Monday, April 11, 2022. Death Valley North and an encounter with a Haboob.

 Monday, April 11, 2022. Death Valley and an encounter with a Haboob

The winds rocked us through the night but the RV stayed at a comfortable temperature as the outside temperatures had dropped into the 50’s by the morning.  There was no apparent damage to the RV from the winds.  We headed out at 7:30am.  Our first stop was the city of Ridgecrest where we used the bathrooms at Walmart and filled up the RV at the Eastridge Market  on the edge of town with diesel at $5.99/gal.  It took 4.428 gal to fill.  The odometer read 16350.  The mileage since last fill was 15.6mpg.  There is quite a collection of old Air Force and Navy jets on display all around Ridgecrest, and there is a Naval Airstation at China Lake.  

We then headed for Death Valley National Park, going up US 395 from Ridgecrest to Olancha in a valley that runs parallel to Death Valley, where we took on last chance diesel at a Mobile station, adding 4.595gal @$6.599/gal with 16406 miles on the odometer (only 12.2mpg). As we left that filling station, the driver information panel notified me that the DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) level was getting low.  Normally, when that notification comes on, you have a couple hundred miles to go before the computer starts to limit the performance of the engine to prevent people from polluting the air rather than pay for the DEF refills.  The vehicles can run perfectly well without DEF, but they belch emissions that are bad for the planet.  

We  passed the largely dry Lake Owens, lined with salt evaporation lagoons.  This looks like a place that may become more important as demand for lithium skyrockets.  We entered into the West side of the park at the Father Crowley Vista Point.  

Ironically, Father Crowley Vista Point only offers a peek-a-boo look into Death Valley, but is on a ridge that runs along a narrow canyon where Navy and Airforce pilots do low altitude high speed terrain following training.  There weren’t any jets flying when we were there, but they say it’s a popular activity among locals to watch the jets screaming through the canyon at and below eye level, close enough to see into the cockpits as they blaze by.  It’s probably where the Star Wars series got it’s inspiration for the pod racing scenes.

Descending into Death Valley reveals a very primitive and otherworldly landscape with rainbows of colors made by tilted stacks of innumerable oxidizing layers representing a chaotic and violent seismic past.  

We learned that Death Valley has a well deserved reputation for being one of the hottest places on Earth.  This is partly due to a positive feedback loop created by  air being trapped between two very high ridges.  When the sun heats up the surface of the valley floor, hot air rises, but it is trapped between the ridges.  When it cools, it rushes down the sides of the ridges and heats up by compression.  So it ends up being the world’s biggest convection oven.  

From Father Crowley’s Vista Point, we took the Emigrant Canyon Road up to Wildrose, where a CCC camp was based and where a row of charcoal kilns, looking like giant bee hives, stand in a row.  These were used to make charcoal from pinyon pines that was used in smelting silver nearby.  They are quite an interesting and unique sight. They are at the end of a 26 mile long dead end road. 

Along the way, we saw many wildflowers blossoming along the road and we also ran into a herd of wild burros grazing near the side of the road.  

Stovepipe wells is a resort with a general store, campground, cabins and hotel.  Just beyond that is the Mesquite Flat Sand dunes, created by airborne sand being trapped between the upper valley and the mountains blocking the southern exit.  These dunes were reminiscent of dunes we had seen outside Dubai on a cruise ship excursion, but there were no camels in the Death Valley dunes.  

We decided to use our emergency diesel Jerry cans to allow us to drive to the Ubehebe Crater at the north end of the park.  It is at the end of a 40 mile dead end road.  It was formed by rising magma hitting underground water, causing a massive explosion.  There are many such craters in Death Valley.  When these form, they also hurl huge chunks of the overlying valley floor into the sky, landing haphazardly as hummocks around the valley floor.  The wind around the rim of the crater was insane. It must have been gusting at over 60mph.  It was very hard to maintain a grip on an iPhone as you tried to snap pictures while being buffetted.  We could see people down in the bottom of the crater looking like tiny ants.  They must have had their hats blown off into the crater and they had to hike down to fetch them.  

