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Ron & Brenda’s Great Adventure

Chapter 1

As promised – or threatened – this is the first installment of our adventures on the road. I’ll write these as frequently as required or appropriate. Feel free to respond on any of the myriad things that are discussed herein.

A brief summary to date will serve to “Set the Stage”:

Brenda and I decided that we were going to spend our twilight years wandering around the country in a fiberglass tube on wheels, visiting many of the places that we had always wanted to see, as well as revisiting places that we visited for brief vacations. We did about a year’s worth of research to learn as much as we could about the RV life that included how to take a shower in a closet! Short story long, we researched the types of RV parks that were available in the places we wanted to visit, the type of equipment in the RV that we would need to lead a close-to-normal existence, and a lot of research on the type of RV that was best for us. As octogenarians, we couldn’t think of a more sensible thing to do except to leave our home and wander aimlessly around the country!

The choices for our new home were: a motor home that is a self-propelled vehicle built on a truck chassis; or one of two types of trailers – 5^th wheel that connects the trailer to a tow vehicle by engaging a hitch that is located in the bed of the truck, kinda like the way a tractor trailer works; or a travel trailer that is towed behind a tow vehicle by attaching to a hitch that is located behind the rear bumper of the tow vehicle. Without going into a lot of detail about the reasoning behind our ultimate choice – although, those of you who would really like to know, contact me and I’ll give you the full description – we settled on a 30 foot travel trailer and a half ton pickup truck (Ford F150) as the tow vehicle for a total tow package length of about 50 feet. Ye haw!

The plan was for Brenda and me to complete our obligations to humanity before “going Full Time”, that entailed selling the house and moving from our 1800 + square foot home into the 346 +/- square foot trailer. Our obligations consisted of me completing my 3^rd term on the city council and the 12 year stint on the county civil service commission, and Brenda slowly setting up her clients with other bookkeeping services. That pretty much happened at the end of 2018, and while the house is not yet sold, we have started our travels on a limited basis.

So far, in 2018 we spent one week in January in Indio, California (near Palm Springs) to watch our granddaughter Rylee (coached by her Dad, our son Avi) play in a huge Lacrosse tournament; and another week in May in Hemet, California (a short distance from Indio) at an RV rally. We spent a long weekend in August attending the Foothills Beer Festival in Grass Valley (in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range) with our friends Dianne and Lawren. At the end of September we left for a 2- ½ week trip to Austin, Texas to attend the Bar Mitzvah of our daughter-in-law Helene’s son Henry, traveling for six days in each direction through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for a total of about 4,000 miles. Exhausting but fun! In December we spent Christmas week in (at?) Morro Bay, a beautiful town on the California Central Coast. And now – late January 2019, we once again drove to Indio for Rylee and Avi’s Lacrosse tournament. We spent a week in Indio and drove 130 miles west to Encinitas (near San Diego) to visit with our grandson Ethan and his lovely Elle, and to deliver my bandsaw and drawing table to Ethan – the last of my tools.

I apologize for starting the story after more than a year on the road, but the past trips are, well, past, so let’s begin in the present, while my memories are still fresh. Maybe later, I’ll conjure up the highlights of our previous trips, but for now . . . We left for Indio on Thursday, January 17, 2019 during a break in a rainstorm of biblical proportions. Fortunately, the rain was slated to end sometime that day, but not until after I had gotten thoroughly soaked. I had the trailer parked in the street next to the house, hooked up to the house electricity to run the refrigerator that contained our food. When I went out to get the trailer ready to hit the road, the water was running heavily in the gutter, but the trailer tires acted like a dam (damn!), backing the water up until it was up to my ankles, right where I needed to be standing!

Being laser-focused on the task at hand, it didn’t occur to me to put on the really great rain boots that were safely stored in the garage where they were nice and dry. It’s not as if it would have been a difficult thing to do, because I walked right past them several times as I squished from the house to the trailer. About 200 miles into the trip, it did actually occur to me that I coulda’ worn the boots, as my feet slowly melted in the wet shoes I was wearing.

But anyway, back to the setup; in order to prevent the trailer battery from overcharging, I shut it off with a disconnect switch, so that only the power coming from the house was supplying electricity to the trailer. Problem was, when I pushed the button to lower the trailer to the truck hitch, it didn’t work because the line coming from the house was dead. I did a quick search and analysis looking for the cause of the power outage, but came up empty. We needed to get going, and I didn’t have time to try to figure out why I had a partial power outage in the house; remember, we were going away for two weeks with the potential of leaving an electrical problem at home. Not a great plan!

Anyway, I turned on the trailer battery and was able to hook up the trailer to the truck.

When parking the trailer, I always put chocks on both sides of the tires, to keep the trailer from rolling away. When I went to retrieve the chocks, I saw that one was missing; it had probably been swept away by the rushing water, and I couldn’t find it anywhere.

That was three! Wet feet, dead electricity, missing chock. As we know, all bad things come in threes, but all was not lost as things began to resolve themselves:

1) My feet did eventually dry out, and I didn’t lose any part of my anatomy. 2) I soon discovered the reason for the electrical outage: it was a circuit breaker on the porch that often trips because a water pump in a fountain in the back yard pops whenever we have a storm. It turned out that the electrical outlet in the garage that powered the trailer was on the same circuit, and that problem was fixed with the pushing of a reset button. And finally, 3) Brenda, who always needs to take a walk even when we need to get on the road, found the wayward tire chock wedged under the wheels of our nextdoor neighbor’s car. So once again, all was right in the world and we could leave in relative comfort that everything was secure and working well.

So after those eventually, minor issues, we were on our way. We drove about 6 ½ hours (about 300 miles) to Lost Hills on I-5 a little north of Bakersfield, where we spent the first night. The rain had stopped by the time we got there, and even though the sandy camp site was wet, it wasn’t too bad and we were able to set up and get all comfy in a short time. We had a nice hot meal for dinner and got to bed early for an early wake-up call. A hot shower in our compact shower stall, followed by a good, quick breakfast, and we were on our way.

As we drove south on I-5 toward LA, the weather cleared up and it got Southern California warm. A beautiful day for a drive. That leg of the trip was a little over 300 miles and it took us through the fringes of LA traffic, so by the time we arrived at the RV Resort (resort – classy huh!?) I was ready to take a quick nap after setting up at the camp site.

That didn’t happen because Brenda has the ridiculous idea that after sitting in the truck for over 6 hours it would be a good idea to take a walk. Go figure! So I dragged my body around the place and admired, and noted all of the nice amenities: nice landscaping, three pools, the exercise room, and all of the expensive RVs which were mostly from Canada.

The Lacrosse team

Saturday and Sunday were the Lacrosse games and it was nice to spend time with Avi and Rylee. Rylee is a senior in high school and the team goalie, and actively being courted by college scouts. Ethan and Elle drove over from San Diego (Encinitas) on Saturday. From Monday until Friday we spent time exploring the area around Indio and Palm Springs. We didn’t drive far, because the previous year when we were there we did drive down to the Salton Sea for a look-see, and I had visited the local air museum which was a guy kinda thing. This time we just chilled and relaxed, because Brenda needed to decompress from her work schedule.

On Friday we packed up and drove toward San Diego to stay at the Santee Lakes park, and to also see Ethan and Elle. On the way we found a pie shop where we simply had to have some pie and coffee. The pie was so good that we bought a caramel/apple pie to take with us. Eating it took most of the week, but we got ‘er done!

The park was established in 1961 to take advantage of several lakes that had been built, to provide recreation opportunities for the public. They did a really nice job, dividing the area into a public park that is used for picnics, concerts, movies and general use by the public, while another section of the park is reserved for RV camping with sites located around the lakes. Our site was right on the lake with the big back window facing the lake, allowing us to sit in our lounge chairs and watch the ducks, pelicans and other birds do their thing(s). We set up our outside lounge chairs next to the lake so we could sit and admire nature while sipping on our favorite beverage du jour.

Not a shabby way to spent time! I will attempt to attach some photos.

Sunset from the back window

We did drive to Encinitas to visit Ethan and Elle and to deliver the tools and drawing board to Ethan, and on Tuesday we took the drive to Coronado (that led to our brief Mexican Adventure). Because Coronado is the home of the Navy fleet and a few other military installations, I thought it would be cool to take a tour of at least the Naval base, so we drove to the end of the ocean front road to the entrance to the Naval base. For several hours, we had walked on the beach that was pretty much fogged in, and every once in a while we heard aircraft approaching. As we scanned the sky we eventually saw Blackhawk helicoptors flying out of the fog, about 100 feet above us. So naturally, I needed to see the source.

I drove up to the gate and was immediately challenged by two Navy guards, who politely, but firmly informed us that this area was not open to the public. I was about to protest that I was a taxpayer and my taxes had paid for this facility, when I did a quick calculation and realized that my taxes probably only paid for the shoelace on his left boot, and invoking taxpayer privilege probably wouldn’t fly. One of the gate guards asked me for my drivers license, which she held until I had turned myself around and headed out the gate.

The Mexican Adventure!

On the way back to Santee Lake, we had the option of returning the way we had come – over the Coronado Bridge – but being the adventurous half of our team, Brenda suggested that we drive south to pick up 805 that would take us back to I-5, avoiding the bridge toll as well. This route would also take us right up to the Mexican border. So south we went, until we were side tracked by a sign that said “Jersey Mike’s Subs”. We didn’t know if these were authentic subs (hoagies for the uninitiated) from New Jersey, that Brenda and I would drive a hundred miles out of the way to get, but we were intrigued enough to do a U-turn and get a sub for dinner. As it turned out, the subs weren’t exactly the same as the ones we got at the Sub Shop in Atlantic City, but close enough.

With the sub safely tucked into our Costco insulated bag – never leave home without it – we continued south, looking for the 805 that would take us home. As we got closer, we began seeing more and more signs warning us that we were approaching an International Border – that would be Mexico, by my calculations! Not to worry, because the 805 was waiting for us, to safely get us home. Finally, we came upon a very large sign with letters about 6 inches high – fairly visible and easy to read – that said: “Last exit in the United States of America”. Pretty specific language, don’cha think?! But because I didn’t see a sign for the 805, I figured that this couldn’t really be the last exit, could it? Brenda spotted a funky road leading off to the left – the direction we wanted to go – and insisted that we take it. But I declined because it just didn’t look right. And there wasn’t a lot of time or room for maneuvering because the four lanes of traffic were filled with cars speeding toward Mexico. And anyway, the map said . . . !

Not to worry, that is until we made the last left turn that brought us past a couple of military types standing on the side of the road, with some cool looking, lethal assult rifles slung over their shoulders. Having been in the Army 50 years ago, I still recognized U.S. Military uniforms, and these weren’t them. The next clue was the patch that identified them as Policia Nacional de Mexico. As we approached a gateway, there was a nice gentleman wearing the same uniform that had me stop so we could chat, before I entered his country. Technically, we were already in his country, by about a quarter mile. He asked for my papers and I didn’t have any because, as I explained to him, we hadn’t planned on leaving the U.S. After I explained that we had missed the turn off, he had me follow him as he casually walked across about four lanes of traffic to park us in a slot that was out of the way.

He asked me for my driver’s license, which he kept, and asked me to open the tailgate of the truck, probably looking for countraband, but we had nothing. After a little more discussion about how we got where we were, he again had me follow him across another four lanes of traffic and had me park in back of several cars with California license plates. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who missed the turnoff, and they were collecting lost drivers before sending us back in a flock. We sat there for about half an hour and finally the guy in charge told me to get behind the police truck and follow him. With his rooftop bar lights flashing, he led me and four other cars around the corner that put us on a street in beautiful downtown Tijuana. It was a narrow street, and we drove past a crosswalk where people were trying to cross the street. The guy didn’t stop; just kept on driving, but I had the choice of running the pedestrians down, or waiting for them to cross the street, hoping that our escort waited for us. I decided that running over pedestrians was not a great choice, so I waited for them to cross, and caught up with our guide who did actually wait for us.

Guess he didn’t want us running loose in his country!

A few more blocks and we stopped in front of a substantial steel gate that he unlocked and opened, leading us through. Down a short passageway to another gate, he parked his truck on the side and signaled me to drive around him, through the gate. As I drove by him, he gave me back my drivers’ license, and a few feet further on, we were back in the good ol’ U.S.of A. Facing me was many lanes of bumper to bumper traffic heading back into the U.S. There were two ICE agents standing on the side of the road and I asked them if I needed to find the back of the line, and they informed me that I should just try to squeeze my way in. A good samaritan let me in, and we were on our way – at 3 miles per hour.

Once again, we drove up to the guard booth where the guy on duty asked for my papers, which I explained that I didn’t have because blah, blah, blah! So again he took my drivers license and Brenda’s as well, because she had that sinister look, and spent a bit of time searching the terrorist data base – just to be sure. Apparently, we were not on the no-fly list, and we were cleared for re-entry, and he welcomed us back to the U.S., after being out of the country for at least an hour!

A few days later, the day before we were heading home, a major storm was headed our way, prompting me to relive the same scenario from two weeks earlier, when we left for our trip in another rain storm. All night we lay in bed listening to the rain pounding the trailer, thinking that we possibly wouldn’t be able to pack up the next day, but by morning the rain had stopped and it looked pretty nice out. So we had a quick breakfast, put everything away, hooked up the trailer to the truck and headed north.

All the way north past L.A. and over the Grapevine, we were watching the dark clouds in the rear view mirror, arriving at our next campground about 50 miles north of Paso Robles. We got set up just before the rain hit, and all night we, again, listened to the rain pounding the trailer, with the added attraction of 40 mile per hour winds that rocked the trailer pretty good. But we didn’t get blown over and the next morning we again had a clear-sky window of opportunity to pack up and get on the road. We stopped at the overlook on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge to eat lunch and admire the view, and we made it home by about 4 pm and quickly unloaded the trailer and settled in for the night at home.

A fun trip!