Category Archives: Alpine Coach

A Tale of Two Beaches

The temperature reached the mid-80s on Friday. Donna and I took a drive over to Hayden Lake. We cruised around the lake last year in Midget-San, but didn’t find any public access to the lake. This time I wised up – I took a look at Google Earth and found Honeysuckle Beach. It’s actually really easy to find – you just head east on Honeysuckle Avenue to the end of the road where there is a free parking area and boat ramp. They have a small concession trailer – candy and ice cream – and a sandy beach with an isolated swimming area.

It’s a beautiful area with grass and shade trees as well as the sand and water. Hayden Lake has an area of roughly 3,800 acres with about 40 miles of shoreline – definitely large enough for watercraft and there are three public boat ramps. But, as we found last year, most of the shoreline is privately owned and access is limited.

Saturday morning we went to the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market. It’s only about a mile away from the Elk’s Lodge at the corner of Prairie Avenue and US95. We found all of the usual vendors there and lots of shoppers. The market is set among large coniferous trees and the ground is covered with wood shavings. It’s one of our favorite markets.

When we returned from the market, I set up my ham radio equipment. I put up my Buddipole Versatee vertical antenna and tuned it for the 20-meter band. I really like my RigExpert antenna analyzer – it allows me to really fine-tune the antenna resonance. The atmospheric conditions were not favorable and I remembered the electrical interference I experienced here last year – the noise floor was high on Saturday.

I was able to pick up several signals – including a guy in Barcelona, Spain (EA7JE) – I think he was belting out 1,500 watts. He couldn’t hear my transmissions though. I tried joining in a few other conversations, but it seemed my signal was too weak. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with my radio output stage – I knew my antenna was set up right. Then I reached Steve (WQ6L) in Cupertino, California. Cupertino is just outside of San Jose, about 800 straight-line miles from here. He told me my audio was crystal clear with a strong signal – so all was well, it was matter of the atmosphere not cooperating with me. That’s how ham radio can be sometimes.

We had more smoke in the air over the weekend. Sunday we decided to drive over to Sandpoint – about 45 miles from here. We visited Sandpoint in our first year on the road – you can read about it here. Sandpoint is a cool little town right on Lake Pend Oreille. By the way, the town of Ponderay is adjacent to Sandpoint and that’s how you pronounce Pend Oreille.

Lake Pend Oreille is the largest lake in Idaho – the lake is 43 miles long and has a surface area of 148 square miles. It’s over 1,100 feet deep in some areas. Unlike Hayden Lake, Lake Pend Oreille shoreline is mostly uninhabited forest. In Sandpoint, there is a city beach with free parking and lots of sandy beach. It has a couple of lifeguards and a designated swimming area. The lake is also popular for boating and we saw power boats, kayaks and lots of sailboats on the lake.

City beach and swimming area in Sandpoint

In the beach photos of Sandpoint you can see the haze from wildfire smoke against the mountains in the background.

The lake is fed by the Clark Fork River and the Pack River. It drains into the Pend Oreille River and also feeds the subterranean Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer. The Pend Oreille River runs west into Washington and makes its way north into Canada before draining into the upper Columbia River.

We walked through the old downtown area and found many of the shops and restaurants were closed on Sunday. This surprised me as Sandpoint is a tourist destination. We had lunch on the back deck of The Burger Dock, overlooking the Sandpoint Marina.

On our trek through downtown in search of a restaurant with a water view, we entered the Cedar Street Bridge Public Market. This is a long, narrow building set on the old Cedar Street Bridge.

Cedar Street Bridge Public Market viewed from Bridge Street City Beach access

The Cedar Street Bridge was built nearly 100 years ago and originally served as a pedestrian and automobile crossing to the train depot. As train travel declined, the bridge was hardly used. In the late 1970s, access to the bridge was blocked and it fell into disrepair. The city contemplated tearing the old bridge down in the early ’80s, but a local entrepreneur, inspired by the Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence, Italy, proposed leasing the bridge and rebuilding it into a public marketplace. It went through several iterations over the years before the current 400-foot long building went through a $1.25 million renovation in 2007. Like most of Sandpoint, we found many of the shops in the market were closed on Sunday.

By the time we returned to the Elk’s Lodge, the temperature had climbed above 90 degrees. It was time for air conditioning! It’s partly cloudy this morning, but we can expect the temperature to rise well above 90 degrees today. The rest of the week looks a little more comfortable with highs in the mid-80s.

*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

Hot and Smoky

I failed to mention in my last post the smoke around McCall coming from wildfires in northern California and in Oregon. In the 24-hour period we spent there, it got steadily worse. The drive to Lewiston was smoky and Donna’s eyes were watering so bad, she had to keep them closed for miles. Once we climbed Lewiston Hill, we left the smoke behind and I figured we were in the clear.

After we set up at the fairgrounds in Moscow, the wind shifted and it got hazy. By Tuesday morning when we left, it was very smoky. I hit the dump station before we left – we had 50-amp electric service but no water or sewer hook-ups there. While I was dumping our holding tanks, a guy pulled up behind us with a travel trailer. He said he was camped two sites down from us at Juniper Park in Ririe. He was headed to the Coeur d’Alene area but said he was having trouble finding an available site. Our plan was to go to the Elk’s Lodge in Coeur d’Alene where we would have electric and water, but once again no sewer.

As we drove across the Coeur d’Alene Indian reservation, we left the Palouse. The Palouse is a name given to the wheat growing region north of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, east of Walla Walla and north of the Camas prairie. The northern boundary is around the Palouse River, south of Spokane. The boundaries of the Palouse are nebulous and the origin of the name is unclear, but it’s been called the Palouse since at least the mid-1800s.

We’ve stayed at the Coeur d’Alene (CdA) Elk’s Lodge for the past five or six years. They don’t take reservations, but we’ve never had a problem getting a site – until now. They were completely full including a couple of dry-camping sites. Donna was on the phone looking for alternatives while I discussed possible outcomes with the camp host. She said she could get us in on Thursday if we arrived early. Donna found dry-camping availability at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds RV Park where we had to pay $25/night for a place to park on dead grass! The temperature reached the mid-90s both days there so we had 10-hour generator run times both days to keep the roof air conditioners on.

Once again, the smoke from wildfires caught up with us in CdA. I think this actually kept the temperatures down from the original forecasted highs as it blocked a lot of the sun. It also made for interesting sunsets.

On Tuesday afternoon, we made a run to Winco Foods, but otherwise just hung out. It was too hot for much activity. Donna got out early Wednesday morning to beat the heat and took a five-mile walk.

When we were in Moscow, I programmed the local repeater in my Yaesu FT3D handheld transceiver and was able to participate in the local net call there. Last night, I had two CdA repeaters programmed in and found another net on the air. Ham operators in Florida have been trying stay in contact with Cuba and had success over the weekend, but now the Cuban government is jamming frequencies on the island to prevent Cubans from communicating with the world.

Yesterday afternoon, I stopped by the CdA Elk’s Lodge again to confirm availability for today. The camp host advised me to come by early. She said if I drove over in the truck by 7am, as soon as someone pulled out, I could pay for the site and she would hold it until I brought the coach over. Five sites were expected to open up – a couple of them would go to the people in the dry-camping spots.

This morning I didn’t take any chances. I drove to the Elk’s Lodge, arriving at 6:15am and hung out waiting to see if I could get a site. At 7:15am, she told me she had site 24 for us. I wrote a check to cover us until the end of the month – it’s $25/night for 50-amp electric service and fresh water hook up. Sure beats $25/night for a spot of dead grass at the fairgrounds. She said she wanted to water the grass in the site while I went to pack up and retrieve our coach and it should be ready by the time I returned.

Donna drove the truck and I drove the coach back to the Elk’s Lodge – no sense in hooking up the truck to drive a few miles and unhook it. We were set up in no time and I immediately refilled our fresh water tank. We were below a quarter tank – we hadn’t had a fresh water hook-up since we left Ririe on the sixth. Even though we are connected to city water here, I like to have a full fresh water tank. Anything can happen – we’ve been in RV parks before where the city water was unexpectedly shut off due to some emergency or another. With a full fresh water tank, we have no worries.

We’ll be here through the end of the month. Our plan then is to head west. We have one night booked in Twisp, WA, then we’ll cross the north Cascade Mountains to Mount Vernon where we have a reservation for two weeks. We don’t book reservations way ahead of time usually, but we knew it was a good idea in western Washington to have a confirmed place to stay.

Donna served up a couple of new recipes this week. Starting on Monday in Moscow she made a ginger-garlic cashew chicken dish. Very nice.

Last night she served up shrimp with tomatoes and corn over garlic-smashed potatoes.

Tonight I think I’ll go for the pizza night at the Elk’s Lodge and give Donna a break in the kitchen.

The weather forecast calls for highs around 90 degrees daily except for a spike to the upper 90s on Sunday. No rain in sight according to the weather guessers.

Ponies and Snakes

I mentioned in my last post that Tye put us up in a spare bedroom. He also invited Ozark to stay – they have two cats in the house, Ollie and Frankie. Ozark made herself at home, exploring the place and finding favorite spots. Early Thursday morning I awoke to the sound of a cat fight. I quickly ran downstairs to see what was up. Ollie came flying past me with Ozark hot on her heels. Ollie scampered under our bed while Ozark crouched on the floor. I picked Ozark up and put her on the bed. Situation resolved, the cats didn’t get into it anymore, I guess they established their pecking order.

Donna went out for a walk in the early morning. To her surprise, she came across a couple of ponies wandering in the road. She worried about them being in the road, so she led them across the street. They wandered off down a driveway. She didn’t think they belonged there judging by the barking dogs, but at least they were off the road.

Later we went out for a ride in Tye’s Polaris side-by-side ATV. This ride is the deluxe ATV – four seats and HVAC-equipped. That’s right – it has a hard top, windshield, side windows and air conditioning! No dust in our face and we beat the heat. He drove us up on the canal path above his house. We went all the way to the Little Gem Motorcycle Park – an off-road motorcycle park with challenging hill climbs and trails.

On the way back, we stopped at a small gift shop called Grit and Grace. They had an eclectic assortment of merchandise – everything from local honey to antiques. I was interested in the end-grain cutting boards they had for sale, but didn’t buy anything. Then we drove the ATV back to Tom’s Cabin for lunch – it was the cafe we ate at the day before.

Later, Donna prepared chicken breasts which she fileted and pounded. Tye grilled them and Donna served them with a dijon sauce and garlic-smashed potatoes and French green beans with toasted almonds on the side. It was the only home-cooked meal we had at Tye’s place.

On Friday morning, Donna went out for an early walk again. This time she walked up a trail to the canal, having seen the route from the ATV the day before. She crossed the canal and climbed high on the hill. She took a couple of pictures.

Hole in the rock looking down on the canal

She encountered a gopher snake in the path. Some people call them bull snakes and they are common in the foothills of southern Idaho. Gopher snakes are harmless, but sometimes they’re mis-identified as rattlesnakes. Their narrow, tapered tail lacks rattles though. They feed mainly on rodents and can follow them into burrows – thus the name gopher snake.

We went out for breakfast at the Blue Ribbon Cafe in town. It was a hearty meal and very good breakfast fare. After that, Tye drove us up highway 52 to Black Canyon Park. This is a public park on the Black Canyon Reservoir. It’s a beautiful setting with a nice boat ramp and ample parking. There are grassy areas and a sandy beach. The park and beach were full of people on a hot Friday. There’s no charge for day use or the boat ramp and parking. On the way back, I asked Tye to stop at Grit and Grace again. I decided to buy the end-grain maple cutting board.

Lousy photo of the end-grain maple board

Later, we went to the airport and picked up Tye’s life partner Karen. She flew in from San Diego with her 10-year old grandson, Sebastian. It was 5:30pm by the time we left the airport and we stopped at the Texas Roadhouse in Meridian for dinner. The restaurant was a zoo on Friday night and it took over an hour to get a table.

Donna and I decided it would be best if we moved on from Emmett Saturday morning. The forecast called for temperatures reaching 106 degrees over the weekend and we thought we shouldn’t leave the coach out in the direct sun – the temperature inside the coach was likely to top 110 degrees. I figured if we moved up toward McCall, we could find some relief from the heat and boondock in the shade of the forest there.

We took US52 west out of Emmett and hit US95 north. Donna found a boondocking spot east of New Meadows in the Payette National Forest. It turned out to be an adventuresome ride – I should have scoped it out on Google Earth, but Donna had detailed directions she found in the Escapees Days End directory.

I should mention that Ozark was not amused when we plucked her from Tye’s house and put her in the coach. She thought she’d found her new home where she could lounge around in comfort and rule the roost. Back in the coach, she gave us the evil-eye. When she realized we were about to hit the road, she burrowed into her new hidey-hole behind the pillows on the bed.

East of New Meadows, we found Cemetery Road and turned north past a few cabins and farm houses. Then we hit a forest service road. It was incredibly dusty – about like the forest service road back in Arizona on the first night of our current odyssey. We came to a fork in the road with a puzzling sign. We were looking for the sno-park. Sno-parks out west are typically a large gravelled lot where snowmobilers can trailer their rigs in to trailheads. The sign had two arrows for the sno-park, they seemed to be pointing on each fork. I walked a short way down the right fork and found another puzzling sign. This one was aimed at hunters and gave a few rules indicating it was private land. It also said no overnight camping. Later I realized the private land was behind the sign, adjacent to the National Forest.

