Author: daveleu

We finally left La Mesa RV around 11:30 after discovering that they did not know how to fix the toilet in our powder room. Apparently, the electronic toilet is a new model which they have never worked on before. After waiting a couple of hours for the Tiffin technician to return their call for help, our technician came and told us that he would have to pull the toilet and pressure test it before he could determine what was wrong. Since we had to be 150 miles southeast of Mesa this afternoon, we decided not to proceed with fixing the toilet until we arrive at the Tiffin facility in Red Bay, Alabama this coming March. We can survive just fine with the main bathroom toilet… as long as that one does not fail!

The drive to Kartchner State Park was uneventful and once we arrived, we immediately pulled into their dump station to empty our black and grey water tanks before going to our campsite. As we were finishing, Christina, Michael and their kids pulled up with their extended cab pickup truck, pulling their rented trailer. What great timing! They had come from Tucson, about an hour away.

We both then proceeded to our respective campsites and set up. We are within about 100 feet of each other and will be spending a lot of time together. Once we were set up, Mary Margaret and I, armed with a handful of beers to share, went over to Christina and Michael’s site to get a tour of their accommodations. It pretty clever how it is designed, allowing a family of 5 to travel in style. The kids were being entertained by watching cartoons, while Christina and Michael were putting the finishing touches on their temporary abode.

After our tour, we returned to LeuC to start preparations for dinner. Michael had made a great spaghetti sauce which needed to be heated up and the noodles and salad had to be prepared. While Mary Margaret did that, Michael and I, along with their youngest, Wyatt, met our neighbors. They had a 1 year old dog that got very excited around Wyatt and nipped his hand. Fortunately, no blood was spilled but big tears ensued. Already, the big camping adventure had started!

Dinner was delicious and once the dishes were cleared away, Isaac and Stella helped me start the campfire. They were very anxious to roast marshmallows, which were to be the hit of the night! As the adults sat around enjoying the fire, the kids worked on getting their sugar high and one, and then another, and another and another and another marshmallow was crisped brown and then popped into the mouth of each kid. They loved them, even when some fell to the ground. Yum!

The last half hour of the evening was spent trying to coral the kids as they were now filled with new found energy. It was a hoot to watch as Isaac lead Stella and Wyatt in a program of calisthenics by doing leg stretches, jumping jacks, and other creative forms that I had not seen before. Both Isaac and Stella are in kiddie gymnastic classes each Saturday, so I am guessing this is where they learning their routines.
Tomorrow, the clan will regroup in LeuC with Christina and Michael making breakfast for all and then we will go out and explore the visitor center and caverns. Since Wyatt is still too young to go, he and Mary Margaret will “entertain” each other while we are away.

We spent most of the day at the La Mesa RV service center.  We had set up an appointment last week to have the failed ceiling lights replaced and a ball cover to our powder room toilet adjusted.  The toilet will not stop flushing because the ball cover keeps recycling from closed to open to closed to open again when flushed.  I believe the ball cover is misaligned with the electronic sensor so it never stops flushing.

Jerad, our service advisor got us in right after opening.  The first thing we did was count all of the failed ceiling lights.  The final count came to 31 since we had a few more failures since leaving the Del Valle Recreational Park, in Livermore, last Saturday.  We discovered that before Jerad could replace these lights, which are under warranty, he had to email Tiffin, the manufacturer of our Allegro Bus, and get authorization.  This was because the cost of labor to replace each light was set at .3 hours at a billing rate of $150 per hour.  With 31 lights to be replaced, the labor cost was going to be $1,395!  Wow!  Needless to say, authorization took quite a while before it was received.  My guess it took a number of hours just to revive the poor Tiffin employee who got the authorization request.  He must have fainted and fallen to the floor!

In my opinion, $150/hour as a labor rate is a ridiculously high labor rate for service technicians.  However, given the paucity of RV service centers around the US, compared to the heightened demand for RVs by the US public, I guess this is what the market will bear.  Only 20 years ago, this was a typical rate the many attorneys would bill at.  My, my, my… times sure have changed!

