It didn’t take much preparation to hit the road again after boondocking at Fort Deseret. We just pulled in the slides and secured a few things before resuming our journey south on UT257. At Milford we hit UT130 south. The wind steadily increased all morning and by noon it was gusting over 30mph. I don’t enjoy driving a big rig in gusty winds and would’ve pulled off if I could. But there wasn’t any place to stop. UT130 is a narrow, two-lane highway with no shoulder. It made the drive mentally taxing. Lucky for me it was a short drive of about 140 miles.
The route was a gradual climb that steepened south of Minersville. The grade plus the headwinds had me keeping a close eye on the engine coolant temperature, but it wasn’t an issue as I manually downshifted anytime it reached 195 degrees and kept the temperature in check. We topped out at 6,570 feet above sea level, then gradually descended to Cedar City. We’re at an elevation of 5,470 feet above sea level now.
I received a text message from Iron Springs RV Park with directions to the park and it instructed me to pull into site B2 – no need to check in. We found the site and it’s 80 feet long as advertised, but quite narrow. This RV park is new and they’re still working on improvements and amenities like pickleball courts. We’re about 10 miles west of Cedar City and it’s fairly remote.
Donna took a hike Saturday afternoon on a trail that started by the lodge – I wasn’t up for much after the hard driving. At the lodge, she met an employee who told her about an interesting sight in the area. On Sunday, Donna rode her bike past Granite Mountain to the old, abandoned Western Iron Ore pit mine.
2,000 Flushes
The pit holds water that’s a deep blue color and locally it’s known as 2,000 Flushes. I read the name is derived from the color making it look like a toilet bowl full of blue cleaner. The water in the pit is toxic though – the color comes from iron and copper traces and it’s also polluted with arsenic, uranium and mercury.
This morning we took a drive to Kolob Canyons – a section of Zion National Park about 40 miles north of Zion Canyon. The Visitor Center was closed and no shuttlebuses were running. There wasn’t a ranger on duty to check passes or collect fees – I didn’t need my America the Beautiful Senior Parks Pass. We took the driving tour – a five-mile scenic drive past trailhead parking areas and scenic pull-outs. It was near mid-day so the pictures are a bit washed out – it’s much more colorful than the pictures show. Some of pictures have a bit of haze – we’re out of the heavy smoke areas, but there’s still some smoke in the air.
Start of the scenic driving tourPlacard at the turnaround lot at the top of the drive
The five-mile tour climbs all the way in and tops out over 6,000 feet above sea level. It was a pleasant drive in Midget-San with the top down.
Our neighbor here at Iron Springs RV Park has an interesting vehicle that could’ve been a workable alternative to Midget-San for us. He has a 1964 VW Beetle that’s been converted to a Baja Bug.
1964 Baja Bug
The engine is highly modified – I’m not sure of the displacement but I’m pretty sure it’s a stroker with larger pistons and cylinders.
Modified engine with dual downdraft Weber carburetors
Back in the 1970s, I had a Baja Bug with a 1959 oval window body. It was lightened and was punched out to 1790cc with dual Solex carburetors. It was a lot of fun.
I almost forgot to mention a milestone for our Alpine Coach. The odometer turned over 100,000 miles on the way here. When we bought this coach in January of 2014, it had just under 55,000 miles on it. We’ve put a little over 45,000 miles on it in nearly seven years. That’s under 7,000 miles per year.
Six figures
The temperature reached the low 80s Saturday and Sunday and it’s still a little windy. The winds should calm down tomorrow and we’ll be fine to hit the road on Wednesday. It should be a little cooler too. We’ll cross the Arizona border and spend some time in northern Arizona before heading down to Lake Pleasant.
It was time to take care of business on Monday. We’ve been here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge for 10 days and I thought I should dump our holding tanks. We’ve been careful about the amount of gray water going down the drains – taking navy showers and whatnot. The thing is, our toilet started burping.
When RVers mention a toilet burp, it probably needs some explanation. An RV toilet doesn’t operate on the same principle as a regular household toilet. RV toilets are strictly gravity flush, usually with a ball valve at the bottom of the bowl that seals the bowl when closed and simply rotates to open the drain into the black tank.
When water is suddenly dumped into the black tank, it displaces air space (headspace) in the tank. This displaced air has to go somewhere, so there’s a vent pipe that extends above the roof of the RV. When the RV is being built, a worker cuts the vent pipe to length, then passes it through the roof and down into the tank. This can cause issues – if the length isn’t measured carefully and/or if the pipe isn’t carefully inserted so a minimum amount is pushed down into the tank, the vent may not work properly.
Once the liquid level in the tank reaches the vent pipe opening, air can no longer escape easily through the vent. Now, when you flush the toilet, as the water flows through the opening, displaced air comes up through the bottom of the bowl in a bubble – thus the toilet burp. RVers usually view the toilet burp as a sign the black tank is full or nearly full. The electronic tank sensors are notoriously unreliable, but a toilet burp always means the liquid level has reached the vent pipe. The quandary is, does the vent pipe extend one-inch into the tank, meaning the tank is quite full or does the vent pipe extend three inches into the tank, meaning there is a lot of headspace left?
I think our vent pipe extends deeper into the tank than designed – I’ve had a burping toilet for two days before without an issue. But, I didn’t want to push it. So, Monday morning we packed up and secured everything, disconnected and headed to the city dump station a few miles away from here by the fairgrounds. The city dump station is free, although a donation box is there. I always leave a small donation. The facility is clean and well-maintained.
I found our gray water tank was only about half full after 10 days. It’s a 100-gallon tank, so that means we only generated about 50 gallons of gray water in 10 days. I always time the gray water when I dump. When I first open the dump valve, a solid column of gray water comes through the clear elbow on the drain fitting. The tank vent allows this solid column of water. When the liquid level drops to the tank drain opening, the solid column of water is disrupted by an ever increasing air gap in the drain elbow. I watch how long it takes for the solid column to change – the point where the tank level has reached the drain opening. I know from past experience that a full tank – when the gray water is backing up into the shower pan – takes about 3 minutes 45 seconds for the gray water level to drop to the drain opening level. This time, it took less than two minutes.
After we returned to the Elk’s Lodge and set up, we headed out to the laundromat. Without a sewer connection, we haven’t used our Splendide washer/dryer. The clothes washer is the biggest contributor to gray water. So, as I said in the beginning, Monday was a “taking care of business” day.
