Home

Well.

We made it home from our first loop.  Conference in Kamloops ended and we headed for the ferry.  We caught the 5pm (which left late, surprise) and arrive home this evening.

We opened what looked like a ton of mail and sorted it into piles.  No surprise that the junk mail took up the biggest pile.

Looking forward to going to sleep on a regular mattress . . .

Goodnight.

Tire Update Plus

Since we have been having problems with tires this trip I thought I would take a good look at all the tires. The one in front of the tire that blew looked like it might be separating. There is a crack / cut about 10 inches long where the tread meets the sidewall

I took the tire that blew yesterday to the local Fountain Tire and they suggested that the blow-out was caused by low inflation. Since it had just been installed by Camping World I was not happy. In addition, they would not warranty the tire - they took the tire to check it out. It had a nail hole in it so I guess it lost the pressure and running on the rim caused it to blow apart.

While they were mounting the new tire I bought a 6 ton jack, went back to the trailer and got the other tire and took it in. The owner / manager did not think it was separating (he thought road debris had cut the tire) but I bought a new tire anyway. I have kept that tire and will have it mounted as my second spare. The trailer will look different with two spare tires mounted on the back bumper.

Since we are near the end of our trip I have a quick quiz.

1) How many tires have we bought this trip?

2) How many live moose did we see?

3) How many states did we go through?

Leave a comment if you think you know the answers.

Kathie is at her conference tonight, Saturday and Sunday morning and we will be headed home on Sunday afternoon.

It is cool here and windy with a forecast of mixed rain and snow for tonight and for the next few days.

So how many tires does it take?

We blew one of our new trailer tires today as we pulled through Kamloops. I will take the rim in tomorrow and have a new one put on.

We were lucky that the other tire held together and we must thank the guys at the Fountain Tire headquarters who changed the tire for us. We went there thinking they were a shop but it was their office and re-tred centre.

So I think we are staying at the old Tum Tum Tenting site. The trains are within a stones throw.

The drive today was interesting - we drove from Osoyoos to Princeton to Aspen Grove to Merritt and then we drove highway 5a which runs on the east side of the valley up to Kamloops. The road runs beside a series of lakes - one of which I've wanted to see since I was a child traveling with my parents - Stump Lake.

Back in Canada eh!?

We drove north into Canada today. Last nights campsite at Moses Lake was "interesting". It was "open" but most of it was closed for winter. The had all of the campers crammed into the first two sections of the campsite. We were jammed in and had to wait for the guy next to us to move his truck before we could hook up and leave.

Tonights campsite in Osoyoos is open all year. The campsite is about 2/3 full. The pool is open and there is a band playing in the games room tonight.

Here is a picture of our campsite.

Kathie and I went shopping (more on that later) and then sat on the beach.

Tonight I took some pictures from the back of the trailer.

So Kathie and I did the shopping today. When we came across the border they asked us if we had any fresh fruit or vegetables. We had Washington State grown Granny Smith apples and Idaho potatoes. They made us throw them out. At the grocery store we bought Washington State grown Granny Smith apples and looked for some Idaho potatoes but we could only find the local ones.

We can tell we are back in Canada, not because the prices are higher (they aren't for most items) but while we were shopping Kathie pointed out (with a laugh) "look Honey there's only one kind of briquettes". The selection is much smaller here for many items.

The items we will be paying more for are beer, wine, briquettes and fuel.

Rest Day

Today was a rest day. We have covered 6,000 k already this month and today it was time to sit around and "rest".

Kathie did her workout this morning and I ran early this afternoon.

James watched videos he downloaded from the 'net.

The weather is great, sunny, cool (4) in the morning and warm (20) in the afternoon.

Tomorrow we are headed back to Canada, we are stopping in Kamloops before heading home.

Along the way

We spent the last couple of days travelling along I80 which follows the Oregon Trail. There are all kinds of mile posts and information signs. This adds to the drive as it is mostly prairie, flat and straight.

One of the things we have noticed is there are a number of town / city names that are in a number of states. There must be at least 5 different states with the town of Lexington, including Kansas which also has the battle of Lexington.

As you drive along you see old farm equipment, wooden wagon wheels and covered wagons in various stages of decay.

There are also old abandoned farms and vehicles.

The campsite we stayed in Baker City, Oregon had antique farm equipment scattered throughout the campsite. They also had a covered wagon.

On days that we are moving from one place to the next we usually stop at rest stops for lunch. Todays route did not provide us with a rest stops so we ended up stopping at a winery for lunch. We went into the guest area and purchased some wine and cooked lunch in the trailer. Right beside the where we parked the trailer was a wine vessel that was the appropriate size for one of our friends.

