An Awesome Drive

One of the best things about full time rv travel is that by being on the road 12 months of the year you can arrive at busy tourist areas during the non-peak seasons.  Sometimes that means that you have to deal with bad weather or non-optimal conditions.  However on Thursday morning the overcast skies cleared around our campground so we decided to make the drive over to the Monterey and Pebble Beach area to follow the 17 Mile Drive and do some sightseeing.

Unfortunately Bl*gger refuses to cooperate when it comes to uploading photographs in the order I want them to upload unless I do them one at a time and I'm too impatient for that, so you have a mishmash here.  I'll simply add captions and let the photographs speak for themselves for the most part.

Monterey is a pretty little town but like many pretty little older towns that are now tourist areas the streets are narrow, the parking is limited and our big ol' truck is hard to maneuver so we didn't stop.  This display of carvings was right next to the intersection where we were stopped at a traffic signal.

The idea of Cannery Row appealed to me due to the John Steinbeck novel but of course now it's street after street of shops and the line to the Monterey Aquarium was all the way down the block so we kept driving.

Denny and I found a place to park Black Beauty along Lover's Point.  We offered a man who was out on the point a dollar to take our picture (kidding) and he said another man down the way had offered him five dollars so we compromised on two dollars and fifty cents.  We enjoy it when people play along with our silliness.  And of course we took a picture of him and his lady friends in return.

Out of order, this is the Chatillon Sur Mer, one of the hundreds of gorgeous residences (cottages a la the Hamptons?) along the 17 Mile Drive of Pebble Beach.  Since a standard four bedroom/3 bath one story home in Hollister, California which is 50 miles inland is selling for $549,000 how much do you suppose this baby would cost?

The view from Lover's Point in Pacific Grove, California.

Jumping around, this is a shot taken at the Lone Cypress.  The colors of the Pacific reminded us of the waters around Hawaii.  After so many years of watching the rather murky waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Myrtle Beach the clean, clear waters here are impressive.

Denny and I stopped at Asilomar State Park to eat our picnic lunch and to wander the gravel beach looking for what we call beach glass but what the locals here call sea glass.  At this particular location the surf is so strong that the glass pieces we found were more like beads of glass--pretty but not of much use for making jewelry.  I'll hang onto them for now.

A little further down the road we stopped at Bird Rock to take photographs of the cormorants but I was distracted by these little guys.  Totally ignoring the "do not feed the wildlife" signs, they got a couple of kitty treats as rewards.

Some areas just cry out for that "artsy" shot.

And here in all its glory is the Lone Cypress; said to be over 250 years old and surviving the water and weather on this rocky outcropping.  Of course it now has a little help from man, being tethered to a rock wall.

 

I'm unsure whether this is part of the Links at Spanish Bay Golf Club or the Spyglass Hill Golf Club but whichever is it, the golfers here have a fabulous view of the ocean behind me.

Along 17 Mile Drive there is a Monterey cypress tree that has been shaped by the winds and named "the Ghost Tree".  Just a few yards down the road is a similar tree with a more fantastical shape that has no name but it is perfect for that touristy shot.

Again, sadly out of sync, this is the Pacific Grove Golf Course.  On one side the golfers have the Point Pinos lighthouse looking down upon them and on the other side they have the surf crashing up against the shoreline.  Beautiful.

Part of the famed Pebble Beach Golf Course, which non-registered guests may play for $495 plus the cost of the riding cart.  Registered guests pay the same green fee but get the riding cart thrown in.  Which explains why Denny and I did NOT try to reserve a tee time at Pebble Beach.

The Point Pinos lighthouse at Pacific Grove, California.

This is a very zoomed in shot of a seal that was hanging around a couple of guys who were out in the water on surf boards messing around.  I say messing around because they never tried to surf while Denny and I were watching.  The seal was having fun though.

The fog or marine layer moved in as Denny drove southward so when we arrived at Bird Rock which sits pretty far from the shoreline I wasn't able to get a clear photo of the many seals sitting on the right side of the rock along with the cormorants.  A little further down the road an entire section of the roadway had been fenced off as it is birthing and nursing seasons for the seals and the wildlife officers try to keep any and all people from disturbing the seals during the two month period the seals are here with their pups.

What we at first thought were dead trees and debris in the surf in front of Bird Rock turned out to be seals resting on their sides in the water with their flippers sticking out of the water.  A pair of high powered binoculars came in handy here and we passed them around to other folks standing nearby so they could enjoy a good look.

I could live here.  I couldn't afford it, but I could live here.

Many times during the day Denny and I pulled over to the side of the road and found a place to sit where we could just watch the action of the surf hitting the rocky shore.

The wind creates some strange tree sculptures in the area of Pescadero Point in Pebble Beach.

The standard tourist shot of the Lone Cypress.

The fog rolled in midway through our drive and I was afraid it would keep us from seeing the Lone Cypress and the other sights along 17 Mile Drive but the sun finally came out again.

Taken in the general area of the Lone Cypress on 17 Mile Drive.

We had thought about continuing down highway 101 to Big Sur but we had taken so long to drive through Pebble Beach that we simply headed for home.  Another time, perhaps....

Bird Watching Between Rain Showers

 Over the years in many states we've heard people say "if you don't like the weather here in * (* insert city/state), then just wait a few minutes.  Well, this week Denny and I arrived in the San Joaquin valley for the first time and that's what the weather has been like.  Sunny and warm, followed by wind and cold, followed by overcast skies, followed by rain.  Repeat over and over.  Patches and I bundle up for our walk, the sun comes out and we start to wander then the wind picks up and clouds blow in and then it's raining on us.  Brrr.


So Denny and I have been doing minor projects and surfing the 'net and I've taken quick snapshots here and there throughout the week.  Next week is supposed to be better and we're hoping to get a round of golf and some sightseeing in at that time.  


All of the birds in the next two photos are here in our campground.  So far I've spotted hawks, turkey vultures (there should also be California condors in the area but I've not seen one yet), wild turkeys, California towhees, rufous hummingbirds, Anna's hummingbirds, California quail, scrub jays, yellow billed magpies, ravens, some type of woodpeckers (the old growth trees here are huge and the woodpeckers stay in the uppermost branches and are too far away to photograph), white capped sparrows, bluebirds, wrens, swallows, robins, black phoebes, Northern flickers and starlings. 

 The hillside to the rear of our rig is home to a huge number of gophers which chirp like prairie dogs to warn each other whenever Patches and I step out of the rig.  A coyote trotted past on our first afternoon here and deer wander the far end of the campground.  The clubhouse has photos of a resident bobcat, but I've not spotted him yet and don't know if he's still around.

 

Patches much prefers her method of being outside to the cage-in-the-window for the two cats of our nearest neighbors.

 

I had to show those who don't see my Facebook photos this hairless cat, Zoe, who was visiting the folks next to us at our last campground.  Zoe's owner has to be sure that she doesn't get too chilled as she only has a very fine covering of fuzz on her body, along with a patch of white fur around her nose and ears.  Zoe has pale blue eyes and it feels very strange to pet her, believe me.

 

Because of all the rain I have been making good use of my Kindle.  Once I discovered I could download books from my hometown library I've been in seventh heaven as some of the free books on Amazon.com can be a bit poorly edited to say the least, although I've read some good stories from their free selections also.  But another source I take advantage of is BookBub which occasionally offers free books but more often offers deeply discounted ebooks.  I will say, if we keep running into bad weather, I'm going to have to consider getting Denny his own Kindle as we pass mine back and forth right now since I've almost eliminated all of our paperback and hardback books. I never thought I'd like the Kindle but it's one of my favorite electronic toys now.  I currently have 4 games and 96 books in it--can you imagine how much cupboard space 96 books would take up?  

Oh look--the sun is out.  Time to see how long Patches and I can walk before the rains come again...

Persnickety Poppies*

(* with a nod to Arkansas Patti)

One of the items listed as a place to visit on the Thousand Trails web site for our campground was the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.  With visions of us traipsing through vast beds of poppies a la Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion, Denny and I planned a day trip to the reserve.  There is a ten dollar entrance fee (nine dollars for seniors) per car load for which you can wander the seven miles of trails throughout the park and check out the visitors' center.  We dropped additional cash at the visitor center for a sweatshirt for Denny as the winds were drastically stronger than they had been at our campground and the temperature was lower also.  While inside the visitor center the volunteers there warned us that with the lack of rain, cold and blowing winds the current crop of poppies was, well, minimal.  Hmm.  The ladies told us a good view would be from the Tehachapi View Point so Denny and I headed that way.

This is what we saw:

Far in the distance in the valley there are beds of still in bud form poppies.  Really there are.

 See?:

The volunteers had informed us that the second best area for seeing poppies was from the South Poppy Trail so that's where we headed next, only to see this:

A close up view of the still tightly furled poppies:

 

As we headed back towards the truck we didn't feel the need to watch out for the rattlesnakes all the footpath signs were warning us about but we did see this little Western Fence Lizard: 

Disappointed by the "best" views of poppies, Denny and I decided to wander some of the back roads suggested by the ladies at the visitor center to look for other areas of poppies and to take in lunch at the restaurant they suggested.

Driving down Munoz Ranch Road to Elizabeth Lake Road in Lake Hughes:

 

 

  

Yes, we finally saw some sun drenched poppies.

Lunch was at the Rock Inn, which was built in 1929 after the original trading post and post office burned to the ground.  Rebuilt of stone, the trading post and inn was apparently popular with Hollywood actors as a bit of a getaway.  Today, they serve burgers and booze to locals and tourists alike and the Inn has become quite popular with bikers.  Denny and I enjoyed our lunches of deep fried cod; mine as a sandwich and his as fish and chips while surrounded by Art Deco touches, murals and the scent of woodsmoke from the fireplace (I told you it was a cool day!).  

  

 

 

Despite the lack of poppies at the Poppy Reserve, this turned out to be a pretty great day!

Spending Money and Going Nowhere

Currently one of the big lotteries is up to $474 million dollars and right now we surely could use a little of that, what with the dental work we've had done (routine maintenance and my broken bridge), the plug on our 50 amp power cord pulling loose again and causing 220 volts of electricity to go through the rig shorting out and frying our microwave/convection over, the torn awning topper, the ice maker that died, et al.  So there has been shopping and appointments and waiting for repairmen and a whole lot of nothing else going on. 

The good news is that the weather finally turned nice, the water is warm in the hot springs fed swimming pools here and we can drive just a few miles to mix with the hoity-toity residents of Palm Springs should we feel the need to see how the rich and famous live.  This is the area where you see gold lame' and lots of bling on the cotton tops shopping at Wally World, always a treat.  It's a pretty area where the desert finds just enough water to allow "real" flowers in the landscaping and not just cactus and bougainvillea.

Some firsts: this is the first campground that has ever handed us an instruction sheet on what to do in the event of an earthquake since we're currently located on the San Andreas Fault.  Second, while walking Patches yesterday she poked at a hole and I watched as a pair of claws came out to snap at her.  After pulling the cat away from the opening to a small burrow I watched through the opening as this translucent yellow critter crawled past through the burrow below, slowly exposing a wide body and eventually a ribbed tail--my first desert scorpion!!!  I no longer leave my aqua shoes outside to dry overnight after water aerobics.  Shudder.  Finally, we have had wonderful responses from three different mobile RV service technicians who not only show up when they say they will, but even arrive early.

A near miss; our soon to be RVing again friends Tim and Penny almost had us talked into working with them at a campground in North Carolina but the only positions left were working evening doing housekeeping which is pretty much a euphemism for cleaning bathrooms.  So we'll stay California for now, playing it by ear on our destinations if fuel prices continue to rise.  I'd like to wander Yosemite National Park and the Napa Valley vineyards as I'm sure there's a bottle or two of Cabernet Sauvignon with my name on it. 

Right now a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou sounds pretty good.

Denny's Nightmare

Denny said he was awakened by a nightmare this morning; when he told me what is was I had to laugh.

The background; Denny and I have friends we met while working at a campground in Virginia years ago.  Tim and Penny gave up the RVing lifestyle when Penny starting having problems walking due to a still undiagnosed neurological problem.  The two of them settled in Florida and then moved to Alabama where they started a successful business and created a home for themselves and their two cats.  But the wanderlust was still running through their veins.



Last summer they took a couple of weeks off and drove up to Maine to meet up with us and eat lobster.  That road trip by van was enough to get them thinking about doing some travel by RV so I started looking around for a company that could build some sort of lift for Penny's electric scooter to install on their newly purchased travel trailer.  I located a gentleman in Texas that came up with a really neat solution and all of a sudden I hear that the two of them have put their business up for sale and they are anxious to get to Texas to have the lift installed so they can get on the road.  I figured that any day we'd have them knocking at the door to our rig here in California saying "hey, good to see you!"



Yesterday I got a call from Penny saying that she and Tim took a quick car trip up to Cherokee, North Carolina to hit the casino there and take a look at a local campground that was advertising for seasonal workers.  Darned if Tim didn't sign up to work there for the summer!  Naturally the first thing Tim said to Denny while he was on the phone is "come work with me!!!"



And that's where Denny's nightmare came in.  He dreamt he told Tim yes.  Heh.

I'm So Confused.

Denny and I have been in California for the past two weeks.  However, because there is no shopping on this side of the Colorado River and because we are located across the river from Parker, Arizona the campground here uses the Mountain Time Zone instead of the official Pacific Time zone.  So when we arrived here we didn't change the clocks because we knew when Daylight Savings time began we would still be on the same time. ???? you say?

You see, Arizona does not recognize Daylight Savings Time.  Therefore, this morning when everyone else was "springing forward" an hour, we in effect stayed at the same time because 6 AM Arizona time was now 6 AM Pacific DST due to the fact that Arizona time didn't change.  Still with me?

All of which is moot, because I forgot that our atomic clock was still set to automatically shift to Daylight Savings Time for the Mountain Time Zone and therefore when I woke up at 6:20 AM wondering why the coffee pot had not started to perk and why Patches was not bugging me for her breakfast it was because it was actually only 5:20 AM.  Which I didn't realize until Denny asked why it was still so dark at 7 AM.  *sigh*  So much for not having to change the clocks.

Comment modification

I took off word verification after Bl*gger put that annoying two word form up, but since then I've started getting spam comments so I've put it back in place.  Sorry folks.

Edited 03.03.2012:  Okay, I'm trying it the way some have suggested in the comments below and removing the word verification once again.  I have to admit I can't read the darned things myself.  But no more anonymous comments.

Rollin’ Down the Rivah

This is the view from our dining room table for the next two weeks.  In the morning it’s bright and vivid and in the afternoon the mountains turn red and the light softens the edges of everything around.

Although we are on the California side of the river the campground uses Arizona’s Mountain Time Zone because there are no towns near us on this side of the border so they align with the time zone of the town of Parker which is across from us.  Weird, but time is relative, right? 

This is a wonderful area to relax because there really isn’t a lot to do otherwise.  There is a golf course nearby, but they have raised their prices so much that Denny and I refuse to play there.  We have explored the monument at Poston dedicated to the Japanese-Americans who were placed in the relocation camp in the area, as well as hit a few geocaches, drove out by the Nellie Saloon (although it was closed during the week) wandered up and down Hwy. 95 and squeezed our way illegally across the Parker Dam which is no longer wide enough to drive a dual wheeled truck across since they’ve put concrete barriers along the edges of the road after September of 2001.  Therefore this week we have made appointments to be worked on by a local chiropractor (who is wonderful) and will install the final window treatments in the bedroom, I’ve taken down our Hughes.net satellite modem and router due to frustration with tech support and have followed the suggestions of a RVing friend and switched to an air card with a fairly large data plan.  I don’t think it will support two people playing computer games so I’m weaning myself from the various F*cebook games online and downloading more library books to my Kindle.  The weather is still not as warm as we’d like, but it’s certainly better than the craziness that’s going on in the Midwest right now with the snow and rain storms and tornadoes.  All of which makes eventually settling in the western portion of the States a little more sensible.  Maybe.  Not there yet.

In the meantime, the morning sunlight has dropped a giant fistful of glitter on the river and I feel the pull of its siren song.  Catch ya later.

 

 

 

Searching for a Place to Settle

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Denny and I looked at a housing development in Wellton, Arizona as a potential place to live.  A commenter asked if we were truly going to settle down.  The immediate answer is "no", but Denny wants me to start considering where I might want to live permanently when we tire of traveling or if something would happen to him.  He is, at age 72 soon to be 73, twelve years older than me.

Thus this winter we have been looking at houses or local housing developments; not to the point of going inside homes with a realtor but driving through neighborhoods after searching for houses for sale online.  What I have come to discover is that I shudder at cookie-cutter houses set shoulder to shoulder on miniature lots.  This from a person who lives in a tin can on wheels in gravel parking lots in the winter, I know.  But when I do settle I don't want to be able to reach out my arm from my house and touch my neighbor's house.  

We have looked at homes in Mesa, Gold Canyon and Apache Junction as well as in Wellton and a little here in Yuma.  We have inquired about a gated community in Arkansas in the Hot Springs area; there are golf courses and swimming pools and there would be a lot of activities and folks available to play with but we'd also have some space.  There's also a lot of summer heat and humidity there, which neither of us care for.  When we were in Flagler Beach, Florida last year I priced beach front property there and keep an eye on homes that are more inland, but recent hurricanes make buying hurricane insurance in Florida difficult.  The same for the area of Gulf Shores/Orange Beach, Alabama which is another area we favor.  We are taking into consideration bugs, tornadoes, hurricanes, humidity, cost of living, cost/availability of property insurance, locale amenities, mountains/lakes/oceans.  When we find an affordable area it doesn't always have one of my requirements; the above mentioned mountains or lakes or oceans.  Because my permanent place will have to have one of the three, I'm afraid.  When I'm at the beach, that's my favorite place but when I'm in the desert surrounding by craggy mountains in the wintertime then that's my favorite place too.

And so we look and discuss locales and drive away undecided.  When a single lady drove into our campground the other day I mentioned how much easier it was to back in a motorhome (they have back up cameras installed) than a fifth wheel and Denny said that perhaps that's what I should do instead of having a house.  I told him that if I went that way, I'd actually go smaller with a Class C as those would be less expensive to maintain with smaller engines, smaller tires, better fuel economy, blah, blah, blah. I'd tow a small car to run around in, of course.  Certainly it would be an option.  

But are we seriously considering buying a house at this moment and stopping our travels?  Not a chance.  

Home Bodies

I've been doing my earth mother imitation this week: baking, sewing, looking around Yuma for homes.  Yeah, that ain't happening.  The living in Yuma part.  Yuma is one of those areas that just doesn't really appeal to me.  We stay here because we have a membership campground here which means we can stay for two weeks at a time for free.  Frankly, two weeks of smelling cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage is enough for me.  You see, we're surrounded by lettuce and all sorts of green veggies at the eastern end of Yuma where the fields are cycled endlessly; harvest, till, lay irrigation pipe, seed, water, harvest, till, lay pipe.....

We finally drove east to Wellton, Arizona to play golf at the Links of Coyote Wash after driving by the golf course for several years.  Denny and I absolutely fell in love with the Santa Fe style homes there but the five hour round of golf for such a short golf course was irritating to us.  The owners of the complex are creating a whole section of RV lots to be sold around the development which means there would be even more competition for tee times on the golf course so we'll pass on this area.

A daytrip to Los Algodones was scheduled so the two of us could enjoy the fish tacos and tamales at our favorite little stand in the middle of town.  Of course a couple of things found their way into bags and I now have yet another yard toy to haul around.  I just couldn't resist a rocking roadrunner.

Beyond that Denny and I didn't do a lot; I've developed arthritic like pain in both knees over the last week and we're trying to figure out what's up with that.  Today we ventured out for breakfast and while topping off our gas tank prior to leaving Yuma tomorrow I met up with this darling lady.

What I noticed first was the "Mad Dog and Gramma" sign on the back of her three wheeler.  Seems her husband was a police officer in California who patrolled a Latino area where the local baddies gave him the name of "Mad Dog".  I didn't really want to know why ;)  But this cheerful widow who has been riding bikes for the last 35 years has now taken over her husband's three wheeler and rides with a group twice a week which was why she was gassing up this morning.  She says she makes a point of getting out and about to stay young.  Yay for her!

And finally, tonight's sunset; the clouds seemed more like lava flowing across the sky.

Tomorrow the view out of our windows will change after a not-so-very long drive.  I'm ready.

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.  ;)