City of Angels and Bill Williams (08-19-15)

We’ve taken two trips in the last week.  The first one was up to Williams again, to escape the heat for the weekend. It’s so nice to sit outside and watch the wildlife, and maybe have a fire.  This particular campsite was near a prairie dog colony.

I also love that the temperatures are perfect- in the 50s at night-so we don’t need hook up to sleep comfortably.  That makes it easy to stay in the national forests, and pay nothing for our campsites.

One of our goals was to do some hiking.  Our first hike was along the Historic Overland Road.  It’s hard to believe that the Civil War reached all the way out here but Arizona was a route to California, and both sides wanted it.  Soon after the Union won it, gold was discovered in Prescott, and the Overland Road was built to access it.

Our second hike was more intimidating-the peak of Bill Williams Mountain, which turned out to be 9 miles round trip, and 2500 feet of elevation gain.  Although it is cooler than Havasu here, it was still in the 80s, making this a challenging day!

We finished off the trip with a stroll through downtown Williams.  They sure decorate their town different than most towns.  This is a gift shop/museum.  There are classic cars all throughout the town, which takes good advantage of its place on historic Route 66.




There are quite a few sets of these types of signs along Rte 66, and they are fun to read:

Our second trip of the week was to Los Angeles to act as moving van for our daughter.

It was a whirlwind two days of using the truck to move her and Kellan into their new apartment. I am glad she was able to retain her sense of humor with all the stress of moving. 

     
Having an F450 is both a blessing and a curse.  Its large size is helpful when you need to move something, but a detriment in a city like Los Angeles, where a 4 door car is considered large. The narrow driveway into the new apartment complex parking lot was nerve-wracking, and not quite wide enough for us.  Luckily the hedges were soft.  We only attempted it once.

Parking is a nightmare for a truck and in fact we had to park several blocks away, and shuttle her belongings to her apartment using her car.

Once the move was complete, the building of some new bureaus took up our time.

  Some helped more than others….

After a crazy two days, Paul and I booked it back to Havasu.  It’s really nice only being four and a half hours from Jess!

House Update

We actually have a front door now!  Well, at least part of a door.

The window won’t be placed until later.

The inside is now full of electrical outlets and plumbing.

And the Lathers are working on wrapping the house before putting on the stucco.

It is totally closed in now- no more walking through walls!  It’s also getting dark inside!  

The latest advancement is the placement of the roof tiles on the roof.  They will stay like this until the exterior stucco is finished, so that the stucco color won’t splatter onto the roof.  At least we’re getting watertight!

“Best Seat in the House”(08-10-15)

Last weekend we didn’t feel like driving as far as Flagstaff, so to escape the heat, we took the camper to nearby Hualapai Mountain Park, where it is 30 degrees cooler than Havasu.
It sure did feel good to be able to sit outside, and even have a campfire.









  This county park has a “parking lot” style campground for bigger rigs, and dispersed type campsites for smaller ones.  We snagged what we considered to be the best campsite in the park.  And others seemed to agree with us.  Why do I say that?  We had lots of visitors.










Our first visitor was this guy.  He meandered through our campsite.  Dozer wanted to chase him so I had to throw the cat in the camper, and the snake was wandering off before I could find my camera, so I snapped this with my phone.


Yessiree, This here snake is an Arizona Black Rattler. My first sighting of a rattlesnake after 6 years on the road!!

Several times during our stay we were visited by “tourists” who obviously agreed we had the best view around, and it didn’t seem to bother them that they had to walk around the back of our camper to get to it.  Oh well.  At that point you can either get mad, or understand they just wanted to take a picture.

Sunset didn’t stop the steady stream of visitors. A gray fox wandered through our campsite twice- Dozer also wanted to chase him, but I held him tight.

While we were sitting by the fire I heard a noise that scared the you know what out of me because it was coming from just a few feet away, but it was so dark I couldn’t see that it was just this guy, coming to see if we had any  leftovers.

With cooler temperatures, hiking was on the agenda.  Our first trip was up the side of a mountain to the radio towers on top.  It was about 4 miles, and a pretty good work out.

Once we reached the top, we could look across and see our camper, nestled on the side of the mountain.

















  

The following day we still had energy so we hiked another trail, about 5 miles, with 1300 feet of elevation gain, which is quite a work out for me, at this elevation.

There are only about 12 miles of trails in this park, but at least the weather was awesome, and there was a decent view once in a while!

After our hike, we relaxed for a bit, not in a rush to start the hour and a half trek back into the heat.

As a side note, you know its never a good sign when the hood of a vehicle is up.  As a general rule, we expect issues with the Jeep- we’ve already had to replace the spark plugs- but the truck tows our home, and needs to be dependable.  Unfortunately, on this day, it was the truck that wouldn’t start.

After spending a little time diagnosing, Paul said one of the batteries was bad (the truck is over 4 years old so…….)  We learned early on in our boating lives that batteries are one of the most critically important parts of a well functioning boat, and our philosophy has been to replace batteries the minute there is an issue.  So yep, the truck is now sporting two new batteries.

House Update

 

The HVAC guys are  now done (for now), as are the plumbers. 

This mish mash of wood and pipe will be our walk in shower in the master bedroom.

When the outside of the house is finished, this post will also have a shower.  The plumber was surprised that I wanted both cold AND hot running water ( the water in Havasu in the summer is TOO hot without even using ANY hot).

Paul and I have had our own work to do, and have focused our energies on picking out the many light fixtures we will need.  We’ll use the Large Pendant light in the foyer, the 5 light chandelier over the dining table, and 3 of the small pendant lights over the island.










The house will have 6  ceiling fans- 4 inside, and two out on the back patio.  Choosing them was trickier than you’d think.  They come in all kinds of sizes, with all different features, and there aren’t many that are rated for outdoor use.














The “fun” fixtures have all been chosen- we still need to decide which security lights we want in the yard. This will be above the bathroom vanities.


Luckily Paul and I are both a fan of brushed nickel, and not so much a fan of oil rubbed bronze.

House Update and Other Stuff (08-03-15)

First of all, I must say, I really enjoy the weekends when we can escape to Flagstaff and cool off.  In fact, it was so cool in the Flagstaff area last weekend (50s at night!) that we had a campfire!

It was also the weekend of the Blue Moon, but skies weren’t clear enough for us to really see it.

Although we only had a short time, we made the trip in part because my cousin Linda (seated near Paul) invited us to a party at a friend’s house. While we relaxed, we listened to two live bands playing in the house. What a great time!

Back in Havasu, the projects continued.  We did our first Test Tow, towing the Jeep with the truck- I am happy to say that the “way too much money”  we spent on the tow bar worked- the Jeep towed just fine.

The big excitement for us was our first small monsoon.  When we saw it coming on the radar, we headed up to the house.  The roads were already streaming with water.

The wash that runs behind our house had some water in it, but nothing outrageous.

Unfortunately when we got back to the trailer we realized that we did not get through the storm unscathed.  The wind had unwound our awning and partially torn it off the side of the rig. We’ll have to figure out the best way to get it replaced.




And apparently the wind was gusting enough to make one of the Waterford wine glasses wiggle off the wine rack and land on the floor.

 I was just glad Dozer hadn’t stepped on the broken glass before we saw it.

House Update

  Things are moving right along on the house.  During this part, its’ easy to see the progress.
The framers have been working hard on the outside, finishing the plywood for the roof and the walls.

The RV garage is looking quite massive!

Once the basic structure was finished, they started working on things like the patio, and the windows were put in place.

  On the inside, the frame for the island has been built….

 

As soon as the framers were done, the HVAC and plumbers entered the picture.

We now have one tub.  They’ll spend the few days or so roughing in the air conditioning and the plumbing, and then the electricians will  join in the game.

While they’ve been busy working inside, we’ve been meeting with pool contractors and fencing companies. In order to give them a sense of where we want the pool, we used a ski rope and garden hose to lay it out in the back yard.  The enhancements and  text “bubbles” are a sure sign that I have too much time on my hands, haha.