Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Sleeping in the RV comes with getting up with the sunlight, so we were up at 7:30am. Jack and Sharon usually start their days even earlier. Sharon had made a egg scramble with vegetarian Field Roast sausage and cheese, which was quite delicious.
We were on the road by 9am and made a diesel stop at the Costco in Vancouver WA, where the diesel was $5.159/gallon. More notable was the fact that the diesel nozzle fitted to the pump was actually a gasoline nozzle, which has a smaller diameter than a proper automotive diesel nozzle by about a quarter inch. Our Mercedes Sprinter based chassis is equipped with a “Misfuel Prevention Device” which doesn’t allow a gasoline nozzle to be introduced into the fuel filler neck. There is actually a metal flap that keeps it snapped shut. Fortunately, Ben had discovered this potential problem when trying to see if a Jerry can could be used to fill up the RV without bumping the side of the RV. The solution is an emergency refueling adapter sold by Volkswagen for their TDI series diesel powered passenger cars. This is funnel like device slips into the fuel filler neck because it is the correct diameter for an automotive diesel filler nozzle. It can also be used with extra large diameter commercial truck stop diesel nozzles, which are much larger in diameter (1.25”). This also allows Jerry cans with vinyl hose extensions to be inserted past the protective flap and into the filler neck.
Ben had ordered one from Amazon and kept it in the door pocket of the driver side door, so problem averted with some good fore-planning. Ben did drop a note in the warehouse’s suggestion box pointing out the wrong nozzle size. This was the first time Ben has encountered a wrong sized nozzle on a diesel automotive filler pump nozzle.
We had a glorious weather day for our drive through Oregon- blue skies and temperatures in the 60’s.
The RV had no trouble handling the passes where semi trucks were crawling up in the right lanes with their blinkers on. At the top of those passes, we weren’t doing 70mph, but neither was most of the other traffic. We never held up any traffic. The cruise control does an excellent job of maintaining downhill speeds through downshifting, so there was no need to manually downshift to save on brake usage.
We made a diesel stop in Crewell OR, where the Gas Buddy app showed there was a Union 76 Station selling diesel for $4.99. We had been fooled before in Arlington, but this station really did have diesel for $4.99 credit, and it was a very nice station with large convenience store, spacious and clean bathrooms, and lots of pumps and maneuvering space for our RV. Ben took advantage of the low price to fill up the Jerry cans with 15 gallons of diesel in case we need it to get through Death Valley. The RV had gotten 15.8mpg on this leg of the trip. It was mostly flat terrain at 65-70mph.
We arrived at our destination for the night around 3:45pm, the Climate City Brewery in Grants Pass, OR. We have driven through Grants Pass innumerable times in the past, but never actually drove down to the historic downtown district, where this brewery was situated. They had a nice level and paved parking lot beside a small creek where Harvest Host guests can park their RV’s.
We had a nice walking tour of the historical district which is filled with cute brick faced restaurants, shops, bars and galleries, very much like Pioneer Square in Seattle, but without the homeless drug addled and violent denizens lurking in every doorway and alley. The people in Oregon are very friendly and the atmosphere throughout the historic district was relaxed and congenial. Lots of people were sitting at tables on the sidewalks enjoying their meals, drinks and company.
We ordered a flight of 6 beers and their mushroom and Diablo burgers with sides of sweet potato fries and Cajun tots.
It was a very comfortable evening to dine out on their terrace adjacent to the creek.
The burgers and sides were very tasty and well prepared. The beers were also very good. Janet’s favorite was a guest dark beer called Mothership. Ben liked their Rainyfalls Red ale and Citra Citra Citra IPA best. The flight of 7 beers was only $7, plus the waitress threw in the Mothership for free, which was a nice dessert. It was nice we didn’t have to drive home afterwards.
They did have wifi in the outdoor seating area, but the signal strength did not reach to the parking lot. Fortunately, they had strung some lights across the bridge between the restaurant and the parking lot, and that LED light string had an open 120v plug on the end intended for extending strings of the lights. The wifi signal was ok on the bridge, so Ben plugged in the Netgear Trek travel router into the end of the LED light string, logged it into the Climate City Brewery wifi using an iPhone as a terminal, and used it to successfully extend the wifi to the RV. We were able to stream the first episode of Season 5 Better Call Saul on Netflix and watch the streaming versions of the evening news broadcasts.
We had parked the RV adjacent to the creek, but didn’t bother to use any leveling blocks. This put us in a slight head down slope on the bed, but we slept pretty well, aside from hearing a freight train coming through town about 300 yards from us at 11:30pm and again at 5:30am. It was slow moving, and not particularly troublesome. It seems only fitting to have railroad tracks nearby, since in our experience, you almost always find railroads tracks and RV parks located together. The temperatures had cooled down from being near 80˚F during the day to the mid 60’s during the night.
Ben had mounted a battery/solar powered motion detector light on the rear of the RV to protect the cargo carrier, but discovered it was too sensitive, turning on with any passing traffic on the road until the sensitivity was turned way down. It ended up being entirely unnecessary because there was essentially no pedestrian traffic and minimal vehicular traffic by the Climate City Brewery parking lot after 10pm. The Brewery had closed down at 8pm, so it was very quiet. Since we were the only RV in the lot, it was also much more private than a typical State Park campground or private RV campground.
