The Sandcastle

30 07 08

A Day in the RV

We've had some requests for pictures of living in our Free Spirit. I know if I start posting pictures here the picture and the “more” button will overlap but I've been told that, if you click on the more button of the previous page, it will give you a page number in the header. Changing that number to the next higher number will move you on to the new page. I hope this works for you.

The typical day starts with us waking up in the bedroom.

(more)

30 07 08

It was a quiet day in...

Columbia Falls, Montana.  We woke up late this morning with lots of things on our minds so we decided to stay put here another day.  The weather was beautiful--mostly sunny with a cool breeze--so we spent a lot of time reading and computing.

When I went over to the office to see if we could stay I bought a roll of quarters for the showers and laundry.

I took advantage of the time and the weather to cut my hair.  I do this by putting a #12 guide on our Wahl hair clippers, plugging them into the RV while sitting outside, and running the clippers every which way all over my head.  Then Dave cuts across the back and around my ears and I'm good to go again.  A quick shower--it's amazing how having to pay a quarter for every 4 minutes makes you think you have to hurry--to wash off the loose hairs and I was set for the day.

This afternoon we did three loads of laundry which doesn't take long when you get to wash all three at the same time. ... (more)

29 07 08

Two for One Days

As we drive alongside rivers I find myself picking canoe routes through the rapids. This is interesting to me because my fear of water was increased by a fatal canoe accident that happened just downstream of us many years ago. So my sense of fun and my sense of panic are competing with one another here. I alternate between “Whee!” and “Ack!” Unfortunately, “Ack!” still wins.

Dave noted that we'd been traveling upstream for 140 miles. Mostly gentle but very LONG hills. The kind that makes me remember walking bicycles. Yet, we see bicyclists all over the place. Some carrying day packs, some with all their gear loaded on the back of their bikes, and one pulling a small trailer. It makes my legs hurt just to think of them but I wish them well in their travels.

My mind took a scenic loop. I never know what connections it's going to make. This one started with a sign that said, “watch for rock. ... (more)

28 07 08

I Wanna Go Home

Maybe not really but... Dave is missing the comfort of the familiar. Things like not only knowing where the grocery store is but where to find your favorite things within that store; not only knowing the people you will socialize with but maybe knowing the stories they will tell, and even when you go somewhere new, knowing the roads that will take you there.

So we are heading towards the familiar—Highway 2.  We are headed northeast from here with our eventual destination being the Leisure Travel Vans manufacturing plant near Winnipeg, Canada, where we hope to get some bugs out of our RV systems.

We've spent the last couple of nights in Clarksville, WA, just across the river from Lewiston, ID, catching up with our computer stuff. It was a nice, but expensive, park so when they offered us free pizza and root beer floats we took advantage of that. ... (more)

26 07 08

Family reunion

Dave is the oldest of four siblings.  They were all born and raised in Minnesota but his two brothers have since moved to White Bird, Idaho.  White Bird is a town of about 400 people in the Salmon River valley. 

It's a place that gets very hot in the summer but we had amazingly good weather.  We never even turned on the air conditioning in our RV during the three days we were there.  It did get hot in the sun but we parked in the shade of the old house and mostly sat in the shade of the new one.

Dave's brother designs and builds the most intriguing houses.  One he built in southeast Minneapolis made page one of the Home & Garden section of the Sunday Minneapolis Star Tribune back in the 70s when he built it.  One he designed for his parents up on the north shore of Lake Superior took such good advantage of passive solar heat that they had to open windows during Minnesota winters to let out some of that heat. ... (more)

25 07 08

Traveling to White Bird

We began the day by going to Peterson's Stampede in Nampa, Idaho, to get our power steering leak fixed. They looked at it and said “Yes, it's seeping but it's not dripping”. It seems they have to submit a photo of the puddle to Dodge to get authorization to make the repair under warranty. Apparently, we are supposed to keep driving until we run out of power steering fluid—then they will fix whatever damage that causes. Since we are in the mountains now, that idea makes me very nervous. We can't even check and fill the fluid ourselves since the owner's manual says the Sprinter's power steering is a closed system. There's something wrong with this picture so I'll keep working on a way to get this fixed without waiting for a total failure.

We stopped at a Flying J restaurant where we had the oddest sandwich for lunch. It was a basic hamburger with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles on it except it also had cheddar cheese ... (more)

21 07 08

Parked Mode

We've discovered that we like to park two nights in the same spot every five days or so to give us a chance to catch up with ourselves.  This time we are camped for three nights in Nampa, Idaho.

We arrived here late Saturday afternoon and moved into Garrity RV Park which is our first park offering an Escapees discount.  One of the first things we did was vacuum the RV with the baby 12 volt wet/dry vacuum I bought earlier in the day at a Flying J truck stop.  It worked amazingly well!  Then we figured out how to pack and stow it in our basement.

Sunday we dropped off prescriptions to be refilled at the local Target pharmacy.  It's turning out to be  a challenge to find ones with pharmacies.  Dave needed to take one of my Maxide Monday morning since we didn't think it kind to ask them to refill six prescriptions in a couple of hours with only one guy on duty. ... (more)

20 07 08

Dave Mode

We appear to have three modes of travel.  In Linda mode, we travel the two lane highways stopping at oddball museums and eating in small town cafe's.  In mileage mode we have time contraints so we travel the interstates and eat at fast food restaurants and truck stops.  In Dave mode, we drive back country park roads and eat at lodges and park concession stands.

