Getting Out

Last Wednesday was our 15th wedding anniversary. We married on the fifth day of May back in 2006, here in Arizona – at Watson Lake Park near Prescott to be precise. We usually celebrate our anniversary by treating ourselves to a nice dinner – since it’s Cinco de Mayo, we’ve often chosen Mexican cuisine. This year was no exception. We went to Baja Joe’s Mexican Cantina where Sinaloa-style seafood is their specialty.

Many people in this country misunderstand the Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration. It’s not Mexico’s independence day like so many people think. Instead of being the equivalent of our Fourth of July celebration, it commemorates a military victory over French forces at Puebla in 1862.

We started our dining experience with margaritas on the outdoor patio – a skinny margarita for Donna and a Cadillac-style margarita for me. We went with Baja Joe’s strength and ordered seafood entrees. Donna went for shrimp in a poblano cream sauce while I ordered sea bass a la Veracruzana. The entrees were delicious.

We don’t dine out often, but when we do, we like to make it a memorable experience. The excellent fare at Baja Joe’s was well worth it.

Earlier in the day, Donna had a visit from an old friend, one she hadn’t seen since high school. Tim Murphy and his wife Mary were in the area for a family wedding, they’re from New Hampshire and it was their first time here. Donna went for a drive with them and showed them the Salt River at the Coons Bluff and Goldfield recreational areas and they also made a stop at Saguaro Lake.

Saturday evening we met our friends, Howard and Sara Graff at The Monastery – a unique bar and grill next to Falcon Field here in Mesa. The Monastery is a bit quirky. Most of the seating is outdoors in a large, open area. It has a sand volleyball court in the center.

We found a table outside and Howard and Sara joined us shortly after we arrived. They were serving a limited menu – half a dozen appetizers and maybe a dozen entrees. You can order burgers from the kitchen or you can order burger patties with fixings and grill it yourself at one of the outdoor barbeque grills. Their specialty burger from the kitchen is $12, the patty you grill yourself is $7. We ordered food from the kitchen. They had a band playing outside Saturday night.

The band was okay, but I didn’t like their sound system. All of the instruments were plugged straight into a board that fed the PA speakers. The sound reminded me of an old portable transistor radio. The guitar tone was so buzzy, it was fatiguing to listen to. It made me think of the time when the guy that replaced me in the band Backtrack and I had a conversation about guitar tone. He said no one in the audience cares what your tone sounds like, they just want to move to the music. I don’t believe I’m the only one listening to a band that cares what the instruments actually sound like, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

We had a fun time although the conversation was somewhat limited by the sound level of the band. I wish we would have gotten together with Howard and Sara more over the winter, but it seems our schedule didn’t line up.

We had more fun on Sunday as we were invited to join a Mother’s Day celebration at Mike and Jodi Hall’s place. Jodi grilled burgers and also made a fruit salad. Donna brought a warm bean dip she made and somebody brought cold shrimp for shrimp cocktail. Mike and I enjoyed a cigar and conversation on the back patio by their koi pond. I neglected to take pictures of Howard and Sara and at the Hall’s also.

Of course we also had home cooked meals last week. Friday night, Donna grilled chicken and served it with roasted baby potatoes and creamed peas on the side.

Grilled chicken with roasted baby potatoes and creamed peas

The weather has remained very warm with daily highs in the mid to upper 90s. Even the nighttime temps are warming up with lows in the mid 60s to 70 degrees. We plan to head out for the summer on Thursday – the forecast calls for 100 degrees on Thursday afternoon.

Our tentative plan is to meet up with Frank and Kelly Burk and Mike and Jodi Hall near Woods Canyon on the Mogollon Rim – six or seven thousand feet above sea level. We’ll dry camp through the weekend and figure out our next move from there.

*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!

Covered Gold Mine

Donna came back Thursday night after spending a week visiting her parents in Bennington, Vermont. Her connecting flight in Chicago was delayed, so she didn’t make here until midnight.

We’re trying to think about what items we’ll need to pack back into the coach when we leave here. This is different – for the last eight years, everything we had was in the coach and cargo trailer. Now we have some things in the coach and most of our stuff here in our park model home at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. We haven’t made any firm commitments or real travel plans. We know we want to leave here soon – sometime next week – as hot weather will drive us out of the Valley of the Sun.

We plan to be back here in mid-September. I looked for options to store the coach when we return and the options weren’t too good. There are two nice RV and boat storage yards nearby. One told me there was no chance I could find a spot there in September, the other – 202 RV Valet – where we currently have the coach, said it was possible they would have a space available, but highly doubtful. There are other storage facilities in Apache Junction but most of them are just gravel lots with a chain link fence surrounding it. Not very secure.

We decided to keep our covered space at 202 RV Valet year ’round. That means I’ll be paying $200/month all summer just to ensure we have the space when we return. That’s what most of the people with RVs and boats stored there do. What a gold mine. I think they told me there are 193 covered spaces, about 120 open air spaces and around 80 enclosed climate controlled spaces. All of them are paid for, but currently about half of them are empty.

The facility at 202 RV Valet is modern and secure. It’s surrounded by a tall block wall, has several security cameras and every renter has a unique code to enter the gated entrance. They keep a record of who comes into the yard by their code. We can access the coach 24/7.

Speaking of security, last week I installed a dead bolt on the shed door. When we leave here, I’ll have tools and equipment in the shed and I want to have them there when we return. Now I’m thinking I should install dead bolts on the back door and side entrance to our home as well.

Last Saturday, my middle daughter Jamie and her life partner Francisco visited us and we had dinner here. We didn’t eat out on the deck though. It was hot and breezy so we dined inside. Donna made shrimp kabobs seasoned with tare sauce I made. I added Japanese fried rice to the meal. It was excellent.

We’ve started watching a Netflix series called Midnight Diner. It’s a Japanese TV series about a diner that is only open from midnight to 7am. The characters that come to the diner vary but they are always interesting. There are a few regulars as well. We’re enjoying the series.

The temperature has hit the 90s every day since Donna’s return. The forecast is calling for more of the same for next 10 days. People are getting up early to hit the pickleball courts around 6am to beat the heat. I don’t make it until 7 or 7:30.

Blazing sunset framed by one of the pineapple palms behind our deck

The last cool day we had was last Wednesday when we had a few rain showers and the thermometer only reached 78 degrees. It’s doubtful if we’ll see temperatures that low until late fall. That’s why we plan to head north next week.

