Vista Ties Ended

Our remaining tie to Vista, CA ended yesterday. Following breakfast at our hotel, we drove to the U-Haul location, picked up our truck and headed to the storage unit. We met the two "helpers" there and the job of loading up the truck started shortly after 8:30 AM local time. Here's a shot of the start of the effort:

Our unit was a 5 x 20 size which had the same amount of storage space as 10 x 10 space. It looks like a small space in the shot above but we just about filled the truck with the contents. There was no way that we could have completed the job ourselves in the time they took to completely empty the space and send us on our way. The guys that helped us were paid for 2 hours time, even though they completed the job in about 1.25 hours.

We checked out of the storage facility and were on the road back to AZ at 10 AM. Our return trip was on I-10 as opposed to I-8 on our trip out to CA. The distance is close to the same either way, but the different scenery made it a more interesting drive. We stopped twice along the way - once in Palm Springs and once in Ehrenberg AZ just across the state line where gas is a lot cheaper than CA. I will say that the truck got about as bad gas mileage as I get towing our fifth wheel. We averaged less than 10 mpg on the trip.

Our arrival at the storage facility in Surprise was around 5 PM with the one hour time change, so our return trip was about the same as the trip out, using different routes. It was around 6 hours, but with one fewer stop.

This morning we return to our storage unit to empty the truck into our new space, return the truck and move our goods from the old space into the new one. We both will be very happy to see this phase end...

Nice Drive to Vista

We stayed close to our schedule and actually departed Surprise a little early at 9:30 AM yesterday. The drive was uneventful - the best kind - and we enjoyed the scenery and the great weather all the way. We stopped at a few places - once in Surprise to top off the gas tank in the Jeep, again in Gila Bend to have lunch and the last time at a rest stop before the mountains outside San Diego. This was the same rest stop we visited on the way to Vista in January where we saw the Blue Angels practicing. They weren't anywhere around this time.

Our arrival at the hotel was right at 3 PM California time, which was one hour earlier than Surprise. The trip, therefore, took a total of 6.5 hours with stops - not bad at all. The hotel is just off the freeway and is a real bargain. It is called Americas Best Value Inn & Suites:

It is fairly old, but the rooms are all renovated, very clean and super large. We have a king bed and it cost us $52 for the night with microwave, refrigerator, hair dryer and most amenities you would expect in more expensive hotels. It also includes breakfast this morning. Here is another shot of the hotel from our room:

Following our arrival, we went to the U-Haul location and the storage facility to store them in our GPS for this morning. We stopped in the office at each location to confirm our arrangements for today. We are set to go. We then stopped at Walmart and picked up a couple Lean Cuisines and a bottle of wine for dinner and we were content.

Hopefully, all will go smoothly today and we will be back in Surprise tonight, and be ready to unload at our new space at the storage facility where we will consolidate all the items from both places. Sounds like fun, right? :)...

Heading Out To Vista

Everything is a go for our trip today. We have finally reached the (dreaded) day when we go to CA to pick up the goods and close out our storage space there. The trip should be a pleasant one though as the weather will be perfect and we only have the one vehicle to deal with which means we only have to drive separately on the way home. We can still drive both ways in the same vehicle if we decide to rent a dolly for the Jeep to tow behind the truck. That's what we did when we drove to Vista back in January to start working there. The problem with that arrangement was that the truck overheated while going through the mountains. We probably won't chance that happening again.

We did some chores around the rig yesterday. I did some minor things inside while Josie did the laundry. There are a couple more of our shades that need to be restrung but I'll save that for when we return and Josie starts working. I am beginning to line up jobs for that period of time when she will be gone during the days for the last two weeks before Christmas.

One thing we both agreed on yesterday after watching the third ambulance come into the Resort - the average age of the residents here must be at least 80. Everywhere we go we see folks that are barely able to move and it gets kind of depressing after awhile. Every day there are multiple ambulance calls and there has to be a record number of lots available for sale. It's not only the poor economy that has impacted the market here, but also the aging population. It is not a place where we would ever consider buying a space as it has reached the same stage as Sun City. We realize we are also getting older but believe we have a long way to go to reach the near helpless stage that many folks have reached in Happy Trails.

We'll watch a little bit of the Today show this morning and then pack a few things and head out by around 10 AM...

Computer Ships

HP indicated that my computer would be completed and would ship on December 3. By the time 4 PM rolled around yesterday, I still hadn't received an email verifying that it was on schedule. I initiated an online chat with HP to try to get a status on the computer. The girl on the chat said the system was still in production according to the information she had, but that Mondays are the day that HP uses FedEx to ship production from the week before and I would probably receive notice today. Sure enough, an email was sent at 3:30 AM notifying me that the system has shipped and to expect delivery by Friday, December 7 at 4:30 PM.

That was good news. Our plan for the week is to go to Vista, CA tomorrow, pick up and load the truck on Thursday AM, drive to our storage facility in Surprise by Thursday night and then unload and return the truck early Friday morning. We also have planned to do the consolidation of our space on Friday, so I'm hoping that all of the moving can be completed by Friday afternoon.

Most of the day yesterday was spent doing odds and ends around the rig to try to get ready for our trip tomorrow. There is no rush to leave early so we plan to be on the road no later than 10 AM tomorrow. This is a trip that we should have planned last month but we were enjoying our down time from working so much we just let it slide. As we are discovering, many things we are looking for are in that storage unit in CA and we really need to get there now to bring everything here to Surprise. It will be a very busy time from tomorrow until Christmas, so we are going to take full advantage of our remaining down time...

Baking Cookies

We got a "mild" start to the Christmas season yesterday. We put some Christmas music on our boombox and cranked it up as Josie started baking cookies. She made some chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies to start the season. It is only a beginning though. Any thoughts of losing weight before the end of the year are now wishful thinking. It's the same thing every year at the start of December. Too much of cookies, fruit cake and egg nog to have any chance of losing. We just hope we can keep our binges under control.

We also went to town to get haircuts and pick up some Christmas stuff. Most of our good items are in CA and we will bring those back at the end of the week. We really thought we would have had those things back here by now but I don't think we realized just how much of our necessary items were left there. When we started out on that journey to Vista, we had long term involvement in mind.

The main event for me today is to follow up to be sure that my new computer ships as promised by HP. At least when I ordered the Windows 8 system from Costco I received it within 3 days of the order. This new version - the Windows 7 version - was ordered on November 22 and probably will not arrive until late this week at the earliest. Part of that is because this one is being custom built whereas the Costco system was from their inventory. Regardless, I know from further research that all of my applications will run on this new system.

Our neighbors - and landlord - have left again to attend a Beaver Rally in Bakersfield, CA this week. He is a Regional Vice President for the Beaver Motor Coach Club and they attend almost all of the rallies. His coach is a Beaver Marquis and is a top of the line coach - in excess of $500K.  Rett told me that they have over 100K miles on this 2008 coach that they purchased brand new in 2008. That's a lot of traveling. With the two homes they own in AZ and TX, it doesn't appear that this slump in the economy has affected them at all.

That's about it for now as we watch the sun coming up for another glorious day in AZ...

Tis the Season

Our trip to the storage unit to find our RV Christmas decorations was disappointing. There are some boxes there that contain decorations for a house, but our container of goodies for the RV was not there - it is in CA. We did get a few things though, but will have to wait until the end of next week to do any more.

It is important for us to get everything done before Josie starts work a week from this Wednesday. Once she starts, there will be no time off until Christmas Eve day. There is so much to get done. We haven't started any shopping yet, nor have we gotten our cards yet. And, Josie hasn't baked any cookies yet - very important. Usually, we send gifts cards so that it eliminates the hassle from both ends of fighting shopping crowds and taking a chance that what we buy is the wrong size, color or style. Also, the gift cards go a lot further following Christmas with all the post Christmas sales. This year, Josie will try to get some things for the smaller Grand kids since they like opening presents. It is a little different with toys anyway since there are no sizes involved like there are for clothes. It looks like we will get a start on all those things today and tomorrow. Josie got her manicure and pedicure done yesterday, so now she's ready to go.

We are coming up to the 1300th entry in this blog. It doesn't seem like it's that many, but in over 3.5 years, that is a lot without missing a day. I apologize for some of the dull and insignificant entries, but it is important to me to document all of our experiences so that our families always know where we are and what we are doing. Some days are down days, and others are filled with activities and pictures along the way. Those are more fun for us also, but we take the days as they come...

Visit to Storage

The more we talked about the location of our Christmas decorations for the fifth wheel, the more we weren't sure about where we put them after last year. We keep those decorations separate from the house decorations, and for a good reason - the RV decorations are smaller and more compact for travel. The only way to answer the question was to visit the storage unit and do a little searching. We found some Christmas boxes but none of them were the container that we were looking for. It seems like now we will have to wait until after next week and our visit to CA to retrieve our stuff from that storage unit.

That trip will not be a fun trip and isn't intended to be. Everything is lined up for the two day trip including a one night stay at a hotel in Vista that is just a basic room in a very basic hotel there. The trip is sure to bring back some memories of the folks we knew at Arcadia Place, but we decided not to take any time to visit. We would love to see some of the residents we worked with, but do not want to run into any of the area managers that we didn't like. That trip, once again, is scheduled for next week on December 5-6.

I also re-attached my auxiliary fuel tank gauge to the new windshield in the truck When the new windshield was inserted, the guy didn't place the gauge in the right spot, so I moved it. That was no big deal except that it requires a good quality double sided tape to install which I purchased at ACE Hardware yesterday.

There was nothing else of any consequence that we did yesterday except to watch a couple more of the Christmas movies that we copied from the Hallmark Channel on TV. They are all excellent films that we have never seen before. They are running these shows every day from now until Christmas.

Have a great day everybody...