Category Archives: Boondocking

Breadcrumb Trail

The Fourth of July was our last full day in Little Deer Isle, Maine. It was a mostly relaxing day after the parade in the morning. I loaded the Traeger in the trailer and straightened things out a bit. We never got a chance to go out on Roger’s little sailboat – it’s called a Bullseye. Maybe next time – Roger just got it in the water the day before.

Roger’s sailboats in the foreground – Bullseye on the left and sloop Tarpon on the right

Roger’s neighbor Russ took the grandkids out tubing behind his 21-foot Boston Whaler in the afternoon and Donna went along for a joyride.

Tubing behind the Whaler

Everyone went out to watch fireworks after dinner, but Donna and I hung back and watched the Buck Harbor fireworks from camp chairs by our coach.

Thursday morning I had to do a bit of jockeying to get us out. First, I took the ball and mount out of our receiver hitch and put into the receiver on Roger’s truck. I used his truck to position our trailer – it was much easier than trying to hitch up to our coach in the tight space. Then I put our hitch back together and hitched up our coach, loaded the Spyder and we were ready for the road. It was 10:45 by the time we pulled out – a little later than I wanted.

We left the island and followed route 15 up to Orland. I crossed the bridge to Verona Island, then crossed the beautiful Penobscot Narrows suspension bridge. We followed Route 1 to Belfast where we picked up Route 3 all the way to Augusta and I-95. We were backtracking across the same route we came up on – basically following our breadcrumb trail.

We went back to Cabela’s in Scarborough just south of Portland to spend the night again. I dumped and flushed our holding tanks as soon as we got there. There were more RVs in the lot this time – the season is in full swing. By morning, I counted 15 RVs on our side of the lot. We walked to Famous Dave’s for a beer and dinner. They have live music on Thursdays and we enjoyed the performance.

I was a little concerned about Friday’s weather. The forecast showed thunderstorms and a cold front advancing across our path of travel. There were heavy rain and wind warnings. At 9am, all looked good so we pulled out. For some reason, our tolls on the way back were higher than on the way up. I paid $3.50 on I-95 and another $3.50 a couple of miles before we exited at Scarborough. When we got back on I-95, I hit another toll booth within a couple of miles and paid $3.50 again. Then I paid a toll on I-93 of $10.50 bringing the total for Maine up to $21.00.

We hit a few rain showers and visibility was poor at times, but we skirted the brunt of the storms which stayed mostly north of us. We made a stop in New Hampshire at the Hooksett Toll rest area. We stopped for lunch and Donna met up with her college friend, Paula Violo.  She lives and works nearby and they had not seen each other in 37 years. They spent an hour catching up over lunch while I hit the New Hampshire liquor outlet at the rest area – probably the best prices in New England.

It was an uneventful drive from there. I paid two tolls of $2.50 each to get across New Hampshire. We made good time until we got stuck behind a motorhome on Route 9 for the last 20 miles or so before Bennington. The driver seemed scared and unaware of how to use his engine brake. I could hear it activate, but it wasn’t as effective as our Jake and he would ride the brake pedal and go very slowly on each descent and slow excessively for curves. I had one chance to overtake on a passing lane on an uphill grade. Of course he hit the pedal to the metal there and drag raced me up the hill. I slowed and pulled back in behind him to allow cars behind to overtake us.

We parked in nearly the same spot we were in two weeks ago at Donna’s parents’ place. We quickly settled in. Saturday morning Donna and went to the Bennington farmers’ market. Donna picked up some cheeses and a lemon pound cake.

Bennington farmers’ market

As we often find at farmers’ markets, they had small stage and a guy playing for tips.

We also bought a steelhead trout filet at the store that I grilled for dinner.

Once again we’re boondocking without any hook-ups. Our new Lifeline AGM batteries are performing great. Saturday I had the TV and Dish receiver running on the inverter watching Wimbledon coverage all afternoon. The batteries held at 12.7 volts!

Our Xantrex Freedom 458 inverter is a modified sine wave unit. Modified sine wave produces alternating current, however it doesn’t work the same as a true sine wave like you would find from a typical wall outlet. A true sinusoidal wave rises above the zero line in a smooth arc, then drops in the same arc to the zero line and continues below before rising back to the zero line. In our 120-volt alternating current system used in the USA, the voltage rises above the zero line to +170-volts, then goes below the zero line to -170-volts and swings back again. It does this 60 times per second. The 170-volt peak results in a root mean square (RMS) voltage of 120-volts.

Our modified sine wave interverter does something similar. The difference is in the wave shape. Instead of a smooth arc as the voltage increases and decreases, the wave form is square. It goes from the zero line nearly straight up, then flattens before falling nearly straight down past the zero line before flattening again and then rising. Modified sine wave inverters use simpler, less expensive circuitry than a true sine wave inverter. Most of the time, there no difference. However, some sensitive electronics – especially those with marginal circuitry, might not get on well with the square wave.

We found that to be the case with our Mr. Coffee thermal coffee maker a few months ago. Well, yesterday after I made coffee while the generator was running and recharging our batteries, I forgot to unplug the coffee maker. While I was enjoying TV all afternoon, the modified sine wave destroyed the weak electronics in the coffee maker again! So, I’m happy with the performance of our battery bank and the inverter is useful for most things, but I have to buy another coffee maker.

We’ve had nice weather since we arrived in Bennington. Last night was cool, but I found it to be comfortable especially after the high humidity in Maine. The forecast calls for a high of 82 degrees today with the relative humidity at 42%. Nice. The next few days should be similar.

Battery Bummer

We took our time preparing to leave Erie, Pennsylvania. At the Elks Lodge, we only had an electrical hook-up, so I didn’t have much to deal with – just stow the power cord and Progressive Industries Electrical Management System box. We pulled out around 10:30am for a short run to Salamanca where we planned to spend the night at the Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino.

It was a fairly easy and uneventful drive east on I-86. This stretch of Interstate isn’t heavily traveled and traffic was very light. It was windy, but we mostly had a tail wind, so it wasn’t too hard to manage. The name of the town we were going to made me think of Breaking Bad – wasn’t Salamanca the name of Tuco’s uncle who communicated with a bell in the series?

We crossed into New York where I-86 is referred to as the Southern Tier Expressway. The Seneca Allegany Casino is on the south side of the Interstate at exit 20 near the Allegheny River. Notice the difference in the spelling – the Seneca Tribe uses Allegany while the settlers spelled it Allegheny. New York State breaks convention with the numbering of the exits on the Interstates here. In most states – every one I can think of actually – the number for the exits corresponds with the nearest mile marker. Not in New York. The exits are in numerical order regardless of mileage between the exits. For example, exit 20 on I-86 in New York is 62 miles from the Pennsylvania border where the mile markers begin.

About halfway there, we crossed a bridge over Chatauqua Lake. This made me think of Robert Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He used that word when he described his foray into the metaphysics of quality. Donna and I have both read this bizarre fictionalized autobiography written in 1974.

The road was being re-paved at the entrance to the casino. There were traffic cones and a detour sign with an arrow that seemed to be randomly pointing to the right shoulder. I stopped and tried to decipher where I was supposed to enter the casino – I was afraid of being directed to the parking garage which we wouldn’t be able to enter. I saw a way out if we needed it, so I proceeded. The tour bus behind us followed me. I was a little concerned about cutting across the freshly laid asphalt at the entrance, but a worker there waved me through when he saw me hesitate.

We found bus and RV parking at the far east end of the lot. There are long parking stalls marked there, well away from the casino. The pavement had a slope to it, but it wasn’t too bad. We put the slides out and settled in quickly.

We didn’t want to visit the casino – just wanted to break up the drive to Watkins Glen and average our overnight costs down by staying for free. But free parking isn’t really free. For us, there is always some generator run time to factor in. Our Onan 7.5kW generator burns about half a gallon of diesel fuel per hour, so it’s not too expensive. When boondocking I usually run it in the morning and in the evening to charge our battery bank – the rest of the time we run on the inverter for our electrical needs.

When I put the slides out, I had a low voltage warning. This was odd, because the batteries should have been charging the whole time we were driving. I cranked up the generator to charge the batteries.

The wind continued to blow all afternoon and we had gusts at times that would rock the coach. Donna made what she calls a pantry meal for dinner. She had prepped it before we left Erie. It was a salmon casserole she made with canned salmon, whole wheat penne and a cheese sauce. It wasn’t our favorite meal ever, but it was nutritious.

Salmon casserole on a paper plate

After dinner, I shut down the generator. It wasn’t long before I had low voltage again. The overhead lights would dim whenever an electrical consumer was turned on. I suspected a poor connection at the battery bank. I checked all of the connections and didn’t find a problem. I turned off the inverter and we only used the 12-volt lighting before we went to bed.

In the morning, I ran the generator again. I checked the charging voltage at the battery bank and looked everything over again without finding any issues. After breakfast, we prepared to leave. When I tried to bring the slides in, I had a low voltage error and the HWH hydraulic pump wouldn’t run. I took my Fluke multimeter out to the battery bank again and found it was only delivering 10.2  volts. Oh no! My batteries were toast.

I fired up the generator again and tried to bring the bedroom slide in. As soon as I hit the rocker switch to activate the pump, the generator shut down! I tried it a couple of times with the same result. I thought there might be a dead short at the hydraulic pump causing the issues. I checked everything over and didn’t find anything wrong with the HWH system. After checking everything over – again – I tried to operate the slide mechanism with the generator running. It immediately shut itself off. The generator was shutting down due to a fault it detected.

I was getting concerned. We can’t drive without pulling the slides in. I tried to think of what was causing the generator to detect a fatal fault in the system. I finally came to the conclusion that the fault is in the battery bank. One or more cells in our 6-volt batteries was faulty and I had no way of replacing them where we were.

Most coaches have a battery boost switch. This switch is usually a momentary rocker type switch that connects the chassis battery, which is used to start the engine with the house batteries that run the inverter, lights and other coach accessories. Momentarily connecting the two battery banks together is an emergency system to be able to start the engine if the chassis batteries are too weak.

I reasoned that this should work in the other direction as well. If I activated the battery boost switch when I ran the slide system, the chassis batteries would boost the house batteries. I gave that a try. It worked! I got the slides in without any problems. We were on our way.

Before we hit I-86, I made a fuel stop. Salamanca is on an Indian reservation. They have low prices on fuel – I topped up the tank at $3.01/gallon. I knew that down the road fuel was $3.58/gallon. I only took on 23 gallons, but hey, I saved about 12 bucks.

As we cruised down the Interstate, I thought about the battery issue. I won’t know for sure until I can disconnect the batteries and check the open circuit voltage of each one, but I think they are badly sulfated. I may have caused the problem. I used to run the generator for about three hours in the morning and again for three hours in the evening when we were boondocking. We’ve spent quite a lot of time boondocking this year and my thrifty ways may have caught me. I reduced my generator run time to one and half hours in the morning and evening.

I thought the Xantrex three-stage battery charger built into our inverter was fully charging the batteries in that amount of time. It would go through the bulk charging stage, then the acceptance charge and finally reach a float charge before I shut down the generator. In hindsight, I should have tested the batteries without any load to determine if they were being fully charged. Undercharging will damage the batteries over time – a hard lead sulfate coating forms on the plates and the batteries will lose efficiency and finally fail. I’ve always been diligent about the electrolyte levels, but I think I made a mistake by trying to save generator run time. The other possibility is a shorted cell or an internal mechanical problem like a broken cell connector.

The trip along the southern tier of western New York is very scenic. We drove through forests and crossed rivers along the way. I was absorbed in thinking abut the battery issue and didn’t realize how hilly the terrain was. I had the cruise control set at 61 mph and let it do its thing. Then I noticed the coolant temperature was over 190 degrees – we usually run in the low 180s unless we’re climbing a steep grade. Then I noticed we were cruising with 23-25 psi of boost pressure from the turbo. The engine was pulling hard! I switched the cruise control off and slowed to 55 mph. I realized we were climbing a long grade – not real steep, but with the cruise control set and the transmission in an overdrive gear – sixth gear – it was putting a load on the engine. At 55 mph in fifth gear, the coolant temperature dropped back into the low 180s.

It was overcast and somewhat dreary all day. The wind kept up, but again was mostly a tail wind. Our GPS took us on a roundabout way to Watkins Glen. Our Rand McNally RV specific GPS has our vehicle weight programmed and won’t route us where we’re over the weight limit. Sure enough, as we rejoined a road that would have been a more direct route and looked back, we saw a sign that limited weight to 10 tons, probably due to old bridges over creeks.

We found the Clute Memorial Park and Campground in Watkins Glen. The campground is run by the village of Watkins Glen and sits right on the southern tip of Seneca Lake. We’re in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Seneca Lake is about 40 miles long north to south and only about two miles wide. There are a series of lakes in the regions with similar aspect ratios – long north-south and narrow. Thus the reason for naming them “finger lakes.”

We checked in and were assign to site C23. This site is ideally situated for us – it faces a road in the campground extending from the entrance to the site. This made backing in and dropping the trailer a breeze.

Our site at Clute Memorial Park and Campground

It’s not the prettiest park – or the cheapest! – but the location is good for exploring the area. And it’s right on a canal that flows into the lake, so we can put the kayak in the water.

I went online and looked for replacement batteries. I could get flooded wet-cell batteries like the ones we have. These were installed when we bought the coach four and a half years ago. They’re relatively inexpensive – I could get four of them for about $700. I decided to step up and ordered Lifeline AGM batteries. These are truly maintenance-free and have higher capacity than our current batteries. They are well-constructed and are used in aircraft and marine installations. The downside is that they are heavy – at 66 pounds each, they weigh about twice as much as the wet cell batteries. Then there’s the cost – I paid $1300 for four of these. In the long run, I think I’ll be happier with them. They’ll be delivered here at the park and I’ll change out our battery bank.

Last night, Donna made a favorite meal – pork loin medallions with a lemon-dijon pan sauce. She served it with mashed sweet potato and roasted brussel sprouts.

Pork loin medallions

A light mist – not really rain – was falling before bedtime. We have more of the same this morning. I’d like to get out and explore, but the weather is forecast to improve in the coming days, so we may put off sightseeing for a day.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to purchase anything, 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!

 

Moving Right Along

We made it out of our site at Still Waters Campground without any problems and made the short trip to Lexington where we set up at Cabela’s. Cabela’s is a favorite place for an overnight stay – they have designated RV parking and welcome RVers and they have a dump station too. The Cabela’s in Lexington is next door to Costco, so we were able to stock up on few things while we were there.

I unloaded the Spyder and we rode a short distance to Ramsey’s Cafe. Donna was told it was the best place to get a Kentucky Hot Brown. I’d never heard of a Hot Brown before, but our friend Joe Milligan suggested we get one while we were here. A Kentucky Hot Brown is an open faced sandwich that was first served at the Brown Hotel in Louisville in 1926. Today there are a few variations to the basic concept. The one we got at Ramsey’s had thinly sliced turkey and ham on toast covered in mornay sauce. Then two tomato slices were put on top and the whole thing was covered with cheddar cheese. Finally two bacon strips topped it off. It was put under a broiler to melt the cheese and served hot. It was a large meal and very good! It was almost like an open faced grilled cheese sandwich taken to another level.

Kentucky Hot Brown

Back at Cabela’s, Donna went inside the store to cool off and shop for a while. It was hot out – in the 90s with high humidity. I sat in a lawn chair on the grass and read a book. A Lexington police officer patrolling the area stopped by and chatted with me for about half an hour. I think he was bored and looking for company.

Later, another couple stopped at our rig and talked to me. They were RVers, but not full-timers. They get out for a few months at a time. I told them we were planning to go to Charleston, West Virginia and stay for a couple of nights at the roadside park at St. Albans on the Kanawha River. They knew exactly where I was talking about – they used to live near there. The park has four pull-through sites with electricity. There is also a large paved lot that people sometimes dry camp in. It seemed like an ideal boondocking spot – the town only asks for a donation if you use the electricity. Donna came back from shopping while we were talking. They warned us of bad road surfaces in West Virginia.

Donna had jambalaya in the slow cooker all day. She made it with chunks of chicken breast, shrimp and andouille sausage with brown rice. We had that for dinner and it was yummy. The sausage came from the Robies market in Abbeville, Louisiana and it had some kick!

Jambalaya

We headed out of Lexington Wednesday morning after an uneventful night at Cabela’s.  Although we found a lot of road construction in West Virginia, for the most part the roads weren’t too bad. As we cruised down MacCorkle Avenue along the Kanawha River I spied the roadside park. The large paved lot was filled with amusement rides! A traveling carnival had come to town. The pull-through sites in the camping area were full of rigs presumably used by the carnies. Not only were the sites full, there were trailers parked everywhere they could find an opening. We stopped at a closed Kmart parking lot across the road to regroup.

Luckily, Donna had looked at alternatives along our route. We decided to press on to Parkersburg and spend the night at a Walmart there. We haven’t dry camped in a Walmart lot in over a year, but it’s not a bad option for an overnight stay. We originally thought we’d stay in St. Albans for two nights, but you have to be flexible on the road. A thunderstorm rolled in while we were at Walmart and it poured down rain. We slept with the windows closed and the generator running all night to power the air conditioners. It was warm and very muggy – we didn’t want the windows open as the thunderstorms had gusty winds and downpours that would have come into the coach.

Across the street from Walmart was a fast food place called Tudor’s Biscuit World. The woman from St. Albans told us we had to try biscuits from Tudor’s. They’re a chain, but are only found in West Virginia. On Thursday morning, I walked over there and ordered a biscuits and gravy plate to go. Donna wanted a plain biscuit, so I ordered a buttered biscuit with no butter – the only way they show a side order of biscuits on the menu is a buttered biscuit. The biscuits were good. The thin crust had toughness to it – it’s hard to describe but I found it to be chewy and delightful.

From Parkersburg, we headed north and crossed the Ohio River a couple of times, putting us in Ohio briefly. Our destination was the Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort. They have a large lot and welcome overnight RV stays. The racetrack is for horse racing and they race at night Sunday through Wednesday and in the afternoon on Saturday. We missed the racing as it was Thursday night.

Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort

Shortly after I parked our rig, a security guy came by.  He told us to move to another lot by a building called Harvs. It’s some kind of reception hall used for large parties and events. We were a stone’s throw from the race track. The lot had quite a slope to it and we weren’t exactly level, but it was okay for just one night. In fact, it was very quiet and peaceful.

We left Friday morning and crossed back into Ohio at East Liverpool and followed US30 up to I-80. I wanted to top up our fuel tank in Ohio as the price of diesel fuel is lower there than in West Virginia or Kentucky. The skies were overcast all day and a haze was in the air.

We found our way to the Elks Lodge in Erie, Pennsylvania and set up around 12:30pm. They have three 30 amp electrical sites and we’re the only RV here. I signed in with the bartender. They only ask for a donation so I wrote a check for $30 to stay for three nights.

We unloaded the Spyder and took a cruise up Peninsula Drive and entered Presque Isle State Park. Presque Isle is actually a peninsula – the entire peninsula is a state park and admittance is free. The haze we experienced all day remained over Lake Erie, but once on the Isle, the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees.

Hazy view across Presque Isle Bay toward Erie, Pennsylvania

The park has numerous hiking trails, boat ramps, a marina and several beaches. Who knew you could find sandy beaches on Lake Erie?

Picnic area by the marina

Later we had a cold one at the Elks Lodge – well actually make that two. The bar bought us the first round and I felt obligated to pay for a round as well. Donna cooked boneless turmeric chicken thighs with artichokes chick peas and green olives for dinner. She also sauteed asparagus. It was a great meal!

Turmeric chicken

While she was cooking, the power at our electrical pedestal went out. I checked the next site and the pedestal there was working. I don’t know why our pedestal blew. I opened the lower panel to have a look and didn’t see anything unusual. There was a guy with a huge roller on a tractor rolling lumps and ridges out of the lawn earlier. I wonder if that might have damaged a conduit underground. We moved about fifty feet to the next site and hooked up to the pedestal there.

This morning is overcast again but there’s only a 20% chance of a shower and the forecast high is 70 degrees. Donna and I are planning to go to the Ribfest – it’s billed as Erie’s Wild Rib Cook Off and Music Festival. Sounds like fun, right?

 

 

 

Hello Betty

We hit the road Monday morning a little later than I intended. By the time we had the trailer hitched up and rolled out on to the highway, it was 9:40am. Our route took us from Aransas Pass up TX35 to Angleton where we hit TX288 north to Houston. This was a familiar route as we came this way in 2015. There was plenty of water along the way in the creeks and lakes, but the fields weren’t flooded like they were in 2015.

We made a stop in a Walmart parking lot in Bay City before we reached TX288. I walked over to Subway and bought a sandwich for lunch while Donna made a salad for herself back in the coach.

TX288 took us to I-610 – a loop around Houston that ostensibly avoids the traffic crossing the city. In fact, I-610 is just as congested as any other portion of interstate through a large city. There were construction zones and sections of rough pavement. Once we hit I-10 east and headed away from Houston, the pavement was rough for several miles. Eventually the road surface improved and the traffic thinned out.

We drove through a swarm of bugs – there were so many of them hitting the windshield, it sounded like large raindrops were falling. I don’t know what kind of insect they were, but they were all over the front of the coach.

We hit a swarm of these

We made our second stop at the Pilot/Flying J travel center in Baytown and topped up the tank with $203 worth of diesel fuel. Donna found a free overnight boondocking spot at a county park in Winnie, Texas. This park is where they hold the Texas Rice Festival and they have dozens of RV sites with 20 amp electrical outlets. The electricity was turned off so we didn’t bother with the RV sites and parked on level pavement outside of the livestock area. The place was deserted when we arrived a little before 4pm.

Level dry camp

In many of the photos, our coach looks like a low rider. That’s because I dump the air from the suspension, lowering the coach before I put the jacks down. The ride height going down the road is four or five inches higher.

We took a walk to town a few blocks away. By the time we were heading out, several people had come to the park. A couple of families were having a picnic dinner near the children’s play area and several other people were walking laps of the park for exercise.

A block away from the park we saw a sign that said “The Secret Garden” and another sign that said,

“The kiss of sun for pardon

The song of birds for mirth

One is nearer god’s heart in a garden

Than anywhere on earth”

Secret Garden

We couldn’t figure out what it was all about. It looked to be someone’s backyard garden.

When we came back to the coach, Donna heated up a cowboy casserole she had made the day before with leftover cornbread, chicken and vegetables that was very tasty. We ate outside and after dinner, I lit up a cigar. Jamie and Francisco gifted me with a bundle of four cigars they bought at the Texas Sand Fest. Although I said I wouldn’t make a habit of cigar smoking, it’s quickly becoming a habit. Two other smaller rigs pulled into the park and spent the night. It was mostly quiet and I wouldn’t hesitate to spend a night there again.

Donna walked over to Burrito Express in the morning and picked up two breakfast burritos that were excellent and very filling. We got back on the road at 9am. The wind was blowing from the southeast, but it wasn’t too bad. I wanted to follow a route down through McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge and Sea Rim State Park, but Nally – our Rand McNally RV specific GPS wouldn’t route us that way, even when I put way points in. I took that to mean the road wasn’t suitable – maybe a low overpass or weight limited bridges. So we headed east on TX73 through Port Arthur and Bridge City.

There are huge refineries there and waterways from the Gulf through Sabine Lake for ships to offload at the refineries. To cross these waterways, the road had high – I mean very high – and steep bridges. These bridges allow clearance for the tankers to come through. I was happy to have mostly a tailwind over these high bridges – a strong crosswind would not have been fun.

When we got back on I-10 about five miles from the Louisiana border, we hit what has to be the worst stretch of Interstate pavement anywhere. It was ridiculous. After we crossed the Sabine River and entered Louisiana, the road surface improved. Although Donna and I both have been to New Orleans several times, this was our first trip to the state in our motorhome. We left the Interstate near Crowley (The Rice Capital of America) and took a series of county roads – narrow and often rough – to our final destination at Betty’s RV Park.

We booked a week at Betty’s based on a recommendation from our friends John and Sharon Hinton. Our friends Brett and Cheri also stayed here. John send us a message a while back telling me the park might be tight for a rig our size. I looked at it on Google earth and saw what he meant.

We were feeling some trepidation as we rolled through the narrow streets of Abbeville and saw narrow driveways on several properties. When we pulled off of State Street at the park entrance, we were relieved to see that parking would be a piece of cake. Betty had a spot picked out for our trailer and it was easily accessible. After dropping the trailer, I made a loop of the small park out onto the street again and re-entered to back into site #4.

Parking spot for our trailer

Site four

The park is small – maybe a few acres with 17 sites. The attraction here is Betty, the owner, and her daily happy hour potluck gathering. Everyone meets at a covered patio area at 4:30pm to share hors d’oeuvres and stories over their beverage of choice.

Happy hour potluck patio

I’m not the most gregarious person, but in a park this small, getting together with neighbors is inevitable and Betty makes it fun. We’ll be here for a week and plan to explore the area.

We’re at an elevation of 30 feet above sea level. The weather is warm – highs around 80 and very humid. Looks like thundershowers may arrive by the weekend. I hope there isn’t too much rain as we want to attend the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival!

Hydraulic Miracle

The weekend of racing at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas was pretty much as expected. We watched the bikes scream around the road racing course and walked through the vendor areas in between sessions, shopping and people watching. I’ve been involved in motorcycle road racing both as a racer and crew chief at the club level in the past. I’ve been attending international level races – World Superbike and Moto GP for a few decades.

Donna and I went to our first Moto GP together in 2006. We were newly married and she had a freshly minted motorcycle license when we loaded up our bikes with our gear and rode from our home in Mesa, Arizona to Monterey, California for the Moto GP event at Laguna Seca. We made this an annual exercise and Donna became used to traveling light with two weeks worth of clothing in her saddlebags.

When we moved to Michigan, the USA Moto GP event changed venues and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. Perfect. We rode from Rochester Hills, Michigan to Indianapolis to attend. We made our last trek to watch Moto GP in 2012 – so this is our first event in six years. As always, we had a good time. I’m more into the racing than Donna, but she supports me and I think she likes the people watching as much as the racing.

We had great seats with a view of the back straight where the Moto GP bikes were hitting speeds over 200 mph before braking hard to enter turn 12 in first gear at about 40-50 mph. Then they had a series of 180-degree turns through 13, 14 and 15 – the slowest corner – before accelerating right in front of us to turn 16. We also had a big screen monitor by our grandstand to see the action on the rest of the course.

Part of the view from our grandstand seats – bike on the course at turn 13, big screen monitor at center-right near the pedestrian bridge

Donna and her new friend – even cowgirls are bigger in Texas

After the last race Sunday afternoon, people started packing up and many of the RVs in the dry camping area pulled out. I’m sure many people took a long weekend from their workaday lives and had to head back to reality. We had a quiet night. I grilled chicken thigh quarters that Donna marinated in something called pretty chicken marinade sauce.

This morning we packed up. I talked to the folks at Fleet Maintenance of Texas on the phone about our hydraulic issue. We spent the weekend here with the jacks up – I got as level as I could with pads under the tires – and only one bedroom slide out. I didn’t dare open the living room slide for fear of not being able to retract it if I got it open. The living room slide still wasn’t in the fully closed position – it was nearly an inch open and wouldn’t close any further. After we packed up and were ready to leave, I tried to close the slide again to no avail.

We made the drive across Austin to Fleet Maintenance of Texas. Cameron helped us there. When I described the issue, he came up with the same thought I had three weeks ago. He said he thought it was a fluid level problem or maybe air in the system.

I removed the cover from the compartment housing the HWH hydraulic reservoir and pump system. I was surprised to find the compartment wet with hydraulic fluid and crud. Here’s the thing – I open this compartment every time I get fuel, I store my Biobor JF fuel treatment there. It wasn’t wet when I fueled up on Thursday.  After 15 minutes or so, Cameron came out with one the techs – his name escapes me – to look at it. He checked the fluid level, then told me to run the jacks down so he could look for leaks in the manifold and lines.

I ran the front jacks down. The pump sounded normal – it had a different pitch when the problem started. The jacks hit the pavement and lifted the front of the coach. What? Next I tried closing the living room slide. It popped right in and closed tight.

Have you ever had a toothache that disappeared once you were at the dentist? That’s how I felt. I couldn’t believe it, everything seemed to be working. The tech told me he didn’t see any signs of leakage. He asked me to lower all of the jacks, then operate all of the slides. Everything worked like magic.

I came back outside scratching my head. We talked it over. The tech said he thought I must have had air trapped in the hydraulic fluid – remember when I said that back in Benson? He told me that the air in the fluid is dispersed when the pump cavitates and millions of tiny bubbles are in the fluid making it milky or almost frothy. Of course the air is compressible, so you cannot reach maximum hydraulic pressure. The tiny bubbles slowly coalesce into larger bubbles which then find their way to the high points in the system. The highest point is the reservoir, but to get there the bubbles have to make their way through junctions and valves.

He theorized that the air finally made its way through the valves as we were driving to the shop and burped into the reservoir, causing some fluid to blow through the cap vent, thus the fluid we found in the compartment.

Messy hydraulic compartment after a cursory wipe to check for leaks

I had to agree with him as I can’t think of a better explanation. Cameron voided my repair order and didn’t charge for checking the system. Nice! I’ll need to thoroughly clean the hydraulic compartment.

We drove from the shop to a nearby Walmart to regroup. I hadn’t made any reservations thinking I needed to know what our situation would be once we hit the shop. Donna walked to a pizza place at the other end of the shopping plaza while I looked at options.

We decided to head east to the Gulf Coast. I found a nice RV park in Aransas Pass and booked a week. This will give us a chance to visit with my middle daughter Jamie. We’d like to explore a bit – we stayed near here at Copano Bay outside of Rockport two years ago.

We had a quick lunch – the pizza was very good! Then we made the four-hour drive to Aransas Pass and arrived around 4:40pm. We were escorted to our site where we dropped the trailer and quickly set up in a full hook-up site – jacks down and level, slides out!

The weather forecast for the coming week looks promising – high 70s to low 80s. Not showing much in the way of precipitation, but I know a thunderstorm can kick up around here quickly at this time of year.

 

Back at Buchanan Dam

We had a very quiet night Sunday at the Twin Buttes Recreation area. We had the first campground area to ourselves. Calling it a campground is a bit of misnomer – it’s really just a large paved parking lot with a few picnic tables. It was level and worked for us. Apparently the Twin Buttes Reservoir remains at a low level – Texas had a long drought from around 2007 to 2015. The lot we were in had a boat ramp, but the reservoir water was nowhere in sight.

There was a second camping area about a mile down the road. I got Donna’s knock-around bike out of the trailer and she rode down to the campground for a look. She said it was more of a campground with identifiable sites and tables. If we were staying for more than just one night, I might have considered moving, but it didn’t really matter as we were the only ones there for the night.

We pulled out of there Monday around 9:30am. On the way out, we stopped briefly to look at the llamas at the llama and alpaca farm along the recreation area access road.

Llama farm

There was a warning sign on the fence that said “Caution – Llamas will kill dogs.” I didn’t know that.

Our route took us down US87 through the towns of Brady and Llano. We were in the Texas hill country. As we drove along, I thought about the varied terrain we had passed through over the previous few days. When we left Alamogordo, the climb up the western side of the Capitan Mountains was through a heavily forested area with tall pine trees.

After we crossed the summit, the pine trees disappeared on the eastern slope of the mountains. Soon we were in high plains with stunted junipers and mesquite trees and grassland. As we neared Roswell, the number of trees lessened and we passed through oil fields.

When we left Carlsbad and headed east to Hobbs, the oil fields were interspersed with agriculture. Once we hit the Texas border, the oil fields continued, but there was more farmland. Sometimes the farmland and oil field were together – crops planted around working oil pumping operations.

As we got closer to San Angelo, the oil rigs were fewer and farther in between – it was mostly farm land. The road from Twin Buttes into the hill country had very few oil rigs and it was mostly ranch land with cattle or sheep or both and smaller deciduous trees. There were also open meadows with wildflowers.

We traveled about 150 miles on Monday bringing us closer to Austin – we’re at Lake Buchanan about 90 miles away from the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) racetrack. We’re staying in a small RV park called Beachcomber Park. With our Passport America discount, it’s only $20/night with full hookups. We’re in a narrow pull-through site. The owner, Carlton, let us drop the trailer in the site next to us since we’re a little too big for the site. The Passport America membership costs $44/year and we’ve already saved $100 in park fees this year. There’s a link in the sidebar of this post if you’re interested in membership – I recommend it.

Lake Buchanan is a large reservoir with an area of approximately 22,000 acres. Carlton told me that from 2008 to 2015 the water level in the reservoir was so low that his waterfront property was 1/4 mile from the lake. Today the reservoir is full and the piers on the property are over water again. We experienced the low water levels when we came through Texas in 2015 and stayed at my friend, Dave Glynn’s, property here at Buchanan Dam.

Beachcomber Park fishing pier

Lake Buchanan viewed from Beachcomber Park

You can see the flags in the fishing pier photo being blown by the wind. We had winds of about 20mph on the drive here, but we didn’t experience hard gusts and the drive wasn’t too tough. We’ll stay here until Thursday morning. Having a couple of days with full hook-ups will allow us to replenish our fresh water supply and dump the holding tanks and Donna can do the laundry that piled up while we were traveling and boondocking.

When we get to COTA, we’ll be dry camped for four nights – arriving Thursday and leaving on Monday. The weather forecast looks promising – upper 70s to 80 degrees but right now they’re calling for a 90% chance of thundershowers on Saturday. If that holds true, it’ll throw a monkey wrench into the qualifying session for Sunday’s Moto GP race.

Drats – No Bats!

In my last post Friday morning, I said we would make a decision on traveling or waiting out the high wind forecast. Friday the 13th didn’t start out great. I ground coffee beans and filled the coffee maker, but it didn’t turn on. Then I realized the digital clock on it wasn’t displaying. Our new coffee maker was dead.

I think I know what killed it. I’d left it plugged in the whole time we were boondocking. I didn’t give it much thought. I figured it only draws current while brewing and it seemed to be doing that fine until Friday morning. Then I thought about the clock – the coffee maker was drawing a small amount of current whenever it was plugged in. Our inverter is a modified sine wave unit. A pure sine wave has the voltage rising above zero in a smooth curve before it turns down and goes below the zero line. A modified sine is a series of square steps rising above zero then falling below the zero line.

For most applications, this works fine. However, some electronic components don’t get on well with the blocky modified wave. I’m guessing delicate components in the coffee maker controller burned out from the modified sine wave.

By 8:30am, the wind was already blowing out of the northwest. We decided it would be best to stay off the road and spend another day in Alamogordo in our sheltered spot at the abandoned shopping plaza. The wind speed increased throughout the day with several hard gusts shaking the coach. We went over to the Elks Lodge for happy hour in the evening.

On Saturday morning, the wind was much calmer. We headed out of Alamogordo and went north on US54 to Tularosa. We picked up US70 there and headed northeast over the Capitan Mountains. Near the Mescalero Apache Reservation, we topped out on Apache Summit at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level.

US70 merged with US380 and eventually took us to Roswell. We stopped at a Target store there and bought a replacement coffee maker – we have to have our coffee. On Friday morning after I discovered our coffee maker died, we broke out the Keurig – we still had it packed away along with some K-cups. I can hardly believe we were ever happy drinking that stuff – the fresh ground beans brewed in a thermal coffee maker is far superior.

We had lunch at a Subway sandwich shop after parking in a free city parking lot downtown. We were the only vehicle in the lot! Coming into Roswell, Donna saw a sign that proclaimed Roswell, New Mexico as the dairy capital of the southwest. When I think of Roswell, I don’t think about dairy. I think about alien space invaders and a town with a funky artwork and an alien museum.

Mural downtown Roswell – hey, that critter on the left is called Mike!

From Roswell, we took US285 to Carlsbad, New Mexico. We found an Elks Lodge there and dry camped in their RV area. The Elks Lodge is right next to the Pecos River, across the street from a conference center and riverwalk. Donna went for walk along the river – here are a couple of photos she took.

Riverwalk path

A guy fishing from a pavilion on the riverwalk

Later, when we went inside the lodge for a cold one, we met a guy that drove up from Mentone, Texas for dinner. That’s about 88 miles away! He said there isn’t much in Mentone and he’s temporarily based there working as a safety officer in the oil fields.

He asked me where we were heading. I told him I thought we’d go east to Hobbs, New Mexico then turn south to Big Spring as we make our way to Austin, Texas. He said that was a great route and said we’d really like US62/US180. He said it was a divided highway – two lanes in each direction and nice pavement.

We planned to go over to Carlsbad Caverns National Park Sunday. We could stay in a nearby RV park for the night and check out the bats coming out of the cave after sundown. Before we moved, I looked at the Radar Express app and found weather advisories in the area. High wind warning for the area all the way from the Guadalupe Mountains to the west of Carlsbad Caverns to Big Spring, Texas from Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon! Oh no!

We need to be in Austin by Thursday – I’ve paid for tickets and dry camping at the Circuit of the Americas there for the Moto GP race weekend. If we got stuck in Carlsbad because of dangerous wind conditions, we might not make it to Austin. We decided to pass on Carlsbad Caverns this time and hightail it out of the area.

We took US62/US180 east to Hobbs where I topped up our tank with $160 worth of diesel fuel. It was $3.17/gallon – the most we’ve paid in the last year. Our route took us across the Texas border – where we lost another hour as we transitioned to Central Time – through Seminole and Lamesa.

From there we took US87 south and planned to stop in Sterling City and dry camp at a city park there. The park turned out to be a bust – low hanging tree branches prevented us from entering and it didn’t look like a great place for a big rig anyway. We continued south through San Angelo and found a boondocking spot at the Twin Buttes Reservoir. Our plan now is to head down to an RV park at Buchanan Dam, which will bring us within 70 miles of Austin on Monday. We’ll take it easy for a few days with full hook-ups to catch up on laundry, fill the freshwater tank and dump the holding tanks. Then we’re off to the races.

It looks like we’ll have warm weather in Austin – around 80 degrees. I need to figure out why the air conditioners didn’t operate when powered by the generator.

 

 

Gremlins and a Safe Harbor

We planned for an early departure from Desert Oasis Campground near Bisbee, Arizona Wednesday morning. We were on track to achieve that goal when trouble struck. Actually the trouble was brewing since we were in Mesa, but I didn’t realize it until after the fact.

We’ve had a small leak in our HWH hydraulic system that operates the leveling jacks and room slide-outs.  I rigged a plastic catch basin to contain the occasional drip from it. In Mesa, when I replaced the headlights, I had to extend the generator compartment in the front cap – it’s also hydraulically operated by the HWH system. The generator compartment quit moving after it extended only a few inches. I could hear the HWH pump cavitating.

I knew the pump reservoir must have been low on fluid – lower than I expected based on the amount of oil in the catch basin. I went to the auto parts store and bought a quart of Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) to top up the reservoir. I wasn’t sure how much to add because the dipstick for the reservoir is calibrated for checking when all of the rams are retracted – that means slides in, jacks up. I added about half a quart and the generator extended normally, so I thought I was good to go. While I was at it, I inspected the hydraulic leak again and was able to trace it to a compression fitting. I tightened the fitting – it was about a quarter turn loose.

While we were in Mesa, I had to extend the left rear jack to the end of its travel due to a small sink hole right below the jack. In hindsight, the jack must have been leaking fluid past the seal from over-extending. The dirt where the jack had sunk in was wet and dark when we left.

In Benson, our first overnight stop, everything worked fine. When we got to Bisbee, trouble started. The passenger side bedroom slide didn’t extend  normally. I had to push it open after it moved slowly about halfway out. I thought maybe there was air in the hydraulic line from running the pump low on fluid. While we were in town, I bought three more quarts of ATF. I checked the catch basin to see if we still had a leak and it didn’t appear so. I added fluid to the reservoir.

When we were getting ready to leave Bisbee, the bedroom slide wouldn’t retract. I had to push from the outside while Donna worked the switch for the hydraulic pump. The living room slide retracted to within an inch of fully closed and stopped. I retracted the jacks, then checked the reservoir dipstick. No fluid showed. I added a quart of ATF and saw fluid near the minimum mark. I added more fluid and checked the level again – no fluid showed! I figured air was bleeding from the lines and dropping the fluid level. I ended up adding two and half quarts and I still couldn’t get the living room slide to fully seat – it remained about half an inch open.

We hit the road and I hoped the air would work out of the system as we drove. It was mostly an easy drive on AZ80 through Douglas then into New Mexico where the road designation changed to NM80. We had a tailwind most of the time, so I was hardly aware of the wind. At Hachita, we turned north to catch I-10 and then we had a crosswind. It was fairly windy but not too bad.

We stopped and shopped for a few items at a Walmart in Deming, then pressed on. We stopped for fuel at the Pilot Travel Center in Las Cruces. We thought we would boondock for the night at a scenic overlook on US80 before we hit White Sands. The overlook was at the top of a steep grade at San Augustin Pass. It wasn’t level and the wind was whipping through the pass. I got out to look it over and could barely close the door once the wind was blowing against it. We decided against staying there.

We moved on to Alamogordo where we had a few options including an Elks Lodge.  We ended up stopping at an abandoned shopping plaza Donna found in the Escapees Days End directory. There were a couple of tractor-trailer rigs in the lot, but everything was boarded up and no one else was around. I parked us close to one of the boarded up store fronts to get a little shade and shelter from the wind.

Then part two of my tale of woe began. The HWH situation is worse than before. Now I can get enough pressure to lower the jacks, but it won’t generate enough pressure to actually lift and level the coach. I only put out one bedroom slide while I tried to see what I could do to fix the problem. After messing about for an hour, I think air entrained in the system was wishful thinking. I think the cavitation of the pump damaged the pump rotor and it won’t deliver sufficient pressure. To make matters worse, I don’t think I can get just the pump. I think I have to get the complete assembly – reservoir tank, pump and motor. It’s doubtful I’ll be able to get this fixed anytime soon because parts will have to be ordered and we’ll have to figure out where to have the work done.

Next, I couldn’t get the roof air conditioning units to operate on generator power. The generator output was fine – I had 120 volts, 60 hertz and all other 120-volt AC powered appliances worked. I haven’t run the roof air on the generator in months and I don’t know what’s up with it at this point. The air conditioners worked fine in Bisbee on shore power.

On Wednesday evening, we received severe weather warnings for south central New Mexico. The wind on Thursday was forecast to reach speeds in excess of 35 mph in Alamogordo and the mountain passes we were planning to head for had warnings for wind gusts up to 60 mph from late morning Thursday until 9am Friday morning!

On Thursday morning, Donna and I were up early. After sunup, the wind was calm, but the severe warnings were still in effect. We discussed heading out right away to get over the mountains ahead of the wind, but thought better of it. The wind was coming from the west-southwest. We’re currently parked on the east side of a large building complex – we have safe harbor on the leeward side of the closed shopping plaza.

Our sheltered spot

By 9:30am, we knew we made the right decision. The wind kicked up and even here in our sheltered spot, the coach was rocked several times. That kind of wind is not something I would want to drive our rig through on a mountainous highway. And it’s increasing by the hour.

Just before noon, a bunch of FedEx trucks pulled into the lot. Apparently they use this lot as a staging area. Five trucks backed up to a larger truck in a spoke-like pattern and they offloaded boxes from the large truck into the smaller ones. I’ve never seen that before.

FedEx transferring packages in the parking lot

Around 12:30pm, I got the Spyder out of the trailer and we rode into town for green chile cheese burgers. I didn’t want to ride the Spyder on the highway in the gusty wind so we went the slower way through town. We had lunch at BZ Rockin’ Burgers. They had great reviews and a unique method of ordering that consists of a printed sheet of paper with boxes you check to to build your own burger. Next time, I think I’ll stick with Blake’s Lotaburger – their green chili cheeseburger is hard to beat.

We made a stop at McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch before we headed back. Donna posed in the wind for a photo.

Donna in a wind blown photo

We went inside the store and had a look around. They had some interesting flavors of pistachios and nut brittles as well as jams and other gift items. We didn’t find anything we had to have, so we headed home to see if our coach was still where we left it.

The wind blew harder and rocked the coach into the night. It’s a little past 7am now and a cool 55 degrees out. The forecast calls for a high of only 60 degrees today – it was 87 degrees yesterday. The weather service extended the wind advisory through this afternoon. After breakfast we’ll make a decision – sit tight or move on?

Errands and Detours

We left the Casa Grande Elks Lodge early Wednesday morning – we pulled out around 8:30am which is an early start for us. Our first stop was at Speedco where I had the coach motor oil and filter changed and the chassis greased. They also checked the tires and coolant – I knew these were okay – I checked our tires that morning and the coolant was flushed and filled with Fleetguard ES Compleat coolant in Albuquerque. Rather than get on the interstate, I took a shortcut down Trekell Road and intended to hit Sunland Gin Road. However, I forgot that I needed to turn on Jimmy Kerr Road to get to Sunland Gin and ended up out in the desert. So much for shortcuts.

Speedco used to do the service on our coach for under $200. Last year they raised their prices considerably and it cost me nearly $300. This year they raised the price again and I paid $330 – this includes a used oil analysis report that I always pay for. By the way, the report looked good with no worries.

It was nearly 11am by the time we hooked the trailer back up and pulled out of the Speedco lot. Originally I thought we would go to Yuma and I would get fuel before we crossed into California. However, our fuel gauge is unreliable and I wasn’t sure how much fuel we’d burned crossing the mountains plus we had lots of generator run time. So, we backtracked up I-10 to the Pilot/Flying J travel center before we headed west on I-8. We ate lunch in the Flying J parking lot after fueling.

We planned a fairly short day and wanted to run a few errands in Yuma. We made a stop on the way at Dateland (exit 67) to take a break and get a date shake. The travel center at Dateland used to be a gas station and a separate small building with a gift shop and milkshakes. They’ve upgraded it considerably over the past few years and it’s a nice stopping point in I-8 for refreshments and touristy stuff. We saw several Border Patrol vehicles along this stretch of freeway and a few Border Patrol officers stopped for lunch at Dateland. They had one of their rigs with two ATVs on a trailer out front – a Polaris four-seater and a smaller ATV.

Polaris four-seat ATV with Homeland Security badges

Our next stop was at Al’s RV Service and Supply on Fortuna Road in Yuma. I wanted to stop there and buy a bottle of Tank Techs RX – the treatment I use in our holding tanks. Al’s is one of the few RV stores that I find it in and buying it at the store saves the cost of shipping when I buy online. I’d also planned to go to the RV Water Filter Store in Yuma, but I found the filter elements I wanted at Al’s. Then Donna said we should look for a new latch for my closet door. The old one broke and the mirrored door slides open and closed as we drive down the road. I was doubtful, but we found the right latch on a display rack! Then Donna found a rod for the kitchen window shade – it went missing earlier this year when were having work done at RV Renovators. Al’s has almost everything for an RV.

We drove across the overpass to the Pilot/Flying J and I topped up the tank with diesel fuel again. We’d been running the generator and roof air conditioners all afternoon and I wanted to avoid buying fuel in California. I also had our propane tank filled. The gauge showed less than 1/4 tank of propane remaining. It took 30 gallons so we had at least a quarter tank – it holds 42 gallons when filled to 80% of actual capacity.

We made one more stop in Yuma at Walmart to get a few things. It was after 4pm by the time we left Yuma. We decided to stop for the night at our usual stopping point on Ogilby Road where we dry camp on BLM land. Interstate 8 is being rebuilt along large sections between El Centro and Yuma. The exit from westbound I-8 was closed at Ogilby Road. We had to continue a few miles west to the Gray’s Well exit and come back east to get on Ogilby. As we crossed over the freeway I noticed the on-ramp to westbound I-8 from Ogilby was also closed so this would present another detour when we left.

We went to a familiar area where we’ve boondocked before. The area was empty – not an RV in sight. We set up a little closer to the road than usual and called it a day. After dark, another motorhome came past us. The driver was brave to drive deep into the desert at night!

Ogilby Road is usually quiet with few cars passing by. The road runs north where it merges with CA78 and continues all the way to Blythe. This morning, a gaggle of cars came south on Ogilby starting around 5am. I got out of bed at 5:30am and the traffic quit coming by shortly after that. I’m guessing the crew working on the interstate must be camped up the road and were heading out to start an early shift – I can’t think of any other reason for that much traffic on Ogilby Road.

Dawn in the desert

We knew the day would warm quickly and planned to hit the road before it became hot out. Tuesday was in the upper 90s and we expected the same today. To get on I-8 westbound, we had to go east to Sidewinder Road – about five miles, then cross over and head back west. Our plan was to cross the desert early and stop at the Golden Acorn Casino across the Tecate Divide. The Golden Acorn is near Campo at an elevation of about 4,100 feet above sea level and would be much cooler. Our reservation at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego starts tomorrow, so we needed a place to spend another night before we arrive there.

Desert sunrise on our coach

The traffic on westbound I-8 across the California desert was very light. Even with the construction zones we made good time. West of El Centro, we were at sea level. We started climbing before we reached Ocotillo, then quickly gained 3,000 feet of elevation. The coach handled the climb easily – we never went below 50mph and the coolant temperature topped out right at 200 degrees for just a short time.

We found the Golden Acorn Casino on the south side of I-8 at exit 61. The parking lot is large, but we were a little confused about where we should park the coach. We came in the truck entrance on the southeast side of the casino and saw what was clearly a truck lot. Then we saw a couple of RVs on the north end of the lot and another on the southwest side. We found a fairly level spot on the northwest end, well away from any parked cars. I think we’ll be fine here for the night. It’s always windy here by the divide. There are wind generators on the mountain tops around the casino and to the east. The temperature is over 80 degrees but the breeze makes it feel cooler.

Our spot at Golden Acorn Casino

Tomorrow we’ll have a short drive – less than 70 miles to Mission Bay. We’ll settle down there for the next two months.

Jake and the Shortcut

Donna rode the Spyder to pick up some groceries before we hit the road Sunday morning.  The traffic was terrible as everyone was exiting Balloon Fiesta Park as well as the RV park. She was trying to go east to Trader Joe’s, but police had closed Alameda and were diverting traffic down San Mateo and onto the I-25 frontage road. She didn’t want to get on I-25 and was able to make a detour back west to Jefferson and south to Paseo del Norte. She ended up at Target on Coors Boulevard. It took her about an hour and a half to get groceries and make it back to the RV lot – but she managed to do it without getting lost.

We hit the road around 11:30am. Our first stop was the Pilot/Flying J travel center. I didn’t need fuel, but I topped up the tank to estimate our generator fuel burn rate – I had topped up before we came into the park. We put about 40 hours on the generator at the balloon fiesta and took on only 18 gallons of fuel – less than half a gallon per hour. This is better than I expected. We had a lot of generator run time in the last two months – 95 hours since August 17th.

We drove I-40 westbound to exit 89 and got on NM117 south. This took us along the El Malpais National Conservation Area. We traveled through here two years ago. We were pleased to find much of the road had been repaved and was much smoother. We then followed NM36 to Quemado where we hit US60.

On US60, we found a primitive rest area about 8 miles east of the Arizona border and called it a day around 4pm. The rest area was all dirt and gravel with a few covered concrete tables and no facilities, but it was level and overnight parking is allowed. Two other RVs and a tractor/trailer rig pulled in before dark and stayed overnight. There was plenty of room and everyone had their own semi-private space.

We had a quiet evening. I watched football while Donna watched a couple of episodes of 24 on her laptop. I woke up at 5am – a hangover from eight days of rising early for the balloon fiesta. I rolled out of bed at 5:30am and went outside to look at the stars. It was very dark in this secluded area and the stars filled the sky. It was also cold – the elevation was 7,500 feet above sea level and the temperature dropped to 34 degrees overnight.

Our overnight spot just after sunup

We hit the road around 8:45am and gained an hour a few minutes later when we crossed time zones entering Arizona. When we came this way in 2015, I took AZ260 from Show Low to Payson, then down through Phoenix. This time I stayed on US60 – it’s a shorter route and I wanted to do something different. It also allowed us to bypass Phoenix.

The thing is, short cuts are never easy. If they were easy, they wouldn’t be a short cut – they would just be “the way.” This route took us down into the Salt River Canyon – a steep winding descent from about 5,000 feet above sea level to about 3,400 feet.

The south side of the canyon is equally steep with a number of switchbacks – we topped out around 6,000 feet above sea level. This was a good test of the new turbocharger, charge air cooler and engine radiator. We had good power and made the climb easily and the engine coolant temperature never exceeded 193 degrees. I should also mention that having a full functioning turbo also means the Jacobs (Jake) engine compression brake worked flawlessly and made the descents easily controllable. Donna finds peace of mind when she hears the Jake smoothly slow our coach instead of me having to stab the service brakes!

Our route on US60 took us through the mining towns of Globe, Miami and Superior before we turned off at Florence Junction. We stopped and ate lunch in the coach at a park in Florence, but moved on when we couldn’t find a suitable overnight spot. About 45 minutes later, we found ourselves in Casa Grande and set up in the Elks Lodge lot. I wanted to stop in Casa Grande to have the coach serviced – we’re due for an engine oil change and chassis lube. I didn’t have this done along with the other work at Cummins in Albuquerque due to their high rates. I’ll have it done at Speedco in Casa Grande where I usually stop for routine maintenance.

We’re well ahead of schedule to make it to San Diego on Thursday. I want to stop in Yuma to pick a few supplies – tomorrow we’ll decide where to stop next after we have service at Speedco. The temperature here in Casa Grande is 93 degrees today and we expect to see 90s for the next two days before we reach the coast. More generator run time to power the air conditioners!