Monthly Archives: September 2020

Dry and Dusty

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove up to Kanab, Utah on Thursday and met Jeff and Deb Spencer at Escobar’s Mexican restaurant for lunch. After a short wait, we were seated at an outdoor table on the front patio. We enjoyed the food, company and conversation for the next two hours. Kanab is only about eight miles from Fredonia where we were staying.

On the way back, we made a side trip to look at the Kane County arena where a rodeo was scheduled on Friday evening. It looked dry and dusty – the parking area was a dust bowl. I decided to pass on the rodeo.

Donna went out for a bike ride on Friday and in her travels, she ran into Deb Spencer. Jeff and Deb are mooch-docking at a friend’s place in Fredonia. Donna stopped and talked to Deb and her friend, Marge.

Dry and dusty has been a theme at Wheel Inn RV Park in Fredonia. On Saturday while Donna took a bike ride, the wind kicked up. I ended up taking down my ham radio antenna and it turned out to be a good precaution as the wind became gustier all afternoon. At times, the amount of dust in the air was astounding. It was a good thing Donna went out early for her ride. She followed a route suggested by Marge and went across the state line to the Jackson Flat Reservoir. Here are some photos from her ride.

I was feeling a little off all weekend – some kind of intestinal bug. So I wasn’t very active.

On Sunday, Donna had an appointment at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. She drove Midget-San up there before noon. They have a number of tours for a variety of animals – dogs, cats, pigs, goats, birds and rabbits. Donna toured Cat World where rescued cats are housed.

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Welcome Center

I hung out and watched the Moto GP race from Spain and the Formula One race from Russia. When Donna returned, I loaded the Midget in the trailer and I was glad I did. Once again the wind kicked up and we had several dust storms – so much dust I couldn’t see across the street.

Monday morning we hit the road. We took US89A south and began climbing. In Fredonia we were about 4,800 feet above sea level. Our route on US89A took us past Jacob Lake where we topped out at 7,920 feet above sea level! The highway is twisty and very narrow. I clenched a few times when oncoming tractor-trailer rigs threatened to knock mirrors with us. There is no shoulder at all and dropping a wheel off the pavement probably would not end well.

We quickly lost elevation as we drove past Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. We crossed the Colorado River at Marble Canyon at an elevation of a little over 3,500 feet above sea level and began climbing again. We soon left US89A and hit US89 south. This is a wider road with ample shoulder space and is a divided highway at times. But, it’s a very bumpy road with whoop-de-do sections. After traversing several miles of rough pavement, I groaned when I saw a sign warning of rough pavement for the next 24 miles. If the next 24 miles warranted a sign, things could only be getting worse.

US89 took us up the Mogollon Rim south of Cameron and the road to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon. We entered the Coconino National Forest and were back up to an elevation over 7,000 feet above sea level. Most people think of Arizona as flat desert land. Not so in northern Arizona. We went from arid canyons to thick pine forests with a multitude of landscapes in between.

From Flagstaff, you can see Humphreys Peak – the highest natural point in Arizona at 12,637 feet above sea level. We drove past Flagstaff and made a detour east on I-40 to Winona where we found the Twin Arrows Casino. The casino is closed due to the pandemic, but it has large lots and RVers are welcome to dry camp. We spent last night here and are off to Camp Verde today where we’ll spend the next couple of nights at the Distant Drums RV Resort. We’ve been there before and it’s a nice RV park with amenities.

The temperature is much cooler here, but it’ll be warmer in Camp Verde and warmer still in Lake Pleasant where we’ll check in at the marina on Thursday.

*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!

Cedar Breaks

We took another sightseeing excursion from Iron Springs RV Park on Tuesday. We drove into Cedar City on highway 56 and went south on Main Street to UT14. This highway began climbing almost immediately and was mostly uphill for 21 miles. We entered the largest National Forest in Utah – the Dixie National Forest.

As we drove through the forest, Donna commented on the aroma of the evergreens. There were Englemann spruce trees, pines and firs. There were also quaking aspen stands – many of their leaves were starting to turn yellow. The deciduous trees along the creek bottoms were showing vivid fall colors already. We hit the summit of UT14 at 9,910 feet above sea level. The air temperature was much cooler at that elevation.

We turned north on highway 148 and continued to climb another 400-500 feet as we entered the Cedar Breaks National Monument. It occurred to me then – I hadn’t seen a single cedar tree around Cedar City, nor did I see any in the Dixie National Forest and the Cedar Breaks National Monument. What was up with that?

At one of the information kiosks at a scenic overlook, I learned that early settlers in the area mis-identified the ubiquitous juniper trees found here as cedars. So, Cedar City and Cedar Breaks National Monument are named based on mis-identification.

Cedar Breaks is called a natural amphitheater, but it looked like a rugged canyon to me. The drive through Cedar Breaks National Monument is 7.5 miles long and has four scenic overlooks. We entered and my America the Beautiful Senior Pass got us in for free. We drove to the north end of the monument, then turned around and made stops at each of the overlooks. The overlooks have a parking area and a short paved path to the viewing area. I shot a lot of photos – here are some of the sights.

Donna at an overlook – check out the elevation

The colors of the rock are due to layers of shale, sandstone and limestone exposed by erosion. Cedar Breaks is on the west side of the Markagunt Plateau – the same plateau as Zion to the south.

