Back at the Hatchery

We made an early start Saturday morning to travel from Casper to Dubois, WY where we spent Saturday & Sunday night.  We started out early, again, this morning for the short, 2-hour drive over to the fish hatchery outside Jackson, WY.  Unusual for us, we didn't drive through rain either day! We did have a rain/thunderstorm shower Saturday night, and we've got dark clouds to the southwest of us as I write this.  Your guess is as good as mine as to whether we'll see any rain or not.

One surprise was the traffic as we got close to Teton National Park and Jackson:  This is the busiest we've seen this area this time of the year.  It's more similar to mid-June traffic.  Grocery store was busy, and the parking lot close to full.  We'll see if traffic is that way tomorrow as we plan to head into Yellowstone for the day.   

Snow:  There's some on the mountains, but not as much as I expected.  Snake River looks normal to us which probably means it's actually a little low.  Gro Ventre River looked OK, too.

No post is complete without some pictures.  Here's some from The Longhorn Ranch (first 3) where we spent Saturday & Sunday night plus our trip over Togwotee Pass and the Continental Divide this morning.  We'll see how the trip tomorrow turns out.  Thanks for dropping by.  Until next time, David

Mt Moran, Grand Teton National Park

We're finally into Jackson Hole with the Tetons on our right.  That's Black Butte to the left.

On Our Way to Jackson, WY

After a great visit to the Black Hills area, we are on our way to the fish hatchery near Jackson, WY for the summer.  Once, again, we'll be tour guides.  We're staying in Casper, WY tonight.  Storms are all around, and we have gusty winds.  The US Flag at the campground has been straight out since we arrived a little after noon.  We expect to be rocked all night by winds.  We're headed to Dubois, WY and more thunderstorms tomorrow.  (BTW:  The Weather Channel indicates the most likely times for the heaviest thunderstorms are when we planned to arrive and any time after we'd planned to arrive. Best time to arrive: too early to check in.  Go figure.)  Posting the blog tonight as we'll have no internet for the rest of the weekend once we leave here. 

Generally, despite the pictures you'll see below, we're traveling through rain or enjoying the local area in snow or rain.  In 2018 we pretty much followed the same route and spent the trip experiencing the various muds of the mid-west and west.  For 2019 we followed a slightly more southern route and beat the rain into Jackson.  This year we've experienced less moisture than in 2018, but we've generally traveled or experience rain during the majority of the trip. It hasn't been the never-ending training of rain that the southeast has experienced, but it's enough that you can't keep the trailer or truck clean.  Donna says I can't say we "always" travel in the rain.  She said I should state that we "usually" travel in the rain.  Our last completely dry day was May 6th.  It has either rained or snowed on us everyday since then - traveling or not.  The local weather people here in Casper, WY indicate more is on the way.  Hopefully, our travel day on Monday into Jackson will be dry.  Below you'll see what I consider pretty pictures with beautiful skies.  Just know it either rained or snowed on us sometime that day, and most likely we drove through it.

Lover's Leap, Custer State Park, SD

 

Our longest hike of the week was Lover's Leap.  It's about a four mile trail with some steep  trail areas with loose rocks.  To get to the highest point, you must do a rock scramble.  The views are worth it - see below.

This picture got the most "Likes" on Facebook

The view from Lover's Leap.

We also drove through the snow...OK, short, "medium" snow showers...to visit the DC Booth Historical Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD.  It's more of a museum covering the history of fish hatcheries though they do raise some fish for local stocking.  Made for a nice day-trip out, but only the gift shop was open.

Back to Custer State Park:  We did try another hike, but it was along an old wagon road used by area residents and miners.  Not as scenic as the Lover's Leap trail, but it definitely demonstrated that we were out of shape for the distance and elevation.  We were on Custer State Park's Wild Life Loop, so we did get a couple of wildlife pictures:

We also got out to Keystone, SD.  We drove by the "heads" (Mt Rushmore), but didn't stop.  Didn't even waved, either.  We ate ice cream in Hill City, too, for Mother's Day.  

So that's been our week or what I'll call our "vacation" as we treated it as such.  We ate as we wanted.  We tracked our food using WW, but didn't really try to stay within the "healthy range" as defined by WW.  Today was a late lunch at HQ Southern BBQ.  Loved every WW point of it, too, but I digress.  

Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Apparently, we're "forcing people to buy something" or "installing malware" when people visit the site.  We don't own this site.  We just have the privilege of using it.  If you're threatened by someone demanding you buy something or you get malware from the blog, not only report it to google but leave a comment or send us an email, too.  We'll report it to blogspot.  David

Black Hills, South Dakota

Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park

After a good visit in Sioux Falls, we took a couple of days to travel over to the Black Hills area for about a week's stay.  As usual, we started the trip off with rain on Wednesday & spent the night at New Frontier Campground in Presho, SD. We had a pretty Thursday trip over to the Black Hills.  

One view from Rafter J-Bar Ranch

We're at Rafter J-Bar Ranch for the week, one of favorite campgrounds.  It's centrally located (just south of Hill City, SD), which means you do a lot of driving to go do/see things.  We're in the campground's base camp area, but there are several areas and many cabins.  Most rigs seem to be in the base camp area as it has cable TV, close to the playground and restrooms/laundry.  

We've already ate breakfast & completed some shopping in Rapid City, yesterday (Friday).  To complete the day, we walked around Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park and had a great hamburger & fried cheese curds at Burger 'n Bun in Custer, SD.  

Yep, that's part of the Sylvan Lake Trail

As you can see in the picture, above, there's still some ice in the hills and some Custer State Park trails remain closed.  Gift shops are open, but dining doesn't seem to be.  Not sure about actual lodging within the state park. 

Base Camp as seen from the Lower Ranch Camp area

Today is laundry day as it's a rainy (local meteorologists call it a "washout") Mother's Day weekend for South Dakota.  Highs are in the low 50s or high 40s with each night below freezing.  As we have much less wind than earlier in the week, we'll get out some.  Maybe just walk the campground as it's a great place to just walk around.  Campground isn't busy, and they're just now stocking the camp store.  No ice cream, yet, so we've been out looking in other places.

We'll get out more later in the week as the rain dies down and temps start to warm up.  There's ice cream that needs to be eaten, you know.  In the meantime, the campground is a great place to walk if you just want to go outside for a little while.

Tire pressures are hanging in there on the truck.  I-90 was a much better ride than through Minnesota though there's a lot of road work ongoing.  As of this time, some of  eastbound I-90 lanes are dug up and getting a new road bed.  We've only lost one machine screw that holds one of the holding tank's pull handles to the pull rod.  (BTW, those are machine screws 8-32 X 1/2 inch; small head should you ever need one.)  I now have four extras of that screw plus a new, small vice-grip pliers in case we lose the handle.  I'll see if I can get just the handle once we arrive in Jackson.  Generally, once we have replacement parts, we'll never need them.

So you're up to date with us.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next week, David

 

Sioux Falls, SD

We're back in Sioux Falls for a few days.  Hope to meet up with Ken & Sue while we're here.  Donna has a couple of dentist appointments (yes, we have dentists everywhere), and I'd like to pick up mail.  We have one truck tire that's beginning to show signs of a possible air leak.  It's an inner wheel of the rear dual wheels, so we'll  keep an eye on it while we're here in Sioux Falls.

The trailer service at MORryde - while early morning - went find.  Several parts were replaced and we were out a little after noon.  Problem with me going to MORryde is that I see things that would be useful to add to the trailer.  This time it wasn't expensive.  They've developed motion sensitive step lights for the StepAbove steps.  We bought a package of them (two to a package), and we'll install them at some point.  Word to the wise:  If a MORryde rep offers to show you the product displays while you're waiting during service, stay away.  Stay far away. 

