Back in the 48

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.

…and I will go to Texas

The first part of the above quote is: “You may all go to Hell”, it is attributed to Davy Crockett after he lost a bid to become a congressman from Tennessee. As we are getting back on the road, we are heading to Texas to take care of some medical procedures, since that is our home state. Ironically, as we are also leaving California, I do feel some kinship to Davy and his feelings.

Hold on though, we weren’t leaving California immediately. We headed down to Hemet CA for a few nights. I was hoping to meet with my cousin in the area but schedules did not line up. However, we did meet some very nice neighbors at the Golden Village Palms RV resort. They were fellow Airstreamers and we met them in passing years back at an Alumafandango but we were able to reconnect this time around.

While we were in Hemet we got a phone call from our realtor in AZ that is selling our late mother’s house. She stated there was a water leak in the yard and it appeared to be the water main from the street! We were planning on swinging by the house on our way but this meant we were going to be there a bit longer. Good thing we are retired and had over 2 weeks to get to TX!

We stopped off in Quartzsite for a rainy night.

We took up our normal location in the driveway and coordinated a plumber to repair the water main. We were able to get it done in a very timely manner. We also were able to get a yard service setup. We got moving again after 5 nights.

Our normal parking spot.
Local grocery store ready for customers of a certain age frame.

Last year we stayed for a while at an Escapee’s Co-op park. These are locations where you can purchase an interest in the park which gives you a site to park your RV. You can also augment the site with non-residential buildings to make your life easier. The one we thought we would try is the one in Benson AZ. I was thinking of going to Tucson but this was just a bit south and with their ‘New Visitors’ special, it became very attractive. They also had a place for a week at under $100 (that includes our electrical usage).

The Benson Escapee’s park is very nice. The Co-op portion is very attractive and might be something we look at in the future. We took a few day drives around to Tombstone, Bisbee, etc. One evening we went to see some Airstream friends: Rich, Eleanor, and Emma. The park has a lot of activities to keep their members busy. I went to genealogy talk. They had some outside entertainment one evening and we also attended the weekly music jam:

‘Our’ spot at the Escapees Coop.
Lunar eclipse

Since we spent a well deserved week in AZ it was time to get moving to Texas. We had a bit of ground to cover. We first made to Las Cruces, then into West Texas. This was definitely NOT the beautiful part of the trip. We spent the night in Fort Stockton, TX at a Passport America spot that looks like it caters to the oil industry. It was cold and windy, we even had a few icicles from the water the next morning.

NOT the sign you want to see if you have an Airstream!
Our spot at Fort Stockton, TX
This was the locking system for the door in the restrooms!
However, the paper towels must be GOLD!

We were happy to leave Ft Stockton behind and work our way through West Texas. The next stop was the South Llano River State Park. This was a very nice location. We took a short walk down toward the river, saw numerous birds and where the flooding happened about 6 months ago.

We were able to try out our new fire pit!
Armadillo sighting!

The next stop was Johnson Creek RV park near Kerrville, TX. This time we were there for 2 nights (Passport America) so we could unhook the truck for the first time in 3 nights!

We had made it to our time (Feb 1) to start our month long stay in Henly TX. On the way there, we ran over an oil drip pan on the road and suffered a minor injury to the trailer.

It looks like a simple repair, just have to get the plastic part from Airstream.

Now that we are here, near Austin we get to start our chores!