Home Archives Français

January February March April May June July August September October November December

1 to 15 March 2023 16 to 31 March 2023

Thursday, March 16, 2023.

Today has been an easy day at home.

Is this our next MH?

Friday, March 17, 2023.

We are up early today.
One of the local churches is having a huge yard sale.

We did not buy anything.

It is Saint Patrick today.
Here are two, very good, 50/50 tickets sellers.

We even had a parade.

Later in the afternoon, we had a Ukulele band playing on the patio.

It is not our favourite type of music.
We were with our group of friends.

Ahhhhh.

One of our friends, Judith.

They had a special guest, Matilda.

After the music, we had a good meal. Irish meal, it was Irish Stew.
As usual, we had our western dance. It was fun once again.

Saturday, March 18, 2023.

We went to the Arizona Market this morning. Michele wanted a new handbag.
On the way back, we stopped at the furniture store. We are looking at changing our two recliners in the 5th wheel.
We found this one. We bought two. It will be delivered in November when we are back.

We have a winner for the 50/50. Bev won $196.

Pat and Rogers, our neighbours, invited us for dinner. Dinner was at 3 pm! The food was excellent.

We spent all evening catching up on some of our TV shows.

Sunday, March 19, 2023.

I started the day by fixing the central vac.
The previous owners never used it because it did not have a lot of suction.
This is where you plug in the hose to vacuum.

I checked on all the connections. I found one that was not hooked up right.
To access the connection, I had to go through the register.

Now, it works very well.

Dennis and Gail had another fish fry Sunday. It was all walleye.
A small shooter to start the day.

The fries did not take long to cook.

Next, it was the walleye to be cooked.

It was a feast with good friends.

We had a lot of fun, thanks, Dennis and Gail.

Monday, March 20, 2023

We took the plunge. We bought a new TV.

We bought a 40-inch TV from Walmart for only $171.

What should have taken 20 to 30 minutes to switch TVs turns out to take one hour and a half. The TV support arm does not fit the new TV. I am back at Walmart to buy a new one and install it. Because half my tools in the MH and the other half in the 5th wheel, it took a lot of back and forth.

It got done.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

After the ordeal, I had yesterday with the TV. I did not wrap up the wiring behind the TV.
I did it this morning.

Now it is all done. We are happy with the size of the TV for our living room.

I took the time to rearrange the cables under the computer desk.

We took France and Michel to some of the local thrift stores.

It is bingo night again.

The park bought a new bingo machine. It was the first time they tried it.
The TV behind Dennis gives us all the information needed for the bingo games.

France won one of the bingo games.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

Michele found a propane patio heater on Market Place for only $40.
Michel, with his truck, came with us because our car is too small to transport the heater. Thank you, Michel.
While reassembling the heater at home, I notice I am missing a few parts. Now I understand why it was so cheap.

After I spent $10 on parts, the heater was fixed. I did not work! I will do some research on youtube on possible problems and repairs.

Natasha had another little girl in daycare do some make-up with sidewalk chalk. Pretty cute!

Surprise! We went to Michel and France for happy hour.

After supper, we went to Gaétan and Michelle for the last part of the evening.

It was a good day.

Thursday, March 23, 2023.

Today we had a "Thank You Volunteers" lunch.

This is the food left after the first serving. It was very good too!
Sorry for the bad merging of the two photos.

We had maybe three more tables of volunteers.

It was with a full belly that I tackled the repair of the patio heater. It would not keep the pilot light on.
It is a pretty simple system. A thermocouple to tell the propane valve to go on if heat is detected.

A safety switch, if the heater falls on its side, will shut off the propane valve.
I checked this switch first and was surprised it did not work. It is open and will not allow the propane valve to let propane flow.
I bypassed this valve. The season is almost over after all.

It is working as advertised. So we got a propane patio heater for only $50, including a 20-pound propane tank.

We went to France and Michel's place to celebrate Michel's birthday.

It was so windy, we could not light the candles.

As soon as the sun went down, the wind turned cold (for Yuma).

We had a lot of fun regardless of the weather.

Thank you, France and Michel, for the very good fajitas and the fun evening.

Friday, March 24, 2023.

We went hiking near Imperial Dam.

We hiked the Old Senator Mine trail. We did the same one a few months ago.

Michelle, Gaétan, France, Michel, Michèle and I.

The official photo before the hike.

We are on our way!

Here are photos of the day.

We had lunch at a reservoir on top of the mountain. The reservoir was for the mine below.

Can you see the ass, I mean the donkey? He is on the left of Michel!

We saw a total of 3 donkeys today.

The hike took us to a wash where people can camp for free (BLM). Some of them made a pretty place for themselves.

Michel and Michele took photos of the many cactus with flowers on them. Here are a few of the pretties ones.

This is what we looked like at the end of the hike.

The hike we did.

We had ourselves a nice, tasty burger for supper.

Like all Friday evenings, we had a dance at the clubhouse. This time around, we had live music.

It was not a very good band Not many people were dancing. I do not think they will be back soon.

Saturday, March 25, 2023.

It was an uneventful day.
But we had more photos from Comox and our granddaughter.
Natasha is at soccer practice. She wanted a "tree" on her head.

After her soccer practice, they all went to the Goats On The Roof. What little girl wouldn't like a castle and fantastic animals?

When they got back home, a little time on the swing set. She loves it.

Jeremy asked us to look for some "brown sugar and cinnamon" Pop-tarts. You can not find them in Canada.
We found two boxes of 48 packets in each box. He will be happy.

Since it is the first time we leave an RV in a "hot summer" place, we do not have to winterize the RV, but to summerize the RV.
How you summerize the RV here is different than in Florida. Here it is very dry and hot (120° F) in the summer.
One thing you can not get away from is the dust. This is a desert area after all.
We will need to cover the bed and furniture with the painter's drop cloth so our stuff is not covered in dust when we come back in November.

Sunday, March 26, 2023.

It was our turn to host the gang for a meal.
We had beef brisket on Rye bread.

Everybody love it and we had quite a few good laughs. It was fun.

Monday, March 27, 2023

She is so funny, I think she is trying a wink!

It was one of those days when you do nothing.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023.

Natasha has a pink day, pink nail polish and a pink hair clip.

We are building two wooden covers, one for the A/C and one for the skylight over the shower. Why?
The summer heat is very hot here in Yuma during summer. With the sunshine, comes UV rays and other types of rays. It damages the plastic cover of the A/C and the skylight.

I am not a very good woodworker and I know it. So I measure and remeasure, re-remeasure and still manage to be off in my measurements and cuts. Oh well, people will not see it when the covers will be on the roof.

This is the skylight being constructed.

And this one is for the A/C.

Michele paints them white to protect them.
We started the "summarization" of the 5th wheel.
The temperature can reach up to 46°C (115°F) for weeks in July and August here in Yuma. It is very hard on cabinets and other materials in and out of the 5th wheel.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

Michele bought herself a nice comfortable bicycle.

I had to drill out some ventilation holes in the covers.

Michele gave a second coat of paint today.

Last night, the shower in the 5th wheel started to leak. I mean a big leak.
This morning, we found one at the local RV Parts place and replaced it.
It was not bad. We paid only $16.
You can see the old one on the left and the new one on the right.

Éric and Judith invited us to enjoy one of the last evenings at the fire pit with friends.

We had a great evening with good friends. The cold is still with us again!

Thursday, March 30, 2023.

It was cooler than yesterday. I took this time to clean and rearrange our shed. This way, I can store more items in the shed until we come back in the fall. The shed is not in the best location, but we will reposition it next fall when we do the patio with patio stones.

I did the finishing touch on the wooden covers. We did not move them on the roof yet because of the wind.
Better safe than sorry, right?

We placed screens over the ventilation holes to prevent birds from building nests inside.

Somebody suggested we all go and have lunch at one of the local food trucks.
This is not the place.

This was the place.

The gang. We all had fish tacos. It was good, but nothing more.

Michele and I continued on the "summarizations" of the 5th wheel.
We were busy all day. We will be done tomorrow.
The plan, which is written in sand and it is windy at times, is to leave Saturday morning for Ontario.
Éric and Judith have asked us if they could travel with us for a while. We said sure, but with a few rules. We will travel together, but not necessarily close all the time. Again, the plan is to spend two nights in one place and travel one day, repeat. It will be interesting to travel with another couple. We are looking forward to doing it.

Friday, March 31, 2023.

This was the last day of preparation for the 5th wheel for the hot summer in Yuma.

Because it is so dry here in the summer, we must create some humidity in the 5th wheel.
For here, we place a plastic bag filled with water over the drain hole. This is to keep the smell from coming into the 5th wheel.
We added a 5 gallon of water to keep the moisture up during the summer. This will keep the wood from drying out too much and cracking.

The same thing in the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink. Notice we also added a 1 gallon water jug.
We also placed two more 5 gallon jugs in the kitchen/living room area.

One more bag in the toilet.

Next, we place some reflective material in all the windows. This will keep the sun out and some of the heat.

A 5th wheel is not as tightly sealed as one would think, even with all the slides closed.
This is why we cover all the furniture with sheets of plastic. The dust will be on the plastic and not on the furniture.
This means less cleaning in November when we come back.

I disconnected the batteries.

By mid-afternoon, the 5 Starts crew came and installed the windows covering on the 5th wheel. This is one more protection from the sun inside of the 5th wheel. It will also keep the 5th wheel cooler in the winter.You can see the two covers on the roof.

Yes, one window is not covered. It will be in the shade of the slide when the slide is open.
We are done with the summarizations earlier than anticipated. This was good.
We do some walking around saying goodbye to friends we made all winter.

Until next time.

Life is good...