We have been lucky in the sense that I can pretty much take time off of work for traveling whenever we would like.  Roxie's work was the same way since she worked 'per diem'.  That meant that we did NOT have to go camping during the high times of travel.  We didn't have to go during a major holiday weekend.  Well that has changed.  Roxie's new job no longer gives her that level of flexibility.  So that means we have to be like the rest of the general public and take advantage of the holidays given.

Roxie found out that she had a 4 day weekend for the 4th of July.  She wanted/needed to get away for a bit so I tried to find a spot on the coast.  We thought it would be good to get away to somewhere that is cooler.  I was able to get reservations at the Pismo Dunes Ranch RV Resort.  We have stayed here before and it is a simple RV park.  Not as crowded as Pismo Coast Village nor as noisy as the one between highway 1 and the railroad tracks.  I reserved that spot starting on Saturday as it would have been too tough to get everything going on Friday and we would be getting in there when it was dark.

(Our view)

We left around 10am, naturally, on Saturday.  We stopped in Hanford to get a replacement tire on the trailer.  I always find it easier to get a tire on the road since the trailer is already hooked up.  We got some groceries, had a bite of lunch and headed off.  It is only about 150 miles from us and a very familiar drive.  What could go wrong?  Don't ever say that.

The temperature was about 100-106 during the drive in the valley.  We left Kettleman City and there is a small hill to negotiate.  Near the top I noticed puffs of diesel exhaust coming out of the truck.  Each time there was a drop in power and eventually a puffing sound was emanating from under the hood at the same time.  We crested the hill and descended.  Now the mind games start.  What is wrong with the truck, is it damaging it more by driving, how can I fix it, can AAA tow us home if needed, etc.  I know we had two more grades to cover on the trip. 

Hill number 2.  This time I opted to try it without the A/C on.  It might have been hot for a bit but it will help the diagnosis.  Luckily I got behind a slow truck.  This kept our speed down but it still was doing it puffing pattern for a bit but not the whole hill.  Hill number 3.  Left the A/C on and it puffed a bit near the top but we were over the last hill.  Yes, we did have the Cuesta grade by San Luis Obispo but we were going downhill on it this time.

We got to the campground around 3 and setup.  Boy, my mind was churning.  We went out to eat at F. McLintock's in Arroyo Grande.  We have gone to the one in Pismo before but this one was more local and a much different ambiance.  It was good.  However, we got back to the trailer and my mind was going again.  I got on the internet to research the truck problem.  I found a lot of doom and gloom, stories of replacing turbos, EGR valves, repairs over $3000, ouch!!  I tried to analyze what was going one.

Over the last many months I had noticed the truck getting a bit more sluggish.  I used to be able to take off very quickly getting on to a freeway, etc.  That was not happening anymore.  I attributed it to the truck getting old.  But 104K miles should be a drop in the bucket for a diesel.  Drawing an analogy to the human body, it seemed like there might be a blockage somewhere.  I heard someone mention on the 'net that their solution was a fuel filter.  It made logical sense to me.  It could have been starving for fuel when it really needed it.  Around town it did not need high volumes of fuel but under hard acceleration or heavy load (towing on a hill) it could not get what it needed.  Also, I could not remember the last time I changed both filters (yes, there are two).  So I thought $100 would be a good investment to see if it helped.

I found a JiffyLube in Oceano that was open on Sunday on a holiday weekend.  They replaced the filters.  Immediately I could feel the difference in acceleration.  I was cautiously optimistic about the solution.  It also helped put my mind at rest.  We made a picnic lunch and tried to go downtown Pismo. Our son Aaron and granddaughter Paige were there in his truck.  No way!  Too much traffic.  We would have a hard time finding one spot let alone two.  We thought we might try Avila Beach but it seemed even worse.  Everyone, including us, wanted to go to the beach.  Aaron suggested going to Oceano beach, where you can actually drive on the beach.  He has a lifted F250 with large wide tires.  I have the stock narrow tires.  We had been on the beach before with our friends the Chen's earlier in the year, so I didn't think too much about it.  Although I did bring my tow strap.

