Monthly Archives: April 2008

More repairs

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We let our son and a friend use our trailer a while back.  They were helping with the security at the next county’s fair.  I delivered the trailer and then picked it up.  After we used it the next time, after about 3-4 days we would smell something foul around the bathroom.  Unfortunately it was a smell of urine.  This went on for too long so I finally decided to attack it.

Our entire trailer has a light colored carpet, with the requisite stains that comes from such a shade.  We cannot figure out why Airstream would do this.  The thought was that there was some remnant smell in the carpet in the bathroom.  This carpeted area is on the floor and on the platform where the toilet is.  The plan was to remove the carpet in there and replace it with another floor covering.

I was able to remove the old carpet with a bit of effort.  It did not smell bad, according to my wife (I wasn’t going to smell it!).  I noticed there was some water damage to the platform area.  When my parents gave us the trailer, the toilet valve became stuck on.  It might have damaged things a bit.  I use some Kilz paint to attempt to contain any odors from the wood.  To cover the floor and the platform I used some vinyl strips of fake wood that had adhesive backing to it.  I also then used some trim around the edges.  Here is the result:

I am pleased with the appearance, but unfortunately there is still a smell.  Time to do some more investigative work…

Sacramento and San Francisco

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As part of my job in the local education field there are meetings to go to. Oftentimes these meetings are in Sacramento. This was one such time. I had meetings on the Thursday and Friday before spring break was starting for our daughter so we thought it would be good to incorporate a mini-vacation into this.

I took the trailer up to the Sacramento KOA on Wednesday. This was the first time I have ever towed the trailer any distance by myself and I DID NOT hit anything (so there Rich)! I went to my meetings. I remember some of them comparing what they were paying (or rather their offices) per night for motels. I stated $160, then I added that was for 4 nights. All of their prices were for one night. I stayed two nights by myself (another first) and then Roxie and Hannah came up on the Amtrak and I picked them up. Coincidentally our niece had a birthday party that we attended on Saturday. We headed over the San Francisco on Sunday.

We stayed at the San Francisco RV Resort, south of SF in Pacifica. I investigated the other RV park, down by Candlestick park but it did not seem appealing. Kind of like the park at CAL Expo. The location of the SF RV Resort is great. Right on the ocean, we were backed up to the cliff. The showers are EXCELLENT and the restrooms are very nice also. The entire park is asphalt and there are many ‘permanents’. The spots can be short and they want you to keep all vehicles within the lines. This posed to be a problem since we didn’t get the spot that we reserved.

I emailed to change our reservation back one day and I stated this. However, I also gave them the wrong dates, I added one day AND one month. They followed the ‘new’ dates. When we checked in, there was no reservation. Since they were not busy we still had a spot but it was shorter than the one reserved. This meant we couldn’t actually get both vehicles in the space. So we parked next to our trailer. It turned out that no one bothered us about it.

The first day we drove to the South San Francisco BART station. I chose this one over the Colma station because the parking was free at SSF. We rode it downtown and were planning on riding the Cable Cars to Fisherman’s Wharf and do the ‘tourist’ thing. The Cable Car line was very long. I remembered that the SF Muni system had a line of streetcars that they have acquired from other cities and it ran between Market St and the Wharf. However, that line was too long also. We asked at the Muni desk and they told us to take the 30 route. It was fun to take a local route and see a different route that we would normally see.

The Wharf has become very much more shopping oriented, lots of stores on the streets. Roxie and I remember when it was still more of a true wharf where the catches were brought in and distributed immediately. We had lunch at a restaurant called Capurro’s. It was a very nice place, nice atmosphere and good food. The manager(/owner?) was very friendly. Recommended. The last stop was Pier 39. I had never been there. It was more food and shopping. Here is a photo from there.

The next day Hannah decided to stay at the trailer and live on the internet all day. Roxie and I went across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Monument. Muir Woods is a very nice and relaxing place. The road to get there is very exciting (no trailer this time). We took the walk, saw a banana slug and another grove of Redwoods that we have not seen before. After Muir Woods we went to Sausalito for lunch. We drove down the main street, past the GEORGEOUS view of SF but did not find anything that looked interesting. We turned around (on some pretty interesting streets for the truck) and back again. We settled at Saylor’s Restaurant. I was very pleasantly surprised. I had probably one of the best restaurant burgers that I ever had, also recommended. On the way back ‘home’ we went through part of the Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

While we were gone, Hannah called and talked about a para-sailer that was flying around behind the trailer. In reading some of my blogs that Bobby, Danine and Elise saw the same thing shortly after we were there.

The third day we went to the Exploratorium. We got there just at the time that schools were leaving so it worked out real well. There were many different exhibits as usual but we unable to make it to the Tactile Dome.

One thing that I found interesting was driving over the hill in Pacifica. We were without the trailer and came over a hill. A sign stated that it was a 17% grade coming up. I was amazed that there was a street with that type of grade. There may be some in SF that are more but this was pretty interesting. We turned the corner and there was a sign about an 18% grade(!) coming next. It was fun!

We then had our usual drive home, the worst part of any trip.