New reefer, that's refrigeration type, even if we are in Oregon:-)

We took a different route over to Bend than the one we took westbound.  Lots of curves, lots of views, and one pretty good hill.  Not as big as I wanted, but it went up about 5000' over a course of 4-5 miles, pretty steep.  I did not baby it at all, in fact I kept my foot on the gas, floored the whole time, and our new pump seemed to perform, no higher temp than 201df!  I am not calling it 100% yet until we actually pull a real steep, real high pass on a hot day, but it's looking good.

One of the views on the way over to Bend

Now, usually I don't bash RV parks on here, but we really had a poor experience at the park we stayed at in Bend, Crown Villa.  First off, we did not intend to stay there at all, their rates are higher than we wanted to pay, $85-$109 a night plus tax.  When we knew we were coming to Bend to get our new refrigerator we called 3 other RV parks, but they were all full.  We had to find somewhere to stay as our refrigerator was already there.  So we booked, supposedly their last site for $90/night, with tax $100.98.  When we pulled in, it looked very nice, very parklike, very shady with big pines everywhere, large sites, all done with pavers, our hopes were high.  A bunch of sites were empty, but we figured they just hadn't arrived yet. As it turned out there were numerous empty sites each night.  We got our site and then drove over to find 2 huge branches hanging down over the road, we were just able to mostly get around them, and then backing into our site, we had to drive through 2 more branches, which were fairly benign, but this is at a $100/night resort?  So after we got hooked up, Jan went to the office to tell them about the branches and that we had to leave early the next morning to get our refrigerator, and that we'd be back.  They told her a maintenance man was coming in at 4pm and would take care of it.  Super!  Well at 6pm, nothing had been done, so I went to the office to find out what was going on.  I was told nothing would be done until the next day earliest, and then the lady said, I'll walk down with you to see what's going on, okay.  She doesn't seem too concerned, and I remind her that we have to leave early, what is going to be done?  Well, you can drive over the grass to get out.  I said all you need is a ladder and a hand saw and this would be taken care of.  Well, she said, we don't have any tools like that and will have to call a tree service.  Anyway we left, over the grass in the morning.

Jan gets a call about noon that they have taken care of the 2 main branches, but did not do anything about the other 2, so we are going to move you to another site?!?!?  Okay, whatever works.  So when we come back we are instructed to move to a pull-through, one of the most expensive sites in the park at their expense, okay.  So we go to the new site, and is it long, must be 140' long!  But there isn't enough width to even step out the door without stepping in soft grass covered mud, and we can't get our satellite dish.  And to boot we have a close and personal view of a decrepit junk yard next door, only accentuated by the roaring of a dirt bike buzzing back and forth.  The attitude and actual experience of the place overwhelms the visual impact you get driving in.  We will not go back.

Okay I'm off the soapbox now, on the refrigerator.  Our time in Bend was short and focused on getting the frig.  Now I will say we did underestimate the simplicity of this operation.  I had arranged and paid for the new one at Lowes in Bend, the perfect storm of a very good sale, no sales tax, and the assurance of having help.  So off we went early in the morning, we were assured the parking lot would be more open and we would have more help.

Our temporary work zone:-)

First Jan emptied the frig in the sinks and on the counters, we figured, right this time, that the food would be fine for a couple hours.  We arrived at 7am by the way, and once the food was unloaded, we needed to get the restraining bar off and trim removed so we could pull it out.  Then we had to remove the top 2 doors and the bottom freezer drawer, then all the shelves, turn off the water and disconnect the ice maker line.  It definitely took more time than we anticipated.  Then we flipped our rug over and used it as a dolly to slide the frig across our wood floor to the door.  We also had to remove the co-pilot seat to make room.  Easy to do, but that chair must weigh 200 pounds, but we got it up on the couch.  Also we took off our screen door to open it up a bit more.

Everything out and the frig pulled

Screen door off, co-pilot seat removed

Almost in position with my wonderful helper

We're ready, time to get the new frig delivered

We made a pile in the parking lot, and went in to see if we could get the new one delivered, it was sitting right there and they brought it out immediately.  That gave us time to unwrap, and remove the doors and shelves before we needed help.

The new frig arrives

Getting it unwrapped, off the pallet, and dismantled

Then came the moment of truth, to get the old one out and the new one in, luckily we had two excellent helpers, Ralph and Tony which made this all possible.  There would have been no way Jan and I could have done this, even dismantled the refrigerators are extremely heavy and very cumbersome, and we only had an extra inch of room.

Ralph and Tony outside and me inside
Out comes the old one

Out!

Getting the new one in I deferred to them and just helped and guided it in

Almost

Hooray!  In the door!

Once it was in Jan and I took over to put it all back together.  Meanwhile our old one along with all the shelves and doors disappeared.  We took our time getting it together correctly. I should mention somebody was extremely pissed about this operation and about being restricted to the bedroom, Bert definitely made it known how he felt.

How dare you! You are killing me back here!!!!!

So we got it all back together and all we have to do is cut off the end of the ice maker line and slip it in the fitting that is just like the other and we are good to go.

Ready to go back in as soon as the ice maker line is connected

The fitting

AND IT STARTS LEAKING!!!!!!!!!  Well, we are at Lowes.  So in we go to get a new fitting, finally with some help find what we need, come back out, hook it up, and IT KEEPS LEAKING!
So back in for a different part, back out, get it installed, and it doesn't leak! Yeah!

Bert is totally exhausted from this ordeal and is trying to recover

And so are we, it is now 2:30pm, we have been at this project for 7 and 1/2 hours with a five minute break for lunch.  And we are whipped, but the new frig is in, secured, and we are ready to get back, only one more thing to do, install the lock on the door.

Lock installed

So our time in Oregon has pretty much come to an end.  It was so worth going way out of our way to get all these items accomplished.  We can be confident our slide is repaired, our new hydraulic pump is installed and seems to be working well, got a chance to visit with some old and dear friends, our countertop is repaired, a new drawer that will make life easier is installed, new manly tires have been installed on the truck, and we have a new refrigerator.  Wow, wears me out even just saying it.  We have now moved on down the road after our very brief stint in Bend.  We are on our way easterly to intercept our original itinerary, and make a small unexpected detour before we do.  If all works out we should be back on plan by the middle of July in Colorado.

What a week!

We made our mad dash to Oregon without problems, had to fight overheating several times, but with some downshifting and keeping the revs up I was able to hold it to about 222df.  So we got here to Guaranty RV Park, a new campground the dealership put in for their own customers and folks like us passing through.  It is very nice, all paved with concrete sites, lots of room, decent price and so very convenient for us, The Corian and cabinet shop, Amazing Creations is 1.5 miles away, and the shop to repair our slide, the reason we are here in Oregon, Elite is 5 miles away!

So first thing Monday morning we meet Scott with Amazing to take a look at our cracked Corian, and so he can measure for a drawer we want built.  I should say Scott does Amazing work:)  He built us our custom cabinet in the living area with attached bookshelves, a swinging door mount for our TV in the bedroom and a few other odds and ends.  Everything looks absolutely perfect, and as if it had always been here.  Anyway, he measures and tells us he can fix us up later in the week, so step 2, we go up the road to our very important slide appointment at Elite.  

You can see the crack caused by heat, the stove top is right there

And hard to see, it continues about 6 inches across the counter

Thankfully after inspecting our slide, both Marty and Erik feel with some adjustment to take the majority of the weight of the slide off the rollers, the way it should have been, will take care of it.  They agree that the welded repair we got in Texas was excellent and the rollers look good.  Oh wow, thank God we don't have to pull the slide out!! 

Ready to go at Elite!

It turns out it is really a twofold blame game with this slide.  One Monaco didn't secure it adequately to the wall when it was built, and two, it slid down some causing the rollers to support most of the weight instead of about 25% as designed.  The slide mechanism is called an X-arm, and it is just that, a huge steel X that scissors in and out to move the slide, and support it from the wall.

Part of the X arm in the front of the slide

Detached for adjustment

Access is a problem, and this is the easy end!

But they successfully adjusted it and we are confident the problem is solved.  

I had previously talked to Freightliner on the phone so I ran over to talk directly to them and set up an appointment for them to replace our hydraulic pump, they said it would have to be Friday at 7am to get in the queue.  

We took Tuesday off:-)  Then on Wednesday, we did errands, Jan got her hair cut, I got a medical test done, and we got manly tires put on the new truck, gotta take advantage of no sales tax, right?

