January 2018 (02-12-18)

Many times we hear about the lull after the holidays, and that it can be a quiet or dreary part of the year. Well, I am happy to report that that is not the case at the Porter Project and Party Place.
After New Years, we took a deep breath and plunged right back in to project and party mode (more about the projects later).

There is always something going on in Havasu, and in January, its the Balloon fest. By the way, all drone shots were provided to me by my friend Randy.

This particular shot of our yard shows the configuration we had during that weekend.









Our friends from California brought some of their friends….and they also brought the cold weather.  Although we ate outside for a couple of meals, mostly we were confined to the house.

In fact, the weather was so windy, the balloons didn’t fly during the 3 day festival, they flew the day before it, and the day after it. 

We had some seriously windy weather, and some really cool cloud formations and coloring.


Still, we always have a great time when they show up, and this trip was no exception!

Amazon gets a lot of our business and just before the January playoffs, I received delivery of my new flag.   Unfortunately we all know how the Super Bowl turned out, but I am  proud to fly the flag- only two teams make it that far, and we were one of them.

As soon as we said goodbye to the Californians, Paul and I packed up the camper and Jeep, and headed out on a short road trip. Our first stop was Quartzsite, and since we were traveling with Liz and Randy, Liz and I drove the short ride in her car.

Our time in Quartzsite is all about hanging out with friends, and we share many a meal with whatever group happens to be congregated with us.

Steve and Carol headlined a Spaghetti night for everyone….

And we hosted our 5th Annual Margarita and Quesadilla night.


Look at our little truck camper, smack dab in the middle of all the other rigs.









It was a very short stay for us in Q this year…after just a few days we headed off to Phoenix for our annual doctor appointments, and then a quick stop in El Paso to check in on Paul’s mom. She is doing great, and and is quite busy with her daily activities!


During our “down time” we have been taking care of some projects and doing mundane things like going to the gym.

We had help with one issue that had been bugging me for a while.  Our liquor cabinet contained many bottles of alcohol that we don’t care for. Liz and Randy helped us test them all and either dump them down the sink, or put them in a pile to donate to friends.  Now I have more room for tequila!

We aren’t the only ones who do projects at our place. Our friends make use of the tools, opinions, and extra pairs of hands that are available while staying in our yard.

While Liz and I spend our time getting fit at the gym, Randy was helping Paul with a major project.  After having the house for a while now, we decided to move the fence.  Not all of it, just some of it.

We originally thought we would put a fire pit outside the fence, so our view of the sunset wouldn’t be marred, but in reality, that never happens…we always put the fire pit inside the fence- guess we are too lazy to walk that far?

Although Paul has always wanted to play with a bobcat, he found out it was less expensive to pay someone to do the work, rather than renting one for himself.  So he paid someone to level off the lower level of the yard.

And now, the fence at the corner of the property has been lowered to the next level down.

This is an ongoing project so I’ll write more about it in the next post.

Usually things start to warm up here in January, but this year has been pretty chilly.  I won’t complain though…we don’t get snow, and many nights I can sit out and watch the hummingbirds flock to the feeders at sunset. I was lucky enough to snap a picture of 3 of them on one feeder, which very rarely happens- they hate to share!







I guess it can’t be that cold if the citrus trees are giving us fruit, which they are.  I love the fact that my neighbors all have grapefruit, lemon and orange trees.  There is nothing like fruit fresh from the tree! I even picked the very first lime from our lime tree ! Yum!

In early February Paul and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary, and after 18 years of hard use, his wedding band gave up the ghost. Turns out it wasn’t fixable so we mailed it back to the jeweler who we bought it from and they reset the diamonds into a new setting.  Should be good for another 18 years!

From the Frigid Cold of Boston to the Bitter Cold of California? (12-10-13)

  Here I was, looking forward to leaving the cold temperatures of New England behind me, but I had forgotten that we were headed to the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California for the weekend.

I’m glad I brought my winter coat with me because temperatures up at Shaver Lake were in the teens.

Lucky us, we also got about 8 inches of snow while we were in the mountains.  It was actually really nice.  Very peaceful and beautiful. It’s nice being in the snow when you know that at soon as you come down off the mountain, you’ll be leaving it behind.

The truck has never seen so much of that white stuff!

Someone was very happy about the cold and the snow!

Our friends, Kirk and Karen, have a cabin up in the mountains and we were up there for the weekend so the guys could do some more work on the master bathroom renovation.

  Of course, the weekend was not all work and no play- we did plenty of eating, as usual. Dinner was particularly fun, since Suzy brought all the makings for fondue with her.

Some of us took advantage of the sunshine to go for a (short) walk.

Paul’s drink of choice, Smirnoff Ice lived up to it’s name for the first time.