As we drove back from the crater, we could see an ominous dark cloud approaching from the south.  It was a Haboob- a giant sand storm.  It was heading north as we were driving south, and it caught us about 10 miles before the junction of the crater road and other main roads of the park.  It was like driving through a blizzard with very poor visibility. 

We had to slow to 30mph and could only see 100-200 feet ahead of us at times.  As soon as we came to a turn off that would lead us up out of the valley, we took it, but soon found that our RV couldn’t go any more than 25-30mph even with the throttle floored.  The road was uphill, but the RV had not had any trouble going up steeper hills earlier in the day.  Since we had been driving through the Haboob, the thought occurred that the air filter might be clogged.  Looking at the engine performance gauge, which can display real time horsepower and torque output, it was apparent that the engine was in a limp mode, limiting horsepower to no more than 100.  The engine, oil and transmission temperatures were all ok, but with less than 100hp, all we could do is crawl out of the valley at 25-30mph.  The check engine light came on during this time as well.  Besides a possible problem with the air filter being clogged by sand, it is also possible that the DEF warning might be triggering the limp mode.  As we climbed up the valley wall to the town of Beatty NV, we climbed out of the Haboob and onto level ground.  We were relieved that the RV was able to get up to 60mph on the level and downhill, but slowed significantly on hills because of the limitation on horsepower.  

We got to the Amargosa Valley Rest Stop on US95 where we were planning on spending the night.  We refueled the RV.  The convenience store attached to the filling station also sold DEF, so we refilled the DEF tank in case this might have been contributing to the engine being put into a limp mode.  The station also had a well lit parking area and cellular service, so Ben looked up a YouTube video on changing the air filter on a Sprinter, and got to work taking the air filter housing apart.  Sure enough, there was a layer of fine tan sand in the bottom of the air filter intake box, and banging the filter element on the sidewalk yielded a nice pile of fine sand.  We had fortunately packed our portable Dyson vacuum cleaner, which we used to get the sand out of the air filter intake box. 

We will have to pick up a new air filter element at the nearest store that carries them, but we’re hoping that simply cleaning out the sand will allow the RV to exit out of the limp mode.  If not, we’ll have to make a beeline to the nearest Mercedes Benz Sprinter service center, which is in Las Vegas, and skip the second half of our Death Valley tour or Joshua Tree National Park tour to get our RV back into top running form.

Janet encountered burros along the roadside in Amargosa Valley who seem to have made themselves at home. in the city. 

We drove the very short distance from the filling station to the Amargosa Valley rest stop, where we made dinner of Kevin’s Paleo Lemongrass Chicken from Costco and rice in the microwave running on the inverter.  The rice takes 20 minutes and the Chicken with added fresh asparagus took another 10 minutes so that was asking a lot of our lithium batteries.  That dropped them to 59%, but we should be able to get through the night just fine on that before the sun starts recharging them again in the morning.  

Sunday, April 10, 2022. Los Altos to Randsberg CA, outskirts of Mojave desert.

 Sunday, April 10, 2022 Los Altos to Rand Desert Museum

Odometer 15958 @ Eileen’s house.  1019.6mi on trip odometer. 50˚F, partly cloudy at 7:45am.  Forecast is for cooler weather.  OTA antenna scanned lots of channels including at least 12 Vietnamese language channels. Fresh water reading 1/3.  Black 1/3, Grey E, LP 3/4.  Topped off fresh water with hose at Eileen and Tony’s.  

