A short one.....

6:59 am - Monday - April 8th - Bishop, CA - 32° F, humidity 60%, wind 7 mph out of the northwest......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 64° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I visited the world famous Antelope Canyon (slot canyon) near Page, AZ.....

.....the view this morning....

I never get tired of this view

 Overnighting in Rest Areas is a crap shoot.  We've had good experiences, and bad experiences, mostly with semi trucks running either their engines, or refers for hours on end.  Our overnight at COSO Station Rest Area was the best of the best....so quiet, and we slept so well.  I always want to say we 'slept like babies', but babies don't really sleep that well, do they?  Anyway, we awoke to sort of cloudy conditions Sunday morning, which gradually cleared as the morning wore on.

We were only going to drive the rest of the way to Bishop, CA (98 miles) on Sunday so getting out on the road early was not needed.  Besides, we awoke to temps in the 30's Sunday, and we needed to use the block heater to start the big Detroit Diesel 6v92.  Around 8:30 am I pulled out our Honda 2000 generator/inverter to power the coach so we could turn on the block heater for about an hour.  By 9:30 am she turned over and roared to life.  These old series 92 engines don't start easily when the temps get way under 50° F, so a little heat makes them more amenable to starting, and it is easier on the engine to boot.

We were on our way and merging onto US-395 northbound shortly thereafter, and the views, as always, were  wonderful....

.....TLE took a short video catching me in the act↗ of singing along to a Bachman Turner Overdrive song.  As we passed by Owens Lake we could see it was still just as full as it was last year when we passed.  Until last winter this was a dry lake bed, and had been so for most of my life....

....with about 32 miles left on our drive to Bishop we stopped at another Rest Area to take a break.  I cleaned the windshield, and took another picture of the eastern Sierras....

....we arrived at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Bishop around noon time, quickly found a spot, plugged into electrical for the first time in a week, deployed the Winegard satellite dish, then the Starlink, and settled into our recliners to enjoy the afternoon, watched a little golf, and the final of the NCAA women's March Madness.....  

....around 3 pm we walked over to Eric Schat's Bakkery (4.5 stars on over 2,500 reviews) for a Hot Pastrami sandwich, and a couple of cups of Joe...

Both pictures courtesy of Yelp

....their Hot Pastrami sandwiches are quite large, so we split one alfresco.  If you are ever in Bishop, or Mammoth Lakes for that matter, you must stop and check them out!  The air temp was only in the high 50's at 3 pm, so jackets and pants were required for the 1 mile round trip walk.

We spent the evening watching the finals of Tournament of Champions (a cooking show), and were in bed by 10 pm.  Monday we'll cover just 156 miles, but we'll be climbing over passes and summits all day long before arriving in Minden, NV early afternoon, where we'll spend a couple of days shopping (COSTCO and TJ's), and visiting with friends before continuing to LPG&RVR on Wednesday, where it is still winter, and the forecast shows rain and snow for opening weekend....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

A new Newell world record!

7:11 am - Sunday - April 7th - Olancha, CA - 39° F, humidity 58%, wind 2 mph out of the west by southwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of 60° F....heading back into winter...lol!  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were hiking the Honiker Trail down to the San Juan River near Goosenecks, UT......

I was awake around 4:30 am thinking about how many miles I would have to drive Saturday, and decided getting an early start would give us plenty of time to make multiple stops along the way, and still arrive at our destination between 3, and 4 pm.  I was up by 5 am, so we could roll our wheels before 7 am.  You're thinking, that sounds like 7-8 hours of driving, and you might be close.  Since we decided not to drive in the side wind on Friday afternoon and cover at least 120 miles, we had to add those miles to Saturday's already long drive to get our selves back on schedule to arrive in Likely this Wednesday. 

We managed to haul anchor around 6:36 am, arriving at our first stop of the day, the Travel Center in Salton City where we would dump a week's worth of effluent from our waste tanks, then take on 70 gallons of fresh water, and finally top off our propane tank, which we have not filled for nigh unto a year.  We arrived at the Travel Center (Marina Drive and HWY 86) around 8 am, and proceeded right to the dump station.....

....where I attached the sewer hose (to dump) and the water hose (to flush the tank), then proceeded to pay for the dump using the handy POS card scanner at the dump station....

....the old POS scanner required you to be able to read the display screen in direct sunlight, which was almost impossible.   Now, all you have to do is tap your car, and you're done.....nothing to enter, nothing to read.  Once you pay, the cover on the sewer connection can be opened, and you can begin to dump.  Within 20 minutes we were done with stage one, and then it was on to stage two.....refill our fresh water tank....

.....this is always the most time consuming part of the three stage operation, and it took around 25 minutes before the fresh water tank was full.  Then it was on to stage three, top off our 60 gallon propane tank.  It's been a year since we last topped off this tank, and I was expecting to pay for 40-50 gallons.....

....surprisingly we took on just 32 gallons of propane.....WOW!  We've only used half our propane capacity in 12 months!  That is a new Newell world record!  On the other hand, it means we didn't have to pay too much, but remember, it is California.  Propane costs close to $5/gallon here, and we paid almost $150 for just 32 gallons....ouch!

We were back on the road by 9:45 am after this major, but oh so necessary rest stop, and on our way northward.  Within minutes we passed by the Mecca Travel Center (ARCO) where diesel is selling for $5.49/gallon....almost $2 more per gallon than we paid in Yuma......

.....in order to reach our destination (Rest Area at COSO Junction just south of Olancha, CA) we took 9 completely different highways.  We left Yuma on I-8, then headed north on HWY 111 to 86, to I-10, to HWY 62, then 247 to I-15 merging onto 58 to US-395.  We drove a route we have never driven before since it involved fewer long climbs.  Just to get to I-15 in the Pomona Valley we would normally climb to Banning Pass out of Palm Springs, which is about a 25 climb, then descend into the Pomona Valley only to climb Cajon Pass, which is another 20-25 miles...so 50 miles of climbing.  We opted to leave I-10 near Palm Springs and take HWY 62 into Yucca Valley which involved a single 20 mile climb, and from there it was only 4, or 5 short duration climbs to get us to US-395 at Kramer Junction....

Passing through Morongo Valley HWY 62, on our way to Yucca Valley

On California 247 heading to Barstow and I-15

Super bloom north of Kramer Junction

....we took another long stop at Kramer Junction (58 and US-395) before driving the final distance to COSO Junction (south of Olancha).  You can see snow capped Mt. Whitney in the distance as we near COSO Junction.....

....we arrived at COSO Junction Rest Area around 3:45 pm...you can see an extinct volcano just to the south of the Rest Area.....

We quickly found a pull through spot in which to park for the night

.....once we had parked, and leveled the Newell I turned on the inverter to power up the Winegard satellite dish so we could watch the two NCAA Final Four matches.  The sky was clear when we arrived, and the views of the easter Sierra Nevada Mountain Range were spectacular as always....

.....I managed to catch a picture just after the sun slid over the Sierras.  In all we covered 376 miles finding ourselves almost half way to Likely.  This was one of our longest driving days in some time, but now we are positioned to be in Likely by Wednesday giving us 3 days to set up camp before opening day at the golf course.  Last year we covered 368 miles from GNHS to Bishop on our first day of our drive to Likely.  We haven't done that amount of mileage in one day since our first year on the road, and now we've done it two years in succession.  Are we regressing?

Both Final Four games were close matches for most of the game, but each winning team began to pull away in the final minutes leaving just UCONN and Purdue standing at the end.  They will play the final game of this year's edition of March Madness on Monday evening.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Coming up for air......

 7:36 am - Sunday - October 24th - Fontana, CA - 57° F, 85% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the south.....heavy overcast today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were enjoying a spectacular sunset from our site at Seal Rocks RV Cove......↴

I originally thought we had only 163 miles to drive Saturday, but I was off by 25 miles.....our Garmin Trucker informed me when I input our destination Saturday morning that it was, indeed, 188 miles.  As a result we decided to get an early start, and were rolling our wheels out of the long back in site at Boulder Creek RV Resort by 8:20 am.  In the VW we could cover that distance in 3 hours, but in the Newell plugging along at 60 mph, or slower if we are climbing, it takes at least 4 hours with no stops.  You know there are going to be stops.....at least two, and maybe three.

