We had reservations to be there Thursday through Sunday.  We were thinking of just going over on Thursday but another opportunity arose.  Our son’s girlfriend was having a birthday dinner in Fresno on Wednesday evening.  We thought we would hookup, drive up there, have dinner then head up the road a bit with the Madera WalMart in our sights.

And that is how it all went.  Our son said something about the Madera WalMart was in a bad part of town, actually he also said that all of Madera is a bad part of town.  We got there and found it not to be true.  We parked at the far end of the parking lot.  I went and checked with the manager and was given the green light.  Here is a rare picture of myself, the next morning with proof! (Roxie insisted that I was in this one):

On our way over to the Monterey area we normally pass through, or by, Los Banos.  Who knows what is interesting in Los Banos?  The Airstream dealer!  Toscanos.  We stopped in to look around and I wanted to discuss a few more things with their service department.  I also wanted to let them know that my modification to the wardrobe doors seemed to be successful so far.

One of the things that concerns me now that we have a larger trailer are grades.  Previously they were not too bothersome but with potentially 3000 more lbs. of weight behind us that is more to get up the hills.  I know that the westbound Pacheco Pass is not too bad.  There are sections of steep grade but then it levels out for a bit.  It is very much broken up into pieces.  The truck did fine.  I think I got down to 50mph sometimes.  The westbound traverse is the really long one but that wasn’t until Sunday.

As we were nearing Hollister it was close to lunch so we thought we would stop for a bite in the trailer.  I looked for a city park to pull up by and chow down.  We found one at the Dunne Memorial Park.  It was much cooler than the valley so eating in the trailer was very comfortable.

We made it to Marina Dunes RV in the early afternoon and backed into our TIGHT spot.  Things are a bit more tight now with 6′ more trailer!  However a longer trailer is easier to backup.  There were a few Airstreamers there already but more would show up on Friday.  That evening we took a walk to the beach which was under 1/2 mile away.  Here is Roxie looking thoughtfully at the sun:

Friday we decided we would be a bit touristy.  It has been a long time we have been to the Monterey Aquarium.  The last time we were in this area we did not go.  Going on a Friday was nice because the bulk of the visitors were school kids on field trips.  We signed up for a behind the scenes tour all about Jellyfish.  It was interesting and lengthy.  Here are some photos that Roxie took:

We continued the tourist theme by eating at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.  It was OK.  The food was not hot enough for Roxie’s tastes but it was sure nice to sit down!!

By Friday evening all the Airstreams were there, along with one non-Airstream.  So we all went around and visited each other.  Some were new acquaintances and some old.  Here are the photos of all the units:

Saturday was a real day of rest for us.  A real rarity.  We did, however, make it to the potluck that night for more Airstream camaraderie.

Sunday was the day we dread on a weekend.  That means the next day is a work day!  After retirement we won’t have to worry about that though (check my countdown at the top right of this page).  We took our time getting things ready because we didn’t want to head back to the heat.  I thought I might have a few issues getting out of our spot but it was surprisingly easy.

So back on the road.  I like to take different routes to and from a destination if I can.  However in this instance it would have been a bit more difficult.  We could have headed south on 101 and cut across 198.  However that stretch of 198 from about King City to Coalinga is not very recommended for a trailer.  I know there are some big hills at the west end and sharp curves at the east end of the stretch.  So we opted to go back over Pacheco Pass.

As it was on the leg to Marina we were going through Hollister at lunch time so we stopped at the same park but a different spot.  Nice and cool in the shade.  I also had an ulterior motive for Hollister.  Previous to the trip I had located a Car and RV wash there.  I thought it would be good to spray off any ocean spray.  On Google Streetview it looked like a pretty good spot.  Well it was a bit difficult for maneuvering.  Once I pulled in I knew I would have to back out on the street to get out.  C’est la vie!

After a bit of difficulty to get the spray flowing I was ready to rinse.  I wanted to get up as high as possible to get a better angle on the trailer.  So I got up on the back bumper of the truck facing the trailer.  I put my left foot up on the trailer hitch to get better leverage.  I got exactly the opposite.  The first thing that happened is my left foot slipped off the jack, this caused me to fall to the left.  I caught my left foot on the equalizer bar.  Whew!  That made my right foot slip off the bumper so now I was falling to the right!  This time I caught myself on the right equalizer bar. Double whew!  Oops, not done yet!  Now my left foot comes off the equalizer bar and I go down to the asphalt on my left side.

It didn’t hurt other than being embarrassing and getting my left side all wet.  Roxie’s expression was pretty funny.  She had this look of helplessness.  I got up and assessed myself and all seemed to be fine.  I never let go of the sprayer all the way down, trying to spare the trailer any damage.  I was wrong on both counts.  A few days later my thumb looked like this:

The trailer did not come out unscathed either:

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  I will leave you with a shot of the entire rig at a rest area:

Where will the next trip take us?  I know but am not saying, right now.

With the newer Airstreams I have seen, they have a blue LED at the power cord receptacle on the trailer.  I thought that was a great idea.  You can check right there that power is being fed to the trailer.  When we were looking for a new trailer I don’t remember thinking about that feature.  However, when we got our trailer I looked for it.  It wasn’t there!

Our trailer has the 50amp, dual A/C option.  I would not have probably purchased that option if I had the choice but we got a real good deal on the trailer.  It was unfortunate that it was not there.  So what to do?

Make my OWN! (well sort of)

I really like LED’s and wanted to do something with an LED.  In further research I did not know how to hook it into 110v and to light an LED without making some grandiose circuit.  In looking around at Chicken (Radio) Shack I found a solution.  A neon light.  They natively run on 110v.  They aren’t as efficient as LED but I don’t care when I am on shore power.

I know what I am going to use for an ‘idiot’ light but where to put it.  I needed access to 110v and want to be able to readily see it.  The solution was taken from running coax cable in our old trailer.  To do the coax I ran it through the refrigerator access door.  Opening that door you had access to the entire area behind the refrigerator to run the coax up the wall and out to the interior.

The added benefit of using the refrigerator access is that the refrigerator is there and therefore a 110v outlet.  Problem solved.

Here is the solution.  With the light off and then with the light (power) on.

Light Off

Light On

The end of an era has come and another one, or two, are beginning.

As posted before, we now have a new Airstream.  This means we don’t want to have 2 of them so we will follow in my parent’s tradition and give our old one to our son.

Here is the last hookup with the old Airstream:

Kind of brings a tear to the eye…

The Airstream era for me started here (more or less):

I am the short one in the picture.  My parents had 6 Airstreams, this was the first one.  The one we are passing down to our son is the last one my parents had.

My era continued and our families started when they gave us the Airstream in 2001.  We took as may trips as we could.  Here is another ‘generational’ picture:

That is us with our daughter Hannah.  You can see the Airstream in the back.

Now we have delivered the Airstream to its’ 3rd generation, our son Aaron.  He has to store it and get a tow vehicle but I am sure he will enjoy it immensely:

Wait!  Who is that with him?  That is Paige, his daughter.  Hmmm…  This trailer could possibly be a 4 generation trailer!!  We will see.

Thank you 25′ 1992 Airstream Classic Excella.  You have served us well and faithfully.  We now pass the title of “Casa Rodante” on to our new one.

This holiday happened to be President's Day so I looked for a place to stay.  Somewhere kind of close but not over any major hills.  One time when we were in Bakersfield for the weekend (without the trailer) we went by Lake Ming.  It was a county run (Kern Co) park and had RV spots (dry).  That was a possibility, it was on the river but they did not take reservations and I didn't know how busy they were.  With a bit more investigation, I found another park the Kern Co ran that has RV spots, full-hookups, on the water and took reservations.  It was the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area.  It was between Bakersfield and Taft.

