Sanborn County Park Campground- Saratoga, California (July 2018)

“There's your problem,” said the county electrician as he pointed at our surge protector. Then he added, “We've never had a complaint about voltage problems before.”

One of the first things we do when setting up at a campsite on warm days is to connect the electrical power so that Rosie’s air conditioner can start cooling things down. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.). Rosie is connected to the electrical box via our surge protector, which will switch off the power if it detects a problem. A common problem is that the voltage is too high or too low. 

When we connected to the power in this park, the surge protector clicked off and gave us an error code that the voltage was too low. The surge protector cycled back every two minutes then would pop off again with the same problem. We found the park ranger and he said that the county maintenance staff would check with me the next morning.

Rosie at Sanborn County Park Campground

I was impressed that the county sent an electrician out to work with us. After his initial observation, he disassembled our power utility connection box to measure voltage and current. 

It didn’t take long to see the look of concern on his face. The problem wasn’t our surge protector, it was the park's wiring. We were in one of the last three sites in the campground, meaning we were located a long distance from the park’s power distribution point. The wires used to connect our site to the electrical distribution point were designed to carry 30 amp electricity short distances and not as far as our site. 

My answer as to why no one had complained before was that not all RVers use surge protectors and most surge protectors only look for high voltage issues and not low voltages. 

The solution for us was simple. We needed to move to a site closer to the power distribution point. The maintenance crew worked it out with the reservations staff and we were reassigned to a new site that was much closer and didn’t have the low voltage problem we saw at our original one. 

I never thought about it before, but I learned a few things about how the electrical systems at campgrounds were wired. I think I will be able to talk semi intelligently to a park's maintenance crew if we ever see a similar problem. 

We felt very fortunate to be able to camp in this park as it was less than 10 miles away from our son, daughter-in-law and three granddaughters' home. This gave us an opportunity to bring our granddaughters out one-a-time for a Rosie adventure. It was hard to tell if we or our granddaughters were more excited about spending the night in Rosie.

Our oldest granddaughter (face not shared)

Our middle granddaughter (face not shared)

Our youngest granddaughter (face not shared)

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was paved with asphalt and needed some leveling tools 
• Our site had a 30 amp electrical service. We had some problems with voltage regulation (voltage dropped below 104 when Rosie used 10 or more amps) at our original site. We moved to another site and didn’t have similar voltage issues.  Our site had a water connection 
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• The campground had a dump station 
• The campground had dated restrooms and showers that were clean and well maintained 
• We were able to watch only one TV station using Rosie’s antenna 
• AT&T placed no signal over our site

This turned out to be a great place to camp. We were able to watch several deer and their babies every evening near our site. We also heard the actors practice for their next Shakespeare in the Park performance. We also loved seeing the big redwood trees in this park. Of course, the best part of this park was being able to visit with our son and his family and having our granddaughters spend the night with us in Rosie.

Deer at the campground

We were impressed with how the staff of this county campground responded to our power problem. A quick visit to the campground host brought the ranger to us. The ranger alerted the county's maintenance staff. The maintenance supervisor was there the next morning along with a county electrician. Once the electrician determined our site wiring was at fault and identified a site that would not have the same problem, the maintenance supervisor worked with the reservations staff to transfer us to that new site. Yes, it was a great little park with a very helpful and responsive staff.

Several weddings took place at the park while we were
there. One wedding party, including the bride and
groom, spent the night in the tent camping area.

Rosie parked in front of our son's house in California

Visiting the dump station on the way out of the park

JGW RV Park- Redding, California (July 2018)

How is it that we were wearing coats and running the heater in the morning in Oregon and then we were greeted by 100+ degrees that afternoon in California? We only traveled 200 miles south and were surprised to see the temperature change to “hot.”

View of Mt. Shasta as we headed to Redding, Calif.

There were several fires in California and Oregon that we drove near that day. We didn’t see the fires, but we could smell them.

The sign at JGW RV Park

Redding, California, was about as far as we wanted to travel in a day and the reviews on AllStays were positive about this park. We were able to “walk in” without any problems. Our choice checking in was to occupy a regular site or one by the river. Since we were there for the night, we elected to save $5 and skip the river sites. That may have been a mistake after we noticed it was cooler next to the river than in the rest of the campground.

The river

It was easy to see that the good reviews on AllStays were accurate. This was a very nice park and a well-maintained one. Also, the individual campsites were larger than those found in most private campgrounds. Of course, all of this comes with a higher than normal nightly rate. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection 
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• Our site had a concrete pad and was level 
• Our site was a pull-thru
• The park had a clean, modern and well maintained restroom and shower facility near our site
• Our site had a basic tier of cable service 
• The park offered free WiFi, but it was terrible. The wireless port was immediately behind Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, but the service was either painfully slow or our iPads gave us an error message that said the Internet was unavailable. There needs to be a set of standards developed for WiFi connections that inform potential users if the service is good or practically unusable 
• AT&T placed a moderate signal over our site for voice and data

Walking around the campground that evening, we came across an Airstream International in the storage area. We noticed that this trailer was built the same year as Rosie. We also noticed that the license tag expired more than seven years earlier, meaning the trailer had probably sat in that grassy field unused and not maintained for that length of time. This International was in terrible shape. 

The discovery of this Airstream was very sad to us. We kept thinking of the happy times and adventures we were having with Rosie while this trailer was deteriorating in the campground’s storage area. 

Someone once told us that the wheels on an Airstream trailer are designed to be turning and that Airstreams are happy when moving down the road. We felt better when we saw Rosie again. The road grime didn’t matter so much because Rosie had just been on a cross-country trip and was at the center of our current adventure. 

I think that both Airstream trailers and Airstreamers are happy when moving down the road. 

Rosie in the JGW RV Park

P.S. After returning home, we learned about the terrible fire storms that struck the Redding area three weeks after our visit there. While news reports suggest that this campground was spared, many homes around Redding were destroyed. 

We hope that the fires will be quickly extinguished and those affected by the fires quickly recover. 

Rosie at JGW RV Park

Mount Shasta