Wandering With Purpose

Jul 6

Portola Redwoods State Park

Portola Redwoods State Park is great park located about 30 minutes from our home in HMB. We had not yet visited, so Kelly and I took Lilly there to explore the area today.

Welcome to the park

Like other California state parks, most of the trails are off-limits to dogs, but fortunately dogs on-leash are permitted on paved roads. This is not one of California’s giant parks which if you’re a dog owner I think is an asset. Most of the roads are quite narrow and open mostly to park vehicles, effectively making them more like a path in the woods. Utilizing a retractable leash, Lilly was able to easily access plenty of interesting things to sniff.

Giant Redwoods

This particular park is mostly a tent campground, although there were some smaller RV’s and trailers present. The park literature suggests that no trailers longer than 20′ enter the grounds. I do think that a few sites could accommodate our 27′ trailer, but I would not even try as navigating through the park with a trailer of that length in tow would be a real challenge. It’s times like these when a pimped-out Class-B would be perfect.

Water tank

In our case that is not an option, so I think we will return with a tent and partake in some really nice car camping.

I’ll also note that there is absolute no voice or data coverage – the giant Redwood trees block all access. Consequently, don’t come here if you’re looking to work remotely and need connectivity.

A giant banana slug – very common on the park

All in all, this is a really nice park, especially given the close proximity to HMB. There are a number of really interesting trails and if dogs were allowed, this place might be perfect for us.

Lilly and I crawling atop a felled tree

Kelly being Kelly

Campground amphitheater

Abandoned ranger house

Abandoned fire fighting equipment

One of the park’s bridges

This guy has seen better days

Jul 5

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Never Again

Yesterday our plan was to drive south along the coast and nestle ourselves into a quiet dispersed site located in the foothills about 40 miles of Big Sur. We left HMB early in the morning with hopes of avoiding holiday traffic, but also in order to arrive to our campsite with ample time to celebrate America’s birthday.

What should have been a simple 3 hours or so of driving proved to be just the opposite. Who knew that on arguably the largest outdoor holiday of the year, hundreds of people flock the beautiful HW1 in rented convertible Mustangs and other ‘touring’ coupes appropriate to perfect sunny conditions. Add to mix, minivans filled to maximum capacity with camera-totting families and other tourists keen to stop at every scenic vista, and just for fun toss in lots of touring bicyclists* … our plans quickly went to hell.

But that was the good part of our day.

A few hours later than anticipated, we finally arrived to the Los Padres National Forest, and begin ascending towards the campsite. Unfortunately, the campsite was a bit too remote. In addition to a series of steep switchbacks, the road quickly narrowed, often single-land in size. More, I was increasingly concerned about our ability to actually clear the roads. Don’t forget, we were pulling our home – there is no room for error. Finally, I was increasingly concerned with the quickly rising transmission temperatures accompanying the very steep road.

At one point I actually pulled onto a turnout, unhitched the trailer and continued driving towards the campsite. While a major pain in the ass, this decision proved to be a good one as we would not have made it much further with the trailer as the roads were simply too windy to accommodate a truck/trailer combo of our length. Further, we would not have had any place to safely attempt a turn-around.

What a cluster-fuck.

After a bit of arguing about what to do next, Kelly and I devised a game-plan. We decided to visit s few of the state parks which litter the coastline in hopes that maybe – just maybe – one of them had a cancellation we could use. If so, perhaps we could salvage the weekend.

We are so naive – no way that was happening. This is the 4th of July – every yahoo and their dog is visiting a state park this weekend, no less the highly coveted parks literally a stones throw from the ocean. We would have had better odds finding an atheist attending church.

Inconveniently, about this same time we were running low on gas and fortunately for us we happened to be about 7 miles from the only gas station for nearly the next 60 miles. At $6.79 per gallon (for regular) they were happily selling to anyone buying. What’s not to love about capitalism and the laws of supply and demand?

Never again will we allow ourselves to be without a secured location on a major summer holiday. Recognizing failure, we accepted defeat with our heads low and decided to return home. Unfortunately, as captured within the pictures below, the traffic was horrific.

But at least the views were nice.

Northbound – slow going.

The long snaking of cars to the south.

So to recap the day – we didn’t find any super awesome serene campsite, paid exorbitant prices for gas, and drove 320 miles to nowhere, only to return to our RV park full which is packed with knuckleheads burning campfires spewing more smoke than fire.

* While I am absolutely a huge advocate of cycling and one day hope to complete a major bike tour of myself, I felt many of these cyclists simply didn’t mix well with the added traffic to the already overcrowded HW1.

Jul 3

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Upgrades and Necessary Maintenance

As part of our one-year Airstream ownership celebration week, I found myself conducting a bit of preventative, repair, and upgrade activities this week.

The fun started on Sunday with a refrigerator and freezer thaw. In a very stealth-like manner, the ice build-up seemingly came from nowhere. As you can see in the picture below, there is no doubt our fridge is cooling quite well – perhaps too well.