On the way out, we needed a comfort break before making the drive back. We parked at the information center near the entrance and walked to the gift shop thinking we would find restrooms there. We didn’t – they told us we had to go to the other end of the lot and we would find a building with restrooms there. We did. Then we decided to walk back past the gift shop to the Point Supreme Overlook. The time it took us to detour to the restrooms and back to the overlook cost us.

As we got back to Midget-San, a few rain drops fell. There wasn’t any rain in the forecast, but in the mountains, weather can change in an instant. As we drove out of the park, it started to rain harder. I could see blue sky just ahead and figured we should just push on – stopping to put the top up would take just as long as driving out of the rain. I soon regretted this decision as hail started falling. The hail stones mostly bounced off the windshield or flew overhead as we drove, but a few got us. I was hit on the nose and ear and it stung! Donna took a few to her cheek. We were out of it after a few minutes and the car quickly dried. Before we got out of the showers, we saw a few motorcyclists on the side of the road donning rain gear. Little did they know they would be out if it just a few curves down the road.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. In the afternoon, I secured everything in the trailer and loaded the Midget. We hit the road again Wednesday morning but we weren’t in a hurry. We were only going about 100 miles to Fredonia, Arizona. I made a stop at the Sinclair station to top up the fuel tank before we hit I-15 south. We took about 60 gallons of diesel fuel at $2.31/gallon.

Our route left I-15 and headed southeast on UT17 through Toquerville, La Verkin and Hurricane. Out of Hurricane, we made a steep climb on UT59. We followed this road to the state line where we made a stop at Subway for lunch. I hadn’t given any thought to the time change, but since we crossed into Arizona, we gained an hour.

Arizona time is equivalent to Mountain Standard Time year-round – they don’t observe Daylight Saving Time. So, in the summer months, Arizona time is the same as Pacific Daylight Time and in the winter it is Mountain Standard Time. This can be confusing at times.

We took our time eating lunch. There was no sense in arriving at Wheel Inn RV Park in Fredonia before noon. We ended up driving into the park around 12:15pm. The office was closed, so I phoned the number on the door. The park owner told me to pick an open pull-through site and text the site number to him once we were in.

The pull-through sites are long with lots of space to enter and exit – the park is basically a dirt lot. It’s level, but the sites are narrow. It’s laid out in such a way to allow an island between adjoining sites to have a shared water spigot and hook-ups. The sites alternate facing east or west. The downside to this is neighboring doors face each other and the picnic table areas are shared space. We set up and will spend five nights here before moving down around Flagstaff.

Before we left Cedar City, Donna found fresh tilapia from Ecuador at the Smith’s grocery there. She made an old favorite that we haven’t had in a while – tortilla-crusted tilapia.

We’re in for more hot, dry weather. The forecast calls for daily highs around 90 degrees. We’re still at an elevation of about 4,800 feet above sea level, but the elevation isn’t making it any cooler here.

Today we plan to drive up to Kanab, Utah and meet our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) for lunch. We haven’t seen them since spring. Our paths have crossed several times over the years and it’s always fun to meet up with them.

2,000 Flushes

It didn’t take much preparation to hit the road again after boondocking at Fort Deseret. We just pulled in the slides and secured a few things before resuming our journey south on UT257. At Milford we hit UT130 south. The wind steadily increased all morning and by noon it was gusting over 30mph. I don’t enjoy driving a big rig in gusty winds and would’ve pulled off if I could. But there wasn’t any place to stop. UT130 is a narrow, two-lane highway with no shoulder. It made the drive mentally taxing. Lucky for me it was a short drive of about 140 miles.

The route was a gradual climb that steepened south of Minersville. The grade plus the headwinds had me keeping a close eye on the engine coolant temperature, but it wasn’t an issue as I manually downshifted anytime it reached 195 degrees and kept the temperature in check. We topped out at 6,570 feet above sea level, then gradually descended to Cedar City. We’re at an elevation of 5,470 feet above sea level now.

I received a text message from Iron Springs RV Park with directions to the park and it instructed me to pull into site B2 – no need to check in. We found the site and it’s 80 feet long as advertised, but quite narrow. This RV park is new and they’re still working on improvements and amenities like pickleball courts. We’re about 10 miles west of Cedar City and it’s fairly remote.

Donna took a hike Saturday afternoon on a trail that started by the lodge – I wasn’t up for much after the hard driving. At the lodge, she met an employee who told her about an interesting sight in the area. On Sunday, Donna rode her bike past Granite Mountain to the old, abandoned Western Iron Ore pit mine.

The pit holds water that’s a deep blue color and locally it’s known as 2,000 Flushes. I read the name is derived from the color making it look like a toilet bowl full of blue cleaner. The water in the pit is toxic though – the color comes from iron and copper traces and it’s also polluted with arsenic, uranium and mercury.

This morning we took a drive to Kolob Canyons – a section of Zion National Park about 40 miles north of Zion Canyon. The Visitor Center was closed and no shuttlebuses were running. There wasn’t a ranger on duty to check passes or collect fees – I didn’t need my America the Beautiful Senior Parks Pass. We took the driving tour – a five-mile scenic drive past trailhead parking areas and scenic pull-outs. It was near mid-day so the pictures are a bit washed out – it’s much more colorful than the pictures show. Some of pictures have a bit of haze – we’re out of the heavy smoke areas, but there’s still some smoke in the air.

Placard at the turnaround lot at the top of the drive

The five-mile tour climbs all the way in and tops out over 6,000 feet above sea level. It was a pleasant drive in Midget-San with the top down.

