Oct 04 2011

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TX

Guadalupe Mountains is one of those worthy national parks that we’ve repeatedly failed to explore adequately despite good intentions. The park includes some historic sites that we have visited, but the big attraction is a network of hiking trails that have a great reputation and are undoubtedly beautiful. We’ve never stayed long enough to do the big hikes.

Sadly, this visit will be the same. Our stop here was on impulse, because we were tired and the idea of sleeping in the midst of the mountains in a national park sounded a lot better than parking in some nondescript RV park near Las Cruces. Guadalupe has no hookups or dump station, but at $8 a night it’s hard to complain.

The tent area of the campground is pretty nice, surrounded by natural high desert vegetation. The RV area is an asphalt parking lot with closely spaces sites delineated by white painted lines, and a bathroom nearby. Our 48-foot combination just barely fit in the length of a campsite space, saving me from having to unhitch. The fifth wheel guys all had to park their trucks elsewhere.

I can’t recommend the campground on amenities but the access to hiking trails and the views are spectacular. The morning and evening light plays on the surrounding mountains and changes dramatically with the passage of clouds.

Having just hiked in Carlsbad we weren’t inclined to do much more than take a short walk around the park roads before dinner. Eleanor had a pork loin she’d defrosted and which had to be cooked, so that was dinner. She had planned to see a grocery store before cooking the pork, but the closest one to here is about 70 miles away, so she improvised with canned pears, red wine, and onions, and it came out great.

There had been an ambitious suggestion by Eleanor that we get up early and do a quick 4.2-mile hike on the Devil’s Hallway trail, but that was a non-starter. Or to be more accurate, Emma was a non-starter, waking up slowly. And then it rained, sealing the fate of our hike. But we have pledge to visit Guadalupe again sometime (which will be our fourth visit) and really spend a few days to hike the trails.

Oct 03 2011

Carlsbad Caverns National Monument, NM

We aren’t huge fans of the camping options near Carlsbad Caverns, so we devised a strategy: we’d spend one night at White’s City with full hookups ($33) and then haul the Airstream up to the parking lot of Carlsbad Caverns, about 6 miles away. A quick look at Google Maps revealed that there was plenty of space in the lot for long rigs, and being a Monday we figured park visitation would be fairly low.

This worked out but the park was far from deserted. We got one of the last long spaces in the RV area of the lot. Tour buses had shown up early, disgorging dozens of seniors and possibly a school group or two.

Because we arrived only a few minutes before the 10 a.m. “Kings Palace Tour,” we had to skip hiking down the vast and dramatic Natural Entrance route. This is the first time we’ve ever ridden the elevator down to the Big Room. It’s an ear-popping experience equivalent to a high-speed elevator in a 75-story building.

The caverns stay at 56 degrees all the time, and it’s fairly humid. It’s fine for an hour or so in almost any clothing, because you’re walking around, but even with a sweatshirt I always get cold after a couple of hours. Sitting on the concrete benches speeds up the chill, too. We tried to keep moving so we could stay long enough to see everything. Volunteers were in the cave, meticulously cleaning lint that has accumulated from the 35 million people who have visited, and they were dressed sensibly for the “weather” inside. You can see them in the picture above, working by the light of their headlamps.

Not many people choose to exit the cave through the Natural Entrance. It’s a steep hike (on paved trails) about 1.3 miles long, ascending 750 feet. In fact, we didn’t run into anyone heading the same direction except for a solo Park Ranger. Halfway through the hike I finally warmed up enough to take off my sweatshirt. With this route out, we figured our total walking distance for the day was about 4.0 miles, all underground.

Since Emma didn’t yet have a Junior Ranger badge from Carlsbad, we stopped for lunch and she worked on it at the table in the cafeteria. This is the only Junior Ranger badge she’s earned on this trip, since we’ve uncharacteristically made very few stops at National Parks.

Our “America the Beautiful” pass expired in September too, so we just renewed it while at Carlsbad. It’s still a great value for anyone who visits more than a couple of park sites each year. Back home in Tucson it gets us free parking at Sabino Canyon, free access to the Catalina Highway overlooks and parking, and free access to Saguaro National Park.

Our plan from Carlsbad was to head down to I-10 (El Paso) and look for overnight camping near Las Cruces, but after all the underground hiking we were more inclined to take it easier and just crash somewhere nearby. Forty miles away we arrived at Guadalupe National Park (Texas), which has a small campground, and pulled in to spend the night among the mountains. More on that tomorrow.

Oct 02 2011

Rt 180 across Texas

With repairs completed, we headed out from Paradise on Saturday morning. The air conditioner is working well, and the refrigerator seems to be passable. No cause was found for the refrigerator warming up into the 50s on hot days, but it works well enough when ambient temps are below 90, so we are just rolling with it (literally) for now.

