Little word, zoo and numbers

So, I had no idea a word of such diminutive nature could have so powerful an effect as to rupture the peace of our home.  I mean it’s not a four-letter word, not a word on the ‘Thou Shalt Not Use This Word in the Belcher Household’ list (yes, there is such a list). (Not that he pays any attention to it!)  It’s not even such a word as anyone would find offensive in normal circles, yet I somehow managed to use it at just the right time in just the right way to create so sudden and catastrophic a riff between Tami and I that she would hardly speak to me for days. (It was more like an hour.)   In fact, I’ve used the nasty word three times already in this paragraph and I dare say none of you readers have been offended.  It’s just too fine a line we fellows have to walk. (Oh please, give me a break!)  So what could the vile term be?  It happened like this.  Right after Tami whined, “It makes me mad when…” I let it slip, “So?”  (If I was the violent type, Clay would have had a very black eye!!!)

            Colorado Springs has a very nice zoo, and on one of our days off we went with our friends Tom and Patty Webster to see the animals.   It was a little on the warm side that day, so some of the bigger cats and bears were hiding in the shade, but we still got to see giraffes and elephants, hippos and monkeys, lizards and penguins and other assorted beasts.  The zoo is built on the side of a mountain, and we took the sky ride up to the top.  Gave us some great views of Colorado Springs.  We ended the day with a late lunch at Olive Garden, our favorite restaurant.

                             Clay feeding a giraffe.

                              Lunch time for the elephant.

                            The hippos trying to stay cool.

                            Nap time for Mr. Gorilla.

                                Downtown Colorado Springs.

                         Monkeys playing....oh, wait, that's the four four of us!

We only have a little over a week left to work here in Monument.  It has been a good summer and we really appreciate the good environment we have to work in.  We’ll leave here and go to my parent’s house for a few days before heading to Smith Nevada.  We’ll be there for nine days and then it’s up to Fernley Nevada to begin our three month stint at Amazon.com.  Not much rest between jobs this year, but we’ll still manage to put our feet up for a bit.

Okay, back by popular demand (not really) here are some trivial facts that may amuse you.  We hit the road in May 2007.  In that time we’ve accumulated 63,842 travel miles, 26,756 of which we were pulling the trailer.  We’ve burned 5,583 gallons of diesel fuel at an average of $3.489 per gallon.  The lowest we’ve paid per gallon was $1.893 and the highest was $4.759.  Our worst annual miles per gallon average while towing was 7.6 mpg.  Our best annual average was 8.9 mpg. 

As far as major repairs go we had to have the fuel injectors replaced after only 87,453 miles.  Ouch!  I apparently whined so effectively Chevy picked up half the cost.  At 94,417 miles we had to replace the master cylinder and then at 99,201 we had two power steering hoses replaced.  The truck now has a total of 106,918 miles on it.  We just installed our second full set of truck tires and have replaced all trailer tires once.  Although we’ve only replaced all trailer tires once we’ve had 6 trailer flats at various times, 3 of which were failed valve stems.  We had 1 valve stem failure on the truck (on I-10 during heavy traffic with only a narrow emergency lane.  All I’ll say about that is it was very breezy).  We’ve rotated truck tires 12 times and trailer tires 3 times (Yes, I started rotating trailer tires a few thousand trailer miles ago.  The MOR/Ryde suspension is independent and we seem to get more even wear when I rotate them).  We’ve changed oil/filter 8 times, transmission fluid three times and gone through 4 fuel filters.  We’ve replaced truck batteries three times, once when the original batteries died, once when the Duralasts didn’t last, and a third when the one year old Interstate’s failed prematurely (replacement was covered under warranty).  Curious failures…but I had the voltage regulator and charging system checked out and nothing seemed amiss.  Oh well…  We’re on our second set of trailer batteries and they’re still going strong.

We’ve stayed in RV Resorts on 119 different occasions.  Some of those were repeat stays at locations we’d been to before.  Our longest stay in one place was 169 nights in Burnsville, NC when we worked the summer at the Clear Creek Guest Ranch.  Our shortest stay was about 8 minutes when we pulled through a place and decided to move on.  Our two favorite places have been Hi Valley RV Park in Boise Idaho and Colorado Heights Campground in Monument Colorado.  Our least favorite stay was in a park in Golden Colorado (place just felt depressing).  We’ve never really had a close call traveling (we have VERY different definitions or “close call”!!)  although the other half of the Belcher family, the half that never cusses, still refers to our venture around Lake Henry in Idaho in a snow storm as the trip from hell.

