Category Archives: Western RV/Alpine Coach

Nine Years After

A week ago Wednesday, I drove Donna to the Cortez Munipal Airport as planned. She was flying out to San Diego for a long weekend with her sisters to attend her nephew’s high school graduation commencement. Her flight out of Cortez was on a regional airline, Boutique Air, in a Pilatus PC12 aircraft. These are small, single-engine turbo-prop planes built in Switzerland. They have an excellent reputation and safety record. Boutique Air configures the planes to carry eight passengers and two crew – pilot and co-pilot. The co-pilot doubles as a flight attendant.

They have two filghts between Cortez and Phoenix daily as well as four flights between Cortez and Denver.

Pilatus PC12 arrived from Phoenix and will turn around and go back to Phoenix

In the photo above, the plane arrived from Phoenix and is being made ready for the flight back to Phoenix. The Cortez Municipal Airport has one runway (3/21) that’s oriented roughly northeast/southwest – 30 degrees northeast and 210 degrees southwest. The prevailing winds are from the southwest so most takeoffs and landings are on the 210 degree heading.

The airport was made famous in 1959 when a USAF Lockheed U2 reconnaissance plane made a forced landing there after its engine flamed out at an altitude of 70,000 feet above sea level. The pilot was a Chinese (ROC Taiwan) Air Force Major on a night training flight from Laughlin AFB in Texas. He flew to Salt Lake City and turned back on a secret flight path. The U2 was a highly classified secret aircraft at the time. When his engine quit, he didn’t have much of a plan.

He glided to a lower alitude and attempted to restart, unsucessfully. It was dark and he didn’t know his precise location, just a general idea. He knew the area was mountainous and didn’t know of any airports in the area. By a stroke of luck or the grace of God, he ended up gliding between mountains in the high desert valley and spotted runway lights. His glide path and speed coordinated perfectly to line up a landing at the Cortez airport! If he had been a few miles east or west of the valley he would have slammed into a mountain in the dark night. It’s quite a story.

I had an uneventful four nights as a bachelor while Donna was away. I played pickleball, read books and took care of Ozark the cat. Donna had a nice time with her sisters – she hadn’t spent time with the three of them together in years.

Sunday afternoon Donna flew back to Cortez, backtracking her flights to San Diego. The Boutique Air flight from Phoenix landed at 3:36pm. She said she enjoyed the small aircraft – she hadn’t flown in a Pilatus before.

Donna in the doorway exiting the Pilatus PC12

In the photo above you can see Donna in the doorway exiting the aircraft and get a sense of scale for the small airplane.

Sunday evening we went to J Fargo’s Family Dining and Micro-Brewery on Main Street. We had dinner and a couple of brews and discussed our future plans. The water leak situation is only a minor leak, but fixing it is problematic. Our friend and fellow Alpine Coach owner Lynda Campbell told me she found an access panel in the back of the cabinet in the kitchen behind the shower wall.

I hadn’t seen this panel because it’s behind a wire rack where we store canned goods. I emptied the cabinet and removed four screws and pulled the panel out. This wasn’t going to help much. First of all, the guys that built this coach covered half of the access point with lauan plywood. This could be cut away without too much trouble, but there were still two concerns. It wouldn’t access the shower valve if that’s where the leak is. If the leak is at the shower head, I would need arms about a foot longer than I have to reach through the cabinet to fix it.

The leak is really small, but over time it will create water damage. Water damage is an RVer’s worst fear. We’ve been minimizing the leakage by only using the onboard water supply and turning on the water pump as needed. When we turn the pump off, we leave a tap open to relieve the water pressure and stop any subsequent leakage. This had been a tedious process and uses a lot more water than we normally use.

We need to get the coach into a shop where they can create a better way to access the shower plumbing. If we continued on to New Mexico as planned, we could probably find a competent shop. But we would need to have an open-ended stay at a motel while the work was being done and would have to bring Ozark into a motel room. Been there, done that and it wasn’t good.

We decided to leave Cortez a week ahead of schedule and go back to Mesa, Arizona. Here we have our own home and I can research repair shops to see who would be the best fit for this work.

At that point we agreed that moving forward, once repaired, we would sell the motorhome. Donna always said we would know when our time on the road was done. We’re done. Our future travel plans will probably involve B&B stays around the country in the summer months and we’ll stay in our park model home at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort the rest of the year.

When I started this blog nine years ago, the stated purpose was to keep my family and friends informed of our whereabouts and our activities. With the RV lifestyle in the rearview mirror, this may be the last installment of this blog.

Not an Amazon Affiliate

I haven’t been motivated to write a post as we haven’t done anything too exciting lately. The biggest highlight of the past week was dinner at Olio in Mancos for Donna’s birthday. Her birthday was actually on Friday, but celebrated a day early because we couldn’t get a table reservation on Friday.

Olio is upscale dining by reservation only. The owner and chef, Jason Blankenship, prepares locally sourced dinners and the menu will vary according to what may be available at the time. The place only seats about two dozen people and the tables are reserved for the night – no rushing through a meal while people wait for your table.

They have an extensive wine list. We started with the house salad – fresh salad greens with sauteed mushrooms, marcona almonds and piave and saba cheese. Their house dressing was fabulous. I ordered a bottle of 2013 Domaine les Bastides – a blend of cabernet sauvignon and grenache from Aix-en-Provence, France. It went well with our dinner entees. Donna went for the Pan Roasted Pheasant Breast on Grilled Corn Maque Choux with Tomato-Marsala Sauce while I had the Grilled, Dry-Aged, Piedmontese New York Strip with Olio Signature Steak Sauce. We split a slice of Chocolate Silk Pie with a 5-Nut Crust  for dessert. What a meal.

