Getting Antsy

Am ready to be moving on down the road, not least because of the weather. Supposed to be fairly nice Wed & Thu (low to mid 50s, partly cloudy). I have a package on the way so need to wait for it to get here before heading out.

Will be going to Don Young's in Phoenix for an overnight. I've known him since the mid 1970s; he's Chuck's friend and used to live next door to us in Tucson. He's got 4 dachshunds so I'm glad I won't be sleeping inside.

After that, no firm plans except a general trending toward SF.

New lights all up. Stove cover rivet is fixed. Window channel missing piece has been jerry-rigged so window will open all the way. Etc etc. Maintenance done, except resealing roof because it's been too cold for it to cure; will take stuff along and do it somewhere warmer.

No idea when I'll have wifi again after I leave here, but I'll be thinking about all y'all.

T-Day Report

Yep, that's the view this morning about 7:30. It was still snowing; you just can't see it. It finally quit about 11am and most of it melted off before dark (but not all). My water hose is frozen -- well, actually, the water in it is frozen. Chuck got it loose from the pipe (the tall thing in the middle of the photo). As of right now (8:30pm), it's 6 deg.

Went up to the house (about 50 feet) about noon and took a nice hot shower. Also refilled one of my water jugs. Chuck provided a nice dinner about 3pm -- turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, giblet gravy, jellied cranberry sauce, hot croissants. All good. About 7pm we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and that filled the last of the open space in the stomach.

We topped off the evening by watching a 2-hr competition called Punkin Chunkin. There were trebuchets, ballistas, air cannons, human-powered catapults, and more. The Mythbuster guys were there. It was actually great fun. I can't remember the category, but the first-ever all-woman team won it.

A nice day. Now to keep from freezing -- the heater is working full blast and we're at 58 deg inside the rig.

Lights & Roof & Wind, oh my

Chuck got a coat of roof sealant on today before the clouds blew in with the stiff wind and the temps dropped. It'll need another 2-3 coats eventually. The winds are howling around outside right now.

UPS couldn't find this address so I had to get in touch with the seller who got in touch with UPS who got in touch with me so I could give them directions. They thought the address was the apartment complex across the street and were demanding an apt. number. We saw a UPS truck today on the street and talked to him -- he knows the apt. complex isn't the same as our address. Anyhow, the pkg of 4 fluorescents should be here tomorrow.

The window channel and the stove cover rivet still need fixing.

Chuck gave me my xmas present today as I won't be here in Dec. It's a 20-gauge shotgun. I had expressed a desire to have a 20-gauge pump someday so as to make that unmistakable sound, in hopes of deterring the bad guy and, if not, being ready to shoot. My present is not a pump model, but the cocking lever makes a special click all its own. Now I just have to figure out where to carry it. My girlish heart just swooned.

To Smoke?

I got expressions of support for not smoking, which I appreciate.

Howsomever, what I actually said was that I'm not smoking cigarettes anymore.

I switched to an electronic "cigarette" which has no tobacco, no tar, no preservatives, no butts, no ashes. The only byproduct is water vapor, and it delivers atomized nicotine/glycol. So, I still get my drug but only that with no nasty byproducts. And I'm slowly decreasing the strength, too, so I may quit totally at some point in the future. It's been 3 months now, and I don't miss tobacco at all. I think what I really like is having something to chew on and also making smoke.

Just didn't want to mislead y'all.

Vents etc

We were going to reseal the vents prior to resealing the roof. As it turned out, all three vents were busted -- the kind of busted that can't be fixed, like large cracks in the plastic lids, stripped screws, etc. So we went down the road and bought three new ones; got one installed yesterday and will do the other two today.

Got the range hood removed and, boy, does it make a wonderful difference in visual space and headroom and elbow room! Turns out, too, that the hood was an exhaust hood but it was installed without hooking up an external exhaust, so it just blew air around inside -- which is of no use whatsoever. We also took down the curtain track right by the cabover/bed -- another big difference in visual space and headroom. If anyone ever wants to put a curtain back up there (to close the bed off from the living space), they can buy a tension rod.

Now that I'm no longer smoking cigarettes, I may put the smoke detector back up.

The only things left to do (other than mentioned above) is the stove cover rivet, and the window channel.

I'm taking Chuck to lunch today at Los Dos Molinos. Next week is T Day -- hope everyone has a nice one, and I'll be thinking of you.

Restroom at Springerville

I made a special trip to photograph this building. When I came to town last Sept. I saw this building but had no idea what it was. The signs are small brown signs with the man/woman icons and an arrow -- that's it. It sits on a rise about two miles north of town, just outside the town limits. It's so close to town I have no idea what possessed them to put it here, with large spots for RV and truck parking. I like the interesting combo of Art Deco and Southwestern design.

Frustration Exercises

My online bank has set up some new "security" upgrades, without telling me, of course. So I can't log on anymore without going through a new setup, involving six(!) security questions. One choice is "what was your first job" -- that was 1961, for heaven's sake, retail clerk in a five-&-dime type store that I don't remember the name of. I managed to finally get through all that rigamarole, then there were the verified codes to my phone and my email, which I had to go get and type in.

I also did an upgrade on my operating system and am now having browser problems (it's really slow all of a sudden) and occasional error messages when I try to do something. Aaargh.

Yes yes, I suppose it's all good in the long run, but I started out at 7am and it's now 10am, so I'm tired and annoyed.