We left Eileen and Tony’s place at 8am and stopped at a gas station in Sunnyvale to fill up, but discovered that station sold only B20 diesel, which is 20% biodiesel.  Our Sprinter can only use B5 or less, so we didn’t fill up.  Yet another new diesel refueling issue to contend with.  Our trip computer said we had a 285 mile range, and 225 miles to get to the Bakersfield Costco, so we headed out.  We took Hwy 101 South from San Jose to the Central Valley where it joined up with I-5.  There are several roadside fruit stands along the foothills between San Jose and the Central Valley advertising avocados 15 for a dollar, but we discovered on a prior trip that these were culled fruit that were barely larger than an avocado pit.  So we didn’t bother to stop.  It is a scenic drive winding through the foothills and then descending into the valley where San Luis Reservoir comes into view.  This appears to be a major source of irrigation water for the Central Valley farms.  Water rights are becoming a major political issue.  There are tractor trailer sized billboards urging California Governor Newsom to “Stop dumping 75% of our dam water in the ocean!” and “Farming water makes food and jobs”.  The extent of the farming in the Central Valley is quite impressive, with fruit or nut tree groves and vineyards extending from east to west across the entire width of the valley.  

Whether due to the pandemic or poor state planning, all the state rest stops along I-5 were closed.  Thank goodness for the town of Kettleman City, which has numerous restaurants and gas stations.  We had lunch at their In-N-Out, which was mad-house busy. There were tour buses full of passengers being disgorged into the parking lot.  Across the street was a new tourist trap called Bravo Land, which had an old Wild West facade and extended along the full length of the block.  It had theme park level children’s play areas including multistory playhouses, arcade games, gift shops and restaurants very much like Wall Drug in South Dakota.  

As we continued our drive, Ben kept an eye on the trip computer Fuel Range on the dash, and Miles to Destination on Apple Maps to make sure we had an adequate buffer, which was about 60 miles.  However, once the fuel range dropped to below 60 miles, the display then changes to “Fuel Reserve”, no longer displaying a miles to empty estimate.  This made the last 60 miles into Bakersfield a little more anxiety provoking, but we did manage to get to the Costco without running out of fuel.  The RV took 22.9 gallons out of a maximum 24 gallon rated capacity.  That was as low as we’ve ever gotten the fuel tank before, but it’s good to know we were able to go 340 miles, even winding up and down through steep foothills.  The calculated to 14.9mpg.  Janet went into the store, which was crazy busy, to grab a chicken for dinner, but there were none ready, and it looked like the rotisserie had at least a half hour wait, so no Costco chicken for dinner tonight.  

As we approached the Mojave desert, we made a last fuel stop in the town of Mojave, taking on an additional 4.55 gal, with a calculated 13.9mpg.  The drive from Bakersfield to Mojave was unexpected hilly, like climbing into the mountains with lots of steep grades with semi trucks crawling up in the right lanes.  There were a few where the cruise control wasn’t able to maintain 65 mph towards the top, but most of the other traffic was also slowed to 55mph.  We didn’t end up causing any traffic behind us at any point despite the grades.  As we crested the foothills, we encountered the largest wind farm we had ever seen or could possibly imagine. Not only were there turbines as far as the eye could see, but along the crest, the turbines were stacked with little ones below the huge ones.  There were also massive photovoltaic solar panel farms covering hundreds of acres.  We did cross an area of Joshua trees as we left the wind farm zone, but as we headed further north, the Joshua trees disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared.  

We arrived in Randsburg, an old gold mining town that now appears to exist to support a thriving ORV community that makes the surrounding desert their playground.  We did see a side by side UTV blasting through the desert kicking up a trail of dust as we approached the town.  The Rand Desert Museum is a Harvest Host site, but the museum has very limited hour.  Fortunately, the host is quite friendly and seems genuinely happy to have guests come visit their little town.  We will be making an online donation to support the museum.  The winds really picked up in the early evening, so we’ll see if we end up being rocked by the wind all night long.  

