Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Open Spaces

Now that all of the regular activities here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort are stopped, a lot of people have packed up and left. I guess for those that have regular sticks-and-bricks homes and family elsewhere, it made sense for them to head home while they can. Talk of restrictions on travel to and from some states have created a sense of urgency for some people. Of course, the Canadian visitors had their reasons for leaving as well.

Donna has been staying active, riding her bicycle and doing strength training three days a week with our friend and neighbor here in the park. Ginny comes over on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and they do their socially distanced training routine on the empty concrete pad east of our site. Ginny and her husband, Joe, were in my refined skills pickleball class last year. They’ve come a long way with their pickleball game. It’s too bad we’re not allowed on the courts here at this time. Like us, they’re planning to stay through the end of the month in their park model.

Lately my activity levels have really fallen off. We go out for a walk most evenings, but that isn’t much. We see a few people that are socializing in their sites with friends, some of them are still having fairly large gatherings. We’ve decided to avoid these situations and keep our distance.

This whole social distancing thing has been somewhat controversial, but I think we can’t ignore it. One of the statistics that really sticks out in my mind is the number of COVID-19 cases in New York. New York has approximately 20 million people and as of 3pm yesterday, they had over 92,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. California has approximately 40 million people – double the population of New York – but they have only about 9,200 confirmed cases as of yesterday. That’s only 10% as many cases with double the population.

Why is that? That’s the question everyone would like the answer to. Here’s my thought on this social distance thing. Whereas New York has high population density in New York City, it also has heavily used mass transportation – subways, trains, buses and taxi cabs. Californians have large population centers as well, but they are much more likely to travel alone or in small groups in their personal vehicles. People in New York are more likely to spend time indoors – sharing space with others – while Californians are more likely to be outdoors and not in close contact with strangers. Maybe that explains why New York has so many cases compared to California – that’s my theory for now.

Since last weekend, the only time Donna and I have left the RV park was to go grocery shopping. I’ve done most of the shopping, but today we both went. I dropped Donna off at Sprouts where she likes to get fresh produce and some specialty foods while I went to Winco foods to buy a few staples and beer. It worked out good, I was able to buy some needed foods at the lower Winco prices while Donna found everything she wanted at Sprouts. With our limited refrigeration and food storage, I go out to shop a twice a week.

Speaking of limited space, Donna’s been doing some re-organizing. Our bathroom has a closet space that holds our Splendide 2100 washer/dryer and cleaning supplies. We also had a basket for clothes that needed to be washed on a shelf above the washer dryer. Donna wanted to use this space as additional pantry space. When you live in about 300 square feet, finding space for a clothes hamper can be a challenge. Donna came up with a solution. She found pop-up mesh hampers online from Bed, Bath and Beyond. She ordered two of them – one for whites and one for colored clothes. These hampers are very lightweight. She put them in the shower so they don’t take up any usable space. When we shower, we just pull them out and temporarily leave them on the bathroom floor. Then we dry the floor of the shower and put them back.

Colored clothes in the black hamper, whites in the white one

You would think with all this time spent at home and not going out for happy hour that we would be saving money. Well, I’m doing my best to keep the economy rolling. I find myself in front of the computer screen placing orders online. Donna, too. So we’ve had Amazon deliveries almost daily!

We didn’t dine out very often anyway – we’re used to home-cooked meals and only went out to dinner once a month or so. Here are a few meals from the last week. First is pan-seared mustard flank steak with roasted garlic cauliflower and corn.

Another dinner plate was creamy lemony orzo with shrimp and peas. Delicious.

Last night, I grilled a pork tenderloin that Donna prepped with her mojo marinade. She served it with fire roasted sweet potatoes and steamed asparagus.

I bought a 2.5-pound London broil steak today (top round) to make beef jerky. My last batch was the best so far – I’ve made small improvements with each batch. I’ll prep this steak later today and smoke it tomorrow.

We’ve had excellent weather for the past week with temperatures reaching the upper 70s and low 80s. We topped out at 85 on Wednesday. The week ahead should be more of the same.

*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!

Shut the Door

Things are getting curiouser and curiouser around here – and all across the country. Last Thursday, I made a trip to Costco at opening time. Usually if I arrive at 10am, the parking lot is only half full and shopping is quick and easy. Not now! At 10am, the parking lot was nearly full. As I grabbed a cart and headed to the entrance, I was told by employees at the door I had to enter from the left by walking past a long line of carts they used to create a barrier. It seemed strange to have to walk halfway across the parking lot just to turn around and head back toward the entrance.

I noticed a steady stream of shoppers exiting the store with full carts. It appeared that people were leaving at about the same rate as we were entering. Just as the guy in front of me got to the entrance, an employee stopped him and they shut the door! There were only about a dozen of us near the entrance. They kept the door shut for about 15 minutes, which created a line of people the length of the building. When they opened the door, I was the second person in and saw an empty store. Of course, everyone waiting in line was impatient to get what they needed and a mad rush up the aisles ensued.

Waiting for the door to reopen at Costco

It seemed to me that the process was creating more misery than it solved. The flow of people exiting seemed to be about equal to those entering. Shutting down the entrance and waiting for the store to clear out was just creating a series of rushes into the store. They were out of paper products and limited bottle water purchases to one case.

On Saturday, we planned to visit Mike and Jodi Hall for a barbeque. The plan changed when Mike and Jodi were invited to go to Frank Burk’s place. We were included and met Frank and his wife Kelly and another couple, Victor and Sherry. There were eight of us and we maintained social distance. We had drinks on the patio and up on the upper gazebo deck. Frank and Kelly’s place is a couple of miles east of where we used to live. Frank had the place built on desert property and it’s very nice with great views from the deck.

We had a great time with good food and great company.

Monday morning, Donna and I played pickleball. All of the organized pickleball activities were cancelled, but open play was still happening. The pickleball club provided hand sanitizer and placed buckets of water with dish soap at each court entrance to wash the balls between games. Everyone was mindful of keeping their distance. Pickleball, tennis and golf were just about the only things left to do here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. Everything else, including the swimming pools, is closed.

On our way back from the pickleball courts, we saw a saguaro cactus that had been felled and partially cut up. I asked a woman on the front porch of the park model across the street what was going on. She told us the cactus had been damaged by a golf cart when a woman’s dog jumped from her cart and she lost control trying to keep the dog in. I asked her if they realized it’s illegal to cut down a saguaro in Arizona. She said it was private property and the owner was concerned about the cactus falling over and causing damage to his home.

To satisfy my curiosity, I looked up the law. Private property or not, you have to obtain a permit from the Arizona Department of Agriculture before you can cut down a saguaro. If you don’t get a permit, you can be charged with a felony! They don’t issue many permits and usually require a saguaro to be relocated instead of cut down.

Donna found a two-pound package of large wild Argentine red shrimp for just $11.98 when she rode her bicycle to Basha’s grocery last week. What a deal. She grilled some shrimp with asparagus, peppers and onions and added pesto then served it over cauliflower rice. Excellent!

Tuesday Donna made a dish called Skinny Burrito Bowl. It was Mexican spiced chicken breast with black beans, corn and salsa over cauliflower rice and topped with cotija cheese and cilantro. Cauliflower rice is a staple of Donna’s Bright Line Eating plan – so that makes it a staple for me. I don’t mind – cauliflower rice is quite good.

We played pickleball again on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. A rumor was going around on Wednesday about the park closing the pickleball, tennis and shuffleboard courts. It turned out to be more than just a rumor – a guy stopped by the courts and showed us a notice from the Viewpoint management advising that all activities are closed. I find it hard to understand as the pickleball club was taking prudent precautions with the sanitizer, ball washing and no physical contact. People are continuing to leave the park as activity ceases. Many of the Canadians have been told by their health insurance carriers that they will not be covered for coronavirus if they are in the USA.

I heard that Costco had a senior hour from 8am to 9am where only members over 60 years old could shop. This morning I went to restock our bottled water, toilet paper and booze. I got there at 7:40am and was shocked once again. They had half of the lot taped off into what looked like a TSA security check point at an airport. An employee was handing out tickets to enter the line which snaked across the parking lot. Again they were closing the door to clear the store out – they were closing it at 10-minute intervals this time.

Line snaking across the Costco parking lot

There was a second line for people under 60 that had to wait there until 9am! I finally handed over my ticket and entered the store at 8:40am. They had pallets of toilet paper in the first aisle with employees asking if you wanted Kirkland brand or Charmin and they would hand out one package per shopping cart. The bottled water situation has obviously improved as they had a five-case limit instead of one.

I believe the number of cases of coronavirus in Arizona was – and is – under reported. I’ve been watching the data on this website and found that only 793 tests have been performed to date in Arizona. I think the most important data to track is the number of new cases under historical data.

The weather over the last week has been great. We’ve had mostly clear skies and the temperature reached the mid-to-upper 70s each day. Today and tomorrow are forecast to be cooler – in the 60s. We’ll be back into the 70s by Sunday and will see 80 degrees next week. We’ll continue to sit tight – we don’t have anything better to go to.

Interesting Times

“May you live in interesting times” is an old Chinese curse. These are certainly interesting times. The day after I wrote my last post, Donna went to the dress rehearsal for the Viewpoint Concert Band’s final performance of the season. When she arrived at the ballroom, there weren’t any chairs or music stands set up. She was informed that the concert had been cancelled as the management at Viewpoint had decided to curtail all events involving more than 10 people to prevent unnecessary risk of coronavirus infection.

Donna had a gift for her band director, Dr. Bruce Amman. She obtained photos from a photographer at their last concert where Bruce played a sax solo and also conducted the band. She had them made into a collage mounted on an acrylic block photo frame. She presented it to Bruce before heading back to the coach, disappointed over the cancellation.

Gift for Dr. Bruce Amman, director of the Viewpoint Concert Band

The restriction on gatherings didn’t seem to affect pickleball as we played in the St. Patrick’s tournament on Saturday. We got off to a slow start and even though we finished up with some strong games, the first two games sunk our chances of making the playoffs. At the pickleball courts,there was much discussion over changing plans for many of the people here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort.

At this time of year, the majority of people in the park are visitors from Canada. The Canadians had concerns over their healthcare insurance and possibilities of borders closing. Most of them elected to leave this week and head back to Canada. Their concerns were well-founded as announcements by the Canadian and US governments were made. The RV park was nearly full a week ago, but now there are many unoccupied sites.

Our neighbors across from our site, Sue and Chuck, decided to leave early and head back to Illinois to be with their families. We had a little after-dinner cocktail send-off with about 10 people in attendance Monday night. Donna played Danny Boy on her clarinet, an Irish ballad from the concert that got canceled, as a going away present for Sue and Chuck, who pulled out on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Donna wanted to get some groceries. I dropped her off at Sprouts, a natural foods store, then drove to Winco Foods to restock on beer and look for a few items. I was in for a shock. The empty shelves and meat department made me feel like I was shopping in Venezuela. The beer cooler was full, so that was a good thing. I managed to buy two dozen eggs and some coffee. I drove back to Sprouts to find the situation there was much different. For some reason, people haven’t mobbed Sprouts and they were only sold out of a few categories – soups and pasta for example. These are easily stored and only require water and heat to prepare, so I guess they’re popular right now.

Donna was able to complete her shopping and got most everything on her shopping list. I bought two pounds of beef top round to make jerky. RV living means we have less refrigerator and freezer space than most sticks-and-bricks homes, so we shop more often. With so many visitors to central Arizona pulling out, I’m wondering if some of the pressure on the supply chain will be reduced. I can only hope so.

We’d already extended our stay here through the end of April. Our original plan was to spend April in San Diego, however, we were going to fly to Miami for a wedding the first week of April. Donna’s niece, Michelle, is getting married and we could fly non-stop from Phoenix, but not from San Diego. We planned to leave April 2nd and return on the 6th. Now the wedding has been postponed until the fall, so we won’t have to worry about making the flight or traveling to Florida.

For now, we’ll plan on staying here until the end of April and then make decisions as the situation evolves. Arizona is a good place to be right now. For some reason, there are very few cases of COVID-19 here – only 20 cases reported in the state.

Meanwhile, we aren’t suffering any shortages, just lacking some amenities here at the RV park. The pools and hot tubs as well as the gym and recreation rooms are closed. We’re eating well though and I have evidence of that. Last week, Donna made a couple of new dishes for dinner.

Chicken with tomatoes, olives and feta over spaghetti

Slow cooker beef bourguignon with ciabatta bread served over cauliflower mash

Donna made her usual St. Patrick’s day meal yesterday – corned beef, cabbage, carrots, champ (Irish mashed potatoes with scallions) and Irish soda bread. Delicious!

I smoked another batch of beef jerky and I think it’s my best effort so far. Each batch has been an improvement!

The weather for the last week has been great – daily highs in the low to high 70s. Today we have clouds and sporadic rain showers. The temperature will only reach the 60s for the next couple of days before we get back into the upper 70s over the weekend. Maybe the abundant sunshine and time spent outdoors has something to do with the low number of COVID-19 cases here.

Racing and Rain

The warmer temperatures held up through the weekend as forecast – and it was a great weekend. It started early for me on Friday. I was up before sunrise as Mike Hall was picking me up at 8am. Sunrise here in central Arizona can be just as spectacular as the sunsets sometimes are.

Sunrise behind the Superstition Mountains

Mike showed up with our friend Jeff Van Deren and we headed out toward Payson to do some target shooting in the desert. Even on a weekday, it pays to get out there early to claim a good shooting spot. We had a blast (pun intended) and spent a couple of hours burning up ammo.

Mike dropped me off before noon – he planned on going out for lunch with his wife, Jodi. Donna was out – she had met up with Sara Graff for breakfast, then ran some errands. I made lunch and showered. Donna came home by 1pm and then I took the Midget and drove to Mike Hall’s place. We had a plan for the afternoon.

The Phoenix Art Museum had an exhibition called The Art of Speed, which was scheduled to be on display from November 3, 2019 to March 15, 2020. This exhibit had a number of historic race cars from around the world. Many of the cars were racers I read about as a youngster and dreamed of driving. Most of the cars were racing machines I was aware of, but had never actually seen other than in photos.

The first car we saw outside of the hall was the John Player Special Lotus 79 Formula One car driven to the World Championship in 1978 by Mario Andretti. I saw Mario drive this car at the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Most of the cars inside the exhibit hall are part of privately owned collections and were on loan to the museum for display.

The first two to catch my eye as we entered the hall were enough to give me chills. The first was a car that many consider to be the most beautiful Formula One car ever built – the 1967 Gurney Eagle. Dan Gurney won the 1967 Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps with the Westlake 12-cylinder powered Eagle – the only American-made car to win a Formula One race in the modern era.

Right behind the Eagle was the 1965 Lotus-Ford Type 38 – which one the greatest drivers of all time, Jimmy Clark, drove to victory in the Indianapolis 500. It was the first rear engine car to win at Indy. No front engine car has ever won since then.

This Ford GT40 was owned by John Wyer. His team raced to victory at Le Mans in 1968 and 1969. The story of this car is currently in theaters in the Ford versus Ferrari movie.

The next car epitomizes the sports cars built in Southern California in the late 1950s – the Scarab of Lance Reventlow. Lance was described as a “young man with nearly unlimited funds and a taste for all things fast and beautiful.”

Back in the day, it was common for race cars to be painted in nationalistic colors. Many race fans were fervently nationalistic. Italian cars were traditionally red, German cars silver, English cars green and American cars were blue. This wasn’t always the case, but was true more often than not.

The Ferrari 250 GTO is an icon. It won three straight GT Championships.

Some of the photos aren’t as clear as I would’ve liked, but the lighting for photography was difficult and flash was not allowed.

The 1957 Maserati 450S was developed specifically to compete with Ferrari.

This 1954 Lancia D24 Spyder won the Targa Florio – a race in Sicily run on public roads with a lap distance of 45 miles!

The next car was known as a “Birdcage.” This 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 had a space frame chassis built of approximately 200 tubes. If you look at the area between the instrument panel and firewall, you can see the construction technique. This car – chassis number 2470 – entered 16 races, winning six of them and finishing in the top three 13 times.

Next we have a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. This car won the GT class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1964 driven by Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant.

