Category Archives: Grilling

Orange Blossoms

We tend to follow nice weather. We try to avoid cold, wet climates and opt for warm, sunny weather. This means we are mostly in areas where flowers are blooming. I have severe pollen allergies – most tree and grass pollen really sets me off.

This year, I tried a form of immunotherapy that involves taking daily doses of local, minimally processed honey. The theory behind this is that the honey contains small amounts of local pollen. Taken daily, an immunity is built up in the body. I started doing this last fall in San Diego and continued here in Arizona.

Here in Arizona, I bought local honey that was labeled mesquite. It’s from bee colonies that are in the open desert and contains a mix of pollen. It seems to have helped. I’m not free of allergy symptoms, but they haven’t been as severe as last year. Recently I switched to orange blossom honey in anticipation of all the orange trees around here flowering.

Orange tree blossoming next to our site

But the honey treatment is no match for the current profusion of orange tree blossoms. I now have full-blown allergy symptoms – sinus congestion, runny nose, and puffy, watery eyes. I’m taking Flonase, but mornings are misery.

I mentioned meeting up with Dave Hobden at Tekris Power Electronics in yesterday’s post. While I was there, I made an impulse purchase of a device that seems somewhat controversial. It’s a battery desulfator that I installed on our bank of 6-volt house batteries. Sulfation is where the lead, lead oxide and sulfuric acid in the batteries combine and form crystals of lead sulfate. These crystals cling to the lead plates, diminishing capacity. Charging the battery removes these crystals, but it doesn’t remove them completely. Over time, they accumulate. Some crystals may fall to bottom of the battery where they can collect and eventually short the plates.

The device I bought is called Battery Life Saver BLS-12N. It’s connected to the battery bank and draws a small amount of current – I took measurements and averaged 23ma. It generates a high-frequency signal through the battery. The frequency it generates shatters the lead sulfate crystals so they can recombine into the lead, lead oxide and sulfuric acid components.

I say it’s controversial because an online search reveals two camps. One camp says it’s nothing more than snake oil or voodoo and does nothing. The other camp says they use it and it absolutely works. I haven’t found any evidence of valid testing by the nay-sayers to prove it doesn’t work. On the other hand, there are test results that show battery capacity can be restored with this device. I don’t know for sure and I don’t know how I can make a valid test on our batteries while they’re in use. I guess if our batteries need to be replaced in the next year or two, I’ll join the nay-sayer camp. If our batteries last for several years, who’s to say the BLS-12N helped or not? Like I said, it was an impulse buy.

Battery Life Saver mounted in the battery compartment

We played pickleball yesterday morning. It’s such an addicting game and Donna and I love playing it. I took it easy and played four or five games. My calf was a little tight, but it feels fine today.

We had warm weather with low clouds yesterday. The temperature was in the upper 80s. If we didn’t have the cloud cover, it would have been a real cooker. As it was, we ran the air conditioners in the afternoon. I took a photo of the sky before sunset while I was outside grilling. We have the same low ceiling again today.

Low clouds near sunset

Donna and I enjoy Thai food. We don’t have to eat out to enjoy this type of food though. A week or so ago, Donna made a variation of Thai satay called Malaysian chicken sate. She marinates the chicken and I grill it on skewers. It’s served with a delightful peanut sauce. We liked it so much, Donna prepared it again last night.

Malaysian chicken sate skewers on the grill

Malaysian chicken sate with peanut sauce and sauteed veggies

I have a project to attend to today. I want to reseal the seams on the driver’s side bedroom slide-out with silicone sealant. When it rains, water is collecting behind the trim and leaves a stain as it runs down the side of the coach.

Fish Tales

Things have been pretty low key around here. I’m still resting and allowing my torn calf muscle some recuperation time. Living the full-time RV lifestyle can be much like living in a sticks-and-bricks environment, where things sometimes settle into a blasé routine.

I continue to eat like a king though. I grilled wild Alaskan sockeye salmon on Thursday. I started by grilling sliced red onion with a little apple cider vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper in a foil packet to caramelize the onions. Donna served the salmon topped with the onions, fresh parsley, and lemon juice over a bed of arugula. The caramelized red onions were so sweet.

