Trod Bogs Sadly – Oddstray's Blog

April 13, 2016.  In our previous post, we were left with an untested shower repair.  But wanting to escape Flagstaff weather, we made our way to Albuquerque.  That night, we discovered that . . .

. . . the repair did NOT stem the leak.  😦  😦  😦

Albuquerque is a city of some size, with several RV repair facilities.  All of whom were solidly booked since this is the time of year when everyone’s getting their RVs in shape for summer travels.  But we did find one RV repair person who was sympathetic enough to agree to investigate, and if possible do a quick fix.

And so they did, and agreed that it was the shower floor that was cracked, and the repair done in Flagstaff simply didn’t cover the crack.  They removed the previous plumber’s epoxy and put on a larger amount.  And again, we needed to wait 24 hours before we could test it.  But by now we were resigned to the fact that we might need to rely on campground showers or in extremis, get a motel room.

A decorated adobe wall, Old Town Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque was new to us, though, so we took our mind off our troubles and prowled Albuquerque’s Old Town.

San Felipe de Neri church, Old Town Albuquerque, NM

April 15, 2016.  The new shower repair works!  😀  We can be clean people!

We also moved from an RV park west of Albuquerque to Cochiti Lake campground (CoE) north of the city.  RV parks, at base, are parking lots.  Some are better appointed and/or provide nicer amenities.  But, they’re still parking lots.  We greatly prefer to stay at campgrounds. This one was splendid, with a view of the Rio Grande and the lake.

Petroglyphs at Boca Negra Canyon, Petroglyphs National Monument, Albuquerque, NM

View of Cochiti Lake from our campground, outside of Albuquerque, NM

In the US, most of the First Peoples were forced onto reservations.  And they don’t even own the land they’re on – it’s owned by the federal government.  In the case of the Pueblos, it was different.  They had already owned the land they were on before New Mexico (and additional lands) were ceded to the US at the end of the war with Mexico.  And that ownership was acknowledged by first Spain, then Mexico, then the US itself.

But that comes with a down side.  Since the land was owned rather than “reserved”, it was subject to eminent domain.  And Theodore Roosevelt decided he wanted to dam the Rio Grande to create a reservoir right about where the Cochiti Pueblo was located.  And got his way, using eminent domain.

There have been and are several instances where the US is trying to take land, sometimes land that is held sacred by the pueblos.  Sometimes the US gets its way.  Once in a while, the pueblos get to hold on to their land.

Tent rocks, at Tent Rocks National Monument near Albuquerque, NM

Years ago, someone found this cave and lived there!  In Tent Rocks National Monument near Albuquerque, NM

There was a different name, which I don’t remember, for these, without a capstone, but also in Tent Rocks National Monument

A recently (re)discovered pueblo at Coronado State Monument, Bernalillo, NM

April 15, 2016.  Our guidebook said that Tucumcari was one of the better places for exploring Route 66.  Our guidebook is somewhat out-of-date.  There didn’t seem to be much left in Tucumcari – it looks like the recession hit it strongly.  It does have a still-in-business classical Route 66 era motel.

April 8, 2016.  We’d been on a photo shoot and previous journey, so we’ve pretty well seen Route 66 in Arizona and part of New Mexico.  So we stayed mostly on I-40 (which is coincident with Route 66 for a good part of its way).  So no pics for Arizona.  Instead, a tale of minor RV disaster.

We discovered last night that our shower was leaking water onto the RV floor.  Simon tried to investigate, and it seemed that a particular part might be leaking.  We called around and found a mobile RV service man who came out, investigated, and agreed that part needed to be replaced.  But this was Friday afternoon.  He would not be able to order the replacement until Monday.  😦

We were in Flagstaff, where we’d been several times.  So there wasn’t really anything new for us to do indoors.  The weather was cold, windy, and showery.  For us, unpleasant enough to keep us indoors.  (We were later told that was quite good weather for Flagstaff in April.  Normally, April is when Flagstaff weather has PMS.)  But we managed to get through Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning.

Monday afternoon we phoned the mobile service guy to check on the progress of the replacement part.  There wasn’t any!  >:-(  He wasn’t able to get the part from his suppliers.  He did, though, come back and reinvestigate.  This time he thought the shower floor itself was cracked, around the drain.  So he put a pad of plumber’s putty over it, hoping to seal it.

Here comes the cliffhanger … we couldn’t test it for 24 hours.  And we were NOT going to spend another night in Flagstaff!  So we drove away, hoping the repair would hold . . .

Our site at Prado Regional Park, Chino, CA

April 4, 2016.  Our general plan is to drive up Route 66 towards Chicago, visit with B’s mum, and return maybe via a northern route through Dakota and Montana.  We don’t plan to drive very far on any one day, so we’ll be finding camps and making forays from there to explore the area.  This is our first stop, in Chino, to explore the western end of Route 66 in California.

