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And now this . . .

In our Day in the Life post, we forgot to include two, really essential items — daily Mail Call and the Honey Wagon:

Before Tom knew the “secret” orange flag signal, he made the faux pas of asking for the mail before the flag had been raised. He got the mail, but also a cranky talking to.

The Honey Wagon stops by the non-sewer equipped sites twice a week. In S&B terms (“Sticks and Bricks” — those of you who live in regular houses), that amounts to normal bathroom use but showering every other day in the RV. There are campground showers, but we really like using our RV’s shower.

A Day in the Life

Though no day seems typical in Lake Havasu, we documented what we did Wednesday (February 12) which seems as close to a “typical” day as any. Here goes . . .

7:35 AM — RISE & SHINE

Ellie usually wakes us up by going over to Jan’s side of the bed, panting in Jan’s face, and thumping her tail against the wall.

However, this morning it was Flirt who woke us up by jumping on the bed and sidling up to Tom’s face. Lick, lick, lick.

It was my (Tom) turn to get up with the dogs so no big deal.

7:37 AM — FEED THE DOGS

Ellie first, Flirt second.

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7:40 AM – VOLTAGE & OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE CHECK

Crazy Horse Campground, like all too many campgrounds, suffers from “low voltage” issues.  This just means that through bad wiring or a poor city power supply (usually the former), the campground’s voltage can drop to a low or unacceptable level, especially when the campground is full. We have an electrical management system that automatically disconnects our RV if the voltage drops too low.

However, sustained low voltage can damage RV electronics, especially motors (like our refrigerator compressor). We’ve taken steps to fix this using an “autoformer” (more on this in another blog).

We also typically check the outside temp before walking the dogs and adjust our clothing accordingly.

7:45 AM — WALK THE DOGS

Let’s just say Ellie is as regular as a clock while Flirt is not so much . . .

7:49 AM — BREAKFAST FOR JAN

Jan had cereal with milk, but I had to wait to eat because we ran out of milk. Jan drove to the campground store to fix that.

8:20 AM BROWNOUT!

Since everyone in the campground is making coffee, toast, and running their microwaves at the same time, the park voltage dips.

At voltage this low, our electrical management system disconnects from camp power and we start running on our RV inverter — or running off our batteries.

We turn all the electrical appliances off and in a few minutes we reconnect to camp power.

8:30 AM — JAN LEAVES FOR HER ART CLASS

Jan is taking a watercolor class  at a local community college in Lake Havasu. Jan is loving it.

8:35 AM — DOG NAP TIME

After a hard morning of eating and pooping, it’s time for the dogs to take five.

8:40 AM — TOM COMPUTES

Tom checks how much Internet data we’re using (because we have a limited amount per month) and does the online banking.

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10:55 AM — MORNING DOG PLAY

After a few hours sleep, Ellie and Flirt (especially Flirt) get active and get into snarly dog play.

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11.00 AM to 1:50 PM — TOM INSTALLS AN ELECTRICAL OUTLET

Tom’s installing another web camera in our RV so we can monitor the dogs from another angle. This camera has sound — so we can tell the dogs to “Stop that!” over an Internet connection. So we’ll need another AC outlet in order to hook up the new camera.

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2:00 PM — LATE LUNCH

After her art class, Jan brings home a Subway sandwich lunch. Perfect.

We take Ellie and Flirt out and meet up with Katie, Flirt’s swimming buddy:

2:50 PM — MAIL CALL !

The Fedex truck arrives and drops off our forwarded snail mail.

3:10 PM — RENEW RV LICENSE PLATE

No photos. Tom just logged into Wisconsin’s DOT web site and renewed our RV plates.

3:30 PM — RECHARGE RV WATER SOFTENER

We have a small (actually very small when compared to a house’s) water softener. Just like a house softener, it has to be recharged every so often. In our case, Tom waited a month too long, so the recharge was long overdue.

In a nutshell, our softener just needed to be flushed several minutes with fresh water and then have table salt added. That’s it!

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4:00 PM — NEIGHBOR DAVE STOPS BY

Dave wanted to check out our La Fuma recliner.

4:12 PM — AFTERNOON DOG PLAY

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4:49 PM — LAKE HAVASU AIR FORCE

One member of the local “air force” makes an appearance in his pontoon ultralight.

5:00 PM — DOGGIE DINNER & EVENING WALK TIME

5:30 PM — MILLER TIME FOR THE HUMANS

6:17 PM – SUNSET

You really have to be here. Pictures don’t do it justice.

6:50 PM — DINNER

Schwan’s Chicken Cordon Bleu with baked potato and mixed vegetables.

7:00 PM — PBS NIGHT

It’s PBS TV night — Nature, Nova, and something else.

9:13 PM — TAKE DOGS OUT

The dog walk of the day. Then we’ll watch the Daily Show and/or Chelsea Lately in bed.

The Cable Guy

I wanted to upgrade our home (i.e., RV) entertainment system by adding a second DISH Hopper receiver.

We would just “swap out” one of our lesser-abled Joey receivers for a Hopper (details here).

As I had done all the wiring, I thought DISH would just send me the new Hopper and I’d send the old Joey back to them.

Nope. They had to send the Cable Guy to us at 7:30 Saturday morning.

Long story short . . . the install went well, everything works, and the Cable Guy was great to talk with. A former equipment roadie who sold his 100-acre Nebraska farm and moved to Lake Havasu City last July to become a Cable Guy.

Lake Havasu Air Force

Sometimes they fly in formations.
Sometimes they buzz the beach.
They are . . .
. . . the Lake Havasu Air Force.
Actually several guys in ultralights who fly around Lake Havasu from time to time.

It’s Getting Crowded — It Must Be Balloon Fest

The 4th Annual Lake Havasu City Balloon Festival kinda creeped up on us.

Jan returned last Thursday from visiting her relatives in Florida and then Balloon Fest arrived on Friday. It’s interesting because there is far more traffic and congestion than balloons in Lake Havasu.

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (their words, not mine) has over 700 balloons while Lake Havasu’s is under 100, but it doesn’t take much to congest this city. Even the mail was late today.

Anyway, a lot of folks rolled into our campground this weekend — especially from nearby California — causing a brownout (low voltage) Saturday morning which forced our RV electrical system to disconnect from campground power and to start up our coach’s generator.

But that’s the worst of it. The balloons were fun to watch and the couple who camped next to us turned out to be a teacher and elementary school principal who were just starting to RV.

Both Ellie and Flirt went swimming today. Flirt chases stones and Ellie just wades. They loved it.

Here are some photos of a Jeepin’ trip to nearby Parker Dam I took last week . . .

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