It didn’t take much preparation to hit the road again after boondocking at Fort Deseret. We just pulled in the slides and secured a few things before resuming our journey south on UT257. At Milford we hit UT130 south. The wind steadily increased all morning and by noon it was gusting over 30mph. I don’t enjoy driving a big rig in gusty winds and would’ve pulled off if I could. But there wasn’t any place to stop. UT130 is a narrow, two-lane highway with no shoulder. It made the drive mentally taxing. Lucky for me it was a short drive of about 140 miles.
The route was a gradual climb that steepened south of Minersville. The grade plus the headwinds had me keeping a close eye on the engine coolant temperature, but it wasn’t an issue as I manually downshifted anytime it reached 195 degrees and kept the temperature in check. We topped out at 6,570 feet above sea level, then gradually descended to Cedar City. We’re at an elevation of 5,470 feet above sea level now.
I received a text message from Iron Springs RV Park with directions to the park and it instructed me to pull into site B2 – no need to check in. We found the site and it’s 80 feet long as advertised, but quite narrow. This RV park is new and they’re still working on improvements and amenities like pickleball courts. We’re about 10 miles west of Cedar City and it’s fairly remote.
Donna took a hike Saturday afternoon on a trail that started by the lodge – I wasn’t up for much after the hard driving. At the lodge, she met an employee who told her about an interesting sight in the area. On Sunday, Donna rode her bike past Granite Mountain to the old, abandoned Western Iron Ore pit mine.
2,000 Flushes
The pit holds water that’s a deep blue color and locally it’s known as 2,000 Flushes. I read the name is derived from the color making it look like a toilet bowl full of blue cleaner. The water in the pit is toxic though – the color comes from iron and copper traces and it’s also polluted with arsenic, uranium and mercury.
This morning we took a drive to Kolob Canyons – a section of Zion National Park about 40 miles north of Zion Canyon. The Visitor Center was closed and no shuttlebuses were running. There wasn’t a ranger on duty to check passes or collect fees – I didn’t need my America the Beautiful Senior Parks Pass. We took the driving tour – a five-mile scenic drive past trailhead parking areas and scenic pull-outs. It was near mid-day so the pictures are a bit washed out – it’s much more colorful than the pictures show. Some of pictures have a bit of haze – we’re out of the heavy smoke areas, but there’s still some smoke in the air.
Start of the scenic driving tourPlacard at the turnaround lot at the top of the drive
The five-mile tour climbs all the way in and tops out over 6,000 feet above sea level. It was a pleasant drive in Midget-San with the top down.
Our neighbor here at Iron Springs RV Park has an interesting vehicle that could’ve been a workable alternative to Midget-San for us. He has a 1964 VW Beetle that’s been converted to a Baja Bug.
1964 Baja Bug
The engine is highly modified – I’m not sure of the displacement but I’m pretty sure it’s a stroker with larger pistons and cylinders.
Modified engine with dual downdraft Weber carburetors
Back in the 1970s, I had a Baja Bug with a 1959 oval window body. It was lightened and was punched out to 1790cc with dual Solex carburetors. It was a lot of fun.
I almost forgot to mention a milestone for our Alpine Coach. The odometer turned over 100,000 miles on the way here. When we bought this coach in January of 2014, it had just under 55,000 miles on it. We’ve put a little over 45,000 miles on it in nearly seven years. That’s under 7,000 miles per year.
Six figures
The temperature reached the low 80s Saturday and Sunday and it’s still a little windy. The winds should calm down tomorrow and we’ll be fine to hit the road on Wednesday. It should be a little cooler too. We’ll cross the Arizona border and spend some time in northern Arizona before heading down to Lake Pleasant.
We took a drive in Midget-San up ID55 backtracking about 14 miles to McCall on Wednesday. We found free parking on the street right in the middle of town, across from the resort. McCall is another trendy, hip town catering to tourism. It has a friendly, lively vibe to it.
It was lunchtime and we found a Mexican restaurant with patio seating overlooking Payette Lake. The restaurant was called Lago Chapala and I recommend it! I had a burrito verde and Donna had a shredded beef taco salad with guacamole. Both meals were excellent – and their chips and salsa were addicting.
Looking north from Lago Chapala’s deck – buoys mark swim area on the rightMarina and Payette Lake west-northwest from the deck
After lunch, Donna and I walked through Legacy Park – a city park along the lake. There were cobblestone sidewalks and well-manicured landscapes. The weather was about perfect – in the low 70s and blue skies.
