Florence has a farmers’ market at the Veterans Memorial Park on Bay Street Tuesday afternoons. Donna and I drove to town around 3pm. Our first stop was at the post office where we had our mail forwarded to General Delivery. Donna retrieved our packet of mail sent there from Your Best Address in South Dakota. Then we proceeded to the farmers’ market.

We always enjoy local farmers’ markets and this one was small, but it was the real deal. Not a craft show or anything like that, but fresh produce, cheese and meats from local farms. On the way back we did a drive-through at the Fred Meyer fuel pumps. Getting diesel fuel in a big rig can be a challenge on the Oregon Coast. You don’t find any truck stops and most of the gas stations are small and too tight to maneuver our rig through. The location of the diesel pump at Fred Meyer wasn’t ideal, but it was probably our best option. We planned to get fuel on our way out of Florence on Thursday.

I loaded the Midget into the trailer when we returned. Rain was forecast and I didn’t want to leave it out and have to load it later when the meadow was likely to be muddy. The rain came on Wednesday morning as predicted. It rained off and on all day, so we had an uneventful day. Donna put the finishing touches on a post for her Unclutter blog.

On Thursday morning, Donna phoned Salmon Harbor Marina in Winchester Bay to see if they had any open sites. She was told five sites were available. We finished packing up and made the winding drive to the dump station. We pulled out of the Elk’s RV park around 10:15am.

The diesel pump at Fred Meyer had a couple of motorcycles in front of it, behind a gas powered motorhome. They cleared out just as we were pulling in. The diesel pump is located at the end of an island closest to the entry lane. This meant our trailer partially blocked the entry lane. We needed the fuel though. Our Onan 7.5kW Quiet Diesel generator is fueled by the same fuel tank that supplies our engine. The fuel pick-up for the generator is located about a quarter of the way up from the bottom of the tank. This is done by design – the thinking is, if we were boondocked in a remote location, the generator would stop running when we still had a quarter of a tank of fuel, allowing us to get on the road. Running the fuel tank dry with the generator in a remote area wouldn’t be good.

We took 73 gallons of fuel, so we were near the quarter tank level. The Fred Meyer pumps are standard nozzles – I’ve become jaded by the high-volume trucker nozzles at Pilot/Flying J where I can pump 50 gallons in five minutes or less. Getting 73 gallons at Fred Meyer took about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, a motorhome pulled into the Fred Meyer entrance and stopped at the fuel station entry, waiting for us to move. This led to another motorhome stopping behind him. A third motorhome showed up and stopped in the highway lane. By the time I was finished filling up, cars and RVs were backed up down the highway. Sorry about that.

The time it took at the dump station and Fred Meyer had us running a bit later than we hoped. We headed south on US101 where it’s only a 30-mile run to Winchester Bay. However, it’s a relatively slow run with hills and turns marked with 35-40 mph advisories. On the way, Donna called the marina again and asked about site availability. Now there were only three of the first-come, first-served sites open. The gal on the phone – who shall remain nameless – did us a huge favor by putting a cone in site E14, blocking anyone from taking the site. She told us to proceed to that site and set up, then come by the office to pay.

When we pulled into the marina, the camp host stopped us in his golf cart. He said the campground was full. I told him we were going to site E14 – it had a cone in it. I mentioned the name of the gal that blocked it for us, then realized I may have gotten her in trouble. He asked if it was done in the last 20 minutes or so and I said yes. He directed us in.

The Salmon Harbor Marina RV Park is really just a paved parking lot with marked sites, surrounded on the three sides by the marina on Winchester Bay. All of the sites are dry camping only, no hook-ups. Across the street, an RV park called Windy Cove is run by the county and it has full hook-ups. There’s also a privately run RV park called Winchester Bay RV Resort with full hook-ups on the west side of the marina. Lots of RV spaces, but if you don’t reserve well in advance, the first-come, first served dry camping is the only option. We’re still trying to figure out why the campground has “full” and “no vacancy” signs out when we can see a few open sites that are blocked by cones. Maybe we aren’t the only ones that had a site held for us.

