Category Archives: Other Coaches

Freak Alley – Boise, Idaho

We pulled into the Mountain View RV Park in Boise around 2pm on Saturday. The registration lane is relatively short and we took up the whole lane. The manager on duty, Justin, came over to my window before I shut off the engine. He told me to follow him in his golf cart and he would get us into our site so the lane wouldn’t be blocked. He already knew who we were and what site he was going to put us in.

He knew we had a long rig with our trailer and selected a site with a smaller rig next door which he had them position well forward in their site to give us more room to turn in. I think he expected us to have a difficult time maneuvering, but it went smoothly. I pulled through our site, then reversed to straighten out the trailer and we were all set. He told me to take my time setting up and come to the office any time before 6pm to sign in and pay. Nice check-in process.

The park is fairly tight and a little noisy as it’s next to I-84. It’s on the east end of the Boise airport, but since the prevailing wind is out of the west, airplanes take off in that direction and we don’t even hear them. The park is nicely landscaped and well-kept. All of the sites and interior roads are paved so there’s no issue with dust.

After we set up, I made a run to the Fred Meyer store on the Spyder and reconnoitered the area. Later, Donna went out and walked nearly five miles.

On Sunday afternoon, we rode the Spyder to the Boise Depot a few miles from here. The Boise Depot is a Mission-style structure built in 1925 to house the train station. It was proclaimed “the most beautiful structure of its kind in the west.” Today the Boise Depot is a museum with artifacts from the golden age of railroading prior to World War II. After perusing the displays, a docent took us up the bell tower in an elevator. The original spiral staircase had been removed and replaced with a elevator.

Boise Depot bell tower

There are four bells in the tower, each one a different size and weight to create different tones. Today only one is used and it chimes at 8am, noon and 5pm. The view from the bell tower was outstanding. We could see the old downtown district and state capitol to the north.

Downtown and capitol building

To the east, we had a view of a city park and mountains in the distance.

View to the east

From there we rode to the old downtown area. The roads are a little tricky to figure out around the depot. Capitol Boulevard is divided and you can only go south from the intersection at the depot. We wanted to go north. I found a way by following Crescent Rim Drive to South Americana Boulevard which took us downtown.

We planned to meet up with Mike and DIna Martin at 5pm at the Bittercreek Alehouse for cold brew and dinner. We found a place to park on the street in front, but we were early. So, we took a walk across the street to Freak Alley. This is an outdoor art gallery established in 2002 where local artists create spray-paint art. Artists submit their proposals and once a year – between the first and second Saturday in August – new murals are painted. I’ve seen something similar to this in Barcelona, Spain. It was an interesting walk down what is otherwise a regular working alley with dumpsters and loading areas behind businesses.

Freak Alley

We walked back toward Bittercreek Alehouse just in time to find Dina and Mike coming up the sidewalk – they were early too. We found a table inside next to an open air window to the patio and sidewalk. I’ve never met them before but Donna’s known Dina for about 10 years through the National Association of Professional Organizers.

This was the reason we left the McCall area to come to Boise – Mike and DIna have been on the road for nearly four years in their Monaco Signature coach and this was the first time we found ourselves in the same area at the same time and we wanted to get together.

Donna, Dina and Mike

Our server seemed a little spacey at first. She brought us water right away and we said we needed a minute to peruse the beer selections. They have about 40 beers on tap plus bottled beer. Then she disappeared and seemed to forget about us. Eventually she came back and took our drink orders.

We sat and talked and enjoyed a couple of cold ones before we ordered food. Donna ordered a smoked trout salad and I went for the beef au jus sandwich. The food was outstanding – one of the best sandwiches I’ve had and Donna really liked her salad.

Donna’s smoked trout salad

Beef au jus sandwich with potato-corn chowder

We stayed at the alehouse talking until about 8pm. The time flies when we’re with good company.

Today the forecast calls for a high of 86 degrees with only a few clouds. Donna and I are planning to float down the Boise River this afternoon.

Lavender and Cartlandia

Saturday morning Donna and I rode to Spyder to the Hollywood District of Portland and found the farmers’ market there. We parked on Hancock Street right by the entrance to the market. The first thing we saw was a young girl on the street corner playing a violin on the lawn in front of a dental office. She must have been about five or six years old. We listened for a minute and Donna put a tip in her violin case.

Young violinist

The farmers’ market was relatively small. I think the number one offering was berries – there were several stands with an assortment of fresh picked berries. Donna found a few things she needed and we left after an hour or so.

Hancock Street farmers’ market

Back at the RV park we saw a new neighbor with an unusual RV. It was a tiny house on wheels – obviously home-made.

Tiny house trailer

We saw something similar to this in San Diego last year.

Donna wanted to go out for a bike ride. On my last ride, the shifter cable for my front derailleur on my road bike broke. I bought a new cable but I haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet, so my road bike is out of commission. Donna rode hard on Friday and said she just wanted to cruise west along the Columbia River to Smith Lake at the Smith and Bybee Wetlands Area. So, I went along on my mountain bike.

We cruised along hitting 15 mph at times – for me this is fast on my mountain bike. On my road bike I have no problem cruising at 18-20 mph. Smith Lake turned out to be a marshy wetland, not a pristine lake. There were a lot of herons and egrets there, but otherwise it’s not much to see.

