McCartney Court!!!

 

 

We are now on the map and recognized by the great folks at FedEx, because as you know by reading Lisa's post titled "My Bad", or should I say MS. Carrie bladder buster!!!. we needed a new water storage bladder. Well Amazon and FedEx came through for us and got one here today!!! The driver said the sign was a big help, and it's true if you miss us you're going for a long , long drive around the big loop. Lisa and I drove it once and it took like 30 minutes, Rim Rock is very big.

Love my AM views! Sitting with coffee at 5 am and looking out at my wonderful vistas.

It may be hard to see them, but dust devils out here are everywhere and they do pack a little punch.

Salmon Cakes and wonderful veggies from the garden of our good friends, Lois and Allen, who were so kind to drive halfway and meet us for dinner, and to deliver my new monitor.

This is our first full weekend on the property!!! We always seem to be travelling. This is our new picnic table.

And this is our new bladder (hope it can survive Lisa's cowgirl driving!!!)

 

This is my new bike (seems someone wants me to live a long time by losing some pounds!!!)

 

 

New battery arrangement. We now have 3 battery banks and 3 inverters, 1000 watt, 400 watt and 300 watt. I love waking up in the am with power.

Out of all the items I thought I was prepared for was power, and that has been the biggest pain in my butt to this date. I am so thankful we bought our generator; it has saved us many times. Solar may be great but it only works when you have sun!!! But I am learning and will have it under control next year.

My wife got me a bottle of Grouse the other night, and well, it's gone now. So hard to get and pricey out here so we have been drinking something called Scoresby (We call it Moseby as in Ted Moseby from How I met you Mother, think about it, it is that bad)

Yes me after taking a swig of that swill!!!!

 

Us relaxing in our new loungers!!!!

 

 

 

Someone asked about how we get Water!!!

 

 First we drive to the club house and fill our 60 gallon water bladder up, then I have a little water pump that hooks up to my drill and I pump water, usually 25 gallons or less to our RV fresh water tanks.

This usually takes care of us for a day. The bladder holds about 3 days worth of water. We also fill 2 7 gallon Gerry can type containers for drinking water.

 

 

 

 

 

The blue containers are for drinking water.

 

More next time guys!!!

My Bad

So, I tuck $3.00 in my pocket and jump in the truck.  I'm headed down to the clubhouse to buy a bag of ice.  The windows are down and there's a great breeze blowing and I'm feeling all "Carrie Underwood" because can't you just picture her driving a truck with the windows down?

Anyway, I make it to the clubhouse (an eight minute drive) and I go inside where I deposit $3.00 into the slot, grab a bag of ice and walk back to the truck.  As I approach the truck, I notice that the tailgate is down.  I put the ice on the front seat, walk around back, and close the tailgate.

I'm driving back to the property, windows down, singing, and waving to the few cars that pass me by, when I notice something yellow in the road.  I think, "Wow! Somebody lost their water bladder!" And then almost immediately, "Uh oh! That's our water bladder! It must have fallen out on the way down! Thank God no one picked it up!"

I'm all please with myself as I pull into the driveway and show Bill that yes, I dropped it, but hey, I found it again!

He picks the grubby thing up and shows me that there's a huge hole in it.

Bladder #2 arrives on Saturday.

 

Just another week in the wilds of Washington

 

 

 

Last week we flew to Cleveland for a week of meetings for work, great fun but boy draining, draining and draining. Anyway below is a pic from the drive in the beautiful Colombia River Scenic Highway in Oregon. We had to fly out of Portland a 6 hour drive for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a super secret spy for the government(not saying which one) I was attempting to contact the alien mother ship(this is what happens when you run out of Famous Grouse and have to drink cheap scotch)

Mountain Sheep!!!!

Cool Clouds on a Sunny Afternoon.

 Rain Clouds!!!

 Sunset!!!

Some Pics of our view and skys!!!

 Our Water Pump!!!

Going to Lake Chelan down the pass.

 

All uphill!!!

Wheat Fields!!!!

Farmer Stuff!!!

Rain!!! Yea!!!

Crop Duster buzzing our RV!!!

Long Lonely Highway.

 

The Moon over fields.

 

Old School House ( Matt really!!!)

