looked good. It didn’t take long though before we were in some bad weather. Going up the Cajon Pass we ran into a lot of wind and a little rain. At least it wasn’t fog like the last time we made this trip.

The cool thing is we drove right under a rainbow. The rest of the drive was OK except for the wind. We had wind the whole way. It was fun trying to keep this thing on the road.

Mountain Pass had lots of snow.

It’s kind of neat seeing cactus with snow on it. But we arrived safe and sound in Las Vegas about 1:00p where we will stay until after the NASCAR race this weekend. I will post some NASCAR pictures of the California race soon.

Hauler hunt

We went on a hauler hunt this afternoon. There are a couple of High End hotels around the Ontario Mills Mall and some of the hauler drivers stay there and park the haulers in the Mall parking lot.



This year all we could find is the Jack Roush Racing haulers. Landen still got a kick out of them though.

Let’s go racing

This morning we moved from Vista to Ontario. We will be here until Monday for the NASCAR race in Fontana. The drive was great with little traffic…for this area at least. We actually aren’t going over to the track until Thursday morning but we usually make sure we get here by at least Tuesday so we are pretty much guaranteed a spot, another advantage of being fulltime.

The votes are in

The poll I posted a few days ago about background music has confirmed my suspicions. No one like the background music. It’s kind of ironic that I added the music since I keep my own speakers turned off because I hate background music myself. I have removed the music so you can turn your speakers back on. Thanks for the votes.

Can I come in

I looked out the window today to check out the rain and saw this guy looking back in at me.

It’s as if he was saying, “Can I come in?” Of course I didn’t let him in. The weather was up and down today. The sun would come out and I would head outside. Then the sun would duck behind a rain cloud and it would get cold so I would head back in. Then the rain would fall. Then the whole process would start over again. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty much the same. I sure hope this weather gets over with this rain by next week. We are heading up to Ontario California on Tuesday to get ready for the NASCAR race in Fontana.

What’s that

If you want some cool stuff to look at you need to check out this place. Go to the buttons at the bottom of the page and check out the Surface Orbiter

and the Hydrocar

Some people just have too much time on their hands and too much money to burn. It makes good viewing for us that don’t though.

Just hanging out

We are just hanging out waiting for the rain. They keep calling for rain here but everyday they put it off. Susan’s mother is doing better. She is home and Susan and her sister are taking good care of her. While Susan is off to her mothers, I have been pitching in here at the Elks lodge fixing plumbing, electrical, bathroom remodeling and doing some general cleanup. There is plenty to do around here, that’s for sure. We will hang out here until it’s time to head off to the NASCAR race in Fontana California. Susan can’t wait!

I haven’t heard anything back from Webshots about the possible virus so it looks like I won’t be using their site to post our photos anymore. As soon as I get more photos to post (most likely NASCAR) I will be looking for another site to host them for you all to view.

Oh No Virus

I was alerted that I may have a virus on the website. I checked everything out and found that the virus appears to be on the site that I store my photos on. These are the photos that the Thumbnails in the left column link to so I removed the links for now. Fortunately when I clicked on one of the links, my virus scanner alerted me of the virus and quarantined it from my system. I have notified Webshots (the photo site) and am waiting to see if they respond. If they do find a problem and correct it I will bring back the links. Otherwise I will use another photo site.

Unexpected move

We are now in Vista California. This was an unplanned trip and was decided just last night. Susan’s mother is going in for surgery tomorrow and Susan wanted to be with her. Since our house has wheels I said, “Let’s go.” We had a good drive here with perfect weather. The rains stopped and the sun came out. Along the way we saw plenty of evidence of the storm. Lots of highway signs were blown down and we saw a blown over Big Rig that they were trying to upright. We also past through an area that was flooded. Fortunately the water had subsided away from the road when we went through.

There is also plenty of snow in the mountains. Tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer but more rain is coming next week.

Lots of water

We had lots of rain and it it’s over yet. I know some of you are thinking this is no big deal, you’ve seen worse. Well this is unusual for Lake Havasu City in the middle of the Arizona desert. The wash as I mentioned in the last post did not fill up. There was water in it from the rain falling but no runoff. My neighbor took a drive through town yesterday and said some of the washes in town had lots of water in them and some roads were closed as the water made it’s way from the hills to the lake. There was a tornado reported in Blythe about 90 miles south of us that turned over 3 trucks and uprooted a few power polls.

Our golf course here at the resort has a new water hazard in it and our path has turned into a small river. We are supposed to get a reprieve from the rain this weekend but there is more coming next week. So far we are cozy and dry inside the motorhome.

All hunkered down

We are hunkered down awaiting the big one. We have been having rain off and on since Monday. So far it hasn’t been too bad but a lot for Havasu this time of year. The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worst about 8:00p this evening. They are calling for lots of rain, wind and even thunder for about 24 hours. We have a wash for water runoff that runs through the middle of the resort. I have never seen any water in the wash in the 4 years I have been coming here but might this time. We shall see…

Another repair

Our Convection/Microwave oven has been giving us fits for a couple of years now. The convection fan has been on the outs and I have been able to revive it through out the years. One reason I have been procrastinating is because I could see no way to get to the fan to replace it. I have scoured the Internet with no help. I even emailed GE and asked how to go about this. Of course they didn’t respond. Well I decided I need to do something so I ordered the part. $44.00 later I had the part in hand. Today I got the nerve to tackle the job. I got part way through and gave up and put everything back together. After pondering over it I couldn’t let this thing get me so I tore into it again.

It took dismantling 11 assemblies and removing a number of panels to finally access the fan.

I carefully noted all the screws and where they go for reassembly. Well it looks like all went well.

The new fan is in and the oven is back together and mounted in its place. Susan even cooked dinner in it tonight and all came out well.

4 wheel fun

Full of dirt

Stop and re-group

Which way from here

A little air adjustment

We took off about 9:00 this morning and didn’t return until 3:00 in the afternoon. What a fun day. There were 3 Razors, a quad, and a dirt bike. Eight of us in all. I never realized how many trails there are in the hills above Havasu. We covered about 36 miles today and haven’t even covered a fraction of them. Can’t wait till the next time.

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!

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.