Shit Happens — A lot of it

Now don’t be shocked but here are 3 blog posts to get caught up with my life.

 

On Friday the 19th I pulled the RV out of storage and started my return home.  The first day was just a short trip to the Lake Panasoffkee I-75 KOA in central Florida.  This was to be a 2-night stay but I fell in love with the simple campground.  I ended up staying 2 weeks and used the time to adjust mentally and dodge a few Tornados. 

He is a photo of the lake and 2 of my favorite 5th wheel towing truck.  Check the first one, truck is huge.  Now check it out again.  Notice they have loaded their tow car —  REALLY.  I wish I’d seen the loading ramps and the process.

I left Lake Panasoffkee on Thursday March 3rd.  It was about this point I realized that the south is having massive storms and I’d have to spend much of my schedule and days dodging Tornados, and huge thunderstorms. 

I got to Tallahassee that afternoon and decided to unload the Honda Tow car – NOT.  The tires were just at the slightest of an angle which I tried to correct — and dropped off the loading/unloading ramp.  I then jacked up the car and put some large board under the wheels to get the car higher than the base of the tow dolly.  Long story short – the front of the Honda caught the tow dolly and pulled the entire bumper/front-end off the car.  See the beautiful photo.  NEVER BUY A TWO WHEEL TOW DOLLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I stuffed the front-end into the passenger seat and figured I’d find a body shop along the way. 

I arrived in Baytown TX (just east of Houston) on Monday March 7th, and upon unloading the Honda I dashed to a local auto body shop I’d contacted ahead of time.  The first estimate was about $350 (not bad) but getting the parts delivered before I wanted to depart Houston (end of week after multiple days of huge Texas size thunderstorms) was not going to happen.  I asked the agent to see about air shipping the one part and see if their body person could fix up the other part.  Things got better right then as the body guy said something like, “sure, I can actually fix the whole thing with some bailing wire and bubblegum”.  One hour later and a single hour of labor ($46) and all is well.  I went and found the body guy and slipped him a $20 for a case of beer. 

 

I spent a few days in Austin and then on the 15th of March I headed west on US-290 through the Texas Hill Country.  Within 50 miles I started having shifting and power problems.  By the time I reached Fredericksburg nothing was working well so I found a spot on the main street where I could park and started calling around for help.  The world’s best mechanic is Steve at Superior Automotive in Morgan Hill CA and when I headed out he offered to provide advice if I had troubles.  I know from past experience that if I called Good Sam for a tow they would take me to a Chevy dealer and Steve reminded me that dealers hire young mechanics aka those who have never even seen a carburetor much less a vehicle 31 years old.  After some discussion he advised finding an “old timer” to check out the engine as the shifting issue might actually be fuel or ignition (lack of power) instead.  So I called a local RV camp and got the names of garages they recommend.  Dot dot dot, I got a recommendation to a shop 20 miles away that does engine and transmission but the next appointment was 8 days later.  So I got a local, well recommended, engine shop to agree to do a test drive.  They agreed it was probably engine so I got an appointment for Thursday and found a RV park less than a half mile away. 

Fredericksburg is a beautiful little German tourist city so I got to check out the National Pacific WWII Museum, some great German and also Tex Mex restaurants, and a lot of local wineries.

On Thursday March 18th I took the RV to the shop and got lucky.  FREEDOM, the RV, is well. Spark plugs and wires were in terrible shape causing mis-firing. Substantial more power and acceleration now. There is on cylinder with low compression 70# vs. should be 110#. My experts guess that has been the same for some time and thus I should be back to normal driving. Also the GUESS is the low power was causing the shifting issues.  All this proved to be true and FREEDOM is driving well, not perfect for hugh hill climbing but I’m working on routing.

I am not thrilled with the work done by the shop I paid for a pre-purchase inspection and year ago.  They should have caught the ignition wire issue and most likely the compression.

I ended up killing a few more days in Fredericksburg waiting for wind storms in west Texas to pass.  Wind has been a real issue the rest of the trip. 

I got to Van Horn TX on Monday March 21st and ended up there for 3 nights waiting for some calm winds to get me to Phoenix.  Check out the Van Horn Weather center:

I got to Phoenix on Good Friday and spent the evening with great friends Steve Crusenberry and Norm Lucas.  I stocked up on food Saturday and Sunday headed out for Quartzsite AZ (about 20 miles east of California).  I’ve been here (see Picture) for 3 days now waiting for a good opening (low wind) to get into California.  I’d hoped that would be today (Tuesday the 29th) but woke up to extreme warnings.  As of this moment the forecast for tomorrow looks good to get to Indio, CA on Wednesday and to Castaic (near I-5 and I-210) on Thursday.  That said, I’ve hoped to do this, every day this week. 

The RV Park here provided a great Easter dinner for all the campers so I wasn’t alone as I had expected.  I also got a chance to meet up with Jeannie Dardini, an old friend from Healdsburg CA and my catalog days.  Really enjoyed that.

Wish me luck for the next 4 days cause I’m sure ready to be home.