Full Moon.....

Road Side Info!!!

Colombia River!!!

Mount Rainier from I 90 rest stop.

My New Fav Snack!!!

Sunset!!!

 

We drove tonight to Wilbur Washington to meet Allen and Lois and for me to get my new 20 watt 21.5 inch touch screen monitor!!!!  We ate at Billy Burgers... Great food, great fun with them, nice to see a friend once in a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

News from the West!!!

Lisa and I had a great time in Wenatchee National Forest

 

 

 

 

Both of us got some good relaxing time and boy did some of us need it!!! And yes, we camped out in tent and such, so of course, you know me, we had plenty of water, electric and a shower.

 We camped next to a nice little creek in the Tumwater Campground about two hours from our summer house.

 

 

 

  Great to sleep with the sounds of a babbling creek.

 

 

 

 

 

We had some good cooked meals!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had our own private facilities!!!

 

 

 

 

And don’t worry folks, this gear will get plenty of use. I plan to set this up on our property as a mother in-law suite!!! Judy said as long as she has her own bathroom, she would be good.

 

Bathroom with Shower!!!

Queen Size Bed...

 

I'll even provide her with Air Conditioning!!!

 

 

Actually, I will have to say the comfort level and ease of use of the gear has come a long way since I last camped in a tent. The Coleman Queen size bed was great.

 

 

 

 

Other News:

 

Heat and Power!!!

 

Tired of the heat and tired of waking with low power. Agggg!!!!!!

What’s the deal?? We ran a fan for 1 hour last night and this morning, no power again!!!!

Power is great as long as it’s light outside and the solar panels are charging the batteries. I will say, thank goodness I bought that generator!!!

 

Well, the heat... not much we can do except run the generator and AC during hot spells. Everywhere we go folks are complaining about the heat and how this is so unusual.  I am almost afraid to tell them we're from Florida. They may blame us for bringing it!  So last night we ordered a swamp cooler because most places around here use them. We got a small one to see if it would keep us somewhat cooler until we have to turn on the AC. Well, it came in, but we had to go pick it up at UPS in Moses Lake about 40 miles away. Seems they can’t find us.  Guess UPS needs a better GPS system.

 

And what happened that prompted us to buy a swamp cooler? Well, it was hot last evening and we decided to do laundry,

dump the sewer tank, fill up our water bladder, and go to the pool!!!

Apparently, the gods had it in for us….I pull up and dump the tanks, but when I went to rinse the tank… No water! Not good… Then I look over and see a very large backhoe digging up the middle of the parking lot at the club house. We drove over and saw Kevin, the manager, and he came over to talk to us. He sure had had a rough day, and so now would we. The water main, washing machine,  and pool had all gone kaput that day. I think someone is trying to send us a message!!! (I bet that Judy put a hex on things (Judy, mother in-law))

So back we go to the nice and toasty RV and turn on the generator and AC, and while under the coolness of AC, and the effects of my favorite distilled spirits, we ordered a swamp cooler.

 

Anyway, we had to go pick it up and the lovely ladies there fixed it so UPS will now deliver to our lot.

Since we were in Moses Lake, and not out in the middle of nowhere, I decided to check out a place called Battery Systems, and the guy there was great. I told him my problem, and he taught me the errors of my ways when it comes to batteries.  And yes, size does matter and so does quality. I ended up getting two 6 volt giants together, tripling my existing amp hours. But boy are they big- 88 pounds each!

 

Day 1 with new batteries and swamp cooler:

 

Ran TV, swamp cooler, and fan and all computers last night, and today we woke up to loads of power!!! We ran all day and did not turn the generator on 'till about 7pm.  We ran the AC to cool down the RV, plus wanted to make sure the batteries were full.

So the swamp cooler did well.  It managed to keep the RV cool, well into the late afternoon.

 

FYI... The water main is fixed, pool is open, and we did laundry last night!!!

We had a wonderful dinner of Lake Chelan cheeses and other finger type food.

 

After dinner, the fricking inverter would not kick on!  It said "low power" which is BS!!! The batteries are at 12.5 volts!!!!

After a few attempts it finally came on and has been running all night. I am beginning to realize, when living off the grid, you can't go cheap.