Alto Posts

Seriously, a whole year! I picked up Breeze, my Alto 1743 trailer from Safari Condo, on May 2, 2016 and my life hasn’t been the same since that day.

I remember being nervous about if I had the right hitch and wiring, what tools I might need on a daily basis, and, biggest thing of all, how the hell to drive with a trailer on the back of my Subaru. When I showed up on May 2, the Safari Condo person, Denis, was training two new guys so we all learned a lot that day! And then suddenly, the training wheels were off, and it was just me and Bella and the Breeze. I drove the mile down to the KOA campground completely out of my depth and more than a little freaked out. But I made it.

Because the Alto was in Quebec, I had to drive it all the way back to Seattle. Despite a little hitch drama and the realization that backing up into a site was nigh onto impossible due to my left/right confusion (the formal name for this is dyscalculia), I managed to make it back to the left coast and by the time I hit Seattle, I knew this was the life for me.

Breeze has gone 12,000 miles in the last year, covering 2 Canadian provinces (Quebec and Ontario) and 12 US states (Michigan, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado). We’ve stayed at 86 different campsites, averaging 7 different places a month.

I’ve spent a total of 337 out of 365 nights sleeping in my trailer (23 nights in 2016, all for business trips before I quit that gig, and then 5 nights in 2017), giving me a 92% “Nights in Trailer” score. (I am pretty sure I am the only one keeping score on this point.)

I’ve learned how to use propane, use up all the propane, and then how to get my tanks refilled. I’ve crawled under the Alto twice to put on pipe insulation: the first right after I got it when I was going to Yellowstone and snowy weather and then again just last week, when I was expecting below-freezing temperatures in Denver. I know how long my 15 gallons of fresh water can last me and that I can go just over a week before I have to make a date with the dump station. And, lastly, I have finally figured out how to back up into a campsite, after months of baby steps and parking lot practice sessions.

I didn’t know quite what to expect when I started out a year ago. I kind of knew it wouldn’t be all roses and perfume (especially the dump station part) but I didn’t know how much it would stretch me to be on my own so completely. I learned to reach out to friends and schedule regular phone chats to keep the friendships healthy, and I realized that I’d rather see family and friends than parks and monuments. I’ve had great adventures…

Seen amazing things…

And hung out with some really fun people…

Most of all, I’m learning to embrace the uncertainty and welcome the unexpected. Wake up to snow? Sure, why not. Go searching for cool geology stuff? I’m all over that.

I listen when locals suggest places to go because I’m never “from here” and rarely know more than where the cheapest gas and the closest Walmart are. One such tip led me to seeing huge flocks of sandhill cranes, which was a bucket list item I never expected to check off in Arizona, of all places.

As I look back over the last year, I am grateful to so many people for their support. My brother checks in at least once a week to see how I’m doing. My friends pick up the phone when I call and the long conversations we’ve had have helped me through everything from newbie fears to retirement blues. And the Altoiste group on Facebook has been a constant in this new life – I don’t know how I would have figured out stuff without them and they’ve supported my full-timing in so many ways. And I’ve made some good friends out of that group (so thank you, Alissa, one more time for such a wonderful idea).

Year Two starts today, and while I have some general plans mapped out, I truly have no idea what adventures are ahead, and I kind of like it that way. See you on the roads, my friends!

Related Link: Alto Review for Year One

Well, some people might call it the Safari Condo factory, but I think of it as the Alto nursery, where all our trailer babies are made. It was really interesting to see the technologies and the construction techniques behind that Alto I now own. This place more than a factory, an assembly line of just some trailer – it’s passion for quality and it’s pride in their products.

This is my own experience of the factory, and I may have gotten some things wrong, or forgotten others after 10 months. The emotion I still feel when I look at these photos is joy – the people I met working on cushions, piping, wiring, aluminum, windows, and assembly all take the greatest of care in their work and they were happy to stop for a few moments and meet someone who would be using their creations. I was mostly introduced (in French) as owner 821, and it’s amazing how many people knew what that trailer was! The woman behind the service desk knew my cabinet and cushion choices the second she heard my Alto number!

So, how DO you make an Alto? It goes something like this…

First, the cushions and covers, the piping, and the wiring are assembled. While each Alto is different, the wiring harness is the same, allowing owners to add features later if they change their minds (like putting in a microwave or TV). The piping package is custom to each Alto, based on what water heater and other options are chosen by the owner.

Material for the Alto construction is selected from big rolls of aluminum, imported from the Netherlands. You can see the top roll is blue and the middle one is silver, the two colors you can choose for the outside of the Alto. The Alto exteriors are insulated with honeycomb stuff, so the team takes two aluminum pieces and then makes the insulated sides using a vacuum process.

Next step is to take that insulated piece, put it on this huge cutting table and then select the program to cut out the roof and sides. This jig table is a relatively new item for the team, as they used to cut the aluminum by hand!

After the cutting is done, you get something like this, the side wall of a 1743 model. The walls are all custom to the specific Alto being built. In this case, the owner has selected a propane/120v fridge, so the team cut two rectangles (one above the other) into the wall. The other holes are for window, a hatch, and various plugs.

The Alto is assembled in three stations. The first assembly station starts with the aluminum frame, attaches the tanks underneath, then the floor, and finally, the walls. This is all done by hand and uses the piping package created earlier (and shown earlier above). This photo is of an R-series Alto model.

At the second assembly station, the team builds out the interior of the Alto, adding cabinets, windows, and hatches, as well as the fridge and toilet. In R-series Alto, you see the kitchen cabinet (far left) and fridge opening next to it.

This is also the station where the wiring is laid where it needs to go. Look at all those wires! Again, it’s all done by hand. Real people build these Altos, one at a time.

In the third assembly station, the roof goes on and the big front window (if required) is installed. This is a F-1743 model being assembled. Look closely and you can see the earlier stations ahead of it; they are all in a row so that the Alto just moves down the line as it gets progressively closer to completion.

That blue overhead crane you see in this photo is used to lift up the roof and put it in place. You can also see the air-conditioning/heat pump being installed by a worker. And off to the right is an R-series model roof at the roof/window assembly station.

When the Alto is all assembled, one of the quality assurance tests is to “soak it” three times. They pour water all over it to simulate heavy rain, and then go inside and look for leaks everywhere. (When I was sitting in heavy downpours in the fall of 2016, I remembered this and sent a mental “thank you” to everyone who soak-tested my Alto!)

And the final step: delivery to the happy owner!

Thanks to Dominique Nadeau for taking the time to show me the factory and answer my questions about making Altos. And special thanks to Daniel Nadeau, who I met as he was walking through the factory – what a thrill to meet the designer of the Alto!

For more information on the Alto by Safari Condo, you can visit their website. And since they  are hip to social media, they have a Facebook page and they also have used Virtual Reality on Google Maps where you can walk around their Quebec showroom and even go inside the models for a 360-degree view.

(Note: I am not paid by Safari Condo, nor do I receive any remuneration from them for posting about their trailers. I just love mine and want to share my enthusiasm with others.)

Reader note: This post may be fascinating if you own an Alto; otherwise, consider it a possible answer to the insomnia that might be ailing you. And in either case, please remember that this is my experience of Alto power generation and usage, and your experience may (and probably will) vary!

Act I: In the Beginning

When I got my Alto, it had a voltmeter, which basically showed me how much energy was running through my system at that exact moment. It didn’t really tell me a lot, and so I used this chart to figure out how my battery was doing when I was boondocking (dry camping, so no electric hookup).

If the voltmeter showed 12.2 or lower in the morning, I would run the generator until it said 13.6 or so, and then figure, well, I guess the battery is all charged up. But, honestly, I had no idea. I had no data to prove or disprove that. Sometimes the battery lasted 24 hours more, and sometimes it dipped back down to 12.3 before nightfall and I’d run the generator a bit more, topping up the battery to last through the night, so that I could be sure the electric ignition and fan in the propane heater would work.

The week I stayed at Kalaloch up on the Olympic Peninsula, it was a totally shady spot and pretty darned cold, so I ran the generator every day. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I really needed to and I wanted to know more about what my battery was actually DOING with all that energy I was feeding it. As a full-timer, I really wanted to understand my power generation and usage. It was clear I needed better data.

Act II: Enter the Trimetric

At the end of December, a pair of generous friends installed a Trimetric battery monitor in my Alto. I provided the parts, they provided the “we do electrical stuff” labor.

I love my Trimetric. It shows me three really useful numbers:

• The current voltage of the system (could not resist that pun)
• The amount of amps going in and out of the battery storage system. Solar and shore power put energy in, and things like lights, heater, and water pump take it out.
• The percentage that the battery is charged up at any given moment.

This last one has been the most useful in helping me understand how much energy I actually have in my battery. And to explain that, I’ll back up a bit. I have a “group 27” battery, which means it can store 90-100 amp-hours of energy. And since it is a typical wet-cell deep cycle RV/marine battery, the best way to treat it is to not let it run down below 50% and that translates to about 45-50 amp-hours that I can use before the battery needs to be charged up, either by solar, electric hookup, or a generator.

Act III: Camping in Shade and Cold 

I did some dry camping recently at Chiricahua National Monument, and while solar was OK, it was definitely a “partly shady” spot so the solar panels weren’t able to work to full capacity. Nerd that I am, I thought this would be a great opportunity to see how the battery handles 3-5 days of not much power input. I started with the battery at 100% after a day of driving and the solar panels being fully exposed to the Arizona sun.

Usage Habits 

• Propane heater was set to 50F overnight (flannel bedding rocks in cold weather). I have the Truma Eco Combi Plus.
• 12v fridge was set to 2 during the day and turned off at night.
• I used solar lights in the evening rather than the built-in LED lights.
• I avoided draining the laptops, so charged Mac Book Air (MBA) only twice during my stay and did not charge the heftier Mac Book Pro (MBP) at all.

Trimetric Readings with Notes

Day 1 PM – 96% – overnight low 33F
Day 2 AM – 92% – overnight low 33F – Solar charged back up to 95%.
Day 2 PM – 95%
Day 3 AM – 87% – overnight low 35F
Day 3 PM – 92%
Day 4 AM – 80% – overnight low 32F (ouch!)
Day 4 PM – 85%
Day 5 AM – 76% – overnight low 35F
Day 5 PM – 71% – very overcast, virtually no solar charging
Day 6 AM – 65% – overnight low 34F

The Trimetric data showed that even though the overnight voltage reading was 12.1-12.3 (which would translate to the battery being 50%-60% charged (using the standard table below), the battery was actually way above that most of the time.

If I had been looking only at voltage using my original equipment, I would have run the generator every day because I would have thought the battery needed the boost. I didn’t run the generator at all because the battery was well above 50% the whole time. So it’s good to know that I can go 4-5 days without a generator or hookup boost to the battery if I watch my energy usage.

Act IV: Camping in Dry Heat 

Camping at Big Bend National Park was an interesting test because the Alto was in full sun all day, every day, which the battery really liked because the solar panels were cranking out the energy. I generally charged my laptops in the AM, and then let the solar fill the battery the rest of the day. The two days the battery did not get to 100% were the two days the temperature was over 95F and the 12v fridge couldn’t handle it and ran all day long trying to keep things mildly cool.

Usage Habits

• Propane heater was set to 50F overnight (flannel bedding rocks in cold weather). I have the Truma Eco Combi Plus.
• 12v fridge was set to 2 during the day and turned off at night.
• I used solar lights in the evening rather than the built-in LED lights.
• I used the laptops a fair amount for writing, so charged the MBA most mornings for an hour and the MBP a few times during the week. (I would have used them more but there was zero connectivity so no posting or social media!)

Trimetric Readings with Notes

Day 1 PM – 96%
Day 2 AM – 92% – overnight low 40F
Day 2 PM – 93%
Day 3 AM – 87% – overnight low 40F
Day 3 PM – 87% – fan medium for 3 hours, fridge ran a lot (day temp 90F)
Day 4 AM – 82% – overnight low 43F
Day 4 PM – 83% – fan high for 4 hours, fridge ran all day (day temp 95F)
Day 5 AM – 79% – overnight low 49F
Day 5 PM – 87% – fan medium for 2 hours, charged laptops
Day 6 AM – 84% – overnight low 42F
Day 6 PM – 91% – fan high for 2 hours, fridge on 3 for 3-4 hours  (day temp 88F)
Day 7 AM – 88% – overnight low 42F

So what did I learn here?

• Full sun makes for a very happy battery.
• Too much sun = very hot Alto = 12v fridge wasn’t happy.

How hot can an Alto get? Well, I left it locked up except for the fan vent remaining open and went for a day trip. When I got back, it was 114F inside the Alto. So, yeah, it’s a tin can of a trailer in full sun and high heat.

Act V: Sucking Up the Power 

Now, let’s move to the question of what uses power in the Alto and how much does it use? To do this, I let the solar panels cool off after sunset for a few hours, until I could see that the Trimetric amps in/out feature was showing no input and just a tiny bit of output (we’ll call this the phantom output because everything else is turned off completely except the Trimetric monitor). From there, I turned on each item and watched the amps out reading until it had settled, then recorded that number. Some items have more than one setting (lights have a dimmer, fridge has several degrees of coldness, and the fan can go from low to high and anywhere in between), so in those cases, I recorded the two settings I use the most. And then I put it all into a spreadsheet and developed the two scenarios I have been using most: (1) cool day (cooler weather and/or shady spot) and (2) hot day, using half the electronics.

Now I know that I can run the lights all evening and not worry about it, which is great to know on long winter nights. And it confirms what I already guessed, that the 12v fridge is a big consumer; on hot days, it will use even more power because my estimate uses 15 minutes/hour but at Big Bend, I was seeing closer to 45 minutes/hour.

I haven’t done an energy audit on the Truma heater/water heater. It does take some battery power to fire up the propane and then run the fan (always set to Eco mode). It’s next on my list.

Epilogue: Thanks and Acknowledgements

• To Richard, for telling me what to order and then installing my beloved Trimetric (and thanks to Alissa for the installation support for Richard).
• To Karl, for answering a lot of newbie questions about fulltiming and battery usage.
• To Jim, whose blog on battery usage was my jumping off point for the Sucking Up the Power section above.
• To my cousin, John, for helping me figure out watts, amps, and solar power stuff.
• To my dad, who repeatedly said “turn off the lights” when I was growing up. He was right, as always.

There is both a sense of excitement and a bit of nerves when moving from one campsite to another. I look forward to exploring the new place, but it does mean I have to pack up literally everything and that is a lot of detail right there. So if you’re interested in details and how things work (for me) when moving from Point A to Point B, you’re in luck, this blog post is for you. If not, you can stop reading now 🙂

The day before I move is a combination of planning the route via the Garmin (RV version that lets me say no weird roads), checking mileage to estimate travel time, and departure and arrival timing (when do I have to check out here and when can I check in there). For a lot of this research, connectivity is a big factor, so I get on early in the day when the local cell tower is relatively unbothered by sleepy campers.

If the next place isn’t close to civilization as far as shopping options go, I might do a grocery run or other errands that will let me stay at the next place without bothering to find new stores. One of the not-so-exciting explorations in a new place is finding the grocery (and then the specific items in that store), the laundry, the library, free wifi places, etc. so I prefer to make a last run in the known place before heading out.

Other stuff I do the day before, just to break up the chores:

• After my errands are done and I’m at the site for the night, I take off the big Brahma wheel lock and stow it in the car. I’m learning how to manipulate it, but it’s still a heavy beast to work with and I feel a palpable sense of relief when it comes off the wheel without an excess of swearing on my part.
• Fill the fresh water tank if there isn’t any water hookup at the next place, then unhook the hose and stow it under the car for easy loading the next day.
• If I’m not using the grill, stow it in the wayback of the Subie, then pile the hoses on top of it. Otherwise, this is a “day of” activity.
• Clean up the inevitable clutter that has descended on the inside of the trailer. Mostly this is concentrated on the front settee where I am not sitting (opposite side of the table). If I’ve been doing some reshuffling and curating my small collection of things, I put the goodwill bag in the car and the trash bags into the campsite’s bins.

And then I try to get a good night’s sleep. This is easier than it used to be. The first several times I had to move camp, I was so nervous I could barely sleep. I kept saying the trailer hitching steps over and over, interspersed with “don’t forget about x” and “Oh, no, I don’t have y on the list” thoughts. Last night, I slept well, so I think I’m getting the hang of this somewhat.

Morning starts with a solid breakfast. Given that checkout times are usually around noon and then I’m moving to the new place, I often end up not eating lunch and having an early dinner after arrival and setup at the new place. If I have electric where I am, odds are good that this breakfast will involve waffles.

Then it is clean up time: get dressed, wash the dishes, wipe down the counters, put stuff away, stow the things that would break in transit. I like having some little knick-knacks on my counter, so I have a little sterilite container to keep them in when in transit.

Now comes the heavy lifting:

• Stow the chair and footstool in the car.
• Put the patio rug in the car.
• Take down the awning and stow it in the car. That 10-word sentence does not begin to explain how much work this task is.
• Take down the cell antenna (bye, fast internet…) and stow it in the trailer

By now, Bella’s back seat is looking pretty interesting. I catch a break traveling solo because I don’t have to worry about crowding passengers with stuff or trying to secure it all inside the trailer. As a side note, it is AMAZING how much stuff can move around in a trailer after just a short drive. Things fall off hooks, pillows move from one side of the bed to the other, plastic containers shift just enough the kitchen door won’t slide open… that kind of thing. So it’s just easier to put big stuff used in setting up camp into the car where it can’t slide around.

Next up is the trailer stuff:

• Inside the trailer, make sure all the stuff is secured, the closets are locked, and the fridge is locked, then lock the door and stow the front step. Then unlock the door, pull out my daypack, and lock it back up 🙂
• Outside the trailer, close off the propane tank, unhook the power and water and sewage stuff, and stow them away.
• Crank up the stabilizers (the little legs that keep the trailer from moving when I’m walking around inside it).
• Take off the BAL leveler (the last thing to go in the car)

Ok, ready to hitch Breeze to Bella and hit the road. I store the hitch stuff (locks, weight distribution bars) in the wayback, so everything I need to hitch up is there. The whole practice of hitching trailer to car is a process still under construction, but it basically involves me backing the car as close as possible to the hitch and then using the Caravan Mover (CM) to move it the last few inches if I can’t hit the mark. Or if the trailer is not facing outward because the site had a better view facing in a different direction, then the CM is what I use to set up the hitching.

Hitch up the trailer to the tow vehicle, or as I like to say every time, “Breeze, it’s time to hook up with Bella and hit the road!” Put on the weight distribution bars (so that the weight of the trailer is spread across the axles better and not all on the hitch area), plug in the 7-pin so that I have lights and all the good stuff on the trailer, check that the lights actually work (the plug might not be all the way in, it’s happened…), make sure the propane tanks are off, the chains are attached, the hitch is locked down, and then check it all one more time. I might be a little obsessive about this right now, but I’d much rather be obsessive than sad I forgot something and then something bad happens.

One last look around the campsite to see if I’ve forgotten anything, and then we’re off to the next adventure.

Now you understand why cereal is a perfectly acceptable dinner on moving day 🙂

Bella and I pulled into the Safari Condo parking lot this morning, ready to adopt the newest member of our little vagabond tribe. There she was, waiting in the bay, complete with a red bow and a welcome sign:

Then it was a day of learning so many new things that I think my brain grew another brain just to try and hold onto the flood of knowledge the Alto grandmaster, Denis Messier, passed along to me. Full tour of outside, then inside, every single thing had something special to remember about it. Kudos to the crew that took care of me, L-R: Daniel, Francois, and Denis. From fixing a cranky power cable to draining the tanks of antifreeze and filling them with water ready for camping, they all rocked it today and I so appreciate every thing these guys did for me.

When we left for lunch, Bella and Breeze were getting acquainted. Sort of… I looked at this and thought, Oh, crap, I will never get this sorted.

After lunch, I did some shopping for the things I hadn’t brought and needed. It’s like buying a house, really. You write the big check and then the rest, well, you just shrug and pull out the credit card. In for a penny, in for a pound.

And then, it was time to learn the hitching up and unhitching up part. I didn’t take any pictures because I was concentrating so hard on grokking the flow of what needs to be done when and why. In the end, I think I got it, but the acid test will come tomorrow when I do it all by myself (and hopefully not in the pouring rain…).

Then it was time for the first drive. That poor guy escorting me, he did not realize it was my first time EVER towing ANYTHING. So we went pretty slow at first, while I got used to the wireless rearview camera (a really slick camera mounted on the back of the trailer that acts like a rearview mirror so you see exactly what is behind and to the rear sides of you. I have the mirror extensions as well, for those who care about such things). The test road is bumpy, but Breeze’s independent suspension handled it well, and after a slow wide turn around, I headed back to the mothership. A quick snap, in the traditional “I got my Alto” pose with Denis and I was off to the KOA. Slowly, very slowly.

The rain that had mostly held off all day started spitting, and being a Seattle resident, I knew I probably didn’t have much time, so I hustled getting the trailer leveled and stabilized, power plugged in, and the load of stuff from Bella moved (ok, kinda thrown in) into the trailer. Didn’t do the water because I realized I was too far from the spigot, and had already done the leveling and stabilizer thing. Note to self: check power *and* spigot distances before settling on a spot.

And now, I am sitting in my new little home, playing some Gregg Allman on the bluetooth speaker, T-Mobile hotspot cranking out the connectivity, and thinking about making some stir fry dinner. Before I sign off for the day, here’s some “first look” pictures of the inside.

And so there is my day. 14 months in the waiting, 21 months since I first thought of being a vagabond. I’m one step closer to that dream today.

After all the excitement about getting Bella hitched, Sunday trailer preparation work was more mundane: starting to figure out how much stuff I can actually put into Breeze. I have pretty accurate measurements of most of the storage space in an Alto 1743 (thanks, Marie!) and so I laid out a prototype space on the hallway floor by marking boundaries with post-it notes. (Yes, my hallway is that wide!)

The left side storage in the back of the Alto has the most room, so I started there. Turns out I can fit a lot of stuff in: one tall plastic bin (clothes and shoes I don’t wear all the time), three shorter plastic bins, a even smaller plastic bin on top, and a 23-inch monitor (that’s the white styrofoam thing without the monitor inside it because I’m using it).

Yes, I have decided to take a big monitor along for the ride. In the short-term, I will be working from the Alto this summer, and a 13-inch Mac screen doesn’t cut it for some things, as long as I have power hookups. Longer term, we’ll see, but it’s nice to know it fits (and yes, I bought it especially for the Alto, giving up my gorgeous 27-inch Thunderbolt display, which my great-nephew now loves sitting on his desk at school).

The right side storage area has less space because it holds the heater/water heater unit, so I had to cut down the boundaries by about a third. I can still fit in a telescope tube (big black back on the right, a smaller tool bag, and behind that, camera stuff (bottom plastic box) and a box of files (the colorful box on top). I can probably get a second plastic box in that back space and then I’m topped out at the 13-inch height limit for this space.

There are some things I won’t give up, even though Breeze is tiny compared to an apartment, and one of those things is my telescope. I’m looking forward to visiting dark sky parks as well as boondocking where there are no lights to ruin the night skies. The challenge, then, is figuring out how to store the three parts of the telescope (tube, mount, and tripod). The black bag is holding the tube and various lenses and power cables, so that’s the first part. I think the telescope mount will fit in the back of the small closet above the fridge, but the tripod is probably going to live in the wayback of Bella until I figure something else out. I’m not taking the telescope on the pickup trip, so it will be one of those “after I’m back” things to work on.

So what have I learned from my afternoon of playing with post-it notes, boxes and bags, and measuring tape?

• I still have too much stuff. Honestly, I haven’t even *thought* about where shoes go. Or the toilet paper!
• I still have too many books. Something’s gotta give. I just don’t know what yet.
• Even though I have done a lot of downsizing, I still have a lot of knick-knacks. I now have my most precious knick-knacks fitting into this small box (with a business size envelope to show scale):

That leaves a half-dozen paperweights, a big blue vase, some wooden boxes, and a small music box sitting in the “do I stay or do I go” pile. Time to go back to the Konmari method and see how much joy each of them really brings me or if their time in my life has passed and it’s now time to do some serious re-gifting.

With the countdown to Alto clock showing less than 70 days, I decided it was probably time to get into gear and figure some things out, like how Bella is going to actually tow the Breeze. After a bunch of research with my Facebook group archives (thanks, Altoistes!) and some conversation with a local RV friend, I screwed up my courage and called Torklift Central, the local place that invented the Eco-Hitch and was recommended by no less than 4 people when I was asking around. The woman on the phone was very helpful, confirmed they had an EcoHitch in stock, and set me up for the following Friday to get it installed and also get my 4-pin wiring converted to 7-pin wiring (which I’ll need for Breeze, but please don’t ask me details of why because I’m a little fuzzy on that part).

After I dropped off Bella, with a backward glance as if to say “be nice to my tow vehicle, guys” I walked around Kent for a while. It might rightly be called the armpit of Seattle. It did have a lovely little Japanese-themed park but a paucity of benches on which to sit and enjoy the views.