Swim area at Legacy Park – nice sandy beach
We wandered around and had some entertainment at the boat launch watching people taking boats in and out of the water. We found the Salmon River Brewery where we enjoyed some suds with Mark and Emily Fagan on the rooftop a few years ago, but we didn’t go in. We were too stuffed from lunch to have a cold one.
Before heading back to Donnelly, we drove through Ponderosa State Park to check out the RV sites. They had several sites that looked big-rig friendly, but trees made most of them appear challenging.
Thursday was our last full day at the Donnelly City Park campground. Donna took a mid-day bicycle ride down the west side of the lake while I played with my ham radio. I had a nice chat with a guy in Moline, Illinois. Then I started disassembling my antenna and packed the trailer. By 4pm, I had everything loaded including the Midget.
I looked up information on ID55 road construction – it’s the only way to head south to Boise and points beyond. We knew from signs that we could expect delays at Smith’s Ferry. What I found was alarming at first – daily road closure from 10am to 2pm while rocks are being removed with explosives! Reading further, I found that the scheduled four-hour closures were Monday through Thursday, not on Friday or weekends. We dodged a bullet as we were pulling out on Friday morning. I wanted to get a relatively early start since I anticipated some delay through the area.
There’s a stretch of road a few miles long, north of Smith’s Ferry that has a high number of traffic accidents – I read it’s 35% higher than the rest of ID55. The reason given is the nature of the road. It twists and turns sharply on the edge of the Payette River. In this section, the roadway is only 24 feet wide with no shoulder – the road is on the edge of a 30-foot drop-off to the river on one side with no guard rail and has a wall of rock on the other side.
The construction project is blasting rock to widen the road to 36 feet wide, adding shoulder space and presumably guardrail. When we reached the work area, the road was only one-lane with flagmen. We had a brief wait of no more than five minutes and we were on our way. Traffic in our direction of travel was light, but northbound traffic on ID55 was heavy with lots of RVs and trucks with kayaks or river rafts on trailers. People from the city were heading north for the weekend.
Our route had a couple of tough climbs and a long 7% descent near Horseshoe Bend. We had to cross through Meridian on the west side of Boise. Highway 55 is a wide boulevard through this area with three lanes in each direction. The posted speed limit is 55mph, but there’s a stoplight every quarter mile or so and lots of traffic, so 55mph isn’t really feasible. It goes through miles of shopping malls before you reach I-84.
We took I-84 east which really runs southeast along this portion and drove about 40 miles further to Mountain Home. I-84 posted speed limit through here is 80mph – 70mph for trucks! Our destination was Gem State RV Park where I reserved a 100-foot long pull-through site. When I checked in, the gal at the counter asked me if satellite TV reception was important – I said it would be nice! She changed our site to site 23 – another 100-foot long pull-through where she said we would get Dish Network reception for sure. That’s a good thing for me as there are Formula One racing and Moto GP racing events on TV this weekend.
Gem State RV Park site 23
Donna and I took a drive through town and found Railroad Park where the farmers’ market will be today. We also crossed over to the north side where the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center is. I wanted to check out the entry and exit and I’m glad I did – there’s construction there and now I know how I’ll handle it in the coach. We’re low on fuel and I’ll top us up when we leave.
After the solitude and absolute nighttime silence at our waterfront site in Donnelly, I had a rough night last night back in town. There was minimal road noise, but I heard trains blowing their horns as they came through railroad crossings and they woke me up three times last night. We’ll stay here until Monday then continue our southward migration.
We can expect the daily high temperature to reach the 90s over the next few days. We’re on a 50-amp service so running both roof air conditioners is no problem. Overnight the expected lows will be in the mid-50s.
*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!
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.
Our windshield viewSite 11
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.
Ribeye steak with mushrooms and onions
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.
Something isn’t right here
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.
*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!
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.
Progressive Industries EMSL1 amperage – air conditioner runningL1 incoming voltageL2L2 amperageL2 incoming voltage
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.
Gas spring strut
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.
Delicious simple dinner
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.
Farmers’ market
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.
Bluegrass in the park
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.
*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!
I dismantled my antennas and organized the trailer Sunday afternoon. I only had a few things left to do Monday morning before we hooked up the trailer and loaded the MG Midget in the parking lot. We weren’t in a hurry, but it was nice to have things 80% road-ready when we got up in the morning. We hit the dump station again before heading out of town on US95 south.
This route had a series of short climbs and descents as we drove through forest land at first, then farmland. We only planned to travel about 135 miles to the McKay’s Bend Recreation Area at Myrtle, Idaho. When we were going through Moscow, Donna called the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office at McKay’s Bend to inquire about site availability – they don’t take reservations. They didn’t have anything available for rig of our size.
So, we switched to plan “B”, which was the Elk’s Lodge in Lewiston. The descent into Lewiston on US95 is a six-mile 7% grade! I’m always thankful for the Jacobs Engineering two-stage compression brake in these situations. The Elk’s Lodge in Lewiston boasts of 10 RV sites with electricity and water. What we encountered was indeed 10 hook-ups, but the layout was goofy. They had the power pedestals and water spigots for each site spaced about 15 feet apart. Apparently whoever laid out the plan thought RVs could back in to the pedestals. The problem is, the lot is too small for anything larger than a pickup truck to back into the site in that fashion. We found four RVs – three fifth-wheels and one motorhome all set up parallel to the hookups – each occupying about three sites. There wasn’t any room for us to park near a hook-up.
The lodge was closed on Sunday and Monday, so the large paved lot in front of the lodge was empty. We found a fairly level spot and decided to just dry-camp overnight.
Lewiston Elk’s Lodge – our coach is in the distant background above the “K” in the sign
The lodge is beautifully located above the Snake River. We wished we could’ve entered the lodge – the backside of the lodge is all glass and I’m sure the view is stunning.
Snake River from the lodge parking lot – that’s Clarkston, WA across the river.
Explorers Lewis and Clark had a great influence in the Northwest. The Snake River separates Washington from Idaho here and the two towns at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers are Clarkston, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho. Two bridges span the river to join the two towns. The Southway bridge is visible from the lodge.
After we set up, Donna needed to stretch her legs, so she went for a walk. She went downhill on Country Club Drive from the lodge and found a tunnel under Snake River Avenue that brought her to a bike/hiking riverwalk. Here are some pictures from her walk.
Donna’s selfie at the tunnelLooking west across the river – ClarkstonSouthway bridgeHeading upriver on the path
Without electricity and water, we didn’t see any point in hanging around the Elk’s Lodge. We looked online for something down the road on US95. The problem was planning around the upcoming holiday weekend. Most of the campgrounds on our route are state parks and they were all booked. There were some RV resorts, but even the most expensive places were booked over the Labor Day weekend.
We thought about booking a couple of nights, then finding a place to boondock over the three-day weekend, but we needed to get caught up on laundry. We found a place in Grangeville that could accommodate us through the weekend with full hook-ups, albeit just 30-amp electric service. The owner took credit card information and told us to take site 25 when we arrived. He said it was a long back-in and we would be fine without dropping the trailer.
It was only about an 80-mile run to Grangeville. Most of the drive was through wheat fields with some forest land in between. From Coulee City near the center of Washington to western Idaho, we have seen an unbelievable amount of wheat. In some areas, the golden wheat fields stretched as far as we could see. Harvest time is now and we saw a lot of wheat farmers working the fields.
This was a fresh cut “small” wheat fieldTrain trestle spanning a deep gulch along US95
We arrived in Grangeville around 11am. We were in for another unpleasant surprise. Site 25 wasn’t a long back-in – it was cramped site with a low tree blocking the rear of the site that was so low we wouldn’t be able to get the cargo trailer under it. If we parked there, half of our coach would be in the roadway and the power pedestal at the rear of the site would be 50 feet from us. Donna made a call to the owner, Greg. He wasn’t onsite and she had to leave a message. While we waited for a call back, I looked over the place and found four or five sites that would work.
When Greg called back, Donna told him what the problem was. She told him which sites I thought would work. Donna turned the phone over to me and Greg told me to use either pull-through site 7 or site 8 – preferably 8 and to pull in facing north. Site 8 looked like the best choice, but we had another issue. The tree on the west side of the site needed to be trimmed. I ended up getting a ladder and saw out of the trailer and removed several branches. This place could use some maintenance.
We got settled in and for $130/week, I’m not complaining. The thing is, Grangeville isn’t near any recreation areas so it’s not a tourist destination. Both RV parks – Sundown RV Park where we’re at and Bear Den RV Park had availability through the weekend. There’s a ski area nearby, so I imagine that brings some tourism in the winter.
We took a drive to have a look around in Midget-San. We saw large plumes of smoke past the airport. It turned out to be controlled fires where farmers were burning the wheat stubble before plowing.
This morning, Donna took a walk through town up Main Street. She saw a few interesting things. Grangeville is the largest town in Idaho County with a population of about 3,100 people – it’s also the county seat. It also boasts the county’s only stoplight! Here are a few pictures Donna took this morning. She found a series of murals depicting some of the history here.
Farm themed muralLogging is also part of the economy here
At the sheriff’s office, she found an old steam tractor on display.
Advanced Straw Burner
I set up my ham radio gear while Donna was out. I’m not sure about getting good reception here as we’re in a bit of a hole.
The temperature reached the mid-80s yesterday afternoon and it looks like we’ll see the same today and tomorrow. The weekend is forecast to hit the low 90s but it should cool off to the 70s for Monday and Tuesday. No rain in the forecast – we’ve seen rain when the weather guessers told us “zero percent chance of precipitation” before, so we’ll see how that works out.
*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!
After our day on the water last Tuesday, we’ve had a low-key rest of the week. The highlight was meeting up with Dick and Roxy Zarowny on Friday for lunch at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course. I saw on Facebook that our friends Jim and Cindy Birditt had come down from Priest River and golfed with Gary Stemple there the day before.
We met Dick and Roxy at the Floating Green restaurant where they had claimed an table on the patio for us. The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course claims to have the world’s only floating green. We parked at the Events Center after checking in with security at the gated entrance. The short walk to the Floating Green restaurant took us right past the floating green.
The Floating Green seen from the end of the parking area
It was a beautiful day with the temperature around 80 degrees as we dined and talked on the patio. We started out with Bloody Mary’s – actually they were Caesars since they were made with clamato and had garnish of pickled asparagus and bacon!
Great cocktail before lunch – everything is better with bacon
From the patio, we watched golfers try to get on the floating green. Several people really struggled with the shot – there has to be a lot of golf balls in the water around the green! I watched one guy hit four balls into the water – he never made it on the green. I wonder how Jim, Cindy and Gary fared on this hole.
Floating Green from the patio – these guys made it
The food was very good and we enjoyed conversation for nearly two hours. Dick and Roxy were on the fence about going down to Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona this winter. Roxy sent Donna a message last evening saying they’ve decided to go there in January. We look forward to seeing them there. They will drive their motorhome to Las Vegas in October and stage it there in a storage facility. Driving an RV from eastern Washington to Arizona in the winter is not an appealing idea. With the motorhome waiting in Las Vegas, they can drive there in their car, then take the motorhome through the desert to Mesa without a worry about ice or snow.
Donna took care of a chore this week. Our refrigerator was badly in need of defrosting. The air in Mount Vernon held a lot of moisture and that resulted in ice forming on the cooling fins in the refrigerator. She waited until the refrigerator was low on food, then did the deed. After Friday’s lunch, we stopped at Winco Foods and restocked. Last night Donna prepared a pan-seared flank steak from Winco and served it with riced cauliflower and peas.
Tender, tasty flank steak – it wasn’t as rare as it appears in this photo
The weather stayed on the warm side all week with daily highs in the low to mid 80s. It should be cooler today – in the mid 70s with tomorrow’s forecast calling for a high of 70 degrees. This is just right – it won’t be too hot as I organize and pack the trailer today. I’ll dismantle the ham radio antennas and pack our outdoor table and chairs. I’ll probably get plenty of steps today ferrying our stuff from our site to the trailer at the back of the Elk’s Lodge RV Park.
Tomorrow morning we’ll pick up the trailer, hit the dump station, then head south on US95 – it should be a pleasant drive with the cooler temperature. This will take us south just east of the Idaho/Washington border through Moscow and down to Lewiston. We have a couple of options down in that area. I think our first choice will be the McKay’s Bend BLM campsite on the Clearwater River. They have 14 full hook-up sites there. If we can’t get in there, we’ll go to the Lewiston Elk’s Lodge located right on the Snake River.
*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!
It was time to take care of business on Monday. We’ve been here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge for 10 days and I thought I should dump our holding tanks. We’ve been careful about the amount of gray water going down the drains – taking navy showers and whatnot. The thing is, our toilet started burping.
When RVers mention a toilet burp, it probably needs some explanation. An RV toilet doesn’t operate on the same principle as a regular household toilet. RV toilets are strictly gravity flush, usually with a ball valve at the bottom of the bowl that seals the bowl when closed and simply rotates to open the drain into the black tank.