Donna wanted to log a few more miles toward her Great Cycle Challenge, so she continued on past the RV park to look for a nearby lavender farm where you can pick bunches of lavender. She chatted for a short while with the owner’s grandson who was raised on the property that backs up to the Columbia Slough.

Slough bordering lavender farm

Lavender farm entrance

Lavender farm

Lavender

On the way back, she stopped at a sheep ranch on 13th Avenue to check out prices on the grass-fed lamb advertised for sale there. When she asked where the sheep are pastured, the sheperdhess told her that they own 23 acres. Donna didn’t have any money on her so she rode home and then back to the ranch to pick up some loin chops.

Meanwhile, I relaxed and read a book. Then I watched the qualifying for the Moto GP race in Assen, Netherlands. The track was wet with light rain falling. It made it an interesting session and I’m looking forward to watching the race today, which I recorded.

At 6:30pm, our friends Ray and Kathy picked us up and we drove to a place called Cartlandia. It’s billed as Portland’s best food cart pod. There are 32 food carts in an open area and also a small beer garden.

Cartlandia

More food carts

We walked through and looked at what the different vendors had to offer. We made our choices at different carts and met up in the Blue Room Bar on site. That’s what a lot of people do – carry their food into the Blue Room Bar where they can claim a table and order a drink to go with the food. Of course I had to try the Springwater IPA brewed onsite.

It’s nice to have friends that are familiar with the area and know what’s happening. A band started playing in the Blue Room Bar a little past 8pm. They started out playing at a reasonably low volume. Then the bass player’s amp died in the middle of a Rolling Stones song. When he changed out the amp head, everyone suddenly got louder. After a few more songs, it was too loud for comfortable conversation, so we moved to an outside patio to talk.

Before we left, Donna wanted to visit the Voodoo Donuts cart. Voodoo donuts are a Portland icon. They’re known for unusual donuts – like maple-bacon bars and also their pink boxes.

Donna and Kathy at the Voodoo Donuts cart.

It was after 9pm by then and Voodoo had sold out of many offerings. Donna bought a blueberry cake donut. Then Ray drove us home and we called it a day.

Today I think I’ll kick back and watch the Moto GP race. Donna signed up for a bike ride that includes a guided tour of backyard apiaries – a bee hive tour. She should get about 30 miles in. It’ll be a warm ride – the expected high temperature today is 89 degrees.

Contingency Plans

It was nearly 2pm by the time we pulled out of Celilo Park on the bank of the Columbia River on Friday. While Donna worked on a project, I changed our fuel filter before we packed up and left. I change the fuel filter annually and always mark the month/year with a permanent marker so I know when it was changed.

Diesel fuel filter

Before I changed the filter, a COE employee stopped at our rig. He asked how long we planned to stay. I told him we would be leaving in an hour or two. He said he expected a lot of wind surfers to arrive for the weekend and said we were taking up too many parking spaces to stay over the weekend. Good to know for future reference.

We planned a short drive of about 35 miles to the Walmart in Hood River. I had looked at it on Google Earth, the lot looked large and I could see a few RVs in the image. When we got there, the lot was large enough, but it was posted “No Truck or RV Parking.”

The thing is, you never know when the Google image was taken and things can change. We had a plan “B”. We would continue west on I-84 to Troutdale, a suburb east of Portland. We stayed at the Fairview RV Park on Sandy Boulevard there two years ago and saw RVs overnighting at the Walmart. It was another 45 miles away.

The parking lot at this Walmart was a nightmare. It was busy and I had drivers in cars cutting me off, other drivers stopping and waving me through when I couldn’t possibly get by them – I even had a car pass on my right when I had my right turn indicator on and swung wide to make the turn. It’s a good thing I checked my mirror or I would have pinched the car.

Then we saw that the lot was posted – no overnight parking. Donna called the store and was told a city ordinance had been passed prohibiting overnight parking in public areas. I could go on a rant about politicians taking control of corporate business decisions. On the other hand I’ve seen too many people taking advantage of Walmart by setting up long-term, not just overnight. Bottom line: we needed to find an overnight spot.

Donna phoned the Columbia River RV Park to see if we could move our reservation up one day. No dice, they didn’t have any open sites. Next, I called the Elks Lodge across the river from Portland in Vancouver, Washington. They very friendly as always and told me they had one back-in site with electric and water open or I could dry camp in their lot. The lodge was about 15 miles away.

It was 4pm by then and the rush hour traffic was building. I was already feeling tired from maneuvering through Walmart lots. The bumper-to-bumper traffic getting on I-205 didn’t help. The 15-mile drive took about 40 minutes. I missed the entrance to the Elks Lodge – it’s hidden in what appears to be a residential street. I made a loop through a residential area and found the lodge. We went inside and were welcomed to stay in their lot. I paid a dry camping fee of $10.

When we’re traveling and winging it, looking for cheap or free overnight stays, it pays to be flexible and have contingency plans. If the Elks hadn’t worked out, I’m not sure what our next move would have been, but we would have come up with something. There are a number of state parks along the Columbia River, but we’re too large for most of them. Sometimes a smaller rig can be advantageous.