So, we took the left fork. It was a mistake. This took us up a steep, narrow dirt road with a turn that had a sweeping view of the valley way below – and no guardrails. Donna said later that she was scared to look in that direction and also very worried that we would not be able to get turned around. After a couple of miles of traveling this road, I saw a gated spur road on the left. The gate was about 100 yards up the road. I stopped and considered my options. At that point, I felt it was best to pull into the spur road, disconnect the truck so I could back out and get us turned around. So that’s what we did. Coming back down the hill made it impossible to turn into the road to the sno-park. So we got out of there and backtracked to ID55 east toward McCall. We knew there was another sno-park with easy access – we stayed there with Mark and Emily Fagan in 2016 – you can read about it here.

We found two other RVs in the large sno-park lot and set up. I disconnected the truck and we drove into McCall to wash it. It was covered with grime from the dusty forest service road. I’ll need to get the coach washed soon as well. While we were in town, we went to Frenchie’s for lunch. They serve Louisiana fare such as po’ boy sandwiches and seafood chowder. We enjoyed our lunch on the balcony in the cool air.

We had a quiet night in the sno-park and got back on the road by 9am. We went back toward New Meadows and picked up US95 north again. We’ve been on this route a couple of times before, but going in the other direction. This was our first time heading north on this section of highway. We had a hard climb up White Bird Hill to the summit at 4,245 feet above sea level. We dropped a bit of elevation and rolled through the Camas Prairie with wheat fields extending far into the horizon. Our route followed the Salmon River through Hell’s Canyon. Eventually we followed the Clearwater River and dropped into Lewiston where it meets the Snake River at 700 feet above sea level.

The climb up Lewiston Hill was on my mind. It was 85 degrees outside and the hill climbs to 2,756 feet in about four or five miles. When we started the climb, I was going about 50mph and registered boost pressure of 25psi. I knew this wasn’t sustainable. At that boost pressure, the load on the Cummins ISL diesel was too high and we’d overheat. I turned on the four-way flashers, slowed to about 35mph in third gear at 1,900 rpm and maintained an engine coolant temperature of 195 degrees all the way up. Job done – we reached the Palouse and it was rolling hills with forest and wheat fields from here on.

We called it a day when we reached Moscow, Idaho. We pulled into the fairgrounds and found a 50-amp electric only site for $20/night. The 50-amp service was a welcome amenity as the afternoon heated up. We gained an hour along the way – northern Idaho is in the Pacific Time zone. We’ll rest up for two nights here before we continue north to Coeur d’Alene. We can expect daily highs in the 90s there for the next couple of weeks.

Can’t Fool Hayspur Fish

We finished packing our stuff, hooked up the Nissan Frontier and pulled out of Ririe Reservoir a little later than I had hoped on Tuesday morning. One thing I noticed while packing was an error code on our Progressive Industries Electrical Management System (EMS). It showed the code PE5, which is previous error (stored) high voltage on L2. The voltage at Juniper Park at Ririe Reservoir was on the high side – I saw 124 to 126 volts. At some point, it must have spiked. The EMS will break the connection to the coach to prevent damage to any appliances from high voltage. I don’t know when it happened, but it recovered and we never even knew there was a problem.

I think the EMS cuts off the power when voltage exceeds 130 volts or so. I’m sure there were others in the park without an EMS and they were probably just as unaware of the issue as we were. I like the peace of mind the EMS provides. Others without it might have an appliance or air conditioner motor fail and they’ll just blame the unit, not knowing the voltage spike caused their problem. This is why I always like to use the EMS and I also always like to connect a water pressure regulator. We’ve been in parks where water pressure exceeds 100 psi and it can damage the plumbing. I only use a watts-type regulator and wrote about it in this post.

We headed toward Idaho Falls – the fastest route to US20 west was through town, but there is a narrow underpass with a curve and 13′-8″ clearance in town. The overhead clearance was enough for us, but the narrow roadway with concrete abutments was a little worrisome. I took a detour at Iona Road and cut across to US20.

This took us right by a travel center where I topped off our fuel tank. We weren’t that low, but we planned to boondock and I needed the generator to run air conditioning so I like to keep the tank topped up. I started pumping fuel through the high-speed nozzle when I noticed the fuel price was $4.05/gallon! What? The sign said $3.55/gallon. Then I noticed the pump I was using was marked diesel #1. I shut it off, then switched to another pump marked diesel #2 which was $3.55/gallon. Diesel #1 is a winter blend – something closer to kerosene which doesn’t gel as quickly in cold weather as diesel #2 will. I’ve never seen it at the pump before – we don’t travel in cold areas.

Our route took us west through Arco where US20 and US26 merge. The terrain was fairly flat sagebrush country with lots of wide open spaces. In the little town of Carey, US26 splits off to the south while we stayed on US20 west. A few miles past a place called Picabo – which was nothing more than a grain elevator and hardware store – we found the Hayspur Fish Hatchery turnoff on the north side of the road. Donna had found free dry camping sites alongside the hatchery.

We made our way in and claimed a site. It was getting warm with the temperature well into the 90s, so we needed the generator and air conditioning.

There are two creeks by the hatchery – Butte Creek and Loving Creek. Butte Creek comes out of the hatchery and runs along the east side of the hatchery road. We took a hike along the creek and saw trout in the creek. A sign proclaimed the area as a “trophy trout fishery.” The limit for trout was just two fish and they had to be a minimum of 20 inches!

I tried my hand at fishing the creek. I could see trout in the clear water, but they weren’t interested in the worm I offered them. I switched to a bucktail spinner and at least they would chase it, but they always smelled a rat and broke off before striking the lure. My fishing efforts haven’t produced much lately.

Another notable thing about Hayspur is the variety of birds. There were birds flying and chirping all around. We saw nighthawks swooping around the campsites and an abundance of other birds.

Wednesday morning we hit the road by 9am and continued westbound on US20. We had a tailwind and no long climbs with a few short, steep descents. The countryside opened up to wide, expansive hayfields and cattle ranches. In the distance to the north we could see the foothills of the Sawtooth Range. It was very scenic with lots of green landscape.

At Mountain Home, we hit I-84 with traffic and 80mph speed limits. All across US20, we had very little traffic and it wasn’t unusual to drive for several minutes without seeing another vehicle. Now, as we approached Boise, the traffic became heavier. We turned north at Eagle Road and drove through Meridian. We’ve been through here before so I knew what to expect. It’s almost amusing. The posted speed limit on the wide roadway is 55mph. But, there are traffic lights every half-mile or so and traffic gets so backed up that sometimes the light will cycle twice before you can get through. The speed limit is a joke as you can’t really expect to go much over 35mph before you’re braking again in the traffic.

We took Chinden Boulevard – which is also designated US26 – and escaped the traffic. Our destination was a town called Emmett where we planned to visit with our friends from San Diego, Tye and Karen. I’ve known Tye Moody for several years – he was part of the regular Bay Park crew that often met for happy hour at Offshore Tavern or Dan Diego’s. He sold his house in Bay Park and bought a place in Emmett.

His house sits on a two-acre lot on a hillside overlooking the valley and town. There are 11 houses on the cul-de-sac, all with at least two acres of land. As we were coming up his street, he pulled up beside us. He was just returning from a morning on the golf course. I got the coach situated alongside his driveway on a gravelled patch. It’s fairly level.

Early morning view of the valley and town from Tye’s driveway

The town of Emmett has a population of about 6,500 people and is about 2,400 feet above sea level. Tye treated us to dinner at one of his favorite places in town and put us up in a spare bedroom. Karen had to fly down to San Diego and won’t be back until tomorrow. We plan to get out for while and explore today, but the temperatures will be very hot – over 100 degrees by the weekend.

Before we left Ririe Reservoir, Donna made a new dish for dinner. She grilled miso-marinated sockeye salmon and served it over a garlicky ramen noodle salad. It was very tasty, but Donna felt it was too labor intensive for what it was.

Quiet Fourth of July

We’re near the end of our stay at Ririe Reservoir in Idaho. Last Wednesday, I set up my Yaesu FT-991a ham radio on a table outside our coach. My antenna has been phenomenal in this location – it tunes in really well. I made a number of contacts all over the country – I talked to a guy in Nebraska, one in Arkansas and a guy in Arlington, Texas. But the most interesting contact was with a station in Prescott, Arizona.

Wednesday was June 30th and the station I contacted had a special event callsign N7GMH and I talked to Doug there. The special event was a fundraiser for the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial. The Granite Mountain Hotshots were part of the Prescott Fire Department. On June 30, 2013, the 20-member crew was fighting a wild fire on Yarnell Hill near Prescott. Nineteen of the twenty members were over-run by the fire and perished. The lone survivor had been placed on lookout duty. He warned the team of a shift in the fire via radio and was advised by his team leader to evacuate his position. We saw the memorial when were in Congress, Arizona near Yarnell Hill the year after the tragedy.

On Thursday morning, Donna was up at 4:30am to take a ride with Jeff and Deb Spencer to Grand Teton National Park for a hike. I stayed here and took their fox terrier, Sam for a couple of walks. They hiked a trail from Jenny Lake up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point and beyond. They saw an abundance of wildlife – they spotted a red fox, marmots, river otters and a moose. They hiked a little over eight miles and were gone most of the day – it was close to a 90-mile drive each way.

Here are some photos Donna took on their hike.

Jenny Lake from a beach where a couple was launching their kayaks

Donna had jambalaya in the slow cooker and the Spensers joined us for dinner on Friday. By evening, it’s enjoyable to sit outside in the shade at the picnic table. The temperatures had remained manageable with highs in the mid-80s, but we still ran the air conditioners in the afternoon.

We went back to the Idaho Falls farmers’ market Saturday morning. We ran into Jeff and Deb there although we weren’t actively trying to find them. After Donna purchased some fresh produce, we walked south across Broadway to the Japanese Friendship Garden. The garden commemorates the sister-city program – Idaho Falls’ sister city is Tokai-Mura, Japan. The garden is an island in the Snake River just south of the Broadway bridge. You might recall an earlier post where I described how the river is split down the middle with the water level on the east bank much higher than on the west bank and man-made structures create a spillway over rocks from one side of the river to the other.

The Japanese Friendship Garden island is right on this divide. Some water from the higher east side flows through water features on the island spilling into the lower west side. I’m not sure when the garden was established, but I know a pavilion was added in 2016. There are Japanese Friendship Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona, San Diego and San Jose, California.

Access to the garden is via a foot bridge from the southeast side of the Broadway bridge.

Different water levels on the west and east side of the Broadway bridge as seen from the foot bridge

Donna in the pavilion at the Japanese Friendship Garden

Water features in the garden flowing from east to west

We maintained a low-key Fourth of July. Fireworks are prohibited here at Ririe Reservoir due to fire danger. There were fireworks displays nearby at Rigby Lake. We could hear them from afar, but didn’t see them. We had thundershowers around the area and the temperature cooled considerably as we dined at the picnic table on a feast of babyback ribs courtesy of Jeff and his Traeger. I didn’t pack our Traeger, so we haven’t had ribs since leaving Mesa in May. The thundershowers eventually caught us here in the park, but we were all inside by then.

Rain and gusty winds continued in the night. This morning, Jeff and Deb hit the road early heading to their next destination – the Sawtooth National Forest near Stanley, Idaho. I’ve already dismantled my antenna and started packing some of our gear. Donna went out to kayak on the Ririe Reservoir and we’ll be packing the kayak and her bike in the bed of the truck this afternoon.

It looks like we’ll have a warm week ahead of us with temperatures in the 90s daily. We plan to pull out tomorrow morning and head west on US20 toward Boise. We’ll see what comes up next.

Soldering Station

I mentioned our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (RollingRecess) in my last post. They planned to arrive here at Juniper Campground on the Ririe Reservoir in Idaho on Monday. They had been camping in and around Yellowstone National Park before heading here. This campground has one loop that’s only available by reservation – it’s fully booked up through the Fourth of July holiday – and two loops that are first-come-first-served. Over the last week, we’ve watched as a few people pulled out in the mornings from their sites, which were occupied again by noon or 2pm at the latest. After that, we see people pull in with their RVs and circle the loops without finding any open sites.

We advised Jeff and Deb to come early. They asked us to keep an eye on site B18, which is directly behind us. There has been a fifth-wheel trailer in the site since we arrived here last week. Luck was with them. I saw the guy in B18 packing up Monday morning. He pulled out around 9:45am. Donna took a chair over and her exercise mat and worked out until Jeff and Deb showed up around 10:00am and claimed the site. We’re neighbors! We’ve crossed paths with Jeff and Deb several times over the years.

I also mentioned in my last post that my guitar amplifier went kaput. I pulled the chassis to see if I could find the problem. Once I had it out and looked it over, I found the issue right away. A capacitor had blown. I’ve never had this happen before, but I’ve heard of it happening. Usually it’s caused by a voltage spike or overheating – in either case, the dielectric in the capacitor can fail and an internal short circuit across the conductor foil results in the blow-up.

As you can see in the photo, the dielectric in this capacitor is made from paper. Now that I found the problem, the next question was – what can I do about it? Here’s the problem – when we packed the motorhome to hit the road for the summer, I only packed a few hand tools that I felt were essential. Unlike before, when we were on the road full-time and had everything we owned with us, we left a lot of stuff behind in our home in Mesa, Arizona. One of the things I left behind was my soldering station.

I told Donna the capacitor was probably a two dollar part, but with no way to desolder it from the board and solder a new one in its place, I needed to find someone that could do it for me. Monday morning I called Mike’s Music – a music store we saw on Saturday when we went to Idaho Falls. They didn’t have a technician in-house, but they referred me to Gem Pro Audio. I called Dean at Gem Pro and he said he could do it if I brought the amp in – he wanted the whole chassis so he could test it.

I found his little shop in a small industrial park. I could see Dean was up to his ears in work – he had amplifiers, stereos, speaker cabinets and other various things stacked up waiting for repair. I told him about my situation, camping at the reservoir and only staying in the area for another week. I showed him the bad capacitor. He said he could have it done that afternoon. We talked a little more and once he knew I understood vacuum tube amplifier circuits, he proceeded to tell me all about the amplifiers he’s building and his plans to retail them.

He looked at the bad capacitor again and said he thought the failure was due to the fact that many of these Chinese-sourced circuit boards use the cheapest components they can get. In this case, the capacitor was rated for 16 volts. The transformer output for this part of the amplifier was rated at 15.5 volts. That doesn’t leave much tolerance for any voltage variation. It was probably a couple of pennies cheaper than a higher rated capacitor. He said he would put in a new 1000uF capacitor rated for 25 volts. He told me to stand by for a moment and took it to his bench. It took him about five minutes to install the new capacitor and the amp worked! Then I saw him chop-sticking the circuit.

This is a common troubleshooting method where you use a non-conductive probe, like a wood chopstick, to move wiring harnesses or tap on connectors. When he did this, the amp started cutting out. So, there was another problem. He said if I wanted to go get lunch or run an errand or two, he could probably have it ready in an hour or two.

I came back about an hour and half later and he was done. He showed me the connector pins he removed from the transformer harness – they weren’t making solid contact. Rather than replace the pins, he just hard-wired the harness in place. My bill came to $60.43 – the capacitor was about what I figured – $2.29 plus tax. The labor was Dean’s minimum bench charge of $58.00. I wish I had my soldering station, but he did a good job and I think his price was fair.

Here are the blown capacitor parts – you can see the voltage rating on the case

My amp is working fine again. I also pulled out my Gibson L-130 acoustic guitar and restrung it. I haven’t played the acoustic guitar lately and I’m always happy after I take it out of the case – it’s a fine instrument.

Monday afternoon Jeff and Deb joined us for happy hour and we chatted for a couple of hours. Yesterday, Jeff took his GMC truck to the dealer in Idaho Falls for service in the morning and I went down and picked him up. Around 3pm, they were finished with the work, so I drove him back to Idaho Falls and while I was at it, I picked up a few things we needed at Fred Meyer.

Sunday afternoon I made a batch of Japanese fried rice (yakameshi in Japanese). Donna grilled a new-to-us chicken recipe which featured a lime vinaigrette. She marinated the chicken in the vinaigrette and after grilling, served with a drizzle of the vinaigrette plus thinly sliced jalapeno and chopped fresh cilantro. Tasty!

When I make a batch of fried rice, it’s enough for several servings, but it keeps well in the refrigerator. Tuesday evening I prepped vegetables – zucchini, red pepper and onion for Donna and she grilled the veggies to go with another new recipe – baked ling cod with a miso glaze. The fish was fantastic.

Miso-glazed Ling cod, grilled vegetables and leftover fried rice

As always, we’re eating well.

The weather has been a little warmer the last couple of days with mid to upper 80s. The forecast calls for 90 degrees over the holiday weekend. Lucky for us, Ririe has turned out to be a great place to beat the extreme heat that’s descended on most of the western states.

Idaho Falls

We’re enjoying our stay at Juniper Campground on the northeast side of the Ririe Reservoir. The reservoir was formed when the US Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in 1972. The reservoir is fed by a few creeks and covers about 1,500 acres. Donna has explored most of the water access points from the campground. On Friday, we got in the truck and she showed where I might want to try fishing.

I saw a sign with a reservoir map and it showed a fishing access site on the southwest end of the reservoir called the Blacktail Day Use Area. We decided to take a drive and check it out. I had my fishing pole, tackle box and some nightcrawlers. It was a fairly long drive from Juniper Campground to get around the reservoir and we had to traverse about five miles of gravel road. At the entrance to Blacktail, we had to pay a $5 day use fee.

We hiked down a trail to the water’s edge and I tried my hand at fishing. I didn’t get so much as a nibble. I talked to another fisherman there – he had half a dozen rainbow trout on his stringer – he told me the fish were all caught earlier in the day and they seemed to quit biting in the last hour or so. We had similar fishing set-ups, so it wasn’t a matter of me being rigged incorrectly – the fish just weren’t biting.

Southern tip of Ririe Reservoir from Blacktail

We took a longer route back that kept us on pavement all the way. We ended up in Iona before we found the way to US26 and back to the campground.

I had set up my ham radio Buddipole Versatee Vertical antenna they day before and had it tuned nicely on the 20-meter band. I played around on the radio in the afternoon and made a few contacts. I was able to reach out in different directions – I had contacts near Tucson, Arizona, another in Escondido, California, a guy in Livingston, Texas and I heard a guy in West Branch, Michigan talking to guy in Australia! He must have had a great antenna system – I heard his end of the conversation, but couldn’t pick up the signal from Australia. Speaking of great antenna systems, I heard from Janez (S51DX) in Slovenia again. This is the fourth time I’ve had contact with him.

It was getting windy and I thought it felt like rain was coming, so I put my gear away. We ended with a few raindrops later, but nothing serious. The clouds made for a nice sunset.

After dark we went outside to look for the super-moon, but the cloud cover persisted and we couldn’t see the moon.

Saturday morning we drove to Idaho Falls for the farmers’ market. The market was located on Memorial Drive near Broadway, adjacent to the Riverwalk Greenbelt and Trail. After we parked, I was telling Donna about coming here when I was a kid. In 1966, I traveled with my grandparents to visit relatives in South Dakota. Our route took us here and my grandpa stopped so we could stretch our legs in the park and see the falls on the Snake River.

The farmers’ market had a large number of stalls and lots of people.

There were food vendors, crafts and great produce and farm-fresh meat and egg stands. Donna bought a nice head of living lettuce among a few other items. I saw some mushrooms for sale that were gorgeous, but we didn’t buy any.

There was a Veterans Memorial on the greenbelt that offered a nice river view. We walked out there and the Snake River didn’t look anything like I remembered. I know when I was a kid there was a long section where the river dropped several feet along a rip-rap of rocks. From where we stood, I could only see a small area where the river flowed over a concrete dam.

