Epic West Coast Trip- Part 5

Our next scheduled stop was in Brentwood, CA, where my good friend Kirsten lives. She was at Girls' Camp when we got there, but Todd and the boys were great hosts.  We dropped our trailer off, and decided to spend the evening in San Francisco. We had a nice dinner at a ramen shop on the way in, and then walked around wharf area. Parking seemed to be pretty outrageous and expensive. We ended up parking at a nearby Target. They offered a parking validation with purchase. After buying drinks and treats for the family, our parking was paid for because of the validating Target did, so we thought that was a nice way to park for "free".

Brentwood was having a huge heat wave, and the temps were well over 105 degrees. Kirsten swore this was an unusual occurrence, but I will always associate her city with blistering heat.The next day, all of the kids swam while the grownups visited. 

We had originally planned to stay a second night, and make the trip from Brentwood to Utah in one marathon trip, but we realized we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it. So, after dinner, we left Brentwood, with intentions to drive up Donner Pass and spend the night at a KOA in Reno.

Going up Donner Pass was really harrowing with the big trailer and our car. It was the one time I kind of wish we'd had our much more powerful diesel truck.

We finally got into Reno at 9:45pm. The KOA office was closed, but we found our reserved spot. I was dismayed to see the trailer next to us was plugged into our power pole. I was surprised because everything is clearly marked. You'd have to be blind and dumb to mess it up.  We knocked on the door of the trailer, but nobody answered. So, I unplugged their trailer, plugged into THEIR tower, and plugged ours in.

We went to bed. I heard the neighbors come home sometime during the night, but not sure of the time.  We woke up at 6:15 am, ate a quick breakfast and got ready to go. I tried to fill a water bottle for Z, but the water seemed to be running out. I assumed that J had already disconnected the water hose and shrugged it off. I noticed that the hose was still connected and thought that was odd that I didn't get much water, but didn't think of it.

On the drive home, Z started throwing up. Awesome. Luckily, it was only a couple times, and then he seemed better.  We stopped in Wendover to clean him up, and noticed that one of our other trailer tires wasn't looking very good. Since we were about to enter the west desert, we decided to change it, since we could pick a nice deserted, safe road if we did it then. We made K & M do the changing, and I was impressed with how well they did (when we bought a new tire, we also bought a much nicer jack).

We got home safely!

We started cleaning out the trailer. J got our water line and was rinsing it off when he made a startling discovery. The hose was crammed full of miscellaneous weeds and leaves. The only way they could've gotten in the water line is if someone disconnected the hose from our trailer, stuffed them in there, and then reconnected the hose.  It had to have happened at the KOA, after we went to bed, but before we woke up. I can't officially blame the neighbors who were hooked into our power pole, but they seem the most likely suspect. It seems like such a ridiculous and mean prank to pull on someone. I suspect their little prank is what caused Z to be throwing up on the way home. He was the only one who drank water after the leaves were crammed in there.

The thing that bugs me the most about it is the suspects OWN A CATERING BUSINESS. Well, again, I can't say for sure that they did it, but when we arrived, there was no car in their parking spot. When we left the next morning, there was a vinyl wrapped SUV parked in the spot. I sleep fairly lightly, and the only noise I heard outside was when they came back to their spot in the middle of the night. Their SUV was advertising a catering company/personal chef that operated out of the Truckee area. They advertise themselves as more than a catering company, and more of a chef type thing. As much as I want to publish the name of the company plastered all over their SUV, I will refrain. I'm very angry with the company though, and would never, ever hire them, based on what I think they did to my water supply and I blame them for my 6 year old getting sick. Seems like a very irresponsible thing to do, especially if you're in the food business and know how important it is to have clean water. Hey, maybe the Chef didn't understand that though, and didn't mean any actual harm. It's also entirely possible they lent their vehicle to someone. Or, it could've been a staff member, and not the owners, and I wouldn't want the owners harmed if they were innocent.