Changing out the thermostat

Now that we are back in Mesa, we are doing a few updates on our "new-to-us" park model (which, as a 1986 model, is nearly 40 years old!). I got some linens (sheets and towels) at the huge rummage sale that one of the local churches had a week ago (they have it in spring and fall). Carl looked into replacing the 80's era thermostat with a more current model... it turns out that our electric company had a rebate program for which we were eligible, so he ordered a unit which we can control via the internet (if internet is available at the unit, which will only likely be the case if we are here as we share the internet from our RV to the park model), so we can check the temperature and control it from our RV if we want to do so.

Original thermostat

The insides of the original thermostat

Back plate of the new thermostat

New Nest thermostat

He also signed up for a program with the power company that allows them (the power company) to modify the set thermostat temperature under conditions when demand is particularly high (https://www.srpnet.com/energy-savings-rebates/home/rebates/smart-thermostat). This will give us an additional rebate on our bill each year we are enrolled in the program. We figure it is probably a no-brainer, because we won't even have electric turned on during high demand times of the year (summer in Arizona); we turn off the power when we leave in the spring and turn it back on when we return in the fall.

ARDEN - Amateur Radio Data Emergency Network

On Saturday, Carl attended a local meeting of Ham Radio operators experimenting with the Amateur Radio Data Emergency Network (ARDEN). He has an ARDEN node that one of his fellow Hams has loaned him so Carl can become familiar with the ARDEN mesh network. The ARDEN mesh network can be used to pass text messages and phone messages using Ham radio frequencies when normal communication vehicles are in-accessible -- e.g. if cell towers are down, or internet is down. This can allow non-Ham individuals to get family health and welfare messages communicated in times of crisis. 

Something that Carl want to make sure that I knew was that, in case of a personal or wider emergency, non-Ham operators are allowed to use Ham frequencies to make emergency communications.

Just might be of interest if you find yourself in an emergency situation, but your telephone or cellular service is in-operable, if you know where a Ham radio is located, you may be able to communicate out to request help by that method.

VO = Volunteer Often

We were told last year that while Venture Out can be abbreviated "VO", the other meaning for "VO" in our community is "Volunteer Often"! The resort survives by having active volunteers among its residents.

This past week, Venture Out hosted the 25th Annual Fall Tennis Classic, with teams competing from resorts all over the valley. I signed up to help with the ticket sales...

... I was selling the tickets for the food -- the food area was not to handle money -- the participants would come to the tickets table and purchase tickets for what they wanted, and then turn in the tickets at the food area. It was fun to get to know some of the other residents, and in an area that we don't usually have much interaction with -- as we are not tennis players.

We also got breakfast there on two of the days of the tournament. The Breakfast Burrito was made in the VO kitchen by our chef and staff -- it was outstanding. The Breakfast Sandwich was Jimmy Dean's, and it was okay.

Another day, another antenna

Carl is hoping to spend more time on his Ham Radio hobby while in Mesa this winter, so he put another antenna up -- an HF (High Frequency) vertical antenna.

The antenna is 32' tall -- I am standing near the base at the back of our property and Carl is attaching an extension to the top of it...

The extension is an addition 32' of wire that creates an inverted V antenna.

Putting it up -- he was using a ground mount (the black thing next to the power pedestal).

He tied the antenna off to the palm tree at the front of our park model.

Carl is using a ground mount flagpole base that is designed to be placed under the wheel of a vehicle -- but he didn't want the flagpole that close to Gracie, so he weighted it down with some paving tiles and set it up a couple of feet away from Gracie.

From the side, you can see that the new antenna is a little bent to the front of the rig, so the wire at the top makes an inverted "V".

Now he needs to get his radio out from under the storage under Gracie. He is currently using his handheld unit to participate on nets and communicate.

Halloween Street Dance with a Barbie 'n' Ken theme

On Thursday evening, our resort had a Halloween Street Dance with a "Barbie 'n' Ken" or GI Joe theme...

A lot of people came in costume

There was a LOT of pink on display! Did you notice the Barbie in a display box in the front? Some people are *very* creative!

