All posts by paula

241 Crescent City

Mishaps on our way to N. California

We travelled from Vista CA to Crescent City, stopping in Bakersfield, Morgan Hill and Lakeport. During this trip we had two separate mishaps!

1- first mishap just outside Bakersfield:

When we left Bakersfield we had gotten about an hour north of the city then someone pulled alongside us and frantically waved at us pointing to the rig. So, we pulled to the shoulder and discovered we had lost ANOTHER wheel because of lugbolts that sheared off.

Yipes! I called a nearby business that was a John Deere dealer. They say they couldn’t help us but gave us the name and number of a mechanic that worked on big rigs and said he’ll be able to help! I called him and explained the situation and he said he was working on another call but could come to us right after lunch.

While I was making that call Jeff pulled off at the next offramp and into a gas station right off the freeway. As we pulled in we were surprised that it was dirt and had one of the metal grates you see at construction sites. As soon as we pulled into a large parking space a guy in a truck drove up to us. Turns out the station is still being built! He saw the missing wheel and we told him we had called a mechanic but he couldn’t come to us until after lunch. The man was nice enough to tell us we could stay in the lot to wait for the mechanic.

So, we hung out in the truck and waited. I had packed a lunch and we had waters so we were fine in that regard.

The mechanic showed up shortly after lunchtime and took the part of the wheel that was left so he could get the proper lugbolts and get them intalled. He said he’d be back in a few hours.

About then the man in the truck came back and said he was done for the day and wanted to lock up the station. So we had to leave. We got back on the road and there was a wide sandy shoulder just a block away that we pulled into, so we were off the road. I texted the mechanic to say we had moved and we continued to wait. We were facing west so it got a bit warm, and we couldn’t open the slides in the rig so we were stuck in the truck.

After a while Jeff took Chloe out and noticed another tire was flat!! Totally flat! He found that the stem had been bent letting all the air out. Dang!

So…we unhitched and Jeff got the tire off and drove it about 10 miles further up the road to a tire place. While he was gone I stayed with the rig and sat on my camp chair in the shade to wait for the mechanic. The tire place was able to replace the stem and found no other problems, so the tire got re-inflated and Jeff brought it back.

The mechanic got back about the same time as Jeff, and he and his helper were able to get both tires back on and we were ready to head out!

But, we still had a 4 hour drive and by now it was 6pm. The RV park we were headed to didn’t accept checkins past 10pm. So we found a KOA just a few miles away and we stayed there for the night.

2. Near Napa, CA our nav system sent us over a very narrow bridge!

On our way from Morgan Hill to Lakeport we went through part of wine country. Beautiful country! Our nav system sent us down a couple of residential streets just north of Napa and then we found ourselves on a very narrow bridge! Just as we passed along it a pickup came onto the bridge from the other direction! He pulled in his side mirror and forced us to squeeze to the edge so he could pass us. We didn’t quite make it! We got hung on the rock wall of the bridge and had to back up a bit and maneuver to get past the bridge. When we could we pulled over to assess the damage. Dang, it scraped all along the side of the rig. But it didn’t make it undriveable so we continued to the RV park.

Here are pictures of the bridge so you can see how narrow it was, and the damage to our rig. Luckily the repair is covered by our insurance!

241 Crescent City

We’re right on the beach at Crescent City!

We’re staying in Crescent City for the summer at an RV Park right on the beach! We really like it here, and Chloe LOVES to run around the beach like she used to (before her arthritis flareups slowed her down). Here are pictures:

RV Parks We Stayed At

Our Travels – Year 12 (Aug 2024 – July 2 25)

Arrowhead RV Park – Cascade, ID (8/5/2024)

Heyburn Riverside RV Park – Heyburn, ID (9/9/2024)

Sportsman’s Lodge & RV Park – Melrose, MT (9/11/2024)

Mountain Range RV Park – Columbus, MT (9/14/2024)

Yellowstone Valley Inn & RV Park – Wapiti, WY (9/16/2024)

Douglas KOA – Douglas, WY (9/23/2024)

Colorado Springs KOA – Colorado Springs, CO (9/25/2024)

Raton KOA – Raton, NM (10/2/2024)

Trailer Village RV Park – Roswell, NM (10/4/2024)

Fort Stockton Resort and RV – Fort Stockton, TX (10/16/2024)

Kerrville KOA – Kerrville, TX (10/23/2024)

Rainbows End – Livingston, TX (10/30/2024)

238-Cody, WY, View from Front door

Rock formations around Wapiti WY

We visited Yellowstone this year, choosing the stay to the east of the park and enter from the East Entrance. So we stayed at an RV Park in Wapiti, WY. It’s a real nice park along a river (but it’s down a steep ravine so we couldn’t access the river!). The little town of Wapiti has rock formations all over the place that are real interesting! Here are several that we could see right from the RV Park:

239-Colorado Springs, CO

A week in Colorado Springs, sick!

As we worked our way slowly from Yellowstone down to New Mexico and onwards towards Livingston TX (our home base) we spent a week in Colorado Springs CO.