There was no wifi at this site, but we did have 3 bars of AT&T cell service, so we were able to keep our standing Sunday Zoom meeting with our kids from the Randsberg site.  We made some Birdseye Chicken and Garlic Pasta with added fresh asparagus and toasted English muffins for dinner. We used the induction cooktop and toaster running off the lithium batteries and inverter to see how they would perform.  That drew the batteries down to 75%, but after shutting the inverter down, the projected battery run time with the refrigerator, chargers and lighting was over 22hrs.  Once the sun comes up in the morning, they will recharge via solar.

Tomorrow, we head off into Death Valley National Park.

Saturday, April 9, 2022. Los Altos and Stanford Area

 Saturday, April 9, 2022. Los Altos/Stanford Area

We slept quite well in Eileen’s driveway as the temperatures had dropped into the upper 50’s by morning.  There was no need for AC or heating with the windows opened.  

Tony and Sharlene had prior engagements and Carrie was feeling a bit under the weather, so Eileen, Dave, Ben, Janet, George, and Beth took a morning hike at the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, which is a huge park.  Is very popular with several parking lots that were filled like the busiest Costco parking lot.  We had to loiter and wait for people finishing their morning hikes to pull out so that we could park.  Dave said we had timed it pretty well to be at the start of the second shift.  The foothills were lush and green.  We were greeted at the trail head by a pair of male wild turkeys who were having a gobble-gobble shouting match.  They seemed not the least bit bothered by all the walkers, hikers and bicyclists on the trail within 25 feet of their little squabble.  

There is a huge Bay tree near the trail head as well.  This is the tree that bay leaves that are used for cooking come from. There are informative signs scattered, and there are many different trails going off into the woods, hills and ravines.  Dave lead us on a trail that was about a mile long, ending up at a very cute farm with sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks.  There were baby goats and lambs that were just 2 weeks old.  There were also some historic buildings and a collection of antique farm equipment.  The trail was nicely shaded by trees, and the temperature was in the low 60’s so perfect for the hike.  Although there are lots of people, the trails were more like gravel roads and although it was a lot more crowded than our local Whidbey Island state parks, it was not at all unpleasant, and most of the people were courteous and well behaved.  Dave and Eileen, despite recent health issues, lead the hike at a pace that kept me and Janet scampering along to keep up. 

Tony and Carrie joined us after the hike for lunch at In-N-Out; the novelty hasn’t worn out as of yet for us.

Stanford had an event at the stadium that was like an annual open house with a Stanford college scrimmage in the stadium.  It was Ben and Janet’s first time inside that stadium.  The weather was perfect and comfortable.  It was interesting to see the collegiate football players scrimmaging on the field with lots of Stanford students and alumnus watching.  

 

We then walked around campus a bit, visiting the campus book store and seeing a wedding party exiting out of the Stanford Chapel.  

 

George had a meeting that afternoon with a student alumnus so we split up at that point.  The Stanford campus is quite beautiful and clean, but there is a long line of derelict looking RV’s parked along the main road that runs past the stadium that showed that the homeless problem isn’t just limited to downtown San Francisco or Seattle.  

We rested up a bit back at Eileen’s home, and then got everyone back together at a nearby Vietnamese Pho shop for dinner.  It was very nice to have a mini-reunion among Ben’s 4 siblings.  George’s family was going to have to leave for the airport at 3am to catch their flights back to Seattle, and we plan on heading out to Death Valley tomorrow morning.  

Friday, April 8, 2022. Corning CA to Los Altos CA

 Friday, April 8, 2022.  Corning CA to Los Altos CA

It was fortunate that it had cooled off overnight. It had dropped from 84˚F at sunset to 59˚F the following morning.  We were able to sleep well.  It was very quiet aside from some dogs barking far off in the distance, carrying on some sort of late night doggie gossip line.  While we were sleeping, another Sprinter Van conversion came in and parked near the entrance.  We were up at 7:30am and out the gate by 8:00am, with the owners of the Airstream travel trailer not far behind us.  

