Nuestra casa rodante – Our Airstream, travels and such…

roger January 3rd, 2011

for a current entry!  I have been behind on my blogging, which is nothing new.  The last few entries have been over 3 months old.  We just got back from a trip so I thought I would insert that entry here and then return to my historical (not hysterical) entries.

We went to Anza Borrego State Park for New Years.  This is becoming a tradition of sorts for some Airstreamers.  We know some of them and knew they would be there.  We didn't plan ahead for this and so there were no spaces available.  We were resigned to not going.  We were last there almost 2 years ago.

I was checking the reservation system for openings and one showed up on Monday.  I snagged it for Thursday for 3 nights.  It is always nice to get away for a bit.  So we got everything ready to go.  We were going to initially follow the same itinerary that we did the last time.  Leave in the evening and drive to Palmdale, spend the night at the Wal-Mart.  This way we can get supplies there and knock out half of our trip.

Day 1

We left about 5pm and hit the road.  South of Bakersfield I saw one of the road signs say, "I-5:  Snow on the summit".  I didn't say anything to Roxie about it but I was curious.  A bit further down the road, another sign said the same thing.  Roxie saw this one and expressed some concern.  I was unsure what to think since the weather was nice and clear.  We pushed on.

Starting the climb on the grapevine the weather started to turn.  As we got near the top the snow started.  It was dry and we didn't need our windshield wipers as the snow was just blowing over the truck.  It was also just blowing around on the road but not sticking.  As we reached the summit we could see CHP's escorting traffic northbound and CalTrans trucks dumping sand on the road.  We continued on to 138 to go to Palmdale.  The snow did stop and we got to Wal-Mart about 8:30.  We went shopping and I checked the local weather.  It said it was 36° but with the windchill factor it was 22°!  The entire night the trailer shook like someone was grabbing it.  We went through 2 small propane tanks with our heater buddy.  We survived the night.

Day 2

The morning was not quite as cold as it was but it was by no means temperate.  When we stop just for an overnight like this I jack the tongue to level the trailer and disconnect the umbilical cord to stop truck battery drain. So I lowered the jack and we headed off.  The trip was uneventful until we stopped for a bathroom break about 2 hours later.  I noticed that I had not reconnected the umbilical cord!!  This meant I had no trailer lights or brakes of any kind.  Not good.  We had descended from the high desert to the San Bernardino area in this state.  It shows me how beefy the truck is that I was able to control the whole rig like that.  But I don't want to do that again.

We got to Palm Canyon Campground in Anza Borrego around 4:30pm and had enough time to setup before the sun went down and it got cold.  We met Dan and Marlene (and their girls) that operate the Mali Mish blog.  We met Dan and Julliette from AirForums and Bill Kerfoot, also from AirForums.  We wound down the day quickly as we had to head inside since it was so cold.

Day 3

I had a hike on my mind.  With my current knee situation we really cannot do too many long and/or strenuous hikes.  I read about a hike that started from the campground and went up to a panoramic point.  We started out around 10:30.  Here is a picture of Roxie taking a rest on the way up.

We had to stop a bit every once in a while on the way up as it was pretty steep with a lot of switchbacks.  However, we did make it to the top.  We could see the surrounding area very well from up there.  Here is our trailer.

I also took a set of panoramic pictures and stitched them together.  Here is the link. 

We had some lunch and then walked to the visitor's center to hear a naturalist talk about the Creosote plant.  I remember my father loved the desert but I cannot remember if he loved the smell of the creosote or sage plant or both but it was one of his favorite things.

That evening Rich, Eleanor and Emma plus Alex and Charon showed up in their Airstreams.  This was New Year's Eve and some of us had plans to get together over at  Bill's trailer.

Almost all of the 7 Airstream's had representation at the 'party'.  Everyone brought some different type of food and we all huddled around the fire since it was cold, again.  Good discussions and such were had.  Then the wind picked up and that dispersed everyone to their trailers.  I know that we ended up in the trailer by 10pm and we did not make in anywhere near midnight.  Lights were out by 11pm. 

Day 4

Happy New Year!

More hiking or no hiking?  How about a combination of both.  We packed a picnic lunch and headed by the visitors center to get some ideas.  We ended up doing some offroading in the truck to the Desert Garden 'picnic' area.  It had two tables but it was pleasant.  We continued on the road and did a few creek crossings in the truck.  Roxie seemed to enjoy it so we will have to try this some more.

The next stop was to see the Elephant Tree.  The road to this trail was TERRIBLE!  Not only rough but a lot of rocks.  The hiking was good and easy.  We had a brochure that talked about each point of interest.  However the sun was starting to set.  Here is the Elephant Tree.

Here are some ocotillo shots.

The next stop was Narrows Earth Trail.  It had better be short because we were losing daylight.  It was short and taught us about some of the geologic features in that area.

We had worked it out to go out to 'town' and eat with the Lin's (Dan and Marlene).  We are ones that do like to sample the local area eateries when traveling.   It turns out they do too!  We tried to go to a local bar and grill, Carlee's.  It turns out the tradition in Borrego Springs is that all the locals go out to eat for dinner on New Years.  There was no where for us to sit at Carlee's so we had to go somewhere else.  Hopefully, they would have room.  We tried Pablito's, they had room and it was very good.  It was nice to get to know the LIn's, they are a very fun couple.

We had a campfilre by their trailer but again, the cold closed in and we all retreated.

Day 5

We woke up and got around and saw Dan and Marlene were gone.  We found out why a bit later.  I had wanted to stop in Desert Hot Springs and hit a hot pool or two, another thing my dad liked.  However, Roxie 'forgot' her swimsuit so we decided just to head home.  We hooked up, said our goodbyes and hit the road.

We made it to Temecula and I checked the weather radar map and it showed snow all across the grapevine!  Here we go again!  I called the road report and the CHP was escorting traffic over the grapevine.  I decided to head up I-15 to Corona.  There I would have to decide, grapevine or high desert.

Calling the road report at Corona made the decision for us.  The grapevine was closed.  High desert it was.  We continued on I-15 past San Bernardino and it started snowing and continued the same dry swirling snow we had to start the trip.  The snow stopped at the summit and we didn't see it in force until Mojave and it was really coming down.  The road report on 58 said the CHP was escorting traffic there also.  I was hoping we could make it through before they closed this road.  But we do have the trailer so we could spend the night somewhere if we needed to.  The traffic on eastbound 58 and southbound 14 was amazing.  These are all the people that were trying to get to the LA area from the north.  I have never seen so much traffic over the Tehachapi's.

The rest of the trip home was the same boring 99 that we are used to. 

One interesting thing happened at the end of the trip, as I was taking the trailer around the block to park it.

All in all the trip was kind of like a flight for a pilot.  The takeoff and the landing were the most difficult with the in between being the easy part.

• Airstream , F250 , Trips
• Comments(0)

roger September 26th, 2009

We tried to do this earlier in the year.  We were going to meet some friends there and just relax.  The winter is the best time to go to the desert but if you hit the spring at the right time it can be even better.  I remember we went to Red Rock State Park one weekend in the spring.  The weather was cool but the wildflowers were blooming all around.  We saw many of them on a ranger walk.  We were hoping that visiting Anza Borrego State Park at the end of March might give us some nice wildflowers also.  At least we had reservations this time.

Before we left we had a minor modification done to the trailer.  When we refloored our house with laminate flooring we got some extra for the trailer.  The installer (our neighbor) did the trailer for us also.  We no longer have the white carpet (well mostly white) and have a surface that is easier to clean.

Our reservations started on Monday and we had 3 nights there.  One plan was to leave early on Monday from home and get there later in the afternoon/evening for a total of 354 miles!  Roxie worked on Sunday but she had a plan.  Let’s leave Sunday night when she gets home.  I agreed that we could try and we would be able to do another first for us:

Wal-Mart!  This was the first time we have ever stayed overnight at a Wal-Mart.  This was in Palmdale and we got there about 11pm.  I checked with the security guard and he said we would park there no problem but no longer than 2 nights.  Suited us just fine.  All that I did was put down the tongue jack (remembering to park nosedown) to level it out and I unplugged the umbilical cable.  You can easily see why Wal-Mart likes this because we proceeded to spend $80 the next morning at the store.  The nice thing was that this evening trip essentially cut the remaining distance in half making a much more managable drive.

Our friends (Rich, Eleanor and Emma) had arrived a day earlier and were not around when we arrived.  We went through our normal procedures.  When we saw the Luhr’s, they introduced us to some other Airstreamers that met them there also.  Ken & Petey, Adam & Susan were introduced to us all and the Airstream bond was created.  On Tuesday we all got together and took a road/hiking trip.  We were lucky enough to go in style with Ken & Petey.  The first spot was the slot canyon.  This is where the flooding of Anza Borrego has created very narrow and interesting canyons that you can go hike in.  We weren’t concerned about flooding at this time.

The next stop were the wind caves.  Cavern type areas carved out by wind and rain.  This hike was a bit more strenuous than the first.  We had a steep climb to start then some up and down.  However it was well worth the hike.  The formations are very interesting and a lot of fun to scramble around on.  Here is Roxie in a cave:

We also stopped to see Font’s Point which gives you an overview of the badlands area.  You can go to my Flickr set of this trip for other photos that I took.

Wednesday we decided to take the hike to the Palm Canyon oasis.  I remember doing this when I was a child and the others had done it many times previously so we were on our own.  The first part was ranger led and there was a big emphasis on spotting some Bighorn Sheep (the park’s namesake).  Everyone was hoping to see some and started out with high spirits.  The day was a  bit warm, very little breeze and a constant uphill elevation change.  The ranger stayed with the group about half way but there were no sightings of Bighorn.  The ranger turned back but continued on to the oasis.  About 2/3′s of the way to the end (for us) we found a little cave that was in the shade and decided to take a bit of a break.  I thought I would scan the opposite mountains for any movement (I can pick up movement pretty good).  Looking up about 2000′ above us and I saw something.  It was a Bighorn.  So now I get to tell Roxie where it is.  Not an easy task to try to tell someone which rock(s) out of thousands they should look at to see something that was so minuscule.  However she was able to see it.  I tried to tell others as they passed by but they weren’t able to see it.  But I do have proof:

Look for the arrow and this was at maximum zoom on our camera.

We were able to complete our hike but we were pretty beat.  It was very warm at the end.  We had just purchased some water backpacks and were depleted also.  We went back to the trailer and rested a bit.  The next day we took our requisite trip to Julian.  It was about the same as it was before but we always enjoy going there.

You can see Rich Luhr’s account of their Anza Borrego trip at his blog.

Here is a shot of our trailer at Anza Borrego and a shot of my parents trailer many years ago.  Same campground but a different spot.

Now it is time to leave.  Do we go straight home in one day?  My birth grandmother lives in Riverside and we haven’t seen her for 4 years so we will see where we can stay for the evening.  Riverside does not have too many places to camp and a weekend is coming up.  So we try for another first and see if we can take advantage of some courtesy parking.  The WBCCI has a listing for that in the membership roster book but Airforums also has a place to list such.  We looked for someone in Riverside and found Towster!  We had met Vince and Virginia at some other rallies but did not know they lived in Riverside and we contacted them about parking for one evening.  They graciously agreed and even moved their trailer so we had room for ours:

We attempted to repay them for their kindness by taking them out to eat that evening.  It was nice to visit with them and get to know them better.  Sometimes it is hard to talk to people at the rallies since there are so many people.  We were able to visit my grandmother twice while we were there and then we pushed on home on Saturday.

A good trip, not rushed, a couple of firsts for us and new Airstream friends (Ken, Petey, Adam, Susan, Vince and Virginia).

• Airforums groups , Airstream , Trips , WBCCI
• Comments(1)

caadoptees April 6th, 2009

We got notice that some friends were going to be in Anza Borrego SP over New Years so we thought we would try to join them.  I had the days planned out but I could not get any reservations actually IN the park but I did in an RV park just outside.  However plans get changed.  We had a family illness that needed attending so we canceled this trip.  But I was looking for another time to get away to replace this.

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…

• Airstream , repairs , Trips
• Comments(0)

caadoptees May 5th, 2008

One of the trips discussed at the AirForums was one to San Felipe, MX. We had been two other times with some other friends. It is a nice place to go and relax. This time we were going to go to a different place in San Felipe. As the plans were being formed it appeared that 5-7 Airstream units were showing up. As time got closer, people dropped out. It ended up being us and Ron and Debbie in their Airstream motorhome.

We left home on a Wednesday with reservations at an RV park in El Centro. We were to meet Ron and Debbie there to ‘caravan’ together down to San Felipe. The drive is a 400 mile trek for us and it seemed we would never get there. We left about 8:30am and go there about 12 hours later. We made SO MANY stops but we kept telling ourselves we are in no hurry. I also was trying was to slow down with the trailer for safety and MPG, more on that later. We got there and did not disconnect. I just connected the electric and put down the corner jacks. I took a shower and we went to bed, Roxie a bit sooner than I. It was weird to not disconnect but it sure made it easier in the AM.

