After Jim and Rod took off for home, Greg took a walk and

discovered that our favorite site in Red Head Loop (where we

were) had opened up during the morning. So we decided to

change sites, leaving the double site and moving to #15, on the opposite side of the loop half way up the hill.  It’s a particularly private, attractive — and level — site. The patio area looks outinto an undeveloped area of the park with an interesting arrangement of naturally strewn boulders running up the hill. It’s also far enough from the lake that the air is calm with just the breeze in the pine trees to enjoy.

Once we got settled in the new site, we decided to take a drive into town. As Terry was getting the truck ready, he discovered that the warning light for the low tire pressure monitoring system built into the truck was lit. This is a separate system from that on the trailer tires and indicates that there is a tire with low pressure on the truck. Dang! This happened only one time before…at Fool Hollow (!) when we had picked up a nail. Unfortunately the system doesn’t tell you which tire is low, so you have to take tire pressure readings and figure that out for yourself. Hmmm. All the tires seem to have the proper pressure. Maybe it’s just the cold night before, or maybe it’s the change in altitude? Since there were no obvious low tires we decided it might be the system itself and to go ahead into town and see if it went off on its own. It was Sunday, and the Toyota place in town wasn’t open, so it would have to wait until Monday anyway. If it was still lit when we got back, we’d get out the owner’s manual and see what it says.

Being Sunday, so we decided to save the resale shops we usually hit for another day, and visit Ace Hardware and Wal-Mart. This was the result of another quest for camping equipment. On the other side of the catalytic heater coin (which saves electricity while dry camping), is the ceramic electric heater to be used when one has an electrical hookup (therefore conserving propane in the tanks). Running down the batteries is not an issue if you have electrical hookups, but using up propane is. And why not use an electrical source for heat if you have electricity available … you’re paying for it, so why not use it? Ace had a few interesting small heaters, but we decided to go see what was available at Wal-Mart…and we found the perfect one there. It’s a compact “Stanley” ceramic heater with a thermostat, two heat output levels, and a very quite fan. And it was only $29. Terry had looked at a few heaters at Sears in Tucson, all priced about the same, and with the same features, so at this point it boiled down to design. We liked the one at Wal-Mart because it as a known name, had a very stable base, a convenient and sturdy handle, and was grey and silver…and what better color combo in an Airstream? So we got it and used it for the rest of our trip, as it continued to drop below freezing each night … with the lowest temp being 24 degrees. The electric heater went on and off during the nights keeping the Bambi at a very comfortable temp…not too warm because neither we nor the Girls like sleeping too warm. So now we’re outfitted with both a small catalytic heater when we are dry camping to conserve battery power, and a small electric ceramic heater for when we have electricity to conserve propane. What a life!

Back from town and the tire pressure warning light is still on, so out comes the owner’s manual to see if there’s a reset switch for the light or if there might be another reason it is malfunctioning. We figure it we can’t figure it out today, we will just take it to Toyota Monday and they can figure out what’s going on.

Reading, reading. Hmmm. Seems if the system is malfunctioning somehow, the warning light will flash rather than stay on continuously. Ours wasn’t flashing, so that means it not malfunctioning. There is a reset button. Maybe if we just reset it? Wait…big bold letters in the manual: “The reset button should not be used unless the tire has been remounted or if you wish to establish a new base line pressure for all times.” Hmmm. Best not press the reset button…that will just reset the sensor to see the a low pressure as being normal. OK…keep reading the manual.

Wait! Aha! There is also a monitor on the spare tire…something Terry knew but had forgotten about.  So it’s crawl under the truck, get the spare tire release bar threaded

                   into the turning gear to lower the spare (We’d really like to meet the guy

                        who invited this incredibly non-user-friendly system and let him

                         know just how hard this is to do if you wear glasses, not to mention

                         bifocals! It’s like trying to thread a needle in the dark 3 feet away.)

