My last post mentioned Bill Hansen, Owner/Operator of Sun Limited Foam, Inc. who was here with a helper to install Cool Foam roof coating on our park model home. As the work progressed on Tuesday, it became apparent that they wouldn’t get it finished in one day as they’d hoped. They ended up knocking off a little early – I imagine it was pretty hot up on the roof as the cloudless sky produced a temperature in the upper 80s.
They were back at it Wednesday morning, but this time Bill brought two helpers. It was a lot of work but they had most of the foam layer done before taking a lunch break. They had a trailer with a generator and pump that pumped the foam chemical through a hose which they used to spray the product over the roof. The foam layer is about one-inch thick and has an insulation value of about R13 to R15.
The foam coating is a tan color and it alone would insulate and seal the roof, but it isn’t UV resistant and would break down from constant exposure to sunlight. So, once they had the foam covering everything, they switched to a pure white elastomer product to spray over the foam coating. This elastomer adds some insulation value, but its real purpose is to protect the foam below and reflect sunlight from the surface. This helps keep the place cooler on sunny days – of which we have over 300 per year here in Arizona.
Bill spraying elastomer product over the foam coatingLooks like snow on the roof – when he’s finished it’ll all be white
The Cool Foam coating covers everything except for the car port roof. It extends a few feet over the car port roof to seal the edges where the car port corrugated metal roof joins the house.
We’ve kept busy with different activities here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I play pickleball most mornings while Donna plays tennis twice a week and pickleball two or more days per week. I’ve also started 90-minute coaching sessions on Tuesday afternoons. Donna is also learning to play golf – she had her first lesson with her friend Ginny over the weekend.
Most days, Donna provides home and companion care services for a couple of hours per day. People here at Viewpoint that need help with cleaning or moving or pet sitting and various other tasks can hire Donna and she’s been in fairly high demand.
We both also practice music most days – Donna with her clarinet and me hacking away on the guitar. Donna finds time most days to come up with great dinner dishes as well. Last Tuesday, she made country style ribs in the slow cooker and served it with a baked potato and asparagus.
Slow cooked country style ribs
A couple of days later, she baked fish in parchment paper and served it with Southern fried cabbage with bacon.
Fiah baked in parchment paper and Southern fried cabbage
Last night, she made balsamic steak tips with mushrooms and served it with spaghetti squash with bacon and parmesan cheese. Delicious!
Pan fried sirloin strips with mushrooms
I have to rant about something. My dental insurance premium is supposed to be automatically paid through my Healthcare Reimbusement Account (HRA), but something went wrong there and Cigna billed my credit card. No big deal, right? Just submit the expense to the HRA and get reimbursed. But here’s the issue.
They sent me an e-mail stating that my credit card was billed. The e-mail had a link to the MyCigna website so I could view the details. I clicked on the link. No payment details there – no payment history (I searched all over the site). The e-mail also had a phone number for Cigna billing and enrollment services if I had any questions. I called this number and went through about a dozen menus and questions before I spoke with a person.
They told me to click on Payment History on the website. I asked them to tell me where I would find this option – there’s no search function on this lame site and no payment history option that I could find. The person told me they don’t have access to the site, so he couldn’t tell me how to find the option. Some helpdesk, right? I asked him if he could look up my account and e-mail me a payment receipt so I could submit it for reimbursement. He said he could only mail a paper copy or fax it to me – like we all have fax machines at home in 2021. Maybe 15 years ago that would’ve worked. So that’s the service from Cigna – a link to website that doesn’t show any payment detail and a phone number to a helpdesk that isn’t very helpful. I’ll have to wait 10 to 14 business days for a paper receipt in the mail!
The weather in a word has been delightful. We were pushing 90 for a few days, but it’s mostly been mid to upper 80s with comfortable evenings and overnight lows in the mid 50s. The morning temperatures are very comfortable. The swamp cooler easily handles the afternoon temperature and we haven’t had to run the air conditioning. Today’s forecast calls for a high of 85 and next week is supposed to be 5 to 10 degrees cooler.
*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 finished October with a few days in the low 90s here in Mesa, Arizona. It cooled down a bit on Sunday with a high of 88 and today we expect a high of 82 degrees. The golf course is open and golfers have come out in force. We’ve had a few golf balls strike our roof.
Yesterday, while Donna and I were walking to the pickleball courts, we saw an unusual cactus in a neighbor’s yard that’s bearing fruit. I think it’s a variety of senita cactus called totem pole. It’s not native to the Arizona desert, but it’s often planted as a landscape feature. It does well here, but is originally found in the Baja California peninsula. It’s not frost tolerant.
Cactus bearing fruit
Some cactus fruit is edible and there are many recipes for prickly pear fruit – it’s commonly harvested. Others, such as saguaro, are edible but cannot be picked in the desert, only from cultivated plants. Cholla fruit is also edible, but you’d have to be pretty brave to pick it – I won’t go near a cholla.
We’re having our roof coated with Cool Foam today. Bill Hansen, the owner of Sun Limited Foam is here with a helper. They’ll put a foam coating over the shingle roof of our park model home and the Arizona room metal roof and they’ll lay down OSB over the corrugated metal roof on the shop/shed/ham shack and foam it. The foam dries instantly and is then coated with a reflective white elastomer coating.
The total thickness of the coating is about one inch. It will reflect heat from the sun and provide an additional insulation barrier against heat and cold. It also effectively seals the roof against water intrusion. It isn’t cheap, but I think it’s a worthwhile investment in our home.
I skipped pickleball this morning to go over the job with Bill and be available as they started work. At noon, I’ll head over to the pickleball courts to give my first lesson of the season. I’m accepting four participants at a time for a 90-minute coaching session which entails about 20 minutes of oral presentation clarifying rules that are often misinterpreted and common strategies and then we drill on a few shots before scrimmaging games where we critique each point played. It’s fun and this format was well-received last year. It also helps my game as coaching this stuff reinforces in my mind the things I should be doing on the court.
I’ve been playing my Dumble-style OSD guitar amp daily. I had an issue at first that took me a couple of days to figure out. Many guitar amplifiers have a circuit called negative feedback and a potentiometer to control it. This potentiometer is usually labeled “Presence”. It boosts high frequencies and colors the sound. Regular tone controls usually labeled bass – middle – treble, cut unwanted frequencies to shape the tone. They are subtractive, they can’t add, they only cut frequencies. Presence on the other hand adds to the original high frequencies.
