We had a good moving day to Carlsbad, NM.
Well, it’s moving day today. We are moving to Carlsbad and its a bit colder there. It will be much colder tomorrow again, and looks like it will snow as well, and the low temp tomorrow is in the teens.
I’m using Bella’s computer to write here as I was able to access icloud online via browser. It is slow, but it kind of works. Well I used it for a few minutes and then Bella woke up, so I got five lines. But at least now I know I can use any computer to access some of my iCloud stuff. I’m writing with my phone now. Bella is up. Bia is up. School work is going. We will be in good shape today to leave at our usual time.
Carol did laundry in the morning while we got things ready to go, and while the girls finished school. We got our normal routine, with the exception of the heated water hose, which I’m storing in the back of the truck. I also had not setup the extra wooden supports, so I didn’t have those to put away, and none of our outside stuff was out, so it was faster overall. We were rolling out of our spot around 10:45am.
We had an easy and good drive overall. We hit some strong winds at one point but it was not too bad and was just for a bit of time. Most of the drive we had sun, and as we got closer to Carlsbad and the Guadalupe Mountains, there were massive storm clouds over the mountains. We felt like we were going to get hit, but we actually drove right under two heavy dark cloud areas, and only got a few snow flurries, thankfully. It was very nice to see all the mountain ranges between Las Cruces and El Paso (TX), and then even cooler to get to Carlsbad. The Guadalupe Mountains are huge and very cool looking, with some massive rock (at least it looks like rock) fronts popping up from the mountain. I’m glad the weather allowed us to see that.
Our campground was, once again, right off the main road, so it was easy to get to and find. They were all ready for us when we got there, and they have a new section which looked empty, and is where they have us, which is nice. We don’t have many neighbors, the site is fairly level, we only needed to make a minor adjustment, all the connections are new, and the best part…. The wifi is pretty awesome! There’s good connection at our spot, and the speed is great. Carol and I focused on getting the essentials hooked up ASAP, as it was about to start raining, or snowing. No issues getting setup quick, and we beat whatever weather was coming. When Carol extended the slideout, it did not seem to go all the way out, so I had her bring it back in and do it again, and it went all the way the second time. I think the lubrication with the silicone spray definitely helped, and we just need to watch and make sure it is going all the way in and out, and we keep it lubricated. Once we were all unhooked, I took the hitch out of the truck, and Carol went to the store.
Carol had tried the internet before she left and told me it was super fast, so I decided I’d try to fix my computer one more time with a good internet connection. As I followed the Mac’s restore procedures for when you don’t have an OS, which allows you to reinstall one over the internet, the program gave me a message saying my hard drive had a critical hardware problem and would not be usable. Oh crap! Well, at least I got confirmation it was a hardware failure. I do remember seeing something about a few MacBook Pros that were having SSD drives replaced, and later I looked it up and mine was in the list. I also remember that Ricardo was booting his Mac from an external drive, so I chatted with him quick and decided to give it a try. Carol was at Walmart, so I had her buy the fastest (not necessarily the biggest in storage space) external SSD drive she could find there. She ended up getting a 1TB external SSD, usb-C, 3.1 Gen1 drive, and it was like over $170. That was a bit more than what I thought we could find, but…. I told her to bring it, and if it worked great, I’d keep it, if not, I’d return it. Well… here I am using my computer to write this. I just had to plug the external drive to the usb-C port of the Mac, mine has two so the power cable was in the other, do a recovery boot, connect to the wifi, wait for it to load the installer, use the disk util program to erase, format and partition the new drive, then go to the installer and let it use that drive to install MacOS BigSur. And voila, within an hour my Mac was back in operation. I did not do a restore, but instead a fresh install as most of my files are in iCloud anyway, so as soon as I connected with iCloud, most of my items came right back to the desktop. Sweet! I’m a happy camper again 🙂 hahahah
As soon as we arrived here and were setup, the girls were inside playing. They are playing some modeling pretend thing. Bia was teaching Bella how to walk as a model, with books on her head, and trying to not drop them. Bella was also making up her own outfits with pieces of clothing that may not usually go together, and she made it all work. They would walk around the trailer trying to not drop any of the books they had on their heads. Hahahah it was fun to watch. They played like that for a good 2 hours.
Then, I had them make their beds, and I helped them. I made our bed as well and put some of the things that were on the couches away, so when Carol arrived with the groceries we would not have stuff all over. Feels good to have the trailer fully setup, with all the support so nothing shakes, water and sewer all connected and ready for cold nights, and everything inside put away. When the girls were done making their beds, they started playing with some books, coloring, etc. which was right around when Carol arrived. Carol arrived and started dinner, and I got the drive and worked on my computer. Carol cooked a lot of stuff tonight, stuff for tomorrow and such, and made rice, corn and chicken for us for tonight. We called Judy as well as it was her birthday… happy birthday Judy!
After dinner, we started showers, putting things away and the bedtime routine. I was working on continuing the setup of my computer. The girls read a little bit and were in bed by 9. Carol and I wrapped up some things, and were out within an hour or two.
We had a good moving day, getting some things done and getting setup comfortably in our spot for the next few days. I feel we are better prepared for a colder day tomorrow, and with my computer back and good internet, we are in good shape.