I want some coffee!

... or not! We had been warned that vehicle sales - truck, RV, passenger car - is nuts right now. Takes a long time and there's a lot of finger pointing going on: the dealer was slow getting paper work submitted; the state is short staffed; there are errors in the paper work; there is a rush on vehicle sales; bla-bla-blah. I had assumed the issue was the state not getting things processed but after a visit to our local MVD service location here in Benson (a private business with a contract from Arizona MVD) I'm not so sure. It appears that Lazydays RV managed to transfer the title for our old Arctic Fox travel trailer to themselves immediately. So far, however, they have not gotten anything accomplished to get the title, registration & license plate for our Vegas RV into our hands.  A friend in Key West who is a 9-1-1 operator says law enforcement all over the country are aware that registrations are delayed- just go. Not so sure I want to do that. We think we will have to ...

We went for a ride in the Vegas in large part to measure for ourselves the noise level in the cab from engine and road noise. We both have sound measuring apps on both Samsung phones so getting some data should be easy-peasey. Almost. If you want to make an objective evaluation of sound level while driving by using an app on your phone, you better remember to turn on the damn app!! We were each so involved with learning to use the Google Maps routing function as an experiment we totally lost the bubble! Even without the numbers it was clear we needed some sound deadening. Well... ok. 90.3 dB is probably an exaggeration. But it's loud ! As an aside, I started using Garmin, Magellan and other marine nav systems in 1988 when they were LORAN-based. GPS was still a USAF-managed research project (I think I recall that it started life as a DARPA project). Now a GPS receiver is in every smart phone and that phone probably has Google Maps. Getting from where you are to where you want to go ...

... but not there yet. The mattress topper from Sam's Club arrived a day early and we had it on the bed of our 2016 Vegas the same day. After I finished the morning dishes I headed across the street to trim off the suggested 2" from the bottom of the foam pad but the Admiral already had it done. Excellent. I had to wrestle the now-trimmed foam pad into the covering that would make it into a topper. I imagine it was very much like wrestling a very large 'possum that's playing dead- flop one way then it lies there lifeless; flop it the other way and more of the same. In spite of the adage that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results being a sign of insanity, persistence paid off and the 'possum was eventually where it needed to be. Or maybe it pays to be insane if you own an RV. The jury is still out. The sheets & bedding took both of us to get it done. With the just-washed Kokopelli comforter on top as a bed spread it looks good enough to...

All roasting cancelled because of weather. Just too *&^% hot! It's too darn hot!   And it's unfortunate, too, as the sample of the new Oaxaca from Coffee Bean Corral is excellent. So good I ordered a 25# bag. I was able to do 4 sample roasts and the one I held back for us was very good. Chocolatey, buttery and other flavors I can't put names to that combine to make a great morning cup! I looked on-line for a photo to illustrate the heat and found this. Then I realized this looks pretty much like the San Pedro Valley!

We had gotten the Vegas to our park and rented the available lot across the street. The plan was to put things in order as we emptied the 12 tubs plus piles of "stuff" that were the treasures from our previous travel trailer. Just 50 feet away it's a convenient location and we could take our time sorting thru everything to decide on the best location and "do we really need this?". Good plan except... A fire broke out east of Benson in the Dragoon Mountains which form the east boundary of San Pedro Valley- Benson is on the west side of that valley, a scant 10 miles away. With very strong winds, the Walnut fire (named I believe for the orchard area near Willcox where the fire originated) was becoming a threat on the east side of the valley and specifically the village of Dragoon. The strength of the winds was so high Cochise County Sheriff's office issued an evacuation notice for Dragoon and closed I-10 both east and west bound. Our park is located on AZ-80 wh...

It was needlessly white knuckle driving from Lazydays RV in Tucson to Benson. The walk-thru was a token effort both on the part of the Lazydays staff and us. A few switches aren't marked (😝) and there's even an unmarked spare switch. I guess Thor never heard of a blank filler. It was so hot when we left I wanted both the cab AC and the coach AC running. So I fired up the generator and ran the coach AC while we had the cab AC on while driving. Felt pretty good after we arrived. Then we parked, shut off the engine, and the temp inside shot up instantly. Time to get some sun shades kluged together! Friday we went back to get the truck we had left in the Lazydays storage yard for the night. On the way back we stopped at Camping World to remind ourselves why we never want to shop there again- God they're expensive!! But we bought a minimal surge protector for the electrical system, a couple large windshield screens we could use to cobble together a custom version for the Vegas,...

The Admiral has been doing her research so we can hit the ground running. Well... in my case maybe a fast shuffle. One of the things she did is get on the Thor Motor Coach Group on Facebook and search many of the topics. It's beginning to look like most of the things Thor builds have problems when new. Odds and ends from blocked plumbing vents to failures in electrical systems and on to cabinetry. One owner pointed out that the complaints are largely from new owners while those that have a motor home that's older than maybe 2 or 3 years have significantly fewer complaints. Without giving it a lot of thought the first impression might be "they just don't build 'em like they used to!" Or maybe it's just apathy on the part of longer term owners. I think I may have a different take on it. In the electronics world there is a phenomenon called "infant mortality" which predicts a higher than normal failure rate (failures per million hours) w...