Tahoe Forest here I come!

[Grandpa Don]

Well I finally talked my cousin into another camping trip with his big Coleman camper. The same one that he wants to sell. We are going back up to the Prosser Family campground north of Truckee California. This will be out 4th trip to this campground. I have a video on YouTube showing a couple of our last trips. We haven't been up there in about 4 years now, so I'm looking forward to getting there and making a new video. I will be leaving home this coming Thursday and the check-in time is Sunday at 12 noon. Well be there until the 13th. I decided not to take my little Viking this time. It just didn't make sense to take two campers for just two people.

I plan on doing more research on the World War II C-47 crash site that I wrote a story about and published in a book. This time I plan on doing a lot more searching with the Metal Detector. Twenty-eight World War II veterans were killed in that accident that happened in March of 1946. One of the victims was a family friend and shipmate of my Uncle Glenn's. They served together on the U.S.S. San Francisco during the battle off Guadalcanal in November of 1942. Gino Colletti was on his way back to the east coast to attend the decommissioning ceremony for the San Francisco. He never made it! I visited his grave in the Colusa County Catholic cemetery just last week.

 

[Dingit]

Sounds like a great trip! And well played, making someone else do the towing. Tahoe NF is so pretty, albeit bearsy.

Pack your n95s--good chance there will be smoke.

 

[Mark CASTELLANI]

@Grandpa Don ... HAPPY TRAILS!!!

 

[NLB]

Have a great trip Don! Would be interested in reading your story on the C47. I’ve got a few hours under my belt in a DC3…beast of an aircraft, a real workhorse.

 

[Mytime]

Have fun!

 

[Anthony Hitchings]

Don, make sure that you have two ways out of the area if at all possible - just in case of a rapid growth wildfire

 

[Grandpa Don]

Don, make sure that you have two ways out of the area if at all possible - just in case of a rapid growth wildfire

The campground is right off Highway 89 north of Truckee. The Highway runs north and south.

 

[Ladiesman]

Have fun and I hope you find something with your metal detector. That would be really cool.

 

[Grandpa Don]

Have a great trip Don! Would be interested in reading your story on the C47. I’ve got a few hours under my belt in a DC3…beast of an aircraft, a real workhorse.

At one time I was very active is searching and documenting old World War II aircraft crash sites. I co-authored a book in 2001 on the subject. I'm not sure I can find my draft copy of the story now, but here is a link to the video I made some years ago. I had some pretty old video equipment at the time, so the quality is not the best. If I can find the draft copy, I'll let you know. In the video I am sitting in the same campground I'm going to next week.

 

[NLB]

At one time I was very active is searching and documenting old World War II aircraft crash sites. I co-authored a book in 2001 on the subject. I'm not sure I can find my draft copy of the story now, but here is a link to the video I made some years ago. I had some pretty old video equipment at the time, so the quality is not the best. If I can find the draft copy, I'll let you know. In the video I am sitting in the same campground I'm going to next week.

Excellent video. And some interesting finds. The recovery team sure did a through job over a large debris field.
Wing roots were a known issue on the aircraft and required detailed inspections for stresses.
Appreciate you sending the video, have subscribed to your YouTube and am working my way thru. Have a safe journey to the area.

 

[Grandpa Don]

I'm baaaaack! Just got home from the Prosser camping trip. We, my cousin and I, spent three days in camp. We didn't do very much though. It was kinda warm up there. We should have taken the generator. I did manage to go hiking on the crash site debris field once. My knee didn't bother me much, but I did have to be very careful. Mikey couldn't go along with me because the Doctors told him not to put any strain on his heart. He found out that he has about a 50% blockage and may need to have surgery. The Doctor said that he has a 30% chance of having a heart attack if he exert himself too much. So he just sat in the truck and I checked in with him every few minutes by radio. I wanted to make sure he was alright and to let him know that I was alright. I found nothing new on this trip. There will be another trip.

The camper did great. By the way, this is the camper that he wants to sell. It is listed in another thread. We only had two minor problems with it up there. The sink drain hose was loose which made for a slight water leak under the sink. A screw driver fixed that. The other problem was with the 3-way Fridge. The Fridge is brand new and this is only the second time he has used it. He used it on our trip last years but was very disappointed with its ability to keep cool. He purchased it straight from the factory and paid over $500.00 for it. This trip it did even worse than the last time. He had trouble getting it lit and the temperature overnight never got below 70 degrees. We knew that something was seriously wrong. So I decided to take the burner out and have a look. Sure enough the little orifice was the problem. The little hole was not punched all the way through. And it was deformed. So much for quality control at the factory! The only thing we had to open it up with was a small sewing needle. It was too big, but that was all we had. I did manage to make the hole a little bigger. I knew it was too big, but we decided to try it anyway. This time it lit instantly and the flame sounded like a blow torch. We turned the knob down to low so that we couldn't hear it any longer and left it on. We were afraid it would get too hot back there, so we kept checking on it every hour or so until we went to bed that night. The next morning we had some freezing cold water bottles inside. He is going to call the factory and complain about it and order a new proper sized orifice before the next trip. I took along my Alpicool compressor fridge and used that for almost everything else. Other than those two things the trip was perfect. Oh, did I mention that I paid $70.00 for 10 gallons of gas in Truckee. Here are a couple of photos.