What a nice day

It was looking a little iffy this morning. After laying in bed, listening to the rain falling on the roof of the motorhome (which I really like) we thought today was going to be one of those “stay inside and relax” days. Shortly after waking, the rain went away, the sun poked out, the wind stopped and it warmed up real nice. The day was GREAT! I did nothing but sit out on the patio and enjoy the day. It doesn’t take long before someone will come by and sit for a while and chat. Especially since our site is right on the walking path. One of my neighbors came by and said I had the life of a palm tree. I never heard it put that way before. When evening rolled around we saw some pretty nasty clouds off in the distance and it wasn’t long before we were hearing thunder but it past right around us. The weather report says it’s only going to get better from here on out.

Problems uploading photos again

Looks like I am having problems uploading photos again. If they get it fixed I will go back and add photos. I will let you know when that happens.


There has been a lot going on around here. There is construction on the lot next to ours, which I am not too happy about. Their new patio cover is now blocking my view of the mountains from the coach window. There are two remedies though. One is to sit out on our patio in front of the motorhome and the other is to pull the motorhome all the way up past their patio. I would rather leave the motorhome where it is and sit on our patio and enjoy the view since the weather lately has been great.


Over the weekend Susan’s parents came out from Vista California to visit. They were impressed with the resort and what I have done with the lot. Susan’s Dad was looking at some available lots. Not sure if he was serious or just curious.

The resort has been party central. Seems there is always something going on at someone’s place. We have been hopping from lot to lot every evening for cookouts, cocktails, and munchies. Susan is enjoying not having to prepare full on meals and delighting all with her side dishes. We had a cookout the other evening and got to give the new grill a good workout with 10 steaks.

I have got a lot of comments on my cactus garden that I threw up in little time with little money. Since I added grass, palms, and such, I decided I needed to do a little desertscape to keep in theme with the area. I even installed a post for my Satellite dish. I am thinking of adding a big rock or plant to camouflage it a bit without blocking the signal. I am just not sure what it will be yet.

They are selling lots fast around here. This is probably the best time of the year for them since the park is full and the weather is great.

I hate wind

I see no good reason for wind. At least for my benefit. I know it is useful for a lot of things but I have no use for it. That being said, sometimes I wonder why I bought an RV lot in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It is more windy than not around here. And I am not talking about a nice gentle summer breeze, I am talking 10-30 mph a lot of the time with gusts to 40 at times. We still enjoy our place in Havasu though. I have found a spot in front of the motorhome that is blocked from the wind and have set up a sitting area. It is quite comfortable there and it overlooks the “Green Belt” and pool area.

Funny thing, the other day, a neighbor planned a get together for some dogs and burgers. He had arranged to use the clubhouse because of the cool and windy weather we have been having.


Turns out it was the best day since we have been here this time.


It was sunny with breezes below 5 mph. Needless to say, we didn’t use the clubhouse.

The park is really full this time of the year. We are leaving for about 3 weeks soon and I was not going to put our lot back in the rental pool for that time but since I have not seen a lot sit empty for more than a couple of hours I might as well make a little money. I know someone will be on it the whole time we are gone. It will help offset our 3 week travel costs.

I have pretty much finished my lot upgrade project for now. Now if the wind would just slow down so we can enjoy it. As I stated in the previous post, I planted a few plants. I am afraid, with this wind, they are going to grow sideways instead of up. As you can see in the photos, they are quite young right now and have a lot of growing to do.

I think I’m done for a while

I’ve just been working my butt off here. I dug ditches, put in irrigation, planted 3 Lantana, 4 Bottlebrush, 5 Oleander, 3 Palms, and a cactus garden. I also had some artificial turf installed. There is no way to keep real turf alive around here so artificial is the only way to go. Man, they have come a long way with this stuff. It looks so real. Today it is raining, and what a relief. I did absolutely nothing today. I think I am about done… Yeah Right!
I have given up trying to keep the motorhome clean since they are doing construction on the lot next door. They are extending their patio area and building a Casita. Just about every other day they are throwing dirt around and creating a bunch of dust. It doesn’t take much since the wind it always blowing around here. Hopefully today’s rain will clean most of it off.
I used our new grill for the first time the other day. I grilled two burgers. I was thinking something was wrong because it took 30+ minutes to cook two thin burger patties and they were still slightly pink inside. My neighbor says that’s normal when the outside temperature is in the 40s with a good wind blowing. The patties were also frozen when I started.
We were disappointed to find that our friends two lots down had sold their lot. Turns out they bought a house only about 2 miles from the resort and are planning to live here year round so we will most likely be seeing more of them. Also the couple they sold their lot to are real nice people. All worked out good.
In two weeks we are back on the road again. Hopefully I can relax and enjoy my handy work in the mean time.