Jerad had told us when we checked in that for one-day customers like us, their policy was to limit the number of issues to be addressed to 5.  Thus, we still had three potential issues we could add to the service list.  Since we had a long list of minor issues, Mary Margaret and I selected three more.  They were to inspect and pressure test our hot water heater and refill it with antifreeze since it had recently dropped in its level, tighten a docking light that had come loose, and inspect and refill the tires with air.  We had hoped they would also rotate the tires but we discovered this was something that the service center does not do.

With this list of items determined, Mary Margaret and I then hopped into our little Fiat and drove over to the nearest supermarket to provision for our upcoming stay at the Karstner Caverns State Park with our daughter, Christina, and her family.  We then splurged on a Starbuck’s coffee as we bided our time, knowing that LeuC would be in the shop all day.

We returned to La Mesa RV before lunch and discovered that they operate a BBQ and offer free brats, burgers and chips.  Yea!  Armed with our tasty lunch we sat at a table with another couple and chatted the lunch time away.  The couple was from Minnesota and we enjoyed sharing our respective RVing experiences.  They told us about the great Corp of Engineering (COE) campsites and we shared our great BLM campsites.  The COE campsites are mostly east of the Mississippi River while the BLM sites are mostly west of the Mississippi River.

It was not until 2:30 that Jerad received Tiffin’s approval to replace the ceiling lights but, with “determined” effort, the technician finished the job right before 5 PM.  Hmmmm…, .3 hours per light for 31 lights makes out to be 9.3 hours…  He must have had a number of associates in LeuC helping him.  What do you think?

As it turned out, the technicians forgot to address the misaligned toilet ball cover and they told us they could not figure out how to remove the tire pressure sensors that I had installed on each tire.  Thus, these two items will now be addressed first thing tomorrow morning.  It is not a big deal to us as they do host us for the night and we get to suck down their 50-amp electricity for free while we are here.  Plus, it is only a 3 or so hour drive from here to the Karstner Caverns State Park, where we need meet up with Christina and crew tomorrow afternoon.

As an Post Script to this blog, we have also discovered that they failed to replace one of the ceiling lights and with one of the lights they did replace, they forgot to replace its cover plate.  I guess with all of the technicians they had stumbling over each other, replacing the lights in such a short period of time, they must have forgotten about these little items.  Thank goodness, we ended up staying an extra night so they can also address these items tomorrow.

 

 

On our journey back to Karstner Caverns State Park, about an hour and a half east of Tucson, Arizona, we have stopped at Mesa, just outside of Phoenix. The place where we bought LeuC just 4 short months ago, La Mesa RV, is located here. We want to have LeuC inspected for her ceiling lights as they continue to fail. We are now have 30 LED ceiling lights that have failed and have only 20 or so that still work.

Our drive from the beautiful Burro Creek BLM campground to Mesa was easy-peasy. The only challenge we faced was that we mostly did it without the assistance of Google Maps. This was because Burro Creek BLM campground is located down in the gorge and did not have cell phone or Internet access. Thus, before we left, I could not plot our rather strange, out of the way route that would take us around Phoenix instead of straight through it. We have decided that we will no longer drive through Phoenix because we have discovered that the Phoenician drivers are the worst drivers we have ever experienced in our travels around the world.

Today’s travels underscored how much we have become reliant on either Google Maps or Waze to guide us in our journeys. These are such useful apps to have on one’s cell phone. You just put in your destination and they plot the shortest or fastest route, allowing you to filter the type of route you want. Since we did not have Internet when we started out, I could not input our destination and adjust our route to avoid Phoenix. Thus, I used what we all used to rely on before the advent of the Internet to guide us to our destination. As it turns out, there are still things called “road maps” which are these really neat paper tools that one can use to plot one’s travels. Go figure! I had thought they had died and had gone the way of dinosaurs. We have the “Motor Carrier’s 2018 Road Atlas” for just such situations and we had turned to the Arizona map to be our guide.

