Category Archives: Enhancements

Back in the 48

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We got Roxie’s SCS battery replaced and still ended up waiting another week for her followup appointment. All was good and we headed back on the road. We were a little gun shy about the change in the weather. You could feel it in the air. We decided to head directly back to the lower 48 as we had a date to be somewhere. However, we kept track of the places we passed to visit in the future.

We headed to Tok for a night, entered back into Canada and spent one night at Cottonwood RV Park on the shore of Kluane Lake. This RV park has some wonderful views:

We dry camped here as their power is via a generator. They only allow 15 amps so that really doesn’t help us at all. We can’t do the microwave with it, nor did we need the A/C.

The next one night stop was Hi-Country in Whitehorse YT and then on to Watson Lake and the provincial campground there:

You can barely make out the lake through the trees

At Watson Lake, we changed our route off the AlCan highway to take the Cassiar highway down through British Columbia. This is a much less traveled path, much more beautiful and much more remote! It took us 2 days to traverse the road and we had ZERO cell coverage. I am not sure if that is good or bad.

We stayed at Kinaskan Lake campground for one night. It was a wonderful campground, almost all spots were on the lake and quiet (except during generator times from that big bus a couple of spots away). Here views from the evening and the next morning:

Sitting by the lake
Smooth as glass!
A bit different the next day!

At the end of the Cassiar is the town of Hazelton, BC. This worked out great to be our next stop. We stayed at the ‘Ksan Campground. It is set in a historical village of the local indigenous peoples.

One interesting part of this was the bridge we went over to and from the campground, the Hagwilget Canyon Bridge. It is a single lane suspension bridge and was exciting.

Since we were back in civilization we made a quick stop at Walmart in Prince George BC and spent one night south of there at Mama Yeh RV Park (they are Passport America). The road south of Prince George as you start to enter the Frazier River valley is very beautiful as well as the valley itself. Nice rolling hills and green everywhere. Another overnight near Clinton BC at the Willow Springs RV park as we continue our trek back to California to help Roxie’s sister with her total knee replacement surgery.

Once we entered the Frazier River valley, it was a lower altitude and warmer. Our last stop in Canada was at the Chilliwack Walmart. This was our ninth night in a row on the road back with each stop only one night. Time for a rest. Our border crossing back to the US was pretty easy. They asked us about food and we had avocados and apples. They pulled us over and the AG guy came by but we were safe since the items were from the US. Great!

We stopped in Mt Vernon WA for 3 nights. This gave us time to visit Roxie’s nephew who lived in the area. That area, north of Seattle, is very beautiful and the weather was great. We got to decompress a bit before we headed south. As we left the campground, I heard a loud noise from the left rear of the trailer. The ingress/egress to the campground was a bit steep so I thought that I just scraped the tail in the gravel. We stopped down the road a bit further for a bathroom break. While parked I noticed my stabilizer jack, on the left rear, was bent all out of shape! I had forgotten to raise it as we were leaving the RV park. This is not normal for me but it happens. I spent about 30 minutes removing the old jack.

The dead jack. RIP

We stopped for another 3 nights at the Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland WA. While there we had a couple pull in next to us in a brand new Airstream. This was their first Airstream and the first trip in it! We were able to talk with them a bit and help answer some questions they had. I am confident they will have many years ahead of them of fun travels.

On our way through Portland, we stopped at the Airstream dealership. This is where we initially purchased our trailer. I needed some parts for our step as one of the washer assemblies had failed. I got 3 sets of parts.

Our final destination was Redding but we were a bit ahead of schedule so we headed to San Francisco to visit our family there. We stopped at an Escapees park in Sutherlin, OR, a single night in Yreka CA at the Waiiaka RV Park.

Mt Shasta

The next overnight was a freebee in Corning at the Olive Pit restaurant. Another one night stop in Rio Vista by Sacramento delta. The last stop was in South San Francisco to stay at our usual stop (Treasure Island RV).

Treasure Island has changed. It appears they are trying to get out a lot of the older full-time units. They parked us in a spot where there was no possible way for me to park. After calling management, the directed us to a new spot. This spot was very tight also. It took me about 15 minutes to get parked. The guy behind us was not happy that I was so close but what else could I do?

Encroaching on our neighbor!

The park said this was a 35′ site but no way! Our trailer is 31′ and we are past the end of it. Now I was thinking about how I might get out of the spot. There was a pole right next to the trailer at the front:

There really wasn’t enough space to exit to the right especially thinking about the tail swing. The solution I saw was to go directly through the opposing set of spots.