Our neighbor here at Iron Springs RV Park has an interesting vehicle that could’ve been a workable alternative to Midget-San for us. He has a 1964 VW Beetle that’s been converted to a Baja Bug.

The engine is highly modified – I’m not sure of the displacement but I’m pretty sure it’s a stroker with larger pistons and cylinders.

Modified engine with dual downdraft Weber carburetors

Back in the 1970s, I had a Baja Bug with a 1959 oval window body. It was lightened and was punched out to 1790cc with dual Solex carburetors. It was a lot of fun.

I almost forgot to mention a milestone for our Alpine Coach. The odometer turned over 100,000 miles on the way here. When we bought this coach in January of 2014, it had just under 55,000 miles on it. We’ve put a little over 45,000 miles on it in nearly seven years. That’s under 7,000 miles per year.

The temperature reached the low 80s Saturday and Sunday and it’s still a little windy. The winds should calm down tomorrow and we’ll be fine to hit the road on Wednesday. It should be a little cooler too. We’ll cross the Arizona border and spend some time in northern Arizona before heading down to Lake Pleasant.

Wild Visitors

After I wrote my last post on Wednesday, Donna and I hiked down a trail to the beach. It was only about half a mile, but the soft, powdery sand made it a tough slog in places. We could see a large spherical object ahead high and dry in the sand, but couldn’t tell what it was. When we got closer, I could see it was an old, damaged mooring buoy.

Although these steel buoys are quite heavy, they’re buoyant when they’re foam filled or sealed airtight. They’re usually anchored to large concrete blocks and boats or ships tie up to them.

The level of the Great Salt Lake is low right now and the beaches are expansive.

Near the water,the sand is full of brine flies. We saw people swimming to the north near the beach access and Island Buffalo Grill and also saw one person on a paddleboard.

Back at our site, we had a visitor.

I saw another large coyote earlier, then this guy came wandering by, presumably looking for mice or any other easy meal.

Later, while I played around with ham radio, Donna brought Ozark the cat outside in her expandable carrier. It’s the safest way for Ozark to enjoy some fresh air and the outdoors – the coyotes would make short work of a cat here.

Ozark the cat enjoying some fresh air outdoors

Later, Donna made a simple dinner by grilling green chile turkey burgers topped with avocado and served it with grilled zucchini, peppers, onions and corn with cotija cheese.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might recall back in 2018 when I had to replace the house battery bank for our coach. At that time, I opened my wallet and stepped up to Lifeline AGM batteries. I haven’t regretted it. These batteries are maintenance-free and really perform. When we’re dry camped, I run the inverter all day and night. The batteries never fall to 50% or lower. I charge them by running the generator for two to three hours in the morning – when we make coffee and have breakfast – and another two or three hours in the evening – when Donna prepares dinner.

I watch the state of charging on the Heart Interface monitor. There are three stages of charging with our smart charger. It starts with a bulk charge and the monitor shows 14.0-14.5-volts and up to 100 amps. This current measurement is showing amperage at the voltage going into the batteries, so 100 amps at 14 volts is about 1400 watts. Our generator can produce up to 7,500 watts (7.5kW). If you remember my post about 30-amp and 50-amp service, you might wonder what 7.5kW equates to. If we apply Ohm’s law and do the math, we see that our Onan Quiet Diesel generator puts out 62 amps@120V on two legs (L1 and L2) – about 30 amps per leg. Anyway, our battery charger goes into the second mode – called absorption – after 15 minutes or so. This mode charges at constant voltage while amperage drops – this mode takes longer, up to three hours. Finally the charger reaches the final stage, float charging. This mode charges at low amperage and about 13.3 volts. The Lifeline AGM battery bank reaches this state anywhere from 90 minutes to 180 minutes of charging time.

When we boondock, it’s easy to think if it as “free” camping, but it isn’t really free. The generator run time has a cost – it consumes fuel and hours on the generator eventually lead to preventive maintenance. We usually average a little over half a gallon of diesel fuel per hour and I change oil and filter at 150 hour intervals. I figure it’s about $9/day. We don’t boondock very often, so going to solar power to charge the battery bank doesn’t pencil out. If we boondock 30 days per year, that’s only about $270/year for the generator. It would take a long time for a solar installation to break even at that rate.

Our neighbor at Antelope Island State Park may have to sharpen his pencil though. He told me they had been there for two weeks. He started his generator at 7am and ran it until well after dark each day!

In addition to the coyote in our site, we had a mouse feeding by the front door (much to Ozark’s delight), then Friday morning, a bison wandered by.

Bison are often referred to as buffalo, but the zoologists tell us they aren’t really buffalo. By this, they mean they aren’t related to the water buffalo of Asia or the cape buffalo of Africa. I still think of them as buffalo though. The same can be said of pronghorn antelope. The zoologists maintain they aren’t true antelope as they have no connection with the antelope species of Africa. They’re antelope to me though.

Friday morning we packed up – I had loaded the Midget in the trailer Thursday afternoon. We stopped at the dump station on Antelope Island. I had pre-scouted the dump station, but it turned out to be tighter than I thought. We came through unscathed though. As we were pulling out of the dump station, three rigs lined up to dump. Our timing was impeccable – waiting for three rigs to dump could have taken up to an hour.

Our route took us southbound on I-15 past Bountiful and into Salt Lake City. The interstate was the usual jungle of cars travelling too fast and too close together. We went west on I-80 and escaped the city along the southern edge of the Great Salt Lake. We turned south at UT36 which took us through Tooele. I last came through here in 2009 when I came to the World Superbike races at Miller Motorsport Park by motorcycle from Mesa, Arizona with my friend, Mason. Tooele has really grown since then.

We made a quick stop at the south end of town for lunch at Subway. Then we were on our way again. Once we left Tooele, the road became very quiet with little traffic. ID36 eventually runs into US6 and we continued south. Our destination was an unusual place. We planned to stay overnight at Fort Deseret State Park. Donna found information on dry camping there.

What we found when we arrived was surprising. Although it’s designated as a state park, there are no offices or buildings of any kind. There are no services – no water, no restrooms or vault toilets – not even a trash can. It’s just a flat, unpaved lot with a couple of old picnic tables and a couple of placards at the ruins of Fort Deseret. The ruins are just what’s left of the adobe walls that surrounded the fort.

Our original plan was to go to the Saint George, Utah area from here. That plan evaporated when we found out all of the RV parks and campgrounds in the area are booked full. This wouldn’t normally be the case after Labor Day, but 2020 is anything but normal. One park manager told Donna that many people changed their plans and extended their stay in Saint George because of the wildfires west of there. Many others that planned to go to Yosemite, for example, halted their trip west there. Also, people from California and parts of Nevada had escaped the smoke and ash by taking their RV to Saint George.

So, we’re on to plan “B”. Today we head down to Cedar City where I booked an 80-foot long pull-through site for the next four nights. This will allow us to catch up on laundry and figure out our next steps. We’ll have a week to get to Lake Pleasant, Arizona west of Phoenix.

The skies are still smoky and we can expect daily highs in the lower 80s in Cedar City. The overnight lows should be in the mid-50s – just right for sleeping with the window open.

Smoke on the Water

My previous post included a photo taken at the swimming area at Legacy Park in McCall. You can see across Payette Lake to the pine-covered ridge at the north side. On Sunday evening, I saw a video clip on the local news taken from the same point where I stood to take the photo, except you couldn’t see more than 200 yards across the lake due to smoke from wildfires. Smoke is everywhere out west; it’s unbelievable.

I wasn’t able to post over the past few days in Mountain Home, Idaho due to spotty Internet access. Spotty is being kind – our current location only has 3G, but it’s far better than Mountain Home which was like a dial-up connection 25 years ago. There was a Verizon LTE cell tower about half a mile away from the Gem State RV Park and that tower had several cells (nodes). Each node was directed to cover a slice of the 200 degree fan of coverage from that tower. However, the node pointed at the park had the largest slice and covered the most densely populated area of coverage. It was overwhelmed by cell phones most of the day.

When I wrote my last post on Saturday morning I was lucky to have a decent connection for an hour. Fortunately, Donna had completed an article for Escapees RV Club before we left Grangeville.

We left Mountain Home on Monday and continued to head in a southerly direction. I didn’t want to blast down I-84 – the speed limit here is 80mph and I don’t drive the coach that fast. After topping up our fuel tank with 67 gallons of diesel, I followed a route that took us down a nice county road that mostly paralleled the interstate. It took us through a lot of farmland with potato fields and some cattle. Idaho is the largest producer of potatoes in the country.

We followed back roads all the way to Rupert, Idaho. These county roads were mostly smooth with speed limits of 55-65mph. It was easy driving with very little traffic. We passed through a small town called Bliss which had a deep valley to the south. The valley was filled with dense smoke and I couldn’t make out any details of the terrain there.

We found the Elk’s Lodge in Rupert. I checked in at the lodge and was told we could dry camp for free. We set up in a level area with a golf course behind us and had happy hour at the lodge. Donna prepared a simple dinner of garlicky tomato and zucchini with parmesan and Italian sausage. She found the best corn of the season at the Mountain Home farmers’ market – the farmer told her it was picked that morning and would be the best we’ve had. He was right.

We left Rupert Tuesday morning and this time I took a route down ID81. This state route was similar to the county roads we took the day before. The speed limit was 65mph, the road surface was decent and traffic non-existent. After crossing the Utah border, I had no option but to get on the interstate at Snowville. I-84 had miles of construction and only had one lane open. It merges with I-15 at Tremonton and we stayed on I-15 through heavy traffic in Ogden.

We left I-15 south of Ogden proper at exit 332 and went west through an area called Syracuse. We were on a wide boulevard lined with shopping centers and businesses. It gave way to a residential area and narrowed to one lane in each direction. The road ended at the entrance to Antelope Island State Park. The entrance to the park is at the start of the Davis County Causeway. We had reserved a 90-foot-long pull-through site at the Bridger Bay Campground. I checked in at the entrance and the girl working there told me to go seven miles across the causeway and take a left when we reach the island, then take the next right. We found our site without any difficulty.

Antelope Island is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. It has an area of 28,022 acres and is roughly 15 miles long north-to-south. It’s home to bison, mule deer, antelope and other wildlife including coyotes and badgers. Just as we entered the island, we saw a bull bison standing behind the entrance sign with a statue of a bison on the other side.

The campground is dry-camping only. We’ll boondock here for three nights. After setting up, we took a drive in Midget-San to have a look around. We started by going up to Buffalo Point. You can see in the photos the amount of smoke over the Great Salt Lake.

View south from Buffalo Point – lots of smoke

Bridger Bay from Buffalo Point – campground is on the edge of the beach to the right of center

We made a loop past the beach access area, the Island Buffalo Grill and visitor center. Then we drove 11 miles down the paved road on the east side of the island to Fielding Garr Ranch. There weren’t very many cars on the road, but there were some day-use tourists that thought nothing of stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures of bison.

View east across Farmington Bay to the mainland

The smoke made an interesting sunset last night.

I spoke too soon about internet access here. I’ve been struggling to complete this post as the Verizon signal fades from 3G to 1X with no internet. I’m giving up at this point.

Lunch on the Lake

We took a drive in Midget-San up ID55 backtracking about 14 miles to McCall on Wednesday. We found free parking on the street right in the middle of town, across from the resort. McCall is another trendy, hip town catering to tourism. It has a friendly, lively vibe to it.

It was lunchtime and we found a Mexican restaurant with patio seating overlooking Payette Lake. The restaurant was called Lago Chapala and I recommend it! I had a burrito verde and Donna had a shredded beef taco salad with guacamole. Both meals were excellent – and their chips and salsa were addicting.

Looking north from Lago Chapala’s deck – buoys mark swim area on the right

Marina and Payette Lake west-northwest from the deck

After lunch, Donna and I walked through Legacy Park – a city park along the lake. There were cobblestone sidewalks and well-manicured landscapes. The weather was about perfect – in the low 70s and blue skies.

Swim area at Legacy Park – nice sandy beach

We wandered around and had some entertainment at the boat launch watching people taking boats in and out of the water. We found the Salmon River Brewery where we enjoyed some suds with Mark and Emily Fagan on the rooftop a few years ago, but we didn’t go in. We were too stuffed from lunch to have a cold one.

Before heading back to Donnelly, we drove through Ponderosa State Park to check out the RV sites. They had several sites that looked big-rig friendly, but trees made most of them appear challenging.

Thursday was our last full day at the Donnelly City Park campground. Donna took a mid-day bicycle ride down the west side of the lake while I played with my ham radio. I had a nice chat with a guy in Moline, Illinois. Then I started disassembling my antenna and packed the trailer. By 4pm, I had everything loaded including the Midget.

I looked up information on ID55 road construction – it’s the only way to head south to Boise and points beyond. We knew from signs that we could expect delays at Smith’s Ferry. What I found was alarming at first – daily road closure from 10am to 2pm while rocks are being removed with explosives! Reading further, I found that the scheduled four-hour closures were Monday through Thursday, not on Friday or weekends. We dodged a bullet as we were pulling out on Friday morning. I wanted to get a relatively early start since I anticipated some delay through the area.

There’s a stretch of road a few miles long, north of Smith’s Ferry that has a high number of traffic accidents – I read it’s 35% higher than the rest of ID55. The reason given is the nature of the road. It twists and turns sharply on the edge of the Payette River. In this section, the roadway is only 24 feet wide with no shoulder – the road is on the edge of a 30-foot drop-off to the river on one side with no guard rail and has a wall of rock on the other side.

The construction project is blasting rock to widen the road to 36 feet wide, adding shoulder space and presumably guardrail. When we reached the work area, the road was only one-lane with flagmen. We had a brief wait of no more than five minutes and we were on our way. Traffic in our direction of travel was light, but northbound traffic on ID55 was heavy with lots of RVs and trucks with kayaks or river rafts on trailers. People from the city were heading north for the weekend.

Our route had a couple of tough climbs and a long 7% descent near Horseshoe Bend. We had to cross through Meridian on the west side of Boise. Highway 55 is a wide boulevard through this area with three lanes in each direction. The posted speed limit is 55mph, but there’s a stoplight every quarter mile or so and lots of traffic, so 55mph isn’t really feasible. It goes through miles of shopping malls before you reach I-84.

We took I-84 east which really runs southeast along this portion and drove about 40 miles further to Mountain Home. I-84 posted speed limit through here is 80mph – 70mph for trucks! Our destination was Gem State RV Park where I reserved a 100-foot long pull-through site. When I checked in, the gal at the counter asked me if satellite TV reception was important – I said it would be nice! She changed our site to site 23 – another 100-foot long pull-through where she said we would get Dish Network reception for sure. That’s a good thing for me as there are Formula One racing and Moto GP racing events on TV this weekend.

Donna and I took a drive through town and found Railroad Park where the farmers’ market will be today. We also crossed over to the north side where the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center is. I wanted to check out the entry and exit and I’m glad I did – there’s construction there and now I know how I’ll handle it in the coach. We’re low on fuel and I’ll top us up when we leave.

After the solitude and absolute nighttime silence at our waterfront site in Donnelly, I had a rough night last night back in town. There was minimal road noise, but I heard trains blowing their horns as they came through railroad crossings and they woke me up three times last night. We’ll stay here until Monday then continue our southward migration.

We can expect the daily high temperature to reach the 90s over the next few days. We’re on a 50-amp service so running both roof air conditioners is no problem. Overnight the expected lows will be in the mid-50s.

Rock Slide Delay

We pulled out of Sundown RV Park in Grangeville yesterday. I looked it over and came up with an exit plan. Although we were in a pull-through site, pulling forward to exit had some complications – namely a row of trees across the narrow roadway and a post at the right side of the site at the edge of the road. I decided to reverse out of the site – all l I had to do was get the trailer to turn about 45 degrees. All went as planned and we were out of there in one shot.

