Within a couple days of getting our house back in order after having the radiator worked on, Carol found a bump on Rosie which we thought might have been a 'Mast Cell Tumor'. Unfortunately these sort of things have to come off. So, after having it looked at by Dr. Beth Johnson and having Carol's diagnosis confirmed, we were referred to the Sacramento Veterinary Referral center to have Dr. Runion remove it.
The folks at the referral center are truly wonderful. We really enjoyed going there for our General Practice visits, but we understand that they were too busy with all their specialty work. None the less, we are so glad that we have the referral center to go to when the need arises.
Dr. Runion did a marvelous job on Rosie's tumor removal and she is healing up wonderfully. Carol and I both stayed home on separate days to make sure that she didn't lick her incision. Rosie is a really good patient, as long as you just leave her to her self! :-)
We have had our Allegro Bus for 7 years, and we love our rig. There really has only been one problem that we have experienced over time that we have not been able to resolve. That problem is that the Motorhome overheats on the mountain passes when we are towing a car behind it. We had tried various things including using 'Extreme Simple Green' to clean out the coolant pack and improve performance. We had the radiator flushed and we even had the cooling fan set in override by having it run all of the time and that never resolved the problem. So, we finally decided the time had come to have the radiator, A/C Condenser and Transmission Cooler removed and cleaned.
In order to do this however, Sacramento Truck Center was going to need the Motorhome for two days because of the labor involved. Our challenge is the fact that with our three dogs that are considered by some to be pit bulls, finding a place to stay is going to be very difficult. Luckily however, we found that there is an RV Park and Campground in West Sacramento that does not discriminate against dog breeds, they just say that you can not have aggressive dogs in the park.
So, we ended up staying at the 'SAC-WEST RV Park and Campground' which was formerly known as the 'West Sacramento KOA'. They had a camping cabin there that would allow us to stay with our three dogs in the Cabin for a couple nights. So, we arrived on Sunday afternoon and set up camp in the cabin. It was like a very small studio apartment. A bedroom area with a small table, a kitchenette (with Microwave, sink and refrigerator) and a bathroom. The bed was a king size bed so there was plenty of room for a lot of 'Family bed time'! :-)
The whole area was heated by a small ceramic space heater which actually worked surprisingly well! The space was small, but it served our needs while we awaited the work on the motorhome to be completed.
We were quite surprised on Monday afternoon when we heard from Lawrence at the Sacramento Truck center that the radiator had been removed and they found about a pound of gravel and sand in the coolant pack area.
The only thing we can figure is that the previous owner of the motorhome must have used the motorhome to launch a boat and backed the motorhome into a sandy and silty area which placed a lot of debris in the coolant pack area.
They cleaned out the coolant pack area as best they could and sent us on our way.
We will see over the next month if their work paid off. If not, we will have to have the radiator replaced.
One of the biggest drawbacks to our trip to the Tucson tiffin rally this year was many of the places we chose to stay did not have adequate Wi-Fi. More and more we are coming to the conclusion that at least one of our phones should be on the Verizon network. Many times we find ourselves in rural areas that have cell towers, but we have very pour signal. Our only conclusion is that we must be in a Verizon network area. We think the next time we hit the road and are going to an unfamiliar area; we will get a pay-as-you-go phone through Verizon, just to give it a try. After we left the Jurupa regional park, we headed to Alamo Lake which was North West of Phoenix.
We spent two nights at Alamo Lake which was a nice break. We went to explore some Saguaro cactus in the area of the lake, and to just explore the rest of the various campgrounds that are part of this large state park. As we were exploring the campsites, we came across a shorter version of our Allegro bus. We think the one we found was maybe a 35 or 38 foot rig. It looked to have one less set of bays than our rig.
Eric had an opportunity to take his drone for a series of prolonged flights. It was interesting that as Eric took the drone up to higher altitudes that it would view RV’ers who were not staying at the campgrounds, but were boon docking in the desert.
We Stayed at Alamo lake because there were no RV parks in Phoenix that we could find that would allow pit bull type dogs. In fact, most of the RV parks were senior parks that didn’t allow dogs over 25 pounds. After enjoying a couple nights at the Alamo Lake state park, we headed south to Tucson to experience our first Tiffin Rally at the Pima County Fairgrounds. The fairgrounds is south of Tucson. With the exception of the poor cell phone coverage, we found that most of our retail needs could be met in this area.
This was our first Tiffin Rally and we had heard a lot of great things about them, but had never experienced one first hand. What we experienced is great food; we had two meals catered to the over 600 attendees (300 rigs) every day of the rally.
The sessions were very informative. We got to meet and ask questions of factory representatives from Freightliner, Cummins, Allison and Tiffin. We learned more about our rig than we ever could have thought possible.
