Yuma

 After about two weeks at the Yuma lot, our new temporary home, we have settled in and are as comfortable as possible.  I am sorry I haven't posted since we left Anza Borrego, but we have been busy setting up and settling into our spot just west of the Nelson mansion. There is so much work on the camper and truck, and we have been much busier than expected sorting through all the items we brought down. 

The lot. Nelsons on the right, Bennetts on the left.

Another large item that takes time is what we call "getting the lay of the land". Yuma is a very long city. It is not super wide, but it follows the highway east and west for about 121 square miles. It is laid out in a big expanding grid. It is not hard to navigate, but there are busy intersections everywhere. When we go out, Linda navigates and I drive. It has worked out well so far.

Our camper has once again proven to be a great RV.  We have room enough for sleeping and getting our morning duties in order. We spend the majority of our time outdoors and the weather has been great in that respect. The casita is really the game changer. After the sun sets, we retreat into the small building where we watch TV, work on puzzles, and play games/cards, etc. If we did not have this small casita we could not make the long stay in the camper work for us. Remember we stayed in the camper when we went to Queen Valley and said that we could never spend that much time in that small space again. 

Now we are getting our life patterns in order, enjoying the sun, and living well down south. We may not have as many exciting adventures in this area, but we will be warm and comfortable. We do plan to explore the area by seeing or doing something different each week. I will try to post whenever we do some exploring but there may be periods that we do very little in the realm of "adventures".

Steve and Jodi's Yukon. 45 ft.?

The Bennett's Snow River.  9.5 ft.!

Our home for a while.

The Casita from the east side.

Bug, enjoying the sun!

There are a lot of nice sunsets.

The Casita's kitchen and puzzle room.

Our home theater. (TV provided by Ken, the owner.)

The Casita's restroom.

Anza Borrego

We woke up and put the camper in traveling order. Our night's sleep was restful, but we still had concerns about our fluid leak. I looked under the truck before we pulled out; no oil spots were on the ground. Linda gave me directions and we were on our way to celebrate Christmas at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The drive was much easier than our past routes. We mostly traveled on the freeway but finished with very slow, curvy two-lane roads. We had to negotiate 9 miles of steep switchbacks on the final descent into Borrego Springs. It was a bit of a white knuckler. We kept it in low gears and went very cautiously.

At the check-in gate, we were informed that we could not check in until 2:00PM. It was 1:33PM. We drove to the Discovery Center, ate a sandwich, and then returned to the park entrance and got in line. We were glad to be at the campsite where we would spend some rest days, so all was good!

Anza Borrego was one of Linda's family's favorite spots for getting away on family adventures when she was young. The area brought back so many memories of the adventures they experienced. They were a huge part of her youth. I wrote about some of her thoughts in the blog post from our first visit.

We spent our time there hiking, resting, relaxing, reading, and enjoying this special place. We stayed three nights. On Christmas day, we packed up and drove out of the park. Our final stop was the lot in Yuma, where our neighbors, Steve and Jodi, awaited our arrival.

Desert sunrise.

Roadrunner, beep, beep!

Our clean little camper, ready for our winter stay in Yuma

Almost Trouble

Our drive today was approximately 234 miles. We started by wandering through some very curvy hills and then cruised onto I-5, joined by a million vehicles. When we were snaking along the twisty blue highways, we were much slower than non-RV-type vehicles. Being slow does not mean that I am more relaxed. I still have to grip the wheel and keep us on the pavement. When we were on the freeways, we were much faster than through the hills, but I still had to fight the traffic and maintain our progress. It was not an easy day.  

We arrived at the Elks RV park in Merced, CA. Linda had reserved a spot for the night a few weeks ago and the park host was ready and waiting when we arrived. After signing in, Linda went for a long walk and I unwound by taking a little nap.  We played cards and had a good meal then went to bed. Funny how tired you get sitting and driving all day. We have one more day of travel before getting to Anza Borrego State Park for a few days. This is a very special park to Linda (as written about when we took our trip to Queen Valley, AZ a few years ago). We've really been looking forward to visiting there again.

The next morning we awoke to find that there was a weather advisory out for a heavy fog layer in the direction we needed to travel. Linda made a great judgment call to sleep in an extra hour and a half. This gave the fog a chance to dissipate before we hit the road. It was also nice to sleep in the extra time.

Loaded and ready we set out for another day of traveling south. Our path took us through Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Not the most scenic travel route, but it was freeway driving, straight and at a good speed.

Our night's campsite was at Los Alamos Campground at the top of a pass near Pyramid Lake. We arrived at about 2:20PM and set up the camper. As I prepared for the stay, I noticed oil on the foot of the rear driver's side camper leg. My heart started beating. I walked to the truck door and lowered myself onto the ground and spotted an oily substance dripping from the engine. This time my gut hurt and my nerves clenched. We have an oil leak!

Linda walked back from talking to the camp host. I met her with the bad news. We immediately went into emergency mode. Linda got on Google Maps and started calling repair places. After several calls, we had an inkling that we were in trouble. It was Saturday, December 21, and everyone we spoke to would be closed through the Christmas holiday. A little more desperate, Linda dialed a small repair place in Gorman. She talked to a gentleman named Alex. He said if we could drive down to him, he would be there until 4:00 PM. He would be happy to look and maybe diagnose the problem, but he wouldn't be able to work on it til Monday if it was something major. We were not too far away, so he gave us the address, and we headed to his shop. We were not optimistic even though we had just had a ton of work done and money spent to make sure all was well. But we had no choice. We couldn't continue with the way things were. We told the camp host we would have to forfeit our money because we would probably need to be in town. We told Alex we were on our way!

Gorman was a spit of a town fifteen miles back the way we had come. The truck was running fine and none of the dash lights had come on, so we drove to the repair place.

When we turned the final corner, we spotted Alex standing and waving his hands. We both sucked in our breath. The shop was nothing we were expecting. There were cars everywhere in a million stages of repair. It was quite the junkyard. Alex guided me to park on the street in front of his shop. Alex greeted me, wiped the oil off his hand, and immediately said, “Pop the hood!” He checked up under the hood and then dove under the side of the truck. “I think I found the problem,” Alex said. In 5 minutes, he figured out that it was a transmission fluid line that was loose and dripping. That transmission fluid line had been replaced before we left home. 

With a few twists, Alex tightened it up and then replaced about a quart of transmission fluid. He was very confident that that was the problem. We were so lucky. If that had come all the way off, we would have lost all our fluid and ruined our truck. We can't believe how this turned out. Linda gave Alex a huge hug (after she asked if it was ok). We asked him what we owed him. He asked for $10 for the fluid.  He didn't ask anything for his work. We gave him another $20. He was our Christmas angel 😇. All he asked was that we rate him online. He also said to call him if anything else came up or if we had questions. We thanked him profusely, wished him a happy holiday, and drove back to our campsite. We are still stunned.