While we were taking care of business, our friend Gary Stemple was flying from San Diego to Couer d’Alene. Gary and I have been friends since our schoolboy days – I’ve known him for about 50 years! Gary’s mother was originally from this area and his cousin Kim lives about 20 miles south of Coeur d’Alene on the west side of the lake.
Tuesday morning we made plans to meet Gary at the dock east of the Couer d’Alene Resort. Donna made a pitcher of rum punch to go. Gary brought Kim’s boat – a Centurion Enzo SV240 – up to pick us up. The plan was for Donna and I to pick up burgers at Hudson’s – a local business that’s famous for their hamburgers. Hudson’s has been selling burgers in Coeur d’Alene since 1907 – five generations of family-owned business.
Hudson’s is right across the street from the resort on Sherman Avenue. Gary tried to call in the order, but said no one was answering the phone. He figured maybe they didn’t open until 11 am. Donna and I walked over there after parking on the east side of the resort. We found Hudson’s was closed and a handwritten sign on the door said they were closed because someone tried to burn the place down! This morning, I found an article stating that it was being treated as a crime scene after someone broke in early Tuesday morning, tried to break into an ATM machine, then set fire to the back of the restaurant.
We cruised down to Kim’s place – it’s about halfway down the length of Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Approaching Kim’s house – I inadvertently cut off half of her house on the left of the photo
We made a brief stop at her house – Kim was out on a jet ski. I made an interesting find there and got the story from her neighbor and friend Kenlee (sp?). My recollection of the whole story is a bit fuzzy – maybe the rum punch without a burger for lunch had something to do with that.
In 1956, Kim’s grandfather bought a car for her grandmother – it was a 1956 or ’57 Nash Metropolitan. When Kim was in high school and got her drivers’ license, it became her car. When Kim went off to college, a Nash Metropolitan wasn’t cool enough. So, she sold it and bought a Camaro. A couple of decades later, she tracked the car down through a couple of owners and bought it back. But it wasn’t in very good shape. She left it parked for the next 30 years or so, then recently had it brought back to good running order and it’s back on the road!
Kim’s Nash Metropolitan
Gary, Donna and I took Kim’s boat for a ride to the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene to the St. Joe River. The south end of the lake is interesting. There are numerous sand bars and you have to be vigilant and stay in the channels. Most of them are well-marked with green square marker posts and red triangular marker posts on the edges of the channels. Navigate between the red and green markers and you should be okay. We crossed under the Chatcolet Bridge Lookout where Lake Coeur d’Alene becomes split into Chatcolet Lake and Round Lake. The Chatcolet bridge is part of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes – a multi-use trail. The bridge was originally a railroad bridge.
Chatcolet Bridge Lookout
What’s really unusual is that the St. Joe River flows between the two lakes as sand bars separate it from the lakes.
Sign at the Chatcolet bridgeSt. Joe River separated from Round Lake
We cruised upriver through mostly uninhabited marshlands and woods. I expected to see a moose at every turn. We only saw a few other boaters and mostly had the river to ourselves until we neared the town of St. Maries.
Donna lounging in front of Captain Gary
As we came closer to town, houses and boat docks lined the river. Mostly it was “No wake zone” territory. We’d been out for a couple of hours at that point.
Homes on the St Joe River
We turned around and headed back.
Sign at Chatcolet Bridge heading back to Lake Coeur d’Alene
Every reference I’ve seen calls the lake “Lake Coeur d’Alene.” But the sign at the Chatcolet bridge says “Welcome to Coeur d’Alene Lake.” We cruised north on the lake to Rockford Bay where we fueled up at Black Rock Marina, then found Kim and Kenlee at Shooter’s for an adult beverage and late lunch/early dinner.
Heading back up the lake
The Centurion Enzo is a wake board boat powered by a Mercruiser Black Scorpion 330 horsepower engine – which is derived from a GM 5.7 liter V-8. Cruising at 5,000 rpm, it’s a thirsty powerplant. I think we were burning more than 5 gallons/hour.
Kim and Kenlee rode back up to the resort with us where they dropped us off and the day’s big adventure was over.
The temperature reached a high of 85 degrees, but it felt very comfortable out on the water. The forecast calls for the mid-80s to continue until the temperature drops into the low 70s on Sunday. If that holds true, it’ll be just right for prepping the trailer on Sunday for Monday’s departure. We still don’t know where we’ll end up next.
*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!
The days have flown by here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge. We’ve been active and the days have gotten past me without writing a post. I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam and I’m confident I can pass the technician exam. I’m now thinking I should also take the General exam as I think I know enough to have a chance of earning that license. The General license will give me more frequencies to work with and possibly longer range. We’ll see.
On Thursday, Donna and I took a drive up to Priest River. We wanted to visit with our friends, Jim and Cindy Birditt. Jim has been my best friend for nearly 50 years. It was a nice drive in Midget-San. We avoided the traffic on US95 and took Meyer Road up to Rathdrum where we found ID41. This took us up through Spirit Lake where we then took the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road through the woods to the Pend Oreille River. A few miles west along the river brought us to the bridge at Wisconsin Street where we crossed into the town of Priest River.
After a little communication snafu, we met up with Jim at Mi Pueblo – a Mexican restaurant in town. We’ve eaten there before and knew they had excellent fare. We sat outside at a table and talked over lunch. We left Midget-San in the Ace Hardware parking lot and rode in Jim’s truck to his place a few miles east of town. Jim built a log home here back in the ’90s – it’s somewhat remote and I didn’t want to drive Midget-San on the unpaved roads. We sat on his deck with Cindy and talked and laughed for a couple of hours. The time really flies when it’s spent with good friends. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in conversation that I never took a photo.
On the way back to Couer d’Alene, we saw two moose alongside the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road. It was a beautiful drive.
On Friday, we had plans to meet up with Dick and Roxy Zarowny who drove over from Spokane, Washington. They’re friends and fellow RVers that we met at Viewpoint RV & Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona. Roxy had been in touch with Donna and they invited us to join them for a boat ride on Lake Coeur d’Alene. They recently sold their boat, but they had reserved a rental pontoon boat to cruise around.