We needed the strap right off the bat.  We were looking for a place to park where Paige could play in the water and on the beach.  Aaron turned one way and I followed and instantly got stuck in the soft sand.  We attached the tow strap and Aaron pulled me out.  We went the other way on the beach and drove down to find a spot.  We pulled in and settled in.  Aaron was a bit concerned with the tide as it looked like it was getting higher.  I check the tide schedule and we were already 30 minutes past high tide so we were OK.

We let Paige play and get completely soaked for about 1 1/2 hours.  We all got burned which was surprising since we never saw direct sunlight due to the fog bank that was there.  I forgot to mention that the temperature was 65 for most of the time we were here.  A far cry from 100+ degrees.  Aaron had to head back home after the beach but he had to pull us out of the sand two more times for good measure.

Roxie and I thought we would go down to Pismo for the night to get something to eat.  The parking was abysmal.  This is where I thought the rest of the populated world was since it was so crowded.  Since we were eating a bit early we were able to walk right in to the Pierside restaurant.  Roxie wanted to do Splash Cafe but it had a line around its' corner (not surprising).  Dinner was OK, nothing special.

Monday.  4th of July!  Roxie has started a walking regimen at home and we brought our bikes here.  I thought we could take a ride out to the ocean and back for a bit of exercise.  I had looked it all over on Google Maps and I know Roxie had ridden horses (with Hannah) from the campground.  We started off.  It was a good dirt road.  Some parts said no vehicles but that would mean cars, etc.  The wide road turned into a narrow path.  The dirt turned into sand.  We were riding but had to start walking.  The plants were over growing the route.  Mosquitos were flying around everywhere.  We were pushing on.  We got to the sand dunes and stopped for a bit.  I saw about 20 mosquitos on Roxie's back biting the heck out of her!

I checked Google Maps and we were off in the weeds somewhere.  Well duh!  I went up a dune to survey the situation.  I noticed the creek we were near turned in front of us and headed south (we were heading west).  The only options were to turn around back through the mosquito nest or cross the creek.  We chose the latter and found a shallow place.  Took our shoes and socks off and crossed.  It was only about 8 inches deep.  Put our shoes back on and walked the bikes to the beach.  On the way we had to go under a 'fence' and noticed there was a sign on it to stay out since it is a bird preserve.  Great.  We were also violating the law.  We headed north on the beach, riding, to the entrance.  We were then able to get on city streets and make a loop  About 4 miles total.  Roxie now calls this the bike ride from Hell!  I thought parts of it were fun.

We thought we would head downtown for lunch and see how things were.  Mistake!  The traffic was really bad so we bugged out of there.  I wanted Roxie to get her Splash cafe fix and we know there is one in SLO so we went 15 miles up the road.  The plan was we go by Mo's BBQ and I would get what I want and take it to Splash Cafe so Roxie can eat there.  Interestingly she found something at Mo's and she really enjoyed it.  Now what?  We still went to Splash and got some frozen clam chowder and two bread bowls for her to bring home.  We went back to the trailer and took a short nap since we knew we might be up a bit later than normal.

We know that Pismo Beach sets off fireworks from their pier and we figured that it would be VERY crowded.  It was.  We didn't even try to park within 5 blocks of the downtown area.  We parked about 8 blocks away, grabbed our aluminum chairs and headed out.  We needed to eat dinner and were looking for somewhere.  We found it about 3 blocks into the walk.  We found Giuseppe's Italian Restaurant.  We know there is a Rosa's in Pismo, like in Visalia but that was a bit down the road.  We went in a side entrance so we did not do a "Beverly Hillbillies" on them with our casual attire and chairs.  The food was good, but Roxie really liked the dipping sauce they put with the bread.  It was balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and grated parmesan cheese.  I admit it was very good also.

Down to the beach!  We made our way through the throng of people and ended up on the beach to the north of the pier.  There were more people than I have ever seen during the DAY on this beach.  We had to wait about 30 minutes for the show to begin.  This was the first time I have ever watched 4th of July fireworks wearing a coat!  Roxie was freezing since she was not as prepared.  The fireworks show was impressive because they had SO many in the display.

After it was over Roxie said we should go up a set of stairs and through a gate.  I saw it said No Trespassing but a lot of other people were doing so also.  We ended up in a gated condo community.  All the gates were locked.  We could not get out, as about 30 others could not either.  Luckily a resident was leaving in his car so that opened up the flood gates, so to speak.  We made it to our truck and then more fun was to be had.  The police department decided not to let us, or anyone else, go south.  We had to go north about 2 miles before we could get on 101 southbound.  From the time the fireworks were over until we got on the freeway, we had used about 1 hour.  We slept good that night.

Tuesday the 5th, time to go home.  We packed it up, hooked it up and cleaned it up.  The big test was ahead.  How would the truck work up the Cuesta.  I had trepidation coming up the grade.  I gained as much speed as I could in the run up and tried not to push it too much up the hill.  Normally I would do 65 up the hill with the trailer.  This time I kept it at 55.  The truck did just fine.  What a relief.

We pulled into Paso Robles and thought we would stop for lunch.  They have a very nice downtown with some interesting restaurants.  The drawback was the temperature was over 90 and climbing there.  We decided on Basil Thai.  It was good and odd at the same time.  The soup was the odd part.  This was the first time we had a soup based on coconut milk.  Not my cup of tea but the main course, a variation of drunken noodles was good.

The hill climbs on the way home were uneventful and I hoped they would be.  We always hate going home but it is a necessary evil.  It doesn't help a 40+ degree temperature increase.  All in all, it was nice to get away.

We got back and worked on his jack.  We did not find a switch and decided to bypass the limiter switch until he could find the right microswitch.  Success!  That started my repair list.  The next was to fix the crack.  I mixed up the epoxy solution and had 4 minutes to get it in place.  It took a bit of twisting to get in the right angle but I filled the crack within the time limit.  It had a wonderful aroma also.  On to the clock install.  We have an Airstream clock and I could not figure out a way to hang up.  I got some of those 3m removable velcro hooks.  That worked great!  Keep going.  Remove the water saving spigot from the kitchen sink, Roxie never liked it anyway.  I also replace the right screw of the step just for good measure.  We had lunch somewhere in that mess of things also.

A bit of rest then getting ready for the potluck at 6pm.  Roxie made a pan of brownies and cooked two tri-tips for it.  I took down one of our portable tables and looked around.  There were 12 tables that seated 8 each setup.  That is 96 people!  It was all packed!!  We have not been to one of these rallies with this many people.  It was great!  The food was good also.  We visited others around the trailers afterward and got some good ideas.  We are now back in the trailer and Roxie is snoring away!

Here are some pics that I took to day of the 33 trailers here!
 

How about this one?  Glad we weren't here in 1986!

Roxie had a voicemail and a call to make so she did so.  The only problem was she had to stand in the middle of the road to get 2 bars of signal!  We got back to the trailer and started talking with our friends.  This is one of the most fun aspects of getting together, a way to reconnect with old and new friends.  During this time I went into the trailer and the step broke.  Man!  A screw either broke or came loose.  It appeared to be a 'normal' screw and the rest of the parts looked good.

We headed into 'town' to get the part.  We decided to have lunch there also in Guerneville.  We ate at the River Inn Grill.  It was very good food but the booths must have been new since it took a herculean effort to slide into.  We then headed to the hardware store.  This was the most interesting store.  It was SOOO unlike a box store like Lowes.  This store snaked around all over, things were everywhere, even on the ceiling.  Very fun and they had the screw!  The step was fixed in about 10 minutes.

In the afternoon we went down the Russian River and sat by the river.  We watched ducks swim by, an Osprey in a tall tree (maybe the same one) and vultures soaring overhead.  Very idyllic.  We came back to the trailer and promptly fell asleep (well Roxie a bit more promptly than I).  Roxie told me later that I was snoring up a storm and since the door was open the whole park must have heard me.  I don't know how this happens since I don't snore!

Here is a picture of the Chen's trailer, the Morelli's trailer and ours:

Another shot of down the row with a few flags flying:

Around 6 the happy hour started.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to get Roxie to go with me but she was still tired so I went for a bit.  There were about 35 people there.  I talked to some people, some that I didn't know.  It was enjoyable but COLD!  I hung around the fire and watched some semblance of fog roll through the tall trees.  As I came back to the trailer I took a shot of our lights we hung up:

More to come tomorrow.

OUTSIDE LED's

My first foray into transforming the trailer started in the summer of '06.  We were heading to the WBCCI International rally in Salem, OR.  I had seen some people put LED's in their taillight in a thread on Airforums.  I gave it a go.

I bought some of these:

Taking them apart gives you this:

So I take the lenses off of the trailer:

I wire them to the connectors and mount the LED platter to the housing.  The way I did this was use wire nuts.  I siliconed the wirenut to the housing and the platter to the wirenut.  (I don't have a photo of this but you will see something similar later on.  I then buttoned them up (this should be an animated GIF):

I

I did the 'high' brake light also (another animated GIF):

I also did the license plate light.  Here it is all done:

INSIDE LED's

Once again a couple of threads at Airforums served as reference and a way to pass on information.  This thread and this thread.  I knew about SuperBrightLeds but felt they were a little pricey.  I found another source, www.ledwholesalers.com.  I just purchased a single bulb to try it out.  These are 1141 replacements:

I first tried this test bulb in a fixture.  Here are the representative shots (I used warm white instead of bright white):

I was pleased enough with the results that I ordered bulbs for the entire trailer and replaced them.  However there were a few bulbs outside that I needed to retrofit also.

These were the outside step lights and the torch (I call it the neighbor light because all it lights up is the neighbor's RV).  I replaced those with 1141 equivalents but this time I got them in a more circular pattern, like a normal bulb.  I also got these in bright white since they are outside.  I got these bulbs, and some for my truck, from an eBay seller (ushd) at a very reasonable cost.  Here is their eBay store.

Here is the step light:

Here is the torch:

Here they are all on:

One other thing that I did with the flat 1141's was put them in the backup lights:

Here are the backups at night.  It is hard to tell in the photo but they are now bright enough to actually see something behind the trailer.  Previously they were only good to warn people about the trailer moving.

In conclusion, I put in LED's for many reasons.  Power savings, decreased heat, reliability, increased output and I think they are COOL!

We have yet to see about the power savings.  Our trip to Yosemite will help prove it.

We are going to Paso Robles this weekend with our WBCCI unit, and another one for a joint rally.  It will be held at Wine Country RV.  We are using this as a great excuse to get out with the trailer.  We like Paso since it is pretty close to us and we are familiar with the town (lots to do).  We also have not been out with our WBCCI unit for about 3 years and we can reconnect with some of them.

Just because we have not had the trailer out does not mean it has been quiet in our RV life.  The tow vehicle, our F250, has given us some grief.  You may remember the problems we had with it on our Albuquerque trip and the transmission issue.  About 1 month after the trip the truck started surging at idle and it threw a code.  The code was for an ICP (Injection Control Pressure) valve.  As this was happening, I had the batteries run down to the point where it just had that clicking sound when starting.  Once I got the batteries charged, the truck started running rough and threw another code!

Wow!  Two at once!  The code mentioned something about an injector had low pressure.  I know that injector repairs are EXPENSIVE!  I decided to attack the ICP problem first.  A trip to Ford and about $200 later, that was fixed.  But the truck still was running rough.  I lived with it for a few more weeks.  Now it was time to take it to a local diesel shop.

The first thing they saw was the batteries were very low and were not holding a good charge.  Diesels are very hard on batteries, hence the reason for two in our truck.  They need a minimum voltage to start correctly.  These were having problems with voltage and they recommended I get them replaced.  I still had 1 month left on the full Diehard replacement so I hauled them both to Sears.

Their tests concluded the batteries were fine, naturally.  I tried to convey the information, from the diesel shop, that batteries in diesels are under a different set of requirements and the standard automobile load test is not pertinent.  After a day or two of ‘discussion’ the Sears manager was willing to warranty replace one battery but I had to purchase the other outright.  I can live with that.

