Category Archives: Bicycle

Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trail

The rain in the forecast I mentioned in my last post came, but it came much later than originally predicted. It was cloudy all day Tuesday but the rain held off until sundown. It rained off and on during the night and continued to rain Wednesday with a few breaks. Thursday we had showers but the sun broke through occasionally. The nice thing about the rain, it cleared the air of whatever pollen was getting to me.

Thursday afternoon during a period of sunshine, we drove to the store. On the way into town, Donna suggested making the 18-mile drive up to Panguitch Lake to have a look around. It turned out to be not such a good day for it. As we climbed to the lake west of town, we drove right back into rain. We didn’t even get out of the truck – we just drove by the lake and took a look. There isn’t much up there and it was too dreary to snap a photo.

Friday morning we had clear skies and the sun was shining. We had a late breakfast, then drove up to Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest. Red Canyon has a visitor center with a large parking lot providing access to many hiking trails – it’s the gateway to Bryce Canyon National Park with a 17-mile paved biking trail to the park.

After a stop in the visitor center for information and maps, we decided to hike from there. We followed a trail from the visitor center parallel to the highway and started up the Hoodoo Trail. Geologically speaking, a hoodoo is a column of rock, usually softer rock like limestone topped by a harder layer – typically basalt. Hoodoos differ from spires due to their shape – they are irregular, forming a totem pole-like shape or are topped with an area with a larger diameter often looking like a rock balanced on top of a spire. A spire is a column of rock that tapers from a larger diameter base to a thin tip.

Hoodoo Trail is aptly named as it offers views of two distintive hoodoos.

Like arches, hoodoos form from erosion over millions of years.

The Hoodoo Trail fishooks as it climbs and has nine posts, each one numbered with a guide pamphlet giving information about vegetation and geology of the area around the posts. After the ninth post, we reached the junction with the Pink Ledges Trail. This trail climbs and had four more numbered posts (10 through 13) described in the guide. A few of the posts also have benches where you can take a break and look at the scenery.

Rock layers are evident in the distant cliff

In the photo above, the high cliff in the background clearly shows the sedimentary layers of rock – softer limestone and sandstone topped with darker basalt.

High up the trail, the view seems endless.

It was amazing to see trees rooted in the rock formations.

The orange and yellows in picture above are from clay and iron mixed in the limestone. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the darker areas appeared to be a type of lichen adhering to the rock.

Another view from high up the trail of the hoodoos in the first photo of this post

The trail switches back around this hoodoo

The Pink Ledges Trail eventually brought us back to the far end of the visitor center parking lot. The trail wasn’t too strenuous, although it did have significant elevation changes and few steep areas with loose stones. Wear sturdy shoes and tread carefully!

Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Donna took advantage of a break in the rain to grill chicken breasts. She grilled the chicken seasoned with salt and pepper, then served it topped with a Mediterranean vinaigrette. She roasted patty pan squash (picked up from the local produce stand) with tomatoes and black olives, topped with fresh basil.

Grilled chicken with Mediteranean vinaigrette

This morning, Donna loaded her bike in the truck and returned to Red Canyon. She rode up the trail toward Bryce Canyon to the summit and beyond, gaining nearly 1,000 feet of elevation before turning back after seven-and-a-half miles to make a quick descent back to the truck.

With the rainy day Wednesday, we had a high of only 64 degrees. Thursday was warmer and Friday hit the upper 70s with a high of 78 called for today. We should see highs in the low to mid 80s in the next few days. I paid for three more nights here to get us through the Labor Day weekend. We’ll head out on Tuesday and intend to be back in Mesa, Arizona on Thursday September 9th.

*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!

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

Today is our last full day in Mount Vernon. Two weeks have flown by and we’ll leave western Washington tomorrow. Our days here have been pretty full. On Monday, we went to Hillcrest Park for pickleball. It was very busy, but well organized. I played in the 3.5 group while Donna went into the 3.0 pool. We found their ratings here to be higher than what we’re used to in Arizona – the 3.5 group seemed more like 3.0 to me and likewise, Donna felt the level of play in the 3.0 was on the low side, so she stepped up for the last few games.

Pickleball courts at Hillcrest Park (That’s Donna in the peach jacket)

When we arrived at the park, there were players on all six courts and over 40 players waiting to get on! It moved quickly though with a four-off and four-on format. After an hour or so, the crowd thinned out – many people had arrived at 8am and we didn’t show up until 9:30am or so.

Tuesday we had dental appointments for check-ups and cleaning at Dr. Westford’s office in Everett. We both really like this dental office. The people are friendly, the hygenists are very competent and thorough and Dr. Westbrook is a first-class dentist.

As usual, I had a couple of areas that required attention. The enamel on my teeth is damaged due to head and neck radiation treatment for cancer. The radiation damage seems to never go away. I made another appointment for Thursday at 8am to fill a couple of areas where teeth had cracked and crumbled a bit.

Wednesday we went back for more pickleball and found only a handful of people at the park. We played six or seven games and had a good time. Mondays and Thursdays are the crowded days as the play is organized by the local pickleball club. Other days are just pick-up games and open play.

In the afternoon, we drove down to Kevin and Alana’s place. Kevin had tomatos, peppers, onion and a whole bulb of garlic on the Traeger for salsa he made for us. The salsa is very good! Alana wanted me to show her how I make Japanese fried rice. My method is time-consuming and laborious, but you can’t argue with the result. Everyone really liked the fried rice.

For some reason, Donna and I both slept fitfully Wednesday night. Maybe we were a little dehydrated from the morning of pickleball – it was hot with the temperature reaching 88 degrees on Wednesday. Thursday morning I was up before 6am to have breakfast and coffee before heading down to Everett for my 8am dental appointment. I wanted to hit the road by 7am, not knowing for sure what the traffic on I-5 would be like. Typically it slows down once you pass the SR529 exit and can be very slow from there.

The drive was easy and I chose to exit on SR529 and drive right through Everett to the dental office. I made it there in about 35 minutes and had to wait awhile for them to open. Originally our plan was for Donna to ride her bike to Hillcrest Park for pickleball and I would join her on my way back from the dentist. Donna opted out – she was feeling a bit off after a poor night’s sleep. I was very tired as well and came straight back. We spent the rest of the day reading and lounging around.

Friday we met Kevin and Alana and Kevin’s mother Donetta in La Conner. La Conner is a small waterfront town about 10 miles from Mount Vernon. It’s located on the Swinomish Channel which looks like a river, but it’s a channel connecting Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay. The town has a population of only about 1,000 people, but it has many attractions such as waterfront dining, breweries and tourist shops.

We met at the aptly named La Conner Waterfront Cafe and dined al fresco on their deck.

View of Swinomish Channel from the Waterfront Cafe

La Conner is a cool place, but parking can be problematic. We all had to park blocks away from the restaurant as their small lot was full and street parking was also full all through the waterfront area.

We made plans to meet again the following afternoon – I had purchased tickets for the Brewfest on the Skagit. This event was organized by, and benefitted, the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon. It was held at Edgewater Park in Mount Vernon just a couple of miles from Skagit Valley RV Park. The Lincoln Theater is an old, historic vaudeville and silent movie theater in Mount Vernon built in 1926. Currently they have concerts as well as some movies and plays there. They host community events and work with local school districts to put on music workshops and also have traveling musicians teach there.

The Brewfest had a line up of more than 30 local breweries and four bands scheduled to play. Tickets for the event were $25 and included six coupons for 4-ounce beer samples. In reality, most of the breweries weren’t collecting coupons and the small samples were practically limitless.

Brewfest at Edgewater Park looking toward the Skagit River

Another view of the stage with jumbo video screen

The video screen showing close-up shots of the musicians was a nice touch. We saw all four bands and were there from around 3:30pm to 8pm. As you can see in the background of the photos, the air quality wasn’t great as wildfire smoke imported from fires in Canada filled the sky.

Lainey, Alana, Kevin and Donna at Brewfest

Alana bought a fifth ticket and our granddaughter Lainey joined us. It was a fun afternoon. Earlier in the day, Kevin golfed in a tournament and finished the day in third place on the leaderboard. He’s golfing again today as the tournament continues.

Saturday morning Donna took a bike ride and stopped at a few farm vegetable stands she discovered along the way. She also stopped at the farmer’s market for donut peaches and picked wild blackberries on the way home. On Thursday, after lunch in La Conner, we bought fresh corn in Conway that was superb. It was so good that Donna had to cook the remaining two ears of corn after we each had one for dinner – seconds were definitely in order. We’ll get more today.

I spent Saturday morning dismantling my Buddipole Versatee vertical HF ham radio antenna and packing it away. Then I broke out the compressor and set the tire pressures on the coach and also the Nissan Frontier in preparation for the road tomorrow. I’ve always been a stickler for proper tire inflation and over the last eight years, it’s served us well.

I still haven’t decided our route or even our destination tomorrow. It looks like it’s too hot and smoky to consider eastern Washington or the Idaho panhandle. I’m thinking maybe we’ll head down through Yakima and on to Bend, Oregon or maybe head to Walla Walla and down through eastern Oregon. In any case, we’ll meander southward and end up back in Mesa, Arizona around the 15th of September, giving us a month to get there.

Fire Detour

I’ve always said RVers have to be flexible. We planned to leave here tomorrow and spend one night at the Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights outside of Spokane. Then we would head west to Twisp for a night on the Methow River before continuing west to Mount Vernon, WA.

We will leave tomorrow and go to Northern Quest Casino so we can join our friends Dick and Roxy Zarowny for dinner. But we won’t be going to Twisp. The North Cascades Highway (SR20) is closed west of Winthrop, WA due to forest fires. There isn’t any way to detour around the closure, so we can’t cross the mountains on the North Cascades Highway. We had reservations at Riverbend RV Park which we cancelled. They don’t usually refund cancellations but under these circumstances they refunded our payment.

We’ll be crossing the Cascade Mountains on US2 over Stevens Pass instead. We’ll spend Sunday night somewhere between Wenatchee and Leavenworth before climbing over the pass.

We played pickleball Monday morning at Memorial Park. Tuesday we played pickleball again and then had rainshowers in the afternoon. Wednesday we drove up to Priest River to join Cindy and Jim Birditt for lunch at Mi Pueblo – a Mexican restaurant in town. We lingered for about an hour and half catching up. Jim was concerned about a 30-acre wild fire burning about three miles north of his place.Thursday we were back at Memorial Park for more pickleball.

Donna had a mysterious problem with the rear tire on her bike. When we arrived here in Coeur d’Alene, her tire had gone flat. Last week we stopped at a bike shop in town but they were out of patch kits. The gal at the shop gave me an old inner tube and said I could cut it to make a patch and use super glue. I found a hole in the Donna’s inner tube – it looked like she must have picked up a goathead sticker.

I roughed up her inner tube and the makeshift patch with sandpaper and fixed the flat tire – or so I thought. The next day her tire was flat again. I pulled the tube, which I had put Slime in – it’s supposed to fill any holes in the tube. I found another hole in the tube with slime oozing out of it about two inches from the original hole. This was puzzling – I had checked the tire carefully the first time looking for anything that could cause a puncture and didn’t find anything. The tire held air fine after I patched it and pumped it up. The bike hadn’t been ridden at all. So, how did it have another puncture?

I made another patch and put it back together. Again it pumped up fine and held pressure. The next day the tire was a little soft – there was a very slow leak. I pumped the tire and Donna went for a ride Sunday morning. A little over half an hour later, Donna phoned me to tell me she her tire had gone flat. I drove down in the truck and picked her up at the Hampton Inn in Coeur d’Alene.

I picked up a new inner tube on Tuesday and this morning I installed it. Again, I looked closely at the tire and didn’t find anything to cause a puncture. Donna rode for over an hour this morning with no issues.

The daily temperatures were warm all week with highs in the low 90s. Today the temperature is expected to reach 100 degrees and the forecast calls for a few degrees hotter tomorrow. Western Washington will be cooler – we can expect the daily high to be around 80 degrees there.

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.

Some Like It Hot

I mentioned the hot weather in Coeur d’Alene in my last post and I wasn’t kidding. The almanac shows we hit 100 degrees on Sunday, 97 on Monday and 95 is today’s forecast. Our usual MO is to leave Arizona by the end of March or mid-April at the latest and usually we’ll start moving north to cooler temperatures.

This year, we stayed at Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona until the end of April. We moved to Springerville, Arizona hoping the higher elevation would bring cooler temperatures. It was cooler there than the metro Phoenix area, but still quite warm. Then we moved to Cortez, Colorado and once again were hit with warmer than usual temperatures.

We found relief from the heat most of the time in Mount Vernon in western Washington and the climate there has much more humidity than we’re used to. But, since leaving western Washington we’ve been in hot, dry weather. Last evening, some high clouds moved in the area – it made a great sunset. I haven’t posted a sunset picture in a while, so here it is.

I was surprised to be woken at 4am by the sound of raindrops on the roof. It did’t rain hard and only lasted for about half an hour.

With the heat, I haven’t been very active – just mostly practicing social distance conversation via ham radio. Donna’s braved the heat with a couple of bicycle rides, but nothing too ambitious.

On Sunday, I had a great time on the 20-meter band. I made a couple of contacts that were unbelievable. I talked to a guy named Joan (he pronounced it John) in Catalonia, Spain – about 60 miles north of Barcelona. He lives out in the country near the border with France. He’s been a ham radio operator since he was 10 years old – I think he’s in his 40s now. He has an elaborate radio set up with an unbelievable array of antennas. He likes to make contact with operators in North America and Russia. He speaks excellent English and I assume he speaks Russian as well.

The other really interesting contact was with a guy in Slovenia. His name is Janez and he lives in Vhrnika, Slovenia. Slovenia is in Europe – it’s bordered to the south by Croatia, Italy is on the western border and Austria is north. He makes contacts all over the world and entering contests for the number of countries contacted is his hobby. He speaks good English. Here’s a link to his webpage.

I think I was able to make these long distance contacts for a couple of reasons. First, conditions for propagation of High Frequency (HF) signals were very good on Sunday. My signal bounced from the upper atmosphere back to earth at least twice to reach Vhrinka – over 5,300 miles away from Coeur d’Alene. More importantly, these guys had powerful systems with excellent antennas. They could blast out a strong signal for me to receive and their systems were sensitive enough to lock in my weaker signal and hear me fine. Ham radio contacts are a lot of fun and perfectly safe in this pandemic environment.

Yesterday, I tried two HF bands – 20 meters and 40 meters. I had a lot of noise on 20. Although I did pick up a signal from Hawaii, mostly the reception had interference. On 40 meters, I had no luck at all. I’m not sure how much of it was due to atmospheric conditions or if it was interference from some electronic device here at the Elk’s Lodge.

Saturday morning we hit the farmers’ market again. It was a little more crowded than last time and Donna found some good buys on fresh produce. She found leeks and fennel for dishes she wanted to make and also found some of the freshest celery she’s ever seen. After we came home, she decided that she needed to go back to get some mushrooms. We saw a vendor with fresh mushrooms – picked the night before. Donna walked back to the market – it’s about half a mile from here – and bought a pint of pearl oyster mushrooms.

She made a chicken dish with leeks and mushrooms in a cream sauce. It was excellent!

Chicken with black rice and broccoli on the side

She prepared another very tasty meal on Sunday – shrimp with feta and fennel over riced cauliflower. She used a package of shelf-stable riced cauliflower from Costco and honestly I couldn’t find much difference from the cauliflower rice she prepares with fresh cauliflower.

Yesterday, I gave Midget-San the spa treatment. I cleaned the exterior with Meguiar’s waterless spray cleaner, then applied Mother’s CMX ceramic coating. I also cleaned the interior with a vinyl and leather cleaner and treated it with Armorall.

This afternoon I plan to sit in the shade and play on the radio – it’ll be too hot to do much else. I know 95 degrees doesn’t get much sympathy from my friends in the Phoenix area, but it’s still hot! Donna’s out for a bike ride as I type this – I expect to see her soon. The temperature should drop to a more reasonable 80 degrees or so by the end of the week. We’ll extend our stay here for another week.

