Monday, November 25, 2013, Failed Lift Pump, Salinas, CA

We returned on Monday to Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA, and the new drive train part was in for our coach. Now that the drive shaft was fixed, the coach would no longer start! The problem was diagnosed as a failed lift pump. I OK'd the work and the pump was ordered. It was in stock and was installed by 2:00. Things were looking up. We started to leave but didn't make it out of the parking lot before the Check Engine light came on. My SilverLeaf VMSpc software was attributing the light to a failed lift pump. They decided there was nothing they could do without removing the pump again for testing, but it was getting late and that would have to wait until Tuesday.  

Sunday, November 24, 2013, A Weekend With Friends, Los Gatos, CA

After hearing of our plight, (being stuck in the parking lot of Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA) Richard (Bob's brother) extended an open invitation for us to stay in his home (about 60 miles away). It did not take much arm twisting to get us away from our parking lot prison for the rest of the weekend.

Richard has a beautiful home in the hills of Los Gatos. The area has very few houses since a lot of the land is nearly vertical. It made for a very peaceful setting. We spent the day with Richard and his daughter, Darian, and our friend, Bob. Sam was invited, too. It only took a few minutes for Sam and Richard's dog, Cody (a three-year-old, 100 pound yellow Lab), to establish their boundaries. We had a great time - good food, conversation and wine and for a short while we forgot all about the motorhome.

Saturday, November 23, 2013, Still at Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA

Saturday morning, (still at Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA) I walked Sam around our parking lot compound a couple of times, but he really wanted the grassy patch outside the gate. He must have wondered why we kept walking around on the pavement instead. I spent most of the day cleaning up the coach. Getting towed in the rain will really dirty things up. It was a beautiful day and it felt good to get her clean and shiny. It is funny when you have the freedom to leave you may be content to stay, but when you know you can't leave, it seems to be the only thing you can think about!

Friday, November 22, 2013, Coach Repair Saga Continues, Salinas, CA

On Friday morning, (still at Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA) they had good news and bad news. Good news - they had a universal joint in stock. Bad news - they had to order a new yoke. To my way of thinking, their idea of good news was questionable. Parts would have to be ordered and would not get in until Monday. They put the drive train back together temporarily (with the broken yoke) and said we could drive to a close campground for the weekend. I couldn't bring myself to chance it, so we stayed in the parking lot instead. The downside to that decision was we were essentially trapped. If we went out of the gate, we could not get back in until Monday morning.  

We spent Friday doing some shopping. Salinas at least had a nice variety of stores - a brand new Super Walmart, a Costco and a PetSmart. We got back before the gates closed for the weekend. 

Thursday, November 21, 2013, Expensive Maintenance Lesson in Salinas, CA

When the garage, Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA, opened at 8:00, I was informed they had a lot of work to finish before they could get to us. At 1:00, I reminded them we were still waiting and they looked at it then. They installed the drive shaft, but the engine would not stay running long enough to move off of the street, so they decided it would have to be pulled. I reminded them the coach weighs in at 32,000 pounds. They used a forklift truck to push the coach across the road at an angle (blocking traffic on the street), so they could then pull it in through the gate. The forklift had no chance of pulling the coach up the small incline from the street, but they tried anyway. Eventually, they got a Ford F-350 truck. I had my concerns about how much the hitch receiver could take but with all of the pushing and pulling nothing bad happened - again, I suspect we were lucky.

I started off describing the problem and suggesting we should just change the fuel filters, but they thought there was a leak and spent a few hours trying to find it. Finally, the third guy working on it asked how long since the filters were last changed. My guess was about 3 years (it could have been more.) That's when I learned they need to be replaced much more often. I had replacement filters in the basement, but I never thought about when I should change them. I was at Cummins having some work done a few months ago and the filters were never discussed. Never assume silence about maintenance means none is needed. I will ask lots of questions from now on when anyone is working on my coach.

He finally took the filter off of the engine and told me the fuel was "pretty dirty." When he took off the fuel/water separator filter we could see that the filter had disintegrated and the paper was in small pieces.

The paper and the fuel were black!  Again, I was very lucky that it was not the main filter that fell apart or I would have had some seriously clogged injectors. Since he had no filters in stock it was a good time to use those I had in the basement. The engine started and we let it run for a while to see if he could find the leak he was sure was there somewhere. After about 30 minutes he declared he could not find any leak. 

It seemed we were good to go, but I thought it should be road tested. The mechanic agreed, so we set off for a spin around the block. The coach seemed strong and was running great when we noticed a vibration. We quickly tried to decide if it was the rough road (which was really bad) or was it a frame alignment problem from towing, or the pushing and pulling, when we heard a big "THUNK" and the coach rolled to a stop in the turn lane. In the rear camera, I could see the drive shaft lying in the road.

I called the garage and they quickly brought their truck, picked the pieces up off the road and tied a strap to the front axle. They pulled us back to the garage through some pretty heavy traffic with me at the wheel. Shortly, alarms went off because the air pressure was low and falling fast every time I used the brakes. The engine was running so that I would have steering, but it clearly was no longer providing air to the brakes. I started picturing the brakes seizing up when the air got low enough, but we made it back with a little pressure to spare and they assessed the damage. The U-joint was a total disaster and the yoke was broken, and the drive shaft swung around like a club pounding the air lines before it fully disengaged from the transmission. It was too late to fix anything that afternoon so we got to spend another night at the garage - this time inside the gate.

It may not sound like it, but they really treated us very well.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013, Breakdown on Moving Day, Towed to Salinas, CA

It was time to move on from the Pismo, CA, area. Our next stop was Scotts Valley, CA, just a few minutes north of Santa Cruz, CA (about 180-190 miles). The plan was to meet up with Bob, our good friend (from Georgia) of nearly thirty years. He was going to visit his brother, Richard, in Los Gatos for Thanksgiving. Scotts Valley was only 11 miles from Richard's house.

We got ready to go as usual, but then the engine suddenly died and was difficult to start again. With some effort, it did start and we were off.

It started off as a beautiful day!

After 150 miles, the engine died in a very inconvenient spot. People were not happy with a big motorhome in their way with four-way flashers on. We got it started one more time and were looking for a place with a shoulder or a parking lot where we could get off of the road if we couldn't make it to the campground. We were within 20 miles of our destination when the engine said "no more." We were headed down the ramp to US 1, north of Castroville, CA.  Luckily, there was a really wide place at the bottom of the ramp where the sign said: "Emergency Stopping Only." Perfect!

By now, it was raining pretty good, but I got out and opened the engine compartment in the hope I would see some magic reset button. It is pretty easy to let despair wash over you leading to a sense of helplessness that can overwhelm you. We tried not to let it happen, but then it is pretty difficult to keep those negative thoughts away. I got online and posted a message on the American Coach Yahoo Group about our situation, while Joani called Coachnet (AAA for motorhomes). I received a response on-line within 45 minutes suggesting the first thing to check would be the fuel filters. Since the coach stopped running on a busy freeway, and it was raining, and it was getting dark, I opted to have it towed to a garage. Coachnet sent out a truck. 

We have never had the experience of being towed, but Mike seemed to know what he was doing and he took his time and did everything correctly (including removing the drive shaft).  Following him was stressful though, as we saw sparks fly every time the coach went over a bump. On one really big bump, the battery bay door sprang open on the passenger side. It was right about then that we got to a stretch of road under construction with lots of orange cones and narrow lanes that we thought would surely catch the open door. Luckily, he missed everything and when we exited the freeway I flashed my lights wildly to get his attention. He stopped and we closed the door without any more problems.

We continued on to the garage. Of course, at 9:00 pm the garage was closed, so we spent the night along the curb outside of the gated area. It was difficult to get much sleep given all of the uncertainty swirling around us, but the area didn't appear to be too bad and the street was level, so we tried to sleep while we waited for morning.

Monday, November 18, 2013, Monarch Butterflies Grove, Pismo Beach, CA

We made our last visit to the Monarch Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, CA, to see the butterflies. The population was an estimated 34,000. It was not expected to increase much more this year. Some years they had more than 200,000 - that must have been quite a sight. Of course, the eastern northern hemisphere butterflies migrate to groves in Mexico where they have had more than 20,000,000 gather in the winter. 

They will continue to increase in numbers through December, but only about 10,000 more.

We were told, one reason they cluster is to weigh down the branch to minimize the effects of the wind.

It was early and still pretty cool, so we saw very little activity.

Every time we visited the Butterfly Grove we said we would stay for the docent talk one day - today was the day.  Beautiful weather brought out a pretty large crowd for a Monday. I thought it made sense assuming everyone was on vacation. But, as the docent went around the audience asking each where they were from, nearly everyone was local. OK, there was one couple from Michigan.

We managed to learn a lot of new things about the Monarchs. They cannot fly at temperatures below 55 degrees. So, if one falls from the cluster at night, he falls to the ground and has to wait for the temperature to climb before he can fly again. If he's lucky he might avoid being a meal for a field mouse before he can fly again. We learned how to distinguish between male and female butterflies. We also learned something about butterfly mating rituals. It's strange, but then the entire life cycle of the butterfly is nothing short of bizarre, (the yearly migration that spans five to six generations).

The giant clams that greeted us when we first arrived and then morphed into jack-o-lanterns are now turkeys. What will they think of next?

Our sand dollar collection is all cleaned and organized according to size - what to do with them now is the only question.

The new camera has a specific mode for sunsets. It captured the sunset nicely, but then I saw some people using their i-phones getting some fantastic pictures too, so the credit really goes to Mother Nature for this one.