I’ve managed to make quite a bit of progress in a couple of areas over the past few days.
The hilly streets of San Francisco are an ideal place to do a bit of hill walking training, as I now have less than a month until my Colorado “7 peaks” challenge. The other morning I found myself at the dual summits of Twin Peaks, which I imagine on a clearer day would give spectacular views over the whole city. However, since I have been here the peaks have always been hidden in cloud, and the other morning was no different. Despite being warm when I set off, it was cold and windy on the summit, and I didn’t pause there for long.
This morning I took another walk around some of the steeper streets nearby. I am quite fascinated by both the geography and architecture of the city. It is so different to Perth for example, where everything is flat and open, and houses are often single story dwellings with large gardens. Here everything is packed in close together, and is thin and tall, built on amazingly inclined streets, so that in some areas no two houses are on the same level.
Yesterday I went back to Bridge Storage, just north of the city, where my RV has been stored for the past six months. It was parked in a different location to where I had left it, and I was encouraged that it had obviously been started and driven at least once in the time I had been away.
I checked all around, and the tyres looked okay, all still being fully inflated. I put the key in the ignition, and the battery meter showed plenty of power. A couple of cranks and the engine fired and ran smoothly without any trouble. The brakes were a little bit seized, but soon freed, and after running the engine for a brief while, I checked the oil and water. All looked good.
I went and questioned three different RV repair places about fixing the damage I had done to the waste water tanks and pipes last year. The most encouraging was a guy called Mike at the last place I visited, who was more optimistic about being able to repair the damage, rather than replacing everything with new stuff.
So I hurried back to the storage place, collected the RV and dropped it off with Mike just before he closed for the day. I’m now waiting for a final quote, and if all works out well, I will be able to use the toilet and wash dishes when I am at Bonneville Salt Flats, without water just pouring out onto the ground from the broken tanks. What luxury!