Monday, Feb. 11, 12, 2013, Outside Needles, CA.
I was on the road, just after ten in the morning.
Decided to get gas in Guerneville, which was no problem.
Made it over to I5 without too much trouble. I sure don’t like that highway, it might be that there sure is a lot of traffic on it. Lots of big trucks.
I had a little gas problem.
I was doing fine until I stopped for gas just above Kettlemen’s on five. I noticed right away that the gas nozzle didn’t have an auto on it, it was taken off so you had to hold it all the time. That was ok, it shut off full and I attempted to top it off,……oh, oh, gas on the ground under the van. Looked down and it was coming out the filler tube, so I put the gas cap back on hoping it would stop and it did. No one is looking, right.
I hear this dripping sound coming from under the van and the gas puddle is getting bigger, oh, oh. I crawl under real quick and look. It looks like it’s coming from the air vent tube where it’s clamped to a rubber hose,…… quick, get my nut driver and tighten it up, trying to stay out of the gas.
That did it, there must have been about a half pint of gas under there in a puddle, no one noticed. :O) I paid and decided I better push the van backwards a bit by hand as the gas puddle is right under where the van’s exhaust pipe comes out. Luckily it was down hill a bit, so it rolled fairly easy, just had to make sure it didn’t get away.
That was the only real eventful thing that happened, so far. Actually, it was lucky it happened so I was able to find the leak and take care of it.
Chock it up to some sloppy mechanicing on my part.
Camped out for the night.
Right now, I’m about thirty five miles to the west of Needles, CA. I turned off onto a road called Essex and found a quiet spot in some kind of dump or something, we’ll see in the morning. I don’t see anyone around and I’m just far enough away from the highway not to hear the noise.
It’s been a long day.
Oh, It’s eleven thirty thirty pm right now, so I’ve had a real driving day. I wanted to stop before I hit Needle, because I want to get gas and I will head north from there and I’ll be going over to the Colorado river so I’d like to see things in the day light.
About time for bed.
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013, Prescott, Arizona
Made It To Arizona.
I was hoping to be in a camp by now, but it got dark on me and I’m in a private property type area. I saw this McDonalds so decided to stop and let the commute traffic die down.
This morning started off fairly well. I was up around nine thirty to sun shine and a slight cold wind. The area I was camped in turned out to be an old town site that was almost gone.
I spent part of the morning driving around a place called Bullhead looking for some river access, than decided to try heading over the mountain to go east on highway forty, so I did a lot off circles with my gps, before I got out of there. I headed over the mountain and ran into this little place called Oakmans, I think it was. People and donkeys all over the streets, some kind of ghost town for the tourists and donkeys? :O) I had to zig and zag around them and then the little road zigged and zagged over the hill, my kind of road. I finally came back down to highway forty east, stopped here and there checking things out a bit, until I got to highway 89, where I turned south and was hoping to find a place to camp before dark, but didn’t.
I hope to do better as I leave Prescott and enter a forest area. One of the problems in this area is they’ve had some snow and a lot of the forest roads have some snow on them, so I can’t go just anywhere and I have to be careful I don’t get stuck. I’m headed in the direction of Congress where I want to check out a mine I saw on the map, so I’ll be there tomorrow.
That’s it for now, I hope I can find a good camp spot. :O)
