TGRT: That Weighs HOW MUCH???

2/25/20  Las Vegas, NV – 0 miles

To see the entire road trip visit www.tanstaaflpress.com/tgrt/

After winning $500 from my fellow poker players yesterday, today I’m sitting here catching up on things while my friend is at work (I remember those days). One of those dreams is possibly trading the trailer in on a Class C RV, so I’ve been doing some serious calculations.

My original dream vehicle is the Freelander 27QB (https://coachmenrv.com/class-c-motorhomes/freelander/27QB/1523). I spent a great deal of time investigating this beauty until I started thinking practicality now that I have some RV time under my belt. The bloody thing is 30’ long. Both my trailer and car together are only 29’. In addition, a good deal of that length is beyond the back wheels. That means that rear end swings wide… I’d have NEVER made it through LA with that thing. Impossible.

So that means I need a shorter vehicle. I’ve found four that are nearly identical: Leprechaun 190CB, Four Winds 22E, Minnie Winnie 22R, and the Freelander 21QB (https://www.rvtrader.com/listing/2020-Coachmen-Freelander-Chevy-21QB-5007935566 ignore the price as I’d buy used). All of them are about 22’ long. The setup isn’t quite as ideal, but unlike houses, you don’t have a lot of choices in modifications.

One of my plans is to use the overhead bunk area (over the driver) for book storage. On one of the pics I saw had the warning “Maximum 300 lbs” As it is bigger than a double bed up there, I have to assume that they intend 2 very scrawny teens to fit up there. Well, since I saw this warning, I had to figure out how many books I’m carrying today, and the total weight.

For sake of argument, I’m going to say each book, average, weighs 1.5lb. Some more, some less. I pulled up my spreadsheet and saw how many books I’m carrying… Drum roll. I started the trip with 604 books or 906 lbs! Counting storage boxes and show materials I’m probably looking at HALF A TON! And I was wondering why my car looked low in the back and strained to go up hills. Good grief.

Well, assuming I go that route, I can store a portion of my total burden into the bunk area, I definitely will have to locate other spaces for my good written friends so I can find them a new home! There is a belly storage on the vehicles I mentioned before. I could store my restore cache in there and just carry the items I will use in shows in the bunk area? The other would be easier to get at for shows, but we’ll have to see how this plays out… More dreaming.

Next: Dice Tower.. VEGAS!

2/22/20   Castaic, CA to Barstow, CA  163 miles

To see the entire trip go to www.tanstaaflpress.com/tgrt/

So, sleeping right next to the freeway is a jarring and not very restful experience. I managed to get a few more hours sleep but not quite enough to get through the entire day. I did write fifteen hundred words or so on Of Demons and Coal, which got me out of there later than I’d hoped.

I lived for eleven or so years in the greater LA area. Can’t say that I loved even a single minute of the experience. I know people who LOVE the city experience. I personally don’t. Too many people, going anywhere is pretty much a full day’s adventure in BLEH. So in all the time I’d been in LA, I never managed to make it to La Brea Tar Pits. I was determined to at least visit. It almost didn’t happen.

Oh, let me interject that I’d lost my LA driving skills in the 22 or so years since I’ve been back. Driving in LA is NOT for the faint of heart. I’d rather face a wyvern than to drive those freeways. The 163 miles I mentioned above ended up took over seven hours!

Back to the Tar Pits. Now there are no freeways anywhere near the pits. And despite this it is in the MIDDLE of the city. So I should get some kind of medal for driving my trailer through very narrow city streets packed with aggressive drivers and pedestrians. Once I arrived and could see the park, there was no place to park my double long vehicle. I drove around the block three times and had pretty much given up when I found two curbside parking places together. With the aplomb of many years of backing a trailer, I managed to worm my way into the spot. Paying two different meters, I was off to see the pits.

Now, I wasn’t close, so when I saw some rental electric scooters, I thought I was in for a much more joyous experience. After downloading the app, I found that the scooters I’d found close to me were all “in maintenance”. Sigh. So shanks mare seemed to be my option. Walking did have some advantages. I saw a couple of neat pieces of art – a fountain and what will be a subway building.

I grabbed some pics of the tar pits. Most everything I knew from science classes in high school, but I did learn one thing from the visit… the pits aren’t natural.  At one time they were actually mined for the tar to cover roofs. The holes eventually filled in with water, which is why they have that oily liquid in them. I hadn’t had time to go into the museum. Overall, a disappointment but I had checked off another bucket list item.

Lo and behold, as I exited the park there were more scooters and these were available. I had to try. I rented one and zipped back to my car. And then back to the pits. And then around the block. And then… I had more fun on that damned scooter than the few minutes I’d spent reading signs I probably could have written before I even arrived.