As walked back toward Broadway, I could see the east side of the river looked un-natural – it seemed like the river was split into two levels. As we crossed the Broadway bridge, things began to look familiar. When I was a kid, we must have parked on the west bank of the river.

The river is split with a manmade channel lined by a concrete dike on the east side. The river spills over the concrete dike like a negative pool edge and cascades over rip-rap rocks into the lower west portion of the river.

We made a stop at Winco Foods while we were in town to pick up a few items. We saw some good looking wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. The guy at the seafood counter said it just came in that morning. We bought a two-pound filet. Donna grilled it last night and it was fabulous.

After we came home, I practiced guitar for bit, but my session was cut short when my amp quit working. I had power but no sound out of my AmpStand. It’s called a 12-watt tube amplifier, but it really only has one 12AX7 vacuum tube in the preamp. The rest of the circuit including the output is all solid state (transistor). The amp had power – the power light stayed on, but there was no output. I’ll take it apart this afternoon, but I’m not optimistic. If it was a true vacuum tube amplifier, I could troubleshoot it easily, but with a solid state circuit, I can only hope that there are obvious visual clues.

Before we left Rock Springs, Wyoming, Donna wanted to get some inch-thick pork chops. We found Duroc pork chops at Smith’s grocery and bought them. Duroc is a variety of pig that has darker meat that’s more flavorful and tender than most pork. Donna pan fried the chops and made a cream gravy with sauteed onions for dinner the second night we were here. They were great!

The weather has been good – highs in the mid-to-upper 70s cooling to the low 50s overnight. It’s a little warmer today and the forecast calls for 90 degrees by mid-week. The wind has been gusty at times – wind must be the norm here. When we drove around the reservoir, we went past the half a dozen or so wind turbines we can see from here. Once we drove nearer to them, we could see the wind turbines extended through farmland ridges for miles.

Our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer are due to arrive here tomorrow from Yellowstone. We’re looking forward to seeing them again and are hoping they can snag a good site here when they arrive.

The Road to Ririe

I wrote my last post on Sunday, which was Father’s Day. I had a relaxing day starting with a fantastic Formula One race at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. I followed that with the Moto GP race in Germany. Donna went for a walk in the morning and got her exercise in.

To cap off Father’s Day, I grilled a ribeye steak we bought from Bob Ower – his cattle are fed sprouted barley, a superfood. I wrote about his process with the barley in this post.

There’s a grilled ribeye under that pile of mushrooms and onions

We went to Smith’s Grocery on Monday and stocked up the pantry, refrigerator and freezer with food. I found a whole chicken for $2.59! After getting the groceries put away, I got Donna’s bike prepped and she went for a 15-mile ride up Yellowstone Road. She fought a headwind all the way out to the north end of the road and had the wind at her back on the return.

While she was out doing that, I broke down the chicken and put the parts in the freezer for a total of four meals. I’m getting pretty good at the process. Then I set up my amp and pedal board and played my guitar for about half an hour. I wanted to get a good feel for the strings I was using before I replaced them with the strings I got from Curt Mangan.

The strings I was using were a standard nickel coated 10-46 set I bought online from an outfit in San Diego called Webstrings. They claim they are made in the USA, but don’t reveal which factory makes the strings or whether they’re assembled with USA sourced wire. When I bought these strings, they had a incredible deal on bulk purchases and I bought two dozen sets. The set I put on my Gibson ES-339 a few weeks ago was my last full set. I have five packs of strings left, but each pack was opened so I could rob the high “E” string. I broke five “E” strings out of the 19 sets I used – that’s over a 20% failure rate. I rarely break guitar strings. Most of these breakages happened when first tuning up to pitch or shortly thereafter. These strings sound okay, but they obviously have a quality issue.

The funny thing is, I bought a bulk pack from Gibson when we were in Memphis. Their 10-set bulk pack comes with two extra high “E” and “B” strings ( the two thinnest strings). But I don’t recall ever breaking a Gibson string.

I took a break (no pun intended) and changed to the Curt Mangan (CM) strings. The first thing I noticed was the brighter finish on the CM strings. The nickel finish was so bright, they were almost white compared to the Webstrings. I gave them a good stretch and tuned them up to pitch. When I started to play, I found out that brightness wasn’t only in the appearance – the tone was noticeably brighter than the Webstrings. Chords sounded cleaner with distinct note definition. I know strings are a small part of the equation when it comes to guitar tone, but the difference was there – it wasn’t my imagination. Now I’ll have to see how well these strings hold up. Curt Mangan sells six-packs of string sets for around $7 per set – and he only uses USA-sourced material, no imported wire.

Tuesday morning we hit the road just after 9am. Packing and getting road-ready is much easier and faster these days as we are traveling lighter and I don’t have to pack and secure the trailer. We drove back toward downtown to hit the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center for fuel. I topped up with 60 gallons at $3.58/gallon – gulp.

We headed north on US191 – it was mostly flat sagebrush country. It was very rural with miles of road without any dwellings. Donna started keeping track of antelope sightings for something to do. By the time we reached Pinedale, she was up to 80 antelope or so. She eventually lost count around 122 sightings and I’m sure we missed as many as we saw. Most of the antelope we saw weren’t in the open sagebrush country – they were more concentrated around ranch land and towns. There are better food sources and access to water there – that’s my theory.

US191 follows the Green River for a while, then we entered the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The scenery changed to pine trees and steep mountains on either side of the highway. We could see snow still on the tops of the Grand Tetons. The road followed the Hoback River and was very scenic. We didn’t have any long grades, just a few short climbs and descents. I think we topped out at just over 7,000 feet above sea level.

At the junction with US89, we turned west. US89 follows the Snake River through the National Forest. At the town of Alpine, we hit US26 which runs alongside the Palisades Reservoir. We saw several RVs camped along the huge reservoir – it looked like dispersed dry-camping was allowed. It was a very scenic area and I wouldn’t mind stopping off there next time we are in this neck of the woods. The southern tip of the reservoir is in Wyoming while the majority of it is in Idaho. We crossed the border and soon after, we exited the National Forest at Swan Valley. The landscape became more agricultural as we neared our destination.

Our stopping point was Juniper Campground – a county park – at the Ririe Reservoir. The nearest town is Ririe (Rye-ree) a few miles away. It’s a very small town with no real shopping or grocery store. For groceries, we’ll go to Idaho Falls, about 17 miles away.

Juniper Campground has three loops of RV sites – “A”, “B” and “C” loops. The “A” loop sites are reservation only and are fully booked up. The “B” and “C” loops are first come – first served. Full hook-ups are $25/night. Some sites are 30-amp electric service while most also have 50-amp service. We heard about this place from our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer and took a chance on finding an open site. We found site B20 open and snagged it.

