I made good on my intention to clean the coach yesterday. The dust and rain over the past week had it looking pretty shabby. I used a California Duster first to remove the abrasive dust, then I cleaned the coach with a waterless product called The Solution. I love this stuff, you just spray a small amount with a fine mist from a pump bottle and wipe. I work on small areas at a time and the results are great.

I didn’t think a mobile RV wash company would work out here in Thousand Trails Las Vegas RV Resort because the sites are so cramped. I was wrong. A mobile RV washer came to the site next to us and managed to wash their trailer without spraying our coach. The lack of wind helped.

After I cleaned the coach, I had another project to work on. I used the same aluminum tie-down anchors for the rear wheel of the Spyder that were originally used for the scooter in our old trailer. The aluminum plates hold adjustable tie-down rings and are mounted with countersunk head screws. On the trip from Kingman to Las Vegas, the countersunk holes in the aluminum plates pulled through and the anchors came loose. Good thing I had a wheel chock along with the tie-downs or the Spyder could have rolled into the rear door.

I don’t remember what the maximum load for these plates was, but I must have exceeded it. I installed new stainless steel anchors rated for 1,200 lbs.

New anchors rated for 1,200 lbs

When I load the Spyder on Thursday, I’ll attach the rear wheel tie-downs to these plates and run a second tie-down to anchors in the side walls and use a wheel chock. I won’t have any worries of the Spyder breaking loose with this belt-and-suspenders approach.

While I was working, Donna had Mongolian beef cooking in the slow cooker. Crock pot meals are so handy. I neglected to take a photo of my dinner plate – it was a scrumptious meal. After dinner, we watched two more episodes of Homeland that our friend, Joel Myaer, recorded on our hard drive for us.

We went to bed around 10pm and I was out like a light. Ozark the cat usually sleeps with us through the night, but occasionally she’ll get wild in the night. Around 4:30am, she woke us up running around the coach and scratching the bed pedestal. Cats are supposed to sleep up to 17 hours a day. She gets plenty of sleep in the afternoons. Maybe I should interrupt her afternoon naps so she sleeps at night.

Ozark always finds a comfy spot to nap

One of the reasons we booked a full week in Las Vegas is to attend the National Hardware Show that starts Wednesday. The show isn’t open to the public, but Donna managed to get us press credentials to attend. The credential is legitimate for her, maybe not so much for me – although I’ll be sure to include information on products I find useful there in this blog. It also gives us the opportunity to meet up with our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess). They’re here for the show as Jeff is a rep for Dometic and has a booth. Dometic makes many RV products – we have a Dometic refrigerator and our A&E power awning is a Dometic product.

Our plan for today is to do some shopping to restock the refrigerator and pantry. Tomorrow we’ll hit the National Hardware Show, then we’ll pull out of here on Thursday. Our next destination is Sparks/Reno. We have two days to get there and will probably boondock for one night on the way to break up the 400-mile trip. We expect warm to hot temperatures here in Las Vegas over the next couple of days – into the 90s tomorrow. Reno will be cooler with highs in the upper 60s and low 70s.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, 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!