Category Archives: California

Fourth and Final Housesit

We had our fourth and final housesit of the season at the end of August. I mentioned in my last post the construction work on our home, adding a half-bathroom and laundry nook. The work started a bit late on Monday, August 26th. There was some confusion on the expectation and what the construction crew thought they were doing. Donna had met with the contractor and had a fairly long discussion going over what she had in mind and how it should lay out. Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, said it looked straightforward and easy.

He sent me the job quote while Donna was away in Vermont. I looked it over, but I wasn’t there when they discussed the project. I wish he would have included a drawing of the layout instead of just a written description which was a little vague in my mind.

We had a meeting with Ron and his foreman, David. Once we were on the same page, they went to work. We thought we would be heading to our housesit in Alpine, California the next morning, but that was also a case of mis-communication. We actually had to arrive on Wednesday, August 28th. This was good as it allowed us to see how the home project was shaping up. Tuesday afternoon, as they were finishing up for the day, I asked David when he thought they would be finished. He said he thought it would take “a few more days” and he would send photos to my phone.

We left Mesa around 9am on Wednesday and made the familiar drive west on I-8. We’ve done this countless times over the years in cars, motorcycles and the motorhome. We made the usual stops – Dateland for a date shake, Yuma for gasoline before we hit California gas prices and El Centro for lunch at Las Palmitas Taco Shop. It’s a pretty authentic Mexican restaurant – my phone even said “Welcome to Mexico!”

We made good time and left I-8 at Japatul Valley Road east of Alpine. It was a little too early to show up at the ranch, so we did a drive-by to find the private road to the ranch, then went into Alpine. Donna bought a new charger for her phone – she forgot her charger at home and wanted a back-up anyway.

It was a 15-20 minute drive back to the ranch from town. After we arrived and had a tour of the house, a custom built ranch home with exquisite woodwork, we went out to the barn to see how things would be done. There were 13 sheep, five Border collies and a cat to take care of. The ranch is on 10 acres of land. The set up was impressive and included an on-demand back-up LP powered generator. If the power went out or dropped below a specified voltage, the generator would automatically start and the electrical power for the entire ranch would continue nearly seamlessly.

The number of animals seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but Donna adapted quickly and the Border collies were so well behaved they took very little care. On the first night, Marcy the home owner, had dinner for us and two other guests – one is a boarder that rents a small studio apartment attached to the barn. The other fellow was a friend from Great Britain, the Isle of Man specifically. It turned out that Sean and Jim were motorcycle enthusiasts and we had a lot of interesting conversations.

I didn’t take many photos – many missed opportunities. Here are a few landscape views of various points from the ranch house.

View south west – terrain is steeper than it looks

I found a suitable spot to set up my telescope and equipment. The preferred portion of the night sky would be in the northeast. This had the fewest obstructions and pointed away from the San Diego light dome, over the sparsely populated Cuyamaca National Forest, Laguna Mountains and desert to the east. We were about 2400 feet above sea level.

The days were warmer than normal with the high temperature exceeding 90 degrees. This was still about 20 degrees cooler than home. The nights were pleasant in the upper 60s.

Friday morning we drove to San Diego, about 40 miles away. I dropped Donna off at her sister, Sheila’s house in Point Loma. I went to Shelter Island to take some photos but made a stop for a quick lunch. Once I was out of the car at Shelter Island, I didn’t find any good photo opportunities for birds and wildlife. I took too long for lunch and was pressed for time. I saw one interesting thing – an amphibious vehicle, a duck tour bus.

We saw similar tour buses in Branson, Missouri but I had never seen one in San Diego before. I saw two of them at the boat ramp on Shelter Island.

Donna helped Sheila plan on the furniture layout for Donna’s mom. She is relocating to San Diego and will live in Sheila’s vacant Point Loma home with some help from a caregiver.

With my astrophotography effort limited to a northeast target, I was at a loss to find an interesting subject given the time of year. I decided on IC 1396, a star forming gas and space dust region in the northeast sky. This is a huge target and if I had known that was going to be the target, I would have brought my William Optics GT71 for its wide field of view. But, without knowing which direction I would be pointing, I brought the AT115EDT as I thought this was my best compromise, since it’s the mid-range of my telescopes. Not ideal.

