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.
Going Down The Road With The Leu's 