Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Cars and Music

I closed my last post on Friday saying that Mike Hall invited me to join him at the Gooding and Company Auto Auction. Mike had VIP passes that gained us free entry and the run of the place at Scottsdale Fashion Square. The first part of this post is car picture heavy. If you have no interest in rare, expensive automobiles, you may want to skip down past the photos.

Mike picked me up here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort and we arrived in Scottsdale around 4pm. We were waved right into the show area after showing our VIP wristbands. Right at the entrance, a beautiful yellow 1967 Ferrari 300 GTS was on display. I’ll let the photos and captions walk us through some of the cars up for sale.

A modern Ferrari – a model year 2020 488 Pista

My favorite of the show and the first time I’ve ever seen one other than photos – 1956 Jaguar XK140 Aerodyne

1964 Jaguar E-Type 3.8 Series I Roadster – please excuse the weird lens flare in the photo

1941 Packard Custom Super Eight 180 Victoria

1932 Hispano – Suiza J12 Dual Cowl Phaeton

Not your average Porsche – a model year 2004 Carrera GT – Fewer than 1,400 of these V10 powered Porsches were made and only 644 were imported to the US

After we checked out the cars, we decided not to fight the rush hour traffic on the Loop 101 and 202. We stopped at Fox’s Cigar Lounge in Old Town Scottsdale instead. This is a nice cigar bar with a good assortment of reasonably priced cigars and a well-stocked bar with local beer on tap and a huge selection of liquor. We each picked out a cigar and sat at the bar puffing and sipping a beer for the next hour or so. Altogether a very enjoyable evening.

Saturday morning I played in the 3.0+ pickleball tournament. I didn’t have my best day on the courts. We’re having a bit of a problem here with people self-rating and playing in skill level groups they have no business playing in. Most of us tend to rate ourselves high, but we need to be realistic and the organizers need to enforce the ratings through round-robin results. Playing in a tournament where you draw a different partner in each round is frustrating when you end up partnered with someone that isn’t at the skill level being played. I’m not trying to make excuses for not making the finals, but I was a bit frustrated in a few of the rounds.

On Sunday night, Donna performed with the Viewpoint Concert Band in their monthly performance – Donna’s first concert performance in 45 years! I was amazed at how good the band sounded – they only rehearsed together four or five times. Everyone worked on their parts obviously and Donna had a great time and performed well. There were at least two hundred people in the audience. They played 14 pieces in the hour and a half performance. Now they’ve turned all of that music in and will start learning a new repertoire tomorrow for February’s performance. Wow! Donna is really enjoying her clarinet and started lessons with a new teacher just a couple of miles away from here on Monday.

Poor lighting for photographs – Donna is left of center between the conductor and American flag

I played in the 3.5+ round robin pickleball group Monday morning. We split into two random groups. I had a good draw and scored a perfect total of 66 points by winning all six of my games. It was an encouraging day on the court.

Shortly after we arrived here, I saw a guy doing some paintwork on an upscale American Coach in the row behind us. Before I could talk to the guy, he was gone. Later, I found another guy I mentioned in my last post to do some paintwork for us. On Friday, I saw the first guy again. This time he was re-caulking the seams and accessories on the roof of the American Coach.

I introduced myself and found out he was Scott Hancock. Scott used to be the Service Manager at an RV shop here in Mesa. He relocated here from Elkhart, Indiana where he built and finished RVs at the Forest River factory. Resealing our roof was on my to-do list. I figured it would be a day’s work to remove the old sealant and lay down new urethane sealant. You don’t want to use silicone sealant on an RV roof. Flexible, self-leveling urethane is the way to go.

I asked Scott what he would charge to reseal our roof. He told me if I would buy the sealant he wanted to use, he would do the work for $75. Deal! I had to order the sealant – he likes Sika brand SIkaflex Pro Select polyurethane self-leveling sealant. I found it on Amazon and had six tubes delivered by Sunday.

Scott resealed the roof on Monday. It was good thing. The sealant had ample to time to cure before rain moved in early this morning. I looked at the paintwork Scott did on the American Coach. I asked him what he would charge to do the paintwork I originally planned to have done by Perfect Touchup & Recondition. Scott quoted me a price that was $500 lower. I cancelled the job with Perfect Touchup & Recondition and scheduled the work with Scott.

After a weekend of temperatures reaching the low to mid 70s, we have a wet and dreary day today. The thermometer isn’t likely to exceed 60 degrees. We should dry out tomorrow and the daily highs will be back in the 70s in a few days. Nice!

*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!

My Frugal Side

We’re more than halfway through January already and I’m behind on posting. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about – we’ve been busy. Between scheduled pickleball time and coaching the refined skills class, I’m staying busy. Donna has a lot on her plate – she’s rehearsing with the Viewpoint Concert band weekly and practicing clarinet daily. She’s also hitting the pickleball and tennis courts and doing strength training. The concert band has a performance on Sunday – Donna’s first public performance in about 45 years! I have a pickleball tournament tomorrow.

This is one of the things we love about Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort – the activities and amenities. One of the amenities is free landline phone service. We have an old-fashioned telephone with a curly cord on the handset in the coach. Donna bought it at a garage sale for $5 a few years ago. This year, she set up an answering machine to receive calls when we’re not home! I’m sure some of you must remember answering machines! To dial within the park, you only need to know the site number you want to reach. Punch in four digits and you are connected. You can also dial outside of the park and receive outside calls. Pretty handy.

There’s another reason I haven’t posted lately and it’s a real peeve. Microsoft has a Windows 10 update that’s flawed. I’ve researched it a bit, but haven’t come up with a suitable workaround. The update was automatically uploaded to my computer by Microsoft, but when the update tries to run – which it does at random intervals – my computer locks up. Apparently, I have a program or app I installed that’s not compatible with the update. But, the update doesn’t identify the issue, it just shuts down the hard drive. It’s frustrating. Am I supposed to uninstall every program or app until I discover the compatibility issue? I think Microsoft just wants me to buy a new laptop with their latest whizbang operating system. End of rant.

