We arrived at the  Morgan Hill Thousand Trails preserve on Monday, with a fourteen day reservation. We expected it to be busy with the holiday weekend and all, but we had no problem finding a nice, level site with a good shot at the sky for our TV dish. I wasn’t impressed that the air conditioning in the Adult Lounge wasn’t working, making it too hot to be in there, but that wasn’t a deal breaker.

As expected, the campground filled up over the next few days, and by Friday morning it was packed. A large crowd of young people were parked on both sides of us, in front, and behind us. They were having a good time, and we had no problem with that, except that they kept walking through our campsite.

But then they brought out a boom box that was so loud that, sitting inside our RV with the windows closed, air conditioner on, and TV on, we had to turn the TV almost all the way up to hear it. Somebody must have complained, because a ranger came by and talked to them, and they turned it down for about 20 minutes, and then had it at full blast again. Finally, late in the evening I walked over and told them to turn it down or off, and they did.

About mid-day yesterday the power went off, and since it was in the high 80s, we opened our windows and turned on our exhaust fans, but it still quickly got to 93 degrees in our motorhome, according to our digital thermostat. I called the main office number, and the ranger station, but nobody answered the phone, so after a half hour or so I went looking and found an employee, and told him about the power. He said “If all of you people wouldn’t have your AC on during the heat of the day, that wouldn’t happen.” Huh? When should I run my AC, if not during the hottest part of the day?

Meanwhile, back at our RV, the fellow next to us, part of the party crowd, had fired up a cheap construction type generator, which was very loud, and was right under our open window, so the fumes were coming inside our rig. A few minutes later the worker came by and said he had reset the breaker for our area, but to expect it to go out again pretty soon. Terry complained about the generator, so he went across the street and found the owner, and had him shut it down. As predicted, the power didn’t stay on very long, and we were back to sitting in a sauna.

Apparently these were local people, because several cars came in on day passes to party with them, and it kept getting louder. No power, a loud noisy crowd with no regard for other people and no respect for their space, and a campground staff that didn’t care. That was enough for us.  Our bullshit tolerance level had been exceeded.

One of the great things about the RV lifestyle is that, if you don’t like the neighbors, you can move. And that’s just what we did! We left Thousand Trails and went to the Elks lodge in Gilroy, about twelve miles away. They have eight back-in sites with 50 amp electric and water, on a hill with a great view.

The place is almost full, and though the RVs are parked pretty close together, we still have as much or more room than we did at the Thousand Trails, and it is nice and quiet. We’re much more comfortable here, and glad we moved.

When we left the Thousand Trails, Terry stopped at the guard shack to tell them why we were leaving early, and that we were unhappy, but the ranger just said “Okay, have a nice day.” As we were leaving, a sheriff’s car was pulling in with lights flashing. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t care. We won’t be back again.

Bad Nick doesn’t let trivial things like obnoxious neighbors and power outages get in his way. He posted a brand new Bad Nick Blog titled Happy Birthday To Us. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. – Theodore Roosevelt

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We pulled out of our RV site at the Show Low Elks campground just before 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning, stopped in the lodge’s large dirt parking lot long enough to hook up our Blue Ox tow bar to our Ford van, did a light check, and put our old hometown in our rear view mirror.

We drove north 50 miles on State Route 77 to Holbrook, and then got onto Interstate 40 headed west. 30 miles later we stopped for fuel at the Flying J in Winslow. We still had just under half a tank of diesel, but I like to run on the top half of my tank whenever I can. It gives me more margin for error for whatever unexpected change in plans may lie ahead.

As it turns out, our fuel stop had an extra benefit; my daughter Tiffany was in Winslow for her job, and met us at Flying J for one last quick visit, a final hug or three, and then she was headed back home to Show Low, while we were back on the highway headed west.

We passed Meteor Crater, then started to see the San Francisco Peaks that tower over Flagstaff off in the distance. There was still snow on the tops of those high mountains.

A few miles past Flagstaff, Miss Terry pointed out a dozen or so cow elk standing in the forest’s edge right alongside the road. A mile or so later we saw a dead elk on the shoulder of the highway, and were glad we weren’t the ones who hit it. Those critters are as big as a horse, and hitting one can really do a lot of damage.

About the time we put the elk behind us, we started to see smoke from the Eagle Rock forest fire, which has burned 3,400 acres of ponderosa pines some eleven miles northeast of Williams. A news report I read later in the evening said that as of nightfall, the fire was 30 percent contained, but that fire crews were concerned that the winds might pick up and expand the wildfire. Sure enough, the wind kicked up, and is expected to be strong for the next two or three days.

Thirty miles west of Flagstaff, we pulled into Canyon Gateway RV Park in Williams, a Passport America affiliate located just off Interstate 40.  This is typical of many Passport America parks, nothing fancy, but clean and friendly, and a good value at $24 a night, tax included, for a level, 50 amp full hookup RV site. Some other RV parks here in Williams charge twice that.

The campground has gravel roads and sites, and small trees at every site. There are a few older rigs that look like they are permanents, but there is nothing wrong with that. Not everybody is made to live in a sticks and bricks house.

Here is our Winnebago, all leveled out and hooked up.

We had covered 175 miles since leaving Show Low, but we weren’t done yet. As soon as we had the RV parked and hooked up, Terry drove us back to Flagstaff in the van, where we stopped at the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, and then we stopped at Sam’s Club and Office Max for some mailing supplies.

We have been craving a good Chinese buffet for weeks now, and I had always wanted to try the Mandarin Super Buffet in Flagstaff, so we stopped there before heading back to Williams. I had not been feeling well for a couple of hours, so I don’t know if the food wasn’t all that good, or if I just couldn’t appreciate it. But I really did not enjoy the meal, which seldom happens. I drowsed most of the way back to Williams, and once back at the motorhome, I laid down for a while, which seemed to help.

By dark the wind had really picked up, and I’m glad it is blowing from the southwest, which means if it does spread the fire, at least it will be burning in the opposite direction of town. Hopefully the fire crews can knock it down before it gets any larger, or does any more damage.

We’ll be here for the next four days, while we get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to mail out on Monday. We have excellent Verizon service, a  clear aim at the sky for our satellite TV dish, and Williams has a couple of good restaurants if Miss Terry wants to take a break and not cook. It’s good to be on the road again!

Before I close, one last thing. Several blog readers wanted to know if our new Levolor window blinds rattle or make any noise going down the highway. Now that we have actually driven the RV with them, I can report that they don’t make a sound, which is exactly what we expected.

Thought For The Day – I love to give homemade gifts, which one of my kids do you want?

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Yesterday morning we were up and getting the bus ready to travel a couple of hours before we are normally even out of bed. We had a short driving day planned, only 150 miles from Elkhart, Indiana to Muskegon, Michigan. We never pull out of a campground before 10 a.m., because we prefer to let the morning rush hour traffic get over with, though Elkhart doesn’t have much of a rush hour anyway. 

But, things don’t always go as we plan, do they? We have a set routine we follow when we are traveling; while Terry stows things away inside the bus, I check our oil and water, give the engine compartment a quick inspection to be sure the motor is still where I left it, then unhook our utilities, stow our TV dish, and scan the bus and van tires with our PressurePro tire monitoring system to be sure of proper inflation.

With all of that done, we hook up the van to our Blue Ox tow bar, disengage the Remco driveshaft disconnect, and do a brake light and turn signal check to be sure everything is working properly. The whole procedure only takes a few minutes, and while we used a printed pre-trip checklist in our early days, after ten years of fulltiming, we have it down to memory.

As I was checking things inside our engine compartment, I spotted green antifreeze dripping from a short three inch diameter hose that carries radiator fluid to the engine. Since we were parked on grass, there had not been a puddle to notice before. Closer inspection revealed a hole in the hose.

We carry a few spare parts with us, as all seasoned bus nuts do, so we happened to have some extra hose of the same diameter in one of our storage bays. We put a bucket under the hose to catch as much fluid as possible, and replaced the bad one with new, then refilled the radiator.

The entire process wasn’t that hard, even for someone as inept of a mechanic as myself. (Let’s be honest, Miss Terry did most of the work while I tried to look busy in case anybody wandered by.)

With all of that done, we cleaned up (in case you have never been around a bus conversion, all you have to do is open the engine bay doors and grease and oil jump out and cling to you), made a stop at the dump station, and pulled out of Elkhart Campground about 11:30 a.m.

This just illustrates how important it is to do a pre-trip inspection every day when you are traveling. You never know what minor problem is just waiting to become a major problem once you’re on the highway. While it was aggravating to lose 90 minutes of traveling time and get all dirty replacing the hose, it was still a lot easier than trying to replace a hose on a hot engine while broken down on the shoulder of the highway, or waiting for our roadside service company to send out a tow truck.

We had a short nineteen mile trip west on the Indiana Toll Road to South Bend, where we picked up U.S. Highway 31 and followed it north 130 miles to Muskegon. We have a week’s reservations at Fisherman’s Landing, a city owned RV park and marina, and we plan to spend the time visiting family here, and maybe we’ll even get our kayaks in the water!

Thought For The Day – It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

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