On the move again

CO Trail Thru-hikers Blueberry and Mark

Durango was a great base for the last couple months. Last weekend was fun, I rode the CO Trail, ran into one guy about an hour's ride in that needed a tube (it was cold and raining, would have been a hard long walk out), then talked to some guys who were in trouble with their girlfriends for poor planning and making a ride a lot longer than it was supposed to be, they had been out for ~6hours and were making matters worse by not waiting at a turn and hoping the girls would figure it out. The girls were waiting at the turn for the guys to return... Another guy had me make a call to his girlfriend as his phone had died and he needed a ride, turns out she had been to the trailhead twice already looking for him. Then I gave a couple thru-hikers a ride to town, had dinner with them and dropped them off at a trail angel's place for the night since they didn't want to camp in the pouring rain. Blueberry took 6 weeks, Mark ~28 days from Denver to Durango. See Mark's site, raising funds for Burma.

.

I raced the last Durango Devo short track Wednesday 9/9, won $50 for a series win, worked on the generator and hit the road to CA Thursday.

.

Dash airconditioning units don't do much to cool off the motorhome while driving. Ours has a leak so we don't even bother to put freon in it, especially since we try to travel/live where it is ~70-degrees. With three pets to keep cool we run the generator and the coach A/C when it is hot, this assumes the generator works...

.

Before heading to Durango I had Freightliner change my oil and filters in both the coach and generator (it took them two days, horrible experience, I won't go back, I can do it myself in 5 hours or less). Since then I have had what I thought was a generator oil leak. It wasn't a loose drain plug and was worse while running. I opened the generator (not a quick job) thinking it would be due to a loose oil filter.

.What I found was a diesel fuel leak at the fuel filter (which Frieghtliner had replaced). Durango Napa had a replacement filter, after replacing it I still had a leak. I guess it is the line between the fuel filter and fuel pump, if you overtighten the fitting it gets a hairline crack. Of course no one stocks the lines. I ordered a line from Cummins in TN, had it shipped to CA and hit the road without an A/C. When I was working on the generator wearing a jacket in 50/60-degree weather this didn't seem like such a bad idea.

Fuel Filter and lines (back one needs to be replaced, I think...)

.

Hot RV, hot desert, hot pets = BAD IDEA. The highest temp was 107, but not for long; mid to high 90s were the norm.

Hot Kitty and her ice pack

NE AZ and 30 minute stop for road construction. Open windows didn't really help much without the air flow.

.

The stop in Flagstaff, AZ was nice, much cooler temps. I parked and went for a quick ride. I ran across this family. The little boy had just wrecked and was not at all happy. I tried to distract him from crying by asking a bunch of questions while we walked all the bikes to a house. I told him he was tough and would make a great pro mountain biker. He said "no I won't, I keep falling!" and started crying again. Too cute.

.

OUCH

Friday night I didn't get much sleep, it was 86 degrees at 2:00am when I went to sleep and 80 degrees at 6:00am when I woke up. I got an early start but it got hot quickly.

Outdoor Temp

Indoor Temp

When I arrived at our RV park I didn't waste any time getting into my spot, plugging in and turning on the air conditioner. I registered, disconnected the truck, found my spot, didn't even get out to look at it, just drove by and backed right in. When I got out I had a few comments from the peanut gallery on how well I handle the 40' rig.

After I set up Todd met me, he has been on his own work schedule MD, TN, AZ, CA, AZ and back to CA. We finally met up, it has been 55 days apart. I think he has ridden 5 hours total in that time. His get back in shape weeks will correspond nicely with my end of season break, then we hope to race a December dawn to dusk race together in AZ.