After watching lots of balloons take off (ascend) on Sunday morning we decided we saw enough and it was time to head for home. The coach ran great the whole way but for the last hour or hour and a half of the 6-hour trip we had a sort of whistling noise coming from somewhere up front. At first I thought it might be either the power steering pump or the alternator but a little experimenting convinced me that it is probably a vacuum leak somewhere. The noise completely disappeared below 60 mph and, above 60 mph I could make it come and go with the gas pedal. The vacuum gauge did not seem to be any different than normal so I didn’t worry about it.

Once we got home and unpacked – not completely since we will be leaving again in 4 days – I moved the coach to the parking lot (can’t park on the street overnight) and it ran like there was some sort of fuel problem – I had to keep working the gas pedal to keep it running. At first I didn’t connect the whistling noise to this problem but now I am thinking that the hour or so parked in front of the house allowed the engine to cool enough that the theoretical vacuum leak affected the advance or choke mechanisms. I will inspect all of the hoses later this morning to see what I can see.

Well, nothing wrong that I can tell right now. I inspected all of the hoses and nothing is off where it should be and all of the hoses are fresh and solid. The coach started right up and ran great getting back over to the house. The next trip is only about 50 miles each way so not much risk there. More later if there is anything to report.

Update 1/27/2014: The rough running went away for some reason. When I went back to get the coach the next morning I checked all of the vacuum hoses and connections and could find no problem. The hoses are very new and all connected solidly. The whistling noise I now believe to be coming from the power steering pump and maybe it is more of a high-pitched whine than a whistle. Time for a new one I think.

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 When we got up this morning  we had to start the generator to recharge our batteries. Our clock which projects on the ceiling, was so low on power during the night that you couldn’t even read it. We both thought there was something wrong with our eyes. There were other generators running and we felt bad about the noise but we had to do it.

It turned out to be a really beautiful day and there were a bunch of balloons up by 8 am as opposed to yesterday when it took them a while to get stirring. We took a walk down by the marina again trying to get a view of balloons touching the water but no luck. I think the place to go to see them in the water is over where the water goes under the London Bridge.

We made the mistake of leaving the campground in the Tracker for a “quick” trip to the store around noon. That was a mistake. There was a line a mile long of bumper-to-bumper cars heading right past our campground toward the main entrance to the event. It took us about 45 minutes to get back “home” after our “quick” trip.

We made another trip back to the event but this time we walked – on prior trips we drove the Tracker to the free parking lot and then walked the last quarter-mile. It was a pretty comfortable walk along the shoulder of the road and probably made up for that huge sandwich I had for lunch while there.

We spent the afternoon napping and reading. We may or may not go back over there tonight but probably not. Heading for home tomorrow morning.

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Watch to video and then check the photos below it. This is our second balloon festival (Albuquerque in 2009) but our first dark sky event. It was awesome. The weather was perfect and there were 20-30 balloons on the field. They were really jammed in. That is what makes it. You can walk around under the balloons.

 

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We left home at about 9:00 am got to Lake Havasu City at about 3:00 pm without any trouble at all. The weather was nice – it never got above 78 and it wasn’t very windy at all. We took our usual route around Phoenix via highway 85 between I-8 and I-10. We get off the interstate about 40 miles short of Quartzsite and go directly toward Parker and up highway 95 to Lake Havasu City. We missed the detail that the turn onto London Bridge required being on a parallel street and that was our only “problem” all day. We cruised at about 63 mph (it felt good) all day and the coach ran like a top.

We arrived at the parking lot where we will spend the next 3 nights and it was wide open – not crowded at all. The problem was we didn’t know where the activities would be so where we should park. We finally settled on a row of spots that are back-in only and less desirable to minimize the number of neighbors – some people are jammed in next to each other.

We spent a nice quiet night – quiet time is after 10 pm and there were lots of generators before then, this is dry camping only for $20 per night. The schedule said that the “mass ascension” would be at 7:45 am so we got up and dressed so we could sit at the far corner of the parking lot. By 8 am there was only one balloon showing at the “balloon field” so we shrugged our shoulders and headed back to the coach for some breakfast and coffee. Walking back we saw a good half-dozen balloons being inflated in the area immediately in back of our coach. It turns out that the balloons launch from all over town – any empty parking lot they can find. There is no better spot to watch than the one we chose.

We watched from 50 to 60 balloons fly out over the lake and back again on a wonderful morning, warm and calm. We wandered around the festival area which is on a golf course and arranged in a large circle around the “balloon field” which is actually pretty small as balloon fields go I think.

Tonight, just after dark, they are supposed to do a “night glow” but it is iffy because of wind. Right now (2 pm) it is a little windy and yesterday it was very windy. We are hoping – had the same problem in Albuquerque in 2009 and no evening or morning events happened.

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