Still, until Saturday we weren’t sure if the thing was just going to croak, so Eleanor kept cooking up things from the freezer. On Thursday night she fed seven of us, on Friday she did it again, and on Saturday morning we had five for brunch. It was like we were hosting a small rally, inclusive of meals. We spent the balance of Saturday morning retrieving all of our stuff, which had become spread out across the Mayeux’s home, their little cottage, and the shop, and got on the road at a leisurely 2 p.m.

With our plans once again in disarray and this late start, we decided to tow just 97 miles to Breckenridge TX along Rt 180 and visit our friends Erica and Jef. I last dropped in on them in April after dropping off the Caravel. Once again Eleanor made dinner for all (risotto and salad, simple but great), Erica made brownies for dessert and we topped them with a little leftover chocolate ganache. In the morning I had wanted an early start for a big day on the road, but with various putterings and ablutions and visiting we didn’t hit the road until well past 11.

So where to go now? One of our earlier plans had called for going to Carlsbad Caverns National Park for a ranger-led tour of one Slaughter Cave. This was no longer possible since the tour is offered only on weekends, but we realized that continuing across Texas on Route 180 and stopping at Carlsbad on the way to Tucson was actually 18 miles shorter than sticking to the Interstate. So we resurrected Plan G (or was it Plan H?) and took the scenic route across west Texas.

Some people might say there’s not much to see along Rt 180, but those would be people who haven’t traveled I-20 west of Midland/Odessa. It is true that the route is sometimes deadly boring and straight through dry cotton fields, but then it is peppered with little one-stoplight towns (each with a steakhouse) and little businesses that reveal the nature of this land: oil field service, farm equipment, and uncrowded fuel stations with dyed diesel for off-road use. Crossing into New Mexico there are massive operations for potash, salt, and — in the wide-open spaces of desert & prairie — landfills. The rest of the road provides plenty of opportunity for conversation with one’s passengers.

I actually preferred the drive to I-20 by a long shot, at least when towing. The speed limit runs 65-70 most of the time, which is more than enough for the towing purposes, and there are always opportunities for pleasant breaks in the many roadside Texas picnic areas. If I were not towing and just trying to get across the country quickly, then I-20 makes more sense because of the amazing 85 MPH speed limit along part of the route (75 the rest of the way).

We’ve been here a few times before, so we know that White’s City (which is actually just a small arrangement of tourist businesses at the side of the road just outside Carlsbad Caverns National Park) is the closest camping to Carlsbad Caverns. The campground is not much, but at least they’ve improved it since the last time we were here. The rusted-out grills have been replaced with new ones and the electric hookups seem to be new (although ours still didn’t work– had to borrow the one from the next site). Now you’ve got to show up with a 50-amp adapter because the RV area no longer has 30-amp plugs. Fortunately, that’s part of our regular equipment.

Our plan tonight is just to lay low after the long drive across Texas and get ready to visit the caves tomorrow. I’ll report on Carlsbad in the next blog.

Sep 30 2011

It’s cool in Paradise

It was hotter than Hell yesterday, but today it’s cool in Paradise (Texas). Not only did the heat wave end, giving us a beautiful day, but our new 15,000 BTU air conditioner was installed and is now chilling out the Airstream.

We don’t really need the AC today, but hey, we’ve got it finally and I want to make sure the unit is solid (not about to have a “crib death” as electronics sometimes do) before we drive away.

The refrigerator, however, is another story. No “smoking gun” issue was found. It seems to be slowly failing for an unknown reason. We found no sign of leaking coolant, no blockage in the vent, no ammonia smell, and it works equally badly on electric and gas. This points to internal blockages in the cooling unit, which are not repairable. The cooling unit has to be replaced, or the entire refrigerator.

Since it’s working a little (the freezer still makes ice but the refrigerator warms up to 50 degrees during the day), it was reinstalled for the trip home. We’ll use it with some bags of ice to complete this trip, then figure out how/when it will be replaced later.

The new AC comes with a high-tech looking thermostat which basically does what the last one did but looks cooler doing it. It reminds me of a Samsung front-loading washer.

Since we don’t trust the freezer entirely, Eleanor has embarked on a mission to cook up a bunch of the frozen stuff. Last night she made dinner for seven (Paul, Anne, Marvin, Annie, and the three of us) which we ate in Paul & Anne’s house. Tonight we’ll have dinner for five, since Marvin & Annie are leaving soon. Tomorrow, it will be IKEA day: Swedish pancakes and meatballs for brunch before we hoist our moorings and point the ship west.