In a push-pull amplifier with two or four power tubes, one half amplifies the upper part of the sine wave (positive voltage) and the other amplifies the lower part of the sine wave (negative voltage). For the feedback circuit to work, you have to apply only the negative signal. If you have positive feedback, bad sounds usually result. I had a unique problem. My bass response went all wonky only when I played the fifth fret of the sixth string ( “A” note on the low E string). It turned out I had positive feedback, not negative. I had a hard time figuring this out because I never heard of positive feedback making bad things happen on one note only – usually guys complain of squealing or horrible sounds all the time. Anyway, it’s straightened out now and I love the amp.
With Donna back from her trip to Florida, I’m back to fine dining. She made a new pork tenderloin dish called best baked pork tenderloin which is seasoned with Italian seasoning and served it with shredded Brussel sprouts – another first. We loved it.
Italian seasoned pork tenderloin with shredded Brussel sprouts
Last week I needed to retrieve some stuff from our coach at 202 RV Valet. They have great security there, but we have 24/7 access through a coded entry gate. It records the unique code used whenever anyone enters, so they have records of who came in and when. Many of the enclosed spaces hold high-end boats and a few are in the covered spaces where we keep our coach. I noticed a guy was visiting his boat and snapped a photo of his ride. He parked his Ferrari next to his boat.
Ferrari and Centurion wake boarding boat
We’re expecting another week of fine weather with highs in the low 80s and overnight lows in the mid 50s. The last half of the month should be cooler with daily temperatures in the 70s and overnight lows dipping into the 40s. No complaints here.
*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!
Donna left for Florida on Thursday morning. She’s visiting her sister in Sarasota and they spent the weekend in Miami for her niece’s wedding celebration. I’ve stayed busy building my guitar amplifier and playing some pickleball. In my last post, I wrote about my amp project and the complicated design of Dumble-type amps. It’s been a tough build.
Thursday I completed the eyelet board to vacuum tube socket wiring.
Preamp and phase inverter tube sockets wired up
The 12AX7 preamp tube and the phase inverter tube have nine pins and are called noval tubes. The 12AX7 tube is really two tubes in one – it has an A and a B side with separate triodes. Sometimes it’s called a duo-triode. The Dumble circuit uses both sides of each preamp tube, making four gain stages in the circuit.
The power tubes have eight pins and therefore are called octal tubes. Here are a couple of pictures from different sides of the chassis to illustrate the complexity of this circuit.
Front control panel on the left, outputs on the rightView from the opposite sideView from the rear of the chassisThe front view
Vacuum tubes – called valves in England – aren’t too plentiful nowadays. There was a time when you could get them at the supermarket or drug store. Now we have to rely on a few online suppliers. The main sources are factories in Russia, China and Slovakia.
There was a Russian factory in Saratov that made vacuum tubes for the Russian military called Reflektor. That factory today is operated by New Sensor Corporation headquartered in Long Island, New York. New Sensor bought the rights to many old tube manufacturer names and they offer reissues of old favorites like Tung-Sol and Mullard. The big tube factory in China is Shuguang, but they closed the factory to relocate and it’s put a real strain on the tube market.
For this amp project, I bought Mullard CV4004 12AX7 tubes for the preamp and a Sovtek 5751 for the phase inverter – these are New Sensor tubes from Saratov, Russia. For the power tubes, this amp calls for a pair of 6V6 GT tubes or 6L6 if you want more power. Remember I said that the Reflektor factory made tubes for the Russian military? Well, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Russian military apparently stockpiled a boat load of tubes. After the fall of the Soviet Union, these tubes flooded the market as surplus – there are still lots of them available.
A few enterprising guys bought large numbers of Reflektor tubes made in the ’70s and ’80s such as the Reflektor 6n6c. This is the Russian military equivalent of the 6V6 GT and they are supposed to be a good sounding, robust tube for guitar amplifiers. I bought four of these at a very reasonable price from NessTone in Los Angeles.
Russian tubes for the amp – note the cyrillic CCCP marking on the 6n6c boxTubes in place – shields on the preamp and phase inverter tubes
I had reached the moment of truth. It was time to power up the amp and see if it worked. First, I built a bulb limiter. This simple device provides two very important functions for firing up an amplifier for the first time. I bought a short, three-conductor extension cord. The three-conductor cord is essential – it has a black wire for the hot lead, a white wire for the neutral or common lead and a green wire for ground. On modern household outlets, the white neutral or common wire is always on a wider blade of the plug so it’s always oriented in proper polarity when you plug it in. I split it open and cut the black wire. I connected a light bulb socket to each end of the black wire I had cut in half.
Bulb limiter
I plugged the extension cord into a wall socket, then plugged the amplifier into the other end of the extension cord. Now, the current on the hot lead coming into the amp had to go through the 150 watt bulb first. This made two important things happen. If the amplifier had a short circuit to ground or an incorrectly wired lead that drew high current, the bulb would light up brightly. If that happened, I would shut it down quickly before anything started to smoke. We all know that once you let the smoke out from an electrical device, it won’t work anymore! The second benefit is the fact that the bulb burning brightly would consume power and the lack of full power to the amp would give me time to shut the amp down, hopefully, before anything bad happened.
With the amp in standby, I flipped the switch. The light stayed dark. After a minute to allow the tubes to warm up, I flipped the standby switch to “On”. The light bulb glowed dimly for a few seconds then became progressively dimmer as the capacitors in the circuits charged and the current flow diminished. Perfect. I could breathe again.
Next I had the scary task of checking voltages in a live amplifier. This is best done with one hand in your pocket. That way you’re unlikely to have one hand on the amp chassis while the other hand accidently touches a live connection. If you did that, the current would flow up one arm, across your chest and out the other arm – likely to stop your heart along the way. With only one hand in the amp, you’d get a jolt but would survive.
My voltages checked out. When I say it was a little scary it’s because at the first check point, B+1 the voltage was 441 volts DC. At the power tubes it was 439 volts. The other tubes were “only” 200 to 280 volts.
