Back home for a while

October 14, 2007
Peoria, AZ

Sorry for the delay in posting. The past few days have involved getting into a different routine, and I haven’t found a groove for composing yet. More on that later…

As planned, we left Las Vegas (wasn’t there a movie by that name?) Wednesday morning and arrived at our place in Peoria by mid-afternoon. We could feel the outside temperatures rising after we crossed the Hoover Dam into Arizona, and especially after we crossed I- 40 in Kingman. Following US-93 to Wittenberg and then US-60 towards Phoenix, the temperature rose from the low-80s to the mid-90s. Because of the large windshield in the coach, we can feel the heat from outside as the coach pushes through the warm air.

Once we got to the house, we emptied the refrigerator and some of the cabinets. Since we are going to be traveling again about five weeks, we knew we didn't want to completely empty the coach. On the other hand, it's sometimes difficult to decide what to leave and what to take. Knowing that we have enough time to make those decisions, we decided to stop unloading and move the coach to its parking spot. Since I gave up our storage area in the spring (they wanted over $2,000 for the annual rent), I decided to park the coach at a local campground. This way, we can keep all systems running and have everything ready for when we leave in November.

The park I selected is on a man-made lake, Lake Pleasant, in the northern part of the city of Peoria. I misjudged the distance though, as it's farther away from the house that I thought it would be. It's a nice park, and we will be able to get in and out of the coach anytime you need to do so.

After we dropped off the coach, it was time to verify that all of the utilities were correctly started. To avoid monthly fees, we turned off the water/trash and gas services while we were away. We also put our cable (TV/Internet/telephone) service in a seasonal resident program. Of course, nothing is ever a simple when you close up the house for five months. When I turned the water on, I found that one of the toilet valves had failed. It wasn't as bad as last year, when both valves essentially exploded, but I knew a trip to Home Depot was in my future. In addition, the TV and Internet services were not working, so I got to spend over an hour on the phone with the cable company. They were able to reset the TV box and the cable modem remotely, and we were back on line. I did find that one of our network components, a switch, apparently did not survive the summer heat, so a stop at Best Buy got added to my To-Do list.

We were able to catch up with our neighbors Clisby and Raymond/Antoinette for a few minutes, and it was good to see that they were doing well. For dinner, Geri whipped up a meal from leftover pasta that we had in the coach, which went nicely with the red wine from Umbria.

Thursday morning, we had to get up early because technicians from the gas company were scheduled between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM. Last year, I turned the gas off myself and then turned it back on when we arrived home. This year, I decided that it would be better to let the gas company do it. They arrived early, and spent nearly an hour checking each gas appliance for leaks and proper operation. They repositioned the gas meter as well, since the plumber who installed the gas lines for our stove and outdoor grill used the gas company's service port to connect to the system. I'm glad I had them check everything thoroughly, but I'm not sure I'll go through that routine every year.

Our neighbor Mary Ann stopped by to let me know that our mail hadn’t arrived yet (I had it sent to her address because of our mail forwarding), and that she’d let me know when it did arrive. As it turned out it showed up that afternoon, and I was able to go through it later in the day.

Once the gas company was done, I took a quick trip to Home Depot and Best Buy, stopping at the post office first. To handle our mail over the summer, I used a plan called Premium Forwarding Service from the USPS. Basically they collect all the mail received and ship it out once a week to an alternate address. In our case, that's our South Dakota mailservice. I did this because I wasn't sure exactly what things might show up in the Arizona mailbox, and I didn't want to burden one of the neighbors with having to collect our mail for such a long period of time. It worked out OK, since there were a couple of things that got sent to the wrong place (Arizona), and I should be able to fix those before next summer. Unfortunately, I'm the only person who's ever taken advantage of this service at our local post office. It took well over an hour to set it up in the spring, and almost as long to turn it off. As with the gas, I'm not sure all do this again.

Once home, I replaced the toilet valve and changed the furnace air filter. I installed the new network switch as well. I decided that this was a good time to simplify some of the wiring, so I pulled out all the network cables, repositioned one of the printers, and wired everything back together. It’ll work the same, but I’ll feel better knowing it’s done in a neater fashion.

For dinner, we had pan-seared pork tenderloin and a broccoli/cauliflower gratin paired with a young Australian Shiraz.

On Friday, we got back into the swing of things quickly. I got up early and washed the car before it got too hot. Geri had a hair appointment at 10:00 AM and I had a doctor appointment at the same time. I dropped her off, went to the doctor, and picked her up when she was done. Since the temperature was in the mid-90s, we spent the rest of the day organizing things inside the house. At this time of year, you have to arrange your schedule to fit with the weather patterns. That means getting up earlier than normal, around sunrise, and doing any outside work before the heat of the day. This pattern will take a little getting used to, since I'm traditionally not the earliest of risers. The temperature is supposed to moderate next week (highs in the upper-80s and low-90s); we’ll see.

In the afternoon, we cleaned the back patio and furniture, put out the yard decorations (you have to put them away or they'll get stolen over the summer), and did a few general cleanup activities. Dinner was Steak Frittes, although I had more frittes and Geri had more of the gratin. Dipping into the wine storage locker, I pulled out a 1999 Sebastiani Cabernet Sauvignon from California that was drinking quite nicely.

Yesterday was a coach day. The weather turned cooler (mid-80s) and it was a beautiful day. We brought back laundry that Geri had done and a few things that had gotten into the house by mistake. Geri gave the refrigerator a thorough cleaning and defrosting, and we collected the rest of the inside stuff that needed to go to the house. Early next week, we'll head back to the coach to give it a thorough inside cleaning. On the way home, we stopped at the store to pick up dinner. We had seen a program on the Food Network that featured Chicken Piccata, and Geri wanted to try the recipe. The combination of pan-searing and oven-finishing made the chicken perfect, and it went well with a nice white Burgundy from Verget.

Today is supposed to be cool again, so I'll probably focus on some maintenance items around the house like lubricating the garage door (it tends to get stuck halfway), and maybe catch a little football on TV. We'll take a trip to the store as well, since were thinking fish for dinner. Our plan is to shop more frequently, and only buy what we need for a day or two at a time.

Whew! Now were all caught up. I'll do my best to keep the blog more up-to-date. It may be boring, but it’ll be current…