Well, the pets are at the kennel, the batteries are charged, and we are ready to button up for the night.

We leave tomorrow morning at 5:30 (ugh). After I post this, we will be off-line and away from email and cell phones for a week.

With a little luck, my next post will be from the Detroit dealer a week from tomorrow.

Check back here next Friday!

We are at the Wal-Mart in Scottsdale (map).

This seems to be a popular waystation -- there were at least five other rigs here, as well as three tractor-trailers. It's really nice of Wal-Mart to allow weary travelers to stop in their parking lot for the night.

Of course, there are always those few who abuse the privilege, thus jeopardizing these sorts of opportunities for everyone. Case in point is the couple in the Fleetwood Discovery that was here when we arrived last night. These folks had both their slide-outs extended, their awning deployed, and their lawn chairs out, as if they were in a campground. To top it off, they weren't even here -- they were off someplace in their toad, which they later parked alonside their "patio," thus taking up a full seven spaces in this parking lot. They're all packed up and ready to leave now, so we missed our opportunity to slip this (PDF - requires Acrobat) under their wiper. I also missed my chance to snap a photo of their "camp" before they tore down -- it was quite unbelieveable, and I wanted to post it here.

We had a lovely drive down from Sedona yesterday. While a good chunk of the drive was on I-17, it was still quite scenic coming through the mountains. We also stopped at Montezuma Castle National Monument, an exceptionally well-preserved example of ancient Puebloan ruins that happens to be quite close to the interstate.

We managed to get the dog in to the vet for her vaccination updates last night, so all the pets are now current and we can drop them at the kennel later today. Aside from the kennel, our agenda today is to pack for Mexico, get Odyssey parked and secured for a week by herself, and arrange transportation to the airport. I may get one more chance to update the blog, but maybe not, in which case this will be my last post until we return.

Well, more questions have come in via email, and, rather than spend the rest of the week answering them individually, I thought I would do a little "FAQ" here instead:

Q. What's all this about going to Mexico? Are you taking Odyssey to Mexico? When are you leaving? How long will you be gone?

A. Next week is our anniversary, and we will be celebrating by lounging around the pool drinking Margaritas in Cancun. We are flying to Cancun, leaving from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Odyssey will remain in Phoenix, pining for us. We fly out this Friday morning, and return next Thursday evening, May 5th.

Q. What will you do with Odyssey while you are gone?

A. Just as we did in Fort Lauderdale over Christmas, we have found a safe place to park Odyssey where she will be well looked after while we are gone. As then, we are not discussing where that is here in the blog for security reasons.

Q. What will you do with the pets?

A. They will be in a kennel, which, amusingly, is called the "Canine Country Club." (Yes, they also take cats.)

Q. What is Sean doing in the photo taken in the Kaibab forest?

A. Making/tending a campfire, in the fire ring conveniently left there by (numerous) previous dispersed campers. (I've discussed the ethics of these fire rings previously.)

Q. What is the fluffy white forest creature in the same photo?

A. That's our dog, Opal. She does not blend in to the forest. Although she sometimes tries by rolling in whatever dung may be convenient.

Q. Why are you dreading the call to Infinity Coach? Do they have quality control problems? Let me at 'em...

A. The failure to properly secure the air intake ductwork was a simple error of the type that anyone can make in the course of a large project. Given the scope of our project, mistakes were actually fairly few and far between, though this particular mistake may have fairly large consequences. The reason I am upset about this is that we actually like the Infinity people quite a lot, and consider them our friends, and the last thing I want to do is to have to call to discuss how a simple error on a routine task in the course of an otherwise routine day that just happened to be on their watch may have led to a fairly major and costly repair. This is why I am nervously awaiting the diagnosis from W.W. Williams, the local Detroit dealer.

Q. Will you stay in Phoenix if the {ECM needs to be replaced | Engine needs to be rebuilt}?

A. That depends on what Williams tells us is wrong and how long we can go before the problem becomes critical. If we need ECM work, I would prefer to have it done at Stewart and Stevenson, either in Houston or Corpus Christi. We are heading east into Texas anyway, they have a good shop rate, and I have a great deal of confidence in either of these shops, based on personal experience. I don't have any experience with Williams. If the engine needs liners and rings due to dirt ingestion, that will be an Infinity issue, and we will likely go wherever they send us. My guess would be Southern Oregon Diesel, another shop in which I have great confidence. Our plans do not take us in that direction immediately, so we will have to see how urgent the problem is. If the rings are already shot, there's probably no reason not to just leave them alone until we are in Oregon in July. Of course, all bets are off if Williams finds something that suggests the coach should not be driven even as far as these other shops.

Q. Where are you going after that?

A. Our next scheduled event is the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Fort Worth, TX at the end of June. We have no specific plans or itinerary until then. Assuming Odyssey is cleared for continued operation, we will meander through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, visiting with some friends and generally slowing down our pace until we need to be in Fort Worth. We've been moving every day or two up till now, with a handful of exceptions, and we'd like to slow down to a pace of moving Odyssey only once a week or so, exploring each area by motorcycle.

Q. When will we see you next?

A. Umm, I don't think I can answer this in a blog -- you'll have to send us email on this one.

We are at the Elks lodge in Sedona (map). Louise has already posted a photo of a small part of the panoramic view from our site here.

We woke up in solitude at our little off-road spot this morning. It was cold last night, so the air was once again completely down. Starting the engine pre-heat nearly two hours before we got out of bed seems to have allowed the block to warm up enough that we did not experience the throttle-position issue this morning when I started to coach to air it back up.

Enough people have written in regarding yesterday's post that I need to clarify. (OK, and my wife says I was being a drama queen.)

First off, as far as we can tell, we are in no danger of either the engine blowing up, or of being stranded anyplace by either problem. The worst case is that the drop-off of power and torque that we are experiencing means we can more easily get stuck in sand or mud, so we are being very careful about where we choose to leave the pavement.

Regarding the throttle-position problem, we seem to have a good work-around at the moment, which is to pre-heat the engine until the ECM is at least 65 degrees. I am hopeful that reseating the ECM connectors and putting some dielectric grease in them will fix this problem, and we will have that done in Phoenix.

Regarding the engine possibly being "dusted," there are short term and long term consequences, but none is any kind of immediate crisis. We're blowing enough oil through the air box that I am having to add about a gallon every 500-600 miles, our power and torque availability is severely limited, and we are using fuel at a faster rate (plus we are blowing enough black smoke that the usual tailgaters are keeping their distance, which isn't all bad). For the cost of a little additional fuel and oil we can keep moving down the road.

For those who have inquired, I don't believe these two problems are in any way related. That being said, all of the "engine wear" symptoms except the oil blow-by are things that could, conceivably, be caused by an ECM problem. Generally, though, the ECM would be giving codes if it was losing its mind.

Also for those who have inquired, we are not comfortable leaving the coach with the Detroit dealer while we are in Mexico. The simple reason for this is that most engine service places have never seen a German Neoplan, and they can spend a lot of time (on our nickel) spinning their wheels looking for harness routing, engine control relays, and that sort of thing. I really need to be available while they are working to show them where some of these items are located. Since we will be incommunicado in Mexico, they would have no way to even call to get help. Also, access to some parts of the engine require entry through our bedroom and we'd rather not have people moving our things around while we're away.

We have no particular schedule after we return from Cancun, so we can stay in Phoenix as long as required for the dealer to do what needs done.

I just need to remember to put some cardboard down under the motor before we leave our parking spot in Phoenix, or I will leave enough oil in my friend's parking lot that we'll never be invited back...

The view from the Elk's lodge in Sedona is gorgeous, and our neighbors are very nice.

We had a great day today at the Grand Canyon, however, we were unable to secure a campsite within the park. We are now on our way south, but we've only made it a bit past Tusayan. We are in the Kaibab national forest, parked just off the graded road a bit over the 1/4 mile minimum distance from the highway (map).

Most forest roads are poorly marked to begin with, and figuring out where it is legal to camp is an exercise usually left to the camper. This close to the Grand Canyon, however, the forest is quite heavily used, and there was a giant sign 1/4 mile from route 64 stating that camping was permitted "past this point." We turned in to the first reasonable pull-out after the sign. At this time of year, it's empty here, and we have the forest to ourselves. With the roads so muddy, we did not want to chance going farther and possibly getting stuck.

We had hoped to make it a bit further south, having gotten ourselves ready to leave the park around 5-ish. However, the accelerator-position surging problem is still with us, and getting worse, and we ended up having to pre-heat the engine with our hydronic system for nearly an hour before we could get the engine started without problems.

The same thing happened this morning when we left Tusayan, and I was able to improve things by using my heat gun to warm up the ECM and the harness going into it. Unfortunately, it was a cheap heat gun, and it gave up its ghost during the process. At any rate, I am now relatively convinced that the throttle position problem is either in the ECM itself, or the harness connector going into it. One of our blog readers suggested I remove this connector and put some dielectric grease in there, which is a great suggestion. We will have Detroit do this when we get to Phoenix -- our experience with removing the extremely-difficult-to-access ECM connectors is that one or more pins will sometimes break during the removal or replacement sequence, and we want to be someplace where they can replace a pin if this happens. Breaking off the wrong pin can completely disable the engine.

We need to stop at the Detroit dealer in Phoenix anyway, since we need to change the oil and filters and pull a sample ASAP due to the dirt ingestion issue. We will also have them check the compression and advise us if we can even run the engine for another 2,000 miles to get it back to Sumner. Subjectively, the engine power has dropped off tremendously, and we are blowing copious amounts of black smoke virtually all the time now. We also now drool about a cup of oil out the airbox drains every time we start the motor after it sits for a night, and it seems like our fuel mileage is dropping. To top it all off, I had conversations with a couple of engine-savvy folks while at the Bus Conversion Gathering, and all seem to think we have "dusted" the engine by running it for so many miles with the air filter bypassed. Consensus is that we need new liners, new rings, and a new turbocharger, all of which require pulling the engine from the frame. I'm nervously awaiting a diagnosis when we get to Phoenix, and dreading the conversation I will have to have with the Infinity Coach people about it if the air intake is to blame.

With any luck it will stay dry tonight, so we can back out of here tomorrow without too much drama. We'll run the preheater on the engine for a good couple hours before we even try to start it this time. We are then heading toward Phoenix by the most direct route, which is via 180 to Flagstaff and then I-17 south to Phoenix. Our flight to Cancun is Friday morning, and we have to be in our "parking spot" by close of business Thursday. A straight run will give us some margin for error in the event the engine problems worsen, and will also give us the time we need to get the dog her shots and all three pets to the kennel.

Louise has posted a nice picture of our lovely digs here in the Kaibab forest, below.

Now this is our kind of camping!

We are in Tusayan (map), the small community at the south entrance to Grand Canyon National Park.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon yesterday afternoon, thinking we would like to spend three nights here. We were expecting to stay in the Mather Campground operated by the park service, with access to the park's transportation system. When we stayed there last year in a rental RV, we had carefully scoped it out to ensure that Odyssey would fit and could navigate the roads.

Unfortunately, the park service is enforcing a strict 30' length limitation on motorhomes. This ticks me off just a tad, because there is no such limit for trailers. So there are clearly people staying at Mather with 18' trucks pulling 30' trailers, for a combined length of nearly 50', but our single-unit 39' length precludes us. Harumph. I do understand it, though, considering how awful some MH drivers are, and how poorly some units turn. Also, many coaches are pulling cars behind them. I'd much rather see them enforce a combined length limit, but I'm sure there would be a number of people abusing that privilege.

We did try to get in to "Trailer Village," the concessionaire-operated full-hookup campground also within the park boundary. Unfortunatley, they had only one space available (due to a cancellation -- they are otherwise sold-out) and it had low-hanging trees that could not accomodate Odyssey.

Reluctantly, we exited the park and landed here, at the Camper Village RV Park. The nearby Forest Service campground is still closed for the season, and dispersed opportunities in the forest were risky -- it's been raining the last few days, and all the dirt roads are bus-trapping mud puddles at the moment. The good news is that this campground is mostly empty, so it was fairly quiet and we did not have anyone right next to us.

We will drive back into the park today, and see if they have another space at Trailer Village. If not, we'll spend the day in the park, and likely head south toward Flagstaff at the end of the day.

Until we arrived here at the Grand Canyon Caverns, we'd been in fairly balmy weather for the last few months. Now that we are at nearly 5,000' elevation and a bit north, the temperatures have been dropping into the thirties at night.

One of the many problems that remain on our to-do list is the issue of air pressure bleeding off in cold weather. I'm not certain if this is coming off the ride-height valves, or simply leaking around various fittings in the air system due to differential contraction of the metals (or hardening of the seals). In any case, it is a known problem, and we will have the air system gone over completely in July, when Odyssey returns to Infinity Coach, who now have a lift.

Often, when we experience this amount of leakage, it overwhelms our tiny little electric air compressor, which tries valiantly to replace the lost air until it overheats and it's internal thermal circuit breaker trips it off. We reset the compressor, if needed, every night before we turn in, but, invariably, it trips off in the night, and we wake up with the coach tilted because the suspension has dropped.

The last few mornings, upon awaking in this condition, we have started the main engine to air the coach up. Two out of three of those mornings, the engine sounded rough, like it was surging a bit, but nothing too serious. We attributed it to the cold, and possibly some fuel gelling or similar problems, and have been running the pre-heater to minimize it.

Then came this morning. I started the engine, and within four or five seconds, it raced immediately to redline. I shut down and restarted several times with the same result -- various surging, eventually going to redline, with me hitting the kill switch as fast as I can. Given this new behavior, I decided to look at the Accelerator Position variable in the engine computer. It took a few tries to dial that up before the engine redlined, but I finally managed to get it on the display. Sure enough, the Position was all over the map, from 0 to 100%. The throttle, of course, was untouched.

It is actually a small comfort to know that the surging is not a mechanical problem with the enigne, but rather something electrical. Curiously, turning the ignition on without starting the engine shows the Accelerator Position to be rock-steady at 0%, or wherever I position it with my foot. It is only after actually starting the engine that the variable seems to go haywire. Also, the problem seems to go away completely when the engine warms up.

We had experienced this problem once in the past, when still at Infinity, after the coach became soaking wet in a storm. The Detroit guy gave me an extra position sensor (unfortunately, not the right model for my treadle) and basically told me that the problem can't be diagnosed unless it is actally happening real-time. Of course, we could not get it to repeat no matter what we did. But, in that instance, we attributed the problem to some part of the harness getting wet and causing a resistance-value change.

It's dry as a bone here, of course. Nevertheless, it's been cold enough at night that there might be a dew issue, so this could still be moisture-related. That would explain why it goes away after the engine warms up, but it would still not explain why the position shows steady with the engine not running.

Harumph. This is gonna be a bear to track down.

Miss May

We just had a visit from the very apologetic editor of Bus Conversions magazine. As I have chronicled here previously, Odyssey is the centerfold article for the May issue. It seems there has been some sort of transcription error in the editorial process, and the article, as printed, is not what we submitted. I'm actually afraid to even read it, but I am given to understand that there are a number of spelling and grammatical errors, and perhaps some of the text was deleted and/or some previously deleted text has been re-inserted. I am told that the end result is bad enough that a written apology from the editor herself is forthcoming in the June issue.

I have posted the original, correct, and unedited article on our web site, here.

There is a saying in the computer business that "to err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer." This is an apt description of what happened to our article.

Louise and I wrote the article using Microsoft Word. While I loathe Microsoft products in general, we use Windows out of necessity (the software that runs our satellite, does our mapping and navigation, and organizes our calendars, among other tasks, runs on nothing else), and Word happened to be pre-loaded (and is a de-facto standard anyway). We used the change-tracking and collaboration features of Word as we worked together to create a polished finished product.

When we were done, I spoke to the editorial staff at the magazine, who allowed that they actually preferred to receive copy in Word. So we made a final proof, and sent the finished article to them. It was spell-checked and grammatically correct. More importantly, it flowed well and seemed to us to be a good, well-written article.

The article we sent, of course, had change-tracking turned off, because it was a final copy. Word, however, in its infinite wisdom, still has all the changes ever made to the document stored within. In hindsight, there are ways to force Word to "accept" the changes permanently, which we should have effected, though they don't ever seem to go away from the raw document.

In any case, the staff at the magazine apparently had change-tracking turned on, either in the on-screen display or in the printed document. The result was, to them, a confusing array of red-lines, cross-outs, additions in multiple colors (how Word identifies different collaborators), and the like. This could easily have been fixed with a simple phone call, wherein I would have explained change-tracking to them and how to turn it back off, or perhaps I could have sent them the correct text in a different format. In fact, I placed at least three follow-up calls and sent two follow-up emails to make sure that all the materials were received in readable condition and that there were no questions on anything we had submitted.

What happened instead is that the staff at the magazine took the red-lined version, which, I have to say, even I could not make sense of if I had it sitting in front of me, and re-typed the entire article. Thus introducing the aforementioned spelling and grammatical errors. And, perhaps, re-adding formerly deleted text, and/or omitting current changes that were, possibly, in a different color. I can only imagine how the end result reads... at some point, I will have to work up the courage to open the magazine and read it for myself.

For now, I think I will have another Chianti.

A classy trucking operation.

Wild burro in our campsite at Squaw Lake. He was friendly to humans, but gave the dog the evil eye and turned around to be ready to kick her should she turn out to be a coyote.

Well, we are several days earlier than planned, but we are now at the Grand Canyon Caverns (map).

After some errands at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, we left Kingman and headed north-east on old route 66. We had spotted some BLM land near the community of Truxton, just outside the Hualapai resrvation, on our atlas. Unfortunately, after several frustrating loops around the dirt roads of Truxton, we concluded that the "road" shown on our map to the BLM lands was nothing more than an ATV track. After a brief but fruitless search for other access to the plentiful BLM lands in the area, we gave up and continued through the reservation to our current location.

We needed to be here by Wednesday night anyway, since the Bus Conversion rally will be here this weekend, and we have also volunteered Odyssey as a model coach for the week-long workshop that starts today (our tour will be on Thursday).

Right now, we are parked in the campground, which is next to the caverns and restaurant, but about a mile from route 66 and the hotel, where most of the rally activities will take place. Wednesday night we will move down to the motel parking lot, to be closer to the action. Odyssey is featured as the centerfold (yes, Miss May!) in the May issue of Bus Conversions Magazine, and there are supposed to be copies of the issue distributed at the rally. So we are expecting a lot of attention and are preparing to do a set of tours.

In the meantime, we will have a relaxing couple of days here in the campground, and perhaps whittle down some of the project backlog.

Shhh.... we're at the Wal-Mart in Kingman, AZ (map).

I say "shh" because we've heard tell of rv's being booted out of here at 03:00 by the local constabulary. There are also signs posted at the parking lot entrances indicating that overnight camping is prohibited by city ordinance. Overnight parking is allowed, though, so that's what we did. It is a 24-hour store, and we asked the store first. I suspect the horror stories date from a time when the store closed overnight.

We ended up here because we had a number of errands to run here in Kingman yesterday, inclduing getting Odyssey washed, buffing out the scratches in the paint from our close encounter with desert flora in Anza-Borrego, grocery shopping, and doing the laundry. By the time we were done with all those things, it was nearly sunset, and we did not want to be driving around the desert looking for a nice spot. Besides which, we have some things we need here at Wal-Mart, and at the Home Depot down the street, so we will be doing a few more errands this morning.

We are only 60 miles from our destination at Grand Canyon Caverns, yet we have four days before we need to be there. We had thought we might spend a couple nights at Pearce Ferry, at the very end of Lake Mead. However, that entails a ten mile drive on dirt roads, which we'd rather not do right after getting the bus washed and right before a rally. Also, Lake Mead is so low right now that the camping area at Pearce Ferry is nowhere near the lake.

We're investigating our other options for the next three nights, including a county park south of here, and BLM land along route 66.

We're again at the Blue Water Casino, near Parker, AZ (map).

We left Imperial Dam yesterday and headed east through the army's Yuma Proving Ground to US95, which also runs through the proving ground. That brought us north into Quartzsite, where we fueled up. Finally out of California, we put in more than half a tank at a reasonable $2.32 per gallon (it was nearly $2.70 in CA). Still, we did not get out of the truck stop without dropping $450.

From Quartzite, we continued north on AZ95, which is the same route we followed in February on our way into CA. We stayed here at the casino then, too, and found their restaurant to be worthwhile, so we decided on a return visit. Louise remarked on our way in that it was strange for us to be making a repeat stop here, of all places, considering how many recreation sites there are along the Colorado.

We are glad to be out of California once again. We've been there for two solid months, which is a good visit.

In a few minutes, we will leave here, heading for Kingman. Our next scheduled stop is the Bus Conversion Rally at the Grand Canyon Caverns, east of Peach Springs on old route 66. Kingman will be our last opportunity to stock up on provisions at a major grocery store and perhaps find a nice laundromat to get the laundry done. After that, we will be heading up to Lake Mead NRA for a day or too before heading to the rally, and there are no cities between the two.

Odyssey camped at Squaw Lake

I don't know if you can read this sign on your screen, but basically it says that the day use fee is $5, and if you are camped overnight, that counts as two days (with an example: April 6 to April 7). So one night is $10. It then goes on to specifically list the fees for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 nights. I guess most BLM campers are a bit math-impaired.

I'm sure our geek readers (that would be you, Bob) would understand it just as easily using a formula:

Fc=5 x (N+1), N<15

Where Fc = camping fee
N = number of nights

This campground is located just below Imperial Dam. I'm hoping the siren doesn't sound very often, but I did hear a mockingbird making siren-like calls, so who knows?

Unfortunately, this is the only road out of the campground. Note that it goes up the hill, and curves to the left BACK OVER THE DAM. Tricky to avoid the dam that way. We have decided that If Siren Sounds, Haul Self and Pets Up Hill to the Right and Kiss Bus Goodbye. We have good insurance.

The solar guy was out today, making a house call in Brawley. Someone else in his encampment answered the door and gave us some information, but we were uninterested in sticking around until he got back at 4:30, so we pulled up stakes and left Slab City this morning.

Today we drove through the southern Imperial valley and crossed the Imperial Sand Dunes recreaction area at Glamis. The dunes, I must say, were quite impressive. The Glamis area is the subject of much heated debate between environmentalists and off-road recreation users, and the BLM is caught in the middle. We were actually thankful to be driving through mid-week -- I understand the area gets quite crowded on the weekends (even though it is miles from anywhere). If you ever wondered where all the "toy haulers" are heading, this is the place. It's pretty much impossible to come here for a weekend without some kind of fully self-contained rig.

We then drove south along the valley formed by the dunes and the southern end of the Chocolate Mountains and headed east on I-8. After a brief fuel stop in Yuma (fuel is a good $0.20 less in AZ) we re-crossed the Colorado, or what's left of it this far south, turned right at Winterhaven, and headed up the Colorado delta to Imperial Dam.

Tonight we are camped at at BLM developed site next to the Senator Wash reservoir (map). All along the route here we passed BLM "long term visitor areas" (LTVA's) that are mostly empty now, the termperatures here having climbed into the high 90's. In the winter, this area is blanketed with "snowbirds."

Tomorrow we will cross into Arizona again, over Imperial Dam, and pick up US95 north into Quartzsite.

We are at the infamous Slab City in the Imperial Valley (map).

Slab City is an abandoned Marine training base from WW-II, then known as Camp Dunlap. When the navy pulled out, the nearby community of Niland reclaimed the wood and metal from all the structures on the base, leaving only the eponymous concrete slabs. The land came into possession of the state of California, who has never done anything with it (including fencing it off or patrolling it). It has since become, essentially, a limitless free boondock area, with winter residents numbering in the thousands, and a few hardy souls who live here year-round -- modern-day squatters.

The place has such fame (or infamy) in full-timing and boondocking circles that we had to come see it for ourselves. As we expected, it is not really our cup of tea.

Sure, it's free, but so are many forest service and BLM locations. Those locations generally have 14-day stay limits, and this place seems to have no rules or law whatsoever, which makes it attractive to folks who want to stay put for months at a time without coughing up the $100 or so annual fee that the BLM wants for its "long term visitor areas." Since staying put in the desert for more than two weeks at any given location has little appeal to us, neither does Slab City.

Louise characterized the area well, after we got settled, as being the worst of two worlds -- no services or amenities whatsoever, including even a trash can, which is the downside of dispersed-area camping, yet still within sight and earshot of dozens of other rigs, some quite dilapidated, which is the downside of developed campgrounds.

I won't bore you with the details of Slab City or the goings-on here, as Googling the term will net you more information than you ever wanted about it. Suffice it to say that the one local attraction that we will likely visit tomorrow is a fellow who goes by the name "Solar Mike" and has set up a small business here installing solar panels and the associated hardware on rigs. Purchasing and installing 100-200 watts of solar panels is one of the remaining Odyssey projects still outstanding, and if his prices and offerings are decent, we may spend another day or so having panels put on. If not, I will order them on-line and have Infinity install them in July.

Lacking any other reasons for staying, we will likely leave tomorrow (or whenever the panels are done), en-route to Yuma, AZ.

Odyssey at Red Hill Marina County Park. Note red hill in background.

Sean relaxing before dinner. This concrete pad probably had a shade ramada on it at one time. We are the only campers in the park, although there is a resident ranger on the other side of the crest. When we asked about a campfire permit, he said, "I am the only permit you need. This is MY county. " Um, okay.

We are now at the Salton Sea, at an Imperial County Park here (map).

We had not actually intended to leave Anza-Borrego today, so how we ended up here is something of a story. Sometime this morning, the ranger showed up in our little slice of paradise. Turns out she was just there to pick up some discarded firewood left by weekend campers, but we nevertheless went out to talk with her. Somewhere in the conversation she confirmed my suspicions that we had already missed all the wildflowers. We also asked her where, along CA78, we might be able to park Odyssey.

One of the possibilities that she allowed was Mine Wash Road, which leads to some ruins. She said she had seen buses up that road. So around 3ish, we broke camp to head down to Mine Wash. This turned out to be very soft sand/gravel, and we got about a half mile before we decided it was too soft to continue, for fear of getting stuck. So we started to back out, except I managed to veer only about half a foot off the established "road" while backing and promptly got stuck. Some judicious rocking and use of our shovel got us unstuck, and, with the help of some passers-by (well, OK, we were blocking their exit from Mine Wash), one of whom was some sort of desert tour guide, we backed out all the way to 78 and continued east. Also in this episode, I managed to scratch up the right side of the coach on some dried brush -- I'm hoping the scratches are just in the clear coat and will come out with rubbing compound.

Proceeding east along our planned route, we ended up leaving the park without finding a suitable turn-off to park. East of the park is the Ocotillo Wells "off-road" area, and we looked at camping there, however even mid-week, the ATVs were out and we did not want to be awakened at 0-dark-early to the sound of two-strokes buzzing through the desert. So we pressed on, and here we are.

This turns out to be a beautiful spot. Once again, we have this entire area to ourselves, and it is quiet and serene. We are parked right next to the accidental lake known as the Salton Sea, and the sunset over the water and mountains was quite spectacular. Louise took some photos, which I am sure she will post.

It is also finally warm enough to eat outside, and we had a nice al-fresco dinner of pork ribs and fixin's. I am even blogging outdoors, fireside, having fixed the wireless server a couple days ago. Louise was with me briefly, before being besieged by insects and retreating into Odyssey. The fire is delightful and I got to enjoy the last bits of daylight as I started typing. At the moment, the crescent moon is competing with my LCD screen, and stars are beginning to fill the sky.

We are at Yaqui Pass in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (map). This spot is generously called a "primitive camping area," but it is actually a gravel parking area a short distance from the main road. However, we had the place all to ourselves last night, and we are surrounded by desert hills, which makes for a nice view. Also, Yaqui Pass road is relatively untravelled.

We arrived in the park yesterday afternoon after an uneventful and mostly pleasant drive up CA67 and CA78. We made a brief stop at the developed campground at Tamarisk Grove. It turns out that the length limit there is 21' (though we found at least one site that would fit Odyssey). The main advantage of that area is that it is in a small stand of trees, which provide shade that would be critical a bit later in the season. However, the restrooms there are under construction, and we did not want to listen to the workers using their pneumatic nailers all day. On top of which, there was a fee of $20 per night for dry camping, with no dump and no potable water.

Instead we drove a bit further along the road to this spot. While we are totally exposed and in full sunight here, it is much more quiet and serene. Also, the Governator has somehow missed a revenue opportunity, as all primitive and back-country camping in Anza-Borrego is free, at least for now. There is not even a day-use fee outside of the small handful of developed sites.

We came here hoping for a spectacular wildflower bloom, but it appears we may be a few weeks too late. I suspect that, as with Death Valley, a very wet winter coupled with early spring temperatures made for an early bloom this year. We did see some ocotillo in bloom on our way in to the park, and we still hope for some color as we drive around.

The photo immediately below is our current digs, at sunset yesterday evening.

We have not yet decided if we will spend another night at this spot, or move elsewhere in the park. Anza-Borrego is huge, comprising some 600,000 acres -- the largest park in the California system, and roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Odyssey at sunset today, camped at Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

Sean at sunset yesterday on the roof of Odyssey, overlooking Silver Strand State Beach

Sunset at the beach...

We decided to spend another night here at Silver Strand. The place cleared out today, and we were able to move up to a beach-front spot, just as our visitors arrived (see previous post, by Louise). That put us in an excellent spot for tonight's sunset, which was spectacular. Generally, there are low clouds on the horizon that preclude actually seeing the sun set, and this has been the case for us all along the coast, until tonight, when we actually got to see the sun drop below the horizon.

Just after sunset, we witnessed Carnival's Spirit sailing out of San Diego Bay on her way to the Mexican Riviera. (Well, OK, I could see it was a Carnival ship, and I looked up the departure on-line to find out which one.)

We otherwise had a quiet and uneventful day here. Things are much quieter tonight since the party folks left early this afternoon.

Tomorrow we will head east, toward Anza-Borrego State Park.

Stalkers! Um, I mean, Visitors! Today we met Sandy and Woody, who dropped by our site at Silver Strand State Beach. They have been following our travels here on the 'blog. Sandy lives nearby and when she saw our current location, they came over to meet us. What a surprise and a treat! Always nice to meet our readers. We gave them a tour and chatted for a while. Sandy posted a comment on yesterday's blog entry with lots of great information about the area. Thanks, and maybe we'll see you in Anza Borrego sometime!

Cabrillo National Monument. Louise points out our campsite across the bay at Silver Strand State Beach. Odyssey sits right at the tip of her finger. What, you can't see that!?!?

South Carlsbad Beach State Park, where we were camped several days ago. The view toward the front of Odyssey. We were right on the cliffs, overlooking the beach about 40 feet below.

Unfortunately, this was the view out the side. Watching other people dump their tanks is enlightening. This guy, who is wearing elbow length black rubber gloves for "cleanliness," proceeded to fill his drinking water supply from the non-potable water source. Eeewww. After watching 5 or 6 similar episodes, I have sworn off ever accepting food or drink from another RVer unless it contains enough alcohol to kill any germs...

We are again on the beach, this time at Silver Strand State Beach, south of Coronado (map).

This is an odd place, since most of our camp resource books don't even list it. But there is definitely camping here. The state beach has four huge parking lots, and they have simply re-striped one for camping. So the sites are side-by-side, a giant asphalt boondock area. But the parking lot is right on the beach, on some of the priciest real estate in San Diego county. The fee here is $26 per night, which is normally outrageous for asphalt boondocking, but it's the best thing going in this neck of the woods.

As it happens, this place is party central on the weekends. Many RV's have arrived in small groups of three or four, and staked out adjoining spaces. As near as we can tell, most folks are from somewhere nearby, and are here for the weekend to get their beach fix, and to make some use of their RV's.

We arrived yesterday afternoon, and have paid through tomorrow, though we may add a day. We unloaded the bikes yesterday, and today we rode to the San Diego Zoo, then around Balboa Park and out to Loma Point and the Cabrillo National Monument.

On our way from Balboa Park to Loma Point, we rode past the cruise docks, and were amused to see Holland America's MS Oosterdam in port. That is the ship we cruised on in the Caribbean, out of Ft. Lauderdale, back in December. Clearly, since then, she has transited the Panama Canal and is now sailing the Mexican Riviera. A year before that cruise, we sailed from this very port on the MS Ryndam on the Mexican Riviera itinerary, and we reminisced about that cruise as we passed the cruise dock in Odyssey yesterday on our way here. The Regal Pricess was in port at the time.

Tonight we will head to downtown San Diego for dinner at the University Club. They close and lock the front gates to the state beach at 8pm, which is when we are eating. So we will have to push Aquarius around the gate on the sidewalk when we return, an option not open to most of the other campers here. (I could just ride it around, but that's technically illegal, whereas there is no law against pushing a motorcycle down the sidewalk.)

Lastly, I received a comment on one of Louise's photo posts (below) from someone who left no email address, who inquires what chairs we have in the front of the coach. I am assuming he meant the swivel chairs in the penthouse -- they are Flexsteel 443 swivel captain's chairs, which we bought at Custom RV Interiors. More details are here.

Camped on the beach

We are parked on a bluff overlooking the ocean in Carlsbad, at South Carlsbad Beach State Park (map). This park is pricey for a state park, considering there are no hookups (not that we need any). $35 for a site on the ocean side, and $25 across the little street. Our guidebook lists this park at $12, but that's before the Governator doubled all the fees. Way less than Newport Dunes, mind you, but they had full hookups, a pool, and a hot tub.

Speaking of which, boy are we ever glad to be out of there. This being spring break, the park was chock full of kids running around, screaming, and, of course, making the pool area entirely unsuitable for adults. And I am not, here, talking about college kids from a Girls Gone Wild video (which might have made it OK).

On top of all that, the site next to us was occupied by a family of six in a class-C, who insisted on playing their annoying outdoor stereo at all hours on a volume setting unsuitable for 20'-wide camp sites. This stereo was built into their rig behind a little door, and I'm sure they felt obligated to use it since they paid for it, even though it consisted of a $40 car stereo mounted between a pair of $10 car speakers. We finally told them to turn it off when the 10pm "quiet hour" rolled around, though they continued to chat at approximately the same volume until 11:30. They also had a yippie little dog they kept on the end of a 15" leash (though the rules called for 6' maximum) tied to a stake.

Overall, our stay at Newport Dunes served to remind us why it is we never stay at such places. It was, of course, convenient to where we needed to be, but two nights was more than enough. If ever again we return to Newport Beach, we'll stay at the Wal-Mart, or maybe down the road a few dozen miles at a state park or an Elks lodge.

We did have a nice reunion and dinner with our friends last night.

Our current digs are much more in keeping with our usual practice. We rolled in around 2:00, and inquired at the kiosk if they had any spaces. Putatively, this campground requires reservations. We never make reservations, though, for a few reasons. One compelling reason is that this campground also putatively has a length limit of 34', so we are never comfortable making reservations (which must be prepaid, no refunds) until we have physically examined the grounds and know unequivocally that we can fit. As it turns out, they had spaces available (for tonight only -- tomorrow the weekend crowds arrive), and they assigned us one that was 52' x 53', which would easily accommodate three Odysseys, with room to spare. It's an ocean-side site, and we nosed in to provide the best view. We are on a bluff about 50' or so above the beach, with an unobstructed view of the Pacific. I am hoping that my lovely wife, who is way more clever than I, and also has the only-for-clever-people photo posting software on her computer, will post a photo later.

Tonight we will have dinner with our friends here in Carlsbad.

People often ask what we do all day here on our Odyssey.

Well, mostly we sleep...

...or surf the 'net.

We didn't take any pictures at the San Luis Obispo rally, but other people did. Jeff Aldrich put together a nice write up with photos here. Something for everyone: gorgeous scenery, the bus, shiny motorcycles, and exciting shots of people standing around looking serious. There's a lot of standing around at motorcycle rallies, ostensibly talking about bikes. It's called Kicking Tires and Telling Lies and is a vital part of the experience.

A non-negotiable part of this particular rally is that you will only see the BACK of Leslie's bike (she's the one in the blue bandana in the last photo). Hot diggity, that woman is SPEEDY!

We're back on-line after a frustrating couple of days on the "fringe."

We were last able to get on-line via our satellite dish in Morro Bay, at the laundromat. The dish locked on signal right away there, even though we were unable to sync up at the Morro Strand campground at all when we arrived, and only with great difficulty the following morning.

Yesterday we traveled south along the coast back to San Luis Obispo, where highway 1 cuts back inland until Goleta, south of Solvang. We would have then continued south on 1, except for the fact that we needed to stop at the NAPA auto and truck part store in Lompoc, which is between 1 and the coast.

The parts stop was necessitated by the fact that we needed a new air filter for the Detroit. I've been noticing some black smoke, and the engine has been feeling sluggish, so we pulled the filter in Morro Bay to have a look. Normally, I wouldn't go through the effort without having a replacement filter on hand, but I could not find anywhere the specifications or model number of the filter, in spite of spending quite some time poking around on-line and in my paper documents. So we had no choice but to yank it out to get a part number, or at least all the relevant dimensions. The part number, of course, was marked on the inside of the darned thing -- NAPA 2960. The closest NAPA, in San Luis Obispo, had none in stock, but showed one in stock in Lompoc on the computer.

Pulling the filter out confirmed that it was, indeed, pretty plugged up. Shaking the filter a few times caused large quantities of gray dust to emerge from the pleats. Much more disturbing, however, was the discovery that the main duct connecting the output of the filter housing to the engine air intake was askew, leaving a four-square-inch or so gap where unfiltered air was entering the intake from the engine bay environment. From the looks of the assembly, and the fact that the band clamp securing the rubber duct was tightened down more than it could have been had the duct been properly seated, I have to assume that this condition has existed since we left Infinity Coach in August. We've put close to 20,000 miles on the coach since then, so now I am concerned that the engine has ingested enough dust to cause excess ring and valve seat wear. Our last oil analysis came back with abnormal levels of wear metals, so this is not an entirely unfounded fear. I've put Infinity on notice about this, since they removed and replaced that duct during the conversion process, and all indications are that it was not properly seated and secured when it was reinstalled.

So there we were at Morro Strand, close to check-out time, with this unseated air duct to deal with. I may well have driven with it that way for 20,000 miles, but I was damned if I was going to drive it that way even one more mile. The problem facing us, and probably part of the reason it was on wrong to begin with, was that there was really no way to get one's hands around the duct (which resembles a pipe elbow, made of rubber and perhaps 8" in diameter) to move it into place over the lip on the filter housing. The "hush box" surrounding the generator and the associated air ducts are in the way. There is a small access just above the genny radiator box that allowed us to get a wrench in and loosen the band clamp, and also squirt some soap solution to help slide the rubber into place.

After scratching our heads a while and contemplating disassembling the generator box (probably a four-plus hour project, not to mention that we'd have to drill out perhaps 30 rivets that we could not then replace), I was finally able to coax the duct onto the lip by levering it from the inside, using a pry bar and a block of wood. It's not really where it should be, since I was only able to get maybe 1/8" of lap, but there is no longer a gap and I was able to secure it in that position with the band clamp. With any luck, it will hold that way until we return to Infinity in July, where I can have them remove part of the hush box ducting so we can do this right.

We arrived at the NAPA store in Lompoc right around 5pm, having spent a good couple hours in Morro Bay doing laundry (and tracking down the filter on the phone, with help from the internet). We picked up the filter and three gallons of 40-weight oil, which is hard to come by in retail stores, and continued south, thankful that we now have some extra daylight to work with.

That extra light came in handy, as the first park we had set our sights on, Gaviota State Park, was closed entirely, due to flooding. The next park south, Refugio Beach, was full, mostly owing to the fact that many of its sites were also closed due to flooding. We were almost out of daylight by the time we reached El Capitan State Park, just south of Refugio. Lots of low-hanging trees in this park, so we made our way through the site loops very slowly. Early in the process, we ran into the campground host, who, after catching sight of Odyssey, directed us to a set of wide-open, unobstructed, and completely unoccupied sites in what is normally designated a group camp area. It turned out to be a picture-perfect spot, in full view of the ocean, and with the closest other campers across a ravine. We had the whole group area to ourselves until we turned in for the night, though there was another rig across the parking lot when we awoke. We would not otherwise have felt at liberty to park in the group area, so we were fortunate to have encountered the host.

Even though we were in a wide-open camp site with no obstructions, our satellite system would not connect there. It was exhibiting the same symptoms that had plagued us in San Luis Obispo and in Morro Bay. After a frustrating hour of attempts, I finally called technical support, who are, ironically, located in San Luis Obispo. The first technician I spoke with was clueless, and sent me on a wild goose chase. My second call landed on someone who has been around a while, and he confirmed what I was beginning to suspect: nothing wrong with our equipment, we were just on the very fringe edge of the satellite footprint. Repeated attempts in clear skies might get us on, but most attempts would fail until we moved. He also gave me the unwelcome news that this situation would persist along our coastal route until at least the other side of Malibu. (He was right -- we tried at several stops today to get on-line without successs.)

This morning we installed our new air filter (the duct appears to be holding in place) and topped off our oil reservoir. We also availed ourselves of the nice dump station at El Capitan before heading south again on the Pacific Coast Highway, which we followed all the way through the LA metro area. The weather was perfect today and we had a beautiful drive, particularly as the highway followed the coast.

Tonight we are at the Newport Dunes RV Resort in Newport Beach (map). This type of campground is an uncharacteristic stop for us, so much so that I even got into a pissing match with someone about camping styles over on one of the bus conversion forums. However, we have friends in nearby Irvine with whom we will be visiting tomorrow, and backwoods-type camping accommodations are not to be found this close to the city. Even the Elks lodges in this immediate area were of no help. So we thought we'd treat ourselves to a "resort" camping experience, and see how the other half lives, so to speak. We even booked for two nights, so we can take advantage of the amenities, and have a more relaxed visit with our friends.

Frankly, I expected this resort to be chock full of high-end bus conversions (a la Marathon and the like), with immaculately kept grounds, blah, blah etc.. However, a brief stroll around the facility revealed only one other converted bus in residence -- a Prevost from the days when Beaver Coach still did conversions, showing its age. And while many of the rigs here are high-dollar factory built units, there is also a fair number of older and less expensive coaches, including some Class-C's and (gasp) a few travel trailers and fifth wheels. Also, the section of the park that appears to consist of owner-occupied live-ins is not in the prim and proper condition that the brochures (and the rules) would suggest.

Tomorrow we will have a look at the grounds and maybe sample some of the activities such as boat rentals. And I definitely want to try the pool, or at least the jacuzzi. Dinner with our friends is on tap for tomorrow evening.

Special treat today...we got to meet Firedude, aka Tony Cornett. He's the camphost here at Morro Strand State Park, and a well-known contributor to the forums on RV.net. A retired fire captain, Tony is full of funny stories about the trials and tribulations of working in a campground. It was a hoot to meet him and his wife in person.

The view from our campsite. That's the big rock in Morro Bay out the window. We have ocean views to the west, and green rolling hills to the east.

George often sits on the dashboard, watching the world go by.

We are at the Morro Strand State Beach, near Morro Bay (map). We came here principally to visit with an internet acquaintance who happens to be the camp host here. He is a regular poster and moderator on one of the full-timing boards that Louise frequents.

It also occurs to us that this is really the first time that Odyssey is parked at the beach on the Pacific coast since the rebuild. Sitting here watching the sun go down over the Pacific, with the waves breaking on the beach, we were reminded that just a few short months ago (December, to be exact) we were doing the same thing on the Atlantic coast. And even later than that, we were on the beach at the gulf coast.

We had a great time at the HSTA rally in San Luis. The weather was perfect for riding, and we had a nice ride with the group out to Parkfield for lunch. Parkfield bills itself as the earthquake capital of the US. There is nothing there except a small cafe, a 4-room (really) hotel, and more USGS seismic sensors than in any other single place in the country. It's a popular motorcycle destination, because the roads in the surrounding area are twisty, uncrowded, and beautiful.

About 33 riders registered for the rally, and I'm pretty sure most of them came for a tour of Odyssey. At one point, we had set up all our folding chairs and our little folding end table outside the bus, just so people could sit and socialize, and our good friend Rich Mample mistook the table for a stool and sat on it. Now this is one of those little plastic fold-up end tables from Camping World, which is rated to hold perhaps ten pounds. I have no clue what Rich weighs, but it is an order of magnitude larger than that. So the table did not just break -- it disintegrated spectacularly. Fortunately, Rich was unhurt, albeit a bit embarassed. The entire group promised never to let him forget the episode, and we are doing our part by publishing it here in the blog.

On the return route from Parkfield, we traveled through the central coast wine region, and rode right past the front gate of Meeker vinyards, owned by old friends Marty and Carol Meeker. I didn't think the Meekers would appreciate us dragging 20 or so of our biker friends (in full riding gear) into the place unannounced, so we did not stop by. But it reminded me that I need to write them soon.

A nice dinner of Santa Maria barbecue (tri-tip and chicken) was the official group dinner, and we spent several hours catching up with old friends. All in all, a great weekend.

Tomorrow, we will retrace today's route back through San Luis, and head south along the coast to Santa Barbara.

One of our commenters asked what "Full-timer" is short for. It is typically understood to mean "living full time in your recreational vehicle, with no other fixed address." Kind of like an internet-only business, with no bricks and mortar location.

Full-timers live on the road, camping in campgrounds, out of the way corners of urban America, deep in the National Forests, or parked in their friends' driveway where they tear up the grass...

We are finally in San Luis Obispo and out of the bay area.

No map update tonight because we are having trouble getting the dish on-line. We are in a hotel parking lot, however, at the Sands Suites, and I found a WiFi hotspot here. I think it is actually sourced from the Holiday Inn next door, but any port in a storm.

The Sands is hosting the annual Honda Sport Touring Association rally here, as it has for the last four years running. The manager is graciously allowing us to park in their back lot, since the rally is here and the group has, essentially, taken over the hotel starting tomorrow.

We finally left Les Schwab about two this afternoon. I'm sorry to say that we did not really resolve our problem. Both sets of valve stems that were overnighted to us turned out to be incorrect for our wheels, the problem being not enough threads at the base of the stem to protrude far enough out of the wheel to engage the nut. A follow-up call to Alcoa confirmed the worst -- no such parts here in the US. As we discovered yesterday, these wheels are actually European parts (as opposed to US parts made to fit European hubs, which are different), and these parts have the different valve mounting arrangement. And here we thought fitting Alcoa wheels would mean we would finally having something more common than what we had before... The good news is that Alcoa is replacing their US product line with items similar to these European ones, so things like valve stems will become more common here over time.

In any case, we ended up having to re-install the one stem that was removed for the project upon our arrival. In order to actually fit the Equal screened valve cores to the wheels, James removed all the valve cores from our stems, and fitted valve extenders to the existing stems. The fancy screened cores were then installed in the extenders. This arrangement works, but the whole assembly now protrudes too far from the wheel, opening up the possibility of whacking it against a curb. or having a tire shop drop the wheel in such a way as to hit the stem. It is, therefore, only a temporary solution.

The permanent fix involves new valve stems from Europe, which have been ordered. They are made in Austria. Les Schwab has ordered ten or so, but they will take a minimum of six weeks. So we will return to the Livermore store on our next visit to the bay area, or possibly we will try to get Les Schwab to agree to install these at one of their stores in the Pacific northwest when we are in Oregon and Washington in July.

Even though the tag wheels did not need to be removed to install the extenders, the Schwab guys pulled one off for me so I could get the leveling actuator reinstalled. That's now working, and it's really nice to have all three levelers back in operating order after several weeks without the rear one. Also, the centering indicators for the other two levelers did not work properly with one actuator missing, so it's been hard to get those set correctly before we drive off. I need to recalibrate the whole system now, which will have to wait until we are parked on a dead level spot.

Once we were headed south, we had a beautiful drive down the Salinas valley. Neither of us has ever seen the hills flanking the valley so lush and green. It's been just a year since we were last down this way, and it is remarkable how much more acreage is now dedicated to wine grapes than even just a year ago.

Tomorrow we will unload the bikes, and reconnect with some old friends.