After the voltage checks, I shut the amp down. I clipped a lead with a 100 ohm 10-watt resistor spliced in series to the last capacitor in the power section with one end of the lead grounded. This drained the capacitors, otherwise dangerous voltages would remain in the capacitors even though the amp was turned off. The resistor in the lead prevents it from arcing or sparking when you clip onto a live capacitor. That lead is pictured with the bulb limiter above.
I made one mistake. I didn’t unplug the amp. I accidently touched the jack inside the chassis where the power comes into the amp before the power switch and got a jolt of 120 volts. I won’t make the mistake again.
Everything seemed to work. It was time to plug in a guitar and see how it sounds. I had a couple of noise issues and wierd bass response. I found a problem with the tube filament (heater) wires being too close to the negative feedback wire – that was causing a 60-cycle hum. I’m still working on getting the bass response right, but otherwise it sounds good and doesn’t hiss or hum at all now.
I took our Nissan Frontier truck back to Sullivan Motor Company on Monday morning. We’re still having airbag issues and they are finally going to replace the wiring harness. Meanwhile they put me in a loan car – a beat up Kia Forte. Oh well, it beats walking. Hopefully they get it done in another day or two.
Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll pick Donna up at the airport. She’ll come home to nice weather – daily highs in the mid to upper 80s with overnight lows in the 50s.
Trinity OSDMy amps and cabs corner
*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!
Donna has been on a mission lately. She’s intent on making our park model house here in Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort our home. By that I mean she’s continuing to transform the look and feel of the place. She started last week by cleaning out the shed and patio areas and getting rid of a lot of unwanted and unneeded stuff.
Then she ordered patio furniture for the side deck along our entrance and carport. She picked up potted plants to decorate the patio. We moved the big gas grill from the back of the carport to the side deck to make it easier to access. The patio furniture she bought required “some assembly.” She intended to do this herself, but ran into issues from the get-go. I pitched in and saw why she was having trouble. First of all, the instructions were very poor – Chinese translations that were nonsense. Then there were the tools provided – a thin spanner stamped out of sheet steel and an allen wrench.
The first thing I did was break out proper tools. Donna quickly saw the reason why I like having the proper, quality tool for the job. We got it done in less than an hour.
Donna enjoying her morning coffee on the new patio rocker
Meanwhile, I’ve been obsessed with building my Dumble-style guitar amplifier. Dumble amplifiers have an interesting history, but first let me tell you about a guy named Ken Fischer.
Ken Fischer learned electronics while he was in the navy. Later, he started a business repairing televisions and radios. He became an engineer with Ampeg – a company that built amplifiers for musical instruments and public address systems. He left Ampeg in 1967 when the company was sold to Magnavox – he wasn’t interested in the corporate culture.
He made a good living repairing and modifying Marshall amplifiers in his basement. Around 1982, he built his own amplifier design that he housed in a polished wood cabinet and called it Trainwreck. He didn’t put serial numbers on his amps – he stamped the chassis of each one he built with a woman’s name. His first one was named Ginger and the last he built was Kaylene. He made approximately 300 amps and they were each voiced for the individual that ordered it – no two were exactly the same.
He built amps for Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) Eddie Van Halen, Brad Paisley, Glen Kuykendall, Matt O’Ree and many other famous performers. He had a long history of health issues – something called chronic fatique immune dysfunction – and he passed away in 2006. His amps are highly sought after and fetch prices in excess of $30,000 today. They are also copied (cloned) by a number of manufacturers such as Dr Z, Komet and others. The Ken Fischer design is notable for its touch sensitivity – you basically set up the amp controls how you like and then forget it. Just by varying your pick attack and the volume knob of the guitar, you can get anything from crystal clear, clean guitar sounds to Eddie Van Halen distortion. This circuit is popular among home-built amplifier hobbyists. I built one in 2012.
My Trainwreck-style home built amp
Then there’s Howard Alexander Dumble. He’s about as eccentric as they come, but no doubt he’s also a genius. When he was in high school, he built transistor radios that he sold to classmates. Before he was 21 years old, in the early 1960s, he was contracted by Mosrite to build amplifiers for the popular instrumental band, The Ventures. Mosrite wanted to create an amplifier building company with him, but he wasn’t a corporate type and declined the offer.
He was making a good living repairing and modifying Fender amplifiers in the 1960s. Somewhere along the way – I think it was in the 1970s – he began making his own amp designs. He wasn’t interested in mass production, he made each amp to order much like Ken Fischer’s Trainwrecks. But, he was unusual in that he required an application from prospective buyers and he auditioned the buyer to decide if he could make an amp for that player – he needed to know how proficient the player was and what the style of playing was. He probably turned down as many applications as he accepted – at least that’s the folklore.
He also required each customer to sign a contract that included secrecy clauses – they weren’t allowed to let anyone open up the amp for service or to see his circuits. After getting burned and having some of his design copied, he started gooping his amps. He covers the circuit board in epoxy or RTV silicone after he builds it so no one could see what he actually used to make it.
He was known as Howard in the early days, but later insisted on being called Alexander or Alex. On the guitar forums, he’s called Mr. Dumble or his initials, HAD are used. He made a few different variations but his most popular was called OverDrive Special (ODS). A few of these were reverse engineered – most notably numbers 104, 124 and 183. They are another amplifier that’s popular among the home-built crowd, but they are very challenging to build. Both the Trainwreck and Dumble amps require much attention to detail and lead dress (routing of the wiring) is crucial or you’ll end up with a humming, squealing mess.
Many top performers used Dumble amps – Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton, John Mayer, Robben Ford, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Johnson, Keith Urban and many, many more. His amps are the priciest on the planet. In the 1980s, he was selling them for $4,000-$6,000. But on the used market, people paid more than $20,000 for one. He raised his price accordingly. Right now, a used Dumble previously owned by Joe Bonamassa is listed for sale at $139,999!
I’m currently building a kit patterned after ODS #124. This kit came from Trinity Amps in Toronto, Canada. Stephen Cohrs, owner of Trinity amps, initially called it his OverDrive Special (ODS) kit. But, Andy Fuchs of Fuchs Audio had trademarked this name and made Trinity cease and desist using it. I find that interesting. Andy Fuchs copied Howard Alexander Dumble’s design, used the name Dumble had used for decades, but never trademarked, and now Andy Fuchs owns and controls the name. Sheesh. Stephen Cohrs had to change the name of his amp to Overdrive Special Design (OSD).
The Trinity OSD is one of the most affordable Dumble designs on the market – you can buy it built by Trinity for about $2,300. Most of the other manufacturers like Fuchs offer them for $3,000-$4,000. Building it yourself will run about $1,100.
This build has been my latest obsession – I intially told myself to limit my time to about two hours per day on this kit to stay fresh and sharp. That didn’t work. I spend hours each day laying it out, checking and rechecking against the schematic and layout guides and then soldering and rechecking everything again. I’ve caught a few errors, but it’s mostly gone well. One of the hardest parts was positioning and soldering 11 jumper wires under the eyelet board. The layout shows the jumper wires in a ghost view from the top side of the board. There are dozens of eyelet holes in the board so when you flip it over to position the wires, it’s a reverse image of the layout view. I wired it, checked it and rewired it a few times before I was satisfied and hot glued the wires in position. Here’s a pictorial review of the work so far.
Chassis with tube sockets and rear hardware installedChassis with front controls (potentiometers) and switches installed
Some of wiring needs to be twisted or braided. Wires, particulary those carrying alternating current (AC) need to cross each other at 90 degree angles to prevent induction. The output transformer has five wires on one side and four on the other that needed to be braided. I found braiding five was easier than four, but they both came out fine.
Output transformer with five wire braid on one sideFour wire braid on the other sideGround bus installed and wired, components installed on tube socketsMy home made amp chassis stand and work stationPower transformer (PT) and output transformers (OT) installed on other side of the chassis and wiring in place – the yellow twisted wires are 5-volt AC for the relay board which I built before installing in the chassisPower transformer and output transformerPopulating the main eyelet board and installing flying leads for controls and tube sockets
That, in a nutshell represents five days of work.
No post is complete without a food picture. Donna is the head chef around here, but I do my share with the Traeger Smoker/Grill and I also make an incomparable Japanese fried rice. My other specialty is the breakfast omelette. My technique is a little unusual in that I flip the egg like a flapjack. I pour the whipped eggs and milk into a non-stick skillet with melted butter. Once the egg starts to solidify, I give the skillet a flick of the wrist and voila! The egg flips and I remove it from the heat and add the filling. Perfection if I say so myself.
Breakfast omelette with Italian seasoned broccoli, bacon and sharp cheddar cheese filling
Donna made a couple of simple, delicious comfort favorites this week. First up, Baja blackened fish tacos.
Fish taco – yummy
Last night she made white chicken chili – a favorite and just right for Sunday Night Football with bottle of Four Peaks Kiltlifter ale.
White chicken chili – pictured without the crumbled corn chip topping
This morning, we’re having our house power washed. They power wash the siding, remove the sunscreens for cleaning and wash the windows, then finish up by washing the decks and carport.
The last couple of days have been on the warm side with highs of 91-92 degrees. The swamp cooler is keeping things comfortable though. Looking ahead, we should see highs around 80 degrees with a couple of warmer days maybe on Thursday and Friday.
Donna will be flying to Florida on Thursday to visit her sister Linda in Sarasota. They will drive to Miami on the weekend for her niece’s wedding celebration – she was actually married last year but the planned wedding couldn’t be carried out due to COVID lockdowns. I’ll be a bachelor from Thursday to Wednesday.
*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 addition to getting back on the pickleball courts, we’ve tackled a few projects here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I agreed to take on pickleball coaching sessions again this year, so I need to knock some rust off my game. I played last Friday and again Monday and yesterday. Donna’s been a regular at the tennis courts but she came out for pickleball yesterday. I played two games against her and her team prevailed both times.
Donna ordered some solar powered LED light strings and proceeded to hang one set across the front of our car port.
She strung up another set with smaller LEDs on the railing of our rear deck.
I finally put up the end-fed horizontal antenna for my ham radio. This antenna works on 10, 20 and 40-meter bands with a MFJ 939 antenna tuner. It took a couple of attempts to get it mounted right – I underestimated the weight of the coil trap and balun – or I overestimated the strength of the fiberglass electric fence posts I used to mount it. It sagged terribly. Another trip to Tractor Supply and I was able to reinforce the mounting posts. All is good now.
Feed line and balun on my end-fed half wave horizontal antenna
I also put the wheels back on Midget-San and made it road-worthy. I turned the key to the “on” position and allowed the electric fuel pump to run for about 30 seconds. Then I pulled the choke knob and hit the starter. It fired right up! I warmed it up and was thankful that I had put Stabil fuel stabilizer in before I filled the fuel tank for storage. When I did that, the drive back from the gas station was enough to run stabilized fuel throughout the fuel system and carburetor bowl. I took a test drive – ran it long enough to get all of the fluids up to temperature and put some fuel through the carburetor. It ran like a champ!
Yesterday, Donna tackled a tough project. She cleaned and organized our shed which serves as our laundry room, tool storage and my ham shack! I should have been out there helping her, but I had a major distraction.
I mentioned the guitar amplifier kit I ordered. It was coming from Canada and I had some trepidation after reading a few online horror stories regarding Canada Post. I didn’t need to worry. They estimated an arrival date of October 14th and turned the package over to USPS on Saturday, October 9th. Yesterday, I received notification that it was delivered to the Viewpoint post office!
We can only pick up packages here at Viewpoint between 11am and 1 pm. It was 12:30 pm when I saw the notification. I took Donna’s bicycle and high-tailed it to the post office. When I was given the package, I realized I made a mistake. It was rather large and weighed about 25 pounds. As I held it under my right arm and tried to mount the bike, I must have been a sight to see. There were a few people at the parcel pick-up window and they all stopped what they doing to watch me.
I managed to get on the bike without falling or dropping the package – barely. Once I got rolling I was okay – I balanced the package against my right thigh. Luckily I didn’t have to pedal very hard to get back home. As I reached the end of the 1600 row and approached our driveway, I now had another issue. I had to stop and make sure I got my left foot down without dropping the box or falling to the right – the 25-pound box had me seriously off balance.
I called out to Donna – she was in the shed. I managed to get my left foot down and she relieved me of the package. Job done! I started unboxing the kit right away.
Amp kit nicely packaged
The cabinet work is outstanding – I didn’t expect anything less from Trinity Amps.