Today is Cinco de Mayo – the fifth day of May. That makes it our 15th wedding anniversary. We plan to celebrate with dinner at a Mexican restaurant tonight.

Our Third is Born

I haven’t updated this blog for the last ten days! Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough hours in a day. But when I really think about it, I do a lot of leisure activities that take time. It’s not like I’m toiling away.

Four or five days per week, I play pickleball for about two hours in the morning. This ends up taking most of the morning – I usually need a snack after two hours on the courts and rest. Then there’s always an errand or two to run.

Lately, I’ve devoted about two hours a day to guitar practice. I’m slowly regaining my chops and relearning some songs I used play regularly. I haven’t played through my handwired vacuum tube amps in a long time. These amplifiers work best when the power tubes are pushed into high output – it creates a responsiveness and touch sensitivity in the guitar. The thing is, pushing the power tubes means high volume!

I used to run my Marshall 18 Watt clone through an Avatar speaker cabinet loaded with two 30-watt Celestion 12-inch speakers. I had an identical – except for color – cabinet for my Trainwreck style amp. When we lived in Michigan, I practiced in our finished walk-out basement. The houses in our neighborhood were separated by large yards – we were hundreds of feet away from our neighbors. Playing loud was not a problem.

I brought one of the Avatar cabinets with us when we hit the road. Unfortunately, it was in our trailer when those Dirty, Rotten Thieves stole it. I still had a practice amp and speaker Donna bought for me and I had an Egnater Tweaker 15-watt head and cabinet with one 30-watt Celestion 12-inch speaker. This cabinet handles the Marshall fine, but the Trainwreck is too much power for it. The Trainwreck is rated at 36 watts, but this is misleading. That rating is when the output is clean with no clipping or distortion. When pushed into clipping, the output is in excess of 50 watts.

Now we have neighbors with about ten feet of separation. I ordered a Power Soak speaker attenuator to put inline between the amplifier and speaker cabinet. This device is basically a voltage divider that absorbs some of the power output of the amp and tames the speaker while I’m pushing the output into the distortion range. I can play at reasonable volume while enjoying the response these amps can provide.

I’m still concerned about the Trainwreck overpowering the 30-watt Celestion speaker and blowing it out. I ordered a new speaker cabinet with a Celestion speaker rated at 80 watts to use with the Trainwreck. It’s my favorite amp. With the volume knob on my guitar set around 4 – zero is off and 10 is full power – I get a clean, sparkly sound. Turning the knob up to around 7, I get a fatter, distorted sound and anything higher than that is full on crunch, while the volume doesn’t change much. Love it. I quit playing it though until I get the new speaker.

Last Thursday, my eldest daughter Alana and her fiance Kevin visited us. They came down to the area from western Washington to visit her mother, golf and see us. Donna grilled sockeye salmon and we enjoyed dinner on the back deck. It was a nice visit, I always enjoy visiting with my daughters and always wonder when we’ll be together again when they leave.

Friday morning, I was up early to drive Donna to the airport. She flew back to Vermont to visit her parents, so I’ve been on my own for a week – Donna will return Thursday night. So that means I’m the cook – something else that occupies my time. I’ve been spending more time in the kitchen lately even when Donna’s home.

Saturday I met up with friends at Lucky Lou’s. We shared a table on the outdoor patio – it was Mike and Jodi Hall, Frank and Kelly Burk and another Mike ( I don’t know his last name). We swapped tales and enjoyed couple of cold ones, just like old times.

On Monday morning, my youngest daughter, Shauna, gave birth to our third granddaughter in Washington, D.C. Her name is Petra. I have three daughters and now three granddaughters. Baby and mom are doing fine and we feel blessed to have them.

I’ve been tackling some minor issues in our new-to-us park model home. One of the things that needed updating was the connectors on the coaxial cable for the televisions. This isn’t hard to do if you have the right tools. Without a proper crimper for the f-type RG6 connector, it’s not a do-it-yourself thing. I ordered tools and connectors from Amazon. I’ll probably put them in the shed and not need them again, but it was necessary. The old connectors were falling apart and if you moved the cable the slightest amount, you would lose the signal.

Last week before Donna left, she made a couple of outstanding dinners. First up was pork kabobs with pineapple, mushrooms and peppers.

Next up was plate of shrimp and shishito peppers and fried rice. I made the fried rice – it’s becoming my specialty.

She also made grilled chicken thighs with butternut squash risotto and asparagus.

The weather remained hot last week with daily highs in the upper 80s or low 90s. The swamp cooler in the Arizona room has been very effective. We use a box fan to circulate air to the front room and didn’t run the air conditioner at all! This is a great energy saver. It was overcast and cooler yesterday. Last night, we had a couple of rain showers and it was cloudy again this morning, but now the sun is shining. It’s only supposed to get up to 70 for a high today and 79 tomorrow. From Thursday, the forecast calls for mid-90s through the weekend. Just in time for Donna’s return Thursday night.

Curtains Up

The annual exodus from Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort is well underway. Most of the Canadian visitors have already departed. This morning, our next-door neighbors headed back to Iowa. The neighbor on the south side of us stays here year ’round. We’ll be here through the first week of May.

Things are slowly shaping up in our new-to-us park model home. This week, I hung drapes in the front room. Donna’s been watching the Facebook Marketplace and found some deals on rods and curtains.

New drapery and rods on the front window facing Superstition Mountains

Construction of these park model homes is different from what I’d expect to find in a regular sticks-and-bricks home. When I drilled holes for the curtain rod mounts, I didn’t know what I was drilling into. It turned out the center mount was on a solid header board. If I had known that from the start, I would have drilled smaller holes and tapped wood screws directly into the wall. But, having drilled oversized holes I had to insert anchors. It worked out fine. The end mounts were into thin plywood and required anchors.

The front window is curved. Donna found an articulated rod made for bay windows that fit perfectly. When I installed the curtain rod on the side window on the north side of the front room, I piloted the holes with a small drill bit first to see if I would be in solid wood or thin ply. Once again, the center mount went into solid header board while the end mounts needed anchors inserted into thin plywood.

Another thing I worked on this week was getting my guitar amps and pedal board set up and working. The amps have been locked away in a basement compartment of our coach for nearly eight years. I’ve really neglected my guitar and hardly played at all for the last couple of years.

I expected trouble with the vacuum tubes in the amplifier. They had to get shaken up on some of the roads we’ve traveled. I was pleased to find my Egnater Tweaker amp fired up with no issues at all. Then I was surprised to find the Marshall 18 Watt clone I built in 2011 worked fine. My luck didn’t hold out on the Trainwreck inspired amp I built in 2012 – it just crackled and made a few really fuzzy tones.

I suspected one or more vacuum tubes were shot. When I was a kid, back in the 1960s and ’70s, you could find a vacuum tube testing machine in almost every hardware store and even pharmacies and supermarkets. Nowadays, these testers are just a fading memory. Without any way to test the vacuum tubes, I broke out my credit card and ordered a complete set – three 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL34 power tubes (plus an extra 12AX7 to keep on hand).

When the tubes came, I almost switched them all out with the new ones, but then I decided to do one at a time and see which ones were bad. The first tube in the V1 position was a Tung-Sol 12AX7 and I had ordered one of these. These are made in Russia. All of the new production tubes I used are made in Russia or China. Vacuum tube manufacturing completely disappeared from the Americas and Europe as the technology is no longer used in most consumer applications. At one time, every television set had a complement of vacuum tubes and high-quality tubes were made in the USA and western Europe and were readily available. Today, it’s a niche market for audiophiles and guitar amplifiers.

After I installed the first tube, I plugged in the amp and tried it. It worked fine. The V1 position was the only bad tube! The Tung-Sol tube was under $20, but now I have three Shuguang 12AX7 tubes that I use in the V2 position of the Trainwreck and in two positions of the Marshall clone. I also have a Sovtek 12AX7LPS and two Ruby EL34s. So I’m set with spares, but if I could’ve tested first, I wouldn’t have ordered $130 worth of tubes.

I have the amplifiers stacked to save space and I can easily switch from one amp to another when I play. I also set up my pedal board and I’m happy to report that all is well with my effects pedals. I’m back to playing my guitar, but man am I rusty.

Top to bottom – Egnater Tweaker, Trainwreck type, Marshall 18 Watt clone and Egnater 1-12 speaker

Donna had her second Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. She got the shot in Fountain Hills and while she was there, she was able to visit two of her friends in the area – a gal she met through her church and a former neighbor, both of whom she hadn’t seen in a few years. She also enjoyed a solo alfresco lunch at her favorite Italian restaurant on the lake before heading to the pharmacy to get her vaccine. She felt fine when she went to bed, but woke up in the night with severe chills. By morning, she had a fever of 101.7 degrees. She was ill all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. She’s fine today and played tennis this morning.

I mentioned in my last post the Teruyasu Fujiwara Maboroshi gyuto I bought. You might wonder why I would want to have two Japanese chef’s knives. My two gyutos have completely different character with their own strengths. The Kintaro forged by Yoshimi Kato has a thin, light blade. The cutting edge of the blade is 215mm long and the knife weighs 131 grams. My TF Maboroshi is more stout – it has a cutting edge 200mm long and weighs in at 195 grams.

The Kintaro excels when slicing cabbage. It seems to float right through the produce like a ghost. But I have issues using it on potatoes. Potato slices stick to the side of the blade like they’re suctioned on – I practically have to peel the potato slices from the knife. The Maboroshi cuts cabbage fine, but it doesn’t have the feeling of just floating through. It’s super sharp though and excels on carrots and potatoes and just about anything. Potatoes do not stick to the hammered finish on the blade.

Lately, I’ve been handling the dinner prep – Donna tells me what’s on the menu and what she needs. I break out the cutting boards and prep whatever veggies she needs. This saves her some time and we both participate in the meal preparation.

On Monday, I made Japanese style fried rice while Donna grilled salmon and shishito peppers. It was a great meal.

Grilled salmon, shishito peppers and fried rice

On Tuesday, Donna kept it simple. She sauteed onions and mushrooms and baked spuds while I grilled filet mignon. Donna wrapped the filets with a strip of bacon. The filets were delicious and tender.

Bacon wrapped filet mignon smothered with mushrooms and onions with baked potato and broccoli

Last night, Donna made a new recipe. It was crispy chicken with turmeric-lemon cabbage and peas. It was a labor-intensive recipe that took nearly an hour and 15 minutes to prepare. The meal was great, but I don’t know if Donna wants to put that much effort into making it again.

The hot weather held over the weekend and through the start of the week. It was in the 90s until Wednesday when the high temperature was 87. Thursday cooled to 81 degrees for a high and today we expect 80 degrees. Last night was a comfortable 54 degrees. Looking ahead, we should maintain the highs in the 80s with maybe a day or two around 90 in the coming week.

I found the problem with our swamp cooler. There’s supposed to be a standpipe to drain water if the level gets too high. The standpipe was broken, so not enough water was in the sump. I fixed it and now the swamp cooler is awesome. We haven’t needed to run the air conditioner these last few days – the swamp cooler is doing the job great with just a box fan to circulate air to the front room.

Easter, Heat and Wild Horses

Progress has been pretty slow on our new digs. Donna’s been organizing drawers, cabinets and closet space. I haven’t accomplished much. I’m still a little frustrated at times by looking for something, then realizing we left it in the motorhome – things like the extra wide foil for the Traeger and grill or the BBQ tongs. Yesterday I could have used a needle file. After searching, I realized my needle files were still in a cabinet in the coach.

Today I’ll go over to the 202 RV Valet storage facility and retrieve a couple of things. I also want to put mineral oil in the drains to seal the “P” traps. Water usually does the job, but since we aren’t running water down the drains, it’ll evaporate and allow odors from the holding tank to enter the coach. Mineral oil won’t hurt anything and won’t evaporate. I have a gallon of food-grade mineral oil I recently bought to condition our cutting boards.

On Easter Sunday, we went to Frank and Kelly Burk’s house for a late lunch/early dinner party. I think we had as many as 10 people there at one point with eight staying to eat. Kelly made traditional Easter food – ham and asparagus with hollandaise sauce and scalloped potatoes. Someone else contributed sweet potatoes made with a unique recipe that involved basting with 7Up and cooking for hours. Donna made a fruit salad and I made a slaw.

