DAY ONE - SF Bay Area to Calico Ghost Town

DAY ONE - June 10, 2012 

San Francisco Bay Area to Calico Ghost Town (Yermo, CA)

Tried getting on the road at 5:45a.m. but ended up leaving at 6:30 LOL. We had to make a stop 1 hour later because well, yup, little old me forgot to fill up my gas tank before leaving...No laughing...ok you can laugh, we did. 

We took our first break near Los Banos.  Ben and I had a great time picking bugs off big rigs for his bug collection.  Ben is doing great today, very clear! 

We then stopped in Buttonwillow.  Tim and I had a fun playing tag!  We took a little jaunt to see the Buttonwillow Cow...the kids LOVED this!  That was one big cow... 20ft I would say.

Back on the Road for another hour or so.  We took a side road (ok, so we got a little lost and we had to get ourselves back on track.)  We saw the Tehachapi Pass.  The train track wraps around itself in the canyon.  If you are lucky enough to be there when a train is going by it is really interesting to watch.  This was cool but unfortunately a train wasn't going by at that time...that would have been really neat to see a train wrap around itself.  

Next Stop Calico Ghost Town!  Calico is an old ghost town that is up on a hill with mines all around and interesting rock formations.  The town is a San Bernadino park and it is near the town of Yermo, CA.


We made it to Calico!  Mom (Mary Kay) made us all a yummy dinner.

Luke decided to help Ben build his bug collection by trying to catch these really cool looking bugs. It was quite a sight to see him running around with the net trying to catch it.  When we thought the bugs had won at the last moment Luke made a huge leap and caught one but then slipped and fell.  Luke is now on record with our first injury of the trip.  He scuffed up his knee pretty good.  But he did catch that Bug!  

After we got Luke bandaged up, Luke, Amanda and George went to hike these really cool rocks out here.  

Coletta, Mom, Ben, Tim and I went to the Calico Cemetery.  I guess the ground is mostly rock because they buried their people by piling rocks on top.  There were all kinds of little things people left on their graves. 

You should see the stars out here.  WOW!  Coletta and Amanda got up at 2am to enjoy them.


Stats:
1 boo boo
Notes from Grandma: Sooooo glad Lucy, my motorhome, also known by the grandchildren as "the Beast, is performing just flawlessly.  And I think she has earned her gas....  She takes the hills a little slowly but does pass a lot of big rigs!

Calico was great and NO wind to speak of!!  2 years ago it literally blew rocks at the cabin door at night.  The rock formations were as great as they were last year. 

"Beauty"

Since we are calling the RV "Lucy the Beast" I thought it was only appropriate to call the van "Beauty". :-) The Van is pretty much ready for the trip. We will take it in for one last tune up before the trip. She needs to have a window repaired and the air conditioning recharged. A week before the trip, we will be painting the new map on her side. This time we will need to carry most of the United States on her side, last time it was just half of the USA.

(Grandma says " you had better be nice to Miss Lucy!  She has the refrigerator and the bathroom!!!)

Getting "Lucy" ready

On Slice of America 1, (SliceOfAmericaTrip.blogspot.com)  I had my own little tent.  It was a pain trying to get in and out of that short little thing.  And...trying to get this old body out of a sleeping bag that is on an air mattress in a little tent .....not very dignified among other things (not to mention my aching hips!).

Miss Lucy
Anyhow, I threw caution to the wind (and hope it doesn't come back and hit me in the face!) and I found Miss Lucy.  She is an young old thing.  She is a 27' Tioga motorhome.  She came into existence in 1990 and didn't have that many experiences in life.  She only had 36,500 miles on her and everything is in pretty good shape.  For those that know cars and such: Ford Econoline 7.5 liter efi v8 E350  235 hp and 390 lb-ft of torque.....

Roof Repair

Her roofline was receeding  though so I spent several days cleaning the rubber roof and patching with Eternabond tape where it looked like there might be possible leakage.  That Eternabond stuff is amazing stuff.  You just need to have a dry, clean surface and pressure when you put it down. 

Then George, Luke and I spent a day last summer fixing her roof up with a lovely coat of Liquid Roof.  Liquid Roof is made just for motorhome and trailer roofs.  That stuff is great and not bad to apply.  It can be pretty messsy though!  We did a good job of not being too messy but if it was one person going up and down to mix a new bucketfull it could be really bad!  The roof has done fine all this winter.  And it looks so nice and white AND I don't have to clean it every 3-6 months like you are supposed to with a rubber roof!

Heat!

I know we are going to hit the heat on this trip so I have done what I could to help the situation as much as possible.

1. The new Liquid Roof is supposed to reflect a good amount of the sun's heat and insulate somewhat.
2.  I applied Gila Platinum Thermal Energy Film on all windows except the cab.
















In this picture I am trying to show the difference with and without the film on the windows.  The far side of the window shows with the film, the window is open so where it is darkest is 2 layers of the film (where both windows overlap) and the side on the right of the picture there is no film.  I was afraid it would make it too dark to see out the windows but it doesn't.





3. I replaced decorative curtains (about 6" wide) with thermal insulated curtains that pull across the windows.  I included velcro to close them tight for night.  (I am tying to make up my mind to get rid of the aluminum blinds or not.   They were noisy but thought maybe they would help keeping the heat out somewhat too.  So I made velcro straps to keep them from rattling and that took care of the noise.  But the question is do we need them with the curtains.  If I ditch them it would save some weight...)


 4. I haven't gotten this yet but I am going to get a Thermal curtain to go across the hall so the air conditioners don't have to cool off the back part of the motorhome

 5.  When the rain is done, I will paint the vent covers white and add some insulating styrofoam inside the lids.  Can't think of anything else for insulation.

Other things to get ready to go

>  The closets came with a rod for hanging clothes, which we are NOT going to be doing!  So I installed shelves to pack folded clothes.  The bottom shelf is where our few pots, electric skillet and toaster will be stored while on the road.  They each have their padded bag so they won't rattle.


>  The master bed has a brand new mattress.










>  The kitchen has a new clock.


>  The kitchen has a new microwave


> The living room area has a new tv with dvd player


> New steering stabilizer

> 2 new front tires


> A rear and side camera system

Signed,

 Grandma

Planning Slice of America 2!

Cathy and I have been in the process of planning our next roadtrip: Slice of America 2.  It will have been 2 years since we planned the first one and an historic trip it was!!  You can visit our First Slice of America blog at:   www.SliceOfAmericaTrip.blogspot.com

We had quite the adventures on Slice One:  The Dreaded Hot Dog Conspiracy, The Grand Canyon June snow storm, The Total Tent Wipe-out at Mount Rushmore and more!

This time will be a little different as far as transportation goes.  Slice 1 consisted of 2 vans, Slice 2 will include Cathy and George's van and my rv "Lucy".

The participants will include 4 adults, 2 teens, 2 pre-teens.  This time we will not have any intrepid friends brave enough to start out with us like last time!  We will miss them as we trace some of Slice 1's path.

We will be visiting lots of states we didn't see last time and have lots of new adventures!

Signed,

 Grandma