Ice build-up in the fridge

Once I had all the contents resting one ice and safely contained within a giant Rubbermaid tub, I turned my attention to the task at hand – conquering the ice pack. Initially I thought I would simply wait for the ice to melt. But fortunately, common sense prevailed as I remembered Kelly maintains a portable heat gun – commonly referred to as her hairdryer. Call it what you want, on ‘high’ setting, that bad boy packs a punch. The ice was quickly overwhelmed and surrendered without much of a hassle.

Accelerating the thaw

Five minutes later, the cooling fins were once again freed from their icy confines and ready to begin cooling my food.

Clean fins free of ice and back to normal

Satisfied with my fridge maintenance, I set sights on addressing the occasionally annoying and potentially hazardous vibrations I’ve recently started noticing in my truck. Suspecting one or both brake rotors were warped, I took my beloved F-150 to the local Ford dealer for a look. Having confirmed my suspicions, the service manager graciously made time for me and even had one of “my guys” drove me to a local coffee shop while the repairs were completed.

Given my truck is only a year old and well within the 3yr/30k miles warranty, the work would not set me back anything more than a few hours of my time. The exchange seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

About 2.5 hours later, I received a call confirming the repairs had been completed and “one of my guys” would be arriving to drive me back to the dealership. It turns out that the warped rotor caused some uneven wear to the brake pads, so in addition to rotors, I’m sporting some new brake pads as well.

I’m happy to report that braking is once again butter-smooth.

Looking to complete my Airstream/tow vehicle hat-trick of activities, earlier today I installed two Fantastic Vents to accompany the existing factory installed Fantastic Fans. Living on the coast, the weather can be a bit unpredictable which can make it challenging with the roof vents. In theory, the fan rain sensors mitigate any moisture risk by auto-closing at the first signs of rain, but they are easily fooled by the thick marine fog we frequently experience around here. Further, the little motor operating the open/close mechanism is loud and eventually becomes nothing short of a major pain in the ass.

Something has to give and my hope is the vent covers will prove to be a key additional to Mabel’s exterior.

Unpacking and getting myself organized

I’ve heard a lot of conflicting feedback about walking on the roof. Unlike most RV’s and trailers, the roof of an Airstream is fairly delicate which had me a bit nervous about walking around up there. Combing the web for ideas, the variety of “best practices” for navigating the roof was amazing. Suggestions ranged from avoiding the roof at all costs, to building weight-dispersing platforms wrapped in padded carpet, to purchasing and erecting scaffolding customized for the Airstream.

In the end, I wrapped a towel around a ladder to protect the trailer’s aluminum skin from scratches, climbed up to the roof, and did my best to limit any walking to the rivet lines – a visual marker of structurally reinforced areas best able to withstand my bodyweight.

Awaiting the installation

Vent footings installed

Installation completed – pins holding the cover to the footings

In the end, the installation of both vents was a piece a cake – something anyone with a ladder, a screwdriver, some weatherproof sealant, and a bit of ambition can easily accomplish. All in, I needed about thirty minutes to complete the project.

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the vent aesthetics – these or any of the competing brands. But as I’m a big believer in form trumping fashion, the practical benefits of these vent covers outweigh the ugly factor.

What do you think?

Admiring my work

Jun 30

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One Year Later

Whirlwind.

That is the word I would use to describe the events of exactly one year ago this week. In the course of five days Kelly and l located, negotiated, and finalized the purchases of our Airstream and pick-up truck. The truck was bought 30 minutes from home while the trailer was purchased nearly 700 miles away.

With events culminating exactly 365 days ago, Kelly and I surrendered our beloved RV named Lulu and took possession of the Airstream. A day we had envisioned and talked about so many times before was finally real. After years of yearning for this moment we pulled away from the Portland Airstream dealership giddy with enthusiasm before suddenly finding ourselves scared shitless, wondering if we had gotten in way over our heads.

New to us, Lulu awaiting many great adventures

Transferring items from one trailer to the other

A few years later… transferring items from one rig to the other

Our first two nights were spent at the fabulous L.L. Stubb Stewart State Park ferociously reading manuals, learning about our new home, pondering how to orient our belongings, and convincing ourselves that living full-time in this new Airstream of ours was not a mistake.

Somewhere along the line we named her Mabel.

Our first day of ownership

One year later, we couldn’t be happier. Living simply fits us like an old sweater … snug, but not too much so and just warm enough to be comfortable without feeling too warm.

In hindsight, we should have made this move much sooner and we kick ourselves for waiting so long. Fear of change can do these things.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Mabel.

Joining us on this special day, our dear friends Marty & Brett made time this morning to visit. Marty has been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember. Good friends will do good things – and in this case, driving way out of their way this morning just to spend 2 hours with Kelly and me for brunch before catching a flight back to the east coast.

Brett & Marty

Kelly made a fabulous frittata (which by the way she totally stole from Laura) and while the rest of California was seemingly suffering through insanely high temperatures, the four of us accompanied Lilly for a nearly perfect ocean-front walk.