06-09-10

We left Klamath Falls around 9:30 and had a nice drive to Central Point, arriving at Kathleen's around12:00.

After visiting for a little while I drove into town and purchased a new fresh water pump.
It wasn't what I wanted but I didn't have many options. The old pump had an output of 5.8 GPM when it was working, the one I bought had an output of only 2.4 GPM.
The new pump was also physically smaller than the old one so I had to bend the lines to get them to connect to the fittings.
The first time I turned the pump on water sprayed from the output fitting.
I quickly turned off the switch and tightened the fitting. I tried it again and it didn't leak.
I filled the tank and found a leak at the Input fitting. I had to use a set of pump pliers to tighten it enough to stop the leak.

Kathleen and Frank asked us to stay but they already had a house full

and I hate to inconvenience folks so we left around 4:30 and drove to O'Brien and stopped at Lone Mountain RV resort.

Tomorrow we will be at a national forest campground on the Rogue River near Gold Beach

06-08-10

We are now in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Around 8:30 this morning we left Winnemucca, Nevada and had a very nice ride across the the northwestern part of Nevada and southern Oregon. It was very scenic with green fields, tall trees and swift running streams.



We arrived in Klamath Falls around 4:30.

Tomorrow we are going through Central Point, Oregon and will stop for a short visit with my niece Kathleen and her family. There is an RV supply place in Jackson so while we are in the area I will try to get a new pump for our fresh water system and install it.

06-07-10

You know, sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

We decided to take Highway 93 to Wells, Nevada because yesterday we had to climb some very steep passes and the weather was very hot. I noticed that the engine temperature also reached the hot zone. Not quite to the red but hot none the less.
The over flow bottle was dry so I added water and we continued to Ely.

This morning I checked the bottle and found it was low so I added more water, then I took the cap off the radiator to make sure there was coolant in the radiator and found it to be full.
At the same time I checked the oil level and found it needing oil so I added a quart.

We left Ely around 8:30, I kept an eye on the temperature gauge as we traveled along and it stayed in the normal range. The whole time I could smell coolant and thought that perhaps I had over filled the bottle and as the coolant in the radiator expanded and it possibly was over flowing the over flow bottle. I could not find a place with enough room along the highway to pull over to check it out.
We got to wells and as soon as I pulled onto I-80 the temperature began to rise. By the time we got to the next exit the gauge was almost in the red.
I pulled off and found a spot to park.
I got out and opened the hood. There was coolant everywhere but it was not hot and there wasn't any steam coming out any where.
The bottle was a little over the "Hot Level".
I carefully removed the radiator cap and no steam escaped. I felt the radiator and it was cool to the touch. I looked everywhere and could not see any leakage or steam.
Finally, I started adding water to the radiator, of course when the water reached the bottom of the radiator and encountered the hot engine the filler tube became a geyser as hot water and steam shot out at me. Fortunately I heard it gurgling and got out of the way in time.

Here, I have to regress a bit.
In the morning I used the on-board water supply and pump to take my morning shower.
It worked fine for me but when Patti tried the water, the pump would no longer work.
We only had our drinking water to use for the radiator and only a couple of gallons of that. Therefore I had to crawl under the RV with an empty jug and have Patti open the drain in the fresh water tank and I collect the water in the jug. There was only one problem with that strategy. The drain was directly above the frame on the rig so the water hit the frame and spred out and dripped down in several places. Undaunted I found a short hose in one of the storage bins and managed to hold it against the drain hole and in this way I was able to fill a couple of jugs with water.

The engine was still hot and each time I tried putting water in it it would spit it out again. I finally decided that I needed to have some Coolant to add the radiator so I disconnected the jeep and drove back to Wells to buy coolant. By the time I returned to Plan "B" the engine had cooled down enough for me to fill the radiator. While all this was happening I had time to figure out what the problem was.

Do you know what it was?

Well, in the morning when I checked the radiator level I didn't get the cap back on tight enough and as the coolant expanded in the radiator it just spewed out of the cap until is was all gone. It took 138 miles to empty the radiator.

Any way I got the radiator filled and we got back on the road. I kept an eye on the temperature and it stayed in the low/normal range almost the whole way to Winnemucca except going over couple of passes where it rose to the high/normal mark. We stopped at one rest stop about half way where I checked under the hood and it was nice and dry.

We are now parked in the Wall Mart parking lot in Winnemucca and will leave here tomorrow on the next leg of our adventure. Hopefully we get as far as Klamath Falls Oregon tomorrow.

More later.

06-06-10

Well, we made it to Ely Nevada, it took us 7 hours and I'm pooped.
We are staying at the Prospector Hotel, Gambling Hall and RV park.
Full hookups for $16/ night.
The restaurant is pretty good and Patti gets to kill some time playing the slots.

As our GPS says we are "re-calculating".

Instead of going to Winnemucca via Austin as we had planned we have decided to follow 93 north from Ely to Wells NV, then go west on I-80 to Winnemucca.
It is about the same distance but there are less high passes to go over.

More tomorrow.

06-05-10

We are leaving Moab in the morning.
From here we will try to make it to Ely, Nevada.
If not, we will go as far as we can.
We have 6 days to get to Brookings so we aren't in a big hurry.
From Ely we will follow US-50 to Austin and then north on Nevada 305 to battle Mountain, then west on I-80 to Winnemucca.
From Winnemucca we will go north on US-95 to 140 and follow it to where it connects to I-5 then north to Grants Pass Oregon.
There we will get on 199, follow it to 101 then go north.
There is a short cut that goes from 199 to just south of Brookings and if I dont miss it we will go that way.
If we get to Brookings early we will go on up to Gold Beach and out along the Rogue River to a campground that we like there and stay until June eleventh, then we will go back to Brookings and "At Rivers Edge RV Resort" on the Chetco River.

Okay, that is our itinerary.

I will try to blog along the way.

06-04-10

I haven't posted anything lately because Patti and I have been down with colds and haven't done anything for the last several days except sneeze and cough.
We are leaving Moab on Sunday and will be making our way toward Brookings Oregon.
We have reservations at "At Rivers Edge RV Resort" starting on the 11th of June. That gives us plenty of time to get there.

I will keep you up to date as we travel along if I have an Internet connection.

06-01-10

Yesterday Clyde came by to see if we wanted to go for a ride but Patti was planning to do laundry so we declined.
The laundromat was closed for Memorial Day so when she got back home we decided to take a ride after all. I didn't feel like doing anything to challenging so we decided to try the La Sal Mountain Loop Road.
It is a paved road that goes up into the mountains and comes out on 128 along the Colorado River. Along the way we came across a dirt road that goes to Geyser Pass so we turned onto it and drove until we came to where it ended at major snow drifts.



It was nice to be in the mountains with the trees,

the snow



and clear mountain streams.

We returned to the paved road and continued along it.

From the road we could see Ken's lake and the Moab Rim.



We came to another dirt road that went to "OOWAH Lake". Of course we had to check it
out. It turned out to be a small lake with a campground that is apparently very popular with the locals.



There were several people fishing in the lake but we only saw one fish caught while we were there.



We drove back to the pavement and went on. Along the road we could see Castle Valley below us.



We came to a "T", turned left and drove through Castle Valley.



A few miles past Castle Valley we came to 128 and turned left along the Colorado River. We passed a campground where there was a natural cactus garden along the highway.



A little farther along we stopped to get some pictures of people kayaking the river.

The rapids here are not as fast as they are further up stream.

We left Moab around noon and were home by 4:30

Today we are going to the Wall Mart in Grand Junction Colorado, to get our prescriptions filled.
It is a two hour drive each way on I-70 so it's going to be a long day