It was kind of a bizarre feeling discussing our route as we drove down the road, looking for the various exits we needed to take to avoid the horrible traffic of Phoenix. In summary, we took Route 93-S to Route 60-S, to the 303-N beltway, to the I-17-S freeway to the 101-S beltway to Route 60-E, which is in Mesa. Fortunately, we were able to input the La Mesa RV service center into our Google Maps app on our cell phone as we got near Route 60-E so it could tell us what side streets to take to arrive. Yea!

We are now sitting at the service center, plugged into to shore power and will sleep here tonight, awaiting our 8:30 AM appointment tomorrow. Jerad, our service advisor, helped us back into our space and plug in. Whoo Hoo!

Last night and early this morning we had many bouts of rain but, by the time we were ready to continue down the road, the rain had stopped. Our goal for today was to drive just 132 miles and reach the Burro Creek BLM campground.

As we headed out and were driving through the back streets of Needles to get to the freeway, a scruffy old man starting running across the street, waving at us to stop. This we did and I leaned out the driver’s side window to discover what he wanted. We were so glad we stopped because he told us that we should turn down the next street instead of going straight. The bridge that crossed a side stream which Google Maps was directing us toward had washed out last night. Wow! That must have been a very heavy rain!

Once we were on the I-40 freeway heading east, the road surface started drying out and even though the skies were dark and ugly, we had no rain while driving. Once we drove through Kingman, Arizona, we were hit with very strong cross winds. They were so strong that we were forced to slow down to 55 MPH to be able to keep LeuC on the road. My guess is the winds were howling between 30 and 35 MPH.

With a half hour stop to fuel up, it took us about 3 hours to reach our campground. I was glad to get there and get out of the winds that were blowing over the roads. Burro Creek Campground is located down in a gorge that for millions of years has been carved by Burro Creek. It sits on a flat bluff that is about 20 feet above the creek.

Here is road that leads down into the gorge.

As we drove down into the gorge, we were reminded that we were now in the Sonoran Desert. Saguaro cactuses dotted the side of the gorge. This cactus is only found in this desert.When we reached the campground, we were greeted by Randy, the campground host. He told us because we had the National Parks’ Senior Pass, our nightly fee was only $7.00. He suggested that we take site 10 because it was a more or less level pull-through site that was long enough for both our RV and car.

With that in mind, we continued on, found our site and pulled in. In no time we had leveled and unbundled LeuC and were ready to explore the gorge and Burro Creek. Instead of writing about it, I am including a number of photos that capture the unique beauty we discovered.

Shot of the beautiful Burro Creek Bridge

 

Shots of the Burro Creek

 A view of the creek, the campground and the bridge

A Bull that I came across

We were fortunate we explored when we did because right before dinner the skies opened up and poured and poured and poured some more. For over 3 hours we had very heavy rains. As abruptly as the rain started, that is also how the rain stopped. One minute the skies poured, then the next minute they stopped. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm. We shall see…

In yesterday’s blog I waxed and waned about how I love warm, sunny weather and how glad I was to be back in the sunny, warm Mojave Desert.  Well, apparently someone was reading the blog and she decided that I was just too darn spoiled.  She decided it was time to teach me a lesson in appreciating whatever type of weather I am in.  Yep, you guessed it, it was good ol’ Mother Nature and she laughed at me all day today as last night and through today she brought in cool, rainy weather. Ha, ha ha!  The last laugh was on me!  In fact, to really teach me a lesson, she has decided to keep on raining through tomorrow.

Thus, when we got up this morning, bundled up LeuC and splashed down the road, we had the huge windshield wipers going.  Each wiper looks to be between 3 and 4 feet long, so it was a hoot watching these puppies do their job.  It was one of the few times we have had to used them.

During bouts of showers, when the road was wet, we slowed down to just 55 MPH.  We virtually had the road to ourselves today as we transitioned from Route 58, to I-15 to I-40, heading toward Needles, located along the Colorado River and the border between California and Arizona.  When the rain stopped and the road dried out, we would then speed up to 62 MPH.  The speed limit in California for vehicles towing is just 55 MPH but CHIPs has a reputation of giving a 10 MPH grace.