Awhile back, a blog reader, Tanya Faidley, made a recommendation. Donna’s clarinet is a reed instrument. Having good, balanced reeds is essential for good tone and playability. Unfortunately, many reeds out of the box are not very good. I experimented with adjusting the reeds and managed to slice my finger. Tanya is a clarinet player and she recommended Tom Ridenour’s ATG reed balancing system. I’d read about this system before but was reluctant to order it.

The reason I was reluctant, although it had many positive reviews, was my sometimes frugal nature. The kit costs close to $90 and the hardware is just a small sheet of tempered glass, a special sanding block and some wet or dry sandpaper. Maybe $10 worth of hardware. But it also includes an instruction book and DVD. That’s where the real value is. Tom Ridenour is a clarinet expert – he designed clarinets in the past for Leblanc and has his own line of clarinets now. His technique for balancing reeds is simple and effective. It’s also counter to most instructions I’ve read. Now I’m Donna’s reed technician and I rework all of her reeds. They play much better, she’s able to play without making changes to her technique to compensate for bad reeds.

Speaking of my sometimes frugal nature, I had another small project. The air filter assembly on Midget-San’s Weber carburetor is supposed to be stainless steel. Well, the clips holding the top of the assembly to the base were pitted with rust spots. Every time I opened the hood, my eye was immediately drawn to the unsightly pits. A replacement assembly – base, cover, clips and filter element costs about $35-$40. Instead of replacing the whole thing, I sanded the rust pits out and painted the clips. I’ll probably end up replacing it sooner or later anyway.

This leads me to the next topic – paint. I saw a guy repairing some damaged bodywork on a coach in the park and he painted the repaired area right at the site. I talked to him. His name is Andy Crespin and his business is called Perfect Touchup & Recondition. He has a small cargo trailer that’s his mobile workshop and it has a large air compressor. We have a few paint issues on our coach. On the passenger side, one of the basement compartment doors was heavily scratched by a short bush at a narrow site we moved into in Hemet, California. The bush was only a few feet tall and I couldn’t see it and ran the side of the coach into it. There’s also a compartment door that has sun damage – the base coat is faded. The bigger issue is clear coat failing on a couple of panels on the right rear and back of the coach. I had Andy take a look at our coach and give me an estimate. We agreed to schedule to work in a couple of weeks – he’ll do the paint work right here at our site.

I mentioned in my last post that Donna’s diligently following the Bright Line Eating (BLE) program this month. The plan excludes sugar and flour and includes weighed portions of protein, fat, veggies and fruits. So, I’m not exactly on the same plan, but I do end up having some different meals than usual. That’s okay – I could stand to lose a few pounds.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t feeding me well though. Here are a few examples of the dinners she made. First up is a Greek pork stew.

And a New York strip steak smothered in sauteed mushrooms and onions with broccoli and cheese sauce (and a side of mashed sweet potato for me).

And fajita spiced, grilled chicken breast over grilled veggies.

Fajita spiced, grilled chicken with grilled veggies

And a dish called Pork Diane that’s served with a mustard-lemon sauce with sides of fresh green beans and garlic mashed cauliflower.

Pork Diane with garlic cauliflower mash and green beans

The weather has been fantastic. The days are warm with temperatures near 70 degrees. The nights are cool – down to the 40s. Yesterday was cloudy and cooler with gusty winds, but we’re back to nice sunny weather today with clear skies and it looks like much of the same for the coming week. This afternoon, I’ll be heading out to Scottsdale with my friend, Mike Hall. Mike has VIP passes for the Gooding and Company Auto Auction. This is an exclusive, high-end auto auction. This week is known as auction week in Scottsdale. The well-known Barrett-Jackson auction is taking place as well as the Russo and Steele auction. These are big events with hundreds of cars. The RM Sotheby, Bonhams and Gooding auctions are much more exclusive and smaller with many rare vehicles. Many of the cars at Gooding are expected to fetch one to three million dollars!

Starting the 20s in Mesa, Arizona

We pulled into Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort as planned on New Year’s Eve. Our timing wasn’t so good though. We arrived at the office at 12:05 pm only to find they close for lunch from 12:00 to 1:00 pm. A few raindrops were falling – even though the weather guessers said there was zero percent chance of rain – so we settled down in the coach, had some lunch and waited. At 1:00 pm, I checked us in and we headed over to our familiar site 5245.

Most of the sites around us were empty, so I had ample room to maneuver. I should add that the orange trees at the corner of each site always make it a little harder than it has to be to drop our trailer. We were set up fairly quickly and the rain didn’t continue. The sites at Viewpoint are roomy – it’s one of the things we like about this park.

We were surprised to find neighbors moving in as well. Our friends Chuck and Sue came in across from us and a neighbor came in next door. We didn’t expect much activity on New Year’s Eve.

I had called the Two Wheel Jones Bicycle Shop the day before to confirm Donna’s bike was ready to go. They were supposed to phone when they had it ready, but didn’t. They told me “No worries, it’s all set and on the showroom floor.” Once we were set up, we drove over to the shopping center at the corner of Power Road and McDowell Road to the bike shop. I wasn’t too happy to find the bike was on the showroom floor as they said, but they hadn’t installed the rack and bag I’d ordered or the upgraded pedals! In fact, they said the pedals hadn’t arrived!

They quickly resolved the issue and even robbed a set of the pedals from someone else’s order – they hadn’t come in to pick them up, so Donna left with the bike fully assembled as ordered after 30 minutes or so. The new bike is similar to the one we bought last summer in Arlington, Washington. The main differences are this is a women’s specific design – the frame and seat are different – and the color is Miami Green instead of black.

Once the bike was ready, Donna rode it a mile down Power Road to meet me at Lucky Lou’s. We met some of the usual suspects there for a cold one before Donna rode the four miles back to Viewpoint. We locked the bike in our trailer. Donna wanted to get a new bike lock before she took the bike anywhere. She ended up ordering a German-made folding lock that should be a formidable theft deterrent. The lock wasn’t cheap – it cost about $100, but that’s not unreasonable when you think about the cost of replacing her bike. We traded in our two road bikes for her Trek Dual Sport 2 last July and having it stolen less than six months later resulted in a cost of over $1,000 to replace the bike and accessories.

While we were at Lou’s, a number of people checked out Midget-San which was parked right at the entrance. There are almost always interesting cars in the lot at Lou’s and this day was no exception. I saw a beautifully restored Mercury Monterrey in the parking lot. I didn’t meet the owner, so I don’t know the model year for sure, but this body style was built from 1952 to 1954.

The cool weather persisted until the weekend with highs around 60 degrees and overnight lows in the upper 30s. At this time of year, the Phoenix area is a little colder than what we’d find in San Diego, but it’s much drier. San Diego’s rainy season runs from Christmas to March.

I finally shook the cold I’ve been fighting and now Donna’s over hers too. We’ve been taking it fairly easy. Donna started the Bright Line Eating plan on New Year’s Day. This plan cuts out flour and sugar. It still allows plentiful portions of food though. This plan is healthy and Donna has had great results with it. One of the menu items is pizza chicken – I wrote about it before. It’s an interesting dish that substitutes slices of chicken breast for pizza crust. Donna serves it with spaghetti squash and it’s very tasty.

On Saturday, my middle daughter, Jamie, and her significant other, Francisco, came by to visit. They moved from Texas to the west side of Phoenix recently and are only about an hour away from here. We sat outside in the sun and had lunch and talked while I was distracted by the wild card weekend NFL games on the outdoor TV.

Before they left, a neighbor unloaded a car from his trailer. It was a hot-rodded 1961 Chevy Impala. I wish I’d taken a photo. It’s a beautiful car with an incredible black finish. The panels are so smooth and the paint is flawless.

Monday, Donna and I hit the pickleball courts. It was windy and the gusts made outdoor pickleball very challenging. This morning, I played in the 3.0 round robin. I usually play in the 3.5 group, but I needed to work out some of the rust from only playing indoors for the past several months. Tomorrow, I’ll resume the refined skills coaching sessions I did last year. These are sessions for players moving up to intermediate level play. I enjoy coaching them and it helps my game as well.

The temperature reached highs of about 70 degrees over the weekend and today we should see the mid-70s. We’re sure to have another cold spell before things start warming up here in Mesa, Arizona.

*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!

Two Nights Out

We pulled out of Mission Bay RV Resort on Sunday as planned and left San Diego. I took my time packing up – I was still feeling a bit under the weather as I’m having a hard time shaking the head cold that hit on Christmas day.

We have an inline dual canister water filtration set-up that I always use to filter fresh water coming into the coach. I’ve had a few people question whether it’s necessary when they are connected to city water. When we arrived in San Diego, I put a fresh, new sediment filter in the first stage canister. This filter element is made from spun polyester and was pure white. When I disconnected the water supply, I removed the filter element. This is what three months of city water left in the sediment filter.

Sediment filter after three months of city water

You can see the amount of rust and dirt particles it captured. The city water supply may be sanitized through the use of chlorine, but whenever a line is opened up anywhere along the supply route, dirt can enter and old valves may be rusty. This is why I always filter our water. I change out the sediment filter every three months. The second stage is an activated carbon block filter that removes chemicals and odors and I change that after six months.

We made the usual eastbound run on I-8 over the three summits in the Laguna Mountains – Laguna Summit, Tecate Divide and Crestwood Summit. Each summit is over 4,000 feet above sea level and there was snow on the side of the road. We exited I-8 at the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area – about 10 miles west of the Arizona border.

Our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess), were boondocking there off American Mine Girl Road. Donna had texted Deb and she met us on the side of the road and led us to their piece of desert. Donna mentioned to me that when she tells people we’re going to spend the night “out in the desert,” some people ask how do we get “out in the desert?” First of all, you need to know the rules for the area you’re in. At Imperial Dunes, some of the public land requires a camping permit. Other areas of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are open for free dispersed camping.

Again, it’s public BLM land and it’s free, but there are rules. You can’t just bushwhack your way into an unmolested area – you have to stick to established paths. Of course most of those paths became established after someone starting driving in and others followed. Many of the points of entry are created by BLM personnel and some have markers and numbers. So, these paths are dirt two-track trails that lead away from roads and civilization. You are allowed to camp for up to 14 days, but you are supposed to leave the site as you found it – no improvements or structures are allowed.

Two-track on BLM public land and dispersed campers

Many people camp in groups in this area and use their ATVs or sand buggies to explore. I think they like the comradery and sense of safety in numbers. Others prefer solitude and keep plenty of space around them. We usually keep our distance – about a quarter of a mile is good separation – unless we’re with friends. In this instance, we camped near Jeff and Deb’s rig.

When we did the RAGBRAI event with them in 2017, I made Memphis-style babyback ribs one night on the Traeger for us to share. Jeff decided he needed a Traeger wood-pellet-fired smoker/grill. The thing is, they have a fifth-wheel RV, so storing a Traeger is problematic. He could store it in a basement compartment, but it would be a pain to remove and set up and put it away again. So he mounted it on the rear rack on their trailer.

He used an aluminum drip pan as a heat shield to keep excessive heat from reaching his bicycle or the rear of the trailer. He has a thermocouple he puts on the pan and an alarm set to notify him if the temperature exceeds 135 degrees. Smart set-up!

I kept my visit with Jeff and Deb brief as I wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to infect anyone. Donna visited for a while. Later Jeff brought us a plate with St. Louis spare ribs he cooked on his Traeger. Yummy! Thanks, Jeff!

