Cat Cruising

We took the fast track and got home in 6 days. Much to our relief the house is still standing and hasn’t been broken into to.

We have lots of catching up to do. Probably won’t write again until our next trip (unless something exciting happens.

I’ve been bad. No posts for quite a while. It’s much easier to find the time to get out my computer and write on the boat than the Roadtrek.

We had a nice/interesting time at the Mensa AG (annual gathering). The Motel 6 worked out well for Schooner. We left him alone in the room during the day and apparently he didn’t bark much or at least nobody complained. Parking was a little bit of a problem because the hotel that held the conventions (Silver Legacy) parking lot had a height restriction of about 7 ft. (We’re 8 1/2 ft high).

From there we made our way to Long Beach, CA to visit old friends. Our visit was cut short due to various circumstances.

We’re currently in Blythe, CA on our way to Deming, NM. We hope to be home on Thursday. Unless something exciting or interesting happens before that I won’t be posting until we get home.

Janice on Bumpass Hell Trail

We only spent one day at Lassen. The scenery was beautiful and I took lots of photos that I might upload to my Picasa album. Despite it being the end of June with daytime temperatures in the 60’s-70’s there was much snow on the ground and the mountains.

We decided to hike one trail to the top of a hill overlooking mud pots and sulfer springs. (Bumpass Hell). It was about 4 miles uphill in the snow. About half way up we realized that we should be wearing hiking boots instead of sneakers and boat shoes. When we reached an area where the snow became real mushy and our socks got wet we decided to turn back.

So much for our hiking ambitions.

We’re now sitting in our RV at a park in Susanville, Ca. We should be in Reno tomorrow where the Mensa AG is being held. We’re be staying at a hotel. Yay.

View from friends house

We’ve spent about 10 days in Portland. For the most part we lived in the furnished basement of our friend Beverly. Janice spent most days visiting her mother in an assisted living facility in Vancouver Wash., about an hour away in terrible Portland traffic. The traffic now in Portland is as bad if not worse than that in L.A. Rumor has it that the city planners planned it that way to encourage mass transit (light rail in this case). It doesn’ seem to be working. The traffic just gets worse and worse.

While she’s at her mother’s helping out with some legal problems I get a chance to sell my puts and calls and other investment schemes. It’s great fun.

A few days after we arrived Beverly invited us to her families “pig roast” where they roasted a 150 lb pig. There were at least 50 people attending and there was still pig left over. The beer flowed freely so I was happy.

Towards the end of the stay another friend invited us to her condo at Black Butte Ranch, near Sisters, OR. It was beautiful there and she had wifi so I was happy (I’m easy).

After that we had dinner at another friends house and finally last night we spent the night at the driveway of another friend. The scenery at all these houses is breathtaking.

So much for the good stuff. I noticed that my battery meter was reading 11.5 volts (house battery) even with the battery fully charged. During charging the voltage went up to 14.2 v as it’s supposed to. The only reasonable possibility was a shorted out cell in the battery.

As the battery was over 3 years old I didn’t feel too bad and found a battery store and bought a new one. Unfortunately as I pulled off 2 cables from the old battery the corroded terminals broke off. The battery store didn’t have the equipment to crimp on new terminals so we just fitted the new terminals over the cables and wrapped the whole thing
in masking tape (didn’t even have electrical tape). Turns out the battery store had just opened 2 weeks ago and had almost no equipment.

So now we’re driving around looking to either borrow a huge crimper or find a battery shop that can handle this problem. Haven’t found one yet but at least the battery works. We’re getting 12.8 v and can watch television.

Right now we’re in a Walmart parking lot in Yreka, CA. We should reach Lassen Volcanic National Park tomorrow where we’ll stay for 2 nights.Doubt I will have wifi there.

All work and no fun. We’re staying at a friends house (in the house) for about 10 days. Janice is spending most of the time doing errands for her mother who is in an assisted living facility and I’m trying to find someone to fix the holding tank leak and the generator.

At least in the evenings we’ll be going to visit Janice’s old friends and some relatives.

Guess I won’t have much to say over the next week. When we leave here we head for the Mensa Annual Gathering (AG) in Reno NV via way of Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Grand Tetons

After spending two nights at Grand Teton National Park (which was breathtaking) we’re in Boise Idaho at a Walmart parking lot (which is less than breathtaking, but you can’t beat the price).

I have to confess that the video I posted on Youtube (my last blog post) was that of Mule Deer, not Elk as my brother who live in the wilds of Texas pointed out). They were still cute though.

Traveling in an RV is pretty similar to traveling in a boat in that things always seem to go wrong. After having my grey water holding tank valve replaced in Golden, CO it seems the mechanic flexed the plastic pipe from the holding tank to the valve too much and now the pipe itself is leaking. If that wasn’t problem enough I found that the generator wasn’t putting out any AC. Well obviously the AC circuit breaker had tripped. So I went under the van and found the circuit breaker on the side of the generator which I could barely reach. I flipped it and of all things the switch fell off and fell into the control box which is held on by proprietary screws for which I don’t have a screw driver. Even if I did I don’t think I could reach the area. So now the generator doesn’t work. I have to find a mechanic who can fix the leak and retrieve the circuit breaker. We should have stayed home.

Tomorrow night we will be staying at a friend of Janice who believe it or not has an RV hookup (including sewage) in their side yard. After that we will be arriving in Portland, OR. Civilization, finally.

Janice freezing her buns off in June. Schooner doesn’t seem to mind.

We left Vail with our leaky holding tank and had an appointment with a mobile RV mechanic to meet us at a Staples parking lot in Golden, CO. He actually showed up on time and we determined it was a leaky outlet valve rather than the tank itself. It was relatively inexpensive to fix the problem and we were on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park within about two hours.

We arrived at a wonderful campsite with no water or electricity, but there are flush toilets about a quarter mile down the road. Within a half hour of arriving we noticed two baby elks munching on vegetation about 3 ft. from our RV. It was quite exciting. I uploaded a brief video of this on YouTube. The link is: http://youtu.be/_zB3hW42xVg

The next day we drove around the park ending up at the Alpine Visitor Center at 12,300 ft. Even on a sunny June afternoon the temperature was 51 degrees and the breathing difficult. Coming from hot Florida at sea level this wasn’t too comfortable but the scenery was worth it.

I’m writing this while Janice is driving to a National Forest a few hours from Grand Teton National Park where we’ll spend the night so we can arrive early enough to get a campsite (there are no reservations accepted). You might wonder why we like National Parks. Normally the parks have an entrance fee of $20/car
and the camping costs $20/night. Luckily they treat Seniors well. For $10 they issue a lifetime pass which entitles you to unlimited free admissions and half price camping. Can’t be beat.

We just arrived in Vail, CO at our friends beautiful condo. Just after we unpacked and were looking forward to a few restful nights of luxury I noticed a wet spot under our RV. Getting my head underneath I quickly spotted a leak from what I think is the grey water holding tank. Janice thinks it’s the black water tank because it smells (I can’t smell anything because of anosmia). I’m pretty sure it’s coming from the junction of the gray water tank and the outlet valve. It’s just dripping a drop every second or two but it does make on mess on the pavement.

To make matters worse there is no cell service here and no landline. There is wifi so I do see my voice mail messages that are emailed to me. It’s not going to be easy to find an RV repair place that fixes sewage systems, especially without a telephone.

Vintage Trailer

Dodge City, KS was a disappointment. I won’t get into it.

We’re now at the Royal Gorge in Colorado. We’re staying at a campground populated by vintage trailers pulled by vintage cars. Some of them are from the early 50’s. They are available for rental (to sleep in, not drive). Regular RV’s are also welcome so we’re staying here for two nights.

This is the first area of the entire trip that we can say is pretty. Can finally see the mountains. The Plains are pretty boring.

Tomorrow we should arrive at Vail, CO. We’ll be staying in a condo so generously offered by a friend in Florida. We’ll be meeting a childhood friend there as well. Looking forward to it.

On the way to Wichita today we stopped at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial.

It was very well done. Janice cried through most of the tour and even I had a tear in my eye.

We were both on a chartered sailboat in Tahiti when it happened so we missed the tremendous news coverage of the event and didn’t feel the magnitude of the tragedy until today.