I haven’t posted in over a week. That’s mainly because I haven’t had anything exciting to write about. We’ve been slowly getting settled in to our place here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, mainly staying indoors. It’s still hot here in Mesa, Arizona.

Ozark the cat has definitely settled in. She doesn’t like travel days, although she’s perfectly happy in the coach when we’re stationary – especially when we stay put for a week or more. Back-to-back travel days aren’t her thing – they really aren’t our thing either. Ozark can roam from room to room here and she has a few favorite spots.

I think Ozark would be happy if we just stayed here permanently. Donna and I are content, but we know we’ll get the hitch itch sooner or later.

I’m happy to have our Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill available again. When we hit the road last spring, I had to leave it behind. Without our cargo trailer, I just didn’t have room for it. Last week, I bought a two-pack of USDA Prime tri-tip roasts at Costco. They were a little over two pounds each. I think when you take it out of the package, it’s correct to refer to them as roasts. Once you grill them and cut it into portions, it’s more appropriate to call them steaks. I wrote a post about tri-tips here.

I prepared one on Tuesday with my usual tri-tip seasoning – salt, pepper and garlic powder in a dry rub. I set the Traeger at 220 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Before I took them out of the Traeger, I preheated our gas grill to 450 degrees. I transferred the tri-tip to the grill and seared each side for three minutes. They were cooked to a perfect medium rare with an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees.

Donna served it with steamed green beans and sweet potato tots.

The USDA Prime tri-tips were $12.99/lb at Costco. A pack of two tri-tips ran just over $50, but we’ll get several meals out them. The first tri-tip was an excellent dinner on Tuesday, we had at least half of it left over.

On Saturday, Donna prepared beef stroganoff with the remainder of the tri-tip. She used noodles from Sprouts that were billed as “home made egg noodles.” The stroganoff was delicious and once again we had leftovers for another lunch meal.

I have a number of projects that need to be attended to, but I’ve been procrastinating due to the heat. We’ve had only two days that weren’t triple digit heat since my last post. I got a start on the End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) antenna for my ham shack. The EFHW will allow me to seamlessly tune the 10-meter, 20-meter and 40-meter bands by going through my MFJ auto-tuner with my Yaesu FT-991A radio. I hope to get the antenna finished by the next weekend.

My guitar body, neck and hardware are scheduled to arrive via FedEx tomorrow. That will be my priority in the next week or so. I already received a full compliment of special tools from Stew-Mac to finish the frets and set everything up. I also decided to sell my Egnater guitar amplifier and cabinet and build another amp. I’ll write about that later, once I get it underway.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be up at dark-thirty. I will drive Donna to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for her 6am flight. She’s going back to Vermont to visit her parents. They have plans to travel to Ogunquit, Maine to spend a couple of nights on the coast. I’ll be a bachelor for a week – I’ll have plenty to do with the guitar project and ham stuff. I also need to get out to the storage facility and see about making a permanent fix for the left front body panel on the coach. I need to figure a way to get it back into proper shape so I can rivet the front section to the frame.

Donna has been getting out early in the morning to play pickleball or tennis before it gets too hot out. I’m not up for pickleball at 6:30am, so I’ll wait for cooler temps to get back on the courts.

After a couple more hot afternoons, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the month. That’ll be a relief.

*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!