As we were packing and loading we found this:

The cat (Jewels) is ready to go!  If she is still alive when we start traveling we might have to take her with us.

Roxie took off a half day on Friday so we could get an 'earlyish' start and get there before dark.  There is no exactly straight road there.  The best bet is to go south (or actually south-east) on 99, head west at Delano and catch 43 to go south (south-east) again.  It was about 90 miles there.  I discovered one interesting fact at the expense of a few bees that were flying around from the numerous bee boxes by the blooming trees.  If I go 60mph (as I normally do with the trailer), the bees will smash on the windshield leaving their guts behind.  However, if I go 55mph it appears the bees just bounce off of the windshield.  What happens after that is unknown.

The spot we got was right on the water as advertised:

On Saturday we headed to Taft to see what was there.  We also had to get some things for the trailer that we did not transfer from the old one.  Taft is a cute little town.  At least it has a Kmart.  When we got back in the early afternoon the air was warm, the windows were open, it was quiet. 

What to do?  Take a nap naturally.  We don't normally nap but this felt very good.  We must have needed the rest since we slept about 3 hours.  We cooked a quick dinner and had a campfire.  Ah, the life.

Here is the sunset:

This lake is man made for boating and fishing.  There were a few boats.  One even came by each campsite and asked if anyone wanted to go wakeboarding.  They needed one more as the ranger told them they needed 3 in the boat.  It was fun to watch the boats and the wildlife all around.  Here is what we saw from our door one morning:

On our last evening there we thought we would go to another town close by.  Buttonwillow!  Well downtown Buttonwillow does not have much but when you go to the Buttonwillow exit on I5 there is a lot of places.  We thought we would try the Willow Ranch Restaurant.  It was pretty good given the slim pickings and we did not want to drive to Bakersfield.

Monday came too soon and it was time to head home.  We were just south of Tulare, doing about 60mph.  I saw brake lights come on about 1/4 mile ahead and a cloud of dust coming up.  We we pulled up we saw a minivan down in a corn field and all smashed up.  It left the roadway and rolled. There were 6 people in it.  Since Roxie is a nurse she is required to stop at an accident is there are no other emergency personnel there.  So we pulled over.  Almost immediately an off duty Tulare Co firefighter pulled up and helped out.  No one was seriously injured so all we pretty much did was comfort the people until the real help showed up.  You can see the van in the left side of this photo:

We made it home uneventfully.  Had to do the trailer dance to get the old one out of the way and the new one back in its' spot.  Here is how it looks at home:

It is kind of a tight fit and FUN to back in.  I will take a video of me parking it some day.

Our next planned trip is taking the trailer to Toscano's RV in Los Banos to get our problems with the trailer fixed (only 16 or so!).

Here is our rig at the Eureka KOA:

The trailer uses a 50amp cord to hookup and that thing is like an anaconda.  Especially when it is cold and it was.

The friends we visited were Bob and Phyllis who accompanied us to the Balloon Fiesta and we met them at Casini Ranch.  Here they are:

It was sure good to see them again and visit for a bit.

The two nights ended and it was time to get on the road again.  We were going to stop at Sacramento for two nights again, this time to see Roxie's sister.  The route was US101 south to CA20 east then I5 south.  Shortly south of Eureka as the Avenue of the Giants that goes through the Redwoods.  We decided to drive through them for a while.  We were here a while back also.

After Sacramento we had the unenviable task of driving home.  Something was have done for countless years.  It is really the worst part of any trip, driving over roads you have done for YEARS!  We stopped in Fresno to show Aaron our trailer and his girlfriend took the nice picture of us:

One last word about California roads:  THEY SUCK!

I estimate we did 1800 miles on this trip, around 1000 with the trailer.  The towing and handling was great just a bit more weight was noticed.  Unscientific MPG numbers seem to be about 15mpg with the trailer on flat ground.  I can take that.

Thanks for reading.

We decided to head over to the coast and use the ocean as a great equalizer.  Rarely does the central coast of Oregon get to the freezing level.  We took state route 18 from Newberg to the coast.

We camped at Beverly Beach State Park and paid $22 for a full hookup spot.  A good deal in any book.  We ate in Newport that night and did a WalMart run.  The second night was much better since the climate was much temparate.  It didn't get near freezing in the night and our 'old' heater cooked us!  The new heater did not impress so it will be returned.

About 30 minutes after we woke up the next day it started raining.  That was great for the temperature but not so great for breaking down camp.  Luckily I have one of these:

(or a minor variation of it)

We got on the road with a destination of Eureka, CA (Roxie has family there).  It is about 320 miles but they are slow miles all on US 101 and through many towns.

We got here about 5:30 and are spending two nights.

Unfortunately on the way we had a few more issues with the trailer. 

The sliding mirrors on the wardrobe came loose and broke one of the latches.  These are the same doors that I had to repair the first night because a roller came off but the technicians were supposed to check my work.

The major issue was a corner of the counter top (Corian) broke off.  We didn't have any idea as to why but figured it out later.  It appears that Airstream failed to secure the cabinet under the counter but DID secure the counter.  This allowed the counter top to stay put but the cabinet worked out and the corner of it broke the counter top.

Now we get to take the trailer to our 'local' Airstream dealer to get it fixed (which is only 2-3 hours away!).

We are going to take a down day since we have been going for the last 5 days or so.

We arrived on Sunday evening and checked into the hotel.  It is really hard to pack for a trip in a trailer when you don't have a trailer with you.  The next stop was to drive by the dealership, that was now closed, and look for the trailer.  We saw it and it looked like an Airstream.

We got to the Airstream Adventures Northwest on Monday (MLK holiday) and started the process.  The first thing was to do the walkthrough.  We are pretty experienced in travel trailers with a speciality in Airstreams and we might have known most of it but I told myself to let the service person explain everything to us.  Not to cut him short by saying we know that, etc.  By doing this I was able to learn a few things myself (something about an old dog and new tricks).

During this time we were getting a new hitch installed.  We will give the old one to Aaron with the trailer.  The old hitch had undersized equalizer bars.  We got an Equal-i-zer 1000 setup.  It seems a bit easier to hookup than our old one but there are a lot of cotter pins and clips that could be misplaced.  We will have to watch that.

After all that we got to do paperwork.  Oh joy!  Surprisingly it only took about 15 minutes since we worked most of it out before we even arrived.

The next step, driving it away (for the first time).

We only drove about 10 miles to a Pheasant Ridge RV park.  I wanted to stay close to handle any issues that might come up overnight.  More about that later.  The drive was uneventful other than I could tell the extra weight behind me.  Our old trailer's GVWR was around 6300lb but this one is 10000lb.  My truck is rated to tow 12500lb so it will handle it.  Perhaps I just got used to the overkill and what I feel now is what others normally feel when towing.

It is REALLY cold in this area so we only hooked up the power (50amp) to the trailer.  We filled the water tank but there were warnings of freeze so we did not hookup the water hose or sewer.  Here is Roxie filling the water (for the first time) at the site last night:

Don't be fooled by the nice sunshine.  It was COLD!  See, Roxie has her little head wrap on.

We went out to get dinner and some groceries and were met my what I call 'Frog'.  It was a freezing fog.  We had seen the trees on the way up all coated in frost and this is what was going on here.  It almost looked like fine snow coming out of the sky.  A weather person called it 'Snog' for snowy fog?  This is what was on the trailer when we got back:

Wow!  What a way to start!  The heater handled the cold very well, as the propane ones normally do.  However this unit has two Air Conditioners and the both have heat pumps in them but I could not get the heat pumps to go.  Our measly electric heater did not cut it either, time for a new one.  Sleep (for the first time) was OK.  The heater was cycling on and off so we were cycling between hot and cold but we DO NOT plan to stay in this type of cold anywhere we are going

In the AM we got up and had breakfast (for the first time).  It was nice to have a dinette ready to go.

