Sunday March 13th, 2022

Sunday morning at around three o’clock and for some reason I was wide awake, I just had the feeling that something was a miss. I just felt that I needed to check the coach, and while I found nothing, i did felt better just for checking, I decided to check that the blog had published and it had not, so maybe that was what was wrong, I don’t know for sure, but all is well now only a couple of hours late publishing. A couple of kitty treats later and Mr. Sam is curled up on my lap, I’m going to go back to bed but I always seem to do well with the Wordle when Mr. Sam is on my lap and on my first guess I hit 4 out of 5 letters on a brand new starter word, and completed today’s Wordle on the second guess, I just can’t explain that, but I’ll take another second guess.

This is our third eight our day, and we will see how it is, the weather forecast for today is a high of only 54°F (11°C), with nothing but sunshine, so it’s hard to know how it will effect the attendance today, we always hope to be busy, as it makes the day pass quicker, but what ever happens will be ok, it’s nearing 4:30 and I’m going to roust Mr. Sam from my lap, as it’s time to get back to bed.

My second attempt at Sunday morning started just before seven o’clock, Mr. Sam was in the big bed beside me, and I could smell coffee. Apparently Mr. Sam had worked Miss Laurie for additional treats, before heading to bed, oh well the kitty outsmarted us this morning, a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee with a little splash of Irish Cream, and a vitamin and we are out the door headed for the admissions booth.

We are hoping for a busy day, as being busy just makes the days go so much faster, but we have no control on that, so we prepare to take what the day gives us. Our working environment is great and the view from our admissions booth is unbeatable, so on the slow day we just lean back and enjoy our surroundings.

Well today was as we had feared, not busy at all, so the day seemed to drag, we are into the spring break time, so our expectation was it would be busier, especially with baseball spring training being cancelled, which draws a lot of baseball fans to the desert, and they will be looking for things to do.

This major league baseball “lockout” is causing huge financial hardship on many business’s that rely on the spring training crowds to in some cases make their year, whether a restaurant near the fields, or the souvenir shops near by. And in all honesty this is just a bunch of billionaires arguing with millionaires, over how to take and distribute the money from the leagues fans. If the fans quit supporting the league the arguing would be over in a heartbeat, I’m thinking it may be time for a wake up call to the owners as they can not survive on television money alone.

I cashed out my money tray at 3:15 today, there was no need for both Laurie and I to be there for a few stragglers, so I was able to catch the end of the Bayhill Invitational PGA golf tournament. This is an important stop on the PGA as this was Arnold Palmers golf tournament and Arnold was one of the greatest golfers for his era. I was lucky enough to attend this tournament a few years ago with Bob Bannon, we were both wintering in the same resort in Florida that winter, it was an experience that will remain highlight of that winter.

Laurie finished our shift and made it back to the coach shortly after four o’clock, and after a little quiet time we barbequed burgers for dinner, burgers are quick and easy, and we have used the Costco sirloin burgers for years, they cook well with little shrinkage, and the flavour is very good as well.

We caught up on the horror inflicted on Ukraine by a child murdering dictator from Russia, this is a ruthless action by a scared little leader that is personally destroying his own countries economy as more and more sanctions are loaded on … conclusion: Putin is a child murdering piece of human waste.

To complete the evening we watched 60 minuets on CBS then switched to ABC to watch American Idol, before turning in for a well deserved rest.

Monday morning and Mr. Sam has decided to get me up to expedite his treats, it is 5:30 so I relented and got this poor starving kitty his morning treats.

Somehow during the upgrade of our blog site I lost all of Mondays data, so I will try to recreate as best as I can, as I have explained before my method of creating the weekly blog is to add short notes filled with details everyday as they happen and then I return to transfer the notes in to paragraphs.

Monday is the start to our four day weekend, and is normally the day to catch up on laundry, and a day to kick back and relax, and today was pretty much the same, I’m pretty sure we had fried eggs for breakfast and we did go for a great walk in the arboretum latter in the morning and here are some of the photos that I took on our outing.

The golden flower in the photo above is the desert poppy, these flowers make up what is referred to the desert bloom. And based on how much winter rain falls in the desert can turn the hillsides of the desert into a golden hue, causing huge traffic congestion on desert access roads as crowds appear to photograph the beauty. We have had limited rain since New Years eve so no one knows for sure how this years bloom will be.

Most of the afternoon was spent on the patio, Mr. Sam in his tent watching geckos, Miss Laurie trying for new hummingbird photos, and me working on the blogsite upgrade. There were some selfish reasons for the upgrade, because of the way I create the blog I use three different platforms to add content, my iPhone, my iPad as well as my laptop, and I was looking for a format that more compatible across of the platforms, the previous format did not work as well on the iPhone or iPad as it did on my laptop, this one seems to be compatible on all platforms.

Dinner was some smoked sausage from the “Pork Shop” these ones were green chilis and cheese, and was served with rice and brussel sprouts. We finished the evening with some YouTube videos, before picking a couple of really bad movies to watch on Paramount+ before bed at ten o’clock.

Tuesday morning and as I’m laying in bed making the decision whether to get up I hear Mr. Sam puking, it’s dark and he sounded really close to my side of the bed, and I know that I don’t want step in a warm cat puke. But it is early, and I can’t turn on the bedroom lamp because Laurie is still sleeping, so past experience tells me that if a pet is going to make a mess it’s always in the middle of everything, the room, the hall, the doorway. So my early morning theory was to avoid the middle’s of everything, and it worked, no cat puke between my toes, so I have decided it’s going to be a great day.

Treats for Mr. Sam, lap time with Mr. Sam for me, it took three guesses for today’s Wordle, I was hoping for a first guess, but it’s still a good day. Miss Laurie got up a few moments later and started the coffee perk, and we caught up on some news, and I just realized that I have lost most of Sundays and all of Mondays blog information, I don’t know how or why, buts it’s just gone. Ok so maybe I was over hoping what the day could be, and maybe today is just going to be Ok.

Miss Laurie is going weeding with Mary today at ten o’clock, and I was hoping to get on the coach roof today, but it is too windy for that today, but I will find something to fix on the coach today, in the meantime a cheese omelet for breakfast, and I’m trying to piece yesterday back together for the blog.

Laurie has just left to fulfill her need to weed, it is too windy to do roof items today so I’m going to tackle a near five year old issue with the coach door. I can remember as if it was yesterday when I was taking delivery of the coach almost five years ago that the fellow that was doing the walk through pointed out an ongoing issue with the door brace, and he said they were difficult to fix. Well today is the day to fix the brace, the purpose of the brace is to hold the door open, so that the wind will not let it swing open too far, and to close the door it has to be released using the door handle.

The one of the door brace is attached securely to the top of the door itself, and there is a mounting plate on the other end that was held in place by five sheet metal screws, but over the years they had loosened and the attaching holes had worn larger. So some wood screws had been used to go into the wood support that sits over top of the metal door frame, and that worked for a while but I couldn’t keep the tight enough, so with the door open and a little wind it would keep working the screws loose. So todays repair will be to remove all five screws, and replace them with #6 stainless steel pan head machine screws with nylock nuts, there is very limited space to work in but, I was able to replace all five, and I believe that will bring this ongoing issue to a conclusion.

Cheese and crackers for lunch, and I decided to get some time in the afternoon sunshine, it was a good day to be gazing off into the sky as I seen a Peregrine Falcon circling overhead what a beautiful site but way beyond iPhone camera range. As I was kicked back Lincoln stopped by to ask for a ride to pick up his vehicle from the body shop, he had been without a vehicle since an accident on New Years Eve.

Of course I agreed to help him out so we headed to Phoenix to drop him off at his vehicle, traffic was not too bad but it was around a three hour round trip, so I didn’t get back till 5:30 but luckily someone had the gate open so I was able to sneak through.

Miss Laurie made fajitas for dinner, and after the world news we caught up on some older issues of “All about Us” a series on NBC that we are now able to stream, so three episodes later we are headed to bed, with the electric heater on.

Wednesday and it is a six o’clock rise today, and I was greeted at the foot of the bed by Mr. Sam, and as with most mornings we complete our morning ritual, and I scored today’s Wordle on the second guess, it is a crisp but clear morning as dawn breaks over the mountain range. Miss Laurie has just started the coffee and by 6:30 the kitty is on his way to the big bed, and we are catching up on some local news, today we are going for supplies, and a propane refill, and I’m going to finish the upgrade on Ray & Karen’s trailer.

After a breakfast of biscuits and jam, I decided to take a little walk through the arboretum, there were lots of birds, as well as some new blooms and there was one of the rarest sights of all, work actually being done on the “Benson bridge” that has been closed for more than a month now.

The blossoms on the Joshua tree are huge, and almost every branch has a flower now. And now we have some red “Danger” tape at the end of the Benson bridge that was certainly confusing the poor hummingbirds, but alas the elusive worker was nowhere to be seen.

I walked up to the visitor centre to pick up our new Clam that was delivered by FedEx this morning, and now I realize that the Clam ordering process was part of the Monday blog information that was lost. I have been looking at purchasing a new Clam all winter, to replace our original Clam that we had purchased in Arizona way back in March of 2018. Our friends had one that we got to enjoy in Quartzsite back in January, it was neat because set up is very quick, and it comes in a storage bag that is easy to handle. We had used it steadily for the last four years, but our original was starting to show its age, so we disposed of it last fall before leaving Ontario. Our new Clam has a number of features that the old one did not, like built in weather panels, I also purchased a rain fly to protect the roof and also a floor panel to hopefully make it escape proof for Mr. Sam. This will also make it enclosed enough that it could be used as a camping tent for visitors with the addition of some camping cots, but mainly to keep us dry and insect free in British Columbia this summer.

Today the only work required to complete the wiring upgrade on Ray & Karen’s trailer is cutting new battery cables then crimping the lugs onto the cables and then connecting the two other batteries to the already upgraded balance of the system, quick and easy when you have all the required tools to complete the task.

We are heading to the Savino’s after lunch today, Miss Laurie will drop me off to complete my task, while she heads to Mesa to pick-up this weeks grocery supplies. Then Karen prepared dinner for us, poached salmon, garlic potatoes, and a kale salad with some white wine, another great day, with an amazing couple.

We got back to the coach just before dark, Miss Laurie put away the groceries, before watching a couple more episodes of “This is us”, before turning in, another chilly evening, so the heater was on again.

Thursday and at a few minutes to six, I decided it was time to get up, much to Mr. Sam delight, it was a chilly night again, and yes another electric heater night. Laurie got up soon after, as it’s quite light out by about six thirty in the morning now.

A cup of coffee with a splash of Irish Cream, followed by some depressing news about Putin’s war, and I was ready to get out for a walk in the arboretum. I kind of got off trail a bit this morning, and walked up behind the picket post house, it was before the arboretum opened so I felt there was no harm, but know I’m going to have to go back for a better look.

After some fried eggs with toast, Miss Laurie headed off to do more weeding and I headed up onto the coach roof, todays project was the installation of the “softstarts” on the roof air conditioners, and the skylight over the shower, needs to be replaced.

Well it was a little windy on the coach so I only got one air conditioner done this morning, didn’t want to have an air conditioner cover get destroyed blowing off the roof. So we can now run an air conditioner unit with our battery bank, as the “SoftStart” reduces the start up load allowing it to start on our inverter.

So I moved onto the skylight, this has been a problem spot for some time. So today I start removing multiple layers of sealants and Dicor to remove the old skylight. The old skylight was cracked in a number of spots, which explained the water leak, but the skylight I had purchased is not going to work for a number of reasons. But the main reason is that the original skylight was a inner and outer skylight built into one, as opposed to a single outer dome.

Barbecued chicken breast with a salad for dinner, catch up on the news before catching a couple of episodes of “This is us” (we are actually on the current season now) before heading to bed.

Friday I woke to the smell of perking coffee and Mr. Sam sitting beside my head, he was looking for his morning treats, it’s just six o’clock but it will be a crazy day because today will be the first day of the “plant sale”, so members get 20% of the plants.

A bowl of cereal, with that cup of fresh perked coffee, maybe even a little Irish Cream (we’re saving the milk for the cereal) and we are off to the admissions booth. My, my, my there was a lot of volunteers here this morning and by eight o’clock we knew why, cars, people, and carts full of plants.

So what is the worst thing that could go wrong on your busiest day of the year? The credit card machine in the store went down, on one of the biggest sale day of the year, not the day for an IT failure, but at least our terminal was up, and it was a busy day in admissions as well with over a thousand visitors today. But the crowd has changed, yes quite a change from our regular visitors to spring break visitors, impatient, short, demanding, quite a change in a week, but spring break is only a month or so.

Leftover fajitas for dinner, tonight before an update on what that “Wack-Job” child killer Putin, did today, before watching some regular television, then bed.

Saturday and I’m woken by a black kitty licking my nose, shocking to say the least, Mr. Sam was hoping I would get up for his morning treats. And if it wasn’t four o’clock it might have worked, he gave up a few moments later but now I was awake, and after an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up and got up, much to Mr. Sam’s delight. So I decided to knock off today’s Wordle and work on the blog.

Cereal, a vitamin, and cup of blessed coffee, and we are ready to take on day two of the plant sale, it could be even crazier than yesterday because it is the weekend, I’ll let you know how it works out.

So I mentioned yesterday that some of the visitors were, shall we say, not nice at all, and it continued today. Usually most visitors are aprishative of the beauty of the arboretum, and in awe of the ninety eight history of the foundation, but again today, the visitors were uncaring and in many cases just plain rude. We had just a few visitors less than a thousand today, it seemed smoother that yesterday, and only two more weeks of plant sale, there won’t be many plants left by then.

We stopped for a couple of cocktails at the Anderson coach, after our shift, we needed a little time after the last couple of days. The Andersons are leaving for a week of vacation time tomorrow, so it just seem right to enjoy a cold beverage before their departure.

Burgers on the barbecue for dinner, and just a couple of some “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” before turning in, it has been a productive week, and the push is on to get everything ready to leave in just fifty days from today.

Update: Ray had worked at discharging his battery bank this week, and had managed to get them down to the 50% range, before starting the recharging process. Batteries were discharged 160 amp/hours, and with the charger being turned on it was charging at 76 amps, and Ray reported that the bank was fully recharged in 2.25 hours. Making the time and dollars to upgrade the wiring a total success, and will allow the Savino’s the ability to boondock this summer with much less generator run time.

Early tomorrow morning many of you are preparing to turn your clocks ahead for the start of daylight saving time, but not for us here in Arizona, one of the few spots that do not change their clock twice a year, so today we are in Mountain Standard Time but tomorrow we will wake to be in Pacific Daylight Saving Time. We will be an hour later that Ontario but the same time now as British Columbia, so no clock adjustments on our journey north in May.

In closing this weeks blog, I’m sure you have noticed our updated look, I thought it was time to try a new format, a little larger typeface, and with the dark back ground I find easy on the eyes, is it better, please let me know what you think.

It also seemed as I reviewed the last blog was maybe too technical for some readers, and while I want to relay as much detail as possible for some other readers, I also understand that some just don’t care about so many details. So to help with both I’m going to try to highlight the more technical details in a different type colour to be avoided.