When water is suddenly dumped into the black tank, it displaces air space (headspace) in the tank. This displaced air has to go somewhere, so there’s a vent pipe that extends above the roof of the RV. When the RV is being built, a worker cuts the vent pipe to length, then passes it through the roof and down into the tank. This can cause issues – if the length isn’t measured carefully and/or if the pipe isn’t carefully inserted so a minimum amount is pushed down into the tank, the vent may not work properly.
Once the liquid level in the tank reaches the vent pipe opening, air can no longer escape easily through the vent. Now, when you flush the toilet, as the water flows through the opening, displaced air comes up through the bottom of the bowl in a bubble – thus the toilet burp. RVers usually view the toilet burp as a sign the black tank is full or nearly full. The electronic tank sensors are notoriously unreliable, but a toilet burp always means the liquid level has reached the vent pipe. The quandary is, does the vent pipe extend one-inch into the tank, meaning the tank is quite full or does the vent pipe extend three inches into the tank, meaning there is a lot of headspace left?
I think our vent pipe extends deeper into the tank than designed – I’ve had a burping toilet for two days before without an issue. But, I didn’t want to push it. So, Monday morning we packed up and secured everything, disconnected and headed to the city dump station a few miles away from here by the fairgrounds. The city dump station is free, although a donation box is there. I always leave a small donation. The facility is clean and well-maintained.
I found our gray water tank was only about half full after 10 days. It’s a 100-gallon tank, so that means we only generated about 50 gallons of gray water in 10 days. I always time the gray water when I dump. When I first open the dump valve, a solid column of gray water comes through the clear elbow on the drain fitting. The tank vent allows this solid column of water. When the liquid level drops to the tank drain opening, the solid column of water is disrupted by an ever increasing air gap in the drain elbow. I watch how long it takes for the solid column to change – the point where the tank level has reached the drain opening. I know from past experience that a full tank – when the gray water is backing up into the shower pan – takes about 3 minutes 45 seconds for the gray water level to drop to the drain opening level. This time, it took less than two minutes.
After we returned to the Elk’s Lodge and set up, we headed out to the laundromat. Without a sewer connection, we haven’t used our Splendide washer/dryer. The clothes washer is the biggest contributor to gray water. So, as I said in the beginning, Monday was a “taking care of business” day.
While we were taking care of business, our friend Gary Stemple was flying from San Diego to Couer d’Alene. Gary and I have been friends since our schoolboy days – I’ve known him for about 50 years! Gary’s mother was originally from this area and his cousin Kim lives about 20 miles south of Coeur d’Alene on the west side of the lake.
Tuesday morning we made plans to meet Gary at the dock east of the Couer d’Alene Resort. Donna made a pitcher of rum punch to go. Gary brought Kim’s boat – a Centurion Enzo SV240 – up to pick us up. The plan was for Donna and I to pick up burgers at Hudson’s – a local business that’s famous for their hamburgers. Hudson’s has been selling burgers in Coeur d’Alene since 1907 – five generations of family-owned business.
Hudson’s is right across the street from the resort on Sherman Avenue. Gary tried to call in the order, but said no one was answering the phone. He figured maybe they didn’t open until 11 am. Donna and I walked over there after parking on the east side of the resort. We found Hudson’s was closed and a handwritten sign on the door said they were closed because someone tried to burn the place down! This morning, I found an article stating that it was being treated as a crime scene after someone broke in early Tuesday morning, tried to break into an ATM machine, then set fire to the back of the restaurant.
We cruised down to Kim’s place – it’s about halfway down the length of Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Approaching Kim’s house – I inadvertently cut off half of her house on the left of the photo
We made a brief stop at her house – Kim was out on a jet ski. I made an interesting find there and got the story from her neighbor and friend Kenlee (sp?). My recollection of the whole story is a bit fuzzy – maybe the rum punch without a burger for lunch had something to do with that.
In 1956, Kim’s grandfather bought a car for her grandmother – it was a 1956 or ’57 Nash Metropolitan. When Kim was in high school and got her drivers’ license, it became her car. When Kim went off to college, a Nash Metropolitan wasn’t cool enough. So, she sold it and bought a Camaro. A couple of decades later, she tracked the car down through a couple of owners and bought it back. But it wasn’t in very good shape. She left it parked for the next 30 years or so, then recently had it brought back to good running order and it’s back on the road!
