Mt. Shasta, CA

What a great stay! But, all really good things do come to an end and so it came to pass that we left Newport, OR yesterday morning (Easter Sunday in cold, rain and fog) and headed east to Corvallis to spend the night close to I-5 so that we wouldn't have to battle the 2-lane road this morning.

It was also a great opportunity to see Courtney and her family one more time close to her home... and, for the last night with the kids, we got together at a really great Mexican restaurant (no Easter ham or chocolate bunnies on the menu).

Once again, it rained all night but we were ready to head east (actually south) Monday morning. I'm sure Don was (silently) saying, "At long last I'm headed home."

What a trip! The scenery along I-5 south through Oregon and into California is absolutely beautiful... alternating between mountains and valleys surrounded by mountains. When you come around a bend and see Mt. Shasta in the distance, it's breath taking. For a variety of reasons, including saving the brakes on the coach, I drove the Jeep today. Which was a good thing (see below).

I arrived at our destination about 30 minutes before Don and entertained myself by finding our spot and taking a nap. When Don arrived in the RV the fun really started. Up until now we had only stopped, hooked up and considered what our adult beverage of the day would be. Not today!!!

First off, there was cable TV hookup at the site but it was a 30 amp outlet instead of a 50 amp which we had requested. So we moved to a 50 amp spot but it had no cable. That spot also had no running water but we were told to hang on for a moment and that problem would be solved. As it turned out, the maintenance person had absolutely no idea how to turn it on. So we moved again to a 50 amp spot that did have running water but also had no cable.

By this time we had put the slides in and out, put the jacks up and down and made all the hookups three times. It was now becoming clear that there was a problem with the air suspension and braking system so we moved back to the original 30 amp spot, which was flatter, in order to check out the air system.

Don's hunch was correct and the repair person arrived about a half hour later. (Good Sam's Emergency Road Service really is GOOD!) He found that two air hoses had been rubbing together for thousands of miles and had determined that today would be the day they would spring leaks! Holes had been created by the rubbing between the hoses and with air escaping, Don had made his way up and down the mountains all day long which was, as we learned, a bad thing. The repair person said that the brakes could have gone out at any moment.

After our NEWEST best friend in the entire world, Keith or Kyle, or whatever his name was, left with another chunk of our retirement money, and after only the smallest bit of gin, we got to thinking: Jeez, if the brakes had let loose down one of those 8% grades, with all the insurance and after settling those pesky lawsuits, I could have been back on the water in a new, MUCH bigger boat with a new MUCH younger crew. LOL!

Oh, yeah, the cable in the first spot (now our final spot) doesn't work for the TV. But the brakes hopefully will as we leave tomorrow morning for the Central California Valley!