Stirling Moss drove this Maserati 250F Formula One car to victory in the 1956 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

A.J. Foyt won his first Indianapolis 500 in this Trevis Offenhauser in 1961. A.J. would go on to win Indy three more times.

There were several other cars on display, but I didn’t try to capture photos of everything. The car Mike and I both wanted most to see wasn’t there! The Roger Penske-Sunoco 1973 Porsche 917/30 was probably the best race car ever built. It decimated the field in Can-Am racing with its flat 12-cylinder engine producing 1,500 horsepower. It was so far ahead of everyone else that it killed the series when everyone gave up on beating it. I found out later that the owner had a commitment to show the car at the Amelia Island Concours where it won best in show.

After touring the museum, Mike and I retired to Lucky Lou’s for a cold one or two where we were joined by Jodi and friends. I came home to find Donna had cooked up a new-to-her dish, Creole chicken and sausage. Tasty!

Saturday morning, Donna competed in the Viewpoint Pickleball Club Ladies Tournament. Donna played in the 3.0 group. She won the round robin portion handily, scoring a near perfect 65 points out of a possible 66. She went on to win the semi-final and then – wait for it – she and her partner won the tournament! On Monday she joined me in the 3.5 round robin session and played well. She’ll continue to try her hand at the higher 3.5 level.

Last night, we attended the annual Viewpoint Pickleball Club meeting and banquet. There are 510 members in the club this year and around 200 came to the meeting and dinner. Pickleball continues to grow as a sport and the Viewpoint Pickleball Club has grown as well over the four years we’ve played here.

In my previous post, I said I thought we’d reached the end of wintry weather here in Mesa, Arizona. I mis-spoke. Yesterday, we had a few rain showers after a warm and sunny weekend. It continued to rain off and on overnight and has been raining most of this morning. The temperature is expected to reach 70 today, but the next few days will be a few degrees cooler with more rain. If this all winter has for us, I can’t complain.

This coming Sunday, Donna will perform with the Viewpoint Concert Band in their final performance of the season. I’m sure she’ll continue to practice clarinet daily, but she won’t have the rehearsal and performance schedule to motivate her.

Daylight Saving – and the Apocalypse?

It’s been over a week since I wrote my last post. Time keeps getting away from me. We’ve settled into a routine here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona and it’s keeping us busy. Donna is managing to practice clarinet daily and has a two-hour weekly session with the Viewpoint Concert Band along with tennis lessons and pickleball. Last week, she also volunteered to sit in on presentations by employees of a local company and critique them. The ladies pickleball tournament that was cancelled due to weather will be held this Saturday and Donna is in it.

I play pickleball on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes on the weekend. Wednesdays are long days for me. I play in the 3.0+ group in the morning, then I coach the Refined Skills class from noon to 2pm. Sometimes I’ll play another game or two after giving the lesson. Wednesdays are also Concert on the Green day here at Viewpoint. Musicians come to the park and set up in the pavilion between the golf practice green and the pickleball courts from 3pm to 5pm. Lots of people here watch and listen from their golf carts, others spread blankets on the grass and sit or dance. Donna used to hoop dance there, but now she has band practice from 3pm to 5pm on Wednesdays.

Setting up for Concert on the Green – pickleball courts in the background

We expect to continue our daily routines – meanwhile the routines for most people are about to be disrupted. Daylight Saving Time will begin this weekend – it’s correctly called Daylight Saving Time, not savings. As the clocks “spring forward” it will mean getting up an hour earlier – at least that’s what the clocks will tell them.

By law, each state in the USA can choose to participate in Daylight Saving Time or not. Currently, Arizona and Hawaii are the only states that don’t change their clocks. However, the territory of the Navajo Nation in the northeast portion of Arizona does observe Daylight Saving Time, which can be confusing when traveling through the area. Parts of Indiana didn’t observe Daylight Saving Time but that changed in 2006 – Indiana already has two time zones, so counties that didn’t change the clock made time very confusing there.

Daylight Saving Time is longer now than it was before 2007. It runs from March to November – it used to be April to October. What do you think about resetting clocks? I think there’s some truth to the old adage, “Only the government would believe that cutting one foot off the top of a blanket and sewing it onto the bottom makes the blanket longer.”

With the lack of Daylight Saving Time in Arizona, our clocks are equal to Mountain Standard Time from November to March. Then, when everyone else changes their clocks, Arizona is the same as Pacific Daylight Time.

On Sunday morning, I went to Costco. Getting there at opening time, 10am, on Sunday usually means no crowds and easy shopping and checkout. Not this time! I arrived just before 10am and found the parking lot nearly full. There was a line of people stretching over 100 yards with shopping carts waiting to enter the store. It took me over five minutes just to get in! I couldn’t figure it out. Then one of the store employees told me people were panicking over the Wuhan coronavirus and stocking up like the apocalypse was imminent. Seems a little extreme to me, but there’s definitely fear among the general public.

The weather for the past week has been mostly agreeable. The daily highs hit the upper 60s to low 70s and we only had a few raindrops last Monday. Otherwise, it’s been mostly clear to partly cloudy. Today we expect to reach the lower 80s and the warm temperature will continue through Saturday. I think we’re near the end of wintry weather in central Arizona. The weather forecast looks favorable although the weather guessers say we may have a few raindrops by the middle of next week .

I’ll close this post with a couple of dinner plates from the past week. First up was walnut-crusted tilapia with southern fried cabbage – with bacon. Everything is better with bacon!

Donna also grilled shrimp – she’s become quite the grill master. The shrimp were seasoned with adobo and grilled on skewers. She served the shrimp with a side of curried cauliflower, zucchini, onion and tomato (and brown rice for me).

Shrimp with curried cauliflower, zucchini, onion and tomato

Unlimited – Not

After many hours of work, I have my new laptop ready to go. As I reported before, my old laptop had become unreliable. The problems began when Microsoft decided to push an Operating System (OS) update to it. The update software is flawed in my opinion. It had an incompatibility with an app or program I had on my computer. But rather than set an error message and identify the issue, it would just shut down the hard drive. I would have no choice but to force a complete shutdown, reboot and hope I hadn’t lost anything I was working on – in most cases, I lost my unsaved work.

Meanwhile, Donna was becoming increasingly frustrated with her phone. Our phones are several generations old – we had Samsung Galaxy S5s. So, we headed over to Best Buy and did some shopping. Donna ended up with a new Samsung Galaxy S10 while I picked up a new laptop – a 2-in-1 actually. This means it functions as a normal laptop or I can fold the screen 360 degrees and use it like a tablet. I don’t care much about that function, I only needed a laptop. I found an ASUS machine that seemed like a good deal – a lot of computer for the money.

It has two hard drives – one is a solid state drive that handles the OS and some file storage and the other is a conventional hard drive disk that has 1TB of storage space. It also has a Core i7 processor with 16GB RAM. This is a serious upgrade over my old unit. It’s fast and has better graphics and video than I had before. I still have to get a couple more programs on board.

One of the biggest hurdles we’ve faced in our time on the road as full-time RVers is high-speed internet access. With our Verizon Jetpack, we have onboard wifi, but high-speed access is limited. All of the carriers offer unlimited data plans, but none of them really mean unlimited. What they mean is, you’ll have high-speed access up to a certain point, then you become throttled. Once you meet the throttling threshold, other users may have higher priority than you and your connection speed will suffer. It depends on how many others are trying to use the cellular connection at the time and whether you are a lower priority user or not. Sometimes the speed can still be good while other times it’s almost like an old dial-up.

Our “unlimited” plan with Verizon gives us high-speed access through the Jetpack for 15GB of data usage before it throttles. Then we can switch to our phones and use them as hotspots. We can get an additional 15GB from each phone, giving us a total of 45GB unthrottled high-speed access. This has worked out well for the most part, but downloading program files eats up data pretty quickly.

We started last week with the Viewpoint Concert Band performance on Sunday. Donna had a few visitors in the audience. Our friend Stevie Ann came out to see the show as did Mike and Jodi Hall with their granddaughter Swayzie. The concert was great and enjoyed by all. I’m amazed at how well the band can perform together with limited practice time. They only play together five times before each performance date. Of course, they practice individually to learn their parts, but to hear it all come together is really something. Now Donna is working on the music for the next show.

Speaking of Mike Hall, I first met Mike back 2006. We met at Red, White and Brew – it used to be a favorite watering hole for us. There was a core group of guys that often met there for a cold one after work. One of the guys was Lindert Hartoog. Lindert is from The Netherlands and worked as an engineer at the Boeing helicopter plant in Mesa. He also owned a rental house nearby that Mike Hall lived in. This house has a large workshop in back. Mike is an expert body and paint guy and he often did side jobs in the shop and also worked on restoring a couple of his own cars.

Eventually Mike got married to Jodi. They later moved out of Lindert’s house and bought their own place a few miles away. Mike maintained a rental agreement with Lindert to occupy the workshop – about two-thirds of it really. Lindert kept about a third for some of his own stuff. Lindert came up with some shop equipment at some point, including a vertical mill and a lathe that he added to the shop.

As a body man, Mike is well-versed in working with sheet metal. Fabricating parts from billet on a mill or lathe would be a new experience though. Mike Hall and I thought it seemed simple enough and we decided to teach ourselves. Last Friday, we attempted to mill a pocket cut in a block of 7075-T6 aluminum. It was a humbling experience. We both had seen these operations performed many times and thought we had a basic understanding of the process. After breaking a couple of bits and fighting with the machine, we decided it was time to regroup.

I came home with my tail between my legs and did what I should have done from the start. I became a student and over the next few days, read everything I could find about milling aluminum and viewed YouTube tutorials. There are lots of things to be considered when milling metals – rotational speed, feed speed and depth of cut are just the beginning. There’s conventional milling and climb milling to consider – and on and on. I think I’m on the right path now and I’m anxious to try my hand at it again.

Donna was scheduled to play in a pickleball tournament – ladies only – on Saturday. But weather intervened. Rain moved in Friday night and continued off and on all day Saturday. We’d had great weather with the daily highs reaching the upper 70s and even 80 degrees all last week until the weekend – just the opposite of what went on the weeks before. Saturday and Sunday were much cooler, but today the sun is shining and the forecast calls for continued sunshine and temperatures back in the upper 70s for the rest of the week.

I’ll close this post with a few dinner photos from the past ten days or so.

First up was a new dish – garlic mushroom chicken thighs. It was quick and easy to prepare and delicious – a keeper for sure. Donna served it with black rice and steamed spinach with feta cheese.

Next up was another winner – spice rubbed pork chops cooked in the crockpot. Donna’s been using the crockpot every Wednesday so she doesn’t have to cook a meal after her two-hour band rehearsals. This was another very simple recipe with incredible flavor thanks to seven different herbs and spices. And it was perfect over a serving of garlic cauliflower mash and a side of steamed spinach.

Last but not least, we tried another crockpot recipe that turned out great – seafood cioppino. This dish required more preparation time than the other two, but the flavor was superb. She served ciabatta bread with my helping and served hers over roasted spaghetti squash. This was a surprisingly filling dish!

Offline

I won’t be posting for a few more days. I’m setting up a new laptop – the drudgery of moving files, photos, installing programs and apps. Ugh!

Working Man’s Weather

The weeks keep flying by and I find myself having a hard time keeping this blog up. I used to post daily – or nearly so. Nowadays, once a week is about it. That’s mostly due to our winter digs – we spend an extended period of time in San Diego followed by a long stint in Arizona.

Mesa, in central Arizona, is a great place to winter. When we lived here in a sticks-and-bricks house, we found many of the snowbirds to be a nuisance. Out-of-state drivers often had annoying habits on the road and the stores were often crowded compared to the number of people here from spring through fall. The snowbird season peaks in January-February-March, then begins to taper off in April. I guess we’re part of the snowbird crowd now.

One of the things we like about staying in east Mesa is the easy access to open country. We’re only a few miles from Usery Regional Park and the Tonto National Forest. It seems a little strange to be calling the desert landscape National Forest, but that’s the designation. The Bush Highway runs through the Tonto National Forest following the Salt River. It provides access to Saguaro Lake and miles of hiking, biking and horseback riding trails.

On Friday morning, I was up before the sun. Mike Hall came by at 8am and picked me up. We headed out Bush Highway to AZ87 and into the desert in his Toyota pickup. We spent the morning target shooting in the desert. It’s fun and a popular activity here. Getting out early to claim a good shooting area is always a good idea. We burned up ammo and plinked at his steel-plate targets for a few hours. I was back home by noon – I had a train-the-trainer pickleball session at 1pm.

On Saturday morning, Donna and I were up early again – I had an alarm set for 6:15am. We wanted to have ample time to hydrate and caffeinate before we competed in the Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort Valentine’s Pickleball Tournament. There were over 30 teams entered, split into two groups. Most of the teams were couples which made it interesting. We were in the early group which had 15 teams – 30 players total. We rolled through the round-robin matches and were undefeated after six games. We went into the playoff rounds along with two other teams, but our luck ran out on us and we finished in third place.

After the tournament we came home, cleaned up and had lunch. Then we headed out in Midget-San to Fountain Hills. There was a large car show there that ran until 3pm. It was a beautiful day out with blue skies and the temperature was in the low 70s. The drive out Bush Highway with the top down was very enjoyable. The car show was at the Fountain Park in Fountain Hills. I wrote a post about the fountain – you can read it here.

The area around the park was crowded and finding a parking place wasn’t easy. We managed to squeeze into a spot on the street about half a block east of the park. My interest in the hot rods and muscle cars has diminished lately. At the cars shows, I find myself more interested in the unusual and older cars. I learned about this show from a Facebook post by the Phoenix Lotus Club. I wanted to check out some of the old Lotus sports cars.

When we entered the park, we saw the scope of this show. Cars were displayed all the way around Fountain Lake. There were crowds of people, food vendors and cars everywhere. It was so packed in many places that it was hard to take photos – but I didn’t let that stop me.

They kept the fountain running at low-power throughout the show.

Cars, crowds and vendors on the grass at Fountain Park

It turned out the Lotus Club was set up on the far west side of the park. We hiked past display after display and made a complete circle of the lake. There were also a few oddities on display. This is the first car show I can remember that had helicopters on display.

WWII era half-track with 50 caliber anti-aircraft guns

As we made our way to the west side of the lake, we began to see British Car Club displays.

The cars on display were mostly privately owned and driven to the park. The sheer number of valuable cars is a testament to the wealth in the area.

A highly modified Ford V8 in a 1971 De Tomaso Pantera

We found the Lotus Club and saw a few old Elans that were cool and also spoke to a couple of club members before we continued our hike around the lake. Past the Lotus area, we found scores of exotic cars. I mentioned the wealth – the countless Ferraris and Lamborghinis that showed up was mind boggling.

We left Fountain Hills around 3pm and drove down AZ87 to Gilbert Road – making a loop out of our route to and from Fountain Hills.

Sunday was another gorgeous day with the temperature in the mid-70s. It was a mostly lazy day for me. Donna never seems to slow down. She rode her bicycle over to Orangewood Shadows RV Resort to visit with our friends, Lowell and Debi Hartvikson. We met them several years ago when we stayed at Orangewood and Donna often hiked with them. Donna’s also keeping up with clarinet practice, tennis lessons, pickleball and hitting the gym here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort.

Last week, Donna prepared a dish that we really liked in the past but haven’t had in a while. It was coconut curry chicken. For some reason, it seemed to be lacking the curry kick we remembered. I don’t mean to be critical of the meal she prepared, but we both were puzzled by the relatively bland flavor. The ingredients were fresh and the recipe unchanged.

Coconut curry chicken with grilled bok choy

The great weather held up until yesterday afternoon. Rain moved into the area around 4pm. I came in from reading outside with a cigar about five minutes before it started raining. I made a marinade for another batch of jerky. I bought two pounds of pre-sliced top round beef at Winco. The meat was sliced about 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick across the grain and all I had to do was cut it into strips – and it was only $3.48/lb!

The rain continued off and on overnight but it’s dry this morning. We still have clouds and the expected high temperature today is only around 60 degrees. Things should warm up to the 70s again by Thursday. It seems like we’ve had working man’s weather – rain and cold Monday through Wednesday or Thursday, then warm, sunny weekends over the past few weeks.

