Category Archives: Kayak

Our Transportation Evolution

When I closed my last post on Thursday, I mentioned our plan to go to the Power Food Park and meet up with friends. That’s what we did. We arrived around 5:30pm to find a much smaller crowd and fewer food trucks than were present on the Saturday before. Donna had reserved a fire pit and s’mores packets from 6pm to 8pm. We found Mike and Jodi Hall right away and staked out a picnic table.

We decided to go ahead and order food and eat at the picnic table before going to our reserved fire pit (number 6) where we had six Adirondack chairs around the fire pit. Frank and Kelly Burk joined us. We had a lot of laughs around the fire – the temperature drops fairly quickly after sundown and the fire pit made it very comfortable. Here are a couple of underexposed photos.

It was a fun time and two hours was about right for yukking it up around the fire.

Friday morning I started the Traeger around 8am and put on a pork shoulder (Boston Butt). I didn’t play pickleball Friday, I was saving my legs for the Valentine’s Day tournament on Saturday. The plan was to make pulled pork and take it across the street to Chuck and Sue Lines’ place at 5pm. Roxy and Dick Zarowny would join us there. Sue made potato salad and Roxie made cole slaw and a cucumber salad and lime pie. I brought nearly five pounds of pulled pork and it made a great dinner. Again we had a great time talking into the night and Chuck had a propane fired fire pit!

Donna and I played in the Valentine’s tournament Saturday morning. It wasn’t really a tournament – it was a round-robin type scheduled play with players teamed up with their sweetheart and rotating play against other teams. We won 50% of our matches, but I don’t think we were playing at our best. It was fun nonetheless.

We drove to Frank and Kelly’s place in the afternoon – it’s only a couple of miles from where we used to live in east Mesa, about five miles from Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. It was breezy out and felt chilly although the thermometer registered 69 degrees. We enjoyed cocktails and laughs, then Frank got serious on the grill. He had some super thick USDA Prime New York steaks and grilled them to perfection. Donna brought spinach and bacon stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer – they were delicious. Kelly made roasted asparagus and yellow squash and potato kisses for sides. It was a great meal and laughs continued at the dinner table.

We drove our new-to-us Nissan truck to the Burk’s place and I was glad we did. It started raining when we left around 9pm. I don’t like to drive the MG Midget at night, especially when it’s raining. It was no bother in the Nissan Frontier though.

Our modes of transportation have evolved over the years we’ve spent on the road. When we first left our sticks-and-bricks home for the full-time RV lifestyle, I thought having a scooter to get around would be sufficient. I figured we just needed something to go to the store occasionally and if we really needed a car we could rent one from time to time. We learned to pack away a surprising amount of groceries on our Kymco Downtown 300i scooter. It’s pictured on the header of the blog page.

It had limitations though. It was capable of carrying us on the freeway, but whipping along at 70mph with cars all around us wasn’t exactly comfortable. Also, with its small wheels, it wasn’t the best on dirt or gravel surfaces which we often found in and around RV parks.

After a couple of years, we traded it in for a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeled motorcycle. This was much more versatile, but again it wasn’t the most comfortable vehicle for longer trips and extended freeway driving. We tried to avoid rainy weather or didn’t drive much at night.

The MG Midget was the next step in the evolution of transportation for us. Midget-San with its Nissan A15 engine and five-speed transmission made freeway travel easy, but you have to be on your toes as the sports car is very low and small. Like riding a motorcycle, you always have the assume the other drivers don’t see you. For Donna, all of these choices compromised her hair style. She either had helmet head or wind blown hair from driving top-down in Midget-San.

Now we can take the Frontier without any of our previous limitations. Midget -San will be relegated to local jaunts when we feel like it. The Frontier will be more of a daily driver.

We took a drive on Sunday morning. I felt like getting out and Donna wanted to see how the Salt River and Saguaro Lake looked for kayaking. The Frontier will be great for transporting the Sea Eagle kayak to almost any drop-off point. We loaded the Sea Eagle in the Midget many times, but we tried to stay off of dirt roads or difficult launch areas.

To get to Saguaro Lake from east Mesa is an easy drive. We took Ellsworth Road over Usery Pass to Bush Highway. It’s only a few miles, but it’s night and day compared to town. Crossing Usery Pass dropped us into the Tonto National Forest – a forest of desert scrub and cactus. Saguaro Lake is a popular boating, kayaking and fishing spot. It has a marina with a restaurant and also the Desert Belle tour boat.

View of the lake toward Butcher Jones Recreation Area

The Desert Belle cruise is a narrated tour of the lake and various sites and recreation areas. It has food and drink onboard, but currently only upper deck outdoor seating is open.

We back-tracked on Bush Highway and took a look at the Goldfield Salt River access point, but it didn’t look too good to get a kayak down to the river there. Next, we stopped at Phon D Sutton which has access and the water level is just enough to put a kayak in there. We stayed at Phon D Sutton several years ago when dry camping was allowed there – it’s the header photo – but you can’t stay overnight anymore.

Our last stop was at the Granite Reef Recreation Center. It was busy and we saw several kayakers there. With the low water levels, it seems like the stretch of water between Phon D Sutton and Granite Reef is the place to go.

It was a fun-filled weekend with good food, good friends and lots of laughs. We don’t have any real plans for the week ahead. The weather forecast calls for cooler weather with daily highs in the mid 60s until next weekend when it will warm up again.

*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!

Kayak, Wind and Fire

Most afternoons, I set up my ham radio in the shade on a small table and see who’s talking. On Thursday afternoon, I was doing just that when I picked up a mobile transmission from a guy traveling west on AZ74 (Carefree Highway) and heard him talking about a fire near Crown King. I got in on his conversation to ask for more detail as Crown King isn’t too far from Lake Pleasant – it’s about 40 miles north.

I walked to the front of our site and sure enough, the sky to the northwest was full of smoke. Where I was sitting in the shade by the trailer, I couldn’t see it. I thanked the guy for the info and shot a couple of photos

Smoke over the lake coming from the northwest

The smoke was heavy and continued to the southeast toward Glendale and Phoenix.

