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Our Travel Adventures
Welcome to the Adventures of Larry and Connie Farquhar.
October 2007 Travel Log
10/29/07: Travis AFB FamCamp, CA: After we left the SKP park a week ago, we went into the town of Manteca, CA to get some minor RV repair work accomplished. The most serious problem we had was our generator had stopped working. While there, we also planned to get a leaking ice maker repaired. For over a year, we've had the water turned off on the ice maker and were periodically filling it with a cup of water. We never had it repaired, as this involved removing the entire refrigerator to gain access to the back of the ice maker. We were hoping our service contract would cover the repairs of it. It turned out the RV repair shop we had an appointment with couldn't work on generators. But we found another repair shop within 10 miles. But this too, turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. They called to get permission to work on these items from the Service Contract. It looked like the ice maker repair wasn't going to be covered, since it was a "hose" that was broken. Hoses are not covered, since they can wear out. Since we were there, we authorized the work anyway. After one day, they stated the fridge needed a new hose and the generator was working fine. They let us spend the night (with electric hook-up) in their lot. When we got the RV back, the generator WASN'T working. They tested the electric with the inverter ON and thought the gennie was working fine. We let them know of their mistake. At the end of the second day, the ice maker was repaired and they hadn't started the generator yet. So we spent another night in the lot, and the ice maker worked fine. On our third day there, they soon came back and admitted they would prefer us to go down the street to an "air cooled engine" repair shop who was better equipped to work on the generator. The good news was, somehow, this RV repair facility talked our service contract into covering the repairs on the ice maker. So we just paid our $50 deductible! Yippee! We drove just a half mile away and had the generator worked on there. They were fast and efficient. The worst part was, we had to pay another $50 deductible, since it was a different repair shop. The total bill was $250 for the ice maker and $390 for the generator. We paid a $100 deductible.
10/22/07: Escapee's "Park of the Sierras", CA: These past couple of weeks have gone by pretty quick! A couple weeks ago, we took off for three days to Placerville, CA, to help celebrate Connie's Aunt Barbara's birthday. Since we we're only a couple hundred miles away, it was an excuse to go visit much of her relatives. Many, we haven't seen in decades. We stopped for awhile in historic Sutter Creek and visited a popular area there called Apple Hill. A tourist area full of farms and orchards. This time of the year, there's many Fall festivals going on. It was fun getting away from the campgrounds. Besides, it's dead slow in the campground.
We spent the next week doing some final clean-up on the campground and checking nearby day-use areas. The office (rented trailer) has been packed up and removed. We might have had 5 campers in the campground all week. Bad weather was predicted for the upcoming weekend, so we decided to move off the mountain a day earlier than originally planned. Since we had to return the last company truck to Oakhurst, we moved the RV to the Escapee RV Club's "Park of the Sierra's, located in Coursegold. We've been here for a couple days and will leave tomorrow. It's a nice SKP park. We met some fellow Boomers who have a lot here. We finally have television again and to re-learn how to use the remote control. The biggest change being here is we have GOOD ELECTRICITY! You don't know how nice it is to be able to have the fridge on electric, the hot-water on electric, and still be able to microwave a cup of hot chocolate in 2 minutes - at the same time! At the campground, with it's poor electric (low voltage), it would take almost 4 minutes to microwave the hot chocolate and NOT have any other electrical appliances turned on. Although we enjoyed our 6 months in the mountains, we missed these little pleasures of life.
Tomorrow, we head off to the nearby town of Manteca. It's an hour South of Sacramento and an hour East of San Francisco. We have an appointment to have some minor work done on the motor home. Mainly, get the generator working. But while we're there, we have a list of another dozen minor repair items. We're hoping it's all covered under our service contract (supposed to be) and will only have to pay our $50 deductible.
10/07/07: Huntington Lake, Sierra NF, CA: Just a quick little update. A couple days ago, we had a day of snow. We collected about an inch, which is mostly still with us (2 days later). Along with the snow came COLD temperatures. Our thermometer read 25°F at 7:00am. Co-workers say they saw 21°F. Brrrrr! But the worst part was we ran out of propane late the evening of the cold spell. We added a few blankets and slept fairly well, but the electric space heater kept us at 45°F inside. It was an awakening to get up in the morning. Brrrr again! Perhaps I didn't mention, but months ago we discovered the propane company wouldn't deliver propane to RV's. I got a few wild stories, but I think it came down to they didn't do C.O.D. and people haven't paid their bills in the past. So we found a small 5 gallon propane tank (BBQ size) we could use with our "Xtend-A-Stay" setup. This allows us to run an external propane tank. With it being cold, and us having to run most appliances on propane, this little tank lasts about a week. It costs $15 to fill here, but $60 a month is a small utility bill to stay warm.
Our other small tragedy is after years of RV'ing, we finally had mice in the house. Since it's turned cold, they've found a way in. At night, we could hear them chewing on something in the RV. Connie saw a mouse a couple times run across the floor. We bought those high-tech mouse traps (traditional spring loaded) and set them around loaded with peanut butter. We caught one mouse the first night, but the peanut butter disappeared from the others. We still heard crunching that night. That's a scary feeling to hear crunching. There's not much you can immediately do, yet you wonder what damage is being done to your home. Last night, we reloaded the traps with peanut butter, insuring it was well stuck. We headed out to have a farewell dinner with co-workers on another mountain. When we returned hours later, we had captured 2 more mice. We didn't hear any crunching at all last night. If we're lucky, there were only those three intruders. But the traps are still out, just in case. We consider ourselves lucky. Co-workers nearby have caught over 16 mice this season in their rig. While we regret having to "dispose" of these cute little creatures, they didn't leave us much choice. We couldn't sit back and listen to the house being slowly destroyed, and finding items chewed on. I wanted to dig little graves for them in front of the motor home with a small sign reading "Beware to all those who enter uninvited!" But Connie didn't think they would read the sign.
10/05/07: Huntington Lake, Sierra NF, CA: Only 2 weeks left until we depart! It's been fairly quiet and starting to get colder. We had snow last night and today. This time, it's sticking. But it's expected to warm back up into the mid 50's during the day. We've been packing up the office and taking care of end-of-season chores. We just finished working 10 days in a row and hope to take the next couple days easy. But don't get me wrong, we're not working hard anyway. It's real casual now. We've been averaging only 2 campers per night in our campground. Our latest plans still call for us to leave on October 20th. We still plan to head towards Sacramento and San Francisco.
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