Little Truck pulls perfectly up US Hiway ONE!

This is our tow vehicle, my Jeep Liberty 6 cylinder, 3.7 with 4 wheel drive. It's been a great little truck and we are never without people to talk to everywhere we get out of it with the Airstream (25 foot Safari SS which weighs 3 tons withOUT all our stuff in it) The secret is in the towing package designed for our specific truck/trailer combination by our hero and the man who made it possible for us to have an Airstream and begin our dream of travelling North America and to eventually live in it and travel full time, Andy Thompson of CanAm RV. He deserves an entire post unto himself but with the addition of a Hensley Hitch,  a reinforced attachment to the jeep, a transmission cooling fan, McKesh mirrors, and a few pointers on driving, it has performed beautifully and it fits 2 of us and 3 labradors comfortably.

We drove up Highway 1
from San Luis Obispo to Carmel and Monteray.

The visuals are just amazing, as you can see below, but at one of the vista points we stopped at, we encountered a german tourist feeding these squirrel thingies.
They look and act a lot like Guinea Pigs if you ask me but also look like a modified squirrel. Not sure what they are called but they sure were cute, and TAME!

It's just non-stop with the beauty all the way up Highway 1. Three quarters of the way up, coming upon yet another stunning vista, I remarked fasceciously,
"OH what?!?!? more trees, bluffs, rocks and sea surf? that's it?"
   Truly, magnificent. Awe inspiring. Freezing cold water!

 The driving was a bit hairy, although much better because we took a friend's advice and drove it south to north. If we did it again, and I'm sure we will, we would set out earlier so as not to drive into the sun as well.
  There are plenty of turnouts so we didn't hold up traffic too much. We were very considerate of course but I gotta say, I don't feel too badly slowing people down on roads that are that tricky to drive, let aLONE that beautiful!
   Stop and smell the sea, people.

 Rick, my husband and "exxxxxxxelllent driver" just retired from 37 years on the Toronto Police Services. We had a good laugh going over these passes, cliffs, driving into the sun and after he impulsively decided to pull over and cross a lane on the downgrade at too fast a speed over gravel.....can you say HOLD YOUR BREATH! while we sway skidded to a stop perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific?!?
    After a respectful silence, I asked, "So how relaxing is it Staff Sergeant McKeown since you left your high stress high risk behaviour job?

<<<<<<<-----------Check out the path laid before us?

Big danger=Big FUN!

Sequoias, people!

Since the beer induced nap in the desert at the Nevada/California border, we took a detour and ended up driving towards Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We just got a hankerin' to see some big trees. Little did we know the impression they would leave on us....we LOVED them, no, we fell IN LOVE with them. For the first time I understood what all the fuss is about the magical forest. Those freakin' giant sequoias and redwoods are UNBELIEVABLE!!!! breathtaking....like, seeing them caused me to take a deep breath and pause before taking another. Really! something otherworldly, their vibration, sorry to sound like such a treehugger, but....

o'kay, I'm speechless. Just look at them.

    We were aimed at Lake Kaweah, which turned out to be a man made lake, made by the creation of the Terminus Dam and no doubt, the flooding of the valley where the town of Lemon Cove now is. When we arrived at Lake Kaweah Campground, there was a big sign saying it was closed, although the road to it was not.
  Fortunately, we did not do our usual doubting act and go down there, because we later found out, that it was closed because "THEY" let too much water out of the dam and into the valley causing Lake Kaweah Campground to be UNDERWATER!!! It's interesting how you can tell when you look at it that it's man made. There was something eery and not quite right about it...not including the fact that there are full grown trees half-submerged and the Lake Kaweah Beach that seemed to be a parking lot is now submerged...no doubt half of the former parking lot to the beach, is now, ya, you got it, submerged and so the footing to the new beach is the parking lot. Still, it was beautiful, in a man made kind of way.