We had dinner in the Elks Lodge – it was a busy Friday night there. The lodge is next to I-205 so we had traffic noise throughout the night, but other than that, we had no complaints.

Ozark the cat has been acting strange the past few days. When we were at Celilo Park, the passing trains with their loud horns frightened her. She took to hiding behind the vanity in the bedroom slide or hiding behind the sofa. We had to entice her out before I could pull the slides in. I won’t move the slides until I know where the cat is. The slides are powerful and trapping the cat in the mechanism would not be good.

Donna went out for a quick bike ride in the morning and then we left the Vancouver Elks Lodge a little past 11am and arrived at the Columbia River RV Park just past noon. It’s off Marine Drive, right on the river west of the airport. We’re looking forward to biking on the paved paths in the area. Checking in gave me a moment of concern. The guy behind the counter asked for my last name and said, “Mike, right?” Then a cloudy look came over his face and he said, “Uh-oh.” The sign on the door said no vacancy – I wondered if they overbooked and our confirmed reservation maybe wasn’t so confirmed. Then the woman at the counter said we may have to wait as check-out time is noon and they had to see if our site was available.

It turned out the people had already left site 109 and we had a choice of taking either 109 or 101. We looked the sites over and decided to take 109 – it had more space for the trailer. The site is a 50-foot pull-through. The concrete pad for our coach is level, but it’s narrow. There’s a shorter pad beside it for the trailer.

I pulled all the way through, then Donna directed me as I backed the trailer in place and dropped it. Then I backed the coach into the site. We had a few obstacles to overcome. There’s a four-inch steel pole protecting the electrical box that extends at least 12 feet high. Our first position would have the bedroom slide hit the pole, so I moved back. Now the slide was clear, but I couldn’t open the wet-bay door. I need to open this door to hook up water and sewer and access it when I dump.

I ended up parking the coach at an angle that gave me clearance for the slide and wet-bay. Then I moved the trailer slightly by hand to allow us access to the large basement compartment on the passenger side. It’s tight but it all worked out. Our neighbor was impressed by the way we dropped the trailer and got everything positioned.

Steel pole at utility box

Not much room

Trailer and coach staggered to allow basement access

The skies were overcast all morning and wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we started to back the trailer in, the skies began pouring rain. By the time I had the coach positioned, it stopped raining. Donna was drenched from directing me and I was wet from disconnecting the trailer.

After we set up, I went for a walk in the park. I couldn’t believe it when I saw a coach that was painted black with spray paint. I thought it was the Black Coach Guy from Mission Bay that I wrote about two years ago. I also saw a rig I recognized two sites down from us. It belongs to Eric and Brittany Highland (RvWanderlust). Eric has a Facebook group called Full-time Diesel RVers. I met them at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta last October. Their car was gone, so they must have been out for the day. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to visit before they leave.

Could it be the Black Coach Guy?

Later, when I took out trash to the dumpster, I met a long term park resident. He told me the black coach had been there for two years and was occupied by two women. So, it wasn’t Black Coach Guy, but it had a similar paint job.

Today the weather forecast looks good. Partly cloudy with zero percent chance of rain and a high in the upper 70s. Donna plans to write an article this morning, then ride her bike to meet up with her friend Marlo at a coffee shop. I’ll start with the Formula One race from Baku, Azerbaijan. Then I’ll get my bike out or explore on the Spyder.

Things to do Around Corning

If you’ve been following our travels, you might remember that we attended the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I met a few vendors and received a few product samples, but I haven’t had the opportunity to try them out – until Tuesday. Donna’s dining table chair was coming apart. The horizontal wood back rest is attached to vertical uprights that extend from the rear legs with dowel pins. The glue had failed and the pins were loose.

I had a sample of a product called Wonderlok ‘Em Tite Chairs. It’s a cyanoacrylate adhesive. The liquid glue has very low viscosity and is as thin as water. To use it, you hold the parts you want to join together and apply a bead of adhesive. It runs into the joint and sets up in a few seconds. It’s that simple.

Tite Chairs adhesive

The small bottle of adhesive came with reusable applicator nozzles, making it very easy to use. It worked like a champ.

On Tuesday, Donna worked on an article she had to submit by the end of the week. I rode the Spyder to town and had a look around. I picked up a few items at Safeway, then rode over to the Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center to see what’s happening in the area. This area is mostly agricultural – olives, walnuts and almonds are the main crops along with cattle ranches.

Our location, outside of Corning, is in the northern end of California’s central valley. The central valley extends north-northwest to south-southeast around 450 miles. It’s 40 to 60 miles wide for the most part. The coastal mountain ranges border the west while the Sierra Nevada range is on the east. It’s one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.

North of Sacramento is the Sacramento River watershed. This area is sometimes referred to as the Sacramento Valley – a subset of the central valley. South of Sacramento the valley is the San Joaquin River watershed. The southern central valley is likewise called the San Joaquin Valley.

The Sacramento River flows from north to south down to Sacramento while the San Joaquin River flows from south to north. They meet in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and empty into the San Francisco Bay. These watersheds are the reason for such fertile land.

