Monthly Archives: July 2020

Sending and Receiving

Donna and I met up with Alana, Kevin and our granddaughter Lainey Monday afternoon at North Sound Brewing Company for a couple of cold ones. It’s a little strange getting used to the idea of having an adult beverage with my granddaughter! The brewery is only about a mile from the Mount Vernon RV Park on Memorial Highway. They had plenty of outdoor seating.

Tuesday I had a project to take care of. A few weeks ago, I noticed some strange wear patterns on the cargo trailer tires. One of them looked bad. On Monday, I walked down the street from the RV park to the Les Schwab Tire Center. I ordered four new ST type trailer tires. They said they would have the tires first thing Tuesday morning.

It was a bit of a chore putting the trailer up on jack stands. I used my floor jack and placed two jack stands per side and pulled all of the wheels off. Alana and the grandkids, Lainey and Gabi, came by to go for a walk with Donna. I used Alana’s VW Atlas to transport the wheels to Les Schwab. They had the new tires and got on the job right away.

This was the worst tire – note the shoulder wear and wear bars in the outer treads

This tire had much less wear, but still had excessive wear on the shoulders

Examining the four old tires, I saw they wore very inconsistently. These were Chinese made Rainier brand tires. I always kept the tires inflated to 50psi – the maximum load pressure indicated on the sidewall. The excessive shoulder wear looked like they had been underinflated, but I know that wasn’t the case. The tire guy at Les Schwab asked about inflation of these tires and I told him I always maintained them at 50psi.

The new tires were mounted quickly and while I paid the bill, the tire guy loaded the wheels in the Atlas. Before I left, I asked him what the tire pressure was – he said he set them to 50psi, just like the old ones. Here’s the thing – the old tires had a 6-ply rating – an antiquated rating system. They were more accurately called load range “C” tires. Load range “C” tires are rated for maximum load at 50psi.

The new tires I bought were 8-ply rated or load range “D”. These tires were rated for higher maximum loads. Load range “D” trailer tires are rated for maximum load at 65psi. These tires can carry 300 lbs more load per tire than the old tires, but they have to be inflated to 65psi. I let it go – I figured I could deal with it later before we hit the road.

Before I re-installed the wheels, I checked the wheel bearings for excessive play. I thought maybe if there was too much clearance in the wheel bearings, the hubs might walk back and forth making a slight wobble in the tire, causing the shoulder wear. The wheel bearings were fine. I think the tires were just cheaply manufactured and had inconsistent wear. I had put about 28,000 miles on the old tires.

Later, Donna and I went to Alana’s place. Kevin was working – he’s an paramedic with the fire department and works 24-hour shifts. He does two 24-hour stints with 12 hours off in between, then has five days off. I cooked a salmon filet on Kevin’s Traeger and Alana added boneless chicken thighs. She also made home fried potatoes, asparagus and broccoli.

We visited on the back patio over dinner and had a black-tail doe come through the yard. Lainey had to go back to Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. She had to move out of her apartment by Thursday night. So, Alana, Kevin and the rest of the family went to Pullman on Wednesday to help her move. They’ll be back Saturday afternoon. It was getting a bit late by the time we left and we didn’t get back to Mount Vernon until 9pm.

I’ve been playing with my ham radio and I’m getting more comfortable with the program settings and being on the air. I found a repeater located on Mount Seymour which is north of Vancouver, British Columbia. This powerful repeater reaches well into Washington as well as covering western British Columbia and Vancouver Island, Canada.

Without getting too technical, I need to explain something about repeaters. A repeater is a remote station that receives a radio signal and re-transmits that signal at a higher output power. The thing is, it has to receive the signal on a certain frequency, then re-transmit on a different frequency. If it tried to receive and transmit on the same frequency simultaneously, garbled noise would result. The difference between the receive or input frequency and the transmit or output frequency of the reperater is called the offset.

Well, when I found the signal being transmitted by the Canadian repeater, it was transmitting a net or network of users called the Rainbow Country Net. They log in with the net operator at 9am every morning for group discussion. I listened for an hour or so, then the net operator called for anyone that hadn’t checked in to give their call sign, location and name. I keyed the microphone and called in. I was welcomed and told I had a clear, strong signal.

Later, I realized that I had just stumbled upon what I thought was the repeater transmission while I was scanning frequencies. I didn’t have the repeater information, so I hadn’t programmed an offset frequency to transmit into the repeater, I thought I was just monitoring the output. So, what happened was although I thought I was listening to the net from the repeater, I was really capturing the signal going into the repeater and when I transmitted, my signal didn’t go through the repeater – it went directly from station-to-station.

Later, I looked up the repeater online and found the offset. This morning, I joined the net again and told them of my error the day before. The net operator told me he was unaware that I transmitted a simplex station-to-station the day before, my signal was that good.

I had to come up with a way to store the new radio gear. Storage when you’re a full-time RVer is always an issue. I ordered a couple of foam-lined hard shell cases intended for camera equipment to use with my ham radio gear.

I added the Yaesu radio sticker to the large case

The protective cases will make it much easier to store the gear. My radio is made by a Japanese company called Yaesu. I’ve been in a quandry over how I should pronounce the name. Most native English speakers say “YAY-sue.” But that’s not how a native Japanese speaker would pronounce it. They say it with more of a three syllable sound although the second and third syllable are often slurred together. They say “YAH-eh-zu.” YAY-sue sounds kind of country bumpkin to me. Maybe I’ll say a hybrid YAY-eh-zu.

My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table in our site

The weather forecast around here seems to change on a daily basis. We were expecting some cooler temperatures, but yesterday we hit 81 degrees and now they’re calling for 85 today. For what it’s worth, the forecast says we’ll see around 80 degrees each day through the weekend.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Break Out the Champagne

The probability of rain in Friday’s forecast didn’t materialize. In fact, by late afternoon, the skies were mostly clear and the thermometer reached 75 degrees. Around 4pm, I went to the car show at the Burgermaster in Mount Vernon. My friend and former colleague, Ed King, told me about the show. They had a good turnout.

