DAY IN SAN RAMON

Yesterday morning the winds had faded away at Vacaville and after breakfast we broke camp and started off towards cousin Sue in San Ramon, a residential community on the backside of the Bay. Rick decided to take a back route, which was very comfortable driving, paved but not busy at all. We reached the Sacramento River and followed it along for awhile. I was surprised at how large it was and how quiet and unspoiled the counrysde was, so very close to the San Francisco madness.  Since we were heading towards San Francisco, the traffic gradually built until it climaxed at Walnut Creek where we turned south on the freeway towards San Ramon and the County fairgrounds at Pleasanton. When we arrived at the camprgound, it was an oasis of green and quiet, with large green fields perfect for long doggie walks. We approached the entrance, pulled over on one side for Rick to go in and register. He came out, went to shift the truck out of "park" and…..and….. there was nothing there!!!!!   The gear shift was just loose and floppy. The truck was stuck in park. We sat there stunned, trying to assess what was wrong. Here we were, stuck in "park" and not capable of moving. After a while, Rick determined that something was really wrong with the gearshift linkage. In essence, we were right, it wasn't there. It was hanging loose and floppy. We were somewhat chagrined. What now!!  We were in a good place, that is, not on the freeway or a Walmart parking lot. We were steps away from our campsite. But we couldn't move, and we couldn't detach the camper from the truck. We were stuck. On a Sunday.

Sigh. Other campers came by, and commiserated, and said "well if you can figure out how to detach the truck from the camper we can come and tow your camper to your site for you". We appreciated all the efforts at help. But we knew we were screwed.

Rick has Good Sam roadside assistance coverage, so he put through an emergency call to them for assistance. The plan was for Good Sam to bring out a winch truck that could drag the truck out away from the camper but they were having trouble finding one on a Sunday. While Rick was managing all of the excitement, I took Flossie for a long long walk in the park area.

I returned to a smiling Rick. "I fixed it" he said. He had found the main problem with the linkage, it is supposed to have a retaining clip to hold it in place to the transmission, but it had somehow dislodged itself and the linkage had come off the transmission and was flopping in the air. "I tied it back up with baling wire" he said with a smile. It was enough to be able to get the truck into gear and pull the camper to the site where we unhooked, and set up camp. This is not a permanent fix of course, but today we can call around to a Chevy or GM dealership close by and see if they stock the clip. Rick can easily install it.

Emergency solved, cousin Sue came and collected us for the afternoon at her lovely new home in neighbouring San Ramon, where we met cousin Jodie and had such an enjoyable dinner, without stress of any kind!! And then Sue's daughter kindly returned us to our campsite and on the way we got temporarily "lost" in her neighbourhood and enjoyed an impromptu tour of the Christmas lights. So all in all, it was a very satisfying day :)

Today the sun rose  as usual, all is well in the world, and all that remains now is to find the ruddy clip. Cousin Sue will come and drive us to the dealership, Rick will install the clip, and then we wave goodbye to the cousins in San Ramon, and head further south in the quest for warmth (maybe today, maybe tomorrow)…after all, we are RETIRED, rightt??

PS. Photos to follow. In all the excitement I think I left my camera at cousin Sue's, to be retrieved sometime this morning. Sigh…..


Addendum: "Retaining Clip" is integral to the Shift Cable assembly which will have to be replaced to fix it. Scheduled into the Chevrolet Service department for 7:00am Tuesday morning. Should take about 2 hours. Fingers crossed.

CHANGING CLIMATES

We had allowed a couple of hours to get to the Siskiyou pass that separates Oregon from California. From there it would be another five hours to our stop for the night at Vacaville just 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. We left in the semi-dark, cold, damp Pacifc Northwest winter. There was frost on the ground, and mist hanging in the air as you can see from the first photo.

Click on any photo to see a larger version.

Soon, we have a glimmer of things to come, with a bar of sunlight across the horizon. 

Just past Ashland Oregon we start climbing up the Siskiyou range of mountains, past the ski resort area which is strangely bereft of snow. The drought has affected this area badly.  At the Siskiyou Summit, the transport trucks are pulled over to check their brakes for the big descent. The summit (of the pass) is about 4500 feet. After we cross over, the route is all downhill, passing around the foothills of Mount Shasta, the last of the Cascade range and the second biggest at 14,100 odd feet. (Mount Rainier outside Seattle is the tallest at 14, 440 feet).  Mount Shasta is considered a living volcano, but the last eruption was in 1786 so we felt fairly safe as we cruised by.

At the crest of the Siskiyou Pass.

And over we gooooooooo...

On the long 10 mile downhill route, we notice how tinder dry everything is. Despite the elevation, snow is scarce so far this winter.

At first, we have a hard time finding the outline of Mount Shasta…today it is enshrouded in ovecast. We get very close before it emerges like a huge ice cream cone, also with very little snow.

After the descent out of Oregon, the temperature almost immediately shoots upward, from freezing to 50F and then up again. We plod along Interstate 5 for another 5 hours…and just as we were thinking "it must be time for tea", the turnoff for Vacaville appears. The valley here is broad and flat as a pancake, and already the fruit trees and vines are showing signs of rejuvenation. Does this state never know winter? The valley is virtually treeless except for the orchards, but as we approach the campground we can see the tall Eucalyptus appearing as a oasis in the desert. We step out of the truck and smell the Eucalyptus oil and stare at the trees in leaf and feel the (to us) balmy air of a California winter. It is 65F and feels like an everlasting spring. In one minute we have forgotten all about snow, subfreezing winds and the darkness of the northern winter. 

Here we are, all set up. A lot of the older section of the campground has pemanent residents. Since we are only 60 miles from San Francisco, this camp is always well used. Our specific campsite lacked the trees and green space of some others, but it was a pull through site which saves Rick the effort of backing in after a long day of driving. And for an over night stop, this is heaven.

OK swimming gang, I was willing but the pool was closed for winter. It was a short pool and would require a lot of extra turns, but it would have been just fine. Maybe I will have better luck when we reach Arizona?

This campground is very dog and child friendly. For the doggies, there is a fenced secure off-leash park with all sorts of doggie toys including but not limited to: swinging tires, tunnels and ramps for jumping off. Flossie loved it.

Below is the park for the kiddies.

For me, the Eucalypts were king. They were simply magnificent. 

Postscript:  Early the next morning at around 4AM, strong 50mph winds picked up making it impossible for us to leave as planned. One thing we do not do is drive the camper in strong winds or dust storms!! So we hunkered down and relaxed for the day. Our son and daughter-in-law from Sonoma County to the west drove 2 hours across the valley to spend the afternoon with us. They are in temporary housing until their house is built this spring, and because of the recent fires there are no spaces left for us to camp over there. We had a lovely afernoon here at the campground, and did a BBQ afternoon lunch with Rick grilling hamburgers and my homemade potato salad and we did just fine. We are now a day late for meeting up with Rick's cousin Sue who lives on the backside of the San Francisco Bay, so we sent through an email, re-arranged the change in camp sites, and enjoyed the extra day of rest. Tomorrow is San Ramon, California with cousin Sue, 5 doggies for Flossie's delight, and a catch-up on Rick's family news.

GETTING OUT OF DODGE PART 2

Thursday was as cold and bitter as the days before it. We had to wait for my prescription to come in at the pharmacy so we stayed indoors and organized the camper. There are always so many things to do before we leave with the property, house and animals, that we concentrate only on bringing with us what we want. We toss it into the camper in random order and organize after leaving. This year we decided to seriously edit the stuff we bring. I left behind a lot of my cold weather clothes since we only had a few days of that to worry about. I reduced the shoes to a pair of sandals and my flip flops for the beach. Of those, the flip flops would get the most wear and are the most important. The reduction really made a difference, we had most things inside looking very tidy and organized without much effort. It is a small camper by RV standards, and functions much better with less clutter.

My meds came in by noon and we took off from Portland into the murk. The sun was depressingly weak and low in the sky, the traffic down the Valley was heavy all the way to Eugene, and we looked forward to a shorter day. We have not been taking this route for some years, preferring instead to putter down the Oregon Coast and through the Redwood forests of Northern California, but this time we just wanted the shortest, quickest way to the warmth and sunshine. From past experience we know that the switch occurs dramatically at the Siskiyou Pass, right at the border of California and Oregon and we aim ourselves for that as soon as possible.

Below is the Willamette Valley in low afternoon light. We're just approaching the hills near Eugene.

Beyond Eugene we enter the rolling hills of Southern Oregon just as sun starts to set.

Just as the dark set in, we reached out final destination for the day. Seven Feathers is one of our favourite campgrounds and coming this route we always schedule to arrive here at dusk. It is owned and operated by the Umpqua Indian Tribe on the same location as their casino and hotel in a snug private dip between hills on either side. Take a peek here:  www.sevenfeathersrvresort.com   Rick loves this campground after a long tiring drive, because all of the sites are paved and perfectly level, allowing us the freedom from unhooking for the night. The campground itself is luxurious, with heated pool and wooded and grassy sites. The photos on the website hardly do it justice. And if one is too tired after a long drive to cook, then the casino restaurant comes highly recommended. Just the right touch of comfort and luxury at exactly the moment you need it.

So good night Dear Reader. Tomorrow is climbing the Siskiyous and California beckoning from the other side.

THE WAITING GAME

This is our day in Portland for the list of "have-to's". It is extremely cold and windy. The Columbia Gorge operates in the same way as those canyons in California funnelling the Santa Ana winds westward over coastal LA communities. Only in  this case, they are not funnelling fire and heat, they are funnelling icy cold winds from Eastern Oregon. Luckiy, the campground in Vancouver Washington is out of the pathway. 

We got the last available camp site. This campground highlights a growing shift in accommodation for RV travellers. More and more, the campgrounds in the more seasonal climate zones take on low-income but full-time renters for the winter low-season. In some cases, entire campgrounds have changed into full time rentals all year round. It is one of those sociological adaptations that result from increasing levels of poverty and increasing growth of homelessness, family breakdown, poverty among seniors, and so on.

This nature of campgrounds shifts substantially once we get to the Golden Zone of winter retiree resort living. Those southern campgrounds come with luxury amenities such as swimming pools, large rec halls, 3 hole golf courses, tennis courts and so forth. There is no competition from the homeless and the poor here. They have been banned by such rules as the "ten year rule" that forbids any RV over that age. As you can imagine, we don't stay in those places. But then, I wouldn't, would I,  even if we were younger and more acceptable to their impeccable RV taste (sarcasm folks, sarcasm). It does strike a funny bone in me to think of "pretentious" and "RV camping" in the same sentence. 

This particular campground in Vancouver Washington is spotless, well taken care of but with tiny sites and some very tiny trailers. They have a lovely new rec centre which has well supplied kitchen and several round tables. It serves as a gathering spot. The road in front is a quiet side street. Yesterday we saw a mom with a boy of about 5 or 6 waiting for the school bus. As she stood there with him, several of the RV park seniors came along, all of them (incuding the little boy and his mum) residents of this campground. The seniors stood around chatting, ruffling the hair of the little boy and engaging him in some teasing and chat. I thought "there is nothing that that boy is missing by living here in a tiny trailer with his mum".  When he is 14 and 6' tall, it might become a different issue. What I saw here exemplified to me the resilience of people and their ability to make not just a home but a community, all the more remarkable with such a low level of resources. It is sobering to see this level of human need, but I cannot help but be impressed. Kudos to the human spirit!!

We are well pleased with our select little campsite situated in a dead end corner backed up against a hedge of Arborvitae. Because of our situation waiting for my prescriptions to come in we really don't know how long we need to be here. If it ends tomorrow, we will be leaving immediately for southern Oregon with our next main destination being family in California.

Flossie, on her backseat throne.

Crossing the Columbia River. Almost winter soltice, with low low light levels, and Mount Hood just barely exposed through the

mist. It is noon time.

Flossie loves to watch TV and it entertains her when we are too tired to play "chase the rubber bone".

Here she is watching the TV Channel guide. None the wiser, it all is interesting to her.

PHOTOS

Shot through the streaky window of the Queen of Alberni as we are leaving Duke Point Ferry Terminal. Gabriola Island on the left. The smoke is coming from the Harmac Mill on Vancouver Island. We're steaming towards the ferry dock at Tsawwassen south of Vancouver. It is 7:45 AM on a cold and clear December morning

We leave the Nanaimo Harbour and turn to the right, cruising right past our home location. In this photo, we are passing the lighthouse at Entrance Island at the moment of sun rise, and that is Gabriola Island behind with the Flat Top Islands on the left side. We live about one inch to the right of the sun on Gabriola.

We have had this camper for 4 years. It is 13 years old. It was to be the camper we practised on to see how much we liked the life style. The plan was to sell it on and buy a newer, niceer one. As you can see, we still have it. This year we decided to do some major upgrades. Sick of the old dark phony oak cabinets, we decided to be brave and paint them all in a soft grey for the lowers with a soft

cream for the uppers. We like it a lot. In these photos of the interior you can see that in this "small" camper (yes, it is rated as small) we get a functional kitchen and dinette, a small bedroom area up the stairs to the front, and a comfy couch which is where I am sitting to take these photos. When we reach the beach in Mexico, we back the camper up to the sea wall right on the beach and have a three-sided view of the Sea of Cortes. A million$ view for just a few pesos. We think we're pretty smart :)

I comes with its own fridge-freezer too!

And  3 piece bath. Since almost all campgrounds come with hot showers, we have coverted the tub

to a storage area and a place to hand wash tems.

The bed isn't KIng size but it fits the 3 of us fine (Flossie in the middle of course). As you can see, Rick didn't get all of the dark oak painted out as you can see from this "before" photo. The rug is also going to be replaced wih something "fresher", although with Miss Flossie in the camper just how long will anything stay "fresh"??

This is going to home sweet home for the next 3 months.

Woo Hoo, Mexico here we come!!!

GETTING OUT OF DODGE

Hi folks, this is blog #1 of the winter journey. It is called "Getting Out of Dodge".

4AM. Open eyes. Squint. Very dark and under the comforter it is cosy, warm and relaxing. But it is THAT time. The one where we rise, sup tea, collect last things, sup more tea, watch the early news, sup more tea. Say goodbye to donkeys, goat, neighbour, garden and trudge through the cold dark with Flossie dancing, tripping us. Curse small dogs and dark dark mornings. Shiver in the cold.

We have 45 minutes to catch the 6:15 AM ferry and the timing is crucial. With the 6:15 to Nanaimo, we have enought time to make it to the big ferry with half an hour to spare.  That gets us to the US border at 11AM and depending on how busy it is, we should be at the nephew's in Bellingham Washington by noon. The whole thing is a a house of cards. One falter along the route means our plans crash and burn. OK, so I am being a wee bit dramatic. But I  just want to ensure that you, Dear Reader, appreciate the stress that forced us out of our beds, and into that Chevie 3/4 ton pickup truck at 5:30 in the morning, a frosty morning to make the 6:15 ferry.

Disaster struck. It was that West Coast sense of entitlement. The one that makes us scoff at watching east coast blizzards on TV. And this morning it brought us to our knees. The windshield was encased in frost. Encased. Not something that the windshield wipers could handle in a swipe. Something that meant searching for that ice scraper. Where the heck did we put that thing  growls someone from the driver's seat. A scramble, a few choice words, and eventually something is found and the windshield yields to it. Precious moments pass. And then, as we creep down the big hill to the road, the awful truth hits us square on.  BLACK ICE.

There is nothing that inspires more fear in a Canadian's heart than black ice at 5:30 in the morning. Especially before the sanding trucks have not even pulled out of their yard. Then that awful west coast moment struck again, when we looked at each other and say "Do we even HAVE a sanding truck on Gabriola?"

Well all went reasonably well, even without any sign of a sanding truck, we crept along at half speed, hugging the crest of the road. Nobody was much out at this time of an icy morning and there is nothing like a wee bit of stress to activate the brain cells at an ungodly hour, right?  But the long and the short of it is, we made it.

And here we are. Camped in downtown Kent Washington, at the foot of the son's subdivision, at 6:37 AM near Seattle, ready to move on to the next day's surprises. It is 28 degrees F. Stay tuned.

There is just one more philosophical comment I would like to leave you with about this embryonic trip and it is about trains and campgrounds. Yes, trains!!

Where I grew up in Ontario, my godmother lived in a little place called Concord. She had a huge garden filled with Iris, and at the end of it was set of train tracks. On visiting there my sister and I hung onto the wire fence at the end of the garden, praying for a train to come along so we could wave to all the people. It was the time of the turnover from steam to diesel, and once in a while we would still see a steam train chugging through. That day a train did come and we waved furiously at all the people on board. Some of them even waved back. And then the most amazing thing happened: we actually saw someone we knew. It was Lorne Bishop who was at least 10 years older than us, and lived on a farm near us. We were astounded. Never did we ever think that we would actually know someone on this magical black beast, panting and puffing it's way to Toronto. So you can appreciate that I have always had a fine relationship with trains, and their special mystique. It also helps to be married to a man who's father worked all his life fixing train engines for Union Pacific railway. 

In any case, one of the biggest reality checks toward trains I have had, came with moving out west. Trains out here need to be avoided at all cost. And that is because, out here, trains are laid out right through the middle of towns. In fact, I have it backwards. Many towns were laid out deliberately around trains. Which means, Dear Reader, that the campground that looks so splendid and inviting, with swimming pools and yes, Dear Reader, sometimes even with palm trees, also probably has, lurking somewhere near to it, a train track. Perhaps if snugged into some eastern valley surrounded and muffled by a maple bush that would be idyllic to hear in a far distant kind of way. But, on prairies where a sneeze can be heard all the way to Omaha, it ain't.

Now one would think, that here, in the middle of a major civilized place like Seattle Washington, humming with progress due to those healthy inputs from Boeing and Amazon, and squatting here in the sprawl of the affluent upper middleclass neighbourhoods down the Kent Valley, that we could afford to be relaxed in our somewhat irrational fear towards the iron monsters. But no that is not so. After a lovely evening spent with son and daughter-in-law in their new home in a very respectable neighbourhood, we returnd to our camper only minutes away, to climb into our warm, cosy, comfy bed. And as we turned the last light off, and the dog between us started to snore, we heard that approaching familiar dreaded whistle…Oh no we cried!!

No photos yet. We are still trying to get out of Dodge. Once we actually get the chores done, the appointments behind us, the shopping achieved, we will settle into the main part of the trip, and the photos will come. Until then we freeze, and I carp, and Rick pretends not to hear.

Rick Here: Note to self….Avoid driving through Seattle during the afternoon rush hour while pulling camper (caravan for those UK readers)…...

Less than a week to go

We are gearing up for departure to warmer climes next week. Target departure day is Dec 11. We have done some projects over the summer on the RV to improve the livability and it is ready to hit the road. And so are we!  There have been lots of discussions about what we want to see and do this year and we are traveling with no fixed itinerary or schedule except to end up at Huatabampito, Sonora  Mexico on the Sea of Cortez some time in early January.

The plan is to keep the up the blog again on a regular basis for the trip and share with our friends.

Stay Tuned!

Rick