Greetings from the River West RV Park in Reno, Nevada, yes, we got out of Oakhurst! And as a bonus, gas is a full $2.00/gallon less expensive here.
When last we met, I was heading into my appointment at The
Rusty Piston to have them look at my “ping”.
I won’t go into all the details, suffice it to say it was very difficult
to nail down and I ended up with three repaired wires, two new trailer brakes, one
new brake controller and two new friends.
I worked closely with the garage manager and lead mechanic
(who was also the owner.) We developed a
respect for each other’s intelligence and discovered that we shared two beliefs: That everything happens for a reason and,
most important of all, that life requires a sense of humor.
However, after three times of finding and fixing an issue only
to have the ping return during a test, we all had a moment when we lost our
sense of humor. We decided to call it a
night; I climbed into Beagle and slept in their parking lot.
(I did alleviate some of my frustration with a pint of local beer down
the street and some really good fish tacos.)
All three of us did research overnight and by morning we had all reached the same conclusion: New trailer
brakes. Since the guys were going to be
busy installing the brakes and a new controller, they suggested a hike for Opus
and me (thank god) that started just across the highway and rambled up what was
the old road to Yosemite. It was
beautiful and peaceful back there with green rolling hills and oak trees; it
was just what we needed.
The work wasn’t completed until 4:00 and then the owner and
I started driving Wurzig & The Beagle to burnish the new brakes and set up
the controller. It took forty-five
minutes for the brakes to set but it was a treat for me—I was a passenger for
once!
Driving away at 5:30 I knew I wasn’t going far so I headed
back to Bass Lake (twelve miles) and searched out a first-come site. My favorites were all taken or reserved so I
tried a new loop and found an absolutely dreamy spot: #113 is a long back-in spot, surrounded by
trees and, get this, you cannot see another trailer from any side! (Nor can you see the lake but that was ok with
me.) It was tucked back and private;
just what I needed after two days with a bunch of mechanics and a night in a
parking lot.
To top it off, I didn’t have to level side to side or front
to back so no disconnecting. That is a treat. I backed in, put down the stabilizers, walked
the dogs, made some dinner and what?
Oh my god, rookie mistake, I forgot to look at my tanks before returning
to camp and I did not have enough water for a shower. It is rare that I don’t have a shower at night—I
even had one in the parking lot! Ahh
well.
Opus and I put in a good four miles in the morning; we got
the blood pumping and the sweat flowing which felt wonderful but made me miss a
shower even more. A quick sponge bath
and a washing of my hair in the sink was all I could do.
An hour later, with freshened tanks, we hit the road to
cross the Sierra’s. My favorite route, Highway
108 over Sonora Pass was closed as was Highway 4, due to the impending snow storm. (Shoulder season camping has its
issues.) So we traveled Highway 88
climbing up through rain then sleet and into the snow.
I had just passed one of those “road closed” gates (still
open obviously) when the snow began to stick to the road and the temperature
dropped below freezing. Visibility was
poor, low clouds and tons of snow, and I was about to turn around when I remembered
to look at the cars coming toward me: If
they had snow on them then for sure it was trouble ahead, but if they were just
wet, I could keep going.
They were just wet.
We kept going.
It was slow going but we made it. Once I saw the other “road closed” gate
(again, obviously still open), I knew we were headed down and started to enjoy
the drive. The sky opened up a bit, some
blue showing through, so I stopped at a Snow Park parking lot and let the dogs
race around for a bit. The wind was
furious and it was still below freezing so we didn’t last long.
You can bet the first thing I did once we stopped for the night at Topaz Lake was to heat up the water and take a nice, longish, hot shower before returning to the view out Beagle’s front window:
And tonight we sit in an RV park, not our favorite thing, but laundry is done, Wurzig & The Beagle are cleaned up and we have a fresh round of groceries. Heading north tomorrow into what looks like a bunch of rain. Interesting.
-K
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