The GI Joe contingent

It was fun being out with others -- a lot more folks out than were out for the street dance two weeks before! The band was so-so (not playing music that we enjoy dancing to), so we headed home early.

Yummy meals

We are trying to be a little more cognizant of what we're eating. A few days ago, this was our dinner...

A caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and a balsamic reduction...

Along with an experiment that Carl tried in the air fryer -- Chicken Croquets -- a mixture of rotisserie chicken, cream cheese, seasonings, and rolled in Parmesan cheese on the outside.

The air fryer made them nice and brown -- and they were tasty except we decided a few more seasonings would be appropriate in the future.

Carl is really enjoying the air fryer!!!

Electronics Club

There are numerous clubs and groups at Venture Out, the resort where we own a lot (and a park model). Since Carl is involved with Ham Radio, and that falls under the Electronic Club, we went over to the Electronics Club last week to pay our dues for the year.

While there, we looked at information on the bulletin boards -- one thing of interest was the list of classes that are going to be offered...

Quite a number of "Tech Talks" -- all free to Electronic Club members (and a friend).

Check out the wide variety of topics available!!!

We may be taking advantage of attending a couple of them!

Know your why

Facebook reminded me that I posted a link to this video 5 years ago -- it had been shown in my Perspectives class in the fall of 2019. I enjoyed watching it again so I thought I should share it here:

A couple of "house" projects

Since it is hot outside, we've Carl's been working on inside projects...

A few months ago, I blogged about us replacing the stove top in the rig with an induction stove top (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/05/replacing-stove-top.html).

We still needed to close the holes along the sides of the stovetop -- Carl did that last week:

Stove top in place with gaps on each side

We ordered some material from Amazon that we could cut to fit the space and stick down. Measure to be sure of the size we need...

Miss Kitty was supervising from across the room, adding input for us to consider (she loves to sit on the arm rests of our desk chairs).

Finished sealing pieces in place -- we hope that they will work and stay in place for a long time.

We probably won't actually use the built-in stove top very often -- it requires us to remove part of the counter top, reducing our already small counter space. We also have found that with a two-burner induction cooktop, each burner impacts the other -- so, for example, you can't actually get "high" power on both at the same time. We use a single-burner induction cooktop on top of the counter most of the time. There are few times that we actually need to have two burners working at the same time. However, with this installed, we now have the capability to have three burners -- the two built-in plus the separate single burner -- in use at the same time.

Carl then started working on the spice rack project.

Way back in 2020, we removed a TV that was in the front room of Gracie (we had two TVs in the room, one at the front over the windshield, and the other at the back between two cabinets) - we removed the back one. We put a medicine cabinet in the place its place which I've been using for spice storage. 

Unfortunately, the shelves were held up with plastic shelf clips, and, over time, with the spices bouncing up and down on the shelves as we drove down the road, several of the clips had broken. (The picture is of one of the few that still were whole.) I had resorted to putting taller spices at the two ends of shelves to hold the shelves up.

Carl got metal shelf clips to replace the plastic ones - and he put a clip at the back middle of each shelf too. Some of the plastic clips had broken off in the hole where he needed to put the new metal clip, so he had to get those plastic pieces out and make a hole the right size for the metal clips.

Here's a view of one end of a shelf with the metal clips holding the shelf up.

And here's the cabinet with all the spices in place -- we have a lot of spices!!! There is another narrow cabinet above (with mirrored doors) and one below as well -- these were both installed when the coach was built. The one below has canned goods; the one above has softer and lighter items -- vitamins, small packages of loose tea, etc. -- so if an item happens to try to fall out upon opening the doors, it is less painful!

It is nice to get these two projects completed!

Random pictures

Some random pictures from the last week or so...

The full moon rising over the palm trees last week...

... and some pretty clouds over our park model.

"Shopping" at the "VO Mall" -- the area outside the dumpsters where people leave stuff that they no longer need but which others might be able to use.

Traveling amateur radio equipment -- at Carl's ham meeting last week, one of the presenters shared about his set-up for going mobile -- to be able to set up at a park or in an emergency situation...

... he has built a 3-shelf stand from PVC piping and can carry and assemble his radios, batteries and assorted peripherals, hook them up, and have them working relatively quickly.

