Photos are here.

Photos are here.

Drove down to the Salton Sea State Recreational Area today. Even though a so-cal native (or, near enough) I’ve never been here. It’s big, really big; like a sea or something. Not as smelly as I’d been led to believe and, according to the State’s signage, it’s cleaner than the Colorado River. Though I suppose that might not be saying much. Out of the six campgrounds here, three are closed by budgetary problems and two are closed by flooding. I got here early and got a pretty good spot. The campground is full now, but with no one manning the booth folks keep coming in and driving around and leaving.

Had an easy day, got the bike out and rode for a bit, walked some trail until it got to be too much of a sandy/soupy mess, then I got out the recliner and read until sunset.

Pictures are here.

At great personal peril I braved the rain yesterday and bought a replacement faucet I was sure wouldn’t fit or work after revealing it was for an RV to the nice person helping me in the plumbing aisle.

After doing the dishes this morning I sat down and planned my work. Since there are no shutoff valves under the sink I turned off the city water hookup and drained as much water out of the system as I could. I unscrewed the supply lines from the old faucet, unscrewed the faucet bolts and pulled out the old faucet. That was pretty easy, except for the part about getting two things bigger than the hole through the hole, turns out some bending and shortening will do the trick.

Installing the new faucet was pretty much just as easy. In spite of the hardware person’s disbelief, the old faucet used standard 8″ spacing and a 1.25″ center hole. I set the new faucet in place, wrassled the washers and nut around all the supply tubes and sprayer hoses and had it in place in no time. The cold water hooked right back up but the hot water was pinned to the wall to support the water heater bypass valve and wouldn’t reach.

So it was back to the hardware store to return $35 worth of stuff it turns out I didn’t need and pick up a sorta kinda extension for the hot water side. Got back and installed it and no leaks. Yay!

The rest of the day I just did some laundry, worked on pictures and blog posts, installed the license plates and took it easy; getting lots of rest and drinking plenty of fluids.

Tried to get the license plates for the moho today, but the entire CA DMV network is down ‘due to the rain’. I’m pretty sure none of my networks was ever down ‘due to the rain’.

I kind of have a cold, so I’ll stay close to home, rest and drink plenty of fluids.

Went in the south entrance and picked up my National Park annual pass and my passport (for stamps and dates) at the Cottonwood station. Checked out Cottonwood Campground which is one of two campgrounds in the park with water. Chilly and very windy here, most of the sites have nice views which make them pretty exposed on a day like today. Only saw 5 occupied  sites.

Got back on Pinto Basin Rd up to White Tank and Belle Campground. I love these big old rocks. The Belle campground has a short hike out to Natural Arch which is worth taking. Made me lonesome for Moab, though.

Went on out of the park for lunch in Twentynine Palms, then went back in the Indian Cove entrance and checked out the campground and did a short hike into the rocks. Got shoelaces at Mountain Equippage at the intersection of US62 and Indian Cove. Good folks.

Went back in the West entrance and on to Hidden Valley, Sheep Pass, and Jumbo Rock. So pretty but unfortunately very cold and wet by the time I got here. Still pretty though.

Pictures are here.

It was snowing in Tehachapi by the time I left and the rains were piling up in the dips on 395 and made for nervous near-hydroplaning in the moho. The only casualty of the trip was a lost hubcap on one of the duals. Could have been worse.

I changed the route up again coming back down. I took CA 202 E to CA 58 E to US 395 S to I15 S to I215 S to I10 E. Like this:

The reorganizing storage in the moho went well, all I really needed was a bunch of space to spread out the stuff that was in the basement and reorganize it. I’m happy with it for now, but it may turn out to seasonal, or something. I don’t really know enough about it to be sure.

The work project went well for awhile; meetings were met, designs were made, prototypes built, and actual coding commenced. Then the whole thing got decided not to be built and an off the shelf product was chosen instead. Oh well.

The moving and house rehabilitation project finished well, but close of escrow kept being delayed by the fact that the sellers live out of the US and things like notaries and such are more difficult because they involve the US Embassy. It all worked out eventually though. I helped move two horse trailer and truck loads of boxes into the new garage. I built three beds, two of them twice. I got to replace 20 year old ivory electrical outlets, wall switches, and wall plates with bright shiny white new Decora style stuff. I changed the CATV and phone outlets to match. I replaced ceiling light fixtures, bathroom light fixtures, entry and dining room light fixtures. I hung shades, trimmed bushes, helped install two new toilets, removed a swing from a tree and took down another swing and its frame. I restacked many bales of hay, replaced the hardware on the barn doors, installed a hasp on the tack room, replaced the weatherstripping on the garage entry door, replaced the locksets and hinges on all of the interior doors, replaced the locks and deadbolts on the exterior doors, installed photo sensitive motion detecting lights at the garage and front door. I unpacked and installed a new refrigerator, washer, dryer, and two TV sets.

At the end of it all I’ve learned this much; I no longer want to be in the business of rehabbing houses for fun and profit. I’m getting much too old for this kind of behavior.

The bonus is I got back to Tehachapi just before a big storm hit. It was verry windy, but dry all the way.

I changed up the route a bit, going for the shortest route even though it included getting to Tehachapi the ‘back’ way. Thought I see about steep grades, the moho, and the car in tow. As long as I’m not in a hurry, no problem.

Here’s the route I took: I10 W to CA 30 N to I215 N to I 15 N to CA 138 W to CA 14 N to a bunch of surface streets, like this: