Making It Ours

I've made it clear in the past that the fifth wheel we ordered from Heartland Mfg was not the fifth wheel we received in December of 2009.  Because we had already sold our Palisades fifth wheel to a friend and had arrived in Indiana in the dead of winter we were kind of between a rock and a hard place so we went ahead with the deal and took possession of what I immediately named "The Beast."  At the time, the name came from the fact that the unit was two feet longer than our old fiver, but it soon became appropriate due to the number of construction and warranty issues we had to deal with to be able to stay on the road.

Over the last two years in addition to the repairs, Denny and I have been making a variety of modifications to the rig, the most recent being cosmetic.  Our project for the last week has been removing the unbelievably cheaply made window toppers and building new wooden valances which I then upholstered.  I also ripped off all the gawd-awful black and tan border trim on the walls.  

The before and after photos:
The bathroom.  Before:

New border. After:

The crappy window treatments.  Before:

This shot shows the sleeper sofa that came with the unit.  I couldn't stand the upholstery nor the hard cushions so it was replaced with a recliner and glider rocker.

Patches' claws were rough on the leather recliners; she doesn't claw the furniture but she does race around the rig pushing off from the chairs which made pin point pricks in the upholstery.  They were given away also and replaced with upholstered arm chairs with a microfiber fabric.

You will note that Patches had to be part of the photo showing the new chairs and the new window treatments.

While I will always be angry at the changes and cheapening of the product that Heartland made to our rig in the month between the time we ordered it and the time we received it, at least we have made it more homey and more "ours".

The expense involved one package of wallpaper border for the bath--$8.00.  A 4x8 sheet of 1/4 inch plywood and a 2x4 sheet of 1/4 inch plywood to make the window valances, around $20.  3 yards of fabric at $4.87 a yard, a bag of quilt batting and a new stapler which also uses brads for $19.99.  The satisfaction involved in finishing the job and how it turned out?  Priceless. 

Cold, Colds and Mundane Tasks

I was surprised when I realized it had been two weeks since I lasted posted something here.  We've moved from St. David, Arizona to Gold Canyon and will move to Mesa on Monday and we've done very little during that time.  Denny and I have both been fighting colds or allergies of some sort--our symptoms come and go over a period of days.  Thus we've stayed home a lot, or simply taken long drives as we look in different areas of southern Arizona for any place we'd eventually like to call home.  I've come to find I'm not a fan of cookie-cutter zero lot line plats of homes although in this economy we could certainly pick one up at a really good price.  Our current campground is expanding their offerings with a new section of manufactured one bedroom/one bath adobe style homes with roof top decks that have a great view of the Superstition Mountains but also the propane tank sales and service business in front of the houses.  The homes have been beautifully decorated and landscaped but in size are only 780 square feet to our current 400 square feet so I don't see the point of purchasing something like that.  It's pretty obvious I'm really not ready to settle down yet once I start listing all the bad things about an area or plat of homes instead of the benefits and attributes.

We have played golf a couple of times and this week when we finally felt up to it we started our remodeling project; removing the original window treatments in the main living area and building new valances/lambrequins/window toppers.

The old: charcoal gray material with beige paisley pattern gathered over a piece of wood with side panels in beige.  All the curtain rods at the bottoms of the windows have snapped off due to poor placement (they are all at a height where the chairs bump into them which meant that most of them were broken one month after we took possession of The Beast.)

When we took the original valances down, we discovered the six inch tall valance was made by stapling six inches of material into gathers around a 2 1/2 inch wide piece of 1/8 inch plywood.  The black velcro is for holding the side curtains to the valance.  Wonderful workmanship, no?