Our time has been mostly occupied with activities in the mornings and leisurely afternoons. I play pickleball for about two hours most mornings while Donna alternates between tennis three or four days a week and pickleball. I didn’t play over the weekend as we had high winds with gusts of 40mph. Donna has also been helping our friend, Carolyn, with chores at the Owers farm a couple of days a week.

There was a lot of turnover here in La Mesa RV Park over the Memorial Day weekend. Weekenders came in while some of the longer term people went away for the weekend, presumably visiting family. Some of the longer term people here are workers staying here while they work in the mountains. I think they’re stringing electrical cable.

We had a young couple with a baby pull in next door on Friday. They were from Kansas and came here to visit with family. They pulled out Sunday morning and had to drive 900 miles back home. Their intention was to do it in two days so he could be back at work on Tuesday. This seemed awful ambitious to me – especially towing a travel trailer in the gusty, windy conditions on Sunday.

We had a few excellent meals in the last week prepared by Donna. We started the week with grilled chicken with the barbecue sauce that Donna whipped up. She served it with crash-hot potatoes (an Australian recipe) and green beans.

Barbecue chicken plate

Last Tuesday, Donna made lemon butter scallops served with a side of sweet potato-spinach hash. I cut the spinach into thin strips and this worked much better than preparing it with whole spinach leaves.

Scallops with sweet potato-spinach hash

Wednesday night Donna made something a little different – she made salami pasta alla gricia. I chopped salami into small squares that went in with the pasta and it was topped with chopped parsley and grated parmesan.

Salami pasta alla gricia

Donna bought wild Bristol Bay salmon on Sunday and she grilled it with a dijon-brown sugar glaze. Really tasty and a simple sauce to make. The side dish was gingery bok choy.

Dijon-brown sugar glazed salmon with sauteed bok choy

The weather has been much cooler than it was at this time last year. A week ago Monday, the thermometer only reached 62 degrees. It gradually warmed back up into the 80s by Thursday. I already mentioned the windy weekend conditions. Yesterday we had another cool Monday with a high of 68 degrees. The pattern will continue with low 70s today and tomorrow before we reach the 80s again.

Tomorrow I’ll drive Donna to the Cortez Regional Airport. She’ll take a small commuter flight back to Phoenix, then carry on to San Diego. Her sister, Linda, will arrive at about the same time and they’ll be visiting her other sister, Sheila. Sheila’s son, Connor, is graduating high school and they’ll attend the graduation Friday. Donna will fly back here on Sunday. So I’ll be on my own for four nights.

By the way, Amazon notified me that they were removing my affiliate status. They said I violating their rules by having friends and family make purchases through my website link. Huh? I thought that was how affiliate links worked – I provide the link and people that follow my blog utilize it. Whatever. I removed the Amazon link – it didn’t earn much anyway.

Day Trip to Hovenweep

It’s been an eventful week – some good, some not so good. I’ll start with the good stuff. Monday afternoon we drove over to the Cortez Elk’s Lodge and enjoyed a cold brew on the patio. The view was similar to our back deck – we were overlooking the golf course. Donna wanted to check out the golf course and driving range there.

Golf course view from the Cortez Elk’s Lodge

Donna wants to hit a few balls at the driving range and maybe play a round on the course while we’re in Cortez.

I played pickleball on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I took Thursday off as I had an appointment with Clint, the only local RV repair guy – but that’s another story I’ll get to later in this post. Donna alternated between pickleball and tennis. Friday was too windy for pickleball.

On Friday morning, Donna went over to the Owers Farm to help Carolyn with weeding. Then, after lunch, we made a trip to Hovenweep National Monument. It’s about an hour drive from Cortez on mostly two-lane county roads across the border into Utah. Hovenweep is an interesting place. It was inhabited over 800 years ago by a large number of ancestral Pueblo people – what were formerly called Anasazi. These people were farmers and also skilled at building, utilizing bricks made from mud, rock and plant material. Most of the building ruins there were originally built from 1230 to 1275 AD.

The area is thought to have had many creeks and springs providing water to the canyon where Hovenweep is located. Around this same time, the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were also built. The people of Hovenweep didn’t stay here for long. It’s theorized that after the towers, storage buildings and dwellings were built, decades of drought ensued. It was once thought that the ancient Puebloans simply disappeared. Nowadays we know that they relocated – some went to the Rio Grande valley in what is now New Mexico, others went south to the Little Colorado watershed in Arizona.

Today, the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes can trace their ancestry back to these people. We hiked from the visitor center to the Square Tower, then on the way back we took the Tower Point loop. The hiking path was well-marked with stone boundaries and the terrain was uneven, flat stones. Wear good, sturdy shoes if you come here!

Stronghold House
Tower Point
Hovenweep Castle
Square Tower – Hovenweep House on top of the canyon in the background

I should have had Donna pose in a picture or two to give a sense of scale. These were large structures, many stories high. It was a fun and entertaining way to spend the afternoon. When we came back to town, we made another stop at Loungin’ Lizard. Once again the beer was cold, but the food was off and the service a bit hit or miss. We’ve heard from a local person that’s what you can expect there – hit or miss.

On Saturday, Donna and I played in a pickleball tournament put on by the Cortez Pickleball Club. They call it a “Shootout.” I didn’t play all that well, but we had fun. The format had us playing three games with a different partner each game, then based on total points scored you either moved up one court or down one court for another three games with different people.

Now the not so good stuff. In my last post, I mentioned two issues we were having, both related to water. We have water dripping from behind the shower, either from the water supply line at the shower valve or the shower head connection. I cannot find a way to access either area. So, in the meantime, we are only running the fresh water pump on an as-needed basis to prevent a constant drip.

As if that weren’t enough to contend with, the fresh water supply suddenly lost flow and pressure. I was fairly certain the problem was the check valve at the hot water tank. I ordered a new one. When it was delivered on Tuesday, I drained the hot water tank by pulling the anode rod. I was surprised to find the rod had eroded down to the core material – it was about the diameter of a clothes hanger wire. The tank was full of anode rod bits and mineral deposits.

Once I had the tank cleaned up, I embarked on a comedy of errors – at least that’s how I think of it now. When I removed the check valve, I saw I had ordered the wrong replacement part. The Amazon description says it’s for our Suburban water heater and it will fit the heater tank, but the other end of it is a female coupling and I needed male couplings on both ends. Grrr. I cleaned up the old check valve as best as I could and reassembled it and filled the hot water tank.

Good news – it worked fine then! I went back to Amazon and ordered replacement anode rods. I enjoyed a nice, hot shower with good water pressure and flow. Donna had half a shower before trouble hit again. We lost water flow and pressure. I went back to Amazon and found the proper check valve and placed another order. We were stuck for the remainder of the week without good water pressure.

Thursday morning, the only local RV repair man came out. I explained the water drip situation to Clint and showed him the dilemma regarding access. He looked at the options and couldn’t come with a good solution. As I feared, he said it wouldn’t be a mobile repair job and would have to be left at a shop – it wasn’t something that could be done in a day. The only way to do it would be to either cut through the wall or cut the shower enclosure and patch it afterwards. Not good.

Friday Amazon delivered the new anode rods, but the check valve wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Saturday. I would need to remove the anode rod to drain the tank to install the new check valve, so I waited to do the repair on Saturday.

New anode rod on the left, old eroded anode rod on the right

In hindsight, I can see that I should have drained the hot water tank when I put the coach in storage. Leaving water in the tank for eight months without use eroded the rod.

I should mention that I had to buy a 12″ adjustable end wrench in order to remove the anode rod. When we were full-time RVers, I always had all of my tools with me – now I only pack a handful of tools. An adjustable wrench should have been in that handful.

The check valve arrived mid-day on Saturday and I set to work. I removed the old anode rod, drained the tank, then replaced the check valve. After installing the anode rod, I opened the pressure relief vent and turned on the city water supply to refill the tank. I opened the bathroom faucet to check for flow and pressure and was disappointed. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I went back outside to check the hose and saw water dripping from behind the hot water tank. I shut off the water and hustled back inside. The pex hose connection to the check valve was leaking profusely. After fiddling with it, I could see that I was missing the rubber gasket. I looked around inside the cabinet where I was working and couldn’t find it.

In a panic, I drove to the hardware store and found a Sharkbite-type 90 degree pex elbow fitting that I thought would work. I came back and started disassmbling the fitting when I had a sudden epiphany. I picked up the old check valve and sure enough, the rubber gasket was lodged inside it. Doh! I installed the gasket on the new check valve and put it all back together. Another refill of the hot water tank and pressure check was a success. Good flow and pressure, no leaking. This was not one of my finest repair attempts.

New check valve – note arrow showing direction of flow

After that long winded tale of woe, I’ll talk about dinner plates. Last Monday, Donna grilled shrimp kabobs with onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and pineapple chunks. She served it with tare sauce on the kabobs and I put soy sauce on the side of rice.

Grilled shrimp kabob

Tuesday she made something new – hoisin glazed pork bowl. The recipe called for thinly sliced carrot, radishes, mushrooms and scallions – it recommended using a mandolin the get the radish thin enough. We don’t have a mandolin but with my Japanese 180mm bunka knife, I was able to cut the radish nearly paper thin.

Japanese 180mm bunka – forged by Teruyasu Fuijiwara

The vegetable medley was placed over the thinly sliced pork that was seared and then baked with a hoisin marinade. I mixed everything together before eating it and it was delicious. I would happily go the through the meal prep for this dish anytime.

Hoisin pork bowl

The daily temperatures were in the mid 80s through Thursday. Then a front came in bringing wind and cooler temperatures – the high was 71 on Friday, only 68 on Saturday. The overnight lows have been around 40 degrees. We’ll see more of the same for a few days before it begins to warm up again mid-week.

Roughing It

Things went according to plan last Thursday – except for one thing. We noticed our fresh water pump would run for a few seconds with an interval of a few minutes before it ran again. I checked for drips and didn’t find anything. Before we left, I saw a drop of water fall next to the left rear wheels. This would only come from a leak up high – I was guessing the bathroom sink area. We’d left the pump turned off all night. I couldn’t deal with it where we dry camped, so we hit the road.

We drove north through the Petrified Forest National Park, then hit I-40 eastbound. After about 20 miles, we exited on US191 north through Navajo Nation land. It was an uneventful drive until we were north of Chinle, then we hit a series of construction areas where work was being done on bridges, leaving only one lane available. These stoppages added several minutes to our drive.

The road surface also deteriorated north of Chinle as we hit unexpected dips and heaves in the roadway. We turned northeast at US160 and that road had a number of bad areas that rocked us. This route took us to the northwest corner of New Mexico – about a minute later we left New Mexico and crossed the Colorado border. The Four Corners monument where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet is less than half a mile off US160.

We entered Mountain time and lost an hour when we left Arizona. We made it to La Mesa RV Park in Cortez around 3pm local time. The camp host, Jim, said we had our pick of three sites – 7, 11 or 13. He said satellite reception should be good at any of the three. I took 13 to get us as far from the street and car wash as possible. This turned out to be a bad choice.

We set up without any issues. Donna heard a drip behind the back of the kitchen counter. She pulled out the bottom drawer and we found the leak. It’s coming from the water supply line to the shower. The problem is, it’s up high between a wall and the shower stall with no access point. Until I can figure out a way to get to it, we aren’t using the city water supply. Instead, we only run the fresh water pump with a faucet open to prevent pressurizing the shower supply line. This is a real pain.

At that point, I tried to tune in the Dish satellite TV. No good. The tree at the back of the site has grown and was leafing out enough to block reception. I talked to Jim and told him I didn’t want to go without satellite TV for a month. We decided to move to site 11 in the morning. I wish I had checked the satellite reception before we set up. Tearing it down and securing everything to move 50 feet is just as much work as securing everything to move 100 miles.

Friday night Donna manned the grill and made barbeque chicken thighs. She made barbeque sauce from scratch with a base of tomato paste, maple syrup and sriracha along with a few other ingredients. It was excellent. She served it with garlic mashed cauliflower with chives.

Barbeque chicken thigh with mashed cauliflower

Later, while she was washing dishes, the water pressure from the fresh water pump dropped and only a weak stream of water came out of the kitchen faucet. When I checked it out, I found the sprayer head on the faucet we clogged. We chalked it up to eight months of storage. I took the sprayer head off and soaked it in vinegar. After soaking overnight I could blow through it – it wasn’t clogged anymore, so I put it back together.

The water volume didn’t improve and now we aren’t getting hot water – only lukewarm on the hottest setting. We had this issue seven years ago – I wrote about it in this post. I think the check valve is bad again. I ordered one from Amazon and should have it tomorrow, but I might have another problem. I only packed a few tools that I thought might come in handy. I didn’t include a 1-1/8″ socket, which is what I usually use to take out the hot water heater anode to drain it. I’ll see what I can figure out when the parts come. Meanwhile we are roughing it with low water flow and no hot water.

Saturday morning we went to the pickleball courts at Centennial Park. The Cortez pickleball club had a social event with round-robin style play. We had a good time. I felt I played really well. Donna said she was a litlle bit rusty, but she had fun.

Saturday night we went to the Loungin’ Lizard downtown for drinks and dinner. Our friend Rocco Gerardi raved about this place when we met up for a cold one at Wild Edge Brewery here a couple of years ago. He was right – the beer was cold and the food excellent!

The weather is agreeable – it was cool when we arrived on Thursday – in the mid 60s. Daily highs have varied from mid 70s to mid 80s since then with overnight lows in the mid 30s to low 40s. It’s very dry – humidity is only 10-15%. But we’re used to that as it’s dry in Mesa, Arizona too.

Moving Out

Last weekend, Donna started packing up stuff that we’ll need over the next four months for our summer vacation. We moved our departure date back by one day – we learned last year that it’s too much work to try and pack four months of necessary stuff in one day. Donna obtained a two-night parking pass and I parked the motorhome in front of our park model home.

Our park model is hidden behind the coach

The first thing I did was fill the fresh water tank and dose it with Chlor Brite. Chlor Brite is a product from Leslie Pool that’s basically granulated chlorine. Sodium diclor is the active ingredient – it’s 99% of the product. It’s a concentrated form of chlorine and a little bit goes a long way. When used in swimming pools, as little as three ounces will treat 10,000 gallons of water. Chlorine in drinking water is at a much lower level than swimming pools use.

I mixed a fairly strong solution, filled the fresh water tank and left it in overnight. After sitting in storage for eight months, I wanted to sanitize and remove any contaminants from the water tank. Early Tuesday morning, I dumped the tank and refilled it with filtered fresh water. We use a two-canister filtration system – the first stage is a five-micron sediment filter followed by a one-micron carbon block filter.

This is what 100 gallons of water quickly dumped in the street looks like

The dump valve on our fresh water tank is relatively large and empties the tank quickly. I dumped 100 gallons and it created a small stream in the road. During a storm in last summer’s monsoon season, our neighbors told us the street was completely flooded and ran all the way down through our carport to the shed! I can’t imagine how many gallons of water had to dump from the clouds to cause that.

Most people not from the area don’t realize Arizona has a monsoon season. In central Arizona, that season usually begins around mid-July and runs through August. Flash floods are common as these storms can drop a lot water very quickly.

Our neighbor across the street from us on the 1600 lane just bought the place. Donna told him we planned to place a barrier at the shed end of our carport to prevent flood water from entering our shed. His Arizona room addition is built on a slab at the back of his carport. Last year it flooded and suffered water damage – all the carpeting had to be ripped out. He was leaving the next day to go back north. He asked me if I could put up a water barrier for him – he gave me $100 for materials.

I found a product called Quick Dam Flood Bags. These are cloth tubes filled with a gel product that swells and seals the tubes, creating a useful flood barrier. They are stackable, so I bought enough to stack two high in front of our shed and his Arizona room. When they’re fully activated, they will create a barrier six to seven inches high.

Flood barrier for our neighbor’s Arizona room

I used a garden hose to activate his Quick Dams and make sure they’ll work. Job done!

I put Midget-San up on jack stands for summer storage. Then I removed the wheels – not only will this prevent the tires from flat-spotting, it’s also an anti-theft measure. It’s pretty hard to steal a car without wheels. I fastened the car cover over it for the summer.

