We’re Not Sure Who Discovered Water

But we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.

The End of Retirement

With that I recommend reading The End of Retirement by Jessica Bruder in the August 2014 Harper’s magazine. If you don’t have a subscription to Harper’s, you can listen to an interview with the author about this article on National Public Radio.

The End of Retirement is a slice of RV life — the darker side of RV life. It’s about those older RVers who have retired, but must still work for a living in order to get by.

Bruder tells her story through the stories of several RVers who, though not destitute, have fallen on hard times and must continue to work in their golden years. Some of the jobs these seniors take would be hard enough for someone much younger.

I thought Bruder’s portrayals were empathetic, not patronizing, but it looks like others in the RV full timing community don’t share my view.

. . . the article, written by a so-called “subculture journalist” is a twisted exploit on a small minority of work campers who are down on their luck and does nothing but portray full-time RVers as sad, broke and destitute people who have no choice but to live on the road.

I thought this was a bit harsh and visited the web site of the couple who had posted this review. Turns out their ad-laden web site is in the business of selling full-time RVers How-To-Make-Money products and services.

My take away is that they wanted to dis the article because it could interfere with their business plan.

On the other hand, there seem to be a number for RVers who don’t like the article for one reason or another. But I think some of their resentment is the fact that Bruder is a journalist and not a full-time RVer.

To me, this is just another case of where the fish won’t be the one discovering the water.

WALLY, THIS ONE’S FOR YOU

Walter, maybe it was my time in Korea during the 70s when I was in the army or the Arizona sun, but I’ve become a K-POP fan — the girl groups that is.

Well, maybe the real reason for the interest is the svelte Asian 20-somethings, eh?

Water Softener Installed in Park Model

I started this project in May and planned to be done a month ago, but the Arizona heat slowed me down a whole lot.

The water softener shed I built was finished in June, but all the plumbing I had to run took another month.

Anyway, our water is now soft and slippery and we’re ready if we decide to install a washer/dryer.

Some photos . . .

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Protecting RV Pets & Fridge Contents

We travel with two Golden Retrievers who we love dearly, and we worry about leaving them alone in our motorhome — especially in hot weather. To lessen the possibility of runaway high temperatures, we purchased new RV air conditioners before we started full timing. In addition, we installed an automatic generator start system. Basically, this means that if we lose power to our RV for some reason, the generator in the RV will start up automatically, supplying power to our motorhome.

Also, from past experience, we’re concerned about the temperature in our fridge rising above 40 degrees F, the recommended safe limit for food.

So what can you do to get piece of mind for both of these worries?

LaCrosse Alerts Main Screen

The solution we chose was LaCrosse Wireless Temperature and Humidity Monitor. This LaCrosse system can monitor temperatures from two sources — ambient air temp and through an external temp probe. The system also monitor ambient air humidity.

The system consists of a wireless router which receives temp and humidity data from a wireless monitor. At regular intervals (which can be changed), this data is sent to LaCrosse where it is displayed on a custom web page that only shows your data.

iPhone Alert Screen

The temperature and humidity data can be accessed from a computer browser or from a smart phone screen. Note: As of today, there is no app for LaCrosse alerts.

In addition, temperature and humidity alerts (like min/max) can be set up. For example, we set an alert for a max temp of 80 degrees F and an alert of 40 degrees F for the temperature probe.

When either of these alerts are triggered, we receive text messages and emails until the condition(s) are corrected.

Finally, my only complaints about the system were the lack of directions and the shaky setup procedure. For directions, you’re sent to a web site to activate the unit. There’s nothing really in the box that gives you an overview or specifics. Also, the setup or “activation” procedure required a couple tries before it worked.

4th of July & 1st Monsoon

JULY 4th @ CRAZY HORSE

We spotted this couple camped below our park model who seemed to be really making out — but really clumsily, so we figured one or both of them was drunk.

However, when her friends carried her down into the water to “cool” off, we figured she was more than just drunk. And when the firetruck/ambulance appeared, our suspicions were confirmed.

It looks like she had a mild case of hyperthermia. She didn’t end up going to the hospital, but the paramedics did give her some sort of bag of liquid (saline solution?) attached intravenously to one of her arms.

A short time later one of the males she was with punched another male. It was a short fight as the two had a real long post fight drunken conversation.

Here’s a movie of the brew ha ha . . . one of our Road Runner friends appears at the end.

OUR FIRST MONSOON

It’s summertime and the humidity’s rising. One-hundred-plus degree temps are tolerable when the humidity is low, but ratchet the humidity up a few percent and it’s sauna time. This leads to monsoon time (June 15 – September 30) in Arizona when large thunderstorms develop. We had a pretty strong one on July 7th that lasted about an hour and developed winds up to 40 mph.

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108V and Dropping

With the now steady 100-degree-plus temperatures here in Lake Havasu City, we surprisingly are having more visitors to our park on weekends.

Apparently, since it’s also hot in California, a lot of Californians are driving to Crazy Horse, and when that happens the voltage in the park drops as more air conditioners and microwaves are used.

We use a plug-in voltage meter to measure the park voltage coming into our park unit (or motorhome), and when the voltage drops below 108V, it’s time to hook up our voltage regulator.

Basically, it can “boost” incoming voltage by up to 10% — so 108V becomes 118V.

Since low voltage can harm motors (like a refrigerator compressor), we choose to boost.

On the bright side  . . .

Work continues on our water softener shed. We should have it done in another few weeks and then we can have our rental softener installed.

The Shed