Trip out around Chicago was overly busy (no pandemic here) and rough on both truck and trailer.  At one point driving over roadside curbs would have been easier on the rig.  No joke.  We'd sustained serious front suspension damage if we'd hadn't been in stop & go traffic.  

We spent a couple of nights at DeForest, WI to rest up, then bounced along I-90.  And I do mean bounce!  Rocking horse bounce.  Wisconsin sections of I-90 mostly OK.  Minnesota...well, there's a lot of bounce, then there's not so much bounce.  What little we've traveled in South Dakota indicates we'll continue to bounce as we head west.

Current plans - OK, reservations - are for an overnight at Presho, SD, Wednesday night.  We move on to Hill City, SD Thursday where we plan to spend a week.  We'll continue on to Jackson, WY via Casper, WY and Dubious, WY.  Plan to arrive at the fish hatchery May 17th.  We want to make a day trip up to Yellowstone before we start work that following weekend.

In other news, for the first time in our RVing "career", we experienced an overbooked situation for a site type we'd made reservations for.  Campground wasn't full, but the full-hookup sites we'd fit in were overbooked.  There were water & electric sites available that we'd fit in, but the directions from the office staff required us to drive through trees to get to them.  Word to less experienced:  If you're unfamiliar with the campground, don't be afraid to walk the campground first. (I should have, but didn't.) Many RV parks haven't really started trimming their trees, yet, this early in the season.

Also, be aware that early in the season, campground staff may not be fully familiar with the RV park (or RVs for that matter).   So far we've stopped in a RV park where the fact that we were a 39 foot 5th wheel trailer didn't really "register" with the staff working the front desk.  You're a 39 foot long trailer so we'll give you a site that turns out to be about 50 feet long.  Ok, where would you like us to park our 22 foot long tow vehicle?  The lady with the golf cart that lead us to the site realized it was too short when we pulled in and called the front office to switch us to a longer site.  (Side bar:  as the lady on the golf cart was talking on her walkie-talkie to get us a longer site, the guy in the site next to us was "loudly" telling her that we'd almost hit a tree limb along the campground road to the site, and they need to trim back the @#$%^$&*%$# tree limbs.  I took it that he'd made this recommendation before.)  

By-the-way, there are campgrounds that we stay at where the longest sites are only 45 to 50 feet long.  Most have an area where it's convenient to park your tow vehicle or toad.  We typically plan to unhook, so it's no problem for us (and makes it easier to go refill the truck with fuel.) 

Ahhhhh...life in a RV.

So that gets up up to day with us.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next week, David

 

Elkhart, IN

Cartoon borrowed from a RV News Letter who got it from someone else, so it's not mine.  However, it does reflect the weekly events.  Reminds me of a TV advertisement from several years ago where they showed you a video of a Mars Rover.  The advertisement panned from the rover over to the product.  When the advertisement panned back to the rover, the rover was up on cinder blocks and all the wheels were missing.  My kind of humor!

We moved over to Elkhart Campground Friday.  Round one of trailer maintenance is complete, and Donna's completed two of three dental appointments.  A broken tooth last Sunday added to our ever changing schedule.  As we scheduled one of her dental appointments for this upcoming week, we found the dentist appointment conflicted with Tuesday's trailer service appointment (for suspension & wheel bearings) with MORryde.   Called MORryde to see if we could leave the trailer with them while Donna went to the dentist.  Turns out MORryde didn't have us on the schedule.  They had all the documentation including our confirmation, but we weren't scheduled.  MORryde rescheduled us for this Monday.  Guess there are silver linings to those unplanned events.

Trailer's got a new awning (acrylic material and is solid gray to match the gray on the trailer) and a new fridge.  Several wear items were repaired or replaced and a list of things to do/look at in late September created.  We'll see what breaks and add those to the list between now and then. An item or two was also deferred to September.  So we've already got a good list for September work.  Old fridge is to be repaired and sold.  Maybe we'll get some credit for it.  New fridge is installed so we can pull it out of the cabinet and roll it onto a dolly for future repairs.

With a trailer appointment on Monday and Donna's dental appointment on Tuesday, looks like we'll be able to head west on Wednesday.  Given Wednesday's weather is now predicted to be a solid rain day, I guess leaving Wednesday is pretty firm or at least as firm as it can be for us.  Still planning on an I-90 route west.  We'll see.

That gets you up to date with us.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Until next time, David

ONE.NORMAL.DAY

 

...life with a RV...

I use the cartoon above to make fun of the RV lifestyle, but I think it's probably true for all of us no matter what we do.  I recall sitting in Auto Park Ford's customer lounge one day.  I started venting about our hydraulics on the trailer.  I didn't know the gentleman I was making small talk with was a farmer.  When I was done, he said "Sounds just like my farm equipment."  I'm sure it did.

Anyway, our problem was so small and easy to fix that it's embarrassing.  Problem turned out to be a loose wiring harness. Yep, the trip over I-70 had worked one connection loose.  Didn't look loose, but it was.  A full test of the hydraulic system was done.  We were in & out in about 20 minutes.  Added this to another constantly growing list of things we do on a weekly basis just to ensure things are working.

So now we sit at Howe, IN while we get a new awning and refrigerator plus general maintenance on the trailer.  Today's high is about 60 F.  Later this week the high is 38 with freezing rain and snow.  Lows well below freezing.  Good week for the trailer to sit inside a heated building and be worked on.  Today is laundry day for us as few people use the hotel's laundry on Sundays.  Probably take advantage of the warmer weather and wash the trailer, too, before it goes in the shop in the morning.

We've been out a little bit.  Can't speak much for Michigan, but Indiana - at least Shipshewana - is open.  And I mean open.  Wear masks only if you want to, but they do ask that you use the provided plastic gloves at the buffets.  Since they didn't ask people to wash their hands first, the gloves seem a little "useless" to us.  At one bakery, most people didn't have a mask on and the six-foot between families rule was out the window, too.  Doubt people were washing their hands.   

Plans after we leave here?  Well, given how this past week went, who knows?  We'd like to leave the Elkhart area on April 28th.  We'd like to arrive at Jackson WY on May 17th.  We'd like to spend a few days at Sioux Falls and a week in the Black Hills.  Lets just leave it with "we'll try to do that".   See James 4:13-14

So that gets you caught up with us.  Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us (and tolerating my rants).  We'll post again when we have more news.  David

&%)*(*$##@@!@@#% Hydraulics

Well...we were on for a highly anticipated visit with Jerry, Ellen & Jan near Dayton, OH this weekend only to be foiled by the ever reliable & durable Lippert Hydraulics System (not).  Trip was actually going really well - probably too well - and it caught up with us today near Cambridge, OH were we'd stop for what we'd hope would be a nice, lazy afternoon without any rain.  Instead, we added another six hours to our trip to drive though lake-effect rain showers to Howe, IN where we can at least park the truck-trailer combo until Lippert can look at it tomorrow.  (Yes, once again we're stuck with the trailer on the truck.) And this is where we lucked out - Lippert could fit us in tomorrow morning.  Secretly, I think they're feeling sorry for us as we're always here every six months getting some unexpected failure with our hydraulics repaired.  This our second catastrophic hydraulic failure in six months.  Apparently, Lippert Hydraulic Systems aren't meant to be repairable?  Anyway, we're anxious to find out the cause.  The pump, motor, all but one solenoid, keypad and wiring harness were all replace with new parts in April 2019.  The one solenoid not replaced was replaced in 2017.  Today you could push all the buttons you wanted, the pump motor would run but nothing moved. Wonder what "new" part failed this time?

We were coming here hoping to have a dry-rotted awning replaced as well as a new fridge installed. (New replacements are at Indiana Interstate Enterprises in Lagrange, IN awaiting our arrival.)  We're hoping we can at least still get the frig done while we're here before we need to leave for Jackson, WY for the summer season.  We'll see.

Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us.  Just remember, RV really stands for Ruined Vacation.  #GORVing