Traveling South

Our departure from Rocky Point seemed easy. With hugs all around in the morning, and daughter and grandson on the road back to Portland, we left Christmas behind us. Without a speck of snow on the road at home, very little snow even on the pass at 5,200 feet, and clear skies to the west, the drive was simple.  The prediction was for a huge rain storm to pummel the northwest, but we slipped out of town just in time to miss the entire thing.

The drive to Brookings is beautiful and simple, with only a short stretch of interstate between Medford and Grants Pass and the beautiful highway 199 through the Illinois Valley and along the Smith River to the coast. Reaching Brookings in mid afternoon, we were happy to see that the MoHo was still safely tucked away without any unexpected mishaps.

Except for the smell.  I think I have read a lot about strange smells in RV’s, but we were sure that something had died in there.  Mo checked all the mouse traps, the cupboards, and the basement, but found nothing.  It didn’t smell like sewer, it smelled exactly like a dead thing in the wall.  We opened up all the windows, turned on the fan and drove across town to Freddy’s to gas up with our ten cent discount.  By the time we got there, the smell was almost bearable, but I surely wasn’t happy about it.  I kept thinking something must have found it’s way into one of the waste water tanks.

The other moment of truth was when Mo hit the button to turn on the lights and…nada…nothing….not even a click.  We tried the generator startup, again…not a click.  Oh.  yeah….we are supposed to hit that switch that takes the system out of storage and puts it back on “use”.  Duh! Then after filling up we tried to hook up the baby car and hunted and hunted for the electrical connection cord that we keep under the drivers seat of the Tracker.  No cord.  Mo couldn’t figure out why in the world she would have taken it out but it was nowhere to be found.  Until….she looked in back of the spare tire holder on the MoHo and lo and behold, it was right there where we decided last trip that it could stay all the time.  Duh again!  I guess that is what happens when we have almost two months between trips.  As Mo said laughing, “Stupid Us”. 

After a few hours of driving, the tank smells seemed to dissipate completely and with some extended reading we figured out that maybe we need to add something to our gray water tank the way we add to the black water tank when the rig is going to be stored for any length of time.  Lots of folks out there have lots of suggestions about all this, so next time, (if we remember) we will be sure to follow some of those suggestions.  AKA…water softener in the tanks, maybe some bleach down the drain, and who knows what else.  I’ll have to go read again I guess.

We thought we might reach Eureka on the first evening, but then decided that it would be nicer to boondock somewhere a bit sooner since it was getting dark.  I hate to pay for an expensive park when all I plan to do is sleep!  I pulled up my trusty AllStays Camp and RV app on the phone and found a free OP site (overnight parking) within a few miles of where we were, near Trinidad, California.  Within minutes we were comfortably parked in a very brightly lit casino rv lot, with a faucet for potable water if we needed it and very few folks around.  A quick call to the Chere-Ae Casino confirmed that parking was free and we didn’t need to check in.  It was late and dark by the time we arrived, so we managed to park for free without spending a single cent at the casino, in fact, we never even went inside!