So that's it for now.  Hope all is well in your lives and drop us a note some time!

Tami & Clay 

Fire, boat & banana peppers

It’s hard to believe that it is already July.  The summer is just zipping by here in Monument Colorado.  This is our fourth summer working here and for the second year in a row, we have been close to a major forest fire.  The Black Forest Fire started on June 11 and was about 14 miles east of the RV park.  We could see the clouds of smoke billowing up over the hills and at one point we were on the edge of a pre-evacuation zone.  At the height of the fire, over 41,000 people had been evacuated.  It was sort of ironic that we had people checking in to the park because they had been evacuated and we had people leaving the park because they didn’t want to be that close to a fire.  By the time the fire was out, it had burned 14,280 acres, destroyed 509 homes (some of them multimillion dollar places) and left two people dead.  Below are some pictures a friend took of some of the smoke.  There have been about six other fires in the state as well, but none of them quite a destructive.   Very sad way to start the summer.

                       View of the smoke over the rental units of the RV park.

Every summer our boss usually gives Clay and I a large project to work on in addition to our regular duties.  This year it is to pressure wash the deck and bridge that are on the two fishing ponds.  I’m not sure he realized just how big a project this would turn out to be.  It took us almost three days just to get the deck pressure washed.  To do the outside, we had to get the parks little row boat out.  We started out with me on the deck and Clay in the boat.  But the pressure washer acted like a little motor and I had a hard time holding onto the boat.  So next we tried with me in the boat with Clay.  (See pictures below!)  That was somewhat better, but it still put a pretty good strain on my arms.  So then we got two pieces of rope and tied the boat to the dock at each end and that worked much better.   After letting the dock dry for a couple of days, we then began staining it.  That also took about three days and required the use of the row boat once again.  But it was finished at last and looks pretty good.  Now we are starting on the bridge and it will take awhile to get it done as well.  Plus, there is not much room to work on the bridge and you get soaking wet from the back spray of the pressure washer.  But eventually it will be finished!

                                 Tami trying to hold on to the dock!

                         The finished deck.  Trust us, it looks better than it did!

                         The bridge, just waiting for us to get back to work.

Perhaps it’s not all the odd for two people who’ve lived together for 35 years to be in sync on things, but banana peppers…come on!  If you don’t know, banana peppers come in a jar suspended in brine much like pickles.  And it seems so strange that both Tami and I would, at the same time, discover the unique, albeit different, qualities about banana peppers. 

It came about because Tami likes onions and I do not, which makes this whole affair my fault.  At least I think it’s my fault.  (Of course it’s your fault.)  Anyway, Tami hates buying onions because she won’t usually get the whole thing eaten before it goes bad. (Yes, I know onions aren’t expensive, but I just hate throwing away food!)  But by some strange inspiration she decided to put banana peppers on a sandwich instead and discovered it was the perfect substitute for onions.  Wow!  (They don't really taste like an onion, but somehow they are just a good substitute!) 

It was about this same time that I discovered, quite accidentally, that if a person (a person not-to-be named) places the jar of banana peppers with an untightened lid (the lid WAS tight, but the jar fell over because someone hit one too many bumps in the road!) in the fridge directly above the fridge light, a spill might short out the light and cause a catastrophic failure.  Thanks goodness banana pepper juice isn’t flammable or this blog would be about roasted banana peppers.

But not to worry.  After a bit of disassembly, copious amounts of hot water followed by blasts of compressed air the shorted switch is all clean.  Reassembly is a snap and as I demonstrate the properly functioning light to the love of my life she makes the comment I’ve heard throughout our married life, “Wow, you fixed it!!!”  It’s the astonishment in her voice that gets me every time.

Now I know some of you think I make stuff up from time to time but really, could I have made this up?  I don’t think so.

Anyway, we hope things are going well for you where every you may be.  Take care and have a great rest of the summer!!

Snow & Chair

This will be the fourth summer that we have worked at an RV park in Monument Colorado.  We have arrived at the first of April, the middle of April and the end of April.  And no matter when we arrive, a couple of days later, it snows.  This year was no exception.  Thankfully, it was only about six inches and it didn't last long, but it made getting around the park a little tricky.  Below are a few pictures of the event.

 It's too cold to sit outside today!

 We had to keep brushing the snow off the cart.

 Icicle hanging from the back of the rig.

Let's have a BBQ!

AND

I’m not one to cause trouble but I have to say things did not work out quite as I planned.  It was simple enough. Lately I’ve been destined to sleep in my recliner since I can’t seem to get out of the doghouse.  (Okay, let’s stop right there!  1^st, Clay is not in the doghouse.  2^nd, even if he was, I would NEVER, make him sleep in his recliner.  I would simply ignore him when he came to bed!)  The recliner is okay for short intervals, except that it had suddenly become uncomfortable.  Rather than redeeming myself to be doghouse-free I do what all real Americans do when under stress…I go shopping.  I opted to buy a new recliner, which for some reason Tami eagerly agreed to. (Mainly because we had bought a real cheap one a couple of years ago and it was starting to look really nasty.)   So I, Mr. Cheapskate, find the perfect recliner, buy it, get it home and relax a moment (more like several hours) before going for a walk.  I return 30 minutes later only to find Tami enjoying my recliner and that’s the last I’ve sat in it, but at least I’m out of the doghouse…at least for a while. (What can I say?  Clay has really good taste and that chair is very comfortable.  Maybe if he does the dishes, I’ll let him sit in it for a while!)  This is a rare picture...it's only because Tami is taking it that the chair is vacant.  (And don't hold your breath about the dishes!)

The new recliner.

 Until next time....

Petrified Forest

It's hard to explain.  We've packed up the rig and secured everything, checked the lights and are ready to go, but something is amiss.  I'm behind the wheel and Tami is in the navigators seat (because she likes to tell me where to go) but there's no map in her lap.   Instead she's punching an address into our newly acquired Garmin Navigator, something she vowed to never rely upon.  I'm scared.

It's not only unsettling because for over five years now she's always had a map in her lap but we going from Lake Havasu City to Holbrook.  I mean it is twelve miles to the interstate, turn east and stay on I-40.  Even I can get there without a map.  Oh well, I'll know I'm really in trouble if she doesn't at least once argue with Mr. GPS (She didn't like Mrs. GPS so insisted we change it to the male's voice).

Okay, Clay’s right to some extent, but what he neglected to mention is that he likes to have the navigator on because the little screen shows how many miles we have to travel to our destination and thus he does not have to ask me every half hour how much further we have to go!   Actually I like making Tami growl as she tries to add up the miles from her old maps.  And yes, it is also true that I fought getting the navigator for many years, feeling very comfortable with my paper maps.  But the last year or so, I seem to have had trouble getting us through cities and following the road signs correctly.  So, being the big person that I am, I could admit that I needed help.  And since getting the navigator, I have become a convert.  It is great especially when you are in an unfamiliar city.  Just put in the address and away we go!

So now, just a little info on our whereabouts.  We left 29 Palms California on April 8^th and moved to Lake Havasu Arizona.  We planned to stay about a week before going on to Monument Colorado for our summer job.  But Monument got one snowstorm after another so we ended up staying in Lake Havasu for two weeks.  It was mid April and we had three days of 100+ temps.  It’s going to be tough adapting to Monument.

After leaving Lake Havasu, we drove about 300 miles to Holbrook Arizona where we spent two nights.  The day after our arrival we went to the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert.  It was a sunny day, but the wind was pretty strong and about blew us off our feet a couple of times.  It made taking pictures a real challenge!  But the Painted Desert was beautiful with all the different colors and rock formations.  And it was so neat to see all the petrified wood that was in the southern part of the park.  It is pretty amazing that minerals could take the place of the wood and maintain that shape after the wood decayed.  This is a small national park, but very interesting.  

 A couple of shots of the painted desert.

There were several areas of petroglyphs.  This was one of my favorites.

A petrified tree.

 

The inside of a log.  The colors were just amazing.

 

And speaking of photos, several years ago we acquired a digital photo frame, you know, one of those electronic gadgets where you load digital files on an SD card and it scrolls through them.  Tami was able to load every picture she’s kept since we started traveling.  It’s mounted in our living room and scrolls relentlessly through the years so that I can constantly exclaim, “Where the heck was that one from?”  It’s a great way to revisit things, especially for someone like me who never opens a photo album.

We also spent a couple of days in Santa Fe, but the weather was very cold and windy.  We had hoped to do a little hiking, but had to settle for eating lunch at the Olive Garden instead!  Hardy troupers aren’t we!

So now we are in Monument Colorado and all set up for another summer of work.  Will keep you posted on our adventures as the summer progresses.