We drove down and parked in a public lot east of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Parking was a bit of an adventure. You pay for parking at a kiosk that only accepts credit or debit cards – no cash. For some reason, it declined my card twice. Then I tried Donna’s card and that was declined as well. The people waiting behind us then tried to pay for their space and their card was also declined! We found another kiosk on the other side of the lot and my card worked fine.
The weather when we left the dock around 10am wasn’t as expected. The day dawned with quite an overcast and the clouds were still present. It was quite breezy out on the water, but it was good to be out there nonetheless. The Coeur d’Alene Resort is on the northern shore of the lake. We cruised south toward Mica Bay. There are a number of lake houses and cabins along the shore. Some are more like mansions or resorts! Dick knew a lot about many of the more outlandish homes – who owned or built them and so on. Some are difficult to reach by car and are mostly accessed via boat from town. We saw an interesting sight at one place. It was Ford pickup truck that wasn’t where it should be.
Crashed truck
The truck was wrecked, but it didn’t appear to have rolled over. It looked to me like it came down the hillside nose first. The front end was heavily damaged as if it crashed into the rock at the water’s edge and the rear end swung around to its final resting position. It’ll be a tough job to get it out of there.
We were cruising right into the wind, so we crossed over the east side of the lake across from Twin Beaches and came around Arrow Point to get out of the wind. There was an interesting house at Arrow Point – it’s built on top of a large square rock! Dick said it’s owned by an architect.
House on a rock at Arrow Point
By noon, the clouds had mostly dissipated. We stopped and drifted and had lunch on the water. I think we were near Moscow Bay. Roxy made some excellent Mediterranean wraps. She also had tortilla chips and homemade mango salsa. Donna brought some grapes and also made molasses cookies for dessert.
“Cabins” on the lake
We came back along the north side of the lake where we saw people hiking on the Tubbs Hill trail or splashing in the water. We came past the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course. They have a floating green on one of the holes! To reach the green to putt or retrieve your ball, there’s a small boat ferry.
The floating green in the center of the photo
We came back to the dock at 2pm after a lovely day on the lake. It was very generous of Dick and Roxy to invite us out and treat us to a tour of the lake.
This morning, Donna and I hit the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market. It’s only about half a mile from the Elk’s Lodge on the southeast corner of US95 and Prairie Avenue. We’ve been to this market once before on our first visit here in 2014. It’s one of the nicest settings for a farmers’ market, being in the shade of tall pine trees. We found a few things there although we didn’t go with an intention of buying anything.
Farmers’ market in the trees
I bought locally made jalapeno-chedder sausage. They’re pre-cooked so you can just slice them for a snack or grill them if you wish. Donna found really good looking fresh green beans. We also bought some labneh – we haven’t had any since the last time we were at this market. Labneh is sort of a cheese made by straining Greek yogurt.
On the way back from the lake yesterday, we stopped and checked out the dump station at the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if I could get in and out with the trailer or if I would have to dump first, then come back and pick up the trailer. It’s plenty roomy so no worries about the trailer. We’ll have to dump our tanks before we hit the road tomorrow. We’ll stop in Winthrop, Washington for the night, then continue on to Mount Vernon where we’re booked for two weeks. Time to visit the grandkids!
The weather has been fine with daily highs around 80-85 degrees dropping into the 50s overnight. Yesterday was the only cloudy day all week. The long range forecast for western Washington looks favorable, so hopefully, we’ll continue to enjoy sunshine and warm temperatures.
*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!
We found outdoor pickleball at the City Park here in Salmon, Idaho. We played for two and half hours Friday morning. After lunch, Donna and I drove back down ID28 to the Sacajawea Center. You might recognize and recall Sacajawea – she was a Lemhi (lem-HIGH) Shoshone Indian that joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Sacajawea was born here in the Lemhi Valley. In 1800, when she was 12 years old, she was kidnapped by Hidatsa raiders battling the Lemhi Shoshone and taken by the Hidatsa to North Dakota. When she was 13, she was sold to a French-Canadian trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau. Charbonneau was hired by Meriwether Lewis in late 1804 to act as an interpreter. Sacajawea was also brought onboard as she would be able to speak for them to the Shoshone tribes as they traveled up the Missouri River.
The Hidatsa spelled her name Sacagawea – Lewis used variations of this spelling in his journals as well. The Lemhi Shoshone insist her name is Sacajawea – not pronounced with a hard “G” sound as many historians believe. I’ll go with the Lemhi Shoshone – they’re her people after all.
We toured a small museum at the center, but passed on the 16-minute video presentation. My legs were dead from the time on the pickleball court so we passed on the interpretive trail as well.
Saturday morning found us back on the pickleball courts. We played almost non-stop for over two hours again. On the way home, we stopped at the Lemhi County Farmers’ Market in town.
Lemhi County Farmers’ Market
Donna picked up a few fresh veggies. The market is located on the east side of the Salmon River where Main Street crosses the river. There’s an island there with another city park – it’s called Island Park, just like the park we visited at Green River, Wyoming.
Salmon River from the footbridge on the east side of Island ParkLooking downriver from the boat ramp next to the Main Street bridge
I haven’t done much exploring – after beating myself up on the pickleball courts, I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam or relaxing with a book and cigar in the afternoons. Donna’s been getting out though.
This morning, Donna took a bicycle ride and she chose a challenging one. She decided to take North Saint Charles Street up to Discovery Hill Recreation Center. That was quite a climb!
Looking down at town from Donna’s vantage point on Discovery Hill
When Donna rode back down to town, she wasn’t through yet. She rode out to the Sacajawea Center and hiked the interpretive trails before riding three miles out Lemhi Road and back before returning to the Elks Lodge.
Lemhi River at the Sacajawea CenterTraditional buffalo hide teepee – a mobile home for the ShoshoneI don’t know the story behind this thatch teepeeAn old cabin at the Sacajawea Center
We’ve been in cattle country since we left Arizona. We enjoyed great beef from Ower’s Farm in Cortez, Colorado. Wyoming is definitely cattle rancher country and this part of Idaho is as well. The main grocery market in Salmon is called Saveway (not affiliated with Safeway). They have butchers on staff and cut the meat at the store. We found some excellent filet mignon cuts that were bacon wrapped. A nice touch was the way they tied the bacon with butcher twine so it doesn’t unravel from the filets while cooking.
Grilled filet mignon – bare
I grilled the filets for us Friday night and Donna served it with mushrooms and onions and baked potato and broccoli on the side.