Sockeye salmon with caramelized onions

Donna took her bicycle out for interval training yesterday. She has a duathlon race scheduled on Sunday. She’s planning to race as a 2-person team. Angie Hill from the Orangewood Shadows RV Resort will do the running portions of the race while Donna will do the 25-mile bicycle leg. Donna entered last year, but the race was rained out. Wouldn’t you know it, the weather guessers are calling for rain to move into the area on Saturday and continue until Monday!

Donna was stretching outside after her bicycle ride when a guy stopped at our site. He was handing out flyers for the annual Orangewood Shadows St. Patrick’s Day fish fry. Apparently one of the residents of the park comes down from Alaska every year with fresh Alaskan halibut and they have a big fish fry. Tickets are $12 per person. We don’t often go to this type of event, but it will be our last day in the park and it sounds too good to pass up.

When I lived in the Northwest, I made numerous trips to Alaska, mostly for business. I also went fishing there. The fishing trips were mostly to the Chatham Strait in southeast Alaska. We would fly to Sitka. In Sitka, we would transfer to a DeHavilland Beaver float plane. DeHavilland Beavers are legendary bush planes and I always enjoyed flying in one. The plane could take five passengers. The flight would carry us over Baranof Island to the Bay of Pillars on Kuiu Island. This is a remote and absolutely beautiful location.

In the bay, there was a dock with freezer equipment, two 35′ sport fishing boats and the Sea Ranger. The Sea Ranger is an old 115′ navy tug that’s been converted to a floating lodge. The Sea Ranger had electricity, hot and cold water, staterooms, a large salon and restaurant-grade dining. The location on Chatham Strait meant we were minutes away from fantastic fishing. Other charters coming from Sitka would have to leave port at dark-thirty and sail for hours to get to the good fishing grounds.

Kuiu Island is uninhabited. We would often see black bears on the shore. Whales were common in the strait. With no phones and no Internet for four days, we would fish and forget about the rest of the world. Chatham Strait is chock full of salmon – kings, silvers, pinks, sockeyes and also halibut. The abundance of wildlife in the area and the lack of development made it a wonderful experience.

Fishing near Kuiu Island

120 pound halibut from the Chatham Strait

120-pound halibut I caught in the Chatham Strait

Our catch for the day

We always packed light for the trip – just a backpack or carry-on bag. The fish we caught were immediately filleted and flash frozen. When we left, the fish were vacuum-packed in plastic and placed in a waxed cardboard container the size of a medium suitcase. Alaska Airlines allowed each passenger to check two 55-lb. suitcases in those days. We would check the containers as baggage and come home with 110 lbs. of salmon and halibut each.

Another time we went fishing on the Kenai River. This is a famous fishing destination. I’d read many stories about the Kenai since I was a kid. Three of us – Greg Schmeer, Ed King and I went. We knew a guy in Anchorage who guided on the Kenai. He took us down to the river in his truck pulling a sport fishing boat.

I was dismayed to find the Kenai wasn’t as pristine as I expected. It was crowded with boats floating down the river like cars on the interstate. Everyone would float along through their favorite areas, then fire up their engines and blast upstream to make another pass.

Our guide had a lot of experience on the Kenai. He knew the river intimately and also knew which lures would work best. He moved us around to different areas that he knew were productive. We pulled in fish after fish while others around us were getting skunked. We caught kings, silvers, sockeyes and pinks.

Me with a silver (coho) salmon on the Kenai

A nice king (chinook) salmon on the Kenai

Ed King with his namesake salmon on the Kenai

So much for the fish tales. I’ll continue to rest my injured leg and read. I picked up three more Vince Flynn espionage thrillers that should keep me occupied for a few more days.

Racing in the Rain

After a few more days of convalescing, I feel some progress with my right calf. Muscle tears are slow to heal. At first I thought I would be okay after a week or so. Now, 10 days later, I realize it’s going to take longer.

Over the past three days, I’ve limited the amount of time standing or walking. I’m trying to keep weight off my leg as much as possible. At the same time, I started applying essential oils to my calf. The thing is, when you change two variables at the same time, it’s hard to tell which one is most effective.

It’s like racing in the rain. When I used to race motorcycles, if it started raining and the track was wet, we would change to special wet tires and soften the suspension settings. We knew without a doubt that the wet tires were a big help. But how much did the soft suspension help? Without a baseline, it was a shot in the dark. Changing two things at once made it hard if not impossible to quantify how much each change helped.

Getting set for a wet race

I never liked racing in the rain

My point is, I don’t know if the essential oils are helping my leg to heal or is it just a matter of rest and time. The skeptic in me wonders if a few drops of oil can make a difference. However, I’m not taking any chances. Just like softening the suspension settings on my race bike, I’ll continue to apply the oils even though I can’t measure the effect.

I’ve been spending time reading and relaxing. Yesterday was a good day for it as we had sporadic showers in the late morning. Donna has been active. On Sunday, she rode a 33-mile loop through the Tonto National Forest, including a climb over Usery Pass. Monday she rested. We had rain showers so it was a good day to rest. Yesterday she planned to hike at Bartlett Lake with the Orangewood Shadows group, but the hike was cancelled due to weather up that way. Instead, she walked around the RV park with her hiking pals, Lowell and Debi. They power walked a circuitous route and covered over four and a half miles while the rain held off.

The afternoon was dry with partly cloudy skies. The wind kicked up and I had to roll the awning in. The temperature was cool all day. The thermometer flirted with 60 but I don’t think the high temperature ever got out of the 50s.

Donna prepared a new to us dish last night. It was Malaysian chicken sate (pronounced SAH-tay) with peanut sauce. She rode the scooter over to an Asian market on Dobson Road in the afternoon to pick up some special ingredients including Masman curry paste (a shrimp-based paste) and tamarind juice.

Chicken sate skewers on the grill

Malaysian chicken satay with peanut sauce and bok choy

Malaysian chicken sate with peanut sauce and bok choy

The peanut sauce was fabulous. Donna served the chicken with one of my favorite veggies – steamed bok choy.

I’ll relax and read another book today. Donna picked up a few more books for me at the Orangewood Shadows library. On Monday, she downloaded the Kindle version of the sequel to the James Patterson novel I read – the one that I finished earlier only to discover that the story was continued in a second volume. I finished that story. I started another novel yesterday by Vince Flynn called The Last Man. It’s a good read and I’m sure I’ll finish it today.

We have sunny skies and the forecast calls for temperatures in the low 70s with a light breeze. Maybe I’ll relax and read outside. Donna is headed to the pickleball court.

Hiking and Sightseeing

Donna and I hit the pickleball courts in the morning again on Thursday. We joined others on the court and played four or five games. I’m becoming obsessed with the game. Our goal is to play at least three times a week.

Here at Orangewood Shadows RV Resort, our monthly rate doesn’t include electricity. The electricity is metered and billed separately. Thursday was the end of our first month here and the maintenance guy came by to read our meter. When we first set up in site 22, I took a picture of the electric meter. On Thursday, I shot another photo after the maintenance guy read the meter. I think this is a good idea, I had a problem with our bill at another park in the past and I’ve heard others complain that they think they were overcharged. With photos of the meter, you can open the photo properties and the meta data will show the date and time the photo was taken.

Our electric meter on the 12th. I’ll take another photo when we check out.

I spent the rest of the day puttering around. I started reading a Tony Hillerman novel. He’s written a large series of novels set in the Navajo country of northern Arizona, western New Mexico and southern Utah. They’re fun mystery stories that are easy to read and entertaining.

Friday was more of the same. I went to play pickleball, but Donna passed this time. I played hard for an hour and a half. One of the things I noticed is that the more experienced players are more relaxed and don’t work nearly as hard as I do. They rely on experience to be in the proper position most of the time while I’m constantly on the move chasing the ball. I’ll get this! I just need to keep at it and learn to anticipate my opponents’ moves. I finished reading The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman in the afternoon. My legs and hips were sore from playing pickleball three days in a row.

On Friday evening, I grilled chicken breasts. I haven’t made brick-grilled chicken in a long time. I think the last time was in San Diego, October 2013. It’s a great way to grill chicken breasts – I wrote about it in this post.

Turning the chicken breasts – the bricks will go back on top

Donna served it with lemon and herb butter, baked yam slices and asparagus.

Brick grilled chicken with baked yams and asparagus

Brick-grilled chicken with baked yam and asparagus

I mentioned in my last post that our friends, Brett Miller and his wife Cheri Alguire, are staying at an RV park near us. Yesterday morning, they swung by our place at 8:30am and picked us up in their Ford F350 Super Duty crew cab pickup truck. We drove to Usery Regional Park and paid the $6 daily use fee. Our intention was to hike up the Wind Cave trail.

Brett, Donna and Cheri at the trailhead

Although the trail is just over one and a half miles long, it’s challenging as it climbs over 800 feet in elevation up Pass Mountain. Most of the elevation gain comes in a steep section about two-thirds of the way up.