I was standing by a car, admiring it, when a guy I’m guessing was a millenial came up to me with his wife. He said, “We saw this car from across the lot and had to get a closer look. What is it?”

I told him it was a 1969 Hurst/Olds. These were a variant of the Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 – fewer than 1,000 were made in 1969. He said he never heard of such a car.

I saw another rig that I saw at a car show in Arlington last year. It’s a custom that started out as a 1948 Ford cabover truck.

There was a very clean 1965 Corvette that caught my eye. The 1963-67 C2 Corvettes were the first to use the name Sting Ray. In 1968, the name was changed to one word – Stingray. I had a 1965 Corvette with a 396 cubic inch engine and 4-speed transmission for a few years. 1965 was the only year they used a 396 big block.

I thought one of the coolest cars there was this 1950 Chevrolet Deluxe Styleline. I don’t know why – it just really appealed to me.

I expected to see Ed King at the car show, but he hadn’t arrived by the time I left around 5pm.

Donna and I hit the Skagit County Farmers’ Market Saturday morning. It was just across the bridge from the RV park – less than a mile away on Main Street. They were practicing social distancing and face masks were required.

Donna found fresh produce there that looked really good and was priced right. The farmers’ market is right on the Skagit River. The Skagit flows right through Mount Vernon. Downstream from town, it splits into two forks. The north fork flows into Skagit Bay which connects with the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan De Fuca at Deception Pass.

The south fork flows past Conway where it breaks up into smaller branches and empties into the south end of Skagit Bay.The waterway extends south through a strait between Camano Island and Whidbey Island that joins Puget Sound.

Skagit River – looking upstream at the Division Street bridge by the farmers’ market

Riverwalk and Skagit River downstream from the farmers’ market

Later, I drove over to Walmart to pick up a couple of things. I noticed really heavy traffic going the opposite way from me. Cars were backed up bumper to bumper from downtown Mount Vernon all the way out Freeway Drive to Walmart – about a mile and a half line of cars creeping along very slowly.

When I left Walmart, I tried an alternate route by going north, then east on Stewart Street to Riverside Drive. It seemed like a good idea until I got to College Way and found it was backed up as well from there to downtown. Meanwhile, Donna was out for a bike ride and found heavy traffic everywhere.

We wondered if it was typical for weekend traffic to be so heavy around here. Then we found out that I-5 was closed through Mount Vernon due to two traffic accidents. All of the traffic was diverted through Mount Vernon surface streets.

On Sunday morning, I drove over to Alana’s house. I was scheduled to take my ham radio exam at 10am with the Greater Los Angeles Area Amateur Radio Group (GLAARG) through a Zoom meeting. Alana set me up at a desk in my granddaughter Gabi’s room.

After checking in with the Zoom meeting, we had a lot of waiting as people checked in and some of them weren’t very computer savvy and had to be walked through the process. I was mildly surprised by this – I would think most hams are a bit geeky and technically oriented.

Eventually, I was directed to a virtual room – I guess you could call it a Zoom room – where four volunteer examiners greeted me. These examiners act as proctors administering the test material and observing the applicant taking the test – one applicant at a time. They had several Zoom rooms with volunteer examiners operating simultaneously.

First I had to move my laptop camera around to show I didn’t have any books, notes or other aids in the room, including on the floor or ceiling. I finished the technician exam in about five minutes. After the exam was graded – I passed easily – they asked me if I wanted to try the next level of license – the general exam. If I took it, I wouldn’t have to pay the usual fee and if I passed, I would be granted a General Amateur Radio License. The general license grants access to many more frequencies than the technician license. I went for it. I passed the general exam!

This morning, I searched the FCC database and found my license had already recorded. My radio call sign is KF0AZQ. Kilo-Foxtrot-Zero-Alpha-Zulu-Quebec. I can legally transmit now.

Later, Donna and I went back to Alana and Kevin’s place. Donna had prepped mojo marinade pork tenderloins which we bought at Costco on Friday. I put them on Kevin’s Traeger. Alana had country fried potatoes, a slow-cooked bean medley and corn on the cob as well as a garden salad. All eight of us dined on the back patio and had a great time.

I bought two bottles of Veuve Cliquot champagne at Costco. Donna poured champagne for Lainey, Alana and herself to celebrate Lainey’s 21st birthday, Alana’s 40th and Donna’s 60th – which all occurred over the last month or so. It’s a milestone year!

We’re expecting a high temperature of 87 degrees today. The rest of the week should be a more comfortable 70 to 80 degrees.

Shack in a Box

We had a nice visit with family Tuesday afternoon. Donna and I sat out in the back of Kevin and Alana’s place with our granddaughters, Lainey and Gabi and Kevin’s two boys, Nick and Kyle. Kevin and Alana are in the middle of a house painting project and had to run to the store. They arrived shortly after we got there.

Kevin put chicken legs on his Traeger while Alana made loaded baked potatoes, green salad and corn on the cob. We dined on the back patio. It was a good time – I sampled a few of the IPAs they had on hand and all of them were good. We got home just before dark – the sun doesn’t set until around 9pm at this latitude at this time of year.

We drove down again on Wednesday morning and traded Midget-San for Alana’s VW Atlas to drive to Everett for dental appointments. Donna and I had teeth cleaning and check-ups scheduled together at 11am. On the way back, we stopped at Home Depot where I bought a length of PVC pipe and then at Winco Foods where I stocked up on dark roasted Sumatra whole-bean coffee.

