Category: Traveling the hiways and byways

We got a late start for a longer drive today to right outside Sandusky, Ohio.    It was mostly freeway so fairly uneventful.   Lots of road construction in Michigan and Ohio.   Got to go thru my first EZ-Pass toll booths today.  [A big thank you to Connie for going through all our mail and sending the transponder out!!]  The arm went up on the second one,  the first one was already up.   No indication it took our money,  no lights at all.   I guess the arm going up when leaving the turnpike was a good sign.  I got onto my IPASS account and there is no activity yet.   I guess electronic transactions take a while for the EZ-Pass folks.  Maybe they use sneaker.net.    🙂

We just ordered pizza for delivery to the campsite… It’s been a long time between pizza’s..  Maybe April?   Geez.

 

About 60 miles east of our overnight was Cleveland.  I didn’t imagine the factory of sadness town would be so nice looking.  [I was bummed it was too far to go to Michael Symon’s restaurant downtown!]

The second leg of the trip was about as long as the first day’s but at least we ended up on Grand Island next to Niagara Falls.   As we got into the park, it started to pour,  I almost thought it was hailing, it sounded like hail, but it didn’t look like it.   It’s always fun setting up in the rain.   Just finding the site in the downpour was a challenge, and of course it was a back-in site.  Pull thru’s on rainy days are a godsend.

This campground is very, very nice!   Even the showers are top shelf, although the water pressure was a bit on the wimpy side.

Off to the Falls in the morning.

 

We headed out of Paradise Point Tuesday late in the morning and headed toward the Mackinac Bridge.  It’s a really long bridge with a lot of construction going on that day.   I just looked it up and it’s twice as long as the Verrazano.   Weird thing is the speed limit for loaded trucks is 15 MPH.   Could you imagine trucks crossing the Golden Gate, Verrazano or GW bridges at 15 MPH and it not being rush hour?!

We scheduled 5 days for Gaylord in a KOA just south of town.   Pretty nice place as KOA’s go.   The real reason for staying here was to get the fridge sensor fixed.   We had an appointment on Wednesday @ 9 am for the diagnostic.   Of course it was pouring rain Wednesday morning and I made my way to the RV dealer just north of town.    They took down all the necessary info from the coach and called Norcold to ask that they ship a new sensor.   Norcold asked them to try using a magnet on the sensor,  which I already had done.  But they explained that if the sensor had gotten wet, then I would have needed to wait a couple days to try it.   I didn’t know that at the time.  But when the tech tried it, (it had been almost 2 weeks)  it reset.    He was done and I could leave.   OMG.

Thursday we decided to scrub the coach and use the new central Vac I had installed for a thorough vacuuming.  Wow does that new unit have a lot of suction!!   Kathy might have been right that she thought it might suck the tiles off the floor.   The best thing about a central vac is the air (and dust) does not blow back into the house like a regular vacuum does.   We cleaned everything well.

Wednesday evening right around 6 pm the Emergency broadcast System   Alert went off about a Tornado a bit southwest of us.   Great…  More weather,  I immediately got out the laptop to look at the Doppler for our area.  Wow,  lots of red areas around us.  I went outside and put the chairs, tables and grill back in the belly of the coach and mentioned what I heard to a few of our neighbors.   Thankfully the tornado touched down about 30 miles from us and was an EF0 and did almost no damage.   But the rains came like a banshee and went on for hours, only slacking off a bit around midnight.   Our campground looked like a lake that night .  But Thursday morning it had all drained away.  Must be all sand around here.

Friday was a down day,  we did some grocery shopping and basically was lazy all day.   Hey,  I really am retired.    Saturday I affixed the I-Pass/EZ-Pass Toll Transponder to the windshield.   I attempted to charge it up for all the tolls I will be hitting in Ohio and NY in the next few days as we head toward Niagra Falls.   Turns out I had to add a new credit card number to the account as the one I used to initially order the device and put the minimum amount in the account would not work for reloading the account.  I guess they must use different merchant accounts for initialization and refills.   I use VAN’s for most autopay stuff,  (Virtual Account Numbers) thru my Citi cards.    Sometimes they can be a bit tricky in situations where the might use different merchant numbers each time.  I know Amazon does,  so I cannot use a VAN there,  I tried.

I also spent some time trying to get tickets for some of the TV Shows in NYC.  The Late Show,  SNL and especially for Kathy The Chew and Dr Oz.   It will be interesting to see if any come thru while we are still in the area.