God bless and care for the people of Ukraine

Blog 408

Day 1622

Sunday March 6th, 2022

Sunday 5:05 am and I’m up, much to Mr. Sam’s delight, a fresh new bag of treats, actually the last bag that made the trip with us, and most likely will not last till the return trip back to Canada. My lap time was limited as we seem to have another uninvited guest, and appears to be getting Mr. Sam’s attention in the drivers area, so right now much of his time is spent looking up under the dash, we will hope this visitor leaves before he becomes Mr. Sam’s play toy. Breakfast this morning was a bowl of cereal, a cup of perked coffee with a wee touch of Irish Cream, along with some old fart vitamins to try and keep me healthy, and then off to help open up for what we hope will be a busy Sunday.

This morning there was a “Bird Walk” one of the many different guided tours offered at the Arboretum, the bird walk starts at 7:30 so it requires staff to be in early to cover their entrance to the park, so the visitor center was open when we got there, and Laurie helped open the store while I maned the admissions booth until around ten o’clock and when Laurie relieved me so that I could water the sale plants which is now over an hour long process. The second shift relived us at noon, so we packed up and headed back to the coach, for some lunch, today was a small  charcuterie with a cold beer.

There is a get together planned this afternoon at the grotto in the Wallace Garden , it is planned for around five this afternoon, as this is the last week for Trish & Peter, as they are leaving at the end of this week and heading back to their sticks and bricks on the east coast, and we try to get all the volunteers together on the last Sunday of each month, and as much as we all live in the same area, we don’t seem to get together, for what ever reasons and there are reasons, but at least everybody seem to play nice once a month. This gathering was not Miss Laurie’s doing, so that was nice that someone else took the initiative to plan it.

So we are going to Tom & Kathleen’s for some snacks and a cold beverage, before going to met up with the gang, just two months left in our commitment here at the Arboretum, and because the volunteers as a group have not been very social, there have been splinter groups, but on the whole, it has not been a close group at all, and that is ok, it was not designed to be a social event, seven couples from across the country brought together for a five month volunteer position, working different tasks throughout the park, we learnt more about Peter & Trish this evening as they prepare to head back to Massachusetts.

We returned to the coach at six thirty, and barbecued some chicken for dinner, as we watched 60 minutes, American Idol, and a YouTube video before turning in. The weather is turning around, and we didn’t turn on the electric heater tonight, we also didn’t open a window either.

Monday a much better 6:30 start to the day, much to Mr. Sam’s chagrin no early treats today and I was punished with no lap time, no, he headed straight to the warm spot on my side of the big bed. But that’s ok, I Finished up the revised “February Windshield View” and set it to publish on March 1st, I knocked off today’s Wordel, and Miss Laurie prepared french toast made with panetone, before we prepared to make a Costco run to Mesa.

The Costco we go to is always busy, and today was no exception, we found most items that we needed, I picked up some new shorts, not as cheap as the last pair but still only $17 per pair, a box of beer (Kilt Lifter) which has become the go to cold beverage this winter, more cereal, some meat and other necessities and we were back to the coach at the Arboretum shortly after noon. Tuna salad on a chobota bun for lunch, and then somehow, we made it over to Tom & Kathleen’s coach for a couple of cold beverages. We decided to head into the arboretum at five o’clock to inspect a hummingbird nest located near the Smith building, then headed to the Wallace Garden to see the Joshua tree that is out in bloom, because of the height of the tree it was almost impossible to get nice photos, so we may try again with the drone on another evening to get a photo.

Burgers on the barbeque for dinner tonight, then catch up in what the Russian idiot has been up to today, then just some regular television, before catching up on a few YouTube videos and turning in near ten o’clock, no heater again tonight but still not warm enough for open bedroom windows yet.

Tuesday and it’s the 1st of March, 5:45 and Mr. Sam and I are both up for totally different reasons, mine nature induced, Mr. Sam’s strictly food motivated. Unlike last week our overnight temperature was 52°F (10°C), again no heater overnight, and I got enough lap time to get through today’s Wordle before Mr. Sam headed to the bedroom as Miss Laurie got up. I decided to head to the arboretum for a walk shortly after seven o’clock, there was a easterly breeze, but not a cloud in the sky, we are still a few weeks early for the start of the cactus bloom.

This morning’s walk showed some trees that seem to have burst into leaf almost overnight, and that new growth is almost incandescent in the morning sunshine. A walk filled with the song of many birds, and the glow of the morning sunshine, highlighting plants in the Arboretum.

There is still lots of blooms on multiple different species happening in the arboretum, with most the bloom still being on the aloe in the “South African Exhibit“, that also attracts many of the hummingbirds to that area, we are now seeing different hummingbird species, as the spring migration begins.

I made it back to the coach shortly after eight o’clock, Miss Laurie prepared fried eggs for breakfast and I proceeded to replace the vinyl insert on the gutter that runs the length of the coach, the gutter is an aluminum extrusion that is used to attach the roof and the wall of the coach together, so under the vinyl strip there are pop-rivets and screws, there were signs of rust which would indicate moisture, it is the same vinyl strip used in the extrusions on the side of the coach that make up part of the hinge for the basement doors, so I replaced a couple of shrunken pieces on the left side of that extrusion as well. I should have enough left to replace the vinyl on the right-side gutter as well. But with the temperatures climbing up near 80°F (27°C), I will tackle the right-side another day.

The big news for the day besides being March 1st, or Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gra, is that we have a ferry passage booked to get onto Vancouver Island for May 12th 2022. We decided to go with the Blackball Ferry Lines out of Washington State on the recommendation of RV people that make this journey often, the route to the ferry is much more scenic, and most the traffic is is that of the ferry users coming and going, unlike around Vancouver City in British Columbia, where traffic is often very heavy. It also allows us to load as one connected unit as opposed to having to disconnect the toad to board the Canadian ferry, it’s a few dollars more but will be a lot less aggravation.

Also, on the good news front, as of yesterday we only have to have a negative antigen test one day before our departure from the States as opposed to the more expensive PCR test done 72 hours before travel, there is also a new “ArriveCan” app that we need to use to re-enter Canada now, but I have a little more than two months to figure that out.

Dinner tonight was a Jambalaya with shrimp, sausage, grilled peppers and brussel sprouts, on a bed of rice, it had some heat but was very good, then some television to catch up on the Putin’s un-provoked war, then on to the season ending episode of 1883 before watching the end of the “State of the Union” address by president Biden, then prepared for bed. And it still amazes me just how broken the American society is, so much negativity, so much divide, so very very sad to watch the destruction. Glad we will miss much of the negativity this summer as America prepares for the midterms, and the restrictions being put on the voters in Republican States, kind of like all the voter fraud lies from the last election, so it appears, if we can’t win we’ll just try and restrict the voters until we do.

Wednesday and a very early start to the morning, a nature call at 4:10, and I was greeted by Mr. Sam, with anticipation of his morning treats, and after no lap time yesterday, I thought what the heck, I can knock off today’s Wordle then crawl back into bed. But the Wordle was just a two guess one this morning so I thought just a couple of paragraphs of the blog before returning to bed, but just as I was going to head for the bed Mr. Sam came back for some additional lap time.

Well I never made it back to bed, which is ok, as it is a beautiful sunny day starting and we are expecting the temperatures today to set new record high temperatures around the State today, hard to believe we got snow just a week ago. Toast and eggs for breakfast this morning, catch up Vadiot Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, which will destroy the Russian economy as the world starts to isolate Russia. Yes another egotistical leader that will end up destroying his own country, because he was scared of who knows what … a real “Wack-Job“.