A trip to the local big box hardware store netted us a small piece of plywood to create a new topper, the local senior citizens' playground (aka W*lmart) in Benson had a great piece of material in colors that reminded me of the desert and a second trip out to a different big box hardware store had me walking out with a new staple gun that not only was more comfortable for me to work but it could also shoot brads--bonus!  Denny cut the forms, I found a suitable jar lid to create a rounded edge to the corners of the side pieces (hey, Denny gave up his jig saw and other handy-dandy fancy saws when we sold the house) and we used the truck bed as a work bench for cutting the wood.  Because the day was lovely and Patches decided for the first time to actually sit quietly outside (while usurping my chair) I took advantage of the sunshine and covered the wooden topper with quilt batting and the new material.  Win/win.

The result? A more finished look, I think.  The colors have been heightened by my use of the flash; they are much more muted and blended in the natural light.  One (small) window down, seven more windows to go, including one that is six feet wide.  That will be fun!  We'll wait until next week to buy a large sheet of plywood once we're in the new campground since we have no room to store it until we're ready to start work on the next window.  After all, tomorrow is the Superbowl and there won't be any work getting done then!

Needless to say, I have to add the totally gratuitous photograph of a sunset before closing this post. Hope whichever team you are rooting for wins tomorrow; me, I just watch it for the commercials.  ;)

Wandering Around Willcox

If you follow Interstate 10 across New Mexico into Arizona driving towards Tucson or Phoenix you're going to pass the town of Willcox.  In the past, Denny and I have driven to the Cider Mill in Willcox from St. David, Arizona to purchase frozen apple cider but we never really looked around the town while we were here.

This year I decided to arrange a stay of a week's time so we could play golf in Sunsites and check out the Rex Allen Museum and get some cider.  Well, two out of three is not bad.

It seems the town of Willcox has been hard hit by the recession and a lot of the local restaurants and motels have closed down.  The Cider Mill was victim to the economy also, shutting down after selling locally grown apples and apple products for twenty-plus years.  When you ask folks where to eat they recommend the Big Tex BBQ place or "The Plaza" which is a little restaurant at the truck stop along the interstate.  Driving through downtown there are almost as many empty storefronts as there are those still in business and there's not much traffic on the roadways.  It only takes a few minutes to navigate most of the town, so after driving around a bit one day we stopped at the Rex Allen Museum.  


Growing up in the 50s and 60s my heroes were cowboys: Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, the Rifleman, Sugarfoot, Sky King and more.  Rex Allen wasn't a name I was familiar with but I figured he was a contemporary of Roy Rogers and that was good enough for me.

Located on N. Railroad Avenue near the middle of town, when you pull up to park across the street you discover a statue of Rex Allen himself as well as a separate memorial to his horse, Koko.  Once Denny and I went inside the museum, we were immediately informed by one of the staff there that Rex had been cremated upon his death and part of his ashes were scattered by Koko's memorial at his request while the other half were scattered at Rex's parents' gravesites. 

 

It will cost a couple all of $3 to tour the museum; $2 if you are a single.  On the day Denny and I visited we were met at the door by two employees who had obviously worked together a long time; like an old married couple they finished each others statements and bantered back and forth like an amateur comedy team.   It turns out that one of the men was from Ohio originally while the other was a native of Willcox.  Denny and I chatted with them almost as long as we spent wandering the small museum.

Real cowboys wear spangles.  Most of Rex's outfits were created by Nudie, while his boots were by Tony Lama.   In addition to being in movies, Rex Allen had a long recording career and worked in radio, making many public appearances, usually with his beloved horse Koko (nicknamed the Miracle Horse of the Movies.)

The minimum requirements to be a cowboy, as posted in the museum.

 

The museum is divided into several sections dealing with Rex Allen's various careers, family and life growing up in Willcox, but the room I found impressive was the one dedicate to the local cowboys--those ranchers and farmers of Willcox.  Most of the portraits here have been painted by very talented local artists and show the determination and true grit it takes to carve out a life here in the high desert.

It's not going to take you a long time to cover the entire museum, but it was an interesting way to spend the morning and bring back memories of sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday morning enthralled by the cowboys racing across the small screen.  And that was certainly worth the $3.