On the good side, the black tank has been 99% repaired with ABS cement; the guy suggests that I dump more frequently, just in case. I can do that, especially since he only charged me $25 because he couldn't do 100% repair.

The new fluorescent lights should arrive today, so I'll be taking out the range hood and the bad light fixture over the kitchen sink and replacing it with a 2ft fixture. And I'll have headroom over the stove.

Tomorrow I'm going to take Chuck to lunch at Los Dos Molinos and we're going to have the Mexican Pizza. Yum.

Welding Plastic

A local guy does plastic "welding" and is repairing my blackwater tank in situ. Of course, first he has to get all the previous repair stuff off (silicone, fiberglass). The weather turned nasty yesterday and finally got too cold for him to continue, so he'll be back today, when the temp. should be above 50 deg. It even spit a couple of white flakes at us, promptly whirled away by the stiff wind.

Next thing is the roof. I've found two fancy roof coatings that not only seal but insulate and am gathering info to decide which to get. One is a NASA tech offshoot and the other won an award from its trade group. None of the Toyota Yahoo group folk have used either one, though one guy is considering them, so they'll be grateful for whatever I find.

Then, the only project left is replacing lights and removing the range hood. Lights are on the way. I'm excited to get rid of the blankety-blank range hood.

Then Turkey Day. Then hit the road!

Mixed up posts

The last 3-4 posts are a little out of order. The one about taking out the black tank is the most recent. Got a little befuddled.

More updates

The awning is now fixed with a new lever that allows it to open (and stay open) and close. Both the front cabover window and the rear kitchen window have new rain gutters and have been caulked. The big thing left to do is the sealing the roof. However, that will have to wait until Chuck has recovered from his cataract surgery, to take place tomorrow morning.

The black tank is leaking again (brown icicles in the morning--ick), so it looks like a new tank is in order. Chuck knows a guy here in town who made a tank for one of his RVs -- not as "pretty" as the regular ones but about 1/4 the cost. So we'll be tracking him down.

Went to Show Low Monday for Chuck's dermatology appointment (he's got some weird rash), and had a nice lunch at a fancy Mexican restaurant. Returned the fluorescent lights I'd gotten the last time at Home Depot -- realized they weren't 12v so not suited to the RV. Went on ebay and found a set of 4 nice-looking lights for about what one 12v light sells for retail. Any I don't use, Chuck will buy from me.

Going to Show Low is always an all-day excursion. First, it's 100 miles roundtrip, a lovely drive through the piney woods. Second, lots of errands to do while there, so even though it's not very big, there's a lot of drive here, park, do business, drive there, park, do business, drive to next place, etc etc.

Wifi has been acting up the last few days. No connection till about 10pm. Odd.

Am looking forward to getting on the road about Dec 1 and heading for California, though I'm not sure yet exactly where I'll wind up, except it'll be within 150 miles of San Francisco.

TTFN

Pix etc

Put plastic on big windows today -- makes a big difference in cutting the wind. Also got myself some flannel sheets and a runner for the floor. We're already down to freezing at night but nice sunny days.

Here's a couple of recent pix.

On the way from Eagar to Mesa for the RV Women convention. Pretty dramatic.
Neighbor has 2-3 horses and a pony, and a couple of cats (the bobtail yellow male likes me). They finally got curious and came to see what we were doing -- obviously didn't hold their attention for too long.

Tank etc.

Tomorrow I'll do a dump/flush and disconnect the sewer line. Then the black tank will be taken out. Then we can do careful measuring, especially of exactly where the toilet line is and where the dump valve is.

Then! I can order a new ABS plastic tank for less than I can get the old tank repaired. The old tank is 25 years old and has gotten quite thin in places, probably from UV light damage. But I've found an online supplier that pretty much does nothing but tanks of all kinds. The plastic will be lighter, too, which is always good in an RV.

The roof will have to wait.

The weather has turned very wintry -- mid-40s day, upper teens at night. Hooray for my new flannel sheets.

Chuck's cataract surgery went very well. Operated on yesterday, follow-up visit today and the eye patch was left off. This evening he read some small print without glasses. He's thrilled. Here's a pic I took when I was here in Sept. -- he's trimmed his beard and sideburns (hooray).
TTFN

Little Projects

Several things got done today. New screen in the bathroom vent. Shoe bag screwed to the closet door. Water hose and pump wrapped in blankets and foam to prevent freezing (it's in the low 30s at night). And I have a new emergency brake cable (very reassuring).

We're working up to doing the roof vent reputtying and roof sealing.

Also, Chuck thinks he's got some coax cable around somewhere and may be able to run a line from his cable tv so I can have tv at the rig. We're also thinking about putting in some more fluorescent fixtures. If we can put one in over the kitchen sink and over the stove, we'll take out the monster range hood! Yay!

Still need to figure out how to repair the stove cover. And put new screening in the screen door. And maybe put in a new faucet in the kitchen sink, a bar-type that arches high so you can actually get a pot in the sink easily.

No hurry as I've decided to stay here through Thanksgiving. Chuck had no plans so I decided to stay. His cataract surgery is coming up soon, too.

More later.

Back to Eagar

Left Mesa about 8.30 am today, and arrived in Chuck's yard about 4.30. Of course, I stopped at the Red Onion Lounge in Overgaard to have one of their "famous" burgers. It was pretty good, and the "hand-cut" fries were okay, but the iced tea was terrible (even six sugars didn't help it).

Taking tomorrow off. Then Chuck and I will start on my "to-do" list. Oh yeah, and he'll have cataract surgery in there somewhere.

TTFN