Minor Maintenance Tasks

We enjoyed another week as temporary residents of Mesa, Arizona. We’ve been coming here every year for the winter months since we hit the road – this is our fourth year here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. From 2006 to 2009, we lived here in Mesa full-time in a sticks-and-bricks home about 3 miles away from Viewpoint.

I had a couple of minor projects to attend to last week. When I dumped our gray water tank, I noticed a slow drip coming out of the bottom of the plastic pan in the wet bay. Later, I went to see about taking the cover plate off the wet bay to inspect the water lines, but the drip had stopped and all was dry. The next day, I saw the drip again. Taking the cover plate off the wet bay involved removing 14 screws. Once I did that, I saw that I really only needed to remove 11 of the 14 screws. Three screws were attached to a stiffener board that came off with the plate. Next time I’ll know.

I found the source of the water drip. There’s a plastic fitting in the PEX fresh water line with a small valve and connector to supply the ice maker in our freezer. This fitting had a hairline crack and was leaking. I made a trip to Ace hardware and bought a new fitting. I had to replace a short section of PEX tubing and it was job done. I neglected to take any photos while I worked.

The other minor project was routine maintenance on Midget-San. Modern cars make it easy to forget how much maintenance we once had to perform on automobiles. Unlike modern cars with sealed bearings and lifetime lubricated ball joints, our 1972 MG Midget requires chassis lube on the front suspension components. There are zerk fittings on the ball joints and king pin links and trunnions. These need to be greased with NLGI #2 bearing grease.

To do this, I needed to raise the Midget – it sits only a few inches above ground level making it impossible for me to get underneath the car. I jacked the car up and supported the four corners with jack stands. I used a grease gun and a cartridge of grease to inject grease into the zerk fittings.

I also had ordered a new distributor cap and rotor along with an ignition wire set from RockAuto. Nowadays, cars have separate coils mounted directly on the spark plug, eliminating the distributor and ignition wires. Modern platinum or iridium spark plugs can last 50,000 miles or more. Not so on the 1982 Nissan A15 engine in Midget-San. It is equipped with an electronic ignition module, so there isn’t a set of breaker points to replace. This is the only electronically controlled item on the car. The distributor is otherwise an old-fashioned device with a vacuum advance mechanism to control ignition timing. The single ignition coil is a Bosch blue coil feeding high voltage to the center terminal of the distributor cap where the current then travels through the rotor to each ignition wire and on to the appropriate spark plug.

These parts can wear and need periodic replacement. The high voltage arcs from the rotor to the distributor cap terminals resulting in wear on both components. The ignition wires delivering high voltage to the spark plugs can break down, allowing the current to arc to ground rather than firing the spark plugs. As part of my preventive maintenance schedule, I replaced the cap, rotor and ignition wires. It’s a fairly easy and straightforward job.

New distributor cap, rotor and NGK ignition wire set

Overall, the maintenance work was easy and didn’t take a lot of time or effort. These are the things you need to do to keep a 48-year-old car with a 38-year-old engine running smooth.

In my last post, I mentioned a new recipe I wanted to try. It was Smoked Paprika Chicken Legs with Chimichurri. I made a rub with paprika, coriander seeds, lime zest, salt and pepper and two tablespoons of olive oil. This created a paste-like rub that I massaged into the chicken leg quarters.

I set the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker-grill to high (450 degrees). The chicken leg quarters cooked on the smoker for 45 minutes.

While the chicken leg quarters were cooking i made the chimichurri by putting a cup of parsley and a cup of cilantro along with jalapeno, onion, garlic cloves, fresh squeezed lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a food processor and pulsed it until it was creamy. This was served directly on the chicken.

Thigh portion of chicken leg quarter with chimichurri, mashed potato, corn and asparagus

The result was tasty and it’s a recipe worth repeating. Next time, I think I’ll use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. The high setting on the Traeger made a pleasantly crispy and tasty skin on the chicken.

Our Superbowl Sunday plan had a bit of a hectic schedule. Donna had tennis in the morning and a clarinet lesson in the afternoon before we drove to Mike and Jodi Hall’s for food, drink and the game – and cigars for Mike and me. The day before, we went shopping at Winco foods. I looked at the babyback ribs there, but wasn’t impressed. The only babybacks they had were Hormel brand, frozen rock hard and they didn’t look very meaty. We tried Fry’s grocery and they didn’t have any at all! We then went to Basha’s where I found nice looking fresh (not frozen) babybacks.

I did my usual thing with two racks of ribs on the Traeger Sunday afternoon. We took them to Mike and Jodi’s place around 3:30pm. Jeff and Chrissy Van Deren were there along with Mike’s sister, Connie, and Jodi’s sister Jackie. Donna made stuffed mushrooms and a vegetable tray. Mike had a whole chicken on his smoker grill. We had plenty of food for all. It was a good time and we enjoyed the game.

The weather had been great all week with daily highs in the low 70s. The weekend was warmer and we hit 78 degrees on Sunday! But on Monday, a cold front moved over the area and we had a partly cloudy day with the high only reaching the low 60s. I think the warmest part of the day was late morning, then it got colder as the day wore on. Last night, the temperature dropped to 34 degrees and we have a freeze warning tonight. Cold temperatures with the highs only in the 50s are forecast for the next few days. As I type this, it’s clear and sunny outside but the temperature is only 50 degrees. This cold spell should break by Friday and we’ll be back in the 70s.