Lichen-covered cliffs on Pass Mountain

As we climbed up the trail, I began suffering from pollen allergies. I’ve been taking daily doses of local honey as an immunotherapy, but it was no match for the blooming brittlebush on the mountain.

Look closely – you’ll see a bee collecting pollen from the brittlebush flower

My eyes were burning and watering while my throat dried out. My sinuses were clogging and I had to breathe through my mouth. About ten minutes from the top, I called it good. Donna, Cheri and Brett continued up. I made my way slowly back down the mountain. I stopped several times to enjoy the view. I expected them to catch up with me near the trailhead, which they did.

Wind erosion on a cliff by the Wind Cave trail

View to the south from the Wind Cave trail – you can barely make out the cars in the parking lot below by the first hill

We left Usery Regional Park and did some sightseeing. We directed Brett and Cheri to Saguaro Lake where we stopped for ice cream. Then we backtracked on Bush Highway to Phon D Sutton recreational area. We boondocked there last year. I wrote several posts about the place, beginning with this one. The header photo for our blog was shot by Mark Fagan at Phon D Sutton with Red Mountain the background. The first parking area at Phon D Sutton was packed with RVs, including two Alpine Coaches. The back lot had more available space although it was more crowded than last year. We stopped and chatted with the owner of one of the Alpine Coaches. He was there with the same singles group that showed up last year. That’s why the first lot was so full – they had about 40 rigs in their group.

From there, we drove over to Singh Farms on Thomas Road in East Scottsdale. Singh Farms is an operational farm that has a market on Saturday from 9am to 2pm. They have groomed trails through the farm and garden areas. It’s a cool place and you can get the freshest produce around as well as fresh-baked breads, goat cheese, and a variety of jams and preserves. They also sell compost. Donna purchased a chia seed pudding with pineapple, cardamon and coconut.

Brett, Donna and Cheri at the entrance to Singh Farms

We thought about having lunch there, but decided to go to a restaurant. We found Baja Joe’s at McKellips and Gilbert Road. I enjoyed a margarita while Donna, Cheri and Brett had Pacifico beer with their entrees. We sat out on the patio. It was warmer than I expected even though we sat in the shade. The food was good – I’d go back there again.

We ended an excellent day by grilling lobster tails that Donna found at Sprouts Market.

Grilled lobster tail

Flank Steak

The sun was hidden behind a heavy overcast Monday afternoon. It wasn’t raining, but it was threatening to rain at any moment. Around 2:30pm, Donna took an Uber ride to a hotel on South Power Road, about 10 miles from here.

She checked into the hotel so she could do interviews with radio stations from coast to coast via telephone. She’s promoting her new book, Clear the Clutter, Find Happiness. She had six hours scheduled with radio stations and needed a landline to avoid dropped calls or dead batteries. On Tuesday, her day started before the sun came up.

It rained overnight and we had a few showers Tuesday morning. By 11am, it cleared up as the clouds scuttled off to the east.

I rode the scooter over to Rubio’s Grill on the corner of Baseline and Power Road. The hotel shuttle dropped Donna off there at 12:30pm and we met for lunch. After enjoying our lunch out on the patio, we scootered a couple of miles west to the Hertz rental car agency.

Donna picked up a car so she can drive to Phoenix for a speaking engagement at a meeting of the Phoenix Chapter of the American Marketing Association. She’ll keep the car until this weekend as she has more speaking events this week.

I have a few chores to catch up on while she’s out today. Later, we’re planning to go over to the Mesa Regal RV Park for a happy hour with fellow RVillage members. Our friends that we met in San Diego, John and Sharon, are at the Sun Life RV Resort next to Mesa Regal. We hope to catch up with them at the happy hour today.

Yesterday, I picked up a pound and half of flank steak at Midwestern Meats. This market was recommended by several people for their superior cuts of meat. Donna had a recipe for Brazilian Steak that called for skirt steak or flank steak. It seems to me that flank steak was a cheaper cut of meat when I was young. It was often served as London Broil. Nowadays, with the popularity of fajitas, stir-fries and such, flank steak commands a high price. It can be a tough cut of meat, so it’s best cooked very hot and seared to rare or medium rare and sliced across the grain.

She served it over organic spinach with heirloom cherry tomatoes a garlicky butter sauce. It was delicious and the leftover steak will be nice on a salad.