We got going around 9am, made it through the border with no incidents. They asked if I brought any weapons (I didn’t). The drive took us about 2 1/2 hours. We stopped by to see Ron and Debbie’s house they are building down there and then went on to Playa Bonita. It was a little interesting to get into the RV ‘park’. I had to pull past the gate, back up a road to the left so I could align myself to go through the 10′ gate. We had the second spot from the water reserved (Ron and Debbie had the closest one), but when we got there we thought the third one looked better, it was much shadier. Her is a pic.

Here is the view from our trailer.

The beach was about 30 steps from our trailer. We went down there quite a few times. The RV ‘park’ also has condos there. It does have full hookups with 30amp service and good water pressure.

We went into town a few times to walk around, have some Mexican food and buy souvenirs. You can get 2 fish tacos, rice and beans for about $2.50 US. Everybody is very friendly and always trying to sell you something.

On Saturday we went to the 2nd Annual San Felipe Blues Festival. We started at 10:30 but it was pretty sunny later in the day so we bugged out back to the trailer (about 2 blocks) for a siesta. We went back about 6 and stayed to the end. It was fun, there were good bands and some not so good bands. It was fun to watch all the people which were primarily Americans that had moved down there. Very few local Mexicans there.

We finished up on Sunday by picking up some more things for people back home. I got my boss and one of my staff (we had a contest) 2 wrestler masks (like in the movie Nacho Libre). They all liked them. I also filled up the truck with diesel at a PEMEX station.  It was $2.10/gal!!!!   Wish I had a bigger tank with me.  Earlier that day Roxie got up early to take this shot of the sunrise (we are on the east coast of Baja).

Monday we made it back to the states. Ron and Debbie went via the east border checkpoint. We had always gone through the main one in downtown Mexicali. Once we got in line it took us about 15-20 minutes to get through. I guess it helped to have a unfriendly border guard. We said goodbye to Ron and Debbie in El Centro and we headed on to Anza Borrego State Park.

I had always remembered going here as a child in our Airstream so instead of heading home in one day we spent a couple of nights there. It is very quiet at night there and Roxie got a bit spooked when she heard coyotes in the distance yipping away.

On Tuesday it was very windy so we thought we would take a trip out of the desert. I remembered that the town of Julian was close by. Julian holds an interesting place in the Smith family history. Back in 1969, my parents tried to buy some land in Julian. The idea was to build a KOA kampground there. We were very close to purchasing the property when a bizarre thing happened. The lady that had the property also had a donkey, supposedly a world famous donkey. The donkey died, the lady buried it on the property and then she decided that she could not sell the property anymore. If that would have gone through, my life would have changed drastically. I am happy how it has turned out so far. I tried to find out some information about this lady and where the property was but the historical society was closed.

We headed back home on Wednesday. We were surprised to see someone towing a Bowlus on the freeway near Redlands. It had a few windows out and the front door was either open or gone. It had temporary tail lights and the axle did not look correct. But it sure was neat to see one. There was no reaction from the driver as we passed.

Since we came down through the LA basin we returned via I-15 through Victorville and the high desert. However this time, in a change of pace, we took State Route 18 (which becomes 138) to Palmdale. We normally go to State Route 58 then down through Bakersfield. We stayed on 138 which would take us to I-5 near Gorman. We were surprised to see a HUGE amount of California Golden Poppies in the fields and on the hills.

We find out further down the road that this is the location of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.  Very nice this time of year.  It was a nice way to end our trip.

I have other photos at my Flickr account if you would like to see them.

I mentioned previously about going slower in our trailer.  I thought I would run an experiment on this trip regarding safety and MPG.  This post by Rich Luhr got me thinking this way.  At 60mph, it is easier to handle the trailer, it is not too noticable since my truck outweighs the trailer by 50%.  I don’t have to worry about law enforcement at all.  I can cruise right on by a CHP with radar at 60mpg.  I don’t have to worry about passing anyone.  When is the last time you saw anyone doing 55 on the freeway?  The biggest plus is the MPG.  I have an option on the truck where one of the displays shows your MPG.  I don’t rely on it too heavily but on the trip down to Mexico, it never went below 15mpg.  I will take that ANY day while towing.  I did keep track of the entire fuel cost ($387), mileage (1290) and gallons (95.7).  My MPG for the whole trip was 13.48.  It could have been better but we had horrendous headwinds by Palm Springs and the high desert.

I am convinced about towing at 60MPH.  I normally would tow at 65 and if I had on this trip it would have saved us a total of less than 2 hours of time.   My MPG would have been down to around 11-12 so we also saved there.

• Airstream , Trips
• Comments(1)