I took the batteries back to the diesel shop.  They installed them and started looking for the injector problem.  It was gone, it cleared up after the new batteries were installed.  We deduced that the fuel injection control module (FICM) is very susceptible to low voltage but once the fresh batteries were put in, it relearned its program.  Fantastic!  Plus the shop only charged me two hours for easily four hours of their time.

So was that it?  No!  Next I started hearing a squeal when the A/C compressor would kick in (defroster).  I wasn’t sure if the belt was just slipping (preferable) or was the bearing going out on the compressor (oh no!).  It turned out it was the belt tensioner.  It was fixed in place and not movable, as it should be.  Hurray, another repair!  The tensioner’s are pretty pricey, about $180!!  So we replaced the belt at the same time, it was due at 90K miles.

The truck seems to be running good now (knocking on wood – my head) so we will test it out on this trip.

Our extended warranty expired in August around the same time we paid the truck off.  It seems that the truck knew the warranty expired.  However all of these repairs did not reach what our payment used to be so we are still ahead of things.  I am just curious if the people that determine these warranties are the same ones that make the actuarial tables for life insurance?

I will post about the rally after we are back, maybe even during.

I forgot to mention lunch Tuesday.  We looked online for a restaurant in Gallup, NM since we were heading through there at lunch time.  We had two choices, Earl’s and Genaro’s.  Earl’s was a bit like a Route 66 cafe so we opted for Genaro’s.  Might as well have one last meal that represented New Mexico.  We found out again how California Mexican food differs from New Mexico Mexican food.  I feel the difference is in the chile’s used.  I have not been a real fan of chile in general but I have liked what I have been tasting here.  One reviewer of Genaro’s raved about the Green Chile Cheese Fries so we thought we would try those.

I wasn’t so thrilled with them but they were OK.  Roxie had a burrito with Green Chile sauce on top.  I had a shredded beef taco. They both were good.  The salsa with the chips was the hottest we have ever had, I believe.  Roxie found out the hard way.  I have learned NOT to dip into the salsa before I get my drink if I have never had the salsa before.  Roxie didn’t wait, she dug right in and took a big dip.  She was VERY glad when her drink came.

The real topper was the sopapilla.  We have had variations of them, even two days previously.  A puffy pastry that you eat with honey.  It did not prepare us for the biggest sopapilla we have ever seen:

This thing was the size of someone HEAD!  It was huge!  It was pretty good but it would have been nicer to have a few smaller ones instead of a big one.  All in all we did like Genaro’s and would seek it out again.

This brings us to Wednesday.  As you may remember we had made it to the KOA at Holbrook.  That morning (Wed) we found out that we had to get home and cut our trip short.  The reason was not due to health reasons but something that we could not take care of on the road.  We decided to get on the road and get to at least Kingman that night.  We were sad that we could not continue on but we did accomplish our main goal, the Balloon Fiesta.  We can get to Arizona with only one night of travel so we can, and will, hit the locations we want to see.

So we got into some rain and cloudy weather in Flagstaff.  On a truck related note, the passenger door switch used to think it was closed all the time.  Now it is thinking that the door is open when it is closed and closed when it is open.  Another thing is there is a check engine light that came on again.  This is the ‘generic’ check engine light.  While refueling I remembered there was an auto parts store nearby.  I was able to rent a OBDII code diagnosis tool.  What it told me was the computer had not relearned some sequence.  I think this may have happened during the transmission service.  I read on the internet that I was supposed to clear the code and let the truck idle at operating temperature for 5 minutes.  I did so and the light is gone.  Yea!

We made it to Kingman but it was about 3pm and we thought that was a bit too early to stop.  We know that the more we travel this day, the less we travel the next.  We pushed on to Needles, but we wanted some more variety so we took Route 66 through Oatman, AZ.   The first part of the road was standard desert road wide, straight, bumpy.  However it did change to a more Route 66′ish road but narrower.  Right when it changed we came across these two in the road.

We had read about their friendly wild burros.  I read that as an oxymoron.

This road is very interesting.  Even moreso when towing a trailer.  Very narrow, curvy, a lot of up then a lot of down.  The truck handled it with aplomb and we eventually came to Oatman.  We were there just before 5pm and things were closing up so it is somewhere we need to come back and see again.  We did see some more of those burros.

These were being fed from a store owner in town.

We made it to Needles and stayed at the Desert View RV Park.  The price was good and they said their WiFi was very good.  Well it was not, we had to sit outside at the end of the trailer by the road to get service.  But it was a bit too cold (yes, we remember it being 100 degrees the week before) to be outside so no WiFi.  I think they need a few more antennas in the park.  I tried my 3G card but it was only Edge and it cut in and out.  Hence no blog last night.

On to Thursday.  Left Needles and traveled the boring I40 W to CA58 W.  Yawn!  Down the Tehachapi’s, the hill that started our truck fun.  No problems.  We made it home about 5pm.

Would we go back to the Balloon Fiesta?  Sure, probably not next year though.

Will we get to Northern Arizona?  We want to, this was the second attempt.

Do we want to east New Mexico cuisine again?  Definitely.

Did we meet many new interesting friends?  We always do.

Will we take another trip?  Come on!!!

Our destination was the Gilbert Ray campground at the Tucson County Mountain Park.  We were going in without reservations, something I am not really used to.  It turned out to be fine and we found a spot just as it was getting dark.  Around 8pm we had everything setup and disconnected and had dinner.  Yes, the tank was still leaking…

The next morning I crawled under the trailer, as much as I could.  I could still see it dripping and according to our meter, the tank was almost empty.  The water was coming out of a small ‘patch’ by the drain spigot.  I removed the screws on the patch and looked inside.  I could see the main drain plug but I could not tell where the leak was actually coming from.  If I had more time (and was younger) I would have done some more investigation.  In the state of Arizona there are only two Airstream authorized service centers and there is one in Tucson at Oasis RV.  I called them and explained our problem.  They said to bring it in.  I had paid for two nights but we were not sure if we would have use of the trailer but the campground would work with us.

We hooked it all back up and headed to Oasis.  They seemed to think that it was not very serious.  Of course, I was thinking the fresh water tank was cracked and it would be into the 4 figures to get it fixed.  They have many years of experience and had no qualms leaving the trailer.  We gave them my cell number and headed off to the Rock show.  Might as well do something instead of just sitting there.

The Rock show encompassed something like 20+ locales with different things everywhere.  We were able to see some tents from Oasis so we went over there.  It turned out to be by a sports area (where the Arizona Diamondbacks do spring training).  The parking was ample and easy and they had a place for dry camping (for $20).  We started looking at the rocks.  The first area had the small individual sellers that were selling out of their RV’s.  One guy had a enclosed area with blacklights to see all the odd colorings in his rocks.  We moved on to an area where they had more large commercial vendors with crystals that were bigger than me!  There was every type of stone, rock, etc. you would want.  Roxie particularly liked these:

We were there about 2 hours when my cell rang.  It was Oasis telling us that the trailer was done.  It was the drain spigot that broke (something must have hit it) and the repair took 2 hours.  I was very relieved.  We spent about another hour and then went to get our trailer.

We took the trailer back to the campground and set everything back up.  The campground had electricity only so having water was fairly important.  It was not leaking!!  We took a short rest (got on the computers) after all that went on.  We ate at Benihana’s that night to celebrate the relatively inexpensive repair.  We were able to coordinate with Rich and Eleanor so we could visit with them while we were there.  We missed out on courtesy parking at their house since there was already an Airstream there (I wonder what the neighbors think).  It turned out they had an idea for the next night and invited us to dinner at their house, perfect!

The next day, Thursday, we paid for one more night.  We went to Old Tucson, which is in the county park.  It is a movie set that was created in the area to lure Hollywood movies here for a more authentic location.  It was kind of touristy but that is what we were.  It was enjoyable.  We ate at a BBQ place inside, Big Jake’s.  The food was pretty good especially for serving a captive audience.  Old Tucson took us up to about 2pm.  We were going to go to the Sonoran Desert Museum.  We drove though the parking lot and it was almost full, we knew we only had about 2 hours so we passed on it this time.  This will leave us something to do the next time we are in Tucson.  We headed instead, to the Saguaro National Park, Tucson Mountain Division.  There we listened to a very interesting talk about the geology of the area and were able to see LOTS of Saguaro cacti.