Cabinet frontCabinet rear
Inside the cabinet, I found the 120-page builder’s guide and a bags of components and hardware. This is going to be a challenge to build. As you can tell by the number of control openings on the front and back of the cabinet, this is a complicated circuit. It will be the most complicated amp I’ve attempted.
Component packages inside of the chassis
The first task was an inventory of all of the parts and comparing it to the bill of materials list. This is more tedious and time consuming than you can imagine. There are many different types and values of resistors and capacitors needed to build an audio amplifier.
I don’t trust my eye to read the color stripes on resistors to determine the values – the colors seem a bit off at times. I measure each resistor with a multimeter and group them together by type and value and tape them to a sheet of cardboard with the value written next to them. Then I do the same with the capacitors – I measure each one with an ESR meter, group them and tape them to the board.
Components sorted and taped down
When I start building, I’ll verify the value of each component before I solder it in place. The value and type of resistor coupled with a capacitor is how an amplifier is “voiced.” These components create filter circuits that attenuate certain frequencies while allowing the desired boosted frequencies to pass. This is how the tone of amplified sound is created.
The amplifier I’m going to build is based on a Dumble Overdrive Special circuit. I think it’ll be a great companion amp to the Ken Fischer Trainwreck type amp I built nine years ago. The stories behind these amps and their creators is interesting and I’ll write a post about them soon.
Donna cooked up a favorite dish last week. It’s chicken Lombardy and she served it with brown rice and asparagus.
Chicken Lombardy
The weather has been favorable. On Monday, we had gusty winds in the afternoon and evening as a cold front moved in. Yesterday’s high was only 71 degrees. We expect to have highs in the mid-70s today and tomorrow before we warm back up into the mid-to-upper 80s by the weekend.
*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!
When I wrote my last post, Donna was away visiting her parents in Vermont. I was a bachelor for eight days. I kept myself occupied for most of the time assembling and setting up my new guitar. I mentioned that the Fender-type longer-scale length was an adjustment for me after playing nothing but Gibson guitars with the shorter scale length. A guy on a guitar forum advised me to play the new guitar exclusively for a month or so until it felt “normal,” then I could pick up a Gibson again and be comfortable with either one. If I switched back and forth from the start, the Fender-style neck would never feel right.
That’s what I’ve been doing – playing it daily. It sounds so good and plays really nice. I made a few tweaks to the set-up and it’s a really fine instrument. While Donna was away, I sold my Egnater amp and 112 cabinet. I ordered a new 112 from Avatar in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and got it last week. It’s loaded with a Celestion 60-watt Vintage 30 12″ speaker. It has greater power handling capability than the Egnater cabinet and sounds really good. Now I’m waiting for delivery of another amplifier kit – it’s coming from Canada and I’ve heard nothing good lately about shipments via Canada Post. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
My current guitar rig
While Donna was away, I didn’t exactly eat like a king. It’s hard to prepare a good meal for one person. She left a couple of leftover dishes for me and I filled in with pre-made dishes like pot pies or enchilada plates. With Donna back, that’s changed for the better. Last week, I made a batch of Japanese fried rice and Donna grilled wild Argentine shrimp – a great combination.
Japanese fried rice and wild Argentine shrimp
She followed that up with pollo in potachio – Italian braised chicken with tomatoes, rosemary and garlic – the next night.
Pollo in potachio served over mashed potatoes with green beans
A couple of days ago, Donna put a pork tenderloin in the slow cooker along with a sweet and savory sauce.
Slow cooked sweet and savory pork tenderloin with brown rice and broccoli
Yesterday was my birthday and Donna had a theme for my present. She had me unwrap three presents in a certain order. With a nod to George Thorogood, I opened one bourbon…
Woodford Reserve
One Scotch…
The Glenlivet Scotch finished in Carribean rum barrels
And one beer.
She also gave a me a cookbook called The Japanese Grill.
We celebrated with a sushi dinner at Zushi on McDowell across from Red, White and Brew. Sixty-five trips around the sun – where has all the time gone?
We’ve had warmer weather – it hit 97 on Sunday. We went over to Mike and Jodi Hall’s place to watch the NFL Cardinals put a spanking on the LA Rams. Mike and I enjoyed a cigar on their back patio with a swamp cooler and outdoor TV. It was the first cigar I’ve had in over three weeks. It’s been so hot outside that a cigar wasn’t appealing to me.
It really cooled down on Tuesday as thundershowers roared in. The temperature only hit 83 degrees and the rain poured down. The moisture and change in the temperture is doing the golf course some good. They’ve overseeded the grass and it’s really responded. You might recall the photos I posted of the dormant grass a few weeks ago. The course will open for the winter season soon.
The fifth green is looking – umm, greenAnd the fairway looks pretty fair
The forecast calls for upper 80s today and tomorrow, but 90 degrees doesn’t appear in the long-range forecast. If the weather guessers have it right, we’ll be in the upper 70s to low 80s for the foreseeable future.
*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!
This post doesn’t have anything to do with the RV lifestyle or our new place at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. It’s about my guitar project, so if you have no interest in guitars, no need to read on.
I wrote a post in June where I mentioned meeting Curt Mangan and touring his guitar string factory in Cortez, Colorado. Curt planted a seed when he said every guitarist needs to have a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar. My first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster I ordered in 1976. I sold it a couple of years later (I wish I hadn’t done that). I’ve had a few Strats over the years but never liked them enough to keep them. Fender and Gibson make great guitars, but they are different in design, philosophy and construction.
Fenders typically have single-coil pickups, bolt-on necks and a 25.5-inch scale length. Gibson uses humbucker pickups, set necks which are glued to the body and a 24.75-inch scale length. This makes the guitars feel, sound and play differently. The longer scale Fenders have higher string tension and slightly more space between the frets than the shorter scale Gibsons. The Fender single-coil pickups can really produce some nice tones, but they’re prone to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) which can cause noise or humming from the amplifier. Humbucker pickups are inherently noise cancelling and to my ears have a thicker, richer tone. So, I’ve been a Gibson guy for a long time.
Having said all that, Curt had me thinking – I should take another shot at playing a Stratocaster. You can find very affordable Strats in the entry-level Fender Squier line (usually sourced from Asia) or step up a little and get a Fender made in Mexico. The premium level Fenders are made in Corona, California. The low line in that series starts at around $1,400 and goes up to around $2,500. Then there’s the Custom Shop offerings – the team built guitars are the next price tier. And, finally there’s the Masterbuilt series where one luthier builds and finishes the entire guitar and these run anywhere from about $7,000 up to $20,000 or so.