We left town heading south on US95. We climbed a bit – we were at an elevation of about 3,440 feet above sea level in Grangeville. Our route took us through the town of Riggins, which is interesting. Riggins has a number of whitewater rafting outfits and jet boat rides to run down the Snake River to Hell’s Canyon. What I really found interesting was the physical size of the town. The sign at the town limits says the population is 419. But almost all of the dwellings are on the main street through town – the river is on one side and a high bluff limits the other side. So, the town of 419 seems to go on for a long way.

Coming out of town, we saw a long line of vehicles heading north into town. I told Donna I had a bad feeling of a road closure or single lane ahead. We were cruising along well below the speed limit due to a slow motorhome about four cars ahead of us. In my mirrors, I saw an empty log truck rapidly gaining on us. He caught up with us just as we saw road work and lower speed limit signs. The speed limit dropped from 65mph to 45mph then 25mph before we were stopped completely.

We saw a guy standing outside his truck smoking a cigarette and figured we would be stopped for a while. I shut off the engine. There wasn’t any traffic moving in either direction. I picked up the CB radio mic and asked if anyone was on channel 19. A trucker answered immediately. I asked if he had any idea how long the delay would be. He said it would be 20 minutes. I thanked him for the info, then he said the delay was 90 minutes a week ago!

When we started moving, traffic was going in both directions through a detour around a rock slide. This morning, I read about it – the rock slide happened on July 3rd and they’re still dealing with it. Unstable slopes had US95 closed for a while and the delays are necessary as they move rocks and earth that may come crashing down the slope.

After we drove through the detour and past the stacked traffic on the other side of the road, I figured the log truck driver would be impatient and want to get by the slow caravan created by the motorhome and another RV ahead of us with a few cars in between all going about 50-55 mph. I thought maybe the log truck driver was the guy that told us of the delay time as he probably drove this road almost daily.

I could see the oncoming lane was clear on a long straight stretch so I picked up the CB mic and said “Hey, log truck, if you make your move now, I’ll slow down and let you get by.” I didn’t have to tell him twice, he immediately pulled out and overtook us. But that just got him ahead of us, he was still trapped behind a few cars and two slow moving RVs. I lived in western Washington for 15 years and I’ve had plenty of experience with log truck drivers. I know they tend to be impatient and aggressive. I was hoping the lead motorhome would take a clue and turn out, but he just plodded along. When we hit another long straight section, the log truck went for it. He passed the cars and two RVs all at once – it looked a bit scary, but he got it done.

At New Meadow, we turned away from US95 and took ID55. This brought us to McCall at Payette Lake. We continued south another 14 miles or so to the town of Donnelly. Donna had found information on a city run campground an the edge of town right on the water at Lake Fork – an offshoot of Lake Cascade. It is a dry camping area with 15 marked sites that have picnic tables and fire rings. We pulled in and walked around to check it out.

The dirt roads to the north end have low hanging tree branches and looked to be very narrow for our size. There’s another entrance to the south of the main area with two sites down by the beach area, but a travel trailer was down there with a noisy generator running. We decided on site 11 and pulled in with our windshield facing the lake. It’s a nice view. Only two of the 15 sites were occupied and we feel like we have the place to ourselves.

The site is long enough to fit our coach and trailer. When we dry camp, there isn’t much to set up. I hit the HWH automatic leveler and put the slides out. Unload Midget-San and we’re set.

When we were in Grangeville, there were two grocery stores in town. Donna bought a rib-eye steak at Cloninger’s Grocery and told me they had a good selection of meat. Later she saw a sign advertising babyback ribs for $1.99/pound.

I grilled the steak and Donna served it with baked potato, green beans and corn from the farmers’ market. The corn was something called 90-day corn and was the second crop of the season. It was a real disappointment as it was starchy and neither of us finished a cob. The steak was excellent though.

We went back to Cloninger’s and I looked the meat over. We found that many small town grocers have their own butchers and they have great cuts of meat. The ribs looked good but they were frozen rock hard. I bought a rack and also picked up a London broil that was trimmed perfectly.

When I prepped the ribs, I found the membrane on the bone side had already been removed and the ribs had almost all of the fat trimmed. It made for an easy prep. I put the ribs on the Traeger Sunday afternoon and did my usual method. We had the ribs for dinner but something was wrong. I have my Memphis style rib routine down and they always come out tender, juicy and flavorful. Not this time. Something was off with these ribs, the meat seemed stringy and chewy, not all tender. Bummer.

I couldn’t figure out what went wrong and chalked it up to a bad cut of meat. Maybe it was too lean? I came up with an idea – Donna cut the rest of the rib meat from the bones and made a vegetable soup and added the rib meat to it. Now that worked. We had the soup for dinner last night and it was great.

I made a batch of beef jerky from the London broil and really outdid myself. I think this is the best I’ve made so far and I’d put it up against any jerky you can find.

A cold front swept over most of the country on Sunday night and Monday. Yesterday, I heard many conversations on ham radio about the abrupt temperature swing. Areas of the Rocky Mountain states went from near record heat to snowfall overnight. When we left Grangeville, it was only about 60 degrees. Last night the temperature here at Donnelly cooled quickly once the sun set over the mountains to the west. We went outside last night and the lack of light pollution here made the stars in night skies unreal. We could see the Milky Way and hundreds of stars we don’t usually see.

This morning, it was 49 degrees in the coach and I had to run the heat pumps with the generator. We’re at an elevation of about 4,900 feet above sea level and we expect it to get warmer over the next couple of days. We’ll move on to Mountain Home, Idaho on Friday.

