It’s been a few months but I finally got around to finishing the work on the over-the-door (aka OtD) awning endcap replacements. I’ve had them on hand since Dec. ’19, but just now got around to installing them. Here’s the article.
It’s kind of difficult during the pandemic to explore much around the area except by driving to it with a mask and trying to keep physical distancing in mind. Most everything I tried to explore was closed when I got here, then partially opened, than shut down again. All of the historical sites were and still are closed so all I can do is check out the outsides of things.
Right now is a period of strong shutdown as the NE corner of Oregon, and the SE corner of Washington became a hot spot because of the idiots running around ignoring the ‘No mask no service’ signs. Saw that myself where my daughter works. I had my mask, but was sitting at a table eating so I’d unhooked it from one ear (which is allowed) when 4 ‘adults’ came in without masks. Putting ME and my DAUGHTER at risk. Idiots. They acted all smug like they were just sooooo privileged and could ignore the sign on the door that they were supposed to wear a mask to shop there.
Sure enough, four days later the health department let Mush know she’d been exposed so she had to start a 2 week quarantine without pay. I’d be willing to bet it was one of those four idiots I’d seen that day spreading it around and it finally caught up with one or more of them. I’d had a twinge a couple days after my visit that turned out to be nothing.
What I thought sucked was although I was far enough away from them (more than 12 feet) I didn’t feel too worried, my daughter had to serve them at the counter within a couple feet as they selected the cheeses they wanted and stood there in a group talking and breathing in/out in her direction. She does wear a mask and gloves and hurriedly whipped down with disinfectant after they left. Luckily they left soon after making a purchase. ONE of them could have come in, but they were making a show of force with all 4 of them coming in without masks. Boy, are people stupid. I should have said something but it isn’t my store. “No shoes, no shirt, no service” is widely accepted. Good reasons that “No shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service” should be just as widely respected.
Anyway, I’m staying within a bike ride of downtown old town Milton-Freewater and a couple days later, I rode back down for some background shots so you’ll know what the town looks like. ‘Cus that’s interesting.
Here’s the old bank. Circa 1918, so build the same year as the last worldwide pandemic. Closed now. Nice looking building though.
The rest of the street’s businesses sort of have that ’50’s vibe.
Hines was fun, John Day was fun, but there’s not another RV park here in JD and all the spaces at the Grant County park were booked for the approaching weekend so after spending 4 days here, it was time to push on. A picture as I prepared to leave…really enjoy this RV park. Posted this picture last time but it doesn’t hurt to be repeated.
As I mentioned last time, checked all the fluids and this time also hooked up the dash heater core so I could use it on travel day. I did that because as it turned out, it was going to be chili the day of departure and I wanted to try and use a heater core stop leak product in hopes of getting that small hole in the core plugged. I know I have a hole in the heater core because before I bypassed it over a year ago, I could smell antifreeze in the cab of the RV whenever it was supplying heat. And of course, I’d have to add antifreeze to the surge tank after a trip. Bypassing it is the simplest way of dealing with a heater core leak…but you do loose heat at the dash. Anyway, in preparation for this trip, I’d reconnected it.
Didn’t really see much of Battle Mountain, mostly due to the virus. I just arrived, parked, set up, and closed the door. Got on line and streamed an old Seahawks game still available for free on the NFL Gamepass website. They were only offering it due to the virus, otherwise it’s either $49, $99, or $149 per season…price depends on when you start using it. The later in the season you subscribe the less expensive it is.
Next morning, got fuel, and headed north on I-80. Here’s some shots of the area.