What the heck

I thought when I sold the house that I was done with moving and yard work. Today I went out in the 34 degree weather and built a cactus garden on my lot. Then later Susan and I went out and picked up a few plants and I did some planting. This afternoon a good friend called and asked if I would help him move some stuff out of his storage into his new house. At least I don’t have to spend all weekend working on the yard like I used to when I owned a house. It’s supposed to be about 27 degrees tonight with wind chills of 22. It is not supposed to be above freezing until 10:00a tomorrow morning. Good thing my new plants are guaranteed.

WOW

What can I say besides WOW. The weather changed day to day around here at this time of year. Today was a bit windy but warm and nice, however this evening the clouds came in and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain. Sure makes a nice sunset though.

What a surprise

I went out this evening to take a little walk and found that 3 lots down were some good friends of ours. They have attended a couple of rallies with us at San Antonio Lake near Paso Robles, California. They were just passing through from Quartzite and will stay for a couple of days. The funny thing is, our neighbors purchased the lot they are on as a rental lot and they were a bit disappointed it hasn’t rented yet. Our friends are their first renters. Also when our friends came in they were assigned a lot at the other end of the resort but had problems with the water and were moved to 3 lots down from us. This is so cool.

Busy Busy

Check out our new addition to our lot here in Lake Havasu. Now we are going to have to have all our friends over to check it out. Since arriving here we have been going and going. It wasn’t more than 2 hours after arrival that we went out for $1 tacos. Last nights cocktail hour lasted so long that no one had time to prepare dinner so we went out to the local steak house for dinner. Finally tonight we had a good home cooked meal. Susan hosted a taco fest for some friends at our place. Tomorrow we are up bright and early to head on over to the swap meet in town. Today I had the landscaper out to discuss installing some artificial turf on the lot. He will start the install later this week. This means I will have to go to work installing irrigation and putting in some plants. I am going to have to plan another trip back here soon to just sit and relax.

All is OK

Well I got to drive the motorhome today with no wind. I was able to drive with one hand at the bottom of the wheel as I did before the alignment. It handles well. I think I do have a slight bit more wander than before the alignment but I can get used to it.

We are now at our RV Lot at Lake Havasu RV Resort. It’s good to see our friends here again. We all went out for $1 tacos at one of the local restaurants and had a great time. We are looking forward to spending more time with our friends.

Almost there

First off, I did find a mistake in the mileage calculations I mentioned in the last post. I must have reset the trip odometer since the last fill up because I was off a little over 100 miles. Actual mileage is more around 8.1 mpg. I feel better about that.

We have moved down the road to Indio for a 1 night stop over. We are now at the Indio Elks Lodge. They have quiet a few sites here, however with the upcoming FMCA rally, almost all sites were taken. It was only about an hour drive, but being we had the motorhome in the shop for half the day we didn’t arrive here until around 2:00p. They made some major adjustments to the front end of the motorhome. It seems the alignment was way off. That explained the tire ware I was getting. I was reluctant to have anything adjusted because the coach handled so well, however I didn’t want to replace front tires every 20,000 miles. I don’t know if it was the high winds coming here, but I noticed a little more wander than I remember. Tomorrow we are back on the road again heading into Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Our work is over

I hope everyone had a good New Years Eve and We wish you all a good New Year.

We left San Elijo State Beach this afternoon. Our Camp Host jobs are over for another year. It was sad saying goodbye to all our new friends. When we return later this year, they will probably have a whole new set of Park Aids. We are now in Redlands, California. It was a fairly easy 2 hour drive north. I say fairly easy because we were bucking some pretty good winds during the last hour. I calculated my mileage and it came to only 5 mpg. I am hoping I didn’t fill it all the way the last time (I don’t remember) and it threw my calculations off. I usually am in the high 8s. We will spend one night here then up early to take the motorhome into the shop for some routine maintenance. They say it will be done tomorrow and we can be on our way. Hopefully it won’t be too late. Susan is happy because it’s dinner out tonight and breakfast out tomorrow morning. It’s been so long since I used the GPS for the car that I had to relearn it all over again so we can find our way to dinner and back. I managed to find a pretty nice park right around the corner from the service center. We made reservations about a month ago and it’s a good thing we did because we got the last spot. This place is clean and neat although a bit tight. Everyone is super friendly. While hooking up, two couples came by and chatted. It just feels comfortable.

What a blustery day

Early this morning we had a pretty good rainstorm come through. I heard about the rain coming but didn’t expect the wind. It has been blowing all day with no relief.

Take a look at the flag in this photo.