The sites are very wide. We unloaded the Midget and dropped the trailer on the left side of the site, then I looped around and parked the coach on the right side. The site is surprisingly level although there’s a dip running across the center of it. Our wheels are equidistant from the dip and left us level!

We headed out in Midget-San to get provisions back in Reedsport at McKay’s Market. We’ll stock up now and also when we leave on Sunday as we expect to be away from easy shopping for at least a week. Reedsport is about five miles from the marina.

As we headed to Reedsport on US101, I noticed the water temperature gauge read unusually high. I thought the slow drive out of the marina plus a long wait at an intersection had raised the coolant temperature. But now we were cruising at 60mph and it should have dropped back to the normal range of around 7 o’clock on the gauge. Instead, it kept moving toward the hot danger zone. I pulled off on the shoulder and with the engine idling listened for the electric cooling fan. I didn’t hear it. I shut off the motor.

I got out and popped the hood – or bonnet as the British car maker calls it on the MG. Yikes! A coolant hose had loosened up and disconnected from the water pump. We were pumping coolant through the radiator and out onto the ground!

I was able to reconnect the hose and tighten the clamp with a bottle opener on my keychain. I told Donna we had to wait for the motor to cool. I retrieved two bottles of water from the trunk – er, boot – of Midget-San and waited. After a while, I removed the radiator cap and slowly added a bottle of water. I opened the second bottle and it only took half of that bottle to fill it. I squeezed the upper coolant hose a few times to work any air pockets out and topped it up. We were good to go.

I told Donna this is why I always scan my gauges periodically. In the motorhome, situational awareness is important when you’re piloting a rig 65 feet long weighing 18 tons. In Midget-San, this awareness is also paramount – we drive it like it’s a motorcycle, always defensively and assuming we’re not seen by other distracted drivers.

Before getting groceries, we stopped for lunch at Ocean Garden, a Cantonese Chinese restaurant. Wow, was it ever good. We both ordered spicy dishes off the luncheon special menu which included soup, fried rice, and crab rangoons. Service was great, too, and portions were very generous.

Back at the coach, I topped up Midget-San’s coolant reservoir with coolant and checked all of the hose clamps. After going for an exploratory walk, Donna was ready to make beef ragu for dinner, so she fired up the generator. It ran normally for about a minute, then suddenly shut off. I tried to restart it, but it cranked without starting. Oh no! We can’t dry camp for three nights without recharging the batteries with the generator. The diagnostic blink code on the switch flashed three times. This is the worst diagnostic code. One flash means “High Temp,” two flashes means “Low Oil Pressure” and three flashes means “Service Required.” So, basically three flashes only tells you it’s not high temperature or low oil pressure – it’s something else.

I opened the generator slide and checked it for leaks. Then I checked all of the electrical connections at the generator and battery bank. I turned off the circuit breaker at the generator to remove any electrical load and tried restarting it. It started and ran for a few seconds before it sputtered and died. I could hear the fuel pump run before it started, so I didn’t think that was the problem, although it acted like it was starved for fuel. I wondered if we had a plugged fuel filter.

I pushed the start switch a couple of times to run the fuel pump, then started it again. It started and ran. It faltered a couple of times, but regained a smooth idle speed. After a minute, I flipped the breaker to the on position and the rpms increased and it ran fine. I ran it for an hour without any problems. This morning, I’ve had it running for two hours without an issue.

After thinking it over, I have a theory. Remember how the fuel pick-up is at a quarter tank level. When we filled up we were at about a quarter tank. I think air got into the generator fuel line before I filled the tank. When the air bubbles reached the injection pump, it “ran out of fuel” and shut off. Once the air bubbles bled off, it’s fine.

The forecast here is for sunny days and high temperatures around 70 degrees. Yesterday was windy and it’s supposed to get gusty again this afternoon. The weekend should have calmer breezes though. Sunday we’ll head out east to the Cascade Mountains. We have reservations at Crescent Junction RV Park which is either in the Umpqua National Forest or the Deschutes National Forest – I’m not sure where the boundaries lie.