Category: Traveling the hiways and byways

We got up early and readied the coach to leave.   Once it was ready to go, we headed over to the restaurant for a delightful breakfast on the patio, then headed out before 11am for the trip to just north of San Francisco.   It was an uneventful drive with a pit stop at a  rest area stop right near Los Banos.

Got back onto I-5 north till we exited to I-580 west toward SF.   About half way toward town, that freeway gets really bumpy,  seems like it will shake out the dishes from the cupboards.    After about 20 miles of that rough ride, it thankfully became much smoother.   We had our first Fastrac use on the  580 toll bridge right by San Quentin Prison.  $20 for the RV pulling a car.    We were staying very close to SQP and got off the freeway to wind around the surface streets to find an on ramp to the 101 south for one exit, then even more winding around more surface streets to find the campground.

We found the Marin RV Park, checked in and proceeded to our spot.   This place resembled an RV storage lot:  Tightly packed RV’s of all sizes.  We just barely fit, backing all the way up to the fence in spot J-7.  The campsite was wide but only about 41′ long.   I considered putting orange cones at the front but decided not to.   Our nose was maybe an inch off the pavement and the towbar maybe 5 inches from the fence.

 

But it turned out to be a great place to visit SF from as the Larkspur ferry was less than a mile walk, which we did many times.   And the Clipper card saves a bundle on the ferry cost.  It’s also useful for the muni’s and cable cars; so that worked out well once our feet were complaining a bit.

 

 

 

We got a late start on Sunday, actually hooking up the car right at noon.  We had been packing the coach back up for days as we had pulled everything out from inside and underneath for a thorough cleaning after San Eljio State Beach.

The traffic in LA was slow moving in a lot of places and continued to get worse as we drove along.  It was Sunday afternoon, where the heck were all these folks going?   It’s never good to hear google nav announcing that traffic is building on your route, multiple times during your drive thru LA.

We eventually got thru and started out toward Magic Mountain and eventually the Grapevine.   I had planned a stop in Castaic at a truck stop about 2.5 hours into the trip, but with all the traffic, it was more like 3.5 hours before we arrived.   I pulled into a fuel lane and Kathy took Dusty for a walk.   When I eventually got up to the pumps and looked at them, they said it was B20 fuel.   I had never seen it so high and decided to pass on the fill.  I didn’t actually need the fuel as we were only 100 miles from home, it was just the only place to get off the freeway for a bit.

We proceeded north on I-5 and I was amazed by all the traffic once we arrived at the Grapevine.   I had never seen so many cars and trucks on that stretch of road before.   We headed down the long grade and realized it isn’t nearly as steep or long as a lot of the grades we traversed last summer.    It’s only 6% and just 5 miles long.    We saw many 10 % grades and some were 20 miles long going over the Rockies.

We arrived at the Bakersfield resort a little after 5pm and pulled into a nice wide and long pull-thru site.    Tomorrow will be a quick and easy getaway..

They have a restaurant at this RV park that is quite good!  We were able to take Dusty and eat on the patio where I ordered a beer during happy hour and got one that was almost too heavy to lift.  The weather was beautiful for June in Bakersfield, low 80s!!  We had dinner there and breakfast the next morning.  Both times met nice people who had interesting tips on places to go.

Ever since designing the TV stand for the RV, I wanted to put a lift mechanism on it.   This week I have finally found the right parts and am assembling it.    The problem with buying one was they are too deep for the area I have.  I mounted it behind the couch and needed something 5″ or less in depth so the couch wouldn’t need to move so far away from the wall and window that it impeded walking past it when the slides were in for travel.

I didn’t want to be able to see the TV when it’s in travel mode, and I also wanted it as low as possible for any driving events, like stopping quickly or large bumps.   I made the stand using cherry wood and three sets of Accuride slides.  I would manually pull it up from behind the couch and insert a couple of wooden poles to keep it up at viewing level.

I tried a linear actuator but couldn’t find one the right length and finally settled on a gas lift strut.   Those were a bit too short for the full height it needed to be, but after searching the web for many weeks, I found a place that had some that had over 22″ of travel and came in 20, 40, 60 and 80 lbs. of force.   I first tried the 60 lbs. one and I could barely compress it.  Realizing that would be way too much force, I traded the two 60 pounders for a 20 and 40 lbs. unit of the same length.   The 40 is still too strong, and the 20 is a bit weak.  If only they made a 30 lbs. unit…

I had to beef up the unit and make a special holder for the top of the gas strut so I could still lift the TV the few inches higher it needs to be once the struts are fully extended.  I bought some 1″ inside diameter steel pipe about 6″ long and modified the top with a couple hacksaw cuts and ball peen hammer to bend over the top end like a cap that will stop the strut from going any further and allowing it to lift the TV!

I also created a mechanism to keep the TV in the down position as the gas struts are a constant push up.   I used parts from a fence gate latch, builders simpson straps and threaded rod with some eye hooks.

 

Tony,  you helped me get in the gate at the Paradise Point RV park  in DeTour Village last summer during a torrential rainstorm..   I finally watched the Movie..

Send me an email… bill at cowlesmountain dot com

While at the Freightliner Rally we heard there were places in Yuma that would wash and wax your coach for around $120.  That sounded too good to be true as in San Diego they want $10 a foot for that.. ($400)   I got a couple of names someone had used previously and called  Dave’s Auto Detail (aka DAD’s), they were too busy to do it Friday the day we would be passing thru Yuma.  I called Benjamin’s.   He told me to call him when I was almost in Yuma and he would try to fit me in.   I called 15 minutes prior to the turnoff he told us to use.   He said he would have someone meet me behind Al’s RV Supply.   A few minutes later the tech called me and told me he would be a while as he needed to go back to the shop and fill the water tank.   We drove behind the place and the parking lots was fairly sloped so we drove around front to wait.  I went inside the store and found a lens cover for a basement light I had broken months before and was not able to find the right replacement anywhere.    While I was paying for the lens I got to thinking, it was already after 3pm and figured we would probably need to spend the night as it would probably close to 7pm  when they finished.   So I called an RV campground that was a few hundred yards away to ask them if they had a spot and whether they would allow a firm to come in and wash the coach.   Got an affirmative answer and we headed off.   Checked in and parked just as the tech called me back.  We were on, they were a few minutes away.

I was a bit apprehensive when they arrived as I had realized I hadn’t asked how much it would cost.   I was pleasantly surprised when they said it was $99 for a complete wash with a hand waxing for the sides of the coach but not the roof, they only wash that.  But then the sales pitch started,  for another $49 they would treat the roof with a Wax & UV inhibitor, similar to 303… I opted in.   It took them about 2 hours, with 3 of them working to finish it.   They did a great job!

I was glad we decided to stay the night there as I had already driven 4 hours from Tucson is it was almost dark when they finished.   I find it kind of uncomfortable driving the coach at night due to the side windows reflecting everything back at you.   Going straight is no issue, but practically impossible to see anything to the right or left of you at night.   I had noticed that phenomena one very early morning in Muscle Shoals Alabama on a very short drive from a small campground to a shop to have some work done on the coach.  Even turning off all the dashboard lights didn’t help that.  It’s nothing I’ve seen in any other vehicle before.

I had read there was a Titan II ballistic missile silo about a 30-minute drive southwest of our campground and I just had to go see it early Saturday morning.  Kathy begged off and I drove there to see if I could get in a tour at the last minute.   I got there just as a tour was getting briefed for the procedures to go in and they allowed me to join it.

Turns out anyone 6′ or over must wear a hard hat while underground.   Thankfully I did as told, I hit a few steel beams when I forgot to duck.  I didn’t realize people where that short during the 1960’s, I always thought that we were talking hundreds of years ago. 🙂

This was a really cool tour, and it’s the only Titan II missile silo left.  All the others were destroyed after the new generation of missiles were deployed.   I was surprised the command center was not very far underground, about 55 steps down,  especially when they mentioned the warhead it carried was a 9 Megaton hydrogen bomb.  If ground burst, it would make a crater 500+ feet deep.   It appears they did not expect them to be directly hit by a similar sized weapon.

