20240220 Tuesday, February 20, 2024- Off to Dig Razor Clams with the RV and Bronco

 Ben had brought the RV back home from the barn on Sunday and restocked condiments and basics into the refrigerator after dewinterizing and sanitizing the water system earlier in the week.  We received our Bronco in January 2-1/2 years after ordering it from a dealership in Florida.  It had to be trucked from Florida to Washington, but it was less expensive than flying to Florida and driving it back.  Ben worked furiously for the next few weeks getting it ready for road tripping with the RV.  This included getting it fitted with a trailer hitch and wiring so it can tow trailers like the Pacific Skiff, but more importantly it needed to be fitted with trailering lights and an auxiliary brake system so that it can be towed behind the RV safely and legally.  It also needed mud flaps because it’s huge knobby mud/terrain rated tires love to grab onto hunks of gravel and fling them into the rocker panels.  Then there are other things like all weather floor mats, seat back and cargo floor covers, etc.  Ben was able to generate several YouTube videos in the process, which will help others who are up fitting their Broncos.  

There are lots of online posts of horror tales of people who have blown their Bronco transmissions while flat towing.  It is not entirely clear if these are due to user error, or if there is a problem with Ford’s software/hardware interface that is required to disconnect the driveline from the transmission properly.  But having read many of these horror stories, it was with some trepidation that Ben approached this first real trip flat towing the Bronco behind the RV.  

After installing all the necessary hardware, we did test drive the RV flat towing the Bronco around the neighborhood, and everything seemed to work, including getting the Bronco into Neutral Tow Mode and out of Neutral Tow Mode successfully.  

We had everything loaded and hitched up by 10:15am, and headed out, but several miles down the road we realized we had forgotten the State Parks pass, so we looped back home, grabbed the pass and set off for real at 10:45am.  

Our first stop was to refuel the RV and top off the Bronco’s gas tank at the River Rocks Tobacco and Fuel stop by the Angel of the Winds Casino.  This place is well laid out for long towing rigs to pull through, and is one of the less expensive places to fuel up.  Fortunately, with the RV parked where it needed to fuel up with diesel, the Bronco was also perfectly aligned with the next pump so we could do both vehicles without moving between pumps.  

Even though we didn’t need diesel, we did make our customary stop at the Lacey Costco to buy a pizza and rotisserie chicken to sustain us on this trip, as well as some artisan rolls and coffee cake.  We met a couple of ladies in the food court who were wearing bright red Hurtigruten Antarctica coats so we chatted and exchanged stories comparing our Viking Polaris experience with their Hurtigruten Ronald Amundsen experience.  They sounded pretty comparable, although Viking did seem to provide a little more clothing for use on excursions (insulating coat liner, Gortex landing pants and landing boots) that Hurtigruten didn’t provide. For us that was a real convenience because the boots and landing pants would have filled a suitcase by themselves. 

We arrived at Twin Harbors State Park just before 4pm.  The east side of the park is closed due to seasonal flooding, but there were plenty of open dry camping sites in the west side of the park.  Half of that side of the park is also closed due to flooding, but we arrived a day before the razor clam opening, which will be tomorrow afternoon.  The camp ground may be full when we return tomorrow after digging our clams.  

Ben unhitched the Bronco by the registration kiosk and parked it before taking the RV and backing it into a site to call home for the next 3 nights.  It was overcast but not raining so Janet went for a walk around the campground while Ben took the Bronco and previewed the beach at sunset.  There is miles of sandy beach to the south of the Bonge Road access, but the beach north of the access, which is directly in front of the state park, has large patches of pebbly gravel where a few people were looking for agates.  We may have to check that out.

It got dark by 6pm so we had cold pizza and apple for dinner. There is barely one bar of AT&T cellular service in the campground, so no streaming for us.  We read books and were in bed by 9pm.  It started raining around 8pm.  Hopefully we’ll get a break in the rain tomorrow afternoon when we have to dig for clams.