When it got a bit hot there in Pahrump…in the high 80’s F every day, AND when it seemed that everyone in town was slacking off about wearing masks as still deemed necessary by the CDC during a pandemic, I felt it was time to head north. I did want to explore a new to me RV park along the way so planned my trip to allow that. Google showed me that most all the RV parks along the route would be open. Nevada and Oregon considered them essential services I guess. And here I was in my spot at Preferred RV in Pahrump the day I left, weather was gorgeous. Was to be a leisurely four or five hour drive as I was heading to a Battle Mountain RV park an hour south of Winnemucca, so no need to rush. There’s a RV park there I wanted to visit and check out. But I’d get there early enough so if I didn’t like the place, there were several RV parks in Winnemucca I could head for.
Here’s a map of my planned route this season: Pahrump to Hines, OR.
Since there’s nothing to do during the Covid 19 shutdown I decided one day to head up to the nearby national refuge and take a tour. I’d heard from John that it was going to have the trails closed and maybe even the main entrance could be closed but hey, a reason to get out of the house and explore? Sure.
Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is where we’ll be headed today. Weather was mild, in the low 70’s when I left the RV park. Not expected to get higher than 85 for the day. Which was nice for exploring. Here’s a map of the area: Ash Meadows…
Headed NW the 35 miles to the main entrance. The main road inside the refuge is gravel so I took it slow while there. The NPS had installed a ‘Closed’ sign but made no attempt to block the entrance. That was a signal that the buildings, if any, or other trails or sections of the refuge weren’t open. But, I could still drive around on the roads and check stuff out. Maybe find an overlook of the refuge. This first shot gives you an idea of what the country looks like here. Remember this is in the Amargosa valley just north of the Death Valley Junction and is of course very near Death Valley.
Here’s a shot as I leave the outskirts of Pahrump. Looking up into the hills to the west of town. Death Valley is over that way.
Over the last several months, I’ve written several new articles that you readers don’t get an email about because they’re in the RV Section – Repairs & Optional. So every once in a while, I’ll put their links on the main page. And it’s time to do that today. So here ya go:
These links will take you to some interesting articles I think. I may have posted about one or two before I don’t recall. And they are all about stuff I had to or wanted to do in 2019 and 2020 so far. Maybe you can get some use out of them. For instance, the battery article presents an interesting and useful maintenance process that’s been used for over 100 years to reduce corrosion. The Awning Group article compares the A&E type awning with the better Colorado type awning. So if you have those items on your RV, you might want to check out the articles.
Thanks for reading!
After a month in Amado, daily afternoon temps were over 100 F and even with the shade I had in the 50 amp spot they assigned me at Mt. View RV Ranch, I’d still be seeing 105-110 F temps in the afternoon, lasting several hours. The heat pump was handling it fine but it still wears on ya not being able to hang out outside or mess around outside much. So decided to head north. Three days before travel, I’d driven north at 6:30 am to take advantage of the morning cool and filled up the RV’s diesel tank at a Shell station 5 miles away. Price was within a couple cents of the best price in the area. I did this specifically so that I could get a very early start in the morning when I did leave so I could avoid the heat of the day. I was heading for Quartzsite, only 4 hours away. There are several routes I could take to get to Pahrump, and this is one of my regular travel routes. Pahrump would probably be a 30 day stop over based on their average temps this time of year.
I wanted to avoid the heat of the day because my dash AC isn’t working yet. I can use my heat pump and do so all the time, but the generator uses 0.8 gallons of diesel per hour to run the heat pump and I have to be careful because it uses the main diesel tanks fuel and I don’t want to run the generator when the RVs tank is down below 1/4 tank because if it runs out, it’s a bitch getting it running again after getting a diesel fill up. Takes multiple start attempts over 2-3 hours and I don’t like stressing the starting motor or the fuel pump too much doing that. Anyway, I just planned my trip in 4-5 hour chunks and tried to get up really early to avoid the heat while traveling here in the desert. And of course, if I’m heading west, that avoids the morning sun and heading north avoids the sun from around 10 am to 3 pm.
Anyway, I stayed 3 days past my due date so I could be traveling during the middle of the week. Right now I don’t think it matters that much which day of the week I travel, seems to me the RV traffic is very light. I think even RV’ers are hunkering down and trying not to move much during the Covid-19 virus shutdown. A known is better than an unknown and it looked as though the Amado/Nogales area was going to be a great place to stay to avoid infection. BUT, the daily temps were just too much. I still have to consider my equipment and although I did maintenance on my heat pump in early May of ’19, it’s still 18 years old. And having it fail here in the southern desert no where near RV service is not something I wanted to experience.
Here’s some of the freeway artwork you find in Arizona. I kind of like it. Then after passing though Tucson, there’s this big peak that’s kind of interesting.
After getting home from that shopping adventure, I noticed an article about something that happened in Mazatlan. So we’re going to backtrack to that…
This happened on March 28th in the RV Park Punta Cerritos at the northern end of Maz on the coast. It’s around 4 miles from where I’m staying. The park has been there for years, I’ve stayed there myself. But it’s turned into a co-owner sort of place with people buying their site, improving the property with palapas and RV garages and stuff. The wind is stiff there every day in the afternoon say around 4 pm. It usually dies down around 6 or 7 but this particular day it didn’t. Someone was probably messing with a BBQ in the RV park and it flamed or sparked and caught some dried palm leaves and eventually, engulfed most of the RV park. Here’s some pictures:
I’ve shown pictures of this place before but it’s all ashes now. Pretty sure they’ll rebuild but I doubt they’ll stuff property owners so close together with huge flammable buildings on every lot. Well, no one was hurt, but hundreds were displaced and lost everything through no fault of their own. Whoever started the fire though…shame.
Covid-19 was becoming a big issue…the idiot in the WH was repeatedly misleading the public about it but if you watched something other than his statements of idiocracy and avoided Faux News (80% wrong or misleading reports), you were well aware that he was wrong wrongity wrong about most everything that spilled out of his mouth. But he did say one thing that was worrisome…he talked about closing the border with Mexico. At the time, that was ridiculous and everyone knew it and he soon backed off from that but, hey, with that looney in the WH you just never know. So the worry was, am I to be trapped in Mexico for months in the heat of the summer? I do love Mexico, and I could adapt if I stayed, but hey, that heat! Not my thing any more. And of course, running the AC 24/7 wouldn’t be much good for it either, though my maintenance on it more than a year before made it sound nice and smooth.
About March 20th, I had an idea. Maybe head over to San Felipe on the Baja eastern coast. It’s only 2 hours from El Centro, California so I could make a dash for it if it got squirrely. At that time, there were no cases of the virus being reported in most of Mexico. Turned out that was because despite the recommendations of WHO, the Mexican government decided to pretend it wasn’t there, stuck their heads in the ground, and made it almost impossible for there to be any testing for the virus. Which explains the low numbers. But I digress. At the time, with scant information, staying in town didn’t seem to bad. There’s a half way decent RV park right on the edge of town on main street. That was my thinking, but that’s before it became evident that they were under reporting the virus’ spread in Mexico. And being so close to California, which had an explosion of the number of cases, eventually it didn’t ring true. So contacted a friend who lives on a remote property 8 miles north of San Felipe. Was mislead into thinking I’d be able to stay there for a month or two so I left Maz 10 days early. And there’s no refund of the payment I’d made to the Jaibas RV park to take me to April 2nd there. So ended up I left $144 on the table as the owner wouldn’t roll it over to this fall either. Got to San Carlos, that’s when I learned I couldn’t stay on the property more then a couple days. Fuk, pissed. So just headed to Nogales instead, after staying a couple days in San Carlos. Turned in my TIP at KM21 outside Nogales, than crossed the border easily without losing any of my foods to the border guards confiscating them. I had prepared so I didn’t have any fruits, vegis or raw meats, tho I was a bit worried about the frozen pizza and turkey dogs I had. But they didn’t confiscate anything. I take that as lucky.
Here’s a few pictures of the trip from Mazatlan to San Carlos…
