Sixteen hours.....

 6:54 am - Sunday - August 10th - Rancho Cucamonga, CA - 68° F, humidity 43%, wind 1 mph out of the west by southwest.....clear, hazy skies today with a forecast high of 95° F.   On this date in 2016 TLE and I rode our Cannondale Tandem to Meyers, CA from Tahoe Valley Campground for a late breakfast.....

....at the Getaway Cafe....Meyers is about 6 miles west of Tahoe Valley Campground, and you can ride a bike path most of the way there.

Our travel day to SoCal began way too early Saturday.  We had a 9:15 am flight out of the Reno/Tahoe Airport to catch, and it is a 2.5 hour drive to Reno from LPG&RVR so we were up by 4 am to take care of our morning ablutions, get dressed, and load or luggage into the Beetle.  Our plan was to be on the road south by 5 am, and we beat that by 5 minutes.

We were about 10 minutes out from LPG&RVR when TLE suddenly proclaimed she had forgot her phone.  If we turned around then it would mean we would lose 20 minutes on our drive south, and not be leaving LPG&RVR until 5:30 am, getting us to Reno at 8 am where we still had to park the car, walk to the airport entrance (no shuttles running), go thru TSA, and get to our gate by 8:45 am when they begin boarding.   Well, that was an immediate 'no go' for both of us.  She did have her mini iPad tablet with her, so we decided that would have to suffice.

When we left LPG&RVR the tripometer on the VW showed we had 229 miles on that tank of gas.  We can get around 330-50 miles on a tank if we really stretch it, but that would still not get us to the airport, so we stopped in Standish, CA to add 5 gallons of Premium Unleaded at $5.19/gallon....ouch!  Thank you Governor Newson....NOT!  That got us back to 1/2 tank, and was more than enough.

The drive south was pretty uneventful, and there was very little traffic, even in Reno, because it was early, and a Saturday.  We arrived at the airport parking ($18/night) at exactly 7:30 am, parked the car, and were entering the airport doors 10 minutes later.  We got thru TSA Pre Check in about 5 minutes, and were at Gate B-3 by 8:00 am....perfect.  

Now for the funny part.  Remember TLE 'thought' she left her phone at the Newell?  Well, not so fast there buckwheat.  When she went to use the bathroom at the airport she discovered it was in her back pocket of her shorts the whole time....LMAO!  She sat on it the entire trip south, and didn't even know it.  If we had turned around to get her phone and then found out it was in her back pocket that would have been a real bummer!  Thankfully the 'bummage' (I made that word up) was avoided.

When we made our flight reservations we had looked at several airlines, including Delta and Southwest.  Delta flies through Las Vegas to Ontario, but Southwest flies through Denver.  I wanted to fly Delta, but their travel times were to depart Reno at 5:30 am, meaning we would have to drive to Reno Friday night, stay in a hotel, and then get to the airport.  On our return we would have to be at the Ontario Int'l Airport about 5 am to catch our flight back north. ¡No bueno!  While I didn't like the idea of flying 2 hours in the wrong direction, just to fly 2 hours back to Ontario, I liked the price, and departure time much better, so we chose Southwest.

We actually arrived in Denver around 30 minutes early, so we had around 2 hours before our connecting flight to Ontario, CA allowing us time to have a snack, so I walked over to Peets Coffee Shop and bought some iced coffee for TLE, a large Mocha Frappuccino and an 'everything' bagel for moi.  

As you may, or may not know, Southwest does NOT assign seating in advance, and it is 'first come, first served', and by that I mean if you check in exactly 24 hours ahead of your flight you may be able to be at the end of the 'A' group, or in the 'B' group, but I forgot to check in until Friday night, about 14 hours ahead. As a result we were in the 'C' group at numbers 47, and 48, which means you'll be in the very back of the plane, and the chances of TLE and I sitting even remoted in the same zip code were remote, however, we lucked out.  We both got aisle seats, on the same side, one in front of the other.

One thing about Southwest I love is their overhead luggage bins are enormous, and they don't make a fuss about the dimensions of your luggage.  It's up to you to be sure it will fit.  Plus there is more than enough leg room between the seats, and the seat backs actually still recline....what a novel concept.

By the by, Caleb Jett was born around 7:30 pm Friday evening, and weighed in at 7 lbs. 6 ounces....Sharon is only 5'1", so this is a big baby for her!  Anyway, here are the pix we got Friday night of our 10th grandchild.....

Rod, the excited Dad

Caleb had to spend a few hours in NICU to get his lung function up to par, but he is fine now

Caleb Jett

Brayden with Caleb

.....I love Brayden's expression....he is so excited to finally have a sibling, let along a baby brother!

