RV Trip Day 8: Mariposa

We woke up, ate breakfast and got on the road. We are not early risers and Kenji's bed has to be converted to a table before we can eat breakfast, so even when we really try to get up early and eat quickly, we don't really get on the road until 10am. We'll probably need to adjust things when the kids are back in school next week (this week is midwinter break) and Sonya has to start class at 8:30, but at least by then we'll be in Mountain time.

Michael now has hotwiring the RV down, and the generator is running smoothly. The only weirdness with the generator is now you can turn it on easily, but can't turn it off without going outside. Kind of annoying, but at least it works. Probably an electrical issue Michael can fix, but it's trudging along well enough, and will deal with all this stuff when we're stopped.

We had a blissfully uneventful drive on a straight road to the Mariposa Fairgrounds, near where my best friend Anita lives. With the pandemic making travel difficult, I haven't seen her in so long that neither of us had yet met each other's now not-so-new partners, and our kids have grown up so much! We met up for a socially distant picnic Shabbat dinner at the fairgrounds and caught up. The weather here is lovely and warm, a welcome relief after all the snow, rain, and wind, and perfect for a nighttime picnic.

Mariposa's claim to fame is that it is the "Gateway to Yosemite", but we won't be able to see Yosemite on this trip. California is massively restricting entry into national parks during covid, and there is currently no camping allowed, only one entrance open, and only 350 day-use entries allowed per day. To get the day-use entry passes, you have to go to a website at exactly 8am two days before and try to sign up for them while thousands of other people are doing the same thing. Both Anita and I have tried to get day-use passes three days in a row, and we have both failed. It's worse than trying to get Hamilton tickets when they release them on Ticketmaster! Apparently this is some special time of year when the sun shines on Yosemite Falls in a way that makes it look like it's on fire, which sounds amazing, but also makes it especially difficult to get in because everyone wants to see it.

Today's route:

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:

RV Trip Day 6: Prehistoric Gardens

At this point, the number of car troubles we are having is getting comical. If this were a movie, it would be over the top. Also, those first mechanics who said we were totally fine for a 3-week road trip were incompetent.

We camped on the side of the road last night, and enjoyed the fact that we were self-contained so we could camp on the side of the road and still be totally cozy. But this morning when I turned on the generator to make coffee, it sputtered and died. We tried it a few times, but it refused to power the electric kettle. The stove, oven, refrigerator, and heater all run on propane, and a DC electric system powers the lights, so the only thing we really need the generator for is to power the the AC electricity to power high voltage things like the electric kettle and the microwave when we’re not plugged into power at a campsite. Even our computers can plug into the DC converter. The generator is nice to have, but totally optional. We boiled water for coffee on the stove, figured we’d look at the generator later, and went on our way.

First stop was Face Rock beach in Bandon, Oregon, a gorgeous sandy beach with cool rocks and caves and sea life. We explored the caves and wrote in the sand.

Next stop was Prehistoric Gardens, a spot in the middle of nowhere off the highway with a bunch of life-size replicas of dinosaurs. I first came here on a road trip down the coast with the kids 4 years ago, I think because I just saw the sign and decided to stop. For some reason, the last time we came, 8-year-old Lucy decided she needed to have her picture taken in front of every single dinosaur. She doesn’t remember this, but finds the pictures entertaining, so we decided to replicate them all with her standing in the same spot this time:

As we were getting ready to leave, I was checking places to stay and trying to calculate how far into California we could get tonight after hitting one last beach. But then the RV wouldn’t start. Not like trying to turn over but the battery was weak, but like nothing happening at all. We tried a jump start, but it did nothing. The battery seemed to be fine. After doing some google searching and calling the closest auto parts store, Michael determined that probably either our starter motor or our starter solenoid was bad and needed to be replaced. At first he was thinking he’d have to bike 20 miles to the auto parts store to get the parts, but a lady who worked at Prehistoric Gardens offered to drive into town and get it for us. In retrospect, we should have started calling mechanics first rather than auto parts stores, but that’s what we did. I also called my RV insurance and determined that we did have roadside assistance service and could get towed, but that often takes forever, and it seemed like the part would probably work, so I passed on the tow. When the lady came back with the parts, we looked at the engine and realized we had no idea where in the engine they went. Michael called a mobile mechanic the auto parts store had recommended, and he explained where they went over the phone, but recommended that we wait for him to come out tomorrow and fix it. Michael ignored his advice and replaced the starter motor himself. It seemed pretty straightforward, and it really should have worked after that, but it didn’t. By that point, it was getting dark, and it seemed pointless to get the RV towed when a mechanic had said he could come here tomorrow, so we settled in for the night. We’re now more than a day behind schedule.

Getting stranded in an RV sucks, but it’s so much better than getting stranded in a car, because you still have your cozy little house. While Michael and I spent hours trying to troubleshoot, the kids played games, went to the gift store and bought candy, and ran around in the dinosaur park. They didn’t even seem to notice we were stranded for several hours. Once they started getting hungry, we made a delicious dinner.

Also, there is no cell service here, so we had to use the office Wi-Fi to do all our calling, googling and blogging, and it only works on my phone if I am standing outside next to the office. They don’t normally give out the Wi-Fi password, but she was inspired by my story of wanting to replicate our pictures from 4 years ago and needing to look them up online.

Today's route:

RV Trip Day 5: Bandon

First thing in the morning, Michael called and found a mechanic in Florence who could look at our brakes, so we unpacked a bike and put on our warm clothes, and Michael drove to the mechanic while I took the kids to the sand dunes. After he dropped off the RV at the mechanic, he rode his bike back to meet us so he got to see a bit of the sand dunes too. The dunes were amazing. It is definitely not peak season, and the first hour we were out there, we didn’t see a single other person. It alternated between rain and wind and only slightly cloudy, which is not that big a deal when you’re from Seattle, but not the kind of weather that brings in tons of tourists. Eventually we saw a few ATVs out driving around the dunes, which is the big thing to do around here. The kids slid down the hills and made sand castles, and it was almost like warm snow, which made me feel a little better about making them miss the big snow in Seattle.

Meanwhile, the mechanic said our brake pads were indeed totally shot, as Michael had suspected, and it was very dangerous to keep driving on them, but he could fix it today. We told him to go ahead.

While we waited, we rode our bikes into Florence and got takeout and ate lunch in a park overlooking the river, and then got boba tea (which the kids had been begging for for days) and did a bit of shopping. It was nice to finally get some use out of the bikes and to see that they worked pretty well to ride around town. We brought two ebikes big enough to haul all the kids around on the back, and had discovered that the car couldn’t make it out of our steep driveway with the bike rack attached. Getting it on had been quite an ordeal, so I was glad that it was worth it!

The brake repair took a bit longer than they predicted, because they had to order a part from Eugene, but they were done by 4 and we were on our way in a vehicle that finally felt safe and didn’t make any weird noises! After a day of hiking up and down the sand dunes, and riding around and being outside in the cold all day, we were starting to feel like turtles without our shell, and we were all very happy to get back to the RV and start heading south again! And it was a huge relief that everything was running smoothly.

We had planned to go all the way to the southern end of Oregon tonight, but since we were getting out of Florence so late in the day, staying on schedule would have meant driving on a lot of windy roads at night, and missing all the beautiful beaches that were the whole reason we’re taking this windy route, so we stopped early near Bandon so we can see the southern Oregon coast tomorrow and then make up lost time with some long driving days in Northern California.

Today's route: