Casa Update 18

Friends,

Sorry for taking so long to get this together. Been 3 weeks in the making. The House Blessing went very well. We had all of the rooms blessed except the pantry and garage. We fit everyone in our double shower! That was 14 people. After the blessing we had a nice Mexican lunch. A great time was had by all. I've attached a few pictures from that. Bob, Debi, Jim, Leslie, Betsy and Giovanna stayed at our contractor's motel and Jeanne stayed with us. Weather was perfect. In all, we had 14 here including the locals. Betsy, Giovanna and Jeanne left on Sunday. Bob, Debi, Jim and Leslie left on Monday. It was 1/2 a day till the Phillips (our ex-Benicia neighbors from 2 doors down) arrived for the rest of the week. On Wednesday we tried to get to Mike's Ski Rancho. Took an hour to get to the dirt road leading to the rancho. Took another hour to get within 6 miles of the rancho. That was the point that I feared for the Explorer's survival and called a halt to the drive. The road was definitely a 4x4 road. Took another hour to get back to the paved road. Turns out to have been only 24 miles round trip on dirt. We will go back again, but this time in the truck. George and I played golf on Thursday. First time since the cervical fusion 3 1/2 years ago. Did as well as expected. The course is beautiful!!! Except for the sand traps. They placed them exactly where my drives and second shots reached. Have never played out of the sand that much ever. We capped the week with dinner at the El Nido and a short stay at Al's Back Street Cantina (no stickers yet Bob and Jim). We also learned that the Screaming Cholla is really Tequila (made from Agave planted in the distil-masters back yard and watered well). We bid George and Beverly farewell early Saturday morning. We had a great time that week. Now back to the deafening silence. I got back to fiddling with the propane refrigerator that was having a hard time keeping temperature. On Sunday I had to up to temperature setting to max just to keep the inside temperature at 40 degrees. Stopped by RV John's on Monday to seek help in getting it fixed. He didn't come to look at it till Tuesday. That blew our Tuesday re-stocking trip to El Centro. Meanwhile, our contractor finally started on the wall. It has always started the same way. At about 8:00 in the morning a very large truck will pull up and unload a lot of stuff. Then, about anywhere from an hour to 2 days later the workers will arrive. This time they showed up right after lunch. I had told Lupe that the cistern was closed to construction workers. So, after they laid their string everywhere, they started bucketing water out of the cistern to water the sand. What can you do. If I chase them off, they will not get paid. I called Sabina again and by the end of the day we had more water tanks in the front yard that you can imagine. Empty of course. The water truck did not arrive till sometime late on Tuesday. After RV Johns visit on Tuesday, he says that we might have a "blockage" in one of the refrigeration lines. We need to do a 12 hour max cycle followed by a 12 hour off cycle. Freezer is full. We again seek help from Kaaren for freezer space for a few days. We borrowed a few coolers from George to store the non-frozen stuff and prepared to cycle the frig and headed for El Centro. Got back late Wednesday to find a huge pile of sand next to the generator. Next to that was a huge pile of gravel. Mind you this was the generator that ran for 4 hours with the oil cap off. For Wednesday and Thursday we were cycling the refrigerator on and off while the workers sifted sand and gravel in the front yard and worked on the wall. We went to Val's Thursday Social and low and behold we meet a couple from Vallejo. He owns one of the largest propane refrigerator sales and service shops in Northern California. He volunteers to come by and look at the refrigerator. They come over on Friday for a visit and we get a free consult on the refrigerator. He says that the problem is either low gas pressure or butane has clogged the filter in the thermostat, Seems the Mexicans mix butane (20%) with their propane. Tells me that butane is an oily gas that can cause problems with filters. He suggests that we run the refrigerator on AC and see what happens (take propane out of the equation). If it cools correctly, then he is right, if it still has problems, RV John is right. We had a great time chatting with them while the workers continued with the wall. The workers got about 20 feet of wall up while we chatted on the back porch. After they left I called Puerto RV (John's business and found out he was in the states getting parts.) Told them what Allen said and that I was going to do the AC test that evening. That night we switched the refrigerator to AC and let it run while we ran the generator for the evening. When we were ready for bed, the refrigerator was the coldest I have seen. Score one for Allen. It is now Saturday and RV John has not called back. Workers finished early this morning after pouring the last of the footings and had left by 10:30. I finally got to take a good look at the generator. You don't want to know. It looks like it was just unearthed from some archeological dig somewhere. More on that later...... The rest of Saturday was uneventful. On Sunday we were invited to another Jenga tournament at Kaaren and Georges. This time we had 4 "stacks" going with 14 players. I went out in the first round and Regina in the second. Today RV John showed up with a part. At this point looks like that was not the problem. Will call him again tomorrow. The workers started in on the wall again and made very good progress. If I was in the US, I would say that they might finish this week.


Larry and Regina

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/LarEWill50/Casa11?authkey=Gv1sRgCNjdy5G63tybVA&feat=directlink