Currently, the fire encompasses about 10,000 acres and is burning six miles northwest of Crown King – about 18 miles south of Prescott. The area is sparsely populated and about 100 people had to evacuate Friday morning. The Forest Service says there’s a lot of valuable equipment at the top of Crown King – I’m guessing communication and television transmission gear. They’re calling it the Horse Fire. This has certainly been the summer of fire in west.

High winds kicked up unexpectedly Thursday night and into Friday morning. I’m sure this hampered firefighting efforts. Donna had signed up for a guided kayak tour from the Lake Pleasant Regional Park. It was a ranger-led event called Pleasant Paddlers. Donna wasn’t about to let the wind deter her. I had loaded the Sea Eagle kayak in the Midget the night before and drove Donna to the regional park. The north park entrance is about seven miles from Pleasant Harbor RV Resort.

We set up the kayak in the lot above the Castle Creek boat ramp and lugged it down to the water. There were eight participants including two rangers. They set off a few minutes before 9am.

Heading out from the bottom of the boat ramp

The water near the ramp is in a protected cove and was calm. That wasn’t the case once they hit open water on the lake though.

Choppy water on the lake – smoke from the Horse Fire to the north

They came across a herd of 26 wild burros in a cove.

At another cove, they stopped for lunch and saw more burros.

Lunch break – wild burros on the hill in the background

After lunch, the winds died down and they had a nice paddle back. The tour lasted nearly four hours and they covered 5.9 miles! Donna’s feeling it today.

Today I tackled a project on my “to do” list. Our Dometic 320 RV toilet has had an intermittent leak. A few drops of water come out by the foot-operated flush valve from time to time. Earlier, I checked the manual for the toilet to see what parts are involved with the flush valve and found an interesting note in the manual. The note addressed two common complaints.

The first note regarded the toilet bowl not holding water. It said the first thing to do was to shut off the water supply, then hold the toilet bowl drain valve open with your foot. With a gloved hand they recommended using your finger to push the seal and seat it.

We had this problem a few weeks ago, so I did the recommended procedure and found a build up of minerals deposited under the seal. With my finger I was able to push the deposits away from the seal and it worked – the toilet held water again.

The second part of the note addressed water dripping from the water supply valve at the foot-operated lever. It showed how the water valve is a cartridge-type set-up with a piston that opens the valve to allow water to flow into the toilet when you step on the foot lever.

I found a replacement cartridge at Dyersonline.com. Dyers carries many lines of genuine Dometic replacement parts. I’d ordered awning parts from them in the past. They have a warehouse in Anthem – only a few miles away from Pleasant Harbor. I called them and was told no in-person sales at the warehouse were permitted due to covid-19 restrictions. I had to pay for FedEx delivery. Oh well, at least I got the part.

At first I thought I would have to remove the entire toilet to access the cartridge, but after looking it over and seeing how it was fastened, I went for it with the toilet in place.

The cartridge has two plastic springs that catch in slots on the housing. This loosely holds the cartridge in place, then two screws anchor it to the housing. The cartridge kit included new screws and a hose clamp for the hose running from the valve into the toilet.

The first thing I had to do was to release the water supply line from the elbow at the cartridge water inlet. I used pex tubing when I installed the toilet and used Shark Bite fittings. These are clever arrangements. The Shark Bite uses a horseshoe-shaped device that fits over the tubing for disassembly. Pushing the device against the fitting while pulling on the tube releases it. Ingenious! To reassemble, you simply push the pex tubing back into the Shark Bite fitting and it locks in place with a water-tight seal.

While I was removing the old cartridge, I think I uncovered the root of the problem. The toilet had been assembled at the factory with only one screw holding the cartridge in place. With only one corner of the cartridge firmly screwed down, it was relying on the spring clips to hold it. I think this may have allowed the cartridge to cock slightly when pressure was applied to the foot lever as it contacted the piston. This, in turn, put a side thrust force on the piston which may have cocked it in its bore and broke the seal at times.

I reassembled it with two screws – one on the upper left and one on the lower right as designed. Job done! It seems Dometic knows the failure modes of their toilets!

Yesterday, Donna whipped up her mojo marinade before we set off for her kayaking adventure. When I returned from dropping her off, I put the now cooled marinade into a sealed bag with a pork tenderloin. Last night, Donna grilled it and served it with sweet potato French fries and asparagus. Another nutritious, delicious meal and we’ll be enjoying leftover mojo pork tacos for lunch!

Mojo marinade pork tenderloin with asparagus and sweet potato fries

The hot weather continues with daily highs in the upper 90s. The forecast calls for another week of the same before we cool off to a more normal high in the low to mid 80s.

Wild Burros

Donna registered for a guided kayak tour from Lake Pleasant Regional Park – she’ll take her kayak out on the lake next Friday with a park ranger leading a group of up to 10 people. Lake Pleasant Regional Park is operated by Maricopa County Parks and Recreation. The park is an area of about 23,000 acres – 7,500 to 10,000 acres are covered by the lake. Lake Pleasant is a pleasing name, but it may not be what you think. It’s named after the Carl Pleasant dam which was completed in 1927 and formed the lake from inflow of the Agua Fria River.

There are fees associated with entry to the park. Donna decided to purchase an annual Regional Park Pass – she’ll use it here and also when we are in Mesa to enter Usery Regional Park. So we drove the Midget west on Carefree Highway to North Castle Hot Springs Road and the entrance to the park. Once Donna paid for the pass, we drove in and took a look around.

Our first stop was at the Scorpion Bay Marina parking area. From the parking lot, you get a great view of the lake and marina. It’s a bit of a hike to get down to the marina, but they also have two inclined lifts that can hold about four people or a couple of people and gear to get down and up from the marina.

Scorpion Bay Marina – stairs between two inclined lift tracks

I was surprised at the number of large boats in the marina. The building at the end of the dock is Scorpion Bay Grill – Donna and I plan to eat there in the near future.

As we were leaving the parking area, we saw wild burros.

I pulled off of the pavement and Donna shot a couple of photos.

They didn’t want to hang around while Donna photographed them

Donna wanted to check out some of the hiking trails, so we took a car tour of the park. Between Sunset Ridge and the Bobcat Day Use area, we found a huge boat ramp. The sign says 10-lane boat ramp, but it looks larger than 10 lanes to me. It’s also a long, fairly steep run from the parking area to the water.

We’ve had nocturnal visits from wild burros at least three times this week. Yesterday, I saw one of the park maintenance guys scooping donkey droppings and I figured out why they are coming into the RV park. We have a grassy park with a pavilion between the RV sites and the clubhouse/pool area. The burros are feeding on the green grass at night when no one is around.

Last night, Donna prepared a new dish – it was called melted broccoli pasta and she served it with shrimp grilled on the Weber Q.

I had a really interesting contact on ham radio Wednesday evening. I could hear a conversation between two people with a strong signals on both ends. I was operating on the 40-meter band, which is useful for long-range contacts of 300 miles up to 5,000+ miles. After listening for a few minutes, I found that one end of the conversation was coming from Henderson, Nevada. The other guy was in Peoria, Arizona – less than 10 miles away from me! This doesn’t usually work on 40 meters – the signal skips over near locations as it reflects off of the ionosphere.

I was able to join the conversation, then the Henderson contact had to break away and we were joined by a guy in Del Mar, California. It was a fun contact and I enjoyed the conversation. Today I’m expecting a delivery – I’m going to replace my MFJ 2289 high frequency antenna with something new. When I bought my radio gear, I really tried to learn about which radio would be the right choice for me and I think I did well. But, I should have paid more attention to antenna theory and design. A lot of the old-timers have advised to spend money on the antenna – that’s where the performance is. Well, live and learn – I should have spent the antenna money once – instead I keep replacing them with the next best thing as I learn.

Today should be the first day we have a high temperature in double digits. It’s been 100+ degrees every afternoon since we arrived. Today’s forecast calls for a high of 91 degrees and we should see low to mid-90s for the next couple of weeks. We joke about dry heat, but really at 10 to 20% humidity, 90 degrees doesn’t feel too bad.

Upriver With a Paddle

In my last post, I mentioned the weather forecast called for cooler weather by the end of the week. Maybe that was wishful thinking. Okay, it was “only” 84 degrees on Thursday, but the rest of the week was 90 degrees or higher.

I also mentioned interference I was experiencing on High Frequency (HF) ham radio bands. I figured it out – it was mostly operator error. I partly blame it on the weird nomenclature Yaesu uses. My radio, a Yaesu 991a, has a feature they call IPO – intercept point optimization. After reading the manual again, I finally figured out this was a confusing term for preamplfiers.

Preampliers boost the signal before it’s decoded and amplified by the rest of the circuits. The thing is, if you boost the raw signal, you also boost any noise or interference. I had this circuit set to Amp1 which boosts the signal 10dB – raising the noise floor. Then I was trying to use Digital Noise Reduction to suppress the noise. I was fighting myself. By turning IPO off, the noise was greatly reduced.

I’ll mention one more thing regarding ham radio before your eyes glaze over. I was on the radio with two guys in Las Vegas – one of them was actually in Henderson. These guys, Scotty and Andrew, had elaborate radio set-ups and were talking to each other and inviting others to join in the conversation. I conversed with them briefly and I should quit complaining about the hot weather. They told me it hit 115 degrees on Thursday and was 113 at 6pm when we talked. They also said the hot weather was compounded by smoke and ash from the California wildfires.

There are several wildfires burning in California right now. The central coast has several large fires as does the northern part of the state. There are also fires in southern California, but I don’t think they’re as large as the northern and central coast fires.

On Thursday, Donna rode her bicycle down to Lake Couer d’Alene. There are many good, paved bike paths in the area. She locked her bike at the marina where the trailhead for Tubbs Hill Trail is. She hiked the trail in a counter-clockwise loop. She read it is a two-mile hike and rated as easy. But she found it had hills and seemed longer than two miles! Here are some of her pictures from the hike.

Thursday evening, Donna prepared southwest chicken breasts. They were spicy! They were good, but next time she decided she should add a dollop of sour cream to the serving.

Southwest chicken and sauteed zucchini with cotija cheese

On Friday, we met up with Jim and Cindy Birditt. We made plans the night before to meet at “The Mudhole” in the Priest River Recreation Area. We loaded the Sea Eagle SE370 inflatable kayak in Midget-San and headed out around 9:45am and drove up to Priest River. It’s a nice drive through farmland and pine forest.

Jim and Cindy had just arrived before we got there around 10:45am. Jim unloaded his hard-shell kayaks while we inflated and assembled the Sea Eagle. It looked to be a near perfect day for kayaking. The boat ramp is at the mouth of Priest River right where it drains into the Pend Oreille River. Priest River was flowing slowly – just right for an upriver jaunt.

The back of Donna’s head as we started out

The riverfront properties have some beautiful homes. But it also has some waterfront property with minimal development – we saw several places where the only dwellings were RVs. There were a couple of apparently abandoned or unoccupied dwellings too. As we paddled upriver, eventually, the waterfront homes dwindled then disappeared altogether once the river became too shallow to be navigable by powerboats.

No more visible homes – our turn-around point was the bend straight ahead

We saw an osprey – it landed in a tree top near us and began calling. As we came downstream, we saw a bald eagle overhead, then we saw two more. I snapped a couple of photos of nice riverfront homes – I wonder if these are summer homes.

I was too far away to get a good shot of the second home – a cabin-like structure with a water feature with two waterfalls. It looks more like a resort lodge than a home.

We cruised easily back downriver aided by the slow current. The current was somewhat offset by a headwind, but it was a great day to be paddling on the river. By the time we got back to the boat ramp, it was past noon and really heating up.

We loaded our gear and followed Jim and Cindy to the west side of town where the Ranch Club restaurant is located at the golf course. We had lunch outside on the patio and sat and talked for a couple of hours.

Jim and Cindy had burgers – they had several variations of burgers on the menu. Donna had a cobb salad and I opted for the daily special. The daily special was fish and chips made with steelhead trout. This was something I’d never had before and I wanted to try it. We’ve grilled steelhead several times, but I hadn’t tried it battered and fried.

Steelhead trout are native to the west coast of North America, although they have been introduced elsewhere. A steelhead trout is a fresh water rainbow trout that migrates to the ocean and grows to a large size in the salt water. It then returns to fresh water streams to spawn. Steelhead can live up to 11 years and spawn multiple times. A rainbow trout that remains in fresh water for its lifetime is just that – a rainbow trout. Rainbow trout that migrate and become steelhead are generally larger – they can weigh up to 55 lbs – and less colorful than their freshwater brethren.

Awhile back, a guy from Michigan insisted that they had steelhead in streams “back home.” I have to differ – if a rainbow trout never enters a salt water ocean, it isn’t a steelhead. I don’t believe a rainbow trout from a Michigan stream will go to the ocean and return.

I was a little disappointed in the fish plate – it was battered heavier than I prefer. The chips were outstanding though.

We’ve extended our stay here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge until the end of the month. That means I’ll have to pack up and hit the dump station soon – I don’t want to risk overloading the gray water tank before we leave. The weather guessers now say we’ll see 80 degrees today before we’re back in the mid to upper 80s for the rest of the weekend. Long range they say we’ll be in the 70s by the end of the month.

14 Years Later

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. For some reason that I can’t explain, Americans tend to make a big deal out of it and declare it a party day. Donna and I always have good reason to celebrate Cinco de Mayo – 14 years ago I married Donna on the fifth day of May. Our 14th anniversary means we’ve spent more than half of our marriage on the road!

We started off Cinco de Mayo with a great breakfast dish – fried egg tacos with chili jam. The chili jam is a sweet and spicy condiment Donna made that was very tasty. The fried egg is served over a warm tortilla coated with Greek yogurt.

In the early afternoon, I loaded our Sea Eagle 370 two-seat inflatable kayak in Midget-San. Yes, you can fit a two-seat kayak in a Midget if you pack carefully.

The only issue was the oars. Even broken down into two sections, they were too long to fit in the trunk – I mean boot.

Paddles behind the seats – without these we would be up the creek…

We drove out on AZ260 into the Apache National Forest up to the village of Greer. Greer is a little tourist village with mostly rental or vacation cabins. It’s a well-kept area where most of the buildings are log cabins with colorful metal roofs. The attraction to the area is fishing, hiking and Sunrise Park ski resort.

We went there to check out the Greer Lakes. Greer Lakes are a series of reservoirs, Bunch, Tunnel and River, fed by the Little Colorado River. The Little Colorado originates in this area and is a tributary of the Colorado River. It flows 340 miles from the White Mountains to the Grand Canyon near Desert View where it joins the Colorado River.

Going southbound into the village, we missed the turnoff for the reservoirs. There wasn’t good signage and we couldn’t see the water from that direction. After driving through the village, we realized we must have missed the turn and backtracked. Northbound on the highway, we saw one of the reservoirs and drove into the recreation area.

We found boat ramps at all three of the reservoirs, but decided not to unload the kayak since it was windy, and because the reservoirs were fairly small and the shoreline mostly uninteresting.

View from the boat ramp at Tunnel Reservoir

After looking around we headed back to Springerville RV Park. This RV park is fairly small with 50 sites, 14 of them are long pull-throughs. I don’t think there have been more than a dozen sites occupied in the time we’ve spent here. It seems like most people are only here for a night or two.

After we returned from Greer, I met one of our neighbors. He and his wife are from Texas and spend several months each year traveling in their Foretravel IH45 motorhome. Foretravel motorhomes are very high-end. I have to admit to a little coach envy looking at his 45-foot coach. He said he bought it three years ago to replace another Foretravel he had. After they bought it, they drove from Texas to Alaska and back. He put over 40,000 miles on it in three years in part-time traveling! It took us nearly six years of full-time traveling to hit 40,000 miles in our Alpine Coach.

If you closely at the photos, you can see the radiused corners of the sildes instead of the usual square corners. This is because the coach is equipped with pneumatic seals on the slides. Once the slides are put out, the seal inflates and provides an airtight fit. When you retract the slides, the seals deflate and the slides are pulled in. Nice!

We usually dine out on our anniversary, but no restaurants were open for dining in, only take out. We called in an order for takeout at Booga Red’s – a restaurant in Springerville. Donna had a two-chicken and cheese enchilada with verde sauce plate with whole beans and rice. I had a combination plate with one chicken enchilada with verde sauce and one shredded beef enchilada with red sauce, refried beans and rice. It was good and I wouldn’t hesitate to eat there again. They included a large bag of tortilla chips and salsa with the order.

This morning, I took the car cover off Midget-San and put the paddles behind the seats again. (We left the boot packed upon our return from Greer yesterday.) We headed out on US191 toward Nutrioso and parked at Nelson Reservoir on the west side of the highway. It was a bit breezy, but we set up the kayak and gave it a go.

We hugged the west shoreline to avoid the stronger wind coming from the south on the open water. We paddled south for about 25 minutes.

Looking across the reservoir east toward US191

Nelson Reservoir is about a mile long – we didn’t paddle the full length. Going into the wind was a little tough, but we thought we would have an easy cruise back to the boat ramp. It wasn’t that easy. It took just as much work to get back. The wind kept pushing us off course and we had to make corrections every minute or two. But it was fun and good exercise.

The weather is unusually hot here – we should see a high of 84 today. But that’s better than the 102 degrees forecast for Mesa, Arizona where we were five days ago. The forecast here calls for more normal highs in the low to mid-70s by the weekend. Most days have been windy with sudden gusts. The 10-day forecast calls for winds over 15mph each day.

Dragon Boats on the Bay

It’s already time to turn another page on the calendar. Goodbye, September. Hello, October. We’ve been in San Diego for a week and it went by fast. We had some things to take care of – Donna and I both had dental appointments on Wednesday, We got an hour and a half of pickleball in on Thursday at the Pacific Beach Recreation Center. I had to leave by 11:30am because I had scheduled an appointment to have an estimate for new slide toppers at noon.

Last year I wanted to replace the slide topper on one of our bedroom slides. It was showing wear and tear and I had made a repair to a small hole in it. I had a quote from Shade Pro while we were here, but I didn’t realize how reasonable their price was. The slide topper is a fabric covering on a roller that attaches to the outside of the coach and extends over the slide-out when it is put out. It keeps debris and rain water from collecting on the top of the room slide. I didn’t have the topper replaced last year.

When we were in Mesa, Arizona, I had two guys give me quotes on the replacement. That’s when I realized I should have had done it here in San Diego. One of the guys in Mesa couldn’t get the proper fabric for it. The other guy said he would have to order the fabric from Dometic and it would be over $400 for parts plus another $200 or so in labor. Shade Pro has a shop here in San Diego – Spring Valley actually – where they custom-make the fabric for toppers and awnings. They offer both high-quality acrylic material in a variety of colors or lower cost vinyl toppers. They quoted $189 for materials for high-quality acrylic fabric matching the color of our current toppers.

When Rich from Shade Pro came out on Thursday, I told him I wanted a quote to replace all three slide toppers. The living room slide is 16-feet long and that topper was more expensive. The price quoted was $189 for materials for each bedroom slide and $239 for the living room slide. Installation for all three was $240. Total price for all three – $857 plus tax. Way better than spending about $600 for one! I told Rich I wanted to go for it. He asked, “Will you be here tomorrow?” I said yes and he said he could be back between 11am and 1pm to do the work. I was surprised they would have the toppers made up that fast. He said he would call the order in and the shop would have the fabric ready to go by the morning.

Over the summer, we encountered numerous thunderstorms including high winds at times. A tear started in the bedroom slide topper and somewhere in Colorado it shredded. The other two toppers were beginning to rip at the seam where they join the metal casing on the coach.

Torn bedroom slide topper – looks like a bird added insult to injury

Donna had a lunch appointment in Old Town on Friday and I stayed home for the installation of the toppers. Rich showed up a little past noon and went to work. The large living room slide was stubborn and he spent about an hour removing the old fabric and installing the new one. The smaller bedroom slides were easier and he spent about 20 minutes on each one.

New Shade Pro slide topper

I’m really happy with the results and would recommend Shade Pro if you’re in southern California. They have added service in Yuma, Tucson and Phoenix too, although it may take a day or two to get the fabric there.

My high school buddy Gary Stemple invited us to go for a boat ride on Saturday. He picked us up here at De Anza Cove around 2:30pm. He had a center console type fishing boat about 22 feet long from Freedom Boat Club. We cruised to the south side of the Hilton Hotel where an event was being held. It was the 9th annual dragon boat races at Tecolote Shores Park.

Dragon boat enthusiasts at Tecolote Shores

Dragon boats are canoe shaped vessels with dragon heads on the bow. They seat eight to a dozen or more paddlers, a tillerman and a coxswain that usually beats a drum for cadence. They were racing four boats at a time in various categories – women’s teams, men’s teams and mixed. It’s a real workout as they paddle furiously – especially with the windy conditions Saturday afternoon.

Dragon boats on the bay

We cruised over to the Freedom Boat Club at Dana Landing. They were hosting a party with food and drink on the grass. It was a fun afternoon. It made me think of something I read somewhere – The ocean is my potion, I’m getting my vitamin sea. We’re happy to be back in San Diego.

Sea Lion near Dana Landing

Donna’s sister Sheila picked her up Sunday morning. They took the Sea Eagle kayak to Shelter Island and paddled on San Diego Bay. When they returned in the afternoon, Donna put the Sea Eagle back in the trailer and retrieved our Weber Q grill. They hauled the grill to our site in Sheila’s SUV. That’s one hassle about Mission Bay RV Resort – we have to leave our trailer in the lot outside of the RV park and shuttle gear back and forth.

Donna roasted a turkey breast from Sprouts on the grill along with shishito peppers and delicata squash. The delicata squash has a thin skin that can be eaten – you don’t have to scoop the meat out of the skin.

Grilled turkey breast, shishito peppers and delicata squash

The weather has been a little unusual. The daily highs have been in the low to mid 70s and it only cools to the mid 60s at night. The humidity level is higher than usual – around 70%. I think this is an effect of Hurricane Rosa to the south. High surf is expected over the next couple of days. Yesterday the temperature hit 80 degrees and we should see upper 80s today with an overnight low of 70 degrees. We might need air conditioners today!

Good Times…Bad Times

Donna and I rode the Spyder into town on Monday. We parked by the Department of Public Safety across from Watkins Glen State Park. Everyone told us we had to hike the Gorge Trail there.

The Gorge at Watkins Glen State Park was created through erosion of the mostly soft shale stone. There are some areas of harder limestone and sandstone, but the geology is mostly shale. Glen Creek cut the shale and formed the 400-foot deep gorge. The gorge is narrow and the trail takes you along the creek. This is the famous Gorge Trail. We hiked it from bottom to top and back – the bottom entrance is right in the village while the top entrance is in a forested area. You can hike it either direction. There are more than 800 steps made up of stone stairways on the trail.

The trail crosses the creek at a few points

There are 19 waterfalls along the trail

The trail runs underneath and behind the cascading waterfall here

Abstract view looking up from behind the waterfall

Water seeps through the shale along the trail – here it made a cut in the wall of the gorge

Pools formed in areas of harder rock – also the vegetation varies from sun-loving plants on the north side and shade-loving plants along the south wall

Stone staircase

And more steps going up

A deep pool

We came back on another trail – the Indian Trail along the north rim. Then we crossed over to the south rim on a pedestrian suspension bridge and went down Couch’s Staircase to take us back to the lower entrance. Water seeps through the shale at many areas. The trail is wet with standing water along the way. Good shoes are a must and plan to get spray in a couple of places.

View of the entrance from the top of Couch’s Staircase

Me and Donna at the bottom of Couch’s Staircase

We had hiked for about an hour and a half. There are other trails and you can certainly walk a lot longer, but we had enough. I knew my legs would feel all of the stair climbing.

Donna took the kayak out for one more run before we started packing the trailer in the afternoon. On Sunday, she had made beans and greens with the beet greens she bought at the farmers’ market and crabcakes with the lump blue crab meat she bought in Abbeville, Louisiana. On Monday night, she served the leftover crabcakes on a toasted ciabatta roll with tartar sauce.

Beans and greens with crabcake

That was the good time. We pulled out of Watkins Glen around 10:45am Tuesday morning.

We weren’t in much of a hurry. We only planned to go as far as Cobleskill and spend the night at the Elks Lodge there. Coming out of Watkins Glen on highway 79, we immediately pulled up a long, steep grade to the village of Burdett. Our coolant temperature ran up to 200 degrees on the climb. It’s not unusual to see temperatures of 195-200 on a hard climb. What was unusual was how long it took to cool back to a more normal operating temperature.

Soon I found the temperature climbing alarmingly on some of the grades. The Finger Lakes region is very hilly. It got progressively worse as we went. FInally, on one grade, I had to pull onto the shoulder and stop to let the engine cool. I checked the coolant level and radiator but didn’t see anything out of sorts.

I began to think maybe we had a stuck thermostat that was restricting the flow of coolant. We limped our way up the grades moving slowly on the shoulder of the highway to avoid overheating.

We were in the rural southern tier of New York. I managed to find a truck repair shop off the beaten path. I was concerned about turning down the street the GPS showed as the location – it was a narrow farm road. I called the shop on the phone and they told me I was on the right street and I could get turned around at their place.

It turned out be a small shop where the proprietor mostly worked on farm equipment. After checking things over, he told me my radiator fan was the problem. After shutting the engine off, the fan didn’t run when I restarted the engine. He crawled underneath and gave the fan blades a push. The fan started running, but I was pretty sure it was running too slowly. He pinched off the bypass line to see if fluid was bypassing the motor – it wasn’t.

The fan is turned by a hydraulic motor. A hydraulic pump on the engine forces fluid through the turbine of the hydraulic motor, spinning the fan blades. He thought the problem was either the pump or the motor. I didn’t think it was the pump. The pump provides hydraulic pressure for three lines – the fan motor, the power steering and the ABS brakes. I didn’t have any trouble with the steering or brakes, only the fan.

Each of the three systems supplied by the hydraulic pump have a filter in the line. It’s possible the filter for the fan motor line is plugged or I have a bad fan motor.

After he got the fan turning, he thought we’d be okay to go. But if I shut off the engine I would probably have to go underneath and prod the fan to get it going again. We got back on the road.

We went east on Highway 206 through the village of Greene, New York. Then we climbed again and immediately overheated. The fan was turning too slowly. I limped along on the narrow shoulder – it wasn’t wide enough for the coach and there wasn’t any place where we could safely stop. Eventually we saw a sign for a roadside parking area. It turned out to be on the north side of the highway and was little more than a long turnout. It was 4pm by then.

We decided to sit tight and spend the night. A county Sheriff’s Deputy stopped next to us after a while. Donna talked to him and he said it was fine for us to stay overnight. This morning, we weighed our options. I started the engine and checked the fan – no go. It wasn’t turning and I had no reason to believe it would be any better than yesterday. We decided it was too dangerous to carry on.

We’re now waiting for Coach-Net to arrange a tow of our rig and trailer to Binghamton where there’s a truck repair shop. Yesterday was the bad time.

Grist Iron and Two Goats

On Friday afternoon, Donna and I rode the Spyder up highway 414 on the east side of Seneca Lake past several wineries. We stopped at Grist Iron Brewing for a cold one. This is a very nice brew pub in an awesome setting. They have a great view of the lake, large grounds and an inn with 14 rooms. Their brewmaster has to be one busy guy – they only have a 15-barrel system and half a dozen fermenters. Four of the fermenters are 30-barrel, so they can ferment double batches. Even a double batch only results in 50 kegs of beer or so. Their beer is sold at some of the restaurants and bars in the area, so that’s not a lot of volume to meet demand.

Restroom signage at Grist Iron Brewing

Their property is located on the east side of the highway but it still gives a nice view of the lake

Pond and lake view from Grist Iron Brewing

We chatted with one of the bartenders for a while, then we rode a few miles up the road to Two Goats Brewing. This brewery is on the west side of the highway. Their brew system is only half the size of Grist Iron – 7.5 barrels. Somehow they manage to keep six to eight different beer styles on tap. The view from the deck behind their small pub is grapevines and Seneca Lake.

View from the deck at Two Goats Brewing

Looking across the vineyards at the lake reminded me of terraced vineyards in the Cinque Terre region of Italy, overlooking the Ligurian Sea.

On the ride back to Watkins Glen, I pulled over and shot a photo of Hector Falls – it’s right next to the highway.

Hector Falls

We rode into town to the farmers’ market at Lafayette Park. It’s too early in the season though – there were only half a dozen booths there. Donna bought beet greens there – she’s planning to make beans and greens with crab cakes for dinner tonight.

On Saturday, the water looked calm, so Donna got the Sea Eagle kayak out of the trailer. She’s become proficient at setting it up and putting the cart together to get it to the water. She took it to the canal and paddled up the Barge Canal to Glen Creek. I stayed back at the coach and watched the qualifying for the Formula One Grand Prix of Canada.

For dinner, Donna rubbed skin-on bone-in chicken thighs with a mixture of olive oil and chopped garlic, rosemary, basil, and thyme and I grilled them in the evening. I have to say, they came out darn near perfect. The skin was crispy and the meat tender and moist at an internal temperature of 165 degrees – I used an instant read meat thermometer.

This morning Donna is out for a quick spin on her bike. Later, her old college roommate, Kathy Romans Shay, is coming down from Canandaiga with her daughters. They plan to go out for brunch at the Stonecat Cafe. I’ll be watching the Formula One race.

Sunset over the south end of Seneca Lake

We’ve had nice weather with the temperature reaching the mid- to upper 70s the past couple of days. When clouds block the sun, it sure feels cooler than that though. The forecast for the next couple of days calls for warm temperatures – near 80. We’ll pull out of Watkins Glen on Tuesday.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to 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!