Recently, we've sepent a lot of time in Dave mode, traveling through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  There's not much to say that pictures can't say better so here they are.

Yellowstone lake: (more)

15 07 08

Big Horn National Forest

Back in 1984 Dave's brother invited his extended family to camp with him at the Medicine Lodge Lake campground in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Dave and our daughter went but I did not. They had a good time and Dave has pleasant memories from that visit. So when we traveled in that vicinity on this trip, Dave decided he'd like to go back to that campground.

Now, you need to know I am not fond of mountain roads. Dave said we had a choice of taking the north route along US Hwy 14 or the south route along US Hwy 16 with him leaning ... (more)

13 07 08

Respect

People often ask us how the two of us can live in such a small space without killing each other.  While a sense of humor helps a great deal I think the most important ingredient is respect. 

Dave and I acknowledge that we have different needs and we try to help each other meet those needs.  When food shopping I buy him sweets and he buys me salty snacks.  When I need a nap he sits quietly with his computer.  When we go places like Devils Tower, I sit and people watch while he goes hiking.



(more)

12 07 08

RV Tour Bus

Last night this rig pulled into the KOA at the base of Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

As it drove by us, the front looked like a regular tour bus but the back of it had a solid wall except for lots of windows on the "driver" side of the type I associate with bunk beds.  Then it turned and backed into a site where we had a clear view of the "passenger" side.

I was taught it is rude to stare but how can you not watch something like this?!  So I stayed in our van and watched but lots of other campers gathered to gawk.

People started flowing from the front door of the ... (more)

11 07 08

The Black Hills of South Dakota

Thursday was a sightseeing day. Dave chose the agenda for a change. We started by going from the Lazy J to the Flying J.

Freshly fueled we headed south from Rapid City, SD. Along the way we saw a National Forest office building so we turned in and I got my Access Pass. That will get us free admission to lots of places and discounts on some services. It was a challenge, though, explaining why I had a South Dakota driver's license but a Minnesota handicapped parking permit. This was another place where I was glad I had Dave to do my running since he went back to the RV to get the papers I needed to show them to get the pass.

Then on to Mount Rushmore National Monument. There's no admission to Mount Rushmore but there's also no discount on parking there so it still cost us $10 to get in. ... (more)

09 07 08

Fix It Day

Yesterday was a fix it day here in Rapid City, SD. It started when it rained heavily during the night but did not wash the dirty side of the RV. Why are we always facing the wrong way when the rain comes?  I tried to talk Dave into turning us around but he wasn't too enthused by that idea.  :)

Then T-Mobile called at 7:38 am to tell me I could view my bill on-line. That's not an hour of the day I need to know that. Dave thinks he has managed to turn off that notification feature but it took several tries to do so.

I spent the morning trying to resist doing my normal morning computer stuff because I knew I would need something to do this afternoon while our RV was in the shop.

When it came time to depart, Dave learned to screw the dump. This park requires you to actually fasten your hose to the dump outlet. Since our hose is ... (more)

08 07 08

Moving Backwards

Inertia was powerful yesterday morning. The urge to sit and do nothing was strong enough to win out for awhile but I finally shifted into gear and got ready for a shower. Unfortunately, I forgot that when the black water tank is nearly full the fresh water tank is often nearly empty. I got my hair washed and rinsed and my body soaped before the water ran out. It's a good thing I don't travel alone! I was able to sit and shiver while Dave filled the water tank and I waited for it to heat. It's amazing just how cold water fresh from underground can be!

That experience deserved a reward so we went to Lula Belle's for lunch. This is a tiny restaurant recommended by a local woman who did a program on Gillette's Rowdy History for about 300 Escapees during the Escapade. We arrived right at noon and the parking lot was full so we decided to go pick up our mail first. ... (more)

06 07 08

Weighty Matters

Every vehicle has a maximum load weight but in our cars it rarely matters. In an RV it is very easy to load more weight than is safe. I like to be safe so I was concerned about the weight of our new RV.

Freightliner, the company whose logo is on the front of our Sprinter, says our maximum weights are:

Steer axle: 3970 lb

Drive axle: 5360 lb

Gross Weight: 8550 lb

So we loaded up the RV and took it out to Rogers, MN, on May 9, 2008, to be weighed on the truck scales there. The report came back:

Steer axle: 3940 lb

Drive axle: 4840 lb

... (more)

05 07 08

Escapade

It's been, as I predicted, a full week of seminars and socials.  We learned a lot of things and met of lot of great people.  This is the most fun loving group we've ever joined.  My laugh muscles hurt from being over exercised.  It's a good kind of hurt, though.

Some of the things we learned weren't in classes.  For instance, learning to defrost our refrigerator.  If you unplug from the campground power and forget to change your frig power to 12 volt before you go run errands in the summertime heat, you won't have to figure out how to defrost your frig.  It will do it all by itself.  With a bonus of cleaning your floor!

Plus, I took a participatory class in how to drive our RV.  Imagine the instructor setting up traffic cones for me to slalom through-- backwards.  But, I can now back our 24' RV into a parking space at Home Depot between two other parked vehicles.  And I have the certificate of accomplishment to prove it. ... (more)