Reeling in the Years

Another week has flown by since I last posted. I wrote that post on a wet and dreary day. It’s been the opposite of that since then. Glorious, sunny days with blue skies and cool evenings. It’s hard to believe the first month of 2020 is coming to a close already. I have a theory about the perception of time accelerating as we grow older.

When we were 12 years old, our lifetime experience could be broken down into 12 increments, each spanning one year (this isn’t exactly true – most of us have little or no recollection of the first few years of our life). So, our internal perception of time revolves around a year being 1/12th of everything we know.

When we reach the age of 60, our lifetime experience can be broken into 60 equal intervals, each spanning one year. These intervals are now 1/5th of the perceived interval when we were 12 years old. A year represents a much smaller portion of our life experience, thus we perceive a year as a much shorter span of time. Therefore, for us old people, time really flies.

After the rain cleared up, Scott started working on our coach on Wednesday. A painter’s work revolves around prep. The quality of the work is a reflection of the preparation. I’ve had car painters tell me that actually shooting the paint is the easy part. Getting the surface prepared and the final cut and buff are what make the job come out great. Scott spent three days preparing the surface for paint. He had to remove the clear coat from the areas where it was failing. To get the new finish to adhere, the old clear coat had to be cut back to provide a good, solid margin. He did this with a razor blade and sand paper. It looked like tedious work.

To match the paint color, he had to remove one of the basement compartment doors that had all four colors on it. He took it to a paint shop where they could color match with a special camera and computer program. He was ready to start applying paint on Friday.

Saturday afternoon he was ready to start the finish work. He had to block-sand the clear coat, then buff it with a polishing wheel. He ran out of daylight and had to finish up Sunday morning. The finished job looks great.

Meanwhile, we went about our business. Donna started practicing new music on her clarinet. The next Viewpoint Concert Band performance is February 16th and they have a whole new repertoire to learn for that performance.

I learned something new about UPS deliveries. Apparently, they have a new protocol where they only make one attempt to deliver a package in some areas. If you aren’t home, they take the package to a UPS Access Point. I had a package come on Thursday while we were out. There was a note left on our door. After I deciphered the driver’s chicken scratch note, I figured out that I had to wait until the next day to pick up my package at a nearby CVS pharmacy. Seems a little crazy to me, but I suppose the agreement to accept packages at CVS will bring customers into the store to potentially shop while they’re there.

On Saturday morning, Donna and I drove Midget-San to Gilbert where we were meeting our friends, Sara and Howard Graff, for the farmers’ market. They actually pulled up next to us at a stoplight on Gilbert Road at Baseline on the way there. What timing!

Gilbert used to be little more than a crossroads in the desert. Urban sprawl has made it part of metro Phoenix today. Everything from Glendale to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler is one big area of development. It’s hard to tell when you cross into another city limit. Gilbert has gone from being a one-horse cowboy town to a trendy place to shop and eat. There are numerous restaurants along the old Main Street.

We strolled and shopped at the farmers’ market. They had a fairly large number of vendors there with plenty of fresh produce.

There was a separate market place on the north side of the old town for arts and crafts. After walking through all of the markets, we checked out a few places to eat and settled on OHSO Brewery and Distillery. We had a short wait, then were seated out on the covered patio. Their food was excellent – we were all very happy with the meals we ordered. On the weekends, brunch from 10am to 2pm includes a 10-ounce beer or a mimosa when specific menu entrees are ordered. My entree included a drink, but Donna commandeered my mimosa when I ordered a Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary was made with half jalapeno vodka and half horseradish vodka. It was spicy and it included a stick of house-made beef jerky.

Speaking of beef jerky, on Friday, I trimmed and cut beef top-round steaks across the grain into strips. I had them marinating in the refrigerator overnight. Saturday afternoon I set up the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker-grill and set it to 180 degrees. I started with two pounds of beef. Four and a half hours later, I had one pound of beef jerky after the meat had smoked and dehydrated. It’s pretty good. I’ll make an adjustment or two to the recipe and reduce the smoke time to four hours when I make it again.

On Sunday evening, my middle daughter, Jamie, and her man, Francisco came over from the west side to go to dinner. Francisco’s birthday is today, but we celebrated early with dinner at the Black Angus. I worked at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus back in the ’70s in San Diego. That’s where I met my first wife – Jamie’s mother. The Black Angus isn’t what it used to be, but we enjoyed the meal and had a good time together.

Here are a few other good meals we enjoyed over the last week courtesy of Donna’s culinary skills. First up is coconut curry wild Alaskan sockeye salmon with bok choy served with forbidden rice. A favorite for sure.

Coconut curry salmon with bok choy and forbidden rice on the side

Another seafood dish was served up Thursday night. Donna grilled shrimp with pesto served with grilled mushrooms, onions, peppers and zucchini with cauliflower risotto on the side.

Last night, she kept it simple with a chicken stir-fry.

Yesterday, I prepped chicken leg quarters. Later today, I’ll put them on the Traeger. I’m trying something new to me – smoked paprika chicken legs with spicy herb chimichurri. I’ll let you how that works out.

Although a cooler day with clouds are in the forecast for tomorrow, we can expect the favorable weather to continue with highs in the 70s through the weekend. We’re getting plenty of exercise – one day last week I had almost 18,00 steps on the pickleball court!

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Open Spaces

Shut the Door

Interesting Times

Racing and Rain

Daylight Saving – and the Apocalypse?

Unlimited – Not

Offline

Working Man’s Weather

Minor Maintenance Tasks

Reeling in the Years

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