Kim’s Nash Metropolitan
Gary, Donna and I took Kim’s boat for a ride to the south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene to the St. Joe River. The south end of the lake is interesting. There are numerous sand bars and you have to be vigilant and stay in the channels. Most of them are well-marked with green square marker posts and red triangular marker posts on the edges of the channels. Navigate between the red and green markers and you should be okay. We crossed under the Chatcolet Bridge Lookout where Lake Coeur d’Alene becomes split into Chatcolet Lake and Round Lake. The Chatcolet bridge is part of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes – a multi-use trail. The bridge was originally a railroad bridge.
Chatcolet Bridge Lookout
What’s really unusual is that the St. Joe River flows between the two lakes as sand bars separate it from the lakes.
Sign at the Chatcolet bridgeSt. Joe River separated from Round Lake
We cruised upriver through mostly uninhabited marshlands and woods. I expected to see a moose at every turn. We only saw a few other boaters and mostly had the river to ourselves until we neared the town of St. Maries.
Donna lounging in front of Captain Gary
As we came closer to town, houses and boat docks lined the river. Mostly it was “No wake zone” territory. We’d been out for a couple of hours at that point.
Homes on the St Joe River
We turned around and headed back.
Sign at Chatcolet Bridge heading back to Lake Coeur d’Alene
Every reference I’ve seen calls the lake “Lake Coeur d’Alene.” But the sign at the Chatcolet bridge says “Welcome to Coeur d’Alene Lake.” We cruised north on the lake to Rockford Bay where we fueled up at Black Rock Marina, then found Kim and Kenlee at Shooter’s for an adult beverage and late lunch/early dinner.
Heading back up the lake
The Centurion Enzo is a wake board boat powered by a Mercruiser Black Scorpion 330 horsepower engine – which is derived from a GM 5.7 liter V-8. Cruising at 5,000 rpm, it’s a thirsty powerplant. I think we were burning more than 5 gallons/hour.
Kim and Kenlee rode back up to the resort with us where they dropped us off and the day’s big adventure was over.
The temperature reached a high of 85 degrees, but it felt very comfortable out on the water. The forecast calls for the mid-80s to continue until the temperature drops into the low 70s on Sunday. If that holds true, it’ll be just right for prepping the trailer on Sunday for Monday’s departure. We still don’t know where we’ll end up next.
*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!
In my last post, I mentioned the weather forecast called for cooler weather by the end of the week. Maybe that was wishful thinking. Okay, it was “only” 84 degrees on Thursday, but the rest of the week was 90 degrees or higher.
I also mentioned interference I was experiencing on High Frequency (HF) ham radio bands. I figured it out – it was mostly operator error. I partly blame it on the weird nomenclature Yaesu uses. My radio, a Yaesu 991a, has a feature they call IPO – intercept point optimization. After reading the manual again, I finally figured out this was a confusing term for preamplfiers.
Preampliers boost the signal before it’s decoded and amplified by the rest of the circuits. The thing is, if you boost the raw signal, you also boost any noise or interference. I had this circuit set to Amp1 which boosts the signal 10dB – raising the noise floor. Then I was trying to use Digital Noise Reduction to suppress the noise. I was fighting myself. By turning IPO off, the noise was greatly reduced.
I’ll mention one more thing regarding ham radio before your eyes glaze over. I was on the radio with two guys in Las Vegas – one of them was actually in Henderson. These guys, Scotty and Andrew, had elaborate radio set-ups and were talking to each other and inviting others to join in the conversation. I conversed with them briefly and I should quit complaining about the hot weather. They told me it hit 115 degrees on Thursday and was 113 at 6pm when we talked. They also said the hot weather was compounded by smoke and ash from the California wildfires.
There are several wildfires burning in California right now. The central coast has several large fires as does the northern part of the state. There are also fires in southern California, but I don’t think they’re as large as the northern and central coast fires.
On Thursday, Donna rode her bicycle down to Lake Couer d’Alene. There are many good, paved bike paths in the area. She locked her bike at the marina where the trailhead for Tubbs Hill Trail is. She hiked the trail in a counter-clockwise loop. She read it is a two-mile hike and rated as easy. But she found it had hills and seemed longer than two miles! Here are some of her pictures from the hike.
Lake Coeur d’AleneDownhill to the lakeKids diving off a rockSuspension bridge on the trail
Thursday evening, Donna prepared southwest chicken breasts. They were spicy! They were good, but next time she decided she should add a dollop of sour cream to the serving.
Southwest chicken and sauteed zucchini with cotija cheese
On Friday, we met up with Jim and Cindy Birditt. We made plans the night before to meet at “The Mudhole” in the Priest River Recreation Area. We loaded the Sea Eagle SE370 inflatable kayak in Midget-San and headed out around 9:45am and drove up to Priest River. It’s a nice drive through farmland and pine forest.
Jim and Cindy had just arrived before we got there around 10:45am. Jim unloaded his hard-shell kayaks while we inflated and assembled the Sea Eagle. It looked to be a near perfect day for kayaking. The boat ramp is at the mouth of Priest River right where it drains into the Pend Oreille River. Priest River was flowing slowly – just right for an upriver jaunt.
The back of Donna’s head as we started outJim and Cindy Birditt
The riverfront properties have some beautiful homes. But it also has some waterfront property with minimal development – we saw several places where the only dwellings were RVs. There were a couple of apparently abandoned or unoccupied dwellings too. As we paddled upriver, eventually, the waterfront homes dwindled then disappeared altogether once the river became too shallow to be navigable by powerboats.
No more visible homes – our turn-around point was the bend straight aheadJim and Cindy near the turnaround
We saw an osprey – it landed in a tree top near us and began calling. As we came downstream, we saw a bald eagle overhead, then we saw two more. I snapped a couple of photos of nice riverfront homes – I wonder if these are summer homes.
What a place on the river
I was too far away to get a good shot of the second home – a cabin-like structure with a water feature with two waterfalls. It looks more like a resort lodge than a home.
We cruised easily back downriver aided by the slow current. The current was somewhat offset by a headwind, but it was a great day to be paddling on the river. By the time we got back to the boat ramp, it was past noon and really heating up.
We loaded our gear and followed Jim and Cindy to the west side of town where the Ranch Club restaurant is located at the golf course. We had lunch outside on the patio and sat and talked for a couple of hours.
Jim and Cindy had burgers – they had several variations of burgers on the menu. Donna had a cobb salad and I opted for the daily special. The daily special was fish and chips made with steelhead trout. This was something I’d never had before and I wanted to try it. We’ve grilled steelhead several times, but I hadn’t tried it battered and fried.
Steelhead fish and chips
Steelhead trout are native to the west coast of North America, although they have been introduced elsewhere. A steelhead trout is a fresh water rainbow trout that migrates to the ocean and grows to a large size in the salt water. It then returns to fresh water streams to spawn. Steelhead can live up to 11 years and spawn multiple times. A rainbow trout that remains in fresh water for its lifetime is just that – a rainbow trout. Rainbow trout that migrate and become steelhead are generally larger – they can weigh up to 55 lbs – and less colorful than their freshwater brethren.
Awhile back, a guy from Michigan insisted that they had steelhead in streams “back home.” I have to differ – if a rainbow trout never enters a salt water ocean, it isn’t a steelhead. I don’t believe a rainbow trout from a Michigan stream will go to the ocean and return.
I was a little disappointed in the fish plate – it was battered heavier than I prefer. The chips were outstanding though.
We’ve extended our stay here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge until the end of the month. That means I’ll have to pack up and hit the dump station soon – I don’t want to risk overloading the gray water tank before we leave. The weather guessers now say we’ll see 80 degrees today before we’re back in the mid to upper 80s for the rest of the weekend. Long range they say we’ll be in the 70s by the end of the month.
*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!
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.
Monday evening sunset
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.
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.
Shrimp with feta and fennel
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.
*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!
We had cooler weather for our final days in Winthrop. The temperature topped out at 77 degrees on Wednesday and was slightly warmer on Thursday. We took a drive in Midget-San up to Twin Lakes on Wednesday. We wanted to look at the Big Twin RV Park. It looks like a nice place – spacious and right on Big Twin Lake. The lake is stocked with trout and has easy access for the kayak. We’ll keep this place in mind for the future.
We like Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop, but really the main reason was the easy access to town. It’s on Castle Street, on a bluff overlooking Riverside Avenue (WA20) which is the main street in town. In the past we were able to walk through the Shaefer Museum property and take the stairs in back down to Riverside Avenue. With the pandemic, Shaefer Museum is closed and the entrance is locked.
Donna and I took a walk through Pine Near and checked out one of the teepees they rent. They have three teepees and a couple of rental cabins.
Rental teepee
The sign in front of one teepee said “Come on in” the other one said “Do not disturb.” So we looked inside the one with the welcoming sign.
Futons inside the teepee
There were three futons inside. It’s an interesting idea and maybe it would be fun for camping with children – not really my cup of tea though.
