Cool August Day

We’ve had a fairly quiet week here at Skagit Valley RV Park. The park is full and it seems like there are a number of long-term residents of the place. I’m curious about the fifth-wheel trailer next to our site. I haven’t seen anyone there and the trailer is covered with cob webs. There’s a Dodge Ram pickup truck parked in the site, but I haven’t seen it move. There are current Washington license plates on the rigs but the lack of activity seems strange.

We got together with my oldest daughter, Alana and her husband, Kevin at Farmstrong Brewing on Wednesday and our granddaughter Lainey joined us. The brewery is only a quarter of the mile from the RV park, so Donna and I walked there.

On Thursday, we met them at the Skagit Golf and Country Club where they’re members. Alana texted us and advised when she thought they would be coming off the 18th hole. We arrived a little after 3pm and saw them on the 18th green. We watched them putt, then went to the clubhouse for a drink and early dinner. Kevin’s son Nick was also there. I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos!

It’s always nice to get together with my daughters and we’ll get to see Alana’s family again tomorrow for Sunday dinner. Other than that, it’s been mostly our usual activities. Donna went out for a couple of bike rides and she practices clarinet every other day or so. I do the same with my guitar.

Speaking of the guitar, I use pedals to alter the sound of my electric guitar. I especially need them with the small practice amp to get an over-driven tube sound and I almost always run some reverb and delay. For the past ten years or so, I’ve used an Hermida Audio reverb pedal which is pretty subtle. It adds a little ambience, like your amp is set up in an empty room with wood floors. I thought I might like something that had a little more flair than that.

I did some research and thought the Omni pedal designed by Robert Keeley would be the one. I found a good deal on one with free shipping and bought it. It’s smaller than the Hermida Audio pedal and fits nicely on my board, but it packs a lot more sound than the Hermida! It has three base settings – room – spring – plate. Each one of these settings can be adjusted for the intensity of the effect. In the room setting, it can be subtle. The spring setting gives a little more oomph for the surf guitar sound and the plate setting can get really wild. I’m liking this pedal.

My pedal board – the signal runs from right to left

I have my pedal board set up with the guitar plugged into a TC Electronic tuner on the right. This pedal will cut the signal from the guitar and display the note being played and whether it’s flat or sharp, allowing me to quickly tune the guitar without any sound coming from the amp. Next in line is a MXR Modified OverDrive pedal. This boosts the guitar signal and can drive the amp into distortion – great for rock songs. The next pedal is the Keeley Omni reverb unit and last is a MXR Carbon Copy delay. I use a very conservative setting on the delay as it can easily get out of control and oscillate. Set carefully, it can create sounds like U2’s guitarist, the Edge. That’s my simple pedal board set-up.

I also have my Buddipole Versatee vertical high frequency ham radio antenna set up. I had a hard time getting it to tune – the closest I could come to resonance was a standing wave ratio (SWR) of about 1.5:1. A lot of guys would be happy with that, but I’m used to this antenna tuning to a SWR of 1.1:1 or less. The higher the SWR, the more loss of signal going out. Higher SWR can also force the output stage to reduce power to prevent damage. It’s a vicious cycle. To compound the issue, the 20-meter HF band conditions have been poor. Yesterday I futzed around with the antenna again, resetting the coil and counterpoise and got the SWR below 1.25:1. Better, but not perfect.

It rained off and on overnight and we had a couple of showers this morning. We didn’t let that stop us from going to the farmers’ market at the Skagit River Walk park. I told Donna if you stayed inside every time it rained in western Washington, you wouldn’t be out much! Of course, July and August are typically the driest months of the year, but they still average 1.2 and 1.3 inches of rain respectively. At least we don’t have any smoke now.

Cloudy, dreary day at the farmers’ market

We’ll probably have a few more showers through tomorrow morning. Today’s high is only 68 degrees. Tomorrow should be a little warmer and dry by late morning – early afternoon. As I mentioned, we plan to go to Kevin and Alana’s for a cookout.

The forecast for the week ahead has the warmer weather returning with temperatures in the 80s and maybe even 90 degrees by the end of the week. We’ll be here until the 16th and we don’t have a clue where we’re heading next. We’ll have to look at weather, fire and road condition reports and decide in about a week.

By the way, after her walk today, Donna stopped in the RV park office to find out if we should be worried about our neighbor. Apparently, he doesn’t get around too well and that’s why we haven’t seen him. But the gal in the office appreciated our concern.

*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!

Miles of Wildfire Smoke

Donna spoke to the Elk’s Lodge camp host and arranged a late checkout for us on Saturday. We wanted to stay connected to the electric service as long as possible to cool the interior of the coach. Saturday’s forecast for Coeur d’Alene called for triple digit heat. Just before we pulled out at 1pm, I fired up the Onan Quiet Diesel generator and disconnected the power cord.

Our first stop was the dump station next to the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. Then we were westbound on I-90. We had a short drive – under an hour – to Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights near the Spokane airport northwest of the city. They have a parking lot designated for trucks and RVs. We parked along the south edge of the lot where a couple of other RVs were located rather than parking in the marked stalls where truckers were parked.

I kept the generator running and both air conditioners on until we locked up and drove to Dick and Roxy’s place at 4:30pm. We found their house in the South Hill neighborhood of Spokane. We had a great visit and talked over dinner – Roxy had seasoned flank steak with a prime rib rub and Dick grilled it on his Traeger. Roxy also made a Mediterranean quinoa salad and a side with cucumber, tomatoes and other ingredients – perfect on a hot day.

We left a little past eight o’clock – we needed to get back and fire up the generator to start cooling the coach again. I didn’t want to leave the generator running while we were away. We had the generator and air conditioners on past midnight. One of the neighboring RVs had their generator on all night.

I didn’t mention the smoke. When we left the Elk’s Lodge and drove through Spokane, the smoke was thicker than ever. The wind had shifted and smoke from the fires to the north was coming down to us. My throat and eyes were irritated.

Sunday morning we woke to the sound of raindrops. I hoped it would knock the smoke down, but it didn’t rain very hard. We hit the road a little after 9am and the scenery on westbound US2 was surreal. The combination of smoke and light rain made it feel like we were driving through a Scottish moor. But it wasn’t foggy, it just had the appearance of fog.

We drove across US2 through Coulee City and had an uneventful but somewhat eerie day. We dropped into the Columbia Gorge at Orondo and went north on WA97. We found the Lone Pine Fruit Company. Donna had researched dry camping there. They were closed on Sunday, so we found a level area and set up for the night.

Boondocking at Lone Pine Fruit Company lot

In the photo above, you can see the smoke hanging over the Columbia River. Across the highway, the ridgetops would disappear at times due to the thick smoke.

Monday morning Donna bought some fresh fruit before we hit the road again. We went south to Wenatchee and followed US2 west up and over Stevens Pass. The pass topped out at 4,064 feet above sea level. I think Wenatchee is about 700 feet above sea level.

Once you drive past the ski area westbound, there is a long 6% grade descending the other side of the pass. I’m familiar with this road and knew to keep my speed in check. At the bottom of the grade, there is a 180-degree narrow single-lane turn. You need to be below 40mph in a big rig for that turn. I used the Jacobs Engineering engine compression brake to keep us at 45-50 mph the whole way down.

About a quarter of the way down we saw two RVs ahead in a turnout on the side of the road – a gasoline powered class A and a smaller class C. They pulled out ahead of us and quickly pulled away. A few minutes later we came around a bend, still descending steeply toward the big turn and saw them stopped in a turnout again. This time the class A motorhome had smoke billowing out of his front brakes. We could smell the burning brake pads as we drove by. They were obviously descending too fast and had to brake hard or maybe he was riding the brakes all the way – I do know they were going much faster than we were.

When we had a gasoline-powered coach, I didn’t have the luxury of a Jake brake. To make a steep descent, I would slow down, gear down and figure my target speed. If I wanted to target 50 mph, I would brake to 40-45 mph, then release the brakes and allow them to cool. As my speed crept up past 50 mph, I would brake again under my target speed, release the brake for cooling and let my speed slowly increase again. Repeating this procedure all the way down a long grade avoids overheating the brakes.

We stopped in Arlington at the Pilot/Flying J travel center near the intersection of I-5 and WA530. I topped up our tank with about 60 gallons of diesel at $3.58/gallon. I paid over $200 – last year I would have paid around $135!

