Friday, May 6, 2011

A beautiful day at the beach

WELCOME to our new Follower, Bob, from Chasing Grace!  He is planning to sell everything and take his dog and future RV on the road.  Bob has another blog, too, about running - Hey Bob, you'd love Carlsbad - right here by the beach it's perfect for running!  : )

I went by the condo on my way to wherever I was staying stealth-wise yesterday.  The Estate Sale was in full swing, I still couldn't believe all the junk in my condo that was brought in, but they made more money than I expected and none of the big stuff sold. Today, the second day of the sale, they discount everything, and tomorrow will be the rock bottom prices.

One of my neighbors came by to see what was going on, and I mentioned that I was going to do some stealth camping for the next two nights.  She has a horse trailer that she's been parking around the neighborhood and told me exactly where to park.  There are a few areas that she's gotten away with leaving her horse trailer, and the one place where it was tagged, it had a  3-day notice on it to move.

I parked in one place last night, and as soon as I got everything ready, I saw the Security Patrol guy in his car in the parking lot across the street, and of course he had to see me, but when he was done checking the buildings over there, he drove away, and no one bothered us.   I set my phone alarm for 6 am so we could be out of there before anyone started arriving for work.

We drove to the beach after filling the tank this morning. I had seen RVs camped along Historic Highway Route 101 before, so I drove for a while until I found the spot.  I am parked right behind a red zone, so no one can block me in.  We got here around 7:30 am, and have been here for 10 hours.  It was foggy all morning, but now the sun is shining.

 Isn't that a beautiful sight - the Pacific Ocean

 We are parked in front of this area.

 We took a walk along the sidewalk this afternoon, these little critters were sunning on the rocks. Squirrels?


  This is a beautiful place to walk/run.
People have been walking their dogs and baby carriages all day. 
Lots of runners here.  Carlsbad is full of healthy people!

Yesterday evening I went to a Target and bought some food for the weekend, and also a printer. I have a nice Cannon printer that I was going to keep. I decided yesterday that it's too big and too heavy to move around The Palms, so I dropped it off at the Estate Sale, and bought a smaller, lighter HP Photosmart printer. It's a color printer, wireless, and prints great. I can leave it on the bench seat under the window, and it's out of the way, but handy when I need it.  I set it up this afternoon. The wireless was super easy to set up with my new 4G LTE.


HP Photosmart D110a e-All-in-One Printer

I've learned a lot this weekend.  Last evening I stopped at Fish House Vera Cruz, one of my favorite fish restaurants, and ordered a dinner to go. I brought it back to The Palms and had dinner with Katie. While eating I was reading on the laptop and the generator went off.  It was still running, but nothing was working off it.  I got out my manuals and was able to figure out and fix the problem. It was the breaker.  I checked the generator's oil and found the breaker and re-set it.  I was feeling like a pro.  Then I went back to my dinner, and it's been fine since.

I called Forest River to find out about my radio. I talked to Mike and he said they take out the original and put in a Sirius Ready radio and told me which one they use, so I could download the User's Manual from the web, which I did, but I haven't tried to program the radio yet.  I guess it's a pretty nice radio, the friend of my daughter and son-in-law who programmed the time and one of my stations for me in Vacaville seemed impressed with it.  It's nice, even without subscribing to Sirius, which I may do in the future.

Then I called La Mesa RV and talked to my Customer Service person, who is my go-to guy for any questions I have. This will sound silly to some of you, probably most of you, but I was worried about running the generator too long - using up something, so I asked him what the generator runs off of, gas, propane, ???  He told me it uses the coach batteries to get started, then runs by itself.  I didn't know that!  How cool is that! So now I'm not worried that I'll use up some kind of fuel when I run it.  I couldn't find anything in the Onan User's Manual, probably because they figure that if you have one, you probably know that.

Then I mentioned to him that I have an appointment to have my Dometic fridge serviced - to take care of the recall, next Friday.  I checked on line, and mine is affected by the 2006 recall and I called Dometic to see if my unit had been serviced, and it had not.  But Jeremy said he'd check my file, and came back and it WAS done. He said before they sell a used RV they check for any recalls and take care of everything before it leaves the lot. Dometic just didn't have the info.

So far, so good. Katie seems to have settled right in, and I'm very comfortable and feel safe and secure in The Palms with just me and Katie.

These guys are constantly flying overhead - they go over the beach South, turn around and come back North, a continuous circle - I see them every day I drive home this way, and they facinate me.  So regal looking!  I took more photos of them this afternoon.  What are they?



There seem to be two groups that form together, with an occasional threesome that flies by.

And now I'm going to take a nap.  This sitting by the beach watching all the people running by is exhausting!

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Friday evening, everyone!    : )

12 comments:

  1. I'm not sure I understood your post about the generator, but it cannot run without fuel. Most generators run off your engine fuel tank and will not run when your fuel gets down to 1/4 tank. That is so you will not get stranded with no gas in the tank.

    Great pictures of the coast.

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  2. I've never tried stealth camping and don't know that I would have the nerve.

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  3. I promise you that your generator runs on some kind of fuel, not all by itself. It runs on either gas, diesel or propane depending on the type of generator you have. If you run out of that fuel, your generator will not run. If it works off your fuel tank, your rv also will not run although most that are set up that way turn the generator off before the fuel is depleted so you can move the vehicle.

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  4. A generator definite needs fuel. Probably propane.

    Tioga George is an expert in stealth camping. He has been in the San Diego area for several weeks.

    He says that there is a no sleeping law on the street, so if you don't answer the door they leave you alone if you are not in a no parking zone.

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  5. Your generator draws off your RV's fuel tank! Watch you gas gauge, or you might be stranded without fuel!

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  6. I agree...the generator runs off of fuel, usually the same fuel your motor home uses. Ours won't start if the fuel tank is below 1/4 full, so keep your gas tank topped off. The generator is started from power from your batteries, but then runs off of fuel. There are spark plugs, filters and a place to put oil on the generator. You need to have them show you where these are at so that you can check the oil occasionally. The rv dealer didn't give you good information...maybe they didn't understand your question.

    I love that picture of the Pacific with those beautiful purple flowers in the foreground. Gorgeous!

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  7. You are doing as Tioga George does. (http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/)
    making free camps in every place. It's fun to read all about it. Hope nobody turfs you out ☺

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  8. I agree with the other posts about the generator running on fuel of some kind. When I drove back from Florida after purchasing my coach, my generator would not work. I called Camping World and they explained that if my gas tank went below 1/4 full that my generator would kick off. Good safety measure. That is exactly what had happened. So I keep her as full as possible while traveling. Sometimes they seem to take for granted that you already know these things or have a genreal idea how they work. Well... I didn't.

    Love the photos.

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  9. Oh I'm so glad you are enjoying yourself finally!

    Same here, it makes no sense how a generator can be running w/o using any fuel.

    I think stealth camping is fun, that's something I will definitely do often! :)

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  10. Fish House Vera Cruz! What a flash from the past. Glad to hear it's still there...

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