It turned out there wasn’t much in the way of special events happening in the area for the Memorial Day weekend. But I did find information for some things to see and do. We’ve found that no matter where we are, there’s always something interesting. I also stopped at The Olive Pit – a local point of interest that sells olives of every type imaginable and also has a good selection of wine and craft beer. I bought a jar of anchovy stuffed olives for Donna – she loves them as a snack. I found a few interesting beers as well.

After I came home, I poured a couple of glasses of Key Lime Gose from New Glory Brewing for Donna and me. We sat outside and enjoyed the refreshing beer. It’s a sour wheat ale flavored with coriander, sea salt and fresh squeezed key limes. It’s almost like lemonade but not as sweet and it has a slightly salty aftertaste. We both loved it. I’ll buy more – The Olive Pit limits each customer to only two 16-ounce cans. Apparently it’s in short supply.

Key Lime Gose

We took a stroll and watched the sunset. There were clouds to the west making a colorful sky at sunset.

Colorful clouds at sunset

Clouds moved in overhead and we had rain falling by the time we went to bed.

On Wednesday morning, the clouds were gone and the ground was dry. After breakfast, we hopped on the Spyder and rode east to US99 and followed it south to Chico (map). I had mapped out a couple of routes to a shopping center in Chico where they have an open air farmers’ market on Wednesday. We love shopping for local foods at farmers’ markets.

Chico Wednesday farmers’ market

The produce at this market was so fresh and Donna said the prices were the best she’s ever seen anywhere.

Colorful table of produce

Another table of fresh produce

We bought a few items and checked out just about every display. They have another farmers’ market in downtown Chico on Saturday. We plan to go to that one as well.

While we were at the shopping center, we went into Sportsman’s Warehouse. I like this store! It’s kind of a poor man’s Cabela’s. I found a bag of fruitwood wood pellets for the Traeger and Donna bought a pair of shorts. I also bought a couple of shirts.

We had lunch nearby at Mekkala Thai restaurant. I’ve had a hankering for Thai food lately. It was good but very spicy! Great service, I’d eat there again for sure.

We also made plans to do some touristy things. Donna made a reservation for a tour at a farm that makes cheese – we’ll go there on Friday. We also have a reservation for a tour next Tuesday at the Sierra Nevada brewery. Speaking of beer, I opened another interesting bottle last night. It’s from Mad River Brewing in Humboldt County. It was a double brown ale called Humboldt Brownie. It’s flavored with chocolate nibs and has a very balanced blend that belies the high alcohol content at 9% ABV.

Humboldt Brownie

Last evening we took another walk around the park. We met a couple that have been on the road for 25 years! Their rig was even longer than ours – their coach and trailer were about 70 feet long. We also saw what I believe is the shortest class A motorhome I’ve ever seen. It was an Itasca Reyo built on a Mercedes Benz Sprinter F50 chassis. It’s about 25 feet long and powered by a 3.0 liter diesel engine.

Short class A motorhome

The weather forecast for the coming week calls for warmer temperatures – upwards of 90 degrees – with zero percent chance of rain. Today we plan to go to the Lucero olive oil mill for a tour. It’s located less than two miles away from us.

Directing the Dolphin

I finally got started on a couple of easy projects yesterday after a couple of hours on the pickleball court in the morning. We had much cooler weather – the high temperature for the day was 67 degrees. That’s a drop of more than 20 degrees from the weekend. It stayed overcast and windy all afternoon and a few raindrops fell – not enough to wet the pavement though.

I went to Ace Hardware to pick up some 3/16″ rivets with long 1/2″ shanks. I wrote about my rivet repair in this post. The rivets I used for that repair were a little short and didn’t hold well enough. I needed to replace them again. The longer shanks on the rivets I used this time should hold up fine.

I planned on buying some carabiner clips to secure the doors on the cabinets I installed in the trailer. The doors are set up for padlocks but I didn’t want to hassle with locks every time I wanted something in the cabinet. I thought a carabiner would work if I could find the right size. Donna had a different idea. She’s been working with Procter & Gamble’s PR firm. They sent her a package that included Tide PODS and a few gifts. One of the gifts is from a company called Munchkin – they make baby products. The product Donna received is a latch to secure cabinets, drawers and anything you wouldn’t want a toddler getting into. They’re called Munchkin Xtra Guard multi-use latches.

Munchkin Xtra Guard latch

Donna received four latches – I used two on the cabinet doors and it looks like they’ll work perfectly. They’re easy to install – they have an adhesive backing that sticks to the door surface.

Xtra Guard latch on the trailer cabinet

There’s a button on the top and bottom of the pads – holding these buttons in releases the latch. They should keep the doors closed while we roll down the road but it will still be easy to access the cabinets.

Latch released

I decided to order two more of the Suncast cabinets to install in the trailer. I like the way they’re built and it will make it easier to store and access stuff.

I took a few measurements and installed D-rings to secure the Traeger wood pellet grill/smoker in the trailer. That was the extent of my projects for the day. Today I’ll add a few more D-rings to secure the ladders and a few other things.

Last week, I stopped at Seńor Taco and had the daily special – fish taco with rice, beans and soft drink for $5. Donna and I like fish tacos – we always have them when we’re in San Diego. Good fish tacos obviously need to be made with a good fish filet. Then it’s the sauce that makes them special. The Seńor Taco fish tacos are good.

