April 16, 2023
Didn’t do any touring most of the week. Just hung out relaxed and visited with friends and family while our solar was being upgraded.
4/10- Today was the last day our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were in Livermore so we went out to dinner with them and had a nice visit before they headed back to Virginia.
4/11- Frank got up early and drove our RV to Benicia to Avalon RV to have our solar system upgraded. https://avalon-rv.com/lp-rv-solar/
Frank towed the Jeep so that after dropping the RV off he would be able to drive the Jeep back to Livermore until the RV was done. They were hoping to finish the solar upgrade in a day. Our old batteries were lead-acid, which are the same type that are used in cars. The old batteries died after about 8 hours of use. With our three new lithium batteries we went from having about 35 amps to use up to 300 amps so our new batteries were expected to last 4-5 day.
Unfortunately while they were working on that they discovered that our solar controller was broken and if we wanted them to replace it with a new one, so they needed to keep it an extra day. They were able to replace it with a controller which not only has a display inside the RV, but also have apps on our phones to get more details about how the solar performing charging the batteries and how fast we are using the electricity. So Frank’s sister put us, including our cat Teddi, up for the night.
4/12- Frank was supposed to pick up the RV today but he also had a Dentist appointment to fix a crown that had fallen out, so he wasn’t unable to get up to Benicia before the solar place closed for the day so, we spent another night at his sister’s house.
4/13- Frank headed up to Benicia this morning and learned all about our new solar system. We are excited to start traveling again and see how the system works as we do more boon docking along the way. Today was a day of doing wash and getting ready to hit the road on Saturday.
4/14- Today was grocery shopping and visiting a few friends and saying good-bye to family here in Livermore.
4/15- We left Livermore about noon and headed to French Camp RV Resort on the north side of Manteca. It is really nice place to stay and we enjoyed walking around and exploring the campground in the evening. https://www.frenchcamp.com/
Before settling in for the evening we had to backtrack in our Jeep to Lathrop to the Ghirardelli Outlet store that we had passed earlier, for some ice cream sundaes. It was fun checking out all the delicious items they had available. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g32610-d4598893-Reviews-Ghirardelli_Chocolate_Outlet_Ice_Cream_Shop-Lathrop_California.html
4/16- We enjoy keeping up with our home church by watching Sunday Service online every week. So we virtually attended church before heading out for the day. We wanted to explore some of the Delta and some old towns that date back to Gold Rush times. First we stopped in Isleton which is a small town today, but in the 1870’s it housed a growing population of Chinese immigrants. Ten years later the Japanese began to arrive and the town was divided to the Chinese side and the Japanese side. Much of the architecture in the town reflexes the early immigrants. https://sacramentovalley.org/stories/the-delta-town-of-isleton-a-hidden-historic-gem/
We then crossed over the Delta and traveled up to Walnut Grove where we crossed the Delta once more to explore another old town which was once divided into a Chinese and Japanese side.
We wandered around and checked out the buildings in the area and enjoyed lunch at Mel’s Mocha and Ice Cream Parlor. https://visitcadelta.com/stories/delta-narratives/legacy-communities/walnut-grove/
On our way back to the campground we stopped off in Stockton and did a little shopping. We have one more appointment for the RV next week before we continue on our adventures.
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