I let another week go by without writing a post, so I have to catch up. We had our final days last week at Leaf Verde RV Park in Buckeye. On Thursday, I made a trip over to my daughter, Jamie’s, house to pick up a package for Donna. Jamie told me she wasn’t feeling well, so she would leave the package in the front courtyard.

When I picked up the package, Jamie stood at the dining room window to talk to me at a safe distance. She told me she had sanitized the package – it was on a chair in the courtyard. I think she was planning for a nap or at least a bit of rest after I left.

On Friday, Jamie went to an urgent care center for a COVID-19 test. On Monday, the results came back positive – so she has the virus from China. I don’t think we should forget where this virus originated – Wuhan, China. I hope Jamie’s case is mild. She’s 35 years old and generally in good health, so I expect her to make a full recovery.

We packed up Saturday morning. I had to hook the trailer back up, because I’d disconnected when I took the coach in for service. The drive from Buckeye, west of Phoenix to Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in east Mesa was about 60 miles. I didn’t anticipate much traffic on a Saturday, but crossing a big city like Phoenix is always a crap shoot.

As usual, the major junctions on I-10 had slow downs. Some of these are predictable as the freeway design is sure to create a tie-up – such as where I-17 intersects I-10 and the left HOV lane ends right where traffic is merging into the lanes. At the junction of AZ51, L-202 and I-10 an accident on the AZ51 ramp had traffic stopped as everyone had to look at the crash site. So, the 60-mile drive took us over an hour and a half.

The office at Viewpoint is closed on the weekends, but the security guys were expecting us. We entered the park from Hawes Road and found our usual site at 5245. Our end of the 5200 row was (and still is) empty. Many Canadians are unable to come here at this point. They can’t cross the border in their car or RV. They can only fly into the US. For most of them, that would mean they would have to rent or buy a car once they got here or they wouldn’t have transportation.

All of the empty spaces made it easier to maneuver the trailer into our site. I dropped it, then put the coach in place. We were hooked up and back in business by 3pm and I was ready to relax with a cold one.

On Sunday, our friends Mike and Jodi Hall visited us along with their granddaughter, Swayzie. We watched football on our outdoor TV – Viewpoint has free cable TV – while Mike and I enjoyed a stogie. We both chose Arturo Fuente Gran Reserva for our afternoon smoke. Mike is recovering from major surgery, so we just sat and took it easy.

On Monday morning, Donna and I walked down to the pickleball courts. We played for a couple of hours and it felt good to be back on the familiar courts. Last month, Donna ordered a canopy for my birthday – I planned to use it for my ham shack. Lake Pleasant didn’t allow pop-up type canopies and Leaf Verde was a little cramped so I hadn’t used it yet.

On Monday afternoon, I unpacked the canopy and set about putting it up. The instructions were less than useful – it basically said to spread the framework slightly, lay the covering over it and put it up. There was a little more to it than that! With Donna’s help, I had it together in about an hour – it won’t take that long next time now that I know the process.

It has four removeable fabric walls with a zip open door on the front. I assembled it with only two walls – on the rear and the west side – to provide afternoon shade while allowing the breeze to circulate.

I set up my ham radio antennas next and put a folding table under the canopy to complete my ham shack. I was pretty excited about being just five miles away from the repeater towers on Usery Mountain. The repeater there would get me into the Yaesu WIRES-X system. What I didn’t count on was the fact that Spook Hill blocks the line-of-sight to the top of Usery Mountain. The repeaters are VHF/UHF which relies on line-of-sight to link the antennas! I’ll play around with it some more, but right now, I do better with repeaters on South Mountain – 26 miles away – and one in west Mesa.

Last week, our Sharp microwave/convection oven broke. The mechanism to open the door broke and the door can’t be opened. I looked at the linkage involved and it’s beyond repair. I ordered a replacement unit from Amazon and it arrived here Monday morning. Now I need to get someone out here to remove the old unit and install the new. It looks like I have a two-week wait to get a mobile RV tech to handle it.

So, we’re relegated to induction cooktop, crock pot or grill cooking, Reheating is a little harder but doable on the induction cooktop. I’ll set up the Weber Q and the Traeger now that we’ll be settled in for the winter. Last night, Donna made pan seared salmon with a ginger and scallion topping with forbidden (black) rice and broccoli.

We’ve had clear skies and warm temperatures. It was in the mid 70s when we arrived on Saturday. Sunday was warmer in the mid-80s. Yesterday we hit 90 and will see mid-80s again today. The forecast says we’ll be in the low 80s to high 70s for the next week.

*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!