The cooler weather forecast for Monday arrived as predicted. It was in the upper 40s in the morning when I headed over to the pickleball courts. It didn’t feel that cold though – we had abundant sunshine with clear skies and calm wind. The high temperature for the day was 68 degrees.

One of the things I love about the RV lifestyle is the community. We’ve met so many people and made new friends as we travel about. In some cases, we have connected with our new friends several times in different places. Our stay here in Mesa, Arizona is one of those times. On Monday afternoon, we met up with Hans Kohls and Lisa McGuire (Metamorphosis Road) at The Hub for happy hour and dinner.

Hans and Lisa are full-time RVers and we’ve crossed paths several times – most recently at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego. Since we both like to spend the winter months in southern California and Arizona, we often find ourselves in the same areas at the same time. We sampled some good beers – stouts for the girls and IPA for Hans and me. We sat and talked for about two hours and the time flew by. Today they’re moving from Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction to McDowell Mountain Regional Park – about 40 miles away.

Last night, before Donna went to bed, she said the door on one of cabinets didn’t feel right when she closed it. The cabinets on the upper walls of the living room/kitchen have small spring-loaded struts that hold them fully open and keep them closed. When she opened the cabinet door this morning, one of the struts was detached from the door.

Left strut detached from mount

The strut attaches to mounting points with rivets. I have several replacement strut assemblies that I picked up a couple of years ago, but I decided to repair this one since it was a quick and easy repair. I’ll save the replacements for times when a strut sacks out and loses spring tension to hold the door open.

I retrieved my pop-rivet tool and and a 3/32″ rivet from the trailer and went at it.

Pop-rivet tool and rivet

Pop-rivet inserted through strut and mount

Tool pulls mandrel, breaking it as it expands the rivet head

Voila!

The entire repair took no more than five minutes – job done! It’s always good to have the proper tool for the job at hand.

If the weather-guessers have it right, today will be the start of a warming trend. The forecast calls for upper 70s today and mid to upper 80s for the rest of the week.

*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!