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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.

 

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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.

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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!

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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.  

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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!

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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!

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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.

 

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Seven Feathers

On our way down interstate 5, we stopped for a night at the Seven Feathers Resort.  We had been there before and I was looking forward to going back to the Mexican place we ate at the last time we were there, but we ended up making something in the bus and skipped going out.  Really nice RV park and especially dog friendly for Dusty!

The picnic tables were changed out since we were there the last time.  Kind of an odd replacement choice in my opinion.  Kathy took advantage of their nice laundry facility and washed a lot of our larger items.  (But killing stink bugs was the highlight.  They came out of the slides when the weather warmed up.  Yuck!)

 

 

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Renee & Micks Homestead

We stopped by Renee and Mick’s homestead on our way back home this summer.   Luckily, Renee mentioned I shouldn’t be concerned when I saw a gravel road to go down.   When I saw it, I was concerned for a few seconds; then realized that if they could get their coach in there, I shouldn’t have an issue as they are probably 1 foot taller and 5 foot longer.   It was very tight going, narrow and completely tree-lined, very close on each side of this long one-lane gravel road.  I wondered what would happen if somebody came the other way.  Luckily no one did.   There wasn’t anywhere to pull off that I saw.  Within a few minutes, I saw their motorhome and was glad we made it there.   Mick came out to point out a few places where we could park.  We drove the bus over top where they will be building the house.

I could not believe how much work they had done in the short time since they bought that forested land:   Removing about an acre of trees, which would be no small feat; bringing in power; drilling a well; installing a septic system and leech field.  And they were traveling and working a lot of the time!

Renee had insisted she make dinner the night we were there.  I had assumed we would go out or at least get takeout.  But as we got there, I realized she was right, as we were driving away from the freeway, there wasn’t anywhere nearby their homestead for takeout or dine in.

We got to see the foot print for their house and shop building.   I learned that the building department does not allow them to build the shop first, but have to build the house then the shop.   I thought it would be nice to build the shop, pull their motorhome inside out of the weather, and then build the house; but the local building department won’t allow them to do that.

After a very nice dinner, we discussed interesting happenings and some of the travails of motorhome travel.  They had an incredible experience when pulling into a wedding venue and the dip at the entrance lifted their drive wheels off the ground so they were stuck and needed a large wrecker to pull them off.  The most interesting part was their motorhome manufacturer installs rollers at the rear of the coach for just such a scenario.  Without rollers, I would guess there would have been substantial damage to the undercarriage.   Yikes!

The next morning we said our goodbyes and headed back out that gravel road to find some pavement and get to our next stop at 7 Feathers Resort.  Hope to see their beautiful home after it is completed!!

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Champoeg (Shampoo)

We drove about an hour southeast to Champoeg State Historic Site.   On the way, just outside the entrance to the campground, I heard a very funny dragging noise after making a left onto the road leading to the park.   I stopped and walked around back and there was a 8′ piece of angle iron hanging from the rock guard by one bolt on the driver’s side.   Since I was literally in the middle of a small road, I found a couple tie wraps to temporarily hook it up so it wasn’t dragging till I could bolt it back on.

We got into the park a few minutes later and found our site.   The next day I decided to remove it to see what I could do to salvage it.  After checking out how a friend’s rock guard was attached, I decided to forgo putting ours back on, opting to make a couple sacrificial steel pieces for the bottom ends and then buying a new piece of angle iron and configure it a bit different than the original.

We didn’t do very much else while we were there as our friends were trying to recover from colds.  We decided to get our flu shots and found out that Costco did walk-in’s, and then we could pick up a few things while there.   On the way I decided I would also get our Covid Booster BA5 version.  We weren’t very sure it was a great idea to get both at the same time, but it turned out fine,  neither of us had adverse reactions to either shot.

One day there I saw something I hadn’t seen before, a Tesla Model 3 towing a fairly large trailer.  I stopped to talk to the guy for a bit as I didn’t think a Model 3 could pull a trailer.   He said it was 4,000 pounds and that it cut his range from 225 miles to 70 miles.  Wow.   Hopefully there are Superchargers every 70 miles to keep them moving!

On the way out of there, we found a local Shell station with Diesel @$4.89, so we drove over there and slowly pulled in as the roof said it was 13’0″ and we are 12’7″.  It seemed very short but nothing hit.   And as in NJ, Oregon pumps your gas for you, which always seems odd.