Tag Archives: Trips

Picking up the Airstream and heading out again.

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We went to Toscano’s on Wednesday to pickup the Airstream after the repairs were done.  Well, at least some of the repairs.

We have some wood that has cracked on both sides of the bed.  The parts have been ordered from Airstream but it is unknown how long it will take to get to Toscano’s.  We also had issues with the fresh water tank not reading correctly on the sensor.  I would take out 3 gallons of the 50 gallon tank and the meter would show 5/8 remaining?  The techs said they could actually see the meter drop as they were running water.  Changing the sensor and the meter made no difference.  The company that made the meter was stumped.  They will try again when we take the trailer back.

The other issue was the jack.  It made a terrible noise when operational.  They found a broken bolt inside but left it on the trailer.  They stated that the manufacturer was sending a new jack head.  OK.  I can live with that as long as it will get fixed.  I went to raise the trailer to hookup and the jack did not work at all.  I thought maybe the techs turned off the 12v switch but all the other 12v systems were working fine.  They came out and found the jack was blowing fuses each time they put one it.  The replaced the jack with a ‘loaner’ one.  Better it happened there than on the road.

We stopped off in Fresno to have dinner with our son and I had to do some interesting maneuvering with the trailer.  Like a u-turn at a very busy intersection.  But my philosophy is that the more practice I get in tough situations the better I get overall.  We got home around 7 and I didn’t even back it into its spot for a reason.

We had reservations to meet up with an Airforums group in Three Rivers starting Friday.  Oh yes, off again!  But realize that Three Rivers is only 36 miles from home so we did not have far to go.  We all met at the Sequoia RV Ranch.  We had about 12 trailers show up.  Roxie and I had driven through the park previously but never stayed there.  We will go back sometime.  Here is a few of the trailers:

Sequoia RV 01

The group of Airstreamers were a very friendly one.  We found some old friends and new ones as we always do at these.  Had a nice low key happy hour on Friday night and a great potluck on Saturday night.  We also had our granddaughter with us for the weekend.  We stayed 3 nights but she had to get home on Sunday.  We were going to meet her mother in Three Rivers so we didn’t have to drive ALL THAT WAY home and then back!

Sunday we decided to head to Sequoia NP and climb Moro Rock and have a picnic.  We have done this before but our granddaughter had only done it once.  Only over 350 steps to get to the top.  We just took it slow, how else could we?  Here are some shots from the top (even one with both of us in it!):

Sequoia RV 03 Sequoia RV 04

We had the local newspaper come by on Saturday and ask questions about the Airstreamers.  It will be fun to see what gets written in the article.  I know they talked to me quite a bit and took some pictures.  Probably didn’t hurt that we were local also.

On Saturday we were off doing some other hiking in the lower levels of the park and someone came through and took photos of the trailers.  He did an HDR manipulation on them.  I was able to get a copy from him and we love it!  Here it is:

Sequoia RV 02

 

We had a very fun and uneventful weekend.  The only problem is that I dropped our awning lights (see above) and broke one of the bulbs.  Ouch.  Don’t know if I can find them.

We went home on Monday with the knowledge that we were going out again the next Saturday!  Do we ever rest?

Alumafiesta 2014 Trip – Days 15 & 16 – End of the Line

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We had another nice night by the Salton Sea but it was time to move on.  The thought was to do what we normally do, go to Sam’s in Desert Hot Springs for a night or two for the hot pools and one last blast of relaxation.  We headed into the Palm Springs area and I was very aware of what was going on.  The Date Festival was in Indio, Modernism Week was in Palm Springs and President Obama was in Palm Springs and on top of all this it was a three day weekend for most.  A lot going on.

We made a detour to a Costco and went right by the Date Festival but Roxie didn’t seem too interested.  I remember going when I was a kid.  The only thing I really remember is my dad taking pictures of the Date Queens in their bikini style costumes.  However during that era Queens were female.  I am sure the slides are in his collection somewhere.

I called Sam’s to see if they had any spots available.  I had called them about a week earlier and they person there said not to worry about reservations as there would be spaces.  On this most recent phone call they stated that they had about 20 spaces this AM and only about 5 people had come in.  15 spaces?  OK.  We went to Sam’s.

We pulled in and found it was really full.  I got a map and we looked around.  There were about 3 spots, very narrow, very crowded and ALL dirt.  No thanks.  I called another location in the area, a 55+ park.  When I asked them if 53 was OK they told me to call their other location.  Wow 2 years!  OK.  We went to the other location.

The lady in the office showed me on the map the 5 spaces that we could fit in.  She also told us we could walk to see them as she didn’t want me driving the trailer through the park.  What?  So I took my bike off the rack and rode around.  Not impressed by any of those, especially not for $50/night!  We decided to get out of the Palm Springs area.  After some discussion we took a cue from our friends Dan and Marlene of MaliMish.  Morongo Casino.

Dan and Marlene routinely will leave the LA area on a trip late at night and spend their first night at Morongo.  This lets them avoid the LA traffic.  We thought we would just spend another night dry camping.  We had dumped and filled up on water at the Salton Sea so we were good.  After we got to the Casino we exchanged a few tweets with Dan to figure out where to park.  It was with all the other RV’s, duh.  We walked to Ruby’s Diner for a quick dinner.

Here is our convoluted journey that day (Yes, we made a loop):

AF23jpg

 

The night at Morongo was not a great one or the worst one.  Roxie didn’t sleep real great but I sure did.  She was awake at midnight watching, and listening to, a couple running around trying to find their dogs and each other.  You get what you pay for ($0).

We decided we would head home with the option of stopping if it seemed prudent.

We headed through Victorville and the high desert.  I wanted to see how the truck did on the Cajon pass which is a healthy climb.  It did wonderfully.  I now have no qualms about taking the rig on any hill.

As we were passing through Victorville/Adelanto I spied a Bowlus 5th wheel.  A what?  We had to stop and turn around.  It appears to be a polishing business and there was a LOT of aluminum there.  I have a webpage setup to show all the photos but here is one to tease you:

AF24

 

It was fun to see them all.  The guard dogs were also pretty fun too.  They were two pit bulls and did a lot of barking at first.  Eventually they just followed us along (on the other side of the fence), wagging their tails and just laid down at the end.

We pushed on and then something pretty amazing happened.  As we were going through Boron I pulled off the exit and got out of the truck.  Roxie then got in the drivers seat and we took off.  Yes, Roxie was driving the rig!!  It is one of the signs of the Apocalypse!  We had discussed it earlier in the trip and she mentioned that some other stretches that we went on would have been good for to try.  This stretch was perfect.  4 lanes (2 each way), light traffic, a pretty healthy headwind (but hey it’s an Airstream).

She did GREAT!  She made it until Monolith where she pulled off and let me drive.  42 miles later!  She even had to go up and down some hills and pass a truck.  It was wonderful to see this.  Next time we will up the ante just a bit.  She is not ready to graduate to highway 99 yet.

We stopped for lunch and continued on to home.  The worst part of the trip is always the last 70 or so miles.  Here are the truck stats for the entire trip:

AF22

 

Total trailer miles was 1550.

It is nice to get home but it is nicer to be on the road.  Check my week counter on the right and count down with us!