Donna prepared fish poached in tomatoes, saffron and white wine for dinner. She bought wild Alaskan cod at the Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mount Vernon and it was delicious. It must have been cut from a large cod because the meat consisted of large flakes.
Wild Alaskan cod, rice and broccoli
Thursday we drove to Twisp and took a look around. As expected, most of it was closed. We also checked out another RV park called Riverbend RV Park. This park is located right on the Methow (met-HOW) River. Most of the sites are meant to be pulled into nose first with a view of the river. They had a few sites that would be long enough for us without dropping the trailer. It’s another place we’ll keep in mind for the next time we’re up this way.
Donna took a bicycle ride Thursday and did a loop. She went out on West Chewuch Road – it’s west of the Chewuch River. This is another interesting and hard to pronounce name. It was once spelled Chewak – from 1904 to 1960. Then the official spelling was changed to Chewack. In 1987, the spelling changed again to Chewuch. The second syllable doesn’t have a ch sound like the word “such”. It’s more of an “ack” sound.
Chewuch River
She crossed the river well north of town and hit Eastside Chewuch Road.
Cattle ranch by the Chewuch River
Her route back to town took her past Pearrygin State Park. She stopped and shot a photo of a doe and her fawn.
Doe and fawn
I played around with my ham radio – I’m really enjoying the 20-meter band. I’ve made several long distance contacts – Alaska, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, New York, Michigan and on Thursday evening, I picked up on a conversation between a ham operator in Costa Rica and a guy in Alaska. My signal wasn’t strong enough to reach the guy in Costa Rica, but he had a powerful transmitter and I could clearly hear him!
I had a conversation with a guy in the Navajo Nation. He had a special event call sign of N7C. The event he was promoting was National Code Talkers Day. The Code Talkers of World War Two were vital to the US in the Pacific theater. They devised a code that couldn’t be broken. They were all Navajo and used their language as the basis for their code.
The way it worked was, they used a Navajo word that would be translated to English. The first letter of the English word would represent the letter of the code. For eample, if they wanted to say the letter “A”, they had three ways to do it. They could say wol-la-chee which translates to ant, or they could say be-la-sana which translates to apple, or they could say tse-nil which translates to axe. Any one of these three words would represent the letter “A”.
So, this guy – his name was Herb – was in the Navajo Nation, west of Shiprock, New Mexico. I think he was near Teec Nos Pos which is just west of the Arizona-New Mexico border. He was trying get as many contacts as he could to direct people to a special website for the event. I won’t include a link because I don’t think it’ll exist after this weekend – it’s on the QRZ ham site.
We left Winthrop Friday morning. We drove east on WA20 past Twisp, then headed down WA153 which brought us to the Columbia River at Pateros where we hit US97. We were following our bread crumbs from our trip coming west, but this time I didn’t follow WA174 to Grand Coulee. Instead, I followed WA17 south to Coulee City. This is a little longer than going through Grand Coulee, but it avoids the steep climbs and descents and it’s a much easier drive – both on me and on the coach.
We’re back at the Elk’s Lodge in Coeur d’Alene. After getting set up, we walked east on Prairie Avenue about a quarter of a mile to a paved lot with food trucks. We saw this place – Prairie Street Eats – a few weeks ago when we were here and wanted to try it out. They had a wide variety of food served from more than half a dozen trucks and trailers. I went for a wet shredded beef burrito that was tasty and Donna opted for Indian cuisine – a chicken curry that she was craving.
I had my antennas set up and programmed a few repeaters for the area. There wasn’t much activity on the VHF and UHF frequencies, so I switched to HF 20-meter band. I made several contacts and had a couple of nice conversations. The first one was with a guy in Boyne City, Michigan. He was surprised to find I knew where Boyne City was. I knew about Boyne City from my good friend and former colleague, Keith Burk. Keith would take his fast boat to Boyne City for an event called Boyne Thunder. By fast boat, I mean an offshore racer type boat that could speed at more than 80 miles per hour on the water!
The other guy I talked to was a real nice fella in Texas. He had a ranch outside of Witchita Falls, northwest of Dallas. He’s retired and with all of the coronavirus stuff he said he hasn’t been traveling and only goes to Witchita Falls when necessary. Ham radio is his contact with the world.
We picked a hot time to return to Coeur d’Alene. The high yesterday was 82 degrees, but the forecast calls for 91 degrees today and upper 90s through the middle of next week.
*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!
