The First California Post

Sorry for the long hiatus in blog updates, but we spent over a week in actual civilization down in Palo Alto and San Francisco and weren’t exactly inspired to write.  Although it would have been the best time to update, since we had access to wifi, electricity, and other creature comforts, we wound up taking advantage of other things like the pool, hot and cold running water, and the use of a refrigerator instead.  While we are really thankful to our hosts (Pam and David in Palo Alto and Misha in San Francisco), we may have stayed a bit too long for our own good, since getting back into camping and driving again was a little more difficult than we imagined.  The reprieve from camping on-the-go was nice and relaxing, but we did manage to lose our “momentum” which kept us up and active and we wound up sleeping in late and generally not feeling too good, something we rarely ran into while on our own. 

While docked in port, so to speak, we just happened to run into an impromptu family reunion which was more of an accident than a planned event.  In addition to the normal California residents from the Grossman side of the family were Miriam’s mother (Deborah) and sister (Naomi), visiting from RI and Rachel Garcia-Grossman (Miriam’s cousin) from Seattle, as well as another Rachel, our soon-to-be cousin-in-law (if that’s a thing?), also from Seattle (Ben Grosman-Kahn’s fiancé).  For those of you reading from the Grossman (and Garber) side, you know the family tree and which branches everyone belongs to, and for those reading from my side, this explanation will have to do since I’m not going to burden the other half of our readers with the whole genealogy of their own family.  One important thing to note is that the latter Rachel will only be the second in-law on the Grossman side (of the grandchildren’s generation), with myself being the first…something I didn’t realize until Deborah brought it up at a lunch in Half Moon Bay (on the coast south of San Francisco).  On the Garber side I think I might be the second in-law (Terapat in Seattle would be the first….for those on my side, he married Miriam’s cousin Lauren after we drove their car from RI to Washington state, but I think that’s all explained in the first post of the blog).  With so many cousins of various ages I have no idea where Miriam ranks on the in-law timeline for my side, but I know that at least with the Domiano (spelling anyone!?) side, which is the largest side that I have regular contact with, Miriam would have been the first granddaughter-in-law…or grand-anything-in-law for that matter.  For those on the other side of the fence on this one, Domiano (again, spelling, I think it might be “Da”) would be my mother’s mother’s side of the family.  I didn’t really intend on veering off into family trees, but as these posts tend to be more on the organic side, sometimes these things happen.  

Getting back to the trip though, Palo Alto also afforded me a chance to catch up on some maintenance with the car, since I was able to use the driveway there to do some work without getting run over or chastised by a ranger (neither of which happened, by the way).  Back in New Mexico I did manage to pick up a set of new brake pads to replace the horribly squeally ones that we had for the first half of the trip (and yes, I realize squeally isn’t a word!).  One trip to the O’Reilly’s in Grants, NM had me rushing back to the camp with new brake pads and a headlight switch (more on that in another post), with every intention of fixing the car then and there at the campsite since park Rangers were few and far between out there.  Upon arrival I found that the switch was the wrong one for the car and the brakes had been opened and greased, then returned, and then resold.  The greasing made no sense whatsoever since the grease used (yes, the little grease packet was still in the box…thanks, whoever you are that did that!) was for the brake pins, not the pads, so I have no idea what else they were attempting to do with them.  Since I had to return the switch anyway, I decided to return the pads as well.  Keep in mind these are southwest distances we are dealing with, so the store was not around the corner.  Our campsite was about 25 miles away from town, so another 50 mile round trip was not terribly justifiable with just a simple parts exchange.  We made the trip back in the following day with the intention of using the local library wifi and spending the hot part of the day indoors.  I managed to exchange the brake pads and returned the switch since they couldn’t get the proper one before we would leave town.  So this long winded explanation somehow gets us back to Palo Alto, since I guess the point I was trying to make was that we have been carrying around new brake pads since New Mexico and all I could do at this point was hope that they were the correct one, since I have now had a 0% success rate with receiving correct and unused parts from O’Reilly.  Luckily the pads went in fine and we now have squeak-free performance after several hundred miles of use. 

I also was able to change the oil before we left, which the car was certainly in need of (although not direly so).  Upon arrival in Palo Alto we were at about 4,950 miles since leaving RI (the first time), and with about 112 hours on the engine clock.  A good part of those miles was relatively easy highway driving, which the Buick seems to like much more than city or mountain driving, so even with nearly 5,000 miles since the last change, the oil could have lasted a bit more (plus synthetic lasts longer between changes than regular oil).  For anyone interested in the logistical end of things, I had packed a case (6 quarts) of oil for the trip, along with a spare filter, and purchased a portable (sealable) oil pan from WalMart in CA for about $7.  Purchasing the oil when its on sale at BJs is about $21 (CHEAP for synthetic oil at less than $4 per quart), and even with the price of the oil pan and filter it cost about $30 for the oil change as opposed to $60 or $70 if I had brought the car somewhere to have it done (that’s for synthetic oil, the $29 oil change special at Jiffy Lube is using the cheapest conventional oil they can find…plus I don’t have to worry that someone forgot to actually put oil in or replace my filter or put the oil cap back on).  And all the old oil (and filter) gets recycled for free from O’Reilly’s (which I dropped off a few days ago in Eureka, CA).

Other small maintenance items included readjusting the fog and driving (offroad) lights, rewiring the oil pressure gauge which continually gave a pressure reading of 0 when idling (something which I knew was wrong since the engine didn’t blow up after a few stop lights of that happening), and going through all our gear and reorganizing it to get the most efficient setup.  All of this was done while Miriam was in downtown SF at a dim sum meal with the rest of the family.  The only reason I mention the last part is so that those involved know that I actually WAS doing something and not just hiding, as is my usual routine at family events.     

We also happened to be in San Francisco for my birthday, for which we were treated to a really nice lunch of great fish and chips (Miriam had steak) by Misha (Miriams grandfather) and were joined by Linda (his caregiver and fellow SF resident) and Rachel Garcia-Grossman.  After lunch Miriam and I decided to stay around the house at Ulloa street instead of trying to rush downtown in time to “do things”, and shared some Rachel-provided dessert from a great local bakery (Tartine, which I’m sure anyone connected to the CA side of the family knows about).  We departed on July 10^th, albeit fairly late, since we had to return our borrowed van to Palo Alto (about 40 minutes south), pack the cold food items in the car, find gas, and then backtrack with the Buick to SF.

Just a quick note on gas in California (or anywhere for that matter), since I mentioned it.  One tool we have found indispensable on the trip so far has been our GasBuddy app for our phones.  It’s a free app from the Google store (I’m not sure if there’s one for the iPhone or not) that relies on user reporting for local gas prices.  It’s only updated as regularly as users input prices, so it is only as current and accurate as the consumers who log on.  For Palo Alto especially, where most gas stations were between $4 and $4.09, we were actually able to find a station about 5 miles away that was $3.65.  There are of course some stations that may never get reported on, and other stations whos prices will change between their posting on the app and when you physically get there to pump gas, but it has been great in not only located gas stations for us as we travel, but for finding the cheapest gas possible.  We try to update the prices whenever we stop, which accumulates points for your account and eventually makes you eligible for weekly drawings to win gas cards (something we’re not planning on winning but it would be nice!).  It has saved us a LOT of money so far on the trip, since we can get maybe $20 of gas in one town where prices are high, to allow us to get to another town where they are substantially lower (this is especially true for towns close to state borders where the tax rate changes dramatically from one state to the next).  Even at about 19 or 20 mpg (which we’ve been averaging most of the trip), we still need A LOT of gas at each fill up.  Saving 40cents a gallon when you’re using 16 or more gallons at a time really adds up, especially when a tank only lasts about 325 miles on a good day (a 1,000 mile stretch uses about 3 tanks).  Anyway, the point is we have  had great success with this app and I’m sure someone reading could get some good use out of it too, even if the bulk of your driving is just commuting the same way to and from work. 

I have more to report, but I think for ease-of-reading, it’s best to give this post a break.  Don’t worry though, I have the next post almost finished, so you wont be left hanging like when we left the southwest.

Check back soon!

RhodeKill Rob