Amped Out

Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer for many people. Labor Day is always the first Monday in September. It seems like the summer flew by – we were preoccupied with the pandemic for the last six months. It’s been unusually hot almost everywhere we traveled this summer, including here in Grangeville, Idaho. The average high here in August is 82 degrees, dropping to 72 degrees for the month of September. This week we had upper 80s and 92 degrees yesterday.

I mentioned the Sundown RV Park where we’re staying only has 30-amp electrical service. I know I’ve posted about the difference between a 50-amp service and a 30-amp before, but it bears repeating. Taken at face value, it would seem the difference is only 20 amps, but that’s not so.

When an RV is built with 50-amp service in mind, the electrical circuit is split into two legs – L1 and L2. There are four contacts at the pedestal and plug – two hot leads (L1 and L2), a common and a ground. Half of the appliances and outlets are wired to L1 and the rest are wired to L2. Each leg provides up to 50 amps of power for a total input of up to 100 amps.

An RV wired for 30-amp service has only three contacts – one hot lead, one common and a ground. Every electrical consumer in the coach is wired to the one hot lead. So, the total power available is up to 30 amps – that’s 70 amps less than a 50-amp service.

Our coach is wired for 50-amp service, so when we have 30-amp service we use an adapter commonly called a dog bone.

It’s called a dog bone because of the round plug ends and narrow center section

The adapter takes the single 30-amp hot lead and splits it to provide current on L1 and L2 of the 50-amp plug. But, it can only provide a total of 30 amps. In our coach the L1 is wired to the front air conditioner, water heater and outlets on one side of the coach. L2 powers the rear air conditioner, inverter/converter keeping our batteries charged, microwave oven and the rest of the outlets.

Each 15,000 BTU air conditioner unit consumes about 15 amps of current. If we run both units we would be at the 30-amp limit and any other consumer would mean excess current and a tripped breaker at the pedestal.

With the high temperatures, we want air conditioning. So, we closed off the rear of the coach by closing the pocket door that separates the galley area from the bathroom, effectively cutting the coach in half. We only run the front air conditioner keeping the living room/dining/kitchen area cool. With only one air conditioner running, we still have to be mindful of any other appliances such as the microwave/convection oven. We only have about 15 amps of current available. Anything with a heating element is a big power consumer.

We always hook up through a Progressive Industries Electrical Management System (EMS) with surge protection. This unit will protect the coach from improperly wired pedestals, low voltage or high voltage and a host of other features. It also allows me to monitor the current draw of the two coach circuits.

In the photos above, you can see we are drawing 14 amps on L1 and 8 amps on L2 for total of 22 amps. We only have eight more amps available – anything drawing more than eight amps would put us over the 30-amp limit and trip the breaker. When we are connected to a 50-amp service, we have no worries with a total of 100 amps available and can run whatever we need in the coach.

Yesterday, I completed a long overdue task. One of the struts (gas spring) on our awning blew out a while back. This allowed one side of the awning to collapse. I ordered a replacement from Dometic and have had it on hand for quite a while, but I never tackled the job as it seems that something always prevented me from diving into it. Either it was two windy to deal with the awning or we had some obstacle preventing me from extending the awning.

Well, I had no excuses Saturday morning. I broke out the ladders and a few tools and got after it. I figured there would be two difficult parts – compressing the gas spring to get it lined up with the mounting pins and putting the serrated retainer washers on the pins. It turned out that getting the mounts lined up was fairly easy, the retainers were a pain just as I thought they would be.

The difficulty installing the retainer was due to having to secure the pin in place while using a deep 14mm socket to pound the inner serrations over the pin. I had to enlist Donna’s aid – she held the pin in place with channel lock pliers while I positioned the socket over the retainer and tapped it with a hammer. Job done! Our awning is back in business and helping to keep direct sun off the coach.

Last evening Donna prepared a simple, delectable meal. She grilled bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs using a grill mat on the Weber Q. She also made baked garlicky zucchini with tomatoes and parmesan cheese to go with it. The chicken was crispy and simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

This morning, we drove across town – a distance of about 10 blocks – to Pioneer Park for the weekly farmers’ market. I’ve noticed that city parks in small towns tend to be used a lot by families with children. This park fits that – it also has a community swimming pool, but unfortunatel,y it closed for the season on August 31st.

Donna made some great buys on fresh produce, but we missed out on farm fresh eggs. They were sold out within half an hour of opening. At one end of the market, a bluegrass group set up and was playing. It was interesting music with guitars and fiddles, but no banjo.

Donna’s out on her bike as I type this. She’ll have some photos of her ride for my next post, no doubt. She’s trying to beat the heat as it’s supposed to reach 88 degrees today. The forecast calls for cooler weather beginning on Monday with a high of 70 degrees. Good timing once again as I’ll start packing Monday afternoon. We plan to leave Grangeville and head south on US95 Tuesday morning. We have a couple of boondocking options lined up for a few nights, then we’ll check in at Gem State Campground in Mountain Home, Idaho for three nights.

Amber Waves of Grain

I dismantled my antennas and organized the trailer Sunday afternoon. I only had a few things left to do Monday morning before we hooked up the trailer and loaded the MG Midget in the parking lot. We weren’t in a hurry, but it was nice to have things 80% road-ready when we got up in the morning. We hit the dump station again before heading out of town on US95 south.

This route had a series of short climbs and descents as we drove through forest land at first, then farmland. We only planned to travel about 135 miles to the McKay’s Bend Recreation Area at Myrtle, Idaho. When we were going through Moscow, Donna called the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office at McKay’s Bend to inquire about site availability – they don’t take reservations. They didn’t have anything available for rig of our size.

So, we switched to plan “B”, which was the Elk’s Lodge in Lewiston. The descent into Lewiston on US95 is a six-mile 7% grade! I’m always thankful for the Jacobs Engineering two-stage compression brake in these situations. The Elk’s Lodge in Lewiston boasts of 10 RV sites with electricity and water. What we encountered was indeed 10 hook-ups, but the layout was goofy. They had the power pedestals and water spigots for each site spaced about 15 feet apart. Apparently whoever laid out the plan thought RVs could back in to the pedestals. The problem is, the lot is too small for anything larger than a pickup truck to back into the site in that fashion. We found four RVs – three fifth-wheels and one motorhome all set up parallel to the hookups – each occupying about three sites. There wasn’t any room for us to park near a hook-up.

The lodge was closed on Sunday and Monday, so the large paved lot in front of the lodge was empty. We found a fairly level spot and decided to just dry-camp overnight.

Lewiston Elk’s Lodge – our coach is in the distant background above the “K” in the sign

The lodge is beautifully located above the Snake River. We wished we could’ve entered the lodge – the backside of the lodge is all glass and I’m sure the view is stunning.

Snake River from the lodge parking lot – that’s Clarkston, WA across the river.

Explorers Lewis and Clark had a great influence in the Northwest. The Snake River separates Washington from Idaho here and the two towns at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers are Clarkston, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho. Two bridges span the river to join the two towns. The Southway bridge is visible from the lodge.

After we set up, Donna needed to stretch her legs, so she went for a walk. She went downhill on Country Club Drive from the lodge and found a tunnel under Snake River Avenue that brought her to a bike/hiking riverwalk. Here are some pictures from her walk.

Looking west across the river – Clarkston

Without electricity and water, we didn’t see any point in hanging around the Elk’s Lodge. We looked online for something down the road on US95. The problem was planning around the upcoming holiday weekend. Most of the campgrounds on our route are state parks and they were all booked. There were some RV resorts, but even the most expensive places were booked over the Labor Day weekend.

We thought about booking a couple of nights, then finding a place to boondock over the three-day weekend, but we needed to get caught up on laundry. We found a place in Grangeville that could accommodate us through the weekend with full hook-ups, albeit just 30-amp electric service. The owner took credit card information and told us to take site 25 when we arrived. He said it was a long back-in and we would be fine without dropping the trailer.

It was only about an 80-mile run to Grangeville. Most of the drive was through wheat fields with some forest land in between. From Coulee City near the center of Washington to western Idaho, we have seen an unbelievable amount of wheat. In some areas, the golden wheat fields stretched as far as we could see. Harvest time is now and we saw a lot of wheat farmers working the fields.

This was a fresh cut “small” wheat field

Train trestle spanning a deep gulch along US95

We arrived in Grangeville around 11am. We were in for another unpleasant surprise. Site 25 wasn’t a long back-in – it was cramped site with a low tree blocking the rear of the site that was so low we wouldn’t be able to get the cargo trailer under it. If we parked there, half of our coach would be in the roadway and the power pedestal at the rear of the site would be 50 feet from us. Donna made a call to the owner, Greg. He wasn’t onsite and she had to leave a message. While we waited for a call back, I looked over the place and found four or five sites that would work.

When Greg called back, Donna told him what the problem was. She told him which sites I thought would work. Donna turned the phone over to me and Greg told me to use either pull-through site 7 or site 8 – preferably 8 and to pull in facing north. Site 8 looked like the best choice, but we had another issue. The tree on the west side of the site needed to be trimmed. I ended up getting a ladder and saw out of the trailer and removed several branches. This place could use some maintenance.

We got settled in and for $130/week, I’m not complaining. The thing is, Grangeville isn’t near any recreation areas so it’s not a tourist destination. Both RV parks – Sundown RV Park where we’re at and Bear Den RV Park had availability through the weekend. There’s a ski area nearby, so I imagine that brings some tourism in the winter.

We took a drive to have a look around in Midget-San. We saw large plumes of smoke past the airport. It turned out to be controlled fires where farmers were burning the wheat stubble before plowing.

This morning, Donna took a walk through town up Main Street. She saw a few interesting things. Grangeville is the largest town in Idaho County with a population of about 3,100 people – it’s also the county seat. It also boasts the county’s only stoplight! Here are a few pictures Donna took this morning. She found a series of murals depicting some of the history here.

Logging is also part of the economy here

At the sheriff’s office, she found an old steam tractor on display.

I set up my ham radio gear while Donna was out. I’m not sure about getting good reception here as we’re in a bit of a hole.

The temperature reached the mid-80s yesterday afternoon and it looks like we’ll see the same today and tomorrow. The weekend is forecast to hit the low 90s but it should cool off to the 70s for Monday and Tuesday. No rain in the forecast – we’ve seen rain when the weather guessers told us “zero percent chance of precipitation” before, so we’ll see how that works out.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: September 2020

Dry and Dusty

Cedar Breaks

2,000 Flushes

Wild Visitors

Smoke on the Water

Lunch on the Lake

Rock Slide Delay

Amped Out

Amber Waves of Grain

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