Brazilian Steak

Windy Night

We had pleasant weather yesterday. The temperature reached the mid 70s with a light breeze. I started the day with a free waffle, coffee and orange juice breakfast at the clubhouse.

I shared a table with a group of people from Nebraska. They’re all retired and spend their winters here. They talked about the cold nights and the amount of propane they’ve been going through in the last month. We have a 42-gallon propane tank that I’ve only filled once. We’ve used a little over a quarter of a tank in a year. I asked one of the guys how big his tank was. He said it was 22 gallons and he needed to fill it again less than a month after the last filling! I guess they must have their thermostats set high with the furnace running all night.

We prefer to turn the heat off when we go to bed and get under our down comforter and quilt. It’s cold in the morning – the temperature in the coach these last few weeks has ranged from 47 to 60 degrees, but we’re warm and snug in bed. We turn on the heat pumps when we get up to bring the temperature back up again. We used the furnace a couple of times at Hidden Shores when the outside air temperature was too cold for the heat pumps to run efficiently.

I also have to wonder about the level of insulation in their rigs. Our Alpine Coach has good insulation and dual-pane windows. The roof is five and a quarter inches thick, the floor two and quarter inches and the walls are two inches thick.

After lunch, I went back to the clubhouse for a meeting. I haven’t had a meeting on my calendar in several months! It’s probably more accurate to call it a discussion rather than a meeting. It was roundtable discussion with a facilitator. The subject was full-time RVing. The attendees were full-timers and those interested in becoming full-timers. There were approximately 40 people there, less than half were full-timers. I attended to see what I could learn.

I spoke on a couple of topics – more than I thought I would. There were some misconceptions regarding domicile. I spoke up and explained why and how to establish a domicile state and the pitfalls that can arise if you leave connections to your last state of residence. It was interesting to me that all of the full-timers there, except for one, chose South Dakota as a domicile state. I expected to see Texas and maybe Florida represented. The one person that wasn’t domiciled in South Dakota was from Nevada and still calls it home. I also spoke a little on the subject of banking on the road and why I keep accounts in two different financial institutions.

There was plenty of discussion around various state laws. I showed the State Lines app from the folks at Technomadia. This app takes a lot of the guesswork out when you cross state lines. The discussion lasted for about an hour and a half.

I spent the rest of the afternoon kicking around the park and meeting neighbors. It was so nice out, I sat out side and read for an hour. Then I caramelized red onions on the grill before I grilled a salmon filet. Donna served the salmon on a bed of arugula with the red onion on top. It was different and quite tasty!

Grilled salmon with carmelized red onion over arugula

Grilled salmon with caramelized red onion over arugula

I should have paid more attention to the weather forecast before we went to bed. I woke up at 11:30pm to the sound of our window awnings banging about. Wind gusts up to 30mph from the east were flapping the awnings hard. I got up, went outside and retracted the window awnings. We have open sites on our east side and no protection from the wind. I could feel the coach rock from the gusts.

It’s still windy this morning, but the wind speed should be down to 10mph or less by noon. We’re thinking about taking the scooter out for some sightseeing this afternoon.

Smart Heat

Happy New Year first of all. We rang in the new year with Bruce and Debbie Bednarski and Kim Chapman at their place. Kim arrived from Poway around 6pm after traversing the snow-covered summits. She said the road was snowy from Alpine on the west side to Jacumba on the east. Jacumba is at the foot of the mountains near the Anza Borrego desert.

We started with cocktails and hors d’ouevres. Bruce shook up martinis. Debbie put out some cheese and crackers. Donna brought homemade jalapeno-cilantro hummus and veggies and I grilled prosciutto-wrapped scallops. It was a great start to the evening.

Later, Debbie and I put a tri-tip on their grill. Unfortunately, the grill was uncooperative. It wasn’t hot enough and the flame died altogether a couple of times. I took the golf cart down to our site and brought our little Weber Q to finish grilling the steak. It worked out fine.

In typical New Year’s Eve fashion, we drank and got a bit silly by midnight. We even went for a midnight ride in the golf cart! It was very cold outside. It was a fun time celebrating together.

The overnight temperature was the lowest we’ve seen since we left Michigan. We prefer to sleep under a pile of blankets and don’t run the furnace or heat pumps at night. When we woke up around 9am, it was 47 degrees in the coach! Donna turned on the heat pumps. Our Duo-Therm Comfort Center controls the heating, ventilation, air condition system (HVAC) for the coach. Heat pumps aren’t very effective when the temperature drops below the mid-30s. The Duo-Therm Comfort Center is a smart HVAC controller. Sensors on the two 15,000 BTU heat pumps provide ambient air temperature signals to the controller. When Donna activated the heat pumps, the controller sensed it was too cold outside for effective heat pump operation. It automatically switched to auxiliary heat from the LPG furnace. Once the outside air temperature warmed up a bit, it switched off the furnace and activated the heat pumps.

Donna went out for a hike and climbed a steep hill to the north of us and then down the other side to the river. Some of the hike was so steep and slippery with loose rock, she had to crabwalk and came back covered in dust. She took pictures, but I can’t access them right now as our connection is so bad, I can’t load them. I puttered around for a while, then watched college football bowl games. The Cotton Bowl was a thriller with Michigan State making a comeback and scoring the winning touchdown with 30 seconds left to defeat Baylor 42-41. Then the Oregon Ducks trounced Florida State 59-20 in the Rose Bowl.

Later, I watched Ohio State overpower Alabama 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl. This sets up a championship game between the Oregon Ducks and the Ohio Buckeyes.

I woke up this morning at 7am to the sound of shotgun blasts. Duck hunters were out on the river. Once again, it was cold in the coach – 48 degrees. I fired up the heat and went back to bed. It was after 9:30am before the outside air warmed up enough to switch over to the heat pumps. The weather guessers tell us it will begin to warm up as the cold air mass moves east. We have clear, sunny skies and I hope the thermometer reaches 60+ today.

I may not post again until we leave here on Monday. The slow, intermittent Internet connection makes it too frustrating. I can’t even upload photos right now. Our plan is to pull out of here early on Monday and go to Casa Grande, Arizona. I want to have our coach serviced there at Speedco. I’ll have the motor oil and filter changed, the chassis lubed and the fuel filter on the generator changed.

We’ve booked a full week in Casa Grande so we can explore the area before we move on to Mesa on the 12th. Our plan for 2015 is to spend about two months in Mesa before we work our way back to southern California for Shauna’s graduation from law school on May 1st. From there, we know we want to be in Minneapolis in early July. We’ll continue east and see if we can visit friends in Michigan before we travel to the northeast where we’ll visit Donna’s family. At some point I want to make it to Texas to visit my daughter, Jamie. We’ll be back in the southwest before the cold weather finds us. That’s our current plan for 2015.

Break Out

The weather guessers called for a warming trend to begin yesterday. The predicted high for the day was the upper 70s. A swing and a miss! The wind shifted and came from the northeast after noon. The thermometer hit 91 degrees with 4% humidity. It still feels dry this morning though the humidity is up to 20%.

Donna and I went out for bicycle rides yesterday around 11:30am. She was on her road bike and rode to Crown Point Shores, then looped back around the east side of Mission Bay to ride Fiesta Island. I rode my mountain bike and stayed on the east side of the bay.

As I rode past the Hilton Hotel, I saw groups of people who were obviously attending a conference or seminar. They were in “break out” sessions sitting in circles in the grassy areas behind the hotel. I thought about the many times I participated in similar sessions when I was in the corporate world.

We would usually fly to a desirable location for a conference, then end up in meeting rooms all day. At least these people were outside enjoying the sunshine. I don’t miss those corporate conferences or commercial flights. I haven’t passed through airport security once in the last 18 months. There was a time when I was boarding an airplane once a month or more.

Setting up lunch behind the Hilton Hotel - Fiesta Island is across the bay

Setting up for lunch behind the Hilton Hotel – Fiesta Island is across the bay

By the time I returned to the RV park, the wind had picked up. There was a package left at our front door. FedEx had dropped off the Cycle Pro Mechanic Bicycle Stand I’d ordered from Amazon. I had a similar stand, but it was in our old cargo trailer when it was stolen.

I unpacked the stand and set it up. It’s a nice unit. I like it better than the stand I had before. I’ve been lax on bicycle maintenance. Lack of a suitable work stand is one reason. Now I don’t have that excuse and I’ll have to get back into the habit of cleaning, lubing, adjusting and inspecting our bicycles on a routine basis.

I expect the new tires I ordered for my Orbea road bike to arrive today. I’ll break out the bicycle stand and put it to good use making my bike road ready.

Before dinner, I rode the scooter to the Vons grocery store in Pacific Beach. We needed some fresh vegetables. When I defrosted the refrigerator the day before, I left Donna’s green vegetable bags on the counter. That didn’t work out so well.

I grilled chicken thighs for dinner last night. With the change back to standard time, it gets dark early. Sunset is around 5pm. This means I’m grilling in the dark. We have enough light to grill, but I sure like it better when I’m grilling in sunlight.

After dinner, I opened a bottle of locally brewed stout. It was Alesmith Speedway Stout. This is a coffee flavored imperial stout with chocolate. I thought it would make a good dessert. Whenever you see the word “imperial” in the description of an ale, you can bet it is a strong beer. This was no exception, Alesmith Speedway Stout has 12% alcohol by volume (ABV). The high gravity required to brew a 12% ABV ale made the beer a little too heavy for me.

Alesmith Speedway Stout

For my taste, the stouts made by Belching Beaver are hard to beat. Their pumpkin spiced stout is subtly spiced and is very drinkable. Their milk stout is a treat and the peanut butter flavored chocolate stout is absolutely delicious. These stouts are brewed to a more normal 5-5.5% ABV.

Today, the predicted high temperature is in the mid 80s. Donna and I will take our Sea Eagle kayak out for cruise on the bay this morning while it’s nice and calm.

Friends and Family

I rode the scooter to Dr. Leek’s office Friday morning. He examined my hand and removed the stitches. He said it looked good and now I need to work on motion and hand strength. We set another appointment for four weeks out. He told me I could cancel the appointment if everything is going well three weeks from now.

I knew Donna was busy on her book revision, so I didn’t come straight home. I rode the scooter to Ocean Beach and stopped for lunch. I kicked around the beach. It was a beautiful day. The north end of the beach near the jetty is called Dog Beach. It’s one of the few beaches in the county where dogs are allowed on the sand.

Dog Beach

I made another stop at the Model Yacht Pond. Two guys were sailing their model sailboats on the pond. The sailboats are interesting. The boat in the photo is about 40″ long. Servo motors with clever linkages are used to trim the sails. A servo operating a block-and-tackle on the stern applies tension on the carbon fiber mast. This is used to keep the mast from whipping about in gusty winds. The model sailboats are cool, but I’m a motorhead. I’ll come back to the pond next Sunday to see the power boats.

Radio-controlled model sailboat

Last week, when we bought our new smartphones, Christian (the Verizon guy) told us they would send return packaging via mail in 10 to 14 days to return our old phones. On Thursday, I received an e-mail from Verizon with a USPS label attached and instructions to return my phone by October 24th. This confused me. I went online to the Verizon site and started a chat session to ask what I needed to do. I had two phones to return but only one label, and if I waited to receive the packaging that Christian said we would get, I would miss the October 24th deadline.

I spent an hour online chatting with a customer service representative who didn’t understand my issue. She was also the slowest typist ever. I would sit and stare at my screen which said a message was being typed for several minutes before I would receive a one-line question. I finally came to the conclusion that we have two returns with different instructions. My old Samsung S4 needed to be sent with the label that was e-mailed to me. Donna’s old Samsung SII will be sent when we receive the packaging for it. There’s still a disparity in the credit amount we should get for the old phones. I need to go back to the Verizon store and straighten that out, the customer service representative had me going in circles until I gave up and ended the chat.

On Friday night, Donna’s sister, Linda joined us for dinner. I grilled a Morrocan-spiced rack of lamb which Donna served with a brown rice pilaf and sauteed zucchini, peppers and onions. Later we watched an old movie – My Cousin Vinny. It’s a great movie. Joe Peschi and Marissa Tomei are both outstanding in this comedy classic.

Morrocan-spiced rack of lamb

Saturday morning I rode over to the Pacific Beach post office and mailed my old phone. At 11am, my daughter, Shauna, picked me up. We made the 90-minute drive up to Menifee to visit my stepdad, Ken. We stopped at the Kentucky Fried Chicken near his place and bought an eight-piece meal to have for lunch with Ken. Ken loves Kentucky Fried Chicken. I can’t even remember the last time I had it.

Anyway, we sat and talked for a couple of hours before we headed back. On the way home, we stopped at Trader Joe’s in the La Jolla Village Square. Donna had sent me a text message with a long list of groceries to pick up there. I’m glad Shauna was with me because the store was a zoo and she knew where to find everything.

Donna and Linda were in Lakeside at a country music festival with Mona. They made plans to attend this event a few weeks ago when Mona told them she had two extra tickets.

Linda, Mona and Donna at the country music festival

Last night I watched an entertaining Moto GP race race from Phillip Island, Australia. I won’t spoil the results in case a reader has it recorded. Donna came home from the festival around 9:30pm, halfway through the race.

The Mission Bay RV Resort has the usual weekend crowd with lots of kids in the park. Today is NFL football day. I think I’ll do some hand exercises while I watch the games. I broke out my number 14 Dan Fouts throwback jersey – I hope to see the Chargers beat the Kansas City Chiefs and go 6-1.

Just Another Day

I haven’t posted since Wednesday, mainly because I haven’t done anything special. We’ve been at the Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego for three weeks now. Our days are pretty routine. I can’t say much about the weather. Every day for the past week has begun with an overcast marine layer, with the temperature in the mid-60s. By noon at the latest, the overcast burns off as the temperature rises to the mid-70s. Very predictable. But ‘m not complaining.

When we hit the road 15 months ago, we started out like most full-timers do. That is, we hit the ground running. We acted like tourists on vacation, trying to see all of the sights and flitting from place to place. We went from Michigan to upstate New York, then across the country to the Pacific Coast in Washington. We followed the coast south and made our way to San Diego last fall after just nine weeks on the road. We covered something like 7,000 miles in that time.

When we arrived in San Diego last year, the idea of settling in one place for three months seemed strange. We still saw lots of local sights and went out and about. We learned to adjust to our new way of life and really started living the full-time RV lifestyle.

Our coach is our home. Sometimes we’re homebodies. Donna is busy working on a book revision and doesn’t have time to sightsee right now. She still enjoys getting out on her bicycle or jogging in Mission Bay Park on a daily basis. I usually get out and go for a walk at the beach or ride my bike. In the evenings, we just hang out. It’s no different from when we lived in a sticks-and-bricks home. Some days are couch potato days.

The big difference is that we can move wherever we want, whenever we want. When we left San Diego at the end of 2013, we moved at more leisurely pace. Since trading up to our new (to us) coach in January of this year, we’ve covered about 6,000 miles, less than 700 miles a month on average. We spent January through April in Arizona, mostly in one place (Mesa). Then we made a big loop of the western states over the summer. We’ve learned to break up our travel and keep our travel days under 250 miles. When we stop, we usually stop for at least two nights.

The pace we ran in the beginning was unsustainable. It was exhausting. Reading other full-timer’s blogs, I see this is a common occurrence. Most of us start out thinking life on the road means constant motion. Donna and I are better at planning our travels now. We’ve settled on having extended stays in San Diego and Arizona. These are our home bases. The fall in San Diego is hard to beat. The climate is mild and there are so many things to do. Arizona is a great place to spend the winter months.

Next year, we plan to make another cross-country trip, but we’ll do it at our own pace. We’ll have certain destinations that we want to reach by a certain date, but we’ll be able to be flexible between planned stops.

When we lived in our sticks-and-bricks home, I enjoyed grilling. I also enjoyed eating the great meals Donna prepared. That hasn’t changed since we hit the road. In fact, I grill more often than ever because we’ve got grilling weather year ’round.

On Wednesday evening, our friend Mona visited us. She and Donna took the Sea Eagle kayak out for an hour-long cruise on the bay. When they returned, I grilled boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Donna prepared hot sauce-butter to put over the chicken and served it over corn-and-spinach salad with a baked yam on the side. The hot sauce-butter was an adaptation of the steak recipe she prepared last week.

Grilled hot sauce-butter chicken with corn-and-spinach salad and baked yam

Last night we enjoyed wild Alaskan cod poached with tomatoes, summer squash, white beans, onions and red peppers, and grilled rosemary toast.

Wild Alaskan cod poached with tomatoes and summer squash

I have an appointment for a follow-up visit at Dr. Leek’s office this morning. He’ll remove the stitches from my hand and I can start working on regaining hand strength and finger motion. My fingers are very stiff now.

Other than that, it’s just another day in the life of a full-time RVer.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Grilling

Orange Blossoms

Fish Tales

Racing in the Rain

Hiking and Sightseeing

Flank Steak

Windy Night

Smart Heat

Break Out

Friends and Family

Just Another Day

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