Wandering Wahls

You’d think after being full time RVers for 16 months, we’d not make expensive mistakes anymore. We were proud of ourselves for carefully planning the journey to Colorado Springs to avoid crossing mountain passes and potentially having to put chains on this 41-foot beast.

Instead we drove south through Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino (are you getting hip to this kind of trip – stop me if you’ve heard this). We arrived in Colorado Springs among snow and 40 degree sunny weather—even my California Girl of a wife could handle weather like this! We checked in to the FamCamp at the Air Force Academy, which is a quiet, peaceful place, especially this time of year. (I wonder why.)

We knew enough to fill our water tank, then disconnect the hose so the water hose would not freeze at night. There are only about 5 other RVs here, and we did notice that some of them had lamps turned on under their RVs. Not bothering to ask why, maybe that was where they read the paper, we then set out to see our good friends who live in Colorado Springs.

They warned us of a cold front coming in (temps predicted to be -20 F with wind chill,) but we assured them we were cozy and warm in the RV. We came home late that night, with temps now down to -8, and found we had no running water. Hmm, that’s funny, we filled up the tank earlier—could the water have frozen in the tank? We called the RV manufacturer, Newmar, to ask about the problem.

Their reply: “Did you leave the heater on when you were out?” No, we were trying to save propane. Oops, that meant possible frozen water pipes, which ran along the furnace ducts, or a frozen water pump.

Our experienced RV neighbor Al helped us thaw out the water pump the next day by lending us a spare hot lamp and space heater. The culprit was found—a cracked water pump. Thank goodness for mobile RV service. $500 later, our water pump was replaced and we were back in business.

Now we know to leave the heater set at a comfortable 60 degrees while we are out. No more frozen water pumps. Do you think we will learn as many lessons when we move in to a normal house?

We had a wonderful 2 months in CA and AZ, where our primary mission was to spend time with our families. My family is in AZ, and we enjoyed desert weather and swimming in my dad’s 90 degree pool in his townhouse retirement community (it is always set to 90 degrees, slightly cooler that the temperature his fellow residents get when they see kids in their pool). MC’s (large) family is scattered around CA, but never fail to all aggregate for holidays and parties! Being stationed overseas for 8 years was glorious, but we missed so many family gatherings. It was terrific to spend time with family—and enjoy the parties.

With all this family time we were actually contemplating calling California “home”—(I know what you’re thinking—too many people, too much traffic, too high of prices – I kept telling my wife that same thing). But then the call came. I had been sending out resumes to many Universities to continue my on-line teaching. Then, I got a call from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, offering me a full time position teaching Business Writing (the class I’ve been teaching part-time for UMUC the past 10 years) in their Professional Writing Program. (This offer is for face-to-face teaching, not on-line.) So…we pondered it a bit – Colorado is a beautiful state, and was on our “Top 10” list, but 20 driving hours from family members that we just reconnected with.

When weighing our pros and cons of the move, we realized that we were sitting at the same dining room table at my brother-in-law Dan’s house in Wilton, CA, that we were sitting at 16 months ago planning our “Wahls Across America” trip – talk about full circle (irony or sign from God?).

We broke the possibility to MC’s family, thinking they’d be heartbroken that we’d be moving 3 states away. But they were actually pleased, promising to visit often! My brother-in-law Dan, always full of sage advice, smiled and said “Party’s over, Tom, time to go to work!”

And with that, the Wandering Wahls are pondering  (is it final?) “settling down”, and moving to the beautiful state of Colorado. But I assure you, the party is NOT over! Nor, the blog – I still have (mis)adventures to tell and new adventures about transitioning from military life to civilian life – from the perspectives of a retiree, her spouse, and their military brats (children) who have spent the majority of the past decade living overseas as a military family.

Sorry NY, We <3 CO now!

We’ve eaten very well and very inexpensively on the “Eating Our Way Across America” portion of our trip. From the $1.75 hot dogs at Coney Island in Fort Wayne, IN to a little joint in Coeur D’Alene, ID whose name I have forgotten. The place only offered hamburgers (with or without sauce), fries, and a drink. The line moved quickly and the food was delicious, and under $2.00 a hamburger. In Tempe, AZ we had fabulous Mexican food at a little inconspicuous place set away from strip malls and trendy areas.

However, we have encountered a few meals where we ask “why?” when discovering the taste/price ratio. These places tend to be in touristy areas where the tourists must feel it is part of the experience to dish out too many dollars for too little taste. A coastal town in California was part of this experience. We heard the place’s (I’ll keep the place nameless) cookies were the best around and worth having with their $4.00 cup of coffee. That price should have given us a warning.

But, since MC and I enjoy a cookie now and then (more of “NOW!” for me actually), we walked over to try the cookies. At first the price wasn’t so daunting, $3 for a couple of cookies – I mean, they had brown butter and sea salt in the ingredients so they must be gourmet (I was trying to not to sound too uncouth otherwise). Two surprises came – they weren’t that tasty and they were small! We had committed to pay for barely more than a quarter-sized cookie! Maybe the sea salt shrinks them.

Oh well, the weather was good and the beach fun. On to eating our way across America!

Let's go get a cookie!

I have come to realize that my driving leaves too much free time for me to ponder useless bits of RV philosophy, especially on those stretches where there is no radio signal to be had (which is frequent in the open spaces of the west). For instance: Is drydocking at an RV park comparable to purgatory? (Thinking about an issue such as this is either due to a wandering mind or my Jesuit education – or both.)

Drydocking is an RVer term for those times in an RV park when the full hook up sites (water, electric, and waste at the site) are full and one is shuttled to another side of the park where there are no, or only partial, services to await the opening of a full hook up site. Here, one must utilize a central spot to periodically fill up the RV’s water tank and dump the waste, while running the RV’s generator at the site (during limited hours) to enjoy TV, microwave, W/D, etc.

Drydocking occurs primarily at popular areas where there is a gathering of wildlife known as “snowbirds.” These very intelligent “birds” know that places like Florida, Sand Diego, and Arizona are much more enjoyable in the winter than other parts of the country.

I was recently recalling during a drive between Barstow and Flagstaff that when we hit the base RV parks at Tampa, Cape Canaveral, and Key West without reservations, we spent most of our time drydocking. We still had a great time and would return in a moment’s notice, but it occurred to me that this was like an RV purgatory – we’re so close to Heaven with all the blessings of full hook ups 24 hour power, yet we’re not without some access to them; we haven’t been dispatched to lesser settings, such as a Wal-Mart parking lot. Is this a metaphor for the purgatory I learned about in Catholic grade school?

I’d also go into the question of whether the children of the “dark side” in Star Wars use nightlights, but that really would demonstrate a need for more thought provoking diversions while I drive. It may be time for satellite radio.

We hope your holidays were enjoyable. We rolled the RV into the Sacramento area to my brother-in-law’s house and parked it there for an extended stay. He lives in a rural area outside of Sacramento (Wilton) on 5 acres, so our RV was unobtrusively parked along his property line. Mary Claire’s family met up there and we had the first family Christmas gathering in quite awhile (given our overseas assignments). The holidays were quite fun and busy.

I realized though that I have missed a few travel episodes from our journey to California. One such stop was the lowest and driest point in the country – which led to an ironic problem with our RV.

From Las Vegas, we headed to the lowest point in the USA – Death Valley, CA. The weather was beautiful, and we ventured out to hike, play in sand dunes, and relax by the campfire. The stars were brilliant. Also, the campground is a 30 second walk to the Visitor’s Center. Each night, the family would take some hot chocolate and walk under the expanse of stars to the Visitor’s Center to hear a nightly Ranger talk. I’m missing that as I write this.

Our only mishap though was that in the driest point in the country, our water pump went kaput! Unfortunately, the campground did not have water hook ups, and there was no shower. So we “roughed it” like real campers, hauling water in bottles and washing dishes at the central campground spigot. Our “roughing it” gave me a feeling of camaraderie with the tent campers who were camping without water and showers as well – of course, I then climbed into a queen sized bed and watched a little TV!

Two days later we headed to an RV service center in Bakersfield, and the water pump was easily replaced. (Mary Claire took a shower while I paid the bill.)