Author: daveleu

This morning we bundled LeuC (by this I mean we pull in her four side extensions, and secured everything inside that can move or fall) and then drove south to our campground at the Del Valle Recreational Park near Livermore, CA. Along the way, we stopped at a car rental and picked up a rental car that we will be using for the next two weeks as our little Fiat gets repaired.

The drive from Livermore to the campground was gorgeous as we made our way through rounded golden hills dotted with horse farms and California Live Oak trees. I will need to take the rental car back over this drive and stop along the way to take pictures so you can see how remarkably beautiful the scenery is.

While our campsite is very, very spacious, that part of it where we park LeuC is very narrow with large rocks marking the parking place. It was tough to back such a big rig, such as LeuC, into it but, with Mary Margaret outside and directing me, we finally wedged ourselves in. Ahhhh, we are finally here!

The next few days we will be nestling in, like a mother hen who swishes her rump back and forth, making her nest nice and comfy cozy. This will be the first time since we moved into LeuC where we will have time to rest and relax. We will be here for a month, with break for a few days up in Sacramento. One can only reserve a camp spot here for two weeks at a time and must leave the campground before coming back for another two week stay. Thus, the need for a brief trip up to Sacramento, to visit friends.

While we are surrounded by nature’s beauty and have lots of space around us, we did discover one negative side to this park. It is tucked into a valley and therefore, does not have cell service. Ugh. Along with not having cell phones that work, we also can not directly get Internet. Fortunately, the park does offer a free Internet WIFI connection but its bandwidth is shared between all of the campers. It is not too bad right now but I am concerned that over weekends, when the park gets most of its visitors, the service is going to be spotty. We will just have to wait and see.

We had to fire up our old Skype account to call and talk with our son, David Paul, who lives in San Ramon, to the north of us. He and his family will be coming over to visit us this Saturday. They are anxious to see us and to see what we are now living in. We, too, are anxious to see them as their new daughter, Molly, is growing in leaps and bounds. She is now about 3 months old. From the recent pictures they have posted, it looks like she is developing a real sweet and happy personality. We are not surprised given how sweet and happy her mom, Allison, is.
On Sunday, we will be driving into San Francisco to spend the day with our daughter, Heather and her foster child, Victoria. Victoria will be celebrating her 1st birthday in about 10 days and we are also looking forward to her first birthday party. Heather has had her since she was a week old and Victoria is such a happy and smiley baby. She is starting to talk now and recently said “mommy” to Heather’s delight.

We are so lucky to have three wonderful kids and their respective families!

Thanks to our daughter, Christina, we just discovered that we have been having some problems getting our blogs posted. We are not sure why and are still having some problems. I have just posted the blogs for the last two days and I hope this message also posts. Keep your fingers crossed…

This morning we woke up to a heavy frost. Our poor little Fiat was a glisten white instead of its normal bright red. Whoa! That is cold, baby!

I used the glow plug switch to heat up LeuC’s diesel engine before turning it on. That is the first time I have done that.

Once the engine was warmed up and LeuC was all bundled up and ready to go, we left our nice little stop off at Camping World in Bakersfield and headed up the I-5 freeway to Concord, CA. That is where we decided to take our poor little Fiat to have its transmission inspected and repaired.

It took us 5 hours to cover the 260 miles. The legal speed limit for vehicles towing something is just 55 mph. I tend to pass the speed limit a little bit but with a short rest stop added to our trip, it still took us 5 hours to get up to Concord.

Once there, we pulled into the Chrysler/Fiat dealership, explained our situation and said goodbye to our poor little Fiat. It will be a week or so before they can get to her and discover what the issue is. They have three full time transmission techs and each has a backlog of about 15 transmissions to work on. Ugh! Fortunately, we will be up here in the Bay area for the next month, so our timing is fortuitous.

After waving goodbye to our poor, little Fiat, we hopped back on the road and crossed the mighty Sacramento River and drove over to the Benicia State Recreational Area. This is one of the few California state parks that can accommodate RVs up to 45 feet. This park’s policy on camping is a little weird as it does not allow tent camping but will allow up to 3 self-contained RVs to spend one night. It offers no electrical hook-ups but does offer a water hook-up.

Here is map showing the layout of the Benicia State Recreational Park

Here are a couple of photos taken from the Park’s brochure to show you what we are experiencing.

When we arrived around 1430, we were the only RV there. This did not surprise us since it is mid-week and after the main RVing season. Plus, this park is mostly a day use park. However, before the sun set, a second RV pulled in and parked next to us. Since it was getting dark and the temperatures were dropping, we decided to just stay inside and not introduce ourselves. Not very neighborly but what can I say?

Tomorrow, we head back south a bit to arrive at our Del Valle Recreational Park site, just south of Livermore. Along the way we will stop by Enterprise Car Rental and pick up the little car we have rented for the next week or two. Once at the campground, we will look forward to settling in with a big sigh. Ahhhhh! We have been looking forward to resting up and taking it a bit leisurely for once. Both of our kids who live here in the Bay area (Heather and David Paul) along with David Paul’s wife, Allison, work during the week so, for the next couple of weeks, we will just be seeing them during the weekends. They both live too far away to driving up each night to share dinner with them so the weekdays will be spent resting and relaxing until the Christmas vacation period starts up.

We started the morning by calling and talking to the service rep at the Fiat dealership up in Lake Havasu. I explained our situation and asked if I could tow our car up to his dealership so they could figure out what the problem is and then fix it. He said that we could tow the car with out damaging it further. But, he also said that he would not be able to inspect the car until tomorrow morning since they were rather impacted today.

Armed with that information, Mary Margaret and I discussed our situation and decided to not go to Lake Havasu but, instead, continue on our trip up to the Bay Area. Once there, we can drop the little Fiat at a local dealership and rent a car while we camp at the Del Valle campground in the Livermore Recreational Park where we will be staying for the holidays. We believe it may take a week or so before parts are ordered, arrive and then installed. We would much rather spend the time waiting for the car to be fixed up in the Bay Area instead of at Lake Havasu. By doing so, we can visit with our kids and grandkids as originally planned.

With this plan in mind, we revived up LeuC and started driving down the run. Our initial goal was Ludlow, California, where we dry boondocked on our trip from Sacramento to Tucson before Thanksgiving. However, since we left our campsite around 8 this morning, we decided that we would just continue on. We did stop at the little DQ that is in the gas station just off the freeway at Ludlow, where I enjoyed a cookie dough blizzard. Mary Margaret was much better than I regarding our diet, as she passed up the opportunity of diving into some ice cream.

After driving 7 hours, with an hour spent on filling up LeuC with diesel and me with ice cream, we arrived at Camping World in Bakersfield, CA. They allow RVs to dry boondock in their large parking lot. We drove a total of about 360 miles, which is a new one day record for us. I drove rather slow most of the way (between 55 and 60 mph) as the winds were whipping at us as we boogied down the road. We fought winds of greater than 25 mph for most of the day. It was a bit of a challenge to keep LeuC tight in her lane as either big rigs passed us by or we passed them by.
Once we set up at Camping World, we called the Fiat dealer up in Concord, CA which is the closest dealership to our campground in Livermore. They too are very busy and it will take between one and two weeks to get LeuC fixed. However, since we will be in the Bay Area for the next month, that will work. We will have to rent a car to get around during that time period.

Tomorrow, we will drive up to Concord, drop off our little Fiat, and then cross the Sacramento River and spend the night at the Benicia Recreation Area. It looks like they allow RVs up to 45 feet to spend the night there. There are only three sites but we are hoping that at this time of the year and this part of the week, we should not have a problem snagging one of those sites. Then, on Wednesday, we will drove down to the Del Valle campground, near Livermore, where we will be spending our time in the Bay Area. Along the way, we will rent a car.

We bundled up LeuC, hooked up our little Fiat and started our 1000 mile trip back to the Bay Area for the Christmas holidays.  We planned this first day’s trip using a different route.  After fighting our way through the Phoenix traffic last month, we decided to try another way to get to Quartzsite, AZ.  Instead of following the I-10 freeway the whole way, we veered west when the I-8 Freeway intersected the I-10. I-8 is the southernmost freeway here in the Southwest and runs west to San Diego.

No, we have not lost our minds.  We will not be going to San Diego because we would then need to head north and fight our way through the LA freeway system again.  Instead, we drove about 55 miles west along the I-8 and then took the Gila Bend exit to get on Arizona Route 85, also known as the Butterfield Trail.  This road is the old Butterfield Stage Coach trail that was used back in the 1800s.  Now, it is a great way to by-pass Phoenix and hook back up to the I-10, 35 miles west of Phoenix.

I wanted to give this route a try to evaluate it for future drives between the Bay Area and Tucson.  As it turns out, it is a great way to go as the road is mostly 4 lanes with little traffic.  It is about 40 miles long with the speed limit of 65 mph.  Whoo Hoo!

By 1300 we were back at the Plomosa Road BLM dispersed camping area near Quartzsite and had settled in for a restful afternoon.  Sounds great doesn’t it!