We landed about 15 minutes early at ONT, and were out the door and in the Rental Car shuttle by 4:05 pm over to the rental agencies (Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, Alamo, etc).   We don't use them anymore as they are too expensive, and very slow in getting you into your car.  Instead we took the FOX shuttle for a 5 minute ride over to their facility where we picked up our 2025 Nissan Altima, and were on the road by 4:30 pm....WOW!  The cost for two days was $111, as opposed to close to $300 at the brand name rental agencies.  We used them back in 2022, and loved the experience.

We were at our hotel (4 Points by Sheraton - part of Marriott Bonvoy) before 5 pm, and in our room decompressing within minutes.  So door to door it took us 13 hours to arrive, but we didn't have to drive 14 hours to get there.  Had we driven (its over 800 miles) we would have stayed somewhere overnight going and coming, and had maybe part of a day to visit with our kids before driving back to LPG&RVR, so it was well worth the expense, even though we had to go through Denver.

At 5:30 pm we headed over to Zendejas Mexican Grill to meet our daughter Meredith for dinner.  We've been eating at Zendejas since the late 80's, and love their ambiance, food and service....

......we ate, drank, and talked and laughed until after 7 pm. We had planned to go to see Rod, Sharon, Brayden, and Caleb at the hospital at 7:30 pm, but on our way from Zendejas to the hospital we got a text from Sharon asking if we could come at 8:30 pm instead as she was meeting with the hospital's lactation team.  We were just TOO tired to wait another hour, so we deferred our introduction to Caleb until Sunday morning, and headed back to the hotel where I was in bed asleep by 8 pm sleeping off a 'food and travel coma'  till 6 am this morning (Sunday).  So, Saturday ended up being a 16 hour day, but we're here, have already seen Meredith, and will be having lunch with or daughter Kate and her family early afternoon, then over to my oldest son's (Chris) home to see he and Rochelle.  You will recall that he and Rochelle flew to London and Paris for the first anniversary of her 49th birthday, and just returned Thursday, so they are still getting over 'jet lag'.

Thanks for stopping by!

Upward trend.....

 6:18 pm - Friday - August 8th - LPG&RVR  - 85° F, humidity 25%, wind 7 mph out of the north......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies (still) with the high of the day (88° F) now past.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were in Coeur d'Alene, ID having coffee and bagels at Jitterz Espresso....

....it was just a short walk from the Elks Lodge where we had been staying for the previous 10 days.

Friday we had 44 golfers, and rented 16 golf carts.....continuing the upward trend.  I spent most of the morning, after  staging 14 golf carts, mowing.  I mowed tent sites 1-3, and 9 of the 10 back-in sites, then the group firepit, and the grass between the Clubhouse deck and the putting green, as well as those tee boxes for which I am responsible.  I didn't return to the Clubhouse until 12:15 pm, 15 minutes late for TLE's lunch break, but getting all that mowing done before lunch really made the afternoon easy.  All I had to worry about was washing and stowing golf carts.

By the time 3:30 pm rolled around there were still 5 Yamaha golf carts on the course, so Dave will get to take care of them Saturday morning.  Since we are going away for three days, and our black tank is nearing capacity I dumped and flushed it right after getting home, before taking a shower, and a nap.  As I write I've already finished packing for our trip, and am getting this post composed to be posted Saturday at 6 am.  I will be posting on the days we are gone, so you'll be up to date.

We just received a text message that Sharon is going to have a C-Section, and it may be happening as I write, so we'll be getting news shortly.

thanks for stopping by!

Dumpster diving....

 5:39 am - Friday - August 8th - LPG&RVR  - 48° F, humidity 31%, wind ZERO mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 88° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were hiking in Glacier National Park....

.....near MacDonald Lake....this is MacDonald Falls.

After two days of weeding my lower back was beginning to bark at me, but, thankfully, there would be no more weeding Thursday.  I hadn't done any mowing this four day cycle yet, so it was time.  To begin the day I staged three of the Club Car electrics, and then the four round nose Club Car gassers.  Neither had been run in a number of days, so it was time to give them some exercise.  

When I arrived at the Clubhouse just before 7:30 am there were five Yamaha gassers left over from Wednesday to wash, so I took care of them.  While I was washing them Dennis (the owner) showed me some new dumpster lids he had acquired from the local Waste Management to install on the dumpster by the group firepit.  The current lids were just about coming off the hinge, so it was time to replace them.  I love jobs like this, and was happy to get the assignment.  There is a long, cylindrical rod which runs through holes at the rear of the lids, and that is what they pivot upon when being open and closed.  Before I could even get that rod out I had to straighten two big bends, one at each end, caused by years of use and abuse, which took me the better part of an hour.  Once those bends were straightened using a hand sledge, and a pair of Vice-Grips, I was able to install the new lids in about 10 minutes.....

New lids installed

The end of the metal rod with a new cotter pin installed

.....by this time it was after 10 am, and time to begin mowing.  I would only be able to mow for an hour as at 11 am I would need to clear the near side of the driving range of golf balls for its twice weekly mowing before giving TLE her lunch break.  I managed to get the grass up the hill at in the residential area, and the Night Office before 11 am, and then spent the next hour clearing the range.

TLE's lunch break was pretty busy for me with a number of golfers going out, plus ice, food and beverage purchases.  After lunch I began mowing the parking lot grass, then transitioned up to the small gazebo grass, and finally the 10 pull through sites before it was time to begin washing/stowing the returned golf carts.  I finished around 3:15 pm, then headed home to shower, and change into my street clothes so I could head into Alturas for my monthly haircut appointment at 4 pm.  It takes about 25 minutes to get to town, so I was in the VW by 3:30 pm, arriving at Kaleidescope at 3:55 pm.  I was in the chair getting my haircut a few minutes later, and back in the VW by 4:15 pm.  My phone rang when I was about 1/2 way home, but it was an unknown number so I let it go to voicemail.  I wish I had answered it as it was Full Throttle in Alturas calling to say my chainsaw was serviced, and ready for pickup.  Anyway I didn't get the message until I was home, so I'll have to pick it up when we return from SoCal.

I headed right over to the Clubhouse to find that all but two of the golf carts had been returned.  In all we rented 15 golf carts Thursday, continuing an upward trend over past few days.  The RV park will be pretty full this weekend, and we should be emptying out the cart shack both Saturday and Sunday.

TLE was home by 5:2o pm, and we now have just 1 day left in our four day work cycle, then it's off to SoCal.  Sharon texted us that she will be admitted to the hospital at 12:30 am Friday morning to be 'induced', and we are hoping the baby will come sometime Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pulling and pruning.....

 5:38 am - Thursday - August 7th - LPG&RVR - 49° F, humidity 39%, wind 1 mph out of the east....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 86° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I hiked to the top of Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park....

....we hiked a total of 14.6 miles that day.

After several unbusy days we finally broke out of it a little with 10 cart rentals Wednesday.  That's the first time the golf course has been out of single digit cart rentals in 4 days.  Once I had  suitable number of carts staged I headed out to turn on the tree irrigation, then began another morning of weeding.  

You might recall I spent some time in the back of the gravel pull through sites (1-10) pulling Russian Thistle a couple of weeks ago, and gathered one 55 gallon barrel of same.  That was just the big stuff one could easily pull out by the roots.  What was left was much smaller and required the use of a hula hoe.  By the time I finished an hour later I had another 55 gallon barrel full....

....next I headed over to the long slope which borders the group firepit area....it's about 100 yards long, and I had noticed a lot of the Russian Thistle, plus other weeds growing there over the past couple of weeks.  That took another good hour to pull....

.....and I garnered another over full 55 gallon barrel.  

Still having a lot of time until TLE's lunch break I grabbed some pruning hooks and did some tree limb pruning down at the 'Night Office'. There were four trees there that I must drive under when mowing which had low hanging branches.  This has been an issue for me for all four years we've been working here at LPG&RVR.  By time I finished it was time to give TLE her break.

After lunch I began washing some of the carts which had returned, and then headed down to the row of trees on the slope just above or employee sites.  Those trees have a lot of 'suckers' growing at the base of many of the trees, so I began trimming them back.....

....I managed to get about half of them pruned before it was time to head for home.  I'll pick them up on Thursday morning and haul them to the burn pile.

Thanks for stopping by!

Staying busy....

 5:35 am - Wednesday - August 6th - LPG&RVR - 50° F, humidity 38%, wind ZERO mph out of the east by northeast.....mostly sunny skies today with a forecast high of 84° F.  On this date in 2011 I was at Mammoth Mountain with good friends mountain biking....

....notice how much snow is still left on August 6th.  The only reason they stopped skiing that summer was they had to service the chair lifts.

Monday I didn't stage a golf cart until well after 9 am.  In all we rented 3 golf carts....about as unbusy as it gets.  It was one of those days when there was no mowing to do as everything was mowed in the previous four days by Dave.  He did leave me a lot of golf balls to wash and dry, which was fine as it was something to do in the shade.  Once I was finished putting them back in the 55 gallon barrel it was completely full, again.

I then spent the next hour, so  pulling weeds along the portion of the parking lot that borders the cart shack and Clubhouse, something I've wanted to do for a couple of weeks now, but just didn't have the time.  There's one last section of weeds along the slope which borders the group firepit area and entry road, and I'll get to that, I hope, Wednesday morning when it is cool, but after that I'm not sure what I'll do.  From the looks of the Starters sheet (tee times) we only need to stage two carts Wednesday morning, but I'll stage 5 just to be sure.

I made one run around the course checking on the four sand traps before returning to the Clubhouse to give TLE her lunch break.  The mosquitoes were Biblical in proportions, and even though I was covered in repellant they still swarmed around me inside the golf cart. I had no phone calls during lunch, and sold just one Dr. Pepper to DeWayne (mows the rough). After lunch I washed one of the three golf carts we had rented, set some sprinklers watering a couple of dry spots, fixed one of the lids on the dumpster in the parking lot, and moved some trash from the dumpster by the group firepit to another less full dumpster.  The trash pickup is on Wednesday, and sometimes we get one, or two dumpsters too full, and have to move some of the trash to another one.

I took care of a few more small things I had not had time with which to deal previously, and then it was time to head home for a shower and a nap.  The temp got to 85° Tuesday, but we did have a little breeze most the day, so it was much more comfortable than Monday.  I returned to the Clubhouse at 4 pm to help celebrate Wendy Brenner's birthday (78th) with ice cream and cake.  I think we had about 20 people there.  She is the one to whom I lost in the semi final round of the putting contest last Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Way, way overdo....

 5:36 am - Tuesday - August 5th - LPG&RVR - 47° F, humidity 36%, wind 1 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were having dinner at Flathead Lake Brewing Company near Kalispell, MT....

.....one of my favorite pictures of TLE....she's 'two fisting' them!  A couple of pints of Buffalo Brown Ale.

For me Monday was a day of completing little, way, way overdo tasks.  I deep cleaned my workbench table in the trailer....that was way, way overdo.  I cleaned, and oiled a pocket knife I've had for a while now....way, way overdo.  I vacuumed the trailer floor.....way, way overdo.  I removed the remains of weeds I had sprayed with a systemic weed killer a few weeks ago....way, way over do.  I used our rock rake to rake the area on the passenger side of the trailer free of larger rocks, and dead weeds.....way, way overdo.  I took the new golf balls I took delivery on over a week ago over to my golf bag, along with the new golf tees....way, way overdo.  I just kind of moved from one way, way overdo task to another most of the morning.  Even though these were all small things, I felt oddly satisfied when they were all completed.

By noon time it was getting warm, and the mosquitoes were beginning to make their unwelcome presence known, so I headed inside for the balance of the 4th day of our four day weekend.  The temp only got to 82° F Monday, but it felt warmer than that.  There wasn't a breath of wind to be felt, and the air felt heavy, and humid.  I think the humidity was just over 50%, so it wasn't really very humid, but it felt that way.  When you're used to humidity in the 20's a rise into the 50's is noticeable.

The trend of clouds moving into the Pitt River Valley early afternoon continued Monday, but without any thunder, or precipitation.  The cloud cover during what would normally be the heat of the day is nice, as it immediately feels 10° cooler.  I think we only ran the A/C for a couple of hours late in the day.  Right now the RV park is pretty empty, but TLE tells me it will begin to get busy again this weekend.  Well, that's pretty much it for this post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mosquitoes, and other things.....

 6:48 am - Monday - August 4th - LPG&RVR - 53° F, humidity 41%, wind 1 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and I were having a late breakfast at Alpina Coffee Cafe....

.....in South Lake Tahoe, CA.  They had the best 'everything' bagels!

With each successive day of our current four day weekend the daily high has been heading 'south', which is always a good thing.  Nonetheless, the forecast shows the Pitt River Valley flirting with low to mid 90's temps beginning the 8th, and continuing through the 13th when they, hopefully, will dip back into the 80's once again.  Sunday the high was 85° F, and that really didn't hit until late afternoon.  Prior to that it was quite delightful sitting on the 'lido deck' watching the fourth round of the Wyndham Championship (PGA) in Greensboro, North Carolina.  

Cameron Young began the day with a 5 stroke lead (20 under par), and at one point he led by as many as 9 strokes, so everyone else was playing for 2nd place.  The only question was, would he blow the big lead, which he didn't.  Ultimately he won by 6 strokes (22 under par) to win his very first PGA Tour event after 7 runner up finishes in the last three years.  Congratulations to Cameron Young!

I took one nap on the 'lido deck', and then another longer one after I headed back indoors to escape the rapacious mosquitoes, which had begun overwhelm our defenses.  I'm not sure why they are so bad this year, because Jose has been spraying every 4-5 days.  It may be that the spray he has been employing has lost its efficacy.  At any rate he ordered a new mosquito spray that he will probably use Monday morning, so we'll see if there is a better outcome with the new spray.

Oh yeah, I did watch part of the 9th and final Stage of the Women's Le Tour de France; mostly out of curiosity.  Yup, you read that correctly, they only have 9 stages, the first of which was on the day of the 19th Stage of the men's.  They have way fewer riders than the men, and do not ride as many miles each day as the men.  I don't know why any of that is, but it is what it is.

Thanks for stopping by!