The waves are even coming in sideways due to the extreme wind. I think the wind is rubbing on the nerves of some of the campers here because we have had a rash of really strangest complaints. I am glad we don’t have to drive the motorhome in this wind. Today is the first time since we have been here that I haven’t seen someone on the water. There are usually surfers and when the surf is blown out the kite surfers come out. Today there is NO ONE. In spite of the rain and wind, the campground is full. People have come up with some pretty ingenious ways to keep their tents in place.

Merry Christmas Everyone

A few days off.

We are off until after Christmas. We have had the morning duty for 3 mornings in a row and are tired of getting up before the sunrise. It has been cold and yesterday we got rained on. I know, Wah! Wah! Wah! But when you are retired, it just goes against the grain.

I saw the coolest thing the other day. I saw a camper actually raking up his site before leaving. And another was sweeping his before leaving. The sites looked better after they left than they did before they came. Now if I could just get maintenance to do the same…

There is always something interesting to see around here.

These guys were just taking a leisurely cruise over the beach this afternoon. There were about 4 of them.

It’s gotten cold

It’s gotten pretty cold around here. Well, for southern California that is. The cold sure hasn’t dampened the camping spirit though. There are people in tents and tent trailers that are just having a ball. I vaguely remember those days, am glad they are in the past. Sure we have to go out in the cold to do our camp checks but at least we have the warm comfort of our motorhome to retreat to. It was 80 degrees this time last year.

Our schedule gives us the last 2 days of this year off. We were going to just hang out here before heading on however, we just got an invite to spend new years eve camping with some friends not to far from here. We may be heading out a couple of days early.

And I thought WE had courage

Becoming a fulltimer takes a lot of courage. To give up the security of knowing what to expect day by day can be disheartening. I however, have come to realize that our life style is not as frightening as it could be. Our time in the campgrounds have given us the opportunity to see many different lifestyles and one that really has come to light lately is the lifestyle of the homeless living in campgrounds. Weather it be by choice or due to unfortunate circumstances these folks are braver than us Fulltime RVers. I have talked with a number of these people and have found them to be, for the most part, real nice folks. I have come to realize that I’ve had more problems with regulator camping folks than I have with the homeless. Last night we had a very cold, windy, and rainy storm come through. As I walked through the campground this morning I talked with several of our homeless guests and found their spirits to be very high. Sure they talked about the cold, wind, and rain. But I did not hear one complaint amongst any of them. These people, no doubt, have a lot of trouble and turmoil in their lives but somehow, I admire them.

Batten down the hatches

We have another big storm coming in tonight. I have gone around and warned quite a few campers to secure everything because of wind and potential flooding of campsites. A lot of the reserved sites sit empty right now. I suspect most are staying home. We have the afternoon duty today and are off until Tuesday afternoon so we should miss having to be out in the worst of it. This should be fun. I will probably be out sitting under the awning enjoying the weather.


The Kite Surfers are certainty taking advantage of the situation though.

Quiet times

Well it’s been pretty darn quiet around here lately. So much so that I have just about made friends with everyone in the campground from the guy in the big Allegro Bus to the transients in the beat up truck and tents. To be honest I have spent more time talking with the guys in the tents than the bus. Maybe because they are always out and about whilst the others keep held up in their motorhomes. I think it might be a good thing to get aquatinted with these folks because they might be less likely to cause trouble. I got to hand it to these guys though, even the big storm that blew through here on Saturday night didn’t bother them much. Fortunately we were off duty during the storm so we didn’t have to be out in the cart in the rain. I hear we got another, even bigger, storm coming this Sunday. We faired well. Our site drains well. Can’t say much for some of the other sites though.

Some have tuned into big mud puddles. Good thing we are slow this time of the year.

The storms have brought big surf with them. There must have been over 200 surfers out Saturday morning. The surf was big and well formed. It has still been big since then but not as well formed. Fortunately no one has got hurt this year. Last year we had a death when the surf got big.

We finally got a chance to talk to the Camp Host Coordinator. We confirmed our assignment for next year. We signed up for 3 months next year, Oct-Dec. I hope this was not a mistake. Since I have a job to do, I haven’t been plagued with the travel bug as much as I do when we sit in one place for a while.

Another new feature

I have added a poll in the sidebar to the left. Here you can see what region of the country our visitors are from. Please take a minute to enter your region. If you are not sure what region you live in click on the word region in the question and view the map. You can also select the View option to just view the results without voting.

New feature

I just added another feature to the web site. I made it easier to see the Comments left by others. It’s called Peek A Boo Comments. Now, when you click on the comments link at the bottom of each post it will show all the comments right below the post. Clicking again will hide them. Also when comments are showed you will see the “Post a Comment” link where you can post your own comment. Your comment will not show until approved by me, however. Have fun with it.