We found our way to the Skagit Valley RV Park on the south bank of the Skagit River in Mount Vernon. We were checked in quickly and directed to site 53 with full hookups and 50-amp service. The elevation is about 50 feet above sea level. I was surprised at the amount of smoke in the air here. I thought we would leave the smoke behind once we crested the Cascade Mountains. We’ve traveled through more than 700 miles of wildfire smoke!

This morning Donna fixed a nice surprise for me. One of my favorite breakfast dishes is Eggs Benedict. I usually only get it when we go out for breakfast. Donna had all of the ingredients, so she made it for me this morning!

We’ll spend the next two weeks here. We’re looking forward to spending some time with Kevin and Alana and the grandkids. We had a cool, comfortable night and the temperature this morning is in the mid-60s. We’ll have daily highs around 80 degrees. The forecast calls for cooler weather ahead – low 70s by Friday.

Fire Detour

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cuban Ham Jam

Last week’s weather here in Coeur d’Alene stayed true to the forecast I mentioned in my last post. We had daily highs in the low to mid 80s from Tuesday to Friday. It rained a little on Wednesday morning – enough to clear the skies of the smoke from wildfires.

We had a fairly quiet week for the most part. Donna’s been practicing clarinet and had a visit from a neighbor while she was playing. Our neighbor to the left of us stopped by to compliment Donna’s playing. It turns out she was a former clarinet player. She left the following morning so we never found out why she no longer plays.

A couple of days later, I had a similar experience while playing guitar. The door was open and my sound must have carried – a guy stopped and knocked and I thought, “Oh no, I must be disturbing someone.” No, he just wanted to say he enjoyed the music!

I’ve been setting up my ham radio in the afternoons when I have some shade next to the coach. My Buddipole Versatee vertical antenna has been tuning up on the 20-meter band nicely. I made contact with Lou (EA7JE) in Barcelona, Spain a couple more times. I also had a strange phenomenom occur. On Thursday while I was surfing the band, I heard a guy transmitting from Athol, Idaho only about 15 miles away! His name was Gene (K7TXO). Theoretically we shouldn’t be able to make contact on the high frequency 20-meter band at that distance. Our signals should shoot over each other’s antennas with a take-off angle that sends the signal to the upper atmosphere. But we talked like we were sitting across from each other.

A little while later, I made contact with Mark (N9FAL). He was operating portable on the north side of the Coeur d’Alene airport, maybe five or six miles away! The conditions obviously favored a ground wave that allowed close proximity contact. I’ve had this happen a few times before, once in Mesa and twice when we were at Lake Pleasant. It didn’t happen on Friday or Saturday here – radio wave propagation can be unpredictable at times.

On Thursday and Friday, there was a lot of noise on the band and I could see some kind of strong interference across the band every 40 kilohertz or so. I saw a video on YouTube made by Josh Nass (KI6NAZ). He used a Software Defined Radio (SDR) program to show the interference on the 40-meter band. It looked very much like what I was seeing on 20-meters. Josh used the SDR to triangulate the origin of the noise on 40-meters. It was a series of powerful signals that obliterated all other signals near their frequency. The triangulation alogorithm placed the sources west of Havana, Cuba and also off of the southern coast of Cuba – probably from a ship.

These are presumably being created by the Cuban government to hinder communication to and from the island. The operators responsible for the jamming noise are actively monitoring the band and the noise signals move across the band to stop specific communications. Most of the ham community think the Cuban government is only jamming on 40-meters, but I find it strange that the 20-meter band had noise that looked very similar.

The noise disapeared yesterday and I had several contacts including long conversations with David (KE5MXF) in Newalla, Oklahoma and Jimmie (KA5DOB) in Alamogordo, New Mexico. While I was outside on the radio, a fellow ham stopped his truck in front of our site. He was Scott (KA6SUY) from Chico, California. He’s here at the Elk’s Lodge in a fifth-wheel trailer with his wife. He only has a two-band (VHF-UHF) radio with him though. There are active repeaters here on those bands and a net is held every evening at 6:30pm. I’m able to join the net with my handheld Yaesu FT3D transceiver.

Last year, we found something new in the area. There’s a parking lot about half a mile east of the lodge that became home to a number of food trucks. We went there on Thursday and I went for the Korean truck and ordered Bi Bim Bap – a rice bowl with stir fried meat and veggies topped with a fried egg and spiced with kim chee. Good stuff, but the spice had my head sweating! Donna didn’t find anything she wanted there, so she made herself a salad back at the RV park.

