Sept 13th
A beautiful day! Blue sky, sun and mid 80’s forecast for
this afternoon. Since we have a short mileage day (under 120) we take it easy
until around 9:00 when Tina tries to bring in the bedroom slide and nothing is
working. I got on the phone with Les Schwab in Clinton where we bought the
batteries in March and they told us to call the Corning branch.
I called the Corning Les Schwab and explained our situation.
They agreed to send somebody over with four replacement batteries and install
them for us. The technician was here by 10:30 and had the new batteries
installed 45 minutes later. We only paid for a service call – the batteries
were replaced under warrantee. With the new batteries in place the slides came
in, we buttoned up for travel and were on I-5 by 11:30 headed for a fuel stop
about 75 mile south. Since we had to keep our speed at 55mph (three of more axles)
I found a semi doing 55 and followed him down the highway.
We got off the freeway at MM 554 and pulled into a Pilot
Travel Center. These are huge fuel centers for truckers with up to 15 fueling
islands to allow trucks to fill tanks on both sides at the same time. We were
third in line and there were five lines of trucks next to us, three deep! Since
we’d be there a while, Tina went over to the attached “Wendy’s” and got us some
lunch. Half an hour later we had filled up and returned to I-5.
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| On our pad at Vinyard RV Park |
Turning onto I-505 to San Fransisco we made the next 28
miles to the Vinyard RV Park with no incidents, registered and pulled into our
spot. Once we were set up and took the dogs for a walk Tina pointed to the
front of the car and the back of the coach and asked me where all the dirt and
soot was coming from? It was all over everything, even the safety chains for
the trailer and tie downs for the car.
I was pretty mystified. I disconnected the car and had Tina
drive it off and park it. Then I took the bikes off the bike holder and set
them aside, they were grimy too. Then I dropped the bike holder and opened the
door to the engine compartment to see if I could see anything that might be a
problem. Nothing. So I got the wash bucket out, put some dish soap in it and
started to clean everything. On close examination, it looked like particles of
soot and they were on every horizontal surface all the way to the top at the
back of the coach as well as on everything else, car, kayaks, bikes, trailer,
unghhh! What a mess.
I finally concluded that the problem was caused by following
the trucker down I-5 at 55 mph for 70 + miles. The soot was actually carbon
particles from his exhaust stacks. Put into the air above his cab and picked up
by the airflow over our coach, sucked down behind us in the down draft and then
deposited on everything in the turbulence behind the coach. This stuff wasn’t
oily, it was like lamp black.
Two hours later I quit trying to get everything clean
deciding to wait until I could do a better job when I had more time at our
Carmel stop. I got the car back on the trailer, bikes on and everything secured
for tomorrows travel. Then I dumped the holding tanks, finished a few other
minor tasks and called it quits. By now it was 5:15 and I needed a break. So I
went inside to wash up and we both puit our suits on and went over to the pool
for an hour.
Back at the coach Tina made a great noodle dinner with scallions,
small tomatoes, corn, garlic and parmesan cheese. Called “Papperdelle with Corn”
(www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/pappardelle-with-corn-recipe/index.html)
it was delicious! After dinner and doing the dishes we had some more of the
Blackberry Crumble with a dollop of ice cream – mmmmmmm! With tea!
What a great way to end a day!
Today’s miles, 115. Total for the trip so far, 856 miles.
No photos today.
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