Sunday morning we had one last breakfast with Mom and Dad Vug in Depoe Bay before they headed out. We went back to the house and packed up our stuff and then went to get the trailer. We headed south on the 101 planning on just getting into California.
We made it to a rest area just north of Trinidad, CA and called it for the night. As we were settling in, Craig remembered that we should have had a new RV water pump for the trailer delivered to the rental house. Ours had quit working the week before and we thought we had ordered one on Amazon along with few other items. We had multiple things delivered to the rental house but forgot all about the pump. The area we were in didn’t have good service, so we unloaded the Jeep and I drove a little ways up the road to get service to check our account. Turns out it was never put in the cart to be ordered. We were happy that it wasn’t sitting on the porch at the rental house 6 hours away, but we still need a new pump.
We got up early on Monday because we wanted to get to Russian River Brewing when they opened. They are very popular and we’d heard wait times can be up to two hours. They had just opened their new location in Windsor, CA on Oct 11 so we weren’t sure how bad it was going to be. We didn’t get there right at opening but the line wasn’t bad. We shared a flight of all their beers and had lunch. Pliny the Elder is an IPA that rivals Two Hearted for #1 IPA in the nation. It was nice to get Pliny fresh from the keg and try the other great beers too. The new building was beautiful and their beer garden was huge and dog friendly. Gus enjoyed the grass and we soaked up some California Sun.
Gus enjoyed the nice green grass
We love dog friendly beer gardens!
We had a rough time finding a place to sleep and ended up driving a little bit later than we wanted to. We finally found a pull off on the road to Woodland. We were up early again and got to a Costco before they opened and utilized the large parking lot to unload the Jeep. We went to the Four Wheel Camper headquarters to see the new models. It was nice to see the different options they have now. We are still considering our options…new camper or revamping our 2007 model. We have lots of time to figure it out.
We headed to Sacramento to get the last two trailer tires switched out. After some email arguing with the company, and the fact they sent the wrong tires out to us, they finally paid us out for the tires. The OK tire in Sacramento didn’t have the same tires we had already purchased and the marine store didn’t have a pump that wasn’t ridiculously expensive. We were a little frustrated that things weren’t working out. But maybe that was for a reason. We realized we were only 3 1/2 hours from our good friends the Timmers, and we could travel down the east side of the Sierra’s to get down to Ocotillo Wells, California by Friday. So we ordered the pump on Amazon Prime knowing it would show up at their house on Thursday, headed east over Donner Pass toward Reno, and sent them a text telling them we were coming. The Timmers are awesome hosts and always make us feel welcome.
We got to their place in Stagecoach, NV and had a great time. It’s always fun to chat over beers and catch up with them. Their dogs, Rhianna and Chloe, even seemed happy to see us again and welcomed Gus into their house.
Gus and the girls got along so well
Kristen and I took the dogs for walks in the mornings and I was happy to be able to see the wild horses in the area. It was pretty crazy to see them meandering the neighborhood and grazing in the yards. As cool as it was to see them, they do leave quite the poop trail. We had to navigate around some pretty hefty horse dumps on our walks and the dogs were busy trying to sniff them all.
Wild horses in the neighbors yard!
Nice view from the Timmer’s back yard
Randy and Kristen have a nice open yard and we pulled the entire rig in and unloaded everything. It felt great to clean it all. All interiors were wiped down and Craig was so happy to scrub the truck and trailer. After we repacked and reorganized, we ended up with a small pile of things we haven’t touched in 5 months so we’ll leave that here and hopefully be able to find a way to get it home. We have a bunch of friends coming out to the Timmer’s for Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to seeing everyone.
Cleaning house!
We went to Carson City to one of their favorite restaurants and had an excellent meal. We plan on coming back with the group to have a fun night out. Like us, the Timmers like good beer and there is a good brewery conveniently located next to their favorite restaurant.
Great beer at Shoe Tree Brewing
The pump showed up Thursday afternoon and is working as it should! With a clean, reorganized rig, we headed south. We are going to a Four Wheel Camper Rally in Ocotillo Wells for the weekend and need to be there this afternoon.
We drove until right before the California border and stayed in a pull off for the night. We got up nice and early and are enjoying the sunshine and mountain views. The weather has been great. It’s chilly at night and in the mornings and heats up nicely during the day. I think I’ll get to work on my tan this weekend and hopefully even out my flip-flop tan lines. We are looking forward to seeing a bunch of different rigs and talking with other Four Wheel camper owners.
Headed to Southern California…