The slaw was interesting. It was very simple – just cucumber, a Granny Smith apple, a honey crisp apple and scallions. The dressing was apple cider vinegar, honey, sour cream, salt and pepper. The trick to making this slaw is to slice the ingredients extremely thin. I sliced the cucumber and apples into 1 to 2mm thick slices – a thickness somewhere between dime and a quarter thick. Kelly was surprised that I did this with a knife, not a mandolin or some other slicer.

I’ve been working on my kitchen cutlery skills and I sliced these ingredients with a technique that’s probably old-hat to the cooks out there reading this, but it’s fairly new to me. I held the food items on a cutting board with my left hand with a claw grip. I curled my fingers back toward my palm, keeping my finger tips away from the knife blade. The side of the knife blade butts up against the second joint of my middle finger. With each slice I move my grip slightly before slicing again, creating the thin, uniform slices.

With the cucumber, I sliced it lengthwise first, leaving about half an inch still attached at the stem end. Holding it in a claw grip with the slice vertical, I made thin slices that were half the diameter of the cucumber. I used my FKRZ bunka Japanese kitchen knife which has a blade about 2 inches tall, giving me a lot of surface against my finger joint with no danger of slicing my finger tips.

The dinner, conversation and company was much fun and we really enjoyed the Easter gathering.

On Monday afternoon, we invited Dick and Roxy Zarowny for happy hour. They were pulling out of Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort on Tuesday morning to head back home to Spokane, Washington. Donna made baked jalapeno poppers and a bean dip for tortilla chips. Donna and Roxy had kayaked on the Salt River the previous Thursday and hoped to see wild horses. They had fun, but didn’t see any horses – Roxy’s been skunked on wild horse sightings.

One of the things slowing me down on household projects is pickleball. I’ve played almost every day this week. A couple of hours on the court with full sun and temperature in the 80s really wears me out. Today was the fifth day in a row on the court and my legs are weary.

I mentioned the Japanese bunka knife. I want to talk about a Japanese knife blacksmith. His name is Teruyasu Fujiwara (knife nerds refer to him as TF). He is a fourth generation Japanese blacksmith and is known for his heat treatment of Hitachi YSS high carbon steels – shirogami #1 (white #1) and aogami super (AS). In the 1970s, he and his father pioneered the technique of forge-welding stainless steel and carbon steel in to a san-mai (three layer) laminate. This allowed them to heat treat the core carbon steel to a high hardness level while taking advantage of the superior corrosion resistance and toughness of mild stainless steel.

When they started experimenting, they thought they would probably encounter a 20% failure rate – the laminations would de-laminate or crack during heat treatment. They actually lost 80% of their work before they perfected the process. Since then, Hitachi Steel Corporation’s YSS specialty department has developed a process for producing laminated san-mai steel in sheet form.

TF is one of only a handful of blacksmiths that can successfully forge weld their own san-mai stainless-carbon sandwich steel. He claims the hand forged san-mai to be superior to the machine rolled pre-laminated factory stuff. He makes three lines of knives. The first, entry level to TF knives is called the Nashiji line. This is “value” priced and made from pre-laminated factory rolled san-mai steel with a white #1 core and soft stainless cladding. His heat treatment of this steel results in a high hardness level allowing exceedingly sharp edges while paradoxically being easy to sharpen. “Value” pricing is relative – non-knife nerds would probably think these are expensive knives.

The next level of his knives are the Maboroshi no Meito – Maboroshi or Mabs is the common reference name. These are white #1 core with soft stainless cladding hand forge-welded by TF. These achieve an even higher level of hardness and retain the ease of sharpening. These knives have legendary cutting ability, but they cost double the price of a Nashiji knife.

His top level is called Denka no Hoto – Denka for short. Denkas are made with Aogami Super cores and soft stainless cladding hand forge-welded by TF. Once again, the price is double that of the Maboroshi, making them very pricey! The AS steel reaches a super hard level – 67HRC or so and features a razor thin edge that holds up well. I doubt I’ll ever buy a knife in this price range.

I have a few TF Nashiji level knives and I’m really impressed by them. I’m so impressed that I felt I had to try a Maboroshi to feel that hand forge-welded magic I keep hearing about. I ordered one from District Cutlery in Washington D.C. and received it yesterday. I haven’t used it yet, but it came scary sharp!

Teruyasu Fujiwara Maboroshi gyuto (Japanese chef’s knife)

TF Mabs top with Nashiji bunka and 160mm and 135mm petty’s below

I like the finger cut-out in the choil (rear of blade) in the Maboroshi. It makes a very comfortable pinch grip.

Yesterday, Donna went kayaking on the Salt River again, this time with Kelly Burk. They put in at Goldfield and kayaked about two and a half hours downriver to Granite Reef. They saw nine wild horses this time. Maybe Roxy will see them next year!

We had a few interesting meals this week. On Saturday, Donna pan-seared ahi tuna and served it with jalapeno, ginger and lime sauce over white rice, with quartered cucumbers and avocado.

On Tuesday, Donna made spicy-sweet grilled chicken with dijon mustard sauce and served it with rice and grilled broccolini.

Yesterday, I fired up the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker-grill and put on a rack of babyback ribs I’d prepped the day before. These are always a favorite. No picture this time – I’ve photographed the entire process a few times on these blog pages.

The weather has been very warm with the hottest day of the week on Easter Sunday – we hit 98 degrees. Every day has been in the lower 90s. We expected cooler temperatures by now, but it looks like we’ll have a couple more 90 degree days before the temperature drops into the 80s on Sunday and low 80s by Wednesday. With the sun rising earlier and warm mornings, we’ve been up earlier.

Tuesday morning I woke up around 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and watched the sunrise over the Superstition Mountains to the east.

Sun rising behind the Superstition Mountains

Most mornings lately we’re out of bed by 6:30am and off to pickleball around 8am. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes Saturday, Donna plays tennis from 9am to 10:30am. We’ve been running the air conditioner here in the afternoon and the swamp cooler in the Arizona room, but I’m having doubts about the effectiveness of the swamp cooler. I’ll have to look into it.

Transition

It has been a busy week since my last post. Over the weekend we put the Nissan Frontier to good use hauling numerous loads of stuff out of the motorhome to our new-to-us park model home. It’s amazing how much stuff we’d been hauling around the country. Over time, it’s easy to forget about some of the items buried deep in the basement compartments of our motorhome.

The home we bought came fully furnished – including things like kitchen utensils, pots and pans, silverware and plates. This made it harder to decide what we needed to move from the coach and also where to put everything. It’s an ongoing process – I keep searching for things as Donna reshuffles storage. Something I found in one cabinet yesterday is now in a different location. She’ll refine her organization of stuff soon and I’ll learn where to find things.

We spent our first night here on Sunday. It was an adjustment. After nearly eight years in the coach with only a few exceptions, it felt strange. On Monday morning, I had an appointment at Cliff’s Welding to have the Roadmaster base plate installed on the Frontier. It took longer than I expected – I didn’t get out of there until 1pm. The truck is set to be towed behind the coach when we depart from here.

Tuesday we got what should be the last load of stuff out of the coach. I drove the coach over to 202 RV Valet for storage, Donna followed in the Frontier. This RV storage facility is new – I think it’s less than two years old. It’s owned by the same people that own RV Renovators where we had extensive work performed a few years ago.

The coach is in a covered space, but it will get partial afternoon sun. I covered the tires to mitigate UV degradation. The space also has a 20-amp service – adequate for the batteries to maintain a charge. Of course, when I went to hook up to the electrical outlet, I realized my 20-amp adapter was in a box of stuff I moved to the shed at our new place. Not a big deal though, the storage yard is less than two miles from Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort and we have 24/7 access.

As we slowly settle in, we’ve been taking time to enjoy the back deck, watching golfers – and occasionally watching out for errant golf balls – and enjoying the view and weather.

Our back deck viewed from the 6th fairway of the golf course

View to the north – 6th green and 7th tee

Late afternoon view from the deck to the southwest

We also have a nice view to the east from the front room and side deck at our entry. We look down the 1600 Lane of the park at the Superstition Mountains.

Superstition Mountains in the background

We’re liking the transition into a more conventional dwelling, but we’ll still be hitting the road. Our tentative plan at this point is to leave Mesa, Arizona by May 10th. This date was predicated on the billing policy at 202 RV Valet. If you take your rig out of storage by the 10th of the month, they pro-rate the monthly fee. If you move out after the 10th, you have to pay for the entire month. I don’t like the policy, but it is what it is. It’s not like they would lose money if you left on the 11th or later – they told me they have a waiting list of more than 140 people!

We haven’t made a plan for our exit from the Valley of the Sun at this point. Presumably we’ll head north to a cooler climate, but we don’t really know where we’re going.

Did I mention the new place included a barbeque grill? It’s a large CharBroil grill with four burners, a large grilling surface and also a side burner suitable for a pot or pan.

Yesterday, Donna marinated a pork tenderloin with her mojo marinade and I grilled it on our new-to-us grill. This was the second time I’ve used the grill and I’m getting used to the settings I prefer. A new grill always takes some time to learn its adjustments for fine tuning temperature settings. I’m not used to grilling on such a large grill. When we were in our sticks-and-bricks home, I had a large Weber gas grill, but it’s been eight years since I’ve manned that.

The tenderloin came out fine.

Donna roasted cauliflower in the oven – yeah we have a kitchen with a real oven and stove.

The weather has been pretty much as predicted – on the very warm side. The week started with mid to upper 80s. By Thursday, we were in the low 90s. Yesterday we hit 93 degrees and the forecast calls for the same today. After a couple more hot days, they say we can expect to return to the low 80s for most of April.

Trailer For Sale – Sold

I mentioned another project that needed attention in my last post. Our 10-gallon Suburban water heater isn’t working right. This unit operates on 120-volts AC or propane. When we’re on a 50-amp electrical service, we keep the water heater on electric power.

Apparently, the electric heating element is going bad. It won’t heat the water adequately – we only get lukewarm water – I doubt if it’s much over 100 degrees. We have to turn on the propane gas burner to get hot enough water to shower or wash dishes.

I found a tune-up kit for the Suburban SW10DE water heater that included the heating element online at PDX RV. It also had a replacement thermostat set at 130 degrees. The kit was only $33, but shipping was $15!

I found a heating element wrench at Ace Hardware for $10. This is a thin wall, stamped sheet socket, 1-1/2 inches in diameter. The heating element has a thin 1-1/2 inch hex on top of the threaded portion of the element.

With the proper tool and parts in hand, I got to work. I made a “curtain” out of a plastic grocery bag to keep any sediment that might come out of the tank off of the coach. The heating element had a plastic cover over it and it was behind the gas tube, so I had to remove the gas tube and cover for access.

I had turned the circuit breaker for the water heater off, then I removed the two wires from the element. I used the socket tool, but I found the element threads were stuck in place. I worked on it for about 45 minutes before I decided I needed to try something different. I found a 1-1/2″ standard socket at the auto parts store. I figured I could use my 1/2-inch drive electric impact driver to break the element loose.

The thin hex on the element didn’t allow the socket to fully engage the hex and the impact driver just rounded the tops of the hex corners. Next I soaked it in penetrating oil and let it stand overnight. I found a bar about two feet long that I could use as a breaker bar on the heating element tool for leverage.

I huffed and puffed and gave a mighty pull on the cheater bar and promptly bent the heating element tool without budging the element. The threads remained frozen in place. At that point, I threw in the towel and put it all back together. I’ll have to hire an RV service that either has a better tool or a better idea to get the old element out. I hate to give up, but sometimes you have to admit defeat.

Donna has been busy getting the park model home ready for us to move in. Last Saturday Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort had a community patio sale. Many of the homes here in the park put out items for sale. Donna had a lot of stuff she wanted to get out of the house before we move in. She sold quite a few items. The things that didn’t sell we took to Goodwill.

She’s been working on replacing window coverings with help from our friends, Roxy and Dick Zarowny. They also did some paint touch up. Roxy repainted a cabinet, changing the white finish to gray.

The RV park is slowly emptying out as snowbirds return home. Our friends Chuck and Sue Lines left last week to head back to Illinois. We have about a dozen empty sites in front of our coach and only three RVs in sight.

I ordered set of coarse (400 grit) and medium (1000 grit) diamond sharpening stones and had another go at Roxy’s LC Germain kitchen knives. These stones were aggressive and worked better on this steel than the fine synthetic Japanese water stones I used before. They left a toothy finish that I refined a bit on a medium Spyderco Sharpmaker stick. The result was an acceptable level of sharpness that remained on the toothy side. A toothy edge is good for cutting most proteins or things like thick-skinned tomatoes. A more refined edge is needed to make clean cuts of fish. I think her knives will work better now.

By Wednesday, I had almost everything out of the trailer and needed to advertise it for sale. I was a little worried as I had to have it out of here on the 30th of March – only six days away. Donna wrote up an ad and posted it on Facebook Marketplace Wednesday evening. She had immediate responses! I had searched online to find comparable trailers to set a price and had a hard time finding anything. The closest I could find were either beat-up and selling for cheap or they were really high-end models – I only found a few examples and nothing really matched our trailer.

I told Donna what I expected to get for the trailer and soon found out I under-priced it. We had people lining up to buy it and a bidding war broke out. I sold it for $700 over my asking price and the guy came Thursday morning from Casa Grande to buy it. He paid cash and left with a smile on his face. I thought the lack of trailers this size online indicated a lack of interest – most of the trailers were around the 12-foot length. It turns out there’s low supply and much demand for larger trailers. I probably could have sold for a higher price, but I’m satisfied with how things turned out.

We’ll be moving into our new place over the weekend. On Tuesday, I’ll take the motorhome to a new storage facility that opened on Main Street near the Loop 202. I’ll have it under a covered space there. I think we’ll hang around here until mid-May unless it gets too hot earlier. We don’t have a real plan for the summer yet – we just know we want to leave before the temperatures are in triple digits.

The weather for the past week had been fickle. We’ve had warm, sunny days with the high temperature ranging from the mid-70s to mid-80s broken up by a few cooler days with wind and rain showers in the 60s. It’s cool today with a predicted high of 62 degrees, but we’ll warm up to the 80s over the weekend and may hit the 90s by the end of the week.

It’s Not If, It’s When

We’ve been busy here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. The painter we hired, Gary, started working on prepping the interior of our new-to-us park model home last Friday. He sprayed the interior, including the ceiling in the all of the interior except for the Arizona room addition. He finished spraying on Tuesday and on Wednesday did some touch-up and clean-up.

Saturday morning we played in the annual pickleball tournament. Donna and I teamed up in the 3.0-3.5 group and had a good time. Went 3-3 but all of the games were close. I really don’t mind losing a game if we’re competitive and put up at least eight or nine points.

Wednesday was St. Patrick’s Day and we had corned beef in two slow cookers. I had trimmed the corned beef early in the morning and Donna got them started by 8:30am. I sliced cabbage and potatoes later. Donna had Irish soda bread in the oven in the afternoon. At 4pm, we transferred everything to our new place.

Our friends Chuck and Sue Lines and Dick and Roxy Zarowny joined us on the rear deck for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. It was pleasant outside, mostly blue skies and the temperature was in the low 70s with very light wind. I was surprised to find the golf course empty. We enjoyed the company and had lots of conversation to go with our meal. Sue brought glazed carrots and Roxy contributed key lime pie for dessert.

We broke up the dinner party early – around 7:30pm. Chuck and Sue had an early morning on Thursday as they were pulling out with their fifth-wheel trailer to head back to Illinois. I was enjoying myself and relaxing so much, I failed to take any photos!

Donna has been busy taking stuff out of the coach basement storage areas – some things we haven’t used in a long time, but we wanted to keep. Now we won’t have to carry everything we own around with us – some things will remain here at the house.

While she was cleaning out one of the bins, she noticed a wet area. There was a very slow drip coming from the inlet to the electric water pump for the fresh water tank. I crawled under to have a look. Getting into the compartment, I banged my head on the door latch. I had to twist a bit to see the source of the leak. It was the filter – really just a metal mesh strainer with a plastic housing – on the pump inlet.

The small cut on my head was bleeding – even small head wounds can bled profusely. Twisting and turning my head while I was stretched out in the compartment caused the blood to run across my forehead and down my nose. I got out and walked to the door of the coach. Donna and Roxy were outside talking. When they looked at me they thought I had been wrestling in a WWE event – blood was running all over my face. It was a minor cut really and I was able to stop the bleeding quickly with a wet paper towel compress.

I put an oil drain pan under the drip – it holds a couple of gallons – and went online to find a new strainer. I ordered one from Amazon that would arrive the next day. While I was checking the leak out, I thought about the spare water pump I had. About six years ago we were in San Diego when I saw another Alpine Coach. The owner was busy repairing a water leak. I asked him what was up. He told me his water pump was leaking and had to be replaced.

He said it was a common issue with the RV Aquajet pump used in Alpine Coaches. He advised me to order a Shurflo 4008 RV Revolution replacement pump to have on hand. His words were, “It’s not if, but when your Aquajet starts leaking.”

Amazon delivered the replacement strainer on Wednesday as promised. I got back into the compartment to compare the part and see what it was going to take to install it. I was shocked to see we no longer had a slow drip – it went from a drop every 10 seconds or so to a steady drip, drip, drip and it was coming from the bottom of the water pump. The Aquajet pump failed. Now I was glad I had carried a replacement to have on hand for the last six years!

Aquajet pump leaking – line already disconnected from output side

I drained our fresh water tank and removed the old pump. The Aquajet and the new Shurflo are different designs with different dimensions. Luckily, the new strainer I got from Amazon was a direct fit on the Shurflo.

New pump and old pump – different dimensions on the mounting brackets

The mounting brackets were different, but I could see they would fit on either pump with just two screws. Rather than drill new mounting holes in the coach, I swapped the mounting bracket so I could use the existing holes and original bracket on the Shurflo.

When I got the pump mounted, I had another problem. Due to the different dimensions of the pumps, the water line from the fresh water tank to the inlet strainer was now an inch short. I needed 39 inches of water line and it was only 38 inches. I pulled the old line and rummaged around in the trailer. I found a 44-inch length of 1/2″ pex tubing. Perfect. I cut it to size and was back in business.

After assembling it all, I turned the water supply back on and checked for leaks and found none. I filled the fresh water tank about a quarter full and ran the pump. No leaks, good flow and pressure. The new pump is much quieter than the old Aquajet – it’s nearly silent. Job done!

I have another project that’s taking valuable time from our move effort. The electric heating element on our Suburban 10-gallon water heater in the coach is going out. It doesn’t bring the hot water up past lukewarm. We have to run it on propane to get hot water. That project will be fodder for another post.

I’m continuing to work on my kitchen skills. On Monday, I made miso soup. So what, you say. Well, I didn’t make it from a package – I made it from scratch. That meant I had to make dashi first. Dashi is a Japanese broth that’s the base for a lot of Japanese recipes, including miso soup. I made awase-style dashi which is flavored by boiling dried kelp, then adding bonito flakes as it cools. After straining it, you have dashi.

The miso soup had yellow miso, tofu cubes, dried king black (shiitake) mushrooms and chopped scallions. It was good, but I needed to do a better job of reconstituting the dried mushrooms. I served it as an appetizer while Donna made a proper dinner plate.

She made pan seared scallops with lemon-caper sauce and steamed asparagus on the side.

This was a delicious meal – every bit as tasty as the fancy recipe looks.

The weather has been a little crazy over the last week. We had rain showers Friday and again on Saturday afternoon and the thermometer struggled to top 60 degrees both days. By Monday, we had low 70s but dipped down to 60 again on Tuesday. As already mentioned, St. Patrick’s Day was fine with mid 70s and we hit 83 degrees yesterday. Today’s forecast calls for 80s again before dropping back into the 70s for the coming week.

Pre-Move Activities

Things are progressing slowly with the new-to-us park model home here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. So far, the process has been a matter of removal rather than move-in. Donna has been sorting through the things she plans to sell in the park-wide garage sale scheduled for Saturday, March 20th. Whatever doesn’t sell will be donated.

Donna also took down all of the window hangings – curtains, rods and whatnot. They were all dated and in need of replacement. I hauled it to the community dump here at the park. There was also a small knick-knack shelf that ran around the perimeter of the living room that she didn’t want. She hired a guy from the park to rip it out and dispose of it along with a cabinet above the bed.

We’ve had some great help from our friends and neighbors, Dick and Roxy Zarowny. Roxy has been helping Donna with some paint prep and color ideas. Dick took down a few light fixtures we’ll be replacing and he also filled in trim where the living room shelf was. Another neighbor, Sue Lines, has also been consulted about paint colors. We can’t thank them enough for their time and help.

I’ve moved a few items into the small shed/shop. I’ll need to get cracking on moving everything out of the trailer so we can sell it. That’ll be this weekend’s project. Yesterday, I went over to the house to spackle some holes left from curtain hardware and other wall hangings.

We had a change of plan on painting the interior. We got a quote from a painter here at the park and decided to hire the job out. In years past, I always tackled these jobs to avoid the expense of hiring someone, but I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather hire someone and be done with it. They will start masking everything and apply coverings tomorrow and should complete the job by the middle of next week – they won’t work on the weekend. Once that’s complete, we can start moving in.

I’ve mentioned a bit of an evolution in my kitchen duties – I’m learning kitchen knife skills and applying them to different recipes. Meanwhile, Donna has been utilizing the Weber grill more. One of my specialties is Japanese fried rice. I’ve been making it in a large skillet, but it wasn’t ideal. The skillet isn’t quite large enough and stirring while the rice fries results some of the ingredients escaping from the pan.

I decided I needed a wok. I looked around online and settled on a Yosukata carbon steel wok from Amazon. It has a flat spot on the bottom making it stable on the induction cooktop and carbon steel is ferrous and works great with induction. The name “carbon steel” is a misnomer. All steel contains iron and carbon.

After ordering this pan, I’ve been inundated with ads and click-bait for carbon steel kitchenware. Against my better judgement, I clicked on one that led to blog post about cookware – it was just a shill for certain products. The author was either horribly mis-informed or didn’t do any research at all. He started by saying carbon steel is great in the kitchen because it is a blend of “normal steel” and stainless steel. This is preposterous. First of all, what is “normal steel?”

As I said, all steel contains iron and carbon. From there, different alloying elements can be added. Most metallurgists agree that the addition of chromium in amounts exceeding 11% of the total weight constitute a stainless steel alloy. So-called carbon steel can be anything from very pure iron and carbon like that found in Hitachi Shirogami steel or can have additions like manganese, tungsten, vanadium and a host of other ingredients – but it wouldn’t be called carbon steel if it had more than 11% chromium – it would be called stainless. This is why I say the statement in the kitchen blog is preposterous.

Anyway, the wok is carbon steel and when properly seasoned – like cast iron – it’s nearly non-stick in use. The pan is made from thin material that heats up and cools down quickly and is much lighter than cast iron. It’s sizable – nearly 14 inches in diameter and four inches deep. Just right for fried rice.

Speaking of steel, Roxy mentioned to Donna that her old set of kitchen knives she keeps in their motorhome were in need of sharpening. So Donna asked me if I could sharpen them for her. It was a set of LC Germain knives. These knives were made in Japan in the 1970s and ’80s. They are stamped from a sheet of stainless steel and achieve their sharpness through the use of very thin blade material. To make the thin blades wear-resistant, they were heat-treated in a way that forms large, very hard carbides. I think the manufacturer wanted these knives to hold up in home kitchens where the user wouldn’t sharpen them or would maybe send them out to be sharpened by someone with a grinder once a year or so.

I don’t have a grinder and my Japanese knives are carbon steel with very fine grain structure, making them easy to sharpen. Therefore, my Japanese water stones are finer grades. These LC Germain knives should have been sharpened with a coarse stone to reset the edge, then refined on harder stones. I couldn’t find my Lansky coarse stone, so I had to use the Spyderco Sharpmaker which I only have medium and fine grit stones for. It took a lot of elbow grease to reach a useable edge on the knives. Hopefully, I’ll find the Lansky sharpener when I empty the trailer and can have another go at the LC Germain knives.

We drove out to Buckeye on Sunday to visit with my middle daughter, Jamie. Jamie is starting a home baking business specializing in cookies – it’s called OMG Cookies. Donna ordered two dozen cookies from her that she wanted for gifts to her tennis girlfriends here at Viewpoint. I gifted Jamie with the Yaxell Enso Japanese ko-bunka knife that got me started on the Japanese knife kick. We visited for a while, then made the drive back – it’s about 75 miles each way. In the air-conditioned Nissan Frontier, the trip was breeze.

The Frontier airbag saga continued. I was up early and off to the Nissan dealer in west Mesa to have the airbag module replaced and programmed on Monday. I waited there for four hours – good thing I brought a book to read. It didn’t solve the problem. They said the wiring harness needed to be replaced and said Sullivan Motors would be calling me to make arrangements.

Chris at Sullivan called me on Tuesday and said he was working on a solution. Then he called on Wednesday and asked if I could bring the truck to their shop at 8am on Thursday (today). He said the wiring harness was on backorder, but he thought they could repair it. I was skeptical , but I got up early and went there this morning. He had a different guy look at it this time. I sat and read for a while, then took a walk. When I got back, the truck was parked outside the shop. The guy located the break in the harness and repaired it! Hopefully, that’s the last time I’ll have to deal with it.

Time for some food talk. The fried rice in the wok photo went with a wild Alaskan salmon filet that Donna grilled perfectly.

Wild Alaskan salmon with mayo-based seasoning and grilled shishito peppers

I’ll add a couple more dinner plates from the last week. Donna made balsamic chicken and peppers served with home fries.

Balsamic chicken with peppers and home fries

She also made a meal with leftover tri-tip from the weekend. She had me slice the tri-tip into thin slices along with mushrooms, onion and garlic. Then she cooked chickpea rotini pasta and made a version of classic beef stroganoff.

It was a delicious meal.

We’re looking forward to visit from my oldest daughter, Alana and her fiancé, Kevin this afternoon. We’ve had warm weather over the weekend and start of this week – it was in the 80s. Yesterday it cooled down and only reached 70 and today should be slightly cooler. It should be comfortable to sit outside in the sun while we catch up with them.

Not As Planned

Another week has gone by and I haven’t written a post. Things didn’t always go as planned this last week. I mentioned in my last post that I had to take our Nissan Frontier back to Sullivan Motors for a repair to the airbag system. I got up at 6am on Friday for coffee and breakfast before heading out at 7:15am.

They were going to change the clockspring for the airbag and said it would take all day. I didn’t understand this – I’ve never done this job on a Nissan, but I changed out six clocksprings in a day on Volkswagens. We had a quality engineer that wanted airbag clocksprings with various time/mileage for study. He sent me six new parts. I went to an auction yard in Avondale, Arizona where I found used Volkswagens and removed and replaced the clocksprings which I tagged with VIN and mileage and shipped them to the engineer. But, I digress.

I saw them take the truck into the shop right at 8am. Donna came about half an hour later to pick me up in Midget-San. We came home and I hit the pickleball courts. I took a phone call at 10am – it was Sullivan Motors. They guy told me he had bad news. The clockspring didn’t fix the problem so they ordered a control module. It’s an expensive part, but it’s on them as the airbag repair was part of the sales agreement. I’ll have to bring the truck to the Nissan dealer when they get the part – it requires programming by the dealer.

I told Donna I was a little worried about having the truck diagnosed by a parts replacer. Donna asked me what I meant by that. A parts replacer is a mechanic that lacks diagnostic skills – they read a fault code and jump to a conclusion without going through proper test procedures and just order the part they think will fix the problem. In my years with Volkswagen Technical Service, I ran into many examples of this. We’ll see if replacing the airbag control module was the right call.

Another plan that went awry was the title transfer for our new-to-us park model home. The seller wanted us to meet him at a third-party vehicle licensing place at 1pm on Monday. Donna and I arrived at the place right at 1pm. We saw a sign on the door that said service was by appointment only. Then we were told they used to do mobile home title transfers, but no longer do. They gave us the address and phone number of a place that does. I called the other outfit and the next appointment available was Wednesday morning at 10:30am. I made an appointment.

Then I called the Arizona Department of Transportation to see if they would be able to get us in. Their number went to a voice mail system that said call volumes are high, call back later – click! Typical service from a government agency.

Speaking of government agencies, I received the license plates from South Dakota for the Nissan Frontier. I looked at the registration reciept and saw they charged $460 excise tax. This was not right, because I paid Arizona sales tax when I bought the truck. South Dakota credits the sales tax for out-of-state vehicle purchases and only charges excise tax if the South Dakota tax is higher than the out-of-state tax – they charge the difference. I paid more than the South Dakota excise tax already, so the tax should have cancelled out.

I called the county treasurer office in Sioux Falls and they told me they had to get the documentation from the department of motor vehicles. This made no sense to me, I sent the documentation to the county treasurer as instructed, they should have records. They said they would call me back. The next afternoon I called them since no one called me back. I was told that the DMV records are being transferred to a new system and it would be weeks before they could retrieve them! I still had the documentation, so I sent it to the county again via email. I’m still waiting for a response.

Yesterday, we went to the third-party licensing place for our 10:30am appointment. What a disorganized zoo that was. It was 10:50am before we started the process and it took much longer than I expected. It was after 11:30am by the time we had everything signed and we were good to go. The park model home is officially ours.

Donna’s been sorting things out at the house – the sale included most of the stuff inside including furniture, appliances even kitchen utensils and linens. Donna will figure out what has to go before she starts moving our stuff in and getting it all organized. She also wants to paint before we move ourselves into the new house. That could take a few weeks.

Yesterday, while Donna was over at the house in the afternoon, I was puttering around in the trailer. It was breezy outside and wind gusts were picking up. Suddenly, great gusts of wind started rocking the trailer. I went out to check the canopy on the ham shack and it was whipping madly in the wind. I started removing the canvas but before I could take it all down the wind delivered a fatal blow. The ham shack canopy was destroyed.

Luckily I wasn’t sitting at the table with my ham gear at the time! The wind carried dirt and desert sand. To the north I could see a haboob – a dust/sand storm that obscured Usery Mountain.

You can just make out Usery Mountain as the haboob begins to clear – how did that tent survive?

I’ll be setting up a new ham shack in the small shop area of our new home.

I’ll close this post with a shot of a dinner Donna made last week. It’s a Greek pork stew made with pork tenderloin, potatoes, kalamata olives, baby kale and white beans.

The weather has been great, other than the wind storm. Sunday was cool – in the mid-60s. Monday was warmer and by Wednesday we had mid-80s! Today is a little cooler but the forecast calls for low 80s through the weekend.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Getting Out

Covered Gold Mine

Our Third is Born

Curtains Up

Easter, Heat and Wild Horses

Transition

Trailer For Sale – Sold

It’s Not If, It’s When

Pre-Move Activities

Not As Planned

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