Tires - Portland, OR

We have about 50,000+ miles on the truck and 20,000 on the RV. When we are driving around town/interstates visiting places we can get out MPG up to 13.0. But just towing 20 miles from Vancouver to Portland (on interstate) took it down to 12.9 mpg. Thank goodness the price per gallon has come down. Also, Safeway has diesel pumps that offer discounts depending upon your Safeway purchases over the past few months.

Leaving Anchorage in June 2008, we had 4 new tires on the RV and 4 relatively new (3,000 miles) tires on the 2008 Ford. When Boots was driving Ruthi to the airport last week, the trucks “Low Tire Pressure” came on. So, after dropping Ruthi, Boots went to the local Ford dealer. They could find no problem and put more air in the tire. Over the past 3 years of full-time RVing, tires have been our most challenging item. We had a slow leak on one of the RV tires that took 4 different stops to finally find the problem (weld in wheel was leaking).

So, now we thought we were in for the same challenge on the truck tires that had been replaces at 35,000 miles for front and 50,000 miles for back). After the visit to Ford, Boots continued to enjoy her alone time with Karma. Saturday, Boots went out to take Karma for a run in an off-leash park. Lo and behold another “low Tire Pressure” message. Since it was late Saturday afternoon, she quickly called the Ford dealer that had not found the leak yesterday to check when they close. So, off she went flying to their office to get there before they closed. With further review a screw was discovered in the tire.

Why do we have to revisit issues to get resolution. As has been said inour blog many times, customer service is sorely lacking across America. Our experiences with Ford had been particularly good until recently (Bishop, CA and Portland, OR). Now we need to get an oil change and a “recall” issue resolved. So, we are going to another Ford dealer in the area this week.

Visiting - Trout Lake, WA

Ruthi drove up to Trout Lake to visit the college sorority sister (Mary Barsotti Calahan) who had convinced her to move to Alaska back in 1971. Ruthi travelled up there via Interstate 84 to WA141 and returned via WA141 and 14. While the interstate was a bit faster WA14 felt like the “old” new Seward Highway (in AK) before they put the 4 lanes in – water on the left and granite on the right (heading North in AK and West in WA) – brought back a lot of memories!

Trout Lake is located in a valley below Mt Adams which again reminded Ruthi of how Denali towers at the end of the highway as you approach from the South. Mt Adams was still covered in snow and shining bright. Ruthi and her sorority sister reminisced about old times and enjoyed the bright sun and surrounding valley scenery. The valley is currently completely organic in the approach to the vegetation and livestock. They produce organic milk, as all of the dairies abide by the restrictions of “organic”. There is also an herb farm (Trout Lake Farms) which is also organic.

Then Mary took Ruthi by the ECETI Ranch (http://www.eceti.org/). Check out their website. They claim to have seen (and still are seeing) numerous UFOs above the ranch near Mt Adams. So besides the rafter/kayakers tourist come up to the ranch during the summer months – makes for a quaint town attraction.

Mountains - Roseburg, OR

Mountains on both sides of the high plains farm/ranch district of Northern California. Because we share the driving, Ruthi did indeed get to/have to drive the ups/downs. We could see that it was much different on south-bound Interstate 5. We remembered our rush through these same mountains when we left Anchorage and hurried to LA in June of 2008.

The temperatures are much more comfortable now that we have left the high Sierras snowy season. It’s still rainy a bit but definitely shorts and maybe tank tops in a couple of days. Everything is greening up and Ruthi is looking forward to road side cherry stands – as Bings are her favorite fruit.

Feather River Canyon - Quincy, CA to Chico, CA

Well, we finally did it - hauled the 5th wheel down CA route 70 from Quincy to Chico and beyond. Boots' son/daughter-in-law drive it all the time and poo-pooed our hesitancy. The right side of the road for most of the way down is granite walls that had been blown to put the road way it. Ruthi swears that on some of the many many curves she could reach out and touch the stone. And, part of the way down there is a guard rail and steep decline to the beautiful river below!

Lucky for us the rain stopped as we drove out of Quincy and didn’t start again until almost at the bottom. The sun wasn’t out but it was very clear with high clouds.
Also, the traffic in both directions was very sparse this Sunday morning. Just before we got onto Interstate 5 North, we ate lunch and traded drivers (Boots does mountains, Ruthi cities).

We are currently camped in the mountains surrounding Lake Shasta. It’s a bit rustic, think “Deliverance” but it has a camp store with ice cream. How much else do we need? Our drive-thru site is level, electric power is clean, and our Verizon reception for the phones and “air” card is great. Best of all, we get Direct TV via our rear roof mounted dish which isn’t always possible in some of the more expensive sites we have been.

Since we are in the mountains, Boots will be driving out and into the heights on Interstate 5 into Oregon tomorrow.

We forgot to mention, that coming down the canyon we saw a sheriff's emergency vehicle on the sid eof the road and one of their helicoptors hovering over the river. The power company (PE&G, we think) manages the flow of water in the river so that kayakers can have a class 4 or 5 run down the river. At first, we thought there was an accident but then noticed people with cameras/lawn chairs and figured it was either an established race or training for the Sheriff's staff.

Book Review - Quincy, CA

Ruthi's sister sent us the hard back copy of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (the 3rd in the series) by Stieg Larsson. Ruthi finished it while the kids were at Yosemite for a school trip!!! Then boots dug into it. Again, these are books that cause the reader to shut out the rest of the world for he hours/days it takes to get form page 1 to the end.

Ruthi and Boots had mixed emotions getting into the book. Lisbeth seemed again to be in a position of great vulnerability and needed to be the only one to protect herself. Until page 129 (don't want to give away any of the great plot), Ruthi was reading with bated breath!! Then ruthi was able to charge forward with more hope of a better future for Lisbeth. When Lisbeth's brother was not found, Ruthi "thought what a great segue" into a 4th novel in the series. Though considering the angst of reading, maybe it’s just as well there isn’t a 4th. Both Boots and ruthi think reading the 3 books in a row would have been better. Waiting so long to get to this one (our own fault though) really made the terror high pitched!!

We still highly recommend the trilogy!!!!!

Rewind – Quincy, CA

We watch lots of taped TV and internet footage. As a result we rewind often: to catch what was really said or shown. Ruthi noticed when she attended “live” arena football back in Anchorage that she really missed that function – i.e., the ability to rewind/replay a particular action. In the truck, we have SiriusXM Radio and the rewind function isn’t available there either. Though, Boots did discover she can rewind (up to about 15 minutes) live radio on her IPOD. Of course all of her Podcasts are rewind-able.

So, where are we going with this? Ruthi was watching one of our neighbors load up his stuff in anticipation of leaving the campground. He was one of the loggers with a long term spot for the winter. He was gathering stuff and getting ready to drive his 4-wheeler up onto the truck bed on an angle with the front wheels on the built-in tool chest at the front of the bed. While a lot of people drive their ATVs up onto the trucks, this looked to be a little steeper that safe. Ruthi keep watching between surfing the net and wouldn’t you know it she missed the whole thing. DARN! Where’s the rewind function when you really need it!

Snow AGAIN – Quincy, CA

This is beginning to look a lot like Alaska! Rain turned to slush and then REAL snow. While Ruthi was out walking the dog, Karma got a bright trail of white on the top of her head and down her back. She kept shaking it off but it returned pretty quickly. It snowed off and on all night and we had a good inch on the truck this morning.

We definitely need to do this visiting in June!