Sunday, January 24, 2010

Time in Texas is getting short!

Only 3 more days and we will be headed to our place at North Ranch Escapee RV Resort near Wickenburg, AZ. WOW, and so much to do getting ready to leave. So many things must wait until we are about ready to leave that it makes the last few days quite hectic.

Looking forward to one more nice Motorcycle ride with our friends Greg and Bonnie Gheyssens this morning. Then tomorrow, I will load the Harley and get it all secured and ready for the trip. After that, it's then time to prepare the 5Th wheel and the truck for travel and secure the Coach House for another year. As much as we have done this, we should be able to do it with our eyes closed. However, it still takes a lot of thought and double checking.


Chuck and Rhoda Roper from Tallahassee, Florida came and spent several days with us last week. They were our neighbors and good friends back when we were working and had a "stick" house. We have kept in close contact with them since we decided to sell our house and live full time in our "Home on Wheels". That was nearly 15 years ago. My how time flies!


Here they are in our Retama neighbor's driveway just before they departed for home. It was sure good seeing them again and talking about old times. They are the first couple that have stayed in our Coach House since we finished it and commented how much they enjoyed it. Come and see us again anytime guys!



We had one more little project that we wanted to complete on the patio extension before we departed. We found out about some special kind of sand called Polymeric Paver Sand. It is supposed to reduce weed growth, resist joint washout and prevent insect penetration.

In order to do this, we had remove some of the sand we had used to level the pavers and install the new Polymeric Sand. We got this all done yesterday.  Below are some pictures of the process.


First we had to clean it all up. I removed as much of the previous sand as I could by going down each joint with a screwdriver and then sweeping what was loose and Pat used the blower to further clean the surface.


Next, I slowly swept the sand into all the cracks. Note how much better the joints look on the right with the new Polymeric Sand.


Ms Pat hand swept each paver to get the excess off. Then I sprayed down the entire patio with a very fine mist of water. We had to respray it every 30 minutes for 4 times. This will make the sand set up and get hard, although it will stay somewhat pliable.


After we completed the portion outside of the patio fence, we started on the inside. Notice at the bottom of this photo how the finished product looked. We got it all done just in time to take a shower and get up to the clubhouse for the 1st annual Chili Cook Off. As usual the Buffalo chili was the best!! (IMO) But none was even close to as good as what my sweetie Ms Pat makes!!

So hopefully that's our last project for this year and we can move on down the road to new and different things.. I'll get one more Blog in on Wednesday, the day before we leave, and bring you up to date one more time before departure.

Thanks for stopping by. Please let me know if these larger pictures are hard for you to download or if they take too long. I know I'm going to have to change things when we leave and I get off this high speed data cable line.  We wil be back on our Verizon Air Card with a 5GB monthly limit. That really cuts us down. Pat and I will use that much in 2 weeks or less if we don't really watch our usage.  This Cable line spoils us!!

God Bless you all and remember to tell your kids, family and friends that you love them.  They may not be around forever.
We continually give thanks to our Lord for all the blessings he provides us. We are most grateful.


Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

6 comments:

Jerry and Suzy said...

Lookin' good there. Mike and Ms Pat! There's always a project, and so many of them get put off and some never done. You look like you are keeping up with them pretty well! Safe travel, we'll see you here in Arizona before long.

Rick said...

That polymeric sand is great stuff. We use it on the paving stones in our patio around our backyard pond. Which reminds me, that's a job I have to do when we get home!! Those larger pictures don't make any difference in speed at all, Mike. They are well under a 100kb so that's still very small in size. It doesn't matter how 'big' the image is, it's the number of kb's that count!

squawmama said...

Wow the new sand looks great... What a difference it made in the appearance! Funny you’re leaving Texas and we are just getting ready to go into it. Hopefully we will be able to meet you in Custer... We will be staying at Broken Arrow in Custer as soon as they will let us in. Have fun & Travel safe!
Donna

Nick Russell said...

Pics loaded up just fine wth no problem. WE're lookng forward to seeingyou guys in Yuma.

Anonymous said...

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Carol said...

That looks really great. I just wrote it down so I can send the name of it to Sasha. That looks like something that would come in real handy on their driveway in Florida.

Ditto Rick and Paulette re: the downloading ... and I love the bigger pics. So if I go to that template, it will just automatically make mine like that too, I guess, huh?