Our manly tires, yes they bought the almost new ones that they took off

Now on Thursday we had very important plans to see friends we hadn't seen in some time that have moved to Portland.  With the turmoil and busy schedule we had, we opted to meet halfway in Salem for a long wonderful lunch.  In the meantime we dropped off the coach at Amazing for the Corian and drawer work.  Well, we had a wonderful visit with Larry and Mary Ellen, and were able to catch up on years gone by since we'd seen each other, the absolute highlight of our week!  After we rushed back to pick up the coach, and Scott said he'd like a bit more time to work on the repair.  So we said after what we thought would be a short time at Freightliner, we would return Friday afternoon.

So as it turns out, an absolute saga at Freightliner.  We show up at 6:45 and wait until 7am when they open, I check in and tell them I want to talk to the tech, give him the new pump, and explain a few things.  All that happens promptly and by 7:45 the coach is up on the lift.  I find I cannot sit and wait very well anymore, plus they are one of these shops that won't let you in the bays unless escorted so Jan and I go for a leisurely breakfast, then to visit a cool RV store here and as I pull into their parking lot, my phone rings and FL says the new pump doesn't fit!!!!  The new pump I spent $1500 for????  So I call the place I bought it, they are dumbfounded, I say I will know more when I get back there and see it firsthand.  Then as I am backing out of the parking lot, FL calls back and says, oops, the pump does fit.....  But the lines won't go on, come and see it.  So we rush back.

Well, by the time we get back they think if they turn the pump 180 degrees it will work, so we wait and wait and we can see the coach is still up in the air, and they say they are having a lot of issues getting the lines on, so I say then make up new ones.  So I can't wait any longer, it is now 11:30, so off we go for lunch, and when we get back, the coach is sitting outside ready to go?  We still have to wait another 20 minutes for the bill.  It's almost acceptable at this point, and as I am paying the bill I ask if he topped off the ATF, automatic transmission fluid, which is what is used for the hydraulic fluid and I am assured he did.  So I walk out to check for myself, it's just what pilots do, and I don't see any on the dipstick!  Not to drag this out any farther, there is ATF in there, just not full, so my visions of them running the brand new pump without fluid isn't true thankfully, but it took 2 1/2 gallons of ATF to get it to the full mark on the dipstick!  So would I recommend Freightliner in Coburg, OR, probably not.  But the pump is on, seems to operate okay, no leaks, but until we pull a few big hills we won't know for sure.

The new pump(blue) connected to the PTO(red)

So now we rush over to Amazing and Scott and his wife go to work on the Corian.  Scott puts the finishing touches on the repair and his wife, Jeanette did an Amazing job polishing our countertop, it gleams!  And they not only did a fantastic job they sacrificed and stayed until 6pm to get us done since they knew we had run out of time!  Scott and his wife do Amazing work, if you need cabinet, counter, renovation, etc, work done, we highly recommend them!

All repaired

The patient polisher:-)

And Jan and I have a pleasant spot to wait

So when we rolled back in to our site at 6:30pm Friday after leaving that morning at 6am, we were whipped, not like we had done anything except stress out over this pump fiasco, but it's all done now!

Cheers to a great week!

So Sunday we start heading east again to get back on our itinerary.  We'll stop in Bend to get our new refrigerator.  Yes we decided to preemptively replace our 13 year old frig.  Lowes was having a sale, $700 off combined with no sales tax, combined with the fact it will go in and out our entry door, and they will take the old one, and help with getting the old one out and the new one in, we did it.  Story to follow, sure hope it's not like Freightliner:-)

Not a fluke!

We left Creede to head just 22 miles up the road to our "secret" boondocking site.  Kidding about the secret, as it's actually right off the road, but no one else even came in the parking lot while we there for 2 full days.  And from the evening on, you are all by yourself in the absolute quiet and absolute darkness.  At night you just can't believe the stars!

Our spot

We wanted to fish in Clear Creek which is right outside our door, but it is very high with the snow melt, so we took long walks out into the meadow and out along the creek.  Not a soul in sight:-)  We had some rain and snow showers move through while we were there and it just added to the experience.  

How we dealt with the rain:-)

We woke up on our first morning and as we were having coffee, I looked up and wondered what I was seeing.

Good morning!
A young bull moose come for breakfast 

We went out and Jan got her camera and lens and she tried to get a closer picture.  We found out, it is just amazing how a bull moose can just disappear in the willows.

She was able to get this one

This is about 100 yards max from our window, how cool is that?  After the excitement we took another walk.

The over flowing Clear Creek
Look closely you can see our coach way out to the left

Another shot, the coach is nearer the middle in this one

I said we'd know more about our pump after we went up to Blue Mesa over Slumgullion Pass, 11,530'.  Well that part of the trip didn't solve it.  Turned out it was about 45 degrees out and there was absolutely no traffic so I never went faster than 30 mph which didn't put much strain on the engine. We didn't think of the serious hills, not passes, on the way from Lake City to Blue Mesa Reservoir, where we did run too hot, up to maybe 210 or so, still not right.  

We went into Gunnison for lunch to a place we'd been about 3 years ago and enjoyed, Twisted Fork.  It was just as good as we remembered.

Jan's delicious Vietnamese tacos

My amazing Dragon Noodles

After we took a ride up to Taylor Reservoir, still quite a bit of snow.  I decided while in Gunnison to pick up a new hydraulic filter to see if that might help our problem, and put it in when we got back.  The next day we left for Chatfield State Park, just south of Denver.  

We found out very quickly that we had completely forgotten Monarch Pass, 11,312 just a few miles out of Gunnison, duh.  We kept our fingers crossed and I was able to nurse it up in 3rd gear at 1800 rpm and was able to keep the temp to 212df.  But darn it is not right!

Monarch Pass

Chatfield State Park is a large park in Littleton with a lake, and nice large sites, even has a 2 paved runway RC field!

And a pretty nice view from our site

I knew Monday morning I was going to have to address this hydraulic pump, but one thing kept nibbling at us, what if it really wasn't the pump?  It's an expensive part, and boy to find out it isn't it would kill us.  I should explain a little further.  The hydraulic pump on our coach provides hydraulic pressure and flow to our cooling fan mounted behind our radiator stack, when you first start the engine the fan turns quite slowly, but when the wax valve senses heat over 185df, it starts to melt and ports more and more hydraulic fluid to the fan so it speeds up, in fact when it is hot the fan sounds like a turbojet, it howls.  Now when we got the top of Monarch Pass and the temp was 210 or so, I stopped and ran back to check the fan, and it was barely turning.  The fact that all our problems started exactly at the same moment the pump was rebuilt points to the pump, but......  So before I started calling around for pumps, I felt we really ought to make sure it wasn't a bad wax valve.  The procedure is to swap the two hydraulic lines on the valve and it will force the fan to high, if the fan goes fast, it is a bad valve, and if it doesn't, it's the pump, so we did the test.

The wax valve and you can see the 2 hydraulic lines 

Well, the fan did not speed up, bad pump.  Some explanation is in order.  The pump we have, a Sauer Danfoss CPC-1047 is a pump they don't make anymore, the company sold the rights to another company, in fact, the one I bought the rebuild kit from.  So to replace a pump with a new one is a bit of a struggle now, do you want another of the same that doesn't have a good track record, or do you try to find a compatible replacement.  Also to get a new pump from the company that makes them requires a 4 week lead time.  So with much time and research on one of the forums I use, IRV2, I found a company in California that has stepped up to the plate with a new replacement pump, one made in the US, has parts readily available, and is a complete plug and play replacement, also it is a commercial pump with a design life of 25,000 hours!  And when I called and talked to them they were very knowledgable, and had done a ton of work with this new pump, and it was several hundred dollars cheaper than the original remake, and best of all they had several in stock!  So it has been ordered and will be installed in Oregon.

So in the meantime we have been busy, one of our goals was to finally get the galley faucet taken care of and we did, it still took 2 trips to the store, but it's now all done!

We've done quite a bit of exploring around the area up to Estes Park, back through the mountains, down to Deckers, up to Boulder to visit the Liberty Puzzle factory, and have had a great time in the Denver area, we like it a lot.  Quick mention, if you have never heard of Liberty Puzzles, they are without a doubt the very best jigsaw puzzle available, they are high quality, made on maple plywood, extremely intricate, and very difficult to do, and they are made in Boulder.

Through the canyon to Deckers

Lots of snow near Estes Park

Also, just so you know, we show a lot of restaurant food on here, maybe too much for some folks:-)  But 95% of our meals we prepare ourselves, so I will just show one of our delicious meals here in Denver.

Beautiful fresh Copper River salmon ready for the grill

Baby bok choy grilling
yummy!

We are leaving this am for our mad dash to the coast, keep your fingers crossed that our failing pump gets us there without a problem.

Up to Creede, almost back to normal

Spring is late here in Colorado, even the natives are complaining.  Still cool and cold, highs in the 50's to 60, lows in the freezing 30's.  We have found many of our favorite roads are still closed.  We had an uneventful trip up to Creede, all 24 miles of it, engine temps were absolutely normal, we'll know more when we go farther north up to Blue Mesa Reservoir later in the week, over Slumgullion Pass, 11,530', but right now we are calling it a fluke.

Big Meadows finally opened so we went to take a hike around the lake.

What a beautiful spot

Well, our intention was to hike all the way around, but there was way too much snow, so we went about halfway and came back.

A little pile of snow

Jan, the happy camper

After our hike we came back, had lunch and I tied flies for the rest of the afternoon.

Fun

We poked around Creede, but there is nobody there.  It is so quiet still, I guess the weather has kept the people away.  We had a good lunch at Arp's, and had a nice visit with the owner who commented that every business in town is struggling with the prolonged winter.  We then went up high on the mountain above Creede for our coffee.

It is truly spectacular here!

Even had some deer come through

Just below Creede they have done some reclamation work as the area is just covered with mines, and have made a nice walking path with a stream meandering through.  We got in a nice walk.

Jan had heard about a Natural Arch near South Fork so we went to explore.  We had a nice 35 mile ride getting there, but it was worth it.

Very cool
It was caused by erosion in a "Devil's Backbone" the remnants of a lava flow

We noticed a trail that looked like it eased up and around the corner, so we gave it a go.  Turned out it was one of those that around each corner, just went up and up, and after awhile even I was certain it must have an end to it, so out of character for me, continued until we topped out with gorgeous views, about a mile straight up:-)

The top

Spring has sprung

This gives a great view of the "Devil's Backbone"

A great day!

Back down the hill, then after a picnic, we went to see the wagon ruts.

Back down

Not a bad spot for a picnic

Wagon ruts, we thought they were from one of the famous westward trails, and like most of the examples we have seen over the years were unimpressive to say the least, but we were in the area so off we went.  We found a poorly marked sign that indicated the wagon ruts were down this "path", so we drove to what was a parking area and then read the sign that showed a path that wound up and over a substantial hill and then we were told to look to the right after we headed down the other side.  Well, up we went and down we went, and we looked here and looked there and about the time we were really pissed that the directions were so poor we found them, and what an example they were!  The rock was just soft enough to be cut by the steel rimmed wagon wheels.

Pretty amazing

We did find out that these were not made by Conestoga wagons heading west, but by Spanish woodcutters that used large nimble 2 wheel carts hauled by an ox that cut the tracks.  Still interesting.

So after an amazing day, we came back home to find what?  A leaking galley faucet that must have just started leaking soon before we returned as it hadn't made too big of a mess yet.  Note to self, those folks that shut off the water every time they leave may have a clue.  Jan started cleaning out the wet cabinet and I tore the faucet apart to see where it was leaking, it appeared to be a fatal break, so Jan did the dishes in the bedroom sink.

The culprit

The auxiliary sink:-)

So when you are in Creede, CO, where do you get a decent faucet?  Well, Durango turns out to have the closest Home Depot, only a mere 125 miles away.  What else do we have to do?  We had a beautiful day to make a beautiful drive to get a faucet.  After Home Depot, we went to have a nice lunch before we headed back.

A nice view of the swollen Animas

And delicious brisket and ribs

Then since we were in the "big" city, we hit the grocery store and headed back, and found out the faucet wouldn't fit!!!!!  Different fittings.  Why aren't the fittings standard?  Okay I just need a connector so back in the truck, down to South Fork hardware store 24 miles away that we had just driven by on the way back to find............they don't have it!!!!!  The joys of being in the boondocks.

Okay let's recover and talk about our options, we are NOT driving back to Durango, we need a galley faucet, we will be near Denver in 6 days, let's jury rig the faucet to get us to Denver where can get either another faucet or the fittings we need.  Okay a plan.  So I carefully tear down the faucet, check it out as much as I can, silicone grease the hell out of it, bulk up the O-rings, carefully put it back together, and for now we have a faucet.

Okay so now we want to do a picnic high in the meadows up Pool Table Road, off we go to find the road is closed, okay, let's go back up north near Clear Creek where we can take the road to Bristol Head, but no, that road is closed also.  Well, let's have our picnic behind the bluff near North Clear Creek Falls.

Picnic spot, at least we can see Bristol Head:-)

So you can see we are having a great time, and that Murphy just won't leave us alone, hence the faucet, so now we have been thinking our refrigerator is 13 years old plus, hmmm.  And Lowes is having a sale, and Oregon has no sales tax, and.........

Just remember, life is good!