Our RV Adventures

I spent a little while this morning putting up Reflectix across the full front windshield and it quickly made a difference in the heat coming in. It was supposed to make to 99 today, 100 tomorrow, and 98 on Wednesday, so our AC’s are going to need all the help they can get.

About 1:30 Nick and Terry showed up and we were off on our trip up into the Superstition Mountains along the Apache Trail and all the way out to Tortilla Flat. And yes, according to their website, it’s Tortilla Flat, not Flats.

Leaving our RV park, we headed northeast on SR88 for about 6 miles and stopped off at Goldfield Ghost Town, an old 1890’s mining town turned into a tourist attraction.

But the first thing you notice here is the great view of Superstition Mountain, a really imposing piece of rock.

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The town is built up the side of a hill, and reminded Jan and I of Calico Ghost Town over in California, near Barstow.

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And like Calico, they have hourly gunfights in the streets.

What started out as an argument over a money strongbox, progressed though a shootout, complete with a stick of dynamite, and ended up with a lot of bodies in the street, finished off by a shotgun-toting bordello madam.

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Down a side street we did come across this old, rusty Linotype machine, used in making up lines of type from molten metal, which are then assembled into printing plates for printing.

Of course the first thing Nick wanted to know was did I think I could get it working again.

I told him, “Of Course. Just find me a manual for it.”

Heading out again another 6 miles down the road we stopped at the overlook for

Canyon Lake, one of four lakes up in this area. You don’t think about lakes like this in this part of Arizona, but there’s a lot of boating going on up here.

While we were at the Canyon Lake Overlook, Nick noticed his Explorer was leaking antifreeze from around the bottom hose of the radiator. The engine wasn’t overheating, and there was still antifreeze in the overflow tank, so we decided to continue on to Tortilla Flat and check it out again.

A few more miles down the road brought us to Tortilla Flat.

And after you’re there, you find out that Tortilla Flat consists of 3 building, 6 stores, and has a population of 6.

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But there is a lot of pretty scenery in the area.

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After checking out the stores and gift shops, we had some ice cream, and then watched the other visitors come and go.

While we were there, and again before we left, I checked the antifreeze leak again and found no sign of it. Still don’t know what happened, but it didn’t reoccur the rest of the trip.

Getting back to Apache Junction, we tried to decide on a place for dinner. And after a lot of back and forth, and “I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”, we ended up trying out Black Angus Steakhouse. Nick and Terry had eaten here in the past, but it was a first time for Jan and I. They have 44 restaurants in 6 western states, including Alaska, but neither Jan and I had ever heard of them.

And as it turned out, it was pretty good. Jan and I, and Nick all had steaks, while Terry had the Grilled Salmon. My steak had those slightly-charred edges that I like so much, so I was happy.

And after all, that’s what matters now, isn’t it.

Tomorrow starts our last two days here in Apache Junction, so I need to finish up a couple things on both Nick’s and our coaches.

Busy, busy, busy.

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Thought for the Day:

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Nothing.

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Jan hasn’t been happy with her last few pedicures, so I’ve been drafted to fill in. I must have done a pretty good job painting them because Nick says I can do his next.

We had planned to do a day trip this afternoon up into the Superstition Mountains to check out Tortilla Flat and some of the old towns up in the mountains.

But we ran into a couple of problems. I was originally supposed to drive, but found I had a leaky rear tire on the truck, so then Nick was going to drive.

But right before they came to pick us up, they lost power at their rig. They had power at the pedestal, but it just wasn’t getting to the rig.

Since we were expecting temps in the high 90’s today, it seemed like a good idea to cancel today’s trip and get Nick’s power working again.

And a little checking showed us what it was. The big 50 amp twist-lock plug that connects the power cord to the rig was starting to melt. The plastic cover had burned through in a couple of places and wasn’t letting power into the rig.

So our first chore was to find a new plug, and after checking Home Depot (only had 30 amp versions) and two RV parts places (both closed on the weekends) we ended up at a Camping World where they had the part.

Getting back to Nick’s I started replacing the plug, and it didn’t take long to see what might have been causing the long-term problem.

It looks like this plug had been replaced once before, before Nick and Terry owned the rig. And whoever had done it, had done it wrong. They had tinned or soldered the stranded wire until it was a solid clump. This is a big NO-NO.

When the wire is a solid mass, it was no way to flex, expand and contract, with temperature changes. And over a period of time, this causes the connections to loosen, and then they start to overheat and melt.

The replacement job took about an hour and went pretty smoothly. I cut back the insulation until I had bare wires again, and as I put it back together I sprayed all the connections with an anti-corrosion coating that should help keep problems under control.

After powering up the rig and checking things out, everyone was getting hungry, so we picked up Jan at our rig and headed over to a place Nick and Terry wanted us to try called Streets of New York, a nearby pizza, pasta, subs place. Oh, and chicken wings too.

We all had a little bit of everything. Jan and Terry had the Chicken Parmigiana, while Nick had his usual Pepperoni Pizza. I went with a small pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom pizza, and some Honey Hot Chicken Wings.

We all agreed it was really good. Jan and I especially liked the Honey Hot Wings with a crispy crust on them.

Tomorrow we’re going to try our trip to Tortilla Flat once again. That is, if Nick doesn’t break something once again.

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Thought for The Day:

"To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire

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