The View with a Q

Quartzsite. Never heard of it. Being new owners of a 2014 Skinny Winnie View (model G, henceforth known as simply “G”), Bill and I longed to hit the road, and quickly found that there was a whole lot to learn about  the RV life. I was so blown away by the incredible amount of knowledge gained on our first trip Sept-Oct, 2017 that I blogged about it so I could perhaps save others from having to learn the hard way. It took 6 chapters. Mostly we had happy surprises. One of them was the knowledge base out there, with many people willing to help. We discovered that our rig was known as a Skinny Winnie because although the body is made by Winnebago, it’s not like a normal motorhome. The rig is more like a van, a narrow motorhome built on a Mercedes Sprinter chassis. We found the Yahoo and Facebook user groups, and quickly became fans. We saw that there would be a Skinny Winnie rally in Quartzsite, AZ in January, 2018, so we signed up. Thanks to Gerald for setting it up.

There were Views everywhere

There were around 110 rigs signed up to go hang out in the desert together. People were from all parts of the country, snow birds escaping the cold, locals who enjoy an escape from the city, and newbies like us who just wanted to learn more about our rigs. We headed out early in the morning of Jan. 18, thinking we’d easily make it to Quartzsite before dark since Google said it was an 8-hour drive. Rookie mistake. We went down I-5, and shouldn’t have been surprised when traffic came to a halt just after the Grapevine. Then, a 30 minute delay due to an accident with a truck that chewed up the road & caught on fire. After that we stopped at Costco in Santa Clarita to buy one of those giant trays of wraps to bring to the potluck. We also figured out we should probably buy some drinking water since we’d be in the desert. Theoretically we can drink the water out of the RV tank, but we haven’t ever sanitized it and we’re not sure what the prior owners did. By then we were behind schedule, so saved time by having a wrap for lunch on the road.

     Because it appeared that we wouldn’t arrive until after sunset, I wanted to just stop overnight at Joshua Tree, but Bill was determined to push on. I sent a message to the Facebook group leader, and he immediately wrote back with specific directions how to find the group... in the dark. What a great guy. Shout out to Bob Swor of Grover Beach!  We lost the tracks going through the desert, and had to back up out of a couple campsites, but just kept going until we saw rigs that looked like ours. We parked and walked over to the campfire and we were welcomed. So we went back for our chairs and the first guy I spoke to happened to be Bob. He was going to be helping people install their heavy duty springs the next day. We haven’t bought ours yet, but Bill thinks he can do the job himself.  There were already 60-70 rigs like us there for the rally, but the entire area was covered with RV’s. The advantage to being right there was we could walk to the RV show.  And oh my, you should see the stars. The sky is incredible.

 In the morning when we woke up, we found that we were parked right next to another rig, really too close given that we had the entire desert to spread out. Luckily Betty & Jay from Oregon were friendly, so it wasn’t a problem. What was a problem for both of us was the guy nearby who constantly ran his smelly diesel generator. It made it so we couldn’t sit outside our rig to enjoy the lovely weather. We have new batteries, so we don’t find the need to fire up our (propane) generator very often. Mostly I do it to run my espresso machine and toaster. OK, that’s 10 minutes. And if we don’t drive on a given day, maybe an hour mid-day to top off the batteries. We’re going to be getting solar panels, so even that need will decrease. We visited with others to talk about solar power, and visited the solar booths at the RV show.

We're neighbors!

I think people come to Q to talk. Many have already done the Alaska trip that we’re planning in July/Aug, and they love to talk about it. But since I go to AK every year, I’m not looking for the normal touristy things. I haven’t found anybody yet who has seen the belugas, but everyone loves AK. I’m pretty sure RV-ing to AK will be a whole lot different than my annual cruise! We met several fun people from AK who are regulars at the Q rally.

