ProPride Hitch 25,000 Mile Update and Maintenance Tips

Camper Upgrades

Gosh, how time flies. We’ve had our ProPride Hitch for 11 years and it is the best investment we have made for towing. The best being defined as safety and convenience. 

On our last camping trip we past the 25,000 mile mark with our ProPride trailer hitch. 

For a detailed explanation of how this hitch works, see my ProPride 20,000 Mile Update post back in 2021.

You might observe that in three years we have only towed 5,000 miles. It doesn’t seem like much, but most of our trips are around 300 miles round trip. Given that we camp a minimum of 2 weeks, and usually camp for a month at a time, we are averaging 3 months of camping per year since we retired. 

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The Weatherman vs. Fall Camping (part 2)

Camping,

After two weeks in the Sequoia National Forest we packed up for the second leg of our month of camping.

We still had over 50 gallons of fresh water on board. After hooking up the trailer to our truck, we drove a short distance to a water spigot in the campground and topped off the fresh water tanks. To off-load our black and gray water holding tanks, we had to drive about 30 miles to a dump station in the town of Isabella. We also stopped at a super market to get some fresh vegetables and other food items. A final stop, at a gas station to fill up the Ford F-250 and one of our propane tanks, completed our pre-trip tasks.

Destination: the Mojave Desert about 300 miles southeast of our first campsite.

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The Weatherman vs. Fall Camping (part 1)

Camping

We enjoy camping in the fall better than any other season, with the exception of those desert wildflower “super bloom” spring-time years. We especially like to camp in the fall in areas that are popular in summer, but usually mostly empty in the fall. After Labor Day the crowds in these areas mostly disappear and the weather is still nice.

We left home a couple weeks after Labor Day and headed to the lower elevations of the Southern Sierra Nevada in the Sequoia National Forest. There is a US Forest Service campground we like that sees few people this time of year. The campground is in a transition zone where high desert meets fir and pine trees.

The weatherman forecasted daytime highs in the low 80° F range and declining into the lower 70s in his 10-day forecast.

He was wrong.

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Book Review: Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey

Backpacking

This is the final book review of a series of three books that influenced me to venture in to deserts. The result of my first forays into desert environs has been a 50+ year love affair in these seemingly stark and inhospitable wastelands, which they are not at all. Not only are deserts my favorite places to hike, camp and backpack; I have lived in the Lower Colorado Desert since 1977.

The two previous “desert” book reviews can be found here:

Book Review: The Thousand Mile Summer, by Colin Fletcher

Book Review: The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher

Desert Solitaire is a much different work than the two books of Colin Fletcher’s I just reviewed the past couple of days. Fletcher’s are woven around two long-distance hikes. The hikes set a structure for his prose, but in the end, he has to finish the walks. A multi-week or multi-month walk injects a schedule, or maybe better put, a focus on completing the trip itself where observations of nature must, at times, become secondary. Many of Fletcher’s books were about how to survive in the wilderness; Abbey’s is more about how to help nature and wilderness survive mankind.

Before we delve into Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, there are some comments and perceptions of the man himself we need to address.

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Book Review: The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher

Backpacking, Book Review, ,

Yesterday I posted a book review of The Thousand Mile Summer the first book written by Colin Fletcher. In that post I shared that three books influenced me to consider venturing into deserts and I moved to a desert in 1977, where I still live. Each of these books have stood the test of time, and I have read them several times over the decades. Over this time I have changed as I matured, society has changed. The deserts have changed too. Deserts are constantly changing.

In Colin Fletcher’s second book, The Man Who Walked Through Time, we get a close up view of a changing desert as viewed through his eyes. The geological record in the canyon walls, abandoned ruins of cliff side houses built centuries ago, a river that has been tamed by man, invasive species such has equines introduced by early European adventurers, and more.

Just like Thousand Mile Summer, this book reflects an inner transformation of the author that comes with being immersed in nature.

The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher and published in 1968 is a thoughtful and skillfully crafted account of his 1963 journey through the Grand Canyon.

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Book Review: The Thousand Mile Summer, by Colin Fletcher

Backpacking, Book Review, , , , , ,

Over 50 years ago, on a hot summer day, I helped one of my brothers move to the Mojave Desert where he was starting college. The heat was like a blast furnance. His car overheated several times, resulting in a blown head gasket. After unloading his belongings and a fitful night of sleep, I left, hitch-hiking back to LA.

I vowed to never enter a desert again.

Six years later, I moved to the desert. A different desert. A hotter desert. Why would I do such a crazy thing?

In the time, between my vow to never visit a desert again and my relocation to the desert, I read three of my now favorite books. They piqued my interest, and I began to visit, hike, and backpack in desert environs. The first book I read was, The Thousand Mile Summer, by Colin Fletcher.

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Is Your RV Water Faucet Sputtering Or Full Of Air?

Camper Upgrades, Travel Trailer

 

On a recent camping trip the faucets in our trailer started spurting out air and a significant reduction in the  volume of water. This was while using the water pump, because we almost never camp where there are water hook-ups. Out campsite was in the middle of the desert and not having water would be a big problem. A quick diagnosis identified the problem, but we weren’t close to a city where we could get parts. This is how I figured out was wrong, and the solution, given our remote location.

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The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir — My Book Review

General Talk

 

“In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, the son of legendary Alaskan explorer Roman Dial walked alone into the untracked rainforest of Costa Rica’s remote Pacific Coast. ‘I’m planning on doing 4 days in the jungle,’ he wrote his father before leaving, ‘it should be difficult to get lost forever.’

Then he vanished . . .”

This would be the last communication from Roman Dial’s son.

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Been Busy After a Dumb Mistake — Time to Plan our Next Adventure

House Remodel, Senior Moments,

Senior Moments

The original solar installation on our low slope patio roof.

Where has Nick been? I haven’t posted in a while. Been busy installing a new patio roof. And now it is time to plan our next camping adventure. Here’s an update of what I’ve been doing. What I have been doing is the consequence of a dumb decision I made four years ago.

Yeah, I had a Senior Moment four years ago when we had our home solar system installed. My “moment” was my poor decision to install the panels on our patio roof. It was a mistake. In this story I’ll relate several steps that can be applied to many decision making situations; even for backpacking or camping. It has to do with researching products.

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