Right now we are at the dealership to have some items address and to learn how to use the thermostat correctly.  We think the next stop is the coast where we hope it will be warmer!

As I have talked about in previous posts, my parents gave us our current Airstream (it was the last of their 6 Airstreams over the years) as my father could no longer tow it.  That was back in 2001 and it was 9 years old at that time.  Flash forward to now and the trailer is 21 years old!  It has/had many things going for it.  It was free, it is a good manageable size (25'), I am very familiar with it and we didn't freak out too much if there was a dent, ding or scratch on it (for the record I did not put ANY dings in the trailer).  But there were also some negatives.  It was a bit too small (25'), it has twin beds, Roxie has always wanted a 'permanent' dinette and it was getting a bit long in tooth.  So the search begins.

We (or I as will be explained later) were looking for 27-28' in length.  We liked the new front bedroom models and tended to like the Classic trim.  We were also looking for a 2000's or newer model.

Time to get Craigslist going again and RVTrader and AirstreamClassifieds and the Airstream dealer sites.  We also would stop at any Airstream dealer to look around.

Things started getting serious about 2 months ago.  We found a couple of Classic's at Toscano RV in Los Banos, CA.  These were 30' models.  A bit longer than I thought but then I remembered Rich Luhr from Airstream Life.  They have a 30' and he mentioned that he only had a very few times where he could not get his trailer in a campground.  But these 30's were a floorplan that I really didn't care for, not as much as the 31' model (same length as a 30' model but called a 31').  The 30' floorplan has the bathroom on one side of the hall and the shower on the other.  Essentially the hallway goes THROUGH the bathroom.  The 31' floorplan has the entire bathroom on the streetside of the trailer, like we are used to with our 25'.  Additionally the 31' has a nice big wardrobe in it, very nice when you are going to be in the trailer for an extended time.

We thought we would see if we could purchase the 2004 30' through Toscano.  This was a trailer that was on consignment so they would take any offer to the trailer owner for approval.  We secured a used RV loan through our credit union and started in. 

The first thing our credit union said is that they will approve up to the NADAGuide average retail value for any RV.  Airstreams, it is known, tend to hold their value a bit more than other trailers but it appears the NADAGuide does not take that into consideration.  When we ran the numbers with this trailer the NADA came in over $8000 less than the asking price.  What could we do?  We offered the most that our credit union would finance us for on this particular trailer.  Naturally the owners did not accept the offer but would probably go about $3000 over our max.  No deal.

At about the same time I was using SearchTempest to search multiple locations in Craigslist at once.   I as able to find a private party selling a 2005 model with the 31' floorplan in Montana.  Just want we/I wanted!  I contacted our credit union again as the asking price for this one was LESS that the NADA value.  Oh yeah!  Well the credit union will only finance an RV that is titled and registered in California.  That is a big problem.

Then the credit union came up with their ultimate show of brilliance.  They told me if I could find the money on my own to purchase the trailer they could refinance it after we title it in California!  What!  IF I had the money myself why would I be asking them to finance it?  Duh!

So that door was shut too, or was it?  I decided to apply for an unsecured loan that would cover the purchase price of the trailer then I could do what I want with it.  Then I could refinance it later.  OK.  Back on.

I was able to secure the help of a very nice individual to inspect the trailer for me in Montana and the owner agreed to meet us halfway in Salt Lake City.  Sounding good?  The owner came back and told me there were some others interested also in the trailer but there weren't any others for the previous month.  

I was fixated on this like one of those dogs on the Dog Whisperer.  Where Cesar has to jar the dog out of the focus so they can move on.  Luckily Roxie was able to do this for me and make me aware that this is going to be her home for months on end and she did not want a 'piece of crap'.

Taking this into account, I received a less-than-stellar report from the inspector.  The owner was wanting up to 50% of the cash wired to him also.  I told him that we would have to see the unit personally before we could do anything and recommended he make a deal with one of the 'other' buyers.

During Roxie waking me out of my single-sightedness, we took a trip to Airstream of Los Angeles to see a 30' Flying Cloud they had.  We looked it over but were a bit disappointed by the floorplan and storage.  However the deal they offered was decent.  This meant buying a new trailer that is more than our first house!  Ouch.

But I warmed up to the idea and started looking at new trailers exclusively.  About 2 weeks ago I found one in Portland.  A 2012 new 31' Classic.  It had dual A/C's, which I could take or leave, but it was the best one that we found.  The dealership told us the price and it seemed very competitive.  The competitiveness was confirmed by two sources, a personal friend and Airstream of Los Angeles.  We started the purchase process, put a deposit on it and made plans.

Yesterday we left Visalia and drove to McCloud, CA.  Tonight we are in Oregon City, OR and will go finish the deal on the trailer tomorrow.

Compared to all the other trailers we tried to get this one has just all fallen in to place.  Roxie takes that as a good sign and I do too.

I will try to post a blog entry tomorrow from the trailer as we spend our first night in it.

Here is a link to photos:  http://portland.casarodante.org

The truck side is a bit mundane but interesting, to me, at least.  When we purchased the truck back in August of 2003 we got a fiberglass lid for it.  I wanted to get something that would cover and secure any contents in the bed.  However our vehicle prior was an Excursion and I guess I didn't want to make the new truck look like an Excursion.  The lid was great.  But it did have limits.  The primary one was the height of items to fit under the lid.

Here is how it is with the lid:

Clean and functional. 

However, looking toward the future I thought it would be good to look for a shell for the truck.  Since it is definitely NOT a new truck (almost 10 years and 115K miles old) I was not looking for a new shell.  Where to look?  Craigslist!  Craigslist is a hotbed of people selling things.  More about that in my next post about trailers.  I started a search of Craigslist about 4 months ago with an IF This Then That recipe.

I should have refined my recipe a bit better than 'shell'.  I got all kinds of entries, none of which were helpful, but I didn't want to miss anything.

Last week I got a hit for a Leer Shell for an F250 Shortbed and it was in WHITE in Fresno!  I contacted the seller and they told me that a 'gentleman' was going to come look at it that Tuesday evening (he had to drive 2 hours there).  I asked on Wednesday if the shell was still available and it turns out the 'gentleman' did not show up!  We went to Fresno that evening and purchased the shell.

Here it is:

So far I am very pleased as I can now put taller items in but Roxie reminded me there is one negative.  People can now see what is in there.  I will have to work on that one but I will live with it for now.

I like to stay on the water, as you can see in the previous post.  But is there water in Stockton?  Sure is.  There is a canal that brings in largish ships to drop supplies.  They come in all the way from the ocean.

Previously the only stops in Stockton had been brief to refuel or relieve.  The one item that got me to try it out was a blog post from Aluminarium.  I loved that picture and got some reservations to the RiverPoint landing and off we went.

Here is my attempt at recreating their picture:

That is a JetSkier in the picture.

The daytime temperature there was mid to high 90's so we found things to do indoors.  HOWEVER, the evenings were wonderful.  The back of trailer has our bedroom in it so we would open up the windows on 3 sides and let the cool breezes just waft through the trailer.  Made the days worthwhile.

We saw many pleasure craft going up and down the waterway.  Saw some rowers in long row boats, saw a sailing class for young sailors.  A very wide variety.  However one evening it got exciting.  We heard a very LOUD horn sound.  We look toward the ocean direction of the waterway and see a very large ship heading our way.