We gave Alana her car back and I had a 6-foot length of 1-1/4″ PVC pipe sticking out of the passenger compartment of Midget-San when we drove home. I had all of my new ham radio gear and I only needed to make a couple of cables with PowerPole connectors and assemble an antenna to test out the rig. The PVC pipe would be part of the antenna. I got everything assembled Wednesday afternoon.

While we were at Alana’s, she pointed out her neighbor’s antenna. He has a tower with a ham radio antenna that must be close to 100 feet high. It’s next to a shop building where he parks his boat. I told Alana that the shop must have a “ham shack” inside – that’s what hams call their radio room with all of their equipment. She thought it was pretty funny and said she would have to tell Kevin about ham shacks. I then told her the radio I bought is a multi-band, multi-mode unit that covers frequencies that would usually take two or more radios. They call this type of transceiver a “shack in a box.”

Yaesu FT991A Multi-Band, Multi-Mode transceiver and Samlex SEC-1235M power supply

I wanted to mount the antenna high enough to be taller than the motorhome and trailer. I wish I had made the PVC section longer now – higher is better when it comes to antennas.

After I had everything set up, Alana and Lainey came over for a visit. While they sat inside with Donna, I played with my radio. Since I’m not licensed yet, I could only receive and listen – I can’t transmit until my license is granted. I’ll take the exam Sunday morning.

The Puget Sound area has a radio repeater network called a wide area network. It’s fantastic. By tuning into this network, I was able to listen to a guy in Alaska talk about the major earthquake that hit off the coast up there. A guy in Kentucky was asking him for more information – it was interesting. Yesterday, I listened to a guy at the Grand Canyon and another guy south of Portland, Oregon. This was in addition to local traffic. We found out the reason for the North Cascades Highway closure was due to a rock slide. A guy on the network gave an update – it looks like it’ll remain closed for a few more weeks.

Alana said she Googled “what do ham radio operators talk about?” The answer was “They talk about their ham radios!” I thought that was hilarious, but it’s only partly true.

Yesterday, I drove Donna to La Conner for her hair appointment. The salon is taking great precautions against the spread of coronavirus. They only had two hairstylists and only two customers in the salon at a time. This was her first haircut in about seven months. It took two hours for a cut and highlights.

Later today, we’re planning a run to Costco, then I want to check out a car show a few miles from here – weather permitting. The weather has been cooler than we’re used to. That coupled with the high humidity levels has us feeling a little cold and damp. Tuesday wasn’t bad as the thermometer hit 79 degrees. But on Wednesday it only reached 70 and yesterday was overcast and the high was only 66 degrees.

It’s only 66 degrees now with 62% humidity as I type this. The expected high is only 68 and we have cloud cover again. The forecast looks better – 75 degrees and sunny tomorrow with more sun and 80 degree temperatures as we head into next week.

Selfies

We left the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge Sunday morning. Our first stop was at the fairgrounds dump station. All three lanes were open, so we took care of business without any delays and hit I-90 westbound. Our next stop was two miles from the Washington border – I wanted to top off our tank in Idaho. Everything, including diesel fuel, costs more in Washington.

Once we crossed the border, we stayed on I-90 for about 22 miles through greater Spokane traffic. We exited at Airway Heights and took US2 which brought us west through farm land and small towns – Reardan, Davenport, Creston. On the west side of Wilbur we turned northwest on WA174. This took us to Grand Coulee where we dropped down into a gorge, then climbed back up again.

WA174 became WA17 at Leahy. After passing by the Chief Joseph Dam, we crossed the Columbia River at Bridgeport. We were on familiar ground when we turned west on WA153 at Pateros. This followed the Methow (met-HOW) River through the valley and up to Twisp and finally our destination for the day – the Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop. This was our fourth visit to Pine Near. We had an easy pull-through into site 7. We were only staying for one night so I connected power and water but didn’t bother with a sewer connection. We also didn’t try to hit the Schoolhouse Brewery on the river. Donna took a walk through town but couldn’t get there via the Shaefer Museum stairway – the museum was closed due to COVID-19 and the grounds were locked up tight. But on her way back past the museum, she spotted a deer on the grounds.

Winthrop is at an elevation of about 1,800 feet above sea level. We got an early start Monday morning and were on the road just after 9am. We only had about 150 miles to cover, but I knew it would be a fairly long drive. First up, we had to climb across Washington Pass on WA20 (North Cascades Highway) – it’s 5,477 feet above sea level. After reaching the summit of Washington Pass, the road descends quickly then climbs again to Rainy Pass at 4,875 feet above sea level. It’s mostly a downhill run from there.

The area is very rugged with high mountain peaks still covered with snow in places. The Skagit River originates in British Columbia, Canada and flows into Washington where there are a series of three dams providing hydroelectric power to western Washington. They create three lakes – from east to west there’s Ross Lake, then Diablo Lake and finally Gorge Lake. The North Cascades Highway follows the Skagit River all the way to Puget Sound.

Diorama at the overlook depicting the dams and lakes

We stopped briefly at the Diablo Lake Overlook. We’ve made this stop a few times over the years and took a selfie photo.

There’s a small town west of the dams called Newhalem. It’s an interesting town as it’s owned by Seattle City Light – the power company. All of the residents are employees of Seattle City Light working at the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, or in local county, state or federal agencies.

We didn’t know the North Cascades Highway was closed west of Marblemount. We had to detour to the Rockport Cascade Road which is very narrow, twisty and not much fun in a big rig. We hit WA530 at Rockport and were able to get back on WA20 westbound. I don’t know why the road was closed.

I made a second detour on our route when we reached Mount Vernon. I didn’t want to follow the GPS routing through the old downtown area. I stayed on WA20 toward Anacortes instead and went south on Best Road and came around to Memorial Highway which brought us to the Mount Vernon RV Park. We pulled in around 2:30pm and set up in a 70-foot long pull through site. The sites are a little tight here and we’re right under a tree blocking my satellite reception.

