This is all Barry's fault...

My friend Barry made a post on the C-Dory forum, stating that "Wild Blue is even more famous."  You may recall that when we were heading back to Texas last fall, we had a blow-out while towing across New Mexico.  Middle of nowhere.  BoatUS Trailer Service came to our aid, and had us going in just under an hour... we were very impressed.  I wrote a nice letter to them, thanking them for the good service.

Well, it seems that they liked the letter and wanted to use it in the magazine.  They also asked if we'd send them a photo; we were happy to oblige.  I hadn't given that any thought until Barry mentioned it this morning (it will take our mail a while to catch up with us).

A link to the magazine

In all our years of RVing and towing boats, that was our first blow-out while on the road.  I say "first," because today was the second.  I'm blaming Barry.

We were south of Quartsite, heading towards Yuma, enroute to San Diego.  The ride had been very nice; while I am not a big fan of the desert climate, we were seeing a lot of green on the desert floor...

We talked about all the RVs parked on the BLM land...

 I heard a slight noise, checked the mirror, and saw the first bits of tire coming apart on the 5th wheel, driver's side.  No great place to pull over, but we got off the road right away.  I went back to check for damage (almost nothing), because I have read about blow-outs with 5th wheels that really tear up the body panels.  We were fortunate to catch it right away and get stopped...

When I say "the middle of nowhere", I mean this...

And this...

Looking out the side, we saw this...

We have road service for the RV with Progressive.  One call, they asked a LOT more questions than BoatUS, but they managed to have someone out to us in less than an hour.  Devin in my new best friend.  He crawled under the coach to check the brakes to make sure that there was no damage to the brake lines.  He checked the wiring to the rear of the coach... told me that blow-outs often take out the tail lights - we were all good...

I dropped the spare from its perch under the back of the coach, and Devin made a quick swap...

Nothing to sign, he took down our plate numbers, wouldn't even accept a gratuity.  We were rolling.  I called ahead to Discount Tire in Yuma to make sure they had suitable tires in stock.  "No problem, we'll get you in and out, and you should still make San Diego before rush hour."

Yeah, that didn't quite work out.  The "get you in and out" turned into "an hour and a half before we can get to you" once we pulled in.  The place was a zoo... the salesman told me it was the busiest Discount Tire in the country.  I believe it.  The wait turned into over 2 hours... besides all the cars that came and went, 3 more RVs crammed the lot after us.  You would have needed a shoe-horn to get any more vehicles in that lot...

Nothing we could do about the wait - they take 'em in the order they show up.  Didn't matter that we called 2 hours earlier to arrange to buy new tires.  They were fast once they got on it.

It was looking like making San Diego was going to be out of the question.  The office of the RV park where we have a reservation closes at 7:00... the GPS said we could be there by 6:28.  California time, so we picked up an hour.  I was tired.  Joan said, "Let's go for it."  Ah, what the heck.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned how few RVs we had been seeing on the road... that changed completely as we rolled west on I-8.  A seemingly endless caravan of RVs heading east: plenty of motorhomes and 5th wheels, but by far the biggest numbers were toy haulers.  I think the entire population of southern California was headed to the desert to run 4 wheelers, dune buggies, and dirt bikes.  There were huge encampments in the middle of the desert.  And then, the sand dunes...

Looking ahead on the map, Joan said that we'd be crossing a pass with an elevation around 4,000'.  That doesn't sound like much of a pass, until you realize that those sand dunes are actually below sea level.  It was a serious climb as the terrain turned from dunes to boulders... aka Devil's Canyon...

Big Red was in 4th gear pulling up the steep grade.  I asked Joan to check for sunset in San Diego... 5:35 pm.  We were going to be rolling for well over an hour after dark.  Through big city traffic.  Fun.  The sun went behind the mountains, giving us 2 sunsets...

As we reached one of several passes, we came to a Border Patrol Check Point... and traffic was backed up for over a mile.  I watched the time to destination on the GPS tick away... 6:35... 6:38... 6:42... 6:49... 6:58.  We called the park and told them we were probably not going to make it - they said they'd leave the information for us in an envelope on the door.  CBP waved us through at the check point.

I was expecting traffic to be thick once we got close to San Diego - I guess they all got out of town early for the holiday weekend... it really wasn't bad.  We pulled into the RV park at 6:58.  When I came into the office, the lady at the desk said, "You must be Jim.  I was just about to put this info on the door.  I know you've had a tough day - here's how you get to your site, come in tomorrow and we'll take care of the payment."

I was grateful - I just wanted to put the jacks down and call it a day.  We're here for a week - it looks like a beautiful park; lots of nice RVs.  It is connected with a marina, so there should be plenty of boats (as well as RVs) to look at.  I'm looking forward to some relaxing time.

We set up in the dark; well, the 5th wheel has plenty of outside lighting... I'll get some photos of the park tomorrow.

Time for an adult beverage and some supper.  And, for those keeping track: little Izzy was a champ through all this today.  She didn't get near as cranky as her driver. ;-)  Joan did a great job of navigating us through Yuma to the tire shop and through the dark to the RV park.  It's a team effort.