Monthly Archives: April 2016

Red Rock Canyon

Donna spent most of Friday morning finishing another article that was due. I took some time to clean the Spyder after being caught out in the rain on Thursday. The forecast for Friday looked good. Once again there was supposed to be a 0% chance of rain.

Just before noon, we rode the Spyder across town to west side of Las Vegas. As we approached I-215, rain drops started hitting my face shield. By the time we stopped in a plaza at the intersection of Charleston and Desert Foothills the front of my shirt was soaked. Sitting behind me, Donna was shielded from most of the rain. Another 0% chance of rain day in Vegas.

We waited the shower out in a Subway sandwich shop where we ate lunch. Then we walked to the Albertson’s grocery store and picked up a few things. By then the shower had passed. We continued our ride west to our destination – the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Red Rock Canyon is about 17 miles due west from the Las Vegas strip. It was designated a National Conservation Area in 1990 – Nevada’s first. It’s a place of natural beauty and a popular destination for hikers, rock climbers, bicyclists – both road and mountain bikers – and tourists. We rode the 13-mile scenic loop. This loop is a one-way road with several parking areas and turnouts.

We made a couple of stops as we slowly made our way through the loop. The sandstone rock formations are etched by the wind and have interesting textures. I tried to capture some shots, but the midday light didn’t produce the best images. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Iron minerals give the sandstone a red hue

A steep, craggy wall

Etched by rain and wind

Turtlehead Peak in the background

Deep gulch with shale on nearside and sandstone on the far side

Deep gulch with shale on the nearside and sandstone on the far side

More red rock

We decided to take the freeway home instead of cutting across town. I rode I-215 to Summerlin Parkway and then down I-515. The freeways around Las Vegas are a little scary. People drive too fast and follow too closely. Sudden lane changes and wild maneuvers are the norm.

After spending the last week in Verde Valley and the quiet Kingman Elks Lodge, the fast pace and noise of Las Vegas is a sharp contrast. While we were out, we saw two car accidents on the road. Emergency vehicles with sirens blasting can be heard throughout the day. The Thousand Trails Las Vegas RV Resort is located due east of McCarran Airport. Business and private jets typically depart from runway 1L/19R putting their flight path just north of the RV park. It seems like business travel begins early in the morning and small business jets are actually louder than large commercial aircraft. We hear them taking off before 6am.

We had new neighbors pull in to the sites on either side of us. I was asked by a few people how we got our trailer into the site. I wrote about it in my last post. This picture shows how crowded the lane we’re located in is. The narrow road filled with parked cars made backing the trailer in with our 40-foot motorhome quite the chore.

Packed in tight with a narrow road

After we returned home, I watched the Formula one practice session from Sochi, Russia. While I was watching TV, I saw our neighbor cleaning his truck. He spent hours doing a detail cleaning job. I told Donna I wondered if he looked at the weather forecast – not that it’s been anywhere near right since we arrived. But rain was coming.

The rain came overnight and continues to fall as I type this. Heavy rain is expected within the next couple of hours. I’m hoping it lets up this afternoon as I have an appointment for a mobile glass company to come out and fix a stone ding in our windshield. Other than that, I have no plans today and I’ll probably read a book until the rain stops.

Sitting Tight in Vegas

After another quiet night at the Kingman Elks lodge, we woke up early on Wednesday. Donna finished writing an article that was due. Then we rode the Spyder up Stockton Hill Road. After a mile or so, Stockton Hill Road becomes Hualapai Mountain Road. The road goes uphill as you head east, rapidly climbing to 5,000 feet above sea level at the Hualapai Mountain Park ranger station. The peaks in the park reach elevations greater than 8,400 feet. Hualapai (pronounced wah-lah-pie) is the name of an Indian tribe. It means “People of the Pines.”

Hualapai Mountain Park

We rode to the resort – it’s a small hotel, restaurant and store popular with ATVers.

Motorcycle parking

We went into the restaurant for lunch.

Donna in front of the restaurant

It’s a typical rustic setting with tables mostly set for parties of four. There’s also a bar and patio. It was larger inside than it looked from the entry. Donna had half a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich and a bowl of minestrone soup. I had the chili burger which was real man food. It was a ground beef patty covered with chili, smothered with cheese. The chili had chunks of beef and beans – lots of protein.

We took a look around but didn’t hike anywhere. There are a number of hiking trails in the park, but after a big lunch we weren’t up for it. The views coming down Hualapai Mountain Road were spectacular. On the way home, we reconnoitered the Super Walmart parking lot. We thought about stopping there on our way out of town to pick up groceries. However, the entry/exit was narrow and I decided it was too risky to try to get in there with the coach and trailer. The truck entrance led to a loading dock – not a place for us to park. We went back to the Elks Lodge and I loaded the Spyder in the trailer.

Later we popped in to the Elks Lodge for a cold one at happy hour, then returned to the coach to prepare dinner. Donna made yet another version of lemon-butter chicken – this one with chicken breasts instead of thighs.

Lemon-butter chicken breasts with roasted zucchini and tomatoes

She served it over leftover herbed brown rice and roasted zucchini and tomatoes. Yummy!

It rained overnight. On Thursday morning, we had a few sprinkles as I prepared to move. Donna went for a short run and did some exercises, then we finished packing up. We pulled out of the Kingman Elks Lodge a few minutes after 10am.

I expected rain on the way out of town. Heading up US93, I figured we would put the rain behind us after thirty miles or so. This turned out to be the case – and the forecast called for 0% chance of rain in Las Vegas.

Google maps and our GPS showed a route to the Thousand Trails Las Vegas RV Resort that took us up US93 until it becomes I-515. Then we would exit onto Boulder Highway and backtrack south, make a U-turn and enter the park. This may be the fastest route, but I wasn’t too keen to try it. The exit from I-515 onto Boulder Highway south requires a sharp right turn of about 135 degrees. Also, making a U-turn isn’t advisable with our overall length.

I modified the route to exit I-515 at Tropicana so I could make an easy 90-degree turn to the right. Then I turned left on Nellis taking me north. Nellis intersects Boulder Highway, which is a diagonal road compared to the north/south – east/west grid of the other major roads in the area. It was a gentle left turn of about 45 degrees onto Boulder Highway.

With our overall length of nearly 65 feet now, it pays to take a few minutes to study a map and plan for alternate routes. We could easily find ourselves in a bad situation otherwise. We pulled in to the RV park just after noon. The girl at the security station told me the biggest site they had available was 55 feet long and 24 feet wide. I said it sounded big enough for me to drop the trailer and park the motorhome next to it.

Once we were in the park, I could see we had our work cut out for us. The roads in the park are narrow, the sites are tightly packed together and I have my doubts about the 24-foot site width. We found site 34 and Donna and I talked over our plan for getting the trailer in it. With the narrow road, I was limited on how much maneuvering I could do without hitting anything with the coach.

Donna stayed in the site at the rear of the trailer and directed me with her handheld Cobra CB radio. I was having problems at the front of the coach. There were a couple of vehicles on the opposite side of the road. As I backed the trailer in, I had to swing the front of the coach to the right, toward the vehicles. As I got close to the vehicles, they disappeared from sight as they are much lower than the front of the coach. A neighbor came over and started directing me from the front. With Donna at the back and another set of eyes at the front, I worked my way into the site. It took a few attempts to get the trailer positioned where I wanted it.

We finally dropped the trailer, then I had to maneuver the coach into the site right next to the trailer. It took more than 35 minutes of jockeying back and forth to get the trailer and coach into the site. It’s tight. Our door clears the trailer with only a few inches to spare.

It’s a tight site – the yellow line marks the boundary

I got the Spyder out and made a quick beer run. I had a few raindrops on the way. I hurried back to coach as I could see heavy, dark clouds looming. At the park entrance, a car was stopped at the entrance barrier. The guy in the car stuck his head out the window and asked me if I knew the entry code. I said I knew the code, but I didn’t know him. He got out of his car and started yelling at me and cussing me out for not letting him in. A few big rain drops started falling. I punched in the code and told him to move his car. He kept yelling at me. Now it was really starting to rain. He finally got the message and got in his car and pulled through, letting me get into the park.

I got to our site and covered the Spyder just as the clouds really opened up and started pouring rain. So much for the 0% chance of rain in Las Vegas.

Donna made sweet and spicy salmon in the convection oven – last time I cooked it on the grill. It came out great. She served it with spinach sauteed with garlic oil and leftover Israeli couscous.

Sweet and spicy salmon with spinach and Israeli couscous

We had more rain into the night. We sat up and watched another recorded episode of The Americans that now brings us up to date with the live series. We expect a sunny day today with the temperature in the high 70s. Rain is forecast to return tomorrow, then we should have nice weather for the rest of our week in Las Vegas.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Dust in the Wind

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had to change up our plan on Monday. We took our time getting ready to leave the Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV Resort and Campground. Our original plan would have had us on the road earlier to make the drive to Flagstaff. But there were high wind advisories – sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. Up toward Flagstaff it was worse.

We headed out of the campground just before noon. Our destination was about two miles away on the west side of Thousand Trails Road before we reached AZ260. We spotted free dispersed camping there on National Forest land while we were out on the Spyder on Friday and Saturday. There were two distinct camping areas with a number of rigs in them. The dispersed camping was not so dispersed.

We bypassed the first area – I was concerned about getting our 65-foot length turned around to exit there. The second area was larger and had more room to maneuver. After looking around, we found a fairly level pullthrough spot and set up to ride out the wind storm.

After getting the coach leveled and putting the slides out, we were hit with a few strong wind gusts. The gusts rocked the coach and had the living room slide topper flapping like crazy. I decided to pull the living room slide in. It was better to be safe and not damage the slide topper – our layout works okay with the living room slide in. The bedroom slides are smaller and the toppers on those are less susceptible to wind damage.

Our dispersed camping boondock spot

With wind gusts slamming the coach, I was glad we made the change in plans and didn’t risk driving. We were hit with a few raindrops at times – passing showers that dropped just enough moisture to wet the windshield and the ground. Wetting the dirt was beneficial – before the rain fell wind gusts were kicking up clouds of dust.

Dust in the wind

Donna braved the elements during a lull and went out for a short hike around the area. I spent most of the day reading and looking at possibilities for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We will check in at the Thousand Trails RV park in Las Vegas on Thursday.

After looking at a number of options, I called the Elks Lodge in Flagstaff. Local ordinance prohibits overnight parking there. Then I called the Elks Lodge in Kingman – that would position us more than half way to Las Vegas. They welcomed RVers in their lot – no hook ups, but no charge either. After talking it over, Donna and I thought two nights at the Kingman Elks Lodge was the best option.

The storm passed shortly after sunset

We ended the day by watching a couple of episodes of Homeland before hitting the sack. The wind finally died down after dark. We both slept soundly. It was cool – the outside temperature fell to the 40s after the front passed through and the temperature inside the coach was 55 degrees when we woke up at 6am. We stayed under the comforter until nearly 7am. I could hear a generator running and cars moving about the campsites, so I got up and fired up our generator. Then I turned on the heat pump.

We pulled out of the area around 8:45am and headed north on I-17. This had us climbing out of the Verde Valley up to the Mogollon Rim. By the time we hit I-40 west near Flagstaff, we were nearly 7,000 feet above sea level. The traffic was fairly light and the going was easy. I-40 westbound from Flagstaff drops gradually for the most part but there are a few steep downgrades.

We stopped at the Pilot/Flying J travel center in Kingman, a few miles short of the Elks Lodge. They had construction going on and only three truck lanes were open. It was crowded and we were in for a wait. After topping up with 66 gallons of diesel fuel at $2.26/gallon, we were on our way again after about 30 minutes.

When we found the Elks Lodge, I drove up slowly looking the parking lot over before I committed to anything. The parking lot on the east side of the lodge looked tight and I didn’t see a way out. Driving past the lodge to the west side I found a large open paved area that looks like it was once the site of two tennis courts. I pulled in there and made a U-turn. I positioned the coach next to a retaining wall separating the old courts from the parking lot.

After entering the lodge and verifying that it was okay to park where we were, we leveled the coach and put the slides out.

Paved and fairly level at Kingman Elks Lodge

Paved and fairly level site at Kingman Elks Lodge

In the photos of the coach and trailer it looks like the trailer rides nose down. This is because I dump the air from the coach suspension, lowering the coach before I level it. When the coach is at normal ride height, the trailer is level.

Our windshield view is a golf course and around the lodge is a nice, well-kept neighborhood. Behind us there are a few houses and desert bluffs. All in all, pretty nice surroundings and you can’t beat free! We’re at an elevation of about 3,500 feet above sea level – nearly the same as Verde Valley.

Windshield view

Not only does Elks membership give us the ability to stay at certain Elks Lodges with our coach, it also ensures that we’re within walking distance of food and drink! I went to the lodge at 4pm for happy hour. It was Tuesday – taco Tuesday to be precise. I texted Donna who was working on an article back in the coach and she joined me at 5pm to take advantage of the taco bar.

We had a drink and a couple of tacos and met a nice couple, Jason and Mona. They gave us a few tips for interesting things to do and see while we’re in Kingman. We’ll probably go to the Hualapai Mountain resort to take in the views and have lunch.

On Thursday, we’ll head up US93 to Las Vegas and the Thousand Trails Las Vegas RV park. I probably won’t post again until Friday.

Tlaquepaque in Sedona

On Saturday morning, Donna and I went down to the pickleball courts here at Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV Resort and Campground. There are two pickleball courts by the pool area. The courts are open on three sides with a fence at the back of the court closest to the Verde River. No one was there. We hit a few balls back and forth and decided it was too windy to try a singles game.

We came home and decided to ride the Spyder to Sedona (map). Sedona is an upscale resort community about halfway from our current location to Flagstaff. The population of Sedona is around 10,000 and it sits at an elevation of about 4,500 feet above sea level. The area is known for its natural beauty with red rock formations surrounding the town and Oak Creek running through it. A number of festivals including a film festival and jazz festival are held at this popular tourist destination.

Our first stop was Tlaquepaque Village. Back in the 1970s, Sedona was a sleepy community consisting of mostly open range and a single stoplight. A Nevada businessman named Abe Miller started coming to Sedona for vacations. He had a vision of creating a village within the town patterned after small communities he’d seen in Mexico. He saw it as a place where artisans could create in view of the public and sell their work while living onsite as well.

He bought several acres of land and created Tlaquepaque. The name comes from the Mexican Nahuatl Native Indian language and means “the best of everything.” I don’t know much about the early years of Tlaquepaque, but today it’s an area filled with boutique shops and restaurants. Not exactly what Abe Miller envisioned, but a nice place to visit nonetheless.

Donna in front of the Oak Creek Brewery and Inn

Tlaquepaque fountain

Donna and I started at the Oak Creek Brewery and Inn. We had lunch and a cold one. I ordered a glass of porter – all the beer is brewed onsite. The porter they had available was a chocolate-cherry porter. It really wasn’t my cup of tea, but Donna liked it. So I gave it to her and ordered a glass of their nut brown ale. This went well with my brie-mushroom burger.

Chocolate-cherry porter at Oak Creek Brewery and Inn

After lunch, we spent the next hour walking through the various shops and then taking a stroll over the Oak Creek bridge to have a look around. The scenery is spectacular – my photos taken from town don’t do it justice.

Oak Creek from the highway 89A bridge

Colorful mesa seen from town

Red rock spires viewed from town

We stopped at an artist show on the side of the road near the south side of Sedona. It was mostly native Americans from Monument Valley, Utah. We looked over their wares and talked to a couple of interesting people. One was a guy who identified himself as a Navajo-Zuni from Monument Valley. He told us a few stories about the symbolism of the designs in the jewelry he created. The designs were traditional – some Zuni, some Navajo and some Hopi. He’s married to a Hopi. Like most Navajo people I’ve encountered, he was very soft spoken and I strained at times to hear what he was saying. Donna ended up buying a pair of turquoise earrings to go with the necklace she was wearing.

On Sunday morning, we decided to try our hand at pickleball again. We practiced a bit then started a singles game. While we were playing, a guy and his teenage son showed up and started hitting a ball on the other court. We invited them to join us for a doubles game. They were beginners, so we went over the rules and some basic strategy. Donna partnered with the son and I lined up with the dad. We split the first two games and Donna’s team won the rubber match. It was fun and we may have made more pickleball converts.

We met another couple there, Eddie and Carolyn. They play as well but weren’t dressed to play at the time. They’ve been to this park before and they said pickleball can be popular here with people waiting to get into a game. We talked to them for a while and learned about a few other Thousand Trails parks.

The rest of Sunday was pretty laid back. I booked us into the Thousand Trails park in Las Vegas for a week beginning next Thursday, April 28th. We made a run to Walmart to stock up on fresh veggies and beer. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching a great Moto GP race from Jerez, Spain and reading a book. Donna went out for a hike on the trails in the park.

