Sometimes things do not go as planned. 

Okay… honestly, they hardly ever do – and this week was a perfect example of that. 

Our week started on the California coast. We went to a small town called Orick to meet up with some friends. From there, we were going to spend a couple of weeks of bliss, caravanning down Highway 101 and Highway 1.

We spent three nights in Orick at the most picturesque location, at the end of a dirt road with direct access to a remote section of a beach.

With the exception of the occasional local, we were completely alone, isolated from the rest of the world in our little slice of paradise. 

Our days were spent relaxing, catching up on work, foraging for wild blackberries, and wandering around the beach with the dogs. 

Our nights were spent in community, huddled around lanterns, and playing games like Settlers of Catan and Phase 10.

It was absolute perfection. 

After a few days, we knew we had to keep moving if we wanted any chance of making it south before winter settled in.

We packed up the van, said our goodbyes, and reluctantly peeled ourselves away from our friends.

This parting was arguably one of the hardest that we had as we knew we would not be seeing many of those people for quite some time as everyone was going in different directions to hunker down for winter. 

Our goal was to drive for three hours and camp for a night before getting on Highway 1 and driving towards San Francisco.

Like I said though, things rarely go as planned. About 30 miles south of Orick, as we were cresting a small hill, our engine died.

We lost total power and were left trying to navigate Eileen into a small pullout of the busy highway. Thankfully, we were able to coast down the hill and muscle Eileen safely off the road. Once stopped, we gathered ourselves and tried to make sense of what was happening.

We turned the key into the “off” position and turned it over. Eileen fired up immediately. We plugged in our code reader, but it did not help as the reader reported a clean bill of health. 

Unsure of what to do, and nervous to drive the van any further than we had to, we decided to call local RV parks to find a place to stay for a few nights so that we could take Eileen to a mechanic. 

After a quick Google search, we found a place called Riverwalk RV park in the city of Fortuna, California. A quick phone call later and we had a reservation for $50/night – far cheaper than any hotel in the area. 

We arrived at the park an hour later and got set up. We arrived on a Saturday which meant we had to wait until Monday to get Eileen into a shop to be seen.

Come 8:00 am Monday morning, we were on the phone calling every mechanic in the area. We found a place that had an immediate opening and without hesitation drove her over.  

The afternoon that followed was a long and painstaking exercise of patience as we hovered over our phones, checking them every five minutes, to see if we got any information. 

Finally, after almost four hours of waiting, the phone rang.

The prognosis was not good. The mechanics could not definitively isolate the issue because the van did not stall for them.

After hours of diagnostics, they believed that the best course of action would be to replace the fuel pump, a few highly corroded wires, and give the van a tune-up.

• 

• 

The estimated cost of this fix was $1,700.00 and would require that the van be kept overnight. 

$1,700 is a huge expense – particularly for us… $1,700 is approximately a month’s budget for us, so naturally, we did not take this news too well. 

Unfortunately, we knew that the best thing to do was to have the van fixed so we reluctantly agreed, and the mechanics got to work straight away. 

With one problem solved, we had to figure out another: what we were going to do that night to sleep. Our tent and the majority of our supplies were packed in the van. Having no other option, we went to the campground’s office and told the manager about our predicament. Without batting an eye, she offered to let us stay in one of the cabins on-site for an additional $20/night. 

We were so grateful for this because the cabins were closed for the season and she was graciously making an exception for us. 

We happily moved into our new cabin which was equipped with a full-sized bed, bunk beds, and a heater. We ended up staying in the cabin for 2 nights as we waited to get the van back, an additional expense that we were not expecting.

As promised, we got Eileen back late in the afternoon of our second day in the cabin. We packed everything up and planned to head out early the next morning. 

At 7:30 am the next day, we got Eileen road-ready and got ready to hit the road. We fired her up, the engine roared to life, and then puttered and shook before stalling again in the same manner she had on Highway 101. 

The feeling of absolute defeat and anger washed over us. We had lost 5 days and thousands of dollars only to be in the same place that we were in when the whole ordeal started. 

Immediately, we got the mechanic on the phone, explained the predicament to them, and had them send a tow truck. 

Twenty minutes later, the truck arrived and we watched as Eileen was taken, once more to the mechanic. 

We extended our stay one more night and waited for news of what the problem was. At about 2:00 pm, the phone rang and the mechanic informed us he had isolated and fixed the issue. One of the sensors in the van had gone bad and it was causing the fuel pump to misfire. 

He replaced the sensor and comped that portion of the repair (as well as the tow).

He assured us that this issue was fixed and that we could pick up the van at any time. 

We went and got the van and were able to leave early the next morning. 

Cost of this incident:

So what does an incident of this nature actually cost, we kept track of our receipts and added them all up.

Cost of this Incident
Lodging (Night 1)	$50.00
Lodging (Night 2)	$50.00
Lodging (Night 3)	$70.00
Lodging (Night 4)	$70.00
Lodging (Night 5)	$70.00
Auto Repairs	$1640.00
Food	$300.00
Laundry	$40.00
Total:	$2290.00

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Okay, so last week was terrible. It was probably one of the worst weeks for us to date – but even in the midst of all of these challenges, there were still plenty of positives that kept us in good spirits. For example:

1. We learned that we were super fortunate to get a spot at Riverwalk RV Park. Our neighbors told us that they had to be put on a waiting list for FOUR MONTHS in advance to have a spot. 

2. The mechanic that worked on Eileen was located on the same block as the RV park. It was a short 5-minute walk from where we were staying to get to the shop!

3. We had the most incredible neighbors who did anything they could to help us. They offered us coffee and snacks while we waited to hear from the mechanic, rides to pick up necessities after we found out Eileen would be kept for a few nights, and much more. 

4. The RV park manager opened up a cabin for us so that we could have a safe place to stay. 

5. The RV park office had a small grocery store stocked with ice cream (which Bryon appreciated) and wine (which Coddy appreciated)

6. There is no better place to be stuck than on the California coast.