                         Anyway, he’s finally successful at lowering the spare tire and takes a pressure reading. Look at that! The reading on the spare is down about 15 lbs! Violá! Out comes the portable compressor with its annoying rata-tat-tat hammering sound that echoes through the park as it forces air pressure into the spare. Ah…the low-pressure warning light in the truck goes off, which means that the problem is corrected. Problem solved.

Love gadgets, particularly when they actually come into good use. It’s a particularly nice way to justify buying them in the first place. The down side is that these gadgets usually have to do with solving or dealing with some problem you hope will never happen … like getting a flat tire or having breakdown of some kind. But there is something to be said for the sense of empowerment and satisfaction that comes from figuring out a problem and resolving it without having to make a trip to the mechanic. We figured it out and now we don’t have to drag the truck and ourselves to the Toyota place to figure out what’s up…and pay them to tell us our spare was low. Duh. And we’ve learned a lot about the tire pressure system in the truck to boot! Cool.

After an afternoon of playing grease monkey, and being successful at it, we had a pleasant evening all cozy and warm in the Bambi using the new ceramic heater.

Late Sunday afternoon after we’d figured out the tire pressure thing, Terry checked email and found that he had the info he needed to continue with yet another project that had been delayed by the client…pages that go into the SkyMall Catalog (the one you see on airplanes). Terry prepares the page layouts for the client based on the products the client and the marketing folks want to feature, then submits the pages to SkyMall for review and approval. Because the client had some issues to iron out, they had obtained an extension of SkyMall’s deadline until Wednesday, 15 October.

Terry now had the info he needed to prepare the layouts. So Monday had to be a working day for Terry in Fool Hollow. (Good thing we didn’t have to deal with the

truck tires!) Greg took care of the Girls, and took it easy in camp and Terry got down

to brass tacks in the afternoon, got the pages laid out and back to the marketing folks for their approval…so that they could respond and get back to him with corrections

and/or changes by Wednesday. This is part of the joy of having a good Internet

connection while camping and being able to actual do some work if it needs to

be done.

Once the files were sent off to the marketing people, Terry was again free to enjoy. Monday was a nice warm day, probably somewhere in the low 70s and quite nice out. We took the Girls for a walk over to the boat launch ramp and along the lake to the fishing piers.  We didn’t want to push Sadie too much with her recent health issues and the fact that she has chronic hindquarter strength problems

compounded with chronic “patella luxation” in both back legs. (Her

knee caps slide out of position under stress. Annie also had this problem

in her younger years, but we discovered it soon enough to have her

knees fixed…we did not discover the problem in Sadie until permanent

damage had been done and surgery was no longer a viable course, particularly at her age.)  Sure enough, by the time we were almost back to camp you could see her limping a bit on one back leg and the tendon holding her knee cap in place slipping with each step. She’s a little trooper and doesn’t complain much about it unless she happens to twist her leg just the wrong way, and then she lets out a quick yelp. It’s something she’s lived with her entire adult life. We keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t over stress her legs, though. Once she has a chance to rest and let her muscles relax the symptoms subside. She also gets daily meds to help relieve the arthritic-like pain she has. Despite all this, she is one happy little camper and her little stub of a tail wags at an incredibly fast pace most of the time.

Despite having to put some time working on Monday (Columbus Day!) it was a good day with a restful and calm evening.

By Tuesday morning Terry was sure that any minute he was going to get a call or an email that the proofs were ready on the big project he’d gotten out the door the day before we left, which would mark the end of our stay and we’d have to head for home. Each day we didn’t get word, we extended our stay for another day, paying a day at a time. So far so good, no word, so we decided we’d probably be staying until Thursday at this point.

Tuesday AM Terry got approval from the client for the SkyMall pages…with no corrections or changes to be made! Yea! So he shot off the PDFs of the page layouts to both the client and to SkyMall for their review…that should be all he’d need to do with that project until we were back in Tucson to get everyone’s approval, at which time he can prepare the final production files, get a hard proof of the pages and send everything off to SkyMall for production of their catalog…and be done for another round. This routine happens every quarter.

