After San Lorenzo County Park in King City on Sunday night we stopped in Salinas to visit our former business on Monday morning to see how things were running – just passed 20 years in business and still there. Pretty good for a discretionary spending type of business (custom picture framing) in this economy.
We got to Casa de Fruta on Monday afternoon and started working on whatever needed doing to be ready for day 1 of the GMC Western States rally on Tuesday afternoon. Most of the information about what we kept busy doing all week is on the gmcws.org web site under ‘rally reports’ but I’ll try to give you some idea of what we did personally during the week.
The weather was really nice on Monday and was supposed to be nice for a couple of days before turning rainy later in the week. This is pretty late for rain in this area (we lived just 40 miles or so down the road for about 16 years before moving to Arizona) but it was not expected to be cold do it would be a nice change for us. We ate at the ‘Casa de Restaurant’, right next to the ‘Casa de Deli’ and ‘Casa de Wine’ since we were on our own due to our one-day early arrival. The food was good – especially the fruit pies – and we can safely recommend it if you are passing by.
I was busy from morning until evening every day. Since I am currently president of the club I feel that I have to stick my nose in everywhere to make sure that things are going well and that people feel appreciated. The club and the rallies are run entirely by volunteers and, with almost 90 coaches expected, there was plenty to stick my nose into.
The most noticeable personal thing about the week is that one of the sessions was called ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ and was about introducing women to driving the GMC. Carol signed up for it and, by Friday, drove our coach around the campground and even brought it to the vehicle weighing station – this required a tight turn, including backing the coach – while I was working there. This was her first time driving in the 5 years we have had the coach. She said it was fun.
On a technical note, when we were getting ready to leave after the rally on Sunday morning I noticed that the engine was suddenly much noisier than it was on our way here. Both exhaust manifolds were leaking and, by the time we arrived at our son’s house in San Jose on Sunday afternoon it was pretty loud.
We stayed in San Jose for 4 nights and during that time I bought a new set of Remflex exhaust manifold gaskets and installed one on the loudest (passenger) side. On the driver’s side I only tightened the bolts which were much looser than they were supposed to be. The bolts had been torqued to the specified value when they were installed. They were held in place by a piece of sheet metal that prevented them from turning and it had worked for at least 10K miles on the driver’s side until now.
I don’t know for sure yet, but I think that removing the old mufflers and installing new ones just before this trip somehow disturbed the gaskets – probably compressed them somewhat from the cutting and pulling. They may or may not still be leaking a little but I could not tell for sure during the 4-hour trip to the Sacramento area later in the week to visit our other son. We’ll be able to tell for sure when we leave here on Monday morning and head for Nevada over I-80.
Gas mileage, by the way, has been pretty bad. It is improving with every fill-up so I decided to check it by eliminating that first hot day. With that first day eliminated the mileage has improved by about 10 percent from previous trips – I would have to say that the improved exhaust system is the reason. The temperatures are supposed to be higher next week so we’ll see what happens.
The visits have been a lot of fun. It is always great to see both families and the 5 grandchildren. Check below for lots of photos.
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