Clunk

I got away extra-early this morning because I had a party to attend: the annual Locus Christmas party, to which they for some reason keep inviting me.

There were initially no hitches in getting away from Fernley this morning. I stopped in Reno for a coffee and breakfast sandwich. While pulling out, I heard a clunk. I stopped and looked around, but found nothing. I figured that I must have gone a little too fast through a dip and clanked the exhaust pipes or waste tank pipe, but no harm was done. I had a similar clunk when I stopped at Colfax for coffee but couldn't figure it out there. Same story at Sacramento when I stopped for an extended breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. Something was making a loud occasional clunking sound under the RV.

( There are worse failures, and worse places to break down )

I stowed the removed part in the back of the RV. I drove the RV without it and can continue to do so; it just doesn't steer as smoothly as it could. When I get home, we'll take it back to the RV shop and see about them fixing it, and maybe confirming that they put locking nuts on it next time so it doesn't work loose again.

This could have been pretty nasty. As it was, it was only annoying.

The Rest of the Trip

The trip down to the Bay Area was more than just mysterious clunking sounds and a loose steering stabilizer.

( Snow Report from Donner )

It was below freezing, and the Boreal ski area was merrily making more snow. I'm happy to see natural snow on the ground accumulating up here, and I hope there's lots more to come — just not while I'm here.

After dealing with removing the steering stabilizer from the RV, I decided to risk heading up into the Oakland hills for the Locus party. Parking up there is dicey in a small car, let alone the 19-foot-long, 13-foot-high Rolling Stone. Somehow, I managed to find a spot into which I could squeeze, and for a wonder it was even roughly flat, which is a rarity in Them Thar Hills.

( Smile for the Camera! )

I didn't stay too late at the party. Besides the stress of the RV work today, I have to be up at 5 AM as is my usual pattern when working down here. Lisa called while I was heading to my laying-up point. I'd forgotten to remind her this morning that I was going to the Locus party, and she'd forgotten I was going, and thus was very worried that she'd not heard from me. At the first opportunity, I called her, reassured her, and filled her in about the stabilizer. Despite my trying to break it to her gently ("I'm fine, nothing's wrong, we can fix everything!") she was horrified when I broke the news to her, but as I said in my previous LJ entry, this is not a critical failure, just an annoyance that can be fixed.