These are the best donuts you will ever eat. There may be equals but there are none better. We have been buying donuts here for 5 years and they are always great.

It was a really nice night for sleeping – no trains and no highway sounds and nice and cool. The daytime temperature was a little higher than yesterday (and tomorrow) but our space is mostly shaded so it was warm but tolerable. We sat outside for and hour or so and read. There was a nice breeze.

This is the donut man. We do not know his name – we will try to get it next time – but he has been making great donuts for years. Worth a stop – try the apple fritters too.

We spent the day resting, reading and eating. The eating started with some donuts from the Donut King on Broadway in King City. We ended the day with dinner at El Taco Bravo on Canal Street. Both are outstanding. The donuts have been making us happy for years – this was our 5th – but the Mexican restaurant was a new experience. We try to use TripAdvisor.com when we travel and it is usually right on. This one is highly ranked and they are correct. My test for Mexican restaurants is to order either pork chili verde or a chili relleno. This restaurant had a “Francis” special that was a chili relleno and some barbecued pork of some kind. The pork was very good – tender with a little bit unusual spice mixture – I loved it. The chili relleno was small but excellent – they are not easy to make but this one was perfect.

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Here we are parked on the side of our former business. The “Big People” on the corner are by John Cerney, a local artist and friend.

We left Brian and Chris’s home on Wednesday morning to begin our trip back home. Home means South and South means Salinas where we lived, worked, and played for 16 years until we moved to Arizona in 2005. We initially began spending weekends in the Salinas/Monterey area in 1989 when we joined Corral de Tierra Country Club which is near Laguna Seca on California highway 68. We ended up loving the area so much that we hated going back to Silicon Valley (Cupertino) so we made a huge career change – both of us – and opened a custom picture framing business and called it Artistic HangUps. We ran the business from 1992 until, and even after, we moved to Arizona in 2005. Our former long-time employee Carla Rocha now owns the business and is doing a fantastic job carrying on our reputation for quality at reasonable prices.

Tonight we are parked at San Lorenzo County Park in King City, CA. We were introduced to this park when we attended a GMC Western States Motorhome Club rally here in the Spring of 2011. We plan to spend an extra day here to relax and rest up before heading across two deserts on the way home.

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The OMG is because we went to our old home to see how the neighborhood has changed since we left in 1992. We couldn’t even figure out where we were for a while it has changed so much and is so crowded. We saw where the new Apple headquarters building is going up – walking distance to our old home – and could hardly wait to get out of there and back to the suburbs where Brian and Chris live.

As usual we managed to time our visit so that we were here during the work week and Brian has to work. Fortunately, we made it early enough on Fathers’ Day that we could visit and eat together – Brian is a great cook (takes after me I guess ;-).  Daughter-in-law Chris takes over entertaining us when Brian is at work and it is always a fun visit. Chris watches her nieces a few day per week and our grandsons are home too so there is lots of fun visiting with the kids too.

Monday we shopped a little and ran some errands but mostly visited. Today, Tuesday, I started out the day replacing the exhaust manifold gasket that has been getting worse and worse each day. Back to quiet now and it only took about an hour or so. Tonight we plan to go out to a restaurant to celebrate Brian’s recent new job and promotion. Tomorrow we are heading South to King City via Salinas. We like the King City park and there is a really good donut shop right down the street in the morning. Salinas is where our former business is so we like to visit and see how they are doing.

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No words needed again today. The photos tell the story.

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Here are photos – better than words: 

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Just across from out camp site

On Thursday we disconnected the tow car and drove it up I-80 toward Reno and stopped about 1200 feet below Donner Pass for our 3-night camping visit with Mark and his family. The reason we unhooked, of course, was to reduce the weight so the GMC could make it to the top. The engine and transmission on the GMC were designed for a 6000 pound automobile. The GMC weighs in at just over 11,000 pounds and the Tracker (our tow car) weighs an additional 3,000 pounds. The altitude – we disconnected at about 1000 feet – robs power to the point that there is not much left when you get to 5,000-6,000 feet. I am wondering if I should investigate converting to fuel injection. They say it can do a lot for altitude compensation. Food for thought.

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Our coach from the top of the levee.

It was pretty hot today but not uncomfortable driving because it stayed at 92 degrees or lower almost all the way to our destination. The drive down the West side of Tehachapi Pass was exciting  and uneventful as usual but it did remind us that we will only cross heading East (up the hill) if we absolutely have to. We will take another route going home – maybe via Pismo Beach next week.

We found this park a few years ago when we were looking for an RV dump station between Mark’s in the Sacramento area and Brian’s in the San Jose area. We loved the park – small, quiet, cheap ($25), and convenient to the interstate highway (I-5) without being too close. This is the third time we have stayed here since then and the only issue is that there are lots of trees but not much shade where we need it. The sun is very strong and the temperatures are in the high 90’s and they only have 30 amp electrical service so we can only run one air conditioning unit at a time and neither one can handle it by itself.

The San Joaquin River – that is a dock and a boat launch on the other side of those trees.

The park is right on a river which is just on the other side of a levee.

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We left Lake Havasu at 6:00 a.m. to beat the heat and, compared to yesterday, we were successful. We did see the thermometer get to about 97 today but most of the day it was in the 80’s and, compared to the max of 115 yesterday, it was relatively cool.  The climb going West from Needles, CA on US-40 is pretty tough on any day, let alone a day like yesterday, so we decided to get it over with early and then relax the rest of the way.

We decided to spend tonight in Tehachapi, CA because it is at a pretty high altitude (about 4200 feet) and would be cooler at night. Last night, the temperature never got below 90 degrees which is what it was at 5:00 a.m. so we had to run the A/C all night and it is not like your home A/C, it is pretty noisy and hard to regulate. So not the best night’s sleep last night.

This plaque explains the history of the loop – click on it to enlarge it.

Having left so early we got to our camp site at about noon. The number one tourist attraction in Tehachapi is the Tehachapi Loop – the one and only railroad loop in the whole country – where railroad trains cross over themselves climbing a particularly steep section of the Tehachapi Pass – the reason most people have heard the word before. The pass is between Bakersfield and Mojave. The climb going West is a piece of cake because Mojave is already at 2800 feet so the climb is 1400 feet. Going East from Bakersfield at 400 feet, it is a 3800 foot climb – very tough. That is why the railroad built the loop – to flatten out that section of the hill.

More history

Some train buffs from Italy (living in San Diego) who made the stop like we did.

This is our view of the small loop section with a train passing over itself. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

GMC content: Not even a hint of hot fuel issues today. I guess the winter gas is all gone and now we are on California gas which, according to my own research, is the best in the country at reducing or eliminating hot fuel issues. Ask me why I say that. It was a hot day but we are very thankful for our fresh air vents and Kelvin Dietz who “invented” them. If the humidity is not bad, lots of moving air, even at 90+ degrees, is surprisingly comfortable and those vents really move the air. One more note would be the item of one or two roof air conditioning units. Our coach has two and we will stay with two. Traveling in the summer – the time most of us travel – can put you in some hot places and two units are needed to cool this buggy down when it is close to 100 degrees outside. Running two units requires 50 amp service but it is so close to 30 that I can cheat and get away with it. I have a 50 amp input to the coach which I adapt down to a 30 amp cord (because it is manageable compared to a 50 amp cord) and then I use another adapter to plug into the 50 amp outlet at the post. Works great and nothing gets hot.

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Every year since we moved to Arizona we have made at least one trip back to California to visit my sons Brian and Mark and their families. We have also visited our former business – Artistic HangUps custom picture framing in Salinas, CA. Pretty much every trip has been combined with some other event such as Christmas, birthdays, and, for the past 5 or 6 years, GMC motorhome rallies. This time is an exception. Our rallies for this year were located in far Southern California in the Spring and the Fall rally will be in Pueblo, Colorado.  When we asked Brian and Mark about a good time for a visit their busy schedules dictated late June for both so that is how this trip got scheduled in late June.

Did you know that June is the hottest time of the year in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts? The temperature goes way up – it is 115 degrees Farenheit 50 yards from Lake Havasu (the Colorado River) as I write this – and there is no rain to cool things off. So, what is the best time of year to cross the desert? Any time except late June. Actually, Spring and Fall are OK, you do get the occasional unusual weather but do it then if you can.

The main problems with the heat in the GMC are comfort and performance – other than that, no problem. The comfort issue is a pretty common one. The dash air does not work well and the alternatives don’t either – not when it is 111 degrees and no shade. The performance issue is “vapor lock” – hot fuel – either stopping you or slowing you down because of bubbles in the gasoline. My original dash air conditioning has been disabled by a previous owner (PO) and replaced with an under-dash unit that barely worked in original condition and is now limited by a wooden cover that I made while I worked on plan ‘B’. We ran our Onan generator and a roof-mounted air conditioner for 4 or 5 hours today to help the dash air but it was still almost unbearable.

Performance was mostly good but, we stopped for gas after it had been 110 to 111 for an hour or two and the tanks had some pressure in them (but less than 2 psi because the cap was not venting). We filled up but began having issues as soon as we pulled out of the station. The Onan was stumbling so we couldn’t continue to run the A/C until it settled down (if the Onan quits while an A/C unit is running and you are unlucky it can damage one of the rectifiers in it). The engine had a hard time running solidly for a couple of miles – I had to do a lot of “pedal pumping” to help it along but it did settle down pretty well after that. Pressure in the fuel tank is good, not bad.

One of the exhaust manifold gaskets is leaking. I have spares and it is not too bad to do but it does take a couple hours and some grunt work. The good news is that the FatMat sound insulation and the new carpeting I installed since the last trip is working pretty well and the sound probably will not be unbearable until I fix it.

Supposed to be hot again tomorrow so we plan to leave extra early and get to the top of the hill West of Needles, CA before it gets too hot.

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