San Diego again.

Did I mention that we are getting SERIOUSLY frustrated with this!!

Finally we got a call to pick up the Miata from the body shop. We had moved from the SKP KOFA park to the “Q” casino intending to head off to San Diego if the shop gave us one more excuse. I had called Geico again and their rep had made some more threatening calls, plus I called Gerber's corporate office and told them what I thought about their Casa Grande shop and what I intended to post online to every site that had reviews for body shops if I didn't get the car back immediately.

Suddenly it got done! A miracle. When we collected it they knocked $200 off the bill for “Inconvenience”.

Barb and I jumped into the Fiesta and drove to Casa Grande picked up the Mazda, dropped the Fiesta in a covered storage facility and drove back to Yuma. That took the whole day and we planned to leave the next morning.

All fixed up.

It seems like we must have run over somebody's black cat lately as as soon as the Tire Pressure Monitor System (TPMS) was turned on it started beeping for low pressure on the 2 outside rear tires. Worse we were dry camping and had no power to plug the compressor into. My anxiety disorder just went off the wall. I had to try and calm down so I could work on a plan to get out of this mess.

When I got calm again I realized we could start the generator which we'd been running for the last coupe of days to run the AC. Of course the geny decided that it wasn't going to cooperate and wouldn't start.

A TPMS sensor, this screws on in place of the valve cap.

More calming down had me remember that we'd bought a rechargeable portable compressor just to save having to get the big one out to top up the airbags in the suspension. That little thing said it was capable of 120 psi. Time to find out!

Well a welcome surprise, that little thing did it! It took a long time but it got those tires up to 100 psi even though it wasn't fully charged from the last time I used it!

Rear wheel with the hub cap removed. The hose at the bottom is one of the valve stem extensions.

When I'd finished I tried the geny again and it started! Talk about timing!

Two metal valve extensions, this is what was leaking slowly.

I spent 15 minutes playing with the steering lock on the Miata to figure out what position it had to be in to NOT lock the steering. Seems it has to be in the “accessory” position. We hooked up and set off, or we did after I got the parking brake on the rig to release! It decided to pay hard to get and I had to press on the parking brake pedal as I pulled the release handle to get it to release.

Finally we got going but only after we made a few sharp turns and got out to check the Miata wheels hadn't locked!! Driving on I8 isn't too fascinating, 100 miles of dead straight road thru the barren desert. I was driving with one eye on the rear view camera looking for smoke coming out of the Miata or other drivers flashing their headlights to signal some new disaster. Barbara made a couple of trips back to look out the rear window too! Fortunately nothing happened. We made a stop near El Centro and I checked the temperatures of every tire on the rig and the car, lifted the hood and checked under there. Everything was just fine and I started to calm down a little.

By the time we'd climbed from below sea level in El Centro over the mountains at 4200' and down the other side into San Diego I was almost a happy guy again. There is still a problem with the 2 outside rear tires on the rig loosing pressure over a couple of days, and the Miata has rubber valve stems which I don't think are suitable for use with the TPMS sensors so I will have to get those sorted before we leave San Diego but I am hopeful that we are putting our series of problems behind us at last.

Writing this latest post has also been therapeutic. It helps me get over the anxiety that has been dogging me for the last month. I'm quite impressed with how I've been able to get it under control and I'm 1000% better than I was 4 years back when it first hit me. So thanks for letting me share my story with you.

There was plenty more frustration dealing with AT&T trying to straighten out the mess that Directv Now had left my account in. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't wish Directv Now on my worst enemy and it took 2 days, endless phone calls and hours (literally) on hold before I just canceled it and walked away.

To make up for that we stayed at the Elks Lodge in Chula Vista and naturally caught up on all our old friends and neighbors in town. Days of partying turned into nights of partying. The diet went completely out of the window.

Chula Vista Elks RV park.

I redid the valve extensions on the rear wheels and I hope now the TPMS will work without alarms. Unfortunately when I looked at the valve stems on the Miata they are rubber not metal and I'm not sure they will be safe to hang the TPMS monitors on!!

This one piece valve stem extender is what I hope will fix the problem.

Wintertime Paintings and Drawings

I fill my time during our winter break by catching up on all the artwork that has been building up in my head during the summer. I am always taking photographs which can be the basis of some of my art. I also paint live in the open, which the art world calls "Plein Air" and at an "Open Studio" with live models to draw and paint, known as "Life" painting.

Once settled in for the winter I start looking around for the local art groups. Last season it was the Leesburg Art Association, Winter Garden Art Association and a little informal group I started in Holiday Travel RV Park. This winter it's the Sundance RV Park art group, Casa Grande Art Association, Intercommunity Art and Crafts and Arizona Plein Air Painters who have grabbed my time.

