We hadn’t seen our daughter for a while, she lives in San Francisco, so we thought we would take a trip over there to visit. We wanted to take the trailer so the options were limited. The RV park in Pacifica might be in the ocean currently as they were suffering a large erosion of the cliff they are perched on. There is an RV/mobilehome park in South San Francisco that we have never stayed at. There is also an RV park right next to Candlestick park but it is near a pretty seedy neighborhood. What to do? We called upon a site from our history. Anthony Chabot campground in the East Bay hills north of Castro Valley.
The campground has a few negatives but the positives are pretty nice. One negative is you have to be back to the campground at 10PM or you are locked out. Another is the road to the campground is really long and curvy. However, you ARE close to the populous cities but it does not feel like it. You are up in the hills in a eucalyptus grove. There are only 12 full hookup sites and it is very hilly. That is where one of the other negatives came into play. But more about that later.
We were happy to get out of the central valley and the heat. The previous days were over 100 and pushing 110. The forecast for Castro Valley was high 60’s to low 70’s. As we started out all was going good but the truck seemed a bit sluggish with the trailer attached. Usually the truck will get going pretty good from a stop but not so now. We pulled off of I5 around the Westley area. When I got back on the onramp was uphill. The truck had an issue doing so and was belching out a goodly amount of black smoke. This is not normal. It also started huffing when you would hear a thump under the hood and then a large puff of exhaust. Needless to say I did not like this but I had seen it before.
Now that I know what it is I can rest a bit, well sort of. We still had a few hills to get over before we made it there. One was the Altamont pass and the other was between Dublin and Castro Valley. The Altamont went pretty good. I found that if I did not go higher than 2000RPM I would do OK. I was able to do so on this pass and we made it over. However the next pass was different. I could not get a running start on this one and near the top I had to downshift out of overdrive which started the huffing. Luckily we didn’t have to go too far huffing along.
Once we got to the campground we found the hills. I reserved this spot specifically but I could not tell the terrain. The spot was on a downhill road and at a 90 degree to the road. Here is a picture that does NOT show the grade:
Pretty nice spot. Let’s look at the other side:
Ah, there’s the slope. Still doesn’t look too bad. Next shot:
This is taken down the hill where I had to back in from. I started backing in and my rear wheel started spinning on the asphalt and my other was on the dirt. I was not getting anywhere. It might have been because of the engine running rough also. Anyway I put the truck in 4wd and tried again. I had to get up some speed and crank the angle pretty tight but I got it in. We hooked up the hookups, Roxie is getting very good at this, disconnected the truck and met our daughter at the BART station (two days earlier BART had agreed to stop the strike for 30 days). She spent the night with us in the trailer. It has been a LONG time since she did that last.
The next day I had a mission. I needed to get my diesel filter replaced. I started out at a JiffyLube (why not, it worked before) after dropping off Roxie and Hannah at a shopping mall. The guy flatly said they don’t do it here. I called a SpeedeeLube and they said, “Sure we do it!”. When I got there the tech said they did not and the management did not know what they were saying. However they recommended me to a tire/service location. I was able to get it replaced there and 2-3 hours later the truck was running good again.
I picked up Roxie and Hannah and we did some errands then headed into the city. Driving my truck in San Francisco is a real experience. If you just take it slow and deliberate you are good. However, people usually give you room if you start moving into their lane. The rest of the days were filled with driving places, parking, shopping, eating, all the fun boring stuff.
Wednesday eventually came and it was time to go home. I was a bit concerned about the road out of the camp area. It was curvy and steep. I have a video that I took. I have kept the commentary in it also so enjoy:
On the way home we stopped at Toscano’s RV to get the hinge on our stove covered fixed under warranty. Then the long drive home.
We wanted to take a short trip before we are off on our long one to Alumafandango in early August.
