Thursday was a pretty quiet day around here. My big deal for the day was servicing the scooter. I changed the engine oil and filter and also the gearbox lube. This is required every 3,000 miles. Donna went out for about an hour on her bicycle. Later she walked to the natural foods store half a mile from here. She was disappointed in the quality of their produce though. As usual, Ozark hung out and watched the birds outside.

Ozark keeping an eye on things

I went to the office and extended our stay here at Los Suenos de Santa Fe RV park through Monday. It’s a good thing I did it when I did – the place is sold out next week! The Thursday night NFL game was entertaining. It looked like it was heading to overtime when the Broncos stunned the Chiefs in the waning seconds to win 31-24.

On Friday morning, I rode the scooter over to the community center to play pickleball. Donna walked over about a half hour after I arrived. I played for nearly three hours. I was whipped by the time we were done! We were told about a new outdoor pickleball court that will open Saturday afternoon. I don’t know if my legs can take another day of pickleball at this point though.

On Friday afternoon, I repaired the windshield washer nozzle on the passenger side. I’ve been putting it off since we arrived here. The plastic housing where the hose attaches cracked and separated from the nozzle. After thinking about it, I decided to try gluing it back together with a contact adhesive called Goop. This stuff will adhere to almost anything. The trick is to pre-fit the parts so you know exactly how you want them positioned. I applied a thin bead on both parts and allowed it set for two minutes. Then I pressed the housing into place and held it for a few minutes. That’s all there was to it. By allowing the contact adhesive to set up first, when you press the parts together, they bond immediately. It looks like it will be a good repair – time will tell.

For happy hour, Donna and I went to Duel Brewing – a Belgian-style brewery and tap room (map). Duel isn’t your run-of-the-mill micro-brewery. They specialize in Belgian-style beers that are complex to brew and unique in taste and character. I had a Belgian pale sour ale. Sour ales are so different and can be very tasty. They are made sour by intentionally allowing wild yeasts or certain bacteria to enter the wort. Usually brewmasters do everything possible to keep a sterile environment and only allow specific brewers yeasts into the fermentation. Brewing sour beer is risky – if the wild yeast or bacteria get out of control, the brew is ruined. The sour ale I tried was out of this world! Donna had a Belgian witbier called Marcel – it’s brewed with coriander and bitter orange peel. She really liked it. We shared sardines and olive tapenade and cornichons with sliced baguette.

Belgian pale sour ale

We only had one beer each as we were on the scooter. When we returned to the RV park, it was filling up fast. I saw an unusual outfit in one of the sites. It was a tiny trailer that transforms into an elevated tent with a canvas room trailing behind. I wish I could have watched them put it up.

Small trailer transformed into this

Another unique RV pulled into the site next to us. It’s a medium-duty Freightliner truck with a long wheelbase and living quarters. It also has a gooseneck trailer hitch. I talked to the owners – a friendly couple from Minnesota. They use their RV to haul a horse trailer. They spend the summer in Minnesota, then haul their horses to Georgia in the winter. The truck is fairly new to them and they’re out for a few weeks of travel without the horse trailer.

Freightliner medium-duty truck – RV

Gooseneck hitch in back

On the other side of our site, we have two identical Newmar Dutch Stars. They’re traveling together – I don’t know if they’re related to each other. One has a Mississippi plate, the other Louisiana. Other than that, they are the same with a 4018 floorplan and exactly the same paint scheme. They even have similar name signs on the dashboard.

Today we’ll buy bus passes and head downtown. We’ll decide later if we want to play pickleball this afternoon.