There were a couple of other open sites in the loop, but one was a handicap access site and the other wasn’t very level and didn’t have any shade. Once I checked the satellite reception in B20, we were good to go. It was about a 250-mile travel day and that’s about as far as I want to drive the coach. Ozark the cat was asleep most of the day after having dramamine for breakfast.

I paid for 14 nights here – that’s the stay limit. This will get us through the Fourth of July weekend. It’s always hard to find an open campsite over the holiday weekend. Jeff and Deb Spencer are due to arrive here from Yellowstone next Monday and they plan to stay for a week.

We’re at an elevation of 5,200 feet above sea level and it’s much cooler here. Upper 70s are forecast for next couple of days, but it’ll warm up after that. Next week we’ll probably see 90s and stay hot through the Fourth of July weekend. Our loosely drawn plans will have us heading west across Idaho and I hope to make a stop in Emmett, Idaho to visit my buddy from San Diego, Tye Moody. Tye sold his house in Bay Park and moved to Emmett last year.

Another Jetpack Blow-up

We left Thompson Springs around 10:30am Thursday morning as planned and backtracked on I-70 westbound through Green River, Utah. We turned north once again on US191 about five miles west of town. It was a relatively easy drive until we hit Indian Canyon just north of Helper. We drove this route back in 2014 and recognized some of the landmarks, but I didn’t remember how tough the climb out of the canyon was. We finally topped out over 9,100 feet above sea level.

Our next stop was at Steinaker Lake State Park, north of Vernal, Utah. We had reserved a site with water and 50-amp electrical service. It was hot once again and we wanted 50-amp service to run both roof-mounted air conditioners. Although our site was a pull-through, the roads and paved sites are narrow and tight. Our “pull-through” site had a really sharp turn before the narrow exit – no way could we drive through it. I disconnected the truck from the back of the coach in anticipation of reversing out of the site in the morning. We were at an elevation of about 5,200 feet above sea level.

Donna went for a short hike around the reservoir and shot a few pictures.

After a mostly quiet night – we had some gusty winds that woke us up a couple of times – we were back on the road Friday morning. Three straight travel days were wearing Ozark the cat out – she’s not too keen on the travel days.

Our route northbound on US191 had us climbing again. On one section of road, there was a sign warning of sharp curves with 10 switchbacks over a four-mile stretch. Once again, I kept an eye on our engine coolant and transmission fluid temperatures as it was hot outside – around 90 degrees. On hard climbs, I slow down and downshift the transmission manually to keep the engine RPM around 1900. By downshifting, I reduce the load on the engine by utilizing torque multiplication through gear reduction. Running at higher RPM keeps the radiator fan spinning at higher speed and circulates the coolant through the engine quickly for efficient cooling.

When we crossed the state line into Wyoming, I remarked to Donna that I’d never driven in Wyoming without seeing antelope. For the next 15 minutes, I wondered if I jinxed myself before I saw a lone antelope buck about 75 yards off the roadside.

We hit I-80 about midway between Green River, Wyoming and Rock Springs. We checked in at the Sweetwater Events Center – we’ve stayed here a few times and never had a problem getting a site. It’s a huge property with arenas, race tracks, a golf course and about 1,000 RV sites. There were only three or four RVs in sight when we arrived Friday afternoon and a few more showed up on Saturday.

We paid for four nights ($114) and set up. We took the truck into town to stock up on groceries at Smith’s Grocery store. After dinner, Donna saw our Verizon Jetpack mifi jump off of the window sill! The lithium-ion battery pack had blown up! This happened to our last Jetpack a couple of times before it finally went kaput after about three or four years. This one is about three years old. I put a back-up battery in it and it turned on briefly before an error message stating “no battery” appeared and it shut down for good.

Saturday morning I went to the Verizon store at the White Mountain Mall. The woman at the store there told me there was a recall on the Verizon mifi and I needed to call a special phone line for it. I looked at the recall notice in the store and it didn’t include our model (6620). She told me I needed to call – she couldn’t help me. I made the phone call and as I suspected our model wasn’t included in the recall.

I knew there was another Verizon store about a mile away and I went there. The woman there told me she sold her one and only Jetpack a few days earlier. Then she told me there was a third Verizon store about half a mile up the road. I went there and they had two Jetpacks in stock. I bought a new model 8800L Jetpack mifi and we’re back in business. The Sweetwater Events Center has wireless wifi, but it’s not 100% reliable.

We headed down to Bunning Park near the old downtown area for the Blues and Brews Festival a little before 3pm. We attended this festival a few years ago and had a great time. Last time, they had only a handful of breweries participating and a couple of very good bands. This time we found many more breweries represented, a larger audience and the opening band was not so good.

The second band was unusual and they sounded good. What was most unusual was their drummer. He sat on a wooden box and used soft-tipped drumsticks to drum against the box. The box had a microphone or pickup inside to amplify it. It actually worked well.

Admission was $40 and it included unlimited 7-ounce beer samples. I had a wristband and they gave me a miniature mug – the vendors were supposed to check wristbands and only fill the 7-ounce mugs – but a few people had pint glasses that they filled with multiple pours into the approved 7-ounce mug. Donna was the designated driver, so she didn’t pay or get a wristband.

I knew the third and final band would be good when they opened with Too Rolling Stoned by Robin Trower. Their band was called Stones Throw and they were very good.

We had a good time people watching and listening to music. We bugged out of there at 7pm after eating burritos from the Taco Time food truck onsite.

In my last post, I mentioned meeting Curt Mangan and touring his guitar and bass string factory. When I talked with him, he told me they were selling strings as fast as they can make them. They have warehouse distributors in England, Europe and Asia – I think he said Japan and Singapore – as well as around three hundred retailers in the US. But he surprised me by saying the majority of his sales come through his online store! I think I’ll change my guitar strings sooner rather than later so I can make a fair comparison against the strings I’ve been using instead of waiting for these strings to sack out. If I wait until these strings lose their tone, anything will sound better, so I won’t be able to accurately judge if the Curt Mangan strings are equal or better.

We had a couple of visitors today! One of Donna’s tennis friends from Viewpoint, Val Tremelling and her husband Shorty, live about 100 miles north of Rock Springs. Donna sent a message to Val on Friday that we were here in Rock Springs and if they happened to be in town, be sure to let her know. As it turned out, they were on their way to a family BBQ and stopped by to see us before heading there.

The temperature here reached 90 on Friday and Saturday. Today is cooler – in the mid 80s with gusty winds. Tomorrow should be cooler before it heats up again on Tuesday. We plan to pull out of here on Tuesday and follow US191 up to US89 south of Jackson, then hit US26 into Idaho. That’s the current plan, we’ll see how that shapes up.

