Nearing the Finish Line

With the constant degradation of the RV, we have opted to cut the trip short by one day and head back to San Francisco for a final fancy dinner and a day around the city tomorrow before flying back to the East Coast. We kept our spirits up and did our best to make do without any power the past few days in Redding and Yosemite CA. It was a test of patience and we refused the let the situation beat us.

Since we haven't been able to make any updates, I'm sure there will be more post-trip recap updates still to come. But for now I wanted to share one of my favorite stops on our trip. That was Crater Lake. We drove the East rim and made a hike down to the water, and chose to spend our time jumping off a 17-foot(ish) rock into the water instead of taking the small boat trip out to Wizard Island. The water was surprisingly warmer than we expected and quite refreshing.

As Seen In...Crescent City CA

The new face of hip hop.

Stuck in Pacifica CA

We could not have been more excited to get on the road yesterday. We started securing everything in the RV and sliding in the retractable sides. But one side wouldn't move. We literally placed 25+ phone calls to All Star RV "emergency assistance," home office staff and the owner himself. However, being that it was a Sunday making contact with people was proving to be problematic. We kept being told that people were out of cell phone range and/or that a mechanic was on the way. Finally, voicemail boxes were full and we had sat another full day in the same RV park. So we spent another night in Pacifica CA.

This morning a mechanic showed up bright and early. After some tinkering he found what we thought was going to be the problem. A pair of tin snips wedged into a place they shouldn't ever be and preventing the slide out from moving. Alas, removing the misplaced tool did not fix the problem.

Here's the tin snips:

After a couple hours, the original mechanic has been pulled off the job and we are told that another mechanic is en route who can "certainly figure out the problem." So why wasn't he the first person called to assist us yesterday? Great question. Should he not be able to diagnose the problem, a replacement RV should (might?) be showing up at some point this afternoon once it arrives from Las Vegas and gets cleaned.

The bummer of this whole thing is that it puts us behind schedule. We intentionally planned our trip to drive 150-200 miles a day which would allow us time to explore the area where we stopped. Because of the delays we are now going to have to make up for lost time and drive many more hours. Hopefully we can still see the Redwoods and I certainly don't want to miss out on dune buggies in Florence. Obviously the bigger issue would be making sure we arrive at Shane and Thereasa's wedding on Thursday.

Thus far everyone is remaining upbeat, positive and optimistic. But the constant set-backs and lack of customer service is mentally draining.

Hopefully the next post is from 350 miles north of Pacifica CA! Stay tuned.