We stopped by the trailer to clean up and then headed to see Eleanor, Emma and Rich (their chauffeur).  Eleanor cooked us a very nice meal with some creative chicken cooking.  Rich was in charge of the grill but it wouldn’t stay lit.  We got to see their home away from the Airstream and it was a very nice Arizona home.  I loved the low maintenance back yard.  We finished up dinner and went to a local theatre, the Loft, to see the Academy Award nominees for Animated films.  It was entertaining, albiet some of the films went a bit long.  My favorite, Oktapodi, did not win the Oscar.  We were able to visit a bit after the film and then we said our goodbyes.

We had to decide where to next.  Well we were still staying south so we thought, let’s go see some old trailers in Bisbee.  Stay tuned…

We are lucky enough to get off two holidays in February on consecutive mondays.  This way I only had to take off 8 days of work to have a total of 16 days off.  So the general plan was to go travel around Arizona since we sure did not want to do it in the summer!  We decided to only plan 2-3 days ahead as we went.

The initial plan was to get to Sun City West and spend a couple of nights with my mother.  This is a drive that we can do (over 500 miles) in one day without the trailer but we weren’t about to try that with the trailer.  Our first stop was at Sam’s Family Spa and RV in Desert Hot Springs.  I love to stop off there since it is pretty much a good distance to stop and they have 4 hot water pools.  Very relaxing.

While we were at my mother’s we were trying to figure out where we were going to go.  The weather made the decision for us.  This was the time that all the storms were going through north part of the state, Flagstaff had almost 2 feet of snow.  We now knew we were going south.

On our fourth day of the trip we left my mother’s and started south.  We stopped by Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.  We have a NPS pass so we might as well hit them all.  This is an interesting park as it has the remains of a large house that the native americans used for functions that are still not understood.  I was impressed with the cover that was built over it to help preserve it.

The park was enjoyable, in one aspect.  While pulling into the parking lot, I noticed a trail of water coming out from under the trailer.  We had a repair on our gray water valve before we left and I was wondering if it was that.  It was not, we did not have an liquids in that tank yet.  It turned out to be fresh water that was coming out.  Good, something to worry about!

We were going to go to Picacho Peak State Park and spend a night and perhaps a short hike.  The leak changed the plans.  We were going to go to Tucson to visit the Luhr’s so we pushed that up a day.  The Tucson Rock and Gem show was going on and it might be tough to find a spot so Rich told us about the Tucson Mountain Park.  We headed there.

The trip continues in the next chapter…

Our entire trailer has a light colored carpet, with the requisite stains that comes from such a shade.  We cannot figure out why Airstream would do this.  The thought was that there was some remnant smell in the carpet in the bathroom.  This carpeted area is on the floor and on the platform where the toilet is.  The plan was to remove the carpet in there and replace it with another floor covering.

I was able to remove the old carpet with a bit of effort.  It did not smell bad, according to my wife (I wasn’t going to smell it!).  I noticed there was some water damage to the platform area.  When my parents gave us the trailer, the toilet valve became stuck on.  It might have damaged things a bit.  I use some Kilz paint to attempt to contain any odors from the wood.  To cover the floor and the platform I used some vinyl strips of fake wood that had adhesive backing to it.  I also then used some trim around the edges.  Here is the result:

I am pleased with the appearance, but unfortunately there is still a smell.  Time to do some more investigative work…

I started by removing the blue plastic in the lower rub rail.  I have some new plastic so I was not careful with it.  I then removed the actual rub rail (aluminum piece) which was about 10 rivets.  Next came the removal of the lower cowling (plastic) and another 8 rivets.  I could see below the floor now but the water was coming from under the outer skin.  I removed the shore water connector/pressure regulator.  I could see an area where it appeared to be leaking.

I was amazingly able to find one of these locally.  I installed it, using some teflon tape on the threads.  It has now been under water pump pressure for 3 days with NO LEAKS!

One to go before San Clemente.