Unexpected Tour

We stayed busy over the weekend in Cortez, Colorado, then things heated up! On Friday night, we went to the fairgrounds a few miles east of town for the Ute Mountain Roundup – the rodeo! Donna ordered five tickets and had reserved seats for us all – front and center! We’ve enjoyed a number of rodeos since we hit the road eight years ago and this rodeo ranks right up there with the best. By the way, you can read about my first rodeo experience back in 1976 here.

Saturday morning Donna and I played in the pickleball Shootout – it’s a local tournament with a round-robin format. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled in a group that was totally mismatched. We had two players that could play at the 3.5 level – me and another guy – and two players that weren’t up to par. This led to uneven play and lopsided scores. Donna had a better matchup and held her own in some tough competition.

Mike and Jodi Hall came out with their granddaughter, Swayzie, to watch and enjoy Centennial Park. For such a small town, Cortez has a large number of beautiful, well-maintained public parks. After the tournament, we went to the farmers’ market and got there about 20 minutes before it closed.

We took a break and had some down time before we met up at WildEdge Brewing Collective for a couple of cold ones. Mike picked up the tab – thanks for the brews, Mike! We said our goodbyes until fall as Mike and Jodi were heading out of Cortez Sunday morning.

We had a lazy day on Sunday. We decided to forego the pickleball social at Montezuma’s in Dolores – we had just eaten there on Friday. Meanwhile the thermometer steadily climbed each day. We had upper 90s Saturday and Sunday. Monday was near 100 degrees and Donna was called off from going to the Ower’s farm to weed. She ended up going on Tuesday, after pickleball in the morning although the temperature reached 101 degrees.

I had an interesting afternoon on Tuesday. My Facebook feed showed a video ad for Curt Mangan guitar strings. I clicked on the video and watched how they make round core nickel wound strings. What really got my attention was their small factory – it’s right here in Cortez, Colorado! I looked at their website and found the strings were available at a music store in town. I drove to the store to get a set of these strings to try out, but it was only open Wednesday through Saturday.

I looked up the factory location and drove there thinking they may have a retail outlet. I found an unassuming metal building set back about a quarter of a mile off Mildred Road with no signage. I parked and checked out the building – it wasn’t open to the public. As I stood there by a screened, large loading door, a voice called out, “Can I help you?” I peered inside and saw it was Curt Mangan. I told him what I was looking for and he said he didn’t sell retail onsite, but invited me to come in. He asked what strings I wanted – I told him I was after a standard 10-46 set. He said, “Follow me.”

We went into a room that was obviously a packing and shipping area and he checked a shelf and found an empty box. He said, “Wouldn’t you know it – no 10-46 sets. Come with me.” We walked into another area – I would say the metal building covered nearly 5,000 square feet – and he started pulling individual strings packaged in white paper. When he had a complete set, he put them in a colored package and then inserted the whole thing into a plastic sleeve which he sealed with a machine. Then he handed me the set of strings!

Then we started talking about guitars. I told him my first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that I factory ordered from a music store in Longmont, Colorado in 1976. I said I never really bonded with Fender guitars and now I play Gibsons. He laughed and told me everyone needs a Strat or a Telecaster – they’re the foundation of electric guitars. Then he told me he had the Fender franchise in Longmont in 1978!

I told him a story about finding the receipt from Longmont Music for the 1976 Stratocaster and showing it to my guitar teacher about 10 years ago. I paid $425 for the guitar. Jeff, my teacher, asked me if $425 was for a made-in-America Strat. I laughed and told him that all Fenders back then were made in Fullerton, California. Today, you can buy a Fender made in Corona, California for big bucks or a cheaper version made in Mexico or Squier-branded one made in Asia. I checked an inflation calculator online and found $425 in 1976 is equivalent to $2,000 today – about the low end of a made-in-America Stratocaster, so they haven’t changed all that much unless you get into the Custom Shop variants that can cost upwards of $5,000 or more.

We had a nice talk, then Curt asked me if I had time for a tour! I could hardly believe it. He took me through the manufacturing process and showed me the machinery they use and how they make strings. He has a small workforce. I’m not sure how many employees he has – most of the workers were gone for the day. He told me at this time of year, they start early and knock off around 3pm due to the heat.

Curt told me he got out of the retail music business after a few years – he said it’s super competitive and hard to stay profitable. He went to work for the Ernie Ball Corporation in their Music Man guitar division. Ernie Ball is another guy with a great rags-to-riches story, but that’ll have to wait for some other time. He stayed with Ernie Ball for about 15 years and while he was there, he learned that musical instrument sales were cyclical – they went up and down. But strings seemed to be in steady demand. He studied guitar and bass string technology and, in 2004, he started producing strings.

I changed my strings a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t try out the Curt Mangan strings for a while, but I’m looking forward to trying them. If I like them, I can order direct from them online.

Curt’s notion of every guitarist needing a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar stuck with me. I’ve been kicking around the idea of putting together a Strat-type guitar and doing research on the project. I bit the bullet and ordered a custom body and neck from BYO in New Hampshire. They’ll build the body and neck to my specifications – I went for a swamp ash body and maple neck with Indian rosewood on the fingerboard. With their lead time, it should work out for me to have the parts when we return to Mesa in September.

We left Cortez around 10:30am on Wednesday. The ongoing road work had moved past the La Mesa RV Park entrance and we had no trouble getting out. I made a quick turn into the Maverick station to top up our tank with diesel fuel. Diesel was $3.39/gallon – at this time last year we paid $2.21. Thanks, Joe – I see inflation rearing its ugly head.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature in Cortez reached 101 degrees. We had the generator running to power the roof air conditioner as we drove. Our route took us through Dove Creek and into Utah where we hit US191 in Monticello. From there we went north through Moab. Seeing what happened to Moab is a bit heartbreaking for me. It used to be a funky, cool little town that was a gateway to great hiking, biking and off-roading. Now they’ve over-developed it to the point of making it into a Disney-like tourist trap.

We arrived in Thompson Creek off of I-70 around 2pm and checked in for the night. We needed a 50 amp hook-up, it’s much too hot for dry camping. Today we’ll move on to Vernal, Utah and spend the night at a state park with electric hook-up. Friday we’ll go to Rock Springs, Wyoming. We didn’t plan to go there originally as we’ve been there twice before. But when searching for festivals, Donna discovered that this weekend is the Brews and Blues Festival there and we want to attend. We did it once before and it was a hoot with surprisingly good bands.

It should be a little cooler there, but we can still expect daily highs around 90 degrees.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Alpine Coach

A Tale of Two Beaches

Hot and Smoky

Ponies and Snakes

Can’t Fool Hayspur Fish

Quiet Fourth of July

Soldering Station

Idaho Falls

The Road to Ririe

Another Jetpack Blow-up

Unexpected Tour

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: