Taking the Quads for a Ride

Now that we are getting back into a groove with our trips to Payson, we have started making plans for changes we want to make this year.  The top priority items are interior painting, door trim/baseboards, and crawlspace insulation.  Laurie will be doing much of the painting and trim with some of her planned extended stays at the house and we hope to be able to work on the insulation using some of Mike's vacation time.  But for now, we are just enjoying the weekends and getting the house back to a settled state.

Speaking of that, we decided to change our temporary front window paper shades with another temporary solution.  When Matt and Danielle moved in, they put up tension rods in the spare bedroom and den windows with sheets as a shade.  We have been waiting until the painting is done to put up real shades, but the paper ones on the front window are losing their adhesiveness.  So we bought another tension rod and put up a sheet.  Now the room has a little color.  We also livened up the back deck by purchasing a couple of outside deck boxes to replace the totes we have been using out there for storage.

The red sheet adds a splash of color to our main room

This deck box is a much needed improvement over our age-old tote

We decided to get one more deck box to hold the chair cushions and some covers.  The small tote is for Zena's stuff.

Our quads had been at Four Seasons Motorsports since we dropped them off on our last trip.  Mike received a call on Friday about replacing the battery on one of the units, but no indication as to when they would be done.   Since Four Seasons is closed Sunday and Monday, we wanted to see if we could get them back instead of waiting another two weeks.  So before it got too late on Saturday, Mike called to check on the status.  He was told they were done and went down to pick them up.  Once they were back at the house, we took them on a short trip up the trails behind our neighborhood just to see how they ran.  They both worked much better than before.

This weekend was another windy one, so Mike could not take care of the dead grass with his propane torch.  Hopefully we will have calmer weather one of these weekends, but he was able to cut the grass in the front and do some cleanup in the yard.  The grass is mostly weeds, but definitely looks better when cut.  He also set up the water timers for the front and back since the temperatures are staying above freezing and there has not been much rain.

Mike went to the Payson MVD Monday to finish the registration on the quad we got from Laurie's dad since it now has the street legal components.  Now both vehicles can be taken on and off road.  Later that morning, we took the quads down to Country Club drive near the golf course and went west, just to see what was out there.  We did not want to do any off road stuff yet as we still do not have helmets, but the countryside was beautiful and the quads rode nicely on the mostly paved roads.  We looked at maps later to see what roads we could take back in that area.  We found some that loop back to the trails behind our neighborhood and some that will take us to the East Verde river.  Can't wait to get helmets and make one of those trips.

We left a little earlier on Monday so we could get back to the valley in time to go to the movies with a friend of ours whose husband is out of town.  We saw "God is not Dead" which was a wonderful movie.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/02/14-4/14/14: $6
Remodeling expense to date: $40,025

More Power Captain

Mike went back to Hawaii the last week in March for work.  He came back late on Friday night and we left first thing Saturday for Payson.  Since he had to work some overtime while traveling, he took both Monday and Tuesday off to extend our stay.

We didn't accomplish much in Payson this weekend, however we did get a new power source.  We bought a good sized generator to use for the workshop (right now it is not hooked up for electricity) and to have as a backup if we lose town power.  We unboxed it, installed the wheel kit and then gave it gas and oil.  Right out of the box, it ran like a champ.  We took it back to the workshop and hooked up lights and a power tool.  It did not even put a dent in its performance.  Mike thinks it may be a little loud, but much preferable to running a slew of extension cords across the yard.

Big enough to run 7000 Watts (8750 Watt peak) of power

Mike wanted to burn some of the dead grass with his new toy (aka propane torch), but it was too windy.  We will have to wait for a calmer weekend.

We went to the Payson MVD to title the quad we got from Laurie's dad and it is now licensed for off-roading.  We still need to add the street legal parts before we can get it registered for regular road use.  After getting the off-road tags, we took a test ride down the forest roads which run behind our neighborhood.  We did not go too far as we don't have helmets yet.

We were given a recommendation to use Four Seasons Motorsports in Rye to have the quads serviced.  We knew it had been awhile since Laurie's dad's quad was serviced and we were not 100% sure when the last time the quad we bought was serviced.  Four Seasons is not open on Sunday or Monday, but since we were going back Tuesday, we were able to schedule a time to drop off both ATVs on the way home.  We were even able to leave our trailer there so we didn't have to tow it back to Gilbert.  Hopefully they will be done by the next time we come up.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 3/17/14-4/01/14: $595
Remodeling expense to date: $40,019