A descriptive look at traveling and full-timing with our second RV, a fifth wheel toyhauler.
Laura and Sasha started this adventure in April of 2005
for a two week vacation in a truck camper.
The Road Trip of 2009! Laura & Sasha's Excellent Adventure
The Next Adventure Begins!
Oregon - Wines & Solar & Safety
Checking Out the Wineries, Getting Solar Panels & Getting Safe
November 14th, Saturday - Went to a Walmart and stayed there for two days! We parked in the back and out of the way. It was between the Walmart and a Lowe's, which was good, because we needed things at Lowe's as well as at Walmart.
November 15th, Sunday - Basically in Camper throughout the day, did some work on the bath shower, put up the wine glass holder, plastic bag holder and paper towel holder.
November 16th, Monday - Getting to
Springfield/Eugene area for solar panel installs tomorrow!
Went to Winco to really look at the prices! WOW, you guys
in:
Washington
Idaho
Nevada
California (Sorry not Colorado,
I was wrong!)
Oregon
are really lucky, while we have Aldi on the east coast, we do not have these types of major bulk bins like the Winco place. But you have to have cash or checks, no credit cards. Still, pretty cool, I was in there for about 30 minutes just checking out the prices: many are lower than what we had before, although some are still higher; although it could be I have older prices on my sheet, although I do not think so. Not every thing is a good deal, but there are tons of things that are. We will have to go shopping in the next couple of days to check out the real deal, but not tomorrow, maybe on the 18th when we can get everything into the camper.
We got over to AM Solar around 4:30, parked in the back, and are now surfing fools. There is a a full bath and wifi here, plus we are hooked up, which is good, don't have to use our generator. It also seems a little warmer here, could be that we are away from the wind which makes it better. This morning it was so windy it felt cooler than it really was. Wind chill of course, but just not as nice a day either. As soon as we got to the solar place, it seemed as though the sun was shining, welcoming to "green living. " At least that is my 2 cents on it.
November 17th, Tuesday: Going to the Solar Panels place today. We will not be staying in the camper tonight, but at a hotel. It will be a weird experience I am sure, haven't really been in a motel in a long time.
Must say that being in a hotel is nothing new, but got my TV time in. Saw an episode of Bones and CSI, then saw the First Wives Club - all good shows and movies, but not worth the $79 just for a room. And that was a discount because I worked for the federal government.
We went out to this restaurant called Izzy's - it was a pizza and buffet joint. Now before you start thinking it was like Pizza Hut with their different pizza and salad bar, think again. This one has a grill, so we got ribs, and pizza, and interesting salad bar with different pastas, the fixings for a nice salad, lots of fried or BBQ chicken with all of the sides, and great dessert bar with soft serve ice cream, brownies, cookies, and this cookies-n-cream type of whipped topping that was to die for. Let's just say Sasha and I rolled out of there when we were done, we so enjoyed the place. We were thinking of Norm and Lou the entire time, saying that they would love the place, has great choices and all. We miss you guys!
We went back to the motel, watched TV and read, and slept until 8:30-9 am!
November 18th, Wednesday: Solar Panels Installed today too! I called the front desk and got a late check out (normal is 11 am) - what are they thinking - 11 am? That is stupid, especially since we did not have to be anywhere until 4 pm at AM Solar. So once we got up, we went over to Village Inn Restaurant and had a nice breakfast.
We got back to the room, got cleaned up and packed up and headed out to do some grocery shopping. Now, we had scoped out the Winco on the 16th (Sasha went too, so he could understand the concept and check prices!) but this day was the day to REALLY go shopping. So we went. You can check out our November expenses page to see the increase in the grocery shopping but here is a partial list of what we got:
- Dried Fruits
- Mustard
- Peanut Butter
- Maple Syrup
- Coffee
- Chunk Chicken
- Minced Clams
- Olives
- Spaghetti Sauce
- Trail Mix
- Lentils
- Beans
- Brown Rice
- Dried Mango
- Ramen Noodles
- Chicken Soup Base
- Almonds
Plus of course lots more. It was a great place, we spent about $250.00 at just that sitting alone!
I think you get the idea. We went a little hog wild regarding the dried food bins BUT here is a little story...This is the second time we have been in a Winco and this is the second time we have gone near the bulk bins, only to find someone totally wailing on the raisins, like they were starving and just had to have some for their raisin bran. I mean, the scoops are only so big, and both women were digging deep, emptying those bins before the next person could get a single raisin. What is up with that? Is there some unbelievable recipe that would call for so many raisins in one sitting? Are they all making fruit cakes for the holidays?
