Didn’t notice a power cut

A quick post; while staying at Olde Stone Village RV Park, we were cooking dinner in the convection microwave oven, and noticed that our dishwasher and cooktop lost power (we weren’t using them at the time). I was concerned that there was a malfunction, but we eventually noticed that the street lights were out, and other RVs were firing up generators. A nice thing about RVs being self-contained; we were able to continue during a power outage without even noticing for a while!

But hey, when we looked at the power control panel, it did indeed say that it had no service:

Power control with no service

And the inverter was supplying 110V power from our batteries:

Inverting

Valley of the Rogue State Park

As you may have seen in the timelapse video, our next stop after McMinnville was Valley of the Rogue State Park near Gold Hill, Oregon.

This was our first state park, and quite a pleasant place, too. The campsite was much larger than in most private campgrounds, with lots of trees around, and a path by the Rogue River.

The only downside was that while most of the sites in this campground have full hookups, our site didn’t have sewer. So we had to watch our water usage, to avoid having to move the coach to dump the tanks. We made it, though!

Here’s our truck and coach in our campsite:

Truck and coach in campsite

Campsite from below:

Campsite from below

Campground info:

Campground info

We were in B loop, in site B33. The inner C loop was closed, so we had even fewer neighbors than we would have in peak season:

Campground info

Open space:

Open space

Rogue River:

Rogue River

Some barely visible ducks:

Rogue River and ducks

Rogue River

Rapids:

Rogue River

Riverside viewing platform:

Riverside viewing platform

Info signs:

Info sign

Valley of the Rogue State Park drone shots

While at the Valley of the Rogue State Park in southern Oregon, I flew my drone above the campsite. In part because it’s a fun thing to do, but also for a practical reason: to check the roof and slide toppers for branches, since we were parked amongst trees.

Here’s our campsite, with our coach and truck:

Coach and truck

From higher up:

Campsites

From this height, you can see most of the campground loop (and nice fall foliage):

Campground

A little higher to see the whole loop; not quite as bright, as starting to get into clouds (this was at just below the legal height limit for a drone):

Campground

Tilting upwards, a view of the Rogue River and the next-door campground loops, which are being used for FEMA trailers from last year’s wildfires:

Rogue River and campground

Looking to the left:

Rogue River and campground

The campground is right next to the I-5 freeway (as seen from the base of cloud level), which was a bit noisy at night:

Freeway

Heading back down again:

Campsites

Views of our coach roof, showing all the leaves. This was also my first look at our two extra solar panels, installed by Poulsbo RV:

Coach

Coach roof

I was particularly interested in the slide toppers, to make sure no branches were going to damage them. Though we don’t have a ladder, so it would have been difficult to remove them if there had been any:

Coach roof

I did fly my drone low over the toppers, which blew off most of the leaves. You can see me flying by looking at the screen:

Coach roof

Heritage RV Park

Our first RV park in California was Heritage RV Park in Corning:

Heritage RV Park

Heritage RV Park map; it’s a fairly small park, with somewhat tight spaces, but nice and quiet, compared to several previous places:

Heritage RV Park map

Info:

Heritage RV Park info

Our coach and truck in our campsite:

Coach and truck in campsite

Coach in campsite

The campground has a pool, though it’s now closed for the season:

Pool

Bocce ball… decorated as graveyards for Halloween:

Bocce ball graveyards

An RV storage shelter made of solar panels; a clever idea:

Shelter made of solar panels

The street outside the park has several eating options, though we didn’t partake of any of them other than the Olive Pit cafe, and Starbucks for breakfast one morning:

Street

Weirdly, the park is through a strip mall:

Mall

Mall and RV park entrance

RV park entrance

The RV park had several empty sites throughout our stay (you can see our coach in the middle):

RV park

This was the first time (other than at our homestead) that we used our outdoor rug; previous sites had grass, so we couldn’t use it:

Coach

A couple of bonus pictures of Paladin:

Paladin

Another bonus: Corning is known for growing olives, and has a roadside attraction of a giant green olive:

Large olive

A sampling of seating situations

Just a few random pictures today.

Here’s me sitting outside at our campsite, working on my laptop:

David sitting at campsite

A recent addition: a little table with drink and device holders, that clips on to the zero-gravity chair:

Table for chair

Paladin sitting on the pull-out counter of our kitchen:

Paladin sitting on pull-out counter

Paladin sitting in a foam box from some packaging:

Paladin sitting in foam box

Sleeping in a cardboard bed on the coach dash:

Paladin

Coyote Valley RV Resort

A recent addition to our itinerary, we decided to spend three nights at Coyote Valley RV Park to break up an otherwise too-long trip to our next location.

Here I’m in our truck behind our coach, having just unhooked them. We had a back-in site, so it’s easier for me to unhook while Jenn is checking in, so we don’t block the road by the site:

In truck behind coach

A staff member guided us to the site:

Guide

This was our first back-in site. Jenn did a great job getting positioned:

Backing into site

Hookups:

Hookups

This is an unusually large site, entirely concreted, other than a grassy garden between sites:

Large site

Campground map:

Campground map

This part of the park is very new:

RVs

Green spaces:

Green spaces

Bocce ball:

Bocce ball

Wilderness area:

Wilderness area

Pond with ducks:

Pond with ducks

Clubhouse and pool area:

Clubhouse and pool area

Pool area

Pool

Pools

Dog park:

Dog park

Office etc:

Office etc

Other pool area:

Other pool area

Paladin looking out a window:

Paladin looking out window

Thousand Trails San Benito Preserve

Our next campground, Thousand Trails San Benito RV & Camping Resort in California.

Thousand Trails is a camping membership organization, where you can buy some level of membership, and stay for free for some number of nights at some of their campgrounds. There are several membership levels, and classes of campgrounds; it can get a bit confusing.

We started out with just the base level membership, allowing us to stay free at parks in the southwest area of the US, plus an add-on that includes a bunch of other parks around the country for a small fee. At that level, we could stay for 14 nights, then had to go out of the Thousand Trails system for a week. And we could only book a couple of months out.

This campground is fairly large and sprawling. Here’s the map:

Campground map

Thousand Trails entrance:

Thousand Trails entrance

We parked the coach inside the entrance, unhooked the truck, and went exploring to find a site. One interesting feature of Thousand Trails parks is you can pick your own site, first-come-first-served. Which can be frustrating if you can’t find a site you want, but can be nice if you luck out:

Coach and truck

We found this nice empty campsite backing onto hills, but it turned out it was reserved; while short-term sites are first-come-first-served, people can pay a few thousand dollars to book a specific site for several months — something we didn’t know about beforehand, and rather annoying, since the best sites are taken with long term reservations:

Campsite

Our second choice site was still very nice; a wide site, backing on to an RV storage area; not quite as nice as the hills, but at least there’s nobody living back there. It’s a back-in site, our second one:

Campsite

We put out our rug and chairs again:

Rug

Hookups:

Hookups

I went for a walk around the campground:

Campground

In addition to RV sites, there are lots of tent sites and rental cabins:

Cabins

A scary narrow bridge, that we had to take the coach over:

Narrow bridge

Dog park:

Dog park

Trees:

Trees

There are lots of deer in the park:

Deer

Gnome house:

Gnome house

Another narrow bridge, that we used when leaving:

Narrow bridge

The pool area is closed for the season:

Pool area

There are hundreds of ground squirrels all over this park:

Squirrel

I also saw a cat:

Cat

Jenn tried playing a game on the outside TV (the first time we’ve used it), though the controller didn’t work well through the walls:

Jenn with outside TV

The following morning, we were greeted with two issues.

The first was the power was out to the campground, which is more of a minor inconvenience, since our batteries and solar will support pretty much everything, other than air conditioners, and we can run the generator to recharge.

The second was that the nice spot we were in apparently had a long-term reservation (like the first one we liked), though no marking as such, and the ranger that checked us in wasn’t aware of it. The person who had booked it showed up to let us know, then later the campground manager and a ranger arrived to ask us (very politely) to move. They helped me find an alternative site, and offered compensation (though we didn’t bother with that).

Annoyingly, the first spot we liked was vacant the whole time we were here, and the person from the second site also left a day or two later, perhaps due to the power outage.

But the alternative site was actually a bit nicer, with shady trees and a nicer view. So yes it was a hassle to have to move, but only took a few minutes.

Jenn driving our coach to the new site:

Coach driving

Our truck and coach in the new campsite; still plenty spacious:

Truck and coach in new campsite

View from back of site

Hookups:

Hookups

We used our Blackstone griddle:

Blackstone griddle

A peek of the hill from the front door:

View from front

The power outage turned out to be quite significant; it was local to the campground, and they couldn’t get it repaired for several days. So for four days, we ran our generator for an hour each morning and evening, to recharge our batteries, and give us power for cooking and such:

Power control system

Our three solar panels contributed a little throughout the day, though not much:

Solar controller

Charging:

Charging

Running the generator was a hassle, not something we expected when staying at a large campground. Especially one that is part of a large network.

Another frustration with Thousand Trails is that many of the parks are restricted to age 55+, especially in the Arizona area, where we’re spending this winter. I’m almost there, at 52, but not quite. While that may not be strictly enforced (I certainly could pass for 55+), we wouldn’t want to risk it.

But despite those caveats, we liked it enough that we have since purchased a premium membership, so we can book up to six months in advance, and go from park to park within the Thousand Trails system if we want. Plus our membership gives access to more parks at a significant discount, too.

We’ve calculated that if we stay at least half a year at TT parks, the membership will pay for itself within two years, then subsequent years will be gravy. Assuming we’re still doing the RV lifestyle in two years — we don’t have an end date, we’re going to keep doing it until we want to do something different. (And when we do stop, we can sell the membership, recouping part of the cost.)

A lot more text than usual in this post! Was it interesting? Let me know!

Slide-out markers

[For those reading these blog posts when they come out, note that I’ll be posting two per day, and occasionally three, for at least the next couple of weeks, to catch up; I’m getting a bit of a backlog. Typically the first post of the day will be a major topic, and the second will be a video or food post or such. Enjoy the extra content!]

When getting set up in a new campsite, one of the important tasks is to ensure that the coach is positioned well, which means close to the utility hookups (power, water, sewer), the basement doors can be opened without hitting the aforementioned utilities or other obstructions, and very importantly, the slide-outs can be opened without hitting anything.

It’s easy enough to line up the utilities (and the cable and hoses have some flexibility in that), and to try opening basement doors to make sure they don’t hit anything (though sometimes I do better than other times). The slide-outs are a bit tricker in a tight space, as it’s hard to tell how far they come out when they’re closed. Some people have suggested techniques like using one’s arm, or markings on a broom or such.

But an idea I had was to use the doors, since I’ll want to open them to check them anyway. So I added some red pin-striping tape onto the top of some of the doors, to mark where the slide-outs come to. I can simply open the doors, and make sure no tree branches or other obstructions would get too close to those lines:

Basement door

Marker on door

Orange Grove RV Park

Our next RV park was Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, California:

Orange Grove RV Park info

Here’s the park map:

Orange Grove RV Park map

This campground is literally in an orange grove, with orange trees between each site:

Campsite

Paladin watching me from his dash bed:

Paladin

The orange trees were full of fruit, though not quite ripe yet:

Orange tree

Campsite:

Campsite

A nice thing about (some) pull-through sites is we didn’t need to unhook our truck when pulling into the site. In fact we left the tow bar connected overnight:

Tow bar

The campground was rather empty during the week, before the weekend campers arrived:

Campground

Rather than a central septic system, they had a truck pump out multiple systems around the park; a bit unusual, in my experience so far:

Septic pumping

The pool was closed for the season:

Pool

A fun rustic-style maintenance building:

Rustic-style building

Decorations:

Decorations

So many rows of orange trees:

Orange trees

A full moon and campfire:

Moon and campfire

Paladin on his dash bed:

Paladin

Shadow Hills RV Resort

Our last stop in California before heading into Arizona for the rest of the year, Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, down the road from Palm Springs:

Shadow Hills RV Resort info

Resort map:

Shadow Hills RV Resort map

Our campsite, before Jenn brought the coach over; it’s a back-in site, with another coach backed in behind. A fairly common style, and not too bad, since the back of the other coach is effectively a privacy wall. Plus these sites have nice large hedges:

Campsite

Our truck and coach in the site:

Campsite

Jenn in the campsite. We also just bought a propane fire pit (just in time to head into even hotter weather), and cushions for our zero gravity chairs:

Jenn in campsite