Didn’t spend much time in Quartzsite…just one night. That did give me time to get a pizza at Silly Al’s though. Had pizza for dinner and then cut the giant pie into 3 & 1/2 more meals to freeze. It’s a freakin’ delicious pizza. Fresh, spicy meats, crunchy peppers and onions, tasty olives. Yum.
And then it was time to head to Tucson. I have stayed at my friend’s place there as a paying guest at one of the two built RV spots just down the hill from his home. But this year I was going with a purpose, and that was to help him improve the electrical in his garage. He knew I’d did some electrical contracting like 25 years ago but just wanted my help with his setup.
It only takes 3.5 hours to get there so it was a lazy driving day. Left the RV park at 11 and just enjoyed the scenery…such as it was. But then, off in the distance, around 45 miles from Phoenix, found this wreck…
This is the 2nd time this trip where there was an accident on the other 2 lanes of the freeway leaving my lanes clear. Got lucky. Here’s how long the backup was, and I couldn’t see all of it…
You don’t often realize how many trucks are on the road until there’s a backup. This seems excessive to me and if we had a planned and normal train system like most of the rest of the world, would be unnecessary. Really a huge waste of resources when trains could carry most of this cargo efficiently and at less cost. IF we had the tracks.
Well, enough bitching. Miles later finally saw the end of the backup and turned off onto the Phoenix bypass highway that goes to Gila Junction. I use this bypass to avoid having to drive through Phoenix though in years past, it wasn’t that big of a deal if I got there during the non-rush hour time frame. It does cut some time and mileage off the trip.
Because the actual driveway is too steep to John’s place, I have to take a partially paved back road and as expected, in the 4 years since I went along that road and cut back the bushes, which the road’s owner complained about, they’ve started to impinge on the roadway and I got several scratches to my paint that run the full length of the RV. Dammit. I hope they are only surface scratches and can be buffed out. I don’t know I’m no paint expert.
And here’s John’s place and the garage in question in the foreground. You can see why I like staying here and don’t mind what he charges me for the privilege (within reason).
And here’s the garage and some of the work we’ve done. Its his garage so I only did what he asked. Like I would have lowered the outlets down to 48″ or even near 24″ from the floor but he wants them high like that. He had all this scrap Romex on the floor as a tripping hazard so I roll it up and hung it from the wall. In the back there you see the new subpanel we installed. Took out an older GE panel. The original owner had wired it with 240 Vac but with Hot-Hot-NEU…no ground wire, which isn’t code. Probably wasn’t code when installed. But doubt it was inspected. Used Blk-Wht-Grn too. The run is to a power panel on the pole down near my RV, so like 75 feet. Not something we wanted to dig up to add another wire to give 240 Vac that would pass code.
So we took out the old panel and bought new. And used the old wire run to provide just 120 Vac to the garage. He has no plans on making the garage a workshop or anything. Just a few outlets, the garage door opener and the overhead and outside lights are the only things running through this box.
If you are a pro electrician you can see that 2 retired guys that haven’t done this kind of work for a couple decades can look like amateurs. We did re-use the older outlet and switch boxes John has had with him for many decades or were in the garage when he moved in 5 years ago and they were a bit difficult to use but they’re in and working.
We were able to use some of the electrical parts he’s bought over the decades he’s been carrying for many years…haven’t found a cover for that junction box yet. Having that 3X junction box and switch box solved a problem of joining all those runs from the outside lights and inside outlet boxes on that side of the garage though.
Bought new outlets where needed and the outside patio light fixtures are all new. Modern LEDs with proximity sensors. Also added a covered CGFI outlet to the outside wall next to the garage door.
Got everything all wired in, tested good, and next up John is buying a mini-split AC to install on the wall after insulating and sheetrocking the walls and ceiling. The AC will be for his truck during the brutally hot summer. Don’t really need it to be a heatpump as the winters here are mild. The last owner had also run another set of wires from the power panel up to the garage for a welder. We’re going to use that wiring to power the mini-split with it’s own breaker box as it may need to use 240 Vac. Still working out the details on that setup.
We finished the first phase last week, took a break to watch all the football games, and next week we’ll work on the mini-split install. Or maybe we’ll start this week if he buys one soon. I’m hoping the Ducks end up playing for the national collegiate football championship and the Seahawks end up in the Superbowl. It could happen!
After that, we’re going to go visit some museums in the area. I have been to several of them but not to any of the aircraft or missile sites and I’m looking forward to that a couple weeks from now.
So stay tuned to those adventures. Thanks for reading and yes, I know I’m kinda slowing down with posting articles to my blog but it has been 21 years I’ve been doing this and it seems to get put on the back burner on occasion.
Anyway, THANKS for reading. You can comment too if you’d like to yell at me for something.