As it got closer we see a smaller boat in front if it.  Here is that boat:

It is a Coast Guard vessel.  The guy in the front is manning a machine gun.  We wondered what is going on?

Here is the large ship behind it:

It is pretty impressive to see a large ship go by in relatively close proximity.  I wondered why this one had a Coast Guard escort since there was another 'gun boat' guarding the rear of the ship.  I looked it up on the Internet and this ship is hauling Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).  I guess the US does not want any type of attack on this ship.

The next day we wandered around Stockton and got a good feel for the town.  We even ate at a Vietnamese restaurant (a first).  We also went to visit a very nice museum, The Haggin.

That evening we were sitting by the water and enjoying the cooling breeze and we heard the loud horn again.  We looked in the same location but there was no ship.  Suddenly, from the other direction came the large ship again.  This time much higher in the water and without any escort.  Here is a pic but not quite as nice since it surprised us and it was getting pretty dark:

Thus ends our stay at Stockton.  Time to go back to the grind.

I almost forgot to tell you about the title of my post.  In some of the meetings are people that live or work in Stockton.  One of them made the comment that Stockton should have the motto of "It is only two hours from some nice places".  I don't know if I totally agree with that because Stockton was not as bad as it could have been.

We headed down there on a Friday and started up the Grapevine in 104 degree weather.  When we got to Ventura it was 65 degrees and had a marine layer going on.  We got there about 3 in the afternoon and saw our site.  The state beach site says the site will handle 25' of RV and ours is 25' so I thought it would be perfect.  Not exactly.  I don't know what kind of foot measurements they were using but it wasn't any I was used to.  I also looked at the site at campsitephotos.com.  The spot was very short so this made backing in difficult.  Also about 15' of the spot was paved with a 4" drop to the dirt at the end of it.  Naturally this meant that my wheels would drop off the asphalt before my tongue was off the road.  This was the ugly part:

I depleted almost all my orange blocks on this setup.  You see under my stabilizer jack?  You see the creative situation of stacking?  That is because there was a rock right under where the jack sits.  I had to improvise.  Speaking of ROCKS!  Look a bit further back.  You will see a BIG rock right under our frame.  This caused issues when we were unhooking.  I could not get the tongue up high enough to get the trailer off the hitch ball.  So I unlocked the hitch in the receiver to slide the hitch out of the truck.  This did not work but the ball did come out.  We were disconnected!  But I was thinking how the heck am I going to hook up when we leave?  Oh well, that was 3 days from now.

Our friends, the Chen's arrived a couple of hours after us and had a few issues with the short spots but were able to get setup quickly.  George still hasn't posted his story from Death Valley!  Come on George!!  The Chen's only had one evening of camping we visited with them for a bit.  It was nice to be in the cool weather.  That evening we also saw numerous dolphins, seals and other aquatic life swimming by.  This thrilled children and child-like adults.

Emma Wood State Beach has about 90 spots right on the coast.  This makes this locale pretty popular.  Hence the bad:

This shows the proximity of vehicles to the road AND to each other.  But you live with it to get the good:

This is what we came for.  Right on the ocean.  Wave noises!  Sea breezes!  Ocean smell!  Sunsets:

The first full day we visited with the Chen's until they had to leave.  Too bad they couldn't have stayed longer but we made the best of the time we had.  At least they were right next to us:

The next day we headed to Santa Barbara to spend the day.  The last time I was here was for a CETPA conference in 2005 but I didn't venture out of the hotel much except to eat at the first Habit burger I had ever seen.  On our day we walked the downtown area and ate at a nice little Italian restaurant, the Olio pizzaria.  Very nice and their butterscotch pudding dessert is amazing.  After getting tired of walking we drove around sightseeing a bit before returning to the trailer for another sunset:

All good things (bad and ugly too) must come to an end.  Now the issue of hooking up with the rock issue.  The previous day I tried to chip away some of the rock with a hammer and screwdriver.  I was able to get a bit off the sides but not off the top.  I figured I am going to just jack the tongue up as far as possible.  We were able to get connected with very little issue, thankfully.  Further south from where we parked there is a section of road that is right next to the ocean AND it is getting worn away from the ocean.   You can see the ocean water pooled on the road in this shot::

We said goodbye to the coast and the cool weather.  The drive takes us over a very well traveled road, for us and the general populace.  I-5 and the Grapevine.  I can't count the number of times that we have been up and down that hill.  On the way back it happened that lunchtime was coming up.  Roxie had the idea of stopping and making our lunch at Fort Tejon State Historical Park.  One of those places we are always curious about but never stop because we are on the way somewhere.  So we stopped and had lunch.  After lunch we visited the park and learned about the local history of that area.  Learned the route is called the 'grapevine' because grapes grew wild up the canyon, not because of the roads' path.  While we were there a group of children were learning how life used to be at the fort.  They were making washing clothes, making wood and metal items, baking bread, making butter, making adobe bricks all under the guidance of mentors.  It was fun to see that and probably more fun for the kids.

The rest of the route was uneventful except right as we got home.  About 10 miles from home we saw a large dust cloud coming from the west, like a haboob.  The race was on.  Get home before it does.  I decided not to back the trailer into it's spot but just back it in front of the house.  As soon as it was backed in the wind hit!  We ran into the house and waited out the storm.

Can't wait to get out again.

The weekend after our last trip (the Death Valley one in the previous post), Roxie was working and on a home visit.  She went into a clients house and proceeded to severely twist her ankle not seeing the sunken living room in the darkened house.  A coworker and her supervisor were present also and witnessed the incident.  This made it a workers comp claim (we won't start down that path).  She was off her ankle for weeks and there were thoughts that she broke part of it.  Luckily we did find out it was NOT broken but she had to wear a 'stylish' ankle boot for quite a while.

This affected our traveling also.  I didn't feel that Roxie could manage in the trailer, especially getting up and down the steps, so our next 3-day (remember she gets one every 5 weeks) was in February.  This was to be a hotel trip.  We went over to Pismo Beach and stayed in a hotel there for the first time ever.  We picked the SeaCrest.  This 3-day happened to fall on President's day so she got an extra day to make it a 4 day.  We went over on Sunday and came back on Tuesday.  Late Monday was really nice because all the 3-day weekend people had left.  Roxie's ankle did well but she was still in pain.

The next three day weekend, in March, was Roxie's pick.  She chose Bakersfield.  Bakersfield?  Wow.  I thought it was a bit strange, especially since it is only 75 miles away and it IS Bakersfield.  She wanted to try the Padre Hotel.  Some relatives had stayed there and enjoyed it.  They have totally revamped this hotel to make it more upscale.  They definitely achieved it, now if they could only upscale the downtown neighborhood a bit more.  One of the pluses is that we were able to discover some different restaurants there.  My favorite was Sunday morning.  We went to the 24th Street Cafe.  They had an amazing breakfast:

Makes me want to go back for more!

Next comes April.  This time we decided to go to Arizona to see my mother.  It had been MANY years since we had been to her house.  Again, no trailer.  This one broke the 2 night rule but three of them were free at my mom's house so it was really only one paid night.  We stopped in Desert Hot Springs on the way back.  I like to stop there on long trips because it is a good distance from home and there are a lot of naturally heated hot water pools.  I looked on TripAdvisor for hotels to stay at.  The top rated one was a spa that seem to be a bit snooty.  The second one was a 'clothing optional' locale.  Pass.  However the third was just right.  El Morocco Inn.  There are only 12 rooms, only 2 adults allowed per room.  The pool and jacuzzi were always open, they figured everyone was adult enough to be quiet when it was late.

I didn't tell Roxie where we were going until we drove up.  It is located in a neighborhood of houses which has a bit of an odd feel.  However, once you get inside you forget completely about the surroundings.  The owners have done a fantastic job of the Moroccan feel.  Fabrics hanging everywhere, fruit and other foods always available, our room even had a round bed.  The movie Casablanca is constantly playing in one of the common rooms.  We will be back there when winter comes around.

The way the calendar goes we did not have a 3-day getaway in May, although we did head to SF and help Hannah move out of her loft at the end of the school term.  The next 3-day getaway happened in June.  That is the subject of the next entry.

Some people think this reference can pertain to Death Valley National Park.  I guess you could feel that way in the summer.  You be the judge since we were there for 4 nights.  Also, technically Death Valley is not a valley, it is a basin.

Our friends, the Chen's (here is their blog), contacted us about going to Death Valley over the MLK weekend.  We checked Roxie's schedule and it was one of her 3 day weekends but with a twist.  She works every 5th Saturday.  When she works a Saturday she gets the Monday of THAT week off.  This time the Monday was a holiday so she got the Monday and Tuesday off.  So she got a 4 day weekend!  She took the Friday before off also to give us a 5 day/4 night weekend.  We were also able to find reservations at Furnace Creek campground for 4 nights.  We were on!

There is always prep work for any trip but a dry camping one is even more fun.  This time I used Evernote to keep track of it.  This way I could get to the list from any electronic device that I have and I also shared it with Roxie so she could add to them.  It helped a lot.  This was also going to be a good test of the new trailer batteries I got.

Day 1

We got out early since we had to go 320 miles to get there and I didn't want to get in after dark.  The route was south through Bakersfield, east on CA58, north on CA14, east on CA178 through Ridgecrest and Trona.  We joined up to CA190E right before the climb over the mountains into Death Valley.  We started the climb and this was a big climb!  We got down to 50mph on the climb which is a rarity for the truck.  We came over this pass to Death Valley about 6-8 years ago but I didn't remember it like this.

We got to the campground about 4:15 and started to setup.  A Chen contingent came by as we were finishing up.  We went to their campsite after that and talked a bit.  We figured out what we were going to do the next day then retired to our trailer, to eat and warm up.

Day 2

We met the Chen's at 8:30 to get on the road to a ranger talk about photography at the Eureka sand dunes.  We packed a lunch because we had some other things planned afterwards.  It was nice to walk out on the dunes and the ranger offered a few salient photography tips.  Unfortunately Maverick, the Chen's oldest son, had to stay at the vehicle with their dog.  We let me go frolic for a bit after we got back.  Maverick, not the dog.

Dunes (looking east):

After the dunes we headed to Mosaic Canyon.  Since this canyon was so narrow we were told that the best time to go is midday or it is mostly shadows and gets cold very fast.  That was very true.  We had been in a slot canyon before in Anza-Borrego State Park.  This one was different.  The rocks were very smooth from the water action.  Here is a view of the canyon:

When there are a lot of kids around and places to climb, what happens?  You end up with kids climbing everywhere.  Kids of ALL ages:

We had our lunch in the canyon.  It was fun to watch all the people walking by on the trail.  We stopped off at the Stovepipe Wells store on the way back.  That evening we had a nice campfire with the Chen's.

Day 3

The Chen's only had 2 nights in Death Valley and were planning on heading home today so we both did our separate things.  Looking at the ranger activity list we saw a walk/talk at Golden Canyon so off we went.  The ranger was from Oklahoma and it was interesting to hear his accent and colloquialisms.  We learned a lot and got to stretch our legs.  Here is a shot in the canyon toward the Red Cathedrals and one back down the canyon toward the valley:

Golden Canyon is south of Furnace Creek so we wanted to see the 'south' things.  There was another ranger talk after lunch, do you see a trend here?  We like to go to ranger talks. 

We had our lunch at the campground and had a few visitors.  The first is a well camouflaged road runner and a couple of doves:

The ranger talk after lunch was a bit north of the campground and was about the 20 Mule Team.  It was at the Harmony Borax works.  Borax was huge in the valley before tourism took over.  They would haul the Borax over 160 miles over ten days with a 20 Mule Team (actually 18 mules and 2 horses).  Here is the wagon they used to haul the goods:

We had to leave the talk early to get to another talk.  This next talk was at Badwater, the lowest location in the western hemisphere (282 feet below sea level).  I had to drive a bit faster than normal but we did get there.  There were a lot of people there, more so than any other location.  From down on the boardwalk I looked up at the hill next to us.  Look at the zoomed in portion, it gives you a taste of where we were:

Looking the other direction you can see people walking out on the salt flats:

Here is proof of Roxie at the lowest point (actually the lowest point is somewhere out on the salt flats, but don't tell her):

We made one more stop on the way back to the campground.  We stopped at the Devil's Golf Course.  This makes me glad that I have a vehicle and don't have to cross this area alone:

That night we watched a movie on the Mac in the trailer.  Our Mr Heater Buddy kept us nice and warm.

Day 4

The evening before we discussed what we wanted to do on our last full day.  I was going to get tickets to the Amargosa Opera House but the main actress there was changing her show for a final performance in February so that was a no go.  We had seen the first tour of Scotty's Castle but there was a second, 'underground' tour.  So on Sunday evening I called and got reservations.  So that is where we went. 

As we turned on the road to the northern part of the valley it got a lot windier.  I had left our awning out so, naturally, I was worried about that.  But all forecasts did not show high winds for the campground so I just let go.  Sort of.  We got to Scotty's Castle and it was windy and COLD!  We were a bit early so we were thankful there was somewhere inside to wait.

The tour started and we got to learn how the Johnson's survived there with NOTHING else around.  They generated their own electricity, heated and cooled their house with local means.  It was very interesting and the vast majority of it was inside.  Plus there were only 5 people on the tour!  Here is Roxie trying her luck as a door to door salesperson and the requisite shot of the castle:

Since we were at the north end of the park and I don't like to backtrack, we continued NE into Nevada, then SE on US95 to Beatty, NV.  By that time it was time to have some lunch.  We ate one time in Beatty before at a less than modern casino.  We weren't going to do that this time.  I had heard good things about the Death Valley Fire Pit BBQ but they were only open from 4-8.  So we looked to Yelp and found KC's Outpost.  It was very good and was definitely homemade food.

Before we left Beatty I thought I would top off my diesel so I didn't have to do it in the valley where it was $5.24/gal.  Between Beatty and the valley is the ghost town of Rhyolite.  Here is a shot from Rhyolite looking west:

There is also a house made of bottles in Rhyolite:

When we got back to Furnace Ranch we decided to have dinner at the 49'er Cafe at the resort.  The dinner was adequate for a remote locale such as Death Valley.  The waiting staff was superb even when they handled the 'idiosyncrasies' of the couple sitting behind us.  After dinner I was thinking of another campfire but if you know Roxie, you will know how much she doesn't like the cold.  So that was off the table.  We watched another movie in the trailer.

Day 5

Time to leave.  Here is another on of my normal shots of the trailer in its' spot.  It was a very nice spot because it had a few tamarisk trees around it.  You can see Roxie just barely coming out of the trailer in this shot..  I asked her to get in front of the trailer so I could include her but she declined:

We got on the road home at about 9:30.  We went back a different way that was 60 miles farther.  We took CA190E to Death Valley Junction, CA127S to Baker, I-15W to Barstow, CA58W to Bakersfield and then home.  Oddly we made it home around 4:30, same time we got to the valley on Day 1.

Recap

It was a enjoyable and relaxing trip.  It was a bit long for a single day's drive.  If we did it again we would probably break it up, getting old you know.  The trailer did fantastic!  The batteries started at 12.5 volts and ended 4 days later at 12.2v!  Roxie did a masterful job in conserving water and we probably had 15-20 gallons left.

One other thing and this has to do with George Chen.  They went home earlier than us and I texted him to see if they made it.  He said they did but they had a 'traction' issue and that was all he said.  He said look at his blog but I haven't seen anything yet.  Come on George!

We WILL, however be leaving the day after tomorrow to stay 4 nights in Death Valley.  We are going to meet our friends, the Chens, there.  It will be nice, as always, to get away.  The last time we were in Death Valley, it was COLD and WINDY!  We hope it will be a bit nicer this time.  I get to try out my new AGM batteries, LED lights, Mr. Heater Buddy and all those fun dry camping things.

I will get a report out when we return.

We left around 11 on Friday and headed to highway 180 then turned east.  This route is a very long steady climb but nothing too strenuous.  I didn't push the truck much and there wasn't a lot of traffic.  I was able to do 45-55  all the way.  I did notice some black exhaust  coming out at times but no loss of power like before.

We got to our campsite around 2pm.  This spot was adequate, but it was the last spot available to reserve.  The issue with the space was the tongue of the trailer was so high!  Only one other time has our tongue been so high and that was at Red Rock SP (look at the second photo).  But I setup the Rotochoks, the corner jacks and all seemed secure.  Here is what it looked like:

We rested a bit, then had dinner.  We were cleaning up and getting ready to go to the amphitheater show in the campground when we heard someone stating they didn't want to hear any stories of anyone falling.  It was some friends of ours, Don and Renee McDonald.  They were staying on the same loop as us with some other family members.  Very small, this world.

The 7:00 nature show that evening was about birds. It was put on by a Forest Service employee named Diane.  She actually is part of a bird rehabilitation project and has many that she takes care of at home.  She started her talk showing a Red-Tailed Hawk.  The next three birds were Owl's of various ilks.  It was very interesting and she must have had about 50 people where there was seating for 20.  Many of the visitors knew her and have probably been listening to her for years.  After that was over we drove to the amphitheater at Sunset campground where the show started at 8:30.  This was an NPS ranger that was putting on a talk about fire.  This was interesting also but the ranger had a bit of an issue with child crowd control.  We went back to the trailer and watched Soul Surfer.

Saturday the Grant Tree walk was at 10am.  A ranger leads this and talks about the trees.  We went last time also.  This ranger was much better in controlling the children.  Roxie taking a break inside a tree:

We stopped at the Grant Grove store but I was very surprised by the price for ice so I thought we would head down to Hume Lake for some supplies.  The prices were better.  We went back to the trailer for lunch.  After lunch we took the Indian Basin trail which is right by the campground.  About 2 miles round trip but pretty easy and a lot of it is paved.  A few of the meadow in the basin that has been logged (those are stumps in the foreground):

Came back to the trailer to rest a bit.

We went to Grant Grove for dinner.  We started out in the restaurant but weren't sure we wanted a large meal so we opted for the Pizza 'parlor' instead.  This started at 7pm.  An hour and 15 minutes later we got our pizza's.  This was an issue since we had reservations at 8:30 for a star gazing trip.  Ouch!  We made it on time (across the street) but barely.  The ranger that was leading the tour talked to us about sizes in the universe and they are pretty immense.  She had an example: If our entire solar system (sun and 8 planets) were the size of a quarter, the Milky Way galaxy (the one we are in) would be the size of North America. WoW!

We loaded up in our cars and drove up the hill about 2 miles to Panoramic Point.  Normally this is a location where you can see the Kings Canyon area from a high view (more on that later), but she didn't go that way.  We went down a closed road (in the dark with just a few red flashlights) to the NPS heliport.  Well, she said it was the heliport but we could not see it.  We laid down our blanket and laid down ourselves.  This way we could look up at the stars without straining our necks.  The ranger had a very powerful green laser pointer so she could point out constellations and stars.  We say many different configurations, satellites, shooting stars, planets and the milky part of the Milky Way.  It got a bit cold and Roxie started using the blanket for its original purpose.  It is amazing how much your eyes can truly see in the pitch dark.  After about 1 hour we broke it up, headed to our cars and we were back at the trailer.

Sunday started a bit slower and we thought we would take a walk around the campground.  However, when we went by the amphitheater there was a talk starting.  So we stopped and listened to a talk about bats.  Lots of questions by the kids.  We then continued our trek around the loops of the campground.  I wanted to go to Panoramic Point in the daytime so we headed there.  We stopped at the Grant Grove complex and had our lunch.  I must confess, we hung out at the Grant Grove complex for another reason.  They had WiFi there.  On our trip I found out that my Uncle Stan had passed away, he was 92.  By getting my voicemail (no cell coverage) via Google Voice I was able to find out.  I was also able to call via VOIP to get more information.

Panoramic Point was much different in the light of day.  It was a bit of a trek up the hill to the viewpoint but this is what we saw:

We had plans for one more hike.  A trip to see the Boole tree.  We made a detour to Hume Lake again (you can see it in the picture above) to get a bit more diesel.  I wanted to make sure I had enough to get home.  So off to Boole tree!  It was about 2.5 miles offroad by the Big Stump Meadow.  We drove out here one other time but this time we kept going.  Some cows were wondering what we were doing:

We got to the parking lot and saw only one other car and a couple getting ready for the hike.  The hike is a loop of 2.5 miles.  To the right, 1 mile away is the tree, to the left 1.5 miles is the tree.  We decided to do the 1 mile first, just in case we didn't want to do the whole loop.  Off we go!

The trail started off by climbing.  We went along a bit more and it climbed again.  Finally it started climbing some more!  It leveled out a bit and then it really climbed.  More so that the first part.  It was shady and there was a breeze.  If it wasn't so, we probably would not have made it.  But we started it so we trudged forward.  Finally we crested a hill and saw the trail split.  We were there.  There were a lot of trees around the Boole so here is a shot of Roxie in front of it:

It is hard to show the immensity of these trees in pictures.  Here is a try:

There were a lot of bugs messing with us so we didn't spend too much time there.  We went back to the trail split and had to make a decision.  Go back the same way or continue on the loop.  We opted for the loop because we figure we can't climb much higher.  Fortunately we were right.  We were able to see one last glimpse of the tree on the way back:

The trail started a descent, pretty easy and we were feeling pretty good.  We passed the couple that passed us going uphill.  We only passed them because they stopped to eat something.  About 1/4 mile down the trail we heard some birds really complaining about something in the trees ahead and to the right.  I was curious about it.  Pretty much all the way down the downhill we saw tracks in the sand.  It looked like deer and possibly a coyote.  Roxie was afraid about bears.  As we came closer to the freaking-out birds, we heard some bigger noises coming from trees.  Something was moving around in there, something big and breaking branches.

That was all Roxie needed.  I stood still and looked to see if I could see anything.  Roxie was already running down the trail leaving me there.  She wondered aloud if I was crazy staying there.  I thought she was crazy running from an unknown animal that could be a predator.  She thought bear, I though some type of deer.  She wasn't stopping, I wasn't moving.  After I could see, I decided to catch up to her.  I did so but I did not run.  We continued on a bit and found a gate through a fence of barbed wire.  Now I knew what it was.  It was a cow and there were hoof prints to prove it.  Roxie is still not convinced.  We continued down the trail.

We ran into some more cows and they were very afraid of us.  They shot down the hill, breaking through branches with the same sound that we heard earlier.  We were very happy to get off the trail and sit down.  We were beat.  We went back to the trailer to rest.  Roxie did a little stir fry and we watched Red Riding Hood outside in our lounge chairs.  At 8:30 we went to Sunset campground to see the campfire program on, ironically, bears.