Bottom Third

In my last post, I mentioned putting up the MFJ Big Ear antenna and trying to make contacts on the 20-meter band without success. Thinking about that, I wondered about the set-up. The Big Ear antenna is a multi-band antenna. For different frequency bands, you need to alter the antenna to tune it. To do this, you shorten the length of the antenna whips for higher frequencies or pull the whips all the way out for lower frequencies.

For 20 meters, you pull the whips all the way out. For 30 or 40 meters you need to electrically lengthen the antenna by tuning a coil at the bottom of one of the whips. The instructions say to short the coil with the whips fully extended for 20 meters. I figured that shorting the coil meant putting the alligator clip on the jumper wire on the top of the coil, thus taking the coil out of the electrical path. The problem was, the jumper wire was too short to reach the top of the coil, so I guessed they intended it to go on the last coil at the bottom. The instructions were less than clear.

After giving it more thought, I realized that this couldn’t be right. Maybe I was so far out of resonance, I couldn’t pick up a signal. I e-mailed MFJ’s support and received a two-word reply to my question of where to place the alligator clip. The reply was “bottom third.” This made no sense to me. The coil has about 34 turns, so they were telling me to put it somewhere on the bottom 11 turns. Nonsense. I know some conditions can make the placement change by a coil or two, but not 11. I decided to experiment.

I attached a short section of wire to the top of the coil and insulated it with heat shrink tubing. Then I attached the alligator clip to the wire to “short” or bypass the coil. I hooked everything back up and tried the 20-meter band again. Right away, I could hear someone transmitting. He was transmitting from the USS Midway in San Diego Bay! Apparently a San Diego Ham Club has access to the radio room on the USS Midway on the second Saturday of each month. With their antenna high above the bridge of the aircraft carrier, their signal has a great reach. I was picking it up loud and clear from over 1,300 miles away.

Although I could pick up their signal, my output was too weak to reach them. Later, I made contact with a guy in Alaska. He was loud and clear. He said he could hear me, but my signal was weak and a little noisy. He told me he was transmitting with 1,000 watts of output. Wow – that’s 10 times the 100 watts I have. I thought maybe I needed more power.

Then I heard from a guy in Texas – he also had 100 watts like me, but had a strong, clear signal. He said his antenna was on a 150-foot tall tower! I don’t need more power – I need to get my antenna higher! These contacts were over-the-air station-to-station with no repeaters or landlines involved.

Sunday was our last full day in Mount Vernon. Donna started the day with a long bicycle ride. She rode to La Conner and made a 27-mile loop. Here are a few of the photos she took on her ride.

Flower pots on the dock – Rainbow Bridge in the background

Later, we drove over to Alana and Kevin’s place. We visited in the backyard – I also watched the Moto GP race and the Formula One race they recorded on their DVR for me. Kevin grilled shrimp for tacos and made a great pineapple salsa to go with it.

A blacktail doe with two fawns came into the backyard and fed on leaves at the edge of the woods – they didn’t pay much attention to us. Around 9pm, we said our goodbyes until next time. It’s always a little sad because we don’t really know when next time will be.

On Monday morning, we hit the road. I drove south on I-5 to WA530 – the Arlington exit. There’s a Pilot-Flying J travel center there and I wanted to fill up before we headed east. There won’t be many places to fuel up until we reach Idaho and we would be low on fuel by then. I don’t like to run the tank low – you never know what might come up.

From there, our route took us through Darrington, then we hit WA20 – the North Cascades Highway at Rockport. The road closure and detour we encountered on our way west had been cleared the previous Friday, so no detour this time. We climbed up Rainy Pass then Washington Pass before the downhill run to Winthrop. In Mount Vernon, we were at an elevation of 31 feet above sea level. Donna said she thought Washington Pass was over 5,000 feet above sea level. I thought it was closer to 4,000 feet. Later I looked it up. It’s more than 5,400 feet above sea level, so Donna was right. I love it when she’s right.

We checked in at Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop around 2:30 pm. We’re in site seven – the same site we had three weeks ago. Awhile later, I set up my Comet GP6 antenna – this one is for 2-meter (VHF) and 70cm (UHF) frequencies which are line-of-sight frequencies. I tried the repeater here in town and got a report back that I had a good signal. The guy asked where I was, then he told me I could see the repeater from where we were.

