Notes from the trail: Oregon has some great things to offer. Rain forest, to dry desert, and Crater Lake. Definitely worth the stop even if it was freezing.
As we made our way south through Orgeon we were just waiting for the California border with hopes of sunshine and NO MORE RAIN! Our first look of Mt Shasta sounded something like this “Is that it? The huge mound with a fat cloud sitting on it? Wow, I don’t know..but it’s the bottom of something HUGE!” We stayed the night with John’s aunt Susu in Shasta and in the morning while walking Lobo I got a great glimpse of the giant. A perfect volcano shaped mountain coming out of nowhere.
On our way to Truckee we ran into a mechanical problem that ended up being a complicated low voltage output from our battery. It was replaced quickly due to some crafty internet searching right from the vehicle and we were on our way the next day. Jeremy (from the winning “Boondockin’ Daddy’s” rally team) was a gracious host and showed us around Truckee on bikes in the rain and snow, and walking up around Donner pass. He and John spent many hours “hooting” over each other’s SMB, motorcycles and garage ideas.
One of the things that we have come to “miss” about a home is having some work space. That is, workspace equipped with drills, saws, and other heavy equipment for doing repairs or fix-ups on the vehicle. Most of the time John is amazing with what he can accomplish with a screwdriver and a socket wrench set, but there are just times it would be nice to be doing repairs out of the rain, mud or side of the road. Fortunately, this stage of the trip had the aim of getting some work done at the big Sportsmobile shop in Fresno. We also lucked into finding our friend Chris Snideman at home in South Tahoe and in return for delivering his sportsmobile to Fresno he let us use it for a night while Tonto was in the shop! He also had a galley box and air compressor that were gladly traded and installed on our van! (more below)
What we had done:
Solar: Not to be outdone by our good friends the Reynen’s (who have one of the finest solar arrays in New Jersey), Tonto is now solar powered, well the electrical part of it is. We chose a Kyocera 135W panel and mounted it on the front of our top. It sends current thru a Blue Sky controller which tells us how many amps are being produced and what the charge on the house battery is (the one that runs the accessories in the living space of the van). Prior to the solar addition, we had to find a way to plug the van in every few days to charge the battery – no longer necessary!
Water: The onboard water tank was increased in size from 10gal to 16.5gal. Coupled with the 7gal can we carry on the back, we should be able to go up to 2wks in extreme backcountry situations.
Air: Onboard “Extreme Air Max” compressor and 2gal tank. In many offroad situations it’s preferable to run lower air pressure to improve traction and ride quality – sometimes it’s mandatory (deep sand, for instance). The problem is that when you leave the trail and return to pavement, low tire pressure can cause lots of problems. The only real solution is to have a method to refill your tires remotely. We considered many options but decided on the air compressor. Though variable by altitude, we’re finding it takes about 2min to increase our 35in tires by 10lbs (per tire, that is). We’ve already used it twice – In Death Valley and the Mojave Desert.
Alarm: We didn’t have one – now we do…
New Furniture: Not quite, but we had the foam, stuffing - whatever you call it – replaced in the sofa. The old stuff had the resilience of a tired kitchen sponge. Much better for movie nights…And back in Calgary John did some crazy carpentry and took out the microwave and made a nice BIG drawer for all the cookware and plates.
Torque Arms: The Sportsmobile guys noticed was a crack in one of our torque arms (there are 4 of them – they stabilize our front axle/differential). Upon closer inspection, 3 of the 4 were severely cracked! Apparently there had been a service bulletin about these but we hadn’t seen it… Luckily they had the parts on hand to replace all four for us.
House Battery: It’s the size of 4 regular batteries – a deep cycle marine model. Had it replaced to be on the safe side for our travels south.
Galley Box; In an effort to move weight off our top, we had a lockable aluminum box installed on the back of the van. It replaced the open tray/box that we had previously. We’re now able to store, and lock, our grill, motorcycle helmet, and snorkel gear back there instead of inside the van.
Rocket Box: Through a combination of moving the gear to the new galley box and shipping two big boxes of gear/clothes home, we were able to get rid of the rocket box from the roof. This has resulted in a much lighter top weight and makes it much easier to raise and lower the top. Now we can “pop our top” with much less hassle. Thanks to Jeremy for storing the box in his beautiful Truckee home.
While all this was done, we did a little exploring of Kings Canyon, Sequoia National park. When we got the van back the Fresno area Walmart parking lots became our area to explode the van and figure out how to mount or remount bikes and panels. We also spent some time in REI, a variety of hardware stores, the FED-EX shop, the USPS, and autozone.