With that task out of the way, we took off to Show Low to make our regular rounds of resale shops and maybe go for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant our friend, Sandy, from Heber had turned us on to on a previous visit.

Speaking of Sandy, we had emailed Sandy earlier after Jim and Rod left letting her and the hubby know we were in the neighborhood. We didn’t think we would be

             making it to Heber (about 35 miles) on this trip but if they happened to be

                heading to Show Low to let us know and we could get together. As it

                 turned out they were not coming to Show Low while we were there, so

                 we will make a point of seeing them on our spring trip to Show Low after

                  the winter thaw. I think we see Sandy more often now than when she

lived in Tucson!  She and Terry used to get together each year to celebrate their joint birthdays over lunch, and now we see her at least twice a year, if not more! Funny how that works out. But we digress.

Our afternoon in Show Low was fun … we hit the regular thrift shops … we usually find something to drag home. This time it was some music CDs that were ridiculously inexpensive and the prize … an antique mixing bowl in perfect condition that we later realized matches a mixing bowl Greg has that belonged to his mother and is at least 60 years old. The bowl we found is the same bowl, but a different color and one size larger. That was a particularly nice find. And we did stop at that Mexican restaurant. As usual, it was yummy. And we gassed up on this trip, too. For once the price of gas had gone down while we were there! It has been $3.21 in Tucson when we left…it was $3.32 in Show Low when we got there, and by the time we gassed up it was $3.27, not that that saves us a lot, but at least it went in the right direction for a change. Then back to the park and to the Girls who were anxious to get out of the trailer and take a nice walk…another wonderful day in the neighborhood.

Ok, by Tuesday afternoon, Terry (Mr. Conscientious) was thinking he should check in with the printer about the proof since he had heard nothing…and if the proofs weren’t going to be ready until late in the week, there’d be no reason to go home until the weekend since they were to go to his client first. What a boon that would be … but not a good thing in terms of getting the project to the press as quickly as humanly possible. So he emailed the printer to find out where they were with everything. The printer emailed back and said the proofs were ready and as Terry had earlier requested, they would be taken to the client first for their review—on Wednesday. Wonderful. That means we would be leaving for home on Thursday and Terry could connect with his client late Thursday afternoon to get the proofs so that he could do his review and get hem back to the printer on Friday. That way the project could be on press early to mid-next week. Perfect. So he emailed his client to expect the proofs and told her they could connect late Thursday to hand off the proofs and he’d take it from there.

This left us one more full day, Wednesday, to enjoy before we had to go home. So we made the most of it…we slept in, we took walks, enjoyed the Girls, had leisurely meals, made another camp fire in the evening, fired up the grill for a steak and generally did our best to enjoy the time we had left…even caught up on some email and Airforums things. And oh, yes, watched the last Presidential debate. >sigh<  We will be so glad when this election is over. The rhetoric is disturbing. We had aleady voted by mail so the fat lady had sung as far as we were concerned. All that’s left is to hope that the rest of the country agrees with our choice for president & VP.

Thursday we got packed up and tied down and hitched up and got out of the park about 11:30 AM ... it was a pretty day and the drive home was pleasant and uneventful (just the way we like it). We didn’t like heading back down into the desert temperatures, though. The high in Tucson that day was 90 degrees!  Will autumn even come to the desert?

We sang along with the new CDs we’d bought at the thrift store. We were belting out a version of “New York, New York” á la Liza (much to the Girls’ dismay) when the phone rang. It was Terry’s client wondering when we’d be home so she could drop off the proofs. She commented that he sounded so relaxed! She wa right...we were re;axe...it had been a much needed and wonderfully refreshing break from everyting.

Where we going next? And how soon??

Click on the slideshow icon below to see all the pictures. Click on “Rendezvous I” to go back to the first part of our trip. You can also click on “Other Trips” at the end of the picture section to go back to the trips page, too. Enjoy and happy trials!