I had issues the first two nights – it’s been months since I last tried to capture a deep sky object. I figured out the problems – there were a few settings on my laptop software that needed to be corrected. This happens sometimes when the good people at Microsoft automatically apply updates and they choose default settings for me. Grrr.

I ended up shooting two-minute exposures over four nights. I used a new-to-me filter setup. First I used an Askar Colormagic Ha+OIII filter. This brings out the red hydrogen component and bluish oxygen gas. The filters don’t add anything. On the contrary, they block unwanted bands of the light spectrum. This eliminates some effects of light pollution, in essence enhancing the desired color spectrum. Then I used an Askar Colormagic SII+OIII filter, This should allow more of the greenish and bluish light through. I did two nights of imaging with each filter.

IC 1396 is such a dim target that I couldn’t see what I was capturing with a single two-minute exposure, so I was shooting blind. When we came home, I went through the images and stacked 206 of the two-minute exposures for a total integrated time of six hours and 52 minutes. I was a little disappointed in the result, but here it is.

Speaking of coming home, we were in for a surprise. David never sent me photos of the finished construction. We found out why – it wasn’t finished when we came home 10 days later.

To be fair, there was a long weekend over Labor Day included. But here’s the thing. Ron never told us he was retiring on Friday, August 30, four days after the job started. David was taking over the company. David still didn’t have the full picture of job – note the lack of ceiling in the photos above. To compound the issue, when we were back, I noted that different workers showed up to do a part of the job each day and it seemed each worker only knew his or her small part of the job. No one seemed to know what the finished product was supposed to be. This goes back to Ron only doing a written description with no floorplan. He had the whole thing in his head and he was gone.

One of the workers, Brenda, also told me that excessive heat had them knocking off by 2pm on a few days. Well, it was finally finished on Tuesday, September 10th. Everything was straightened out and we were happy with the finished product. These are quick cell phone snap shots.

I also had them install a stainless steel restaurant style sink in the shed where the old washer/dryer was. This will be my knife sharpening and razor honing station. I need to do some finish work and clean out the shed too.

All of the boxes under the sink contain various whetstones for sharpening/ honing. That reminds me of another quick story. Before we left for Alpine, we met up with our friend, Marcia, for happy hour at Fat Willy’s. While we were there, Donna had to excuse herself to take an important phone call. While she was away, Marcia asked me what I was up to lately. She knows I dabble in a number of hobbies. I reluctantly brought up straight razor shaving and razor honing. I say reluctantly because eyes usually glaze over if I start talking about this topic.

Marcia asked me if I used whetstones. This surprised me. I was more surprised when she said she threw one out that very day! What? She said she had an old one in a box, but the box was broken and she didn’t have any use for it. Then she said it was just in her kitchen trash and she could retrieve it if I was interested in it. I told her I would like to look at it. I envisioned a coarse hardware store offering in a plastic box.

The next day she brought me this.

I could see under the gunk what appeared to be a translucent Arkansas stone in a wooden box! The top of the box was broken, but she had all four pieces. I asked her what she wanted for the stone and she said I could have it – she’d thrown it out.

A little Titebond glue and a couple of clamps was all it took to repair the wooden box top. I soaked the stone in Simple Green and gave it a good scrubbing. The stone is a butterscotch translucent Arkansas stone suitable for razor honing. It appears to be at least 70 years old – the stone itself is obviously millions of years old, I ‘m talking about when it was mined, cut and marketed. Without any stamps or labels, it’s impossible to accurately date the manufacturing era of this stone, but the box style and joinery seems to indicate a Pike-Norton from 1930s or 1940s. I’m not clear on whether this stone came from Marcia’s father or her grandfather.

Now I have two translucent Arkansas stones and both are old stones that were gifted to me. Makes me a happy guy.

A week from Thursday, we’ll board Hawaiian airlines for our trip to Japan. We’re excited about it and I have no idea what to expect. It’s been nearly 60 years since I’ve set foot there – I was just a little kid. Donna has a few ideas, but we mainly want to see the countryside and visit some smaller towns and villages to get a glimpse of the culture and lifestyle of the average person. We’ll see some of the tourist spots, but for me that’s not the main attraction.

We’ll be mostly offline for our two weeks in Japan, so I’ll try to catch up on our adventure after we return.

San Diego Housesit

My last post mentioned my desire to get back into terrestial photography in addition to my astrophotography hobby. I’m particularly interested in bird and wildlife photography. I put together a modest kit with a Canon R7 camera body and a few lenses – most useful are the 100-400mm zoom and a 600mm prime lens.

I didn’t go all out on professional level Canon “L” glass – the costs are prohibitive. The consumer-grade Canon lens has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include, obviously, lower cost. They are also compact and lighter weight. The main disadvantage is the smaller maximum aperture, resulting in slower lens speed – meaning they can’t gather as much light as a faster lens. This is a problem in lower light with fast moving subjects. The “L” lens line generally has better autofocus capability and image stabilization. That’s not to say the consumer-grade line up has “bad” autofocus and image stabilization – it’s pretty amazing in fact.

My first bird photo opportunity came right in our backyard – the fifth hole of the Viewpoint Executive nine-hole golf course. There’s an established breeding colony of non-native Lovebirds here. Donna and I found them in a palm tree.

We had a housesit lined up for September 18th through the 27th in San Diego. I knew there would be many opportunities in San DIego for bird photography, especially shore birds. I started practicing my skills before we went there by visiting the Gilbert Riparian Preserve – it’s about 10 miles away from our place at Viewpoint in Mesa.

The riparian preserve is located in east Gilbert on 110 acres of land. Of the 110 acres, 70 are covered by a series of seven ponds (water recharge basins). It’s mostly wooded with several trails throughout the preserve. Many common shore birds such as egrets and herons as well as waterfowl and osprey can be found there. The woods are home to many other species of birds.

While confirming the identity of some birds, I found a curious fact. Some bird names have changed over the years. I remembered Great-tailed grackles as Boat-tail Grackles. I checked my old copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds and sure enough, it’s called a Boat-Tail grackle. My new copy of Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America lists the same bird as a Great-Tailed Grackle.

Note the black bill and yellow feet on the Snowy Egret while the Great Egret has the opposite – yellow bill and black feet.

The homeowner in San Diego asked us to arrive there between 3pm and 4pm. We left Mesa, Arizona at 8am to allow plenty of time to make the 400-mile drive to San Diego. I stopped in Yuma, Arizona to fill our gas tank. Regular unleaded gasoline was $4.14/gallon there. Crossing the Colorado River and entering California, the fuel prices were nearly $2/gallon higher!

California gas cash price at Speedway – the prices were rising during our stay

We arrived at our destination in the Clairemont neighborhood right at 3pm. After spending an hour or so getting familiar with the home and Sadie, their German Shepard, we found out the homeowner wasn’t leaving for the airport until 8pm. We drove down to Mission Bay and parked outside of the Mission Bay RV Resort to look around and kill some time. We used to spend the fall here when we were full-time RVers. The place has really changed.

All of the old park model homes have been removed. The clubhouse is still there and now the swimming pool is open to RVers staying in the park. The park is no longer secured – walking and biking paths through the RV park are open to the public. I would be very concerned about theft in the RV park nowadays – it was bad enough when it was all gated and patrolled.

Donna and I hiked around the point defining De Anza Cove and I photographed a few birds.

I found a shorebird I didn’t recognize on the south side of the point and shot a few frames.

I uploaded the image into Google Images and it came back with a match to a Reddish Egret. I did a search and found these are fairly rare in southern California – only three or four are reported each year and fewer are documented with photographs. I contacted the San Diego Audobon Society and they asked for photos. I sent them the files. They got back to me and told me I had mis-identified the bird. It wasn’t a Reddish Egret, it was a Little Blue Heron and they were pretty excited about it. Finding one on the west coast north of Mexico is extremely rare and I had it documented! The coloration of the bill positively identified it – I should have caught that.

The next day, we drove up to La Jolla and walked around the La Jolla Cove. I called it a target-rich environment. There are many bird and mammals that are easily accessible there. Pelicans are ubiquitous.

California Brown Pelican coming in for a water landing

The Children’s Pool area is over-run with sea lions and seals.

The old man presiding over snoozing sea lion pups

This sea lion pup is napping with one eye open

I had plenty of opportunities to practice capturing birds in flight.

Later that evening, we returned to La Jolla after taking care of Sadie, to join Donna’s sister, Sheila and Jeff for dinner and had a nice night. Donna walked Sadie two or three times each day while we were there.

The next morning, I drove to the San Diego River estuary along old Sea World Drive. The lighting conditions each morning were challenging. There was a marine layer overcast – while that provided a diffuse light source with minimal shadows, it also limited the brightness. I found a couple of interesting birds along with more egrets. In hindsight, I wish I would have switched to my 600mm lens, but I stuck with the faster 100-400mm zoom.

As I was loading my gear in the car, I spotted a large raptor in the sky headed in my direction. It landed at the top of a pine tree next to the road. I quickly got my camera out of the car and grabbed a few shots. Right away, I thought “Marsh Hawk.”

Once again, Google Images told me I had it wrong. It was identified as a Northern Harrier. I couldn’t find a Marsh Hawk image. After searching further on the internet, I found the Northern Harriers were formerly called Marsh Hawks! Fooled by another name change.

On Friday afternoon, we met up with my high school buddies, Gary Stemple and John Barrientez at the Riverwalk golf course in Mission Valley. I don’t think I mentioned the house where we were house-sitting was located less than a mile away from Clairemont High School and Marston Junior High where I went to school in the early ’70s.

Gary, Donna and John at Riverwalk golf course

I rode along for the first nine holes, then headed back to attend to Sadie. This was a tough golf course with some long 500 yard+ holes with the San Diego River crossing some fairways. It took them about five hours for 18 holes.

We had a couple of dinners at my old watering hole, Offshore Tavern and Grill where we met up with some of the old crowd and had our favorite dinners of poke and seared ahi. We met up with Mona Sojot one night – it was great to see her again and see how well she’s doing. Donna also met with Sini one night for a walk at Mission Bay and dinner at Offshore.

We played pickleball one afternoon as guests of Sheila and Jeff at the private San Diego Tennis Racquet Club. We played four games and it was enjoyable, although I was a bit rusty. I’ll be giving pickleball lessons over the winter here at Viewpoint again.

We made two more morning hikes to photograph birds. We went to Cabrillo National Monument and drove down to the Point Loma tide pools. I caught a couple of shots of pelicans surfing. That’s what I call it when a pelican glides on the column of air being pushed along as a wave comes ashore. They glide close to the water’s surface for long distances this way.

A squadron of brown pelicans heading my way

Cabrillo Historic lighthouse – viewed from below at the tide pools near the new Point Loma lighthouse

House Sparrow on a pier on Shelter Island

A pelican splashes down after diving 40 feet though the air to capture a fish

Our last birding stop was a morning hike through Tecolote Canyon. I found a few interesting subjects to photograph there.

Mannekin in Tecolote Canyon – non-native but well established in San Diego

I’m working with new (to me) software to “develop” and process my images. It’s different from astrophotography image processing. I’m mainly using a program called DarkTable which is very powerful, but I’m finding it complicated. My images out of the camera aren’t bad, but as my processing skill improves, I expect better results.

We drove home uneventfully on Wednesday, September 27th. We made our usual stop at Dateland and bought date shakes and Donna picked up a few packages of dates. We hit some traffic as we neared Mesa as the evening rush hour was in full swing.

No dinner plates this time. It looks like we’ve finally beat the heat as the forecast is calling for cooler tempertures with the highs in the 80s and 90s for the week ahead.

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.

Holiday Thieves

Another week has flown by here at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego. I’ve been in a regular routine, visiting with friends for a happy hour cold one at Dan Diego’s or Offshore Tavern and Grill on Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday respectively. We’ve been playing pickleball at the Ocean Beach Recreation Center on Monday, Wednesday and sometimes on Friday.

One habit I’ve fallen into is the Tuesday Taco Special at Offshore Tavern and Grill. They have large, tasty tacos during happy for $3.00 on Tuesday and they are the best. One thing I discovered there is Curt’s hot sauce – made right here in San Diego.

The label says Extra Extra Hot, but it’s not really all that hot – it is very flavorful and I love it.

One of my pals I often have a cold one with is Bob Babich. Bob was an NFL Football player – he was the 18th player drafted in the first round in 1969. He played with the San Diego Chargers for three years then, in 1973, he was traded to the Cleveland Browns for a first and second round draft choice. He played in Cleveland until 1978.

One of the bartenders at Dan Diego’s is Mike Fulton – brother of chef and part owner, Ryan Fulton. Mike found and ordered a Babich number 60 Cleveland Browns jersey. I’m not sure if the color and layout is period correct, but it was nice touch and Bob was really surprised to see Mike behind the bar with it.

Donna’s been faithfully practicing with her clarinet and going through the break-in process with her new wood Leblanc clarinet. I ordered a variety of reeds for her and I’m learning how to adjust and balance the reeds. Clarinet and saxophone players all have a love/hate relationship with their reeds.

I adjust the reeds by carefully scraping the reed to balance both sides. I use a new, razor sharp utility knife blade to do this. On Wednesday, I was pulling a new blade from the dispenser and it was stuck. I gave it a good yank and it suddenly popped free. I swiped it right across my left index finger. Dumb! It made a clean, deep cut. We were off to the Pacific Wellness & Urgent Care Center.

Doctor Moore at the center fixed me up with three stitches. The worst of it was when he numbed my finger tip with injections into the cut. Finger tips are very sensitive!

We had really nice weather on Thursday and Friday. Donna had friends over for dinner Friday evening and rented a fire pit for the occasion. Sini, Mona and Sharon Hinton joined her. John Hinton also came down for awhile. On Friday afternoon, Donna picked up her race packet for the San Diego Santa Run on Saturday. The race packet included a “sunny Santa” costume.

I’m making a Christmas wish on Santa’s lap

The San Diego Santa Run is a 5K fun run in Pacific Beach held the morning before the Christmas parade. Donna rode her bike to the starting area near Garnet and Cass Street. She found our friend, Brooke, there along with about 4,000 other Santa’s.

Donna heading out to the San Diego Santa Run

She had fun and found out that Cass Street is actually uphill as you head north. Not so much that you think about it in a car, but you can feel the incline when running it!

A few nights ago, Donna made a dish that we haven’t had in a long time. It was spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce. I don’t know why we haven’t had it in while, it’s a real goody.

Last evening, I finally caught a nice sunset over the bay. With all the rain we had lately, I haven’t seen many sunsets.

This morning, it was cold in the coach. We don’t like to sleep with heaters – we’d rather put a down comforter or extra blanket on the bed. This morning was coldest of the year – 52 degrees in the coach. We decided to go out for breakfast. One of our favorites we’d discovered in Maui is a Hawaiian breakfast dish called loco moco. Loco moco is rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried eggs and brown gravy. We found it here in San Diego at Leilani’s in Pacific Beach a few years ago. We went for it this morning. I had the Hilo style with spicy fried rice.

When we came back home after breakfast, Donna made a grim discovery. A thief had cut the lock off our bikes and stole them! They were locked to the picnic table and covered with a plastic tarp. Either during the night or while we were at breakfast, the thief struck. They must have cased it out – they had to know what was under the tarp and how to steal it. It looks like they used bolt cutters to defeat the Kryptonite brand cable lock. I can see now how poorly made this cable lock is. Neither of us can say for sure if the bikes were gone when we left for breakfast or not. The thieves took Donna’s new Trek Dual Sport and my Specialized Crave 29er mountain bike.

I’ve been asked if we’ve noticed much difference here since Campland took over managing the property. The biggest thing that stands out is the lax security. Before, anyone entering the park without a vehicle tag was stopped and had to surrender their driver’s license at the security shack for the duration of their visit. Now, anyone can just drive right in, no questions asked. Also, parking enforcement is almost non-existent. Rules are meaningless.

Campland was granted an $8.1 million lease credit to complete the clean up of the old manufactured homes surrounding the RV park. Final demolition and clean up was slated to begin in October. To date we’ve seen little or no activity. It must be nice to manage the park with no lease payments – cash flow is positive for sure!

After a few days with temperatures reaching about 70 degrees, it looks like we’re in for a couple of cooler days in the low 60s before it warms up again over the weekend.

*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!

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!