We got to check out some of the latest in Tiffin Motorhomes. We even had a chance to meet Bob Tiffin, the founder of the company.
Every evening, there was great entertainment from some sort of ‘Tribute band’. We had ‘Piano Men’ (for Billy Joel and Elton Jon) and ‘December 68’ for a tribute of a 60’s era pop group.
Before we started the trip, we thought we would have a chance for some side trips, but there was just too much going on at the rally to pass up on, so we only got one side trip. We got to the Saguaro National park which was a truly wonderful experience.
We had hoped to make it to the Pima Air museum, but unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough time to do that. Eric still had a few moments to fly his drone to see an overview of the rally goers.
We also had a visit from a pair of Tiffin technicians who were wonderful at making a few minor repairs and answering questions about our rig. The Tiffin Rally was a definite hit with both of us. The fairgrounds even had a dog park that we could let the dogs run a bit of energy off in.
The trip to Tucson went off with out a hitch. We had a great time as always on the road, and the dogs were very well behaved as always.
For almost a year, we have known about the Tiffin Motorhomes rally in Tucson Arizona was going to take place in February of 2018. Several months ago, we found out that Carol would have a series of Cal-fire exams held at the Riverside training facility by the name of the Ben Clark Training Facility which is a multi-agency facility located on land adjacent to the March Air Reserve base. This land was originally part of the sprawling March Air Force base, before it was decommissioned.
Ben Clark serves as the southern California ‘Academy’ for Cal-fire operations as well as that for the California Highway patrol, in addition to Riverside county fire (which operates under the umbrella of Cal-fire) as well as the ‘Riverside county sheriff’s office’.
Since the exam dates backed right up to the week for the Rally, we decided that we would make the trip one where we would make two trips out of one.
Since we own dogs that are considered by some to be pit bulls, we needed to find an RV park that would allow us to come in and stay a week and not be in violation of their rules. We selected the ‘Rancho Jurupa Regional Park’ in Riverside for our home base, and we could not be happier! This parked turned out to be the perfect place to stay. The park is nice and quiet and a beautiful location! It is a gated park with controlled access that provided the additional passive security that is always welcomed.
We wish we could have found a location that was a little closer to Ben Clark, but the ability to have our dogs with us was of paramount desire. The park is only 22 miles from Ben Clark and most of the commutes were in the reverse commute direction so the drive didn’t take long at all. The old downtown Mission District of Riverside is just down the road from the park, and there is some beautiful old architecture down there.
Though Eric doesn’t miss living in Southern California at all, the Riverside area has been good to us during this visit and it’s hard to beat the sunsets!
Our next stop, tomorrow, Friday the 16th of February is Alamo Lake which is north east of Phoenix!
In 1979 Eric’s Sister Karen and her husband Mike moved to Ashland Oregon with their Infant son Marquis in tow. Shortly after buying a home on 960 Clay street, they would have a second child Kristin and they would find their home filled with a lot of love. Over the years, their home has expanded to better provide for the need of their family. With Marq and Kris grown and moved on to their own budding homes, In 2018, Mike and Karen decided the time has come to sell their home and downsize a little bit.
With the expectation that the 2017-2018 holiday season would be the last one in this beautiful home, Eric visited the home to capture in images and video. Eric then put together this video about the home to serve as a reminder to the Wraights, years down the road, of the wonderful home that 960 Clay Street has served as. And to others, it will show how a modest two bedroom home has promise to become anything that a family may desire.
Here is a video that I put together about our Christmas holiday around here at Aspen Grover RV and Mobile home park in Rancho Cordova, and also the festivities on Christmas eve up at Sandy and Bill Ealy's in Pioneer in the Sierra foot hills.
Well, we are just a couple short days away from Christmas 2017. This our first year with Rex in our family. And, actually, at 10 months old, this is Rex's first Christmas ever. He's not quite sure what to make of these sorts of changes going on around the house, especially when it comes to things that directly involve him, such as when Eric put a Santa's elf head piece on Rex. Rosie and Charlie however, take this with speed since this is far from their first Christmas's in our home.
Once again, we have plenty of Christmas gifts to go around. It seems like even in years like this one, where for those in our home, we have only bought items that we 'needed' rather than things that we wanted, we still have a tree full of stuff, even there really isn't anything that we need. Clearly, in order to have more Christmas gifts, we would need to have a bigger motorhome! :-)
As always, even though we live in our 2003 Allegro bus, at an RV park in Rancho Cordova, we still have plenty of family and friends who we exchange Christmas cards with. As always, we have an area full of Christmas cards that we have received from many that we care about.
Lastly, we decorated the outside of the rig and a part of the yard to be enjoyed by us and our wonderful neighbors around us.
We hope that your Christmas holiday is a wonderful and safe one for you and all of your family.