On Sunday evening, Donna prepared a Moroccan spiced rack of lamb. I grilled it on the Weber Q – five minutes bone side down, then I flipped it and continue to grill for about 18 minutes until the internal temperature of the meatiest part was between 135 and 140 degrees. Donna served it with Israeli couscous and a stir fry of asparagus, mushrooms, peppers and leeks. A meal fit for a king!

Dinner fit for a king

This morning I’ll be loading the Spyder in the trailer, then I’ll do the usual dump and flush of the holding tanks and top up the fresh water while Donna secures the interior of the coach. Of course I’ll do another check of the trailer lug nuts and tire pressures all around. The rules of our Thousand Trails membership require us to stay out of TT parks for one week if we spend more than four consecutive nights. We have three nights to fill before we get to Vegas and we think we’ll play it by ear and boondock our way there. Our first stop will be a couple of miles outside the park where dispersed camping is allowed on National Forest land. We were planning to head up to Flagstaff but high wind advisories will keep us off the road today.

Jerome Day Trip

Donna went down to the pool area and did her workout on Friday morning while I posted to the blog. She sent me a text saying there were a few guys playing pickleball – there are two courts here at Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV Resort and Campground. We considered playing, but opted instead to take a day trip.

Around 11am, we rode south on I-17 climbing out of the Verde Valley and hit AZ169. We went to Prescott Valley and checked out the RV sites at the Elks Lodge there. The sites would be tight for us – the camp host told us we would have to drop the trailer in the parking lot. However, he’s booked up for the rest of the month. Alternatively he told us he has dry camping areas that we could use. We don’t know where we are going when we leave Verde Valley on Monday, but I don’t think it will be there.

From there we rode north on AZ89A. This took us past the Mingus Mountain Recreation Area – part of the Kaibab National Forest – a 6,000-plus-foot pass. Highway 89A climbs quickly with many tight turns and switchbacks through a forest of pine trees. Once over the pass, the road drops down toward Verde Valley. I got a workout piloting the Spyder through turns with speed advisories of 20mph.

We stopped in Jerome. Jerome is a funky place that bills itself as “America’s Most Vertical City” and “The Largest Ghost Town in America.” The traffic through the steep switchback streets of Jerome was heavy and moving very slowly. Everyone was looking for a place to park, including us. When we had the scooter, parking was rarely an issue. With the Spyder, we need about as much space as a small car. We found a triangular space that looked to be custom made for the three-wheeled Spyder.

We walked the streets and stopped for lunch at the Mile High Grill and Inn. Jerome was founded in 1876 and takes it name from Eugene Jerome – the original secretary of the United Verde Mining Company. Jerome sits above what was the largest copper mine in Arizona. It was operated by the United Verde Mining Company until 1935 when it was sold to Phelps Dodge. The fortunes of the town and its population grew and fell with the demand for copper. The mine shut down in 1953. The people who remained in Jerome started promoting it as a historic ghost town. In 1967, Jerome was designated as a National Historic District by the federal government.

Remains of an old theater

Theater entry doors

Today there are about 450 residents in Jerome, mostly working in the galleries, restaurants and saloons in this tourist attraction. There are many artists here as well. We walked around and poked through a few shops and galleries.

Jerome street scene near the old bordello

Eclectic mix of buildings in Jerome

Jerome literally sits on the side of a mountain – Cleopatra Hill – 5,200 feet above sea level. There are stunning views of the Verde Valley below and mountain peaks to the north and east.

Verde Valley overlook from the streets of Jerome – look closely and you’ll find a snowy peak in the distance

We were back home around 4pm after making an 85-mile loop. We relaxed and read for a while, then Donna fixed a tray of hors d’oeuvres for a light dinner. We ate at the picnic table outside our coach.

I’ll close today’s post with a few pictures from our last week in Mesa, Arizona. I like to post pictures and descriptions of the meals Donna prepares in our motorhome. I do this to illustrate the fact that full-timing isn’t camping out and it doesn’t mean eating out all the time. We know other full-timers like us who cook nutritious, delicious meals regularly – Lisa McGuire (Metamorphosis Road) comes to mind.

Donna’s been making some single skillet meals lately. This one is lemon-butter chicken. She browned bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in a cast iron skillet on the induction cooktop, then finished it in the microwave-convection oven.

Lemon butter chicken

Lemon butter chicken plated with Israeli couscous

Another night she made Marseilles-style shrimp stew with rouille toast.

Marseille-style shrimp with rouille toast

On our final night in Mesa, she made tortilla-crusted tilapia with fresh tilapia from Mexico that we found at Sprouts.

Tortilla-crusted tilapia with pico de gallo, avocado and green beans on the side

The sunsets in Mesa can be spectacular. Here in the Verde Valley, the sun sinks behind the mountains before we know it and I haven’t captured a sunset image yet.

Our last sunset in Mesa

Today we plan to play some pickleball, then head up to Sedona. I want to check out the Elks lodge there and we’ll kick around town with all of the other tourists.

Good Service Gone Bad

I need to catch up on our last week at Towerpoint RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona. I won’t go into a blow-by-blow account, but there are a few highlights.

First off, I mentioned that we had another Jetpack battery failure. This is the third time in less than three years that we had a lithium-ion battery pack fail. The battery packs go into an overheat protection mode that blows the pack apart and shuts the battery down. I think it’s a charging issue with our Jetpack. I purchased a digital lamp timer and set it to vary the time of the charge with discharge times. Somehow the programming of the timer was lost and unbeknownst to me it’s been charging the battery pack full-time. Lithium-ion batteries are at their best between 40% and 85% of full charge – this should result in long life.

