The "Year-long Trek Across the Country" Begins! [230403]
Well, the day has finally arrived. After months of planning and preparation we left the comforts of home and piled into our (almost too) fully loaded van and started on the first leg of our journey toward our first stop: Lampasas, TX to view the total eclipse next Monday.
Final packing and wrap up took the entire morning, and we left the house a little after noon. Our first "stop" of the trip was actually only 50 miles down the road, at the CAT Scale in Westley (the first on our route) to re-weigh ourselves. We had weighed ourselves the previous Friday (at the CAT Scale in Martinez, which is the closest to home) after being about 90% packed and having topped off our water, propane, and gas. At that weighing we found that while we were still technically below the vehicle's Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, we were dangerously close to the rear Gross Axle Weight Rating - and still had more items to load! So Saturday morning was spent shifting cargo from the back of the van to the front, and jettisoning some things we didn't really need to bring with us (largely extra food, propane, and water). The re-weigh in Westley was mostly for our peace of mind, to confirm that our efforts paid off and we were safe for travel weight-wise (which we're happy to report that we are now).
We had an interesting Monopoly "Bank Error In Your Favor" moment at the Westley gas station, though. We had pre-paid $25 cash to top off our tank, but when we went to get our change the attendant insisted that we had pre-paid $40 and gave us the change for that. We tried convincing him otherwise, but "that's what your receipt says", and apparently there's no arguing with that logic? So . . . we essentially ended up getting our re-weigh "for free" that day.
We had another odd gas station experience in Tahachapi. GasBuddy reported a price of $4.63, but when we arrived at the station the signs said that was actually the cash price, and credit would be $4.75. We decided to fill up anyway, and when we swiped our card the pump ended up only charging $4.58 - so apparently the gas gods were smiling on us today in general.
The first day of driving ended up being somewhat windy, so Tom ended up "driving with the truckers" instead of passing them like he normally would (since the tall Travato doesn't handle particularly well in the wind). The van's computer showed a total travel time of 6 hours and 53 minutes to reach our first stopping point: the Slash X Ranch Cafe - a Harvest Host (our first ever!) that happens to be a restaurant that is only open Friday - Sunday for meals, but lets HH members stay every day of the week. So we got to stay at our first Harvest Host without actually having to buy anything. We arrived after dark, and parked in their large back lot (with 3 other RVs) as previously instructed and called to check-in. This is the view we saw of the Slash X barn from the parking lot.
The next morning, we took a short walk around the site before breakfast.
Looking through the front of the barn, you can see the T42 out in the parking lot.
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Since this is the start of our journey, we thought we'd take a minute to update you on some of mods we made to the T42 over the winter. Just as the USS Enterprise went through a substantial refit between her five-year mission and next voyage...
The most externally visible change was the addition of the mount and spare tire to the rear door (Winnebago removes the RAM Promaster spare in the course of upfitting it into a Travato). The door originally looked like this:
And after overcoming the psychological hurdle of drilling holes in the body of our brand new van, the mounted spare looked like this:
On our past trips we've travelled with our bikes uncovered, but since we're bound to be travelling in inclement weather on this year's journey we wanted a cover of some sort. Unfortunately, finding a cover that "fit" our bike rack proved difficult - and the fact that the right tail light would be completely obscured by any sort of cover was problematic as well. We finally found the "perfect" cover: one that fit the arms of our rack, and had translucent side panels designed to let tail lights shine through (it also has bungees not used in this photo, that keep the bottom from blocking the license plate).
If you look closely, you can also see the pair of mini-LED floodlights we mounted to the trailer hitch, than can be hooked into the 7-pin trailer connector to augment the reverse lighting. On our past trips, we found the Promaster reverse lights woefully inadequate for lighting up a campsite parking area such that the rear view mirror camera could see anything.
The 5 foot sewer host that Winnebago provides has worked on our trips so far, but we've heard that there are places where it will simply be too short. Therefore, we mounted a second storage tube under the running board, to store a 15 foot hose and adapter set to use in those scenarios.
Inside the coach, we've added some livability enhancements and creature comforts. In the dinette:
In the galley we added hanging baskets to hold our toothbrushes, sponge, etc.
At the foot of the bed we hung some shower caddies from snap straps (so they can be removed when the murphy bed needs to be folded up) for Christine's toiletries.
On the bedroom/hallway wall we hung a retractable drying rack, and a folding tray for Tom's glasses, phone, etc. at night.
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