Today I’m going to Gold Canyon to help Ray re-wire the batteries on his fifth wheel trailer, he added three 100 amp lithium batteries some time ago, and he also added a higher amperage converter/charger, the intent was to allow them to boondock a few days at some NHRA race events, but as it appears that they will need to do more boondocking this summer because of the lack of full hook-up on some of their travel routes. Ray has no Solar, but he does have a pair of 2000 watt generators to operate air conditioners and recharge the lithium batteries that are required to operate the residential style refrigerator.

What he had discovered was that if his 300 amp/hr batteries were at 50% (150 amp/hr) it was taking hours to recharge them, so when he asked me why, I explained that there had to be a voltage drop between the 85 amp converter/charger and the 300 amp/hr batteries. After checking, Ray discovered a 0.8 voltage drop and while that does not sound like very much, that amount, when charging 12 volt batteries it is substantial. Without the voltage drop it should have taken just a little more than an hour and a half for his 85 amp converter/charger to recharge his 150 amp/hr batteries from a 50% charge, in a perfect world an 85 amp charger running for 1.5 hours should put 127.5 amps (85 X 1.5 = 127.5) back into the lithium batteries.

Now you may ask why isn’t that happening? Let me try to explain, the 85 amp/hour converter/charger is what is referred as an “Intelligent” charger, what this means is that the charger itself can detect what type of battery it is connected to, allowing it to determine the proper charge pattern and rate. All of my research has brought me to believe that the charger determines the battery type and therefore the charge rate based only on voltage alone, so here is where that voltage drop comes into effect.

Our task today is to reduce the number of connections in the charging circuit, then also increase the size of the wire in that circuit as well, that technically should reduce the voltage drop allowing the “intelligent” charger to detect the true battery voltage and allow it to recharge the batteries more quickly. One of the main misconceptions when discussing the charge level of a battery is that a 12 volt battery is 12 volt when 100% charged and 6 volts when 50% charged, but the reality is that a 12 volt battery is 12.6 volts when 100% charged and 12.06 volts when 50% charged, that’s what makes that 0.8 voltage drop very important and enough to cause the charger to not charge the batteries properly.

Well we had a few hiccups with todays project, but nothing that we were unable to overcome, and the initial results seem to have proven my theory. There were a few items had to be ordered to complete the the project, so a plan was made to complete the task next Wednesday. With only one battery presently connected to the circuit, Ray has already seen a marked improvement in the recharge amperage produced by the charger, as we are hoping to cut his generator run time in half or more. After some lunch we headed back to the coach and we’re able to get in before the gate closed.

We had a beverage with Tom & Kathleen for happy hour before retiring to the coach, for a chicken sandwich, and just some regular television before turning in at nine o’clock for a well earned rest.

Thursday and again I’m up for a call of nature at 4 am, in fact Mr. Sam didn’t even get up for his treats, I knocked off today’s Wordle on the second guess again, seems to have been a very good week so far, touch wood, I have caught up on the blog as well this morning before heading back to bed, just to wake a couple of hours later to the snoring of one Mr. Sam who was now curled up on Miss Laurie’s side of the bed.

A pepper omelet this morning for breakfast, along with a fresh perked cup of coffee, kind of a day of rest, I seem to have a few aches and pains from yesterday’s fun, it’s a warm sunny day in Arizona 82°F (25°C) so I decided today wasn’t going to be a good roof day, but it is getting warm enough that running the air conditioner is not too far in the future. Some of you may remember that last fall before we left Ontario that I purchased a couple of “SoftStart” units for the air conditioners on the coach, so today I unpacked them and started to do some research on how to install them.

Miss Laurie is painting some Lake Huron stones, while I watched some how to YouTube videos, on the SoftStart units, seems like simple enough operation, most videos say 30 to 60 minutes, I will get more into the specifics of its operation when I install them, seeing the difference on the meter will be the most effective method of showing the benefits of these modules. I heard another truck pull in so I headed up to help unload another truck load of plants for the sale.

