We always say we need to be flexible and ready to roll with whatever comes our way. This week, I’ve become an unexpected temporary bachelor. Donna had a phone call Sunday morning from her sister, Sheila, with bad news. Sheila had been downhill skiing in Deer Valley, Utah and had a mishap resulting in a badly broken leg. She was flying home to San Diego and needed help.
Donna found a flight that would get her to San Diego by 1pm on Sunday – around the time Sheila, Jeff and Sheila’s son Connor would be coming in. Jeff has to work and Sheila would need assistance. Jeff’s house in La Jolla has multiple levels and stairs. Sheila will be in surgery Tuesday. I don’t know how long Donna will be away helping her.
Meanwhile life goes on here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. To pass the time, I’ve volunteered to instruct a group of pickleball players that are ready to move up from the beginner classes. I’ve always enjoyed teaching and my level of play and understanding of the strategies and tactics are good enough for me to instruct at this level. I’ll start on Wednesday afternoon.
Ozark the cat and I will certainly be missing Donna, but we’ll get by. I’m hoping the best for Sheila’s recovery.
Edit – I just got a message from Donna. Sheila’s surgery has been pushed forward to tonight.
Another fine week has gone by here in Mesa, Arizona. We started the week with some cool mornings – overnight lows dropped to around 40 degrees, but the days have been dry and the skies are clear with comfortable temperatures.
If you’ve been following my posts, you probably know that I got started with cigars nearly a year ago. As usual, when I get into a new hobby, I jump right into the deep end. With cigars, I wanted to learn as much as I could and experience the different styles, flavor profiles and everything else that goes into making a fine hand-rolled cigar.
First of all, I only puff cigars handmade of all natural ingredients – that is, aged tobacco and and a small amount of vegetable gum as an adhesive. Since I’m always on the lookout for bargains, I buy most of my cigars online and look for discounts. This usually means buying cigars in bundles or by the box, not individual sticks.
Early on, I thought I knew what I liked, but over time, my palate and criteria for what constitutes a good cigar developed. I realized I made a mistake in buying bundles of 10 to 25 cigars at a time to reduce costs – some of the cigars I bought weren’t what I wanted and I ended up with several cigars in my humidors that I probably wasn’t going to light up.
Well, Donna always says if you don’t love it or use it, lose it. So, last week I learned about a 501c registered charity called Cigars for Warriors. This charity collects cigar donations and distributes them to troops deployed overseas. Their first priority is military personnel in combat zones, then other overseas assignments. I found a shop nearby, Cigar Warehouse, that participates in the program.
I went through my inventory of cigars and came up with 34 stogies I wasn’t likely to light up in the near future. I bagged them and took them to Cigar Warehouse. The proprietor was so happy about the donation he gave me a premium cigar – an Ashton VSG Pegasus! I wasn’t expecting that, but gladly accepted it.
Nowadays, I’m a little more careful in the cigars I buy and I have a pretty good idea of what to expect before I light up.
Perdomo is my brand of choice
On Thursday afternoon, I was enjoying happy hour with friends and a cold one at Lucky Lou’s while puffing a cigar on the patio with Mike Hall. I heard the unmistakable roar overhead of an airplane with multiple radial engines. As it flew past, I recognized it as a Ford Tri-motor.
Ford Tri-motors were built from 1925 to 1933 and, as the name implies, were powered by three nine-cylinder radial engines. They made 199 of these planes. I searched online and found 18 still in existence, eight of which were labeled as airworthy. Another five examples were listed as under restoration, so I don’t know the exact number of airworthy craft that are out there today. The plane flew over three times in the next hour and a half.
Ford Tri-motor NC9645
I saw the plane again flying over Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort on Friday. We have a lot of air traffic here with Falcon Field nearby to the northwest and Mesa-Gateway south of us. Most of the air traffic is general aviation small aircraft. We often see old warbirds flying out of Falcon Field.
As the Tr-motor flew by overhead at low altitude, I noticed the registration number on the underside of the left wing (NC9645). I saw flight plans for this plane flying out of Tucson last week. A little more digging around and I found it is flying out of Falcon Field here in Mesa until the 27th. This plane was built in 1928 and the original owner was Transcontinental Airlines. It passed through several hands and was owned for a time by William Harrah of Harrah’s Hotels and Casinos in Nevada.
The current owner is listed as Ed Patrick/Liberty Aviation Museum in Ohio. I found out it’s currently leased by the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) and it’s part of the EAA Ford Tri-motor Tour.
Originally, these planes were built with corrugated metal skins. As you can see from the file photo above, this plane was re-skinned with smooth sheet metal during an overhaul in 1951. They’re offering flight tours from Falcon Field for $77 through Sunday.
We’re still following our routine of hitting the pickleball courts in the mornings. Donna has tennis twice a week in the afternoon. Of course, we’re eating well. Monday night, Donna made cumin-spiced grilled lamb chops with sides of garlic cauliflower mash and corn with diced peppers. The cauliflower mash looks just like mashed potatoes and almost passes for it but for some cauliflower flavor.
Cumin-spiced lamb chops with cauliflower mash and corn
Tuesday, she served the leftover garlic cauliflower mash with baked mustard chicken thighs and Southern bacon-fried cabbage.
Baked mustard chicken and Southern bacon-fried cabbage
Thursday night, Donna joined our friend Sara Graff for an interesting dinner and a movie. They went to Alamo Draft House where the dining and drinking experience take place in a combination movie theater, bar and restaurant. You dine and drink at a small table right at your theater seat! They went to a special showing of Beautiful Boy that was followed by a community panel discussion about addiction, particularly addiction to crystal meth.
The weather outlook for the week ahead looks good. Daily highs in the 70s with overnight lows in the lower 40s. We don’t mind the cool nighttime temperatures – that’s what blankets are for. We don’t like to sleep with heaters running, so the coach cools overnight to 55-60 degrees and we run the heat pumps for a while after we rise.
We’re halfway through our sixth year on the road. When we started this journey, I told Donna it wasn’t an endless vacation, it’s a lifestyle. She responded with, “So we’ll still take vacations, right?” Well, she had me there. In reality, we’ve had many mini-vacations on the road. Like when we stayed at East Glacier or West Yellowstone or destinations like Nashville and countless other places where we played the tourist role.
Last week, I thought maybe it was time to change things up. I surprised Donna by suggesting a cruise or tropical resort. We spent a day or so looking things over on the Internet and made a decision. We’ve booked a week at the Costa Blu Resort on Ambergris Caye (pronounced am-BERG-ris Key) near San Pedro, Belize. We plan to travel there from San Diego in April. The flights to Belize from the West Coast aren’t easy. We’ll have to go from San Diego to Miami, then to Belize City. From there we can take a taxi to the port and a boat to San Pedro where we’ll rent a gasoline-powered four-seat golf cart for transportation to Costa Blu – about 6.5 miles from town. We’re looking forward to it and it should provide plenty of fodder for a future travel post.
Donna and I played in a pickleball tournament here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort on Saturday. Donna played in the 3.0 bracket while I played in the 3.5. The format was seven games of round-robin play, then the players were ranked by the number of games won and total points scored. The top four players were matched up in the finals to play for first and second place. The next four faced each other in a semi-final to determine the bronze medal winners. I ended up in the semi-final with five wins and 67 points scored, but we lost the semi-final round. Donna also made the semi-final in the 3.0 bracket and won the third step on the podium. It was a fun tournament and I’m looking forward to playing in another next month.
The weather last week was pleasant with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s. I usually go to Lucky Lou’s for cold one at happy hour on Thursday and Donna joins me on Friday when we meet several of our friends there. Mike Hall and I puff a cigar out on the patio and swap lies over a cold beer or two.
Of course, Donna keeps me well-fed as usual. A couple of examples of RV cooking from last week are a plate of grilled turkey breast served with sweet potato spinach hash and grilled peppers, onions and asparagus.
