Shortly before the trip, the bus started to suffer from fuel starvation. I changed the fuel filters. At first it seemed to help, but the problem returned. I dropped it off at the mechanic. It took some prodding, but he finally finished it the day before my trip. It turned out to be the fuel pump was getting weak. While he was at it, I had them clean the fuel tank and install a fuel gauge sender.
I picked up my bus the morning of the trip. I stopped at home. I had to unpack all my tools and parts, and then load supplies for my trip.
Before I left, I dipped the tank. Somehow the mechanice, managed to go through about 35 gallons of fuel fixing my bus. I made a quick stop a the local Exxon station. Twenty dollars of diesel and another twenty dollars of gasoline (for the generator), and I was on my way.
On this trip, we were headed to Oak Springs RV Resort, in Aguanga, CA. Aguanga, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There were some hills into it, and a pretty steep drop into the valley where the campground is located. The bus was running a little hot on the hills, but it wasn't excessive.
We arrived at the campground around 2:30 PM. The campground was okay. The word "Resort" didn't quite seem to fit. It had decent sized lots, that were slightly unlevel. All dirt, no grass. The worst part was the showers were coin operated. Fortunately, my mother and her husband let me borrow the shower in their 5th wheel.
There was also a lake at the campground. You could buy a pass, and fish there. You could tell that the water level was down. We had all decided that there weren't any fish in the lake, until a hawk swooped down an pulled one out. It was very cool.
The one things this place has going for it, is that it's very peaceful. There wasn't a highway or train tracks for miles. Even in November, it was warm during the day. It did get cold at night. It was just very restful there.
I was kind of sweating the climb back out of the valley all weekend. I fried my first motor climbing the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and have been leary of steep climbs ever since. My fears proved to be unfounded. On the way out, I slipped it into second and breezed right up and out of the valley. I tried to keep the RPMs around 1750, and the temperature never got above 180 degrees.
The rest of the trip was smooth sailing. I could really notice the extra power from the new fuel pump. I didn't have eny trouble maintaining 70 MPH, even on the grades.