Category: General (Page 43 of 64)

Two topics this time…weather and house hunt.

We have been enjoying a streak of warmer-than-normal temperatures with daytimes getting up into the low 50 degree range. (Nights are still below freezing.) As a result, a lot of snow has melted except for places perennially in the shade. Even there the level has fallen quite a bit. Our columbine plants, and some of the hollyhocks, are looking a little green around their bases. Can spring be far away? However, there is a chance of snow forecast for this Tuesday and March is often a heavy snow month for western Colorado. As much as we would wish for spring to arrive, it is still many weeks away.

The dogs are enjoying the warmer weather. Pam puts the doggie hammocks on the south side of the garage so the dogs can sit in the sun and not be on the still-cold ground. Here is a photo of Blondie and Jo taking advantage of the sun (Bru prefers the sofa indoors!):

Jo and Blondie enjoy a warm February day

I took advantage of a sunny day by taking my ATV on a run in the Wild Horse Mesa area. The warmth has produced a lot of melt but some of the back roads are still snow-covered. I appreciate the warming weather and hope it continues for a while.

President’s Day ride, Wild Horse Mesa

The other project that’s taking up some of our energy is our continuing retirement house hunt. Yesterday we took yet-another trip to the Montrose area to look at a number of properties Pam had reviewed on-line. Two of the 13 properties appealed to us — but — are above our target price range. The first is a newer house on a large level lot (1+ acres) in a subdivision near town. This place would need some outside work, primarily repainting + replacement of some window trim + extensive yard cleaning and fencing, but it was nice enough that we will likely contact a realtor and schedule a visit to see the inside. Not many places get that far! An elderly neighbor (79 years old) saw us looking the place over and came by to talk about the house and the area in general. He mentioned the foreclosed house had a full underground sprinkler system and the yard, when maintained, was gorgeous. (The place has been empty for more than a year and is bank owned, with the price slowly going down.) We appreciated him sharing his perspective; always enlightening to talk to the neighbors.

Here is Pam on the front porch of the foreclosure house:

20391 Tulip Circle house

Both this house, and the second one that caught our eye, are in upscale neighborhoods where houses look well maintained and there is no junk around them. (Junky neighbors was a big issue in the Pea Green Corner house hunt last weekend.)

The second place is more historic in nature, built in 1887 or so. It is known as the Montrose Trading Post. Located on 1.16 acres (63562 Lake Shore Drive), the yard has enormous cottonwood trees and an irrigation pond with water flowing to-and-through it. Gorgeous in the summer and attractive all year round. Drawbacks are a lot of steps and a 300+K price tag. However, the property really appealed to us for both the appearance and history.

Trading Post has a pond and trees

A later addition includes a two-car garage with a room above for storage or living space.

Garage addition

The kitchen is lacking continuous counter space but has charm.

Trading Post kitchen (Realtor photo)

For all the realtor photos go to this listing.

The property needs  some work, particularly the driveway, fence lines, and tree maintenance. It appears by the listing that internal systems (electrical, heating, etc.) have been addressed in recent renovations. With the pond, flowing water, and history of the place, and being only 10 minutes from downtown Montrose, this location really appeals to us. Again, there’s a high possibility we will schedule an appointment to view the inside and see how many steps there are; it looks like the bedrooms are all upstairs and there is a small finished basement, both requiring going up and down steps frequently, maybe not the best layout for a retirement home. Still, this place has captured our imaginations and we will follow up in the weeks ahead.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

It has become clear to me that our current target price range in this retirement house hunt will basically buy us a double wide on property with few trees.  Been there, done that. If we bump our target price up $50,000-$75,000 we start seeing the types of homes we have in mind.  This is the reality of house hunting in Colorado, a very expensive housing market. In most cases, my dream of enjoying a property with a pond is just that – a dream. (Hence my fascination with the Lake Shore Drive/Trading Post property.)

Lest y’all be concerned we are getting in over our heads, retirement for us will actually be semi-retirement for many years after leaving full time work.  It will be necessary for us to bring in, between us, enough money with part time work to pay the mortgage payment + taxes, essentially taking that item out of the monthly budget for practical purposes.  This we realize.  So, any mortgage payment we assume must fit into those parameters.