Once the weekend was over, it was back down to the city of Fresno for us. That’s where I got to see everything that Paul’s been up to while I was away.  He bought all the fasteners needed to put a truck camper on our F450, and he is adding some switches to the cab of the truck.  We have two horns on our truck.  One is the “baby” horn that came with it, and the other is a set of train horns that Paul installed.  Hearing that horn is an unforgettable experience (the decibel level is incredible).  It’s not a horn that we toot lightly because beeping at an unwary biker, for example, could easily cause them to fall off the bike.  So, having a switch is awesome.  Paul is moving that switch from outside the grill to inside the cab.  We also have an air compressor in the toolbox so we can easily add air to things like the air horns, the air hitch, the air springs, and of course, the tires. He is moving the control for that into the cab as well.

   And of course, once again, life is not all work and no play.  While I was away, Kirk gave Paul a scooter.  Not the kind that’s like a motorcycle, but the kind we grew up with that had no motor. Except this one definitely has a motor. 

It goes so fast, Paul was a blur in every picture.  When I expressed concern as to what purpose this scooter will serve, and where on earth we’ll store it, I got no sympathy.  Karen was just happy to have it out of her garage (traitor!) and the guys suggested I use it to go back and forth while doing laundry. Ha.

We wrapped up our visit to Fresno by having people over for our standard Mexican food and Margarita Fest.  We always have a great time in Fresno, and we plan to be back in the spring.  I think we’ll use this as our jumping off point for our trip to Alaska, moving into our truck camper  and leaving the 5th wheel in storage here.

Coastal California (11-16-13)

After leaving Los Angeles,  we were headed up the coast to Morro Bay to meet up with some friends.  On the way we stopped for 2 nights in Pismo Beach  to check it out because I, for one, had never been there.  Now I am looking forward to getting back there at some point! We could walk to the beach from our RV park, and if we had had time, we could have walked to a cute looking downtown area.  Instead, we chose to hang out with our neighbors.  There were two couples traveling together.  One was parked on one side of us, and the other was on the other side.  They were great people and we hope to catch up with them again!

Dozer stalking his prey

 Dozer was very happy to be rid of the Parking Lot RV park that we had been in while in Los Angeles.  Not only does Pismo have lots of grass, it has lots of wildlife too.

Here's the cat's eye view of the ducks that Dozer spent the afternoon stalking.

sunset at Pismo Beach

 Directly behind our site was a sitting area where people gathered to watch the sunset.  Pretty convenient for us, and a great way to meet new people!
The weather was perfect while we were there- it was even warm enough that I can say I swam in the Pacific Ocean.  Paul can say that he watched me swim in the ocean.  He doesn't like cold water much.

Morro Rock from the house

After a very short stop, we headed up to Morro Bay, which is known for the famous rock- Morro Rock. Once again our RV park was walking distance to the beach but the weather here is much cooler and it was windy so we never actually made it to the beach.

Sigma Chi brothers

 Our friends came up for the weekend and some of them stayed in a nearby house. These guys are Paul's fraternity brothers and trust me, when we get together, it's always a great time!

Most get-togethers tend to revolve around food, and this one was no exception!

 Since the weather wasn't conducive to being at the beach, we did what many Californians do when they need to fill time- we went wine tasting!

With more people arriving for dinner, we decided to cook, instead of going to a restaurant.  Everyone contributed something to the meal.

It was a great idea to do it that way- we got to relax over our dinner and spent the evening laughing and chatting.








The weekend came to an end way too quickly but we left everyone knowing that we'll be seeing them again in the near future, so it's easier to say goodbye.

Bye Fresno… (05-02-12)

Hello, Utah.  Well, tomorrow we’ll say hi to Utah.  Right now we are in Boron, CA overnight after leaving Fresno this morning.  We plan to leave here very early in the morning because the forecast calls for pretty strong winds.  We didn’t unhook, so we should be able to scoot out of here pretty quickly.

I really fell down on the job of picture taking in the last week or so, so I asked Kirk to send me the pictures that he took last weekend.  This is the best of them. Paul and I went up to Kirk and Karen’s cabin again to make them work on the cabin some more.  Paul and Kirk tore apart one of the bathrooms, moved the sink and were planning on moving the toilet, but they decided they need a corner toilet, which they didn’t have, so they stopped after moving the sink.

In the meantime, Karen and I were painting the living room wall, and a closet.  The projects were fun, partly because it wasn’t our cabin, and partly because we just have a good time with Kirk and Karen, regardless.

The month we spent in Fresno went by very quickly and had a different feel to it than our usual stops.  There wasn’t any sightseeing or hiking- it was more like just day to day living. We spent some days working on projects, or hanging out at the trailer.  Thanks to Suzy, I had a gym membership for the time we were there.  I didn’t go as often as I should have, but at least I went a few times!  We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of socializing between projects, giving us a pretty good idea how it would be if we actually lived near our friends, although we all agreed we are exhausted and couldn’t have kept up that pace.

Our original plan called for us to leave Fresno last week, but one of the major things Paul needed to do in Fresno was install the Straight-line System on the trailer axles.  We have tandem axles on the trailer and the way it works usually is that the front axle is pulled along, and the rear axle is pushed.  (In theory) That can cause irregular tire wear, which we have had an issue with in the past.  DRV, the manufacturer of our trailer, shipped us this Straight-line system for Paul to put on, at no cost to us. Unfortunately, the package was missing a few crucial bushings, which meant we had to wait for them to arrive to finish the upgrade. Once they got here, it only took him a few hours to finish the installation. Once that was done, he rotated the spare tire into the mix, so he can assess whether there is still a tire wear issue or not.

Since we had to stick around anyway, I decided to go ahead and order my new Verizon iphone. It arrived yesterday, so I’ve been busy updating all the contacts etc.  Unfortunately the phone that has most of my contacts is dead and I won’t be able to retrieve everyone’s phone numbers.  I have some of them, but not all. 

I’ve also been doing a fair amount of research.  In the next month we will probably visit 7 national parks and monuments, before landing in Salt Lake City at the beginning of June. I don’t in general like to over-research things, but I also don’t want to arrive at these parks with no idea of what we should see and do.  So, all of my traveling friends, if you have thoughts on Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase Escalante, Mesa Verde, Arches, Moab, and Natural Bridges, bring it on!

I think we might have waited just a little too late in the year to visit these parks, based on the weather forecast, so I also did some shopping and got some new hiking boots that will be more appropriate for hot desert weather. My good boots are really backpacking boots- heavy, leather, hot, but very stiff and sturdy. I bought a pair the other day that will be lighter and not waterproof, so they’ll breathe better in the heat.  We are already figuring we’ll have to get up and out early every day, to beat the heat, but if we need to do that, that’s ok too.

I’ve also been calling and bugging Yellowstone National Park every few days.  When we booked our reservation there for this summer, we made two separate 11 day reservations, with a 3 day gap between them.  Our thought was that we would try to get there in mid June, but if it was too cold or snowy, we’d cancel and just use the early July reservation.  Now we’ve decided we might as well use both reservations, so we can relax and enjoy the park.  But, we still have a 3 day gap.  So, I call every few days to see if there are any cancelations. The people on the phone are awesome, and apologetic. They encourage me to keep calling- there’s bound to be a cancelation!  Of course, we’re so big, there aren’t many spaces that will fit us, but we’ll keep checking.

So, tomorrow it’s on to Zion National Park. One of the hikes we tried to do there last time, but couldn’t, was The Narrows. Hiking the Narrows is essentially hiking for miles in a river. In order to do the hike, the water flow has to be below a certain level.  Last year it definitely wasn’t.  This year we’ll have to see!

CA and MI (04-21-12)

We took advantage of the fact that we would be stationary for a while, and also the fact that we had someone to check on the cat (thanks Karen!!) to fly to Michigan to see our daughter and son-in-law.  No matter how long a visit I have with either of the kids, it never feels long enough.  3 days felt particularly short, but we had a lot of fun and got to spend quality time with Jess and David. 

The day that David had to work, Jess took us to a local farm to visit the horses and see if there were any babies around.  Jess is an animal lover and is happiest when she has a horse to pet.

She had an unpleasant surprise, and couldn’t get out of the stall fast enough when she discovered that the miniature horse inside was indeed trying to bite her leg.

We arrived back in California on Friday, the day before the party celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Fresno chapter of Paul’s fraternity, Sigma Chi. 

There was quite a turnout of “Sigs” and their wives at the dinner, including Actives as well as Alumni.

Paul had a great time reminiscing with all of his college buddies, and paid for the fun with a case of laryngitis the next day. At one point in the evening there was a problem with the sound system, and if you’ve met Paul it won’t surprise you to learn that he had a hand in fixing it. What put a grin on my face was hearing so many of the guys comment that “Porter” hadn’t changed at all- he was still  “Mr. Fixit”.   I have always loved the relationship that Paul has with his fraternity brothers. The friendships have survived the years so well that I have become friends with these guys and their wives and we always have a great time when we get together.

  Sunday breakfast at Kirk and Karen’s was well attended and another opportunity to spend time together in a quieter environment.  After filling our faces yet again, the guys tackled the project of installing Karen’s new microwave and oven.  They love having something to focus their attention on!

Question of the day:  How many Sigs does it take to cut a piece of wood?