Midget-San hibernating for the summer

Last Thursday was Cinco de Mayo – our anniversary day. We planned to celebrate our 16th anniversary with dinner at Baja Joe’s. Donna wasn’t feeling up to night out after her trip back from Vermont, so I ordered take-out from Baja Joe’s. Donna had her favorite shrimp dish with poblano cream sauce. I had the chef’s special fish filet with a seafood sauce containing pieces of shrimp and octopus. It was excellent – we’ve never had a bad meal at Baja Joe’s.

Saturday evening I manned the grill and cooked a pork tenderloin that Donna marinated in her mojo marinade. She served it with Cuban rice and a steamed vegetable medley. Another nicely balanced and nutritious meal.

Mojo marinated pork tenderloin

Donna had shrimp again on Sunday when she grilled it and served it over cilantro-avocado-lime sauce. Tasty!

Grilled shrimp, Mexican corn and grilled shishito peppers

We had a warm weekend with the thermometer reaching the upper 90s – it was 99 on Saturday! The temps held in the 80s as we packed on Monday and Tuesday. Packing for four months is more like moving from a furnished apartment to another furnished place. It’s not like we’re just heading out for a weekend.

We hit the road around 9:15am. Our route took us over Usery Pass to the Bush Highway past Saguaro Lake and on to the Beeline Highway (AZ87). We climbed to Payson which sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level. It was much cooler – in the low 70s there – and continued across the Sitgreaves National Forest to Heber on AZ260. This road runs through pine forest all the way to Heber – not what most people picture in Arizona.

At Heber, we turned northeast on AZ277, then AZ377 to Holbrook. The wind really picked up at Holbrook – it’s a steady 30mph wind with higher speed gusts. We’ve stopped for the night near the entrance of the Petrified Forest National Park. We stayed here last year – it’s a dry camping spot. I positoned the coach near the leeward side of a building to shelter us from some of the wind gusts. This is about the halfway point to tomorrow’s destination – Cortez, Colorado. We’ll spend a month there. Tomorrow we will go north through the National Park, then head east a short way on I-40, then north again through the Navajo Nation past Four Corners and on to Cortez – that’s the plan.

Snow Birds Head North

The season is really winding down here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I haven’t taken time to update this blog and I’ve mostly neglected to take photos when I had the opportunities. I’ll start this update going back to a week ago Saturday.

Mike Hall met me Saturday morning at 202 RV Valet where our Alpine Coach is stored. You might recall, we had a mishap in Utah near the end of last summer. The driver side panel in front of the left front wheel broke loose. I made a few attempts at roadside repairs and finally got it secured well enough to limp to a campground. I made a better repair and it held up as we made our way back to Mesa, Arizona.

But, the panel didn’t quite line up the way it should. Mike looked at it a few weeks ago and came up with a repair plan – he’s a paint and body man among his other talents. Saturday morning we put his plan in action – well, he handled most of the action while I watched and learned. With judicious use of a floor jack, he aligned the panel then riveted it into place. I did some clean-up of tape residue from my temporary repairs by wiping it with laquer thinner and it was job done. I don’t think Mike spent more than 30 minutes on the actual work. Thanks, Mike!

Saturday afternoon I put the Heritage duroc babyback ribs on the Traeger – I wrote about duroc pork in my last post. Our friends, DIck and Roxy Zarowny joined us for happy hour and dinner on the back deck. The duroc babybacks were a hit – I think it’s worthwhile to spend a little extra for the premium duroc pork. In fact, I went back to Fry’s this morning to see if they had them – sold out for now. If I can’t find them in the next day or two, I’ll go to Chuck’s Fine Meats and see if he has duroc or Berkshire pork babyback ribs.

The rest of the week seems like a blur – Donna had tennis most days while I played pickleball. I spent some time learning new songs on the guitar and did a lot of reading. It was hot outside with the temperatures in the 90s from Tuesday through the weekend.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to Lucky Lou’s for a couple of cold ones and a cigar on the patio. I did that on Friday and met up with Mike and Jodi Hall there. The usual suspects – Leendert, John Huff, Bob and the other John and one of the other Mikes were all there.

I learned on Saturday that my old friend in San Diego, Bob Babich passed away. Bob played for the San Diego Chargers and the Cleveland Browns. He was drafted by the Chargers in 1969 in the first round – the 18th player drafted that year. He was an NFL linebacker for 9 years. He was part of the Bay Park crew I often hung around with at Offshore Tavern and Dan Diego’s whenever we stayed in San Diego. He would have turned 75 on May 5th. RIP Bob – you will be missed.

Yesterday we were joined by our friends Greg and Ginette DeCoteau for happy hour on the back deck. It got interesting a couple of times when wind gusts threatened to take our shade umbrellas away! Greg and Ginette are Canadians, their home is in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. They’re heading back to Canada on Thursday of this week.

I have some dinner plates to close out this post. First up was last Tuesday’s dinner – grilled chicken with Italian seasoning served with spaghetti squash and marinara and steamed spinach on the side.

Grilled chicken with Italian seasoning, spaghetti squash with marinara on the side

The next night Donna came up with turmeric black pepper chicken with asparagus over rice.

Turmeric black pepper chicken with asparagus

The next dish might be a bit of an oddity, but it was delicious. Last Saturday Donna made duck sausage roasted with onions and grapes. The side dish was cauliflower risotto with chopped asparagus and mushrooms.

Duck sausage roasted with onions and grapes

Yesterday I broke down another whole chicken and Donna grilled the wings, legs and thighs and prepared an Asian dipping sauce made from mayonnaise, mustard and sambal oelek – an Indonesian chili paste. We had grilled shishito peppers on the side.