Yes that does say 20,700 litres.

R.I.P. Abby

Our Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Abby, will not make the trip all the way home.  Although she was 14, up until last year she continued to act as young as a puppy.  During the last year she got old, and last night she passed.

We will miss her, our Bernese Mountain Dog, Kody, will miss her too.  There will be an empty spot in our hearts.

Falling with Style and Falls

We are in Eden which is near the city of Twin Falls. The Snake River flows through here. It is a deep gorge caused when Bonniville Lake burst it's banks 30,000 years ago.

In Twin Falls there is a bridge over the river where they allow base jumping. Base jumping is parachuting from high places without a plane. We went down to look at the bridge and got lucky with several base jumpers leaping from the bridge and trying to land on a target that was below us.

Here are a few pictures.

The last jumper (the first picture) jumped from the railing.

Here is his 'chute opening.

And here is the 'chute open.

After the show at the bridge we went down to Shoshone Falls which is just upstream from where the bridge is. We were not far from where Evil Knienviel tried to jump the Snake River on a rocket powered motorcycle.

After dinner I went to the entrance of the campsite to get some pictures of the sunset.

We are moving again, once again north and west.

Wyoming, Utah, Idaho

The last night we were in Greeley Colorado it was a full moon. The skies were clear so here is what the moon looks like from here.

We left Greeley and started our drive across the Rockies. The first rest stop in Wyoming had 8 inches of snow last weekend and you can see the remnants below.

We stopped at another rest stop for lunch and this was the notice posted on the fence.

We decided to keep the dogs close.

The campsite in Rock Springs, Wyoming was a gravel parking lot with hook-ups. It is also really flat around there.

There was a heavy frost on the ground this morning.

The drive today was easy, no wind, generally down hill (we dropped about 2000 feed over the day) and the speed limit is 75 mph or 122 kph. With the speed limit that high I drive to my exhaust gas temperature gauge so I don't melt my pistons. This meant we were doing about 110k so my milage really suffered but I kept up with the semi's (which is safer than having them pass you all the time).

I watched two different semi's suffer tire failures so I don't follow too closely. Dodging tire carcasses in the middle of the lane at over 100 kph can be tricky.

We drove in 3 different states today. Last year we did the same 3 states in a day but in a different order.

When we got here, Eden Idaho, it was 24 degrees with more of the same forecast for tomorrow.

Windy Wyoming

Well, today was supposed to be a pretty boring drive - up 85 to 80 then across Wyoming to Rock Springs.  Hmmm, best laid plans.

The road started climbing - although it is high plains as opposed to mountains, we still got quite high.  High enough that at 8,640 feet when we stopped to pour more coffee I could put my foot in the snow.  Some other things we saw:

• At 8,000 ft we saw a town with a population of one.  
• We crossed two signs for the continental divide.
• The antelope were playing (but we saw no deer).  
• We saw a covered wagon being pulled by four horses.  

We also saw variable speed signs all along this stretch.  Kinda like in Hazzard County - except they're supposed to change depending on the weather.  And the weather apparently means high winds.

The first highway advisory we saw said wind gusts over 40 MPH (64 kph).  Then we saw an advisory that said wind gusts over 50 MPH (80 kph) - no lite trailers permitted.  So, I got the iPad out and looked up what they considered a lite trailer.  WYDOT, being a typical government agency, does not define a lite trailer but says one that is empty or might be affected by the wind.  Well, we travel with full tanks and we purposely bought a heavy trailer, so we figured we'd keep going.  Paul did some white knuckle driving but we came through just fine.

We thought about stopping in Rawlins, but the WYDOT road conditions said the high winds advisory ended for the rest of the trip, so we kept driving to our planned destination tonight which is here in Rock Springs.  We have a 2010 Trailer Life and had selected an RV park, but when I went to look up the website, it was no longer there.  Luckily it has just changed to a KOA, not our favourite campgrounds to stay in but it will do for the night.

Farewell Denver

We are leaving Denver this morning. Yesterday we took James in town to the Games Workshop for a couple of hours. Because our campsite was in Greeley, it was an hour and a half to get in to town center. Then the same again and longer coming bsck because of rush hour traffic. Once you are in the city, Denver is like every other large city.

We would have stayed at a closer RV place but the other one open was 55+ and no pets. Paul would have been lonely. The largest problem with our RV site is that in the morning the whole place smelled like fertilizer (the horse kind). Other than that it was a nice place.

Lizzie/Lucy wanted to tske us up Hwy 25 this morning but we decided on 85 instead.

Let's go shopping at Camping World

We went shopping today at the supermarket of RV stores, Camping World. It was not an accident that we stopped in Denver, it has 3 Camping Worlds and Kathie had our shopping list ready to go.

The first thing on the list was a new set of tires. The other day when I was putting in the wheel chocks I noticed that one of the tires was concave for about 1/3 of the tire. Speculation is that the steel belts had broken inside the tire. Camping World has a full service operation including tires and anything else to do with trailers, motorhomes or tow vehicles. So the trailer as a new set of tires including a new spare. The same tires here here are about $100/tire less than at home. The beer is cheaper as well.

We had about 2 1/2 hours to spend in the store so we were able to make several rounds and find most of the things on our list. Shopping at Camping World is great because of the selection and in some cases you find things that you could not at home.

There is also a better selection at the supermarket. There are a number of items we have bought to bring home with us because they are not available in Canada. Unfortunately we don't have room for the BBQ briquettes I want to bring home. They have 5 different kinds of Kingsford briquettes.

It was a boring day for James but tomorrow we are taking him to the Games Workshop in Denver.

The dogs are doing fine.

Mile High City

Last night we were in the high plains of Kansas.  Today we drove to Denver.  I had always thought that Denver would be surrounded by mountains.  But mostly today we drove on the plains.  The rise is so gradual, you don't really think about getting higher and higher.  In fact, we didn't see peaks of mountains until half-way through the travel day.  And still the peaked mountains look like they are off in the distance.  Yet we are a mile high.

Kansas Back to the Prairies

This will be short - it was a long day. We are now in the High Plains area of Kansas.

We are on the prairies again and the driving is relatively flat (long gradual uphill) with a ferocious cross wind.

The drive took us right through Kansas City, Missouri where we drove by the Kansas City Royals stadium (for my brother Al) and later just outside of Kansas City, Kansas there was a NASCAR race (for my brother Malcolm) with thousands of people watching. The parking lot was huge. Nobody was at the baseball stadium because the Royals season is over.

The weather when we left Missouri was warm. The weather here is cool. 4 degrees tonight but that is unusual - it is normally -1. The campsite has a warning - "Awnings and the High Planes simply don't mix. Please leave awnings rolled up. we can experience very sudden wind changes.". Once again there are instructions as to what to do incase of severe weather.

No Vacancy and Hunting for Barns

The campsite we are in is full tonight. The weather is warm and the you can hear the drone of air conditioners through the campground. The most noise is coming from the bus two sites over because he has 2-3 air conditioners on his rig and they are all working away.

This morning I drove around looking for barns. I found a few including the ones below. At least I didn't get chased by any dogs today.

Tomorrow we are moving again, getting closer to the mountains.

Interstate Driving

My new favourite barn is in Kentucky.

We have been driving on Interstates for a couple of weeks. This weeks Interstate is I64. We were going to follow I64 to I70 to Denver. At rest area we were at for lunch the other day Kathie saw a sign that said a bridge on I64 at Louisville was closed and alternate routes should be taken. This was the only indication that we had that there was an issue with the route.

We had already planned to be in Frankfort which is only 50 miles from Louisville so we continued on our way. Last night we spent over an hour trying to plan our way around Louisville. The recommended routes were to go north to Cincinnati or south to Nashville. While looking at the map we noticed the BlueGrass Parkway which cut diagonally across Kentucky.

Parkways and Turnpikes are usually toll roads but they had taken the tolls off the road. It was an easy drive as there were few hills the traffic was light until we turned north onto I24 which merged with I 57 after a few miles.

In the past we have avoided the Interstates because of the heavy truck traffic and you don't get to see much of the countryside. They are faster as the speed limit is usually 65 or 70 mph. We also have to pull over for fuel more often.

The problem with state roads and smaller highways these days is they can be very rough. Fifteen years ago they were well maintained and now they do not seem to be. In addition, some of them are very narrow and the speed limit is 55 mph. The one we were driving down the other day the shoulder white line was part of the lane and there was no shoulder. Fortunately we only had the truck (and not the trailer as well) as the truck took up almost all of the lane. The BlueGrass Parkway was an exception to this as it was smooth and wide.

We are starting to see more police cars again. We haven't seen this many since we left Ontario. Here though, the vehicles we see pulled over most often are the semi's.

Now that we have moved south there are actually other campers staying in the campsite. In Frankfort they were not sure they would have room for us. Tonight there is a motorhome rally in the campsite (so once again we (at 50 feet long) are one of the smaller rigs in the campground). That was quite a change from Cooperstown where there were only 1 or 2 other campers and Roanoke West Virginia where we were the only campers there.

Relaxing in the Sun

We spent a large part of the day just relaxing in the sunshine.  Although it was 10 degrees when we woke up, it warmed up to a balmy 24 in the afternoon.  The campsite is quiet and shady with enough sunny areas that it was nice to just sit (although Paul did get out for a couple of pictures of course).

This area is bourbon country.  Bourbon manufacturing plants and large horse ranches pretty much make up the landscape. 

Warmth and sunshine

We moved from West Virginia to Kentucky today and as we were getting close Kentucky we could see blue sky for the first time is days. When we got here is was warm (about 24 degrees). This is the warmest day we have had in a while.

The place we are staying at has the following notice in their campground information -

"In case of Severe weather, turn your TV to Channel 3. This weather report will come from Louisville which is about 50 miles away. You are in Frankfort in Franklin County. When you hear the report for Shelby County you will have about 15 minutes to get to the underground parking area at the Capital Plaza Hotel."

Since we don't have a TV I am not sure this applies to us - or I am going to have to make friends with the guys watching the ballgame on the TV mounted in the outside cupboard of their bus style motorhome. Not only that I am not sure my truck will fit in the underground parking.

We are staying here a couple of days and will be planning our next week of travels.

Fog and Rain

We moved from Harrisburg into West Virginia today and spent the day driving through the mountains (up to about 3,000 feet) in rain and fog. It was 6 degrees when we got up and it did not warm up very much. We were moving along pretty quickly as the speed limit here is 70 mph or 112 Kph. Because there are lots of hills and big semis we generally move along at about 105 except for the bigger hills where we slow down and we have been up to 115 -120 for short sections. My guess is that my mpg is going to go down. The roads have been really good for the last few days.

When we stopped for lunch we abandoned our usual BBQ'ed hot dogs for a deli lunch in the trailer with the heat on. That is the first time this trip that we have done that.

Below is a picture of one of our lunch stops from a few days ago when it was sunny. You can see the BBQ at the back of the trailer. There was no picnic area at this rest area so we just set up shop at the trailer.

The campsite we chose for tonight said "Open all year". We are the only people here. The owner said to Kathie "you don't want to use the washrooms do you!?". The campsite is also down a long 5 mile country road that is only 1 1/2 lanes wide. I don't know what I will do if I meet someone going the other way when we leave tomorrow. I may have heard banjos playing because one of the "resorts" around here is the Hillbilly Cabins.

Gettysburg

We spent a large part of today in Gettysburg looking for copies of Lincoln's address and "avoiding the FBI".  The treasure hunt put on by Lincoln's Lost Treasure was great fun.  Yesterday we received a call to ensure we knew the meeting place and to be sure that we understood that we needed to "tell no one, and be sure no one is following".  We started the day meeting with a british woman, ran into a russian spy and eventually . . . well, I can't tell you, if I did I would have to kill you.

It was a great way to spend a couple of hours exploring the downtown area of Gettysburg and we met interesting people in our group as well.  When Natasha, the russian spy, informed James that he should be married already at 18, we informed her that we were waiting for Lindsay (11 years old, from Texas) to be two years older.   She agreed that this was reasonable.


We have to move on from Pennsylvania tomorrow, but it has been an interesting experience.  We are heading a little more south in the hopes that it will get warmer as we move west.

Barns and things

Today we will talk about barns and the regional differences I have noticed while working on my project.

The first picture is a barn in the area that we are in now. You will notice that one side is cantilevered. This seems to be the design favoured for barns in this area. You will also notice that it has windows.

This next barn is from the area north of here in New England. The barns up there are not cantilevered but they do have windows. This one has a variegated roof which was quite different.

Below is a northern barn. It has no windows.

Now I guess I am going to have to find out why the different designs of barns are favoured in each of the areas.

Onto a couple of other pictures. Here is one of Kathie in Baseball Hall of Fame at the plaques of her two favourite players, Paul Molitor and Denis Eckersley. Just above her head is the plaque for "The Wizard" Ozzie Smith one of favourite players.

Below is a picture of our campsite. The guy beside us has been working here and is about to head to Florida because it is getting too cold. It was 12- 15 degrees here today and I saw a lot of people in their winter jackets. It has been raining here (of course).

His truck is really cool. It is registered as a motorhome because it has a bed, fridge, microwave and some other stuff. He then tows a 35 foot 5th wheel with it. The truck has a 5000 watt diesel generator so they can park anywhere. He gets 9 US miles to the gallon when he tows and 12 mpg when he isn't towing. It is a 2004 model and he paid less than I did for my truck. They are fulltimers and they also have a Jeep for driving around.