It’s been an eventful week – some good, some not so good. I’ll start with the good stuff. Monday afternoon we drove over to the Cortez Elk’s Lodge and enjoyed a cold brew on the patio. The view was similar to our back deck – we were overlooking the golf course. Donna wanted to check out the golf course and driving range there.

Donna wants to hit a few balls at the driving range and maybe play a round on the course while we’re in Cortez.

I played pickleball on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I took Thursday off as I had an appointment with Clint, the only local RV repair guy – but that’s another story I’ll get to later in this post. Donna alternated between pickleball and tennis. Friday was too windy for pickleball.

On Friday morning, Donna went over to the Owers Farm to help Carolyn with weeding. Then, after lunch, we made a trip to Hovenweep National Monument. It’s about an hour drive from Cortez on mostly two-lane county roads across the border into Utah. Hovenweep is an interesting place. It was inhabited over 800 years ago by a large number of ancestral Pueblo people – what were formerly called Anasazi. These people were farmers and also skilled at building, utilizing bricks made from mud, rock and plant material. Most of the building ruins there were originally built from 1230 to 1275 AD.

The area is thought to have had many creeks and springs providing water to the canyon where Hovenweep is located. Around this same time, the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were also built. The people of Hovenweep didn’t stay here for long. It’s theorized that after the towers, storage buildings and dwellings were built, decades of drought ensued. It was once thought that the ancient Puebloans simply disappeared. Nowadays we know that they relocated – some went to the Rio Grande valley in what is now New Mexico, others went south to the Little Colorado watershed in Arizona.

Today, the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes can trace their ancestry back to these people. We hiked from the visitor center to the Square Tower, then on the way back we took the Tower Point loop. The hiking path was well-marked with stone boundaries and the terrain was uneven, flat stones. Wear good, sturdy shoes if you come here!

I should have had Donna pose in a picture or two to give a sense of scale. These were large structures, many stories high. It was a fun and entertaining way to spend the afternoon. When we came back to town, we made another stop at Loungin’ Lizard. Once again the beer was cold, but the food was off and the service a bit hit or miss. We’ve heard from a local person that’s what you can expect there – hit or miss.

On Saturday, Donna and I played in a pickleball tournament put on by the Cortez Pickleball Club. They call it a “Shootout.” I didn’t play all that well, but we had fun. The format had us playing three games with a different partner each game, then based on total points scored you either moved up one court or down one court for another three games with different people.

Now the not so good stuff. In my last post, I mentioned two issues we were having, both related to water. We have water dripping from behind the shower, either from the water supply line at the shower valve or the shower head connection. I cannot find a way to access either area. So, in the meantime, we are only running the fresh water pump on an as-needed basis to prevent a constant drip.

As if that weren’t enough to contend with, the fresh water supply suddenly lost flow and pressure. I was fairly certain the problem was the check valve at the hot water tank. I ordered a new one. When it was delivered on Tuesday, I drained the hot water tank by pulling the anode rod. I was surprised to find the rod had eroded down to the core material – it was about the diameter of a clothes hanger wire. The tank was full of anode rod bits and mineral deposits.

Once I had the tank cleaned up, I embarked on a comedy of errors – at least that’s how I think of it now. When I removed the check valve, I saw I had ordered the wrong replacement part. The Amazon description says it’s for our Suburban water heater and it will fit the heater tank, but the other end of it is a female coupling and I needed male couplings on both ends. Grrr. I cleaned up the old check valve as best as I could and reassembled it and filled the hot water tank.

Good news – it worked fine then! I went back to Amazon and ordered replacement anode rods. I enjoyed a nice, hot shower with good water pressure and flow. Donna had half a shower before trouble hit again. We lost water flow and pressure. I went back to Amazon and found the proper check valve and placed another order. We were stuck for the remainder of the week without good water pressure.

Thursday morning, the only local RV repair man came out. I explained the water drip situation to Clint and showed him the dilemma regarding access. He looked at the options and couldn’t come with a good solution. As I feared, he said it wouldn’t be a mobile repair job and would have to be left at a shop – it wasn’t something that could be done in a day. The only way to do it would be to either cut through the wall or cut the shower enclosure and patch it afterwards. Not good.

Friday Amazon delivered the new anode rods, but the check valve wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Saturday. I would need to remove the anode rod to drain the tank to install the new check valve, so I waited to do the repair on Saturday.

In hindsight, I can see that I should have drained the hot water tank when I put the coach in storage. Leaving water in the tank for eight months without use eroded the rod.

I should mention that I had to buy a 12″ adjustable end wrench in order to remove the anode rod. When we were full-time RVers, I always had all of my tools with me – now I only pack a handful of tools. An adjustable wrench should have been in that handful.

The check valve arrived mid-day on Saturday and I set to work. I removed the old anode rod, drained the tank, then replaced the check valve. After installing the anode rod, I opened the pressure relief vent and turned on the city water supply to refill the tank. I opened the bathroom faucet to check for flow and pressure and was disappointed. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I went back outside to check the hose and saw water dripping from behind the hot water tank. I shut off the water and hustled back inside. The pex hose connection to the check valve was leaking profusely. After fiddling with it, I could see that I was missing the rubber gasket. I looked around inside the cabinet where I was working and couldn’t find it.

In a panic, I drove to the hardware store and found a Sharkbite-type 90 degree pex elbow fitting that I thought would work. I came back and started disassmbling the fitting when I had a sudden epiphany. I picked up the old check valve and sure enough, the rubber gasket was lodged inside it. Doh! I installed the gasket on the new check valve and put it all back together. Another refill of the hot water tank and pressure check was a success. Good flow and pressure, no leaking. This was not one of my finest repair attempts.

After that long winded tale of woe, I’ll talk about dinner plates. Last Monday, Donna grilled shrimp kabobs with onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and pineapple chunks. She served it with tare sauce on the kabobs and I put soy sauce on the side of rice.

Tuesday she made something new – hoisin glazed pork bowl. The recipe called for thinly sliced carrot, radishes, mushrooms and scallions – it recommended using a mandolin the get the radish thin enough. We don’t have a mandolin but with my Japanese 180mm bunka knife, I was able to cut the radish nearly paper thin.

The vegetable medley was placed over the thinly sliced pork that was seared and then baked with a hoisin marinade. I mixed everything together before eating it and it was delicious. I would happily go the through the meal prep for this dish anytime.

The daily temperatures were in the mid 80s through Thursday. Then a front came in bringing wind and cooler temperatures – the high was 71 on Friday, only 68 on Saturday. The overnight lows have been around 40 degrees. We’ll see more of the same for a few days before it begins to warm up again mid-week.