Filet smothered with sauteed mushrooms and onions
It was so good, we stopped at Saveway and bought a few more filets for later consumption. I also found a boneless three-and-a-half pound pork Boston butt. It was pre-wrapped with butcher twine. I prepped it Saturday afternoon and it’s on the Traeger as I type this. I expect it to take about seven hours before it comes off of the smoker/grill and it’ll become pulled pork after an hour of rest.
Last night, Donna grilled a wild salmon filet that she also found at Saveway. It was tasty. She served it with broccolini and another baked potato which she added the leftover mushrooms and onions to. She also grilled garlic scapes from the farmers’ market.
Grilled salmon dinner plate
I started my pre-travel chores today. I checked and set tire pressures and packed a few things in the trailer. I’ll have to wait until I’m done with the Traeger to load it, then secure Midget-San in the trailer. The plan is to head out on US93 north in the morning. This will take us up into western Montana through Hamilton and Lolo. We’ll bypass Missoula and hit I-90 west. We plan to boondock tomorrow night somewhere around Saint Regis, Montana.
The weather here has been great – mostly clear skies as you can see in the photos. We did have a passing thundershower on Thursday night, but it wasn’t too much. They don’t get much rain here in the valley – they average about 10 inches of precipitation per year. It was hot yesterday as the thermometer topped out in the low 90s. Today is cooler – 79 now and I don’t expect it to get much hotter than that.
*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!
We skipped pickleball on Tuesday and took a scenic drive instead. We headed north on CO145 through Dolores. Our plan was to drive up to Telluride – a 75-mile jaunt over high mountains along the Dolores River. We left at 9:30am. The highway was quiet with very few cars going our way. The scenery was spectacular.
Both sides of the road had colorful rocky bluffs covered with pine trees and stands of aspen trees. In places, whole hillsides were filled with aspens, presumably where fire had consumed the conifers and the aspens replaced them. There were open alpine meadows along the river. Donna took a few photos from the passenger seat.
Mix of treesLarge meadow and creekTrout Lake near the summitBicyclist braving the climb in thin air
We topped out around 10,200 feet above sea level at Lizard Head Pass. I have to say, the Nissan A15 engine and five-speed transmission in Midget-San is a great match. We cruised up the mountains without skipping a beat. I’m amazed at how well the Weber DGV carburetor performs at altitude.
After reaching the summit, the highway drops down into a box canyon where Telluride is located. The town is at an elevation of 8,750 feet above sea level. The town is a typical Old West tourist destination with trendy shops and overpriced eateries. We parked on the main drag which is Colorado Avenue and found a kiosk to pay the $1.50/hour parking fee.
Colorado Avenue facing southeast
One lane of Colorado Avenue was closed through the downtown district – it had barricades protecting picnic tables for take-out food and social distancing. Masks were mandatory indoors.
The big draw to Telluride is the ski resort in the winter. In the summertime, mountain biking and hiking brings tourists.
Ski run and gondola at Mountain Village from downtown Telluride
We ordered lunch at The Butcher and Baker – a popular deli-type restaurant on Colorado Avenue. We sat at a picnic table in the shade behind the restaurant. The food was good, but as expected, it was pricey. A salad for Donna and a sandwich for me with no drinks came to $37.
Galloping Goose #4 was on display on the north side of the street by the courthouse. I wrote about the Galloping Goose of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in this post.
Galloping Goose #4
We had our fill by 1:30pm and headed back. It was quite a climb out of Telluride to Lizard Head Pass. We pulled off at a scenic turnout with views of high mountain peaks. The tree line here is around 11,000 feet above sea level and the peaks held snow above the tree line.
Mount Wilson – 14,252 feet above sea levelI think that’s Groundhog Mountain in the center of the photo – 12,165 feet above sea level
Colorado State Route 145 winds through the San Juan National Forest from Telluride to about a mile east of Dolores. The drive was worth the trip to Telluride – I enjoyed the scenery more than the town.
Back in Cortez, it was 90 degrees – about 15 degrees warmer than Telluride. We went into town for a scoop of ice cream at Moose and More. They have excellent ice cream and some unique flavors. We’ll have to go back to try something adventuresome like their honey and cornbread ice cream.
Back at La Mesa RV Park, I prepped a pork butt we bought at Safeway. Pork butt doesn’t have anything to do with the south end of a northbound pig – the butt is the shoulder of the pig. So, why do they call it a butt? The story is the name comes from colonial times when hogs were raised and processed in the Boston area. New Englanders didn’t have much interest in this cut of meat. It was considered to be tough and nearly inedible. The meat packers put the shoulder cuts in a barrel called a butt and shipped the meat south. The southerners knew how to properly prepare the shoulder meat so it was tender and pulled pork was the result.
Barrel names – the butt is in the lower row second from left
The shoulder was called the Boston Butt. Eventually it morphed into pork butt.
I dry-rubbed the butt and wrapped it in cling wrap and refrigerated it. Wednesday after we played pickleball in the morning, I set the Traeger to 225 degrees and started smoking 3 pounds of pork butt. This cut has several muscle ends and connective tissues (collagen). To make it tender requires slow cooking until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 195-205 degrees. This is much like smoking a brisket – I detailed that process in this post.
I figured about four and half hours would do it for 3 pounds of pork, but I was wrong. It took over six hours to reach 200 degrees. At that point, I double-wrapped it tightly with aluminum foil, then put two towels around it and placed it in a small cooler. This held the meat at high temperature without an external heat source which would dry it out at that point. It rested in the cooler for a little over an hour.
Smoked pork butt trussed with butcher twine
I used a fork to pull the meat apart. It came apart easily.
Pulled pork
Donna made mashed potatoes (with skin) and fresh green beans. We served the pulled pork with Stubb’s Hickory-Bourbon BBQ Sauce.
Pulled pork plate
We have a lot of leftover pulled pork and Donna’s coming up with ideas to use it.
She came up with a new dish on Monday night – she made a scallop saute with fresh tomatoes and zucchini served over homemade lemon-pepper egg noodles she bought from a local vendor at the farmers’ market.
Scallop saute over egg noodles
The temperature has reached the low 90s every day this week and is forecast to continue for the next few days. We’re running the air conditioners every afternoon. This weekend, I’ll start reorganizing the trailer in preparation for our move to Fruita next Tuesday.
