East Shore RV park

Preparing the camper for our excursions has always been a lengthy process but our latest trip involved a little extra work. Living in the LA area brings with it much hotter weather than what we experienced in Portland so I wanted to try a different oil in the camper to better handle the heat. I had been using straight 30 weight oil which was working fine and after many hours reading differing opinions I decided to try Valvoline's 20w50 oil. The initial findings that I have noticed are less metallic knocking right after start up. Previously I had noticed 2-3 seconds of "knocking" when starting a cold engine but this has all but disappeared after switching to 20w50 - I'll take that as a definite improvement. The last time I filled the propane tank was also in Portland (over 5 months prior) and thinking that it was almost empty I tried to find a location that would fill the tank. After visiting and calling several gas stations I discovered that they all had a 5 gallon minimum filling/service charge which would have cost almost $20. I eventually located a tool rental place that also sold propane and $6.35 later I had a full tank! I also discovered that the tank was only half empty so my worries of a near empty tank were unwarranted. In addition to our full tank of gas and water, along with a fridge full of food, we were ready for our next camping trip

One of the advantages of living on the West coast is the abundance of older VW's still on the road and with that also comes a greater number of related car clubs and shows. I read that Dubfest was occurring this past Sunday and decided to find a camping spot nearby so we could attend. An annual even held at Irwindale Speedway, I discovered East Short RV park was a 20 minute drive away. Our weekends usually start late so we didn't want to pay the $50 nightly charge and camped for free at a Park & Ride lot. We normally wouldn't do this but wanted to be close to the car show and surprisingly, there were 3 other campers staying so we figured it was a safe choice. Here is a shot of our "free" camping site for the night, nothing special but the sun was already down so we didn't mind.

An early start on Sunday got us to the show while they were still arriving and setting things up. If we had the entire day to spare I certainly would have "shown" our camper as I think it could have done well against the "competition". Although this was mainly a water-cooled VW show, there was also a nice assortment of air-cooled examples as well.

Overall it was a nice show to attend but don't think it was worth the $20 per person admission fee. We also saw all the show cars in under an hour and left shortly after due to the 100+ degree temperatures.

 

East Shore RV park is a huge resort located by Puddingstone lake. We generally don't go to large RV parks but decided to give this one a try as they had many features and it was close to the car show. Driving into the park we soon discovered that we were the smallest camper by far and quite a few of the campers are permanent residents. This certainly didn't stop the many people that came over to compliment our camper after we set things up.

 

After a full day of swimming at the resort pool, reading and general relaxation it was time get ready for bed

Although the campsite was very scenic and had terrific amenities, it's not our idea of "roughing it", that and the $50 per night fee is on par with some motel rates. Here are some great shots my wife took of the surrounding mountains.

Even though our site had full hook-up including cable TV, my shore power cord wasn't long enough if we wanted to keep in the shade under our tree so we opted to rely on our free battery/solar power as well as run the fridge off of propane which of course worked great. Our final shot of the trip shows the camper all packed up with the beautiful mountains in the background.

Overall a fun and busy trip but we will attempt a more primitive camping experience next time