'Bout Time to Leave

 Its close to time to begin a new adventure, but there was still work to do around here. 

I showed you pictures of our new trailer; we continue to make adjustments. 

I thought it would be nice to have a separation between the bed and the rest of the trailer. The curtain and track are hospital grade... however, it took awhile to get the curtain. I called the company only to find out that the curtain material was on back order. Installation was really easy, some screws, and it was done.

Lately I have been focused on the park septic system, and I will not pain you with some of the photos. The only one I will post is: 

We had one of our residents pass recently, as usual, the community turned out to honor him.

Whenever one of our members passes on, we memorialize them with a plaque under the flags. We lower our flags for three days in recognition one of our family.

It is not always serious around here, sometimes there is a bit of fun and games, and a few of us are having that fun "clowning around".

This little clown head can be found in various places. Once someone finds it, they can move it somewhere else to continue the game of "where's the clown".

As some of you may have already seen, I do sometimes enjoy shopping.

No... I did not buy the glasses, they were $30.00 daisy glasses. 

That $30.00 was better spent renewing my drivers license. I started applying for my renewal and found out I needed to provide a current (within a year) eye exam, which I couldn't; my last one was two years ago. We solved the problem, Carol and I both went for exams and new glasses.

Remember me just speaking of one of our recently departed. A month or so passed and an opportunity arose to grow the family...

We were in the right place at the right time. The night before we bought it, one of the community asked if she was ready to sell her husband's cart, she replied no. The next morning there was a Facebook post that she was selling it. We were the first ones to show up with cash... we won the "Black Friday" sale. This cart has been around the park for many years, and multiple owners, and we are going to carry on the tradition.

We wasted no time making it our own...

Look close... I added a five section mirror to the cart. When we leave here this year we will cover it up until we return. There are some neat plans for the cart after we return for the winter. You will have to stay tuned to see what we do to it. To answer your wondering question... yes, it is Carols... for the most part.

We have definitely about the wind around here. Most days are not more than the usual breezes, with a gust here and there. Then there are other days. The last few days have been very windy, usually steady 30+ MPH, and gusts above 50 MPH.  How's this for the power of the wind...

This is the roof of the park water building. Our winds were averaging 40 MPH, with gust near 60 MPH. I got a class this morning, and a couple of us went into the wind to make some kind of temporary repair.

The quick repair between high wind gusts... cinder blocks and tie down straps. Fortunately I had just bought a new four pack of tie down straps, 'cause it took all four straps and two ratchet hooks to secure the roof. With that emergency taken care of it is time to find some other trouble to get into.

Something I was able to accomplish without getting blown away. The other hose holder looked like everyone else's. The park has a rule that every lot must have a hose for fighting a fire.

The weather has been warming up enough for the plants to start their blooming show. We have been anxiously waiting for our cactus to bloom before we leave... it did not disappoint us...

There are still many more blossoms to happen.

Earlier I showed you the wind damage to the roof on the park's water building, look at it now...

BEFORE and AFTER

Looks a whole lot different doesn't it.

The "newbies", all of us new leaseholders, in the park are having an affect on the old timers. Things that happened are being revived. For example, the folks in the park once tossed horse shoes, and for some reason it died out.

The "newbies" decided to have a sport day the Saturday before Easter. There was axe throwing, corn hole, horseshoes, and a couple of other games, the turnout was pretty doggone good. The old timers were pleased with the revival of fun activities.

From the sport activities we moved into an Easter meal. The park decided to have the meal on Saturday vice Sunday because many people had other plans.

This was only one of the desserts for the feast. While the sporting activities were goin' on outside, some of us were preparing for the feast. Carol did a lot of the planning and preparation, which included cooking two 14 pound hams, and I came in with knife in hand to slice them. 

We did two different toppings for the hams, one was a traditional glaze, the other was my concoction, liquid smoke and pineapple juice.

Along with the hams, there were fresh rolls made with mashed potatoes, various salads, multiple desserts, mac and cheese, bean casseroles, all made by various cooks. Over 40 people enjoyed the meal, with very few leftovers.

CONTINUING TO BLOOM

NOTHIN' MUCH BETTER THAN THIS

Other things are changing around here as well.