Our destination for today was the Jack Smith Memorial Park in Needles and it was just a 172 mile jaunt.  We made it in 3 hours and when we arrived, we discovered we had this huge, beautiful park all to ourselves.  Whoo Hoo!

Hugging the clear waters of the Colorado River, the park also has two large boat ramps so our guess is that this place is hopping during the summertime.  It sure is designed to handle the crowds as it has a very nice, large, paved parking lot with lots of long pull-though parking spaces.  The river is lined with a number of picnic tables and shade shelters and it has wonderful playground with slides, swings, a jungle-Jim and a big grassy area just begging for wiffleball, volley ball, throwing the football around or soccer games.  I will post a number of pictures so you can see for yourself what a nice park this is.

Arriving in the early afternoon allowed us time to explore the park, enjoy the beautiful riverine and then do research on our options in getting to Mesa, Arizona.  Mesa is on the southeastern side of Phoenix and, coming from the west, it usually means that one has to fight through the horrible Phoenix traffic on the I-10 freeway to get there.  The last time we did this, it was a battle as in seems to us that the Phoenicians are the rudest drivers we have seen.  They just seem to enjoy cutting off trucks and RV buses, like ours, and make a game of it as they move from one lane to another and then back again; each time missing your front bumper by just inches and then throwing on their brakes to avoid hitting the person in front of them.  Ugh!

With this in mind, we have decided to not follow the Colorado River south to Quartzsite, AZ, where you can get on the I-10 freeway that takes you into Phoenix.  Instead, we will be staying on the I-40 freeway until we pass Kingman, AZ.   We will then take Route 93 south which will eventually turn into Route 60 that takes you to the northeastern side of Phoenix.  Once there, you can hop on the 303 beltway.  We will take the 303 to the east until it merges with I-17, coming down from Flagstaff.  We will then take I-17 south until we come to the 101 beltway which will take us down to the Tempe/Mesa area.  With luck, we will miss most of the Phoenix traffic and most definitely will miss the horrible I-10 construction in Phoenix that so frustrates the Phoenician commuters.

With this route in mind, we are planning on spending tomorrow night at the Burro Creek BLM campground, which is located in a scenic Sonoran desert canyon near the second longest bridge in the Southwest.   I have read that the Burro Creek is filled with deep, clear water pools that the campground overlooks.  It sounds a little too good to be true but we shall see…

Here is a photo of Burro Creek as it runs under the Burro Creek Canyon bridge that I have scarfed off of the Internet.

We have spent the bulk of our first 4 months of RVing in Southwestern deserts.  We love these deserts as they can be so beautiful, serene and unique.  It has such strangely shaped cactus and amazing wind shaped rocks and gorgeous canyons and mountains.  You also get day after day after day of clear blue skies and lots and lots of sun.  Of course, this is the primary reason the desert is what it is, a dry and a very hot environment for about half of the year.  When we lived in Southern California (which is also a desert, that most people who do not live there don’t realize), we had the most perfect environment.  Lots of sun, lots of warm weather and the beautiful Pacific Ocean just a few steps away.  The cool ocean keeps the heat down so rarely does it get too hot along the coast.  In fact, our house did not have any air conditioning simply because if was never needed.  I got so pathetically spoiled that if it became overcast and rained during the weekend, I got grumpy because my day off from work was limited to staying indoors.  Boo hoo!

For the last month, we have been in the San Francisco Bay Area, staying at the Del Valle Recreational Area near Livermore.  It was a beautiful setting with lots of trees, a large, green, grassy open area in the center of our campground with lots of animals roaming free throughout the area.  Contrasted to our time in the desert, we had many cloudy days and some rain and temperatures that rarely got above the low 60s during the day and many times dropped below freezing during the night.  Now, do not get me wrong, I am not complaining.  Compared to the much of the country that is being blasted by snow and subzero temperatures, such weather wound be welcomed.  But, after living on a sailboat in the tropics for the last 10 years, I have become a spoiled warm weather fool.  Thus, today, as we climbed up and over the Tehachapi Mountains and entered the Mohave Desert, I had a big smile on my face because we were being greeted by blue skies and temperatures in the 70s.  Whoo Hoo!  Winter time in the desert can be so nice!