We made a run to Walmart – Donna needed some produce and I needed to buy a new sewer hose. Our Rhinoflex hose had a pinhole. It seems to happen after a few years of use.

Later we drove over to my oldest daughter, Alana’s place. She was at work but we’ve had several packages delivered there and wanted to pick them up. We had so much stuff there that Midget-San was overflowing. The trunk was packed tight and a couple of packages were poking out from behind the seats.

I was like a kid at Christmas opening packages back at the RV park. I got the ham radio I ordered – A Yaesu 991A – and a bunch of other ham radio related goodies. Now I need to pass the exam on Sunday so I can use this stuff!

We’re about 30 feet above sea level here and no longer in high, dry country. The humidity here runs right around 50%. It really feels different after being in 15% or lower humidity for the last three months. The forecast looks good with temperatures ranging from 70 to 80 degrees for the next week and little chance of rain.

We’ll head back to Alana and Kevin’s place this afternoon. Alana is an emergency room RN and has today and tomorrow off from work.

Friends and Fun Times

The days have flown by here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge. We’ve been active and the days have gotten past me without writing a post. I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam and I’m confident I can pass the technician exam. I’m now thinking I should also take the General exam as I think I know enough to have a chance of earning that license. The General license will give me more frequencies to work with and possibly longer range. We’ll see.

On Thursday, Donna and I took a drive up to Priest River. We wanted to visit with our friends, Jim and Cindy Birditt. Jim has been my best friend for nearly 50 years. It was a nice drive in Midget-San. We avoided the traffic on US95 and took Meyer Road up to Rathdrum where we found ID41. This took us up through Spirit Lake where we then took the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road through the woods to the Pend Oreille River. A few miles west along the river brought us to the bridge at Wisconsin Street where we crossed into the town of Priest River.

After a little communication snafu, we met up with Jim at Mi Pueblo – a Mexican restaurant in town. We’ve eaten there before and knew they had excellent fare. We sat outside at a table and talked over lunch. We left Midget-San in the Ace Hardware parking lot and rode in Jim’s truck to his place a few miles east of town. Jim built a log home here back in the ’90s – it’s somewhat remote and I didn’t want to drive Midget-San on the unpaved roads. We sat on his deck with Cindy and talked and laughed for a couple of hours. The time really flies when it’s spent with good friends. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in conversation that I never took a photo.

On the way back to Couer d’Alene, we saw two moose alongside the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road. It was a beautiful drive.

On Friday, we had plans to meet up with Dick and Roxy Zarowny who drove over from Spokane, Washington. They’re friends and fellow RVers that we met at Viewpoint RV & Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona. Roxy had been in touch with Donna and they invited us to join them for a boat ride on Lake Coeur d’Alene. They recently sold their boat, but they had reserved a rental pontoon boat to cruise around.

We drove down and parked in a public lot east of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Parking was a bit of an adventure. You pay for parking at a kiosk that only accepts credit or debit cards – no cash. For some reason, it declined my card twice. Then I tried Donna’s card and that was declined as well. The people waiting behind us then tried to pay for their space and their card was also declined! We found another kiosk on the other side of the lot and my card worked fine.

The weather when we left the dock around 10am wasn’t as expected. The day dawned with quite an overcast and the clouds were still present. It was quite breezy out on the water, but it was good to be out there nonetheless. The Coeur d’Alene Resort is on the northern shore of the lake. We cruised south toward Mica Bay. There are a number of lake houses and cabins along the shore. Some are more like mansions or resorts! Dick knew a lot about many of the more outlandish homes – who owned or built them and so on. Some are difficult to reach by car and are mostly accessed via boat from town. We saw an interesting sight at one place. It was Ford pickup truck that wasn’t where it should be.

The truck was wrecked, but it didn’t appear to have rolled over. It looked to me like it came down the hillside nose first. The front end was heavily damaged as if it crashed into the rock at the water’s edge and the rear end swung around to its final resting position. It’ll be a tough job to get it out of there.

We were cruising right into the wind, so we crossed over the east side of the lake across from Twin Beaches and came around Arrow Point to get out of the wind. There was an interesting house at Arrow Point – it’s built on top of a large square rock! Dick said it’s owned by an architect.

By noon, the clouds had mostly dissipated. We stopped and drifted and had lunch on the water. I think we were near Moscow Bay. Roxy made some excellent Mediterranean wraps. She also had tortilla chips and homemade mango salsa. Donna brought some grapes and also made molasses cookies for dessert.

We came back along the north side of the lake where we saw people hiking on the Tubbs Hill trail or splashing in the water. We came past the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course. They have a floating green on one of the holes! To reach the green to putt or retrieve your ball, there’s a small boat ferry.

The floating green in the center of the photo

We came back to the dock at 2pm after a lovely day on the lake. It was very generous of Dick and Roxy to invite us out and treat us to a tour of the lake.

This morning, Donna and I hit the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market. It’s only about half a mile from the Elk’s Lodge on the southeast corner of US95 and Prairie Avenue. We’ve been to this market once before on our first visit here in 2014. It’s one of the nicest settings for a farmers’ market, being in the shade of tall pine trees. We found a few things there although we didn’t go with an intention of buying anything.

I bought locally made jalapeno-chedder sausage. They’re pre-cooked so you can just slice them for a snack or grill them if you wish. Donna found really good looking fresh green beans. We also bought some labneh – we haven’t had any since the last time we were at this market. Labneh is sort of a cheese made by straining Greek yogurt.

On the way back from the lake yesterday, we stopped and checked out the dump station at the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if I could get in and out with the trailer or if I would have to dump first, then come back and pick up the trailer. It’s plenty roomy so no worries about the trailer. We’ll have to dump our tanks before we hit the road tomorrow. We’ll stop in Winthrop, Washington for the night, then continue on to Mount Vernon where we’re booked for two weeks. Time to visit the grandkids!

The weather has been fine with daily highs around 80-85 degrees dropping into the 50s overnight. Yesterday was the only cloudy day all week. The long range forecast for western Washington looks favorable, so hopefully, we’ll continue to enjoy sunshine and warm temperatures.

One Night in Montana

Sunday was our last full day in Salmon, Idaho. When I wrote my last post Sunday morning, I mentioned I had a pork Boston butt in the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker-grill. I wouldn’t set up the Traeger and then have to re-pack it the day before we traveled normally, but I wanted to smoke the pork and not have to freeze it.

I set up the grill at 8am and had the pork on it 8:20am. I wrote about temperature settings on the smoker/grill in this post. The thing is, traveling around with different climates, full sun versus shade and varying wind conditions makes getting the temperature right difficult at times. For pulled pork I wanted to smoke it low and slow. I wanted to keep the pit temperature around 210 degrees. I started out with the 225-degree setting on the Traeger, but it kept over-shooting and getting too hot.

I tried P-settings that would run at a lower duty cycle to allow the temperature to cool. The problem with that was, with the duty cycle too low, the temperature would drop below the 225-degree setting. Once that happened, the controller would turn on continuous pellet feed until the temperature reached or exceeded 225 degrees. This resulted in too many pellets in the fire box and and the temperature sensor for the controller would shoot up to 260 degrees or more. This made the pit temperature hover around 240 degrees. That was hotter than I wanted it to be.

So, I tried something different. I set the controller to 180 degrees, then set the P setting at 0. This setting will have the auger feed pellets for 15 seconds, then shut off for 45 seconds as long as the temperature stays above 180 degrees. This worked great. The temperature sensor for the controller read 220 to 240 degrees while the pit temperature ran at 210 to 220 degrees. Perfect!

It was a good thing that I put the pork on early. I thought it would take about seven hours to cook the 3.5-lb. Boston butt to reach an internal temperature of about 200 degrees. It turned out I need more than eight and a half hours! Then I wrapped it in a double layer of foil, put that into a thick bath towel and stuffed it into a small cooler. I left it in there for an hour. When I unwrapped it, it was still too hot to touch. The meat was tender and pulled apart easily and it was juicy – not at all dry. Excellent!

Donna made garlic smashed potatoes and sauteed a medley of corn, zucchini, red onion and jalapeno pepper for sides. We had Stubbs hickory-bourbon barbeque sauce on the side.

After dinner, I packed the Traeger and loaded the Midget in the trailer. Clouds had moved in and the sun on the mountains across the valley made a lovely contrast of light and shadow. The picture below doesn’t do it justice.

Later, as the sun was setting, the clouds reflected nice colors.

Monday morning we left the Elk’s lodge and hit the road around 10:30am. We had overslept a bit and got a little later start than I wanted, but it was no big deal. Our route took us north on US93. We had to climb to Lost Trail Pass at the Montana border, right next to the Lost Trail ski area. This was a steep climb with several switchbacks, but the road was good and the lanes were wide. The pass is over 7,000 feet above sea level and quickly drops back down to about 5,000 feet. From there, it was a gradual descent into the Bitterroot Valley around 4,000 feet above sea level.

We drove alongside the Bitterroot River through several very small towns and the larger town of Hamilton. The last time I came through Hamilton was nearly 30 years ago and I could hardly believe how much it has grown. We made a stop at the Pilot Travel Center in Lolo and that turned out to be a bit of an ordeal.

It was okay for Donna as she was on a phone interview with a freelance writer and the break worked out for her. What happened was, we entered the travel center to find the pumps open and only a few trucks in the lot. I pulled up to a pump and got out. I couldn’t find a card reader to swipe my Pilot/Flying J RV Plus card. I saw a guy by a pump a couple of stalls to our left. I asked him about using a card at the pump. He said only the first two lanes had card readers. Okay, I figured I would pull through, circle around and go into the second lane, next to the stall he was standing in.

When I got out to start the pump, the guy told me I would have to wait a few minutes as he was reprogramming the pumps. Ten minutes later, he told me to go ahead. I swiped the RV Plus card and got an error message. I swiped it again and it said “See cashier.” I told the guy what was happening. He said I should wait a couple more minutes while he re-booted the master pump. Five minutes later, he said try again. I got the same result. He tried his Visa card and it worked. He canceled his card transaction and told me my card was the problem and to see the cashier.

I went inside (with the required face mask) and the cashier turned on the pump. He told me to come back after I filled up and he would run my card. I put 50 gallons of the lowest priced diesel fuel we’ve seen since we hit the road in 2013. It was $1.98/gallon! When I went back to the cashier, I swiped my card at the counter and it worked, no problem. It turned out the card readers at the pump were Exxon Corporation card readers and they would only accept MasterCard, Visa or Exxon cards. Even though I was at a Pilot Travel Center, I couldn’t use the Pilot/Flying J card at the pump, but it was okay in the travel center. It turned out to be a 30-minute fuel stop.

We continued on US93 which I expected to bypass Missoula. Missoula has so much sprawl these days that the last few miles before US93 hits I-90 was totally built up with businesses, traffic and stop lights every quarter of a mile! We took I-90 west and expected to stop for the day at St. Regis where Donna found a dry camping spot. When we got there we saw the boondocking spot was next to the interstate in a busy area. It had a few tractor-trailer rigs in it and the marked parking stalls were closely spaced and too narrow for slide-outs.

