Lots of activity

Things are happening fast right now.

Today there was lots of activity on the Casita.

It went from a cement slab to a big brown box. They may take a day off tomorrow off since it is New Years Day but it won’t be long before it has a roof.

In the mean time we moved to a different lot yesterday. It’s just across the street from the lot we were in when we first arrived last Sunday. We will be here until Friday when we move again. That should be our final move until we take off for NASCAR.

Got Wood

We got wood today. The wood showed up for our casita so they could get started framing. The wood showed up but the framers didn’t. There was only one of the three here today. He was just going to do some layout but

I pitched in and we got at least three walls up. I hear the subcontractors are hurting for work so hopefully they will get right on the job and this thing will come together fast.

We’re back

We are back in Havasu. The drive was a good one with good weather all the way. We did see a pretty bad looking accident around the Palm Springs area though. Looks as though someone with a large fifth wheel trailer lost control, spun it around and laid it over on its side, truck and all. I hope no one got hurt. Fortunately we were alerted on the CB radio about the accident and were told a way around it. The traffic was backed up for quite a way and we missed it all by taking the CBers suggestion. Probably saved us an hour at least of bumper to bumper, stop and go (mostly stop) traffic.
We got lucky and got the use of a friends lot free of charge. It is only for about 10 days but after we got here and was talking to another neighbor, they said they are pulling out in a week and we can use their lot. So it looks like we are covered until we leave in February for some NASCAR fun.

They finally got the cement poured on our lot. A friend has been kind enough to take lots of pictures while we were gone. I talked to one of the framers and he said they will hopefully be getting the lumber next week and can start framing. I am sure once they know we are here and waiting, things will go a bit faster.

Ready to move on

We are all packed up and ready to move on. Tomorrow we are heading back to the desert. Our lot in Havasu is still not ready for us to pull onto so we will be renting another lot for a while. They did finally pour the concrete but it still is a little green and I would rather give it time to cure. Besides I really don’t want my motorhome 5 feet away from construction work using saws, hammers, and nail guns.

Christmas with the grandkids was fun. They came by to open some presents that Nana and Papa got for them.

After they were done, you could hardly see the floor of the motorhome. Do we spoil them? Yes, isn’t that what grandparents are suppose to do?

Merry Christmas Everyone

Can’t use our lot

Well, it’s getting close to time to head back to Havasu for us. The problem is, they have cut a big chunk out of our cement pad to run the utilities for our new Casita and haven’t filled it in yet.

Seems that the weather and holidays have put a hold on any construction of the Casita. This means we cannot pull onto our lot. I made a few phone calls today and got us another lot to use in the resort until ours is habitable. Just an added expense on the Casita. I guess I got my wish since I wanted to be there to see the progress as our Casita is being built.

Global Warming

Tell me again about “Global Warming”? A storm dumped 3.6 inches of snow on Las Vegas Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Broke again

I knew it wouldn’t last. If you remember a while back I had to disassemble my laptop to repair a bad connection on the power jack. I wasn’t happy at all with the repair job I did and knew it would be just a matter of time before I had to go in again. Well yesterday it happened again. The computer wasn’t charging.

As you can see by these pictures, this is not an easy fix. Everything has to come out to get to the Motherboard. I got to involved in the repair to take pictures of everything removed and the motherboard out. Although this repair is a bit better, I am still not happy with it. Not that I don’t have the ability to do the job right, I just don’t have the equipment. During my carrier in electronics, I am used to repairing circuits, under a microscope, soldering surface mount components smaller than an ant. But this takes good equipment to do and the equipment would cost more than replacing the computer itself. It is frustrating because I know I could do better. My next step might be to remove the motherboard and have someone with the right equipment replace the connector or buy a motherboard off Ebay and replace the whole thing. Well as you can see by this posting, It’s working for now.

Scary drive

Today was the first time I have used my wipers and lights on the motorhome in…Well I don’t know how long. Too long ago to remember. We traveled back to the Vista Elks lodge and the weather was REAL NASTY. I stopped for fuel, stopped to dump and backed into the site and set it up. By the time all was done I was soaked. Actually I had a real good jacket on and was only wet on the surface. I stayed pretty dry inside. After getting setup and having some lunch the winds subsided and the rain stopped. Go figure! If I had waited just another hour, things would have been a lot easier.

Fueling

I was filling a close to empty fuel tank on the motorhome and as I usually do I stood there and watched the dollars adding up. It was close to empty so I figured I would have to feed my credit card in at least twice to get it full. I watched as the dollars went past the $75 mark where it usually shuts off and thought, huh, they must have upped it since it cost so much to fill a tank now-a-days. I thought, it will most likely shut off at $100 and I will have to feed the card in again. Then at $94 it shut off. Can’t be full..it hasn’t even reached $100 yet so I squeezed the trigger again. It immediately shut off again. $94…that’s it? Wow the price has really come down. While entering the fill in my log I noticed just 2 months ago I pumped over $200 in the tank.

Kids

I thought I was done with kids. Last night, Reese, our daughter’s dog, decided at 3:00am that she wanted to climb in bed with us. After several attempts to send her away,

I finally got up, took her out to go potty and tucked her back into her own bed where she stayed the rest of the night.
Just like my grandson, Reese can ware you out.

It’s a constant game of fetch, keep away, and tug-a-war with her. She just loves to play.

For the last 3 days I have been detailing the motorhome. I have just about finished the front cap now. That’s right, the front cap is all I have got done in 3 days. Of course I only work on it a couple of hours a day but it is quite a process. I have neglected it for too long and there is a build up if filth that needs to be cleaned away. I start with some black streak remover and clean the whole surface. This pretty much gets rid of filth and leaves a good white surface. Next I go back over it with a good cleaner wax to clean further and leave a good wax coat. After the waxing I go over it all again with a damp sponge then buff it out with a dry towel to get rid of all the wax swirls. After the big surfaces are all done, it’s time for the trim and details including bringing the bright white silicone caulking back to bright white. I even coated the windows with Rain-X. The next 3 days I might tackle the rear cap. The sides are going to be a big job, if I don’t run out of energy by then.

Dog sitting

We moved again today.

We are now just 16 miles down the road in Encinitas at our daughter’s house. They took off for a week so we are dog sitting.

This is Reese, our daughter’s 1 year old Boxer. This is going to be fun having a dog to play with all week.

Gas price

As I drove past the Chevron station down the street this morning I noted the price. Since I was going to run a few errands today and one was to fill the tank, I thought I would keep an eye out for the best price. Yesterday the price was $1.95, down from $2.05 the day before. This morning it was down further to $1.93. After running around all morning I was done with all my errands and on my way back to the motorhome. One more station to check since I was in the neighborhood and knew this station was usually lower than most in town. $1.79! Wow I thought. How can they be that much lower than the rest? Of course I filled up and even considered uprooting the motorhome and filling it up also at $1.79. On the way back to the motorhome I passed the first station where I saw $1.93 in the morning. $1.79! Amazing!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent it on Mission Bay in San Diego with friends at the Mission Bay RV Park.

This is the first time we have been at this park and it is really nice. The weather was iffy the day we arrived and it rained pretty good that night. The next morning, which was Thanksgiving Day, was drizzly until about noon. Then the weather gave us a break.

I did the turkey on the grill again this year with my Hi-Tech thermometers to monitor kettle temperature and internal turkey temperature. Turns out that my internal thermometer was broken so I was going by time per pound. Luckly my daughter had a thermometer simulate to mine that I hooked up, and it was a good thing I did. The turkey had about another ½ hour to go according to time but the new thermometer said it was ready. It came out perfect!


The rest of the weekend’s weather was perfect. The rains went away and the sun came out. We just have so much fun with our friends. Can’t wait until we meet again.

Mission Bay San Diego

We made the short 45 minute trip to Mission Bay in San Diego where we will spend the Thanksgiving weekend. We made it here just before the sprinkles started. We are expecting rain tonight but it should clear tomorrow. I will be doing my usual turkey on the grill this year. Looking forward to a great weekend with friends and family.

Educated ants

I forgot how smart the ants are around here. It wasn’t long after we parked and setup that the ants were marching their way up our hoses and cables. I took care of them with a little Vaseline around the hoses and cables.

Back in Vista

We are back in Vista California for the Holidays. We will be here until just after Christmas then head back to Havasu to do the finishing touches on the Casita we are having built on our lot. The contractor has been patiently waiting for us to vacate the lot so they can get in there and start construction. The first step will be to cut the concrete pad to run utilities and pour the foundation.

I had to pull out my cactus garden and have my lawn relocated.

The lawn looks real good in its new location. This has become some REAL expensive lawn with the initial cost and now the cost of relocation.

Great day

We just had a great day. Our friend took us out on the boat today. It couldn’t be a better day. The temperature was in the mid 80s and not a bit of wind. We headed on over to Copper Canyon.

I’m sure you have heard of Copper Canyon in Lake Havasu. This is the cove where everyone heads to party and do some rock diving. They climb up the cliffs and dive off. It gets so jammed with boats they tie off to each other and people literally walk from boat to boat. Today, being it is winter, the cove was empty and we had the place to ourselves. We anchored off and brought out the food. What a spread.

After having lunch in the cove we headed for the channel where the famous London Bridge is.

The lake was so smooth and calm. All that and I even made a little in the stock market today. Life CAN be good in these tough times.

Lots of wind

We had LOTS of wind today. I thought my slide awning was going to blow off. Our new patio furniture blew off the lot into the rocks and got all scratched up. Fortunately a little bottle of touch up paint came with the furniture and I think I can make most of the scars go away. We were going to have a little get together tonight but called it off. It has died down a bit from this afternoon and should continue to mellow out in the next couple of days.

A few minor changes

I got the updated plans today for our casita. It looks good, I just made a few notes so it looks like we are ready to go. The contractor is just waiting for us to head out of here for California so he can get started.
I was hoping they would work around our cactus garden but was told it has to go. I will just have to rebuild it when they are done. I was considering moving our lawn myself until I realized how heavy it is. When they install it, they lay the carpet of grass out, stake it down then fill it with a lot of sand. Even if I got a few guys to help out, it would still be quite a chore. The weather is finally changing to winter around here. It is getting into the 50s at night and cooler during the days.

The cloud cover make some really nice sunsets.