At any rate, we were cruising along at 60 mph just south of Olancha, CA when I happened to glance down at the two air pressure gauges on our dashboard and noticed the air pressure was down to 110 PSI, and falling.  Normally both gauges just sit there at 120 PSI like clockwork  unless I have used the air brakes, but I had not used them since we merged onto US-395 30 minutes before.  As I kept watch on the falling gauge needles my mind began to go through the possible scenarios for what was wrong......was one of my air bags leaking, or one of the two six packs, a broken air line, a malfunctioning compressor, or regulator.....all of which are complicated repairs as parts would take days to reach us.  My mind always goes to the worse case scenario even though I know most of the time it is something simple.

I didn't say anything to TLE initially, but when I saw the next Rest Area was just 4 more miles I told her what I was observing, and what might be the problem(s).  She always remains calm when I give her bad news, and this time was no exception.  By this time the PSI was down to 105, which is not really the danger zone......60 PSI is the danger zone.....if the pressure gets too low the air brakes will lock up brining us to a complete stop, and you don't want that to happen in the middle of the highway, right?

As we came to the left hand turn lane to turn into the Coso Station Rest Area the pressure dropped to 100 PSI......as we exited the highway in low gear I noticed the pressure began to recover, and by the time we parked in one of the pull through spots it was near 120 PSI....whew!  An audible sigh of relief  escaped my lips, and TLE broke out in a smile.  By the time I shut the big Detroit Diesel down the air pressure was reading just over 120 PSI again.  So what happened?  Obviously there could be no leak anywhere because the air pressure recovered while we were sitting there idling at 500 RPM, which means the mechanical pump is turning more slowly. If there was a leak anywhere that would not be enough to overcome the leak.  So, why did the air pressure suddenly build again, and everything return to normal?  I have no idea, but this same thing happened last March on our return trip to Oregon from our one month vacation.  Just outside of Yuma, AZ the same thing happened, but for some reason I interpreted it differently.  The air pressure would drop to just above 100 PSI over 20 miles, then suddenly it would build back to 120 PSI.  This scenario repeated over and over again for the next 150 miles, and then suddenly stopped for the next almost 2,500 miles.....maybe this was a repeat of that?

After calming down for a few minutes, and after I completed a walk around the coach listening for obvious air leaks, we resumed our journey south on US-395, and once again after a couple of miles the air pressure began began to fall over the next 20 miles.  I still wasn't sure what was going on, but wasn't freaked out about it this time.  As the pressure neared 100 PSI again we pulled off the highway at the Shell fuel station in Personville, CA where the same scenario unfolded....as we idled the air pressure recovered.  This was when I remembered what had happened last March, so as we edged back onto US-395 I determined to let the scenario play out without pulling off the highway, and sure enough over the next 100 miles it repeated itself 5, or 6 times, then suddenly stopped between Ridgecrest and Kramer Junction, and did not return again the rest of the drive.....the air pressure remained steady at 120 PSI, and every time we would bleed off pressure by engaging the air brakes it would quickly return to 120 PSI.

Other than that the drive to SoCal was completely uneventful as we quickly devoured mile after mile of US-395 stretching off into the distance.....

Just after we entered US-395 from the Boulder Creek RV Resort exit/entrance

Coming up to Coso Junction Rest Area

Just past Ridgecrest, CA

Approaching Kramer Junction (we call it 4 corners)

Approaching Adelanto, CA and Cajon Pass....you can see the massive cloud bank hovering over the San Bernardino Mountains in the distance

Just as we began the 8 miles of 6% downhill gradient into the Pomona Valley....a little foggy to say the least.  It disappeared after we dropped a few hundred feet in elevation

.....we arrived at the Fontana/Rialto Elks Lodge just before 1 pm, and after removing the Beetle, and the artificial turf we were backed into our site for the next month by 1:30 pm.

So, what caused a repeat of the loss of air pressure scenario from last March?  I still have no idea, but I am going to have the mechanical compressor inspected, as as well as the air pressure regulator.  I can hear no leaks anywhere in the air system, and as I sit here typing the air pressure on both gauges sits at 120 PSI after sitting here for 18 hours, which is what I would expect.

Thanks for stopping by!

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