24/7 Chat About Anything

[INTJohn]

GO BLUE!

 

[BelgianPup]

Hilarious!

 

[maki2]

Chilly this morning and partly cloudy. I made the mistake of taking off my mylar coated foam window covering a little too early. The sun had not yet risen high enough to heat the glass so I got blasted with the cold coming off it. But that resolved itself within a half hour and the glass is now acting as a radiant solar heat input. It feels like a nuisance putting up and taking down window coverings but it is worthwhile as I have 50 year old single pane, sliding windows. It is time to crawl out from under the covers, fire up my stove and make hot coffee. I have a lot of things that need to get done today so it might take 2 cups of coffee and another at mid day as well as I do not feel at all motivated to do anything this week except be lazy.

 

[maki2]

Still chilly at 11:00 am. I need to cut cardstock on my vinyl cutter this morning. The repositionable adhesive on the cutting mats the cardstock lays on for going through the machine is also cold so the adhesive does not grab properly. So I have taken advantage of that solar heat sink effect of the window glass and turned my east and south facing windows into warming ovens. The cutting mats are just that, thin, flexible, plastic cutting mats I purchase at the Quartzsite tent stores. I have clothespins holding them to the bottom edge of my raised roller shades.

 

[Morgana]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I am thankful to be on the road again (well, I will be once I fit the last few things in and mop the floors). Timing turned out a little weird but no worries. My lease was up 2 months ago but I wanted to stay here and vote. Glad I did. Now putting a been-there-done-that behind [semi-]Retirement[lol] 1.0 and starting [semi]Retirement[lol] 2.0. Y'all were a big part of what kept this year at least partially fun ... I'm two fiascos closer to managing car-camping (and there are lots more fun camping options in the new place). For today it's Laredo or bust -- and then onward/westward ho!
Thanks y'all.

 

[maki2]

Wild Thanksgiving winds which means lots of wind chill and no campfires to hang out next to. Other than going into town to get some dieselfor my heater/stovetop, gasoline and a couple of grocery items I am going to snuggle up with an Ebook in my rig. Streaming videos is not an option as it is Quartzsite area and the cell towers are overburdened, but I have plenty of movies to watch on my laptop.

A mug of hot coffee and a bowl of hot cereal with craisens in my warm, cozy, trailer started my day off with a holiday mood!

 

[Morgana]

Taking the scenic route in the rain — seems like there ought to be a song for that.
500+ miles, 10 counties, 2 days of continuous rain or heavy overcast (+ stress because idiots don’t think water, mud, and perpetual orange barrels = any reason to slow down)

then somewhere between Sanderson and Marathon a ring of mountains became dimly visible and I’m thinking “OK, so a little more scenic than I-10”

and then the rain turned to snow

and then there was this astonishing light show with dark clouds, grey clouds, snow-covered mountains, and a bright white cloud with a shaft of light on it off in the distance between two snowy mountains. I could not have imagined that combination of lighting in my wildest dreams.

and Marathon looks like a Christmas snow-globe.

“Snowing on Marathon / by morning it’ll be melted through and gone / at least I hope so / but it was pretty effing spectacular in the meantime” (sorry Townes Van Zandt)

(PS sorry I can't figure out how to make this photo come in smaller, it's only 190 KB?)

 

[maki2]

Christmas tree up! Just an 18” high, bottlebrush tree, green glitter on it and it has a thin wire, battery LED white light string in the”branches”. It will do for now but it could use a little multicolored rope bead string for ornamentation. I will have to consider looking for that at a dollar store.

This is the 1st year I have bothered with any decorations inside my trailer. But I might also get a USB multicolored LED light stirng. Also some silver tinsel garland ropes for outside.

Most likely I am in more of a decorating mood of as my trailer build is almost done. But everything has to be smal and lightweight as I do not have a lot of extra storage space.

 

[Morgana]

omg I have Airbnb in some rich people’s house and there is NOBODY HOME.
they are not coming back until the 28th.

they said I can use the fridge and microwave but the fridge is full and it smells weird.
the room has no table or desk, no coffeemaker, no minifridge, no climate control, and other people’s stuff in the closet. This is an Airbnb "Superhost" so go figure.

the house is tucked away in a back alley in one of those semirural rich-people rabbit warrens, there isn’t even a street sign. the road in is narrow and has acequias (New Mexico-style irrigation canals) on both sides. I’m extremely proud of myself for having found it but not quite sure how I'll get out again.

OK, now going to try to eat the cup-o-noodles I made with my brand-new Hamilton Beach electric kettle in the fancy bathroom without spilling anything on the swank-ass furniture… and then try to climb up into the bed that is at least 2 feet taller than normal. antique you know. very atmospheric. it has the pineapple-tipped posts and everything. I miss boarding houses and YWCA rooms. OTOH one must embrace the unexpected. See America -- all sorts of America -- first! But I am sure looking forward to when I can do this out of my car instead.

 

[bigskybob]

Some really good games on tv today.The final 4 is pretty much set.I'm a bulldog fan,butI think this might be Michigan's year to win it all.As a bonus,saw my granddaughter on tv doing her thing with the pom poms with the other Ga cheerleaders.

 

[Morgana]

Good to be back where there's mountains. I don't think I was wired for the flatlands ...

 

[maki2]

Normal rhythm to my week for this time of year. Taking care of my Etsy store incoming orders. Visited a friend in Pirate camp. I am camped on dispersed BLM this year. I chose a spot and other people started showing up one at a time. They gather here at this location each year. So I have been absorbed into the group and the mellow 5:00 social hour around the fire pit. Just right for camping with others. No one is noisy, all are independent types who have been out for at least several years.

But one thing was typical. A couple of them have screen shelters and were complaining about “defective” zippers. I was able to sort that out for them by applying and teaching about them need for regular use of zipper lube. If you have any type of gear with zippers including tents and duffle bags the zippers will need to be lubed now and again so that the glide easy and do not get damaged by excessive need for force.

 

[Lizmccal]

Normal rhythm to my week for this time of year. Taking care of my Etsy store incoming orders. Visited a friend in Pirate camp. I am camped on dispersed BLM this year. I chose a spot and other people started showing up one at a time. They gather here at this location each year. So I have been absorbed into the group and the mellow 5:00 social hour around the fire pit. Just right for camping with others. No one is noisy, all are independent types who have been out for at least several years.

But one thing was typical. A couple of them have screen shelters and were complaining about “defective” zippers. I was able to sort that out for them by applying and teaching about them need for regular use of zipper lube. If you have any type of gear with zippers including tents and duffle bags the zippers will need to be lubed now and again so that the glide easy and do not get damaged by excessive need for force.

What is your Etsy store? If you don’t mind sharing.

 

[INTJohn]

Some really good games on tv today.The final 4 is pretty much set.I'm a bulldog fan,butI think this might be Michigan's year to win it all.As a bonus,saw my granddaughter on tv doing her thing with the pom poms with the other Ga cheerleaders.

GO BLUE!

 

[INTJohn]

 

[VanFan]

So our trusty steed came through again, even though he had a limp. Now the van has a new radiator.

My husband makes a daily practice of checking the van's fluids, in spite of no known leaks. It's a really good habit. The other day, he noticed the coolant was just a little low. We decided to cut our trip short and head home because the weather was going to deteriorate the next day, and there are no motels or dealerships for at least 30 miles. Local mechanics in that area are few as well.

A radiator tank I had replaced in '07 had split. We looked it over and added coolant a few times, but basically it held for the journey home. Whew!

 

[aytee]

View attachment 33357

Hell! I thought we were back on elections again.

Must be something to do with sports - ??

 

[Morgana]

So I survived the cr@ppy Airbnb, moved into a nicer one, used up about three dinosaurs* worth of gas, and have been exploring various volunteer opps (which are supposed to be the highlight of Retirement 2.0, at least for a year). One was in a small border town in Mexico where I had to walk 10 blocks in (due to the usual absence of street signs, I was nervously counting off intersections on my too-faint Google Maps printout) (a guy driving along stopped to ask in perfect English if I was lost) to a shelter that turned out to be surrounded by chain-link fence but fortunately there were some kids playing outdoors and they went and got a grownup who let me in and I waited around for 45 minutes watching the World Cup with the residents before giving up as the guy I was supposed to see had clearly blown me off. So yeah maybe not that one.

On the way back to the border I twice ran across uniformed military guys carrying long guns — once in a pickup truck and once just doing their shopping apparently. It’s not so much that it’s unsafe as that I would have absolutely zero idea how to read the cues on what’s safe and what’s not. I’m not exactly streetwise even on my own turf. Trouble seems to come and go in waves over there, and nobody I mentioned this visit to said “are you crazy/don’t do that” …

So that leaves two options, one of which looks pretty good and the other I’m checking out today. The only trouble with the “looks pretty good” one is they’ve got so many bilingual English/Spanish speakers that they probably don’t need my limping-along Spanish so I might not get much client contact which is the fun part. But it’s well organized and I haven’t met any icky control freaks, Messiah complexes, or boss-screwing showboaters (yet). The people I’m meeting today were pretty flaky on phone/email but hope springs eternal. They’re located in the place I’d really rather live — a small town, which many people love to diss but I’m quite fond of, about an hour from the city where the “looks pretty good” opp is. (When I planned this I thought I could commute between the two locations but it’s a little too far, so I’m gonna haveta pick one.)

After today I have to shift pretty toot sweet from “explore” mode to “house hunting” mode as this stuff is costing a bleeping mint. Mostly managing not to panic about that. My gimp foot is cooperating pretty well for now as long as I don’t push it too hard. I’m just drooling over hikes I could take when it’s better.

Thanks for listening!

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* not really — urban legend :-(

 

[WanderingRose]

About police with guns on the street of border towns, Canadian friends of mine who regularly traveled into a specific town in Mexico for medical, dental, pharmaceutical needs, etc., said the armed patrols were there to protect the foreigners upon whom the town relied heavily.

 

[Morgana]

Well, I didn't imagine they were about to shoot me. And this was quite a distance from the tourist area.