The first night’s activity was a pretty well organized meet & greet cocktail hour with 2 long tables of finger foods and some bad wine. We brought a bottle of Soquel wine so we were fine. Also our Costco rollups went in a flash. They had name tags, and we ended up mostly talking to people from OR and WA, and one couple from Santa Cruz. They had been Camp Hosts at Yellowstone for a summer, but much as they love place, would never do it again. Their worst problems were old guys who thought the rules didn’t apply to them. And occasionally drunk people doing stupid stuff. They gave us good advice about vermin getting in our rig. There are tiny openings where apparently mice can crawl up into the walls. Just before we left Bill discovered that squirrels or rats had been chewing the insulation and a couple cables in the engine compartment. The Santa Cruz guy recommends using some No Pests stuff to put both in the engine and generator compartments. We found them because on the database it said they’d be bringing 2 Shelties- easy to spot. Since Bill works in Santa Cruz, we figured we should at least say, “Hi.” There were about a dozen dogs here & 2 cats. One was outside with a harness, but boy did she get dirty.

Plenty of food

The Skinny Winnie Band 

OMG, the pulled pork!

We carefully avoided talk of religion and politics, although a few sent out feelers by saying things like, “My wife was at bible study when...”  It’s best just not to talk about it. Instructions to that effect were given in the event description, and folks were very good about it. The best treat for me was the musicians who brought along their instruments & sound equipment, and treated us to a bona-fide concert on the second night during the potluck event. Thank you Martin & Janie! The AK folks with the solar panels let them plug in, and a few others with instruments joined in. The technical info presented by Bob and facilitated by rally organizer Gerald was the icing on the cake. Bill came away with some upgraded gadget called a Marshall Excelsior regulator. I have no idea what it regulates, but I know it goes under the seat.

 We walked back over to the RV show the second day, and all we bought was some RV toilet paper and an ice cream, and even that was a messed up deal. There was no price listed for the ice cream, and Bill ordered 2 scoops in a cup, strawberry and butter pecan. They handed him 2 cups, one with strawberry, the other butter pecan, then took his whole twenty bucks! It was homemade, but still... ten bucks a pop? He was floored. I was waiting in the shade because I didn’t want any. You can bet the transaction wouldn’t have gone down that way if I had been there!

 After walking around the RV show and related junk-fest across the way, we decided to head home. I was bummed when I found out there was another night of music around the campfire the night after we left.  What was supposed to be a 1-week, 1200 mile round trip ended up being 2 ½ weeks and 2,500 miles.  We lost a day having to replace the front tires on the rig. Seems it’s out of alignment, and the tires wore unevenly, resulting in wear bars showing after just 30k miles. Bummer. And of course there was only one place in town that could do it, they only had one brand of tires (Toyo), and we had to wait several hours to get in. But eventually they hooked us up with new treads and we headed up the road to an RV park where we could catch a nice REAL shower. Other than the train & trucks rumbling by all night, it was a good stop. We also got some laundry done and went on our way. Somehow instead of turning left, the View decided it wanted us to explore the Death Valley area.

 We stayed at Tecopa Hot Springs for 2 nights. That was interesting, being that we’d never been to such a place before. I was a bit taken aback when I discovered that you had to go in the pools naked. They had a men’s and ladies’ side, but it was still intimidating for a private person like me. Ah, but the hot mineral bath makes it worth it. We got into the RV site for half price with the Passport America membership we bought at the RV show. So for 11 bucks a night, we had power and unlimited access to the pools. 

Camping at Tecopa Hot Springs - Pretty quiet around here!

The hot springs were a little funky, but renewing

The weather in Death Valley was fantastic

Heading north, we stopped at a gift shop in Area 51 and found ourselves at a bordello! Sorry, no sale today, ladies. As long as we were in the area, we figured we should stop and say, “Hi” to my 88-year-old cousin who lives near Carson City.

We stayed, again half price with Passport, at a nice park outside Carson City (Silver City), and were planning to return home at that point, just a few days over our original 1-week plan, but the View just kept egging us on, and we ended up continuing north.

Passport led us a bit astray in Tonopah, a quick overnight stop on our way to parts unknown. I need to contact them to let them know the place there should probably be deleted from their offerings. There was only one hookup, and it was powered by an extension cord from the bathroom. Oh, and a guy came in and peed in the sink since the men's room was occupied! The door on the ladies' bathroom had a hole in it, stuffed with newspaper. I nearly always write a review on Allstays when we visit a camping site, in order to help others with finding the best places. Well, this place wasn't even listed in Allstays. That should have been a clue. Yeah, there's always an adventure when the bumpkins are on the road. 

It was a little bit chilly around there

My moon shot

Thermos with funnel

We saw that our favorite waterfalls were on the way home, if we just took a little bit of a detour. Sure enough, we found ourselves at Burney Falls, and although the park was technically open, there was absolutely nobody there. The loop trail around the falls was gorgeous. We camped for 2 nights, after stuffing our money in the box. There was another box to buy firewood. Alas, no power, and water at the campsite was turned off, but a little Yankee ingenuity saved the day. We hadn’t filled up with water, not wanting to carry the extra weight through the mountains. And boy were we surprised to find the dump station was working, but water was turned off. There was water in the bathroom, and hot showers (4 minutes for a buck). We filled water jugs from the bathroom sink, then dumped them into the RV tank using an improvised funnel cut out of a water bottle. Voila, running water back in the RV. The night sky and our campfires were beautiful, but we slept through the lunar eclipse. Thanks, everyone for the pics! We even had a nature treat in the park. As we were sitting by the fire, I caught a flash of something light colored walking by, just on the edge of the firelight. At first I thought it was a mountain lion, because we'd seen signs posted to watch for them. But it had a bushy tail. It had pointy ears and moved in a cat-like manner. I got out the mega flashlight, and found myself staring at a gray fox. It calmly regarded me, eyes reflecting back, then continued eating something on the ground. I guess we're not so interesting after all.

Burney Falls makes us happy!

Keeping in touch is often a problem since we like to be off the beaten track. This means there's wi-fi by the campfire, right???

And next we ended up at the beach in Oregon. This was not planned! Well, the camping didn’t look too promising along the CA coast. We knew we needed to plug in after being off power for a couple days. So we dragged out the Passport book again, and found a comfortable place (Turtle Rock-Gold Beach) right by the ocean for a reasonable price. An added benefit was there was a brewery & pub right across the street. After beach walking, we walked up to the brewery. As we walked in, I saw an old crusty guy sitting in a chair drinking beer next to the tank. I said, “I want that job!” So he got up and let me sit down. Then I asked him to give me his beer and take my pic! Bill was busy talking to the brewer. Bill says it was the best porter he has ever tasted.

Gold Beach, Oregon

The old guy lives here now, and has 100 head of cattle, but he used to do construction work in the Bay Area. He was quite a talker. He bought the property on the other side of the brewery so the young man (brewmaster Jimmy) can expand his business. I’m sure for a share of the company. http://archrockbrewingcompany.com/about-us/

The View still wanted to go north, but a quick check of the weather app showed rain all up the coast, and beautiful weather going south. So down the coast we went. Bill was a little bummed because he likes to visit the Rogue Brewery in Newport. But all was forgotten when he figured out he could visit Katy’s Smokehouse in Trinidad to buy the stuff he loves so much. He bought a case (12 cans) of their tuna, not packed in water or oil... just pure fish. He also got 2 big pieces of fish - smoked salmon and albacore. Total about $150! Then we went to the local joint where he had a tuna melt. It was a very fishy day.

In not-so-good travel developments, we found that our credit card got hacked, probably around Shasta. There was a $95 charge at a Shell station in Las Vegas. We were never in Las Vegas, and the largest fuel bill along the way was $61. Chase bank's fraud detection program is amazing. Within 24 hours of the charge, I had an e-mail about a suspicious transaction. Alas, we're now waiting for new cards. But we always carry a spare card on a different account, just in case.

Well, the drive from the most northern end of Highway 1 over to the coast may be scenic, but I can say, “Never again” with conviction. This carsickness-prone girl struggled for about 2 hours, mostly riding with my eyes closed so I wouldn’t barf! I was so glad when we finally got off that mountain     We ended up choosing to stay at Van Damme State Park south of Mendocino, even though it’s expensive for what you get, because it’s right across the street from the beach. And it has the showers and a dump station. Since we’d be heading home the next day, we needed to dump. 

Our mascot Coco enjoys the View, too

There was no cell signal in the campground, and I figured the family would be wondering what in the heck happened to us, so I posted a pic on Facebook from down on the beach. Yes, it’s good to be us!