Fish taco plate at Seńor Taco

On Monday afternoon, I rode the Spyder to the Sprouts store at Higley and Southern. Donna sent me there with a small shopping list. I bought two fresh tilapia filets, a lime, a jalapeńo pepper and an avocado. Donna already had the corn tortillas, cabbage and cilantro. She made blackened Baja fish tacos.

Donna’s homemade fish taco plate

She seasoned and pan fried the fish filets in a cast iron skillet. Her sauce was made from yogurt, jalapeńo pepper, lime juice and cilantro. Very tasty and we each had two big tacos for a total cost of about seven bucks!

Last night, Donna made a spring minestrone soup with chicken meatballs. The meatballs were made with ground chicken, panko bread crumbs, minced scallions and garlic, egg, salt and pepper. Another tasty treat. We had leftovers for lunch and it was even better the second time around.

Spring minestrone with chicken meatballs

This morning when I rode my bicycle home from pickleball, I found a motorhome blocking our street. It was a 34-foot National Dolphin. I carefully went around the front of it where there was about three feet of clearance. Once I went around it, I saw a woman sitting on the steps in the doorway of the coach smoking a cigarette. I stopped and she said, “I’m wedged in here.”

I looked back and saw what she meant. Apparently she was pulling out of her site and turning left. She didn’t account for the swingout of the rear and the last basement door on the right rear was hard against a palm tree.

After looking at it, I told her she needed to crank the steering wheel full left and slowly back up. She was afraid of causing more damage. I told her it will scrape at first, then swing away from the tree. She did as I said and was able to reverse back into her site. Then I had her go forward and angle to the right to pull into an empty site across the street from her. Once she pulled halfway into the site, I had her reverse again and crank the wheel to the left. I guided her back then told her to stop, crank the wheel right and come forward. She was in the street now heading in the opposite direction of the way she first tried to go. It didn’t matter – it’s a short street and either direction will take you to the park exit. With a wave and a thanks, she was on her way.

She was alone and driving a motorhome into or out of a tight space without guidance isn’t easy. Although her coach was only 34 feet long, the National Dolphin is gas powered and the chassis has a lot of rear overhang. The longer the distance from the rear axle to the rear of the coach, the greater the amount of swingout.

We should see a high temperature of about 70 degrees today with partly cloudy skies and a gentle breeze. Very comfortable. This evening we plan to meet up with my friend from high school, Andy King, and his wife Donna for sushi.

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

Junk in the Box

After I posted yesterday, I got started on my project for the day. I wanted to check the air filter element on our Can Am Spyder. Although the dealer assured me that a complete service had been recently done, I wanted to verify. Getting to the intake air box would require removal of some of the plastic body panels – on sportbikes we referred to the panels as tupperware.

Can Am Spyder with body panels in place

After looking at the body section of the service manual, removal of the panels seemed pretty straightforward. They are held in place with a combination of T30 torx head screws and reuseable plastic rivets. I started by removing the left upper panel.

Left upper panel removed – it’s dusty in there

Then I went to the other side and removed the right upper panel.

Air box revealed with right upper panel off

Next I took off the center upper panel.

Upper panels removed for access to airbox

There was a lot of dust on everything – probably from our time in Lake Havasu City at the dirt rodeo grounds.

The airbox is engineered to draw in fresh air through snorkels in the bottom half facing the front of the Spyder. The air travels up through a paper filter element. The clean air is then drawn through trumpets into the twin draft throttle body.

Twin trumpets on the 57mm throttles

The throttle body looked good – clean with no carbon build up. The entire upper airbox chamber was clean with very little evidence of oil coming through the breather. I’ve read on Spyder forums such as SpyderLovers.com that some people have experienced issues with oil getting into the airbox. The size and shape of the airbox chambers, snorkels and trumpets are carefully designed. The objective is to create a Helmholtz resonator that will resonate at certain frequencies. This can be tuned to create pressure waves. If the pressure wave frequency coincides with maximum torque rpm, it can have a bit of a supercharging effect when the throttles are opened.

When I pulled the air filter element out, I could see it was recently replaced. That was the good news. Then I saw something else. A mouse or chipmunk or some other critter had found its way through the intake snorkel into the lower airbox chamber. It must have thought it was an ideal place for a food cache. There was pasta, Fruit Loops cereal and tortilla chips in the bottom of the airbox!

Food cache inside the airbox

I cleaned it out and came up with nearly a cup of stuff. No harm was done since the foodstuff was on the dirty side of the intake system and couldn’t get past the air filter element. Once I had it cleaned out, it was just a matter of reassembling everything in reverse order.

My next task was to dump and flush our holding tanks. While I was doing that, I noticed something different about our neighbor’s coach. It looked like a common diesel pusher, but it wasn’t. It’s a Winnebago Destination built on a Workhorse UFO chassis equipped with a gasoline GM Vortec 8.1 liter (496 cubic inch) V8 engine. The engine is in the rear like a diesel pusher – the radiator is in the back as well. I’ve heard of these before but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. You can tell it has the Vortec V8 when you see the dual three-inch exhaust pipes in the back.

Note the dual exhaust pipes tipping off the V8 gasoline engine

I spent the remainder of the afternoon reading. Donna’s flight back from Cincinnati didn’t arrive until after 11pm. By the time she got home, it was after midnight and I was out for the count.

Today we have cooler temperatures – the high is expected to be in the mid-70s. We went up to the sports complex to play pickleball shortly after 8am this morning for the scheduled drop-in play. But someone changed the schedule to round robin play beginning at 9am. It was poorly organized and resulted in long waiting times between games. Donna opted to go for a run. She put in 5.6 miles – her longest nonstop run in 10 years. She said she felt like Forrest Gump!

We’re heading out to a surprise birthday party later this afternoon. Until then, I think I’ll just kick back and read a book.

More Number Crunching

I mentioned in my last post how cool the temperature was after a cold front blew across southern California and into Arizona. The thermometer hasn’t touched 60 since we arrived in Lake Havasu City. When we were in Jojoba Hills, we also had a cold spell. I put about 18 hours on the generator running the heat pumps for two days while we were there. I wondered at the time how efficient that was. Would I have been better off running the propane furnace?

Our Onan 7.5kW Quiet Diesel generator consumes an average of a little over half a gallon of diesel fuel per hour. Diesel fuel is currently down to about two bucks per gallon – so let’s assume $1.20/hour fuel cost for the generator. Of course the generator isn’t just supplying electricity for the heat pumps – it’s also powering the hot water heater, charging the batteries through the inverter, allowing the use of the induction cooktop and microwave oven and any other 120-volt AC appliances.

I did some research and found that our Suburban model SF42F propane furnace requires 40,000 BTU/hour input. One gallon of propane supplies about 91,000 BTU, so the furnace will burn about 0.44 gallons per hour. It will also draw about 11.5 amps of electricity from the battery bank. Propane fuel prices seem to vary widely. I haven’t bought propane since January of 2014 and we still have over a quarter tank in our 44-gallon propane tank. I was told that I could find propane for as little as $1.20/gallon if I searched around or I could have propane delivered to my rig for about $2.60/gallon. That’s a pretty wide spread. If I split the difference and call it $2.00/gallon, I would burn about $0.88/hour of propane. But, I would still have to run the generator sooner or later to recharge the battery bank.

The owner’s manual for our Onan generator recommends a minimum of two hours per month of running time with at least a 50% load. Generators like to be run – sitting for long periods without running them can result in corrosion of the electrical windings and components and degradation of the fuel system. Running the heat pumps with the generator provides a sufficient load to get it up to full operating temperature.

When we’re plugged into a full hook-up site, there’s no question about it – use the heat pumps. Electricity is generally included in a full hook-up site, unless we’re on a deeply discounted monthly rate where the electricity is metered.

After crunching these numbers, I think I’ll continue doing what I’ve been doing. When we’re off the grid, I’ll use the generator and heat pumps as long as the ambient temperature is above 40 degrees. Below that temperature, the heat pumps become inefficient and we’ll switch to the propane furnace. Hopefully we won’t have to do that because one of our goals is to stay away from cold temperatures!

The lingering cold air mass made the past couple of days somewhat boring for me. I ventured out to pick up groceries at a Walmart Supercenter a few miles away on Monday. It was a cold ride on the scooter. Donna made salmon patties with canned wild Alaskan sockeye and served it topped with parsley mayo over a bed of mixed greens Monday night. It was delicious.

Salmon patties over mixed greens

Donna has mostly been tied up at her computer writing articles for Quill.com. She has one more to complete before close of business on Friday. She takes a break for about an hour each day to go for a walk or run in the area.

I’ve been reading most of the time. The cool temperature combined with 15-20 mph wind is keeping me indoors. I take a walk around the park to stretch out and get some fresh air. On one of my walks, I saw a rare motorhome here in the park. It was a GMC motorhome. These were built by General Motors at the Pontiac truck and bus plant from 1973 to 1978. They’re unique motorhomes that were considered ultra-modern at the time. General Motors is the only US car company that built complete motorhomes. They were designed for comfortable travel as well as camping.

GMC motorhome here in the Havasu Falls RV Resort

The chassis is a front wheel drive configuration. GM used the 455 cubic inch (7.5L) Oldsmobile engine from the Toronado coupled to the Turbo-Hydramatic 425 automatic transmission. They were built in 23-foot and 26-foot configurations. I read that 90% of the production was the 26- foot length.

GMC motorhome chassis – Wikipedia photo

These rigs were low to the ground due to the front wheel drive configuration and aerodynamic by motorhome standards. The example here in the RV park looks to be fully restored to showroom condition.

Today the weather should begin a warming trend. We should see temperatures in the 60s today, followed by the 70s this weekend. The warming trend is expected to continue next week with high temperatures reaching the 80s! We’ll get out and explore around the lake.

Great Brews with New Friends

I posted to the blog late yesterday. Today I want to add a few lines about new friends and a great evening. I mentioned having a plan to meet Iain and Kate Gilbert (The Scenic Route). Around 4pm, Donna and I headed over to their site. I had a few 22-ounce bomber bottles of beer and Donna had a plate of carrot sticks, pickles and sopressata sausage.

