RV Trip Day 7: California!

The mechanic came first thing in the morning and chastised Michael for replacing the starter motor himself, but then was really impressed that Michael had actually done it correctly. He jiggled some wires and then the engine started right up, and he said maybe it was a loose connection or maybe it was the starter solenoid, which Michael hadn’t replaced because the internet told him that probably wasn’t the problem. He said it was probably fine now, and told Michael if it had trouble starting again, he should replace the solenoid, and he was confident Michael could do it because he had replaced the starter motor. He also looked at our generator, and said the carburetor needed to be rebuilt. He also said the oil on the generator wasn’t low, even though the meter clearly said it was low.

We drove 20 miles into town, stopped at a dump station, and then the engine wouldn’t start again. Michael opened the hood and wiggled some wires and then it started. We drove to a gas station, turned off the motor to get gas, and the engine wouldn’t start again, and this time wiggling the wires didn’t help, so Michael replaced the solenoid like the mechanic told him to right there at the gas station. We felt bad taking up space at the gas station, but it was nice that the roof over the gas pumps protected Michael from the rain while he was working on the engine. After he replaced the solenoid the engine still wouldn’t start, and he determined that the problem was just some loose corroded wires and he probably hadn’t needed to replace either the starter motor or the solenoid, and we had just wasted some perfectly good parts, and that mechanic was just as incompetent as the first one. How is it that we’ve been to three mechanics, and none of them have been able to diagnose loose wires leading to a bad connection to our battery. Fortunately, Michael realized that he had also learned to bypass the solenoid with a screwdriver, and he could just do that anytime he needed to start the engine. He now has to do that after almost every time we stop, but it seemed better to just keep going and deal with the underlying problem when we’re in a place where we have time and can find a competent mechanic. So we kept going.

Due to the complete lack of cell service in southern Oregon, the kids couldn’t use their devices as much, and played make-believe games all day, having what appeared to be the most fun they’ve had so far.

California really seems to be trying to keep us out. We finally made it to California, got lunch and groceries in Crescent City, and prepared to drive all day down Highway 101. Unfortunately 101 was closed due to a rock slide just south of Crescent City, and there is absolutely no way around that road other than to drive all the way back to Oregon, across to Grants Pass onto I-5. If we had realized the road was closed we could have turned off a lot sooner, but Google Maps was completely unaware of the road closure, even though it had been closed for 2 hours by the time we got there. Most cars were just waiting for the road to reopen, so we waited for a while. At first they were estimating the road would reopen in a half hour, but as we looked into it further, we saw that this road had been closed due to a rock slide a few days ago and it had taken 6 hours to clear. Grants Pass was only an hour out of our way, and we were getting really tired of the windy roads, so getting back to I-5 was pretty appealing. I know the snow can be bad at Grants Pass and we saw something about a winter weather advisory and carrying traction tires or chains, but when I looked up the weather in Grants Pass, it was 45 degrees and raining, so we figured it was fine and headed back to Oregon. The thing I hadn’t anticipated was that the road to Grants Pass is super windy and scary, much worse than even Highway 101 along the coast. The kids were carsick and I was terrified we were going to slide off the road in the rain, but Michael took it slow and careful and we made it just fine.

As an aside, I am very grateful that Michael is willing to drive on all these crazy roads and I don’t have to. Yesterday we stopped for lunch and only needed to go 10 minutes to our next destination, so I offered to drive for 10 minutes and give Michael a break. I couldn’t do it. As soon as I got onto the curvy road along the coast, I could only drive about 25 miles an hour and had to pull over at the next turnoff to let him drive. I definitely could not do this trip without him!

After Grants Pass we stopped at Home Depot and bought stuff to fix the loose corroded wires, oil and fuel stabilizer for the generator, and replacement brackets to fix the curtains that keep falling down. We put the oil in the generator, and it started working again, although it still sounded pretty sad. Then we put the fuel stabilizer in and it started running much better. Our 12-volt inverter isn’t powerful enough to charge our computers, and we haven’t been at a campsite with electricity for a couple days, so it was a relief to finally be able to charge computers. And then we finally made it back to California! It was already getting dark.

I had thought Grants Pass was the only place with snow danger, so after making it safely through there with totally mild weather, I was surprised to hit snow in Siskiyou. It was a little dicy for a while, but we went slowly behind a big truck that was being very careful, and then started coming back down the mountain and it was fine. Then we hit more snow in Shasta, which was also scary, but it didn’t last very long. And in between was intense wind.

We drove late into the night trying to make up lost time and stopped just north of Red Bluff at 10:15pm. We were supposed to get to Mariposa tonight, but we're still 4.5 hours away. Not too bad given all the obstacles we've hit.

The route we intended to take today:

The route we actually took: