The day before yesterday we acquired our new trailer brake controller and plugged it into the existing trailer brake wiring in the truck. As far as we could tell, it seemed to work. We made extensive reservations at RV parks along our northward route in expectation of a trouble-free passage. After all, we had a new brake controller, a very recently serviced F-250 and a trailer that had just departed from its yearly maintenance.

However, once we got out on the highway and actually putting the brakes to the test, cryptic L.E.D. displays would appear on the controller although it worked well enough. Referring to the instructions that came with the controller, we found that the mysterious displays had corresponding messages printed in the instructions that were just as undecipherable, startling and totally useless to common folks like us. Before I get into any challenging driving, I will need to get the trailer to a repair facility so smarter folks can exorcise the demons.

We left Wilderness Lakes in Menifee this morning and drove north through Angeles National Forest lands up I-215 & I-15 until we got pretty close to a place called Cajon Junction. We then turned northwest on CA-138, skirting the San Gabriel Mountains, until we got to Acton and pulled into the Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails facility. It rained quite a bit more than normal in this desert this year and the campground is now two separate campgrounds because runoff lahars took out the campground road. We pulled into a spot and set up in the warm temperatures.

Soledad Canyon TT is sort of run-down and one entire campground loop with about 50 or 75 spaces is closed entirely. Power from the park’s pedestals is iffy and those pedestals without power are not marked so we relied on some neighboring campers who directed us to a spot where someone had just departed and they had been using the park’s power. Lots of pinon pines, oaks and cottonwood trees here but if it wasn’t for irrigation and the adjacent Santa Clara River, this would be a dusty gravel lot with nice restrooms, shower facilities, pools, a pond, adult and kid centers, no Wifi and lots of desert dwellers. Some have teeth.