Our escape route!

After our visit, we hadn’t been there for over 10 months, we used our escape route and headed to Redding. We stopped off in Chico (I went to school there for 3 years) for 3 nights. Before we took the trailer to the RV park in Redding, I checked with a local welder.

Whenever I set up our satellite I like to secure the dish to the trailer. It is easy in the front as I just use the A-frame. In the back of the trailer I have always had to use the stabilizer jack for the security cable. I believe doing this the last time, north of Seattle, messed with my sequence. I left the jack down because I had to remove the cable. This is it looks under the trailer:

I had the welder do this to give me a security anchor:

We are in Redding for about a month now and will then go back and visit our son in Visalia after that.

My next post will be an Alaska recap.

A few projects

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Since our trailer was a 50amp model it came with two Air Conditioners.  This meant no Fantastic Fan above the bed.  This also meant there was no direct source for airflow to us, like no ceiling fan (in household terms).  When it gets hot it is nice to have a fan blowing on you.  I found a Vornado fan at Target that would work and we put it on the floor, blowing up to the bed.  This was adequate, but I wanted more.  I wondered how I could mount the fan on the wall but didn’t want it adding weight to the wall as we were driving down the road.  I put a hook in the wall where we can hang the fan when needed:

We have been having some issues with our walls in the trailer sliding inward as we travel.  Some of the movement is close to 1 inch.

These walls were very cheaply made in Airstream and no require reinforcement, Airstream just stapled the corners together and covered them with trim.  The first wall is the hallway wall for the bathroom that attaches to the wall in the bedroom (behind the bathroom).  I took a 1×2 and mounted it vertically and screwed the walls together:

Inner structure

Hall wall with structure screws covered by trim

Bedroom wall with structure screws covered by trim

Another location of poor wall construction is next to the refrigerator.  There is a small 45-degree wall there but all Airstream did was put screws through a panel and into the next.  These panels are really thin and don’t have anywhere to bite:

I shored these walls up with some better anchor points and re-attached them with screws:

The part of the wall that is most concerning to me is the wall between the bedroom and bathroom.  The first picture shows the gap.  I put some brackets in the floor and secured the base of the wall (we will see if that works):

One problem we have been having is with our Dometic thermostat.  It consistently shows a different temperature (hotter) that just a few inches away.  I attributed this to having a large hole in the wall where the thermostat attaches to the wall.  Behind this wall is the side of the refrigerator and a lot of hot space during the summer temperatures.  We found a few bamboo flooring samples from a local home store and moved the thermostat up (so we could see it behind the TV) and to cover up that large hole.  Also filling in behind the new bracket with some foam has solved the issue.

Another upgrade was the TV in the bedroom.  The old setup was a 22″ that came from the factory:

This was the only place for one in the bedroom since there was a sliding door on the other wall to close off the bedroom.  I removed that door almost a year ago as we did not use it.  The gave us the option to put a 32″ TV on that wall:

A huge upgrade was accomplished in changing our sliding doors in the hallway wardrobe.  One of the selling points, for me, was the large wardrobe that this floor plan offered (twice the size of the 30′ Classic).  However, the doors would continually jump off the tracks.  Some on Airforums found the same problem and posed some solutions.  None of them worked very well.  Airstream themselves moved away from the sliding doors in the next two model years and created hinge-attached swinging doors but they were almost $1400 for the parts!

Enter Willard Amtower.  He saw a post about the doors and contacted me.  He had full plans for creating new sliding doors with appropriate hardware to not jump the track.  I did it.  I did not use as nice wood that Uncle Bill did but it sure works great!  Heavy mirrors, heavy hardware and tracks to keep it in place.  We have done about 1600 miles on the new setup with no issues.  Here are some pics:

I was able to find a good handle match also (original and additional):

Uncle Bill also showed me one more trick.  Our water pump can be turned on/off in two locations, the kitchen and the bathroom.  This requires a 3-way switch so you really cannot tell if the pump is operational by switch location.  I was replacing the water pump because the backflow valve was faulty and I wanted a more efficient one.  Bill showed me that he simply added an LED indicator that was tied to the water pump.  When the pump was energized the LED was on:

I like it but I used an LED for a truck trailer side marker so it might be a bit bright.

So far, I am very happy with all these modifications.  Am I done?  I will never be done.