It is great to once again be on our way. We wish we had warmer weather, but at least the campgrounds are not very far apart across much of Oregon. Our plan will be to wait for the temperatures to at least get into the 50s (when we are that lucky), and then scurry over to the next campground. Hopefully we can build up sufficient fitness and endurance that we can crank out longer days once we find some 70 and 80 degree days.
With that out of the way, we said goodbye to Jim and Patti, and tried to get a last picture of Max, Ralph and Lana. We then drove to the Oregon border to begin our travels (we had already ridden the 140 miles from Boise to there in stages on our training rides over the past four weeks).
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| Ralphie, Maxie, Alea and Lana. |
We didn't have far to go - just eleven miles, but into a brisk headwind - and our route was flat for most of the way. We are camped at another Idaho Power Campground, Copperfield Park ($16 [$2 discount if over 60], power, water, showers, heated bathrooms, 15 minutes of free internet).
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| Dinner at Enrique's in Kuna on our last night before hitting the road. It has a well deserved reputation for the best Mexican food in the area. |
Our gas mileage has improved with the new trailer axle. I'm guessing the bent spindle was creating extra resistance, as our gas mileage had dropped to around 21 mpg after the wheel bearing mishap. It is up over 22 mpg now. And when we had our oil changed at Walmart in January, we asked them to replace the air filter, but they said it looked fine. I took at look at it myself today, and it was full of dust, bugs and sand. I banged it out pretty good on the pavement. Hopefully that will further improve our gas mileage.
If anyone is interest in reading about some of the things that we have been up to the past four months, I recently posted in the Unofficial Camp Inn Forum about various things:
- The ultimate cost of the catastrophic wheel bearing failure that we experienced in Todos Santos, Mexico (not cheap).
- A fix for a long-running, yet intermittent, leak issue that we have had with our Camp Inn camper.
- The details on the unique solar installation that we installed on our van.
- Our DIY wind wall for the end of our ARB Awning (using the same $3 tarp that we use for the side wind walls).
At the end of last year, we were having some issues as we headed north from the Baja Peninsula, so it is worth noting how they were resolved:
- One issue was that our generator had been leaking gasoline. It took two trips to the Yamaha dealer in Meridian, ID, but the issue was eventually found to be a blown seal on the gas gauge (a $25 part). In the future, if we regularly open the vent on the generator's gas cap, we shouldn't have a recurrence of this problem.
- Another issue was that we seemed to have had very limited battery power. That was traced to a blown fuse on our charge line, which likely happened when the van's battery was replaced in Arizona. That caused the premature demise of our camper battery, which we replaced yesterday. Our present solar set up should minimize a recurrence, and I will periodically test the charge line to make sure it is producing voltage. Our new solar setup would only partially offset such a loss - with a blown fuse and the ignition on, we would get no power to the trailer battery. But with the ignition off, we would get a full charge from the solar panel (assuming it was only the fuse at the battery isolator that was blown).
It is worth noting that we left Boise with an odometer reading of 39,500 miles. And we were out of our camper for three full months in Boise, spending one month at the Bond Hotel and the other two months with Jim and Patti. Before tonight, we had camped 28 days this year, and more than a week of that was out in front of Jim and Patti's house. It is mind boggling that we spent that much time together, and I can only say that their hospitality was phenomenal and we had a great time with them.
Tomorrow will be our first full day on the road...
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