Hanging Out at the “Dirt Farm” and a Few Projects (Casa Grande, AZ)

I know, I know… this is a long overdue blog post, but there just hasn’t been much to write about since we’re parked in one spot for so long.  Let me bring you up to date on a few of our activities this past month:

After we got our daughter and grandson settled in their new RV park in Tempe, we moved down to my Mom, Stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl’s place in Casa Grande.  You can’t beat the monthly “moochdocking” rate here, especially with 50 amp hookups.  Thanks Ma, Jimmy, Steve & Cheryl!  We’ve been here since the beginning of June and have just been hanging out.  I took care of a couple medical appointments with the VA here and we watched our grandson for a while during his summer break from school.  Otherwise, we just stayed out of the heat as much as possible and helped out around the house a little.

We might have to rethink our nickname “dirt farm” for the homestead here since my mom has gotten even more chickens; over two dozen now.  I’m thinking “chicken farm” would be more appropriate… what do you think?

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Pic of Mom’s latest baby chicks before joining the general chicken population.

Just before we moved from our RV park in Glendale to the Casa Grande “dirt farm”, we enjoyed the hospitality of my mom’s sister who lives north of Phoenix in Sun City Grand.

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Grandson Kaan is a good golf cart driver.
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Awesome meal courtesy of Aunt Kathy.

Aunt Kathy showed us her latest upgrade to the house.  She had the entire wall remodeled with shelves and brickwork where there used to be a wooden wall unit/entertainment center.  Looks nice Auntie!

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Aunt Kathy often watches dogs (dog-sitting) for friends and neighbors.  She had three that we took out for a walk once the sun started going down and it cooled off a bit.

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Aunt Kathy, Kaan, Jenny, Stilla in Sun City Grand.

Around the 11th of June, we went out to Macayo’s for my stepdad’s 70th birthday.  Happy birthday Jimmy!

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(L to R) Stilla, grandson Kaan, brother Steve & Cheryl.

Jim got a rather appropriate gift (below) that alludes to mom’s chicken farm  venture.

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Jim & Mom. Happy 70th Jimmy!

I also used the time parked in Casa Grande to take care of a few more little projects.  One was to beef up the drawer slide supports under the rear closet.

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The metal drawer slides have plastic mounts that screw to the back wall boards.  Over time these plastic pieces start cracking and break from the large amount of weight we pile into the drawers.  I’ve replaced a couple of these supports before but this time I decided to ‘beef’ them up to keep this from happening in the future.

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It was nice to have access to all the power tools and wood scraps here at the “dirt farm”.  I cut some wood strips to just the right size to support the mounting bracket(s).  I cut one to support the plastic piece that screws to the back wall and another to support the plastic channel that the metal slide rides in.  These are rock solid now and will probably outlast the coach.

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Another project was to do something about the middle clothes rod support in our closet.  The original middle support was kind of wimpy and was only attached to the ceiling.  It was coming loose from all the weight of our full-timing clothes and my temporary fix was to put a ratcheting cargo bar in place between the floor and the bar.  I decided to replace my temporary ‘fix’ with a 4′ board and use the floor for support since my cargo bar was kind of tacky 🙂  I can safely assume this is a common issue in Alpine coaches with the rear closet because I saw a similar fix in another Alpine or maybe it was a factory fix that was done on coaches after my model year.  So I just copied what I remembered seeing and found an appropriate wood plank at Home Depot™ that I cut, stained, and drilled to fit.

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I forgot to take a picture of the original support, but it was just a 6″ piece of wood with a hole drilled in it for the bar and it was sandwiched between the small strips of wood (at the top of the picture below) that were screwed into the ceiling.

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This clothes bar will hold some serious weight now.  Time to go buy more clothes 🙂

Before we left Casa Grande we took a trip back up to Tempe and replaced the tires on Jenny’s travel trailer so it’s safe to move should the need arise while we’re gone.  I cleaned and stored the Harley because we decided to take the ATV (quad) with us in the back of the pickup for the next phase of our travels.  See ya later Harley.

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Anyway, it’s been great hanging out with family but it’s time to hit the road again.  Our youngest daughter Joleen recently moved from Colorado Springs, CO to Bowling Green, KY with her fiancé.  They just got a house and have been talking about needing some help renovating.  Hopefully she’ll have 50 amp hookups installed by the time we arrive… but we’re not in too much of a hurry.  We’ll take the leisurely route to get there and hopefully get to see some old friends and new sites.

Stay tuned…