Category: General (Page 54 of 61)

Where does the time go? Another week has passed with many small tasks done. Here is what transpired this past week.

We continue getting the trailer ready to use. Pam has been attending to cleaning and stocking and I have been applying myself to fixing the mechanical issues we have found.

We started to assemble trailer essentials –such as plates, cooking gear, towels, bed linens- much of it from our own stored boxes. Now we need to find a place for everything.We even dug out our “old” tin Blueware from above-the-garage storage and will be using some of it when we are at the mountain location.

Starting to add “stuff” to trailer

Pam is taking on cleaning one section at a time. Here are her tools set up to begin working in the kitchen.

A thorough cleaning is in order.

Much to do, including lining the drawers and cupboards with paper.

Pam is lining the drawers and cupboards with paper

The bedroom is staring to look nice. Mounty Moose feels right at home.

Mounty Moose fits right in

Mounty Moose came from one of our visits to Victoria, British Columbia, and wears a Canadian Mounty uniform. He’s one of Pam’s favorites and we hope he travels well!  M. Moose is joined by Elinor’s crochet beige/tan throw, a perfect weight for cooler mountain nights.

On the mechanical side, I replaced a couple of light lenses, mounted the new left-rear stabilizer jack, fixed all 4 shades that were inoperative, adjusted some door hardware, and fixed the latch on the bedroom screen door. Found a few more items to fix such as the blower for the bathroom vent and one of the bathroom towel holders. Still, mostly minor stuff; the trailer appears to have been pretty well kept. (I have not found an oven knob, though, but will keep looking!)

We had a cold weather spell, below freezing, a couple of nights last week. More of the same is on the forecast; next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights are all going to be below freezing. Because of this I have not put water in the trailer’s fresh water tanks to test the water system. We had covered some flower beds in the yard and will do the same this coming week. Winter just won’t let go.

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

The past week has been quieter than the past few weeks, no major purchases or events. This doesn’t mean we aren’t busy, though. Yesterday I went truck shopping to see what was available from dealers in a used Crew Cab truck. I looked at several Chevy, Dodge, and Ford units. Dodge seems to be the best priced, and one unit looked good:

2005 Dodge Ram 1500

This truck is already wired for a heavy trailer and has a heavy-duty hitch.The trim level is the “Laramie” package with interior upgrades for a bit more comfort and convenience. Engine is the famed Hemi V-8. Good for power, not so good for gas mileage. Pam likes the idea of the 4 doors as the dogs would travel in the extended part of the cab and could be let out and in through the extra doors. Having a Crew Cab does mean the truck bed is shorter than the standard 8-foot bed. The ATV would fit, but full-size sheets of plywood and lumber would hang out a bit. I don’t think this would be a problem as we have our 5 foot by 12 foot utility trailer to haul larger items.

We would have to take the Subaru in and see what kind of trade-in financing we could arrange. Asking price for the truck is $15K, but a quick search of the internet shows the same truck for sale at other dealerships for less, down to a low of $10K. The $15K price seems a bit much. We shall see.

Our daffodils (and dandelions) started to bloom yesterday. Spring is still not fully here, though, as below zero temps are forecast for this Tuesday night. Still it is nice to see the flowers progressing. Below is a photo for Mike and Virgil; these are iris plants they gave us a few years ago. Coming up nicely this Spring!

Iris plants doing well

The white lilac bush behind the iris plants is budding out as well. We’ll have to cover this bed Tuesday, though, to help protect it from the overnight frost in the forecast.

Here are a few of our daffodils blooming, and a literary moment:

Shortest Daffodils you may ever see

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

We have begun working on the trailer, fixing things and checking items off our list. Small stuff, such as trying to find a replacement for the missing oven knob. I have a few items on order including some light fixture lenses and a replacement stabilizer jack. I did get the front window cover fixed, lubricated the slide mechanism, and started fixing the shades. A couple other items have cropped up that need attention: one drawer in the kitchen need the support rail fixed and one towel holder in the bath needs work. Again, small stuff, but needs to be addressed. Pam will be going through the shelves and drawers, cleaning them and putting down freezer paper as drawer linings. Lots to do yet before we’re ready to pull up the RV to the lot. Here are a couple more trailer photos.

