Road Trip (Palm Springs to Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Retirement trip number two. Home for less than 24 hours from Door County, Wisconsin, and hopped on a plane to fly to Palm Springs, California.

Friend Dave had spent the month of January (snowbird) in warm, sunny Palm Springs. He asked if I would join him on a road trip back to Minnesota.

From cold to desert to cold in a week!

Spent a day in Palm Springs hiking. Dave had been doing a lot of adventuring and shared some of his favorite treks with me. We did three hikes in one day!

We did not plan a definite route or timeframe back to Minnesota but I needed to get back by Saturday as I was scheduled to work at the hardware store on Sunday. The only sure thing was that Dave wanted to visit a friend and cousins in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A major winter storm was forecast to pass right between us in Palm Springs and Minneapolis-St. Paul so we were going to have to be flexible as the storm's path kept being revised. We ended up going north through Colorado rather than east through Oklahoma/Kansas.

As is my custom now, I put together a video montage of the trip. It is available by clicking here.

A short recap and itinerary (though I won't guarantee my memory is serving me correctly):

• departed Palm Springs Monday, 01/31
• departed Santa Fe, New Mexico Thursday, 02/03
• departed Colby, Kansas Friday, 02/04
• arrived in Minneapolis-St. Paul Friday 02/04

We were successful in missing the winter storm. I love driving across parts of the United States. There is so much diversity. And with each season there are different things to see and do.

DIY - condo style

Living in a condo has greatly scaled down my DIY projects. That was intentional. So this project is small but one I've had on the short list for a while.

In my kitchen, there is only one lower cabinet other than under the sink area. It was sort of setup for pots and pans but wasn't very efficient or convenient for holding them or getting them in and out.

Of course, the solution was found on Amazon: a two-level pullout shelf system. It arrived in less than a week.

This photo is the before with my trusty assistant who appears to be laying down on the job. Maggie was super good at blocking any of the work that had to happen inside the cabinet :-)

The parts

The instructions said to be sure to align the center of the template to the center of the cabinet. The problem was that the template didn't have a center line.

I can measure and I can do math but it would have been way more simple if the template had a center line.

The other hiccup was the base (the part with the sliders) also did not have a center line. Measuring inside the cabinet was not simple.

As you can see, I did get everything assembled and working. Now the pots, pans and even lids are easy to reach.

My assistant ended up in her house while papa used the drill.

Door County Wisconsin

My retirement on January 21 was rapidly followed by a trip to Door County Wisconsin with my friend Jill, Penny (Jill's sister-in-law) and Maggie (the cat).

I have created another trip video. This one is here...Door County video

Jill, Maggie and I drove to Door County on Saturday, January 22. Door County is all the way across Wisconsin. It borders Lake Michigan and is a peninsula that creates the east coast of Green Bay. If you hold your hand in front of your face palm out, your thumb is Door County.

The trip was a chance for Jill to experience Door County in the winter. Her family has spent summer-time visits here for years. Our accommodations were the same home that the Rendalls have stayed in. It is perfectly located on the peninsula right on the Lake Michigan shore.

We were able to relax, eat out, shop and hike without issue as most establishments and parks were open at least part of the day. We even ate at a supper club that Jill and Penny had never been to!

The winter weather was what you would expect....very cold. There was only one snowy day.

Maggie was a great traveler. She enjoyed exploring new surroundings and even caught a critter in the house! Her favorite spot was on Penny's legs.

This was the first of a series of post-retirement travels. More to come.

Sometimes it is the little things (home decor)

 Not big changes but two little decor updates.

Swapped out the incandescent under microwave bulbs with LED bulbs. Brighter. Match under cabinet lighting. Saves energy.

Swapped the round coffee table for a round storage ottoman. I really like the color and having some pattern in the living room. I'm thinking the growing number of Maggie's toys have a new home when guests come over.

What I did this summer

I'll cut to the chase. Over the summer, the flooring in my new condo was flooded. The condo I purchased at the end of March came with an engineered wood flooring that was only 2 years old.

By August what I thought was a "feature" of the flooring, was actually something going wrong. It was definitively discovered when I had to hire an electrician to fix a GFI outlet that wasn't working. Turns out it was working exactly as it was supposed to. The floor outlets in the GFI's line were FULL of water. The water was shorting out the outlets. The GFI saved the place from completing shorting out and who knows what else.

From that discovery it was weeks of various contractors trying to figure out what and where the water was coming from.

Minneapolis and Minnesota for that matter had a very hot and humid summer. A top 10 for heat. I won't bore you with the 5 or 6 visits by 4 different companies, the trying to convince the building managers to take it seriously, and the final determination that there was a blockage in the building condensation line below my unit.

My unit is the bottom of a 27 story building. The HVAC condensation lines all converge and take a 90 degree turn to travel across the lobby below me. Somewhere between my and the final outlet, a clog was backing up everyone's condensation into my unit.

My wood flooring absorbed all that water over the summer when we had these hot, humid days and everyone's air conditioning was running above me.

I had a mold test done. The results came back as non-toxic everyday mold. When the damaged floor was removed, they did not find mold. Thank goodness. They also disinfected the floor and ran a high-powered dehumidifier.

The building is paying for the investigation and remediation including removing the damaged flooring and all the wet underlayment.

State Farm, my insurance, has denied my claim for the replacement flooring. The claim adjuster is saying it is seepage over time and therefore not covered. It is certainly not seepage. The time element is the time it took to figure out what was going on. If anyone knows a lawyer that handles insurance or condo coverage, please get in touch. I am serious.

I could not wait for the insurance to get resolved and proceeded to get new flooring. I hated the bare concrete and it was very cold to walk on.

The following photos are in reverse chronological order. I would rather remember the outcome (except the insurance part) than what I have dealt with all summer and fall.

The new flooring and furniture back in with Maggie supervising.

Cleaning the new flooring before bringing back all the furniture.

The new flooring. It is not this golden. The color matches the cabinets more. The flooring is oak and the cabinets are maple.

The new flooring going in. Those radiators along the window wall were very tricky.

After the existing flooring was removed, an industrial dehumidifier was used (that large stainless steel thing near the cabinets). It was loud.

The previous flooring was all removed from the main room. The wet is the disinfectant that was applied and allowed to dry.

So many different companies and people came through trying to figure out the issue.

For mine and Maggie's safety, the main room was sealed off during the remediation.

The previous flooring and the corner where the flooding came from.

I recorded this inch of water in the electrical outlet. This occurred in less than 24 hours on our last hot and humid day in late September. 

The water collected in two of the floor outlets causing the GFI to stay tripped.

Root River State Trail

The Root River State Trail in southeastern Minnesota has been on my list for quite some time. My friend Bud and I got to ride (bike) the trail this past Friday and Saturday.

An easy drive from the Twin Cities down along the Mississippi River is a Fall adventure in itself. We stopped at Hanisch Bakery in Red Wing for breakfast and donuts for the road.

We arrived at the eastern end of the Root River Trail in Houston. The trail is a paved bike and walking path that is about 40 miles total from Houston to Fountain. It is primarily a rails-to-trails route and is very well maintained. The path crossed the Root River several times and has views of farms, crops and the driftless geology.

Friday was a bit drizzly and overcast but that didn't dampen (HA!) the ride too much. We were pretty much the only ones out on the trail. We road from Houston to Rushford and ate lunch in Rushford before returning to the vehicle.

From Houston to Lanesboro we drove along the same route we just biked. Are accommodations, The Guest Hus, were spot on. There was bike storage and an easy walk to the main downtown.

There was to be a bike event on Saturday so Lanesboro was busy. We ate pizza at a local bar because there wasn't any room anywhere else. We got to mix with some locals including a very friendly dog.

Saturday was sunny but not hot. The ride from Lanesboro to Peterson is very easy. There were many more other cyclers on this section. It is more popular and the weather was fantastic.

We passed a giant eagle's nest on the way out and on the way back two adult eagles were perched right near it. I can never get enough eagle sightings.

It was a great trip. Easy to do over a couple of days. We did end up with almost 60 miles of cycling but split over the two days made it enjoyable.

Click here is a short video of the two days.

Home Décor - condo style

 

#1 You may recognize this piece from 3112. It hung in front of the window at the bottom of the stairs. It was given to me by the realtor that handled my purchase of the house. He didn't know where it came from but it was perfect for the house.

I decided to take it with me as a remembrance of 3112 and of 30 years in that house.

I wanted it to be in front of the wall of windows in the condo but not to hang from the ceiling.

So JT the Amazing made a stand for the stained glass frame to sit in. And the frame straddles the radiator. In addition to being at the perfect height, it allows me to position it along the window wall pretty much where ever I want.

#2 - I bought a real chest of drawers...some assembly required.

This isn't nearly as big a deal. But I now have a real piece of furniture to put my jeans and shorts in.

You can't see from these photos but I chose this piece because the legs/feet match my metal bedframe perfectly, I like the darker wood look.

Above on the wall is a Boundary Waters and Quetico Provencial Park map that I had framed. It complements the BWCA tree wall decal backdrop to the bed.