Bucking Bulls and Stock Dogs Demo

An event on the weekly calendar at Rancho Oso was for a "Bucking Bulls and Stock Dogs Demo" on Saturday at 11am. We weren't sure what this might be, but headed to the arena to check it out.

We were met at the arena by a couple of the wranglers on the ranch. They let us know that they would be bringing a half dozen young bulls up to the arena, using "Duke", the Australian Kelpie stock dog. Then they would be giving us a demonstration of the preparations of a bucking bull for competition.

Dave and Dakota

Bill and Lucy

The wranglers and Duke bringing the bulls up to the arena

In the arena - coming across to the bucking chutes.

Once they had brought the bulls up and had them in the bucking chute area, another lady brought her Welsh pony and showed how she was training him to be willing to be led by halter, go up on steps, and over small jumps.

Then it was time for the young bulls to strut their stuff.

Bucking bull #1: https://youtu.be/nd7kzrdA_Bo
Bucking bull #2: https://youtu.be/nocDruMDtmA

These bucking stock bulls are the product of Bill's bull, Thunder Jack, and Dave's cattle, which are Corriente breed. We talked for a little while with Bill - asking questions about the production of bucking stock. These bulls will not be used for rodeos until they are probably about 3-4 years old (2-3 years from now). At this point, he is just evaluating their capabilities. Both of these bulls bucked very well in his estimation. He has a weighted dummy on the bull's back that he can cause to release when the bull is doing the action that he wants them to remember as the thing to do to get a cowboy off their back (spinning is what he was looking for). The activity that they were doing also gets the bulls used to being in the handling chutes and working in the way he needs them to work.

Oil Analysis

A few weeks ago, when we were still in Texas, the ProDriver display told us that we were approaching the oil change interval. The oil had been changed in the complete service that was done right after we purchased the bus back in July, 2015, so it seemed that it should be able to go longer, but we had driven from Virginia to Texas and then back to Virginia and back to Texas. Since it takes gallons of oil to do an oil change on Miss Doozie (she *is* a doozie, after all!), we were not in favor of doing an oil change if it wasn't really needed.

With research, we found that the setting on the ProDriver causes it to recommend oil changes every 5000 miles. We talked with Jimmy about this setting, and he recommended that we look for information from Detroit Diesel on what they recommend for the oil change interval. In the Operator's Manual for the engine, it indicated 15,000 miles for severe use, and up to 30,000 miles for long haul.

page 86 of the pdf file at this link: http://www.ddcsn.com/cps/rde/xbcr/ddcsn/DDC-SVC-MAN-0006.pdf

We didn't figure that we were using the rig in any "severe" manner, though these engines are designed to be running down the road, not sitting in campgrounds. Jimmy suggested we might want to have an oil analysis done to see the current state of our oil and, as long as it was ok, have that information for comparison a few thousand miles further down the road.

So, we got an oil analysis test kit from Napa and hand pump to draw an oil sample out: 
hand pump:  http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/FIL4290
analysis kit was something like this one: http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/FIL24078ECD

The instructions said to draw the oil out when the engine had run 500 miles -- we weren't sure whether that meant 500 miles after the last oil change, or 500 miles in that day - which wasn't likely to happen with our driving of Miss Doozie. So, we decided that we would do it after driving a good distance. We tried to take a sample soon after we left the DFW area (either in Midland or El Paso), but we found that the sampling tube that came with the kit was not long enough to reach the oil pan in our rig. So, Dwayne had purchased a longer tube in the last couple of weeks, and we decided to try to pull the sample once we got to Rancho Oso. Even though we had not driven a lot of miles that day, we had been in a lot of hills, so the engine had gotten quite warm. We were at about 6900 miles past the oil change (I mistakenly reported it as 5600 miles on the form - which you can see if you look at our specific report via the link below).

Last Monday, we did the sample and had it all packaged up. We mailed it to ALS Tribology on Tuesday, and they received it on Thursday and set us the report on Friday. It reminded me of getting a lab report on blood work from the doctor - iron, magnesium, calcium levels were reported. The overall report said it was ok:

but what did all those other values mean?
Our specific report:
http://rs.alstribology.com/output/321673_17326757_d3xt4vnu2zyqij55yeadnh55.pdf

Back to the "source" - we emailed Jimmy, and he called us back with how to interpret the results. He recommended going to Lubetrak: http://lubetrak.com/
and going to their knowledge library: http://lubetrak.com/companysolutions/knowledgelibrary.htm
and specifically to the Detroit Diesel information (this is the one for transit alarms but the information is the same in the fleet document): http://lubetrak.com/lubedocs/alarms_02.01.pdf

Our sample was in the "abnormal" range for Additives of Magnesium and Phosphorus.
Viscosity was also a little low.

Our determination (in consultation with our "source", "expert", "advisor", "counselor", aka Jimmy) is to go to 10,000 miles and do another test and see how it has changed. We have the hand pump and will just need to get another sampling kit from Napa somewhere down the road.

Patti has typed up this blog post, and is hoping she got it close to right! Any errors are due to her lack of understanding or ability to communicate clearly - Jimmy explained it all well, but she may not have gotten it all!!!

When directions get you confused...

When Patti had looked at the route for driving from the campground to Solvang on GoogleMaps, she thought it indicated that we should go the opposite way on Paradise Road and that it would still come out on route 154. So, even though the Garmin indicated we should turn left on Paradise Road as we normally do to go toward Santa Barbara, we turned right to see where it took us. Within a mile or so, we ended up at a river ford and decided to turn around.

Well, on the way back from Solvang, the Garmin has consistently tried to get us to take a different route to get to our campsite. Normally we save the address of the campground in the Garmin, and in this case, that address is at the turn off of Paradise Road, about a mile and a half from where we are parked (that narrow winding road that we came down with Miss Doozie on Monday). In this case, we saved the place right where Miss Doozie is parked, so the Garmin is trying to get us to a place that is well off any roads that it knows. It has consistently tried to get us to take the Arroyo Burro Road which would take us beyond the turn off that we take for the 1 mile narrow road into the campground. When we returned this afternoon, we decided to take Julie (the Jeep's Garmin's name) up on her directions.

The route took us across the river ford - we didn't get pictures on the way down - but we did on the way back:

We drove along the river for a ways - we could see Rancho Oso campground across the river, and, in fact, we could see Miss Doozie too!

We used the binoculars to determine which one was Miss Doozie...

But... when we got to Arroyo Burro Road....

We're at the turn off for Arroyo Burro Road!

Uhm... This isn't going to work...

We could see that the road did in fact go down the hill and probably forded the river and probably would end up near the campground on the other side... but... no Julie, we're not going that way...

Having crossed the river though, we decided to do some more looking around. There were a number of National Forest Service facilities around, including a campground with a camphost.

We were in (or at the edge of) the San Rafael and Dick Smith Wilderness Areas

Camphost motorhome - the site comes complete with a corral... but no Verizon signal for phone or internet!

Video of the crossing on the way back:
https://youtu.be/Y0IUQfu3DJ4

Moral of the story: GPS devices are great to have to help with directions, but sometimes they aren't very sure of where they are either!

Solvang

After staying in most of Wednesday with the weather being rainy, we planned to visit Santa Ynez and Solvang today. Patti had looked up a few things that we might want to do, so we headed off this morning.

Along the route, we could see on the Garmin display that there was supposed to be a lake next to the road; there is a lake bed, but most of it is dry. There was a vista point pull off, so we stopped to see the Bradbury Dam and Lake Cachuma.

Overlook of the dam

A view of the lake - it is very low

We drove on in to Solvang, stopping at Old Mission Santa Ines.

Old Mission Santa Ines

View of fields from parking lot at Old Mission Santa Ines

We decided that we were hungry so went to the #1 ranked restaurant in Solvang by TripAdvisor.

Paula's Pancake House in Solvang

We ate outdoors at a table under the hedge - it was plenty tall for sitting, but standing up and walking needed to be done carefully.

Evidently, Solvang was populated by folks from Denmark. The buildings remind you of a village in Denmark.

From there, we drove to Nojoqui Falls Park. We had read that there was a nice walk to the falls, though some of the reviews indicated that the falls might be better if there had been more rain. Our experience was that there was no water falling at all, though there were a couple of places where the stream had a little water flow and the water was bubbling merrily over the rocks.

What is a falls called when there is no water? I think that wall beyond the tree is supposed to have a waterfall on it...

There was a short distance where there was water flowing in the stream, then I guess it went underground. I took a video and uploaded it to YouTube.

https://youtu.be/YZF4CwwqNdM

A babbling brook has such a peaceful sound!

The walk was very nice even if there was no water in the falls - this is a picture at the area where we parked the Jeep - it was quite shady with Spanish Moss or something like it on some of the trees.

"It Never Rains in Southern California"?

Hmmm... maybe it doesn't rain *much* - but today was an overcast and showery day here. We decided to stay around the campground. We checked out the book exchange; Dwayne found one book that he thought he would like to have. So far, Palm Desert Thousand Trails has the best book exchange outside of the Escapees Rainbow Park in Livingston, TX.

We also called the M.G. Sturgis company to see if we could get assistance on determining what fitting we need to use the quick-connect propane hookup that is in the basement of the bus. They recommended one for us to order. We're waiting to place an order until we get to Yuma.

The internet and cell phone service here is pretty slow and unreliable - really makes it hard to use and impacts our satisfaction in using this campground. On the positive side, we're getting a lot of books read!!!

Visiting Santa Barbara

We drove down into Santa Barbara today. It is about a 45 minute drive by Jeep (somewhat longer by Miss Doozie...).

A stop along the way to see the overlook to the Channel Islands.

 We drove around town for a little while looking for a post office that had a parking lot. We took a sample of our motor oil yesterday and wanted to get it shipped off to the analysis place today.
Note to self: don't go to a downtown post office location; ones that are further out of town will have more parking!

We visited the Santa Barbara County Courthouse that was the #1 rated "Thing to do" in TripAdvisor for Santa Barbara.

Information from the plaque outside: The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is one of America's finest representation of Spanish-Andalusian architecture in a public structure. It stands as the prized jewl of the county whose people it serves and whose visitors it delights. After the devastating earthquake of 1925, the county of Santa Barbara hired the William Mooser Company to design a new home for county government. The building was completed in August 1929 at a cost of $1.3 million and is the culmination of community spirit, county leadership and the will of a people to express their historic roots. Architects, designers, artisans and craftsmen employed their talents in this building and the surrounding landscape with consummate levels of skill.

 When we got inside, the lady at the gift shop was very informative. She tried to talk us into staying an additional hour and getting a free docent tour, but we decided to walk around on our own and maybe come back another day for a free tour. On Wednesdays, they have an additional tour to the clock works on the tower.

From the top of the tower, we had quite a view - this is looking northwest.

This is looking south to southwest. The two trees that are close in just right of center are a Bunya-Bunya tree and a Norfolk Pine.

The lady at the gift store told us to be sure to see the wall murals on the 2nd floor. They were quite amazing!

These pictures commemorate the Canolino trip that lived in this area, and the coming of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who landed at Las Canoas with the Flag of Spain, 50 years after Columbus.

 

The front of the room commemorates 1822 California under Mexico with another change in Sovereignty and 1846 Fremont descends Santa Marcos Pass into the Valley of Santa Barbara.

This is said to be the last that the painter completed, expressing his thanks to God that the job was finished!

This is the back wall - commemorating Fr. Presidente Fermin de Lasuen building the Xth Mission at Santa Barbara after the death of Fr. Junipero Serra at Carmel - 1786.

 A newspaper article that I found indicated that the artist of the walls was Dan Sayre Groesbeck for the sum of $1000 plus living expenses of about $800.

The ceiling was done by John B Smeraldi. According to the same newspaper article, he made ceilings the focus of his painting in the United States. "Using the 'Mudejar' style, a mixture of Spanish and Moorish, Smeraldi’s Mural Room work utilizes shiny gilt that reflects light into the darkest corners."

The ceiling was beautiful.

Outside the mural room, there were colorful tiles on the walls and floors.

A link to more information about the murals and the room:
http://www.noozhawk.com/article/santa_barbara_county_courthouse_legacy_foundation_mural_room_20140809

From there, we drove to the harbor and found places for lunch (Patti got Ahi Poke and Dwayne got a fish taco). This area has many commercial fishermen and the harbor was built in the mid 1970s.

Some of the boats in the harbor

There was a sandy beach to the north of the walkway that went out over the breakwater.

More boats

My sweetie (Dwayne) on the walkway over the breakwater.

Moving on up to the west side....

We left Acton and Soledad Canyon to make our way to Rancho Oso above Santa Barbara. It was a pretty drive - particularly the part on 101 along the ocean. Patti had researched the drive last night, which was a good thing... the Garmin in RV mode was intent on taking us any way but the most direct from Santa Barbara. There was a warning sign on route 154 about trucks over 36', and given that Miss Doozie is 43' long (and the Garmin knows it), we guessed the Garmin was trying to avoid us getting on a road where we would have problems. It was interesting, though, the roads it was trying to take us onto would have been much worse (or so it appeared by looking at the street views on GoogleMaps) - but we noticed that it was indicating "RV Accessibility Unknown" on those streets. So... we guess it thought an unknown was better than a known with a warning!

Patti checked the directions provided by the campground, and they indicated that we should take route 154, so we decided to ignore the Garmin and take route 154. Today Patti found this information that indicates that it is ok for RVs with lengths of 40-45 feet to take route 154.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/trucks/bus-motorhome/bus-maps/busmap-d05.pdf

The challenge came as we were entering the campground. We had read that there was a relatively long (1-2 miles were indicated) road off the county road to the ranger station of the campground, and that there were many places where it wasn't wide enough for two vehicles, particularly if one was a Doozie. So, we took the advice that others had posted and called before we started down that stretch of road. The person Patti talked to said that no one was on their way out. We were doing well until we hit the last large curve above the campground; there was a truck pulling a horse trailer coming up. It was pretty obvious that backing her trailer down a road with a steep dropoff on her right side wasn't something she wanted to do. Besides having the Jeep still hooked up and being unable to back up at all, there was a dually pickup with 5th wheel and two other vehicles right behind Miss Doozie. A lady got out of the dually pickup and walked down to talk with the lady driving the horse trailer, explaining to her that there were multiple vehicles on the way down. I don't think that it was that she was unwilling, she just was not sure how to do it.

As time went on, more vehicles came up behind the horse trailer, including the propane delivery truck from the campground. The guy who was in the pickup right behind the horse trailer tried to help her and then ultimately backed the trailer a little ways further down the road. At one point, he came up to Miss Doozie to suggest that Patti try to edge her way past, but took a better look at the size of Miss Doozie and gave up without saying anything!

Then a ranger from the campground arrived on his golf cart and took control. He told the propane truck to back down into a driveway further down. He got the trucks behind the trailer to back further down the road. He got the helpful man from the pickup behind the horse trailer to back the trailer further down and then pull it to the side at a place where the road was barely wide enough for Miss Doozie to pass the horse trailer. With Dwayne watching to be sure that Miss Doozie's tires didn't go too far on the right side (the road surface was not in good shape as it got close to the edge), Patti edged by the pickup and horse trailer and then the other trucks went by Miss Doozie. The propane truck waited until Miss Doozie and the other downhill vehicles were past.

It all worked out ok, but was pretty frustrating for a while. The lady with the horse trailer evidently came out a driveway beyond the ranger station, and didn't realize that these big behemoths can't just back up (and wasn't prepared to back up herself). I am sure that she was concerned about the horses in the trailer and didn't want to do anything that might risk them either.

I have some pictures but... the internet here is very slow to nonexistent, so I think I will just post text and maybe pictures at another time!

 Update 2/16: here's a picture:

Ultimately, they got the pickup and horse trailer over on the far side of the road about where it is now and I got past it by getting as close as possible to the right side.