I had a new battery delivered overnight. It’s a different brand, not the same Pantech that came with the Jetpack. This one is branded Beltron. Both brands come from China, so they may be the exact same thing with different labels for all I know.

Old battery self-destructed

New Beltron branded battery pack

I bought the new battery from Amazon for less than $18 including overnight shipping. I reprogrammed the timer to cycle between one hour on and one hour off. We’ll see how this works out. When we’re stationary for a week or more, I’ll order another battery for back-up.

I was a pickleball demon the last week in the park. My court time culminated with a round robin session at Sun Life RV Resort for 3.5 level players. I’m not sure how much pickleball action we’ll see in the coming weeks, so I wanted to get my quota. After the round robin on Wednesday, I cleaned the Traeger and loaded the trailer. I’m happy with the results – everything has a place and it all came together nicely.

We planned an early – for us – getaway on Thursday. We wanted to be on the road by 9am, 9:30 at the latest. The day didn’t start off well. I couldn’t log in to my blog. In fact, my web page wouldn’t open at all. When I tried to open Flyingthekoop, I got an error message telling me the page wasn’t available! I didn’t have time to investigate – I had to disconnect our coach, hook up the trailer and load the Can Am Spyder.

I wanted to push the trailer back on the concrete pad at our site, then angle it so I could back the coach up to it and hook up. This turned out to be easier said than done. A few weeks ago I saw an older man struggling to move his car dolly trailer into position in the site across from us. I went over to help and pulled it into place over his trailer hitch. I knew our 20-foot car hauler trailer would be harder to move than a car dolly, but I didn’t realize how hard.

First of all, pushing it back on the pad was a slightly uphill push. I had to enlist Donna’s aid to get it moving. Then, getting turned to the angle I needed was really tough. Our old trailer had a single axle and getting it to turn wasn’t too difficult. The new trailer has tandem axles. With one set of tires ahead of the other set, all four tires describe a different arc through a turn. This means the tires have to scrub as they fight each other to track the turn. It takes a lot of muscle to overcome the friction of the tires scrubbing and laying down rubber.

We eventually got the trailer in position with a lot of sweat. I hitched it to the coach and pulled into the street to load the Spyder. The Spyder rides pretty much alone in the back half of the trailer.

Spyder occupies the back half of the trailer

We wanted to get an early start due to an appointment I had at TrailersPlus. You might recall the issue I had when they installed a door handle on the side door. It wasn’t installed properly and I had holes in the door skin. I was told they would replace the door skin while I waited if I got there between 10 and 10:30am. It’s about a 45-mile drive and I wanted to allow an hour of drive time. We left the RV park around 9:40am.

The traffic wasn’t bad and I made good time arriving at TrailersPlus at 10:30am. But, we had a problem. There were two pickup trucks at the entry, blocked by a locked gate! When I talked to the manager, Troy, on Tuesday he told me they don’t officially open until 1:30pm, but he would book time to have his guy install the door skin in the morning. I thought that was great service.

Now I was stopped on the frontage road next to I-17 blocking the lane as I tried to figure out what was happening. A couple of cars got around me to access the freeway on ramp, but then a big tractor-trailer rig pulled up behind me. I had to move on, I couldn’t sit there and block the ramp.

I went down the road and made a right turn at the next stoplight. I could see the map on the GPS and figured I would make a loop and park on a side street to see why the place was locked up. The next right turn wasn’t pretty. The road was fairly narrow with cars stopped at the light in the opposite lane. As I made the right turn, I had to go deep before I turned in to get our 65-foot length through the turn. I wasn’t going to make it. Lucky for me, the drivers were attentive – the first car pulled forward and moved over. The next two cars backed up giving me room to complete the turn.

Meanwhile Donna was on the phone with the TrailersPlus corporate office trying to find out what happened to our appointment. I parked on the street around the corner from TrailersPlus. I went to the gate – it was closed but not locked with a chain now. I could see people in the office so I opened the gate and walked in. It was 10:45am by now. I walked to the office and went in.

The guy at the counter asked me what I wanted. I told him I had an appointment and needed to get my coach off the street and into their lot. He acted like he didn’t know anything about an appointment but he agreed to open the gate and let me drive in.

After parking the coach and trailer in their lot, I went back to the office. Another guy at the counter asked me if I was dropping off the trailer! I told him I had an appointment and Troy said he would book the time to get the door skin replaced while I waited. Th guy was surly and said Troy would be in later. Then he said let’s go take a look. We walked to the coach and trailer and it seemed like he suddenly remembered why I was there. He told me to drop the trailer and he would get it into the service bay. I don’t know why I had to go through the hassle of dropping the trailer and then hooking up again. The service bay was easily big enough for me to pull through with the coach and he could have replaced the door skin with the trailer in the bay. But I didn’t argue. I dropped the trailer.

He pulled the trailer with a fork lift equipped with a ball. I got my torque wrench out of my tool box and proceeded to check the trailer lug nuts. Troy showed up while I was doing that. He said I should let his guy work and stay out of his way. I told him it would just be a minute, then I’ll stay out. But I watched the work from about 30 feet away. After the fiasco with the door handle and the guy hiding his shoddy work, I wanted to see how this went together.

Door skin removed

The guy damaged a trim piece on the door and had to replace that as well. We were on our way again a little past noon.

Our destination for the day was the Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV Resort and Campground (map). When I pulled off Highway 260, our GPS said we had arrived. All I saw was a narrow winding road ahead and a group of RVs in a dirt lot to my left. I pulled into the lot – I didn’t want to go down a narrow road without knowing where it went or if I would be able to turn around.

I found the campground on the GPS map – it was at the end of the winding road. The dirt lot I pulled into wasn’t big enough to make a U-turn. I had to jockey back and forth to get turned around – good practice maneuvering the new trailer.

