The Public, 1; USFS, 0

The Public has spoken and the US Forest Service has backed down:

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2010--USDA Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell announced today his decision not to implement proposed changes to fees charged to holders of passes at Forest Service campgrounds operated by private businesses. The Chief’s decision means Seniors and people with disabilities will continue to receive a discount at Forest Service campgrounds run by private concessions.

You can read the rest of the news release at:

USDA Forest Service Continues Discounts at Campgrounds

Yea!

One of the things we wanted to get done before we leave here, is cleaning the fifth wheel inside and out.

I wasn't really excited about Earl going up on the roof to clean it. He does go up there occasionally to clean off the solar panels, but walking on a wet roof is another thing altogether...and it's a long way to the ground!

So we hired someone to come out to wash and wax the rig, including putting a UV protectant on the rubber roof. Now it's all clean and sparkly! Unfortunately, we still have to clean the inside! ;-)

We finally got our shed completed yesterday and tied down! The instructions said to cut the plywood for the floor a certain dimension...which we did. However, once we got the shed together, we found that the floor was too small by about 2" in one direction and 1" in the other! So we bought new plywood and attached it directly over the old plywood...we now had a deck on which the shed would actually fit!

It appears we've pissed off our neighbors behind us...at least him. Regarding pets, the written rules for the park say, in part "All pets must be confined to your space or on a maximum six-foot leash while walking within the park. Always clean up after them." The neighbors behind us don't follow this rule...they simply open the door and let their dog out to pee and crap anyplace she chooses. Which is especially irritating since she works in the office!

I had seen the dog over on "our" lot peeing before we'd moved over here as we drove past one day, and mentioned to Earl that we'd have problems with these neighbors if they continued to allow their dog to come over on our site to do her business once we moved over here.

Well, sure enough, she came over one day and peed on Maxx's pad that we had laying outside. Earl went over, knocked on the door, and nicely asked that they please not allow their dog to do her business on our lot. So now he won't speak to us! Why? I don't know...maybe he thinks we're lying, that his dog can do no wrong or maybe he's embarrassed and the only way he can deal with it is through anger.

Of course, this situation could have been totally prevented if they'd just followed the pet rules of the park, but there are people who think the rules don't apply to them. It's unfortunate, but it's true...we run into it all the time, and not just with pet issues.

It's been raining all day so far and is dark and dreary...glad we got our shed finished when we did! Hopefully, the weather tomorrow will be better.

We moved over to our permanent spot on Sunday. We now have a great view out our dining and living room windows of the mountains instead of another RV! And, for the moment at least, there is no one in the space to the other side of us. This spot is closer to US-60, so we do get more road noise, but it's not all that busy, especially at night when we're sleeping.

Chris & Pat Horst, Lazy Daze owners, came over from Phoenix to spend some time in Brenda. We had them over the first night to watch the Olympics and on Sunday we went to dinner with them at La Casa Del Ranchero in Quartzsite.

The shed that I'd ordered was delivered Monday afternoon. Yesterday, we drove into Quartzsite to pick up the stuff we'll need to put it together: a couple of sheets of plywood for the floor (which we took over to Mike & Mary's place to cut), tie down wires, gloves, and miscellaneous hardware. Today, we start the process of putting the shed together!

We also bought some jacks to put underneath the fifth wheel just as a precautionary measure in case the tires loose pressure over the summer.