I got my New Mexico license before I registered the truck. I like the fact that my license is good for 8 years. We are working on getting the trailers registered here in New Mexico too. The nice thing about the new trailer is its weight. When a trailer is under 6,000 pounds, you can get a permanent registration for it... meaning I don't have to think about registering it ever again. When I registered the truck I had the option to register it for two years, and I'll be able to the same for the 5th wheel too.

I did a little re-work on the golf cart a few days ago...

I added daisy solar lights around the roof.

Let me tell you a story of frustration. As you know, we bought the new trailer back in February, and we figured to register in South Dakota. The dealer did all the paperwork, we shared the money from our wallets, off the paperwork went (registered mail). March rolled around and no plates yet. April came like the wind, still no plate. I contacted the dealership for an update. The dealer called the DMV in South Dakota and their reply was the all-American shoulder shrug. He then quizzed the post office, and they had no idea where his tracking number was, come to find out later, they couldn't even find it in their system. The dealer checked his bank to see if the check had been cashed... nope. Carol and I went back in to sign papers to register the trailer in New Mexico, should see the plates tomorrow. I should have suspected something wasn't quite right when I had NFCU asking me to prove we bought the trailer. If I couldn't prove it they were going to raise the interest rate on the loan... no fear, I sent them prove of purchase.

Whether we have plates or not were heading out for a maiden voyage for a couple of days. The answer to your question is yes, we have a temporary paper plate for the trailer. There will be more on this trip later.

It's a Retro

 I said there might be another post... I didn't lie.

We did add another trailer to our collection of assets.

ON THE WAY TO NEW HOME

FINALLY HOME

How about a quick tour...

...O.K., you've seen it all, it is only 24 feet long from hitch to back. Now that we have teased, I'll show some more.

This is a small travel trailer, so there is limited storage which can be found under the bed, in the dinette seats, various cabinets, a shelf as one enters the trailer, and an outside side-to-side storage bay.

Unlike some of the older small trailers, this trailer has what is called a dry bath, vice a wet bath. The big difference is that the floor in a wet bath serves at the shower floor, meaning the toilet is sitting in the shower. Our toilet is separate from the shower...

All the appliances are made by GE, with the refrigerator operating on 12 DC electricity.

This refrigerator is the same size as the one in our Arctic Fox, 10 cubic feet. The difference is the depth of this fridge, it doesn't have the chemical catalyst hardware requiring part of the compartment space.

The bed is a queen that we can walk around... no climbing over each other at night. At the head of the bed is a little cubby on each side, and a nightstand, That nightstand is actually part of the outside storage bay. This is an inexpensive trailer, and the mattress proves it, so Carol and I will be changing it out to a better mattress.

The stove/oven isn't too spectacular...

... except for the lighting around the burner knobs. The sink is a farm style stainless steel sink.

The one item Carol and I noticed was the lack of drawers.

Looking under the sink was a bit of a surprise. The bottom left panel hides the water pump for the trailer, and the other side is currently wasted space, but that will change. I'm going to break the tour for a minute. 

I took care of the no drawer for silverware. Went on Wayfair and found this sliding drawer set up. By the way, the space below this slide out will become more storage after I put the divider in.

O.K., back on tour.

This counter and cabinet will probably be home for our air Fryer oven. The cabinet will be used for bathroom items and the trash can. At the bottom right side of this cabinet is the water heater. This area is suppose to be for the TV too, but we my not even worry about a TV.

The big windows on the trailer have black-out blinds...

It might be hard to see, but the item I like on this control panel is the option for running the water heater on gas, or electric.

The last part of the tour is the two batteries I asked to be installed, instead of just one, as originally designed.

The spot you see the batteries in now is not their current location. When I returned to the dealership to have them install the distribution/anti-sway hitch, we came across an issue... the hitch component needed to be mounted where the front battery box support was located. A discussion with the dealership rendered a solution that moved the battery box support backets further back (into the area of the photo that contains gravel). 

The tour is over, the trailer is now resting peacefully in a storage space at the park, where we can visit it anytime we want to. There are still a few things we want to do.

So.... what else has been happening here.

Carol and I continue to work our committees, not much venturing... and earthquakes. The last few days we have had a few earthquakes close to home. The first one was about 2:50 am, and sounded like an explosion to me. It was short, then there was an after shock about 3:06 am, not quite as bad. The next morning Carol and I learned that the park was only about a thousand yards from the epicenter; the first time either of us have been this close to an epicenter. Remember, I grew up in California, and made it through the Sylmar disaster in the 70's.

You are now up to date with all our fun.

Over Half Way Through our Stay

Let's expand a bit on what Carol has been doing as part of the Ranch House Committee. There is a list that looks for volunteers to coordinate events, Carol and one of our friends coordinated the events for January and February.

Carol and I found a website that lists days that different items are celebrated on (i.e. national pie day, national soup day, etc.). What Carol is doing is putting certain days on a dry mark board that the Ranch is going to entertain.

This is February's schedule of events.

In January we had celebrated chili day, pie day, chocolate cake day, and a couple others too.

CHILI DAY

POPCORN DAY

PIE DAY

REMNANTS OF ROOT BEER FLOAT NIGHT

There are a few of us newcomers that are trying to bring the Ranch alive again, and so far we are making some progress.

In between the events Carol has coordinated, she took time to do a couple of puzzles she found during ranch house clean up.

These puzzles are made of wood, and have unique pieces, but she had fun doing them. I myself was out somewhere on the park getting dirty. 

Last post I spoke about a leak that a couple of us repaired, and that was going to add a sign for it...

10 YR R.O. WASTE WATER LEAK MONUMENT

I also failed to mention a minor replacement project we needed to do...

Our original microwave was taking a journey down to replacementville, and we helped it along. The fan sounded like someone was warming up their NASCAR race car, and it refused to heat up above 300 degrees.

LEST WE FORGET...

BEAUTIFUL SUNSETS.

Its not on the event board, but we celebrated soup day.

The next event will be pizza day, it should be interesting.

Pizza day arrived, some of the cooking participants actually used their own, or Ranch House ovens to cook their homemade pizzas, while others used the skills of local artisans.

The skilled artisan pizzas ranged from Dominos, Little Caesars, to a frozen, throw in the oven style. On the other hand, the "several cooks" put their imagination to work.

The top pizza was an upside down pizza that started with the ingredients in the pan first, then the crust, and it was very good because the crust was not soggy. Carol on the other other (yes, intentional) hand chose to use slices of sourdough bread. She topped hers with pepperoni, cheese, and drained crushed pineapple. This recipe is a "no sauce" pizza, which made it easy to eat without fear of sauce drippage.

The pizza party was on a Friday. Around here a couple of days can make a total difference in the weather. Friday was a warm sort of day, colder after sunset.

Here we are on Super Bowl Sunday before kick-off. The snow didn't say long, but while it was here, it brought 30 to 40 mph winds from the north. That north wind flash froze any standing puddles. 

By the time for pre-game setup, the winds died down and the little amount of snow was vanishing. The snacks ranged from the usual chips and dip to gumbo soup. There were weiners wrapped in bacon, sausages wrapped in dough, and black eyed pea and ham soup. We weren't lacking for snacks. All I needed was for the 49er's to win... again... not this time.

I'm off to read water meters. I'm sure there will be one more post before we leave.

Where Are We Now

 Where are we now is a great question for me as I climb the trees to hang Christmas lights and garland. Part of the lights I hung when I first got here.

The day has come to begin setting up for Christmas, that meant hanging ornaments and popcorn garland. But before I started that, I took down an old bird nest.

After doing a little more trimming of small branches, it was time to hang stuff. Carol was my go-to person while hanging the ornaments and popcorn garland.

The popcorn garland was fun to make. Most of you out there may be able to see that the kernels are made from spray foam. They started out as lumps of foam, and when they hardened a little, I combined two lumps together to form a kernel. Night time will be our proving ground, determining if we need to move item around.

WE'RE BACK.

Besides preparing for the Christmas season, I did a little maintenance around the park while Carol was trying to organize the Ranch House. One of my projects was repairing an opening under one of the kitchen sinks. 

A fitting leaked for quite awhile causing damage to the shelf and drywall. After the leak was repaired, they left a hole in the wall. The mice enjoyed the free run of the area. The shelf was also repaired, by someone else. 

Before the repairs were completed we had traps under the sink... we caught one... the others learned from that lesson. One of the leaseholders had the doors open and was watching for mice, and what a spectacle he did see... the mice no longer ran along the cabinet floor, they jumped from bottle lid to bottle lid making their nightly runs.

Part of the reason that I have not been writing has to do with the committees we both have joined. I joined the Water Committee, Building and Safety Committee, and the Storage Committee. Carol on the other hand became part of the Audit Committee, Ranch House Committee, and the Lot Transfer Committee.

As part of the Water Committee I have the responsibility of metering park water usage, and conducting repairs and maintenance on the water system. My first action was to repair the door security to Well House #1, accomplished, and lookin' good. Talking with other committee members, I learned of a leak in the reverse osmosis (RO) water system, that has been leaking for ten years.

This was a fun project that no one wanted to take it on. The stand pipe was becoming a stalagmite with all the mineral build-up over the ten years. Getting to the point in the picture took some work. There was a thick layer of minerals that acted like concrete, which took a sledge hammer to break up.

A co-leaseholder and I made short work of the repair, and created a monument to the repaired leak. I have made a sign that reads "10 YEAR RO WASTE WATER LEAK MONUMENT", and plan to mount it next time I do meter readings.

Part of the water system at the park is a collection pond for waste water treatment. It appears to be a short stay resort for some of our feathered friends...

We are just a rest stop on the way to somewhere else.

Carol and some other leaseholders are having fun organizing the Ranch House and its associated storeroom. They have enjoyed throwing away items that have been around for eons, and not used. This is sometimes a point of contention with a few of the leaseholders that have been here a very long time.

When we first leased the lot, we were going to put it in the rental pool so that visitors could stay when they are in the area. After doing the improvements, we decided to remove it from the pool, and with that came making a temporary fence.

Look at the middle of the picture, you will notice some cinder blocks and fencing material. It will be moved to the front of the lot when we get to travelin' again. 

These are photos from one of my mornings during meter reading duties. Working around the ranch, pleasures can be found...

This owl is one of several that constantly visit the ranch, this is behind the Ranch House. Most nights we can hear them in the trees near our lot. We are waiting for spring to get closer, then we should see more varieties of birds coming around, and butterflies too.

Maintenance on the rig is a never ending joy to, but must be done cautiously with the wind around here. This next task isn't affected by the wind...

What you are looking at is the temperature and pressure relief valve for our water heater. The constant leaking made a mess on the outside of the trailer. It is my fault that the valve got this way. In checking our water heater anode, I failed to ensure there was an air gap in the water heater. When water heats, it expands, and ultimately forced out the valve. The fix is a simple one, just replace the valve. To ensure this doesn't happen again, I need to ensure there is the required air cap in the water heater. No, I haven't replaced the valve to date, but I do have the new valve.

We discovered this tequila while shopping at Albertson's. It is really smooth goin' down. 

We have visited the local winery about four miles down the road. The winery holds various events which we have attended, some better than others. One item I found that I like is an uncured bacon jam. I have used it on top of my steaks. Yes, they do have wines that Carol and I enjoy, so we bought a couple of bottles. As usual, I purchased their port wine, both varieties which were in limited stock. One of the ports was $75.00 for the bottle, they only had three left; I only bought one of each. The people here are nervous about spending $75.00 on a bottle of wine, especially if they can't taste it.

The last event we went to was a couple of comedians. At this event they were serving pulled pork in several forms, I ordered the pulled pork nachos, and a bottle of port (the expensive stuff). I was going to get Carol's favorite, but they were out of stock. I was kidding with bartender about my nachos being no-charge since I bought the expensive port wine... he said sure, so I had nachos-on-the-house. The comedians were so-so, too much foul language. The port I bought was part of the remaining two from the previous bottles in stock, now there is only one.

DO NOT GET TOO EXCITED ABOUT WHAT I AM ABOUT TO WRITE.

We, probably more me, have been discussing the option of a second trailer for short stay trips and traveling to regions where the roads, and park spaces are narrow, or small. A good example of small is California state parks, which can only fit rigs up to 32 feet. An example of narrow, the roads in New England.

We are looking into trailers in the range of 24 feet long. This is one of the trailers on the list, a Riverside, Retro Elite. This one has peeked our interest, and is in the range of what we want to spend. Should we get a new trailer, I will let you know, with pictures.

Later folks...