I want some coffee!

We voted early beating the deadline of 26 July 2022 for mailing our early-voting ballots.   All was fine except the state info pamphlet contains no info on nor statements by the candidates for US Representative and US Senate. We know the names for the senate but for someone running for the House seat it was a crap shoot. Poor job by the office of the Arizona Secretary of State. I ended up doing a Google search for the names and hoped for the best! It was so much fun I think we'll do it again in November.

... sort of!   Last time I said our Vegas is getting closer to 'ready' and I had a long list of things that we had finished. Well, ok- it was a short list, but those items are done. Off the list. Fini . The biggy this time was supposed to be getting the Vegas over to Shannon's on 7 July to have the cab AC refrigerant topped up. That didn't happen. Well, it did happen but it was not a magic cure. Thanks to info from Dana at Lightning Fast RV Repair (apparently a very good mechanic!), I'm fairly sure the low pressure safety switch has been tripped (several times!). And I also suspect that switch also set a latching relay on the fuse/relay board in the engine compartment so that if you turn power off and back on the safety switch is still tripped. That switch (+ latching relay) apparently keeps the compressor clutch from engaging so the compressor doesn't run when the system is low on refrigerant. It could be that the switch is defective but I've convinced myse...

I found this critter hangin' out in the street looking pretty horny. It's a horned toad or horned lizard- take your pick. Horned toad/horned lizard

#VanLife traveler Michael Beattie, fresh back from Mexico, caught this guy hangin' out waiting  for dinner. Check the original image on his Conchscooter blog for 26 June 2022 .     Well done Michael!

The Bullet coffee roaster still has place of honor in the shop!  What has happened is I discovered Mexico Organic Chiapas at Coffee Bean Corral in Jul 2020. Since then Chiapas has replaced everything else for roasting and I didn't want to keep saying the same-old same-old here on iwantsomecoffee .  In late-2019 thru mid-2020 I was obsessing about Ethiopia Organic Yirgacheffe. The Yirgacheffe is still a great choice but I don't get the same enthusiastic reaction from others as I do with the Chiapas. Not only are we 2 old toots happy with the Chiapas coffee I'm roasting, so too are the folks I share with.  Now life is a little simpler. I keep roasting the same kind of beans the same way. No variation cuz I've worked all the bugs out of the roast profile which is now migrated into a Recipe (automated commands which control the Bullet roaster temperature). And that makes for nothing much to write about. But that change in roasting habit did nothing to keep the Bullet's...

We are starting to get the RV ready. We delayed till our friends the road warriors (Michael & Layne) had returned from Mexico. Our park rules say we can't have our travel-RV on our lot at the same time as a visitor's RV. So we had to wait till after their departure for Clarkdale, Arizona. Once the lot was clear, however, I brought the Vegas out of the storage yard, parked it on our site and got busy. Well, OK... it was Lightning Fast RV Repair that got started. We had some uninvited visitors to the vent line for the fresh water tank. Looks to be a spider's nest; plus some mud daubers left us a few eggs embedded in (surprise! surprise!) mud. Made filling the water tank a nightmare as I had to keep stopping water flow to let the trapped air vent out via the fill line... Vent hose was home to first a spider's nest then mud dabbers laid a few eggs. A replacement piece of hose solved that issue plus Jeff fab'ed a custom piece of screen material to keep the critters f...

Seems like it happened over night, but the truth is the temps progressed from 'livable' to 'it's too damn hot' over several months. This slow onset of summer heat apparently prompted this bit of New Testament guidance from the Cowboy Church in Tombstone: Micheal & Layne, our friends from Key West who we know from our cruising/live-aboard days, returned from Mexico on Wednesday and we drove to Bisbee to meet them for lunch after Border Patrol & Customs finished with them. Seemed a good time for a late breakfast at the BBC... the Bisbee Breakfast Club. [Note to myself: biscuits and gravy after 1 PM is not a good choice; get the waffle or the blueberry pancakes!] M&L went off to Sierra Vista after lunch to pick up previously ordered 'stuff' then headed for our place at SKP Saguaro Co-op in Benson. So we have front yard guests for a few days as they get themselves ready for summer travel. Fair warning to anyone in the path from Benson to Santa Cruz- ...