Grilled chicken with Asian style dipping sauce and shishito peppers

The forecast calls for cooler weather – only in the mid-70s for next couple of days, upper 80s on Friday and back into the 90s for the weekend. It hasn’t been bad – we haven’t even used the air conditioning. The swamp cooler and fans have been good enough to keep the place comfortably in the mid-70s, even with the front slider open and only the screen door closed.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

And Then There Was Stroganoff

I haven’t posted in over a week. That’s mainly because I haven’t had anything exciting to write about. We’ve been slowly getting settled in to our place here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, mainly staying indoors. It’s still hot here in Mesa, Arizona.

Ozark the cat has definitely settled in. She doesn’t like travel days, although she’s perfectly happy in the coach when we’re stationary – especially when we stay put for a week or more. Back-to-back travel days aren’t her thing – they really aren’t our thing either. Ozark can roam from room to room here and she has a few favorite spots.

Ozark the cat hanging out

I think Ozark would be happy if we just stayed here permanently. Donna and I are content, but we know we’ll get the hitch itch sooner or later.

I’m happy to have our Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill available again. When we hit the road last spring, I had to leave it behind. Without our cargo trailer, I just didn’t have room for it. Last week, I bought a two-pack of USDA Prime tri-tip roasts at Costco. They were a little over two pounds each. I think when you take it out of the package, it’s correct to refer to them as roasts. Once you grill them and cut it into portions, it’s more appropriate to call them steaks. I wrote a post about tri-tips here.

I prepared one on Tuesday with my usual tri-tip seasoning – salt, pepper and garlic powder in a dry rub. I set the Traeger at 220 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Before I took them out of the Traeger, I preheated our gas grill to 450 degrees. I transferred the tri-tip to the grill and seared each side for three minutes. They were cooked to a perfect medium rare with an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees.

Tri-tip hot off of the grill

Donna served it with steamed green beans and sweet potato tots.

Tri-tip dinner plate

The USDA Prime tri-tips were $12.99/lb at Costco. A pack of two tri-tips ran just over $50, but we’ll get several meals out them. The first tri-tip was an excellent dinner on Tuesday, we had at least half of it left over.

On Saturday, Donna prepared beef stroganoff with the remainder of the tri-tip. She used noodles from Sprouts that were billed as “home made egg noodles.” The stroganoff was delicious and once again we had leftovers for another lunch meal.

Beef stroganoff and broccoli

I have a number of projects that need to be attended to, but I’ve been procrastinating due to the heat. We’ve had only two days that weren’t triple digit heat since my last post. I got a start on the End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) antenna for my ham shack. The EFHW will allow me to seamlessly tune the 10-meter, 20-meter and 40-meter bands by going through my MFJ auto-tuner with my Yaesu FT-991A radio. I hope to get the antenna finished by the next weekend.

My guitar body, neck and hardware are scheduled to arrive via FedEx tomorrow. That will be my priority in the next week or so. I already received a full compliment of special tools from Stew-Mac to finish the frets and set everything up. I also decided to sell my Egnater guitar amplifier and cabinet and build another amp. I’ll write about that later, once I get it underway.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be up at dark-thirty. I will drive Donna to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for her 6am flight. She’s going back to Vermont to visit her parents. They have plans to travel to Ogunquit, Maine to spend a couple of nights on the coast. I’ll be a bachelor for a week – I’ll have plenty to do with the guitar project and ham stuff. I also need to get out to the storage facility and see about making a permanent fix for the left front body panel on the coach. I need to figure a way to get it back into proper shape so I can rivet the front section to the frame.

Donna has been getting out early in the morning to play pickleball or tennis before it gets too hot out. I’m not up for pickleball at 6:30am, so I’ll wait for cooler temps to get back on the courts.

After a couple more hot afternoons, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the month. That’ll be a relief.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Going Home

The last week was a transition time for us. On Tuesday, we pulled out of Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah as planned. The day before, I made a trip to Ace Hardware in town and bought some JB Weld adhesive. I bonded the panel surrounding the left front tire to the mounting points. Although I’d managed to make a temporary repair to the front mounting point by installing small screws where the rivets failed, the rear of the panel was loose and it moved back and forth due to aerodynamic forces. We had over 400 miles to go and I didn’t think my temporary repair would hold up unless I secured the rear of the panel.

We were out of the park by 10:30am and had a long day ahead of us. Our plan was to travel about 220 miles to Cameron, Arizona where there’s a newish RV park across the highway from the Cameron Trading Post. Our route had us on US89 south all the way. This is a scenic drive as US89 cuts east south of Bryce Canyon and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Diesel fuel in Utah was over $4.00/gallon, so I held off until we crossed into Arizona at Page. I filled our tank there at $3.33/gallon. A year ago, I wouldn’t be too happy with that price, but in the current situation, I thought we did okay.

We found the RV park in Cameron, but it wasn’t what we expected. The website showed a nice looking park, but in reality, it’s a poorly laid out dirt lot. To check in, you have to go to the motel at the trading post and pay, then cross the highway and pick a site. It seemed like there was plenty of space but due to the poor layout it wasn’t easy to get a big rig into a site. And we had to unhook the truck because the pullthroughs were not long enough. And we only had 30amp at the pedestal so we could run only one AC unit.

