08/04/2000
Hi everyone -
We're a little overdue with this email to all of you, but it's taken us
awhile to feel like even touching a computer. After two weeks on the
road, this is only the third time I've hit email. I didn't miss the Net
at first, but tonight, I kind of do.
We are in Humbug State Park, in Port Orford, Oregon, about 70 miles
north of the California border, on the coast. We're about 200 yards from
the beach, and it's really nice here. Things are finally settling down.
We and the dogs are getting into a groove.
The first week was pretty rough. We were getting used to living in the
RV, the dogs were not used to the routine, and we had a lot of
mechanical problems. Some of the problems were our own doing, and some
were genuine breakdowns. I was beginning to get comfortable with
driving this big rig, but only barely. We had so many problems and
hassles the first few days, we were right on the naked edge of driving
back to the dealer, selling it back, and taking our financial beating.
I think that if either one of us knew what to do for the next few months
instead of driving around in the RV, we would have done it. Most RV'ers
work up to one of these big rigs, so have a history. We jumped right in
- the way Cordula and I always do.
The night before we left Redwood City, I was suffering from a massive
poison oak attack that even caused me to make a trip to the Urgent Care
clinic (lots of pre-travel yardwork, and I wandered into a big patch of
poison oak), and some sort of back problem. By the next morning, I
could barely walk and only then, bent way over. Cordula and I were
talking about delaying our departure for a few days, until I could at
least stand up straight. At 6:45 AM, I started calling every
chiropractor in the yellow pages, and fortunately, found one in Redwood
City who was in early catching up on some paperwork. He was a magician!
After just 10 minutes of treatment, I was fine. I had a disk that had
some how popped out of alignment, and he popped it in. No problems
since other than a minor ache.
Alas, the RV had aches and pains, too. We discovered more leaks from
the engine cooling system, plus the internal water pressure (for
showers, sink, etc) was busted, plus a couple of electrical problems.
Ugh. We went to the dealer on the way out of town, and spent 6 hours
(this after spending a few hours loading up the RV and me with my back
and constant poison oak scratching) sitting around while they worked on
it. Finally, we escaped and hit the road. We spent our first night
about 70 miles south of Monterey, parked in front of the King City
police station - a small ag town - simply because we couldn't find
anyplace else and we were beat. At least the cops were nice, and told
us which place had the best food within walking distance.
We then spent 5 nights in a state park, set up with spots for RV
(electricity, water) near Ojai. Ojai is an upscale tourist town, 15
miles inland from Ventura. Cordula had a group seminar near Ojai - I
spent the days checking out the area in a rental car, and continuing to
battle a bunch of small RV problems. I even had to call a plumber when
our sewage system clogged and wouldn't empty (we've learned how to avoid
that problem again).
After our 5 nights, we returned the rental car - and, upon leaving the
rental car office, saw gallons and gallons of radiator fluid on the
ground under the RV. Something else broke! Fortunately, Cordula went
into an auto parts store right in front of us, and talked to the owner.
He called a friend of his who owned a big diesel engine shop only 1/2
mile away. The guys at the shop were great - dived right into the
problem, and fixed it in just 3 hours. The bill was sent to our
dealer. It turned out to be the same problem as before, just not fixed
right - now it is.
We drove up Highway 395, which runs between NEvada and Cal near Death
Valley. There was a massive heatwave - 110 degrees, and we were
climbing through 4,000, 6,000 and even two 8,000 foot mountain passes
over 2 days. We were really scared something would break, and we saw a
lot of broken down RVs, trucks and cars. Although the engine temp gauge
went up, it never hit the danger zone. We learned how to drive in the
AM before the afternoon heat, turn off the air conditioner on the
steepest parts, drive in a lower gear, and drive a little slower - all
things we never had to do in a BMW.
Since then, we've had no problems at all, and we have learned how all of
the pieces work. We've stayed in some nice places - generally for a
night or two, depending upon how we feel about driving that day. We
spent a night in the parking lot of a casino outside of Reno that
encouraged RV'ers in exchange for their gambling dollars and also in
some nice parks. We travelled through several national parks & forests
- Lassen, Modoc, Lava Beds and a lot of state parks.
We have figured out how all of the systems work, and the little
optimization tricks. We figured our how to keep the pots and pans from
clanging every time we hit a bump. The dogs have each figured out their
favorite spaces for when we are driving, and for when they are sleeping.
There are an amazing number of really nice small towns in the northern
most 100 miles of California and along the Oregon coast. Lots of them
have used book stores, so we trade in our books, and stock up. The
weather is much more moderate - we've escaped the heat wave. The
quality of life in the RV is excellent. The kitchen is complete, and we
are cooking better meals than at home (dinner becomes the highlight of
the day). Lots of space, and some of the RV parks have cable TV hookups
- 50 channels and at last, I have a TV I can watch in bed.
The range of characters we've met is huge - everything from a clinical
psychologist taking the summer off with his wife, to some real dubious
individuals who are living on the fringe of society. The 3 shelties are
real conversation starters - and then everyone wants to know about our
RV - it's been about the nicest one at every place we've been - we even
use the ice maker to supply ice to our neighbors. You can always see
the light go on when they realize that other than the weekend trailer
types, we are younger than most other RV'ers. They put the pieces
together, and really want to know what's going on.
So, things are finally going pretty well. It's getting addicting.
Driving this big rig is finally fun - my confidence level is high, and I
can actually now parallel park it. Cordula is getting to be a good
driver, too. (Annotation by Cordula: it is true, I'm getting pretty good
at driving it - only Steve does not believe it and has one million
comments. Any suggestions on "turning him off"? - I believe many of you
have had this same problem with him...). We really have no
responsibility, no big hassles beyond figuring out how to hook up to the
electricity and water, and there's less work than cleaning and
maintaining a whole house. Our big daily decision involves deciding how
far to drive that day. No meetings to go to and my only connection with
the stock market is a daily call to Abbas, plus whatever's in the
business section of the local paper.
Now that we're caught up a bit, next time, we'll share some thoughts
about the transient nature of today's society, and how the rest of
America couldn't give one damn about the Internet.
Feel free to forward these emails along to any friends and family we've
missed.
- cordula & steve -
P.S. we'd love to hear back from you, but please - due to narrow
bandwidth, no big email files or when you respond, don't resend our
email back to us!