On the Way Out and Up

 The world hasn't changed much in this area, and we just kept pluggin' along.

I did get the AC covers removed without getting blown off the roof. We continued our maintenance routine, and Carol kept beading on. 

We arrived back in Congress in time for a new meat market starting up...

2 years ago the place was a Circle K, which we utilized as our pickup point for Amazon, because of Amazon lockers. When we first saw the building it was under renovation, and didn't indicate what was replacing the Circle K. About a month into our stay they began selling product in the parking lot while the store was still being completed. The market finally opened... this is one of our stashes...

This score is ribeye steaks, ground beef, and kalbi short ribs. What we like about their meat is it is locally raised in Arizona, grass fed/grain finished, and package here in Arizona. Needless to say we have visited the market multiple times since the doors have opened. One of the advantages to Capitol Farms is that they will ship their products.

Besides enjoying our new meat find, we are still fine tuning our carnivore lifestyle.

Don't be put off by the sushi roll, it was an experiment. The original recipe called for bacon, tomato, mayo, and avocado. I didn't have an avocado, so I substituted guacamole. The bacon was laid out in a cross-hatch pattern, then baked. After the bacon cooled, I added the other ingredients, and chilled it. The chaffle is a definitely a dessert.

Let's talk the emergency exit window saga. You are now looking at the replacement window for the incorrect one delivered earlier. Why a picture of this window on the truck... because it is WRONG too! and this was mid-February. Needless to say, I rejected the window, and called the manufacturer. After I sent more photos to the manufacturer rep, she told me she would get back to me in a couple of days... well, she got back to me the next day.

I started something for sure. She told me that design, the manufacturing floor supervisor, and the plant supervisor all got involved. They found the build issue on the production line. The new replacement window was going into product quickly, vice the 4-6 week lead time, the plant supervisor was going to walk it down the line. As soon as the window would be complete, it would be shipped out.

I explained to the rep that if they used the same trucking company as the first two times, the window would not get to us in time. The solution to our dilemma was to ship it to the RV rally outside of Tucson. 

The winter here was a tad cooler than it normally is, so there were a couple of day we saw snow... nothing to make snowmen out of though.

The only reason that there was some snow... cold winds a blowin'.

It wasn't all cold weather. Once the cold front passed through we saw the warm temperatures come out to play, and with that, beautiful sunsets again.

With nice weather comes outside activities... one of which is shopping. Carol was in town at Costco and found a fun activity for all ages... axe throwing...

I've started breaking down for our drive to the RV rally, we have an early departure to ensure we get to the fairgrounds at the appointed parking hour.

As of this posting, the window is meeting us at the fairgrounds.

Christmas... New Awning

 Before Christmas, back in November, I ordered a new awning, and a new emergency exit window. Christmas rolled around and neither item had arrived, so we'll hit the spirit of Christmas first.

As you might see, I've gone to the "Grinch" side of  Christmas. The Grinch sign was given to us years ago by our oldest son and his wife, the tree I found at the Ace Hardware. Carol added the Grinch lights to it.

The park does a parade of lights just before Christmas. The parade consists of golf carts, bicycles, and vehicles decked out with holiday spirit; we got a couple of pictures of golf carts when we went to the after parade social.

Christmas came and went, without snow, as usual. Christmas presents began arriving around the 27th, in the form of parts for the new awnings, no word on the window though.

Once the parts stared arriving, I inventoried them to ensure everything showed up, then I realized I forgot to order a slightly important part for the awning, the support arms. Fortunately, getting the support arms didn't take long. Poor design of the original awning was the reason we went to a different manufacturer for the new awning.

God works his plan like no human can imagine. Several sites from us is a mobile repair technician, who helped with the installation, more as a guiding hand. 

I did most of the manual labor, which meant cleaning up the original installation mess before installing the new awning. The installation was simpler than I thought. The portion I needed the tech for involved getting the awning fabric in place.

With the awning in place and wired up, it was time to test its operations.

When I ordered the new awning, Carol and I decided that we wanted to add an awning to the slide side windows as well. Fortunately we do not need it in this spot, the sun stays on the south side.

Besides changing out the awnings, we took to experimenting with making jerky at home, nothing too advanced. Carol ordered a jerky extruder, and I went to town making jerky from ground beef.

OK... back to the emergency window. We decide to change it out after we saw a newer Arctic Fox with a window that was vented. 

As you can see, our current window was solid, and opens out from the bottom in an emergency. The new window will have a vent window at the bottom.

Well the new window finally arrived, after sitting in Dewey, AZ for almost a week. It sat there that long because the delivery route to Congress (40 miles away) only comes out on Thursdays. When I broke open the crate, I was a little surprised, but didn't think much about the window... so I installed it... and did a mighty fine job too.