Stuck in the Middle

I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels without gaining any traction lately. The death of my step-dad threw me for a loop and as successor trustee, I have much to do. But, there’s a hitch. I had durable power of attorney (POA) for his financial affairs. However, the POA is only applicable while he was living. The POA would allow me to make financial moves on his behalf if he was incapacitated. Now that he’s no longer with us, the POA is meaningless. That’s where the trust comes into play. The thing is, I cannot make a move as successor trustee until a death certificate is recorded with the county and I have certified copies. That’s the sticking point – I don’t have copies yet.

Once I have the certificate, I’ll open a new bank account for the trust. I’ve already obtained an EIN for the account. Then we can start converting assets and fund the trust and also resolve any debts. Some things that should be easy aren’t so easy. For example, I’ve tried to cancel his cable TV service. The cable company, Frontier, won’t do it unless I have his secret four-digit PIN. I don’t have his PIN and have no way of getting it. They’re happy to keep receiving the automated payment he set up. I’ll get it figured out.

Meanwhile Donna and I have been getting back into a more usual routine. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of year. The week before last, we rode our bicycles to Pacific Beach. After cruising up the boardwalk and making a stop at the bike shop, we went to Kono’s Cafe for lunch. Kono’s is right across from Crystal Pier – it was Tug’s Tavern back in the day. They have a patio deck across Ocean Boulevard on the north side of the pier overlooking the beach and ocean. We dined alfresco and watched the surfers while we enjoyed our lunch.

On such a warm day – the temperature reached 90 degrees – I expected the beach to be crowded. But, as you can see in the photos, the beach crowd was light. On the way back to Mission Bay RV Resort, I snapped a picture on the north side of Mission Bay – called Sail Bay – looking southeast toward Riviera Drive. There weren’t many people there either.

A week ago Saturday, we drove Midget-San up to the Cuyamaca Mountains and the town of Julian. We went to an event called Belly Rumble. It was at the Menghini Winery and was put on by a group of San Diego British Car Clubs. They had food and drink, an informal car show for British marques and belly dancers!

The winery was a few miles outside of town. On the way back, we stopped in Julian – a small town with a population of around 1,500 people. Julian is known for apples – specifically apple pie. We found the usual throngs of weekend tourists in town and long lines for apple pies at the bakery.

Midget-San in front of the Julian Mercantile

When I started the Midget to leave the winery, the oil pressure was very slow to build. In fact, the gauge showed zero PSI for over a minute before it built pressure. I was about to give up and call for an expensive tow, then it suddenly came up. It’s usually a little slow, but climbs within 10 seconds or so. I suspect an oil pump or pressure relief issue. This is not good. Left unchecked, it will eventually lead to bearing damage.

I talked to Bill from British Auto Repair – he’s the mechanic who replaced my hub/axle seal. He’s familiar with the Nissan A15 engine swap in Midgets and knows our car. He told me something I didn’t know. The Nissan A15 engine has an external oil pump. The pump is built into the oil filter flange on the side of the engine and can be easily replaced without pulling the engine or dropping the oil pan. This is good news! Outside of engines with dry-sump oil systems, I can’t think of another application with an external oil pump. Usually they’re located at the bottom of the engine block near one end of the crankshaft and, at minimum, the oil pan needs to be removed to access it.

I ordered a new oil pump from Rock Auto – an amazing online parts store. The had oil pumps in stock for this obscure 38-year-old engine. I’ll take the car to Bill’s place out in El Cajon once I have the part and replace the pump. We have Ken’s car still, so we’ve been using his Kia Soul for transportation and Midget-San has been parked in the trailer for the past two weeks.

The hot, dry weather spell has passed and we are experiencing a more “normal” San Diego climate. The daily highs are in the low to mid 60s with overnight lows in the upper 50s. The 10-day forecast calls for more of the same with little chance of rain. The cool nights are just right for sleeping with a window open and a down comforter on the bed.

As we are getting back to our routine, I’ll close this post with a couple of dinner plate pictures.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: California

Fourth and Final Housesit

San Diego Housesit

Two Nights Out

Wet Christmas

Holiday Thieves

Early Christmas Surprise

Got Junk?

I Can See Clearly Now

Cool Stuff at Gillespie Field

Stuck in the Middle

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