We decided to move on. We knew we could stay at a tourist attraction called 50,000 Silver Coins at exit 16 – only another 17 miles down the road. We had stayed overnight there before – they advertise a free RV “Park.” It’s not really a park, just some dirt sites in the trees behind their restaurant-casino. When we stayed there a few years ago, they had a couple of sites with 30-amp power, but I’m not sure if that’s still true.

We found a nice pull-through spot and set up to boondock for the night.

Our boondocking spot behind 50,000 Silver Coins

It was 78 degrees out, but felt cooler in the shade. Donna walked to a historic nursery next door. It was founded in 1908, but was wiped out by a wild fire that swept through the area in 1910. It was rebuilt in 1912 and operated until 1969. It’s called Savenac Historic Tree Nursery and it’s owned by the USDA Forest Service. She took a few photos.

We had a hearty take-out breakfast from the restaurant this morning and made a relatively early start. We were only 16 miles from the Idaho border and when we crossed it, we gained an hour as we are now in Pacific Daylight Time Zone. We had to climb two passes – Lookout Pass and Fourth of July Pass – but these were easy with no switchbacks!

Coming down the west side of Fourth of July Pass brought us to Lake Couer D’Alene. I-90 follows the Couer D’Alene River westward from Wallace, Idaho to Couer D’Alene. We found the Couer D’Alene Elk’s Lodge – it’s been three years since we were last here. We checked in, unloaded Midget-San and dropped the trailer before setting up. This is the first time we’ve dropped the trailer since we left Mesa, Arizona in April.

We have 50-amp electric service and fresh water, but no sewer here. We’ll have to watch our waste water. We plan to stay here until Sunday – I paid for five nights at $20/night. We’re at an elevation of about 2,300 feet above sea level.

The weather looks delightful We can expect highs of 80-85 degrees and overnight lows of 55 degrees with no rain in the forecast. The relative humidity is 25-35%.

Sacajawea

We found outdoor pickleball at the City Park here in Salmon, Idaho. We played for two and half hours Friday morning. After lunch, Donna and I drove back down ID28 to the Sacajawea Center. You might recognize and recall Sacajawea – she was a Lemhi (lem-HIGH) Shoshone Indian that joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Sacajawea was born here in the Lemhi Valley. In 1800, when she was 12 years old, she was kidnapped by Hidatsa raiders battling the Lemhi Shoshone and taken by the Hidatsa to North Dakota. When she was 13, she was sold to a French-Canadian trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau. Charbonneau was hired by Meriwether Lewis in late 1804 to act as an interpreter. Sacajawea was also brought onboard as she would be able to speak for them to the Shoshone tribes as they traveled up the Missouri River.

The Hidatsa spelled her name Sacagawea – Lewis used variations of this spelling in his journals as well. The Lemhi Shoshone insist her name is Sacajawea – not pronounced with a hard “G” sound as many historians believe. I’ll go with the Lemhi Shoshone – they’re her people after all.

We toured a small museum at the center, but passed on the 16-minute video presentation. My legs were dead from the time on the pickleball court so we passed on the interpretive trail as well.

Saturday morning found us back on the pickleball courts. We played almost non-stop for over two hours again. On the way home, we stopped at the Lemhi County Farmers’ Market in town.

Donna picked up a few fresh veggies. The market is located on the east side of the Salmon River where Main Street crosses the river. There’s an island there with another city park – it’s called Island Park, just like the park we visited at Green River, Wyoming.

Salmon River from the footbridge on the east side of Island Park

Looking downriver from the boat ramp next to the Main Street bridge

I haven’t done much exploring – after beating myself up on the pickleball courts, I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam or relaxing with a book and cigar in the afternoons. Donna’s been getting out though.

This morning, Donna took a bicycle ride and she chose a challenging one. She decided to take North Saint Charles Street up to Discovery Hill Recreation Center. That was quite a climb!

Looking down at town from Donna’s vantage point on Discovery Hill

When Donna rode back down to town, she wasn’t through yet. She rode out to the Sacajawea Center and hiked the interpretive trails before riding three miles out Lemhi Road and back before returning to the Elks Lodge.

Traditional buffalo hide teepee – a mobile home for the Shoshone

I don’t know the story behind this thatch teepee

We’ve been in cattle country since we left Arizona. We enjoyed great beef from Ower’s Farm in Cortez, Colorado. Wyoming is definitely cattle rancher country and this part of Idaho is as well. The main grocery market in Salmon is called Saveway (not affiliated with Safeway). They have butchers on staff and cut the meat at the store. We found some excellent filet mignon cuts that were bacon wrapped. A nice touch was the way they tied the bacon with butcher twine so it doesn’t unravel from the filets while cooking.

I grilled the filets for us Friday night and Donna served it with mushrooms and onions and baked potato and broccoli on the side.

Filet smothered with sauteed mushrooms and onions

It was so good, we stopped at Saveway and bought a few more filets for later consumption. I also found a boneless three-and-a-half pound pork Boston butt. It was pre-wrapped with butcher twine. I prepped it Saturday afternoon and it’s on the Traeger as I type this. I expect it to take about seven hours before it comes off of the smoker/grill and it’ll become pulled pork after an hour of rest.

Last night, Donna grilled a wild salmon filet that she also found at Saveway. It was tasty. She served it with broccolini and another baked potato which she added the leftover mushrooms and onions to. She also grilled garlic scapes from the farmers’ market.

I started my pre-travel chores today. I checked and set tire pressures and packed a few things in the trailer. I’ll have to wait until I’m done with the Traeger to load it, then secure Midget-San in the trailer. The plan is to head out on US93 north in the morning. This will take us up into western Montana through Hamilton and Lolo. We’ll bypass Missoula and hit I-90 west. We plan to boondock tomorrow night somewhere around Saint Regis, Montana.

The weather here has been great – mostly clear skies as you can see in the photos. We did have a passing thundershower on Thursday night, but it wasn’t too much. They don’t get much rain here in the valley – they average about 10 inches of precipitation per year. It was hot yesterday as the thermometer topped out in the low 90s. Today is cooler – 79 now and I don’t expect it to get much hotter than that.

First Time in Salmon

After deciding against traveling on a windy day with strong gusts, we spent Tuesday mostly kicking back. We didn’t go anywhere, just hung out. Our decision to stay put was a good one. The gusts were so strong at times that the coach and trailer were rocking. I can handle that when we’re stationary, but rocking and rolling down the road is not a good idea.

Wednesday’s forecast called for 10-15 mph winds. It was 15 mph for sure, but it was from the south-southwest. This gave us mostly a tailwind component which makes for easy driving. We hit the road around 10:15 and left Pocatello on I-15 north.

We had only traveled about 270 miles since I last filled our fuel tank, but looking ahead, I knew we might not have a good opportunity for fuel until we reached Missoula next week. I also didn’t know if we would be boondocking – if the Elks Lodge RV lot was full, we had a plan “B” for some BLM boondocking. BLM is Bureau of Land Management – they administer much public land, especially in the west. Many BLM areas allow dry camping for up to 14 days in a 30-day period. We stopped at the Blackfoot exit at US26 and topped up the tank, then got back on I-15.

We went west at the junction of ID33. There was very little traffic – even on I-15 once we were north of Idaho Falls. On ID33, then on ID28 we didn’t see many vehicles on the road. We passed through several small towns and crossed large ranches. We saw deer and antelope as we headed north on ID28. The road surface was good but it’s a fairly narrow two-lane highway and you have to stay alert. Donna snapped a few photos from the passenger seat that give a feel of what the country was like. We’ve never traveled in this part of Idaho before.

The Continental Divide and Montana to the east

I knew we were gradually climbing as we went along. The only real indication was the gauge showing turbo boost. We were running at 19 to 23 psi of boost, which means there was a pretty good load on the engine to maintain our speed of 60mph – not maximum load, but not just loafing along either. Eventually we hit the Gilmore Summit at 7,169 feet above sea level. From there, it was a very slight downgrade over the next 65 miles all the way to Salmon.

We found the Elks Lodge off of US93 on the north side of Salmon and they had an open site for us. We have a large pull-through and didn’t have to drop the trailer. We were set up and relaxing by 3:30pm. We’re now at an elevation of about 4,000 feet above sea level. Looking out our windshield, we see the Continental Divide.

Our windshield view at the Salmon Elks Lodge

The Continental Divide is a hydrological divide that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific from those that drain into the Atlantic – including the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean Sea.

After dinner, Donna took a walk down to the Salmon River. There’s a recreational area right across the highway from us called the Lemhi Hole Fishing Access. That’s where she ended up on her walk.

We paid for five nights here. We want to relax, do a little exploring and enjoy the area before we move on again. The weather is agreeable – not as dry as we’ve been experiencing. The temperature might reach the low 80s this afternoon and the humidity is currently at 35%. Saturday has the warmest forecast with 90 degrees possible, but otherwise it should remain in the low 80s with cool overnight temperatures in the upper 40s to low 50s.

Not Running Against the Wind

The Fourth of July at the Sweetwater Events Complex in Rock Springs, Wyoming was a real treat. At dusk, several of the neighborhoods around the complex started their own shows. I was amazed at the amount and quality of fireworks people bought and set off. By the time they slowed down, it was time for the sponsored fireworks display over the golf course adjacent to the events complex. This was a first-class show and went on for about half an hour.

Once again, the racers partied on after the races and were noisy well past midnight. On Sunday morning, they all hit the road and we were on our way by 9:45am. Our route took us west on I-80. A couple of miles past Little America, we hit US30 north. This is a nice highway that initially had two lanes in each direction, but eventually turned into a two-lane highway.

US30 took us into Idaho in a stair-step fashion alternating between northbound and westbound. We made our way to I-15 north, then Pocatello where we had reservations on the west side at Batise Springs RV park. This is a small RV park with 12 pull-through sites located next to the creek that becomes the Portneuf River. There’s also a large, covered RV and boat storage lot.

The check-in time was 2pm and we arrived at 2:15pm. Our reservation put us in site #5. After looking at the park map, I could see site #5 was occupied! The office was closed, so Donna phoned the contact number on the office door. She found the attendant – he was cleaning the restrooms. He looked up our reservation, then paid the people in site #5 a visit. It turned out the people in site #5 were scheduled to stay for two more nights, but their reservation had them moving to another site. They decided they didn’t want to move and figured we could set up in the other site.

Luckily we only needed two nights, so it would work out. But what if we had reserved three or more nights? How would they know we could get a site for that long – we wouldn’t want to have to switch sites. I think they should have talked to the camp host and made arrangements to ensure everyone was happy. It turned out fine – we set up in site #12 which is a creek side site.

After we set up Donna, took a hike along the creek trail. I was a little concerned because I saw a “No Trespassing” sign but Donna had read reviews of the RV park that mentioned dog walking and hiking on the creek trail.

The creek trail disappears on a northwest heading through the trees

Eventually Donna came to a gate and had to exit between barbed wire. On the other side of the gate was a sign that read “Absolutely No Trespassing.” She walked back along a road. Later she found out that hiking on the trail is allowed up to a point. There’s a private trout hatchery on property that doesn’t allow visitors, thus the “No Trespassing” sign on the gate.

Monday afternoon, we drove Midget-San back into Pocatello – I took a route that oddly enough is designated as US30. Apparently a short stretch of I-15 is also US30. This road called US30 connects between I-15 and I-86 which also shares the US30 designation all the way to I-84 before US30 branches off again.

Our destination was a nice little brew pub called Jim Dandy Brewing in Old Town. They had good ale and a nice concrete patio for outdoor seating. Tables and chairs were appropriately spaced and we enjoyed a couple of cold ones in the shade outside. The temperature was near 90 degrees, but in the shade it felt cool. There’s very little humidity – we’ve been in eight to 15% humidity since we left Mesa.

I should mention we’re at an elevation of 4,480 feet above sea level here. That’s the lowest elevation we’ve been at since we left Mesa. Fruita, Colorado was close at 4,520 – other than that we’ve been above 6,000 feet everywhere else.

This morning, we planned to head up to Salmon, Idaho. I had the Midget loaded in the trailer last night. But when we got up this morning, the wind was fierce. I looked up the detailed forecast and it showed sustained winds of 20mph+ and gusts well over 30mph all day. Not fun in a big rig – especially one pulling a cargo trailer with nine-foot tall side walls.

We didn’t have to be anywhere, so I made arrangements to stay another night here. No need to fight the wind. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for 10-15 mph wind – much better!

Today’s high should be around 80 degrees and tomorrow also looks good for travel with a high of 80 degrees. Salmon, Idaho should have similar temperatures.

Steep Grades and Flaming Gorge

The trailer was packed and ready to go Wednesday evening, so we were able to get a relatively early start on Thursday. We pulled out of the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park around 9:30am. We headed back west on I-70 about five miles before exiting onto CO139 north. The road surface quality and condition was variable on this road – downright bumpy at times. This highway took us over Douglas Pass, more than 8,200 feet above sea level – not especially high by Colorado standards. But, we climbed through some very steep grades along the way.

At the little town of Rangely, we hit CO64 and headed northwest. At the town of Dinosaur, we hit US40 and entered Utah shortly after that. This took us to Vernal where we found US191 north again. North of Vernal US191 has some of the steepest grades we’ve encountered. The road sign stated 8% grade and 10 switchbacks over four miles. I think they understated the grades. I had to keep a close eye on road speed and engine coolant temperatures as we climbed up through steep switchbacks on a narrow roadway. Donna snapped a few pictures from the passenger seat trying to capture the rugged terrain.

The highway below us after we climbed up a series of switchbacks

We made a steep ascent from the road below

We were traveling through the Ashley National Forest in the Uintah mountain range. We made a rapid descent into the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.

Closer look at the reservoir with the bridge we would cross on the east end by the dam

The Flaming Gorge Reservoir was created when a dam and hydroelectric power station was completed on the Green River in 1964. The reservoir straddles the Utah-Wyoming border and covers over 42,000 acres. It’s at an elevation of 6,040 feet above sea level. Traveling over the mountains, we saw several mule deer along the roadway around here.

View of Green River as we crossed the Flaming Gorge Reservoir bridge

The road surface on US191 improved dramatically once we crossed the Wyoming border. Once we were in Wyoming, we saw antelope in the fields by the highway. I can honestly say I’ve never traveled in Wyoming without seeing antelope. The highway brought us to I-80 about five miles west of Rock Springs. We found the Sweetwater Events Complex. The RV campground was nearly empty. I paid for three nights with full hook-ups and 50 amp service. With my Escapees membership, the discounted rate was $27.80/night.

Car races were scheduled at the small dirt oval on the far side of the complex on Friday night and Saturday night. The grounds are large enough that the race track is too far away for us to hear the cars. That’s a good thing – the races were scheduled to run from 7pm to 11pm. On Friday, several rigs came in with race car trailers and set up near us.

Donna took a 15-mile bike ride Friday morning. Her Strava app, which tracks her rides and provides statistics, showed her as Queen of the Hill. She made a climb on one portion of her ride faster than any other female Strava rider recorded there. After her ride, we took a drive in Midget-San to the town of Green River. It’s about 17 miles west of Rock Springs. It was warm – the temperature reached the low 80s. Green River has a population of about 12,000 – making it half the size of Rock Springs. Green River is located on the north bank of – you guessed it – the Green River.

We stopped at Taco Time and got lunch to go – a chicken fiesta salad for Donna and a chicken soft taco for me. We took our lunch to the Expedition Island Park in town. This park is on a small island in the Green River. It was clean, well-kept and a lovely place to sit at a covered table and eat lunch. To drive onto the island, we crossed a one-lane bridge into the parking area. As we approached the bridge, we saw a deer standing at the far end. As we drove across, the deer hopped down to the river and splashed its way downstream.

South side of the island looking down stream at the pedestrian bridge

North side of the island looking downstream at the one-lane bridge

Looking upriver from the one-lane bridge

Remember what I said about not hearing the car races? What we did hear was the aftermath. The racers with RVs near us came back to their rigs after the races ended at 11pm and the party was on. They were very noisy well past 3am!

Speaking of racing, the Formula One season is finally underway. The pandemic had it shut down. This is the latest start to the season ever for Formula One. I watched the qualifying from Austria this morning and I’ll record the race tomorrow morning.

Donna made chicken with peppers and tomatoes over quinoa pasta for Thursday night’s dinner. It was simple dish and very tasty.

Chicken with peppers and tomatoes over pasta served with broccoli

Last night, we had cheeseburgers made from the ground beef/bacon patties we bought from the Ower’s farm. Excellent burgers!

The weather here is abundant sunshine with the temperature forecast to hit the mid-80s. I’ll start packing the trailer later this afternoon and load Midget-San. Tomorrow we’ll head out to Pocatello, Idaho where we’ll continue to have warm weather.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: July 2020

Sending and Receiving

Break Out the Champagne

Shack in a Box

Selfies

Friends and Fun Times

One Night in Montana

Sacajawea

First Time in Salmon

Not Running Against the Wind

Steep Grades and Flaming Gorge

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