Chaos Leaves Town

After spending several hours enjoying the GC, riding my bike around the area, it was back to the train, load my bike, and up to the vista car to wait. While waiting for the train to depart, I was a little unhappy with myself for not trying harder to find a place to stay up there overnight…much better opportunities for good pictures at sunset or sunrise. Maybe next time.

Quite a few people only had one way tickets so the 1st class cars were nearly empty. If I remember correctly, there are buses that take people back to Williams later in the day. Or a family member can drive up and collect everyone in their group or they had reservations at one of the hotels. Lots of ways to do it. I chose to ride the train back the same day so…off we went.

Heading back to Williams.

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The train arrives at GC at 11:45Am and after retrieving my bike, riding around the area for a while, then climbing the hill to the visitors center, it was already 12:30 or so. I ditched my bike along side a fence (locked up of course) and started hiking east along the rim side trail. When I started out, thought I’d just walk a couple hundred yards and return for my bike. Never did though. View is so spectacular, with so many places to stop and take pictures that I sort of dismissed the bike idea. This is a trail to walk so as to not miss all the various scenic opportunities. If you zip by at 5-6MPH you’ll miss a lot. I didn’t think about all this when I’d brought the bike. Two miles later, I caught the shuttle bus back to the visitors center and wandered around there for a while. Did wander around the visitors area before my hike. Love these old buildings.

Old hotel.

Indian owned curio shop.

Then off on my hike along the rim.

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As I mentioned last post, I parked my rig at the Grand Canyon RR RV park and since my train trip wasn’t for 2-3 days, I got to wander around Williams several times with my bike enjoying the historic towns downtown and various old-timey and newer restaurants. It’s morphed into a tourist town since the RR started to get popular so nearly every shop was filled with tourist crap. But since it was early in the season, I did have a comfortable time wandering around in them without having to jostle with thousands of other tourists.

Weather was very nice in early May. I shudder to think how hot it would be in mid-summer. Glad I missed that.

Downtown Williams.

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After spending a couple months in Mexico…it was time to head on back to the dull old boring US of A. But I had a plan. I was thinking of visiting the Grand Canyon. But first, I spent a few days in San Carlos enjoying the weather and fairly good WiFi at Tontonaka RV park.

All settled in.

The weather was hot so I had to throw on my sunshades right away. Started out getting right on WiFi and planning my next adventure. I had been thinking that it’d been a long time since I’d been to the Grand Canyon and during my web searches for places to stay, found a newer RV park right next to the GC RR terminus. Huh. Cool. Wasn’t that expensive for the ride so I bought myself a ticket and actually made a reservation at the RV park, one of the few times in 9 years of full timing I’ve made one. With that all done, I made several trips downtown San Carlos for shopping and stuff. Nice little town.

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Next morning at the motel outside of Divisadero was bright and clear, did require a long sleeved shirt early on but by 10AM it was short sleeve weather.

Here’s my room.

My room.

True, it’s kind of plain, but spent most of my time here sleeping anyway.

Shower.

Nice, clean shower with plenty of hot water. But, hardly any room between the shower, stool, and the sink. So had to contort myself to be able to shave.

Room is too small for all this stuff.

Wandered back over to the lounge for a visit and a nice breakfast.

The lounge.

I didn’t get any pictures of them but there were several old timey photographs of the owner’s family going back to the 1890’s. Very interesting stories of how the family fared here over the years.

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I arranged, with the RV park owners help, a taxi to take me out to the train station. It’s about 3-4 miles from El Fuerte. Had an overnight bag all ready since I planned on spending the night (or three) up there. Had a couple leads on hotels and the one I’d chosen lists WiFi, had a nice view and a restaurant. But it was kind of spendy. So I was going to be looking around when I arrived at Divisadero. The ticket was purchased on the train, amounted to around $60USD and takes ~6 hours. Here’s an on-line map that shows the trip and the gained elevation: Copper Canyon Train.

At the station, checking out the map.

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The last few days in Mazatlan, I spent doing internet searches for info about the Copper Canyon train trip. For the curious, this was in late March, 2013. Yeah, I’m a little behind in posting.

Naturally, I avoid ‘tours’ as those offers are always much, much more then if you just travel by yourself. A guided Copper Canyon trip is a minimum of $895. That doesn’t pay for most of your other expenses, like an RV space. I can see the need of some people to have their hands held on trips like this because you can make some bone headed mistakes and end up in a ‘situation’ but I’ve been pretty successful avoiding problems by myself on trips like this. I do a lot of internet searching, read blogs of people who’ve done the trip and things like that. I also have a pretty good idea of places to stay, internet access, cash needed, etc. The Copper Canyon train is something I’d wanted to do for several years and after a couple days of research, I thought I had a good handle on it all.

Not many of us left here at California Trailer Park.

Just me and Tom.

My plan was to head north up the coast to Los Mochis, spend the night at the RV park there that bills itself as the Gateway to Copper Canyon, then up to a nice RV park in El Fuerte where I can catch the train and avoid a long boring section of the trip.

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After spending a few days getting reacquainted with Mazatlan, I called the shop that did my painting last year on the RV. Don’t remember if I’d told you guys, but while they were prep’ing the RV in March of 2012, I asked Juan 4 separate times if they were going to use plastic primer on the plastic surrounds so the paint would stick properly. Four times he answered, ‘Si, senor’. But I’d also told Juan that I was planning on selling the RV and upgrading that year. Apparently, he felt he could go ahead and skip a step in the process and NOT use any plastic primer. Damn it. Three weeks after I left Mexico last year, I spotted some paint chipping off the plastic wheel surrounds. Months later, big sections had lost their paint cover. Didn’t look toooo bad, but not what I’d asked for.

Peeling paint on the plastic wheel surround.

So, when I called their shop this year, I didn’t mention that it was a free work (they have a one year warranty), just said I had some painting and body work that needed to be done. Made an appointment, and was sure I was there the full day. They didn’t show up. Made another appointment the following week. They didn’t show for that one either. The name of their company, so you can avoid them, is Body Shop Painting, Taller Selene. Juan Jr. Salazar G.

Getting a little frustrated here. Wasn’t sure that they’d have the time to do all the work that was needed. Plus the paint repair. I had some body damage from the truck bumper I’d scratched the body and rumpled the back edge cap a few months earlier so when a different crew was in the park painting someone else’s rig, I invited them to quote mine. Tired of waiting for Juan and party. Yeah, I know, I could have pressed the issue and saved some money…but, really, I also was thinking, what the hell, it’s not that expensive anyway, and I’d be happy to help the local economy.

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After a couple days of meeting and greeting the few RV’ers at California Trailer Park in Mazatlan, shopping a bit, and enjoying a delicious dinner at my favorite quick Taco Loco, I wandered into the Golden Zone to have a look around. The RV park is at the Southern end of the GZ less then a block from the ocean. I didn’t know what was going on. The San Carlos RV park was packed, but Maz seemed to be nearly empty of tourists. What had I missed in the news? Asked around, but no one knew where all the tourists were this year. But, it has been getting worse and worse every year. Fewer and fewer tourists. Sad. So many jobs gone. Lots of closed businesses.

Seems deserted.

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After returning to Rosamond, I noticed when I drove up and parked in the street in front of my brother’s house, that his RV was there but I didn’t see his car. Damn. I’d have to try and park the RV without help since I think he’s not home. It’s so steep that it’s nearly impossible for me to do it alone. Someone has to jamb the chocks under the tires so the beast doesn’t roll down the road. But, there was an alternative. I snuggled up next to the sidewalk, crammed the front passenger side tire right up snug, threw it into park, and then sweating bullets, released my hold on the brakes. Slipped a little, but held. Then carefully and cautiously tiptoed to the door, grabbed the chocks sitting right there next to it and ran back to the back and jammed one under the passenger side rear. Then to the drivers side. Whew. I could relax.  Then, surprise, Dan comes out from the back yard. Helps me get her all settled with four chocks and the tire off the curb.

With that finished, ask him where his car is. He mumbles something about it being in the shop. Over the next few hours, I get the story on his nearly brand new car. What happened was he had left before I left to Hawaii to join his son to drive his RV to Phoenix to see a Ducks football game. They had a fine time, stayed several days, but as they were headed back, he’d forgotten to put his car (which is towed behind his RV while traveling) into Neutral. That of course, if not discovered quickly enough, will ruin both the engine and the transmission.  Seems he was driving along at 65MPH and someone pulled up alongside pointing back to the car frantically. When he stopped, smoke was pouring out from under the hood and other mysterious places. After returning it to neutral and arriving at their stop for the night, when he checked it, it obviously had a problem. Towed it back to California, took it to Honda dealer and they gave him the news that the engine was toast. And they wouldn’t know about the tranni as they’d wait for a new engine to test it after doing the best servicing they could do.

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