As we walked to the show, Roxie had to make a detour.  I could hear the ranger asking if anyone knew how to help with the computer and projector.  I stayed back and watched who would step up.  One lady did and I was happy.  However, by the time we got down there the issue was not resolved.  I went into the booth and helped out.  Together we got it working for her.  It shows you never get away from your profession.

We retired to the trailer and knew we had to go home the next day.  Back to the heat, routine and everything else we do.  A few more shots before we left (first one proves that I do put the awning out!):

Until next time!

We have been lucky in the sense that I can pretty much take time off of work for traveling whenever we would like.  Roxie's work was the same way since she worked 'per diem'.  That meant that we did NOT have to go camping during the high times of travel.  We didn't have to go during a major holiday weekend.  Well that has changed.  Roxie's new job no longer gives her that level of flexibility.  So that means we have to be like the rest of the general public and take advantage of the holidays given.

Roxie found out that she had a 4 day weekend for the 4th of July.  She wanted/needed to get away for a bit so I tried to find a spot on the coast.  We thought it would be good to get away to somewhere that is cooler.  I was able to get reservations at the Pismo Dunes Ranch RV Resort.  We have stayed here before and it is a simple RV park.  Not as crowded as Pismo Coast Village nor as noisy as the one between highway 1 and the railroad tracks.  I reserved that spot starting on Saturday as it would have been too tough to get everything going on Friday and we would be getting in there when it was dark.

(Our view)

We left around 10am, naturally, on Saturday.  We stopped in Hanford to get a replacement tire on the trailer.  I always find it easier to get a tire on the road since the trailer is already hooked up.  We got some groceries, had a bite of lunch and headed off.  It is only about 150 miles from us and a very familiar drive.  What could go wrong?  Don't ever say that.

The temperature was about 100-106 during the drive in the valley.  We left Kettleman City and there is a small hill to negotiate.  Near the top I noticed puffs of diesel exhaust coming out of the truck.  Each time there was a drop in power and eventually a puffing sound was emanating from under the hood at the same time.  We crested the hill and descended.  Now the mind games start.  What is wrong with the truck, is it damaging it more by driving, how can I fix it, can AAA tow us home if needed, etc.  I know we had two more grades to cover on the trip. 

Hill number 2.  This time I opted to try it without the A/C on.  It might have been hot for a bit but it will help the diagnosis.  Luckily I got behind a slow truck.  This kept our speed down but it still was doing it puffing pattern for a bit but not the whole hill.  Hill number 3.  Left the A/C on and it puffed a bit near the top but we were over the last hill.  Yes, we did have the Cuesta grade by San Luis Obispo but we were going downhill on it this time.

We got to the campground around 3 and setup.  Boy, my mind was churning.  We went out to eat at F. McLintock's in Arroyo Grande.  We have gone to the one in Pismo before but this one was more local and a much different ambiance.  It was good.  However, we got back to the trailer and my mind was going again.  I got on the internet to research the truck problem.  I found a lot of doom and gloom, stories of replacing turbos, EGR valves, repairs over $3000, ouch!!  I tried to analyze what was going one.

Over the last many months I had noticed the truck getting a bit more sluggish.  I used to be able to take off very quickly getting on to a freeway, etc.  That was not happening anymore.  I attributed it to the truck getting old.  But 104K miles should be a drop in the bucket for a diesel.  Drawing an analogy to the human body, it seemed like there might be a blockage somewhere.  I heard someone mention on the 'net that their solution was a fuel filter.  It made logical sense to me.  It could have been starving for fuel when it really needed it.  Around town it did not need high volumes of fuel but under hard acceleration or heavy load (towing on a hill) it could not get what it needed.  Also, I could not remember the last time I changed both filters (yes, there are two).  So I thought $100 would be a good investment to see if it helped.

I found a JiffyLube in Oceano that was open on Sunday on a holiday weekend.  They replaced the filters.  Immediately I could feel the difference in acceleration.  I was cautiously optimistic about the solution.  It also helped put my mind at rest.  We made a picnic lunch and tried to go downtown Pismo. Our son Aaron and granddaughter Paige were there in his truck.  No way!  Too much traffic.  We would have a hard time finding one spot let alone two.  We thought we might try Avila Beach but it seemed even worse.  Everyone, including us, wanted to go to the beach.  Aaron suggested going to Oceano beach, where you can actually drive on the beach.  He has a lifted F250 with large wide tires.  I have the stock narrow tires.  We had been on the beach before with our friends the Chen's earlier in the year, so I didn't think too much about it.  Although I did bring my tow strap.

We needed the strap right off the bat.  We were looking for a place to park where Paige could play in the water and on the beach.  Aaron turned one way and I followed and instantly got stuck in the soft sand.  We attached the tow strap and Aaron pulled me out.  We went the other way on the beach and drove down to find a spot.  We pulled in and settled in.  Aaron was a bit concerned with the tide as it looked like it was getting higher.  I check the tide schedule and we were already 30 minutes past high tide so we were OK.

We let Paige play and get completely soaked for about 1 1/2 hours.  We all got burned which was surprising since we never saw direct sunlight due to the fog bank that was there.  I forgot to mention that the temperature was 65 for most of the time we were here.  A far cry from 100+ degrees.  Aaron had to head back home after the beach but he had to pull us out of the sand two more times for good measure.

Roxie and I thought we would go down to Pismo for the night to get something to eat.  The parking was abysmal.  This is where I thought the rest of the populated world was since it was so crowded.  Since we were eating a bit early we were able to walk right in to the Pierside restaurant.  Roxie wanted to do Splash Cafe but it had a line around its' corner (not surprising).  Dinner was OK, nothing special.

Monday.  4th of July!  Roxie has started a walking regimen at home and we brought our bikes here.  I thought we could take a ride out to the ocean and back for a bit of exercise.  I had looked it all over on Google Maps and I know Roxie had ridden horses (with Hannah) from the campground.  We started off.  It was a good dirt road.  Some parts said no vehicles but that would mean cars, etc.  The wide road turned into a narrow path.  The dirt turned into sand.  We were riding but had to start walking.  The plants were over growing the route.  Mosquitos were flying around everywhere.  We were pushing on.  We got to the sand dunes and stopped for a bit.  I saw about 20 mosquitos on Roxie's back biting the heck out of her!

I checked Google Maps and we were off in the weeds somewhere.  Well duh!  I went up a dune to survey the situation.  I noticed the creek we were near turned in front of us and headed south (we were heading west).  The only options were to turn around back through the mosquito nest or cross the creek.  We chose the latter and found a shallow place.  Took our shoes and socks off and crossed.  It was only about 8 inches deep.  Put our shoes back on and walked the bikes to the beach.  On the way we had to go under a 'fence' and noticed there was a sign on it to stay out since it is a bird preserve.  Great.  We were also violating the law.  We headed north on the beach, riding, to the entrance.  We were then able to get on city streets and make a loop  About 4 miles total.  Roxie now calls this the bike ride from Hell!  I thought parts of it were fun.

We thought we would head downtown for lunch and see how things were.  Mistake!  The traffic was really bad so we bugged out of there.  I wanted Roxie to get her Splash cafe fix and we know there is one in SLO so we went 15 miles up the road.  The plan was we go by Mo's BBQ and I would get what I want and take it to Splash Cafe so Roxie can eat there.  Interestingly she found something at Mo's and she really enjoyed it.  Now what?  We still went to Splash and got some frozen clam chowder and two bread bowls for her to bring home.  We went back to the trailer and took a short nap since we knew we might be up a bit later than normal.

We know that Pismo Beach sets off fireworks from their pier and we figured that it would be VERY crowded.  It was.  We didn't even try to park within 5 blocks of the downtown area.  We parked about 8 blocks away, grabbed our aluminum chairs and headed out.  We needed to eat dinner and were looking for somewhere.  We found it about 3 blocks into the walk.  We found Giuseppe's Italian Restaurant.  We know there is a Rosa's in Pismo, like in Visalia but that was a bit down the road.  We went in a side entrance so we did not do a "Beverly Hillbillies" on them with our casual attire and chairs.  The food was good, but Roxie really liked the dipping sauce they put with the bread.  It was balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and grated parmesan cheese.  I admit it was very good also.

Down to the beach!  We made our way through the throng of people and ended up on the beach to the north of the pier.  There were more people than I have ever seen during the DAY on this beach.  We had to wait about 30 minutes for the show to begin.  This was the first time I have ever watched 4th of July fireworks wearing a coat!  Roxie was freezing since she was not as prepared.  The fireworks show was impressive because they had SO many in the display.

After it was over Roxie said we should go up a set of stairs and through a gate.  I saw it said No Trespassing but a lot of other people were doing so also.  We ended up in a gated condo community.  All the gates were locked.  We could not get out, as about 30 others could not either.  Luckily a resident was leaving in his car so that opened up the flood gates, so to speak.  We made it to our truck and then more fun was to be had.  The police department decided not to let us, or anyone else, go south.  We had to go north about 2 miles before we could get on 101 southbound.  From the time the fireworks were over until we got on the freeway, we had used about 1 hour.  We slept good that night.

Tuesday the 5th, time to go home.  We packed it up, hooked it up and cleaned it up.  The big test was ahead.  How would the truck work up the Cuesta.  I had trepidation coming up the grade.  I gained as much speed as I could in the run up and tried not to push it too much up the hill.  Normally I would do 65 up the hill with the trailer.  This time I kept it at 55.  The truck did just fine.  What a relief.

We pulled into Paso Robles and thought we would stop for lunch.  They have a very nice downtown with some interesting restaurants.  The drawback was the temperature was over 90 and climbing there.  We decided on Basil Thai.  It was good and odd at the same time.  The soup was the odd part.  This was the first time we had a soup based on coconut milk.  Not my cup of tea but the main course, a variation of drunken noodles was good.

The hill climbs on the way home were uneventful and I hoped they would be.  We always hate going home but it is a necessary evil.  It doesn't help a 40+ degree temperature increase.  All in all, it was nice to get away.

I grabbed a bowl and put some rice in the bowl.  I jammed the phone into the rice to help dry it out.  I was able to turn off the phone also.

This morning was the time of truth.  I took the phone out of the rice and hit the power button.  No response.  I remembered the iPhone reboot (hold down home and power for 8+ seconds) and did it.  The Apple icon showed up. I waited a bit more, the whole phone came up!  Yea!  I was feeling good.

On the way to work I wanted to take a picture of what was playing on XM but it was blurry.  The glass cover on the lens was fogged up.  I should have taken the blow dryer to it.  I put the phone down at work and charged it up.

The morning passed and I went to lunch.  On the way to the truck the phone turned off and will not come back on!  I am not within my upgrade period for another one.  The 'discounted' price is the same as adding a new line for 2 years and getting a subsidized one.  So I have taken the back off the iPhone, stuck it in rice again, I am going to go buy some guys iPhone he has for sale and see where this all goes.

I hope not to make this mistake again.

Golden Gate Bridge:

One of the negatives?  $12 for 4 axles!  Glad I don't have a triple axle.

We weaved through the Hwy 1 traffic through western SF.  That is a long thing to do.  We made it to the SF RV Resort and dropped the trailer.  We headed downtown to get Hannah and take her to dinner.  Hannah introduced us to Thai food.  We ate at Osha Thai.  I had the Volcano Beef:

Roxie had Shrimp Fried Rice:

Hannah had some plate that I don't remember:

The next day we took a short drive down Hwy 1 toward Half Moon Bay.  Roxie has been offered a new job and she had to get some information back and forth to her prospective employer.  That required 2 stops at different UPS stores.  However we did get to see some scenery and we stopped at a nice beach south of Pacifica.  I also got to see where they are building the tunnel and bridge to bypass the Devil's Slide.

We had Hannah hop on BART after her 3pm class and meet us in South San Francisco.  Since she got us going on Thai food the night before, we asked her if she was up to it again.  She agreed and we went to Original Thai BBQ.  This more mainstream Thai, I believe, instead of a more trendy Osha Thai.  I had the drunken noodles and I loved them!  I will now have to find them here somewhere.  We took Hannah back to her loft, said our goodbyes.  We went back to the trailer and watched "Fair Game".

The SF RV Resort is right on the bluffs of the ocean in Pacifica and we stayed there before.  However they have had a LOT more erosion since.  They had to move one of the walking paths due to this.  I don't know how much longer they will be able to be open.  About 20 more feet and the RV spots will be going in.  Here is a view of below the bluffs:

And from above:

Get there while you can!

The ground was covered in most places with a clover like plant called Redwood Sorrel.  Well, I thought it was clover and started, naturally, looking for a 4 leaf clover.  I looked up the odds of finding one (1:20000) and thought in this area it was pretty good.  We were heading down one of the trails and I got ahead of Roxie so I sat down.  I was constantly looking for one so I looked next to where I was sitting and saw this:

4 leaves!

Here is a picture of Roxie taking a short break:

We only had our cell phones so that is what we are taking these pictures with.

After the walking/hiking, it was time for lunch.  I checked out Yelp and found boon.  We thought we would try it.  Not this was not the type of food we normally eat.  This was from some type of Food Network show, a bit foreign to us.  So we ordered their cheeseburger and truffle fries.  Both were excellent!  The food there is recommended. 

On our way to the park we saw a shop that had a vintage Airstream sticking out of the door.  We went back to look and got a thorough tour of the works in progress and there is a lot of work.  The name is Russian River Vintage Trailers if you are interested.

What do you do when you get back to your trailer after a busy, semi-strenuous day?  You take a nap.  That is what we did until Bob knocked on the door and invited us to dinner at 5:30.  We readily agreed and our new friends Ken and Shannon joined us also.  We ate, talked, laughed and froze our BUTTS off!  We would have liked to talk more but the blood circulation forced a retirement to our warm trailers.  Sleep came soon and then day 6!

We got back and worked on his jack.  We did not find a switch and decided to bypass the limiter switch until he could find the right microswitch.  Success!  That started my repair list.  The next was to fix the crack.  I mixed up the epoxy solution and had 4 minutes to get it in place.  It took a bit of twisting to get in the right angle but I filled the crack within the time limit.  It had a wonderful aroma also.  On to the clock install.  We have an Airstream clock and I could not figure out a way to hang up.  I got some of those 3m removable velcro hooks.  That worked great!  Keep going.  Remove the water saving spigot from the kitchen sink, Roxie never liked it anyway.  I also replace the right screw of the step just for good measure.  We had lunch somewhere in that mess of things also.

A bit of rest then getting ready for the potluck at 6pm.  Roxie made a pan of brownies and cooked two tri-tips for it.  I took down one of our portable tables and looked around.  There were 12 tables that seated 8 each setup.  That is 96 people!  It was all packed!!  We have not been to one of these rallies with this many people.  It was great!  The food was good also.  We visited others around the trailers afterward and got some good ideas.  We are now back in the trailer and Roxie is snoring away!

Here are some pics that I took to day of the 33 trailers here!
 

How about this one?  Glad we weren't here in 1986!