 

 

 

 

It was getting hot in Sioux Falls as we headed out around 10am.   Kind of late for a 5-6 hour drive day.   We planned to stop for lunch at a rest stop that should take about 2 hours to arrive.

We have a fairly uneventful drive all the way to Detroit Lakes and the Country Campground.   We did get to drive thru Fargo,  for some reason I thought Fargo was a ways from Minnesota.  But its not.  Fargo is right on the border.   We didn’t get to stop there,  but I did  keep an eye out for Ray.   We were in Mn lickety-split and about 20 minutes in I looked over at Kathy and said it appeared the oversold the lake stuff as we hadn’t seen one yet.   In a few minutes we saw the first one, and now they are everywhere.   Everything is lush and green here.  Nothing like what we are used to in San Diego.  Found the campground quickly and was escorted to our site.

 

We left Cody on Tuesday morning heading for a KOA in Buffalo Wy.   Not a particularly long drive, but we did need to go over the Big Horn mountain range so we knew it might be a scenic one.  (steep)  It didn’t let us down.   Just past the town of Ten Sleep, we started to climb.   Once we reached the really steep part, we were a few cars behind a cattle truck going 15 miles an hour.  After we slowly passed a few turnouts, I knew we were in for a long day.   This joker wasn’t going to pull over.   About 20 minutes of driving that slow and I was ready to pull my hair out.  [I can’t tell you how much it bothers Bill when people drive too slow in front of him, even in the beautiful, scenic parks.  Something new I discovered about him.]

I saw a large turnout coming up and we pulled over to grab a bite as it was just after noon anyway.  We were there probably 15 minutes,  including the dog walk.   Then we got back on the road up.   Not 10 minutes later we ran into the back of a much longer line of cars and trucks with that dang cattle truck way up front.  Oh, The Horror!

He was still not pulling over.   We sat behind that line for at least another hour [Really probably 20 minutes] and at times we were at 5 mph.  Never exceeded 15.  Finally, as we were about to find the summit, he pulled over.   And all the vehicles went around him until a trailer that was two spots in front of us.   He was going to let that guy back in…. I leaned on the air horn… for at least 45 seconds before he pulled out and we got past.  I was not going to stay behind that truck any longer.  Can’t imagine what he would be doing on the long, steep grades heading to the valley below and Buffalo, our destination for the day.

There were four very long 7% downgrades with mandatory brake checks for trucks  and RVs.  Had never seen that on a sign before.  But the grades were amazingly long straights ending with sharp turns all the way down.

We found the KOA, checked in and was led to our spot for the night.   We deployed the living space and unlatched the car so we could go into town.   It was HOT so off to the showers.

Once back we headed into town.  It was still pretty hot,  mid-90’s.  I had read a bit about the town.  I guess its current claim to fame is Longmire Days.  (I had missed that part)  Turns out the guy who wrote the books the TV show is based on lived here and wrote about life in and around Buffalo Wy.  As fate has it,  the celebration begins on Friday.  We were leaving on Thursday.  But I heard Starbuck wasn’t going to show, so I didn’t care.

We stopped by a local museum and picked up a few walking tour maps.   Geez,  they were so incorrect it was comical.   Many U-turns and lefts listed but were supposed to be rights.  I wondered who compiled this mess.  [Thank goodness we were driving.  We would have died on the tour it was so hot!!]

After we drove all around the town’s back streets for about an hour, it had cooled off by at least a degree,  maybe two.  It was about 95, so we parked on Main Street and started walking the very short old downtown.   There are a lot of places called “Crazy Woman”  something,  Square, Canyon, Road, liquor store, Realty etc.  I still don’t have any idea what that is all about.

There was a farmers market happening but not like any I had seen before.  No produce.  Mostly trinkets, and some raw milk tents,

We stopped in the Mishap Brewery and the bartender noticed my dogs looking in the window and said there was a patio out back and that we could bring them in thru the brewery.    Had a decent pint and Kathy had what looked to be a highball glass of white wine (Cold, Anything Cold she had told him)

The beer was just OK,  so I didn’t bother getting a growler fill.   It was still really warm on the patio, so we left and headed up the street to a bench on a small bridge crossing the Clear Creek.  There was a glorious breeze there, and we sat there a bit conversing with a lady driving a horse-drawn cart.    The horse was maybe five feet from us and the pups didn’t let him out of their sight.   She mentioned she grew up just outside of Cody where we had just come from and said she had moved to Bellingham, Washington for some time and missed riding horses,  Not sure why she was in Buffalo and not in Cody, but before we could ask, she got a fare.