It looks sort of normal until you notice that the trees are half under water....the vegetation on the surrounding landscape looks a little weird too.
You can read the history of Lake Kaweah here: Lake Kaweah/Sequoia National Park I found it very interesting, myself.

See the parking lot/beach? Bizarre.

The best part was that, necessity being the mother of invention, we found Lemon Grove/Sequoia Campground, simple without any wifi or cable but sweet, and friendly and nestled up against the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and the night entertainment was howling coyotes and a few mountain lion roars. We got home very late and during dinner (at nearly midnight) at the picnic table, I caught the eye of one travelling quickly through the campground. No doubt, it considered our steak for a split second. Phew.

These are oranges. We didn't actually SEE any lemons in Lemon Grove but the oranges were good and we had one with some Raw Milk cheese for breakfast on the way out. The peel made a great car air freshener too. (cause the only thing better than dog smell in a car is orange flavoured dog smell.

Bravo Farms....BRAVO!!!! we could not resist the succession of witty, wistful highway billboards as we approached the exit for it. It was so promising of all manner of things fun, and we found even more than that!
mmmmmm, artisan Sage Cheddar cheese!
It was only noon and technically the cheeseburgers deluxe we had, were our breakfast, so we couldn't face a winetasting, but the farmers market, fresh local produce and KEEEEEYUTE gift shop were SO much more than we expected.


........and LOOK at these miniature donkeys!

   

   

Overturned Tanker on I 15

     About an hour into our  6 hour drive to California....heading to Big Sur, (but we planned to take it easy,) we encountered traffic. BIG traffic. What is it? we wonder, is it construction, we query, this is ridiculous! oooops, an ambulance goes by on the shoulder, then a fire truck and the police, then the news....okay, thinks we, we are in for the long haul. And of course I had shamed Rick into not stopping for gas at the last exit and now we are looking at....what? the desert? bumper to bumper on grades, to overheat or run out of gas and have NO AIR CONDITIONING?!?!?! We remained calm.                            

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It was kind of interesting to watch (for awhile) People started to drive on the paved shoulder, then on the gravel shoulder to that shoulder, to get around cars on the paved shoulder that were being too cautious about the pylons that had been put there and THEN several people just went down off both shoulders into the actual desert and started driving off in clouds of dust! Of course, the rules of the road had been suspended and it really was chaotic out there once anarchy had taken over.  People encountered ditches or impassabilities out there in the desert, so they'd have to circle way around or head off at right angles to the road to God knows where. I guess they were locals and THEY knew where but it sure looked wild to us.

We, decided to take a pass on the whole deal and pulled off the road (legally) at the first exit, exit 1 Nevada and the last chance Casino.

Rick and I saw no potential for exiting the truck-stop/casino once we were in there and had gassed up, as it was full of big rigs waiting to get back onto the road. Since the Aluminum Rule, (courtesy of Antsy McLain and the Trailer Park Troubadors) is "Enjoy the Ride", we crawled back into the Airstream,  put on the Fantastic Fan, opened all the windows, had a beer and a nap in front of our supplementary 12 volt fan. (PS No A/C when you're not plugged into shore power but our trailer batteries stoked by the Solar Panel run the fans)

Two and half hours later we HOPEfully peered out the window to see the traffic still bumper to bumper for many miles into the desert.

Eventually, we arrived at our breakfast destination! Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, usually a couple hours outside Vegas on the California side of the State Line. No worries that it was dinner time, it was fun ad look at all the cool stuff there was on the walls and everything. 

What was it, you ask? a freakin' moron tanker truck driver rolled his rig over and caused a HazMat spill. THOUSANDS of people were inconvenienced, easily tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of dollars in gasoline wasted and public resources  ambulance, fire, towtrucks, and Hazmat response...allllllllll wasted! If I were my friend, Judy, I would have presented him with an invoice for our time once we FINALLY arrived at the scene. THEN, there should be costs for Pain and Suffering owed for all the compassion I had to summon up for the people in the northbound lane as we FINALLLLY drove past Moron's overturned disaster to see miles and miles, literally 30 and counting, no doubt, of people driving unsuspectingly towards Vegas on a Friday night, to spend at least a day in that traffic jam. People were considering ducking and diving out on the paved shoulder, and in the northbound lane there was no second shoulder and no nice flat sandy desert but I know some would have eventually 4 wheeled it into the rough terrain as well to gain some headway or just even to change the scenery. The desert. DOH!

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, it's hot in the desert!

ummmm, like, it's 108 degrees fahrenheit in Las Vegas today. NO WONDER everyone stays in the casinos all the time, (or the Western wear stores where they bought THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!)

       
People who come to Canada from hot, dry states are always saying, " Oh it's different because there's no humidity, it doesn't feel as hot" Oh, ya, it does! HOTTER, cause there's no humidity. My eyeballs are stuck in their sockets. I exercised my dogs for 10 minutes and it took them 2 hours to recover in the airconditioning, which doesn't work, BTW, not that it isn't working, it just can't keep up. The inside of the well insulated Airstream walls are hot, even the ones with the MOUSE FUR!
        I find myself dreaming about bodies of water, looking over each hill as we drive to see if a lake might appear. We are outta here! It's scenic; I'll say that.  I motored down the windows, I shot a pic, I motored 'em right back up and I bemoaned the degree of coolness we just lost. So did the dogs!

Lake Mead right in front of the Hoover Dam

 We went to the Hoover Dam today and it's quite an amazing sight....it really struck me how arrogant humankind is, to just go, "Hey, let's build a highway through here, just blast through these mountains of rock, oh! and damn up this little river and build this ginormous bridge over it!" Who does that? Only the human, the wondrous, unbelievabley indelible spirit of the human being. Inspiring, outrageous and obviously divinely lead. (And thanks be to God, someone invented A/C!)
   We're hitting the road to drive over to Big Sur, in the morning,  and swim, and swim, and swim!

Lucky Lucky Thanks Boss

    I believe in the Chinese Horoscopes. There, I said it. I don't think they are a hundred percent accurate or anything, nor do I feel it prudent to base any life decisions on them, but I find the coincidences too uncanny to completely disgregard. Take for instance, the fact that I am a dog on the Chinese Horoscope. I love dogs (I know, who doesn't but, I was CRAZY about them even as a toddler and I manipulated my parents into getting me one FINALLY by "praying" for it and telling them I was, OFTEN. (My mother was a teacher in the Catholic School Board so I'm pretty pretty pretty sure that that was the tactic that sealed the deal. PS My sister will very likely insist I aknowledge her proprietary rights but I honestly do not recall her mentioning any praying at that time) Anyway, I digress. I grew up and became a dog trainer, built an "all dogs all the time" business in NYC and eventually became a Canine Health Consultant.  I currently have 3 black labs. I hear them. Enough said.
     Even as I'm blogging on the road on our Toronto-California trip, I just alerted my driver (er, uh...husband) to a high pitched sound he could not hear. Here's a pic of me sticking my head out the window like a dog. :-)

                                                                 okay, that's enough!

     My husband is a dragon. I wasn't familiar with any until I met him, but they are lucky. I have always had to work very hard for everything (or at least I've perceived it that way) I can count my blessings all day long and have been mega-fortunate but there's a subtle difference. Just believe me, he's lucky and now it seems I'm pretty lucky too. YAY.
      So on our big trip, we booked a Rally at the Airstream factory and booked our trailer in right after it to have a bike rack put on. We knew there would be seminars at the Rally on maintenance and all but we didn't know they might save our lives. At the seminars we learned to adjust the brakes and that we need to repack the bearings so we had Airstream do that. We needed it and had we not done it, there would have been trouble on the road before Cali. They also found a bald tire where a bad wheel alignment needed doing too.
     The week before our trip we took our tow vehicle in for an oil change and fortunately (luckily?) our mechanic found 2 ball joints needed replacing and a worn rear universal (or whatever it was called, breaking it means you end up in a field and if pulling a trailer behind you, perhaps hanging upside down with your legs akimbo.)
 As if that wasn't lucky enough, we found out later that those ball joints are a recall so they may even be reimbursable. Now, seemingly UNfortunatley our air conditioner broke again and it couldn't be fixed without losing two and a half days travel time so we pressed onward in 90 degree heat with the windows open on the Interstate hoping to make it until Monday morning and Boulder, Colorado where we have friends we could visit while it got fixed.
   We went through a lot of horrible places to break down but when we stopped in Lawerence, Kansas to gas up, we had to go way off the highway to find a station and don'tcha know? ..... the truck wouldn't start until we fixed the air conditioner (also to be reimbursed by the guy in Key Largo that replaced it at Christmas!) and while there they found our alternator had gone and our clutch fan was worn to the point of figuratively hanging by a thread. We would have overheated and needed towing out of the mountins later for sure. (And I'll tell you why that wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing in a minute!)
     So, Oh My God, people! We found a nationwide auto repair within 3 minutes of the gas station we were at and a Beeeeeyootiful little campground 6 minutes away. The crusty young towtruckdriver thought better of turning down my request to drop the truck at the mechanics' and the trailer at the campground and we settled in to Happy Hour at Kansas City Jellystone Park and a day of R and R, poolside, in the grassy dog run, bike riding and preparing for the next leg of the journey.

THEN on the way out, I spied these beauties and we met their owner/rescuers Jon and Carol of The Bombshell Girls!

   













While dragging up to 10,000 feet above sea level, our tranny started to slip. Internally I was cursing everyone!..... including Andy Thompson who assured us my little Jeep liberty 3.7 was totally fine to tow 25 feet of Safari SS, the guy who argued with him at the seminar at Alumapalooza about needing a big 2500 pick up macho, macho, testosterone blowhard AND my own Bestie who had squeezed the words "get a Ford 150" quickly but boldly into a Skype call I'd had with her from Lawerence, Kansas when the alternator went.

     So there we are at the side of the road eating lunch in the Airstream, (I'm thinking the truck will cool down and things will be better enough, to at least get to the next exit and Rick is moping as he silently calculates the price of a new transmission and/or tow vehicle) when a knock comes at the door. (IIIIIIIIIII KNOW!! We are literally here>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>)
 I opened the door to see the keeeeeeyutest towtruckdriver EVER (and I used to have an 88 Ford Bronco 11, I've met THRONGS of tow truckers.)
     Making the proverbial Knight on a White Steed look like yesterday's chopped liver, the handsome, rugged, larger than life, puffy-lipped, darker-than-coal-eyed, McDreamBoat had parked his gigantic (pant, pant) flatbed with tow balls, I mean, ball, in front of us. He gazed longingly....cough cough...he asked if I, um,er,uh, if WE, were okay. (Sorry, girls and gays, I couldn't get a photo. I thought of it, but I just couldn't compose myself in time.)  He also swooped on in behind us once we got parked at the Jeep dealership at the summit to make sure we knew he still had our backs. Jeep confirmed that the tranny fluid just needed to cool down (and so did I) :-)
     Come evening we finished the Eisenhower Pass, the second highest in North America apparently, crawled over hill and dale through Vail without incident and ended up camped out in a beautiful desert truck stop in Utah that night. At our next gas stop, an astute young man at the adjoining tire center noticed one of the tires we hadn't replaced at the beginning of the journey was splitting and so we replaced the remaining two old tires. The first leg of our trip from Toronto-California has been a long and expensive drive but many lessons have been learned and many prayers of gratitude sent upward, "lucky lucky, THANKS BOSS!!!

                                       Here are the boys in the desert. The sticks were SO crunchy!

                       "Thank you for the camping, Mama, I LOVE IT!!!! Where are we goin' now?!?!?!"