More “interesting” is the timing dynamic and monetary outflow after we find and purchase the retirement home and while we are trying to unload the current place in De Beque.  Our goal is to get out of here without having to pay the bank anything at closing – in other words, take a significant loss for the 10 years we’ve lived here, zero out, and walk away.  That’s what the housing market has done in this location, unlike most of the rest of the state.

Should be exciting.  Stay tuned.

Happy Trails.

Well.

The Broncos, underdogs in the pre-game talk shows, pulled it out with a defense the Panthers could not stop. The Denver defense scored the first touchdown on a fumble recovered in Carolina’s end zone, sacked Cam Newton 6 times, and set up the final Bronco touchdown by forcing and recovering another fumble near the Carolina goal line late in the 4th quarter. The Denver offense, under Peyton Manning, managed a meager 194 total yards, a couple field goals, and one 4-yard touchdown.

Broncos celebrate Super Bowl 50 win (Denver Post photo)

It remains to be seen if Manning will retire after this season. For now, football is over and we will move on to other things. It was a good season and I’m glad the Broncos were able to take home the Lombardi Trophy.

Last Saturday Pam put together a list of 10 properties to look at, and of-f-f-f we went. A couple listings turned out to be off-pavement (boo!) so we dropped those from consideration. We stopped and walked around only two of the remaining listings.  One place was newer and, as a ranch-style house, had fewer steps to navigate which is a factor we are considering in a retirement house. It was on acreage, but there were no trees around the place to provide shade and the house would have been sun-bleached in the hot high country summers. Both of us would rather have a place with some shady, mature trees around.

House on G61 road – no trees (Realtor photo)

The second house had trees and a shed (no garage), but was a tri-level with steps everywhere, including into a sunken living room and laundry room. While attractive in some ways, the number of steps, which would have to see daily use, would be too much for a couple of old people. We are not ruling out homes with steps or stairs, but the main living locations — including kitchen, laundry + at least one bedroom — will need to be on a single level. Basements and 2nd stories, which would see occasional use, would be fine, even desirable. The search continues.

House on 5500 road – lots of steps (Realtor photo)

We did find another of those history quirks that abound out here. We went by a place called The Pea Green Store. Researching (later, at home), we found there used to be a small crossroads town named Pea Green in this location, back in the 1880s. The name came from the color the community painted the original local school. Current maps show the place as Pea Green Corner. The school still stands and is now a private residence. From the historical account it sounds like the town was little more than a watering hole for local ranchers and cattlemen, and a fairly raucus one at that.

We enjoyed getting out; the day was sunny and temps were above freezing for the first time in many days. While we didn’t find “the one,” we had an interesting time looking at places and driving through areas we have not previously visited. The hunt will continue, and may expand to building lots as well as houses. While we really don’t want to build a retirement residence, a few lots have come on the market that have trees and one listing claims to include a pond, something Pam would really like. We may include a few lots in our drive by next weekend.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

My game plan for the next field trip will be criss-crossing the area around Pea Green Corner, casing the local roads and getting a feel for house prices in that location. Many of you would not be surprised to know this area has a definite Midwest farm country feel.  Even to the point of old car collections out in the open – Fields didn’t mention there is a quite extensive old car “junk yard” in that area I’m sure he has his eye on.

Happy trails.

Since our outdoor activity is limited at this time of year, I’m going to touch on a variety of other subjects this post.

Sports:

The Denver Broncos are in the Super Bowl, to be played next Sunday. They will face the Carolina Panthers. How will the Broncos do? It depends on what team shows up…the dominant defense and the well-executing offense, or the team that won two early games without an offensive touchdown. I guess we’ll just have to see.

Go Broncos!

Politics:

The primary season begins tomorrow with the first votes taken in the Iowa caucuses. Pam and I are registered Independent voters which, in Colorado, means we cannot vote in either the Republican or Democratic primaries – you have to be a registered member of the party to vote in the primary. Leaning more liberal, the Democratic Clinton / Sanders side appeals to us more than the  Republican Trump / Cruz philosophy. The next few months should be interesting.

Family history:

Going back through some photos  came across this family shot:

Felicity, Toby. Pam and Jerry on June 22, 2008

We don’t have many family group photos and nothing very recent. Since this photo was taken (at our home in De Beque) Toby has moved to Indiana and Felicity is currently in Portland, Oregon. It’s been a while since the family has been in one place at the same time.

Weather:

The past few days have been warmer than average for this time of year, which resulted in  snow melt. However, supposedly there’s a big storm on the way. The forecast for the next 72 hours includes the possibility of 7 to 11 inches of new snow beginning tonight. Temperatures will fall to below normal levels which means the entire week will be on the cold side. Pam says she’s ready for winter to be over (except for the skunks)!

Otherwise it has been a mostly routine week here. I put new license plates on the RAV4; this required a trip to the Motor Vehicle Department office in Grand Junction to pay the license fee. At work I received notice my pay will be going up 2% — but — Pam’s take-home income will go down (due to increased insurance plan costs). One step forward, two steps back…

Due to weather conditions we haven’t been able to house hunt last weekend or this weekend, so no news to report on that project. Pam continues to monitor the For Sale listings and when we do get a decent weekend there will be a list of properties to drive by and preview.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

I feel as if I’m in “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers,” the part where everyone is snowbound until the pass opens at the end of winter.

Happy Trails.

I have a few small things to comment on this time around even though this time of year is generally pretty quiet for us.

We’ve had a couple snowstorms; nothing major (like the East Coast and snow in feet, not inches) but enough for me to use the blower and garden tractor to clear the drive and sidewalks. Photos featured below were taken this past Tuesday, January 19th:

January 19th snow

Driveway after removing snow

“Artsy” shot of our chain link fence

The snow was quite heavy; we received about 3 inches or so and it would’ve made a good snow fort or snow-people. More white stuff is in the forecast for this weekend but daytime temps are getting into the upper 30’s so the snow should not stick around long (except on the lawn in shady places).

I had to replace a tire on the John Deere garden tractor; it’s had a slow leak for some time and finally gave up the ghost. The tractor is a ’93 model and the tire was original; 23 years is a pretty good service life for a tire.

January 10th saw me driving to Park County to check on The Lot and the storage shed. Snow rules the high country this time of year, but I spent some time walking around Sanderling and taking a few photos.

Driveway and shed, January 10th

The Nook

On the way home I stopped in Blue River (near Breckenridge) and took this mountain scenic:

Mountains near Breckenridge

I find myself humming “Muriah” (from Paint Your Wagon) every time I see the snow blowing around the mountain tops.

From time to time small things just make me smile. A few days ago Pam and I were trying to find a term for a group of skunks; Pam came up with “a stink of skunks” which made me laugh. And, very infrequently, advertising copy catches my eye. While shopping for shampoo I had picked up a bottle of Prell, inexpensive and it does the job. However, right next to the Prell was a display of Old Spice products so I picked up a bottle and enjoyed the ad copy on the back: “The strength of a redwood and the mystic scent of mint in TIMBER is power for your hair, soul, and jet-powered chainsaw if you happen to use one.” “Directions: Wet hair, lather, rinse, and get on with your day.” The Old Spice is now sitting in our bathroom.

The Denver Broncos play the New England Patriots tomorrow in the divisional playoff game; the winner goes to the Super Bowl. I have my doubts about the Broncos getting that far but we will see! Watching Peyton Manning in the twilight of his career can be an exercise in fan frustration.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

And we wouldn’t be talking about skunks at all, except I smelled one in the neighborhood already this week.  Apparently the nine skunks that were trapped and relocated out of this part of town last summer were not all of them. (?)  I was anticipating the Spring warmup, now I wonder. Note to self: stock up on Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover…

We did load up the dogs and drive by about seven properties in Delta, CO last Sunday.  Delta is aptly named, as it sits at the juncture of the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers.  Irrigation water is plentiful there (unusual for Colorado). Pondering what we could do with a “farmette-sized” acreage in that location – how about a seasonal pumpkin patch + small Christmas tree farm? Possibilities abound.

Happy Trails.

The year 2015 has passed; this is a recap of the year for Pam and myself. Rather than a month-by-month recital, here are various topics and projects that highlighted the year.

The Kids:

Felicity, currently in Belize, spend much of the year in England house-sitting and working at her new job with a South Carolina-based internet company. Her job is to help businesses use social media to best advantage. It is a job she enjoys and can perform anywhere she can get an internet connection. Felicity will be back in Portland, Oregon for a few months beginning the end of  January.

Toby is still enjoying Notre Dame football as he is living in South Bend, Indiana. He is working a couple of jobs including refereeing summer softball leagues. We don’t hear from him often but he seems to be satisfied with life so far, other than the lack of a steady girlfriend.

The Lot:

We continued cleaning up our recreational lot located in Colorado’s Park County, right in the middle of the state. It was determined, before the snow melted, we could not afford to put in a [very deep] well on this property, which means it will always be recreational land only. A late spring cost us some weekends; we didn’t get started on any real work until June. More gravel was added to the driveway, an off-driveway parking spot was cleared, many loads of scrap wood taken to the burn pit, and several loads of firewood were taken home, cut to length, and donated to our animal rescue friend Kathy Hall. (Kathy re-married this year and is now Kathy Powers.) I was finally able to mouse-proof the RV trailer, purchased a honey wagon kit so I did not have to pull the trailer to a dump station, and we cleaned up the area Pam has taken to calling The Nook. A pole saw, purchased at auction, allowed me to prune dead and low-hanging limbs from quite a few trees; that work will continue into the future.

First load of burn pit wood, 2015

Health:

Pam had bursitis in her hip; this slowed her down for several weeks  over the summer and she occasionally still feels a twinge from time to time. It’s not fun when your body doesn’t do what you want it to. I finished one year with my type-2 diabetes, diagnosed in December of 2014, and have adjusted to a diet much lower in sugars and salt than I had been accustomed to. I miss my ice-cream!

Passings:

Our good friend of almost 35 years, Elinor Tourtillott, passed away in 2015. She was in her 90s and had been in poor health for a while, but her spirit remained unbroken. She will be missed. My Aunt Gert and Uncle Emil (relatives on my mother’s side) also died in 2015. Our feline buddy, Soot, crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge just as 2015 ended.

Travels:

2015 was a quiet travel year. I took a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in mid-July to attend a motorcycle rally and used the return trip to stop and visit my mother for a few days. I managed to visit Pam’s brother Craig (who retired in 2015) and his wife Dianne at their new lake-front retirement home which was still getting a few finishing touches during my visit. I have an aunt and uncle that live in the same general area and was able to stop and see them for a few hours before heading back to Colorado. The trip was a good one for both family visits and seeing new country.

Brockway Mountain overlooks Copper Harbor and Lake Superior in Michigan’s UP

We continue to take day trips around Colorado checking out potential properties that would work for us in retirement. This has resulted in learning some local history and seeing parts of the state that are still new to us, something we both enjoy. The retirement home search continues into 2016.

ATV trips:

A few were made this year: North Twin Cone Peak, Hall Valley, Lead King Basin, and Handcart Gulch being the most notable. The Handcart Gulch trip include a run up Forest Road 290, a scenic and less-traveled trail complete with old mines and some equipment that survived the scrap steel drives of WWII.

Old mine at end of FR 290

Acquisitions:

In December we bought a 2004 Toyota RAV4 as a daily driver; the 2001 Honda Accord developed transmission problems at 384,000+ miles and is no longer reliable for daily use. A new home-built utility trailer joined the fleet and was used to haul firewood + my motorcycle, and will see future use as a cistern trailer. The John Deere LX176 garden tractor was updated for snow removal chores with the addition of extra weights and chains. I put my old reel-to-reel deck back in service as part of my garage stereo system. Pam began learning to play guitar, which was her 2014 Christmas present. A new stove replaced the home’s original stove; the new stove is quite an improvement. A generator, after repair, provided power at The Lot for the RV and power tools.

Generac 4000XL generator

Summary:

2015 was pretty typical for us. We worked on our lot and around the home, dealt  with a few medical episodes, did some traveling around the state, had some good times and shed a few tears. We are looking forward to 2016; after all, the numbers 2+0+1+6 add up to 9, one of Pam’s lucky numbers! (We didn’t win the PowerBall, though.)

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

New Year Resolutions –

• broaden the retirement house search (including examination of outside-the-box ideas) while continuing to save money for the down payment,
• begin investigation of on-line employment sites (some require a monthly subscription fee) for potential part-time employment into retirement,
• start composing a draft of my own obituary (Fields says he hasn’t a clue what to include, I want to make sure the fact I ever lived in De Beque is definitely not in there).

Happy Trails.

We hope everyone made it through the Christmas season OK and that you are looking forward to a good 2016.

It is with sadness we note the passing of one of our De Beque-born house cats, Soot. He had not been feeling well Christmas week and Pam took him to be examined/observed by the vet. To make a long story short, Soot was suffering from invasive cancer that could not be remedied with surgery; the “no brainer” decision to euthanize was made during the surgical procedure. Soot will be frozen for now, to be buried later in his “native sod” this spring.

While not popular with the other cats – being something of a bully at times – Soot was very personable with humans and liked to spend time sitting on my lap. His longer than normal tail was carried in a crook and occasionally showed up under the bathroom door when we were in there in the mornings. He will be missed.

Soot on Jerry’s lap

We received about 8 inches of snow between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; clearing this White Christmas kept me busy for a few hours and gave me the chance to play with my Troy-Bilt snow blower and John Deere LX186 lawn tractor; the later is fitted with a snow blade, suitcase weights, and tire chains. Otherwise the days have been quiet, frigid, and calm.

Blade and blower both come in handy for snow removal

On New Year’s Day we took down our outside decorations and put them away. Pam had removed the inside stuff during the week (CMC closes the week between Christmas and New Year, so she was home). We are pretty much done with holiday decorations. Unlike our neighbors, many of whom will have their sad outdoor decorations up until Valentines Day (or Easter),  Pam insists we maintain some discipline in promptly packing ours away.

The spare tire cover arrived for the Toyota RAV4, along with a replacement jack; both were installed as part of my effort to get the car in top-notch condition. I also bought a LeBra for the Toyota (in black, no purple front bumper after all) but have to wait until warmer weather to install it. Later this weekend I will change the oil and oil filter along with the cabin (air conditioning) filter and that will about wrap up all the routine maintenance tasks that needed to be done at present; we will be comfortable knowing all maintenance is up-to-date. A total fluids/belts run-through will occur at the mechanic sometime this spring.

New spare tire cover on the RAV4

While deleting Soot from the blog, I also added KitKat to the Cats blog page along with a short description of her, and Pam made a few changes in the commentary. Check it out!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

With as many cats as we have around here, it seems odd to miss one.  But, being the OCD person I am, I always count the animals during the day to see where everyone is.  Some one is missing.  Soot was only five years old; I’m not used to having cancer-filled animals at that young age.  The vet and I had a conversation about how my rescue population is aging and that we will likely be repeating the Soot scenario in the coming years. It’s a bummer to contemplate.

Fields isn’t going to do his “Year In Review” until a future post, I will include my 2016 resolutions then. (I just know everybody is waiting expectantly for both!)

Happy Trails.

Cards have been sent (and some received), a few presents wrapped, tree has been decorated, and we are off for a few days of vacation. I know, I know, it has been a bit since I last posted; here is a review of activities since then.

First of all, we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and may the New Year be a good one for you. (I’ll have a recap of our 2015 in my New Years post coming up in a couple weeks.) Please click on the link below to view our 2015 Christmas E-card! (Some of you have viewed it already separately).

Christmas Visitors

We decorated our small tree, which is in the bedroom to keep it safe from the cats and dogs, and finished other house decorations. Pam will be baking cookies later today (oatmeal raisin, one of the healthier cookies for folks watching sugar intake) and altogether it will be a quiet holiday for us here at home. Just as well; the weather is supposed to get nasty later today, followed by an even nastier cold spell.

Christmas Tree 2015

On the agenda – house search: We did get out to view a couple of houses yesterday, one of which is an “earth-berm” design where the back of the house is built into a hillside. This should make the house more energy efficient, but we were not impressed with the general design of the house. Located at the top of a ridge, this property enjoyed excellent mountain views, but required repairs and renovations both interior and exterior.

Front of earth-berm house

Jerry examines attached garage

Pam walks the dogs around the back side of earth-berm house

The second place we looked at, near Ouray, was more cabin-like (our usual style) with a large wrap-around porch — but– with lots of steps both outside and inside.

Jerry on Chipmunk Place cabin’s steps

Lots of steps on Chipmunk Place cabin

So, the retirement house search continues for “the one.” It is fun looking at the variety of homes in our price range, we learn something about the different areas each time we actually go out “into the field” and look at properties (as opposed to just looking at photos online).

Back home again, Pam took this picture of me with London (the white cat,) Jo the dog, and Sunny (the tabby on the floor) as I tried to relax on our glider. It seems anytime I sit down I accumulate a couple of pets!

Jerry with a few of our pets

I’ve been working on a few projects around the place to keep busy during my vacation time. One project included putting chains on the John Deere lawn tractor; we are expecting 3 – 6 inches in the next 48 hours and I use the JD to clean off our drive and sidewalks (gave it a trial run after a 2 inch snowfall this past Monday).

Another project was to add a reel-to-reel deck to my garage stereo system. I had purchased the deck at a yard sale some time ago and stored it in the garage attic. After getting a few tapes from eBay and finding a spare set of hook-up cables I finally put the deck in service.

Reel-to-reel deck now in service in my garage stereo system

You can hear the deck in operation by viewing this 1:37 movie clip:

[cincopa AAOAqLtH7OCl]

Other projects included putting rear brake pads in the Toyota RAV4; a check-up done by our favorite repair shop gave the “new” ride a clean bill of health but noted the rear pads were pretty thin and recommended replacement. So far the RAV4 is working out pretty well for us, but there are still a few service items to tackle such as changing the cabin and air filters, oil and filter, and installing the spare tire cover when it arrives. Nothing major and all routine stuff that I can do on a weekend.  We loaded the dogs into the back of the RAV4 for the property trip yesterday, still a few space allocation bugs to work out there too.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Spent an ideal Christmas Eve morning – in my pj’s until noon, drinking hot chocolate, listening to Christmas music.  I have two books to pick up and read later today (“Lights Out” by Ted Koppel and “Goddesses Never Age” by Christiane Northrup).  Great way to ease into the day.

I’ll be working on my 2016 New Year’s resolutions for the next post.  (I think you can guess finding “the” retirement house will be high on that list.) I did great on my resolutions for this year – learn to play simple chords on the guitar, read more books, drink more wine.

Happy Trails and Happy Holidays.

Its been a while since I featured any of our cats but lately there have been a few photogenic moments involving a couple of them. Here they are:

Velvet playing under the sofa

Sunny showing off his ruff

And finally, our newest indoor-outdoor house cat, KitKat:

KitKat at rest

KitKat was supposed to be an outdoor cat, and was for several months, until she decided to come back into the house. Still quite anti-social, she will allow herself to be petted on rare occasions but plays with the inside cats (particularly Sunny) and seems to enjoy herself. She goes outside often and is comfortable around the dogs. We hope she ‘mellows’ a bit and becomes more social when inside the house. She is, apparently, a very strong-willed feline.

In my last post I said I would have photos of our ‘new’ used car, a 2004 Toyota RAV4. This particular car is the base level trim but has some options such as all-wheel drive, luggage rack, and alloy wheels. Color is a light tan with silver bumper covers and accents.

2004 RAV4 – front

Driver’s side

Passenger side

Rear

We have a slip-on cover coming for the spare tire and a center cap for the passenger front wheel. Otherwise the car seems to be in good shape.

We removed the back seats to gain cargo area and have already used the space to haul the three dogs at once, brought home a Christmas tree, and took packages (and hand truck to move them) to The UPS Store. The space will be very useful to us.

Cargo space with seats removed

The cockpit area is smaller than the Honda but comfortable.

Cockpit area

The 5-speed manual transmission and 4-cylinder engine got us 26mpg on the first fill; we hope to get a few mpgs better in warm weather when we tend to take longer trips.

The car has an after-market JVC brand stereo system in it; I was planning to revert back to an original CD/radio deck when I downloaded a User’s manual and found the JVC will play music from a USB thumb drive. This eliminates the need to carry CDs in the car. I copied some of my music to a USB drive and tried out this feature and it seems to work very well.

JVC deck

Another feature of this deck, which I have not yet tried, is that it can “pair” with a smartphone to enable hand-free phone operation. (Well, 14 states have banned the use of hand-held phones when driving and 46 states have banned texting while driving.) The pairing is done via BlueTooth technology. There is a microphone installed, part of the deck, that should enable voice commands to work with my iPhone 6+. I doubt if I will use this much as radio and music are the most-used features we wanted, but I occasionally do get calls while driving to and from work and the hands-free features may come in handy for those calls. For the record, the deck is a JVC model KD-X310BT. Reviews show it to be a decent entry-to-mid level unit.

The past week was pretty quiet and the weather for the upcoming week shows snow probable on Monday followed by a cold spell with high temps below freezing for the rest of the week. Not much will get done in those conditions other than some filing of photos, updating a few web pages, working on Christmas cards, and other indoor projects.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Finally succumbed to the first head & chest cold of the season, it was a doozy.

A few words about the guitar playing, see-eester; I play in private to keep my fingers (and brain) limber, no public performances (not even for Fields).  Did you think we were having hootenannys around here or something? Lately, my fingers have been cracking with the dry weather and office work, so until they heal I won’t be plucking and strumming much in any case.

Happy Trails.

Thanksgiving has passed and the Christmas season has begun. Here are a few things we have been doing for the past week.

Thanks to all who responded to my Thanksgiving E-card entitled “Pies.” It seems much of the Thanksgiving meal centers around pies; we are no exception. Here is a photo of the pumpkin pie Pam baked for us:

Thanksgiving Pie

Normally Pam bakes a rhubarb pie as well but no rhubarb was to be found locally this year. Bummer.

During the weekend that followed we put up our outside decorations. We will never win a prize but it is nice to have some Christmas lights on when we get home after work. Pam puts up a large garland complete with bows and lights while I put lights up on the garage eve and front of the house.

Garland and bows

Front of house decorations

Inside decorations will be going up in the next few days. We are going to get a small tree and hope the cats (5 in house) and the 3 dogs won’t destroy it.

We found a ‘new’ used car; a 2004 Toyota RAV4. I had gone over to Grand Junction last Saturday and located 3 potential cars; this past Monday Pam went with me for test drives. We picked this particular vehicle even though it is a bit older than we had planned mostly on the basis of removable back seats and a fairly well-documented service history. The car was a local trade and not from an auction. We will be picking it up later today (Saturday) and I will take photos of it for the next post. The car needs some cosmetic work (front bumper cover and spare tire cover) and we will address these things as we move along.

I have mentioned, in past posts, that our local grocery store has a ‘fuel points’ reward program. Each purchase contributes to the fuel point total, earning a discount on gasoline purchases. Last month we hit 1000 points, $1.00 per gallon discount, and I redeemed those points yesterday. Gasoline cost 87 cents per gallon after the discount. Purchase is limited to 35 gallons; in addition to filling the car I took my gas cans along and got the limit.

$.87 per gallon with discount

It was kind of unreal to see the gallon figure higher than the dollar amount as I was pumping the fuel. Too bad this is not the case every time we need to fill up!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

The weeks before Christmas are, I feel, a struggle between what has to be done (going to work) and what I would rather be doing (writing out Christmas cards, decorating the house and baking). Will that change after retirement? Hope so.

I have nothing good to say about “pre-owned vehicle” shopping.  Fields has scheduled an appointment in a few weeks for the RAV4 with our foreign car shop to (thoroughly) check out the “new” silver-colored ride. Hopefully, there will be no unpleasant surprises. We already know the front bumper needs to be replaced.  I’m lobbying for a repaint job for [new] front and [existing] back bumpers – plus side trim strips – in Hilltopper purple (one of my high school colors). It would be lovely to be able to visually locate our RAV4 in a parking lot of SUVs; even if I develop memory loss, I’ll always remember Hilltopper purple.

Happy Trails.

Well, the Honda is finally dying of transmission wear. This last week a check engine light came on while Pam was driving to the doggie-daycare to pick up one of the dogs, Auburn Jo. The error code indicates the transmission is suffering from mechanical wear, probably a worn pump. When cold the transmission is reluctant to shift from 1st gear to 2nd gear and the engine revs up during the shift. The Honda is an Accord model, 2001 and recently rolled over 381,600 miles.

So, while the Honda is still drivable with care (I cleared the check engine light with my code reader), Pam no longer trusts it for daily commuting or long drives. This has kicked off a search for a used vehicle to serve as our daily driver. The Honda would be a back-up emergency ride. Right now we have switched over to using the truck for daily commutes but at 15 – 16 mpg it is expensive to run. Luckily gas prices are low this time of year.

We have decided a small wagon may be the way to go (dog transport, hauling stuff to Sanderling and back, etc.). The main contenders are a 2005 or newer Honda CR-V or a 2006 or newer Toyota RAV4. Both manufacturers made substantial updates in those model years and the vehicles are more reliable than the older generations. (We checked with our local mechanic for this opinion.)

2005 Honda CR-V (Web photo)

2006 Toyota RAV4 (Web photo)

We bought the Honda Accord back in 2004 and it has been so nice not to have a car payment for many years. It is with some reluctance that we are shopping; I had hoped to get another year of service out of the Accord and build up our house down payment fund. The fund will have to take a hit, or at least not grow, as we don’t want to carry a car loan very long. We do hope we get as long a service life out of a new vehicle as we have out of the Honda.

Neither of these small wagons are available (used) locally, or not at this moment anyway, as small used wagons that can handle driving in snow are quite popular out here. We will probably have to go to either Denver or Salt Lake City to look at a few cars. (The distance – a four hour drive one direction – is about the same either way.) Denver has an advantage in that Pam’s credit union, located in Boulder on the Front Range, is already tied into a financing network that includes the Denver metro used car dealerships so financing would be easier. However, it appears the Salt Lake City area has an edge in pricing.

Since we do have transportation (the Ford F-150) we can take a few weeks to find and buy a vehicle. Merry Christmas to us. More on this as we start to get serious about a particular vehicle in the upcoming days and weeks.

Our sympathies to those in the Midwest who were hammered with last week’s snow storm. The storm came out of Colorado but we didn’t get much out of it here on the western side of the state; Denver got hit and southern parts of the state picked up quite a bit. The high country picked up enough snow to enable several ski areas to open earlier than planned although travel was somewhat dicey until the road crews were able to get out in force. I-70 west of Denver was closed several times over the last few days due to bad conditions. Our snow melted in less than 24 hours and, although night time temps have dropped into the teens, daytime  temps have been in the upper 30s and low 40s, enough to make driving pretty routine.

Routine –  it has been a pretty routine week. Leaf season is about over although our Cottonwood tree stubbornly clings to some remaining leaves. I was out-and-about yesterday working on the lawn and I see  I will need to do some work again this morning, but this may be the last of it until next spring.

To all who read this, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

On my list of things I hate to do, car shopping falls somewhere above dental work and somewhere below going into labor. Used car salesmen – ugh. And the thing about malfunctioning cars – they always act up when I’m driving and have the potential to get stuck in traffic.  What.is.that?

I purchased a guitar book of Christmas songs.  Sadly, my 15-chord repertoire lacks somewhat when playing songs written in minors. (Really – five fingers needed for Bm7 or F#m7? Not going to happen.) However, I can play rock and roll-based songs pretty well (Little Saint Nick, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Santa Baby). I struggle along.

Happy Trails.