Finally a Good Hike!

Although we have been able to take a few nice hikes, we had not yet done a good challenge hike on this trip.  For me a challenge hike is either one that has some really hard climbs, or is a pretty long distance.

Our hike on Saturday on the Goat Mountain Trail in the Bass Lake National Recreation area filled the bill just fine.

If we added in the distance walked from the parking area, our hike up to the Goat Mountain Lookout and back was more than nine miles!  

About two-thirds of the hike was through mixed second growth forest, along a narrow but easy path. There was quite a bit of uphill, and going was slow at times, but most was a gentle incline along the side of the mountain.

The upper portion was along a fire road.

The end of the trail was this fire lookout at the top of Goat Mountain.

Conveniently, there was a picnic table there where we had our lunch. 

Given that it is October we had expected to see some fall color, but  most of the trees are either evergreen or live oak.  There were some other kinds of oaks that were starting to turn bright yellow, but most were still quite green.  

This was one of the few spots of color we saw all day.  We're not sure whether it was a poison oak, or a small regular oak.

All in all, it was a very nice day. We both expect to be a little stiff in the morning, but that is not all that bad.  

Finally a word about the Accent:  We were very unhappy to learn that the clutch was not still under warranty. It was covered for only one year, 12,000 miles.  We have had the Accent for seventeen months and put 20,000 miles on it.  We realize it was a cheap little car.  We could have paid a lot more for a better, used toad, but at the time the Accent filled our need for a toad and a runabout vehicle.  We have also already replaced the Chinese tires it came with. Hopefully this clutch replacement is not indicative of future problems.

Dealing with the Good and the Bad

The good is that we are  comfortable in a very nice Escapee Park in Coarsegold California.  It's much more park-like and pleasant than most of the short term we have been in lately.  The space is nice, we have 50 amp power and good cable TV.  Our Verizon hot spot is working fine, and the weather is good.

So what is the bad? This morning we set out to drive to Bass Lake, about 30 miles north, for a hike.  As we went up one of the hills along the way, the clutch in the Accent had a problem.  We continued on and although we were able to keep going we were well aware that there was a problem. 

We were able to pull into a car repair place in Oakhurst, but they could not help us until next week.  Thank goodness for smart phones!  We were able to locate and drive to a Hyundai dealer in Fresno. The Accent is there now waiting for a new clutch. We have a rental car and are back at the SKP park. More bad is that the clutch is not covered by the warranty.   When all is done it will be over $1200.  Not good for my budget!

But  we can stay here as long as we need to, and perhaps we can take that hike tomorrow. 



 

This and That!

The last two weeks have been very busy in very many ways.  The next two will be equally so, and the finally we will be taking off in the Alfa for a nice trip!


1. Art work:  April was a good month. I'm starting to see sales as valued in gallons of diesel fuel!  April will fill the tank at least twice.


May was a dud, but I did however receive an order for two sculptures, a Gnu and a White Buffalo.  I started them, and will be scrambling to finish and ship them before we leave.  Their sale  should cover much of the diesel fuel for our trip up to Crater Lake.


2. Painting and safety equipment: Although Craig did consider safety equipment, he decided against it.  He finished painting the area he could reach while seated on the walkway, but has now decided to hire someone to do the highest part.  Today he is once again climbing up and down on his 20' ladder and working on the lower part of the walkway itself. 


One painter came by this morning and will be sending us a bid via email.  He gave us two options.  Do it thru the painting company he works for at a higher price, or have him and his son do it on a weekend.  Since the company has insurance and workman's comp coverage, we will choose that option.  What we could save by having them do it on a weekend would be a small drop in our liability bucket if there was an accident!    A second painter is coming to look at the job  Monday.  


An end to this project may be in sight!


3. Toad:  Blue Ox and AirForce One are installed and we have towed the Accent.  We still have issues with just where we will be hooking up when we leave for our trip.  I'm sure once we get used to doing it, finding suitable hook up spots will become second nature.  It's just that everything new is so scary!  Any words of wisdom on this subject will be greatly appreciated!


4. Alfa repairs:  The back corner fiberglass work came out beautifully.  The entire back end has been repainted and we are still waiting for a new light glass and a new SeeYa decal.  The front spoiler looked pretty good too, but unfortunately we re-damaged it going out of the parking lot of the Hitch Shop.  The spoiler is just badly designed! It is way too low.  Scraping it on the ground was not anyone's fault.  Craig was driving as slow as he could.  Some Alfa owners have the spoiler cut off.  For now we will not have it repaired again. 


Since the Alfa is over at the repair shop anyway, we decided to have them  look for the cause of the increasingly annoying "whistle sound" in the cab area we have been hearing when we drive. It has been getting louder.


The report was that the windshield on the driver side has shifted out of the gaskets around it to the degree that it presented a danger of falling out!  EEK!  


That windshield was cracked and was replaced as part of our purchase in September.  We called the dealer, who referred us to the glass installation company, who told us to bring it back and they would fix it.  So we made an appointment for Friday morning and drove the 30 miles up there.  Although we were told it would probably only take a few hours, we decided to tow the Accent.  It was good practice.


It turned out that was a good idea because the glass installer decided to reset both of the front windows.  When finished he told us we could drive it, but we should be very careful of going over bumps because the goo was still soft.  When asked how long it took to cure we were told "two days."  


We knew there are some pretty rough areas on the roads between there and San Jose. We didn't want to damage the seal, but there was no place at the glass company to leave the Alfa for the weekend.  What to do?


The La Mesa dealership where we bought her is a short distance from the glass company.  We first tried to call them, but got only voice mail connections, so we just drove over there, explained our problem, and asked if we could park her there until Monday.  Permission granted.  None of the people we had dealt with last fall were around.  Since we had not had a good rapport with any of them, we were glad!  They said something about being sure we came back on Monday because they had a lot of rigs coming back from a "show". We didn't leave the keys, but will go up there as soon as we are done talking with the painter at the house!


So that's where we are!  Hope all is moving along for the rest of you.

Exhausting day!

Some days are longer than others!  Today was one of the more exhausting days that we've had for some time.


We started out early by driving the Accent and my van over to the RV repair place and picking up the Alfa.  We left the van there and drove the Alfa and the Accent across town to the hitch place and had them finish the Blue Ox installation.  They hooked up the Accent and we headed back to the RV repair place to drop it off again so they could install the Air Force One.  Craig says he could have installed both, but he wanted to have authorized installers so that we could feel good about the result.


On the way we stopped at a large parking lot and did a series of practice turns around some large plastic water bottles (our version of traffic cones).  We both drove and we each took a turn outside watching to see how the toad tracked behind the Alfa. It was fun. 


We then dropped the Alfa and Accent off and returned home in my van. We will be able to get the car back in a few days, but they are still waiting for our new back decal for the Alfa.  Might as well leave her there.


We have also asked them to do an air pressure test to see if they can find and fix two "whistle" noises in the front windshield.  They are quite annoying.


It was just past noon when we got back home, but neither of us felt like doing any work.  Craig has finally agreed to buying some safety equipment for the window painting project.  I don't know if it is because he is tired of me nagging, or because he has had a number of people tell him he should, as comments or in person, or if he has just gotten a bit scared when he was out on the ledge.  I don't care why.


We spent some time this afternoon looking at safety harnesses online, and then decided we should go and talk to someone at REI that might give us some advice about such things.


At the same time, Craig was reading the morning paper and mentioned he would like to see "Snow White and the Huntsman."  We don't go to movies very often, but since the movie theatre and REI are in the same shopping center, we decided to do both this afternoon.  


The movie was OK.  Not great, but OK.  We did get some information from REI, but they were unable to give us any advice as to what to do.  (Liability reasons.)  We will probably be ordering some rope and a harness over the weekend.


Exhausting! But it felt like progress.