A couple of glitches......

 7:03 am - Friday - April 14th - LPG&RVR - 25° F, 69% humidity, wind zero mph out of the west by southwest....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 55° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Savannah, GA visiting Colonial Park Cemetery......↴

It was very cold Thursday morning....cold enough that I turned on the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 block heater so it would start easily around 9 am when we planned to depart the Elks Lodge.  The last time it was cold enough that I needed to put on gloves to stow the Starlink dishy, and our shore power cord was here at the Elks Lodge last April on our way to LPG&RVR.  That day it was snowing....it was just plain cold this year.

By the time 9 am rolled around the sun was out in full force, and even though the temperature was only just hitting 36° F, there was no wind, and the warmth of the morning sun made the difference.  We had reinserted the VW, and were on our way by 9:10 am northbound on Kimmerling to Highway 88 eastbound, which would deliver us back to US-395 northbound.  In a little over an hour we were just north of Reno and re-entering Northern California where we will be residing for the next 6 months.

As is often the case on this stretch of  US-395 there were very few cars going north, or south.  Most of the traffic we experienced was of the semi truck variety, and it was very light.  The drive was just as beautiful as always, and there was the added beauty of all the snow on the local mountains, plus bodies of water large and small where none had been the year before.  There was a lot of standing water on each side of the two lane highway, as well as out in the pastures....it is going to be a wet Spring.  At any rate, the drive was mostly uneventful, however there was one small glitch as we passed through downtown Reno.

Our Newell has two chassis heaters (heaters which derive their heat from the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 engine coolant).  One of those heaters keeps the water bay warm on super cold days like Thursday, and the other heats the driver and passenger area.  I had both of these heaters running from the moment we left the Elks Lodge, but the chassis heater TLE and I rely upon to keep from freezing suddenly stopped working as we were passing through the interchange with I-80.  The inside temp suddenly went from 'aren't we quite comfortable' to 'let's hang some meat in here uncomfortable' in just seconds.  There was really no place where we could safely pull over to check it out so TLE got my jacket and helped me put it on while I was still driving.  We knew there was a Rest Area about 30 miles north of our position, so we decided to stop there and troubleshoot the chassis heater issue....

Almost to the Rest Area

......the Rest Area is just after Honey Dry Lake comes into view, but it was no longer empty.....in fact it was completely full.....just like Owens Dry Lake on Monday.....

Honey Dry Lake is no longer 'dry'

....we pulled into the mostly empty Rest Area, parked in one of the truck lanes, shut down the engine, and while TLE went outside to take a picture of Honey Dry Lake I opened up the fuse panel which controls most of the 12 volt stuff at the front of the coach.  The fuse for the driver/passenger chassis heater is #13, and it looked intact, so I twisted the glass cylindrical tube fuse a couple of times then flipped the switch for the heater.  What do you know?  The fan came on, and order was restored....

2nd to last summit

A lot of standing water in the Madeline Plains

Last summit before Likely, CA

.....with the chassis heater once again putting us back in 'aren't we comfortable' range we continued ever northward.  Around 12:45 pm we crested the last summit (Sage Hen Summit) and began our descent to Likely, CA, and Jess Valley Road where we made a right turn, and within 1/2 mile we saw the LPG&RVR sign.....

We can see Likely, CA in the distance

Jess Valley Road

Almost there!

.....we covered 730 miles in three days of driving with only one minor glitch, and now we were back 'home' once again for another summer consisting of 4 days of work, and 4 days off to golf, or do whatever we wish.

We returned to our familiar site #55 where we spent last summer.  We had some ideas of how to set up our encampment differently this year, and this is the tentative result.....I'm not sure it will stay this way, but we'll see.  While we were moving the trailer into its position our trailer valet gave up the ghost after 8 years of faithful service.....the second glitch of the day....

It is not supposed to be bent like that

.....we were about 4 feet from where we wanted it, so I had to call our boss, Dennis Tate, and ask him to bring his pickup over and help us move the trailer the final 4 feet.  Once that was done we then attempted to back the Newell into our space the traditional way so the utilities (sewer, electric, water) would be on the left side, but the site was very unlevel in places making it almost impossible to get the Newell level with out contorting it to its extremes, which never works out very well.  In the last couple of weeks the owners laid down a new layer of gravel, and releveled most of the sites, including ours, but it is not level now where we need it to be level for our new orientation.  So, in the interim, until we can get a bucket of gravel delivered to our site to fill in the low spots we had to park the Newell with the driver side facing the street.....

The left rear of the coach is way far away from the utilities, as you can see.

....while we actually like this orientation the best, we are far too far from the utilities, and would need about 50' of sewer hose to reach the sewer connection, which is not very practical in the long run.  We had planned to be mostly setup by late afternoon, but the glitch with the Trailer Valet, and our site being unlevel stalled our plans, so the rest will be done over the next few days once we get enough gravel to fill in all the low spots, and can back the Newell into its permanent summer position.

Thanks for stopping by!