I didn’t want an entry-level guitar but at the same time I didn’t want to spend $2,000 + on a Strat. I started researching guitar kits to build a Strat. There are several kits available, ranging from cheap Chinese sourced kits around $200 up to high end kit makers like Warmoth in Puyallup, Washington. A high quality Warmoth would be in the $1,500 – $2,000 range and would require a lot of work to finish.
I found a company in Amherst, New Hampshire called BYO Guitar. They have a full line of kits ranging from affordable entry level kits up to their Custom Shop offerings where they make the guitar body and neck to order in-house. My goal wasn’t to see how cheaply I could build a Strat, rather I wanted to see if I could get a higher quality instrument within my budget constraints. BYO Custom Shop seemed to fill the bill.
I arbitrarily set a budget ceiling of around $1,000. I spec’d a Strat with a two-piece swamp ash body, a black limba neck with jumbo frets and rosewood fret board and quality hardware like Grover tuners and Wilkinson bridge-tremolo unit. At BYO they could build to my spec, including my choice of finish stain and even include a hardshell Gator case for just over $1,000. I went for it.
They needed about two months to complete the work – I had them hold the parts until September when we returned to Mesa. The kit arrived last Tuesday with everything in the Gator case. The book-matched swamp ash body was so finely made, I thought I’d received a one-piece body at first. I had to really look to find the seam. Well done! I started working on it right away. I don’t think it’s fair to say “I built my own guitar.” It was actually more of an assembly task – after all I didn’t cut and shape the body from a blank or carve the neck. It was a matter of fitting the parts, soldering the wiring harness for the pickups and controls and installing hardware.
Poorly lit, unfocused shot of unboxed parts – the neck isn’t installed, just sitting in place
My first step was to paint the body cavities with a carbon-based conductive shielding paint. I mentioned how single-coil guitar pickups are prone to EMI. By shielding the body cavities and grounding the shielding, some EMI can be blocked. It’s like a Faraday cage, but a guitar can never have a true Faraday cage – the pickups are still exposed and there are other points like the control shafts that can’t be fully shielded.
Bare cavities in the swamp ash body – there’s a seam right down the center, nearly invisibleBody masked and conductive paint appliedCavity on back of body for tremolo springs
Then I went to work on the neck – I was pleasantly surprised to find the frets leveled, crowned and nicely polished. I thought I would have to do some finish work on the frets but it wasn’t necessary. I went straight to installation of the Grover tuners on the head stock.
Neck with tuners installed
I ran into trouble on Wednesday. I soldered the output jack, ground wires and controls. I tested it and it worked. I installed the pickguard and jack plate onto the body. Now it didn’t work. It was a real headscratcher and I can’t tell you how many times I took it apart and checked everything. I finally figured out that I had contact between the pickup selector switch and the conductive paint creating a short to ground. I added a piece of black electrical tape and tried it again. It worked. Then it didn’t work. What? I found the tip of the jack on the guitar cable would sometimes touch the shielding in the jack cavity creating another short to ground. Again, I confirmed it by adding a piece of black electrical tape. Now everything worked right.
I didn’t want to leave a band-aid on the problem, so Thursday morning I used a Dremel to carve a trough under the selector switch and carve out a bit of the jack cavity. This meant I had to repaint those areas with conductive paint. After the paint dried, I re-assembled the pickguard and jack plate – bingo, everything works.
Next I had to install the nut at the head of the neck. This is a critical step. The vibrating guitar string has two points of contact to impart vibration and resonate with the wood in the neck and body. There’s the bridge where the strings attach at the body and the nut. The nut can be made from bone, synthetic bone material or plastic. Higher end guitars will use bone or synthetic material while entery-level guitars have plastic nuts.
I used a Tusq synthetic nut which is impregnated with PTFE. It came over-size for the nut slot. First I had to carefully thin it. I did this by sanding it with 320 grit sand paper on a flat surface. I took it really slow – it needs to be a snug fit with solid contact with wood slot so vibrations (sound) can transfer. It was a matter of sanding a bit, then trying to fit it. Once I had a good, snug fit, I put the first string (high e) and the sixth string (low e) on the guitar and measured the string height at the first fret. It was way too high.
Nut installed and masked before filing the ends flush with the neck edge
Once again, it was a matter of sanding carefully and trial fitting it. Altogether I probably spent an hour sanding and trying before I was satisfied. At that point, I put the rest of the strings on and started the set up process. I set the trem-bridge assembly to float so the whammy bar can vary the pitch both up and down. Then I set the action or string height over the frets. The relief or bow in the neck was next – this can be adjusted by tightening or loosening the truss rod. Pickup height adjustment was next. Lastly I set the intonation by making sure each string went up in frequency by one octave when comparing the open string to the 12th fret. This is adjusted at the bridge saddles.
Gator hardshell caseStrat completed and in it’s new home
Now it was time to play! I had set it up with the unbranded strings that came with the kit. Turns out, I didn’t like them much. They were a really light gauge – too light for me. The guitar played fine, the neck is excellent but I was missing the tone I was after. It didn’t have a sparkling clean sound and seemed a little off balance. I played for a while then put it away.
Friday morning I changed the strings to a new set of 10-46 gauge strings. This meant going through the setup process again as the string tension changed and everything else changed with it. It was better, but still lacking the bright, clean tone I expect from a Strat. Then it occured to me. The pickups are wound pretty hot and I had them set too close to the strings. I reset them so the bass side was 7 or 8/32″ from the bottom of the string and the treble side at 6/32″. Much better! I’ll probably continue to tweak it bit here and there, but I like it. From the Fender Stratocasters I tried at Guitar Center, I would put this guitar on par with a $2,000+ made in America Fender Strat.
EDIT – I forgot to mention, this is the quietest single-coil guitar I’ve ever played. No hiss or hum unless I hold the guitar within about two feet of the amplifier where there’s a strong electro-magnetic field from the transformers.
We’ve had overnight rain the last two nights – really heavy rain on Thursday night and a lighter shower last night. The weather is cooler with highs expected in the low 90s today and down in the low 80s starting tomorrow. Donna is enjoying her trip to New England and will return late Tuesday night.
*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!
I haven’t posted in over a week. That’s mainly because I haven’t had anything exciting to write about. We’ve been slowly getting settled in to our place here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, mainly staying indoors. It’s still hot here in Mesa, Arizona.
Ozark the cat has definitely settled in. She doesn’t like travel days, although she’s perfectly happy in the coach when we’re stationary – especially when we stay put for a week or more. Back-to-back travel days aren’t her thing – they really aren’t our thing either. Ozark can roam from room to room here and she has a few favorite spots.
Ozark the cat hanging out
I think Ozark would be happy if we just stayed here permanently. Donna and I are content, but we know we’ll get the hitch itch sooner or later.
I’m happy to have our Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill available again. When we hit the road last spring, I had to leave it behind. Without our cargo trailer, I just didn’t have room for it. Last week, I bought a two-pack of USDA Prime tri-tip roasts at Costco. They were a little over two pounds each. I think when you take it out of the package, it’s correct to refer to them as roasts. Once you grill them and cut it into portions, it’s more appropriate to call them steaks. I wrote a post about tri-tips here.
I prepared one on Tuesday with my usual tri-tip seasoning – salt, pepper and garlic powder in a dry rub. I set the Traeger at 220 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Before I took them out of the Traeger, I preheated our gas grill to 450 degrees. I transferred the tri-tip to the grill and seared each side for three minutes. They were cooked to a perfect medium rare with an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees.
Tri-tip hot off of the grill
Donna served it with steamed green beans and sweet potato tots.
Tri-tip dinner plate
The USDA Prime tri-tips were $12.99/lb at Costco. A pack of two tri-tips ran just over $50, but we’ll get several meals out them. The first tri-tip was an excellent dinner on Tuesday, we had at least half of it left over.
On Saturday, Donna prepared beef stroganoff with the remainder of the tri-tip. She used noodles from Sprouts that were billed as “home made egg noodles.” The stroganoff was delicious and once again we had leftovers for another lunch meal.
Beef stroganoff and broccoli
I have a number of projects that need to be attended to, but I’ve been procrastinating due to the heat. We’ve had only two days that weren’t triple digit heat since my last post. I got a start on the End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) antenna for my ham shack. The EFHW will allow me to seamlessly tune the 10-meter, 20-meter and 40-meter bands by going through my MFJ auto-tuner with my Yaesu FT-991A radio. I hope to get the antenna finished by the next weekend.
My guitar body, neck and hardware are scheduled to arrive via FedEx tomorrow. That will be my priority in the next week or so. I already received a full compliment of special tools from Stew-Mac to finish the frets and set everything up. I also decided to sell my Egnater guitar amplifier and cabinet and build another amp. I’ll write about that later, once I get it underway.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll be up at dark-thirty. I will drive Donna to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for her 6am flight. She’s going back to Vermont to visit her parents. They have plans to travel to Ogunquit, Maine to spend a couple of nights on the coast. I’ll be a bachelor for a week – I’ll have plenty to do with the guitar project and ham stuff. I also need to get out to the storage facility and see about making a permanent fix for the left front body panel on the coach. I need to figure a way to get it back into proper shape so I can rivet the front section to the frame.
Donna has been getting out early in the morning to play pickleball or tennis before it gets too hot out. I’m not up for pickleball at 6:30am, so I’ll wait for cooler temps to get back on the courts.
After a couple more hot afternoons, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the month. That’ll be a relief.
*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 last week was a transition time for us. On Tuesday, we pulled out of Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah as planned. The day before, I made a trip to Ace Hardware in town and bought some JB Weld adhesive. I bonded the panel surrounding the left front tire to the mounting points. Although I’d managed to make a temporary repair to the front mounting point by installing small screws where the rivets failed, the rear of the panel was loose and it moved back and forth due to aerodynamic forces. We had over 400 miles to go and I didn’t think my temporary repair would hold up unless I secured the rear of the panel.
We were out of the park by 10:30am and had a long day ahead of us. Our plan was to travel about 220 miles to Cameron, Arizona where there’s a newish RV park across the highway from the Cameron Trading Post. Our route had us on US89 south all the way. This is a scenic drive as US89 cuts east south of Bryce Canyon and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Diesel fuel in Utah was over $4.00/gallon, so I held off until we crossed into Arizona at Page. I filled our tank there at $3.33/gallon. A year ago, I wouldn’t be too happy with that price, but in the current situation, I thought we did okay.
We found the RV park in Cameron, but it wasn’t what we expected. The website showed a nice looking park, but in reality, it’s a poorly laid out dirt lot. To check in, you have to go to the motel at the trading post and pay, then cross the highway and pick a site. It seemed like there was plenty of space but due to the poor layout it wasn’t easy to get a big rig into a site. And we had to unhook the truck because the pullthroughs were not long enough. And we only had 30amp at the pedestal so we could run only one AC unit.
Once we were settled in, Donna phoned the Elk’s Lodge in Payson – that was our next planned stop. They have 12 sites with 30amp hookup and we hoped to snag one so we could run our air conditioner because the forecast for Payson was 95 degrees. The lodge doesn’t take reservations and unfortunately they told us all of the sites were occupied. We had a back-up plan to go to the casino in Payson and just run the generator for air conditioning. After talking it over, we decided we would make the 240-mile run all the way to our park model home at Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.
I know you’re thinking 240 miles doesn’t seem that far. The route I chose had us on US89 south to Flagstaff, then we hit I-17 south to Camp Verde. US89 has a tough climb up to 7000 feet above sea level in Flagstaff. At Camp Verde, we exited onto AZ260 which turned out to be a tougher drive than I expected. The last time I drove this highway was more than 10 years ago and I was riding a motorcycle. I didn’t recall how steep some of the grades are and also how narrow some sections of the road are. It was hot and I had to keep a close watch on our engine coolant temperature – this meant slowing down and gearing down on the steep climbs. From Payson, we took AZ87 (Beeline Highway) to the Bush Highway exit, went over Usery Pass and were back in Mesa.
The alternative would have been to take I-17 all the way to Phoenix, then follow Loop 101 to Loop 202 to Mesa. I didn’t want to take that route as traffic would be heavy and people drive like maniacs through Phoenix.