We hadn’t met our hosts Iain and Kate before, but we messaged each other on RVillage. I didn’t know if they liked different beer styles but I thought they might since Iain mentioned hearing our names while having a brew with Hans and Lisa (Metamorphosis Road).

They have a 27-foot Airstream travel trailer. Their site is one of the premium view sites on the bay with a view toward the marina at Campland on the Bay. Their Airstream has a panoramic rear window, making this a great view from inside the trailer. It wouldn’t work as well with our coach since all of the sites are back-in only and we don’t have a rear window.

We sat outside and chatted while Iain worked on getting the cork out of a bottle of Saison Dupont. This is a Belgian farmhouse ale that I’ve had before and it’s quite tasty. The cork was stubborn but Iain was persistent and eventually it came free. We split the bottle four ways and toasted “cheers” and enjoyed the beer and snacks as the sun was setting.

Donna, Kate and Iain

Iain is originally from Scotland while Kate hails from England. They’ve lived in the USA for more than 15 years though and are US citizens. They left the corporate world to travel in their RV and also spend time abroad. Their next destination will be Malaysia where they’ll spend a few months. Kate authored a book “Happy Campers” about their transition into full-time RVers. Donna and Kate have had common experiences as copywriters and self-published authors.

After we had the saison, I opened a bottle of beer from Avery Brewing in Colorado. It was a special Anniversary Edition Ale called Twenty Two. The story behind it starts in Belgium in the Beersel municipality in Flemish Brabant. The brew master at Avery had a wild ale there that he thought was the best. He brought a couple of bottles back to Colorado and used them to cultivate the wild brettanomyces drie yeast. This beer is fermented with this wild yeast. I expected the beer to be a sour ale and told everyone that’s what it was. Donna passed on the Twenty Two and had a Boatswain chocolate stout. Kate, Iain and I shared the Twenty Two. It wasn’t sour at all. It’s hard for me to come up with a description. It was smooth, slightly malty and we all liked it. Donna even tried a sip and thought it was good.

Avery Twenty Two

After sunset, the temperature fell quickly. We moved inside their Airstream to continue our conversations. Earlier in the day, Donna prepared a casserole that she intended to heat for dinner. We decided to share the casserole with Iain and Kate, so I walked back to our coach and retrieved it. Kate heated it in their oven and made a salad to go with it. Our happy hour turned into dinner. This was the first time Donna made this ground beef, macaroni and cheese casserole and unfortunately it was on the bland side. Donna is such a great cook, I hope Iain and Kate don’t think this was typical of the dishes she serves! Donna thinks she went too light on the salt and would add more cheese if she makes this casserole again.

After thoroughly enjoying our time getting to know each other, we called it a night around 7:30pm and headed back to our coach. They’ve invited us to join them again on Sunday when they’re hosting a happy hour with some other neighbors. Hans and Lisa will come over then too. We also made tentative plans for a group Christmas dinner.

Once again, we’ve met some great people sharing the nomadic lifestyle and we look forward to meeting again in the next few weeks and sometime down the road.

Jersey Jack’s Problem Solved

A few days ago, a nice coach pulled into a site near us at High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a 2009 Foretravel Nimbus with two slides. The Foretravel company came about when C.M. Fore built a coach for he and his wife to use in 1967. In 1974, they introduced the first commercially available diesel-powered motorhome. By the 1990s, Foretravel was well-established as a manufacturer of high-end motorhomes. Foretravel is one of the few RV manufacturers to build their own chassis. Their factory in Texas turns out four models in limited quantities.

2009 Foretravel Nimbus

Another view of our neighbor’s Foretravel

Our neighbor’s 2009 Nimbus is 40 feet long and has a tag axle. He told me he stopped at Camping World and they were interested in trading straight across for a new Entegra coach. He decided against it and I don’t blame him.

Yesterday I noticed water dripping from the compartment in front of his rear wheels. The compartment door was open and so was another basement compartment toward the front with tools in it. I walked over – it looked like water was coming out of an overflow hose.

Later, I saw him poking around in the rear compartment. I walked over to see what was going on. I introduced myself. His name is Jack and he’s from New Jersey. He told me he had the valve for the fresh water fill replaced. Now his fresh water tank slowly fills to overflowing whenever he’s hooked up to city water.

On my Alpine Coach, there’s a valve that diverts fresh water from an outside source to the fresh water tank. It’s a manual valve in the wet bay that I turn 90 degrees to fill the tank. When it’s in the fill position, the rest of the plumbing isn’t pressurized. Water just flows into the tank. We can access fresh water from the tank by turning on the water pump. When I close the valve, water no longer flows into the tank and the rest of the plumbing is pressurized by the city water hook-up.

Looking at his fresh water supply plumbing, I could see his set-up was similar – but heaven forbid an owner of a Foretravel having to manually operate a valve! His valve was operated by an electric solenoid. He could divert water to fill his fresh water tank by pressing a button inside the coach which activates the solenoid and opens the valve. When the tank is full, the solenoid is de-activated and the valve returns to its normally closed position. This is a $300 solution to the inconvenience of manually opening the valve!

Electrically operated valve

This valve had to be the source of the problem. There’s no other path for water to enter the freshwater tank unless the check valve in the pump was allowing water to back-fill into the tank. I didn’t think this was the case because he had a filter with a clear bowl in the line by the pump and no water was moving through it.

Jack removed the cover plate from the brass valve assembly. I saw right away that the valve was assembled incorrectly. There’s a circular plate inside the housing that has a seal around the perimeter to seal the case and an O-ring set in the center to seal the fresh water inlet. A spring on the backside pushes the plate against the fresh water fill opening, sealing it off with the O-ring. Energizing the solenoid pulls the plate back against the spring pressure, opening the fresh water tank fill line and closing off the rest of the plumbing. This plate was put in backwards – the O-ring was on the side where the spring closes the valve. The backside of the plate was closing against the fresh water fill line without the sealing O-ring. No wonder water seeped past it and slowly filled the tank.

I told Jack to flip the plate over so the spring works against the flat plate and the O-ring fits against the fill opening. He reassembled it that way and it was job done!

Later I went online and looked up the solenoid operated electric valve. These things are usually used in marine applications where you may not have easy access to plumbing. A solenoid operated brass valve like the one on the Foretravel costs over $200. At that price, you’d hope for better quality control and not have to disassemble the part and reassemble it correctly.

Today will be a warm day with the temperature approaching 90 degrees. I plan to start organizing the trailer. Later I’ll see if I can find baby back ribs to cook on the Traeger. Donna’s friend, Hazel Thornton, will be joining us for dinner.

Tomorrow we’ll move to Larry and Ruth’s place at The Vineyard (map). I won’t post tomorrow as we’ll be busy packing, traveling and setting up.

Free Parking and Good Food

I mentioned the Sandia Crest tram in my last post. The Sandia Resort & Casino (map) is approximately 5,300 feet above sea level. The tram is up the road from here at 6,559 feet above sea level. It’s the longest aerial tramway in North America – the third longest in the world. It tops out at Sandia Peak at an elevation of 10,378 feet above sea level. It was built by a Swiss company in 1966. The normal speed of the ascent is 12 mph – it takes about 15 minutes to reach the top.

The weather gods scuttled our trip up the tramway. The peaks of the Sandia mountain range were socked in by low cloud cover all day. There’s no sense in riding the tram up the mountain if all you can do is stare into a fog bank.

Sandia Mountains to the east of us socked in

Our free parking at the Sandia Resort & Casino was terrific. It’s quiet and the employees are very friendly. The views are nice. Ozark loved watching the rabbits on the trails by our coach. She would sit in a window and stare at them – then she would jump down and run into the bedroom, hop on the bed and watch them from the bedroom window as they moved down the trail.

Although it’s just a parking lot, the scenery is nice. Most of the land around us is undeveloped except for the golf course. Donna went for a walk in-between rain showers on Tuesday and enjoyed her hike. At one point, she cut through an employee parking lot. Security caught up with her and told her that only employees were allowed to access the lot – she got kicked out!

View to the west of us looking down at Albuquerque

We will definitely take advantage of this place the next time we pass through Albuquerque.

Late Tuesday afternoon, we saw an Alpine Coach with Texas tags pull into the parking lot. The driver drove quickly around the perimeter of the lot, then parked in front of us. He appeared to be on a mission. He unhooked the black Jeep he was towing behind his rig, then leveled the coach and put the slides out. Then he and his wife (I presume) got into the Jeep and left.

On Wednesday morning, they left early in their Jeep again, so we never had a chance to meet them. I think their Alpine is a 2006 model year judging by the paint scheme.

Alpine parking area

We walked to the casino for their breakfast buffet. It cost $8.95 per person and has everything you could imagine for breakfast – even eggs and omelettes cooked to order. I stuffed myself trying out too many items and getting my money’s worth.

Three days a week, they have a lunch buffet special for people 55 and older – all you can eat for five dollars! We saw a long line of people waiting for the lunch special to open at 10:00am. On Friday and Saturday nights, they have a seafood buffet that includes crab legs, shellfish, salmon and more. It costs $25, but if you have their players card, you get five dollars off. We were told the line gets so long, the wait can be over an hour for the seafood buffet.

We packed up and pulled out of Sandia Resort & Casino a little before noon. We drove down I-25 to I-40 west. Our destination was 19 miles away – the High Desert RV Park. We drove past the Pilot/Flying J travel center where I filled our tank on Monday. We checked in and set up. This park is clean and the setting is nice with open, undeveloped land around us. The sites aren’t level though. I had to place 12″x12″x2″ wood pads under my rear tires. I used four pads to support all four tires. I posted about the importance of this here. I used the pads so the rear tires would still be in contact after I used the leveling jacks to raise the rear of the coach. I don’t like sites that slope down in the rear.

It’s windy this morning. Donna is hoping to go for a bike ride. With the wind and hills around here, it’s going to be challenging. We’ll spend a week here, then move to Larry and Ruth’s place in Albuquerque to begin our next adventure crewing for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Other Coaches

Freak Alley – Boise, Idaho

Lavender and Cartlandia

Contingency Plans

Things to do Around Corning

Directing the Dolphin

Junk in the Box

More Number Crunching

Great Brews with New Friends

Jersey Jack’s Problem Solved

Free Parking and Good Food

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