The underground site was sealed off by sets of massive heavy and thick doors.   Everything in this silo looked to be in perfect condition.  No rust to be seen, yeah it was in Tucson so that makes sense.

The control room was mounted on large springs that you could see around the perimeter.   They explained that the previous generation of missiles took over 45 minutes to launch once they got the launch order from the President due to not being able to keep them fueled due to the volatility of the liquid oxygen fuel.    They would probably all have been destroyed by a first strike as we only had about a 15-minute advance notice of incoming missiles back then.

These new Titan missiles fixed that issue having a different fuel mixture allowing them to be kept fueled up 24/7.   A launch could happen within 58 seconds of receiving a launch order with the Titan II.    I believe they told us all these sites were decommissioned in the late 1980’s.

The actual silo was accessed thru a very long corridor.   There were a couple of large open bay doors to allow a view of the missile from a couple vantage points.   They also mentioned that the tours on the 3rd Saturdays included a visit down to the bottom of the silo.   Unfortunately I was there on the 4th Saturday morning.

I would highly recommend a visit to this museum if you are in the area.  It was fascinating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After day two of my class was done, we drove down to the Lavender pit mine near Bisbee Az, about one and a half hours south of our campground.   We drove past Old Bisbee on the way to the open pit mine and thought it would be a nice place to eat our lunch on the way back.

We stopped at the Lavender pit scenic overlook.   It was a really large open pit copper mine.  We had never seen an open pit mine before.  The colors of the dirt and rock all around us was just spectacular.   After gawking for a while we headed further south to Sierra Vista to pick up some bottled water and chips for a picnic lunch, then headed back north toward Old Bisbee.

What a place!   We pulled in and onto a very small roadway that went up the side of the canyon.  It was basically just a foot or so wider than our car with houses and garages clinging to each side of the steep slope.  Reminded us of some of the villages we visited in Europe.   When we got to the top, it was what looked like a dead end and started thinking that couldn’t have been a two way road.   But just then someone pulled out and went off to our left and down an incredibly steep road that I couldn’t see was there and probably wouldn’t have found without that car going down it.   We turned to go down it.  Wow, it was probably a 45-50-degree slope to the bottom of the canyon.

Old Bisbee is an odd little place, kind of 60ish feel, maybe an artist colony wrapped into one.   We found a parking spot right next to the mining museum and started looking around for a shady spot with a table.  It didn’t look like we would find one, so I sat down on a steel bench with Dusty, and Kathy went ahead to see if there were any tables around.   That steel bench seat was HOT, really hot out in the full midday sun.   Kathy yelled and motioned me to come.  She had found a little chess table with two stools in the shade up the hill a bit.

We had found a delightful place for a picnic lunch!   Beautiful cool breeze and pretty view.   And only a few yards away from a washroom.   It was Friday afternoon and there were lots of folks walking around the town on this perfect weather day.   After lunch we went for a stroll up and down the streets, found a cool park kind of hidden up a long flight of stairs.   It had a nice covered area with hilltop views of the town and canyon walls.   After admiring the park for a bit we noticed one house that looked much nicer than most of the others we could see so we headed further up the hill toward it.   Lots of steep narrow roads all around this little canyon town.  I was sad to leave as we wanted to see Tombstone and hopefully still have time to see Kartchner cavern on the way back.

We headed north out of town toward Tombstone using the GPS to find Boot Hill.   I wasn’t sure we would want to stop there when we drove thru it on the way toward the mine, but I am glad we did.   They had one of the roads blocked off to traffic all set up similar to what it would have looked like during Wyatt Earp’s and Doc Holliday’s time, complete with the wooden boardwalks on both sides.   There were outlaws dressed up in period gear in the road,  stage coaches giving rides around the town.   Tourist shops and saloons lined the street, which was considerably longer than I expected.  One of the stage coaches looked considerably older than the others, after walking past it I was thinking it was from the 1880’s and hadn’t been well maintained.  Sort of looked like a deathtrap that might disintegrate while going down the street.

We walked over to the courthouse that was about a block off that road.  We found an ice cream store on one of the side streets.   I met a couple of Arizona Rangers.  They came up to me as I was parked on a bench waiting for Kathy to find a tee shirt.   I hadn’t ever heard of Rangers in Az, only the Texas variety.   I asked them about the gun laws in Az.  He said no permit was needed for open or concealed pistols, and they both said it’s a much safer place because of it.   That just seems odd that policeman would think that, as they have to worry that anyone they stop can legally have a gun.  But they were older gentlemen and thought differently than I would have guessed.

I was pleasantly surprised we had a good time walking around in Tombstone, which I thought would be too touristy for me.   We left and headed toward home base and I wanted to stop at Kartchner Cavern.

When we got there, I asked the attendant at the gate if we could bring the pup into the cave, and he said no, but all the tours were full so we couldn’t go in them either.   He mentioned this cave is the only fully wheelchair accessible one in the US.  He was responding to my questions about the number of stairs on the tour.   I was remembering back to one of the caves we hiked in the Black Hills last summer had about 800 stairs to climb.    I asked about the temp in the cave, to see if it was as cold as the caves from last summer.   He told us it was hot in this cave,  98% humidity and about 75 degrees.   Far cry from the 48 or so degrees of the caves in the Black Hills.

We drove back to the RV after a nice day sightseeing in the Arizona desert.

 

After we got home last fall, I started researching trips for this year (2018) and thought we might try some of the RV rallies I had been reading about last summer.   A week in Quartzite was the first, then two weeks in Tucson.  After that, a summer couple-month trip to the Pacific Northwest with a one-week rally in Coos Bay, Oregon.   The last of the planned trips is to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta in early October.

The Tucson trip was for a Freightliner Chassis rally.  I had signed up to take a class on maintenance for my chassis and was looking forward to spending a couple weeks in Tucson.

After spending six months on the road last summer,  a new mattress for the coach was required.  Our mattress was a foam type that was way to soft for me, so after reading Consumer Reports, we picked out an innerspring model that was on their recommended list.  The closest dealer that sold it was in Yuma,  so I purchased the new king mattress over the phone during the Presidents’ day sales in February with the intention of picking it up in Yuma on the way to Tucson in March.

Prior to pulling the trigger, I started asking on some forums if folks with my specific coach model were able to get an innerspring mattress thru the front door.  Most folks said no, but a few said they had done it.   I started thinking the “no” responses had probably never tried it and just went with another foam or air mattress, and a few mentioned they bought two long twins which equals a king-size bed.   So after the few folks said they had gotten one in but that it took two people to get it in there, I pulled the trigger.   After that I got to second-guess my decision for a month till we headed toward Yuma.

We arrived in Yuma last Monday afternoon and parked around back next to the loading dock.   I put out all the slides to give us room to maneuver both mattresses.   I had their warehouse guy help me move the old mattress out of the way, but not out of the coach yet, in case the new one wouldn’t fit in thru the door.    After a bit of struggling with the new mattress, me pulling and the young man pushing, we got it in.  Hooray!   Keeping the plastic on it was very helpful, allowing it to slide a bit on the steps as we manhandled it up and thru the doorway and steps.   We offloaded the old mattress.  Geez was that thing heavy, probably triple the weight of the innerspring mattress.

We pulled in all the slides and headed for Tucson, another 3 1/2 hours of driving.   About 50 miles shy of the campground, we pulled into a Pilot fuel stop and I was able to pump 138 gallons into the tank.  [As we were driving the rest of the way, I was smelling a strong odor of fuel.  Bill at first said it was because some splashed on him, but then later he he had forgotten to put on the fuel cap and it was still in his pocket,  oops!!]

We arrived at the RV park at Pima County Fairgrounds just a bit after dark and luckily a camp host came out and guided us to a site.    It had been a long day and we just deployed the coach, hooked up to water and electricity, and called it a day.   Perfect time for a bourbon & seven, but as we looked for the bourbon,  we realized we hadn’t packed it.    🙁

 

 

 

 

 

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