Category: Lance

Trip to Hardin – Day 12

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, Travel1 Comment

Turnaround decision revisited…

I didn’t get to update the blog yesterday due to lack of Internet.  We had to stay at a KOA in Grants due to there being no room anywhere near Albuquerque because of the balloon festival.  This KOA had very poor WiFi and I can understand why.  We also had poor data reception on our cell phones.  Verizon was showing only a couple of bars of LTE, no 3G or 4G.  So… it was slow, even on our phones.

Before talking about the Grants area, let me catch you up on our travel day.  Here is why we were unable to continue.  The line of thunderstorms stretched from El Paso, TX all the way up to Minnesota.  It was a slow moving line as well.    This is what we would either have to drive through or delay for.  We didn’t have time to delay our trip and be able to make it back to work in time.  So, we turned around and headed to…screenshot_20191001-070951

Grants, New Mexico

As it turns out, Grants was a wonderful place to stop for two reasons, the Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum and El Malpais National Monument.

Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum

This museum is a restoration of two forms of aviation infrastructure, now both largely gone.  The first and foremost reason I wanted to visit this museum is it’s exhibit on vintage airway beacons.  In many places throughout the country people have stumbled on mysterious concrete arrows and wondered what they were for.  At this museum they have completely restored the concrete arrow and the lighted beacon tower it supported.  As well as the generator sheds that accompanied these towers to power them.  These beacons lighted the way for early airmail aviators so they could continue to fly the mail at night.  There were literally hundreds of these arrows and towers across the country.   The museum is only open on Saturdays so we took the outside walking tour.  There are free pamphlets you can grab that talk about the outdoor exhibits and the history.  This was one of the stops I was most looking forward to.

 

Grants, New Mexico

If you’ve ever seen the movie Cars, think “Radiator Springs” and you pretty much have Grants.  Still it was fun to drive down the main drag and look for remnants of her Route 66 glory days.  We stopped at AutoZone to buy a new tire pressure gauge.  Then we stopped at a touristy little spot to take a picture.

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El Malpais National Monument

After visiting the museum we decided to check out El Malpais (literally, The Badlands in Spanish).   El Malpais is a hugh lava field created by volcanic erruptions.  Spanish explorers named it El Malpais due the fact that it was impassible for their horses.  The terrain is literally littered with razor sharp chunks of black lava.  They had to find a way around.  Other than some Indians that lived in the area the place was largely abandoned for thousands of years.

We drove out into the park and stopped at an area with some sandstone bluffs.  This turned out to be the hidden gem in all of Grants.  Here is a taste of the sandstone bluffs:

 

We drove a little farther down the road and stopped at La Ventana, a large natural arch.  It’s a nice easy hike, only about 10 minutes from the parking lot.

Afterwards we drove back and had dinner back at our trailer.  And enjoyed a beautiful New Mexico sunset thanks to the storms passing by to the east.

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All in all our decision to turn around was a good one.  We saw some things we may not have had time for otherwise.

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Trip to Hardin – Day 8

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, Travel6 Comments

The travel day from hell…

We got a fairly early start from USA RV Park in Gallup.  At least 8:00am felt early.  We probably hit the road around 9am or so.  It was a fairly nice drive… at first.  Then as we passed Albuquerque our GPS suddenly told us to start going back the way we came.   Cristy checked traffic on her phone and sure enough the freeway was closed several miles ahead.  Against my better judgement I decided to trust my GPS and let it take me on a detour around the closure.  In California, a detour is usually only a few blocks over.  In New Mexico the detour was over 90 miles!  So long story short, 2 extra hours, 2 extra gas stops, and one pounding headache later we finally arrived at Pendaries RV Resort.

I didn’t get to take any pictures today but here are the pictures from yesterday that I wasn’t able to post.

We’ll be here a this resort for the next few days.  More to come.

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Trip to Hardin – Day 7

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, Travel2 Comments

Travel Day

Today we travelled from Williams, AZ to Gallup, NM by way of Flagstaff to pick up some groceries at Sprouts.  We also stopped at the Meteor Crater because I demanded to pay $36 for the two of us to look at a hole in the ground! 🙂

Anyway this update will be short because the WiFi is down at USA RV Resort so I’m working over my phone.  I’ll catch up with pictures tomorrow.

Trip To Hardin – Day 6

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, Travel1 Comment

Grand Canyon

Our trip to the Grand Canyon started with chilly, rainy temperatures.  Just yesterday we had the air conditioner on because it was 100 degrees.  Today’s high was 68.  It had rained all night (a novelty for this Californian) but Providencially the rain let up long enough for us to walk to the railway station.  We boarded the Grand Canyon Railway and were treated to some beautiful scenery on the 2 hour trip over and back.  We literally saw deer and antelope.  We did not witness them playing however.

