Finished with a short stint in Atascadero, it was time to hit the road, northbound and down. We have a month to burn before we get to return for babysitting duties again, so we planned to head into Oregon for some minor repairs to be done on the motorhome.
We shot over to catch I-5 out of Kettleman City, then it was settle in and head north. Being one who does not enjoy really long days on the road, we took our time and our first break/stop was an overnight at the Modesto Elks Lodge. The town of Modesto is pretty much an armpit, but the Elks Lodge there is nice, on the outskirts of town, and they have a few RV sites in the back with W/E.
Up and at ‘em the next morning it was onward to Cottonwood, just south of Redding. Jeanne has two brothers living in the area, Dwayne and David. Dwayne owns a large piece of property there with tons of room for us to mooch-dock. A plus was, he has W/E hookups for an RV and, if necessary, access to his septic system. Woody the wonder dog had fun at Dwayne’s, rubbing elbows with his herd of chickens and two pet pigs. We spent a few days visiting with the family (Dave, his son Alex, Dwayne, his son Dwayne Jr., and his daughter Sairah. Unfortunately, we missed out visiting with Dwayne’s fiancee, Shelly, as she had previously made plans out of the area).
Continuing north on I-5, our next stop was the Guaranty RV Park in Junction City, OR. Guaranty is a very large RV organization in that area. They have a service center, various RV sales lots, car sales lots, RV parts store, the fairly new RV Park, and an on site cafe. The RV sites were concrete pads, FHU’s, paved interior roads, and nicely kept grass areas between sites. We had a pull through site long enough to keep the toad attached. The problem keeping the toad attached, the utilities are toward the rear of the sites, so I needed 3 sewer hose sections to reach the sewer drain. I ended up disconnecting, then backing the beast up to the rear of the site so as to only need one section of sewer hose. We had made an appointment months ago to get some minor repairs done on our motorhome at Elite Renovations & Repairs in nearby Harrisburg, and we still had a week to kill before said appointment. Jeanne found Guaranty RV Park on line and like the commercial goes, “bada-bing-bada-boom”. We also ran into one of my fellow co-workers from Sonoma County, CA, Steve Satterwhite, who was at the RV Park to take care of some business of his own. We had a nice, albeit very short visit and exchanged a few RV tales. During our stay at Guaranty we ate a few meals at the cafe, which was pretty good food & beer, and very inexpensive.
Repairs appointment at hand, we drove on down the road all of about 5-6 miles to Harrisburg and Elite Renovations & Repairs. Jeanne found Elite through one of her blogosphere peeps, Nina of wheelingit.us, and she recommended them for repair work. As it turned out, we were here as our tires “timed out” (5 years from their date of birth). Since they had some very minor cracking/blemishes on the sidewalls (I usually cover the tires for stays of over 2 days), Nina also recommended Superior Tire Service (Eugene) for tires (through Family Motor Coach Association, FMCA). And so the dance began. Besides the minor coach repairs (involving a claim with our extended warranty), we incurred some brain fart damage that would be run through our RV insurance under Comprehensive Damage. We had the passenger Captain’s chair just a touch too far back when we pulled in the passenger side slide. The slide caught the chair, ripping part of the slide trim to shreds and tweeking the passenger chair. The fun part was trying to deal with 2 insurance processes and scheduling everything in some form of orderly fashion. Both insurance companies (ProTrek, through Warranty Warehouse, for the extended warranty; Nationwide for the RV insurance) arranged for local contract assistants to meet us for photos of damage and repair items. The problem was, they all no-showed on the dates arranged.
We ended up wasting (4) days because of the no-shows, waiting in the Elite front lot area. We used that time to run over to Countryside Interiors in Junction City to deal with the passenger chair replacement. Countryside was recommended to us by the folks at Elite as specializing in Flexsteel RV furniture. Flexsteel, in all their infinite wisdom, put their captain’s chairs together not in varying steps nor with different modular components. So if you damage, say the base plate (like we did), you cannot simply replace the base plate; the WHOLE ENCHILADA gets to be replaced! Oh joy! Steven at Countryside was very knowledgeable, patient, and helpful as we arranged for the chair(s) (this is a work in progress, more details to follow in another post).
During our down time we hit up Superior Tire Service (STS) for new shoes on the rig. They were extremely accommodating with regards to our “hurry up and wait” schedule. We got in on a moment’s notice and they promptly swapped out (6) new Michelin 16-ply 275/80R22.5’s to the tune of about $3800 & change, out the door in about 2 hours. What was even better was they said these new tires date out in about (7) years instead of (5) years. Cool beans!
The folks at Elite Renovations & Repairs (Erik, Mark, and Marty) were also very accommodating, patient, and quick to diagnose issues. This whole experience was a pain in what Forest Gump would call “the butt-ocks”. And that would all be due to having to deal with 2 insurance companies. But, after the dust mostly settled, we would recommend Elite to anyone needing work done on their motorhome. I most certainly prefer these guys over driving all the way back to Red Bay Alabama! Now, getting the passenger chair replaced by Countryside Interiors is the only thorn left in my side. They will not get delivery for 8-10 weeks, so we will have to return after our babysitting gig is completed in mid-August.
While killing time, on Mother’s Day I took Jeanne and Woody over to Florence on the coast. Woody took us for a walk downtown (it’s a very small coastal town on the Siuslaw River), then I took Jeanne to Mo’s Restaurant on the river for Mother’s Day fish tacos and an adult beverage, “Some people say t-o-m-a-t-o, I say Bloody Mary!”
With our attempt at making plans failing at every turn, we are not quite sure of our destination from here, what with having to come back in a little over a week for ordered parts and then having to return to Sonoma County for medical appointments at the first of the month. So you are just gonna HAVE to wait until next post to find out…