‘The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.’ Abraham Lincoln
The movie Lincoln just opened and we plan to see it soon. However, I thought I’d read the book first. Fat chance. Got it downloaded into my I Pad and then realized that it was 1869 pages in my I Pad when I hold it vertically. Now, if I want to hold it horizontally, it’s got 3743 pages. Either way, I’m not going to get it read before we go to the movie.
However in honor of Lincoln, I’ve put one of his pithy sayings at the top of the blog today.
I know that I had some pictures of our new RV in the blog several weeks ago but thought you’d like to see some new pictures. Here Sherron and I are in our new dining room.
Then Gary took a picture of me in our new kitchen. And, you all thought we had a small RV. Silly you.
Well, actually as you can probably guess, we are not in our RV. We are actually in the local IKEA retail showroom. I remember IKEA from our college days and they are still going strong. And their furnishings are still unique. We visited with two high school friends, Sherron and Ron, who were in Phoenix for the day. After breakfast we headed over to IKEA for so window shopping. Well, window shopping for us.
And, while we’re speaking of our home, you’ve probably noticed that we haven’t had many adventures this month. And, it’s all because of this new home that we bought. As you all know, any new home needs some tweaks and then there is lots to learn about a new home. Thus we’ve been spending our time on little projects around the house. Most of it has been pretty smooth but there have been some setbacks.
Gary spent some time on his tire pressure system, getting it all in place on our new tires. You all know how important tires are to your safety in a car, well the same holds true in a motor home. Gary has 10 sensors which fit on each tire valve of the motor home and on the Jeep to monitor the pressure in each. Then we have a monitoring panel which keeps us aware of these pressures so no tire gets too flat nor too fat without our knowing. Of course, nothing goes smoothly in any transition and Gary is having trouble fitting these sensors on all of the tires. The sensors are about 1” in diameter, fit on each of the tire valves and sometimes these valves are too close to the holes in the rims to get the sensors on. OOPS.
Then he went to put a soap, shampoo and conditioner dispenser into the shower and found that the silicon glue which holds it to the sides of the shower and came packaged with the dispenser is harder than the rocks we hike on. OOPS.
When we bought the motorhome, the front blind was broken and the dealer ordered a new one which we just picked up. Yesterday Gary tried to screw it onto the screen door but quickly realized that the screws were too long and were punching out little pimples on the other side of the metal screen door. Winnebago must have filed the original screws down before they put them in. OOPS.
Having fixed that problem by filing the screws down he then tried to attach the top of the blind to a latch at the top of the door. He had kept the original Winnebago screws for this which were brown to match the door but they were rounded and, when he pulled up the blind, they rubbed on it and the paint was coming off. He then took out the screws from the manufacturer which were silver flat head screws (not very pretty) but they were too long for the holes and again, were making dimples on the other side of the screen door. Nothing is easy. 2 sets of screws for this latch and neither works.
Now, even when he puts a bit of oil on a door, he expects the door to fall off in his hands. It’s been that kind of month.
However, he has also had his successes. We didn’t like the shower head and the handles on the faucet so we changed them. The handles for the cold and hot water were round and I didn’t know how to set them for the water temperature I wanted. We bought levers, Gary installed them and now I know that I want the hot water at the 6 on a clock face and the cold water at a 4. Perfect. No guessing in the shower.
He also noticed that the ‘exhaust’ fan in the bathroom was blowing in, not a really efficient use of an exhaust fan. So he took it apart to see what he could do, called the service reps at the manufacturer, learned what had been installed wrong at the factory, reversed the two wires and - VOILA - it works perfectly now.
He’s also found that a wire for the subwoofer speaker for the stereo system was not hooked up and has hooked it up. He’s also strung some wires around so that we can play our music from my computer. The wires were under the kitchen cabinet which he had to disassemble to get to the wires. Here he is under the cabinet - he does get into this work.
So, it’s not always OOPS and he’s had lots of successes. One of his traits is that he is incredibly patient and will work at something until he gets it right. Soon, he’ll have all the OOPS turned into successes.
He’s also been pretty successful in learning about how this RV functions, he’s been trying all the systems (he had great fun with the air horn at midnight last week - that’s a joke), and he’s been reading the mountain of manuals which came with the RV. He’s been a busy boy.
But he found some time to help our neighbors, Smitty and Dolores, shine up the trim on their new home. They were able to get all the trim within standing height but the roof line required a ladder and they were not so sure about ladders. Gary climbs on our roof all the time so it was no big deal to him. Here he is up on the roof shining up the trim with Armor-All. When he got ready to climb down, Smitty ran over to the ladder in a panic to hold it until Gary got down.
And, me? Well, I just feed the guy and he keeps on working. Put a little food into him and he moves on to the next project. Actually, I do a bit more than that. This RV sat on a dealer lot for a while and lots of people, salespeople, and others walked in and out. Secondly, its Arizona and warm. We keep our windows open which tends to bring in some dust. So, I have been cleaning.
Are you wondering why we think this is a fun lifestyle? Are you wondering why we aren’t out hiking? Are you wondering why we aren’t lounging around the pool with the other residents here? Don’t ask.
On another topic, Gary’s sister and brother-in-law visited Paris this fall and found this book for Gary. We think it fits the western theme of living in the Southwest.
As an aside here - we were out walking today and walked through the resort to get to the main street. We met an older gentleman and both said ‘hi’ to him. He just kept on walking but we heard him mutter under his breath ‘twins’ as he walked past us. C’mon. We weren’t even dressed alike.
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