The Foothills of the Sierra Nevada

Hi friends, welcome back to the story. Our last episode concluded on Thursday, July 18^th, when we left the tiny village of Mineral, California and drove to the Red Bluff Elks Lodge RV park. This after a week-long celebration with Peggy and Vernon Bullock and a dozen of our closest friends in honor of the Bullock's 50^th Anniversary. After our early afternoon arrival in Red Bluff we did a quick grocery run and found one geocache to keep our streak alive. After that we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the coach, trying to stay cool in the triple digit temperatures.

Friday, July 19^th, the weekend heatwave was supposed to start today. They were forecasting temperatures over 100 degrees in most of the upper Sacramento River valley, which is the area we are in. We left the Red Bluff Elks about 10:30 and started south towards Paradise, California, a little town of about 20,000 just southeast of the City of Chico. We have never been to either of these places, but chose Paradise because it is a smaller town and is in the foothills of the Sierra's, about 2,000 feet elevation, which should make it a couple of degrees cooler than Chico. We arrived at the Paradise Elks Lodge around noon and got set up in their RV park behind the lodge.

We are a little concerned because the electric here is only 30 amp, which means we can only run one air conditioner at a time. The weekend is supposed to be extremely hot, even at the slightly higher elevation of Paradise. It is supposed to be 99 today here and 101 tomorrow. We went to the lodge and registered, paying for our five night stay. Oddly, the bar here at the Paradise Elks is only open during the day on weekdays. It is seems strange for a bar to close at 5:00, but that's their hours here. We did get a lodge pin for our banner, our first “new” lodge pin in many months.

After getting setup and having lunch we went out for a geocache and to do a little touring of Paradise. We have never been in this part of California before. We found one easy geocache just across the street from the Elks, thus keeping our consecutive caching days streak going at 26 days. Yea! We then set out to explore Paradise. Paradise was founded in the late 1890's during the California gold rush, which was taking place in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east. By the early 1900's the gold had petered out and the town's economy turned to farming and ranching support. The area has a lot of olive and nut groves as well as dairy and cattle ranching.

I ended up driving south on the wrong road and we found ourselves driving back down the hill towards Chico. Since we were there anyway, we decided to make a quick visit to the Chico Elks Lodge. Chico has a very large lodge building with a nice bar and a huge ballroom, which they rent out for functions. There is also a nice RV park at this lodge. Unlike Paradise, they have no sewers at the sites, but they do have a few 50 amp sites. We had a cocktail at the lodge and visited with a couple of members. We also got a lodge pin for our banner, making two new lodges in one day.

After visiting the lodge we went back up the hill to Paradise. It is only about 11 miles from Chico, but there is only one road that leads directly from central Chico into Paradise, appropriately the road is called Skyway. Once we got back up into town we went back to the coach and tried to stay cool. So far the one A/C is keeping the coach reasonably comfortable, although I can't spend much time in the back in my office because is is too hot back there and we can't run the air. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach watching TV.

Saturday, July 20^th, today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, about 101 even in Paradise. Yesterday afternoon we got a call from Peggy Bullock that she and Vernon were planning on coming down to Chico today for the big Farmer's Market, which is in downtown Chico on Saturdays. She said they have a lot of nice produce. I think they just miss us. They told us the market was only open from 7:30 to 1:00, so she said they would meet us there at 10:00. We would shop and then go to lunch somewhere. We left the coach at 9:30 and headed back down the hill to Chico. We were lucky to find parking right away right next to the market area. Peggy and Vernon arrived later and we spent about 90 minutes walking around the market together. It was mostly produce from local farms, but there were a couple of farmers there selling meats and cheeses as well. There were a handful of craft booths, but it was mostly food. We ended up buying some fruit and Jackie bought some ground lamb from one of the farmers. She loves lamb, I don't care for it. With the ground lamb she can have a lamb burger sometime when we BBQ and I can have beef.

After shopping the marketplace we met Peggy and Vernon at a restaurant which was part of the local Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Sierra Nevada is a big local brand of beer in the Northern California area and their headquarters is here in Chico. They have a very nice restaurant with a nice menu. I had fish and chips, which were very good. Jackie and Peggy both had a curry dish that they said was delicious. Vernon had some kind of flatbread dish that was basically a steak kabob with a salad. He said it was very good too. After lunch we said our goodbyes to the Bullock's again and headed back up the hill to Paradise. Although it was very hot, we stopped and picked up one geocache just to keep our streak alive. We then stopped at one of the big antique stores in town. There are a lot of antique stores in Paradise and we like going through them. We hope to spend a little more time looking around in them on Monday.

We finally got back to the coach about 2:00 or so and I noticed that the air conditioning was making an odd sound, like it was straining. I checked the voltage coming into the coach and found it was about 104 volts instead of the 120 it should be. That is about the threshold where our surge protector will cut power to the coach to avoid damaging appliances. Things like air conditioners and microwaves do not like low voltage. I thought it might be a temporary thing, so I turned on the generator. With or generator running we could run both A/Cs, which was nice since we were able to cool the coach down and be comfortable. After a couple hours I shut down the generator and checked the voltage, expecting it to be back to normal. It was actually worse, getting down to as low as 96 volts. Our protection device kept shutting off power to the coach. After trying a couple different things, including changing power pedestals outside, I decided that the Lodge's wiring was just not sufficient to handle the high load caused by the extreme heat. We made the decision that we had to leave the park and find somewhere with better power.

We did a quick packing up of the coach, which was really rough in the high heat, and I went into the lodge and explained our problem. They were nice about it, saying they didn't know what the problem was, but that it has happened before. They did refund our money for the four nights we wouldn't be there. About 5:30 we were on the road again, about the latest we have been out in a long time. Of course, the sun doesn't set until about 8:00 this time of year, so we had plenty of light. We drove to the Chico Elks Lodge, which was only about a 16 mile trip, and tried to park in a spot there.

Unfortunately, they only had two 50 amp spots and both were taken. I tried parking in a 30 amp spot, but was not happy with the results. The spot was very short, leaving me out in the driveway an uncomfortable distance. The satellite dish on the roof was blocked by trees, and worst of all, their voltage at the pedestal was only 106 volts, almost as bad as Paradise. I did a little quick internet search and found a regular commercial RV park in Chico, only five miles from the lodge. By this time it was after 6:00 and the office was closed, so we couldn't verify that they had a spot for us. Since it was fairly close Jackie went out on a scouting mission to check the park. She called me after she got there and said they had plenty of empty spots and to come on over. I hadn't done any setup at the Chico Elks except to plug into the power, so I undid that and left the Elks to drive over to the Almond Tree RV Park. It was a quick drive and we got into our spot, a nice 50 amp, full hookup place. The power was great, 120 volts and a full 50 amps. By 7:00 we were hooked up, setup and cooling down with a nice cocktail.

Although this place is twice the cost of the Elks Lodges, at least we don't have to worry about the power being bad. In this heat that is the more important issue. We are just going to stay here for the remaining four days of our stay in the area. It was a busy day, with a nice start in the morning and early afternoon, and very hectic and stressful in the late afternoon, but it is all over now and we are happy to be here.

Sunday, July 21^st, another blistering hot day predicted for Chico. It seems that we picked the wrong summer to visit this area. The weather gurus are saying that the temps this summer are about ten degrees above the normal seasonal averages. We decided that today was a good day to go to the movies, the air conditioned movie theater. We left the coach after lunch and headed for the theater in Chico. We got into a 2:00 showing of the movie “The Heat” which stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. The film was a fairly standard copy “buddy” movie with Bullock as an uptight, unpopular FBI agent forced to work with an McCarthy, an uncouth, wild Boston PD undercover officer. Both Jackie and I are big fans of McCarthy, the plus size star of Mike and Molly, Bridesmaids, and the most recent movie we saw, Identity Thief. Although the plot was formula, the writing was perfect for McCarthy and the movie was hilarious. I am sure this kind of mindless, slapstick comedy is not for everyone, but it is just the kind of escapist comic film that we like. I give it four large popcorns.

After the film we worked to get a geocache for the day to keep our streak of consecutive caching days alive. We struck out on the first one we tried, had to post a DNF, but we persevered and found the second one we looked for. It was way too hot, and too close to cocktail hour, to continue caching, so we headed back to the coach where we stayed the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, July 22^nd, my daughter Tracie's birthday. Happy Birthday Tracie! Another hot day predicted, although a couple of degrees cooler than yesterday. We left the park about 11:30 and went out for lunch at local Mexican restaurant. Casa Ramos had good reviews for both their locations in Chico and Peggy Bullock had mentioned that they had been there and found it good also. The restaurant was pretty typical Mexican inside, lots of color and kitsch. The menu was not typical in that there were few of the normal combination plates and no ala carte menu. They also had a couple of things I had not seen in a Mexican restaurant before, including a lamb shank, which is what Jackie had. It was presented in a chili sauce and Jackie said it was very good. I had the red chili plate, which had very tender and tasty beef chunks, although it was a little milder than I would have liked. There was lots of food and we both enjoyed the meal.

After lunch we went out to do some shopping. Our first stop was a Supercuts so Jackie could get her hair trimmed. After that we went to Costco. We are a little disappointed with Costco in that they seem to have discontinued several items which we have come to rely on over the last few years. They no longer carry the big barrels of sourdough pretzels that I love, nor do they carry their Kirkland brand Court Classic tennis shoes. That has been the only brand of tennis shoe I have worn for about 15 years. We have now been to a half dozen different Costco's and none have these items. I even wrote an email complaining to them about it and got a generic form response about only offering items that sell well. Poop on them. If they didn't have cheap booze and good meat I would stop going there. We also took the time to try and get a geocache for the day. Like yesterday we struck out with the first one we looked for, but scored the second, thus keeping our streak alive. After that we headed back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, July 23^rd, we left the coach after lunch to go do our laundry. There was a laundry at the RV park, but it only had two washers and we had two weeks worth of clothes and linens. We found a nice new laundromat not too far from the park and got all our clothes done at one time. After a couple hours we were done and went out to do some caching. It was still hot, but about five degrees cooler than the weekend. We cached for about ninety minutes and got six new finds, including our number 5,500, another milestone. Yea! We also had one cache we couldn't find and had to DNF. Once we were done caching we headed home for the rest of the night.

Wednesday was another travel day. We packed up and were on the road at 10:00, headed south towards Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. The trip was about 100 miles, so we got into the Carmichael Elks Lodge a little after noon. We have stayed here at the Carmichael Lodge a number of times. They have good 50 amp electric and water, no sewers at the site, but they do have a dump on the grounds. The important thing was the good power so we could fight off the heat. They don't take reservations, but there were a number of open sites and we got settled in for a five day stay pretty quickly.

Later in the afternoon we went out to look for a geocache for the day and to go to Walmart for a few supplies. We finished our shopping and picked up one geocache on the way home. We are now up to 31 consecutive days of having at least one cache. Yea! We then went home and relaxed the rest of the night. We did get a late afternoon visit from our friends Sharon and Curt Minard. You may recall that they were with us in Mineral at the Bullock's anniversary party. They live in Carmichael and are members of the Elks. They knew we were coming into town and stopped by just to say hi and to introduce us to Curt's mother, who is 94 years old and spending some time with them. They also had one of Curt's grandsons with them. They didn't stay long, but we did make plans to meet them at the Lodge for dinner tomorrow.

Thursday, July 25^th, Jackie's brother Dennis' birthday. Happy Birthday Dennis. We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. We first made a quick stop at a nearby jewelry store to get Jackie's wedding ring fixed. Some of the prongs holding the stone had apparently got snagged and bent. She had the same ring fixed for the same problem back in May, so we went back to the same jeweler. He said he would have it fixed by tomorrow and that she must have gotten it hooked on something because the prongs were definitely damaged.

After the quick stop we did some caching for about hour or so, getting four new finds. We then decided it was getting a little too hot, so we went back to the coach to relax for a while. When we pulled into the lot we noticed that some friends of ours from Indio had their coach parked in the back row of the lot. Bob and Gloria Baron were members of the Indio Elks Drifters RV club back when we still had the house and were active in the Indio Lodge. They still live in the same country club where we had our house and are still members of the Drifters. We have not seen Bob and Gloria for a couple years, although Jackie keeps in contact with Gloria through Facebook and emails. Gloria had emailed her this morning asking if there was room at the Carmichael Lodge because they were leaving the Lake Almanor area and heading south. We hadn't expected to see them at the lodge already.

After a little rest and time to clean up, we walked over to the Baron's coach and visited with them for a while. It was nice to catch up and talk about our mutual friends back in the Coachella Valley. We asked them if they wanted to go to the Lodge for dinner, corn beef and cabbage, and told them that our other friends the Minard's were going to be there also. They thought that was a good idea. We went back to our coach for a little while and about 6:30 or so Sharon and Curt Minard arrived, with Curt's mother Millie. A few minutes later Bob and Gloria walked over and we introduced everyone. We talked for a few minutes and then the seven of us walked over to the Elks for dinner.

We got a nice table in the corner and had a cocktail and enjoyed our dinner. This was a meal cooked and served by volunteers, much the same as Jackie and I used to do back in Indio at the Elks. The corn beef and cabbage was very tasty, just not enough for my appetite, but we had served some cheese and crackers at the coach before we came over, so that took the edge off a little. After dinner Curt and Sharon went home and the Baron's went back to their coach. We just watched TV the rest of the night.

Friday, July 26^th, we left the coach about 10:30 and took Benji the cat to a local Petco to get his claws trimmed and get his little plastic “soft paws” glued on the nails. The plastic covers really help to keep him from digging up the carpet and other fabrics in the house. He is generally good about using only his scratching post, but like all cats he sometimes forgets and starts to dig something else, usually the carpet under the table. After his appointment we took him back to the coach and had lunch, then went out for some shopping.

We stopped and picked up Jackie's ring and then drove to one of the large shopping malls in Sacramento. We really didn't need anything, we just wanted to kill time and get a little walking done in an air conditioned space. We spent a couple of hours walking the mall, window shopping and generally wandering around. We didn't buy a thing. After our shopping tour we did a little bit of geocaching. We couldn't find the first two we looked for, but we finally struck pay dirt and found one not too far from the coach.

We went back to the coach and I started to make up a big pot of chili for dinner. Jackie had invited her friend Kathy and her husband Bill, who live in Citrus Heights, the next town north, for dinner. They arrived about 6:00 and we had a nice time catching up. We last saw them in May when we came through Sacramento. However, they hadn't seen our new changes to the interior of our coach, so we had a good time showing off. We had a very nice dinner, the chili turned out great, and had a fun time talking and reminiscing. They left to go home about 8:30 and we just chilled the rest of the evening.

Saturday we decided to have a little down time, so we stayed around the coach for most of the day. We did leave for a half hour or so after lunch to go out and get one geocache to keep our caching streak alive. About 6:30 we left the coach and drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant, Urbano's, to meet Kathy and Bill for dinner. They recommended this restaurant and said they eat there often. The place was in a strip mall and parking was difficult, but we finally found a spot. We ended up in a booth in a side room in which a large party was having a pre-wedding dinner. They were fairly well behaved, so it didn't impact our dining much. The food was OK, not the best, but they certainly gave you a lot of it. Both Jackie and I ended up taking some home for lunch. After dinner we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, July 28^th, we went out after lunch and took a drive to Sam's Club to try and get a couple of the things that we used to be able to get at Costco, but which they stopped carrying. We did manage to find the big bag of broccoli and the shrimp scampi we use, but no tennis shoes or sourdough pretzels. I had looked online and found that Cost Plus World Market carried the Utz sourdough pretzels I like, and there was one nearby, so we went there after Sam's. Yea, they had the big barrel of pretzels. On the way home from shopping we stopped and picked up a geocache so we would have one for the day.

About 4:00 we left the coach and drove to Curt and Sharon Minard's house for dinner. They live about a mile from the Elks Lodge, just outside the Carmichael city limits. They have a very nice, older tract home that they have extensively remodeled. They have a nice pool and even room to park their motorhome, which is the same size as ours, in the side yard. We had cocktails and chatted for a while before Sharon started dinner. At dinner the other night at the Elks Lodge the Jackie and Sharon had a conversation about abalone and the fact that the Minard's were going on an RV outing with one of their RV clubs in a few weeks and they would be on the coast of Northern California diving for abalone. I have never had abalone but Jackie said she used to have it all the time, before it became endangered, and used to love it. Sharon said they go abalone fishing every year and that they had some in the freezer and that's what she would make for dinner on Sunday.

For those who don't know abalone is a very large mollusk, a sea snail, which used to be very prevalent along the Pacific coast. A few decades ago abalone became endangered from overfishing and environmental issues, so commercial taking and sales were banned. California allows sport fishing of certain varieties of abalone, but there are very strict limits and regulations and it is unlawful to sell abalone under any circumstances. One of the things about abalone is the meat of the snail is very tough and needs to be sliced and then pounded to tenderize it. Sharon spent a half hour pounding the daylights out of the abalone she was making. She breaded and pan fried the abalone and served it with some pasta and vegetable dishes and some garlic bread.

We had a great dinner with good friends and really enjoyed the evening. For me the abalone was a bit of a let down. I had expected great flavor, but it really didn't have much. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really taste or feel any different to me than a calamari steak. The squid has the same look and texture. Nonetheless, Jackie was delighted to be able to eat abalone again after a couple decades. We chatted for a while after dinner and finally left to go home about 9:00.

Monday, July 29^th, another travel day. We had the coach packed up and ready to travel about 9:30. We had to stop for fuel but then headed to our next destination, Nevada City, California, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento on I-80. We are going to a private resort called Harmony Ridge, which is one of our membership parks under the Resorts of Distinction group. We have never been here before, in fact we have never been to that area before. The drive was uneventful and we arrived at the resort before noon.

The resort is very rustic, looking more like a forest service campground than a resort. We did get a full hookup site, however, with 50 amp, water and sewer. By maneuvering around in the spot I was able to get the rooftop satellite to come in, albeit without High Def, but at least we have TV. We have no telephone or Verizon internet because we are in the middle of the woods, but the resort has WiFi, so we should be OK.

After we got setup we went out to explore Nevada City, which is about three miles south of the resort. Nevada City, population about 3,000 is a quaint little town built in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The town was founded in 1849 during the gold rush and was one of the most important cities in the area during the mining era. It now relies on tourism for it's economic support. There isn't a flat spot in the town, it is all built on rolling hills, including the very interesting looking downtown. We spent about 90 minutes driving around the town, including the residential areas. There are some very nice, very large houses, as well as the more typical mountain cabins. Clearly the area has some wealthy residents.

We did find the Elks Lodge, but it was not open until 4:00. We did manage to get in and pick up a bulletin from the lodge because there were some people working inside. We will visit again sometime during our stay. We also did a little bit of geocaching in town, finding three and getting one new DNF for our efforts. This now extends our consecutive days of caching to 36 days. Yea us! After our caching we headed back to the coach.

When we got back to the coach I found that the electricity was cutting out. We had left the air conditioning running when we were out and the voltage had dropped to where it couldn't run the A/C properly and was cutting in and out. The voltage was down to just over 100 volts. This is the third time in a week that we have run into low voltage out in the boonies of California. I don't think PG&E, the electric company around here, is doing a very good job. Fortunately, it is cool enough up here at 3,400 feet that we shouldn't need to run the A/C, so I am hoping we can get by on the low voltage when it drops in the afternoon. We didn't go anywhere else for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, July 30^th, we went out after lunch and drove to the town of Grass Valley to do some exploring. Grass Valley is the larger neighbor of Nevada City, with a population of nearly 13,000. Only three miles separate the two towns and both were first settled in 1849 during the California gold rush. As with Nevada City the town is built on a series of rolling hills and valleys with little flat ground. The downtown is similar in appearance to Nevada City, with most of the old, turn of the century buildings still being used, but is much larger. Our first stop was at the DeMartini RV dealership, located on top of a hill at the north end of town. DeMartini is a major player in the RV market and a few years back, before the RV economy tanked, had built this huge, very pretty dealership in Grass Valley. Because of all the problems we have had lately with poor power in RV parks, I wanted to stop in and check their RV parts store to see if they, by chance had, a power boosting device called an Autoformer.

They are made by a company called Hughes, and are very well known amongst the RV crowd. Basically it's a large, heavy transformer that can boost the voltage ten percent when necessary. So if you have only 100 volts at the power pedestal, the device will boost that to 110 volt, which is about what you need to run appliances like air conditioners. I had looked online this morning and knew that they cost just under $400, but after all the problems we have had I was willing to think about spending that much. I really didn't expect a small parts place like a dealership to have one, I figured we would have to look at someplace like Camping World, but DeMartini's was there so we stopped in.

I'll be darned if there on the shelf, alongside the more standard surge suppressor and other electrical parts, was a 30 amp model of a Hughes Autoformer. There was no box, no price tag, either on the device or on the shelf, and no other papers or documents. I looked at the unit and it appeared to be slightly used, only because it had a couple scratches and the plugs showed some signs that they had been used. However, it did not appear to be very old. I got one of the guys at the parts counter to come over and I asked him how much the unit was. He wasn't even sure what it was, but he took it into another guy in a nearby office, and came out a second later and said, “he said $500, but I am thinking $50. Does that work for you?” I had no idea if he was joking about the other guy saying $500, but I suspect he was. I don't think either of them had any idea what the unit was or did. I told him “wrap it up” and we bought it. The gal at the checkout desk even put the actual selling price at $45 so that the total, with tax, was just a buck over the $50 the counterman quoted. What a deal!

After this great find we drove around for a half hour or so and then parked downtown and spent about two hours walking around, looking in some of the many shops and antique stores. We also picked up one geocache that was right downtown so that we would have one for the day and continue our consecutive days streak. The temperature was in the mid 80's and most of the sidewalks were shaded, so it was very comfortable walking around. About 4:00 we finished our shopping and we decided to stop by the Nevada City Elks Lodge, which opened at 4:00. Grass Valley also has an Elks Lodge, which is right downtown, however they didn't open until 5:00. We will have to hit that one another day.

We got into the Nevada City Lodge and had a couple of cocktails at the bar. There were only four guys in the bar, three of them past exalted rulers, and we had a very nice time talking to them. One of them had lived in the area all his life and the others were long time, 20 years plus, residents. We bought one drink and the lodge bought us a second. We got our lodge pin for the banner and left after about an hour. We headed home and I set up our new voltage booster on the power pedestal. It worked great and we were able to run one air conditioner with no problems whatsoever. I am really happy with that great find. We had dinner and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 31^st, another great day in the woods. We went out after lunch to the local Safeway to do some shopping. When we finished that we spent a little time doing some geocaching on the way back to the coach. We ended up with four new finds for the day, which has extended our caching streak now to 38 straight days. Now that we are used to going out for at least one cache each day we will be ready for the challenge posed by Geocaching.com, the “headquarters” for the sport, which is to get at least one cache each day of August.

We got back to the coach and put away the groceries and then relaxed around the coach until about 5:00 when we drove back down to Nevada City for their Hot Summer Nights street festival. These festivals have been an annual thing for the city for a number of years. This year they held three, each on a Wednesday night in July. We were fortunate to find a parking place very near downtown, mostly because we went early. The street fair really didn't start until 6:00 and we were there before 5:30. They close off the entire old downtown area and set up street vendor booths. In addition, most of the stores and restaurants are open in downtown. We had a great time walking around the booths, and looking in some of the shops. This is a very “hippy” sort of area with a lot of old, unrepentant hippies walking around. I guess that is fairly common in some of these Northern California small mountain towns, just like it is in parts of Oregon.

About 6:30 we stopped for dinner in a place called Matteo's Public, which was a nice little pub in an old building, right across the street from the place where the Nevada City Elks Lodge had it's first lodge hall at the turn of the century. It was a cute little place with a fairly typical pub menu. The service was very good and the food was excellent. My burger was one of the best I have had in a while. Jackie had fish tacos, which she said were very good as well. After dinner we walked around some more, enjoying the festival and enjoying the people watching as well. We finally left about 8:30 and headed home for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, August 1^st, a new month begins. We left the coach around 3:00 and drove into Grass Valley to do a little geocaching and then go to the street fair there which starts around 5:00. We found three caches before we decided to go and find a place to park for the street fair. Like yesterday, we lucked out and got an open space very close to the area of town they closed off. We spent a couple of hours walking around the street fair and visiting some of the shops in the old downtown area. One of Jackie's sandals broke while we were caching and she went into a consignment store and found a great pair of designer sandals, in her size, for $12. Problem solved!

We had dinner by snacking on stuff from some of the booths at the street fair. We had some fried calamari and fries and then later a nice slice of pizza. In our wanderings we stopped in at the Grass Valley Elks Lodge, which is right downtown and just outside of the area that had been closed off for the festival. We had read the lodge's bulletin online and it said they opened at 5:00. We were hoping for a cocktail and a new lodge pin. Instead, we found the lodge open, but it was bingo night and they are not allowed to sell liquor when they are open to the public for bingo. Rats! I guess we will have to stop in another evening.

After the street fair we headed back to the coach, arriving back around 7:00. We walked into the coach and found that there was no power to any of the outlets in the coach. Our coach is wired such that all the 120 volt receptacles in the coach have to pass through the inverter, which has a circuit breaker on it. We have had minor issues in the past with this breaker popping at odd times. I checked the inverter and sure enough the breaker was out. Unfortunately, this time when I pushed it back in to reset the inverter started making really loud buzzing noises and the breaker popped back out again. I continued to do trouble shooting for a half hour and determined that the one output circuit on the inverter that supplies the outlets was not working. The charger part of the device was still working, charging the coach batteries that supply the 12 volt DC current for all the lights and fans and such. The inverter circuit that supplies power to the microwave was also still working. It was just the one for the outlets inside that was not working right.

Since it was too late to contact anyone for advice, I just left the inverter alone and ran a couple of extension cords into the coach and plugged them into the 120 volt receptacle on the power pedestal. I then plugged all our TV stuff into one and all the computer stuff into another. This will give us 120 volt power for the time being and give me time to contact the Magnum people, who made the inverter, tomorrow and see if they can help. After an hour of frustration I finally had things taken care of, jury rigged a temporary fix, and relaxed with a cocktail and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Friday, August 2^nd, after my morning coffee I started doing a little more checking on the electrical problem, mostly with the intent of having as much information as possible when I tried to call Magnum Energy's customer service line. Just for the Hell of it I went out and pushed the open breaker back in and damned if it didn't stay in. No noise, no circuit breaker popping back out. I went inside and checked the outlets and found that we had good power at all the outlets. The inverter was working again.

Nonetheless, I got in the car and went to the top of the hill to call Magnum Energy. We don't have good phone service down in the canyon we are camped in, so we have to get out of the hole to make or receive calls. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get through to the customer service people. I was on hold, or waiting for a call back for nearly an hour and finally decided to give up trying to call. Since the situation was not a dire as it had been last night I decided that an email to Magnum Energy would probably work to try and come up with an answer. I went back to the coach and put together a comprehensive description of the problem and sent it off to them. I then went about disconnecting all my jury rigged wiring and extension cords and plugged everything back into where they were supposed to be. My final bit of troubleshooting was to switch the output leads on the inverter. Now the outlets were on the one the microwave used to be on and vice versa. I figured that if the other breaker now started to pop it would indicate that the problem may not be with the inverter at all, but something in the coach wiring or something plugged into one of the outlets.

After lunch we went out to get a couple of geocaches, wanting to keep our own personal challenge of extending our consecutive caching days streak alive, as well as the Geocaching.com challenge for the month of August, at least one cache a day. We also wanted to visit the Scotts Flat Lake campground, which was located on Scotts Flat Lake just a few miles from the RV park. One of the people we met at the street fair the other night had mentioned that they had a great RV campground down there. We headed down towards the lake, which is south of Highway 20 on a pretty narrow, curvy road, picking up a couple of geocaches along the way. We finally found the campground, which is operated by the Nevada Irrigation District. It was a big campground, right on a very nice lake, but the sites were very rustic with no hookups at all. Even if we wanted to dry camp there we didn't see any sites that would fit our coach, and the prices were very high. They wanted $30 a night for a campsite on the lake with no hookups. We did a ten minute drive through and then left. This would not be a camping destination for us.

One of the other caches we found was alongside Highway 20 and was the grave of a two year old boy that had died back in 1853 while on a wagon train heading for California.  The route of the highway roughly follows one of the primary emigrant trails from the mid-1800's.  Local residents have adopted the grave and now there is a nice granite monument, a fence around the grave, and a monument put up by the State historical society.  There are all kinds of toys and stuffed animals around the grave left by passersby.  This is the kind of thing about which I always tell people caching does.  The sport takes you to places you ordinarily wouldn't find or know about.  Driving by at 60 mph you might never see this little turnout and the history it provides.

 

After our little exploration of the area we went back to the coach for the rest of the day. We had a nice pot roast cooking in the crock pot and we had great dinner and just stayed in the coach. As far as the electric goes, we did have an outage on the outlets again early in the evening. This time it was the other breaker, the one I now had the outlets running through. This time, however, the breaker reset the first time, the power came back on and we had no further problems during the evening. This would indicate to me that I need to start exploring possibilities outside the inverter as the source of the problem. A big challenge considering the miles of wiring inside a modern motor home.

Although we are going to be here in the woods for another five days before heading back down to Carmichael, it has been about two weeks since we published the blog, so I will close this chapter here and get it put online. Until the next time stay happy and enjoy life. Bye.