Crater Lake RV Park

Our stay in Medford was brief, but we got a lot done in less than 24 hours.  First, the fuel leak was taken care of.  Second, we both got a good night's sleep.  Third, we filled up with fuel.  Four, we shopped for food and supplies for a week.  Five, I decided on a new way to have "lights" on the HHR when we travel.

By 1:30, we were ready to head up to Crater Lake RV Park, in Prospect, OR.  The drive was easy, and the scenery was great.  Lots of trees, but not the giants like we have been seeing the past week.  Marcia was a bit tired from all that shopping (yep, she shopped until she dropped), so as we headed out, my co-pilot was non-other than.....SKRUFFY DOG.

Although I am not finished with the wiring, I did do a test run on the way up here, and will finish with more permanent wiring over the next few days.  What we got was lights to put on the top of the HHR.  They stay there by magnets, which worried me at first, until I talked to this guy in the KOA who was from Elk Grove, CA, just south of Sacramento.  He use to work at the large Campbell's Soup plant just a mile or so from the restaurant I first started working at back in High School.  He quit Campbell's 35+ years ago to become a minister.  Anyway, he pulls a GEO Tracker which has a canvas roof, and puts his magnet lights on the side of his Tracker, and has never had a problem with it.  So I decided to go that route and got the Blazer Magnetic Towing Lamp Kit from Walmart.  It did not take long to hook them up as a trial, and they work great.  What I like is that I can see the "orange side" of the lights in the back-up camera, so I know they are working. Below you can see them in the camer's TV working while I was breaking, and had the left blinker flashing.

Now be honest...you didn't think you see the left blinker actually blinking now did you?   lol  Below is what they look like from behind.  Of course, they are easy to put up and take down, and once I have the wiring complete, it will just be a matter of putting them up, plugging them in, and doing the normal hooking of the HHR to the Motorhome.

We look forward to visiting the area, and this RV Park is really a nice RV park.  The longer you stay, the less expensive per night it is.  There is no cell phone service, except up at the office where the owner has a high antenna and a boaster to provide a small cellular area. We had 3 bars just 2 miles away, and I think we will have it again 2 miles closer to Prospect, but right here is a dead area.  We do have good Internet, and more TV channels than one could ever need since they provide, for $3.50 per day, full Direct TV signal, including the box.  Finally, the pads are the longest I have seen...about 70' long.  The space between the sites is not large, but everyone of them is full of trees, rocks, tree stumps, so it does help to give that buffer than everyone enjoys.  And, of course, there are many dogs in the park, so Skruffy and Bubba have something to look at.

 We are planning to stay here through the 4th of July week, leaving on Sunday the 8th to head up north.  I sure hope we can stand the beauty of this area...

Fuel Leak, and a big Opps!

It was time to head for Salmon Harbor RV Resort in the upper North-Western portion of California for two days.  I should have known that we were going have troubles when both dogs laid claim to the "cave".

Well, not really...I just got them both in there and took the shot.  They BOTH ran out as soon as I said, "Ok, you can .....OUT THEY RUN.....come out now."

But as we pulled out to hook up the HHR, we both noticed a small amount of fresh fluid laying on the pavement under where the engine was.  Marcia thought it was oil, but when I put my finger in it and pulled it up, I knew it was not oil. Smelled it, and it was diesel fuel.  Not much, but enough to worry me, especially when I looked under the motor home, now idling close by, and saw this small, occasional drip, drip.

It through me out of my norm, and when I hooked up the HHR, I forgot to put it in neutral...pulling the back tires about 15 feet.  OPPS!  That could have been bad.  Thanks to the guy who ran over to tell me...or I would have pulled out onto the highway, and seen smoke coming from our new tires very quickly.

As we got on the road, we had a wonderful view of the ocean.  Our last look at the Pacific from California...but we anticipate many nice views later on along the Oregon Coast.

So we got to Crescent City where we finally got some cell phone service, and got on the air card sitting in a Safeway parking lot and decided to go on to Medford Oregon area to get the motor home looked at.  I had a feeling by where it was leaking that it was a fuel filter.  

We missed out on a nice RV park, another one right along the water, this one with a ocean view.  We missed out on exploring the last Redwood Park in Northwest Cal, but we did drive through it.  However, driving along route 199 is a chore in a large motor home, so no pictures of the wonderful river, the large trees, the narrow road.  But it got easier as we got closer to Oregon, and that is where I took these shots.

Here we pulled off the road for a short reprieve from the 20-30 mile per hour curves, that I faced for much of the trip so far.  I had read about this leg of the trip, and knew from other drivers that you just need to put it in a low gear, keep you mind on your driving, and take it slow and easy, using turnouts frequently to allow other cars to pass.

Oh how I wish I could have shared some of the earlier views....some of the prettiest river, canyon, trees mixture of the trip so far.  Perhaps we will just have to go along here again some year...but I doubt we will take our motor home along this path, but it would have been a breeze for the HHR.

Many times we saw this type of tree, with a light brown smooth trunk.  I told Marcia that it looked like a large Manzanita Bush, perhaps it was a Manzanita Tree.  Research later in the day told her that it was a Manzanita Tree.  What a unique looking tree.  Some people use the trees, stripped of leaves, as decorations for large parties, backyard events, etc.

We got to the Medford area just after 3 pm.  I stopped at a Pilot/Flying J and asked the guy working the desk where they send truckers who need to have filters changed and minor work performed.  He suggested a place called Pacific Power Products, which just a mile or two down the road.

I went back to the motor home and called, and they said that they could get us in with a short wait.  I told him we would be there within 30 minutes, and we got there in 20 minutes.  Within 30 minutes of them getting our information, they had me back in to open bay #2.  Well, I could not believe it myself, but I backed it right in on the first try.  Very quickly they found a loose fuel filter.

There are two filters, and SpeedCo had only replace one of them back in late March up in Little Rock, because they did not have the other one in stock, and it does not need to be replaced as often.  I don't know if they had loosen it to check on it or if it just came lose on its own after driving on the bumpy California roads.

Anyway, they had the filter in stock, they put it in, and within 20 minutes, we were paying on ready to hit the road again.   It was now 5:15.  At 4:45, when they told me that they were fairly sure it was just a loose filter and that it would be quick and cheep, I called the local KOA to see if they had any space.  I called him back at 5:40 and told him we indeed would be there around 6.

So here we sit, in a KOA instead of a nice, Pacific Ocean View RV Park, but we are "healed" again, and I hope tomorrow that they will let us in a day early at the RV park we are staying at while visiting Crater Lake.

This KOA in Central Point, OR is ok...good cable, good Internet, price is fair....but the view just does not make it compared to what we had last night!