Saturday, May 14, 2005 ::: Ever think about just staying put at a place? MsTioga received an email this morning from a reader named Elton who asked, "Ever think about just staying put at a place?" Elton was thinking about a lovely place like here where we are camped, at Pine Creek.
Well Elton, we do think about that. As a matter of fact, The Team has been thinking about spending maybe several months in one place. Not here at Pine Creek. We are thinking about the winter months, in the Town of Santa Rosalia in Mexico. Of course we can never know for sure. Vagabonding is in our blood. But Santa Rosalia is also in our blood. We think about that little town a lot.
We want to tell you about Twee. Remember Twee? That small Bonsai tree that has been struggling to live? We are pleased to tell you that Twee looks like he will make a complete recovery. New green is blooming on his branches. Twee has been going outside, to breathe the fresh air and especially be in the Sun. Twee loves the Sun, because he is really an outside tree.
Twee shows off his new green leaves.
12 Noon - I did it again! I cannot believe it! Remember when I got stuck on the beach at Rancho Los Cerritos in Mexico? Well, I did it again!! And I am not only stuck, but I broke Mr. Levelers left rear jack again. I am a bit disgusted with myself today, as you may imagine.
On the bright side, I am leveled out. I have food. Mr. Datastorm is working fine, and connected. Now I have to find somebody to rescue me.
George got MsTioga stuck again and broke one of Mr. Levelers jacks!
The closest town is Adin, California, and I need help. My cell phone is not connected here. Can somebody email me and help me? I need a tow truck to come out from Adin, and pull me out. I am not too badly stuck, but I do need help.
2:30PM - Paul from Florida phoned for a tow truck! This is incredible. A reader of the MsTioga blog, contacted me by email, and then phoned Tucker’s Lookout Garage to tow us out. The tow truck will be here in 45 minutes! Wow! A satellite rescue!
Thank you soooooo much, Paul from Florida!
5PM - MsTioga and The Team are free from the mud! Exactly forty-five minutes after Paul from Florida emailed that the tow truck was on its way, it arrived. I was sooooo happy to see a BIG tow truck. Bob Tucker, owner of the Lookout Garage was driving, and came with his daughter Abby. We had to remove the damaged leveling jack, and then Bob pulled MsTioga out of the mud. Bob's tow truck is very strong, and had no problem at all.
George, Abby and Bob after the towing.
Mr. Levelers' jack not too badly damaged. Two brackets are slightly bent, and the brass drive nut must be replaced. So we were very lucky, with jack damage.
A BIG thank you to Paul from Florida! Wow, Paul. Your help was soooo great. The Team is so grateful to you for phoning Tucker's Garage and arranging for our towing. Imagine that, everybody! We were rescued by using space station internet communication. Man-O-Man!
George stands between the muddy ruts made when MsTioga was towed to safety!
Map Link showing our stuck place. We are placing this map anchor, to remember where we got stuck in the mud.
5:30PM - Camped safely a few miles north of the stuck place. The Team drove a bit north, and are camped safely. George learned a few more things today, about choosing a Camp, and is talking about writing a web page about getting stuck in the mud with an RV.
Friday, May 13, 2005 ::: 7AM - Mr. Levelers remounted. The pic below of Mr. Levelers' controls probably looks a bit rough. Remounting the electronics is hard, because all of the wires are so short. Who would want to break all those connections, in order to give some slack to the wires? The Team feels that we can live for a bit with things the way they are.
We used the top of the old control box to make the front panel of the new mount. Do you like it? This new mount allows for visual inspection of all the connections and relatively easy maintenance. Do you remember how crammed in the electronics were in the old control box?
Mr. Levelers shows off his new control that is partially installed.
Taking a peek at Eagle Lake. At our Team Meeting this morning, we were talking about Eagle Lake. Nobody could remember ever seeing Eagle Lake before. Mr. Mavica suggested that we make a Camp at Eagle Lake, if it is a beautiful place.
12 Noon - Pine Creek Camp. Eagle Lake is a lovely lake. We found an established picnic site at the Lake, and filled our drinking water jugs and fresh water tank there. We continued on the road a bit, and came to a really nice looking stream called Pine Creek. Although we have only traveled 16 miles today, we decided to make our Camp along Pine Creek, and stay the nite.
A calm section of Pine Creek. Do you think that there are fish in this water?
How do you know where you are in the forest? One of the first things done when we make a Camp, is to use Mr. DeLorme, our GPS system, to find out where we are located. How would we know where we are, without Mr. DeLorme?
Thursday, May 12, 2005 ::: 7AM - Life around the lake. We have seen many kinds of birds around the small lake. Mr. Mavica would like to take pics of these birds, but they are too far away for him to pick up. There are giant geese. Many ducks of different sizes. There are many small black birds with yellow beaks swimming and eating things. They dive below the water for their food and often eat things from the floating plants. We watch them with binoculars from the shore.
This morning the lake itself was sooooo beautiful. Mr. Mavica caught the pic below when the water was very calm and the reflections gorgeous.
Reflections on the lake.
9AM - Thinking of heading into Susanville. We need to buy a few more relays for Mr. Levelers' new control mounting. The closest Radio Shack is in Susanville. Did we tell you about remounting Mr. Levelers' controls? Hmmmmm?
We plan to take out all of the electronics which are crammed into a small plastic case, and remount them on a wood board. A front panel will be attached to this mounting board. This front panel will contain the four switches which control the levelers, and the lights which show when each leveler is down.
11AM - Shopping in Susanville. Mr. Mavica saw a mural, and we stopped for him to take a pic. This mural is on a grocery market wall, and tells the history of this town from the pioneer days to present times. The mural is a bit large for Mr. Mavica to get it all and pioneer times are unseen to the right.
History mural of the Town of Susanville.
We bought the relay that is needed for Mr. Levelers' new control mounting. We also went shopping at The Wal*Mart. There is something about the Wal*Mart that pulls us in there, almost every time we are near!
2PM - Heading for the mountains and our Nite Camp. We drove up road A-1 out of Susanville. It is time for us to make Camp. As we drove higher, glimpses of Susanville could be seen thru the trees.
George looks down at Susanville from our Camp. Purple mountain majesty, above the fruited plains!
Hose Adaptor idea for getting fresh water. Have you ever been in a National Park, and tried to fill your RV's fresh water tank only to find that the water spigot in the park had no threads for your water hose? Check out MsTioga's water faucet adapter!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 ::: Lassen National Park. MsTioga and The Team would love to travel thru Lassen Park on Hwy #89. However, this road is closed in the winter, and may not be open until late June.
Today we will head east to the Town of Chester, on the shore of Lake Almanor.
10AM - Breakfast Camped above Lake Almanor. This is gorgeous country. Everything is sooooo green. This winter has been wonderful for all things that grow, with all of this rain and snow.
George looks at Lake Almanor from our Breakfast Camp.
2PM – Wonderful Camps seem to pop right out of the endless forests. Wow! Do you ever wonder why MsTioga and George love the west sooooo much? Hmmmmm? Could it be the lovely free and open forests?
George and MsTioga look over the meadow and lake of their camp.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 ::: 8AM - There may be snow ahead. The online weather radar image shows no rain or snow ahead. We are continuing up north, but may have to turn back or camp, if snow comes.
The sky over our camp right now is very blue, and the Sun is out.
Above the snow line! The Team climbed above the snow line. Yesterday's storm brought snow to the forest.
MsTioga and The Team in the snow!
10AM - Breakfast Camped in a large meadow. This meadow appears to be near the summit. The streams flowing here have hardly any gradient. We are at the 4,600 foot level.
Mr. Mavica liked this fence at our Breakfast Camp.
5PM - Making our Nite Camp right here in the meadow. The Team likes this Camp, so we are staying right here for the nite. The meadow here is gorgeous.
Just outside of MsTioga, George looks across the meadow.
Monday, May 09, 2005 ::: 6AM - Camped Northeast of Chico. Left our Nite Camp, and drove about five miles northeast of Chico. Our Camp is high above the City, and we can see the sun reflecting on Chico below us.
Last nite's rain was huge. Great gusts of wind blew the dark clouds and storm past our Camp. MsTioga held on, and not one drop of rain came inside! This morning, there are rain clouds all over the sky.
12 Noon – Forest Ranch Camp. We saw several closed gates across forest roads. Often we have found, that these gates are actually unlocked and open. We believe that people close them in order to keep the forests private for themselves. We went thru one of these gates, and found ourselves in a logging area. No logging is going on here right now.
The Team is thinking about making a Nite Camp here. We are a bit ahead of the weather. Perhaps if we slow up a bit, good weather will catch up with us. What do you think?
A rainy day at Forest Ranch Camp.
2PM - Tuna Salad for lunch! We love Tuna Salad, and prepare it for lunch a few times each month. We use solid Albacore. Costs a bit more but looks and tastes better, don't you think? Today we shredded carrot, zuchinni and a hard boiled egg into our tuna salad. Because we are little low on mayo, we added some Hidden Valley Ranch dressing and it came out sooooooo good!
George adding the hard boiled egg to the tuna salad.
Are you using a backup camera in your RV? A backup camera can be a big time safety device. It certainly is for me. Since the backup camera was installed, I have not backed into one thing.
Sunday, May 08, 2005 ::: 6AM - Mr. Levelers is working again! This morning, everybody on The Team got together and looked over Mr. Levelers' electrical schematic. And, we figured it out! There is a blown relay. But we are able to jump the relay, and get Mr. Levelers’ jacks to go up and down. We are soooooo happy! Wow! Tomorrow we will phone the factory, and order a new relay.
9AM - heading northeast up State Route 32. It is raining steadily, and looks to be rainy for the next few days. We on The Team, love the rain. We plan to go up SR32 for an hour or so, and make a Breakfast Camp.
Change In Plans! Mr. Levelers tried to stow his jacks, and the jacks would NOT come up! It seems as though sometimes the jacks work, and sometimes they don't. We got son Joe on the cell phone, and talked to him about the problem. Joe is an electrical engineer. We would like to replace the entire control unit for Mr. Levelers, but this is a BIG job. Joe cautioned that all of the leads have to be labeled, before we take apart the controls. Putting labels on the wires is very, very hard to do, because everything is crammed into a tiny place!
Jumble of wires in Mr. Levelers control box.
We decided not to travel anyplace, until we get Mr. Levelers repaired. So, we are staying in the Chico area, because we are able to buy electrical parts here. Wow!
Mr. Levelers has good news!! We went shopping for switches and relays to repair Mr. Levelers. The first place that we went to, was to a nearby Radio Shack. The switches and relays that this Radio Shack had for sale, were the exact ones that we were looking for. In fact the manager of this Radio Shack commented that the PowerPlus factory must have purchased their electrical parts from Radio Shack! Wow! That was a lucky thing.
After the bad relay and switch were replaced with the new Radio Shack parts, Mr. Levelers was running like his old self again!
5PM - Nite Camped in Chico. We have picked a Nite Camp near a construction site. There is a nice big open green field in front of MsTioga. It is still raining, but The Team is warm and dry. This has been a very good day.
To share the vagabonding life with our fellow RVers like yourself. We hope that you will try
to
boondock and dry camp. We have found great joy in camping away from the RV Campground. We would like you to try our camping
life style yourself. Sharing with you our Daily Adventure is our way of encouraging you to try to camp as we do.