Struggling with the dual appliance failures and talking to Paul, Denver (tech), and Marvin has gotten me thinking about other upgrades and fixes for the Airstream. Marvin & Annie are using a very interesting composting toilet in their 30 foot Argosy trailer, which they are enthusiastic about. It has several advantages: no more black tank, no smell, and the ability to boondock for long periods of time. On the other hand, it’s expensive at about $1k, does require you to empty a urine cartridge regularly, and requires a little user education. You can’t just turn someone loose in the bathroom with this thing and expect good results. I read the manual that comes with it and the manufacturer clearly has a bit of fun with the explanations of What To Do, and Where To Do It.

Eleanor and I had a chance to go inspect the Caravel, which is parked nearby, and see the work Paul did on it. It looks great. We asked for a few additional tweaks to the gaucho and battery mount, but nothing major. It will be great to break the Caravel out this winter and perhaps take it to a vintage rally (if we can find one in a reasonable distance) or do a weekend at some tiny campground like the one in the Chiricauha National Monument. It has been great visiting with Paul & Anne, so in a way I’m glad I’ll be making the 900-mile trip back soon to pick up the Caravel in the next few weeks.

Sep 29 2011

Not cool

Things looked hopeful in the morning when our refrigerator was reading 42 degrees, but as the morning sun rose, so did the interior temperature. By 11 a.m. I had conceded that it wasn’t cooling properly on gas yet, and Paul switched it over to electric to see if that worked better. I also turned on our fridge vent boost fans, which we normally use whenever the ambient temp is above 90 degrees.

No joy. By 2 p.m. the refrigerator had risen to 52 degrees inside, which suggests the worse possible scenario. These units don’t have a lot of failure modes. When the fridge won’t cool on electricity or gas, and the circuitry has been eliminated as a cause (as proven by use of Paul’s testing device), it usually means the cooling unit is a goner. They aren’t field serviceable, so the only solutions are either a replacement cooling unit or a whole new refrigerator. Either way, it’s bad news.

Before we go to the replacement scenario, we’re going to try “burping” the fridge, which basically means turning it upside down for a while to try to work out an internal clog of the gasses and liquids that are essential to the cooling process. That’s a desperation move. We’ll also remove the topside vent cover to see if perhaps something nested in there during our stay in Vermont. The refrigerator will be removed during this process. If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to consider various replacement options, which are dependent upon shipping and availability. We might have to go home with no refrigerator and donate all of the frozen goodies Eleanor has collected over the summer to Paul & Anne.

To add to the fun, this is the hottest day we’ve experienced in the trailer without air conditioning since we dry camped in Death Valley in May 2006. (In fact, that was the trip that inspired us to later install a pair of boost fans in the refrigerator vent, which have worked very well since. Until now. There’s no compensating for a dead refrigerator cooling unit.)

It’s 100 degrees outside as I write this. Because we have no air conditioning, the trailer interior is also 100 degrees. It would be hotter but our three vent fans running at full speed are keeping us on par with the outdoors. Eleanor had the excuse of grocery shopping for tonight’s dinner as a reason to drive off in the air conditioned Mercedes to an air conditioned store, but Emma and I just toughed it out. Emma worked on math, and I worked on Airstream Life.

When the interior of the Airstream reached 100 degrees, Emma and I went into full-blown Death Valley Cooling Mode. It’s dry here, so evaporative cooling is the trick. We took cold showers and then put on wet cotton t-shirts. I wiped down the dinette seats with wet cloths and rigged up a makeshift evaporative cooler for my laptop too, using a wet rag and a plate. All of this made the heat somewhat tolerable.

Good thing, because it would be easy to lose my cool given two expensive appliance failures. The air conditioner is gone after six years, and now the refrigerator is gone after just three years. This will be our third refrigerator. I’m not impressed with the quality of RV appliances — never have been, but this really seals it. I said earlier that they don’t make ’em like they used to, and I meant it. We replaced the original refrigerator in our 1960s-era Caravel after 37 years, and it was still working. (We replaced it only to get a larger modern unit with better cooling control, but now I’m wondering if we made a big mistake.) It’s not uncommon at all to find vintage Airstreams with original refrigerators in them. In twenty years, will anyone with an early 2000s-era RV or travel trailer have an original appliance left?

This afternoon we relocated all of our refrigerated items to a spare refrigerator Paul & Ann have in their house. We were too late for a roll of biscuit dough, which popped spontaneously in the refrigerator, and our milk is also history. But at least we are in a friendly place with resources. Eleanor is making dinner for Paul & Anne in their kitchen, which will use up some of our food. I know for sure we are having biscuits with dinner. Meanwhile, we’re working on Plans A, B, and C for the next few days, dependent on whether we fix the fridge, replace the fridge, or skip it until later and head home with an ice chest.