The ranger at the entrance had all of our paperwork. This is our first stay at a Thousand Trails park. Our membership entitles us to 30 free nights – well, it isn’t really free if you count the $545 membership fee – it works out to about $18/night for full hook-ups. Not bad. After our free 30 nights, we’ll pay $3/night. That’s a deal! The ranger told me he had four sites that would fit our rig and we could choose the site we wanted and let him know which one we took.

I couldn’t get our full length into the frame at the park entrance

We’re in a 90-foot pull through site, so we didn’t have to drop the trailer. Oh, and while we were on the road, Donna got on the phone with Bluehost – the web hosting service for this blog. They found a bug in a plug-in and deactivated it. Then we updated the plug-in, reactivated it, and that fixed the problem.

It was very quiet here last night. We’re at an elevation of a little over 3,000 feet above sea level. It’s a little cooler here than in Phoenix. We plan to explore the area over the next few days. This post is getting wordy, so I’ll post some of the meals Donna prepared last week in my next post.

Jetpack Down

We suffered another Pantech battery failure in our Verizon Jetpack, so I’m on a very slow park wifi connection today. I’ll post a short update without pictures due to these circumstances.

On Monday afternoon, I had to go back to the dentist. I had some work done last Thursday and had a small problem with a filling. There was a sharp edge on the side of the tooth and my tongue wouldn’t leave it alone. You know how it is when something is off with your teeth – like when something is stuck between them. Your tongue always finds it. The dentist removed a couple thousandths of an inch of material and all was good. It took about five minutes.

That night, I went to the Mesa Buckhorn Elks Lodge at 6pm for the mandatory indoctrination. I learned a few things about the history of the Elks and also the many philanthropic services they provide. I had no idea they were involved in so many charitable causes. The 75-minute indoctrination became a bit tedious after a while – the husband and wife team that presented the material were good and provided a ton of information, but it was bit like watching a PBS fundraiser at times as they gave convincing arguments for the need to participate in various groups. I’m not one for joining groups. I’ll probably be what they call a BMO – bar member only.

Tonight I’ll return to the lodge at 6:30pm for the mandatory initiation. Maybe I’ll learn the secret handshake there. Seriously, this is where I’ll become an official member and receive my Elks membership card. This card will identify me as an Elks member at any lodge in the US. There are four of us joining tonight. I learned last night that all four of us are RVers and are interested in visiting Elks lodges with RV hook-ups. I’m sure it’ll come in handy down the road. The low rates for Elks members should offset the $71.50 annual dues.

I have a few things to get done before we pull out of Towerpoint RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona. We’ve been here for nearly 10 weeks and have enjoyed our stay. I think we’ll be back again next year. We’ll leave here on Thursday and head over to the Verde Valley Thousand Trails RV park. I’ve booked four nights there taking advantage of our new Thousand Trails membership – this will be a free stay.

Before we leave here, I’ll dump and flush our tanks, fill the fresh water tank and of course have the trailer packed. I added a few more D-rings and also a paper towel rack to the trailer. I think I have a place for everything and it should be easy to pack. After staying in one place for so long, I’m getting anxious to move on.

I’ve ordered another battery for the Jetpack with overnight delivery. With any luck, we’ll have it tomorrow so we’ll be back up and running at full speed. With the upcoming move, I probably won’t post for a couple of days.

Free Beer

In my last post, I showed the catch basin I made to contain any fluid that might leak from the HWH hydraulic synch cylinder. No fluid has leaked since I had a drop of fluid last weekend. I’m thinking now that the drop of fluid I saw running down the threads on the U-bolt holding the synch cylinder may have been residual oil from the original leak. Perhaps a small amount of fluid remained on the horizontal steel mounting tab for the cylinder. When I fiddled around with the jacks, this residual fluid may have run off the tab and down the U-bolt threads.

On Wednesday, my lifelong friend Jim Birditt rang me up. He was headed to the Wild Horse Pass Casino (map). He’s a truck driver hauling household goods for North American Van Lines. He planned to stop overnight and park his Peterbilt truck in the casino truck/RV lot. I rode the Spyder there in the afternoon to meet up with him. We had a cold one and caught up a bit. I’ve known Jim since I was in the 8th grade. We spent a lot of time hunting together in the 90s.

We talked about the mysterious hydraulic oil leak. We came up with a theory. The synch cylinder has two pistons inside that move when fluid pressure is applied to one side or the other. There’s a shaft that moves with the pistons. This shaft extends out of one end of the cylinder. The shaft has a seal. Maybe at some point, after we set up here at Towerpoint RV Resort, the shaft seal leaked some fluid. Maybe the seal rolled or something was caught in the seal allowing fluid to seep past. If some foreign matter was in the seal, it may have washed out with the leaking fluid and the seal re-seated itself. It’s just a theory, but I can’t come up with any other explanation for why the cylinder would leak fluid one day, then stop leaking. The hydraulic system works fine, I’ve moved the living room slide to apply pressure in the cylinder and there’s no leakage now. I’ll keep the catch basin in place for a while just in case it leaks again.

Jim was planning to head to Tucumcari, New Mexico the next morning. I showed him an alternate route. He’s been driving trucks all his adult life and knows just about every route in the country. But he never went up the Beeline Highway (AZ87) through Payson, Arizona to get to I-40 east. He usually goes up I-17 to I-40. He tried my suggestion on Thursday morning and phoned me later to tell me the route worked out great. He picked up I-40 at Holbrook.

On Thursday evening, Donna and I prepared a whole chicken. I used my favorite chicken rub – Lambert’s Sweet Rub O’Mine – and cooked it on the Traeger wood pellet fired grill.