We have decided to slow down our traveling pace going forward.  We already have over 8000 miles on LeuC and that was done during our first three months.  Thus, we will now try to drive under 4 hours a day, resulting in covering about 250 miles a day or less.

With this goal in mind, for our nightly stop today we chose a rather different type of place.  We have literally pulled right off of the road (State Route 58) and parked in a large dirt area which is about 10 miles east of where State Routes 395 and 58 intersect.  It is in the middle of nowhere as you can see from the photos that I have posted.  It is an area where the 58 turns from a 2-lane road into a freeway.  It is huge!  You could easily fit 100s of trucks or RVs here and still have plenty of room.  You can find in on Google Maps or Google Earth by plugging in the address of 10399 Barstow-Bakersfield Highway, Rialto, CA.

We have to whole place to ourselves.  We do hear the big rigs driving by but the noise is not so bad and will not interfere with our sleep tonight.

Tomorrow, we will continue our journey east with our goal being a wonderful little park located right along the Colorado River in Needles, California.  It is just 170 miles away, so it should be a very easy and short drive.

 

 

 

Well, we are off, chasing after another adventure. This is the reason we moved from our sailboat to a RV. We are just not ready to stop being nomads. We are not ready to join the “sane society” and settle down. There are just too many places to see, people to meet, new and exciting experiences to share.

With this in mind, this morning we finished bundling up LeuC and headed down the road. Our goal for this journey is to return to Karstner Caverns State Park, about 1.5 hours east of Tucson, Arizona. We plan on arriving in a week and, at that time, we will be joined by our daughter, Christina, her husband, Michael, and their three cute kids, Isaac (5), Stella (3) and Wyatt (1). They are renting a trailer and will be camping next to us for the three-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Whoo Hoo!

Our journey is about 1000 miles and since we have a week to get there, we plan on just dinging our way down the road. We do have a planned stop in Mesa, AZ on the 11th, where we hope to have the ceiling lighting issue we are having fixed. Over the 4 months we have had LeuC, we have lost over half of our 50+ ceiling lights. We are not sure if it is a voltage issue or if the LED lights are just bad. In discussing this problem with the parts department at La Mesa RV, we learned that most RV manufacturers that they service use the same LED light and there is a long history of failure with them. He shared a story of one Winnebago needing 30 lights replaced. I think we will give that bus a run for the trophy as it seems a new light fails each day. Grrrrr. Tiffin has a reputation of being a premier RV manufacturer and supposedly uses high quality products. When we arrive in Red Bay, Alabama, in March, to have them work on a number of little issues that we are dealing with, I will explore this reputation with them…

Right before we get there, I will post a list of the issues we have so you can get an idea of what we are facing. None of them, except for the ceiling lights, are what I would call a major issue, but when taken together, they are aggravating.
I realize that a RV bus does go through a lot of twisting and turning and pounding as it zooms down the road at 60 to 70 MPH. This generates a lot of variable stress and constant vibrations. Even though our air suspension system provides us a very smooth ride, the many parts and connections that make up a bus do go through a lot. Our bus is not like a house in that respect. With the exceptions of earthquakes, a house just sits on the ground, vibration free. A bus is more like a sailboat and we have a lot of experience with issues that occur on a sailboat. Thus, I should not be surprised that after 8000 miles of driving LeuC down all kinds of roads, we have our list of little issues that have cropped up.

Today, we stopped again at the Harris Ranch, off of the I-5 freeway, near Coalinga, California. They have a large dirt parking area for RVs and trucks. Plus, they have a great restaurant that we enjoy. For dinner I had their wonderful prime rib while Mary Margaret had their beef stew in a sour dough bread loaf. Yum! We also splurged and bought a boysenberry pie. While good, it was not like the pies Mary Margaret makes so we were a bit disappointed in that. Plus, it really needed a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to make it complete…

Tomorrow, we will drive down to Bakersfield and then turn left, to drive up and over the Tehachapi Mountains and then into the Mohave Desert. We plan on having a new experience when we stop for the night. The road between Bakersfield and Barstow is State Route 58. It is now mostly a freeway or, at least a separated 4 lane highway. However, there are still a few places where the highway ends and a two-lane road takes over. At one of these places, there is a huge area which, someday, will be made into a freeway. However, right now, it is a large, relatively flat area that can hold hundreds of trucks and/or RVs. Outside of a few trucks, we have never seen anyone spend the night there, even though we have read about it in a couple of RV campsite websites. We will let you know what we think about it, in our next blog.

After spending two two-week periods here at the Del Valle Recreational Area, it is time to move on. We have enjoyed our time here with the park’s spacious camp site’s, scenic locale, and roaming wild animals including deer, turkeys, bobcats, Canadian geese and swans. The only things we did not like about this park is that we do not have Internet or cell phone coverage due to being nestled deep between two high mountain ridges that also contain the reservoir that is the heart of the recreational area.

Another advantage of this park is that it is relatively close to our two kids, Heather and David Paul, and their respective families. It is one of the few public parks in California that is set up for big rigs such as LeuC. It also is the first public park that we have been to that had electrical, water and sewer hookups at each campsite. This is a real luxury because we do not have to drive LeuC to a sewer dump whenever our black or grey water tanks are full. This let Mary Margaret do laundry whenever she wanted to without any concern of overfilling our grey water tank. This was especially nice since Heather and Victoria spent about a week with us and Victoria, being a one-year old created lots of dirty clothes.

Getting ready for us means that we go shopping, getting the provisions, we need for the upcoming journey and restocking our basic necessities. I also inspect LeuC, making sure that all of her fluids are full, there are no other issues such as loose fittings or nuts, the tire pressure is OK, the windshield is clean, etc., etc., etc.

With that done, I built one last fire, enjoying my Cuban and the warmth that the fire provides. It actually was nice and warm today with the highs touching the low 70’s but as the afternoon waned, the dark clouds moved in and it starting raining as bedtime neared.

We actually have had very little rain during our one month stay here, even though we are in the heart of California’s rainy season. This has made our time here especially nice, allowing us to enjoy the outdoors and the beauty this park has. It has been very nice.

Tomorrow, we head down the road again, with our goal of returning to Kartchner Caverns State Park, outside of Tucson. We will be joined by our other daughter, Christina, and her family, who will be trying out a trailer that they will be pulling behind their plush pickup truck.

Along the way, we will be making a stop at Mesa, Arizona, where we hope to have an electrical issue taken care of that has been burning out our ceiling lights, one by one. 25 of our 50 plus ceiling lights have now burned out. Go figure!

When we left the Fiat dealership yesterday, we drove off fat, dumb and happy: reunited with our cute little Fiat. We drove the 30 odd miles from Concord down to Livermore with everything working great.  With Mary Margaret driving the rental car and following me, we entered Livermore and prepared to return the rental car.  As I pulled into the middle turn lane so I could turn into the rental car property, I applied the brakes and discovered that I could not stop in time.  I sailed past the entrance of the rental car property as I pressed the brake pedal harder and harder.  I ended up using the emergency brake to bring the little Fiat to a full stop.  Whew!  I was sure that Mary Margaret must have thought I was nuts to drive past the turn.

I turned the car around and coasted into the rental car property and was able to stop and park the car next to Mary Margaret.  The brakes worked but felt soft and spongy.  It was raining and the first thought I had was that the brake pads were wet and maybe coated with oil.  Hmmm, was the newly installed engine leaking oil and did it take the duration of the drive to Livermore to give time for engine oil to drip down and impact the brakes?  It id not make sense but I did not have any other explanation.

After dropping off the rental car, we returned to our campground and LeuC.  During that drive, the brakes worked but still felt spongy and not fully working right.

This morning, I drove up to the top of the ridge that overlooks our campground so I could get Internet access and cell phone coverage.  At that time, I called the Fiat dealership and reported the problem.  They agreed that I should return the car and they would look into the issues with the brakes.

After returning to LeuC to tell Mary Margaret that I was going back to Concord, I slowly and carefully drove down the road.  In my drive down the freeway I left lots of room between me and the cars ahead and shift down the gears to slow down the car whenever the traffic slowed down.  I seldom had to use the brakes, instead relying on the technique of engine braking by down sifting.  This worked great and I was able to pull into the service center of the Fiat dealership with minimal use of the car’s brakes.

Within an hour, the service technician had test driven the car, inspected the brake system and solved the problem.  As it turned out, he had improperly reconnected our supplement tow braking system after installing the new engine such that the hose from the brake system’s vacuum pump had loosened and was leaking air.  Now, I do not really understand how these braking systems work but I do know that leaks in the system, whether an air leak or a hydraulic oil leak, is not good.  Fortunately, it was an easy fix, with the technician replacing the connection fitting which took care of the problem.

The resulting drive back to Mary Margaret and LeuC in our campground was great with the brakes, the engine, the transmission and the front wheel axel all working the way they should.  Yea!

Tomorrow, we start to prepare LeuC for our journey back to Arizona as we looking forward to our first major leg in our trip to Red Bay, Alabama.

Today was a wet, dark, cold day. In a word, it was dreary. However, no matter how wet, how dark or how cold it was, it was a great day! What made it great is that the Fiat dealership up in Concord told me that our cute, little Fiat would be ready to be picked up this afternoon. Thus, Mary Margaret and I hopped into our rental car and drove up to Concord where the dealership is located.

Getting there was a bit of a challenge due to the sloppy weather and the heavy traffic. Drivers in California react to the first significant rain of the season the same way drivers in the East, Midwest and North react to the first snow. In other words, they don’t realize that they do not have to same control of their vehicles on slick roads as they do on dry ones. The result is a traffic mess with fender benders making the freeways as slow as molasses. It took almost 90 minutes to travel the 35 miles we had to drive. Nevertheless, the horrible drive was worth it as we were reunited with our cute little Fiat once we arrived.

There she was, bright and shiny, glistening in her bright red paint with drops of rainwater making her look all the more attractive. It seemed to us that she was as happy to see us as we were to see her.

As we walked into the office of the service center, we knew the good part of our reunion was over with and we braced for the bad and ugly parts. During the 29 days that the dealership had our little Fiat, I had been in contact with them, discovering what the problem was and what it was going to take to fix her up and get her back on the road.

As it turned out, the transmission was just fine but they discovered two problems. The damage that occurred was restricted to the engine. The pistons, the piston rings and the cylinders that the pistons work in were all shot. Furthermore, we discovered that it would be cheaper and faster to just replace the engine than having it repaired. The service center was not set up to rebuild engines and, according to the technician, it is no longer done for newer cars due to the tight tolerances and electronic nature now required in newer engines. My research into this subject seemed to confirm this. Things have changed so much during the 10 years we have been sailing and, as a result, the gas mileages have zoomed up and the gas emissions have zoomed down.

The bad and ugly parts of our experience all had to do with the costs of the repairs. A new engine, which is the heart of every car, is not cheap. A silver lining of having the dealership working on our car was that they also discovered that the left axel rubber boot was torn and the thick, heavy grease that coats the axel gears was leaking out. The technician shared with us that when the new wiring for our tow breaking system was installed, the installer ripped the rubber boot which caused the resulting loss of grease.

While we were not happy to learn this, we were happy that it was discovered before all of the grease was lost and the gears were ground down and no longer worked. I asked why did I not see grease on the ground under our Fiat wherever we parked her and was told that there is a shield between the underside of the engine compartment and the road. The grease was piling up on the shield and would have never fallen onto the road.

Once we paid our bill, we drove back to Livermore and dropped off the rental car and returned to our campground and LeuC. We were a bit lighter in the pocketbook but richer knowing that our little Fiat was healthy once more.