Another day, we were driving to do a few errands and enjoyed the view of the Superstition Mountains which are east of us.

We had a couple of days of more moderate temperatures, followed by high 90s again. This next week is supposed to have more moderate temperatures again.

It's *supposed* to be a hummingbird feeder!!!

We put out our hummingbird feeder a few days ago. While we *have* seen a hummingbird or two there, we're also seeing others using it:

One of the birds eyeing it from the palm tree...

... yep! It's a good place for a snack!

Not sure what this little one was -- he wasn't much bigger than a humming bird!

The hummingbirds are so quick that I haven't gotten a picture of any of them.

I wonder if the other birds are looking for water as much as the sweetness of it... maybe we should have a bird bath or something for them...

Our mail arrived!!!

I posted a few days ago about the saga of our mail's travels from Livingston, TX to Mesa, AZ (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/10/where-is-our-mail.html)... in our last installment, it was in Massachusetts -- here's the rest of the tracking information -- remember, read from the bottom...

Amazing, it went from Middlesex-Essex Massachusetts on Monday evening all the way to Phoenix in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday -- I don't think it could have come by truck that quickly, so they must have put it on an airplane. It also made no documented stops on its way across the country -- since we are missing Kentucky and Colorado on our "visited states" map, we were considering checking them off if our mail stopped there for a significant amount of time! It then only took 9 more hours to get to our Post Office box -- except, it wasn't in the box (it was too large), so we had to be sure to go to the Post Office (located within Venture Out) during the single hour each day (M-Sa) that the Post Office is open!

We managed to get to the Post Office on Wednesday, pick up our package notification tag from our box, *and* get our well-traveled package of mail.

We even managed to process through *most* of it by Thursday late morning! Whoo hoo!!!

A family visit

This time, we had family come to visit *us*!!!!

Carl's oldest son, Scott, had let us know that he had a business trip to the Phoenix area scheduled in October, and asked if we might be able to host him at the "Casa" -- we were excited to be able to have our first guest for this season (daughter Kim and her two girls had come in the spring, so they were actually our first Casa visitors).

One evening, Carl and Scott went out on our e-bikes to tour the community (Venture Out) where we live.

Another evening we went to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner and to hear the organ music -- before we went inside, Carl took Scott to see the huge pipes that can be seen through the windows on the outside of the building.

Inside Organ Stop Pizza

We sat very near the stage so had a good view of Brett Valliant as he played "the world's largest Wurlitzer Organ"!

After we finished eating, we decided to check out the view from the balcony seats...

We decided that we liked the view from the balcony even better...

... and it seemed that the sound quality was better too!

The organist not only plays the organ, but also controls the lighting -- it is quite an enjoyable show -- and included with the price of your dinner, which is decent pizza at a reasonable price!

Check it out at https://organstoppizza.com/

We were sad to see Scott leave on Wednesday morning -- it has been great to have family come to visit.

The Casa is currently not booked again until the first weekend in December -- anyone want to come visit during November?!?!? Please let us know!!!

Pole raising

Since we're going to be at Venture Out a while (we think!), we are putting things up and out that we might not do otherwise -- specifically, 

... we've put our flag up -- we actually have a new one -- the wind really tears up the flags here. The pole has a light that shines down from the top so we can leave it up day and night. Carl also has put one of his ham radio antennas up -- he plans to put at least one additional one up, but it will be attached to some other items on our lots. (Note: the satellite dish is on a park model home that is on the street behind us -- our lots are very close together here at Venture Out.)

We have the flag and the current antenna attached to the ladder on the back of Gracie. We have flag / pole mounting brackets called "Flag Pole Buddy"(https://flagpolebuddy.com/). It is a system that allows us to put a pole up without needing to climb the ladder -- a good idea to stay on the ground as much as we can!

Oktoberfest street dance

Our resort had an Oktoberfest street dance last week... some people dressed up in German "Oktoberfest" garb... we went to listen to the music and dance!

Dancing outside

Nice patio area, though the surface is rather rough to be used as a dance floor

Music provided by "Uncorked, the Band" -- they are also booked to do our New Years Eve Dance at Venture Out

Line dancing during band break

We had a good time!