Once we were settled in, Donna phoned the Elk’s Lodge in Payson – that was our next planned stop. They have 12 sites with 30amp hookup and we hoped to snag one so we could run our air conditioner because the forecast for Payson was 95 degrees. The lodge doesn’t take reservations and unfortunately they told us all of the sites were occupied. We had a back-up plan to go to the casino in Payson and just run the generator for air conditioning. After talking it over, we decided we would make the 240-mile run all the way to our park model home at Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.

I know you’re thinking 240 miles doesn’t seem that far. The route I chose had us on US89 south to Flagstaff, then we hit I-17 south to Camp Verde. US89 has a tough climb up to 7000 feet above sea level in Flagstaff. At Camp Verde, we exited onto AZ260 which turned out to be a tougher drive than I expected. The last time I drove this highway was more than 10 years ago and I was riding a motorcycle. I didn’t recall how steep some of the grades are and also how narrow some sections of the road are. It was hot and I had to keep a close watch on our engine coolant temperature – this meant slowing down and gearing down on the steep climbs. From Payson, we took AZ87 (Beeline Highway) to the Bush Highway exit, went over Usery Pass and were back in Mesa.

The alternative would have been to take I-17 all the way to Phoenix, then follow Loop 101 to Loop 202 to Mesa. I didn’t want to take that route as traffic would be heavy and people drive like maniacs through Phoenix.

We parked the coach in front of our home at 12:20pm – we’d gained an hour when we crossed into Arizona. Our caretaker had the air conditioner on in our house – he said he would turn it on two days before we arrived. We came in a day ahead of schedule, but the house was cool although we had triple digit temperature outside. By the way, the JB Weld repair held up fine – I had no issues with the panel on the coach.

We went right to work unloading the coach and moving back into the house. I took some time to get the swamp cooler running in our Arizona room – a 400-square foot room addition to our park model home. The coach was hot sitting in full sun in front of our place and we worked all afternoon. Donna did most of the moving while I got things like electrical breakers and the water heater going. Our goal was to empty the coach first, then we could take our time sorting things and putting stuff away. One plus was that it didn’t take long to defrost the refrigerator thanks to the heat!

On Thursday morning, we took the last of our stuff out of the coach. I drove the coach to the Apache Sands Service Center about a mile away from here where I filled the propane tank, dumped the holding tanks and filled up the fuel tank with 31 gallons of diesel fuel at $3.00/gallon. I wanted the fuel tank full while it’s in storage to minimize air space in the fuel tank which, in turn, minimizes condensation of moisture in the tank. The coach is in a covered storage lot at 202 RV Valet with a 20-amp electrical hook-up to keep the batteries charged.

We were both ready to get off of the road and settle back in at Viewpoint. Coming back this early risked high temperatures and we’ll have them. The forecast calls for triple digit heat for the next week before things begin to cool. Triple digit heat in the afternoon lingers after nightfall – overnight lows are in the 80s.

98 degrees at 10:20 pm last night

The fairways and greens on the golf course are brown at this time of year. Some grasses go dormant in the heat of summer in Arizona, just like some grasses go dormant in the winter up north.

The previous owner of our place had internet through a local provider called Jabba. The high-speed internet wireless receiver antenna was still on the carport and he left the router. Yesterday, I set up an account with Jabba and hooked up the router. We now have truly unlimited data usage with a speed of 15Mbps for $44.95/month. I also suspended my Dish service while the motorhome is in storage – we have free cable TV here at Viewpoint.

Donna restocked our refrigerator and pantry yesterday and last night, she manned the large gas grill we have at the house and grilled a coho (silver) salmon filet and bok choy. She made a soy sauce, worcestershire and honey based marinade for the fish. It was outstanding.

Grilled salmon and bok choy

Donna and I love our time on the road, but we’re both happy to be back in Mesa and settling in to our home. We only spent about six weeks here after we bought the place last spring. We’ll probably stay here until May.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. We should take a few moments to remember the innocent victims and never forget the horrors of terrorism.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trail

The rain in the forecast I mentioned in my last post came, but it came much later than originally predicted. It was cloudy all day Tuesday but the rain held off until sundown. It rained off and on during the night and continued to rain Wednesday with a few breaks. Thursday we had showers but the sun broke through occasionally. The nice thing about the rain, it cleared the air of whatever pollen was getting to me.

Thursday afternoon during a period of sunshine, we drove to the store. On the way into town, Donna suggested making the 18-mile drive up to Panguitch Lake to have a look around. It turned out to be not such a good day for it. As we climbed to the lake west of town, we drove right back into rain. We didn’t even get out of the truck – we just drove by the lake and took a look. There isn’t much up there and it was too dreary to snap a photo.

Friday morning we had clear skies and the sun was shining. We had a late breakfast, then drove up to Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest. Red Canyon has a visitor center with a large parking lot providing access to many hiking trails – it’s the gateway to Bryce Canyon National Park with a 17-mile paved biking trail to the park.

After a stop in the visitor center for information and maps, we decided to hike from there. We followed a trail from the visitor center parallel to the highway and started up the Hoodoo Trail. Geologically speaking, a hoodoo is a column of rock, usually softer rock like limestone topped by a harder layer – typically basalt. Hoodoos differ from spires due to their shape – they are irregular, forming a totem pole-like shape or are topped with an area with a larger diameter often looking like a rock balanced on top of a spire. A spire is a column of rock that tapers from a larger diameter base to a thin tip.

Hoodoo Trail is aptly named as it offers views of two distintive hoodoos.

Red Canyon hoodoos

Like arches, hoodoos form from erosion over millions of years.

The Hoodoo Trail fishooks as it climbs and has nine posts, each one numbered with a guide pamphlet giving information about vegetation and geology of the area around the posts. After the ninth post, we reached the junction with the Pink Ledges Trail. This trail climbs and had four more numbered posts (10 through 13) described in the guide. A few of the posts also have benches where you can take a break and look at the scenery.

Rock layers are evident in the distant cliff

In the photo above, the high cliff in the background clearly shows the sedimentary layers of rock – softer limestone and sandstone topped with darker basalt.

High up the trail, the view seems endless.
Trees on top of rock formation

It was amazing to see trees rooted in the rock formations.

Various colors in the rock cliffs

The orange and yellows in picture above are from clay and iron mixed in the limestone. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the darker areas appeared to be a type of lichen adhering to the rock.

Another view from high up the trail of the hoodoos in the first photo of this post
Another hoodoo formation
The trail switches back around this hoodoo

The Pink Ledges Trail eventually brought us back to the far end of the visitor center parking lot. The trail wasn’t too strenuous, although it did have significant elevation changes and few steep areas with loose stones. Wear sturdy shoes and tread carefully!

Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Donna took advantage of a break in the rain to grill chicken breasts. She grilled the chicken seasoned with salt and pepper, then served it topped with a Mediterranean vinaigrette. She roasted patty pan squash (picked up from the local produce stand) with tomatoes and black olives, topped with fresh basil.

Grilled chicken with Mediteranean vinaigrette

This morning, Donna loaded her bike in the truck and returned to Red Canyon. She rode up the trail toward Bryce Canyon to the summit and beyond, gaining nearly 1,000 feet of elevation before turning back after seven-and-a-half miles to make a quick descent back to the truck.

With the rainy day Wednesday, we had a high of only 64 degrees. Thursday was warmer and Friday hit the upper 70s with a high of 78 called for today. We should see highs in the low to mid 80s in the next few days. I paid for three more nights here to get us through the Labor Day weekend. We’ll head out on Tuesday and intend to be back in Mesa, Arizona on Thursday September 9th.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Bryce Canyon

We had a quiet weekend here at Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah. The temperature swings from the daily highs to the overnight lows was a whopping 40 degrees or so – highs in the 80s with lows in the 40s.

Yesterday we made a day trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. The park entrance is aboout 25 miles from Panguitch. We entered the park with my America the Beautiful Lifetime Senior pass – without the pass the entrance fee is $35/car. Our first stop was at the Visitor Center, one mile into the park. From there we went to the General Store – I was desperately in need of benadryl allergy tablets. My eyes were itchy and watering. I found benadryl there and got some relief.

We drove up the main park road – it’s an 18-mile road that dead ends at Rainbow Point. We found a picnic area there and had our lunch. We’d stopped at Subway in Panguitch on the way here and I bought a 6-inch sub and Donna got a salad. We brought along a cooler with drinks and watermelon slices. The watermelon we bought at the vegetable stand on Saturday is supreme. The guy that grew it really bragged about it – he told me it was a county fair gold award winner and the sugar content measured at 13 to 15 brix. For comparison, he said most watermelon at the grocery store measures around 6 or 7 brix. Donna and I agreed, he was right. The seedless watermelon is one of the sweetest we’ve ever had.

Our plan was to scope out the viewpoints on the way up the road without stopping, have lunch then make our way slowly back down, stopping at points of interest. The park is a narrow strip of land along a ridge. The northernmost area is crossed by a highway – UT12 and the park there is only accessible by foot. The main park road runs from the entrance north to south and the elevation varies from about 7,200 feet above sea level to 9,115 feet above sea level at Rainbow Point. At Paradise RV Park, we’re at an elevation of a little over 6,600 feet above sea level.

At the viewpoints in the national park, you can see for miles and miles. I have a lot of pictures to add to this post. If the photos start to get redundant, that’s the nature of the park. The views are spectacular, but like at Cedar Breaks National Monument, you can start to get numbed by it all. If you make the effort to really look at the different viewpoints, you can see there are differences even if they are subtle at times.

Rainbow Point
Sunlight on a ridge far away to the east
Black Birch Canyon
Agua Canyon

At the Agua Canyon viewpoint, a raven perched on a fence rail and posed for photos. He was totally unafraid as people walked up within a few feet to take a picture.

The next stop was at Natural Bridge viewpoint. Natural Bridge is a misnomer – it’s more correctly called an arch. These are formed when hard cap rock layers are over softer substrate. Over time, water erodes the softer substrate and creates a hole under the cap rock. Wind then enlarges the hole over centuries or even thousands of years.

You can see how water runoff courses through the arch

At Inspiration Point, you can see where water that comes down from the ridge from three directions join together. The resulting stream bed, when dry, looks like a road along the bottom of the canyon.

Looks like a road through the trees at the bottom of the canyon
Another angle from Inspiration Point

On the way to and from Bryce Canyon on UT12 near Red Canyon, the highway goes through two arches.

Highway UT12 near Red Canyon

While we were in the park, we had a few clouds overhead. As we came down from Rainbow Point we had a few raindrops, but it wasn’t anything to worry about. Lightning strikes can be worrisome in the park as over the last 25 years four people have been killed and six injured by lightning.

I need to mention Sunday night’s dinner. Donna made a new recipe – shrimp poached in coconut milk. It was awesome.

Shrimp poached in coconut milk over rice with broccoli

After we returned home, I took a nap – the benadryl made me drowsy. The wind really kicked up in the late afternoon and we had a few raindrops here. We can expect rain later today. Donna went out for bike ride this morning while I was writing this. She wanted to get a ride in before it rains – the forecast calls for rain again tomorrow and possibly on Thursday morning with high temperatures in the upper 60s and low 70s.