Unfortunately, it was not to be the case.  After we settled in, I went out to do my inspection of the RV and our little Fiat so I would not have to do that tomorrow morning.  During my inspection, I discovered that our little Fiat was in 2nd gear.  Oh, oh….

We were sure that it was in neutral when we hooked the little Fiat up to its tow bar but now, somehow, was in 2nd gear.  It needs to be in neutral in order to be towed.

I started up the car and it sounded just fine.  I put it in gear and drove down the road, shifting into each gear and listening for problems.  It shifted smoothly through all of the gears just fine and I was humming down the road.  All seemed well until I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a thick plume of grayish white smoke following me.  Gulp!

I immediately pulled over and the smoke stopped.  I decided that I could coast most of the way back to our RV since it was only about 1000 feet away so off I went.  The smoke started up again as I got up speed and then stopped once I put the car in neutral and coasted back home.

Once there, I checked under the hood and under the car and found no evidence of a leak or a sweet smell which would be a sign of burnt transmission fluid.  In fact, there was no smell what so ever.  Hmmm?

I suspect that we have a transmission oil leak but there is not a transmission oil dipstick anywhere.  Hmmm?

Tomorrow, I will call around to see if we can tow the little Fiat up to Lake Havasu where there is a dealership.  Keep your fingers crossed!

 

Today we joined Christina and her family and explored Sabino Canyon.  It is part of the National Forest Service and is located northeast of Tucson.  It is gouged into the Santa Catalina Mountains.

While there, we had a wonderful picnic and during that picnic we were visited by a family of coatimundi, who are part of the raccoon family.  We also spied a cardinal and a hawk.

Instead of writing about it, I thought you would more enjoy a slideshow blog, showing what we saw and experience.  Here it is:

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This evening Christina and her family came over to LeuC to have dinner and spend the evening with us.  The kids were all excited and arrived while I was setting up the BBQ while watching TV outside.  The channel was quickly switched to the DisneyJR channel as we trooped inside to greet Grandma.

It was a treat for the kids to come over and a treat for us as we did not have to drive the 25 minutes over to their house for dinner.  However, I am not sure it was much of a treat for Christina and Michael.  While LeuC is spacious enough for the two of us, it is not like living in a house with lots of rooms and areas for adults and little kids to separate a little bit.  Instead, we are all in the kitchen-living-dining room area of the bus.

Before it got too dark, Michael and the kids joined me outside while the burgers were grilling, giving Mary Margaret and Christina some space to finish preparing the rest of the meal.  But once the burgers were done, we all teamed up for dinner inside LeuC.

To feed everyone, Mary Margaret had set up a few tray tables with Isaac and Stella plopped in front of the TV which Christina, Michael, Wyatt and I sat at our dinner table.  Mary Margaret had a tray table near us.

While cozy, it worked out just fine as we all enjoyed burgers, salad, homemade French fried sweet potatoes and olives.  The large green Spanish olives were especially loved by Stella as this little 3-year old could not get enough of them.

During the evening, we planned our outing for tomorrow, our last day here in the Tucson area.  The grains of sand which define our time here in Tucson are quickly falling to the bottom of the hourglass as on Sunday we start our 1000 mile drive back to the San Francisco area for the Christmas holidays.

We decided that tomorrow we will all get together to explore Sabina Canyon and have a picnic there. The deep canyon is gouged into the Santa Catalina Mountains with steep canyon walls that offer spectacular views of the canyon floor far below.  It is part of the Coronado National Forest.  What is unique is that cars are restricted and you can only hike, bike or take a park service tram up the far reaches of the canyon.  We did this once before, in 2013 and really enjoyed it.

All too soon it was getting to be bed time for the little ones so they were rounded up and herding back into their mini-van for the trip home.  It was a fun evening, even with the chaos that the kids bring into our lives whenever we get together.

Now, if there just was some way to capture and bottle up all that energy…

Usually, when Thanksgiving rolls around and the Christmas music starts playing on the radio 24/7, the spirt of Christmas beings to seep into my soul and yields an uplift in my spirt. Unfortunately, this has not been the case this year. The political events that have taken over this country during this last year have been so upsetting to me by the lack of core values being repeatedly demonstrated that it has weighed very heavy on both I and Mary Margaret. I am especially discouraged by those who claim to be “evangelical” conservative Christians who have taken the attitude of the ends justify the means. They have shown to me that they have forsaken the majority of values that Christians (and most other religions) hold dear in order to achieve a few philosophical political wins in Washington DC. What is going on with the Senate election in Alabama is just one example of this. Sigh.

What the Senate is about to do with the Republican tax bill is another example of where this country is going wrong. Without any debates, they are struggling to pass a bill that has been shown to hurt the core of this country: the middle class. Double sigh.

Given our personal financial situation, we will come out ahead financially if they do pass this bill, but it will hurt those that are less fortunate than us and will strangle the economic future of our grandkids by adding so much burden to this country’s deficit. This is being done by the party that has for decades claimed that they are the ones who can control spending and reduce the deficit and claim to support “family values”. While their bill will reduce spending, it does so on the backs of the less fortunate and yields financial windfalls on those who are already very well off and in the process of doing so will add over a trillion (that is a 1 with 12 zeros after it) to the already too great of a deficit this country has. It is just ass backwards of how things should work in our views. Triple sigh.

With this deep concern for the future of our country weighing on us, we did take a small step forward today in trying to get in the Christmas spirit. By the way, the Christmas spirit for us is one of loving and giving, not one of taking and hoarding.

Our boondocking host, Richard, and his ex-wife, Uta, came over this evening for dinner. While I grilled the steaks, Mary Margaret sautéed some squash and served a delicious salad and scalloped potatoes. This was pared with a very nice Cab that Richard brought. Afterwards, Richard took all of us to the local gaslight theater which was presenting a Christmas show.

It was a hoot to watch and listen to with a talented 7-piece band backing up a host of talented singers and dancers. The range of Christmas songs presented varied from the traditional sung in acapella to classic children’s Christmas music to seasonal songs of rock and roll and more! It was wonderful and very entertaining and uplifting. By the time we were leaving, I could feel the pulse of Christmas running through my veins. Now that’s the spirit! I only hope it can grow with each passing day…

We did just a bit more Christmas shopping this morning and then drove over to Peggy and Jim’s house to play cards.  Peggy and Jim are our daughter’s husband’s parents and we love them dearly.  Each time we come to the Tucson area, we try to get together to play cards and chat.

They enjoy making their own flour and baking their own breads and cookies.  For Thanksgiving, they made a special non-gluten bread that was delicious.  Today, Jim made wonderful chocolate cookies that were the best that I have had in a long, long time.

After catching up on things that have happened since we last time we got together for cards, we had a great lunch that Peggy had whipped up. With tummies full and cookie crumbs wiped from my mouth, we sat down to some serious card playing.  We love playing 3-13, a game which is very dynamic and leads can change with the dealing of a great hand.

Anyone one of us can win but today the card gods looked favorably on Mary Margaret and I.  Poor Peggy came very close to winning in each of the two games we played but fell just a bit short each time.

At 1630 it was time to go and drive over to Christina and Michael’s house for dinner.  We said our sad goodbyes to Peggy and Jim since we would not have a chance to see them again before we return to the San Francisco Bay Area, leaving this coming Sunday.

We enjoyed our evening with Christina and Michael and our three grandkids.  Christina served up a delicious dinner of meatloaf, rice and cauliflower dusted with breadcrumbs.  We also enjoyed playing with the grandkids.

The only blemished of the evening was when I discovered that the 8, yes, count them…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,8… chocolate chip cookies that Jim had sent with us to share with Christina, Michael and the grandkids, had been devoured by Michael.  Now, to be fair to Michael, he had asked Christina if she wanted any of them and she said no.  And each of the three kids had said that they did not want any, so he had done everything right.  But, when I went searching for the cookies, to grab and enjoy one more of those golden morsels of yumminess, I found Michael with his mouth full of cookies and only crumbs left!

Actually, it was rather funny and I really can not blame Michael because these cookies were so good that one just can not stop eating them.  Nevertheless, I told Michael that he was not longer my favorite son-in-law.  Wait, oh, never mind.  He is my only son-in-law…

Neither Mary Margaret nor I like going shopping. When possible, we postpone this necessity as long as we can. However, with our stay in Tucson quickly winding down, we agreed that today would be the day that we would bite the bullet and do the deed.

We are fortunate boondocking on Richard’s property here in north Tucson as we are just a mile from a very large and nice factory outlet shopping center. Thus, this afternoon we jumped into our little Fiat and drove over to the shopping center.

We only needed to spend a couple of hours there as everything was so convenient and the sales people were so helpful. We returned to LeuC with our arms full of presents and now moved onto the next task we hate so much…wrapping the presents. Actually, Mary Margaret is carrying the burden of this chore as I have wimped out.
Not to be a total wimp, I did step up to the bar and made labels that Mary Margaret wanted so she could label some presents that she made.