Buffalo Trace

Our week in Nashville flew by. We pulled out of Grand Ole RV Park Thursday morning and were on the road by 9:15am. Our route took us up I-65 to Elizabethtown where we cut east on the Bluegrass Highway. The road surfaces were good. There were a lot of tractor-trailer rigs on I-65 heading to and from Louisville. Southern Kentucky has a lot of brown signs on I-65 indicating points of interest – mostly parks with caverns and museums. Apparently the limestone in the area is conducive to the formation of caves.

We stopped at the Pilot Travel Center at exit 86 on I-65 before we hit the Blugrass Highway. I topped up the tank with 60 gallons of diesel. Fuel prices have been on the rise and I paid $3.11/gallon. Our next stop was at Walmart on US127 in Lawrenceburg. Donna went in to get a couple of thigs while I ordered a Subway sandwich for a late lunch. I had a mishap in the parking lot there. Although the parking lot didn’t have trees, which are my usual obstacle in Walmart lots, this one had concrete islands with high curbs at the end of each row. I picked what looked to be the widest opening and went for it. There was a metal stop sign right at the edge of the island. I scraped the trailer on the edge of the stop sign. Arrgh!

We made our way to the Still Waters Campground. Check-in was a little different. No computers. The owners live onsite and do everything the old fashioned way – hand written receipts and journal entries. The guy that took us to our site (on a riding mower!) brought us in from the wrong direction – there was no way I would be able to back the trailer into the site. He had me loop around on the lawn and enter the site from the rear – making it a pull-through. Before I could get all the way in, a branch had to removed from one the trees lining the site. We were finally ready to set up around 3:30pm.

Donna made a quick and easy meal for dinner – just the thing on a travel day. She made a skillet meal of sweet Italian chicken sausage, cherry tomatoes, and asparagus and served it over whole wheat penne and pesto. It was a savory, hearty meal.

Skillet Italian chicken sausage with tomatoes and asparagus

On Friday morning, I got the Spyder out and we rode into town to the Buffalo Trace Distillery. We arrived just in time for the 9am tour. I had read about their tours online – they have five different tours. The Trace Tour runs every hour from 9am to 4pm Monday through Saturday, noon to 3pm on Sunday. Their site says “walk-ins welcome, no reservation required.” It’s a tour that gives background on making bourbon and the history of the distillery. It includes walks through barrel-aging warehouses and one of the bottling operations.

The other four tours are more specific to a certain aspect of the distillery. I wanted to take the Hard Hat Tour which takes you through the mash and distillation process. But, I didn’t notice that all of the tours except the Trace Tour require reservations. By the time I realized it on Thursday, they were all booked. All of the tours are free.

This distillery has the distinction of being the oldest continuously running distillery in America. The distillery was built by Harrison Blanton in 1812. The Prohibition era from 1920 to 1933 closed all but a few distilleries. Buffalo Trace Distillery was known as the George T. Stagg Distillery at the time and was granted an exemption to distill whiskey for medicinal purposes. During prohibition, pharmacies carried small amounts of whiskey which could only be obtained with a doctor’s prescription. Thus the distillery never shut down.

The distillery is on the bank of the Kentucky River and the property is beautiful with manicured lawns, gardens and brick buildings dating back to the 1800s. The rest of this post is photo-heavy – I took lots of pictures at the distillery.

Donna at the visitor center and gift shop

An old pot still used for small experimental batches – I know someone who’d like to have this

One of several barrel-aging warehouses – barrel elevator at the top floor

An interesting thing I learned is why barrels are… well, barrel-shaped. When filled with whiskey, the barrels weigh about 550 pounds. If the barrels were made with straight sides like a 55-gallon drum, they would be hard to handle and maneuver around. With the barrel shape and convex sides, when the barrel is on its side, it only has a small contact area. It can easily be spun or turned. If the barrel is rolled onto a track – much like a narrow-gauge train track – it will roll along and follow the track. That’s how they transport barrels from building to building here. The tracks have a slight slope to let gravity roll the barrel from one building to the next. They also have elevators to raise the barrels to different floors of the buildings.

Barrel Crossing

Buffalo Trace distills a number of whiskey brands. The interesting thing is they only have three grain bill recipes for their bourbon. Grain bill number one is used for Buffalo Trace Bourbon and Eagle Rare and a few others. The difference between Buffalo Trace Bourbon and Eagle Rare comes from the amount of time it’s aged and the placement of the barrel during aging. Whiskeys that are bottled young are aged in the top floors of the barrel buildings where the temperature fluctuation is the greatest. More expensive whiskeys are aged on the lower floors and closer to the center of the building. The actual recipes are secret, but I’ve heard grain bill number one is 70% corn, about 15% rye and the balance barley. Grain bill number two is also corn, rye and barley but in different percentages – it’s used to make Blanton’s. Grain bill number three is used to make Pappy Van Winkle’s and is corn, wheat and barley.

The barrels have bar codes and information stamped on them. This one was filled in May of 2014

This barrel has been aging since May of 2007 – probably a third of the contents have evaporated by now

This barrel contains an experimental recipe

As the barrels age, some evaporation occurs. Water escapes as the water molecules are small enough to pass through the wood barrel through osmosis. The alcohol molecules are larger and remain in the barrel. So the percentage of alcohol in the barrel increases over time.

Next we went to one of the bottling stations

The premium whiskeys produced by Buffalo Trace are bottled and labeled by hand. The barrel of whisky is dumped into a trough. A sample is taken to determine the alcohol content of the barrel. Water is added to reach the desired alcohol content, then the whiskey flows to the bottler.

Filling bottles of Blanton’s Single Barrel whiskey

You can thank the Blanton’s brand for creating the popular single-barrel whiskey niche. They started it in 1984 and now it’s the craze. Most bourbons are made by blending several different barrels of whiskey together to create a consistent flavor profile. Each bottle of Blantons is filled with whiskey from a single barrel. The label has the barrel number hand written along with warehouse designation and storage rick on the label. It also has the date the barrel was dumped.

Capping Blanton’s by hand

Applying the labels

Bagging and boxing Blanton’s

They had two lines bottling Blanton’s. One of the women working the line told me they box 350 cases per shift, six bottles to a case. That’s 2,100 bottles per line and they run two shifts per day – 8,400 bottles. They can’t keep up with demand though. The problem comes from aging. Who knew nine years ago that the single-barrel Blanton’s would become so popular? If they had a crystal ball, they would have made more of it back then so it would be good to go now.

They produce 18 different spirits at Buffalo Trace. One of them is Pappy Van Winkle’s. For many bourbon connoisseurs, 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s is the holy grail. They only bottle and release it once a year in November. People pay crazy prices for it and often have to be drawn through a lottery to obtain a bottle.

Some of the different liquors made here

Bottle on the right is the Holy Grail – 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s

They have a special place to commemorate every millionth barrel filled since prohibition. Right now barrel number seven million is aging in this place of honor.

The glass wall made the photo ghostly

The tour ended around 10:30am with a complimentary tasting. I tried the White Dog which is basically moonshine – it’s liquor that hasn’t been barrel-aged. It was awful. Then I had Eagle Rare in my right hand and Buffalo Trace Bourbon in my left hand for a comparison taste. Both are superb. We finished with a chocolate bourbon ball with a pecan on top and a shot of bourbon cream with a dash of root beer. Delicious.

Before we left, we dropped some cash in the gift shop. We bought chocolate bourbon balls, Buffalo Trace bourbon and I had to grab a bottle of Blanton’s Single Barrel. It’s way pricier than I would usually spend on bourbon, but I got caught up in the hype.

My bottle of Blanton’s – barrel dumped May 16, 2018 from barrel number 178, warehouse H rick number 30

Of course, I had to add a Buffalo Trace T-shirt while I was at it.

Later in the afternoon, I got the Sea Eagle kayak out and we rolled it down to Elkhorn Creek on the kayak carrier. Donna paddled up the slow moving creek and had a look around. I saw a water snake as we were launching the kayak – harmless. And Donna didn’t see anything scary other than a couple of cows drinking from the muddy river.

Donna on Elkhorn Creek

Donna prepared another quick and easy meal last night. She made a new dish she’s calling Skillet Taco Turkey & Black Beans with Cauliflower Rice. Healthy and scrumptious.

Skillet taco turkey dish

Tomorrow is Donna’s birthday. We are postponing her usual birthday dinner out due to the lack of a suitable restaurant open on Sunday in the area. We’ll probably find something in Lexington in a few days. We’re booked here through Tuesday. Hopefully the weather holds out, but the forecast calls for a strong possibility of thunder showers today and tomorrow.

Hats Off to Hattiesburg Elks

We had a great weekend here at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Elks Lodge. On Friday night, we went to the lodge for the steak dinner. It was interesting. They had a list of names for people that had made reservations. When we checked in, we were led to the kitchen where we found a large baggie with two 14-ounce rib eye steaks with our names on it. From there we took the baggie to a table that had a variety of marinades and seasonings. I seasoned our steaks and put them on another table to rest.

We went out on the patio to see what was happening. They had two large barbeque grills fired up with charcoal. A few guys were already grilling. After twenty minutes or so, I retrieved our steaks and put them on the grill. Utensils were provided and the fire was hot. I had the steaks done in no time. Back in the kitchen, they had plates and a table with tossed salad, dressings and also baked potatoes and butter, sour cream, bacon bits and grated cheese. We filled our plates and found a seat at a shared table in the ballroom. The people were all very friendly and we enjoyed the meal and company.

On Saturday morning, we got the Sea Eagle kayak out of the trailer and inflated it. Donna took it out for cruise around the lake. It was a little windy, but she didn’t have any problems.

Donna heading out on the lake

We’ve had a daily visitor since he welcomed us when we set up here. We call him Mr. Mallard. It’s a mallard drake that comes into our site and follows us around like a little puppy.

Mr. Mallard

On Saturday night, we grilled garlic and herb marinated chicken and dined al fresco at the picnic table. It was pleasant out. Donna served it with zucchini that Jamie gave us fresh from the garden when we were in Texas. Donna also made wild pecan rice from Konriko in New Iberia.

Garlic and herb chicken with grilled zucchini and rice

After dinner I sat in a camp chair on the bank of the lake with a glass of Scotch and a cigar while Donna paddled the kayak on the glass smooth lake. After Donna came in from her paddle we sat outside past sunset. We saw a large snake swim out of the cove by our site and cross in front of us. I can’t be 100% certain since it wasn’t light enough to get a real good look, but I think it was a venomous water moccasin. I say that because it had a thick body that was mostly above the surface of the water as it swam. This is a difference between a venomous water moccasin and a harmless water snake – water snakes only have their head above water, the body is submerged.

Glassy lake in the evening

Earlier in the afternoon Donna went to the pool. While she was doing that, I rode the Spyder to a little store about a mile away and bought worms for fishing. I drowned a few worms and caught three small panfish – bluegills. They were too small for eating so I released them.

Sunday was more of the same. The temperature reached 90 degrees both days, but with the shade in our site and the breeze blowing across the lake it felt cooler.

Several rigs pulled into the park and set up over the weekend. Most of the people didn’t stay though. They set up their trailers, then drove off in their trucks. Lodge members can rent a site for $5/day and we were told that many people claim a site early so they can have their preferred spot for Memorial Day weekend. It’s all first-come-first-served.

Mr. Mallard didn’t make his usual appearance yesterday. I’m guessing one of the new arrivals gave him some food, so he’s hanging out somewhere else.

Today the forecast calls for record high temperature – 96 degrees. We may have a thundershower in the evening. Tomorrow looks to be hot as well. We planned to leave tomorrow and head into Alabama, but we may have to extend for a day. I’m waiting on a delivery at the post office. I’ve been tracking it and if it doesn’t arrive in time today, I’ll have to go into town tomorrow to pick it up.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Kayak

Our Transportation Evolution

Kayak, Wind and Fire

Wild Burros

Upriver With a Paddle

14 Years Later

Dragon Boats on the Bay

Good Times…Bad Times

Grist Iron and Two Goats

Buffalo Trace

Hats Off to Hattiesburg Elks

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