Grilled turkey breast, sweet potato hash and grilled peppers
After the tournament on Saturday, Donna went to the grocery store and found New York strip steaks on sale, so she grilled steak Saturday night and served it with a baked potato and grilled bok choy with shishito peppers.
Steak, potato, shishito peppers and bok choy
On Sunday, Donna hiked the Pass Mountain trail at Usery Regional Park with her friend, Beth Welch. They hiked about 7.5 miles and had some great views. I watched the NFL playoffs and wondered why at the end of the day. The officiating was so poor in the playoffs, I have to wonder if something rotten is going on.
The weather for the week ahead looks great – mostly clear skies, sunshine and moderate temperatures with the daily highs continuing to reach the high 60s and low 70s.
I haven’t posted for a week again – things have been pretty routine here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona. This is our third winter here – we typically stay for the first three months of the year. Lately our day starts with pickleball. They have nine outdoor courts here now – four were added in the last year.
It almost seems like we’re at a pickleball training camp. I play four or five days a week and Donna plays two or three times. The level of play is fairly high. Courts are reserved for different levels of play – Donna and I play with the 3.0-3.5 group and the games are very competitive. Our skill level is progressing. Playing with others that are at the same or higher level improves your game. Playing against people that are less experienced or skilled tends to drag your level of play down. We’re enjoying the challenge and we’ll play in a tournament this coming Saturday. Donna has joined the Viewpoint tennis club and is taking tennis lessons a couple of times a week as well.
Other than that, our days are filled with mostly mundane tasks – shopping, normal chores and so on. After two or two and half hours of pickleball, I need some recovery time, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading and relaxing. I’m working through a couple of series of novels written by Barry Eisler that I’m really enjoying. The genre is international espionage and political action. Some readers may find the stories to be a bit slow as the author is very detailed in his descriptions of locales and also the characters often philosophize over their actions and the way of politics around the world, but I find the stories to be well-written and plausible.
We haven’t spent too much time grilling – the evenings are cool here and the temperature drops quickly around sunset – about 5:30pm. Donna has manned the grill a few times in the last week though. I’m planning to get the Traeger out of the trailer soon – we want to invite a few neighbors over for smoked babyback ribs.
Sunday night Donna grilled a wild sockeye salmon filet topped with caramelized red onions and served it over a mixed green salad. Excellent!
Grilled salmon over mixed green salad
The weather for the past week was agreeable – highs in mid 60s to low 70s. Monday morning I was up early again for the pickleball round-robin and it was cold in the morning. Overnight lows have been in the mid-40s. We usually run the heat pumps for an hour or so in the morning while we have coffee and breakfast.
Today’s weather started off fine, but clouds moved in and it stayed cool – it reached the mid-60s but a breeze and passing rain showers made it seem cooler. The rest of the week looks good weatherwise – with a possibility of rain showers late Thursday or early Friday. We hoping the weekend forecast holds true with a sunny day predicted for Saturday’s tournament.
The cold weather continued – Tuesday and Wednesday the thermometer barely reached 50 degrees after overnight lows in the 30s. I didn’t get out and do much, but Donna took advantage of the gym here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort.
Even though I haven’t taken the Weber Q grill or the Traeger out of the trailer yet, we still enjoyed good meals. Donna made medallions of pork loin with roasted butternut squash and green beans Tuesday night.
Pork loin medallions
Thursday the weather warmed up to the mid-60s and Friday we hit 70. Donna and I played pickleball Friday morning with the 3.0+ group and had a lot of fun. We hadn’t played on outdoor courts for several months.
Friday afternoon we hit happy hour at Lucky Lou’s and met up with the usual crowd. We had fun sitting on the patio with Jeff and Chrissy Van Deren, Jodi and Mike Hall, Kim and Mike Childs and Jodi’s sister Jackie. Mike Hall and I puffed cigars and compared notes on some of our favorites.
Friday night Donna made another favorite dish – walnut crusted tilapia served with sauteed corn, red peppers and spinach plus spaghetti squash gratin on the side.
Walnut crusted tilapia
We’re pretty careful about the seafood we buy. We always prefer wild caught fish over farmed, but with tilapia, farmed is all you ever find. We avoid tilapia from Asia as some of the fish farm practices there aren’t the best. We prefer tilapia sourced from more modern facilities found in Mexico or Central America.
On Saturday morning, I received a package from The RV Water Filter Store that I had ordered after finding out that Al’s RV and Marine in Yuma had closed shop. I got new filter cartridges for our dual canister water filtration unit. I had the delivery by 11am and got busy. I wanted to get a couple of things done before the NFL playoff games which started at 2:30pm.
The first task was to replace the anode rod in our 10-gallon Suburban water heater tank. The last time I replaced the anode rod was April of 2016. It’s a good idea to at least pull the anode rod once a year to inspect it and drain any sediment from the hot water tank. The last time I replaced the anode rod, I used an aluminum rod instead of the magnesium rod I’d used previously. The aluminum rods last much longer than the magnesium.
Our hot water tank is behind this panel
After removing the cover panel to access the hot water tank, the first step was to tape a plastic bag I had split open to create a curtain for the water to drain out of the compartment and down the side of the coach.
Hot water tank with plastic bag “curtain”
With the water heater turned off, I shut off the fresh water supply and removed the anode rod with a 1-1/16″ socket. The rod was still in decent condition, but I replaced with a new one anyway.
Old rod on the left, new on the right
I wrapped the threads with teflon tape to seal them. With the rod out, I watched for sediment or anything unusual, but the water in the tank was clear and I didn’t have much in the way of deposits. I opened the pressure relief valve at the top of the tank to vent it while the water ran out. Once I had the new rod in, I left the pressure relief valve open while I turned on the fresh water supply and filled the tank. The open pressure relief valve allowed the air to vent out of the tank while it filled with water. If you don’t do this, the tank will only partially fill as head space is taken up by air trapped in the tank.
Pressure relief valve in the closed positionPressure relief valve with lever in the open position
Next up was replacement of the water filter cartridges. I bought the dual stage water filtration system we have at the FMCA rally in Redmond, Oregon from the folks at The RV Water Filter Store. It uses standard 10″ x 2.5″ cartridges. In the first canister, we have a five-micron sediment filter to remove any solids from the water. The last cartridge I bought at Al’s was made from wound polyester string. The new cartridge is spun polyester. I don’t think there’s any difference between the two other than how they look.
Old sediment filter on the right – new cartridge on the left
The second stage of our filtration is a carbon block filter to remove chlorine, chemicals and odors and improve the taste of the water. It’s also five microns.
Carbon block filter – old on the right, new on the left
We also have a third filter under our sink for the purified water dispenser. This filter removes bacteria. I change the sediment filter every three months and the carbon block filter every six months – this was the recommendation by the owner of The RV Water Filter Store. The under sink filter is good for at least two years.
With that job done, it was time to sit in front of the outdoor TV and watch football. It was sunny and about 70 degrees outside. A little before kickoff of the first game, I had a visitor. Mike and Joan Targett were our neighbors in the site next to us last year. This year they’re a couple of streets down from us. Mike stopped by in his golf cart to drop off a present for us. He made a sign for Donna and I to place in our site.
The sign Mike made
Mike captured some of our activities – pickleball, hoop dancing for Donna and an image of the Spyder. He did a great job and it was very nice of him to take the time to make this for us. We much appreciate the effort. Mike has made over 200 signs over the years for RVers.
Rain moved into the area overnight and it was wet and cold Sunday morning. I stayed indoors and watched the Chargers vs. Ravens wildcard game. The Chargers came up with an innovative defensive scheme that stymied the Ravens and they’ll move on to face the Patriots after winning in Baltimore.
Donna bought some wild gulf shrimp and made shrimp with fennel and feta for dinner with sides of steamed asparagus and butternut squash risotto.
Shrimp with fennel and feta
This morning I played in the round robin pickleball matches. We started at 8am, so I was up early and really got off to a slow start on the courts. Hopefully I’ll acclimate to the early play and pick up my game.
The forecast for the week ahead looks good – highs in the 70s. Today will be a littler cooler – mid 60s, but I won’t complain about that.
Goodbye 2018 – hello 2019! The last year held many adventures for us. It was the second highest mileage year we’ve had since we hit the road in 2013. We traveled 9,227 miles in our coach last year – our highest mileage year was 2015 when we covered 9.596 miles. We average around 7,500 miles per year.
People often ask me about fuel mileage and the cost of running a motorhome. Fuel isn’t really that big of an expense. We average around eight miles per gallon of diesel fuel. Since we average less than 8,000 miles per year, we burn under 1,000 gallons of fuel per year. So, our annual fuel costs for the motorhome is around $3,000. I’m sure there are plenty of people that spend $250 /month or more commuting in their cars. Of course we also have a small fuel bill for gasoline in the Spyder, but it’s not much.
We started and ended 2018 here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona. Last year we left Mesa in early April and headed south. We made a stop in Benson for a week then moved on through New Mexico. Our destination was Austin, Texas – I had tickets for the Moto GP race at the Circuit of the Americas there. Next up we went to the Gulf Coast at Aransas Pass, Texas and visited with my daughter, Jamie, and her family.
Then we were off to Louisiana. Donna and I have been to New Orleans several times, but we always arrived there via airlines. We wanted to see something other than the French Quarter and we found real downhome Louisiana in Abbeville. What a hoot. Then we traveled to Mississippi, Alabama and onward to Tennessee and Kentucky. Along the way, we toured the Tobasco distilery in Avery Island, Louisiana and the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky.
We met some great people in our travels and went to areas that were new to us. We traveled north to the shores of Lake Erie and stayed at the Elks Lodge in Erie, Pennsylvania. Then we headed east to Watkins Glen, New York. After an unexpected delay for a mechanical issue, we made it to Bennington, Vermont where we visited Donna’s parents and set up on their property. From there, we made our easternmost point in Little Deer Isle, Maine where we stayed on the property of our friends, Roger and Georgia Eaton.
After having a great time in Maine, it was after the Fourth of July and time to start heading back west. We stopped again in Bennington, then headed south to Gettysburg where we spent a day with my youngest daughter, Shauna. From there we went south again into West Virginia, but weather soon chased us westwards. By the third week of July we were in the land of Lincoln – Springfield, Illinois.
Writing this now, it seems impossible that we went to so many places in 2018 – but we continued on through Iowa and stayed in South Dakota. Then we explored Colorado and went to familiar places and also found new adventures in Cañon City, Montrose and Durango. And we drove the Million Dollar Highway.
We stayed at several Elks lodges across the country in 2018 and also did a fair amount of boondocking. We found a great boondocking site on BLM land outside of Williams, Arizona. This was at an elevation of around 7,000 feet and heavily forested, giving us some respite from the late summer heat in September.
We found the heat again in Lake Havasu, Indio and Hemet though before we made our way to San Diego. We stayed at Mission Bay RV Resort for three months and regrouped after six months of travel. Now we’re back where we started the year in Mesa and will be here until the end of March.
We like to split the fall/winter months between San Diego and Mesa. San Diego weather in September and October is usually near perfect. By Christmas, the rainy season starts and some day are wet and cold. Arizona is usually mild at that time, so we move here. This year is a little different so far. We arrived in Mesa just as a cold front pushed down from the north. It brought rain on New Year’s Eve and through the night. It has been unusually cold – in early January, we see overnight lows in the low to mid 40s and afternoon highs in the upper 60s most years. This morning it was 34 degrees outside and today we expect a high of only 52 degrees. The temperatures should return to more normal levels by the weekend though.
We’re back in the same site we occupied for the last two winters.
Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort – site 5245
Donna kicked off the New Year with a great dinner – chicken piccata served over capellini pasta with steamed asparagus and peppers.
Chicken piccata over cappelini with asparagus and peppers
Happy New Year to all and I hope 2019 is every bit as good as 2018. We wish you good health, lots of adventures and safe travels wherever you go.
