Buying stuff.
We keep a mop and broom hanging in our half bath, as a convenient place to keep these long tools. They hang on the wall with Command Broom and Mop Grippers, available from Amazon. They are mounted using self-adhesive Command Strips, so can be installed and removed without drilling any holes or damaging the wall at all.
Very handy.
Back to our regularly scheduled blog posts, with RV modifications on Mondays, travel on Tuesdays, campgrounds on Wednesdays, and attractions on Thursdays and Fridays.
When staying in deserts or other places with low humidity, we use a humidifier to make us more comfortable. It lives on our bathroom counter (or stored in the closet when in more humid places):
It is important to only use distilled water with the humidifier, to avoid greasy steam. For a long while we purchased jugs of distilled water from grocery stores, but that gets expensive and a hassle after a while.
So we later bought a water distiller to take tap water and distill it:
We fill this with tap water, and it effectively boils it and captures the evaporation as distilled water, dripping it into a jug, that we can then pour into the humidifier. It takes about three hours to make a jug of water, but it has a timer to turn it off when it’s done, leaving a little water in the bottom to make it easier to clean up. One jug per day is enough to be able to keep the humidifier running all day.
We’d rather be in places with a comfortable level of humidity, but we do enjoy deserts, and would rather too low humidity than too high (and yes, we do have a dehumidifier for such places too). It’s good to have tools to be able to make such places more comfortable.
While most of the posts on this blog are about modifications, travel, campgrounds, and attractions, I sometimes post about other topics. This is a summary of those posts from 2024. (See also those from 2023 and those from 2022.) These posts have the special category (with earliest or latest posts at the top).
As with previous summaries, for each I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details.
Third anniversary of buying our motorhome, with an updated tour of the interior:
U-Haul to move stuff from a storage unit to a shed:
ENGWE Y600 830W electric scooter:
Follow Sinclair Trails on Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Micro.blog, Facebook, YouTube, and more:
Preminder app for iPhone helps remind you when to book RV parks:
We visited McGinn’s PistachioLand Home of the World’s Largest Pistachio. A fun roadside attraction that we saw in passing a couple of years ago, but got around to visiting this time.
PistachioLand:
Nutastic!
Inside cupboards and in the half bath we have compact motion-activated LED rechargeable lights, that are magnetically mounted to a self-adhesive patch, so they can be easily removed and recharged via USB. These lights have a switch to toggle between off, on, and auto; we leave them set to auto, so they come on via motion.
Convenient to illuminate in cupboards, and also in the half bath, so we don’t need to turn on the ceiling lights. In that bathroom, we have one mounted on the wall and one under the cabinet, above the sink.
We visited Shields Date Garden in Indio, California, to have brunch, explore their garden, and browse their store.
Firstly we went to their restaurant, the Café at Shields, for brunch:
I had the Churro Waffle, and Jenn had the Beef Sopes:
There was live music (can’t really see him, but a guy playing a guitar):
After lunch, we explored The Walk, a garden path that winds through the date farm, with biblical statuary:
Ladders formerly used to harvest dates (nowadays they just use cherry pickers):
Then we watched their film about date growing and harvesting in the Romance Theatre (you can watch it on YouTube):
We perused their shop:
We bought a couple of date samplers, plus some Cactus Candy (that we’ve enjoyed elsewhere):
Finally, we got a date shake to share; it was very tasty:
A worthwhile visit in the Palm Springs area.
We had some extra shelves added in several cupboards in our motorhome, but they just had a bare wood surface. To make them a little nicer, and not quite so slippery, I added some self-adhesive velvet flocking liner to them:
Simple and easy.
Our water pump was randomly cutting out. I determined that the power connections were loose, so decided to replace the wire nuts with Wago ones, which are easier to use, and hopefully more reliable.
The pump, with boring wire nuts:
Replaced with Wago wire nuts:
We bought electric bikes a couple of years ago, which we mostly enjoyed, but Jenn didn’t find her one very comfortable, so in due course we sold it, with the idea of replacing it with a trike or something.
A while back we had the idea to try an electric scooter instead, as a more compact alternative.
After some research, we decided to buy a ENGWE Y600 830W electric scooter (see that link for the price and stats).
One reason we chose this model is that it comes with a seat, but it can be removed and replaced with a foot guard, if you always want to stand while riding. We wanted both options; it’s easy to both stand and sit while riding.
Here are some photos of unboxing it:
The assembled scooter:
It folds up fairly small, with the seat and handlebars folding down:
And easily fits in the back of our truck:
Charging port:
Fold down seat post latch:
Fold down handlebars lever and lock:
Brake, head and tail light switch, turn signals, horn:
Display with gear, speed, odometer (or other values), and battery level, plus power and mode buttons and throttle lever; a second display with the battery voltage and key:
For now we have kept my ebike, and have the scooter as a second option. So either we each ride one, or I can quickly get the scooter out when exploring the campground or taking out the trash, etc. The scooter isn’t as useful as the bike, since it doesn’t have any cargo capacity (like a trash bag or when picking up packages), and doesn’t have any exercise benefits, but being more compact and easy to set up are big benefits.
In due course we’ll decide whether to keep my bike and buy a trike for Jenn, or sell my bike and get a second scooter, or just keep both options, or some other variation.
As mentioned, we bought a shed for our Washington home, to store stuff we want to keep for the future, but not carry around the country with us (storage space even in a 40 foot motorhome is limited!).
We got the shed from Home Depot, a 10 x 8 foot wooden shed with shingles on the roof. The purchase included delivery and installation, since we would not be home at the time; we wanted to have it ready for when we arrived.
Here’s the shed as installed, unpainted:
With the doors open:
Inside:
I caulked the joints:
Then Jenn and I painted it, starting with the main color:
And the trim:
Nice.