One Project Finished, What Else Are We Doing

I have never been so busy than this winter when being down south.

One of the longer lasting projects was updating all valances in the coach. The 20-year-old ones with their baroc-style tussels hanging from the center wasn't quite to our taste. 

So we had purchased fabrics, some thin foam padding and the necessary tools.

Finally, one-by-one I finished all the valances in the coach.

The result is very nice as it gives off a much more updated and modern impression when entering the rig.

I have also continued changing the cabinet doors from being hinged on top to being hinged at the bottom. However, I had to order more latches, so there are still 2 more cabinet doors to fix.

Bea has taken to her artwork and developed quite an impressive way to work with her acrylic colors. Or what do you think about her latest piece?

A few weeks ago we visited fellow campers at the Valley of Names. While being there, they served us great food from their smoker BBQ. Those hamburgers were just delicious.

Indeed they were so nice that we went ahead and ordered a smoker BBQ for ourselves.

I found it at Walmart and ordered it online. It's called "PIT BOSS" and, as so many other items these days, is manufactored in China. It's great for hot-smoking of meat and fish, but one can also bake a cake or pie and it is even great for regular BBQing.

It needs to be connected to 120V AC, and since it barely uses electric power it is great for boondocking, as it can run on the power generated by solar panels and inverted to 120V. In fact, the only power it needs is igniting the wood pellets and turning the auger which transports the pellets into the burn chamber. Temperature ranges fom 180F (smoking) to 500F. 

Our first try was a nice pork loin, which first got smoked then finished at around 220F. The result was mouth-watering.

Next I baked chocolate cookies on it, and also those turned out great. The latest was some steaks which we devoured today. This thing is worth every penny!

The Pit Boss weighs about 40lbs and has 2 side handles for moving it around. Walmart sells it at $227 plus tax. Great investment as it is even cheaper than a Weber BBQ.

And what about the weather? Not a drop of rain since we left home on October 19. But January was a bit cooler than we remember from previous years. Some cold wind from the north made being outside in the shade a tad too cold. But now we have February and temps are rising quickly. We topped out at 27C today and expect 30C tomorrow. A heat wave which will last until Saturday when we will be at around 24C again.

Concluding this posting, I also have a little surprise. I have mentioned it earlier, but here it is again: A cactus was planted by friends around 20 years ago. It is the only cactus around here. Last spring I took too little pieces of it with us home and we got it into regular potting soil. They started growing faster than I had expected. When we returned to the desert in October we took one of the off-springs and brought it back to the desert. I planted it beside its parent cactus and kept watering both the big one and the little one. And what can I say, both are doing really well, looking fresh and green and are sprouting more arms.