RV Showers, Australian Locks and Earthquake Valves

I know I know.... I haven't written anything in a while.  As you can imagine we have stacks of boxes up to our eyeballs.  The recycling truck comes every other week at our new home and I am constantly trying to push as much out to the curb as possible.  Our neighbors probably think we are hoarders.  None the less, we are in a functioning state and only missing a few key items, remotes, the legs that go onto the TV to make it stand, and the one that really bugs me, the glass shades that go onto one of our lamps.

If I ran the world of real estate, and I don't, I would put some new rules in place.  Before you purchase a car you get to test drive it and a car isn't nearly the investment that a house is.  I think you should be allowed to live in the house you are proposing to buy for a couple of days at least to find out all the quirks the house has.  And yes, I understand there may be some logistical problems with this, I'm just stating my fantasy world of real estate.

For instance, we have found out that our master shower is about the size of one you would find in an RV.  If you want to shave your legs in this shower you have to have your bum up against one wall, then get your foot up to the height of your waist where there is a small shelf to rest your foot on.  The other option is to try to bend to the floor, however there is no where to point the water so it just rinses all your shaving cream off before you ever get the blade to your leg.  I've told Ed that we either need to raise the shower head by 2 feet, or lower the floor by 2 feet.  However, what they didn't skimp on was the bath tub.  It's deep and huge and in just a few years I'm sure neither Ed or I will be able to lift our legs high enough to get in or out of it and we'll be calling Terry Bradshaw to replace it with a walk in tub.

The other thing that I'm having a hard time getting used to are the locks.  They all turn to the left instead of the right, which is wrong.  You know how the toilets in Australia swirl in the opposite direction than the US, I wonder if the locks came from Australia.  Either that or the house was built by a left handed person.  Or maybe it was a left handed Australian?  Whoever it was, I think my lefty mom is going to feel right at home here.

Last week we had a gardener come out to the house to trim up our palm tree.  I have never maintained a palm tree before and watched as the guy put a rope around his waist and around the tree, then scaled up to trim off the dead branches.  So, um, yeah.... I'm not doing that.  However, on his way out from our backyard he bumped our gas meter.  Here's a California lesson for you.  All of the gas meters have an earthquake emergency shut off valve on them.  If you shake or bump your gas fixture it will shut your gas off to your house.  Makes sense doesn't it?  But then you have me and Ed out there trying to figure out how to switch the gas back on.  For those of you that don't know, Ed and I are two of the  least handy people you have ever met.  So after a post to the nextdoor app, we found out the problem was the earthquake valve.  Awesome!  How do you fix that?  Enter YouTube video.  I found a 2 minute video on how to reset your earthquake valve which was super easy.  Of course before we found that video Ed was out there flip levers and pushing buttons without knowing what they go to or what they will do... you know, as men do.  I can't speak for other women, but this woman has a healthy respect for gas and all things combustible.  So we got the gas back on, cooked dinner and figured all was well.  That is until we sent the kiddo's off to take their showers.

I was getting ready to enjoy the 15 minutes of silence that I get when I send the children to take their showers, (these are golden times).  The next thing I see is my naked son with his two hands covering his boy parts and telling me that the water won't heat up.  They were off the hook for the night for showers and the next day Ed fiddled with the water heater to no avail.  He ever downloaded the manual for our water heater, which really impressed me!  We have a tankless water heater so there is no pilot light to relight.  After a few failed attempts we resolved ourselves to calling a plumber and discovered that we are probably too stupid to own a house.  After the best plumber in CA came out here we found the source of the problem was that Ed had flipped a lever that piped gas to our water heater.  So we moved the lever back to the open position, got some hot water going and the plumber left without accepting any kind of payment from us.  And yes, he has our business for good now.

We are not the only ones getting used to different things in the new house.  The dogs are having their first experience with a sliding glass door.  At the old house there was a back door that they couldn't see through.  This sliding glass door thing is a constant source of entertainment for me.  The first couple of days I watched as first the big dog came running at full speed only to crash into the glass.  Then just because she's dumb as a brick, the little dog did the exact same thing.  The next time I witnessed this I was outside with both dogs and Lucy our cat had found a sunny spot just inside the door and was lounging there.  The dogs caught sight of her and again come running full speed and smacked their heads on the glass door.  The dogs took a step back and shook their heads, the cat didn't budge but continued her glare at them.  Last night I watched as Tucker saw his reflection in the glass window and started barking at that dog outside.  Both of these dogs might have concussions now, I hope they don't turn into doggie serial killers due to head trama.

The last couple of things I'm having a hard time getting used to are the size of the hawks around here.  I swear they are the size of Tucker!

I also sometimes forget I'm in California, since we are in a farm area, the landscape sort of looks the same.  That is until you see a corn field surrounded by palm trees.  My brain tells my eyes, "That can't be right, are you sure that's what we're seeing?"

