April 12-13, 2006 - Being towed in the Sacramento Delta

On April 11th Bill called the campground in Isleton, CA to make sure it was safe to come with all the rain.  The woman said, "the grass is a bit soggy, but come on in."  We took that as the campsites were solid and we had nothing to worry about. 

On the 12th we drove 129 miles to Delta Shores in Isleton.  I-680 and I-580 are badly in need of repair, they were about as bad of roads as I-10 in Louisiana.  We stopped in Lodi on the way and filled up on diesel.  The last bit of the road to the campground was on the levee, the campground was below river level.  The river was very close to the top of the levee.  The Sacramento Delta is like that, houses, farmland, RV parks, everything below the levees.  Multiple rivers come in and join up with the Sacramento River which then flows out to San Francisco Bay and then to the Pacific Ocean.

The first campsite we tried to get into we got stuck in the mud.  After two hours of help from the neighbors we got towed out with a 4WD pickup and Bill was covered in mud.  Bill was the one who had to go under the motorhome to hook up the tow strap, he barely made it since there was little room.  It was raining.  They pointed us to another campsite that "others have been using", we pulled in and when we tried to get level a leveling jack went sideways as it sunk into a hole and the spring came off.  When we tried to move the motorhome a couple inches back to free things up we found we were again stuck in the mud.  

We were not level so we left the slides in, we were stuck, and no one could come help with the leveling jack until morning.  It was raining hard.  Bill changed clothes and we drove into Lodi to have dinner and found a Strings, a local Italian chain we really like.  On the way back and forth we noticed a new campground with concrete pads, we knew where we were moving once we got towed out again.  

In the morning the rain had stopped.  Here is the first campsite we tried with the pile of wood the campground supplied to put under our wheels and leveling jacks:

This shows how deep the jacks on blocks sunk:

Here we are in the second campsite.  You can tell the front of the motorhome is lower than the back.   The Alfa was not occupied while we were there, but they had sunk down also.

A closer look at the front.  The fiberglass had sustained some damage in front on the drivers side:

Here is our rear passenger wheel sunk in the ground, this is the drive wheel:

Here is our passenger front wheel sunk in the ground.

The mobile repair guy came and after a long effort and Bill's help the jack spring was back on and we were out $195 for 2-1/2 hours of the techs time.  Then the tow truck came:

All Counties Towing was called by our emergency road service, Coachnet, the owner came himself and handled the tow since he wanted to be careful to not damage us.  He did a wonderful job and we were freed.   He was slimmer than Bill and had the proper clothes to go under the motorhome and hook up the tow chain.

The driver could control everything, including moving the tow truck from controls in those compartments:

The birds came immediately to see if any bugs or worms were on the surface.

Here is a close-up of the fiberglass damage from the first tow:

We had friends who really liked Delta Shores and Diane's parents had also stayed there.  It was just too wet for a heavy rig like ours to stay.  Plus our cell phone was very unreliable at the campground, making calling for help hard.

While Bill moved the motorhome 13 miles to the new campground, Flag City RV Resort in Lodi, CA, Diane checked us out a day early from Delta Shores.  Flag City was very nice:

We were on level concrete, we had 50AMP service, we were much happier. 

It was about 1PM so we called our friend Brian and arranged to meet in Fairfield for lunch and to go to the outlet mall in Vacaville.  We hadn't seen Brian since October 2004 when we parked in front of his house.  We had a nice meal at Chevy's and then hit the outlet mall.  We wanted some filters for our Dust Buster and they are hard to get except at a Black and Decker Outlet Store.  Both Brian and Diane found clothes to buy so it was a successful shopping trip.  We really wanted to visit Brian longer, but we were due to visit both Diane's youngest sister and her parents the next day.

Back to Central California Adventures