We headed off for the Occidental Hotel.  It’s the main attraction in the town,  nice place.  After looking in there and the attached saloon, we walked back to the car and headed back toward the campground.  Kathy was dying of heat prostration, starved and wanted Mexican, or anything where she didn’t have to cook.   Taco John’s.   Kind of a glorified Taco Bell but slightly better.  The street tacos weren’t bad.

That night a big storm blew in, lots of wind, lightning and thunder.. and of course, large drops of rain pelted the coach.

In the morning it was beautiful again, and getting warm fast.   Packing up and heading for Devil’s Tower!

 

 

 

Saturday morning started out sunny and cool.   After a quick breakfast we started our process for moving which begins by putting cloth napkins between all the plates and the pots and pans to prevent them from rattling on every bump and seam in the road.   We pack all the loose items away in their places,  sometimes a different spot and then they can be difficult to find when you need them later.    We lash  the recliners to the bulkhead with seat belts that were for the couch that previously occupied that space,  bring in the dog crate and wedge it under the dining room table.   I set up the TPMS to see if any tires need to be topped off and also fire up the Vmspec engine/tyranny monitoring system,  dump all the tanks.   While that is progressing, I move the Equinox into position for towing and let it idle the 5 minutes required prior to each day’s pull, during which I hook up the tow bar, safety cables and electric cable so the brakes and turn signals work on the TOAD.   You have to tow the Equinox with the key in the ignition and turned on one click so the steering wheel is unlocked,  also the transmission must be in Neutral.

After that is ready, it’s time to stow the hoses from dumping the tanks,   disconnect the water line and 50 amp electrical cable and wind them up on their reels.   By this time Kathy should have the inside ready to haul in the slides.   There are four of them, and I usually bring in the bedroom slides first,  then go up front and bring in the living room and kitchen slides.   Once those are in, I can depressurize the hydraulic jacks.   That’s when all the racket starts, the bells telling you not to drive away with the leveling jacks down and some buzzers telling you there isn’t enough air pressure to release the parking brake or to use the air brakes if needed.  Once the compressor gets both sides to about 60 lbs, the buzzer stops.   That leveling jack bell usually shuts up at about the same time, indicating the Jacks are stowed.  One more circumnavigation of the coach, making sure everything is disconnected, locked, and the ladder and antenna are cinched tight, it’s time to get on the road!

We head back into Yellowstone Park as that is the shortest way to Cody.   We have already driven about 2/3 of the route we will take in the car, so we know what to expect.  The last third over a pass and out the east gate will be a new road.   It’s another fairly high pass with switchbacks all the way up.  They are hardly noticeable due to slow traffic in front of us the whole way up and the gorgeous views out the front!   Going down the other side was a different story.  Very steep downgrade for about 18 miles with lots of 20 mph turns at the bottom of long straightaways.  Thank god for the Jake brake!   No way would the brakes still be working after the first few miles going down.

At the bottom was the Buffalo Bill State Park and the Buffalo Bill Dam.   The reservoir was pretty big,  went on for miles.   Once we got to the dam parking area, we pulled in and walked over to the the dam.

I couldn’t figure out what all the noise was, but as we got fairly close, I realized the water was right at the top of the dam and they must be in a big hurry to get the level down, so that must be the loud roar.

It was.   We walked out onto the top of the dam and it was deafening.  I took a few pictures, then thought I should take some video to see if I could capture the roar.    I listened to them later and it didn’t seem like a roar.  I guess the phone isn’t really suited for capturing that.

They were letting out a lot of water.  I asked inside about it and they said they were just barely able to keep ahead of the snow melt, and that all the T-Storms recently were adding more water than they could release.  She seemed concerned about that.   Note to self… don’t extend the stay in Cody past Wednesday.

The campground is pretty nice,  but not much shade.   The trees are tall but very skinny.

 

 

Can’t wait to see the Museum!

 

It was a longer drive then we have been doing, but we lucked out getting 7 nights in West Yellowstone at the last minute so we pushed it a bit, it was mostly freeway from SLC, except the last hundred miles.   Once out of the SLC suburbs, it became very pretty country and even nicer once we hit the Idaho border.   Only the last few miles of the trip were in Montana.   The weather was perfect, and as we got closer to our destination, the view of the Grand Tetons was breathtaking.   I think we will need to go there to get the full effect!  Stay tuned.