Here's a sample of some of the drawings and paintings I've managed to do with all these other fine artists. 

Watercolor Plein Air Picacho Peak

Watercolor Plein Air View from Picacho Peak

Pencil on paper

Pencil on paper

Watercolor from photograph

Oil and acrylic on canvas from photograph

Watercolor Plein Air 

Watercolor Plein Air 

Oil on canvas from photograph

Oil on canvas fromphotograph

Watercolor from the same photograph

Watercolor Life painting on cheap paper! 

The figure paintings were done quickly on non watercolor paper, that's why they are wrinkly!!

Colored pencil on paper from photograph

Watercolor Life painting

Watercolor Life painting

Pencil sketch Life Open Studio

Watercolor Life painting

Pencil from photographs

(Incidentally this gentleman was my high school art teacher and he also taught me to fly!)

Watercolor from photograph

Colored pencil from photograph

Oil on canvas from photograph

Oil on canvas from photograph.

Casa Grande let go of us, please!

All this bodes well for next year as I should be able to pick up where I left off and get stuck straight in.

The plan was to leave Casa Grande April 1^st and head over to Yuma then down to Mexico for new glasses and teeth cleaning.

Being NON planners has been a point of pride for us, so it was no surprise when our plan backfired big time!

I recently bought a used Mazda to tow behind the rig and spent some time and money adapting it for towing.

We had a practice tow around Casa Grande to fill up the rig and check everything was working properly. We're so glad we did that before we hit the road properly because I messed up setting the steering lock and we dragged it with the wheels locked at an angle without realizing it after a sharp turn out of the gas station after filling up.

The nice shiny car got torn up when the tire exploded.

I have to say that I WASN'T happy. All my insecurities and my anxiety disorder came rushing back. I had a couple of bad days and couldn't talk about it. Luckily I remembered my previous episodes and started meditation. That helped me over the hump and although it still hurts, I can talk about it. I have to state that this was MY FAULT, I didn't check things and ignored some things I should have noticed.

So we had an unplanned couple of weeks in Casa Grande waiting for the car to get repaired, but some good things came out of it. We did a few more jobs around the rig like cleaning the headlight lenses which were pretty fogged up and installing a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) so hopefully we'll get some warnings of problems before they get really bad.  http://www.minderresearch.com/tireminder/

The TPMS turned into a major job when we realized the short valve stems fitted when we got new tires last fall wouldn't suit and we had to go to a local tire place and have the wheels removed to fix it.

But I got to go to more art classes, and better yet we were around for the cactus in the park blooming. They were really pretty and we spent a couple of evenings wandering around with a camera looking for them. I started 3 paintings of them, I'll have to try and get them finished before we leave.

More bad things seemed to be waiting in the wings however and the rear AC unit refused to function just before we pulled out. Of course nobody was available to fix it when we needed to get it done. We can only run 1 at a time on shore power anyway so at least we have the front one to keep us cool.

We were so tired of things going wrong we said the heck with it. We needed to get new glasses and have our teeth cleaned. There's a little border town in Mexico called Algedones where the “Full Timer” population go for those kind of things. It;s right next to Yuma, which is convenient for us as we can stay at the SKP's KOFA RV park.

Casa Grande didn't want to let us go just yet and gremlins hit the new TPMS system with 2 tires suddenly losing pressure after holding fine for 2 days. Furious working, cursing and wrench throwing had the tires holding air (I hoped) and me covered in a nice mixture of sweat and fine dust (We had a big dust storm thru here last week!).

We had swapped the ends of the tow bar to suit the Miata, so of course they didn't fit the Fiesta! We were so determined to leave that Barbara drove the Fiesta behind the rig for the 170 miles to Yuma.

I know. You probably spotted something. We're in Yuma with the rig and the Fiesta. We can't tow the Fiesta anymore and the Miata is still in the shop in Casa Grande. How is that going to work??

Well we're so mad about things going wrong and delays in the repair of the Miata that we just left. When they call us about the Miata we'll just drive the Fiesta back to Casa Grande and put it in storage there pending the outcome of the law suit against Ford. Then we'll drive the Miata back to Yuma and carry on from there.

Another thorn in our side has been waiting on the new California lawyer to get the Lemon Law filing done. We've been expecting it to settle at any moment. That dream just got dashed as they now tell us that it will take much longer due to them suing for damages as well as the Lemon Law settlement. So the Fiesta will get stored until November then we'll have 2 cars again next winter pending the finalization of the suit.

Did I mention that we are getting SERIOUSLY frustrated with this!!