Anyway, we decided to let this woman get all of the raisins she needed, and ask the dried bin person to refill as necessary.
It probably took us at least 45 minutes just at the bins, as we Really stocked up. We figured, well, no sales tax on food, and we would not need to go to a store for these dried essentials for at least 6 months. So hopefully, the grocery shopping will go down for the next couple of months, I can only hope. Although I do not think the dark chocolate will last, I just have this feeling on that.
I had also gone to Trader Joes before going to Winco, the prices just do not compare. Trader Joes is more expensive than Winco, and there is no way to get a truck of our size into the parking lot of Trader Joe's! Sasha parked the truck on a side street. I can only imagine what it would be like if we tried to bring in the RV!
By the time we had done all of the shopping, it was time to get back to AM Solar. We had not gotten propane, so when we went in, it seemed they were not quite ready for us, so we went back out and got the propane. When we got back, they went over some of the instructions of the panels, we stay on the batteries for about 4 hours, then started charging up with electric.
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November 19th, Thursday: Get to Grant's Pass and the Henderson's: before dark! Well, it took a little while longer to get things happening this morning. We had a late breakfast, I cleaned up while Sasha went over the bill - WOW, it was a bit more than we expected partly because Sasha had not calculated correctly with the spreadsheet, and when they did the estimate, they forgot the batteries! As each battery is $320, four batteries adds up to $1280! Yikes! Anyway, what can you do, it was already put in, we both were incorrect. If this helps us in the end to do boondocking and not having to pay for campgrounds, well, then it is worth it.
By the time we got everything done, it was around 1 pm, and it takes about 3 hours to get to Henderson's - and we still had to dump the black and gray. So we headed down to Grants Pass, knowing that we would not be hooking up to their electric tonight. Great boondocking experience possible, except if it is cold, then we need the space heater and the generator. But very nice country.
We had a couple of hills that were 5 and 6% grades going down. For most cars, this is not a problem, but when you have so much behind your truck, going slow down a hill is important. Sasha had it under control, but he felt the truck did not allow him to go as slow as he would like, so that is part of the reason we are getting the extra brake line put into the truck, to help us on the steep hills and passes. Safety is very important and being safe is always a good idea. Thereby less worry for our folks.
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Here I am at Henderson's. We stayed in Henderson's for five nights, fully plugged in, thank God for big tanks! |
We got to Henderson's around 6 pm, they had already left; we set up, and will wait until morning to find out what they are going to do first, the test or the work on the truck. If they get the work done on the truck first, that would be good, we could maybe go somewhere for the weekend, and then come back and do the test on the truck and the rig. But we will have to see.
November 20th, Friday: Safety Rig Inspection - RPA - Road Performance Assessment by Henderson's: Well, not really, we are getting something else done first. First we are getting a stronger brake system installed, so that when we go down the big hills, there is no nervous Sasha. He likes to go down those 5 and 6% grade roads at about 55 miles per hour, rather than speeding up to 70 or more.
You know, when you go down a hill in a car, it doesn't really matter because you are not towing anything behind you that is pushing you. But when you have a rig like ours, the weight of the 5th wheel is pushing on the truck, making it go faster. And if there is a curve at the bottom of the hill, you do not want to go around the curve faster than needed or you could tip over. So this all has to do with safety. Can we safely drive this truck and toyhauler down those even bigger graded roads, the ones that are seven, eight and nine percent grades? Well, we can once we have this extra brake system.
Since they were not able to finish the brakes on Friday, we will have to stay here over the weekend to get the stuff done on Monday. Also on Monday they will do the Safety Rig Inspection as well.
So this means that we will live in the Toyhauler for the weekend in their parking lot. Should be interesting, hope it is not too cold.
November 21st, Saturday: Worked on stuff on the computer but it was a rainy day today, stayed in the camper except to go to the Farmers Market. We went there first got some apples and cider, plus this nice bread, then headed over to the old town area of Grants Pass and went to a thrift store. I found a yogurt maker - been looking for one for a while, and did not want to have to spend the $20 or $30 for one. Nice, got it for $3.50 and if it does not work, the money went to a good cause anyway.
I also had an interview for a volunteer job in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. I will know whether I got the job or not by next week. I hope it happens, it would be fun to work there.
November 22nd, Sunday: WINERIES! We went to wineries up and down the Applegate region. We went to seven wineries total. It was very funny, we decided to go to the wineries today rather than yesterday, because I wanted to be on top of my game for the interview. So we chose today to go; what a good choice! It seems the wineries were doing this special event - called UnCorked! Folks paid $39 to go and drink wines from their barrels. They got a wine glass and a wrist bracelet. They also got food! So we went to the first winery, Soloro Winery and we were like, wow, they are serving food and we did not have to pay for the tasting of wine!
There are lots of wineries that make you pay for the tasting, but I figured, why should I pay if they are going to have open bottles already. So every single winery that we went to that day I did not pay for the wines.
We found out (at Soloro) that they were doing this wine tasting event, and we were like, sure, let's go for it. So we went to the next one (oh and by the way, Sasha as so good - he was not drinking at all, he was my driver, which I think helped in the long run.)
From Soloro we went to Schmidt Family vineyards. Now these guys are no little family vineyard, they put a lot of money into their winery and tasting room and landscaping. Unfortunately, it started to rain when we were outside, so we could not enjoy the outdoor fireplace. But the wines were good, the food pretty good, the scam not so good. I tripped up and just went for the regular wines. It seems that the large wineries have a separate room for tasting the uncorked wines, the rest of the vineyards it is all in one room. But in the end, all good wines.
From Schmidt we went to Rosella's then Applegate Red (they were not on the uncorked tour) then Troon - where they asked me to pay for the tasting, and I said no. That winery would have beautiful especially since they had port, but they were not allowing the tasting of the port at that time. They did not even have it open. So I said no thanks, that was what I had wanted to taste to begin with, so no thanks. They still gave me a taste of their holiday wine, which was good, but nothing like port.
From Troon we went to Woolridge Creek Winery the only one that gets a link they were that good! They were good because they had nice wines, all of which I could taste without having to pay, plus a nice sitting area outside where we could see the setting sun, and the wine makers were very nice, we were able to talk to them. One of the winemakers - Greg, had studied in France and knew about making sherry and port wines; and as I seemed interested (I was) he invited me to try their sherry. It was not on their tasting list, but he made it available for me to try. I think the people that had paid for the UnCorked! were a little miffed and came in a little after me and asked to try it out. He also brought out the Port as well. All very tasty but still - I do not think I would pay $36 for a 375 mL bottle, it is just too much. We watched the setting sun and enjoyed the day.
We did go to one other winery, but by the time we had gotten there, the food was gone, I tried a few and that was it. We then headed back to Henderson's in a sort of a loop. It worked out well, and we saw some amazing country. Beautiful all around.
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Unfortunately, I did not take a single picture of any of the wineries. This was taken on the way to the wineries. |
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November 23rd, Monday: Got everything done with the Truck, we are not going to have any more work done here. Going to go down to Chico, California to get some work done on the truck in regards to the fuel. More to come about that on Tuesday.
November 24th, Tuesday: Heading South to California, took some pictures of Mount McLoughlin which is over 9,000 feet above sea level. I love how these peaks just appear after going around a corner. We also saw Mount Shasta, constantly took pictures of it (at 14 K it is a big mountain!) and will have those pictures up tonight (I hope!).
We left Henderson's around 11:30 am - Sasha had to get some parts for the next oil change that we will do somewhere in the desert, and I wasted a good 1/2 hour on the phone trying to get in touch with someone that is pretty unreachable. Anyway, I cleaned up the place, got everything in its place, and then put in the slides. I then backed up the truck, and got the hitch in the VERY FIRST TIME! Yahoo! that is a first for us, I am so excited! It no longer takes an hour to hitch up! Of course, Sasha got it close, I just had to finish the deal, but STILL! EXCITED!
So I packed us some goodies for on the road, no sandwiches but good snacks. However, Sasha had even better snacks - we had gotten this trail mix called Mt Hood Trail Mix from Winco - one of the bulk items, and oh boy, was it good - candied peanuts, dark chocolate covered raisins, white chocolate covered somethings, and well, I guess I shall have to eat more of it to let you know what was in it. But it was GOOD. It gave us the sugar high that we needed. But now Sasha has crashed - well, not really, he is taking a nap before we head into Chico.
We are only about 50 miles away from Transfer Flow, they are the company that will put in an extra fuel tank into the truck. We are looking at the 74 gallon extra tank that will be put in the bed of the truck, right behind the window. How they do it I don't know but Sasha called them up first thing this morning (around 8:30 am) and asked them if they could do the job tomorrow. They said yes, so this is good. We are headed towards one of the most congested areas of the USA on the most traveled holiday during the year. We are hoping they will let us stay there tomorrow night too, so that we can drive to wherever we are going on Thursday.
Check out Oregon 2009 Road Trip, Taking a Stroll through Oregon,
fleeing the snow on the way to Springfield, Oregon for solar
panels for the truck and since November was not yet over, California and Transfer Flow.
Check out the month, November for what we were doing and expenses of November - that will be a doozy!