*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!
The rain moved out of the area Saturday afternoon and once again, we had clear blue skies. The week began with cooler temperatures with daily highs around 70 degrees. There were strong winds on Monday and Tuesday with gusts up to 40mph. The wind settled down by Wednesday and the temperatures got warmer – we hit 80 on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, Donna and I drove east on US160 about 8 miles to the entrance of Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde National Park was established on 52,485 acres of land in 1906. Currently, the park is only partially open with no guided tours, museums or shops open. We took the driving tour of Chapin Mesa and made several stops at point of interest.
View near the park entrance
Our first stop was at the Montezuma Valley overlook.
Montezuma Valley overlook – view west-northwest to Cortez and beyond
The ridge to the north of the overlook is called The Knife Edge.
The Knife Edge – people on the trail in the lower left of the photo provide scale
Our next stop was the highest point in Mesa Verde National Park – Park Point Overlook – where a fire lookout tower was located.
On a clear day, the visibility from the lookout tower is said to be 100 miles!
Looking northeast from Park Point – that’s Knife Edge in the upper-center of the photo
The road surface in the park was smooth pavement and speed limits ranged from 25mph to 45mph. About 10 miles in, the road forked. We stayed left which kept us on Chapin Mesa. Going right takes you to Wetherill Mesa. There was very little traffic and we ended up seeing the same three or four cars at each stop along the way.
Our next stop was at Spruce Tree Terrace. We thought we would hike down the trail for a self-guided tour of the cliff dwellings there, but a short way down the trail, we found it to be closed.
Spruce Tree House cliff dwellings.
The cliff dwellings were built by shaping sandstone into blocks and stacking them. These were made in the 12th century. The area was abandoned after a series of severe and prolonged droughts. Around 1285, the inhabitants moved south to New Mexico and Arizona.
These appear to be storage structures next to the Spruce Tree House on the right and left – center of the photo
From there, we drove the six-mile Cliff Palace Loop and stopped to view the Cliff Palace.
Cliff Palace
Again, the trail was closed so we couldn’t hike down to the ruins, we could only view them from a point above. Usually they have a ranger-guided hike that requires tickets to get down to the dwellings and climb four ladders for up-close viewing. We had covered about 20 miles at this point and spent over two hours in the park. And it was getting hot! It was time to head back.
Instead of going back to La Mesa RV Park, we went east on US160 to the little town of Mancos. We stopped for lunch there at Hamburger Haven. They were open for take-out and we both opted for the diced green chili and cheese burger. We found a picnic table in the shade in the park next to Hamburger Haven and dined al fresco. The burgers weren’t up to the standard set by Blake’s in Albuquerque, but it was a good choice nonetheless.
We played pickleball in town three days this week. Other than that, our activity has been limited to grocery shopping and grilling. Donna had a couple of writing assignments to complete and did a live webinar on Wednesday evening. I’ve been reading a lot and puffing on a daily cigar.
Donna grilled honey-sriracha chicken again on Saturday and served it with grilled zucchini spears and cauliflower mash this time.
Grilled honey-sriracha chicken thigh
On Sunday, Donna cooked up a favorite we haven’t had since we hit the road – lomo saltado which is a Peruvian dish made with flank steak. It’s delicious, but the picture wasn’t so great. I had mixed lighting and should have closed the window blind.
Lomo saltado
Donna fixed another old favorite – New Mexico style pork chili verde served over lightly fried corn tortillas and topped with a fried egg.
New Mexico style pork chili verde
Last night, she tried another foil-wrapped grill recipe – salmon with another honey sriracha glaze. Foil wrapping fish has a disadvantage though – it’s easy to overcook the fish as it’s hard to judge when to take it off of the grill. But it was good.
Honey-sriracha salmon with grilled bok choy
So, we continue to eat well here in Cortez, Colorado.
The forecast calls for daily highs in the upper 80s for the week ahead. We’ll be using the air conditioners no doubt. I don’t expect to see any rain and hopefully, we won’t have any more of the gusty winds.
*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!
After our drive up to Lyman Lake State Park last week, Midget-San didn’t move for six days. I didn’t leave the RV park in that time. I know a lot of people are fed up with the stay-at-home orders and it looks like restrictions are finally easing up in most areas. I think full-time RVers had a somewhat easier experience coping with it. In our case, Donna and I are used to spending time together in a confined space – we live in about 300 square feet!
A lot of our activities are done together and when we arrive in a new area, we spend time exploring together. I’m not the most gregarious or social person around, so staying “home” and only going out when necessary hasn’t been especially hard.
Monday morning, we fired up Midget-San to do our weekly grocery shopping. Before we went to Safeway, we made a couple of sightseeing stops. The first stop was at the White Mountain Historical Park in Springerville. This park is maintained by the White Mountain Historical Society and has historic old buildings and equipment on display.
Park entrance
The buildings were originally located in various parts of Round Valley and were moved to the park for display. One of the older buildings was the Becker Grainery. This was a grain warehouse for the Becker Store in Springerville circa 1875.
One of the things you might notice in the photos of these old buildings is the log construction method. The logs are sawn and fitted together, but they’re not tight against one another. There is considerable space between the logs which had to be sealed – chinked they called it – with a mud and stone mixture. The chinking required periodic maintenance.
Butler family cabin
The other notable fact is the square footage of the dwellings. People lived in tight quarters back then.
Donna gives a sense of scale to the Clay Hunter Cabin.
Clay Hunter, a hunter and trapper, lived in this tiny cabin for 60 years.
Diamond Rock Cabin – 1915
The Diamond Rock Cabin was part of resort in the area in 1915.
Forest Service Ranger cabin – 1913Saffel home – 1887
During the Great Depression, the federal government formed the Work Project Administration (WPA) to carry out public works projects and put people back to work. We could probably use something like that now, but there’s a problem. Nowadays, government stimulates the economy with hand outs. When unemployment benefits exceed the pay for manual labor, nobody will want to take the job.
WPA outhouse – I think the date should read 1935
After walking through the White Mountain Historical Park, we climbed up the hill to the highest point within the city limits. At the top of the hill is the cemetery and a water tank for the city water supply. Although we only climbed a few hundred feet, the thin air at this 7,000 -foot elevation had me breathing hard.
From the top of the hill, we could see for miles.
