Los Alamos, New Mexico – Day 8

Mary remains at home in California tending to medical issues.

The motorhome is still parked at VFW Post #8874 in Los Alamos. I expect to depart this morning.

Yesterday was a different day than I expected.

First, a local VFW member indicated last Friday that he wanted to show me somethings yesterday that tourists never get to see here in Los Alamos. By 10:00 AM he had not contacted me, and just because I expected to depart in the morning, (today), I decided to check the air pressure on the motorhome tire that has been giving me problems and hope I finally got repaired a week ago Monday.

NOPE! Instead of 90 pounds of air pressure, the tire had 10 Pounds! What to do, Now ?

I decided to call the shop that did the repair work last week, about 65 miles from my current location. He apologized and put me in touch with their closer shop 30 miles from my current location.

After some discussion, they agreed to send a service truck and technician to my location…at no cost to me. Now, that’s customer service!

He arrived by 11:30 AM.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

To make a long story short…he could not get the leak to stop. So I went and bought another new valve stem at the local Napa Auto Parts store. He could not get that one not to leak! Finally he had to change to a different kind of valve stem (that he had with him) and it finally stopped leaking. At least, I hope so as since it’s still dark now as I write this Blog entry, I’ve not checked it this morning. He was here  a total of two hours…at no cost to me! Great customer service!

If you are here in New Mexico, Garcia’s Tire Service has several locations and I highly recommend them to you.

In other news…

In yesterday’s Blog I tried to share a local news article about myself and was informed by a number of you that it would not unlock. So I’ve played around with it and it follows…

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The road keeps calling his name

Modern day nomad: Pays a visit to Los Alamos out of curiosity

By Tris DeRoma

Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 8:00 pm (Updated: September 29, 8:00 pm)

Seventeen years ago, Jim Jaillet sold his house, jettisoned nearly all his possessions, bought an RV and hit the road.

Jim Jaillet spends his time traveling in his Recreational Vehicle and blogging about it. This week, the 71-year-old was in Los Alamos, chronicling his experiences.

This week, the retired engineer’s curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see what Los Alamos was all about.

“I love history, and being an ex-engineer I’m a very technical person,” Jaillet said, adding that the Bradbury Museum was a big reason why he decided to take his 26-foot Class A Fleetwood Terra RV (with Ford Bronco in tow) up “the Hill” to see what it was all about.

“I really enjoyed the museum,” he said noting he enjoyed reading about all the details of the Manhattan Project. Jaillet also visited the Los Alamos Historical Society and the Valdes Caldera, where he said he really lucked out.

“I had the tour bus driver all to myself and we spent three hours driving around the Caldera,” Jaillet said. He snapped a lot of pictures while he was at Bradbury and the Caldera, and you can view them on his blogs at blog.seattlepi.com/ramblinman/ and otrwjam.wordpress.com/.

All in all he said, Los Alamos is a pretty neat town.

“The town has a nice karma, a nice aura to it and you can’t say that about every place you go,” Jaillet said. “It’s also a very pleasant town, the way it’s laid out. It’s very easy to find your way around.”

But not every place has been kind to him; Jaillet recently spent many months recuperating from a tour bus accident in Arizona.

But ever the optimist, Jaillet likes to use the experience as learning tool for anyone who asks him about his seemingly carefree life of a traveler.

“I’ve been telling people for years, retire as early as you can, because no one knows how much time we have. Four months ago, I could have died that day,” Jaillet said of his accident. “When the truck went upside down, the soil was soft. Had it been rock I would have been dead. The guy who died was only sitting six feet from me. Who knows how much time we have?”

On a lighter note, Jaillet said making the decision to chuck it all and hit the road comes down to commitment and choosing your goals carefully.

“One of the reasons I can do what I do is that whenever I look at a home now, I see something that’s very expensive and a lot of work, and I don’t want either one of those things in my life,” Jaillet said. “I choose to live this way, and it’s very inexpensive.”

Jaillet figures he spends about $500 a month when he’s parked somewhere and about $1,000 when he’s traveling to somewhere.

“A lot of that is gas,” he said.

Jaillet said he’s been a traveler all his life, even when he was working and raising a family, explaining how he would take off on a weekend for short getaways.

“It’s in my blood,” he said. I’m a Sagittarian, and if you know anything about Sagittarians, we’re travelers,” he said.
Jaillet left home at 17 and joined the Navy. From there he spent many years working as an industrial radiographer for General Dynamics Electric Boat, then as a quality control engineer in the commercial power field. He ended his career as the owner of a real estate agency in Olympia, Wash.

But all that time, he said, he always found time to travel.

Now 71, he said he’s right in the middle of a two-year circumnavigation of the United States. In 2013, he hopes to be in Connecticut to see one of his granddaughters graduate from high school.

Jaillet said he doesn’t have any real favorite or memorable places, though he does like to spend his summers in Washington near the Puget Sound.

“I’ve been so many, many places that I have trouble recalling specifics, though I do remember a few places. But for the most part, I just like to call my 17 years on the road a ‘pleasant blur.’ ”

Besides the United States, Jaillet has also spent some time south of the border. You can buy books about his travels to Central America at lulu.com/panamaorbust.

Though he’s had plenty of frightening traffic scares, (he suggests you buy his book to get the full story) he said he’s never run into a problem with crime.

“You just learn to use your common sense,” he said. “You don’t drive at night, stay away from the very remote areas as well as the big cities and you’ll be fine. Don’t flash a lot of money or jewelry, just use common sense.”

Keep those rules in mind, Jaillet said, and the rest is easy. “It just takes three easy steps,” he said. “Buy an RV, sell all your stuff and hit the road.”

Jaillet’s next destination is Bandelier National Monument, and from there, it will depend  on the weather.

“I mostly like to keep it between 65-75 degrees wherever I go,” he said.

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He used the following two photos in the article…

It was the lead story in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Monitor. They must really be hurting for news local news stories in this town!  🙂

I’ve had a nice visit in Los Alamos. I particularly want to thanks VFW Post #8874 for their hospitality and friendliness while I was here. By the way, the local tourist guy never did show up. I guess he ended up having to work.

Enjoying historical locations is another joy of the full-time RVing lifestyle!

 If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust