It’s All About the Guitar

This post doesn’t have anything to do with the RV lifestyle or our new place at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. It’s about my guitar project, so if you have no interest in guitars, no need to read on.

I wrote a post in June where I mentioned meeting Curt Mangan and touring his guitar string factory in Cortez, Colorado. Curt planted a seed when he said every guitarist needs to have a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar. My first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster I ordered in 1976. I sold it a couple of years later (I wish I hadn’t done that). I’ve had a few Strats over the years but never liked them enough to keep them. Fender and Gibson make great guitars, but they are different in design, philosophy and construction.

Fenders typically have single-coil pickups, bolt-on necks and a 25.5-inch scale length. Gibson uses humbucker pickups, set necks which are glued to the body and a 24.75-inch scale length. This makes the guitars feel, sound and play differently. The longer scale Fenders have higher string tension and slightly more space between the frets than the shorter scale Gibsons. The Fender single-coil pickups can really produce some nice tones, but they’re prone to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) which can cause noise or humming from the amplifier. Humbucker pickups are inherently noise cancelling and to my ears have a thicker, richer tone. So, I’ve been a Gibson guy for a long time.

Having said all that, Curt had me thinking – I should take another shot at playing a Stratocaster. You can find very affordable Strats in the entry-level Fender Squier line (usually sourced from Asia) or step up a little and get a Fender made in Mexico. The premium level Fenders are made in Corona, California. The low line in that series starts at around $1,400 and goes up to around $2,500. Then there’s the Custom Shop offerings – the team built guitars are the next price tier. And, finally there’s the Masterbuilt series where one luthier builds and finishes the entire guitar and these run anywhere from about $7,000 up to $20,000 or so.

I didn’t want an entry-level guitar but at the same time I didn’t want to spend $2,000 + on a Strat. I started researching guitar kits to build a Strat. There are several kits available, ranging from cheap Chinese sourced kits around $200 up to high end kit makers like Warmoth in Puyallup, Washington. A high quality Warmoth would be in the $1,500 – $2,000 range and would require a lot of work to finish.

I found a company in Amherst, New Hampshire called BYO Guitar. They have a full line of kits ranging from affordable entry level kits up to their Custom Shop offerings where they make the guitar body and neck to order in-house. My goal wasn’t to see how cheaply I could build a Strat, rather I wanted to see if I could get a higher quality instrument within my budget constraints. BYO Custom Shop seemed to fill the bill.

I arbitrarily set a budget ceiling of around $1,000. I spec’d a Strat with a two-piece swamp ash body, a black limba neck with jumbo frets and rosewood fret board and quality hardware like Grover tuners and Wilkinson bridge-tremolo unit. At BYO they could build to my spec, including my choice of finish stain and even include a hardshell Gator case for just over $1,000. I went for it.

They needed about two months to complete the work – I had them hold the parts until September when we returned to Mesa. The kit arrived last Tuesday with everything in the Gator case. The book-matched swamp ash body was so finely made, I thought I’d received a one-piece body at first. I had to really look to find the seam. Well done! I started working on it right away. I don’t think it’s fair to say “I built my own guitar.” It was actually more of an assembly task – after all I didn’t cut and shape the body from a blank or carve the neck. It was a matter of fitting the parts, soldering the wiring harness for the pickups and controls and installing hardware.

Poorly lit, unfocused shot of unboxed parts – the neck isn’t installed, just sitting in place

My first step was to paint the body cavities with a carbon-based conductive shielding paint. I mentioned how single-coil guitar pickups are prone to EMI. By shielding the body cavities and grounding the shielding, some EMI can be blocked. It’s like a Faraday cage, but a guitar can never have a true Faraday cage – the pickups are still exposed and there are other points like the control shafts that can’t be fully shielded.

Bare cavities in the swamp ash body – there’s a seam right down the center, nearly invisible

Body masked and conductive paint applied

Cavity on back of body for tremolo springs

Then I went to work on the neck – I was pleasantly surprised to find the frets leveled, crowned and nicely polished. I thought I would have to do some finish work on the frets but it wasn’t necessary. I went straight to installation of the Grover tuners on the head stock.

I ran into trouble on Wednesday. I soldered the output jack, ground wires and controls. I tested it and it worked. I installed the pickguard and jack plate onto the body. Now it didn’t work. It was a real headscratcher and I can’t tell you how many times I took it apart and checked everything. I finally figured out that I had contact between the pickup selector switch and the conductive paint creating a short to ground. I added a piece of black electrical tape and tried it again. It worked. Then it didn’t work. What? I found the tip of the jack on the guitar cable would sometimes touch the shielding in the jack cavity creating another short to ground. Again, I confirmed it by adding a piece of black electrical tape. Now everything worked right.

I didn’t want to leave a band-aid on the problem, so Thursday morning I used a Dremel to carve a trough under the selector switch and carve out a bit of the jack cavity. This meant I had to repaint those areas with conductive paint. After the paint dried, I re-assembled the pickguard and jack plate – bingo, everything works.

Next I had to install the nut at the head of the neck. This is a critical step. The vibrating guitar string has two points of contact to impart vibration and resonate with the wood in the neck and body. There’s the bridge where the strings attach at the body and the nut. The nut can be made from bone, synthetic bone material or plastic. Higher end guitars will use bone or synthetic material while entery-level guitars have plastic nuts.

I used a Tusq synthetic nut which is impregnated with PTFE. It came over-size for the nut slot. First I had to carefully thin it. I did this by sanding it with 320 grit sand paper on a flat surface. I took it really slow – it needs to be a snug fit with solid contact with wood slot so vibrations (sound) can transfer. It was a matter of sanding a bit, then trying to fit it. Once I had a good, snug fit, I put the first string (high e) and the sixth string (low e) on the guitar and measured the string height at the first fret. It was way too high.

Nut installed and masked before filing the ends flush with the neck edge

Once again, it was a matter of sanding carefully and trial fitting it. Altogether I probably spent an hour sanding and trying before I was satisfied. At that point, I put the rest of the strings on and started the set up process. I set the trem-bridge assembly to float so the whammy bar can vary the pitch both up and down. Then I set the action or string height over the frets. The relief or bow in the neck was next – this can be adjusted by tightening or loosening the truss rod. Pickup height adjustment was next. Lastly I set the intonation by making sure each string went up in frequency by one octave when comparing the open string to the 12th fret. This is adjusted at the bridge saddles.

Now it was time to play! I had set it up with the unbranded strings that came with the kit. Turns out, I didn’t like them much. They were a really light gauge – too light for me. The guitar played fine, the neck is excellent but I was missing the tone I was after. It didn’t have a sparkling clean sound and seemed a little off balance. I played for a while then put it away.

Friday morning I changed the strings to a new set of 10-46 gauge strings. This meant going through the setup process again as the string tension changed and everything else changed with it. It was better, but still lacking the bright, clean tone I expect from a Strat. Then it occured to me. The pickups are wound pretty hot and I had them set too close to the strings. I reset them so the bass side was 7 or 8/32″ from the bottom of the string and the treble side at 6/32″. Much better! I’ll probably continue to tweak it bit here and there, but I like it. From the Fender Stratocasters I tried at Guitar Center, I would put this guitar on par with a $2,000+ made in America Fender Strat.

EDIT – I forgot to mention, this is the quietest single-coil guitar I’ve ever played. No hiss or hum unless I hold the guitar within about two feet of the amplifier where there’s a strong electro-magnetic field from the transformers.

We’ve had overnight rain the last two nights – really heavy rain on Thursday night and a lighter shower last night. The weather is cooler with highs expected in the low 90s today and down in the low 80s starting tomorrow. Donna is enjoying her trip to New England and will return late Tuesday night.

*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!

And Then There Was Stroganoff

I haven’t posted in over a week. That’s mainly because I haven’t had anything exciting to write about. We’ve been slowly getting settled in to our place here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, mainly staying indoors. It’s still hot here in Mesa, Arizona.

Ozark the cat has definitely settled in. She doesn’t like travel days, although she’s perfectly happy in the coach when we’re stationary – especially when we stay put for a week or more. Back-to-back travel days aren’t her thing – they really aren’t our thing either. Ozark can roam from room to room here and she has a few favorite spots.

I think Ozark would be happy if we just stayed here permanently. Donna and I are content, but we know we’ll get the hitch itch sooner or later.

I’m happy to have our Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill available again. When we hit the road last spring, I had to leave it behind. Without our cargo trailer, I just didn’t have room for it. Last week, I bought a two-pack of USDA Prime tri-tip roasts at Costco. They were a little over two pounds each. I think when you take it out of the package, it’s correct to refer to them as roasts. Once you grill them and cut it into portions, it’s more appropriate to call them steaks. I wrote a post about tri-tips here.

I prepared one on Tuesday with my usual tri-tip seasoning – salt, pepper and garlic powder in a dry rub. I set the Traeger at 220 degrees and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Before I took them out of the Traeger, I preheated our gas grill to 450 degrees. I transferred the tri-tip to the grill and seared each side for three minutes. They were cooked to a perfect medium rare with an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees.

Donna served it with steamed green beans and sweet potato tots.

The USDA Prime tri-tips were $12.99/lb at Costco. A pack of two tri-tips ran just over $50, but we’ll get several meals out them. The first tri-tip was an excellent dinner on Tuesday, we had at least half of it left over.

On Saturday, Donna prepared beef stroganoff with the remainder of the tri-tip. She used noodles from Sprouts that were billed as “home made egg noodles.” The stroganoff was delicious and once again we had leftovers for another lunch meal.

I have a number of projects that need to be attended to, but I’ve been procrastinating due to the heat. We’ve had only two days that weren’t triple digit heat since my last post. I got a start on the End-Fed Half-Wave (EFHW) antenna for my ham shack. The EFHW will allow me to seamlessly tune the 10-meter, 20-meter and 40-meter bands by going through my MFJ auto-tuner with my Yaesu FT-991A radio. I hope to get the antenna finished by the next weekend.

My guitar body, neck and hardware are scheduled to arrive via FedEx tomorrow. That will be my priority in the next week or so. I already received a full compliment of special tools from Stew-Mac to finish the frets and set everything up. I also decided to sell my Egnater guitar amplifier and cabinet and build another amp. I’ll write about that later, once I get it underway.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be up at dark-thirty. I will drive Donna to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for her 6am flight. She’s going back to Vermont to visit her parents. They have plans to travel to Ogunquit, Maine to spend a couple of nights on the coast. I’ll be a bachelor for a week – I’ll have plenty to do with the guitar project and ham stuff. I also need to get out to the storage facility and see about making a permanent fix for the left front body panel on the coach. I need to figure a way to get it back into proper shape so I can rivet the front section to the frame.

Donna has been getting out early in the morning to play pickleball or tennis before it gets too hot out. I’m not up for pickleball at 6:30am, so I’ll wait for cooler temps to get back on the courts.

After a couple more hot afternoons, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the month. That’ll be a relief.

Going Home

The last week was a transition time for us. On Tuesday, we pulled out of Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah as planned. The day before, I made a trip to Ace Hardware in town and bought some JB Weld adhesive. I bonded the panel surrounding the left front tire to the mounting points. Although I’d managed to make a temporary repair to the front mounting point by installing small screws where the rivets failed, the rear of the panel was loose and it moved back and forth due to aerodynamic forces. We had over 400 miles to go and I didn’t think my temporary repair would hold up unless I secured the rear of the panel.

We were out of the park by 10:30am and had a long day ahead of us. Our plan was to travel about 220 miles to Cameron, Arizona where there’s a newish RV park across the highway from the Cameron Trading Post. Our route had us on US89 south all the way. This is a scenic drive as US89 cuts east south of Bryce Canyon and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Diesel fuel in Utah was over $4.00/gallon, so I held off until we crossed into Arizona at Page. I filled our tank there at $3.33/gallon. A year ago, I wouldn’t be too happy with that price, but in the current situation, I thought we did okay.

We found the RV park in Cameron, but it wasn’t what we expected. The website showed a nice looking park, but in reality, it’s a poorly laid out dirt lot. To check in, you have to go to the motel at the trading post and pay, then cross the highway and pick a site. It seemed like there was plenty of space but due to the poor layout it wasn’t easy to get a big rig into a site. And we had to unhook the truck because the pullthroughs were not long enough. And we only had 30amp at the pedestal so we could run only one AC unit.

Once we were settled in, Donna phoned the Elk’s Lodge in Payson – that was our next planned stop. They have 12 sites with 30amp hookup and we hoped to snag one so we could run our air conditioner because the forecast for Payson was 95 degrees. The lodge doesn’t take reservations and unfortunately they told us all of the sites were occupied. We had a back-up plan to go to the casino in Payson and just run the generator for air conditioning. After talking it over, we decided we would make the 240-mile run all the way to our park model home at Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.

I know you’re thinking 240 miles doesn’t seem that far. The route I chose had us on US89 south to Flagstaff, then we hit I-17 south to Camp Verde. US89 has a tough climb up to 7000 feet above sea level in Flagstaff. At Camp Verde, we exited onto AZ260 which turned out to be a tougher drive than I expected. The last time I drove this highway was more than 10 years ago and I was riding a motorcycle. I didn’t recall how steep some of the grades are and also how narrow some sections of the road are. It was hot and I had to keep a close watch on our engine coolant temperature – this meant slowing down and gearing down on the steep climbs. From Payson, we took AZ87 (Beeline Highway) to the Bush Highway exit, went over Usery Pass and were back in Mesa.

The alternative would have been to take I-17 all the way to Phoenix, then follow Loop 101 to Loop 202 to Mesa. I didn’t want to take that route as traffic would be heavy and people drive like maniacs through Phoenix.

We parked the coach in front of our home at 12:20pm – we’d gained an hour when we crossed into Arizona. Our caretaker had the air conditioner on in our house – he said he would turn it on two days before we arrived. We came in a day ahead of schedule, but the house was cool although we had triple digit temperature outside. By the way, the JB Weld repair held up fine – I had no issues with the panel on the coach.

We went right to work unloading the coach and moving back into the house. I took some time to get the swamp cooler running in our Arizona room – a 400-square foot room addition to our park model home. The coach was hot sitting in full sun in front of our place and we worked all afternoon. Donna did most of the moving while I got things like electrical breakers and the water heater going. Our goal was to empty the coach first, then we could take our time sorting things and putting stuff away. One plus was that it didn’t take long to defrost the refrigerator thanks to the heat!

On Thursday morning, we took the last of our stuff out of the coach. I drove the coach to the Apache Sands Service Center about a mile away from here where I filled the propane tank, dumped the holding tanks and filled up the fuel tank with 31 gallons of diesel fuel at $3.00/gallon. I wanted the fuel tank full while it’s in storage to minimize air space in the fuel tank which, in turn, minimizes condensation of moisture in the tank. The coach is in a covered storage lot at 202 RV Valet with a 20-amp electrical hook-up to keep the batteries charged.

We were both ready to get off of the road and settle back in at Viewpoint. Coming back this early risked high temperatures and we’ll have them. The forecast calls for triple digit heat for the next week before things begin to cool. Triple digit heat in the afternoon lingers after nightfall – overnight lows are in the 80s.

The fairways and greens on the golf course are brown at this time of year. Some grasses go dormant in the heat of summer in Arizona, just like some grasses go dormant in the winter up north.

Dormant grass on the fairway and green of the fifth hole behind our house

The previous owner of our place had internet through a local provider called Jabba. The high-speed internet wireless receiver antenna was still on the carport and he left the router. Yesterday, I set up an account with Jabba and hooked up the router. We now have truly unlimited data usage with a speed of 15Mbps for $44.95/month. I also suspended my Dish service while the motorhome is in storage – we have free cable TV here at Viewpoint.

Donna restocked our refrigerator and pantry yesterday and last night, she manned the large gas grill we have at the house and grilled a coho (silver) salmon filet and bok choy. She made a soy sauce, worcestershire and honey based marinade for the fish. It was outstanding.

Donna and I love our time on the road, but we’re both happy to be back in Mesa and settling in to our home. We only spent about six weeks here after we bought the place last spring. We’ll probably stay here until May.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. We should take a few moments to remember the innocent victims and never forget the horrors of terrorism.

Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rock layers are evident in the distant cliff

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

High up the trail, the view seems endless.

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

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

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

The trail switches back around this hoodoo

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

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

Grilled chicken with Mediteranean vinaigrette

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

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

Bryce Canyon

We had a quiet weekend here at Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah. The temperature swings from the daily highs to the overnight lows was a whopping 40 degrees or so – highs in the 80s with lows in the 40s.

Yesterday we made a day trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. The park entrance is aboout 25 miles from Panguitch. We entered the park with my America the Beautiful Lifetime Senior pass – without the pass the entrance fee is $35/car. Our first stop was at the Visitor Center, one mile into the park. From there we went to the General Store – I was desperately in need of benadryl allergy tablets. My eyes were itchy and watering. I found benadryl there and got some relief.

We drove up the main park road – it’s an 18-mile road that dead ends at Rainbow Point. We found a picnic area there and had our lunch. We’d stopped at Subway in Panguitch on the way here and I bought a 6-inch sub and Donna got a salad. We brought along a cooler with drinks and watermelon slices. The watermelon we bought at the vegetable stand on Saturday is supreme. The guy that grew it really bragged about it – he told me it was a county fair gold award winner and the sugar content measured at 13 to 15 brix. For comparison, he said most watermelon at the grocery store measures around 6 or 7 brix. Donna and I agreed, he was right. The seedless watermelon is one of the sweetest we’ve ever had.

Our plan was to scope out the viewpoints on the way up the road without stopping, have lunch then make our way slowly back down, stopping at points of interest. The park is a narrow strip of land along a ridge. The northernmost area is crossed by a highway – UT12 and the park there is only accessible by foot. The main park road runs from the entrance north to south and the elevation varies from about 7,200 feet above sea level to 9,115 feet above sea level at Rainbow Point. At Paradise RV Park, we’re at an elevation of a little over 6,600 feet above sea level.

At the viewpoints in the national park, you can see for miles and miles. I have a lot of pictures to add to this post. If the photos start to get redundant, that’s the nature of the park. The views are spectacular, but like at Cedar Breaks National Monument, you can start to get numbed by it all. If you make the effort to really look at the different viewpoints, you can see there are differences even if they are subtle at times.

Sunlight on a ridge far away to the east

At the Agua Canyon viewpoint, a raven perched on a fence rail and posed for photos. He was totally unafraid as people walked up within a few feet to take a picture.

The next stop was at Natural Bridge viewpoint. Natural Bridge is a misnomer – it’s more correctly called an arch. These are formed when hard cap rock layers are over softer substrate. Over time, water erodes the softer substrate and creates a hole under the cap rock. Wind then enlarges the hole over centuries or even thousands of years.

You can see how water runoff courses through the arch

At Inspiration Point, you can see where water that comes down from the ridge from three directions join together. The resulting stream bed, when dry, looks like a road along the bottom of the canyon.

Looks like a road through the trees at the bottom of the canyon

On the way to and from Bryce Canyon on UT12 near Red Canyon, the highway goes through two arches.

While we were in the park, we had a few clouds overhead. As we came down from Rainbow Point we had a few raindrops, but it wasn’t anything to worry about. Lightning strikes can be worrisome in the park as over the last 25 years four people have been killed and six injured by lightning.

I need to mention Sunday night’s dinner. Donna made a new recipe – shrimp poached in coconut milk. It was awesome.

Shrimp poached in coconut milk over rice with broccoli

After we returned home, I took a nap – the benadryl made me drowsy. The wind really kicked up in the late afternoon and we had a few raindrops here. We can expect rain later today. Donna went out for bike ride this morning while I was writing this. She wanted to get a ride in before it rains – the forecast calls for rain again tomorrow and possibly on Thursday morning with high temperatures in the upper 60s and low 70s.

World’s Fastest Indian Was Here

From the start of this blog, I always said I would post honestly – the good, bad and the ugly. This post has it all. Wednesday’s prime rib dinner at the Rupert Elk’s Lodge lived up to its billing. The prime rib was excellent, the corn on the cob was fresh and our baked potatoes were well seasoned and perfectly baked. The salad bar wasn’t the greatest, but everything was fresh. We couldn’t eat it all, so we brought home some leftovers for steak and eggs for me and steak salad for Donna.

Thursday morning it was time to leave Rupert. Our first stop was the dump station in town. I had filled our fresh water tank before we left the Elk’s Lodge and after dumping, we hit the road with empty holding tanks. Our route had us heading south on I-84. We turned off onto ID81 to take a shortcut into Utah where we would pick up UT30 west.

As soon as I hit the exit ramp, I sensed trouble. I saw a line of vehicles stopped on the overpass and the truck ahead of us was stopped at the top of the exit, waiting for traffic to clear. Once we were stopped, I could see the source of the hold-up. A tractor-trailer rig with an over-sized flat bed trailer failed to make the turn onto the northbound on-ramp. The extra-long trailer was hung up on the concrete barrier. I feared we would be stuck for a while before we could continue. The thing was, the direction we wanted to go was opposite of the trapped trailer.

A couple of gentle toots of the horn got the attention of the trucker in front of us. He saw I was indicating a right turn. He was able to move forward and left enough for us to squeeze by. Trouble no more, we were on our way. The shortcut on ID81 was a good choice. There was very little traffic – we only saw a few cars every 10 minutes or so. The speed limit was 65mph, so we weren’t going any slower than we would have traveled down the interstate. The road surface was good. The only downside was the narrow road with little to no shoulder.

The long drive southwest on UT30 had similar road conditions with even fewer cars along the way. We’d left the Idaho farm country behind and were driving through a mostly barren landscape. There weren’t any real towns – just a few clusters of houses in a place called Rosette – they even had a post office there. Eventually we crossed the border into northeast Nevada and found the town of Montello. No stoplights in Montello. The road designation changed at the border to NV233.

We finally hit I-80 and headed southwest toward West Wendover. A few miles down the interstate, I heard a loud bang – it sounded like something had hit under the front of the coach. I checked the side mirrors to see if there was anything in the road and didn’t find anything. Then Donna said, “We need to pull over – I can see a basement door open.” She was looking at the driver’s side view mirror and from her vantage point, she could see something that wasn’t in my view.

I stopped on the shoulder and walked around the front of the coach. What I saw qualifies as ugly. It wasn’t a compartment door she was seeing. It was the front body panel mounted under the driver’s seat from the front of the coach to just behind the front wheel well. I looked it over and found the rear bracing of this panel was bonded with a type of epoxy to two braces in front of the wheel. At the front of the panel, it folds toward the center of the coach at 90 degrees and has four rivets holding the front of the panel.

We heard a noise earlier on ID81 but didn’t see anything out of order. I thought the sound may have come from a farmhouse we were passing at the time. In hindsight, I think the bonded braces broke free there. This allowed the panel to flex back and forth from airflow and on the interstate, the rivets gave way. Now the panel was slightly bent away from the coach and would flap in the wind until it completely broke off.

I thought I could secure it well enough with duct tape and gave that a shot. We got back on the interstate and I kept our speed at 55-60 mph. It held for about four miles, then went bang again. I pulled over and this time, I opened the front generator compartment, cleaned the bulkhead there with rubbing alcohol and ran the duct tape around the front edge of the panel with the tape adhering to the bulkhead. This seemed more secure but it only held for about another four miles. This was getting real ugly.

I didn’t like working on the driver’s side of the coach on the interstate shoulder. Fortunately, the traffic was light and most drivers moved out of the right lane giving me plenty of room. But at one point, I looked up to see a car traveling at about 80 mph barreling right past me about two feet away!

I knew I had to do something besides duct tape. I rummaged around and found two small screws. I put them into the rivet holes – holes in the panel no longer lined up with the holes in the bulkhead, but I was able to pound them in with a hammer. Then I duct-taped over the screw heads to hold them in place and re-taped the panel.

Back on the road this held. We stopped at the Pilot-Flying J in West Wendover where I topped up the tank with 69 gallons of diesel at $4.01/gallon! Gulp, $276 worth of fuel brings our fuel costs to about $500 since we left Mount Vernon, Washington. This Biden economy is killing us.

Donna bought another roll of duct tape at the travel center and we continued east into Wendover, Utah. Our short run in Nevada was done and we went east on I-80 to Utah exit 4 where Donna found a boondocking spot on BLM public land off Leppy Pass Road.

I added another screw to my temporary fix and re-taped it.

Temporary fix – you cab see the adhesive residue from my first tape jobs

We saw a few other RVs in the area but we were spaced well apart. We were at an elevation of about 4,300 feet above sea level. I never realized the Bonneville Salt Flats had this much elevation – it definitely is enough to affect the power of naturally aspirated engines. I disconnected the truck and we took a drive out to the Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway area. The speedway was first used in 1912 for timed top speed events. While we were there, an organization was preparing the course for a motorcycle speed event. There was great movie about a motorcycle at Bonneville called The World’s Fastest Indian made in 2005 – it’s a story based on the life of New Zealander Burt Munro starring Anthony Hopkins

They used to have a straight track nine miles long with a black stripe for Speed Week – a week-long event to set speed records sponsored by the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). Speed Week was canceled in 2014 and 2015 due to poor conditions from heavy rain. Mud washed over much of the flats. Between the leaching of salt into the aquifer and mining operations, the amount of salt has gone down greatly over the last 50 years. Where the salt surface was once more than two feet thick, it’s now only about two inches thick and the track is less than three miles long. The speed track is no longer striped, they use flags and markers for the course.

This marker is at the end of Bonneville Speedway Road where the flats are

Trucks in the distance preparing the course for motorcycle trials

When we returned to the coach, I re-hooked the truck to the coach. Another coach came in and set up about 100 yards from us. At first it looked like they were going to stop right next to us. Really? It’s wide open here on the flats.

Sunrise over Bonneville – still lots of smoke in the air

Friday morning we found a couple others had pulled in during the night – SUVs with people presumably sleeping inside. We pulled out and drove east on I-80 for 80 miles and hit UT138 south. This route bypassed Tooele (pronounced TOO-illa) and had very little traffic. I was a little worried as most of the route had no shoulder and if my temporary panel repair broke, I had no place to stop. We made it without incident and stopped for the day at Fort Deseret State Park. It’s a quiet place to dry-camp for the night, but’s it’s the strangest state park we’ve ever encountered, I wrote about when we stayed here last year.

Saturday morning we continued south on UT257 which became UT129 at Milford, then UT21 at Minersville. We drove through the town of Beaver and found I-15 south there. The interstate immediately climbed and we reach the summit at 6,500 feet above sea level.

We left I-15 shortly and my repair was still holding up. We took UT20 which was a steep climb up 7% grades to the summit 7,920 feet above sea level. The descent down the east side is even steeper at an average grade of 8%. We found Paradise RV Park a few miles north of Panguitch, Utah. It’s a nice RV park with very low rates and no real amenities. Donna met the neighbors who’ve been coming here for years. They said over the last few years the ownership became absentee, only coming around to collect fees and the place is slowly deteriorating, though still pleasant. We paid $134 for a week including tax and might extend over the Labor Day weekend.

Donna grilled chicken wings, thighs and drumsticks for dinner and served it with sauteed veggies we found at the local grocery. We also bought some veggies and great watermelon from a roadside stand in town. The couple operating the stand were full-time RVers for 13 years before settling near here and they grow their own vegetables which they sell.

Grilled chicken with Mediterreanean vinaigrette and sauteed vegetables

We’re near Bryce Canyon and plan to explore this week. The temperature reached the mid-80s today and is supposed to get there again tomorrow before we have a cooling trend with rain probable on Tuesday and Wednesday. We are finally away from the smoke and have decent air quality after breathing wildfire smoke since early July.

Saved by the Elk’s

While I was writing my last post, after the farmers’ market Saturday morning, Donna went for a walk. When she came back she told me she walked all way back to the downtown area and it was getting busy – many more people out and about than we saw earlier.

We decided against going back downtown for wine tasting where most places required reservations and opted to head east to the Airport Wine District. This is an interesting area. During World War II, the Army Air Corps built a training facility next to the existing Walla Walla Regional Airport. They put in a new runway and constructed over 300 buildings for administative offices, barracks, mess halls and storage. The facility covered over 2,100 acres. B-17 Flying Fortress crews trained there.

After the war, the new Air Force declared the base surplus and turned it over to the city of Walla Walla in 1947. In 1989, the Port of Walla Walla took over operations. The airport is mostly used for General Aviation although there is one commercial airline in operation.

The old army buildings were soon home to small manufacturing businesses and eventually 14 wineries established operations there. The wineries produce their wine onsite from grapes sourced from Walla Walla and Columbia Valley appelations.

We visited the CAVU winery there. CAVU doesn’t require reservations – many of the others do.The winery name CAVU comes from an aviation term – ceiling and visibility unlimited (CAVU) – ideal flying conditions. Their specialty is wines based on the barbera grape although they also offer a very nice sauvignon blanc, tempranillo, malbec and a Bordeaux right bank style red blend. We tasted seven wines and ending buying two bottles of Barbera Rose, two bottles of 2019 Barbera and two bottles of 2019 Rule Breaker II. The Rule Breaker is a blend of barbera, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot grapes. The wine maker calls it Rule Breaker because his usual rule is not to blend barbera grapes with other varieties.

The Airport District also houses a couple of breweries with pubs and outdoor beer gardens and a few eateries. We stopped at Burwood Brewing Company and tried a beer in their outdoor area. They had very good beer!

The we went to Quirk Brewing for a second cold one and enjoyed their beer as well. Both breweries had a food truck on their premises. If you’re in the area, I recommend taking the short drive to the Airport District and checking it out.

Sunday morning it was time to hit the road. We wanted to head down to Twin Falls, Idaho, but to get there we’d need a stop along the way. We opted to boondock and Donna found a few options. We ended up boondocking in a small gravel turnout near Huntington, Oregon, south of Baker City. To get there, we traveled on I-84 first through more wheat growing country, then made the climb into the Blue Mountains up Emigrant Hill to Deadman Pass. The road has several switchbacks and is a 6% grade. We saw a few trucks, one RV and a couple of cars on the road shoulder with overheated engines. I-84 in Oregon tops out at Blue Mountain summit 4,193 feet above sea level.

The boondocking spot was fairly quiet and the overnight stay was uneventful. Trains came by, but they were on the other side of the river, far enough away not to be bothersome and they didn’t have to cross a road and blow their horns.

Snake River view from our boondocking site

Monday morning we were back on the road southbound on I-84. It was just over 200 miles to Twin Falls but the slog through Caldwell, Nampa and Boise slowed us down. The traffic was heavy there and, as usual, all of the city folk were in hurry, driving like idiots and causing traffic snarls.

Our plan was to stop at Rock Creek County RV Park in Twin Falls. They don’t take reservations – it’s all first-come, first-served. We thought arriving early afternoon on a Monday, we would find an open site. We thought wrong. The place was full. Tthe camp host told us the Twin Falls County Fair was only a week away and every place was full.

Last year, we stayed at the Elk’s Lodge in Rupert. It was only 40 miles away, so we headed there. We found the five RV sites with water and electricity were all open – no one was staying at the Elk’s Lodge. I paid for two nights at $20/night and we set up.

The Elk’s have saved the day again – it wasn’t the first time we had to go to plan “B” and the Elk’s never let us down.

Elk’s Lodge site has us backed up to the golf course – Hole #1 499 yards par 5

Adjoining the Elk’s Lodge is the Rupert Country Club which features a tree-lined 18-hole golf course. The land is all owned by the Elk’s but the country club leases the acreage for the golf course and operates it.

Yesterday, a truck with a camper pulling a long (20 feet or more) enclosed trailer came in next to us. The guys rolled a golf cart out of the trailer along with their clubs and headed out to the golf course. They were out all day.

Their trailer hitch is interesting. Due to the length of the camper, the hitch is cantilevered three feet or more from the rear of the truck. I don’t know how much tongue weight he has, but that’s a lot of leverage on the hitch receiver!

Look at the cantilevered hitch extension

Later, when the guys came back from golfing, they pulled some equipment out of the trailer. I was curious as I didn’t recognize it.

I had to ask about it. It turns out they have state-of-the-art machinery called DryJect which is used to aerate and condition turf. Normally, turf is aerated by pulling cylindrical plugs out of the soil. This loosens the soil and allows oxygen to penetrate, improving the health of the turf. Sometimes soil amendments are added to the holes created.

On a golf green, this means a clean-up is required. The cylindrical plugs of soil lay on the surface and look similar to goose droppings. No one wants that on the green. The DryJect machines work by injecting a high-pressure jet of water mixed with sand or other soil amendments, fracturing the soil and creating the aeration pocket. The pocket is simultaneously filled with the sand or other soil additive, leaving a smooth surface with no clean-up required. These guys travel around and treat golf course greens – golfing their way around the country while earning a living. Sweet!

I originally paid for two nights here, but after visiting the lodge for a cold one, I decided we needed another night. Lodge members told me about the prime rib dinner on Wednesday night and convinced me it wasn’t something we should miss. They have a special rotisserie that allows them to roast up to eight prime rib roasts at a time. They dry rub the meat the day before. The dinner includes salad, choice of potato and fresh corn on the cob for $25/plate. Beer is $3/pint. I signed us up.

The weather here in Rupert has been pleasant. We’ve had daily highs in the mid 80s and overnight lows around 50 degrees. This morning, it was 53 degrees outside and 63 degrees in the coach – just right for sleeping with a window open and blankets on the bed.

Tomorrow we’ll head out of here and travel through Utah on the west side – avoiding the gauntlet on I-15 that extends from Tremonton through Salt Lake City to Provo. I detest that drive. Instead, we’ll head in a westerly direction to West Wendover, NV and spend the night near the Bonneville Salt Flats. Our next stop will be Panguitch, Utah where we expect some very fine weather.

Voila Walla Walla

As planned, we left Charbonneau Park Thursday morning and made a short drive a few miles downriver to Hood Park. Check-out time at Charbonneau was noon, so we took our time getting ready to roll and pulled out just after 11:30am. At Hood Park, we weren’t allowed to check in until 2pm. I used the downtime to dump the gray water tank at their dumpstation, then we parked in the lower lot to have lunch and kill some time.

Across the Snake River from Hood Park is the Tri-Cities Grain Company. Trucks offload wheat there where it’s transferred to barges. They had an unbelievable pile of grain out in the open alongside the grain elevators. It was by far the largest pile of grain I’ve ever seen. I’m curious as to why it’s piled up out in the open like that.

Huge pile of wheat to the right of the grain elevators at Tri-City Grain

We checked in promptly at 2pm and drove to site 20. Donna was driving the Nissan Frontier and following me – I didn’t bother hooking up the tow bar for such a short journey. We didn’t have the view we had at Charbonneau, but we had a spacious, quiet site.

Lots of space at most of the sites at Hood Park

This is another Corps of Engineers park, just like Charbonneau and again I paid $12/night for 50-amp electrical service. There are a few other COE parks nearby along the Snake River. We were only staying for one night, we had reservations in Walla Walla, Washington next where we would be on full hook-ups.

There were more pleasure boats on this section of the Snake River than were out above the Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. I also saw a few barges heading upriver that had to stage and wait for the locks to open and lift them up to the next water level behind the dam. After offloading grain, the barges carry fertilizers and fuels back upriver. There’s always conflict between environmentalists that want to do away with dams, locks and barges and farmers and merchants that rely on the barge system to move goods.

The dams create hydro-electric power for the regions and also keep the shipping lanes at a minimum of 14 feet deep. The barges can draft about 10 feet fully loaded. Without the barge system, a lot more trucks would have to be on the road and railroad infrastructure would require a lot of upgrading. I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

We had another leisurely morning on Friday. Our destination, Blue Valley RV Park in Walla Walla, was only 52 miles away and wouldn’t take much over an hour to reach. We pulled out of Hood Park around 11:30am and went back upriver on WA124 which took us northeast, then east through farmland. As we moved away from the river, we left the fruit growers behind and saw nothing but wheat fields for miles.

At the junction with WA125, we turned south and WA125 took us into Walla Walla. As we approached town from the north, we drove right past the Washington State Penitentiary – also known as Walla Walla State Penitentiary. It houses over 2,400 prisoners including some of the most notorious in the northwest. The Hillside Strangler, Kenneth Bianchi, is there and also Gary Ridgeway, a mass murderer of women known as the Green River Killer. There are many more dangerous mass murders serving life sentences there.

We found the RV park next to the Veterans Memorial Golf Course. The park is paved and has well-kept landscaping. The sites are all back-in only, but have plenty of room. We’re in site 8 which was easy to navigate. The only downside to this end of the park is it backs up against a dairy distributor. Late yesterday afternoon, a truck dropped a refrigerated trailer that I think is filled with ice cream in the lot. The reefer unit runs almost constantly – you can hear the generator run at full power for several seconds – at times maybe up to a minute – then it drops to idle speed for no more than a second before it revs up again. It became annoying in the night.

We took a drive through town and bought a few things at the Walmart which is west of Walla Walla and actually in a town called College Place. You wouldn’t know it’s a different town as the neighborhoods run together. Donna picked up a ribeye steak and I grilled it for dinner. She served it covered in sauteed mushrooms with patty pan squash sauteed with onions, garlic and rosemary and a spud on the side. A simple, delicious meal for less than $10/plate.

We woke up to rain this morning. It rained sporadically until about 10 am, then it quit. The skies remained overcast and it was only about 63 degrees outside. I put on jeans and boots – I’ve worn nothing but shorts and filp-flops on all but a few occasions this summer. We drove downtown to the farmers’ market on Main Street.

We found some excellent locally grown produce there.

Colorful peppers, cucumbers and eggplants

One of the things we’ve really come to like this summer are donut peaches. Donut peaches have many names – most common are donut, flat peach and saturn peach. They originated in China but were introduced to the US. Most of the commercially available donut peaches are grown in California, but they are fairly common in the northwest. They are easy to break in half to remove the pit. I like to cut it into thin slices and add them to cereal. They are great in cottage cheese as well. The name donut or flat peach comes from the flattened shape.

After shopping the market, we took a walk through downtown on five blocks of Main Street. There were a number of eateries with street-side dining and boutique shops. Many local wineries were represented with tasting rooms, shops and even restaurants. Most of the winery shops were on the north side of Main Street.

Historical Walla Walla photos on the wall of the Odd Fellows Temple

We may head back to town and check out some of the wines this afternoon.

Today’s high temperature should be in the mid-70s. Tomorrow we can expect it to be a little warmer. We’ll pull out of here tomorrow and head south into Oregon. Where we’ll stop next is undecided at this point, but we’ll figure it out.

River or Lake?

We rolled out from Skagit Valley RV Park around 10:15am Monday morning. We’d decided to head back over Stevens Pass on US2 to Wenatchee, then go south toward Walla Walla. We were off to a slow start as it took a while to get through the towns of Monroe and Sultan. The climb over 4,064 foot high Stevens Pass is a tough slog – I think it’s a steeper climb going west-to-east than the westbound trip was.

We lost more time in the tourist town of Leavenworth and had a slow go through Wenatchee. Donna found a Corps of Engineers (COE) park near Tri-Cities and we programmed it into the GPS. The Tri-Cities of Washington are the adjoining towns of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. The COE park we headed for was Charbonneau Park on the east bank of the Snake River outside of Pasco.

It turned out to be a long day as the 300-mile trip took over six hours. We checked in around 4:45pm and were assigned to site 27, a long pull-through with a view of the water. It has 50-amp electric service but no fresh water or sewer at the site. With my America the Beautiful Senior Multi-Agency pass, we paid just $12/night.

Downstream from the park is the Ice Harbor Dam. The river at the park is really a reservoir called Sacajawea Lake. The reservoir is 30 miles long, but it seems more like a wide area of the Snake River rather than a lake.

We saw some traffic on the river – Monday night a riverboat came upstream, presumably through the Ice Harbor Lock, and cruised past us in the dark.

Tuesday morning we saw a barge transporting grain down the river. The Snake River is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. It originates in Wyoming and extends from Yellowstone National Park to the Tri-Cities where it completes its 1,087-mile journey converging with the Columbia River.

Snake River barges are much smaller than the tows we saw on the Mississippi River – I wrote about them here. A typical Snake River towbarge is a tow boat and four barges joined together. There are eight ports along the river where grain from farms in Wyoming, Idaho and Washington is loaded onto the barges. The barge holds the equivalent amount of grain as 140 railcars or 538 semi-trucks. It’s the most efficient way to transport the grain to deep-water ports on the Columbia River where it’s off-loaded onto ocean-going ships for export.

We took a drive Tuesday to explore around the area. Our first stop was the Ice Harbor Dam. The visitor center was closed but we stopped at the Indian Memorial overlook. The dam was completed in 1962, 15 years after the project started. There were many delays over environmental concerns. Vessels enter a lock on the west side of the dam – it’s 86 feet wide and 675 feet long.

Once the dam was built and the river began to flood, it covered a native American burial site. Representatives of the Yakima, Warm Springs, Nez Perce, Umatilla and Colville tribes agreed to have a single memorial built rather than relocate graves.

Petroglyphs on rock at the Indian Memorial

Then we drove through Pasco – where we were delayed for 30 minutes by train traffic near the railyard – to Kennewick. We did a little shopping at the Winco Foods there, then stopped for lunch at Thai Garden. Donna really enjoyed her lunch dish of swimming rama – sauteed spinach, chicken and Thai peanut sauce. I had pad thai and it was average at best.

We didn’t spend too much time out and about. Donna wanted to hike along the river and I wanted to practice guitar – I hadn’t played for a few days. Donna practiced clarinet after her hike.

It was very hot when we arrived on Monday – around 100 degrees. We had the generator running and both roof air conditioners on for the last couple of hours of our drive. When we arrive at a new site, Donna usually keeps dinner preparation simple. Monday night she took leftover green chile turkey burgers and made them into tacos. Very simple, quick preparation and they were good! We each had the last of the fresh corn on the cob from the Conway, WA area.

Yesterday’s high temperature was a comfortable 78 degrees. Today we should reach the low 80s and might even see 90 degrees tomorrow. As you can see in some of the photos, the sky was hazy with wildfire smoke on Tuesday. We have clearer skies today but there’s still some smoke in the air.

This campground isn’t available to us after tomorrow, so in the morning we’ll move a few miles down the road to Hood Park which is another COE park downstream from the dam near US12. On Friday, we’ll continue south into Oregon.

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View of Swinomish Channel from the Waterfront Cafe

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

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

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

Brewfest at Edgewater Park looking toward the Skagit River

Another view of the stage with jumbo video screen

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

Lainey, Alana, Kevin and Donna at Brewfest

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

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

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

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

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

It’s All About the Guitar

And Then There Was Stroganoff

Going Home

Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trail

Bryce Canyon

World’s Fastest Indian Was Here

Saved by the Elk’s

Voila Walla Walla

River or Lake?

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

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