We parked the coach in front of our home at 12:20pm – we’d gained an hour when we crossed into Arizona. Our caretaker had the air conditioner on in our house – he said he would turn it on two days before we arrived. We came in a day ahead of schedule, but the house was cool although we had triple digit temperature outside. By the way, the JB Weld repair held up fine – I had no issues with the panel on the coach.
We went right to work unloading the coach and moving back into the house. I took some time to get the swamp cooler running in our Arizona room – a 400-square foot room addition to our park model home. The coach was hot sitting in full sun in front of our place and we worked all afternoon. Donna did most of the moving while I got things like electrical breakers and the water heater going. Our goal was to empty the coach first, then we could take our time sorting things and putting stuff away. One plus was that it didn’t take long to defrost the refrigerator thanks to the heat!
On Thursday morning, we took the last of our stuff out of the coach. I drove the coach to the Apache Sands Service Center about a mile away from here where I filled the propane tank, dumped the holding tanks and filled up the fuel tank with 31 gallons of diesel fuel at $3.00/gallon. I wanted the fuel tank full while it’s in storage to minimize air space in the fuel tank which, in turn, minimizes condensation of moisture in the tank. The coach is in a covered storage lot at 202 RV Valet with a 20-amp electrical hook-up to keep the batteries charged.
We were both ready to get off of the road and settle back in at Viewpoint. Coming back this early risked high temperatures and we’ll have them. The forecast calls for triple digit heat for the next week before things begin to cool. Triple digit heat in the afternoon lingers after nightfall – overnight lows are in the 80s.
98 degrees at 10:20 pm last night
The fairways and greens on the golf course are brown at this time of year. Some grasses go dormant in the heat of summer in Arizona, just like some grasses go dormant in the winter up north.
Dormant grass on the fairway and green of the fifth hole behind our house
The previous owner of our place had internet through a local provider called Jabba. The high-speed internet wireless receiver antenna was still on the carport and he left the router. Yesterday, I set up an account with Jabba and hooked up the router. We now have truly unlimited data usage with a speed of 15Mbps for $44.95/month. I also suspended my Dish service while the motorhome is in storage – we have free cable TV here at Viewpoint.
Donna restocked our refrigerator and pantry yesterday and last night, she manned the large gas grill we have at the house and grilled a coho (silver) salmon filet and bok choy. She made a soy sauce, worcestershire and honey based marinade for the fish. It was outstanding.
Grilled salmon and bok choy
Donna and I love our time on the road, but we’re both happy to be back in Mesa and settling in to our home. We only spent about six weeks here after we bought the place last spring. We’ll probably stay here until May.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. We should take a few moments to remember the innocent victims and never forget the horrors of terrorism.
*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 in the forecast I mentioned in my last post came, but it came much later than originally predicted. It was cloudy all day Tuesday but the rain held off until sundown. It rained off and on during the night and continued to rain Wednesday with a few breaks. Thursday we had showers but the sun broke through occasionally. The nice thing about the rain, it cleared the air of whatever pollen was getting to me.
Thursday afternoon during a period of sunshine, we drove to the store. On the way into town, Donna suggested making the 18-mile drive up to Panguitch Lake to have a look around. It turned out to be not such a good day for it. As we climbed to the lake west of town, we drove right back into rain. We didn’t even get out of the truck – we just drove by the lake and took a look. There isn’t much up there and it was too dreary to snap a photo.
Friday morning we had clear skies and the sun was shining. We had a late breakfast, then drove up to Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest. Red Canyon has a visitor center with a large parking lot providing access to many hiking trails – it’s the gateway to Bryce Canyon National Park with a 17-mile paved biking trail to the park.
After a stop in the visitor center for information and maps, we decided to hike from there. We followed a trail from the visitor center parallel to the highway and started up the Hoodoo Trail. Geologically speaking, a hoodoo is a column of rock, usually softer rock like limestone topped by a harder layer – typically basalt. Hoodoos differ from spires due to their shape – they are irregular, forming a totem pole-like shape or are topped with an area with a larger diameter often looking like a rock balanced on top of a spire. A spire is a column of rock that tapers from a larger diameter base to a thin tip.
Hoodoo Trail is aptly named as it offers views of two distintive hoodoos.
Red Canyon hoodoos
Like arches, hoodoos form from erosion over millions of years.
The Hoodoo Trail fishooks as it climbs and has nine posts, each one numbered with a guide pamphlet giving information about vegetation and geology of the area around the posts. After the ninth post, we reached the junction with the Pink Ledges Trail. This trail climbs and had four more numbered posts (10 through 13) described in the guide. A few of the posts also have benches where you can take a break and look at the scenery.
Rock layers are evident in the distant cliff
In the photo above, the high cliff in the background clearly shows the sedimentary layers of rock – softer limestone and sandstone topped with darker basalt.
High up the trail, the view seems endless.Trees on top of rock formation
It was amazing to see trees rooted in the rock formations.
Various colors in the rock cliffs
The orange and yellows in picture above are from clay and iron mixed in the limestone. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the darker areas appeared to be a type of lichen adhering to the rock.
Another view from high up the trail of the hoodoos in the first photo of this postAnother hoodoo formationThe trail switches back around this hoodoo
The Pink Ledges Trail eventually brought us back to the far end of the visitor center parking lot. The trail wasn’t too strenuous, although it did have significant elevation changes and few steep areas with loose stones. Wear sturdy shoes and tread carefully!
Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Donna took advantage of a break in the rain to grill chicken breasts. She grilled the chicken seasoned with salt and pepper, then served it topped with a Mediterranean vinaigrette. She roasted patty pan squash (picked up from the local produce stand) with tomatoes and black olives, topped with fresh basil.
Grilled chicken with Mediteranean vinaigrette
This morning, Donna loaded her bike in the truck and returned to Red Canyon. She rode up the trail toward Bryce Canyon to the summit and beyond, gaining nearly 1,000 feet of elevation before turning back after seven-and-a-half miles to make a quick descent back to the truck.
With the rainy day Wednesday, we had a high of only 64 degrees. Thursday was warmer and Friday hit the upper 70s with a high of 78 called for today. We should see highs in the low to mid 80s in the next few days. I paid for three more nights here to get us through the Labor Day weekend. We’ll head out on Tuesday and intend to be back in Mesa, Arizona on Thursday September 9th.
*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!
