RV

Posts featuring the coach.

Short travel day to San Benito, CA

We departed Coyote Valley RV Resort near San Jose, California, and headed to Thousand Trails San Benito, California.

This was a short travel day, less than two hours.

Here’s a map of our route for this leg:

Route map

After zipping down the 101 freeway, it was time for some highway driving:

Highway driving

Highway driving

Paladin came up to see us:

Paladin

He had opinions about driving:

Paladin

On the step cover:

Paladin

I picked up Paladin, and held him on my lap for a minute, before he wanted to retreat:

David, Paladin, Jenn

More highway driving:

Highway driving

Highway driving

Then we turned onto a more narrow road:

Narrow road

Reaching the Thousand Trails campground entrance:

Thousand Trails entrance

Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse video of this journey, and pictures of the campground the following day.

Are you enjoying these posts? Let me know!

Smart surge protector

The electrical bay in our coach includes a Surge Guard power protection transfer switch, which manages switching the electricity between “shore” power (i.e. plugged in to a campground) and the generator. It also serves to protect the coach systems from power spikes and other issues:

Power transfer switch

However, it’s good practice to have a separate surge protector, since the act of protecting the coach can damage the device. An external one that plugs in to the power pedistal at a campsite is a much cheaper thing to replace if necessary.

One of the most popular ones is the Hughes Autoformers Power Watchdog, so that’s what I got. Here’s its box:

Power Watchdog box

Not only does it protect against power surges and other electrical issues, it also has a replaceable surge module, so just part of it can be replaced if needed, instead of having to replace the whole thing. It also has an app that displays the current power usage.

Here’s the Power Watchdog plugged in at a campground. The dog face glows white if all is well, or turns red if an issue occurs (and the display below shows the error code):

Power Watchdog

Power Watchdog

Here’s a screenshot of the app:

Power Watchdog app

At another campground at night; the dog face is fairly bright:

At night

Travel from Corning to San Jose

We departed Heritage RV Park in Corning, California, and headed down to San Jose, to Coyote Valley RV Resort, a bit south of the city.

Here’s a map of our route for this leg; a 5 hour drive in our coach:

Map route

Nice rolling green hills:

Hills

Not so nice heavy traffic through Vacaville:

Traffic

More hills:

Hills

680 Benicia-Martinez bridge:

Bridge

Super scenic industry:

Industry

Nice of California to name a freeway after us — the Sinclair Freeway:

Sinclair Freeway

Paladin peeking; still not super happy about travel days, but getting a little more used to them, I think:

Paladin

The 680 freeway south of Pleasanton was anything but pleasant; the road surface was in horrible condition, making the coach feel like it was going to shake apart:

Horrible road

Paladin came further forward than he had before (I kept a close eye on him, to make sure he didn’t go by the pedals at Jenn’s feet):

Paladin

Downtown San Jose off in the distance:

San Jose

Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse video of this journey.

Are you enjoying these posts? Let me know!

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

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

Street

Weirdly, the park is through a strip mall:

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

Paladin

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

Large olive

Coach weights and tire pressures

After fueling up at Love’s, we weighed our coach and truck on a CAT scale there:

Weighing coach and truck

Here’s the report via their handy app:

CAT scale report

These weights are within the acceptable ranges for this coach; the front axle rating is 16,000 lb, and the rear is 24,000 lb. This was weighing it fully loaded with our stuff, a full tank of diesel (150 gallons), 5% fresh water, and empty grey and black tanks.

I found this advice on the tire pressures:

Here’s the formulas:

Front axle weight/2 X 1.05 = Weight to look up in single wheel chart. Add 5 psi for your final inflation pressure.

Rear axle weight/2 x1.05 = Weight to look up in dual wheel chart. Add 5 psi for final pressure.

The 1.05 is used to estimate side to side weight differences that you will see when you do individual wheel weights.

And finally, do not inflate a tire less that 80% of the max side wall pressure.

So for us, our front axle weight (14,980 lb on 2021-10-29) / 2 (for each side) * 1.05 (to offset side-to-side differences) = 7,864.5 lb (for weight table).