For the first week we were here, the Elk’s RV park was full. Everyday a few people would leave and their sites would quickly be re-occupied. RVers were turned away every afternoon. Early last week it changed. It was as if someone flipped a switch. Suddenly there were a dozen open sites. My theory is that many people scheduled vacation time to coincide with the Fourth of July holiday and now they’ve gone home.

I knew we were probably going to have an issue on Thursday when three campers took up residence behind and adjacent to our site. There was a small class C motorhome, a small teardrop trailer and a truck camper. They were all traveling together and when they set out a portable fire pit, put up a few canopies, tables and chairs it looked like party central. Sure enough, when we went to bed at 10:30pm, they were sitting around the campfire talking loudly. I don’t know what they were thinking – it was like they thought they were at a campfire secluded in the woods. In reality, they were at an Elk’s Lodge in a residential neighborhood with RVs within 20 feet of their party. The Elk’s RV park has quiet hours from 10pm to 7am. We had to ask them to tone it down. They lowered their volume, but still kept Donna up until well past midnight. Thankfully they pulled out yesterday.

Friday morning we secured everything in the coach. I removed the window covers and disconnected the power cord. I left our table, my antenna, the grill, the truck and a few odds and ends in the site while we drove the coach to the dumpstation on Dalton next to the Kootenai County Fairgrounds RV park. It had been 11 days since we last dumped our holding tanks in Moscow. We should be set until we’re leaving Coeur d’Alene now.

We found pickleball! On Thursday we went to Cherry Hill Park and found temporary courts set up. We didn’t get there until 10am and most of the players had already called it a day. We were able to join in and get a couple of games with people still there. They told us that most of the play at that park is organized in advance. What we came across was a group of 4.0 level players on one set of courts and beginner lessons on the other courts. They told us about open play at Memorial Park.

Yesterday we went to Memorial Park and found eight courts with open play. There were probably about 40 players there but the courts opened quickly with a four-off and four-on format. We each played seven games with less than five minutes between games. It was fun and we’ll go back.

Donna served a few delicious and interesting meals since my last post. First up is a grilled chicken thigh with an Asian inspired marinade. She served it with roasted sweet potato and grilled bok choy.

Grilled chicken thigh and bok choy with roasted sweet potato

After pickleball on Thursday, we made a stop at Costco. Donna found fresh wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. I looked for a case of bottled water, but couldn’t find any. I asked a store employee and he told us they were out of water! Then he told us why – he said members of a fire fighting crew came in that morning and loaded up all of the water. I don’t mind them taking all the water they could get their hands on – they’re battling a lot of wildfires in the forests around here.

Donna grilled the salmon with the same Asian marinade she used on the chicken thighs and it was excellent. She served it with white rice and french-cut green beans topped with everything bagel seasoning.

At Costco, we also bought a two-pack of whole chickens. I broke them down and Donna brined two chicken breasts Saturday before she grilled them. She made a Moroccan spice topping and served it with the leftover rice and French-cut green beans. I don’t think chicken breast gets much better than this.

The temperature warmed up yesterday and we’ll see 90 degrees again today. The forecast for the coming week is mid-90s and close to 100 next weekend. Our plan is to pull out of here on Saturday. We’ll spend the night at a casino northwest of Spokane near the airport, then continue on to Twisp, Washington on Sunday. We’ll be in Mount Vernon on the west side of Washington on Monday.

A Tale of Two Beaches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

City beach and swimming area in Sandpoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hot and Smoky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ponies and Snakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hole in the rock looking down on the canal

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

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

Lousy photo of the end-grain maple board

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can’t Fool Hayspur Fish

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quiet Fourth of July

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

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

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

Here are some photos Donna took on their hike.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donna in the pavilion at the Japanese Friendship Garden

Water features in the garden flowing from east to west

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

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

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

Soldering Station

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, we’re eating well.

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

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Cool August Day

Miles of Wildfire Smoke

Fire Detour

Cuban Ham Jam

A Tale of Two Beaches

Hot and Smoky

Ponies and Snakes

Can’t Fool Hayspur Fish

Quiet Fourth of July

Soldering Station

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