My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table – the repeater is on the water tank on the hill in the background

Then I tried the repeater in Twisp – about eight miles away as the crow flies. This repeater is linked via a network to other repeaters. A guy in Republic, WA said I had a clear signal. After that, I found that the hams over here aren’t very talkative, especially with an outsider. Today, I plan to take down the Comet and put up the Big Ear to see if I can make contact outside of the area.

Donna put the leftover tri-tip to good use. She made beef stroganoff for Monday night’s dinner with kale fettucini she bought at a farm stand on her last bike ride.

This morning we found pickleball. We played here before, a couple of years ago at the outdoor ice skating rink. When we went there this morning, the rink was closed. We came back home and Donna looked at another resource. We found out they play at the tennis courts on the west side of town. We went there and played for a couple of hours and had a good time.

We’re at an elevation of a little over 1,800 feet above sea level here. The weather has been hot and dry. It was 90 degrees on Monday afternoon and 86 degrees yesterday. Today is cooler with a forecast high of 80 degrees. Tomorrow should be about the same and we’ll pull out of here on Friday.

Tri-tip Delight

Kevin and Alana came by on Thursday afternoon and we went into town to District Brewing on the corner of Main Street and Myrtle Street – across from the park where the farmers’ market is held. The brewery had a variety of good IPAs on tap, but only one amber or red ale and one porter.

We found a table on the upper level overlooking the park and Skagit River. After a round of ales, we moved to an outside table so Alana’s chihuahua, Chico, could join us. I ordered a wood-fired pizza to go and Donna and I enjoyed it back at home.

Friday was mostly uneventful – Donna went out for a bike ride. I went to Lowes and bought supplies to build a new antenna mast. I received an MFJ-2289 Big Ear dipole antenna from Ham Radio Outlet the day before. This monster looks kind of like an old “rabbit ear” TV antenna on steroids. The collapsible whips are 17 feet long! I built a mast and mounted it on a sturdy tripod about 10 feet above the ground. The idea is to get on the 20-meter band and see if I can make some distant single-side-band contacts over the air. I haven’t been successful yet.

As I was messing with the radio yesterday afternoon, I could see clouds thickening and could feel rain coming. I took everything down and put the radio away. Meanwhile, I had a tri-tip on the Traeger wood-fired smoker-grill.

I bought the tri-tip at Winco Foods on Wednesday. It was untrimmed, so I trimmed the fat cap and seasoned it Thursday night. Tri-tip is an interesting cut of beef and has some folklore behind it. The tri-tip cut is the bottom of the sirloin – the tensor fasciae latae muscle in front of a cow’s hip. It’s a curved cut usually about eight or nine inches long and three inches thick in the center, tapering on the ends.

This portion of meat was once used only for ground beef or maybe stew meat. The story goes like this – in the 1950s a butcher named Bob Schutz at Safeway in Santa Maria, California was overstocked on ground beef. So he took a bottom sirloin cut that would normally be ground and spiced it, then put it on a rotisserie. The results were surprising. Everyone found the meat to be flavorful and hearty. With a few tweaks, he perfected the method of grilling over coals and began marketing the “tri-tip” as he called it, as a barbecue cut.

This barbecue meat became quite popular in Santa Maria, which is located in a valley known for growing wine grapes, midway between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Today, a tri-tip that has been barbecued is known as “Santa Maria Tri-Tip.” It’s mostly a west coast thing, but I’ve heard it has grown in popularity throughout the country. The traditional method uses a simple dry rub of equal parts salt, pepper and garlic powder. I used a commercially prepared rub called “Pappy’s Choice” which has a high salt content. After trimming the tri-tip, I rubbed it, wrapped it in cling-wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Friday afternoon, I pulled the Traeger out of the trailer and set the temperature at about 220 degrees. I did this by setting the controller to 180 degrees, then adjusting the P-setting to P0. This had the pellets feeding for 15 seconds, then idling for 45 seconds and held it at the temperature I desired.

After two hours in the Traeger, I checked the internal temperature and found it at 130 degrees. I fired up the Weber Q and heated it to 400 degrees. I took the tri-tip out of the Traeger and put it in the Weber for three minutes per side. This seared the meat and toughened the bark resulting from the rub and smoking. This is called a reverse sear technique as most searing methods start with the sear first.

The last trick to serving tri-tip is to cut it correctly. It’s a lot like cutting brisket. You must cut across the grain and pay attention as the grain direction changes. For our dinner, I sliced the tri-tip in 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick slices.

Donna made whole wheat spaghetti with pesto, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus on the side and she also had fresh corn on the cob which she bought at the vegetable stand near here on her bike ride. I pulled the tri-tip off the Weber at about 5:20 pm, just as it started raining. Perfect timing. I let it rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before slicing. You need a cutting board with channel cut in the outer perimeter – this is one juicy hunk of beef.

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about tri-tip. The one I smoked was rather large – about three pounds before smoking. So, we have leftovers and that’s great. I had some with eggs over-easy for a poor man’s steak and eggs breakfast this morning. Donna sliced the remainder into thin slices that’ll be just right for tri-tip sandwiches or topping for a salad.

The rain fell off and on overnight and it’s raining lightly this morning. It should clear up by early afternoon. The thermometer reached 73 yesterday and should be about the same today. Tomorrow and Monday are predicted to be sunny and warmer. I’ll start organizing the trailer today. Tomorrow we plan to visit with Kevin and Alana and our granddaughter, Gabi, and Kevin’s boys, Nick and Kyle. On Monday, we’ll pull out of here and head over the North Cascades to Winthrop.

Cedar Hats

We went to Alana and Kevin’s place Sunday afternoon for a visit. We didn’t really “visit” much – they’re in the middle of a large project. They’re repainting their house and had a hydraulic lift they rented to reach the second story and roof trim of the house. This large lift was an expensive rental and they were making the most of it and we didn’t want to interrupt their progress.

I was able to watch the Formula One race from Silverstone, England they had recorded for me on their DVR – thank you very much. Donna brought her clarinet and some sheet music and practiced outdoors in the back yard.

Earlier in the day Donna, went out for a nice bike ride. She rode to La Conner and went across the Swinomish Channel on the Rainbow Bridge.

View south of the bridge – two kayaks on the water

Once she crossed the bridge, she was on Swinomish Indian tribal land. She found a small park with covered pavilions called Cedar Hats.

Monday was my middle daughter, Jamie’s, birthday. I talked to her briefly on the telephone but she was at work so we had to cut it short. Other than that, I didn’t accomplish much beyond making a few ham radio contacts. I know some people wonder what the big deal is about ham radio.

For me, it comes down to two main ideas. I can make contact with people that are great distances away from. Okay, so what – a cell phone does that and is easier. But, would I make contact with a random person in Alaska or Australia or even Japan? I did that over the last few days. Anyone can hail anyone else on the radio and start a conversation. The conversation I had with the guy in Melbourne, Australia was a hoot. After awhile, he told me he had to go because his wife “had brekkie on.” Aussies and Brits often refer to breakfast as brekkie. Although it was Monday afternoon for me, it was Tuesday morning in Australia.

The other thing is emergency contacts. We know from experience with natural or un-natural disasters, like hurricanes or the huge explosion in Beirut, infrastructure goes down. Phone lines, cell towers and Internet are useless in these situations. Many ham operators volunteer for emergency service through Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) or Amateur Radio Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Ham radio doesn’t require Internet or phone service – in many cases, just a battery and antenna for the radio will suffice.

Donna ordered a new carrier (crate) for Ozark the cat. The old one was fine when Ozark was a kitten, but it was a little cramped for a long day on the road now. Donna found a collapsible/expandable carrier and Ozark loves it. She goes in it just to relax on her own volition.

Donna came up with a couple of new dishes this week. She made corn fritters to go with honey/sriracha glazed chicken thighs and baby squash from the farmers’ market. The corn fritters were made with fresh corn cut from the cob.

Honey/sriracha glazed chicken with corn fritters and baby squash

It was excellent. Last night she made lamb rib chops with a rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper marinade. We bought these rib chops at the farmers’ market in Dolores, Colorado and kept them frozen.

