Posts

Posted on

Cedar Pocket to Dillon Montana

We left that beautiful campground early on Saturday morning and headed toward Spanish Landing’s Lincoln Beach campground for one night.   It was a fairly long drive (for us) and along the way we made a stop at a Mormon church to park and eat lunch.  We had stopped here on the way north last year when it was a lot hotter as it had shade and lots and lots of lush grass.  (here are the coordinates: 39.245978, -112.105940 )

After stopping we headed the rest of the way to LB.  It was about 12 miles off the freeway right on Utah Lake.  It was a great spot for the night.  It was listed as dry-camping but there was a water spigot in our site.  (#9)  I saw a few other spigots also.  On the drive out there we noticed a lot of flood land, and based on the fencing, figured it was normally dry but all the rain storms this winter probably had been the reason.

The next morning we headed off toward a Casino with a campground in Fort Hall, Idaho for two nights,  I decided to do this long drive from SD to Montana with a one-night stop, then a two-night stop and repeat that till we got to Great Falls.

It was a fairly nice campground, and I would probably stay there again.  Although the placement of the utilities made hooking up the sewer hose difficult.   So far I am very impressed with the Starlink In Motion dishy.  It’s been flawless.  Even here it’s doing well with a few trees that should be blocking it, but no outages logged while here for 2 nights.

After a two-day stint where we picked up some groceries and I got my hair cut, we headed off to Dillon, Montana.  Prior to getting to Fort Hall, I was still planning on camping right on the Big Hole River about 40 miles north of Dillon.  As we got further north each day, we noticed most of the rivers we crossed were very high and I guessed that a BLM campground right on the river right now might be a poor choice to overnight at,  so I opted for a campground we had stayed at a few years ago in Dillon.

When we woke up this morning and it was 27 degrees, I was very happy to have 50 amp power to get the temperature up inside and not have to depend on very cold batteries to do all the heavy lifting that morning!   I had forgotten that the park (Southside RV) had train tracks right next to it until I heard a low rumbling sound and rolled up the shade to see 5 locomotives going by at about 5 mph.   No whistles and so slow I had no idea what the sound was.   Apparently it has to slow down to a crawl to stop a couple miles north in downtown Dillon.   After a bit, the train cars were stopped (very long train with those 5 engines)  Then about 10 minutes later it started moving away slowly.  Then we were off to meet the group in Great Falls!

 

Posted on

Barstow to Cedar Pocket

We got an early start (for us)  and set the GPS to that $3.99 Maverick gas station in North Las Vegas.   Of course it was $4.09 when we got there, but it was still much cheaper than anything around it.   But that was where the fun began.

We pulled into the truck bays and their always problematic large nozzles.   The first thing that happened when I started pumping was a big fuel burp splashing out about a pint of diesel on the ground.  (and side of the coach)  I should have known that was just the beginning of a shitty fueling experience.   I filled up the first $175 and the pump shut off, so I had to put the credit card in again and restart the pump.  Once I got it going again, I noticed fuel dripping off the hose at the bottom of the U (between the pump & coach nozzle)  and as I looked at that to see where it was coming from, it started to get worse.  I mean a lot of fuel was dripping; and with the wind that day, it was spraying the side of the coach.   It was coming from the fitting at the top where the hose meets the physical gas pump.  I started thinking that it might just break off up there and spray fuel everywhere and that might be a real disaster, so I shut off the pump and we drove over to a different one to get the last 60 gallons pumped in.

Here are two short videos to give you an idea how much fuel was spraying out of that pump.

IMG_0686_1683232750000 IMG_0685_1683232741000

I had never seen anything quite like that, and this station was VERY new.  Based on the Google Satellite and street views, it wasn’t there 2 years prior.

I started the new pump and made sure all was working as it should, then I walked back over to the original bay and moved a cone into the driveway so others wouldn’t use that lane.   Just then an employee was walking around and I showed him what was happening.  There was a LOT of fuel on the ground now.

He called in and had them shut down that pump and made sure I had placed the cone in the right spot.

So far this has been an eventful start to our trip..

We drove the rest of the way (~2hours) to our campground and it turned out to be a very nice place.   There is a huge canyon you must drive thru on the I-15 just south of St. George, Utah.  The campground I picked turned out to be in the canyon and it was a beautiful place.  It was a BLM campground, no hookups for our 2-night stay.   I had picked site 25 to reserve thru recreation.gov as the sat view had it as far from the highway as you could be in that campground.  And it was right on the Virgin River and even had a large pavilion with a picnic bench.   After looking at all the other sites, this was clearly the best site in the place.

Posted on

Heading out for Alaska trip 2023

We headed out around 11 am on Wednesday morning, drove over to our local Chevron Station to add 25 gallons of fuel at a really good price using the Chevron Rewards app that my son told me about and then hooking up the car to get on the road.   We got back on the road going on noon and immediately realized I didn’t bring my new sunglasses!  I wasn’t going to travel 6 months without them, so we headed back home to find them.

On the way home, Kathy noticed we had also forgotten the weather station, which is crucial on our trips.  What a rough start!

After searching for a long time for my sunglasses, I got a flashlight and found they had fallen between the seat and the console to the rear in my truck!!   In the process of looking everywhere in the RV though, we had extended the small bedroom slide so Kathy could look to see if they had somehow been put back there.  (I had thought I put them in the RV on the dashboard.)

We got back on the road and I was just getting onto the I-15 north when I noticed that BR slide was still out.  OMG!!!   I pulled over and we pulled it in.  Wow, never did that before!  Geez.

The rest of the drive to Barstow was pretty uneventful till we got to Victorville.   Ahead of me was a large truck and I noticed kids on a bridge ahead looking suspicious.  Just then one of them dropped what looked like a rock about 5″ across to try to hit the truck in front of me.  I leaned on the air horn, which shocked them, and they started running.  Luckily it didn’t look like the rock hit the truck and more luckily, us.   That night we stayed at the Barstow KOA.  We had stopped there before and it was a fairly decent place for the night.

A little more on the fuel situation…  We try not to fill our 150 gallon tank in California due to the $1 extra tax they add per gallon, so we last filled our tank in Tucson in March on the way home from the Escapade rally.    The cheapest fuel here in San Diego was $4.49 a gallon.  Most places were way over $5.  The Chevron near our house was $5.39, so driving the 2 miles to the next one was a good plan.   Add in the $1 per gallon discount on the first 25 gallons was nice.   That allowed us to make it to North Las Vegas where Gas Buddy told me fuel was $3.99 a gallon.  When adding at least 120 gallons of fuel, even 50 cents a gallon difference saves enough for a great lunch or a cheap dinner out.   I just like to look at prices along the route we are taking to know where to fill up.

Posted on

Mods this Winter & Spring 2022-2023

I needed to replace the angle iron on the mudflap that broke off a mile before turning into Champoeg campground last fall.  I had to tie wrap it up so It wasn’t dragging on the asphalt or getting pulled under the front tire of our tow car till we could get to the campground.  I took it all the way off of the mudflap while camping there and made a note to replace it once we got home.   I looked at a friends mudflat to see how it differed.  He didn’t have the angle iron and his mudflap was being ground down significantly on the sides like my sacrificial angle iron looked.   I decided I would rather the unseen steel be ground off instead and  I bought some angle steel at Industrial Metals when we got back to San Diego.  I drilled the required holes using the mud flap as a template and bolted it back on.  I also cut up a piece of flat stock to be the wear points at each end of the mud flat so I don’t wear down the plastic and then the expensive stainless logo.   The top left photo shows the angle after attaching it and the one below and to the right shows on the the sacrificial steel plates I added to both sides.   

I also bought new Shackles to hang it as the originals were not really the correct type for this application, they had threads where the chain hung.  The new ones only have the threads where they screw into the shackle  as its supposed to be, and the part the chain rests on are solid steel (a lot stronger).  They were 5/16″ x 3/4 inch and can lift 1.5 tons.

I installed new MCD shades in the cockpit area so we could donate the curtains.  They were sill usable, but were just too ugly to keep anymore and we really wanted easily deploy-able sun shades.  All the roller shades are now installed.  The windshield ones were a much harder install than all the others combined.  Basically working above and behind you is not a very fun thing.   I found that buying the MCD roller shades thru Camping World around Black Friday is significantly cheaper than buying them anywhere else.  And of course that means you must install them yourself.   They are not hard to install, except the windshield ones.

Two of my rooftop Solar panels went Kaput this year so I contacted the seller and they refunded the cost of the two panels (5 years old).  That was so easy it was amazing to me.   Turns out they don’t make that panel anymore but I was able to get two NOS from a seller on Walmart.  And I was able to use a sharp putty knife to remove the old panels.   We are back putting out the amp’s again!   Just in time for Boondocking @ Escapade this spring.

I also purchased a new AC Cover for the roof as mine had a large piece broken off it.   Not sure what did that, but it was pretty ugly.  A new one was ~$400 so I opted for a used one.  (no use buying a new one for a very old AC as the new AC when needed,  comes with a new cover)  $80 from a place out in El Cajon.   Its installed and looks much better now.

I changed out the lamps inside the Dining Table Fixture that I had I installed last spring   Kathy thought it was too bright while camping last summer so first I  purchased a Dimmer, which wouldn’t do anything with the existing LED’s in the fixture.  I then purchased two small Small stick on 24 bulb lamps at M4products and wired them in to the  dimmer, now they are controllable. Nice!

Diamond Shield Install.  Had an installer come out and install the diamond shield.  He made it look easy, but I could never have gotten that installed.  It looks good, but I probably wouldn’t have it installed again.  It was pretty pricey for what you actually get.

I replaced our 6 year old surge protector with a Power Watchdog EPO model.  It includes an app that you can look at the power being used from the pedestal and also which circuit, L1 or L2 is using how much power.

I am very happy with the Sheepskin Seat Covers we had custom made by Superlamb in Escondido CA. They were pricey, but are they comfortable!   It took them a couple weeks to make them but well worth the wait.   I still have my original sheepskin seat cover on my 2004 Silverado and still loving it.

Pulling a few Ethernet cables from the front to the rear bay in the bus had been needed for a long time.     I put that off for years and finally bit the bullet and did it.   What a PIA.   But its working well.

Installed some gutter over the windshield and over the drivers window.  Stick on Gutter  We had put them on years ago after a buddy told me about how it keep the windshield a lot cleaner.   I had pulled them off prior to getting the bus painted.   This time I used white gutters instead of black so they blend into the new paint scheme.

Also, I redid the new 400w solar suitcase infrastructure.  The new wiring has been run and the breakers installed.  We got to test them out at Escapade for 7 days of boondocking.  They worked perfectly.  Even in the wind, although I did have to tie them down using the D rings I had installed on them just prior to heading toward Tucson.

I built and added a slide out tray for the small door on the passenger side.   Its 60″ long and pulls all the way out on 60″ Vevor Full Suspension Slides.  (accuride slides are much better than these, but the price was 5x the cost of the Vevor)  These slides have 500 lbs capacity.  The tray itself is made from some scrap 3/4″ plywood I had in the garage.

While looking for spots in the motorhome basement to store things not needed very often, but when needed that couldn’t be impossible to get at.   I found a couple fairly large unused spaces above the sliding trays on the drivers side.   I made two sets of  brackets that I bent from 3″ wide 1/8th in thick 5159 aluminum pieces that were left over from my Starlink In Motion project.  On one side they hang over the Chassis Frame and then cantilever from there.

Another mod that needed to be done was add an outlet next to the toilet for the heated seat.  I was tired of looking at the extension cord running to it.   I also finally got around to installing a switch for the battery heating pad as I knew we could be in much colder weather this year on our Alaska trip.

This year I decided to ditch (sell on eBay) my iPad.  I wanted to use it for navigation but Apple only puts GPS chips on their cellular enabled iPads.   So I sold the 2017 iPad for $125 and bought a new Lenovo 10′ tablet for $110 that has been working great as a Navigation device.  Finally something larger than a phone to look at while driving down the highway.

I also installed a StarLink In-Motion Dishy on the roof the 3rd week of April (2023) and have been testing it since.   That post will publish tomorrow May 14th.

 

Posted on

2023 Escapade (Tucson)

Drove over to Tucson for Escapade this spring.   Met up with friends Tami and Scott and traveled in together so we could park next to one another.   We were escorted out to the fence line on the south 40 of the property.   Not sure if it was a further walk to the main buildings than the last time we attended, but it sure seemed like it.   I guess you need to know someone to get reasonably close camping.

After our arrival  Saturday morning, I deployed my new 4-panel suitcase to see how well it worked with the sun relatively low in the sky.  It was pretty windy that morning, so I had to employ my newly installed D rings and large lag screws to hold them down.  And lucky for us I did that,  because it only got windier as the week went on.   A couple of the days were pretty cloudy, and by the evening on the second day of clouds, my batteries were around 40% SOC.  Not a great starting point for the sun going down, better if it’s just coming up.

We were in the solar area and were not supposed to run our genny; but I decided no one was around to hear it and ran it for a couple hours, bringing the batteries up to ~90%.   7 days of boondocking and I needed to run the genny for 2 hours.  If it hadn’t  been very cloudy for a couple days in a row, I would not have needed the genny.  And I may have not needed it when I used it, but I had never let them get below 40% since I put them in back in 2019.   The below screenshot shows that 400 watts of panels putting out a respectable 364 watts of power at noon one of the days.

We got to test out the new Power Watchdog on the way there and back and our new roller shades in the front area of the bus.  I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of the new solar suitcase deployed.   It really worked out very well for helping to keep the batteries topped off.

Posted on

Newport Beach then back home.

We drove down from San Dimas on a Saturday morning and the traffic made me wonder if it would have been worse Friday during rush hour.   We arrived before noon and wasn’t sure if they were sticklers about check-in time.  Turns out they are not and we got to our site for the next few nights within a few minutes of noon.

The site I had chosen was long enough for us and was wide enough to fit the car next to us with room to spare.   It wasn’t overlooking the water, but as we were in town to see the kids, we didn’t expect to be here that much.   The place turned out to be very nice.  I was pleasantly surprised as the reviews were very mixed.

This campground is a few minutes from the kids’ house, so it was a very convenient place to stay while visiting them.  Really nice walkway around the bay.  Kathy and Dusty enjoyed going down there every morning and afternoon.  We had a great time seeing Chris and Shelly and going out on the town!

Posted on

The Dash Down Interstate 5

We drove down Interstate 5 about 220 miles, through Sacramento, past Stockton, and to Kit Fox RV Park in Patterson, CA.  Surprisingly, Patterson was a busy place.  We had the first pull-thru with a bit of green grass right out our front door.   The freeway was about 1,800 feet away, but the noise made it seem a lot closer.   It was very convenient for a single night, no need to unhook and was easy in and out.   Just needed to be a bit further from the freeway.

The following morning we headed the 200 miles to Bakersfield River Run RV Park.   I had asked for a pull-thru and they screwed up the reservation and all they had were back-ins.  But the next morning I saw that had been bull shit as there were still a few unoccupied pull-thru’s when we left.

The drive into the area was pretty rough and looked like we were heading into an industrial park.  I won’t bother stopping here next time.  I was totally underwhelmed by their service and location.

The next morning we headed toward San Dimas to camp for a night at Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort and Campground.   I was shocked how nice this place was.  Way up on a hill with views in all directions.  Lots of lush grass too!   I will try to stay here again!   The next morning we headed south to Newport Dunes Resort, our last stop before getting back home for the winter.  

Posted on

Red Bluff CA

We looked at camping at another park in Red Bluff to stay a few more days with friends, but I got the dates screwed up and after rereading the reviews of that campground decided to go to a different park in town that we had not been to before.  Turned out it was a good choice as it was very pleasant, with full hookups and lots of shade for a few fairly warm days.   We had stayed at Durango Resort a few times but lately it was bought out by KOA and the reviews went downhill quickly.    There is absolutely no shade at Durango/KOA,  nothing at all, so we opted for Red Bluff RV Park.   I looked for pictures I took while there, but apparently I didn’t take any.

It was a nice quiet park and we would stay there again.   When we left there, we were going to make time traveling south to get home!

Posted on

Emigrant Lake

On the way to Emigrant Lake we topped off our fuel tank as it was going to jump about a dollar a gallon just a few miles south of the lake at the California border.

We got there and the lake was Very low.   It was a very long way down to the water.  Even the ends of the boat ramps and floating docks were hundreds of feet from the edge of the water when we were there.

The campground side for larger vehicles is all the way at the end of the road on a tall peninsula.   It was interesting as we drove out there, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingle as the height came into view over the rise.

Tami & Scott arrived the day after we got there as their repairs took a bit longer to complete the work they wanted done.   We did get to have lunch one day on the Ashland Riverwalk.   Nice small town, and lots of Oregonian folks.  You need to spend a bit of time in a small town in Oregon to know what I mean.

The best view site was RV21, a pull-thru overlooking the whole lake.  We were not in that site, but wished we were.

This park had the worst stickers Kathy has ever seen and it was impossible to walk Dusty unless we drove him to the day use area, which had nice lush grass.  The sign said no pets, but there were no people at this time of year so I dared it!

Posted on

Valley of the Rogue

We were meeting back up with friends at this campground and staying for a few days.   When I was setting this camping up, I noticed how close it was to the 5 freeway.  So when we arrived and found our spot, I was pleasantly surprised how quiet it was.  And the Rogue River had a very small rapids area right across from us by Scott and Tami’s spot, so there was the sounds of the water right there making it a pleasant experience.

I spent some of the time there cleaning the basement that had gotten a bit dirty over the last several months.  Did some rearranging of stuff under there to lessen the weight on the right rear of the coach that I had found out about traversing a couple unoccupied weigh stations along the way to Champoeg.  (Shampoo)

One afternoon we headed over to Grant’s Pass for lunch along the Rogue River.  Was a pretty nice place with tables next to and overlooking the river.  Food was very good too.  (River’s Edge Restaurant)

One evening we were sitting outside our friends’ coach sipping on some beer and above us were hundreds of birds circling.  They looked like hawks to me and Scott thought they were turkey vultures.   I kept trying to get them into a picture but could only get some of them in any one shot.   They stuck around for a couple hours riding the thermals and dropping down and doing it again.  It was pretty cool as I had not seen that many birds doing anything like that before.