I started a new page, can't seem to put any additional posts on the first page. And we did enter California at the bottom of the last page. We spent Sunday night at Stafford RV Park just before we entered Avenue of the Giants.
Once we completed the 32 mile drive through the Avenue of
Giants, we got back on Hwy 101, which is a 4 lane highway with
a 65 MPH speed limit, and headed for Newport Beach.
We skirted around the North side of San Fransisco to I5 which runs down the Central Valley. With few places to stop, we took advantage of California's rest area policy which allows overnight stops of up to 8 hours, for our Monday night stop. Tuesday we drove the last 170 miles to the job site, getting there about 1:00. Everything was ready for our loads to arrive Wednesday morning, so we went to John Wayne (Orange County) airport to rent a small car to use for the next 8 days, and then to Waterfront RV Park in Huntington Beach, 5 miles north of the job site.
Wednesday morning the excitment started at the job site when the first truck arrived at 10:36 to be
unloaded. We had a 90T truck crane set up to unload and reassemble to lift.
Reassembly was completed on Thursday.
On Friday we brought in a 350T crane to lift the now reassembled lift that weighs 42,000# into the water. Once rigger with 4 large straps, the lift took about 5 minutes.
At 3:30 we had the blower box hooked up to the four tanks, we opened the valves to the "lower" position and the lift sank empty in about 15 minutes, started up the blower motors and opened the valves to the "raise" position and the lift came up to the full raised position in about 10 minutes. The project manager was pleased with the results, ran up to his office trailer, and returned with two beers to celebrate. "let's relax over the week end and get ready to setup the boat on the lift on Monday".
Relax we did. Zsolt, the project manager called about 10:00 Saturday morning and proposed he and his wife Whitney pick us up and show us around, find something to eat, and a beer. We had an errand to run and agreed to the offer when we returned. They showed up about 1:00 at our RV site, and we had a delightful afternoon, first to the Sherman Gardens,
and then to a Mexican Bistro where we had Fish Tacos
and a glass of locally brewed beer. Then a quick run to
the project site so Whitney could see the "lift" she had
heard so much about, floating proudly in the water. Zsolt insisted on entertaining us, even though he was our customer and I wanted to pick up the tab for at least some of the afternoon, "Chuck, you saved my life, if I hadn't found somebody to build this lift I was going to attempt it myself, and based on what I see you designed, I would have failed miserably." It's been an interesting and challenging
project, and without the great input from Zsolt, we couldn't have succeeded either. We have developed a very respected relationship between two visionary engineers. And I expect, our friendship will continue beyond this job.
We got back to the motorhome about 5:00 and the "ladies" next door were celebrating two 50th birthdays. As soon as we got back, we were invited over to meet the "party" gang and to have our picture taken...
More pictures were taken on their cell phones that they promised to email to us, stay tuned!
Sunday, Claria and I took a ride in our rented car down to Dana Point and back, and had a delightful lunch at Salt Creek Grille.
Monday, April 19, Chuck was back on the job site to make a few adjustments to the lift before the boat arrived to start the process of setting it up on the lift. A couple of lifts were tried, but it was apparent we needed to move the boat forward some for the correct balance. We'll work on it tomorrow.
Tuesday didn't go so good, our 2HP blower motors were working hard to get the bow of the boat raised and could not get it high enough to get the stern raised so the bow would level out. Mitch arrived late in the day. We decided we needed some larger motors, were able to find two 3HP blowers to hook up to the outside wing tanks which we could pick up first thing Wednesday morning.
With the two 3HP motors temporarily hooked up to the outside tanks we tried again, still not quite enough power. The decision was made to go back home and build a new blower box with 4 larger motors, the temporary field fixes weren't quite working and would not fit in the present box, so let's fix it correctly.
We did determine the lift fit the boat and was strong enough to lift the boat past the point of maximum bending forces, all good. The boat was ready to be lifted if we had enough power.
Thursday about noon we left with the motor home and started east towards Joshue Tree National Park.
We arrived at the North Entrance to Joshua Tree National Park at
about 3. As we entered the park we inquired to see if there were
any camp sites available, there were none.
The northern part of the park has most of the interesting rock formations and unique trees the park is named for.
With no camp site available, we took the road south towards I 10, hoping to figure out where to spend the night. Near the south entrance, we pulled into the south visitors center for dinner. Our last option for a place to sleep appears to be in a rest area, most of the western states allow motor homes to park for the night. Heading east, we found a rest area just inside the Arizona border, actually a nice rest area.
Up the next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast, and continued east towards Claria's cousin Mary and Larry's home in Carefree where we were going to park the motor home for two nights.
. Lunch on Saturday with three cousins sitting on one side of the table, Claria, Tom, and Mary.
Sunday morning we moved to cousin David and Milly's home in Peoria. David fired up his pizza oven and Tom joined us for a tasty dinner of special pizzas.
Monday we turned in the motorhome, spent the night at a hotel near the airport, and early Tuesday morning we were aboard our South West flight for our trip home.
