Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Don't eat too much Turkey......... Or you'll fall asleep during the Football game!

Retired Rod

New Antenna

There it is up there....!  And you can't forget to crank it down....  But it cost as much to install it as it was worth by almost twice....

And changing the fuse circuit breaker was over $100 more....  The breaker was only about $20...  So, about $700 later the whole deal was done.....

But that turned out to only be the tip of the ice burg here today, as a fellow came up to me while I was hooking up the Jeep to tow it back over to storage....  I remember thinking to do things really deliberately while I was otherwise being distracted while doing departure chores...

The fellow wanted to see how to hook up the Blue Ox  tow bar...  And then began to lay all of his towing problems on me...  I know I was in the driveway of the repair facility, but I thought advice was inside with the techs...  But I showed him what he wanted to know...

But then he said his wife thought the car swung back and forth behind their coach...  She was evidently following in yet another vehicle to see this...  I suggested that the car might need alignment so it would track better...  But he protested because the car was brand new...  So we had to discuss how only a few new cars actually get aligned, and from then on they keep using the last settings for all of them....  I'm not sure he believed me....

Eventually I was able to leave and go back to the storage lot... where I determined that I didn't have the key to the Jeep any longer...  It wasn't on the D clip keyring that it lives on...  Not on the floor of the car or the coach... Not on the ground outside in storage anywhere either...  I wasn't moving the Jeep... simple as that....

So while being talked to while working, somehow I managed to drop the car key..... I had several rings and only one key was gone from one of the rings.... But it was the Jeep key...  So I drove the Motorhome back to the repair place without the Jeep....  And NOPE no one saw any keys on the driveway around here....

That made me drive the MH all the way back to the house about 6 miles to the South... And after retrieving the spare key, all the way back to the storage lot..  I looked and looked but couldn't decide what had happened to the first key....  Slowly, I was coming to the realization that I was going to have to purchase another, all in one anti theft chipped remote fob key...  Those are about $350.....

About 4PM, I was over at the Quick Trip gassing up the Jeep and began looking under the driver's seat again, and for some reason put my hand down under the carpet next to the steel flooring... And came out with the key!  It must have fallen off of the key ring and slid down under the carpet.....

By that time I was just emotionally drained.... Trying to figure out how I had lost that key.....

So if you are distracted by something or some one while hitching anything.....   Just stop!!  Wait until they are gone......!

Retired Rod

Staying in

Its Saturday, and that means I have to clean up this joint...  Not that I let it get all that dirty, but the clutter seems to grow...  My late wife would toss it out or put stuff into drawers just to get rid of it on the counter....   But I'm not as good about knowing when to get rid of things...

Roomba is running all around the house as I type this and Biscuit is staying well clear...  She knows that roomba has an evil mind and will chase her....  It does have a sensor that knows where walls and obstructions are, causing it to change directions all at once...  Biscuit kind of tolerates the machine, and doesn't follow it around barking at it any more...  But it goes under the bed looking for dust bunnies, and that's were Biscuit likes to hide......

I didn't go out at all yesterday after the day of the big motorcycle ride...  It didn't even occur to me that I should try and go somewhere...   I did call the RV repair folks, as they originally thought it wouldn't take very long to do the work....  But they haven't had time to look into it yet... So much for an appointment...  They know I am not living in the coach, and others here are, so their repairs do take a more immediate nature...  That's OK, I didn't feel like going over and hooking the jeep up anyway...

I was thinking how it was a shame that we only spent a couple of hours down in Yuma, on Thursday.. I always like to go to the swap meet down there and over to Mexico and stuff...  Maybe I had better get the MH up and ready for another trip.....  Its only about 200 miles from here........ !  

Retired Rod

Certifiably Nuts!

We met again at the Denny's restaurant on Chandler Blvd and the I 10 interchange...  Not many riders..  only 4 bikes but one had a couple on it....  It was cool outside, only in the mid 50s when I left the house...  About 59 when we were standing around at Denny's...   No one else showed up to go...

After 10 Am we left and headed down to the Maracopa turn off  at the Wild Horse Casino...  They thought maybe some others would join us at the corner along the Gila River Indian Reservation but no one was around....  We rode on to Maracopa..

As we made it to the center of town, the couple on the Honda trike seemed upset that no one else was coming and they apologized over the CB radio and decided to go back home.....   Say what?

Now there was just the ride leader John, myself and the lady from Vancouver Island, that rides her Goldwing down here in the fall...  Her name is Donna, and she can ride that Goldwing better than me....!

We headed for Gila Bend on Az 238 also known as Maracopa Road..  And it was during that time that John and Donna hatched a plan...  Over the CB...  I could only listen as I use a hand held plugged into my Blue Tooth headset..

They were going to Yuma now instead of Ajo......  They were going to stop and ask me what I thought...  So I held my hand UP with a Big Thumbs UP signal...  That took them by surprise as they didn't know I was listening...  Donna said "can you hear us Rod?"  I shook my head and held up my thumb..   Is Yuma OK....?  I held up my thumb again...  So were now going to Yuma.....!!!

And we did make it to Yuma out in the Fortuna Hills area, where we ate lunch on a picnic table outside the truck stop station...  There we decided to go on up to Quartzsite...

At Quartzsite it looked really empty where the big tent is usually erected for the RV show..  It appeared that they were spreading more rock  on the site with end loaders...  So they are getting prepared...  Also it is amazing how many RVs are out in the BLM grounds to the South of town..  People must live there long term...  Not too sure about the 14 day limit...

We gassed the bikes up town and I had to change the radio channel as the skip was coming in on the original choice....   Of course they do it right on their dash, but my hand held is in the rear top case, so I have to stop...

As we headed West on Quartzsite's main street, we passed by the Reader's Oasis, where Paul Winer was standing in the front door "Au Naturel", watching the traffic go by....   Only in Quartzsite..!!!

We didn't mess around much, as we still had the I 10 trip back to Phoenix ahead of us...  We arrived back in downtown right at 5 PM  The folks that drive that rush hour traffic are aggressive and nuts.. We stayed in the HOV lane which allowed us to move faster at times, but we were stopped a lot too...

A side note here, the trike is much easier in this kind of traffic, as you don't have to keep putting your feet down and supporting a 950 pound motorcycle....  Stop and go traffic on a big bike is difficult...

It was after dark when I opened the garage.....   Biscuit is for sure I am a bad daddy for leaving her alone all day...!  She is laying on my right foot as I type this so I can't get away from her again...

Retired Rod