Sunset in the desert can be spectacular, especially when high clouds are present. I shot these photos within a few minutes of each other – the first just as the sun was setting and the second a few minutes later when the sun was below the horizon.

Monday morning we rolled out of there and continued east on I-8. We found a new Pilot/Flying J Travel Center had opened at Tacna – about 40 miles into Arizona. I topped up our tank there. We continued east past Casa Grande where I-8 merges with I-10 and took the first exit at Sunland Gin Road in Eloy. I needed to have the oil changed and chassis lubed on the coach. The Cummins ISL diesel engine holds 28 quarts of oil. I don’t change the oil because I can’t deal with seven gallons of waste oil!

Last year, Speedco was bought out by Love’s Travel Stops. I wasn’t too happy with their service in Denver. I’ve used the Eloy Speedco several times before. Love’s ownership hasn’t been an improvement. They’ve raised their prices and the employees seem indifferent and lacking motivation. The good news was, I didn’t have to drop the trailer and there was no wait. They had me pull in over the lube pit with the trailer still with us. We were in and out in about half an hour!

From there, we backtacked a bit through Stanfield and headed north on AZ347 toward Maricopa to Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino to spend the night. The paved RV lot was a little crowded but we found a new graded dirt lot. This large lot was level and only had one motorhome and one tractor-trailer rig in it. We set up for the night.

Shortly after we set up, another RV arrived – a truck pulling a small fifth-wheel trailer. You would think that a lot with a few acres of open space would allow him to give everyone some space. For some reason, he set up right next to us.

I don’t mean to be unsociable, but I don’t understand what he was thinking.

It was cold overnight – the temperature might have been down to the 30s. We had the heat pump on before we went to bed and it’s back on again this morning. The high today will barely break 60 degrees. That’s how we’ll end the second decade of the millennium. Tomorrow we’ll welcome the 20s – hopefully with a roar!

We’ll head to Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort this morning. We plan to pick up Donna’s new Trek Dual Sport 2 bicycle this afternoon and settle in for another three-month stay.

Wet Christmas

I hope all who read this had a great Christmas and are continuing to enjoy the holiday season. I wrote in my last post about Donna’s start to the festivities with the Santa 5k Run. On Wednesday, December 18th we were invited to a Christmas party at my friend, Tye’s, house in Bay Park. He lives up the bluff on Galveston Street and has an outstanding view of Mission Bay all the way to Belmont Park.

We enjoyed good food and drink among friends there. Donna made deviled eggs with bacon bits that were outstanding. I wrote in my last post about my friend, Bob Babich, a former NFL player. He was in attendance at the party as was Ralph Perretta. Ralph was an offensive lineman – guard and center – drafted by the San Diego Chargers in 1975. He played here until 1980 then played two seasons with the New York Giants. Tye had old NFL FiIms productions playing on his DVR and it was fun to hear stories of the good old days of professional football from guys that were there on the field.

One of the things I’ve figured out recently is this. I’m getting older and don’t recover or heal like I once did. On the 11th, I cut my finger and had to have it stitched. I’ve had stitches several times in my life and it isn’t a big deal. Usually after a week or so I’d just clean the area and remove the sutures myself. The doctor told me this time to give it seven to 10 days. So I split the difference and on the 18th I removed the sutures. Well, I don’t heal so fast anymore or maybe the cut was deeper than I imagined – anyway I may have been a couple of days early.

This is what it looked like after I pulled the sutures

A couple of days later, it looked better, but it still wasn’t fully closed. The thing is, I’ve left stitches in too long before and it makes removing them difficult. I guess I should have waited the full 10 days in this case.

It’s in pretty good shape now and I’m able to play the guitar without any issues other than the lack of callous on my finger tip. Santa put a guitar-clarinet duet music book in my stocking, so Donna and I will see if we can play a few of the arrangements together.

Rain moved into the area on Christmas Eve. We kept it low-key and did the typical taco Tuesday night at Offshore Tavern and Grill and saw a few friends there. It rained off and on Christmas day. I had a restless night and woke up Christmas morning with a sore throat, congestion and lacked energy. I spent most of the day in bed reading and napping. Last night it stormed with heavy rain and gusty wind. Right now, the sun is shining, but I can see on the Radar Express app on my phone that another bout of rain is likely to hit us today.

I’m not complaining – things could always be worse. I was reminded of that when we came into the park the other day and saw the entrance gate and fence was damaged.

Apparently, someone hit it while entering the park. Later, I found out it was a new neighbor. He cut the corner at the entrance in his tag-axle Newmar Dutch Star. This coach is north of 40-feet long and he turned in too early. You have to really drive deep into a turn before you start to turn in or this is what happens. As you can imagine, the coach suffered damage as well.

It’s hard to see in the photo, but the damage starts behind the right front wheel with dents and scrapes across the first two basement compartment doors. The third door was completely torn away. Ouch!

The forecast calls for the rain to clear up and we should have sunny days starting tomorrow and through the weekend. This is fortunate timing as we have to prepare to move. We’ll pull out Sunday and head to the desert. I need to organize and pack the trailer. I’ll check and adjust all tire pressures – coach and trailer.

We still have Ken’s car. I notified the lender in writing about his passing and told them where they could pick it up. I haven’t heard anything from them. My friend and attorney, Dan Cullen, will take care of it if they don’t pick it up by Sunday. I also ordered a new bike for Donna from Two Wheel Jones bike shop in Mesa, Arizona. They said they could have the bike in the shop and set up for her by New Year’s Eve. I was supposed to be kept in the loop on the progress via e-mail, but I haven’t heard from them. I’ll follow up today with a phone call.

So, the plan is to head out on Sunday and spend a quiet night in the desert. Then we’ll move on to Casa Grande and get the Cummins ISL diesel engine in the coach serviced and move on to Maricopa for the night. Then we’ll be back at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona on New Year’s Eve.

Early Christmas Surprise

The last week was a bit of a whirlwind. We were able to close escrow on the sale of Ken’s house without having to drive up I-15 to Riverside County – thanks to the concept of electronic signatures and a service called DocuSign.

Once the funds were transferred into the trust account, I made a distribution to beneficiaries. This involved running around to three different banks to distribute the funds with the least cost. I only had to wire money to one account. Wire transfers cost $35 per transaction. By using free cashier check service, I was able to directly deposit into two other bank accounts that have branches here in San Diego.

I’ve held back funds in the trust account to cover any bills that may still be outstanding – things like ambulance transfer costs, medical, and personal income taxes for 2019 on behalf of Ken. Overall, my duties as Successor Trustee progressed quickly and relatively smoothly. I’ll be glad when we can wrap things up and close the trust in four or five months.

Wednesday morning, Donna had her alarm set for 5am. I could hear rain drops on the roof of our coach once I was awake. She was planning to call Lyft for a ride to the airport, but I drove her there and dropped her off around 5:45 am for a flight to Albany, New York. She was heading to Bennington, Vermont for a surprise visit with her parents. The occasion was her mom’s 80th birthday. I would be on my own for the next five days.

On the way back from the airport, I hit the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box. I don’t think I’ve been to a Jack-in-the-Box in thirty years or more. I went for a breakfast burrito and was surprised by the size of the thing. It had egg, sausage, potato and cheese and was over 1,000 calories! Yikes, I can’t make a habit of eating like that!

I played pickleball at Ocean Beach Recreation Center (OBRC) and hopefully worked some of those calories off. It continued to rain throughout the day and all day Thursday as well. That left me shut in for a couple of days. I had an idea for a Christmas present for Donna, but I had to do some research. The rainy days gave me plenty of time to search the Internet.

Donna has been really diligent at practicing the clarinet. She played the instrument in her junior high school days and picked it back up in July. I’m amazed at how well she can play it. Clarinet is not an easy instrument to play. There are tone holes, keys and levers that require an number of different finger positions to create notes in different registers. I think I read there are 24 tone holes altogether on the instrument.

Donna’s clarinet is a used student model she picked up when we were visiting my daughter, Alana, in Arlington, Washington. Donna has an ambitious goal of playing in the Viewpoint Golf & RV Resort band when we get to Mesa, Arizona next month. I have no doubt about her reaching this goal.

I didn’t know anything about clarinets. I know from my experience with guitars that the step from a beginner instrument to a more advanced, higher quality piece can be a vast improvement. For example, going from a $400 electric guitar made in Asia to a $2,000 Gibson is a huge leap in playability, tone and overall quality. I decided to research clarinets and see if there is a similar step in quality of the instrument.

Over a few days I learned more about clarinets than I ever thought I would. Indeed, the step from a student model to an intermediate level clarinet is a big difference. Once you reach this level though, the next level of instruments follow the law of diminishing returns. For example, going from a $400-$500 student model to an intermediate model of around $2,000 makes a very noticeable difference in the quality and playability of the instrument. But, unless you’re a professional musician, going from a $2,000 clarinet to a $4,000 clarinet doesn’t make that same jump in quality. It’s more subtle and probably only a pro would be able to pick out the nuances that make a clarinet cost $4,000 or more.

The thing is, buying a musical instrument can be a very personal decision. What speaks to one person may not be the same for someone else. So picking out a clarinet to buy for Donna was a bit of a conundrum. I finally decided on a few models and concentrated my research on those. I read opinions on musician forums and reviews. I watched countless YouTube videos. Then I bit the bullet and placed an order. The deal is this though, that meant I had to reveal her Christmas present early as returning a musical instrument is a time-sensitive issue. You can only test drive it for a week or so or most shops won’t accept a return unless there is some kind of defect.

The rain moved east by Friday and we had a sunny day. I took advantage of the weather and got Midget-San out of the trailer for some exercise. I drove to OBRC for more pickleball. I loaded it back in the trailer when I came home. It was a good thing I did as rain started again in the evening and rained off and on all weekend.

I picked Donna up at the airport Sunday around 5:30pm. After we settled in back at Mission Bay RV Resort, I told her about the clarinet. I told her it would most likely arrive on Monday and she should try it out. If she didn’t like for any reason, we could exchange it and my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. It seems like I always have reason for an early Christmas present reveal over the past few years.

The clarinet, which is a Leblanc Serenade model made of African blackwood (Granadilla) with silver plated keys came on Monday afternoon. It’s a real beauty.

One of the cool things about a clarinet is the compact storage – just right for someone living in 300 square feet. The instrument breaks down into five component parts and is easily stored or transported. There’s a break-in process recommended for wood clarinets and Donna’s already on it. It should be fully broken in and ready for long session use by the time we get to Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.

Another item I received was an air filter element for our coach. I prefer the Fleetguard brand of filters for the Cummin ISL diesel engine and that’s what I got. Air filters are a tricky item to set a preventive maintenance schedule for. Much depends on the conditions it is operated in. High exposure to dusty conditions mean more frequent replacement while more “normal” driving conditions can extend the life of an air filter. Changing it too often is not recommended as the air filter element gains efficiency once it traps a certain level of particulates. Most diesel-powered coaches have an air restriction gauge for the intake that would reveal an air filter that’s becoming clogged.

Some people think these gauges are worthless while most air filter manufacturers will tell you they’re the best way to know the air filter condition – they say it’s impossible to tell the actual condition of an air filter just by visual inspection. Judging by the restriction indicated on our gauge we didn’t need an air filter element yet. But, there’s also a time factor to consider. Over time, the element (paper in our case) can weaken and eventually break down. It only takes about a tablespoon of dust to completely ruin an expensive diesel engine. I’ve also heard of a case where a paper element disintegrated and pieces entered the combustion chamber with catastrophic results.

So, I’ve arbitrarily set a two-year air filter change interval as long as the restriction gauge shows the air filter is still good. In other words, if the restriction gauge showed excessive restriction before two years, I would change it sooner. But if the restriction gauge remains in the acceptable range, two years is the maximum time. Our filter was last changed in October 2017. We haven’t run the engine since we arrived here in late September, so I’m at the two-year interval although this is December.

Air filter restriction gauge – still in the green

It’s importatnt to keep things clean when you change the air filter element – it’s doesn’t take much dirt to ruin an engine.

Old filter on the left, new on the right – it’s hard to judge condition by visual examination

The Fleetguard filter comes with a new rubber sealing washer for the wing nut securing the filter. I always renew this washer to avoid having a leaky seal that could allow dirt to enter. It’s also important to tighten the wing nut sufficiently to compress the seal on the backside of the air filter element sealing it to the housing.

The last step was to note the date of the filter replacement – I use a strip of duct tape and a marker.

Today it’s partly cloudy but there’s no rain in the forecast. The rest of the week should be dry, but it’s cooler with the temperature only reaching the low to mid 60s. It’s December, so I can’t complain about cooler temperatures!

Got Junk?

Wow, December 2nd already. We’re into the last month of the second decade of the millennium. It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago when we were warned of impending doom when Y2K would cause everything to crash. Well, we got through it and now here we are, two decades later.

Donna and I have continued to whittle away at the task of preparing my step-dad’s house for sale. We went up to Menifee and had a charity called God’s Helping Hands take everything they could as a donation. They were very picky and left behind way more than we expected. My brother Eddie and his wife Rachel had already moved some of the larger pieces of furniture out and also cleaned many of the cabinets. This was much appreciated, but we were still left with way too much stuff for us to handle.

The answer was 1-800-Got-Junk. I set up an appointment for them to come to the house last Wednesday, survey what was left and give me an estimate for removal. We were running out of time as we expected to close escrow on Monday, December 2nd. On Tuesday while we were up in Menifee, I spent a full hour at the escrow office reviewing and signing a pile of documents. I really didn’t want to make the drive back up there on Wednesday when the Got Junk people were scheduled to come. My brother took on that task for me. They kept delaying their estimated time of arrival – it was raining and traffic was terrible.

Their estimate was quite a bit higher than I expected. Admittedly, we had more stuff left in the house than I anticipated. We went for it – they removed everything for a cost of $415 and were out of there around 7pm.

Speaking of rain, the weather changed drastically last week. Well, maybe not that drastic compared to many parts of the country, but it’s cooler and rained Tuesday night through Friday morning. The rain was quite heavy at times with gusty winds. I’m sure this spoiled many Thanksgiving plans for people – Thanksgiving is usually a very busy time here at Mission Bay RV Park with most sites occupied. Not so much this year – cancellations left a lot of open sites.

We spent Thanksgiving with Donna’s sister Sheila and her significant other, Dr. Jeff Sandler at Jeff’s house in La Jolla along with a friend of theirs and Jeff’s son and his family. Sheila prepared a 19-lb. turkey and we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal and watched NFL football.

Donna and I have been getting a little pickleball in, though not as much as we would like with all the travel we’ve been doing up and down the freeway. We’ve only been playing a couple of times per week. Donna’s keeping up with her strength training and bicycling.

The skies cleared up over the weekend, but the temperatures only reached the low 60s. It’s a little early for the rainy season to start – San Diego usually gets the majority of its rainfall in late December through February.

Friday night, after the rain stopped, the wind died down. We’ve had large tidal swings in the bay. The tide was high, the wind calm and the bay was glassy. I shot a nighttime photo looking east at the Bay Park neighborhood. The lights from the houses reflected off the dark, glassy bay water.

This morning, I learned that the closing is delayed. The buyer’s agent failed to update the sales agreement to reflect the latest changes and the settlement statement was incorrect. Grrr. Apparently, the agent put off updating the documents before giving them to the escrow company, then disappeared over the Thanksgiving weekend. It irritates me because the buyer insisted on a quick escrow and we’ve scrambled to close the deal.

As a seller, I was happy with a quick closing. Real estate transactions are never complete until escrow closes and, in my experience, the longer that’s delayed, the more issues tend to arise. As a buyer, I wouldn’t want to close this fast though. I would’ve wanted 30 to 45 days to allow me time for due diligence. This buyer was shooting for a 21-day close.

I’ll close again with a couple of dinner plates Donna prepared last week. First up Chicken Gabriella, which is a skillet dish with lots of onions, fresh sage, and lemon juice.

Chicken Gabriella with green beans and sweet potato

And Sylvie’s Chicken, another skillet dish made with a cut-up chicken and a yummy sauce. It took over an hour to cook, so Donna said she’ll just use chicken thighs next time to cut the cooking time in half.

Sylvie’s chicken with garlic cauliflower mash and fresh spinach

*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!

I Can See Clearly Now

I haven’t been posting much lately as much of my time is spent dealing with the estate of my late step-dad, Ken Keller. Donna and I traveled up to his house to box stuff up for donation. We met my brother, Eddie and his wife, Rachel, there last Saturday and got much done. The house is in escrow and the buyer wants to close quickly, but also wants to negotiate along the way. I’ve made a couple of concessions, but now it’s time to move forward.

I was stymied for a while because I didn’t have the certified death certificates. The funeral home that ordered them for me from Riverside County just put them in an envelope and dropped them in the mail with regular postage. No tracking or priority. If I’d known they were going to do that, I would have gladly paid the $8 or so for a trackable Priority Mail delivery. After 10 days, they finally agreed that these documents were lost in the mail. They ordered four more certificates.

They called me on Tuesday and said they had the certificates and were sending them via courier to their San Diego County location in east El Cajon. I drove there on Wednesday and finally had the certificates in hand. Now I could move forward.

I had an Affidavit of Death of Trustee drawn up to allow me, as successor trustee, to handle the sale of the house. I couldn’t file the affidavit without a certified death certificate. Here’s what I find a little crazy about that. The certified death certificates are issued (at a cost to the estate) by Riverside County. The affidavit needs to be filed and registered by Riverside County. So, I pay them to issue me the certificate, then I submit an affidavit with the certificate back to them and they register it for another fee. Typical government racket.

Next I had to go to Wells Fargo Bank where Ken had his account. Again, I needed a certified death certificate to take over the trust bank account. This was a lengthy process and I spent nearly two hours with a banker. With that done, I can fund the trust with the proceeds from the sale of the house. Hopefully, things will get simpler from this point.

I also took care of a couple of projects over the past week. I mentioned before about the alternator on Midget-San overcharging the battery. The alternator is internally regulated, so it had to be replaced. Parts for the Nissan A15 engine in our Midget are easy to find and relatively cheap. I was surprised to find an AC-Delco remanufactured (in the USA) alternator at RockAuto for only $36!

The alternator charges the battery while the engine is running. The charging voltage will vary depending on the state of charge of the battery. As the battery becomes fully charged, the internal resistance of the battery rises and the charging voltage will drop. The old alternator was charging between 15.5-volts and 16.0 volts. This is too high regardless of the state of the battery charge. The new alternator charges between 13.6-volts and 14.5-volts. Much better.

The other project was something that only required me to write a check. The front side windows on our coach were fogged. These are double-pane windows. When the seal between the glass panes is compromised, moisture can condense between the panes. When the windows warm in the sun, fog forms and obstructs the view through the glass. A company called Auto Glass Boss came out to our site here at Mission Bay RV Resort and resealed the glass. They removed the windows, separated the panes, cleaned the glass thoroughly and installed new sealant. The glass is so clear now, it looks like there’s no glass there at all!

We had a major change in the weather here. On Tuesday night, rain moved in with a cold front. We had a blustery day Wednesday with periods of rain all day. The temperature only reached 60 degrees. Yesterday was partly cloudy and cool – in the mid 60s. We should have clear skies and mid to upper 60s for the weekend, but more rain is forecast to arrive by Thanksgiving.

I’ll close this post with a couple of dinner plates Donna prepared. First up is a coconut curry salmon dish with cashews that she made last week. It was spicy and very good – a keeper for sure.

Last night, Donna made baked lemon chicken. It was a simple single sheet pan meal and very tasty.

Cool Stuff at Gillespie Field

In my last post, I mentioned an issue I had with Midget-San’s oil pressure. The replacement oil pump I ordered came from RockAuto on Tuesday afternoon. I’d been in touch with Bill Masquellier about doing the work at his place in El Cajon. I met Bill when he was working at British Auto Repair and replaced the rear hub/axle seal on the Midget. I later found out he was only filling in there temporarily while another mechanic was on an extended vacation. Bill is very knowledgeable on British cars and also has experience with engine swaps. He knows the Datsun/Nissan line of engines.

I was to meet Bill at the Gillespie Field Cafe – a small cafe at the airport in El Cajon – at 10am on Thursday. I arrived early as I had made allowances for traffic but managed to have smooth sailing eastbound on CA52. I parked in front of the cafe at 9:30am and took a walk. I saw an interesting car in front of a hangar and met the guy working on it. It was an Intermeccanica Omega – an Italian car made in the late ’60s with a Ford 289 V8 engine. They only made 33 of these. While I was talking to the guy, I saw Bill drive his Austin-Healey Sprite in. Bill phoned me and directed me to another hangar on the west side of the airport.

He opened one of the hangar doors and I parked Midget-San inside. I immediately noticed a number of covered cars along with and airplane and lots of parts in the hangar. We opened the hood (bonnet) on Midget-San and while the engine cooled, Bill gave a me a tour. First off, he showed me a 1928 Hudson. He explained that the hangar and the cars inside belonged to his brother-in-law, John. John bought the Hudson when he was in high school and it was his daily driver in the 1960s.

John has a fascination with cars designed and built by Ettore Bugatti. Bugatti’s first design was a small car. He drew up plans for every piece of the car and the engine as well. But he didn’t have the money to actually build the car. So, he sold the plans to Peugeot who then manufactured the car from 1905 to 1916 and called it Bebe. There were two 1913 Bebes in the hangar. Then Bill pulled back a car cover to reveal a mint condition 1935 Bugatti. It’s one of the top examples in the world and has to be valued around a million bucks!

There was another Bugatti – an all-aluminum 1938 that was in pieces being restored. This car only weighed around 2,200 lbs and had 200 horsepower making it one the fastest cars on the road at that time. Cool stuff.

Bill quickly pulled the alternator and oil pump from the Nissan A15 engine in Midget-San. I remarked how surprised I was to find the pump in stock at RockAuto. Bill told me this oil pump is used in at least three Nissan engine families and is a fairly common part. That made sense. We primed the pump and reassembled everything with a new oil filter and fired it up. The oil pressure came up within a couple of seconds. Much better!

Bill put a volt meter on the battery to make sure nothing went awry when the alternator was removed and discovered it was over-charging. The alternator was supplying over 15.5 volts. It has an internal regulator that must be bad. This will eventually fry the battery – the charging voltage should never exceed 15-volts and ideally would be around 14.2 to 14.4-volts. I’ll have to replace that next. This is what happens when you have a 48-year-old car with a 39-year-old engine.

Across from the hangar is the Allen Airways Flying Museum. The museum is owned by Bill Allen – a good friend of Bill M. Bill asked me if I was interested in a private tour of the museum. He had the keys and we entered the closed museum. There are a lot of interesting pieces of aeronautical history there. I saw a couple of Stearman Biplanes in the museum hangar and told Bill I frequently see two Stearmans fly over Mission Bay Park, almost daily. I described them and he told me one of them was in the corner of the hangar and the other – a orange-yellow one was a rental plane that sees almost daily use.

The other Boeing Stearman in the hangar was a beautifully restored silver plane with a blue stripe down the side and blue wing bottoms. It had tail number N-3188. This was the last plane owned and flown by Steve McQueen!

Steve McQueen requested number 3188 – it was his ID number when he was at reform school in Chino. Bill Allen bought the plane and completely restored it.

On Friday, Donna and I drove up to Sun City and cleared some items from Ken’s house. I also met with a realtor and we discussed marketing the property and a realistic valuation. The realtor is Sherry Dodson and she has a track record for the gated community Ken’s house is in. She’s sold around 10 homes per year there for several years. She had good comps to establish a realistic value. Setting the price too high could result in problems with a buyer obtaining financing. We needed a number that would appraise without leaving money on the table. After an hour or so, we came up with a price and a plan.

Saturday was a fine day. Donna and I rode our bikes along the Bayside Walk to Mission Beach. Along the way at Crown Point, we saw a large number of row boats for crew racing. It appeared to be a large event for mostly junior rowers. The crew teams looked to be high school age or maybe college. I’m not very good at guessing ages anymore – they all look young.

We made a loop from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach Drive and back to Mission Bay RV Resort.

Saturday night, Donna marinated a flank steak and served it with baked potato and roasted brussels sprouts. Delicious!

Monday was Veterans Day and another fine day. We took a drive in Midget-San out to Cabrillo Monument on Point Loma. We made a stop at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

From the cemetery looking toward Naval Air Station North Island

Looking at San Diego Bay toward downtown

Last night, Donna tried a new recipe for a baked pasta dish with Italian sausage crumbles and broccolini. She’s used garbanzo bean rotini which has more protein than regular pastas. It was very good, though not something we would have often because of all the cheese and cream!

This morning I finalized a counter-offer on Ken’s house and it looks like we are moving forward on the sale. We ended up within $2,000 of the asking price and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we get a favorable inspection result and appraisal.

The weather forecast for the week ahead looks great. It might be slightly cooler with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s and overnight lows in the mid 50s. That’s November in San Diego!

A Quiet Passing

My step-dad, Kenneth Keller, passed quietly Friday morning. He was 88 years old. We’ve learned a few details about the final months of his life over the past few weeks. He had been complaining about shortness of breath for a few months. His primary care physician examined him in August and again in September. He didn’t order any diagnostic procedures (i.e. chest X-ray). On September 28th, he was gasping for air and his neighbor, Helen, called 911 after talking to Ken’s primary care physician. He was transported to Loma Linda Hospital in Murrieta.

Ken was born in 1931 but we don’t know anything about his biological parents – he was put up for adoption and was adopted by the Keller family. I think he was born in Connecticut, but the family moved to Iowa.

He joined the United States Marine Corps in 1950 at the age of 19. He was shipped out to Korea. He fought the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army (PVA) at Chosin Reservoir in December of 1950. This was a pivotal battle in the Korean war and huge casualties were suffered by all involved. The marines were surrounded by an overwhelming force of Chinese PVA. The marines broke through and marched to the port of Hungnam, about 70 miles away for evacuation.

Ken was about five and a half feet tall and weighed all of 150 pounds at the time. But he carried and operated a Browning Machine Gun which had to be a heavy load to hump through the snow covered mountains around the reservoir.

Ken married and settled in San Diego, California. I don’t know anything about his first wife and children. After the divorce, they were completely estranged. Ken went to work for the City of San Diego as an electrician – a job he held for over twenty years.

In 1972, he married my mother. I grew to respect the man, especially for the way he always took care of my mother. As I came of age, he helped me purchase my first car (and second and third). They lived in a few places around San Diego before mom and Ken both retired. I think it was 1994 when they bought a house in Sun City – which is now a community of the city of Menifee in Riverside County. My mom passed away in 2012. Ken continued to live alone in their house for the remainder of his life.

At Loma Linda Hospital, he was treated for fluid in his lungs. Diagnostic x-rays revealed a tumor in his left lung. After a week, he was transported to Ramona Rehabilitation and Post Acute Care Center in Hemet. He was attended by skilled nursing staff 24 hours a day there. However, the place is somewhat crowded and the staff appears to be overworked.

Our goal was to move him into a boarding care home where he would have attendants 24/7 in a much quieter environment and more personal attention. After some research, Donna and I toured a couple of facilities. We decided that a new boarding care home in a recently developed residential area of Winchester was the best choice. New Hope Residential Elder Care is owned and operated by Jane Mikenas. She provides personal attention daily and has two attendants on duty at all times to care for up to six patients – a 3 to 1 ratio of patients to caregivers.

Unfortunately, our was plan to move Ken on October 15th was dashed when he was diagnosed with an infectious bacterial infection. We weren’t able to get him into the boarding care home until Wednesday, October 23rd. By then, his health had declined dramatically. Hospice care evaluated him and assigned a nurse. Jane made him her priority as she was certain he was in his final stages.

My phone rang at 6:03am Friday morning. At first I thought it must be an East Coast telemarketer as I slumbered. Then I realized there could be another reason for an early morning call. It was Jane. She told me Ken passed moments earlier. She was at his bedside and held his hand as he slipped away. She had come in early because one of the caregivers told her Ken was struggling. He had been on atavan and morphine and passed away in peace.

Last January, I had Ken’s trust reviewed and updated by an attorney. I was named successor trustee and now I have the fiduciary responsibility to settle his estate. I met with Ken and my brother, Eddie, at Ken’s house in January to go over his wishes. I made copies of all documents and distributed them to my brother and sister to avoid any misunderstandings. This is a big responsibility and I wanted to be transparent with what would happen under these circumstances. I’ll be busy in the weeks ahead. I’ll try to update with a post or two covering happier stuff Donna and I are sure to find. Ken’s last words to us were, “You two have fun!”

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Cars and Music

My Frugal Side

Starting the 20s in Mesa, Arizona

Two Nights Out

Wet Christmas

Early Christmas Surprise

Got Junk?

I Can See Clearly Now

Cool Stuff at Gillespie Field

A Quiet Passing

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