Traeger wood pellet fired grill

I cooked the chicken for about 80 minutes and used a quick reading meat thermometer to check for proper internal temperature. I shoot for about 170 degrees in the breast and over 180 in the thigh. Cooked on the Traeger, the chicken remains moist while fully cooked at these temperatures.

Whole roasted chicken with Sweet Rub O’Mine

Donna served it with steamed broccoli and wild rice cranberry salad. A delicious meal!

Roasted chicken quarter with broccoli and wild rice cranberry salad

On Friday morning, we played pickleball. The courts aren’t filled with players and people waiting for games anymore. Things have really thinned out here as most of the snowbirds have headed for home.

We went to Tia Rosa’s Tacqueria to meet up with David and Karin Von Kay for lunch. We first met David and Karin in Des Moines, Iowa last year. They were in the site next to us at the fairgrounds where David was showing his 1966 Chevelle in the Good Guys car show. Donna and Karin have stayed in touch and frequently trade recipes. It’s so much fun to meet new people on the road and hook up again at another place later.

Things are winding down for us here at Towerpoint. Our initial two-month stay officially ended Friday. I settled up our electric bill, then extended our stay another six nights – we’ll leave Mesa on Thursday the 21st. I have a few things to get done before we go. At first we thought we’d stay an extra five days and leave on Wednesday. I have the initiation to the Elks on Tuesday night, so I thought an extra day would be good.

On Friday evening, Towerpoint had their final end-of-season party. Free beer, chips and salsa and pretzels. Hard to beat free. Donna and I wandered around the pool area where the party was in progress and visited with a few people we know from the pickleball courts. We were happy to see Howard and Nancy there – they’re the friends that had a horrible traffic accident with their motorhome resulting in severe injuries to Howard and his mother-in-law. Howard’s a trouper and seemed to be doing better than expected. They plan to stay here for a few months while Howard and Nancy’s mom recuperate.

The party included live music – something Donna and I always enjoy. The band was good in spite of the fact they used a synthetic drum track – I always prefer a full group of musicians – even drummers.

Good music – we love live bands

Donna brought a hoop and did some hoop dancing. The band really appreciated her efforts as it encouraged dancing and attention to the music.

Donna hoop dancing

Oh yeah

It was extremely windy making the hooping difficult for her – but it was impressive nonetheless.

From here our plan is to head up to Cottonwood for four nights. This will give us a chance to make day trips to Jerome and Sedona – plus I can catch the Moto GP race a week from Sunday. We’re not sure where we’re going from there.

Synchronizing Cylinder

On Sunday evening, Donna prepared a new recipe called sweet and spicy salmon. My oldest daughter Alana shared the recipe on Facebook and Donna wanted to try it. She bought frozen wild Alaskan sockeye salmon steaks from Costco. She placed each piece of fish on a square of foil and poured coconut oil over the salmon. Then she drizzled the fillets with honey and dusted them with a mixture of cumin, paprika, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Then she sealed the foil over the salmon and I cooked it on the Weber Q grill.

Sockeye salmon fillets wrapped in foil

I slightly overcooked the salmon – I wish I would have taken it off the grill sooner. The thing is, the salmon keeps cooking in the foil – it has to be opened up quickly once the fish is off the grill. Steam rose from the foil packets when I opened them.

Sweet and spicy salmon hot off the grill

The fish was tasty though. We’ll make it again – next time Donna says she would add just a little more honey and maybe put veggies in the packet with the salmon. I’ll take it off the grill sooner and open the packets quickly.

Sweet and spicy salmon served with roasted brussel sprouts

All day I’d been checking in the forward basement compartment for a hydraulic oil leak. The paper towels I had spread in there remained dry. On Monday afternoon, I fiddled with the hydraulic jacks. A few hours later, we had a small drop of oil spreading on the paper towel. It was dark by the time I checked it out so I couldn’t determine the source of the leak.

After playing pickleball this morning, I cleared the forward basement compartment and crawled inside. I used a flashlight and clean paper towels to see if I could figure out where the oil was coming from. There’s a 1-1/2″ diameter hydraulic cylinder about a foot long in the compartment. Each end of the cylinder is held to a steel tab with U-bolts. I could see hydraulic oil on the threads of the U-bolt on the rear of the cylinder.

HWH synchronizing cylinder

I loosened the U-bolts and tried to trace the oil. There’s a 90-degree elbow fitting and a hydraulic hose near the U-bolt, but it was dry around the fitting and hose. There’s also a rod that protrudes from the end of the cylinder. I read through a HWH hydraulic system service manual and learned a few things.

The cylinder is a synchronizing cylinder – commonly called a synch cylinder. It’s used when two or more hydraulic rams are operated simultaneously – such as the hydraulic generator slide or the living room slide-out. It’s not part of the leveling jack system. This had me puzzled because the intermittent leak happened after we set up here at Tower Point RV Resort. I haven’t operated the generator slide or the living room slide since we set up two months ago.

I found out that the rod protruding from the end of the cylinder will move when the system the synch cylinder is plumbed into is activated. So I tried running the generator slide open and checked the rod. No movement, so it’s not part of the generator hydraulic system. Then I pulled the living room slide partway in. The rod extended from the cylinder. So it’s plumbed into the living room slide hydraulic rams.

I put the living room slide out again and checked the synch cylinder for leaks. No sign of any fluid leak. I cut an empty one-gallon plastic water jug and made a catch basin. I wired it in place under the end of the synch cylinder where the oil dripped from the U-bolt. I’ll keep checking for a leak and try to trace it again. In the mean time, the catch basin will keep oil off the basement carpet and anything else in there.

Catch basin wired in place

I’m hoping the leak isn’t an internal problem with the synch cylinder, but I’m beginning to think it may be. I looked it up and that part costs $474!

Yesterday I stopped in at the Towerpoint office to pay the electric bill and extend our stay to Wednesday, April 20th. The lady in the office was going to give me five extra days at the monthly rate instead of reverting to the daily rate. Then we talked about the daily rate with Passport America. We’re Passport America members and it gives us 50% off of the normal daily rate. She did the calculation and the Passport America rate worked out to be about $10 higher for the five days – but it included electricity. The monthly rate doesn’t include electricity.

We’re expecting temperatures in the 90s before we leave. That means running both roof air conditioners – and using a lot of electricity. I opted for the Passport America rate so I’ll have no worries about running the air conditioners as needed. She told me not to pay my current electric bill – they will read the meter again on Friday (our original end date here). I’ll settle the electric bill and pay for the extra five nights then.

Mysterious Oil Leak

I mentioned in my last post that Donna kayaked the Salt River again with her friend Audrey on Friday. This time, instead of taking our two-seat Sea Eagle 370, she used one of Audrey’s single-seat Sea Eagle 330s.

Audrey with her Sea Eagle 330

Here are a few pictures from their trip down the river. They started near Saguaro Ranch below Saguaro Lake and pulled out at Granite Reef four and a half hours later.

Egret flying down river

Wild horses off Donna’s bow

More wild horses

Stand up paddle boards – with dogs

View of Red Mountain down river

Also, I mentioned rain moving in Friday night. There were scattered thundershowers in the area while we had the J Street potluck. We got lucky and the thundershowers stayed to the north and east of us. At one point there was virga in the east – virga is rain falling in the sky that evaporates before it reaches the ground.

Virga – rain falling from the clouds but it doesn’t reach the ground

The virga created a rainbow. It rose from the right and arced in a quarter circle. It disappeared before I could shoot a photo. Then it re-appeared in a mirror image arcing down to the left.

Second half of rainbow

My project for Saturday was servicing the Spyder. I needed to change the engine oil and filter and the hydraulic control module (HCM) filter. The engine oil in the Spyder also lubricates the transmission and operates the hydraulic shift mechanism. The first task was removal of the plastic body parts – known as the tupperware.

Spyder with body panels in place

Four body panels removed to change the oil and filters

The Rotax 998cc V-Twin engine in the Spyder has a dry sump lubrication system. Most automobile and motorcycle engines are a wet sump type. Wet sump means there’s an oil pan below the crankcase containing the oil supply for the engine. A pick-up tube in the pan delivers the oil to the oil pump where it’s sent through the engine under pressure.

A dry sump system is commonly found on race cars where it offers certain advantages. In a dry sump system, there isn’t an oil pan below the crankcase, there’s a remote oil tank instead. Two oil pumps are used – one to scavenge the oil out of the crankcase after it has circulated through the engine. The oil is then pumped to the remote reservoir. A second oil pump delivers the oil from the reservoir to the engine where it circulates throughout the lubrication system.

Dry sump systems are more complicated and also have certain requirements for checking the oil level correctly. The reason the Rotax engine uses a dry sump is primarily a packaging advantage. The 60-degree V-twin engine is compact front to rear but it’s a tall engine. Taking away the oil pan from the bottom of the engine reduces the height, allowing it to sit lower in the frame.

Race cars use dry sumps for a number of reasons. They reduce power loss from drag that the oil in the sump can create as the crankshaft spins through it. It also takes away the chance of the oil pick-up drawing air as the oil sloshes around in the oil pan through high G-force loading in turns or with braking and accelerating.

On the Spyder, the dry sump meant I had to drain the oil reservoir, then remove a second drain plug on the crankcase to make sure it was fully drained. When you shut down the engine, the pump in the crankcase no longer pumps oil back to the reservoir. The oil in the engine lubrication system slowly drains to the bottom of the crankcase. I estimate nearly a quart of oil came out of the crankcase drain. On start-up, the scavenge pump in the crankcase would quickly pump that oil back to the reservoir. Here’s a photo showing the remote oil reservoir – it’s poorly focused but I didn’t notice that until I had the body panels put on again.

Remote oil reservoir

I had one problem. The HCM filter for our Spyder could be one of two different part numbers. I never had it apart before, so I didn’t know if we had the short filter or the longer one. The replacement filter I had was the longer one. It turned out I needed the short one. I’ll have to get another filter and take the body panels off again to change the HCM filter.

Spyder buttoned up and under cover

When I was finishing up, Donna was preparing to drive her rental car to a hair stylist in Tempe. She opened the big basement door on the passenger side of the coach and found oil on the nylon bag that holds our windshield cover. Lots of oil. I looked at it and saw it was hydraulic fluid. There are hydraulic lines and an accumulator for the HWH leveling jacks and slide out rams on the top of the compartment. I looked for leaks around the area where the nylon bag was stored but couldn’t find any.

I put a strip of paper towels under the hydraulic lines so I could see if it dripped. The drops on the paper towels would provide a clue where to look for a leak. I checked several times all afternoon and into the night. No drips. I checked again this morning. No drips. Where the hydraulic fluid came from is still a mystery at this point.

We have rain in the forecast today. I heard a few drops already as I typed this. I plan to hang out and watch the Moto GP race – I’ll also watch the Moto 2 and Moto America races. Donna is planning to do some shopping.

By the way – congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings for making the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 25th consecutive year. That’s right – they’ve made the playoffs every year since 1991!

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: April 2016

Red Rock Canyon

Sitting Tight in Vegas

Dust in the Wind

Tlaquepaque in Sedona

Jerome Day Trip

Good Service Gone Bad

Jetpack Down

Free Beer

Synchronizing Cylinder

Mysterious Oil Leak

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