Category Archives: Grilling

Wild Visitors

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

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

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

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

Back at our site, we had a visitor.

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

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

Ozark the cat enjoying some fresh air outdoors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*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!

Rock Slide Delay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amped Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Break Out the Champagne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Riverwalk and Skagit River downstream from the farmers’ market

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Night in Montana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our boondocking spot behind 50,000 Silver Coins

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

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

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

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

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

Sacajawea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traditional buffalo hide teepee – a mobile home for the Shoshone

I don’t know the story behind this thatch teepee

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

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

Filet smothered with sauteed mushrooms and onions

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

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

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

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

Cortez to Fruita

We had our last games of pickleball in Cortez Monday morning. The wind really kicked up and we were off the courts by 10:30am. We had fun playing there and met some great people. I got the trailer cleaned up and organized in the afternoon, but I left the grill out which meant I didn’t secure Donna’s bike because it would block me from stowing the grill.

The Weber Q was needed to grill steaks Monday evening. I grilled the New York strip angus steaks we bought from the Ower’s farm. They were great!

Tuesday morning I had to finish packing the trailer and do all of the usual disconnecting. I also took the filter elements out of our two-stage water filter canisters – it was time for replacement. I pulled out of our site before loading the Midget – the slope at the rear of the site would make the rear ramp open at too steep of an angle. It was almost 11am by the time we hit the road.

Our route took us northwest on US491 into Utah. At Monticello, we turned north on US191. We went away from the high mountain pines and drove through sagebrush and sandstone country. About 40 miles south of Moab, Donna snapped a couple of photos of an interesting sandstone feature as we drove by.

Traffic was very light until we reached Moab. We were there back in 2014, but it’s really grown since then. There were plenty of new businesses and condominium or apartment buildings. There was also a lot of construction going on. People were on all of the sidewalks. I’m afraid the tourism success will eventually kill the charm of Moab if it hasn’t already done so.

We continued north from Moab on US191 and hit I-70 a couple of miles west of Thompson Springs. From Thompson Springs to Fruita, Colorado, there are no services. That’s a 62-mile stretch of interstate without a gas station or convenience store. There are a few exits from the interstate presumably for ranch or utility access, but they are all marked “No Services.” It seems strange to have such a large area with no businesses.

We checked in to the James M. Robb – Colorado River State Park. I made a reservation here a couple of weeks ago. The thing is, with the pandemic, we didn’t plan too far ahead for summer travel. We didn’t know what would be open or when. That meant I hadn’t planned for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. We got two nights here at James M. Robb then we’ll have to move on – the park is booked for the holiday weekend starting on Thursday night.

The park is right on the Colorado River. South of the park, across the river is the Colorado National Monument. We took a trip through the monument in 2014 and I posted pictures of some of the views in this post.

Site 6 at James M Robb Colorado River State Park

Our doorstep view of the Colorado National Monument

The sites here are equipped with nice metal picnic tables with steel roofs over them. I noticed the picnic tables were secured to metal rings in the ground. I think it’s a sad commentary when a state park has to secure picnic tables to deter thieves.

This morning Donna went out on her bike. She ended up making a 15-mile ride along the Colorado River. Here are a few photos she took on her ride.

Prairie dogs are common almost everywhere in Colorado

We would have liked to stay here longer – it’s a beautiful area and the state park is very nice. We’ll leave here tomorrow and head up to Rock Springs, Wyoming. I think it will be about a five-hour drive. We’ll stay at the fairgrounds – the Sweetwater Events Complex. They have 1,200 sites there and assured me we would have no problem getting a site.

It’s hot here today – lower 90s. Mid-90s are predicted here tomorrow, but Rock Springs will be 10 or 15 degrees cooler.

Telluride and Pork Butt

We skipped pickleball on Tuesday and took a scenic drive instead. We headed north on CO145 through Dolores. Our plan was to drive up to Telluride – a 75-mile jaunt over high mountains along the Dolores River. We left at 9:30am. The highway was quiet with very few cars going our way. The scenery was spectacular.

Both sides of the road had colorful rocky bluffs covered with pine trees and stands of aspen trees. In places, whole hillsides were filled with aspens, presumably where fire had consumed the conifers and the aspens replaced them. There were open alpine meadows along the river. Donna took a few photos from the passenger seat.

We topped out around 10,200 feet above sea level at Lizard Head Pass. I have to say, the Nissan A15 engine and five-speed transmission in Midget-San is a great match. We cruised up the mountains without skipping a beat. I’m amazed at how well the Weber DGV carburetor performs at altitude.

After reaching the summit, the highway drops down into a box canyon where Telluride is located. The town is at an elevation of 8,750 feet above sea level. The town is a typical Old West tourist destination with trendy shops and overpriced eateries. We parked on the main drag which is Colorado Avenue and found a kiosk to pay the $1.50/hour parking fee.

One lane of Colorado Avenue was closed through the downtown district – it had barricades protecting picnic tables for take-out food and social distancing. Masks were mandatory indoors.

The big draw to Telluride is the ski resort in the winter. In the summertime, mountain biking and hiking brings tourists.

Ski run and gondola at Mountain Village from downtown Telluride

We ordered lunch at The Butcher and Baker – a popular deli-type restaurant on Colorado Avenue. We sat at a picnic table in the shade behind the restaurant. The food was good, but as expected, it was pricey. A salad for Donna and a sandwich for me with no drinks came to $37.

Galloping Goose #4 was on display on the north side of the street by the courthouse. I wrote about the Galloping Goose of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in this post.

We had our fill by 1:30pm and headed back. It was quite a climb out of Telluride to Lizard Head Pass. We pulled off at a scenic turnout with views of high mountain peaks. The tree line here is around 11,000 feet above sea level and the peaks held snow above the tree line.

Mount Wilson – 14,252 feet above sea level

I think that’s Groundhog Mountain in the center of the photo – 12,165 feet above sea level

Colorado State Route 145 winds through the San Juan National Forest from Telluride to about a mile east of Dolores. The drive was worth the trip to Telluride – I enjoyed the scenery more than the town.

Back in Cortez, it was 90 degrees – about 15 degrees warmer than Telluride. We went into town for a scoop of ice cream at Moose and More. They have excellent ice cream and some unique flavors. We’ll have to go back to try something adventuresome like their honey and cornbread ice cream.

Back at La Mesa RV Park, I prepped a pork butt we bought at Safeway. Pork butt doesn’t have anything to do with the south end of a northbound pig – the butt is the shoulder of the pig. So, why do they call it a butt? The story is the name comes from colonial times when hogs were raised and processed in the Boston area. New Englanders didn’t have much interest in this cut of meat. It was considered to be tough and nearly inedible. The meat packers put the shoulder cuts in a barrel called a butt and shipped the meat south. The southerners knew how to properly prepare the shoulder meat so it was tender and pulled pork was the result.

Barrel names – the butt is in the lower row second from left

The shoulder was called the Boston Butt. Eventually it morphed into pork butt.

I dry-rubbed the butt and wrapped it in cling wrap and refrigerated it. Wednesday after we played pickleball in the morning, I set the Traeger to 225 degrees and started smoking 3 pounds of pork butt. This cut has several muscle ends and connective tissues (collagen). To make it tender requires slow cooking until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 195-205 degrees. This is much like smoking a brisket – I detailed that process in this post.

I figured about four and half hours would do it for 3 pounds of pork, but I was wrong. It took over six hours to reach 200 degrees. At that point, I double-wrapped it tightly with aluminum foil, then put two towels around it and placed it in a small cooler. This held the meat at high temperature without an external heat source which would dry it out at that point. It rested in the cooler for a little over an hour.

Smoked pork butt trussed with butcher twine

I used a fork to pull the meat apart. It came apart easily.

Donna made mashed potatoes (with skin) and fresh green beans. We served the pulled pork with Stubb’s Hickory-Bourbon BBQ Sauce.

We have a lot of leftover pulled pork and Donna’s coming up with ideas to use it.

She came up with a new dish on Monday night – she made a scallop saute with fresh tomatoes and zucchini served over homemade lemon-pepper egg noodles she bought from a local vendor at the farmers’ market.

The temperature has reached the low 90s every day this week and is forecast to continue for the next few days. We’re running the air conditioners every afternoon. This weekend, I’ll start reorganizing the trailer in preparation for our move to Fruita next Tuesday.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Grilling

Wild Visitors

Rock Slide Delay

Amped Out

Tri-tip Delight

Cedar Hats

Break Out the Champagne

One Night in Montana

Sacajawea

Cortez to Fruita

Telluride and Pork Butt

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