Slide out extended

Front window cover repaired and open, slide out lubricated and extended. I put the matching spare tire on the ground and will use the mis-matched tire as the spare.

Rear of trailer with slide-out extended

I have extended the awning a bit to test it’s operation , but the trailer is too close to the trees to extend it all the way. Still, it looks like the awning is fully functional, if a bit dirty.

Awning and hardware looks OK.

Clean-up and repair work will continue over the next couple weeks. Trailer should be good-to-go by the end of the month.

Finally, a request:

Who’s visiting this blog?  Judging by the number of hits the blog page counter is registering (sometimes 20-40 in a 24 hour period), people are looking at these posts. Please leave a note and tell us who you are!

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

Pam’s 2 cents worth:

Our children have commented on the recent acquisitions.  Toby says, “Land for his birthday, an RV for Easter.  What are you getting Dad for Father’s Day?”  (I think the answer to that question is, “A truck.”)  Felicity draws a parallel between outfitting the RV and outfitting a covered wagon.  For one we need “horsepower” while the other relied on oxen.  Provisions are required for both, anticipating time in the wilds away from “civilization.”  Interesting perspective.

Big news for this week is that we managed to get our Arctic Fox 26x trailer home from Grand Junction. Therein lies a story.

We borrowed a neighbor’s truck. Although it was wired for a heavy trailer, with a 6-pin electrical connector, the trailer hitch ball was too small. The Arctic Fox needs a 2 – 5/16 inch ball, the truck had a 2 inch ball. However, the larger ball needs a 1 – 1/4 inch shank (the part the nut threads onto) and the hitch had only a 1 inch shank. The truck didn’t have a receiver hitch, so there was no option to modify the bumper to accept the larger shank. (The dealer was not too keen on me using a bumper hitch anyway.) This was on Friday.  No trailer that day!

On to Plan B.

Saturday morning I drove into Grand Junction and rented a U-Haul pickup equipped with a receiver hitch. I bought the correct size drawbar with a 2 – 5/16 ball on it, proceeded to the RV dealer, hooked up the trailer, and brought it home.

Bringing home the RV trailer

The dealership did a good job of walking me through the various operational parts of the trailer: how to winterize and flush the water systems, run the refrigerator and furnace, decipher electrical systems, drain the holding tanks, and general operations. Experience will be the key, though, as there are no manuals with the trailer. I will go on-line and see what service manuals can be found.

The upshot of the towing problems we experienced is — (wait for it) — we are considering getting a truck. Perhaps trade off the Subaru (which is almost paid off), but we are looking at our options. An extended cab truck looks to be the best layout for us but we will start looking at what the market has to offer.

Given the towing needs and general hauling we will be doing over the next few years, a truck is probably a viable option. In the past we’ve owned vans and small Toyota trucks that proved to be very convenient and useful. Problem is trucks get lousy gas mileage and are not the best vehicles in slippery winter interstate driving conditions. Getting a truck is a developing story and will be the subject of future posts. If anyone has advice on trucks generally, let us know!

Back to the RV.  It will need a few small repairs and changes. Nothing big, so far, has revealed itself. The switch  that turns off the speakers in the bedroom doesn’t work. The after-market water filter on the kitchen faucet doesn’t have a brand name so we’ll have to manually identify the filter if we can (replace it if we can’t). The cover of the front window needs a couple of new rivets.  The slide-out mechanism should be lubricated. The bedroom screen door needs a new latch. Small stuff. I will take care of these before we move the trailer to the Sanderling lot.  At this point, we are thinking about moving the RV to the lot in late April, after we drive to see Felicity in Boise.

So, how did the dogs react to their “new” home-away-from-home?

Blondie, Bru, and Jo sniff out their new digs

It smells funny.  They said it will take some getting used to, and requested I make a ramp to replace the steps to make entry easier. I will take it under consideration!

One of the things we had the dealership do was replace the carpet in the bedroom. This turned out pretty well:

New bedroom carpet looks good.

Pam has put a clip board in the trailer so we can jot down items needing to be purchased, fixed, or changed. Today I will level the trailer, check all the lights, put the refrigerator on electric, and get started on some maintenance jobs (and probably add items to the clip board).  We are very pleased (and relieved) to have the trailer here and will be going through it pretty closely in the next few weeks.

Here’s an interior shot of this trailer with the slide-out extended. (Similar photo in earlier post was a generic dealer photo.)  As you can see, the reality of our RV is slightly more basic than the glamorous photo taken for the product brochure.

Interior of our 2000 Arctic Fox 26X trailer

While the trailer is the big story of the week, there are a couple of minor topics to hit on as well. Below is a photo of  some of our animals enjoying a sunny day in our living room.  Spring has arrived and the afternoon sun on the west side of the De Beque place is actually warm.

Cats and dogs in our living room

In my last post I mentioned I was putting a winch on the ATV. That job has been completed. Here is a photo of the work in progress. (Note the battery cables draped over the fenders.)

Installing winch on The Griz

Happy Easter to everyone!

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

Pam’s two cents worth:

A truck.  Bet everyone saw that coming, huh?

Pam pointed out a couple of iris plants starting to poke up in one of our flower beds. Even though we enjoyed temps in the mid-40 degree range yesterday (our normal average), I don’t think spring is around the corner. The forecast for the next week shows high temps in the well-below-average range. I’m betting this winter goes down as one of the colder winters on record in the high desert.

Still, there are the iris plants and the robins Pam spotted a few weeks ago. On my last snowmobile trip I saw evidence of snow beginning to melt and exposing bare ground on one of the lower trails. Maybe the end of the winter is in sight. We shall see!

I’ve been in contact with our mountain driveway contractor, Peter, and I will probably meet with him at the Sanderling property sometime this coming week. Peter said he generally can begin excavation work around the first of March. Although the route of the first part of the drive is established, the final route to the saddle where we want to put the building is still unresolved. We can make a sharp turn left, up the hill, or swing out in a more gentle left-hand curve (around a slope) and go up-hill diagonally. The latter option would require a good amount of retaining wall and fill, but would result in a more gentle grade — plus the drive would be in winter sunlight (helping to melt winter snow cover).

The red line is the shorter but steeper route, the blue is the second option:

Driveway options

We hope Peter can give us an opinion based on his expertise in building driveways in the area, and his knowledge of county regulations regarding percent of incline. At this point we really need a driveway to be able to move on to other tasks; the driveway is a priority.

In other news…my old leather coat, a gift from Pam more than 20 years ago, finally died. The zipper will no longer stay shut. It’s like losing an old friend. Pam has ordered me a new L.L Bean coat to replace it (item # TC187484), but I may try to find a shop that will replace the zipper so I can continue to use the old coat for around-the-house chores.

Yesterday was a very nice day so I went for another snowmobile ride on the Grand Mesa. This trip totaled 128 miles, probably the longest ride I have been on. I carried extra fuel just to make sure I could get back to the parking lot OK. (Tabitha: Some sleds have reverse, this one does not.) Most of this ride was on forest service roads so I was able to make good time.  Here are a few photos.  (Hooray, more snowmobile photos…)

Heading up the trail

Buzzard Pass Divide

I saw a female moose and 2 wolves on this trip, all on Road 265, and all within about 3 miles of each other. On the photo above note the extra gas can. Behind it, in the green sleeve, is my tripod. I did use both this trip!

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

My Valentine’s Card to Pam:

Note:

After you click the Play button move your cursor just up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the Player’s control panel. You can adjust the volume, go to Full Screen, and stop and start the clip. I can’t get rid of the advertisement at the end as it is embeded with the video, but it does have a convenient Replay button and I know you will want to watch this more than once! 🙂

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