My first thought was that they changed their design for better ventilation; it still opened from the bottom for emergency egress.

With in place, it looked good... then the rain came.

It rained outside... and inside. This was proof that the design was a failure. Needless to say, I contacted the manufacturer regarding the issue. I sent pictures with a description of the problem, apparently that was not enough for the people that made the window... they told me I installed it upside down. With that explanation I sent more pictures, since words were too much for them to understand. (Kind of like don't walk signs that use to be words, but are now pictures).

After these photos were sent, the next response from the window maker was... your new window is going into production. Those photos were sent to the "middle man" in late January. The replacement window got to the "middle man" mid-February, for delivery to us by 23 February.

Remember I mentioned rain earlier... well it rained. Wickenburg is located by a seasonal-dry river bed, called Hassayampa River. 

This picture shows it still flowing, but down from the raging waters it was after the initial rain; the same rain that came in our new window.

This winter has been an interesting one, with temperatures dipping below normal, the rain, and snow. Now, the snow wasn't such an issue, but happened once. 

These pellets were not as hard as hail, but were firm, some were fluffy, most were the size of large peas. The hills around us saw most of the snow for a couple of days before the temperatures climbed back to normal.

Not too much happening before we head out in mid-March. This week there is suppose to be some bad weather with gusty winds. I still need to climb up on the roof and remover the covers from the AC units.

It Isn't all Fun and Games

 Yes, we did make it to Congress, AZ for the winter. This stay will not be all fun and games, it is designed for accomplishing repairs and upgrades. 

God still makes it a good place to stop over for the season.

SUNRISE and SUNSET

One of our goals was to replace our temporary zero gravity lawn chairs with a new couch or chairs. We did some lookin' around here in Surprise for furniture, and finally stopped the search at a local company called Leather Creations. The advantage of this local manufacturer is that the product is made here in Arizona, plus the customer has an input on what they are buying. We sat down with a salesperson and designed our new loveseat with a console... granted it cost the price of a small car... but it has a lifetime warranty. We got a bit anxious waiting for the new couch because it took six weeks to make it... but, here it is.

Carol and I have been thinking about trying a winter in South Dakota (no we haven't lost our marbles). I decided to experiment on what it would take, besides skirting, to keep us comfortable. I popped over to the local Home Depot (40 miles down the road), and purchased insulation for the under sides of the slides.

The insulation is working to some extent, but I think I need to add a layer of plastic wrap next time. The insulation will not go to waste when we get ready to leave here, I am going to add it to the under belly insulation that already exists. With this project completed, it was time to look for another one... oh, the front door window.

Some of you may remember that our front door window was frosted glass, that we kept covered because of the glare from the sun. Well, I decided to order a replacement window with a pull down blind. 

The first photo is a morning sunrise through our new front door window, and the second photo is embellishments we added. The shade

is black, and works nicely. This was a simple project, but it looks great. I gave the other window to the RV repair guy next to us; his plan is to use it on another RV he and some friends are rebuilding.

The next inside project is in the bedroom... our mattress. We have been surviving on the original mattress, which grew a hump in the middle because we both sleep on  the edge of the bed. We ordered the new mattress, and thank goodness it didn't take as long as the couch. Before we received the mattress I needed to prep our bed frame.

The original bed frame was webbing similar to what was/is used in cheap lawn chairs, only it is thick cloth like in older quality furniture. Anyway, with the upgrade completed, we just waited for the arrival of our new mattress. The mattress has independent coils, and memory

foam. The big difference, and I mean big, is that it is taller than the original mattress. The new mattress is 14 inches tall, which means we literally have to climb into bed. This was a slight issue for Carol, which was easily remedied...

a step stool made from scrap materials around the rig.

As you may know, Carol and I have changed our eating habits to a more carnivore lifestyle, and have been looking into some different ways to meet certain cravings. 

What you are looking at is the beginning and end of chicken chips. A chicken breast is either beat out, or ground down in a food processor (that's me), seasonings added during the processor phase, then rolled out paper thin, and baked at a low temperature for about an hour. While thin was good, Carol and I think that thicker may be more to our taste. 

It wasn't all work, we did play some, Carol with beads, me in the desert.

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

BLM BEHIND RANCH

Fun's over, back to work.

You ever live somewhere long enough that you realize changes need to be made... we have, and it started in the bathroom area.

The sink faucet just wasn't doing it for us, so we said, "let's change it out". Sometimes things take a bit more planning than actual doing. In the case of the faucet, it required drilling a hole for the single fixture mount, and purchasing adapters to mate up the faucet lines and the water lines. How many times can one run to the hardware store... it was more than one for me. After all said and done, they is what we ended up with, a beautiful faucet we can get our hands under.

Next installment will prepare us for Christmas, and a new awning.