We drove directly to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield California where Ben met a couple who had purchased our used Hensley Arrow trailer hitch on Craigslist and had paid by certified check a week earlier.  The check had cleared and the couple was from the Las Vegas area.  They had driven down and spent the night at a nearby hotel to make this rendezvous.  The exchange went smoothly, relieving our RV of a couple hundred extra pounds of weight.  

Jelly Belly mobile

We went into the Jelly Belly factory but were disappointed to see that the factory tours were no longer free, but now self guided and $5 each.  We used the bathrooms and bought several bags of jelly beans in the gift shop.  

The Latest Jelly Bean Portraits, Courtesy of Frozen

We used the Gas Buddy App to find a service station selling diesel at $6.07/gal, the A&A Gas and Food Mart. After pulling up to the pump, Ben discovered the opposite problem with this diesel fuel nozzle than what was encountered in Central Point Oregon.  This one had the larger commercial nozzle with a diameter of 1-1/4”. 

Correct Automotive Diesel nozzle- out of order

Oversized Commercial diesel nozzle.

Once again, the Volkswagen TDI emergency refueling adapter came in handy.  The odometer read 15878 miles and the tank took 12.922 gallons.  It was hard to tell if the tank was really full because the oversized nozzle’s fill sensor doesn’t work with the emergency adapter so it tended to overflow and splash around the adapter.  If the fill was accurate, that would yield only 13.6mpg, one of the lowest recorded since we bought the RV.

We then drove directly to Ben’s sister Eileen’s house in Los Altos.  There was a bit of traffic in San Jose, but we managed to arrive around 1:30pm.  Our RV just barely fit in their driveway next to their Tesla.  The temperature was again in the mid 80’s.  We were able to plug into a 120V 20A outlet in their garage, and thanks to the SoftStartRV modification, we were able to run the air conditioner to cool the RV down to 72˚F, although it took an hour go drop from 86˚F to 72˚F.  We did go for a ride in Eileen’s Tesla Model 3 to grab lunch at In-N-Out.  That was a treat since we’d been craving In-N-Out since seeing the first In-N-Out in central Oregon.  

Ben’s brother George had flown down to the Bay Area with his wife and daughter for a Spring Break get away. They had hit the main tourist sites on their first day in the area, but Beth developed an allergic reaction to a “Beyond Beef” hamburger just as they were leaving the dock in a power boat rental in Salsalito, causing them to turn around and spend the rest of the day in an urgent care facility.  Fortunately, she had a mild reaction that had responded to oral antihistamines.  George came over to Eileen’s, as well as Ben’s other brother Dave, who had suffered a serious heart attack this winter and is still working through cardiac rehab.  His wife has been his private Uber since his cardiologist won’t let him drive until July. Eileen’s husband Tony got take out dinner from Chef Chu’s restaurant, which we enjoyed in a back yard meal with very pleasant conditions as the earlier heat of the day cooled off.  

Everyone got a tour of the RV and we coordinated a plan for tomorrow, with a hike in the morning and a Stanford football scrimmage watch in the afternoon.  Ben got shuttled over to Dave’s home to pick up one of Dave’s cars to use tomorrow since Sharlene has a prior commitment for the day.

Thursday, April 7, 2022. Grants Pass OR to Corning CA

 Thursday, April 7, 2022.  Grants Pass OR to Corning CA

We were up with the sun at 7:30am, and while Janet was a little concerned we might have ended up too warm at night, keeping the roof vent open and the small window in the slide cracked open, kept the inside of the RV quite comfortable without need for either air conditioning or heating.  The batteries were reading fully charged by the time we were ready to pull out of the Climate City Brewery at 8:00am.  

We drove through Grants Pass across the Rogue River and got in work outs and showers at the Grants Pass Planet Fitness. We were also able to refill our drinking water bottles with their filtered water dispenser, and Ben got a 10 minute massage in as well.

Our next stop was the Valley of the Rogue River State Park where we took a nice stroll along the Rogue River.  The far bank was lined with modest dwellings built atop tall cinder block foundations on the steep bank.  The trees are all budding out, but the oaks carry prominent balls of mistletoe in their canopies.  Weather was perfect with temperatures in the 60’s and a cloudless sky.

Our next stop was the Costco in Central Point, just north of Medford OR.  We topped off the fuel tanks with diesel.  The hill climbs dropped or fuel economy back down to 14.1mpg.  When we got there, we saw someone in a very expensive and over 40’ long class A RV had parked near the entrance to the warehouse taking up 8 parking spaces.  Well, he whole heartedly deserved what came next when cars parked in the spaces directly in front of and in back of his sideways parked rig, trapping him in.  We went inside and got hot dogs for lunch as well as some apples.  He was still boxed in when we left.  We, like most considerate RV’ers had parked far from the entrance where there were plenty of open pull through parking spots.

The drive through the mountains between Oregon and California was quite scenic, despite stands of blackened trees from recent wildfires, because the undergrowth was spectacular.  It is striking just how perfect a cone Mt. Shasta has.  It’s like our local version of Mt. Fuji.  But what is startling is how low Lake Shasta is.  The water is more than 125’ below capacity, leaving hundreds of yards between the shoreline vegetation and water’s edge.

We made another diesel stop at the Clear Creek Market in Redding CA where the Gas Buddy app showed a correct price of $5.87/gal.  Many California stations are over $6/gal.

We arrived at our destination for the night around 4pm, the Moonbeam Lavender and Loofa farm.  This is another Harvest Host site where members can spend the night in exchange for patronizing the business.  Tonight, there are 4 RV’s in their very spacious parking area including a Sprinter Van conversion, Airstream 22’ foot towable behind a crew cab 3/4 ton truck, a class B+ Leisure Unity Sprinter based van, and our Sprinter based Class C.

The owner gave us a tour of the Lavender and Loofa farm.  Ben had no idea there were so many different kinds of lavender and that some are used for fragrances, while others are used for culinary flavoring.  Ben also had no idea that Loofas come from a Chinese okra, which starts off looking like a summer squash, but then develops the tough and flexible skeleton that becomes the Loofa you see in stores and catalogs.  We stocked up on a variety of lavender soaps.  

The owner has grand plans for her little farm, including more permanent camping facilities, an Air B&B, event venues and a Farmer’s Market.

We had ham and cheese sandwiches with chips, carrot and celery sticks and apple slices for dinner.  

There was wifi that was just adequate to allow video streaming from where we were parked, near the plant nursery.  This allowed us to watch another episode of Better Call Saul and some of the evening news.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Jack City WA to Grants Pass OR

 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.  

Tuesday, April 5, 2022. Whidbey Island to Onalaska WA

 Tuesday, April 5, 2022

This marks the start of a new kind of cruise- a Land Cruise, in our Land Yacht.  We are taking our 2020 Winnebago View 24D on it’s first big cross country trip.  We are the second owners of this RV, with the first owner having put just under 9000 miles on it in one cross country trip.  One impetus for this trip was to look for possible viewing sites for the April 2024 total eclipse of the sun, which will cross a swath of North America from Texas to Maine.  The duration of totality will be longest in the southern latitudes, so we will be looking for places between Ingram, TX and Killeen, TX.  It just happens that Janet has an aunt and cousins that live in that part of Texas.  Ben has also wanted to tour Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks in the Spring, before it gets too hot.  Janet’s brother Jack then invited Ben to join him and a fellow log house builder to fish for Tarpon in late April, so we decided to make it a big RV trip.  After the fishing trip in Florida, we plan on driving up the East Coast to visit Janet’s sister Terri in Delaware, and our son John in New Jersey.  Janet has more cousins in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Missouri that we’ll plan on visiting, and Ben’s older brother Arthur lives in Rochester MN, so we’ll try to visit all these relatives.  

Today, we drove to visit Janet’s brother Jack and his wife Sharon in Onalaska.  Scattered storms were blowing their way through the region most of the day, but somehow we managed to dodge most of the rain, contending only with winds gusting to 45mph as we drove over the Deception Pass and Dwayne Berentsen bridges.  Fortunately, our RV managed those with confidence.  

We left home around 9:30am and made a detour to the Coupeville transfer station to weight our fully loaded RV to see where we were at.  The scale weight was 12,040 pounds.  The door sticker on our RV shows a GVWR of 11,030 pounds, so we are 1,010 pounds over.  We are packing our old Hensley Arrow trailer hitch, which Ben is delivering to a buyer in Fairfield California on Friday, so that represents about 300# of our over weight budget.  We are also packing an extra 30# propane cylinder mounted to our ladder on a modified bike rack in case we need to run our generator and air conditioner for extended periods of time.  The propane capacity of this RV is only about 7 gallons, and that tends to be the most limiting resource for extended boondocking stays.  

We also have a lot of canned goods in the pantry and full fuel and water tanks, but it’s hard to imagine that most RV’s aren’t in a chronically overloaded state.  We will be monitoring the tire pressures and temperatures carefully, since those would be the first signs of an overloaded state problem, besides handling.  Be did modify the RV by adding Sumo Springs to the front and rear suspensions, which have noticeably improved the RV’s handling characteristics.

We made a slight detour to stop for diesel at a Union 76 Station in Arlington that the Gas Buddy app showed was selling diesel for $4.99.  Due to the war in Ukraine, diesel prices spiked to nearly $6.00/gal although in western WA, the average prices have been around $5.30/gal.  This 76 Station took us a couple of miles east of I-5 and onto Hwy 9, which prior to the construction of I-5, was the main north/south thoroughfare in this part of Puget Sound.  It turned out that the Gas Buddy price was wrong.  With credit cards, the price was  $5.199, but that was still a decent price for diesel.  

We opted to follow HWY 9 south through the countryside and suburbs of Arlington, Marysville and Everett, which proved to be uncrowded, scenic and easy driving aside from many traffic circles.  It surprised us how much farmland and woods are still around along this HWY 9 corridor between Arlington and Bothell. There were a lot of cute farms stands and nurseries along that route.  It was certainly more enjoyable a drive than being stuck in I-5 traffic looking at light rail construction debris and homeless camps.  

This linked up with I-405.  There were areas of significant traffic between Bothell and Renton, but fortunately, our Good-To-Go pass allowed us to use the Express Toll lanes for free, bypassing all of the traffic backups.  Usually driving straight down I-5 involves getting jammed up in traffic in Marysville, Lynnwood, Everett, U District, and Downtown Seattle, so this detour ended up being much preferable.

We made a second diesel stop at the Costco in Lacey WA, where the diesel was $5.159.  We also picked up a pepperoni pizza and took a lunch break in the Costco parking lot.  

We arrived at Jack City around 4:30pm, just in time to go for a walk up the hill to visit “Ruffie” a wild male grouse that has developed a close relationship with Jack since the Coronavirus pandemic broke out.  This bird first started behaving aggressively towards Jack while he was out chainsawing trees for fire wood sales.  Now they play nearly every day and Jack has Ruffie eating out of his hands.  

Sharon treated us to a nice vegetarian lasagne, home baked bread and salad for dinner.  We spent the evening catching up and spent the night “mooch-docking” in their driveway, plugged into a 20A 120V circuit for power overnight.  This allowed us to conserve our propane by using a small electric space heater to stay comfortable as the temperatures dropped into the mid to upper 30’s overnight.  Unfortunately their Wifi signal was not strong enough in the driveway to allow any video streaming and cellular signal was also very marginal.  Ben did pack a small portable Wifi repeater, but after saying good night, we didn’t want to disturb Jack and Sharon again.  

We racked up 227 miles today.