It was a bit of a lazy afternoon, Mr. Sam and I sat outside on the patio watching the hummingbirds, making their way around the aloe blooms in the garden beside our coach. We have now got some rufous hummingbirds as well as some black-chin hummingbirds, to add a little competition to the anna’s hummingbirds which have enjoyed the feeders all to themselves over the winter. After a dinner of barbecued chicken, rice and some Swiss Chalet sauce, we went for a short walk through the park

Our walk time was short before another beautiful Arizona sunset, we finished the evening with the next two episodes of the marvelous Mrs. Mazel, before turning in for the evening, no heater, even windows open in the bedroom overnight.

Friday a 5:30 start to the day, Mr.Sam was ready for his morning treats and I got some lap time with Mr. Sam before he moved to the big bed as Miss Laurie got up. Another amazing sun rise, but Miss Laurie thinks she has enough photos of sunrises already (kind of like Lake Huron sunsets). It’s a bowl of cereal and a one cup of coffee morning, as we start at 8 am this morning, there is a weather front rolling in, so windy, with a few scattered showers for today and tomorrow.

Our admissions booth has had another update, the addition of a second terminal to check in members, should help speed up the check-in process during the busy times. Today was not busy with only a few more than 450 visitors today, so Miss Laurie helped label sale plants this morning while I worked admissions, the Laurie worked admissions while I watered all the sale plants.

After a lighter day at work, we made it back to the coach, shortly after four o’clock, to kick back for a while, Miss Laurie made chicken Quesada’s for dinner, we also had some home made salsa, made by Chris one of the fellows we work with at the Arboretum. Then we caught up on Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine, now this “Wack-job” is censoring the press in Russia, claiming “Fake News”, it’s been a couple of years since we have heard that line. After all he wouldn’t want the Russian people to know why their country is being even more isolated then ever and as western stores are closing up as the Russian Rouble is now worth less than an American penny now.

Putin is such a tyrant that he is having his army attack residential housing, schools, hospitals, making him one huge piece of human waste! So explain to me if you can why are some Americans still going on about how great Putin is? On the other hand, most seem to be the same republicans that are also support of the white supremist, these are things that make me stop to ponder what the hell are they thinking?

Saturday a little later start this morning than normal, Miss Laurie was already up, so when I gave Mr. Sam his treats, he was off to the recently vacated big bed, so no lap time for me this morning. We had a few showers overnight, not enough rain to even be measurable, and there is a 5% chance for showers today, the winds have laid down, but the temperatures have also went down with a high of 66°F (17°C) forecast for today. A bowl of cereal, a cup of fresh perked coffee with a splash of Irish Cream, and out the door for a eight o’clock start again this morning.

We are expecting a very busy day today, with no less that 7 arboretum planned events, as well as a wedding, plus all the regular visitors, this could prove to be a very hectic day. And it did have some hiccups this morning, it is wonderful that all these event are planned, it is just a shame that they don’t bother to tell admissions where the events are happening, or whether the event ticket includes arboretum admission, little things that maybe the admissions booth should know, just a few more growing pains, that will need to be worked out.

All in all it was a good day, our visitor count was just over seven hundred today, the second admissions window is helping relieve some of the line-ups but because the second window doesn’t have a credit card machine, which has caused some issues for members with guests wanting to pay with a credit card. Again there seems to be a bottle neck when it comes to credit card machines with only three being available one in the membership office, one in the store, and one in the admissions booth. There is a need for at least two more machines, again just growing pains.

By four o’clock we were ready to get our feet up, to catch up on the Ukrainian war with the Russian “Wack-job“, before Miss Laurie made some pizzas in the Ninja air fryer, they are so good that there has not been a pizzeria craving for some time. So with our new work schedule we have one more eight hour day to go, so expect this to be an early evening. We just caught up on YouTube videos and Miss Laurie headed for bed by nine o’clock, and I’m just finishing up this weeks blog.

Be well, stay safe, remain strong Ukraine

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Day 1615