Technical Difficulties

Well . . . I just thought last night was my last night at the ocean. We got up.I cleaned up the front part of the RV and did the dishes. Henry did the dump. Basically we did all the routine stuff we do on "moving day." We were out on the road by 11:00. I was thinking maybe we would make Tucson and the Tucson Mountain Park that I love so much. As we headed east on Interstate 8, we passed the place where we stayed last summer for Henry's convention east of El Cajon. We were cruising along, climbing up the steep haul into the desert mountains . . . . . and then . . . . we weren't. The engine made some very unhappy noises, our forward progress slowed to a crawl (15 miles an hour on an interstate - not good.) Henry pulled over on to the shoulder and got out and surveyed the engine. From the passenger seat I thought I saw very faint wisps of smoke on the inside of the cab. We were near an exit, Henry took the jeep and ran into town and got some oil thinking perhaps it was low on oil. Pull cars are nice things to have with you.

He got back, added the oil. We hooked up the jeep. He tried to get back up to speed . . . then looked over at me and said,"Start calling around, we're going to have to go back to San Diego." At least it is downhill going back.

Sigh . . . this has been a trip with more than its fair share of mechanical issues.

I'm busy praying that we can indeed make it back the 40 miles to the San Diego area. I have to wait until we have Sprint signal to start using Yahoo yellow pages to start calling the Chevy dealerships to see who in the area will be willing and able to work on a big RV. First dealership . . . nope they don't do RV's. The GMC truck place . . . no, they don't do RV's. The first place they recommend . . .no they don't do that. So I call the GMC truck place back and pester them once again. They recommend Dyno Shop on Prospect. So I look them up, call, YES!!!!! they do work on RV's and we have only passed the exit by two miles. I'm still praying we get there under our own power. Yes, we have AAA for the RV, but we've only had to use it once . . . earlier this trip.

Whew! Yes, we made it to Dyno. Yes, they can work on it. In fact they start almost immediately. And we go ahead and add the air shocks to the list of things that we'd like done.

From our being stranded experiences, we load down the jeep with all the stuff we'll need for the week we're anticipating. Underwear, socks, changes of clothes, DVD's for my backups, the hard drives, the computers, the camera gear ( a limited part), my morning devotional stuff, bird books, binoculars, etc . . .

I decide that rather than being stranded over in the desert with the jeep's air conditioner being intermittent, I'd rather go back and try for sunset beach shots. I'd planned to spend some time around San Clemente so we head there.

Around 4:00 we get a call from Dyno . . . turns out we'd had some kind of fire under the hood. Three of the spark plug wires had melted together and somehow took out the engine temperature sensor. I am humbled. This is the second situation this trip where things could have been much worse - we could have had our RV on fire. I feel heavenly protection. And once again, we've been sent to a good place. They keep many of the parts in stock. They still think they'll have it ready to go tomorrow . . . including the air shocks. We'll know more in the morning.

I've driven through San Diego, I've driven up "Historic 101" looking for my spot. I'm not finding it. The 101 now rejoins the 5. I exit at the San Clemente Beach State Park exit. Hurrah, there's a hotel there. It's 4:30. I'm hot, tired, cranky.

We have a murphy bed . . . Henry pulls it down, turns on the air conditioner, finds me a pillow. I crash for about 30 minutes.

I check out the beach area below San Clemente State park . . . railroad bed . . . small beach . . . no point of interest for my sunset shot other than a few surfers . . . they'll blur out. I drive through the neighborhood following the "bike route." Another beach parking lot, but this time with palm trees and the San Clemente pier. It's going to be close. I change into my "walking" shoes, grab my gear, head over the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. I get there at the tail end of the pretty yellow reflections in the water. But there is still some color in the upper clouds. It is still possible to get that beautiful crimson afterglow. I'm going to wait for it . . . yes, it's starting . . . .it's growing . . . it's getting deeper and prettier and the pier is working well as my point of interest. I continue shooting until the glow is totally gone and the sky is darkening.

I won't upload the photos tonight, because we are on the second floor. Henry tells me that this repair place will let us stay in the RV. And perhaps it will be ready by noon tomorrow. No . . . i don't want to lug a bunch of stuff up and then have to haul it down tomorrow.

At dinner we see a magazine with a dawn photo of the pier on the cover and there is a photo on tile of a different angle of the same pier. Sure hope my photos came out.