Time to leave. I slogged my way out of the inner city (at least meriting the Bronze Medal), finally making the freeway, where I slogged more and again. What a pain in the fundamentals.

I was driving (could have walked faster) down I10 when I see an RV dealership. As a break I decide to go ogle. Now a question for the reader: Why would an RV dealership not have places for an RV to park? Not one. Do they assume no one would come in an RV or with a trailer? What about their service section? It makes no sense. I didn’t even get out of my car. Performed a multipoint turn in a DEAD END parking lot and left. Oh, well.

Shortly after this the freeways started opening up. My chest loosened. My breathing became easier. My foot stopped cramping from slamming on the brake everytime an idiot decided I’d left just enough room in front of me to squeeze into. How little things can make us joyful!

Made it as far as Barstow (high desert) before my eyelids started drooping. I was still two hours from Vegas (my next port of call) but intelligence won out over desire. Driving tired is a big mistake. I pulled into one of the multiple truck stops and called it a night.

Next: On to Sin City

Roseberg, OR to La Grange, CA – 522 miles

Go here to see the all the blog posts.

The truck stop I boondocked at had no fewer than four score and seven trucks bedded down for the night. I wedged my vehicle between two big rig trucks that cycled generators every thirty minutes or so. Add to this annoyance that when I did the death cleaning of my trailer, I forgot to put back the metal fence piece so I had nothing that would keep my blankets from draping down into my heater (I’ll note that I found a Home Depot and replaced it during the day today so I don’t have to worry every night). As you can imagine my sleep wasn’t the best ever recorded. On the plus side, I think I have the temperature control inside down to a reasonable art. I was never too hot or too cold. And I actually had room to move about. I never felt like I was totally jammed up. Getting to things is still like one of those number puzzles where you have to move the tiles around to get the numbers in order, but imagine instead of one empty space in the four by four grid, that there were two or three empty spaces. Much easier.

I knew that not making Ashland would have its consequences. The time in saddle today proved it. I woke up, performed my ablutions, wrote for an hour (yes, I take the time to write when possible), and had some cereal for breakfast. I hit the road at 8AM. I didn’t arrive at my destination until 9PM. I stopped for necessary breaks such as toilet, gas, and drive-through food, but that was pretty much all. I felt every one of my years of age by the time I put up in front of my parent’s home. I’ll try NOT to do that again. Thirteen hours is too much.

For those who don’t know, the border between Oregon and California is mountainous. Via I5, the trip is all up and down, up and down, rinse and repeat. My poor RAV4 strained up the steep mountain sides but did it nearly at speed, dodging around trucks plodding up at significantly less than half the posted limit and trying to stay out of the way of high-powered cars racing up like it were a segment of the Tour D’France.

As I was focused on the end point, I missed two photo opportunities (Welcome to California sign and the mountain pass elevation sign). My apologies. I did get a pic of majestic Mt. Shasta. I still prefer Mt. Rainier, but Shasta is also quite the imposing visage.

For those of you who have never had the joy of driving solo on a long trip, you have to keep yourself amused. I have four main activities to keep me from going berk while driving. 1) music… I love my music. Usually Pandora radio running eighties music (Sir Elton John, the Beatles, most anything from the eighties, and more. 2) Letters to/from a friend. No, I don’t read/write an actual paper letter while I’m driving, but long ago a good friend and I started sending cassette tapes back and forth instead of paper letters. We’d blather on as we drove and that would keep us up to date with one another. We’ve grown with the technology and now send audio files back and forth. I can listen to his adventures (he is a huge travel buff), or record my own daily activities. 3) Write / Author. No, I can’t actually type words while I’m driving and I never graduated to the voice recognition software, but I CAN develop plots for upcoming books / stories, hash out the next scene of my current writing project (Of Demons and Coal). For those that care, at the moment I’m dealing with a character who is feeling survivor’s guilt for somehow not saving some people. It is emotional writing. 4) I listen to movies. I did say that correctly. If I’m paying attention to my driving, I’m obviously not watching movies, but I can listen to them. I pick movies I’ve seen before that have a good deal of dialogue and don’t necessarily rely on visual effects. A really bad choice of movies for this would be: Any JJ Abrams movie, Castaway, Live/Die/Repeat, Dances with Wolves, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, etc. For the record I listened to three movies on this long trip segment. Apollo 13, My Cousin Vinny, Ike: Countdown to D-Day.

Off topic: Looking through my pictures I realize I forgot to share my booth set up at RadCon last weekend, and a mystery guest who I just had to grab a snap of (No, I really don’t know who it is.)

And finally, as promised, a couple of shots of my “desk”. Yes, it is crude beyond belief, but it works. Totally worth the time and lumber scraps I threw together to make it. It doubles the usable space.

I won’t be adding to this blog for a couple of days as I’m visiting family. Important to me, but likely boring to the extreme to anyone else I’ll touch base again when I get on the road south toward LALA Land. By plan that will be the 21st.

Next Post: Well THAT wasn’t a good idea.

Feb 16 – Pasco, WA to Castle Rock, WA   265 miles

First, I want to start this by saying that my expectations of RadCon, while higher than my previous years, didn’t come even close to the reality. I appreciate how us book sellers are now out where people can see us. HUGE improvement over the hole we were in before.

I can hear the joint voices crying out to me, “So why was it so much better than before?”

Finding out how many loyal fans I had in the area,

~40% better sales,

A request by Barnes and Nobles to come and do a book signing/reading and possibly even have my books stocked on the shelves,

A possibility of having one of my short stories (“Programmed Loyalty” which can be found in the Impulsive Walrus Anthology “Well… It’s Your Cow”) turned into a dialog play by an international voice actor!

Now all authors (but maybe not readers) know that getting ANYONE to take notice of your works or you is difficult. At RadCon I not one but TWO such wonderful interactions in the space of the weekend. I can tell you I was walking on air the whole weekend.

But all wonderful things must come to an end. Sunday rolled around and I found out that the dealer’s areas closed at 2PM, not the 4 or 5 I’m used to. This made it possible I could make it HOME to sleep in my own bed (and other reasons I’ll note below).  I decided to grab hold of this opportunity with both hands (which is why you didn’t get this blog yesterday).

So, why head home? Well, why not? Also, I’d learned that living in the trailer, as I’d stocked and packed it, very difficult. Primarily I needed to be a yoga master to move around. I’m not that young any longer.  I needed to remove several items, move others, and make a few items in my woodshop to make the trip more viable.

The cassette toilet was a mistake. It took up a HUGE amount of real estate inside and even as an emergency use, would fail (It took me a goodly amount of time to get it out). I removed several other remnants of an earlier camping trip (two chairs and a backpacking mattress) as well as some leveling jacks that I’ll never use. I moved some blankets (just in case it gets REALLY cold) into the storage as well as my dirty clothes bag. I can tell you that this alone made it feel like I’d just added an extra bedroom to my mobile closet.

To see all of the posts go to www.tanstaaflpress.com/tgrt

Next Post: Best Laid Plans

Even More Preparation!

Fuel sources for all my different off-grid materials became a problem quickly. I need gasoline for my generator (backup for my car) and propane for my heater, I decided that I didn’t need to carry yet another fuel (white gas) for my Coleman camp stove. So instead I splurged and bought a folding propane stove and installed a five gallon propane cylinder to handle the demands. Small issues with the propane like drilling a hole through the wall to run the hose, grommets around the hole edges to prevent damage to the hose, and venting just in case there is a leak to prevent fire/explosions.

Ohhh, how to stay clean! That was a fun problem. The primary thought that came to mind is “What do long haul truckers do?” They use three primary methods: they stay dirty (ewwww), they use truck stops where you can purchase a shower (good for occasional use), and baby wipes. Oh they aren’t really baby wipes but something similar and larger. Take one of those, wipe yourself down and you are nearly as clean as a shower. It leaves a little bit of a sticky feeling to it that takes getting used to (yes, I tested them), but good enough for road days. BTW, most truck stops also have coin op laundries so you can do your laundry while you shower. I figure once a week.

Thankfully, all of the books and show materials all fit within my Toyota RAV4 leaving the trailer for sleeping and sanity alone time.

With the way I interact with people at shows, many don’t understand that I’m an introvert, almost to the point of being a hermit. Without the trailer to retreat to I would soon be in people overload making me a good candidate for a rubber room. Even with that, I don’t have much space.

My simplified packing list went something like this:
Clothes (don’t forget con specific clothes like kilts)
Toiletries (don’t forget toilet paper, soap, spare glasses and sunglasses),
Water,
Food,
Fuelx2,
Medications/first aid,
Ice chest,
Rechargeable batteries of all sorts (CPAP, mouse, lights, phone, etc),
Books to sell and read (figure out max you can sell as you are unlikely to be able to get extras on the way)
Show materials (tables, tablecloths, lights, banners, etc)
Electronics and any chargers (phone, laptop, cpap, etc)
Tools (in case of a breakdown or issue with RV)
Games (to share with new friends)
Emergency gear (low temp sleeping bag, thermals, fire extinguisher, etc)

Now look at what is left of space for me in my trailer. Hope you aren’t claustrophobic.

Also I wanted to share my mood. The last couple of days I could have left at a moment’s notice. The excitement/anxiety has been building. I think the closest I can come is the anticipation of a race horse in the starting gate. It’s gonna open soon… soon… soon… soon…

Next Time: Kick off and the Disaster!

Previous: The Great Road Trip