Looking west-southwest over Eagar to the Apache-Sitgreaves National ForestView northwest over Springerville – note reservoir in left center, part of a sprawling ranch outside of town
One of the sights you can see from points around the valley is the Round Valley High School Ensphere. The Ensphere is a dome constructed of wood in 1991 at a cost of $11 million. It is where the high school football team plays their games – it can hold 5,500 spectators when configured for football and 9,000 people for basketball or volleyball. It’s the only domed high school football stadium in the country according to Wikipedia. Not bad for a school district with about 2,000 students in all grades.
Ensphere viewed from the hilltop
We drove by the Ensphere for a closer look on the way to the store.
Round Valley Ensphere
At the Safeway grocery store, we found most people were wearing masks. But many, including most of the store employees, didn’t have their masks over their noses! The mask doesn’t offer protection to others if you sneeze with your nose exposed!
Last night, Donna grilled Sriracha-honey glazed chicken thighs. She served the chicken with jasmine rice and sauteed bok choy with a splash of tamari. Yummy!
The photo doesn’t do this dish justice
Over the last couple of years, Donna has been manning the grill more and more. But she still cooks indoors as well, using our two-burner induction cooktop. Recently she remembered the demo in Quartzsite where we bought the Healthcraft cookware designed for induction use. With only two burners, she sometimes has her hands full trying to time everything to serve at once. With the Healthcraft cookware, you can cook with more than two pots and/or pans at the same time by stacking them.
Stacked cookware on the induction cooktop
In the photo above, she’s steaming broccoli in the large pot on the bottom and keeping a chicken dish warm on top. She’ll have to experiment more with it to get the technique down.
The weather for the past week has been mostly pleasant with daily highs ranging from 70 to 75 degrees. The afternoons were mostly windy. Yesterday, the winds were gusting as predicted and this afternoon the forecast calls for a high of 77 degrees with 20 to 30 mph sustained winds and gusts of 55 mph! If the high wind warning holds true, I may have to pull the living room slide in to preserve the canvas slide topper.
*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!
We escaped the blazing hot temperatures in Mesa, Arizona. On Thursday morning, we finished packing up with a goal of hitting the road by 10am. I secured Midget-San in the trailer at 9:59am and we were on our way. It was already 92 degrees on a day that was forecast reach 105 degrees. I had the generator running so we could keep the roof mounted air conditioner on while we drove.
Our route took us over Usery Pass to Bush Highway, then up the Beeline Highway to Payson. Payson is at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level. The Beeline has several long, steep grades followed by steep downgrades. The net result is a gain of almost 4,000 feet in elevation over the 75-mile drive. With the high ambient temperature, I kept a close eye on our engine coolant temperature. On the hardest grades, I manually shifted down to third gear to keep the engine revs up around 1,900-2,100 rpm. The higher revs keep the radiator fan turning fast and the coolant circulating quickly. I usually cruise at 1,500-1,550 rpm. It was slow going at around 40 mph, but the coolant temperature remained around 200 degrees.
From Payson, we traveled east on AZ260 90 miles to Show Low, gaining another 1,500 feet or so in elevation. From Show Low, we hit US60 for the final leg of about 50 miles to Springerville. We’re at Springerville RV Park about a mile east of town on US60 – 12 miles or so from the New Mexico border and about 80 miles south of I-40. We’re at an elevation of about 7,080 feet above sea level.
Springerville RV Park is a small, clean park without any frills or amenities – other than a good free wifi signal! The park is just over two years old and is owned by the the people that own a sister park in Cortez, Colorado. We have a long, level pull-through site, so I didn’t have to drop the trailer. The site isn’t paved, it’s covered in crushed volcanic rock and a bit dusty.
Our site in Springerville – Midget-San under cover
On Friday morning, Donna and I took a drive to have a look around the area. We went south on US191 and drove past Nelson Reservoir. We saw people fishing and kayaking there. We think we might want to take our Sea Eagle inflatable kayak up there at some point.
We drove over the Alpine Divide at 8,550 feet above sea level and dropped into the Alpine Valley and checked out the little town of Alpine. On our return trip, we made a slight detour and drove through the small town of Nutrioso. We came back through Eagar – Eagar connects to Springerville and is the larger town of the two. We found the Bashas and Safeway grocery stores there.
Later, Donna went for walk into town. Walking down South Gutierrez Street and she found an interesting sight. It was a number of sculptures in an otherwise empty lot, all made from old car parts. She learned later that the sculptures were made by John Welhelm – his ranch is right across the street. She took several photos of the art.
John Welhelm’s art work – note snow on Escudilla Mountain in the background – nearly 11,000 feet highGreat use of old license plates for colorLeopard made from large fender washers
It just goes to show you – you can find points of interest almost anywhere in this great country.
On Friday afternoon, a pair of motorhomes entered the park and set up in the two empty sites on the driver’s side of our coach. We hoped this would give us a wind break as the wind has been gusting from the southwest. It did.
When we set up here, our water pressure regulator blew out and was leaking from the diaphragm housing. I’ve been using a mini-Watts regulator made for RVs by Valterra. I haven’t used the household Watts regulator I built for our coach for a while because the hose adapter fitting was leaking where it’s swaged together. So I set up without a regulator on our fresh water supply. I found the water pressure here is quite high. I wrote about water pressure and regulators in this post.
Friday night I got up for a bathroom break at 4:30am. I unintentionally woke Donna up. Donna said, “What’s that sound?” I don’t have the best hearing – I have tinnitus from years of working in workshops, motorcycling racing, playing guitar and shooting guns. I said, “What sound?” She told me she could hear water running. She got up and checked our faucets, then told me it was coming from outside. I grabbed a flashlight and went out to investigate. I found our neighbor’s water supply was leaking at his regulator. I went back to bed – it could wait until later.
It turned out he had two leaks – one at the regulator and another one at the coach hose connection. I decided I needed to fix our Watts regulator pronto. Donna went out for a bike ride in the morning. After she returned, I drove into town to the Ace Hardware store. The store was fairly busy and all of the employees and almost all of the customers had face masks on – including me. I found the hose adapter I needed and repaired our regulator and installed it on our water supply bib.
Donna checked out Becker Lake on her bike ride and took a couple of pictures.
Becker LakeKayakers who were fishing got off the lake due to high winds
I set up our Traeger wood pellet-fired smoker-grill and proceeded to spatchcock a 5 1/2-pound whole chicken Donna bought at Winco in Mesa. If you wonder what spatchcock means, see this post. I dry-rubbed it and had it on the Traeger while Donna was on her weekly Zoom call with members of her family. I cooked it breast side down for about 50 minutes. It was very windy out with wind gusts in excess of 30 mph. This affected the cooking time. Then I flipped it breast side up and set the Traeger to high – 450 degrees to crisp the skin. It cooked for another 18 minutes before the thigh meat registered 165 degrees.
Spatchcock chicken
Donna managed to prepare fresh green beans and rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes while on her call. It was a nutritious, delicious meal.
Chicken breast quarter, rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes and green beans with cotija cheese
The temperature here has been higher than usual for this time of year, but the upper 70s are quite bearable! The wind has been relentless and I’m hoping it’ll taper off soon. The forecast for the week ahead calls for near record heat with temperatures in the low to mid 80s. The historical average high temperature for this time of year is 71 degrees. The nights cool down to upper 40s to low 50s, making it comfortable to sleep.
We paid for a full month here. I’m sure we”l find more points of interest in the area.
*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!
The warmer temperatures held up through the weekend as forecast – and it was a great weekend. It started early for me on Friday. I was up before sunrise as Mike Hall was picking me up at 8am. Sunrise here in central Arizona can be just as spectacular as the sunsets sometimes are.
Sunrise behind the Superstition Mountains
Mike showed up with our friend Jeff Van Deren and we headed out toward Payson to do some target shooting in the desert. Even on a weekday, it pays to get out there early to claim a good shooting spot. We had a blast (pun intended) and spent a couple of hours burning up ammo.
Mike dropped me off before noon – he planned on going out for lunch with his wife, Jodi. Donna was out – she had met up with Sara Graff for breakfast, then ran some errands. I made lunch and showered. Donna came home by 1pm and then I took the Midget and drove to Mike Hall’s place. We had a plan for the afternoon.
The Phoenix Art Museum had an exhibition called The Art of Speed, which was scheduled to be on display from November 3, 2019 to March 15, 2020. This exhibit had a number of historic race cars from around the world. Many of the cars were racers I read about as a youngster and dreamed of driving. Most of the cars were racing machines I was aware of, but had never actually seen other than in photos.
The first car we saw outside of the hall was the John Player Special Lotus 79 Formula One car driven to the World Championship in 1978 by Mario Andretti. I saw Mario drive this car at the Long Beach Grand Prix.
John Player Special Lotus 79 Formula One car
Most of the cars inside the exhibit hall are part of privately owned collections and were on loan to the museum for display.
The first two to catch my eye as we entered the hall were enough to give me chills. The first was a car that many consider to be the most beautiful Formula One car ever built – the 1967 Gurney Eagle. Dan Gurney won the 1967 Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps with the Westlake 12-cylinder powered Eagle – the only American-made car to win a Formula One race in the modern era.
1967 Gurney Eagle
Right behind the Eagle was the 1965 Lotus-Ford Type 38 – which one the greatest drivers of all time, Jimmy Clark, drove to victory in the Indianapolis 500. It was the first rear engine car to win at Indy. No front engine car has ever won since then.
1965 Lotus Ford
This Ford GT40 was owned by John Wyer. His team raced to victory at Le Mans in 1968 and 1969. The story of this car is currently in theaters in the Ford versus Ferrari movie.
John Wyer Ford GT40
The next car epitomizes the sports cars built in Southern California in the late 1950s – the Scarab of Lance Reventlow. Lance was described as a “young man with nearly unlimited funds and a taste for all things fast and beautiful.”
1858 Scarab Mk1
Back in the day, it was common for race cars to be painted in nationalistic colors. Many race fans were fervently nationalistic. Italian cars were traditionally red, German cars silver, English cars green and American cars were blue. This wasn’t always the case, but was true more often than not.
The Ferrari 250 GTO is an icon. It won three straight GT Championships.
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
Some of the photos aren’t as clear as I would’ve liked, but the lighting for photography was difficult and flash was not allowed.
1957 Ferrari 315 S Scaglietti Spyder
The 1957 Maserati 450S was developed specifically to compete with Ferrari.
1957 Maserati 450S
This 1954 Lancia D24 Spyder won the Targa Florio – a race in Sicily run on public roads with a lap distance of 45 miles!
Lancia D24 Spyder
The next car was known as a “Birdcage.” This 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 had a space frame chassis built of approximately 200 tubes. If you look at the area between the instrument panel and firewall, you can see the construction technique. This car – chassis number 2470 – entered 16 races, winning six of them and finishing in the top three 13 times.
1060 Maserati Tipo 61 “Birdcage”
Next we have a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. This car won the GT class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1964 driven by Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant.
1964 Sheby Cobra Daytona Coupe
Stirling Moss drove this Maserati 250F Formula One car to victory in the 1956 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
1956 Maserati 250F
A.J. Foyt won his first Indianapolis 500 in this Trevis Offenhauser in 1961. A.J. would go on to win Indy three more times.
1961 Trevis Offenhauser
There were several other cars on display, but I didn’t try to capture photos of everything. The car Mike and I both wanted most to see wasn’t there! The Roger Penske-Sunoco 1973 Porsche 917/30 was probably the best race car ever built. It decimated the field in Can-Am racing with its flat 12-cylinder engine producing 1,500 horsepower. It was so far ahead of everyone else that it killed the series when everyone gave up on beating it. I found out later that the owner had a commitment to show the car at the Amelia Island Concours where it won best in show.
After touring the museum, Mike and I retired to Lucky Lou’s for a cold one or two where we were joined by Jodi and friends. I came home to find Donna had cooked up a new-to-her dish, Creole chicken and sausage. Tasty!
Creole chicken and sausage
Saturday morning, Donna competed in the Viewpoint Pickleball Club Ladies Tournament. Donna played in the 3.0 group. She won the round robin portion handily, scoring a near perfect 65 points out of a possible 66. She went on to win the semi-final and then – wait for it – she and her partner won the tournament! On Monday she joined me in the 3.5 round robin session and played well. She’ll continue to try her hand at the higher 3.5 level.
Last night, we attended the annual Viewpoint Pickleball Club meeting and banquet. There are 510 members in the club this year and around 200 came to the meeting and dinner. Pickleball continues to grow as a sport and the Viewpoint Pickleball Club has grown as well over the four years we’ve played here.
Viewpoint Pickleball Club meeting and banquet
In my previous post, I said I thought we’d reached the end of wintry weather here in Mesa, Arizona. I mis-spoke. Yesterday, we had a few rain showers after a warm and sunny weekend. It continued to rain off and on overnight and has been raining most of this morning. The temperature is expected to reach 70 today, but the next few days will be a few degrees cooler with more rain. If this all winter has for us, I can’t complain.
This coming Sunday, Donna will perform with the Viewpoint Concert Band in their final performance of the season. I’m sure she’ll continue to practice clarinet daily, but she won’t have the rehearsal and performance schedule to motivate her.
*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!
In my last post, I mentioned an issue I had with Midget-San’s oil pressure. The replacement oil pump I ordered came from RockAuto on Tuesday afternoon. I’d been in touch with Bill Masquellier about doing the work at his place in El Cajon. I met Bill when he was working at British Auto Repair and replaced the rear hub/axle seal on the Midget. I later found out he was only filling in there temporarily while another mechanic was on an extended vacation. Bill is very knowledgeable on British cars and also has experience with engine swaps. He knows the Datsun/Nissan line of engines.
I was to meet Bill at the Gillespie Field Cafe – a small cafe at the airport in El Cajon – at 10am on Thursday. I arrived early as I had made allowances for traffic but managed to have smooth sailing eastbound on CA52. I parked in front of the cafe at 9:30am and took a walk. I saw an interesting car in front of a hangar and met the guy working on it. It was an Intermeccanica Omega – an Italian car made in the late ’60s with a Ford 289 V8 engine. They only made 33 of these. While I was talking to the guy, I saw Bill drive his Austin-Healey Sprite in. Bill phoned me and directed me to another hangar on the west side of the airport.
He opened one of the hangar doors and I parked Midget-San inside. I immediately noticed a number of covered cars along with and airplane and lots of parts in the hangar. We opened the hood (bonnet) on Midget-San and while the engine cooled, Bill gave a me a tour. First off, he showed me a 1928 Hudson. He explained that the hangar and the cars inside belonged to his brother-in-law, John. John bought the Hudson when he was in high school and it was his daily driver in the 1960s.
John has a fascination with cars designed and built by Ettore Bugatti. Bugatti’s first design was a small car. He drew up plans for every piece of the car and the engine as well. But he didn’t have the money to actually build the car. So, he sold the plans to Peugeot who then manufactured the car from 1905 to 1916 and called it Bebe. There were two 1913 Bebes in the hangar. Then Bill pulled back a car cover to reveal a mint condition 1935 Bugatti. It’s one of the top examples in the world and has to be valued around a million bucks!
1935 Bugatti
There was another Bugatti – an all-aluminum 1938 that was in pieces being restored. This car only weighed around 2,200 lbs and had 200 horsepower making it one the fastest cars on the road at that time. Cool stuff.
Bill quickly pulled the alternator and oil pump from the Nissan A15 engine in Midget-San. I remarked how surprised I was to find the pump in stock at RockAuto. Bill told me this oil pump is used in at least three Nissan engine families and is a fairly common part. That made sense. We primed the pump and reassembled everything with a new oil filter and fired it up. The oil pressure came up within a couple of seconds. Much better!
Bill put a volt meter on the battery to make sure nothing went awry when the alternator was removed and discovered it was over-charging. The alternator was supplying over 15.5 volts. It has an internal regulator that must be bad. This will eventually fry the battery – the charging voltage should never exceed 15-volts and ideally would be around 14.2 to 14.4-volts. I’ll have to replace that next. This is what happens when you have a 48-year-old car with a 39-year-old engine.
Across from the hangar is the Allen Airways Flying Museum. The museum is owned by Bill Allen – a good friend of Bill M. Bill asked me if I was interested in a private tour of the museum. He had the keys and we entered the closed museum. There are a lot of interesting pieces of aeronautical history there. I saw a couple of Stearman Biplanes in the museum hangar and told Bill I frequently see two Stearmans fly over Mission Bay Park, almost daily. I described them and he told me one of them was in the corner of the hangar and the other – a orange-yellow one was a rental plane that sees almost daily use.
The other Boeing Stearman in the hangar was a beautifully restored silver plane with a blue stripe down the side and blue wing bottoms. It had tail number N-3188. This was the last plane owned and flown by Steve McQueen!
Allen Airways photo of N-3188
Steve McQueen requested number 3188 – it was his ID number when he was at reform school in Chino. Bill Allen bought the plane and completely restored it.
On Friday, Donna and I drove up to Sun City and cleared some items from Ken’s house. I also met with a realtor and we discussed marketing the property and a realistic valuation. The realtor is Sherry Dodson and she has a track record for the gated community Ken’s house is in. She’s sold around 10 homes per year there for several years. She had good comps to establish a realistic value. Setting the price too high could result in problems with a buyer obtaining financing. We needed a number that would appraise without leaving money on the table. After an hour or so, we came up with a price and a plan.
Saturday was a fine day. Donna and I rode our bikes along the Bayside Walk to Mission Beach. Along the way at Crown Point, we saw a large number of row boats for crew racing. It appeared to be a large event for mostly junior rowers. The crew teams looked to be high school age or maybe college. I’m not very good at guessing ages anymore – they all look young.
Racing boatsCrews sculling on the bay
We made a loop from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach Drive and back to Mission Bay RV Resort.
Saturday night, Donna marinated a flank steak and served it with baked potato and roasted brussels sprouts. Delicious!
Monday was Veterans Day and another fine day. We took a drive in Midget-San out to Cabrillo Monument on Point Loma. We made a stop at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.
From the cemetery looking toward Naval Air Station North IslandLooking at San Diego Bay toward downtown
Last night, Donna tried a new recipe for a baked pasta dish with Italian sausage crumbles and broccolini. She’s used garbanzo bean rotini which has more protein than regular pastas. It was very good, though not something we would have often because of all the cheese and cream!
This morning I finalized a counter-offer on Ken’s house and it looks like we are moving forward on the sale. We ended up within $2,000 of the asking price and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we get a favorable inspection result and appraisal.
The weather forecast for the week ahead looks great. It might be slightly cooler with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s and overnight lows in the mid 50s. That’s November in San Diego!
