Week 1 - Sacramento to Seaside Oregon

We finished work on Friday, and took off from Sacramento Saturday morning and headed up the I-5.  Our first stop was in Corning California at the Rolling Hills Casino.

Rolling Hills is our favorite California Casino and it offers fine hotel rooms, an excellent RV park - one you can get into, some decent restaurants and of course the Casino.  It advertises itself as being 1/2 way between Portland and Los Angeles.  Other than the casino, there is not much in Corning and it is more of waypoint than a destination.  However the lunch buffet can't be beat and we had to leave a little money (no more than $20.00 per head) on the tables.

Heading on North we ran out of daylight (a problem with the toad keeps us from driving at night) near the 7 Feathers casino in Oregon.

 This was a place we had never been before and it is the most "Las Vegasy" Indian Casino we ever seen.  Very large, ornate with lots of restaurants and bars - most importantly a smoke free portion of the Casino with a very fine sports bar.  It books top entertainment - Creedence was playing the night we were there, but the show, sadly for us, was sold out.

It caters to the mobile public offering truckers a large lot with free shuttles, a very fine RV resort that compares favorably with any other RV resort we've been in, but most importantly for us a "RV Dry" parking lot that is totally free.

These are long spots in the parking lot - long enough for the RV, but we had to park the toad elsewhere, not far from the Casino (also with a free shuttle)

The next morning we took off again and hit our first destination - The Evergreen International Air and Space Museum in McMinnville Oregon.

This place has 4 buildings:  1)  A space museum that has artifacts from the Space Race, some retired missiles and some cold war aircraft including an SR-71 (with payloads) and Global Hawk (yay team!) mockup.  2.)  A large movie theater for aviation related movies - that was sadly down the day we were there.  3.) An aviation museum that contains a large variety of aircraft including the infamous Spruce Goose of Howard Hughes fame.  Lastly and certainly not least a waterpark for the kiddies that has a retired 747 on the roof with waterslides coming out of it.

Ginger and the Evergreen Waterpark

 

 But one of the best and unadvertised features of this place is that if you are going/have went to the Museum, they don't mind you boondocking in their parking lot.  This is quiet, paved flat, has roaming security and is one of the best boondocking experiences you can have.  The dog was particularly happy with the open fields around it for squirrel observations.

The view out of the Front

 After touring the Museum we took off for Seaside Oregon and the Thousand Trails there.  We will spend 4 days there.

A little more RV friendly than Santa Barbara.

Alaska is upon us...

Finally.

After multiple years of planning, we are taking the RV to Alaska. We will both be taking extended leaves from work.

I've spent the last couple of months repairing the RV, installing a WiFiRanger and "culling the cargo" to try and get some of the weight down.

We will go up the I-5 to Seaside Oregon, then to Birch Bay Washington and will most likely enter Canada at Aldergrove, then to Dawson City BC for the start of the Alcan.

From there things a bit nebulous (no sense in over planning these things) but will most likely include Laird Hot Springs and Whitehorse.

We are excited beyond belief.  Watch this space for further developments.

Casino Camping

For a while now we have been based in the Sacramento region.  We done a little local exploring - usually within a days drive of Sacramento and we have discovered the joys of Casino Camping.

There are number of casinos in California - all associated with a Native American tribe.  Some of them have RV campgrounds attached to try and attract the RV set.   These turn out to be very cool places to park.

We've done two now.

The Rolling Hills Casino near Corning California.  For us, this is a jaunt up the I-5 from Sacramento.

Rolling Hills consists of a) RV Park, b) two hotels, c) Casino and d) Equestrian center.  One of the neat things about Rolling Hills is that they have a low/no cost kennel on site so that travelers can stop, put Fido in the kennel rather keep him in the hot car and enjoy a couple of hours of relaxation in the casino and restaurants. 

Rolling Hills isn't really a destination - it's more of a way point.  They really didn't have much more than the casino and restaurants to attach people.  I think most of the people there are travelers along I-5 who stop to refresh.  When we were there they did not have any live entertainment.  But the restaurants - which range from a high end Steak House to a coffee shop are all good.

We enjoyed our time there and will keep in mind when traveling up that way.

Black Oak on the other hand, is a destination.  This place describes itself as a "resort" and it certainly is one.  It is brand new - we think we were first users of the RV spot we were in.

Located near Yosemite in Tuolumne California this place has something for everyone.  There is a Casino, a large bowling alley, one of the largest arcades I've seen, a resort hotel and a very large, very nice RV park.  There are a large number of dining options including the incredible 7 Sisters high end restaurant.

The employees there are extremely nice and will bend over backwards getting you what you need/want.  Even the Security Guards are friendly and nice.

There was live entertainment that was actually pretty good.

I predict this will be a hot property during the summer season due to it's proximity to Yosemite and its' ability to entertain the kids while the parents relax in one of the restaurant/bars. 

The downside is that it is a bit out of the way.  We went down to 129 and crossed over which was fairly easy, but the long way there.  We made the mistake to trying to go home on 49 and discovered that highway 49 is not RV friendly.

That being said, Black Oak is definitely on the list for a return visit.

Until next time,
Jerald, Claire and Ginger the Wonder Dog.

A new place to put the ladder and a road trip.

My, its been a while since my last post about Calistoga.

Since then we did a road trip Byrce Canyon/Zion National parks staying in Cedar City Utah. There through Las Vegas (Overnighted at Camping World Bakersfield, Circus Circus Las Vegas) and back home on the "loneliest road in America - US Highway 50 overnighting in Walmart in Fallon Nevada.

 

The "loneliest road" is certainly.  Especially when you have 50mph cross winds and snow.  The positive thing about that was that the RV handled extremely well - we were not even aware of the severity of the wind.

We've also relocated semi-permanently to Sacramento California.  We found a spot inside a 55 and over Mobile Home park in Citrus Heights a Sacramento suburb.  About 40% of the rent for a parking place of that in the Bay Area.

One thing we learned on the road trips so far is that the tool I use the most is my ladder.  This is a Little Giant folding extensible ladder.   I pull that out just about every stop to clean the dead bugs off of the windshield.  It was, unfortunately stored in the back of a compartment and due to its size could not be moved to the front of the compartment. 

So most stops I had the un enviable job of unloading that compartment, getting the ladder out and then reloading the compartment afterwards.  Something had to change.  I decided I wanted to hang the ladder on the Motorhomes aft ladder.

Shopping around on Amazon, we found a set of hook advertised to holding chairs.  However their weight rating was about 50 lbs which is lot more than the ladder.  Just to be on the safe side, we ordered two sets and put the second set supporting the lower half of the ladder.   Add pieces of a swim noodle from Dollar Tree and I've got a pretty external ladder holder.

A bicycle lock keeps it secure from borrowers.

Calistoga

 A few extra days off, and we decided we needed mud baths.  So we pulled up stakes and headed out to Calistoga California.  We stayed a the Napa County Fairgrounds there - a very fine RV Park

 

With 30A electric water with no sewer (nearby dump included in the price) it was about $37.00 /night.  That is very good for California.

 

Amongst our favorites in Calistoga are:

1. Golden Have Spa (Mud baths)
2. Evangelines (Dinner)
3. Café Sarafornia (breakfast)
4. Boskos (Dinner)

We weren’t her first owners. She was obviously loved and cherished by that person who we think was elderly. There was an old lady who lived on our street and would walk up and down the street for exercise. Cookie would stare at her intensely. We will never know the real story – we wish we did.

Even though we were her second family, she loved us, her family pack, intensely. Anybody who doesn’t believe dogs love us unconditionally should have met Cookie. Her favorite thin...g was sit on your lap, press her head into you and stare adoringly up at you.

She believed other dogs were evil – particularly little white ones and golden retrievers. She would spare no effort or energy protecting us from other dogs.

She had a job: carrying Claire’s shoes around. Never chewing them – just carrying them up the stairs and putting them in her dog bed. She was quiet and for the most part well behaved. Until her final illness, she never had an accident in the house or the RV.

In later life she went deaf, so she would watch us for visual clues as to what to do. She did not hear us telling her how much we loved her, but she felt Claires hands holding and caressing her as she passed. I hope and pray she got the message.

She was not the perfect dog, nor were we perfect dog parents. But I believe we did right by her. I know she did right by us.

If you have that, you have everything they can possibly give.
Cookie Monster
2001(?) – September 2, 2016

 

Antenna Repair

We had our first overhead accident.

While trying to get into a gas station we went under a previously damaged canopy that had part of the roof dangling down. We heard two bangs, stopped and realized what was going on and then spent the better part of an hour manipulating the RV out of that gas station without causing further damage.

And we didn't even get any gas.

We pulled into a vacant lot and went up to see the damage. The satellite cover was stove in and the OTA TV antenna was at a weird angle.

Fortunately we were able push out the dents in the satellite dish over, but the OTA antenna was not quite so lucky.

The stem of the OTA antenna was badly fractured and because it would leak it became a high priority to replace it.

Fortunately the King Jack antenna used for OTA on Winnebagos' is not that expensive relative to other RV parts.  We got the part and sealant numbers from the Winnebago Support site (Yay! Winnebago!)

A call to King assured us that the Winnebago part was very close to their OAU200 antenna - they mentioned that they had recently dropped the height a bit on their antennas.  Ok.  Cool, ordered one from Amazon and ordered the sealant from Winnebago Parts.

The sealant was stuff we had never used before - "self leveling".  I read up on that and discovered that it is thinner than normal sealant and will flow into the area being sealed. 

One concern was the amount of effort needed get the old sealant off.  One person posted on an RV forum that it took a "couple of hours" to get the old sealant off.  So with trepidation and a new scraper knife from the local hardware store we attacked the old sealant.

We shouldn't have worried - the old sealant just slid off with the knife.  In less than 20 minutes, we had the sealant off and the area cleaned up and the screws holding the antenna on the roof exposed.

The new antenna is white since it doesn't make a lot of sense to male component of the team to have black heat holding components on the roof.  The above picture shows the difference in the heights of the antenna.  The new one is maybe 4 inches shorter.  That shouldn't make that much of a difference in the reception and we think it will be a heck of a lot less likely to get snagged by a tree limb.

We used black rubberized roof sealant to a bead along the base of the antenna and then screwed it down.  The screw pattern was almost the same - where it was different it the holes were sealed and new ones drilled.  While waiting for the black seal to set, we went inside and hooked up the inside electronics.  We decided to keep the old electronics in place since it was identical to the new stuff.  While waiting for the black seal to dry, we fired it up the antenna and watched the Olympics.  Granted we are in an "RF rich" environment, but we could not see any performance degradation from our old antenna.

After it sat for a few hours we put final sealant on it.  This was the whole to tube Nu-flex 311 self leveling white sealant we bought from Winnebago.  We applied it all to the base of the antenna and true to the advertisement, it flowed out, onto the surface and formed a wonderful  water tight seal.

What we did right and wrong:

1. Broke the damn antenna in the first place.  We need to be more careful about overhead obstructions.
2. We used the Nu-Flex 311 self leveling sealant.  Self leveling sealant is our new best friend.
3. We installed the stem that turns the antenna backwards and didn't realize it until after it was sealed.  This had no effect on the operation of the antenna and we are not going to fix it.  All it means is that the little arrow on the knob inside is pointing 180 degrees off.
4. We applied the self leveling sealant too gingerly.  We should have just quickly gooped it on.  While the sealing characteristics are not harmed, the surface of the sealant is a bit dimpled.  Not quite as pretty as Winnebago applied sealant.  But who are we going to offend - the seagulls?