Nuestra casa rodante – Our Airstream, travels and such…

roger October 8th, 2009

Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday, it will be explained further down.

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!!!

• Airstream , Albuquerque Balloon Festival , F250 , Trips , repairs
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roger October 6th, 2009

Today the Balloon Fiesta is over for us.  I am sure there will be more coming in for this weekend but it is time to hook up  and head on out.  However, before we left we were treated to another show.  We rolled out of bed at an earlyish time but not too bad.  We saw balloons floating over our trailer like the previous morning.  They were taking off from the field and heading south with the wind.  Many went directly over our trailer.

This wave of balloons cleared our parking area and we noticed another wave from the north coming in.  They would descend by the field, drop their marker (like the previous morning), then pop back up and continue on.  The vast majority of them continued to the south but a few actually set down behind the motorhomes about 3 rows back from us.  This was pretty impressive to see that maneuvering.  We turned to look at another coming in, lower, lower, lower, boom.  He landed right next to one of the Airstream rows and right behind our traveling buddies, Bob and Phyllis.  The pilot asked the group around the basket to help hold the balloon in place until his chase crew could get there.  Naturally, he got full compliance.  In this picture you can see Bob and Phyllis having a great time (they are the ones looking at the camera and beaming from ear to ear and their trailer is in the background).

Roxie was right there also helping out.

The crew got the bag deflated and down to the ground.  Again they asked for help to get the air out of the bag and there went everyone again.

Everyone involved really enjoyed it and I enjoyed watching them.  There were enough hands already.

We got back on I40 W and backtracked a LOT today.  We made it to Holbrook, AZ and are at the KOA tonight.  We both had nice long hot showers in their restrooms.  We dumped both our tanks and now we are somewhat back to normal.  We will head to Cottonwood and the Dead Horse Ranch State Park tomorrow.

• Airstream , Albuquerque Balloon Festival , Trips
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roger October 1st, 2009

Flagstaff got to 24 degrees overnight but we stayed pretty toasty inside.  I was pretty beat and slept until about 9am.  I then remembered about getting that sticker for the transmission that would show what temperatures it was reaching.  I popped up then Bob and I went down and got one.  It doesn’t exactly work like a mood ring where it changes colors based upon heat.  This one has dots that change turn a color when it reaches each temp level but do not change color back.  It will show what the max was.  Fine with me.

Some other Airstreamers were going to have breakfast in Flagstaff then stop for lunch in Winslow.  Now Winslow is only 50 miles away from Flagstaff so we thought that is awfully close to have breakfast and then lunch.  We decided to leave a bit closer to lunch so we would be in Winslow at lunch.  The planned location was the La Posada hotel.  A former railway hotel that fell into disrepair but now is being restored to its full glory.  We pulled up and found 3 Airstreams already there.  The hotel is beautiful.  We headed straight to the dining room and got a table.  Bob went over to the only table that had more that 4 people at it and found those were the Airstreamers.  We talked a bit with them but they were already finished eating and were preparing to leave.  Not a problem.  We went and sat down to check the menu.

The waitress had a suggestion of the tacos made with Filet Mignon.  3 of us chose those.  Roxie chose red corn tortilla taquitos.  None of us were disappointed and the prices were very reasonable.  Roxie also tried their Black Bean/Creamed Corn soup which she loved.  The chance for dessert came, Bob and Phyllis ordered a bread pudding with many types of nuts and fruits in it (terrible description).  We had creme brule.  Both of them were very good but the bread pudding was the best.

There is another thing Winslow is famous for.  Do you know it?  The Eagles made this town very popular with their song “Take it Easy”.  There is a reference to ’standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona” (sing it if you know it).  Well we had to go to THE corner.  We had to take some pictures.  I had to play the song for Roxie afterward on the iPod.  It was a weekday so it wasn’t busy at all.  We did the photo exchanges (all these will be on Flickr when I return).  Here is one of the corner that the city has setup.

When we looked at the clock we realized that we had spent 2 1/2 hours in Winslow.  Wow!  We still had 180 miles to go.  Time to get on the road.  We left Arizona, eventually and entered New Mexico.  We got to the Grants KOA around 7pm (their time).  We were the last two RV’s in the campground as they were full!  I am glad I made that reservation 5 months ago.  There are approximately 20 Airstreams here and we are heading to Camping World to join up with the rest and all go en masse.  Should be fun!

Oh and about my sticker?  Not even the first dot has shown up (190 degrees).  I am not sure if that is good or bad now…

• Airstream , Albuquerque Balloon Festival , Trips
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roger September 30th, 2009

So Needles ended the first day on a hot note.  High 90’s and lots of wind.  We used the A/C all evening.  In the morning the temperature was very temperate.  We were able to see how beautiful the river was right behind our trailers.  Here is Bob and Phyllis:

We hooked everything up and headed on to a relatively short day (200 miles).  We crossed over into Arizona and immediately became the slowest vehicles on the road.  The speed limit in AZ is 75mph regardless of vehicle type.  Well I still stay at 60-65 but even the big rigs were zooming right by us.  Except on the hills where we could pass the loaded ones.

We made a fuel stop in Kingman, AZ and noticed that the old Route 66 took off there.  We had been on this stretch before about 7 years ago on our Grand Canyon trip but don’t remember too much about it.  We thought we might as well do this stretch while we were there.  Great decision.  There was more traffic on this stretch but it was more scenic and more populous.  We were kind of looking for a quaint, Route 66′ish place to eat.  We thought at least one of the towns on the stretch between Kingman and Seligman would have something.  Phyllis produced a printout of a place in Seligman that looked very appealing.  Continuing to enjoy the scenery and nostalgia (even the Burma Shave signs) we headed to Seligman.  We found just the place:

Delgadillo’s Snow Cap drive in.  It was a very fun place and the Delgadillo’s are a very famous part of Seligman.  There were various other shops to purchase touristy stuff, which we obligingly did.  It was odd that for a period of time we were the only primary English speaking people there.  A tour bus dropped of a group of Europeans (I think German) and they milled around.  Later there was a Japanese group.  It was fun to listen to all the languages.

We parted ways with Seligman after almost 2 hours of leisure (sadly missing from our previous day) and stayed on the ‘mother road’ as far as we could.  We were eventually funneled back to I40.  We came across a sign on the freeway before Williams that stated slow trucks next 18 miles.  Usually slow trucks mean a grade but I could not think of an 18 mile grade that I have ever been on.  Well it was a grade and it was almost 18 miles long.  The transmission continued its’ light show but the truck performed just fine.  We made it to the Flagstaff KOA at any astonishingly early time of 4:15pm.  I called a transmission shop and discussed the problem.  I also conversed with my boss, who likes to rebuild vehicles also and every concurred that there was something probably bad with the sensor.  I am going to the transmission shop in the AM to get a type of temperature gauge for the outside of the pan.

We setup the trailers and decided to try another discovery from Phyllis, the spot this time: Miz Zip’s.  Very good food.  Chicken Fried steak with mashed potatoes was highly rated by the girls.  The guys liked the Roast Beef dinner.  We ALL loved the Peach pie with ice cream, even me and I don’t care too much for fruit pies.  We made a few more house keeping stops and came back to the trailers.  So what is the cold part regarded in the title?  The temperature tonight is supposed to be 32.  What a difference a day makes.

• Airstream , Albuquerque Balloon Festival , F250 , Trips
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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
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caadoptees April 27th, 2008

As part of my job in the local education field there are meetings to go to. Oftentimes these meetings are in Sacramento. This was one such time. I had meetings on the Thursday and Friday before spring break was starting for our daughter so we thought it would be good to incorporate a mini-vacation into this.

I took the trailer up to the Sacramento KOA on Wednesday. This was the first time I have ever towed the trailer any distance by myself and I DID NOT hit anything (so there Rich)! I went to my meetings. I remember some of them comparing what they were paying (or rather their offices) per night for motels. I stated $160, then I added that was for 4 nights. All of their prices were for one night. I stayed two nights by myself (another first) and then Roxie and Hannah came up on the Amtrak and I picked them up. Coincidentally our niece had a birthday party that we attended on Saturday. We headed over the San Francisco on Sunday.

We stayed at the San Francisco RV Resort, south of SF in Pacifica. I investigated the other RV park, down by Candlestick park but it did not seem appealing. Kind of like the park at CAL Expo. The location of the SF RV Resort is great. Right on the ocean, we were backed up to the cliff. The showers are EXCELLENT and the restrooms are very nice also. The entire park is asphalt and there are many ‘permanents’. The spots can be short and they want you to keep all vehicles within the lines. This posed to be a problem since we didn’t get the spot that we reserved.

I emailed to change our reservation back one day and I stated this. However, I also gave them the wrong dates, I added one day AND one month. They followed the ‘new’ dates. When we checked in, there was no reservation. Since they were not busy we still had a spot but it was shorter than the one reserved. This meant we couldn’t actually get both vehicles in the space. So we parked next to our trailer. It turned out that no one bothered us about it.

The first day we drove to the South San Francisco BART station. I chose this one over the Colma station because the parking was free at SSF. We rode it downtown and were planning on riding the Cable Cars to Fisherman’s Wharf and do the ‘tourist’ thing. The Cable Car line was very long. I remembered that the SF Muni system had a line of streetcars that they have acquired from other cities and it ran between Market St and the Wharf. However, that line was too long also. We asked at the Muni desk and they told us to take the 30 route. It was fun to take a local route and see a different route that we would normally see.

The Wharf has become very much more shopping oriented, lots of stores on the streets. Roxie and I remember when it was still more of a true wharf where the catches were brought in and distributed immediately. We had lunch at a restaurant called Capurro’s. It was a very nice place, nice atmosphere and good food. The manager(/owner?) was very friendly. Recommended. The last stop was Pier 39. I had never been there. It was more food and shopping. Here is a photo from there.

The next day Hannah decided to stay at the trailer and live on the internet all day. Roxie and I went across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Monument. Muir Woods is a very nice and relaxing place. The road to get there is very exciting (no trailer this time). We took the walk, saw a banana slug and another grove of Redwoods that we have not seen before. After Muir Woods we went to Sausalito for lunch. We drove down the main street, past the GEORGEOUS view of SF but did not find anything that looked interesting. We turned around (on some pretty interesting streets for the truck) and back again. We settled at Saylor’s Restaurant. I was very pleasantly surprised. I had probably one of the best restaurant burgers that I ever had, also recommended. On the way back ‘home’ we went through part of the Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

While we were gone, Hannah called and talked about a para-sailer that was flying around behind the trailer. In reading some of my blogs that Bobby, Danine and Elise saw the same thing shortly after we were there.

The third day we went to the Exploratorium. We got there just at the time that schools were leaving so it worked out real well. There were many different exhibits as usual but we unable to make it to the Tactile Dome.

One thing that I found interesting was driving over the hill in Pacifica. We were without the trailer and came over a hill. A sign stated that it was a 17% grade coming up. I was amazed that there was a street with that type of grade. There may be some in SF that are more but this was pretty interesting. We turned the corner and there was a sign about an 18% grade(!) coming next. It was fun!

We then had our usual drive home, the worst part of any trip.

• Airstream , Trips
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