Aztec Hotel, Monrovia, CA

In Los Angeles county, Route 66 has been submerged into the suburbs that grew up around it.  It also has several alternate alignments which were in use at various times.  We didn’t have a good map – just a photo-based guidebook.  Eventually we found ourselves on Huntingon Drive.  At first, going through San Marino (like Rancho Santa Fe outside San Diego, or Winnetka outside Chicago).  Money talks!  But then we crossed from San Marino into the city of Los Angeles and it was like night and day.  Lack of money talks just as loudly!

The western end, if you believe its claim

We asked our GPS to take us to Santa Monica pier, the claimed western end of Route 66.  Dutifully it took us to Venice Beach.  No good, Garmiin!  Santa Monica pier was a lot more crowded than this photo implies, since it’s a big tourist attraction.  Since we’d achieved our goal, we didn’t stay long.  All that was left for today was to drive bacn to the camp.  Through Los Angeles rush hour (how misnamed is that – there is no rushing during rush hour!)

A Prado Regional Park resident

Evening at Prado Regional Park

April 5, 2016.  Today’s exploration is eastward from  the camp.

Restored (but non-operational) service station, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Check out the prices!

Winery (now a shopping center), Rancho Cucamonga, CA

The Sonoma wineries claim to be the first in California, but this (and another in Rancho Cucamonga) pre-date them by about 30 years.

Before it was “Route 66” it was the “Pioneer Trail”.

Wigwam Motel, San Bernardino, CA (still in business!)

We saw another of these ‘wigwam’ motels farther east on Route 66.

Along the route (mainly, Foothill Boulevard) there were also many no-longer-open motels and businesses that could certainly have been of classic “Route 66” age.

April 6, 2016.  We decamped and headed for our next stop at Needles, CA.  We kept pretty faithfully to Route 66 through Newberry Springs (which played the role of Bagdad in the movie Bagdad Cafe).  East of Newberry Springs, the road turned horrible.  We gave up and managed to find a feeder road back up to I-40 before we reached Amboy, which we’d already visited on an earlier journey.

No pics from today.  There’s not much left in Needles – not even a grocery store.  They drive five miles into Arizona to go grocery shopping.

April 7, 2016.  We back-tracked a short way along Route 66 to Goffs, CA.  They are in the process of assembling what looks like a very interesting outdoor museum.  Unfortunately, it was closed so all we could do was look over the fence.

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Yes this is old, but I (S) recently came across this set of photos from our late 2014 trip to Northern Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Enjoy.

Another long drive yesterday from Bishop to San Diego. It didn’t help that most of Cajon Pass was at a standstill, and the usual Adelanto start/stop/start/stop was made worse than usual by road works. Just the presence of big amounts of other vehicles on the highway was strange!

Got back by 4:30 pm. Both of us tired as all heck. Stopped for a few minutes to survey the wasteland that was the newly fumigated condo.

Back into harness. Connect the cooler to power, unload all the stuff from the trailer, shove it where it won’t matter for a day or so. Go get the refrigerator/freezer stuff and put it in the cooler/freezer.. Take the trailer back to storage. What’s for dinner? We decide on a shared take-out Shrimp dinner from Sombrero. Get that. Bring it home.

That’s it. We’re bushed. Nothing else gets done.

Stats:

Tow vehicle mileage: 7022

Trailer mileage: 4260

Gallons of fuel used: 421.4

Cost of that fuel: $1260.73

Average mpg: 16.7

Where to next?

Yesterday was fun with the Lance folks, with Serge and Kelly teaching us d.o. (dutch ovens), and then the eats and festivities later. The weather was amazingly good.

Sadly, we had to untether this morning (and miss the d.o. grand breakfast).

We decided to take hwy 395 down the East side of the Sierra Nevada range, rather than the more logical Interstate 5, but we just hate that through Los Angeles, even though it’s quicker and shorter.

Tonight we find ourselves in the ‘Tri-County Fairgrounds’ in Bishop, CA. A parking lot, but that’s OK.

Home tomorrow, if nothing breaks.

Pictures:

Upside down pineapple cake before the dutch oven

After….

Meat Loaf before Dutch Oven

After….

Party time

Friday morning, at Rocky Point RV Park, it was wet and cold. Decamping, I had to hose down all our hoses and electrical connections, as they were smothered in pine needles and mud. Shivering stuff.

But then we set off, turned the heater up, and all was well. Dry shoes are luxurious.

Turned left on SR-140 toward Klamath Falls,then on SR-39 for a while, and to County Route 91. This kind of driving is what it’s about, especially as the rain had cleared and the sun was beginning to break through. Nice even country 2 lane blacktop, no hurries, no worries (Sorry, Ranger Paul, we had to  borrow that). Eventually we hit SR-299 West (I had to write this – after we went through the little town, I said that we were just in Beiber….. Oh well, let’s move on).

West on 299, it was more of the same rolling countryside, pines, farms, rural California, lovely.

The alternative would have been to head for I-5. I think that we won that debate.

After a brief stop in Fall River Mills for gas and a sandwich we continued to hwy 89 south, which runs North of Lassen, to our destination – the KOA Kampground at Lassen/Shingletown, where there is to be a rally of Lance owners, this weekend.

By now it was sunny and warm (relatively). Our campsite is good and the natives welcoming.

This morning, we were welcomed to Gary’s space where he cooked Portuguese sausage for us with Hawaiian Danish (Hawaii is an interesting place, it has a Union Jack as part of its state flag). Despite this, Gary is a fantastic fella.

After that we went to Redding for supplies. Then we set off for the volcano, Lassen. Recent snow made it stand out. So pretty.

Later, we joined the Lance peeps for a bit of a barbecue and socializing . Fun 🙂

Pictures:

It rained. It was/is cold. What shall we do? Slightly forlornly, we set out to do a circuit of Lake Klamath (allegedly, the biggest freshwater lake west of the Rockies).

Well, it soon turned into a different mission, as the “Check Engine’ light came on.

As an aside, we’d had a couple of times when we got a message about the fuel cap not being on tight (darn OR rules about not being able to self-service fuel!), but that was a plain text message, which was easy to clear.

We have an OBD-II reader at home, which is not much help here, of course.

So we decided to go to Klamath Falls, see if we could find a dealer that would tell us what the magic code was. (I suspected a clogged air filter, as we’d been through a lot of dust).

At Klamath Falls, we discovered that there wasn’t a Nissan dealer, so we tried the next best, a Toyota dealer – Lithia. We asked about hooking up their reader to get the diagnostic code, and the quote was $89.95, and could we leave the car with them, they might be able to fit it in today. I thought the title of this post, went across the street to Napa, and bought an OBD-II reader for $82.39, plugged it in, read the code, looked that up on the internet, and hey, guess what, loose gas cap! We hit the red button to clear the error, made sure the gas gap was tight. No more ‘Check Engine’ light.

We were looking for Starbucks, and saw one in a Haggens Grocery. Haggens Grocery has just gone bust and everything was on sale (and the Starbucks was closed). However, I did use the men’s room, and noticed that someone had written in felt-tip pen, on the toilet paper dispenser: ‘Haggen Business Plans’. I laughed out loud.

The rain eased off later, so we swabbed down the trailer and the Xterra, B did laundry, and I made bolognese to go with some spaghetti that I’m just about to prepare.

So I tells B, when we get onto 199 going North East, that back in 1999 or so (last millennium, anyhow), I rode the motorcycle up from Happy Camp through the Siskiyou Forest onto this road. Holy Heck, I hadn’t realized just how far I had had to ride on 199 to get to Crescent City.

Stopped off in Medford at Harbor Freight to replace a broken, 8 week old air compressor. They wouldn’t. This is the last time we’ll buy anything that’s not really simple from Harbor Freight, and something that you need to rely on. Worse than the mark of the devil.

Arrived at our camping ground – Rocky Point resort, right next to the lake. It’s a bit quirky, but at the same time absolutely charming. A Lance 1985 and another Lance 1575 were already here (and it’s a very small campground). Will give them a the Lance Owners card in the morning.

It was coming up to 4 pm, so we thought, and said, yes, we will visit Crater Lake today. And we did. Awesome doesn’t describe it. Cold does, though.

Pictures:

Klamath Lake from Rocky Point Resort

14th September 2015

On Hwy 101 from Florence to Crescent City

We had previously driven the 101 from Tillamook to Florence, and a PITA it was, resorts every couple of miles, couldn’t make any progress and there wasn’t very much to gawp at.

Some Oregonians insisted that it was different from Florence south.

And so it was. Big rocks in the ocean, like a couple of giants had a rock throwing fight, surf crashing, dramatic and dark cliffs. Not as twisty as in Northern CA, but that’s not such a bad thing.

Crescent City – back in CA for the first time since Big Bear. Grey and misty, with the sound of seals barking and a lonely fog horn on the bay.

Up at 3:45 am. Shuttle call at 4:30 am. Arrive San Diego Airport at 5-ish. Disgusting and expensive ‘Yuppie Wrap’ for breakfast. Inconsequential flight. Good book: ‘This changes everything’ by Naomi Klein, about global warming (sitting in a plane; wait, let me think about this….). Fun texts with B when I arrive in Portland, she’s in the cell phone lot and sees the plane land (reminds me: holy heck, the last time I flew was about ten years ago. Now they want to charge you for each breath. Like, yeah, you can watch a limited range of video, but you have to bring your own tablet/phone/laptop, and then pay to watch content. Are they crazy? Why not bring your own content? How hard is that?)

We head out. South. Traffic begins to calm, we’re out of the city. Now where? Florence? OK, via Eugene. Now we need gas, wait, Costco is right there, can we get in, yeah sure. Wait for B to get hot dogs, some guy and gal come up to check out the Lance. Open the door, let them in. Cool.

Onwards to Dixie Cafe for lunch. OK.

Then  OR route 126 all the way down, following the railroad and the creek, so pretty and so green. To Florence. Is that all? Is Florence so small? South on 101 (like an old friend) to the Jessie Honeyman Memorial Memorial State Park.

Bliss.

And, can you say, exhausted.