Front tires are Michelin 315/80R22.5, rated max load 9,090 lb (for single) at max 130 psi cold, so table says 110 – 115 psi; should go with higher.

So front tires should be at least 115 psi for us. A bit higher (less than 130) is okay, but gives rougher ride.

Rear axle weight (23,220 lb on 2021-10-29) / 2 (for each side) * 1.05 (to offset side-to-side differences) = 12,190.5 lb (for weight table).

Rear tires are also Michelin 315/80R22.5, rated max load 8,270 lb (for dual) at max 130 psi cold, so table says 90 – 95 psi. But 80% of the max pressure of 130 psi is 104 psi, so that should be the minimum.

So rear tires should be at least 105 psi for us. Though when I posted about this in the iRV2 forums to check my math, there was some skepticism about the 80% rule. Still, 95 to 105 psi is within an acceptable range.

According to the tire pressure monitor, the coach tires are all currently around 115 psi, which is perfect for the front ones, and a little high for the rear, but still good:

Tire pressure monitor

Into California

Time to move again; we departed Valley of the Rogue State Park in Gold Hill, Oregon, and headed down I-5 into northern California, to our next stop, at Heritage RV Park in Corning, California.

Here’s a map of our route to this point, via RV Trip Wizard; we bought our coach in Kennewick, WA, and took it back to our homestead in the Portland region, then up to Mom’s place and Poulsbo RV near Seattle, then headed south via Chehalis, McMinnville, Gold Hill, and into northern California:

Route map

A closer look at a map of this leg; a 4.5 hour drive in our coach. I’ll try to remember to include a map like this for all subsequent travel days:

Route map

This was Paladin’s second journey in the coach. He didn’t seem quite as freaked out this time, though still not entirely comfortable with the experience. He spent much of the trip on the kitchen counter, where he could see out the windows from a safe space:

Paladin on kitchen counter

We always like to see and identify other motorhomes, especially other Tiffin Allegro Bus models; this one in front of us is a few years newer than ours:

Allegro Bus buddy

Paladin:

Paladin

Watching out a window:

Paladin

Freeway views:

Freeway

Paladin:

Paladin

He ventured by my chair, experiencing the step cover:

Paladin

There were a bunch of hills on this journey; here’s the Siskiyou Mountain summit:

Siskiyou Mountain summit

Nice views:

Nice view

Scenic

Goodbye Oregon; the sign says “Oregon thanks you; come back soon”. Oregon is our domicile; we will be back, in a few months time:

Goodbye Oregon

Hello California; the sign says “Welcome to California”:

Hello California

Agricultural inspection station; no hassle, they just asked if we have any plants or fruits, which we didn’t:

Agricultural inspection station

Scenic:

Scenic

A stop at a Mount Shasta viewpoint for lunch:

Mount Shasta

Truck and coach at the viewpoint, with a glimpse of Shasta in the background:

Truck and coach

Mount Shasta:

Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta

Low water level in Shasta Lake:

Low water level

Low water level

Paladin:

Paladin

Fuel stop; we love Love’s truck stops, even easier now that we have a discount fuel card (perhaps a topic for a future post?):

Fuel stop

Dumping our tanks after a week without sewer

Our site in the Valley of the Rogue campground had electricity and water hookups, but no sewer. So we had to be a little careful with water usage. Not as much as in the trailer in Yellowstone, as our coach has fairly large tanks (50 gallons black, 70 gallons grey, plus 90 gallons fresh water). The black tank is for our two toilets, and the grey tank is for our sinks, shower, dishwasher, and clothes washer.

We didn’t do any laundry during the week, as the washing machine uses the most water. We did run the dishwasher a couple of times, on the “eco” setting, as it doesn’t use all that much. And we went a couple of days between showers, and did them “navy” style, where we get wet, turn off the water, lather up, then rinse off.

As it happened, we didn’t need to be quite so careful, as we ended the week with only 67% of our grey tank used, and 79% of our black tank. But for the first time without a sewer hookup in this coach, we wanted to err on the cautious side:

Tank levels

Tank levels

To avoid hauling that waste water to our next campground, we stopped at the dump station on the way out:

Dump station

Dump station