When we finally made it to the Grand Canyon itself the mix of clouds and sky made for some dramatic scenery.  We decided to hike the rim trail in the short few hours we had.  We brought our lunch rather than eating at one of the restaurants (who boast gorgeous views).  I’m pretty sure our view was MUCH better than any window seat in the most expensive restaurant there.

After lunch we continued along the trail until we got to the end and then took a shuttle bus the the visitor’s center, then another shuttle back to the train depot.

I have to say a little more about the train.  I bought the cheapest tickets I could find.  They were in Coach A near the front of the train.  I am so glad I didn’t buy a more expensive ticket because the entertainment in this coach was outstanding.  Our attendant spent the whole time talking to us about the scenery, the history of the area, the railroad, and so on.  And she was a crack-up!  It was like a dinner show the whole way there and back.  They also brought in a couple of musicians who told jokes and played.  One was a fiddle player and the other played (what else?)  The banjo.  “Banjo Billy” was by far the best.  At any rate, if you want to visit the Grand Canyon and avoid the traffic hassles, take the train!

We got home tired, happy, and again, tired.  But it was a GREAT trip.  I’ll leave you with some miscellaneous photos we took of the canyon.

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Trip to Hardin – Day 5

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, Travel1 Comment

Travel Day

Today was just a travel day and a short one at that.  Cristy slept in a little while I read my book outside under the awning.  It was 75 degrees at 7:00am.  Perfect reading weather.   A hummingbird flew up to me several times, probably wondering where our feeder was.  Sorry bud.

After Cristy woke up and had her breakfast I began the ritual of dumping the tanks.  Black, then turn on the tank flush, then drain, then flush, then drain, then pump a few gallons in for good measure.  Then I empty the gray tank.  Clean and stow the hose and accessories.  Then pull my disposable gloves off, one inside the other.  Then hand sanitize and call it done.

That’s when I noticed our first damage.  I shouldn’t really call it damage.  A cotter pin came out of our hitch when we were driving the truck yesterday and we almost lost a very crucial part of the weight distribution hitch.  Luckily it didn’t fall out.  I was able to push it back in and safety wire it in place.   It looked much nicer when we started this morning.  This is what it looked like once we arrived in Williams, AZ at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park.

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The trip over only took about 3 hours.  And it can be summed up in one word: UP.  It was all uphill.  We stopped for gas in Seligman.  The scenery is beautiful but the highway and the wind kept my attention mostly on the road so I didn’t have time to grab any pictures.  I’ll have to see if Cristy did.

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Tomorrow we take the train to the Grand Canyon!

Trip to Hardin – Day 4

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, Travel1 Comment

London Bridge

Since Snoopy’s brother wasn’t at home, for our day in Needles we decided to visit London Bridge over in Lake Havasu City.   Yes, THAT London Bridge.  For those who don’t know the bridge you’ve sung about in kindergarten is down in Lake Havasu.  I’ve always wanted to see it so off we went.

London Bridge is falling down…

Actually it looks very sturdy.  As we were first walking up to the bridge we saw a couple taking selfie next to the bridge’s placard.  They offhandedly remarked as they walked by, “We had to come all the way from England to see our own bloody bridge!”  Yes it was a couple from London who were visiting and stopped by to see “their” bridge.  I told them if they liked it so much they shouldn’t have sold it to us, in a nice, jovial way of course.  We chatted for a few minutes and they were on their way.

Take the key and lock her up…

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We strolled on the river walk for a while and then had a sno-cone.  A sno-cup really.  Then went for lunch and some grocery shopping before returning to the RV park.  That was enough for one day.  There was still a nap to take!

Tomorrow, a short travel day to Williams and the Grand Canyon Railway.

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Trip To Hardin – Day 2

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, TravelLeave a comment

On our second day we had two missions: go hiking, and buy food.  In that order.  To satisfy the “go hiking part of it we drove about 15 miles north to Red Rock Canyon State Park.  This is originally where I was going to camp but since I wasn’t sure about availability on a weekend I decided to cancel and stay at Sierra Trails RV Park which you already know.

Red Rock Canyon was a filming location for many of the old movie and TV westerns were filmed.  More than a couple of Sci-Fi movies as well due to the “otherworldly terrain.”

We hiked up a short hill along a “nature trail”, meaning, “easy trail for beginners.”  But it’s all we really wanted to do that morning.  I hadn’t ate yet and Cristy was still getting used to the overly dry, high desert air.

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Afterwards we drove to their visitor’s center and browsed the small museum and exhibits.  A video was looping of Hewel Hauser interviewing a park ranger about Red Rock Canyon.  They had a few bones and pelts on display, had a few books for sale, hats and T shirts for the overseas tourists.  Interesting nonetheless.

Then we drove up into Rosamond to buy some groceries for dinner and stopped and got a burger in Mohave on the way back to the RV park.  The rest of the day we just napped, watched Bosch, and just basically relaxed.  We also prepped for our second travel day that would take us to Mohave Valley, Arizona.

What we didn’t know at the time was, we would never make it to Mohave Valley…

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Trip To Hardin – Day 1

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, TravelLeave a comment

Hardin?  Where’s Hardin?  It’s in Missouri just east of Kansas City.  I can’t tell you much about it other than that is where my mother is buried.  I’ve never been to her grave.  This is my trip to visit her.

The trip down Highway 99 was mostly uneventful aside from the detour our GPS took us on to avoid a major slowdown in Madera.  We stopped for gas at Murray Farm in Bakersfield and then made the long, not-so-slow slog up the Tehachapi grade into the high desert.  My truck did much better than I thought it would.

Murray Family Farm

Our first day’s travel brought us from our home in Modesto, CA to Mohave, CA just east of Tehachapi in the high desert.  We’re staying at Sierra Trails RV Park.  It’s a tiny, kind of cramped park but the folks that run it are super nice.  They helped me back in to the tight spot they assigned me.  I’m looking at some of the bigger rigs and just scratching my head trying to figure out how they shoehorned into their spots.   I guess the ol’ guy that helped me back in helped them back in as well.  Just has he’s helping my neighbor back in now.

After getting set up we took a nap, watched Bosch on Amazon Prime, ate dinner, and took a walk.  Tomorrow is a rest day.  We’ll watch our church service in the morning, see what there is to do in Mohave, and basically just chill.

See you tomorrow.

Travel Trailer Touch Ups

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Lance, Repair, RV LifeLeave a comment

As we are counting down to our road trip to Missouri we have started getting our Lance Model 1995 travel trailer ready for the big trip.  There was one maintenance item and one upgrade that I wanted to take care of today.  Actually the maintenance item only cropped up today!

First the maintenance item.  I brought our trailer home from the storage yard and back it into our driveway.  Since California’s dust harvest is in full swing our trailer is just coated with the Central Valley’s finest Modesto series loam.  I gave the trailer a good rinse and took a sponge mop to the roof to get the stubborn stuff up there.  Afterwards I went to plug in the electrical cord from the trailer to the house.  When I opened the electrical connector cover on the side of the trailer, the cover broke off.   Ugh.  While it won’t affect operation of the trailer’s electrical system, it does leave the electrical plug exposed to the elements.   It needed to be replaced.  I found an exact replacement (the cheapest model they sell) at a local RV sales lot.  It only took about 10 minutes to replace.  Even though the trailer is still under warranty I elected to do the work myself because if I had taken it back to the dealer it would probably be sitting there for weeks and wouldn’t be ready in time for our trip.  Ten minutes and $40 was worth it to me.

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Next the upgrade item.  Our shower has a single handle control for the water.  It is VERY touchy.  There is very little adjustment available between BRRR COLD and OUCH HOT!  We actually waste more water trying to adjust it to our comfort.  After reading some posts on the Lance Owners of America forum I elected to replace the single handle control with dual controls.  One other modification I made was to add a check valve on the hot water side of the controls.  I call it a water diode.  (Electrical types will recognize this immediately but for the rest of you, a diode only allows electrical current to flow one way)  I added this check valve because there is a shutoff valve on the shower hose that allows you to instantly cut off water flow without having to turn the valves.  However, when we did this I found that the cold water was backflowing into the hot water line back towards the hot water tank.  This meant that when you opened the shutoff valve again you would get a blast of cold water until the hot water flowed back through the pipe and into the shower hose.  UN-acceptable!  The check valve will prevent water from flowing back down the hot water hose.  I haven’t tried it yet but I’m sure it will solve the problem.

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So far we are really enjoying our trailer and look forward to the trip.  Look for more about that in an upcoming article.

Saturday Drive to Silver Lake

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Hiking, Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, Travel3 Comments

After my awesome Friday, flying in the morning, camping in the evening, we had to make Saturday every bit as good.  But without the flying, Mrs. Flying Dutchman doesn’t like flying so much.  Since it was forecast to be hot again we decided to drive higher up into the mountains.  Our destination was only an hour away; Silver Lake.  When we arrived we found a lovely 75 degree day rather than the 98 degrees it was forecast to be back at the trailer.  We hiked along one of the roads along the shoreline and then moved to different section of the lake and did some rock hopping and took in the beautiful sights.

After spending several hours at the lake it was time to head back but not before swearing to come back after tourist season is over.  Even the drive back down the mountain was beautiful.

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Sunday Morning

On our last day we just hung around in bed for a while, had a leisurely breakfast, and then watched church on our phone.  Afterwards we packed everything up, got the trailer ready to travel, and then drove back down the mountain to Modesto.  It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend.