On Friday we woke in Lodi, CA ready to hit the road for Yosemite. When we checked our car taillights we had no response. We have had nothing but trouble with the integrated braking system since we had it installed in Houston, TX. We drove all the way to Salt Lake City, UT with no brakes on the Saturn. There we got Camping World to take a look at the system and they fixed it. Except, we could not run at night because we had no nighttime lights on the Saturn. Now we had no lights on the Saturn even brake lights but we did have brakes. We were so disgusted!

The RV Park recommended an RV dealer in town. We spent most of the day at Geweke RV in Lodi, CA. Don, the technician, spent most of the day with us. He was the best! He fixed the brake lights and found a cut wire on the original installation from Houston that kept the RV headlights from controlling the Saturn. Besides that he voluntarily fixed our screen door so it now opens when we open the outside door as well as worked with Jim on several minor problems.

We had also been having issues with our front coach dash air conditioning. Don and Jim were able to track down the problem but in doing so disabled the whole system. I think that was Jim’s doing! We broke a high-pressure line at the evaporator coil, which was already leaking. We need a new hose or a new evaporative coil. Anyway now we have no dash air. All of our problems seem to happen on Friday. And of course there is nothing willing to fix our problems until Monday. We still have to deal with that! We decided to drive on to Yosemite using the generator and coach air. Remember this was the first time we have ever driven at night. The Saturn lights worked perfect now.

I think Jim had a partial heat stroke from working outside all day in the Lodi, CA l00 degree weather. His judgment about driving that road at night was not a great one! Have any of you ever driven Hwy 120 to Yosemite? There is one stretch of mountain road that is eight miles of winding straight up a mountain with no guardrails in two-lane traffic. Talk about white knuckle. It was probably good that I could not see off the side of the mountain. I could see headlights going up the mountain and down the mountain and off in the far distance twinkling lights of homes.

I think we drove most of that eight miles in second and third gear blind curves meeting us with traffic coming down the mountain. One thing we can say about California drivers, they do not let mountains stand in the way of living. That State highway was much worse than the Glacier National Park Highway to the Sun. And Glacier does not allow RV’s or anything over 21 feet travel that road. We passed one RV coming down the mountain and that was a very tight squeeze for both of us.

By the time we got to the top of the mountain and a pull over at a gas station we were both exhausted. I might add Squeek, our cat, put himself into a deep, deep trans like sleep. At one time I tried to wake him but he would not open his eyes. I thought he might have expired but his breathing was normal. That is now the way he handles traveling. He puts himself to sleep until the motor turns off. I should have used his strategy!

The gas station told us of an RV park 3 miles up the road on old Hwy 120. It was so dark and we were still on winding two-lane road with only our headlights. We were sure we had passed it and were in a real panic when we saw a pull over. Sitting at the pull over trying to determine what we should do we saw a sign too small to read. Jim got his zoom lense camera and took a picture of it. He enlarged it and sure enough it was a sign for the RV park turn off. What a turn off, straight down old Hwy 120 and around more curves. We arrived at Yosemite Pines RV Resort around 9:00 pm. No one was there to great us. We signed ourselves in and found our campsite. Set up the power and water and breathed a sign of relief. Squeek woke up as if nothing had happened.