Lamb rib chops are tender and very tasty, but you don’t get a lot of meat off of them. We had mashed potato and green beans to go with the chops.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain drops hitting the roof of the coach. Here in western Washington, it’s inevitable – we’ve been here for two and half weeks. If it didn’t rain in the next few days, people around here would be wringing their hands over a drought. The forecast calls for a high of 66 degrees today. It should be dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s through the weekend. We plan to pull out of here on Monday. We’ll be retracing our route with a four-night stay in Winthrop before going back to Coeur d’Alene.

Antenna Farm

Alana, Kevin and the kids headed over to eastern Washington on Wednesday. Our granddaughter Lainey had to move from her apartment in Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. They would be back on Saturday.

Thursday and Friday, Donna and I drove over to their place in Arlington to feed cats, water the potted plants and pick up mail and packages. It was uneventful on Thursday, but on Friday we found evidence of raccoons ransacking the cat food.

On our way back on Friday, we made a stop at Little Mountain Park. Donna discovered this park on one of her bicycle rides. Little Mountain Park is a 522-acre park just outside of town on the south side. The road into the park rises steeply to the parking lot at the summit, 934 feet above sea level. There are 10 miles of hiking trails in the park – most of them have steep climbs or descents. There are two viewing platforms – the south platform is adjacent to the parking lot and the north one is a short hike from there.

The south viewing platform overlooks the Skagit Valley with views of Puget Sound, Camano Island and Whidbey Island. On a clear day you can see the Olympic Mountains across the sound. We didn’t have a clear day – there was a lot of haze which you can see in the photos below. We’ll have to go back on a clear day.

View Southwest – Camano Island on the left, Whidbey Island on the right

One of the packages I picked up at Alana’s house was a tripod I ordered from Amazon. I used a great little tripod to mount the Comet GP6 antenna for my ham radio – very sturdy. I wanted to order another one to put up the Diamond CP-610 antenna for the 6-meter and 10-meter bands, but they were on backorder. So, I found a different one and ordered it.

I assembled the antenna and put it up on Friday. I wasn’t entirely happy with the new tripod – it seemed a little flimsy compared to the first one. The neighbors must think we have an antenna farm – they keep sprouting up.

The Diamond antenna is a bit of a beast. The actual antenna is 21 feet tall and has radials that extend about three feet, mounted on a 10-foot mast. After hooking it up, I played around on the 6- and 10-meter bands but couldn’t find a signal. Later, I took the antenna down – I didn’t trust the set-up in case it got windy overnight.

Saturday morning, I put the antenna back up. Just as I got it in position, I was distracted by Ozark the cat coming out of the coach. I’d left the door open – Ozark usually just stands or lays on the steps and looks outside, but she jumped out onto the grass this time. I let go of the antenna mast and went to retrieve Ozark. The antenna wasn’t stabilized and came crashing down, damaging the radials. I was lucky that it fell straight back across our site and landed in the grass without hitting anything else.

I disassembled the antenna and boxed it up. Lesson learned. I found a sturdy tripod on Amazon and won’t use the flimsy one again. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be able to order a couple of radials from Diamond. The radial extensions shouldn’t be much money and it’s an easy fix.

I’ve been having a blast with the ham radio. I found a repeater in Sequim – about 42 miles across the sound as the crow flies from here. This repeater is linked to something called the Winsystem. This links repeaters across the country and around the world allowing me to communicate over great distances by hitting the repeater 42 miles away! I had discussions with guys in Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. It’s incredible, but I really want to try to make distant contact over the air – that’s why I got the bigger antenna.

The weather has been variable. We went from sunny and 85 degrees on Thursday to partly sunny and 78 on Friday, then cloudy and 76 on Saturday and they say we’ll be back in the mid-80s today with rain coming tomorrow!

Sacajawea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traditional buffalo hide teepee – a mobile home for the Shoshone

I don’t know the story behind this thatch teepee

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

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

Filet smothered with sauteed mushrooms and onions

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

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

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

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

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Bicycle

Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trail

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

Fire Detour

The Road to Ririe

Some Like It Hot

Bottom Third

Tri-tip Delight

Cedar Hats

Antenna Farm

Sacajawea

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