Lastly I'll post a few pictures of the family football toss.  Ed took the kids into the backyard to toss the football around last night, which just thrilled me to the bone that the entire family was doing something non-video related.

Into California

After getting on the road out of Reno it was no time at all before we were crossing the state line into California.  Once across the state border it was just a hop skip and a jump to Donner Memorial State Park.  We parked the car in a shady spot for the dogs, turned on the remote AC and cracked the windows.

Once inside we were greeted with a stuffed brown bear in the entry way.  Directly after that some rangers pointed us to a small theater where a movie had just started about the Donner Party.  The movie sort of summarized everything we had just learned in our audio book.  The main difference I noticed was our audio book focused more on a woman Sarah Graves Fosdick, where the movie covered the entire party.

It was a nice birthday present to myself, being the history lover that I am, to first hear about these items and then see them in person.  The one that stood out to me the most was a little doll.  In the book the settlers were crossing the Salt Lake desert with salt/sand blowing into their faces day and night.  They walked for over 24 hours with blistering heat in the day and freezing temperatures at night.  And all of this was done while infested with flea's, lice and bedbugs.  At night to protect their children from the freezing temperatures parents would sit across from each other with a blanket over their heads and the children in the center so the kids would be protected.

In order to lessen the burden on the oxen, which were growing weaker by the day from lack of food, water and extreme use, the travelers started to throw out unnecessary items from the covered wagons.  One grown man sobbed when he was told he had to throw out his rolling pin that belonged to his mother.  Then came the little girl, Patty Reed, she had a very small 4" doll that she was told she had to throw out.  Instead she hid it away inside her dress and managed to take it all the way to California with her.  A replica of that doll was on display here.  But I got distracted and didn't get a picture of it.

Outside there was a statue, the shaft of the statue represents the depth of the snow which was 22 feet.  They placed the sculptures atop this pedestal so that no matter how deep the snow got, the people will always be seen and remembered.  Those are my two monsters there to give you an idea of height.

Once back on the road we were all getting hungry for some lunch.  In an attempt to find something healthy I ended up doubling back toward Lake Tahoe, persuaded by my friend Google with promises of a salad bar just 13 miles behind me.  After traveling up the highway for about 8 miles my car finally got a signal to it which then readjusted the GPS and that's when I found out the salad bar exit had already been passed.  So onto the next exit where we were able to get back on the highway going the other direction only to pass the exit again because my GPS lagged.  Yup, we ended up at Burger King.  Our Burger King ?server? was curt, rude and snarky.  We ate chicken fingers drenched in grease and french fries from the previous Tuesday.

For the record, I do realize how princess'y I sound after describing the horrid conditions of the Donner party, only to start bitching about no GPS signal in my air conditioned car and greasy food that was served to me.  In my defense, and my husband will vouch for this, I never claimed to be anything other than an unapologetic princess.  #irony

The misery of being stuck in a car for 3-4 days with 2 dogs and 2 kids was weighing on my nerves, as I'm sure it was on every other breathing thing inside that vehicle.  The car was so pigged out, it was like driving around in the back end of a dump truck.  The boy was begging me to take it to a car wash, but I resisted just wanting to get to our destination.  The dogs were hot and restless, the kids were arguing and with my Bluetooth not working I have nothing to listen to except the news, and holy hell is that a bummer these days!

But just over that hill, as you descend into Sacramento you start to see the first Palm Trees.  A smile washes over my face, the sun is bright, there are flowering bushes dividing the highway everywhere, it's just so..... de-stressing.  Just past Sacramento you start seeing wide open spaces with rolling golden hills, then along the highway sporadic fruit orchards start to pop up, apricots, cherry, the vineyards make limited appearances.  Once we are passing through Contra Costa county there is a bridge going over some kind of shipping yard.  I don't know what inlet it is called, (yet), but I do know the effect going over water has on me.  It feels right, my heart skips a beat and for whatever reason I feel lighter in spirit.  What dirty car?  Who's kids are arguing?  It all falls away.

We rolled into Dublin just before dinner.  Ed wanted to take us out to dinner for my birthday, but the last thing I wanted was to get back into that car.  We ordered Chinese for me and the girl while daddy and the boy ordered a pizza.  The night was spent trying to straighten my body out and adjusting to apartment life.  

Yes you heard that right, until our housing situation is squared away we are 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats all living in a 2 bedroom apartment.  To top it off we are only allowed 2 pets and are trying to just smuggle the other 2 by until we're set on a place.  This means a lot of back parking garage potty walks.  Since I am writing this many days since this happened I can report that we are all on a nice schedule and as adjusted as 4 people can be in this situation.

Until next time I'll leave you with this arrival in California photo I'm captioning, 

Dog...."Oh, it's you again"

Cat....."Seriously?  WTF?"