Good Morning COVID-19 Warriors. Today is day #332 for me. It is also “Super Bowl” Sunday. I don’t really care about it, but it’s between Kansas City and The Bucs! Started thinking about that this morning when I was at our Daily Reflections Meeting. I talked about living in Tampa right after college and working right down the street on Dale Mabry from the old stadium – wonder if it’s still there – it probably is. Now they have a new stadium – The Raymond James Stadium. Let me see if I can get an image of it: Spoiler alert! Tampa won! You go Tom Brady! I did watch the 3rd & 4th Quarters. Missed the halftime show but probably would not have liked it. I’ll try to find it on YouTube today and confirm that.
So I heard last night on YouTube (remember – I don’t have ordinary TV) and they said only 25,000 people can be there for the game. I wonder how much a ticket for it costs this year. I’ll Google that. I also heard that many of the regular sponsors are not doing ads (Budweiser comes to mind) and instead they are offering money for COVID relief. SEATS: 65,890! Ticket Price 2021: $5,950 a ticket and only 14,500 were available. HOLY COW!!!!!!! Now they are figuring the super bowl will be a “super spreader” with parties all over. And so it goes! Life in America! What a strange thing!
I watched a YouTube video about saving power while boondocking from the RVGeeks. It gave me a good idea to get a “pour over” coffee maker. I’ve watched Joe Russo use it on his videos but never thought too much about it until now that I have Mama Bear.
So I’m working on this blog post inside Mama Bear. I decided not to sleep in her last night, but I wanted to go to the meeting from inside her this morning, so I came over at 5:20AM to make coffee inside and get ready for the meeting. I gave the group a tour of her. Pretty selfish of me, but they asked!!! Anyway, here I am this morning:
I’ve got the Blue Tooth speaker working my music from Apple Music from my iPad. I love how it works, and it is plenty of sound for me. The music system that came with Mama Bear is pretty complicated and it is also a Blue Tooth. I’ll learn it someday – not really interested at this point. I need to keep the cabinet open where the speaker is, so I remember to turn it off – it was on all night.
We’re going camping on Tuesday for 2 nights. Rich, Bill & Cathy and me. So I need to “get over the fear”! Bill said he’d help me today pull her out. I think I’ll drive her down to Kartchner to drive on a highway. He gave me the idea of setting up the “cones” in the lot next to me on the other side of the house. Right now that lot is being used to store rocks on it so it’s open for use right now. So today is the day. Practice, practice, practice! So yesterday I put the heavy hitch on Papa Bear and locked it in place – don’t want that $800 item to be stolen off the truck! It was easy. I can lift it with just a little effort. The thing is HUGE! Let me go get a picture of it:
The sway bars fit into those pipes. Then they get attached to Mama Bear’s receiver. It’s heavy duty and takes strength, but is doable. Bill will help me set up the specifics as we think the guy at La Mesa had it too tight. Who knows??? We think it weighs about 50 pounds. So this morning I decided to test the hot water heater. There is a gas switch and an electric switch above the TV to heat it up. I think it took about 1/2 to heat it up. Once it comes to temperature (about 1/2 hour) I switch off the gas and just keep the electric switch on – if I’m hooked up, like I am now at my house. Not sure about it if boondocking – but for this trip (2 nights I won’t need hot water – I’ll just bring the stuff home and wash it. I tested the hot water in the bathroom sink. It took 30 seconds to get to the bathroom. I’ll need to remember to put something in the sink to catch the water so I can recycle it into the britta. I could use the gallon jug – let me see if it it fits in the sink – YEP!
Here is another picture of the inside from the door:
I am really gonna love this little camper, I can tell. When I get back from our maiden voyage, I’m going to get Metaxa in here to check her out. That will get me to put the kitty litter in here. I think it will fit right by the toilet. There is more room in this bathroom than there was in Daisy – it’s amazing:
I think it will fit. If not I have the shower, but it would be better here I think. So I discovered this right now: OOPS!!!!!!!! I put it out on the 2 FB groups to see if anyone else had this happen. We’ll see what happens with response to that.
Oh no – water leak. After investigating, I feel the water under the seat at the floor. I looked under the carriage to see I could see anything, but it’s covered due to the “heated” tanks. The only thing I did different, was run water in the bathroom sink to see how long it took for the hot water to come in. Ugh – but this is why we test things out before we go places. I know it can be fixed.
So after heating up the water this morning, my propane looks like this:
Bill said he would check it for me. Seems pretty bad useage if that is what happens when you heat the water. That will mean a lot of filling it seems to me.
Bill and I hooked up Mama Bear to Papa Bear, verified the check lists and now I know the process. It went pretty well. I drove it up to Mescal on Hwy 10 and turned around and came home. It felt pretty good – not too much of a burden. I did notice some “porpoising” which I don’t know if that is an issue or not. We’re trying to tweak the chains on the sway bars. That may be some of it, but I don’t know. I’ll check with Bill again about it. Today I go to the store to pick up my food for the trip and I also turn on the refrigerator today while I have her plugged in at home.
I also backed it into the lot next to my house. I did it pretty well. Then Bill backed it into my slab and bent the telephone pedestal. Oh well – perhaps someone will remove that one day. It is really a hazard to me and my toys!!!
So I just got this from Kimberly – she doesn’t want it shared just yet, but I figure it’s safe here since I rarely have any visitors to this site – except trolls at night!
That is Joe and me at our meeting in the mornings at 8AM EST. Wow – she is so talented. I showed you the one she did for me personally after she wanted to make amends to me because she said my picture looked like the cactus was growing out of my head:
Found a new spot for Harley Bear & Mariah (stuffed cat from Susan).
Now this is exciting. A woman named Judy from Tucson contacted me about Daisy. She is on her way here right now to come see her. She knows RVing and drives a Prius. Things are looking up. Pray she wants her.
Here is Judy. I think she really wants her. We talked a lot about our lives – she wasn’t interested in driving her – she has had a Class C before so it wasn’t necessary. She said she wants to talk with her banker to get some financing. She is ready to sell her big SUV so as soon as that sells, she’ll be able to pay off the loan. So I think she can afford it. I also have another guy contacting me who seems interested. He’s willing to pay $25K cash and is from Montana, but is willing to drive here to see her and pick her up if that can be worked out. Now I have 3 potential buyers who seem interested. I want to sell it to Judy. So she’s going to the bank now to work on it. We’ll see how it goes. Deal is done! JUDY is now the proud owner of Daisy!!!!
This is a picture of her Labradoodle and how she traveled with him while she was driving around the country on her Gold Wing. Now THAT is interesting. She seems like a very interesting person. Her dog is getting old now and can’t climb up in her SUV (a Suburban I think) so she bought a Prius and drives that now. She gets 60 or 40 (can’t remember what she said) miles per gallon!!!! She says never buy a Prius – she hates it but it does get good mileage and her dog can climb up in it.