We’d been there before and were hoping to see Garden of the Gods again and possible take some drives through the beautiful country.

Alas, within a day we both felt sick. We had Covid! I was a lot worse, spending several days in bed or on the couch too weak to do much of anything. Jeff had a bad cough and a headache. We went to an urgent care and got Paxlovid and I also had to get cough medicing and nausea medicine. UGH!

So, we didn’t do anything while there. I was still sick when we had to travel into New Mexico and much of our time there was a blur for me as well.

Darn!!

Uncategorized

We broke a leaf spring on the Cougar

When we left Cascade ID heading towards Yellowstone, we stopped at a rest area for lunch. Jeff noticed that a leaf spring on the Cougar had broken! Oh NO!! That’s definitely not good, and it’s a good thing that every time we stop Jeff walks around the whole rig checking that everything is good.

So, we made a few calls into Boise, which was the nearest city to the rest area, and found a place that specialized in alignment repairs on big rigs etc. They agreed to work on it that same afternoon so we headed to them, slowly!

They had it repaired in just a couple of hours and we were back on the road. Here’s a pic:

237-Cascade, ID

We got a new truck!

While in Cascade, Jeff decided it was time to get a newer truck. Our 2016 GMC Sierra 2500HD diesel had almost 100,000 miles on it and while it still worked really well, we had started having little problems. One big problem happened in 2022 when we were planning to drive through the desert (in the summer of course!) and the catalytic converter started failing. See blog entry about our stay in Victorville.

So, we took a long drive into Boise ID to the GMC dealer. We got a good deal to trade in our 2016 and get a 2024 GMC Sierra 2500HD diesel and bought it! WoW – is this new truck fancy! All sorts of technology options such as 6 camera angles. We can even see a view as if the camera was a drone up above the truck as it used all angles to provide a picture of the truck from above. We can see exactly how close we are to other cars, curbs etc. When we are in tow mode anytime Jeff puts on a turn signal the central monitor shows the side view of the truck and trailer. The seats and steering wheel heat up automatically when the temp is below a certain level, and when hot the seats have a ‘ventilation’ mode that automatically comes on.

It’s also a 4×4, which we don’t really need, but as it didn’t add to the cost or reduce the towing capacity we are good with it. There have been a few times in the past when 4×4 would have been handy (once while visiting my daughter we got stuck in the mud and it took several hours and various attempts to get the truck moving while towing the rig), and we’ve taken dirt roads a few times where 4×4 vehicles were strongly recommended.

It’s also silver instead of white. I would have preferred red or black, but Jeff likes the lighter colors and they don’t show the dirt as much. My thought on that is a trick WANTS to be dirty!

Oh well, here’s a pic of our new truck!

238-Cody, WY

Yellowstone 2024

We visited Yellowstone again this year, having been there for a month but back in 2012. We chose this time to stay east of the park in Wapiti and enter through the east.

We only went into the park a couple of times and didn’t walk any boardwalks other than at the Old Faithful area, due to my hip bothering me.

But we really enjoying our visits into the park. We did see Old Faithful, plus a few other bubbling pools. We saw lots of bison, some quite close to the vehicle. With our new 4×4 truck we wanted to drive a 6-mile stretch of road on the northern section of the park called the Blacktail Plateau Road. It is listed as being a one-lane dirt road with stunning views and lots of wildlife. Unfortunately when we got to the start of it it was closed!

Here are pics we took on this trip:

237-Cascade, ID

Cascade, ID – FIRES!

After visiting central Oregon and encountering smoke from the  many fires (see blog entry about John Day) we spent a few weeks just hanging out in central Idaho.

We didn’t expect to see more fires!  But, we did!  There were fires in all directions, and the smoke was so bad that most days we didn’t really venture out except for necessary errands.  There were several new fires while we were there and one day the air quality was the worst that can be measured!

Most days we couldn’t see the fires, just the smoke turning the sky brown and orange.  Then a fire started closer to us and we could see the flames for a couple of days. Yipes!

Luckily we were right on the Payette River next to the highway and within the town borders so we knew if the fires got much closer the firefighters would battle the fire!  Several of the fires were nowhere near towns or even many houses and they were allowed to burn while the firefighters, including some planes and helicopters, focused on the fires that threatened nearby towns and structures.

Here are some pictures:

236-John Day Fossil Beds

John Day Fossil Beds

While staying in the John Day area of eastern Oregon we visited the fossil beds that made this region unique. The fossils are from a time range of 55 to 5 million years ago! This means there are no dinosaurs – these are the ages of early mammals and plants.

The area where fossils have been found is huge, thousands of acres of land. The portion contained in the “John Day Fossil Beds National Park” contains three units along with the visitor center. The rest is private land and state parks.

The units are not right next to each other, there is a distance between them so we planned to do each section separately. Unfortunately we were here in late July and the whole area was suffering from dozens of fires! The worst of it was the smoke! The day we visited the visitor center it was so smoky we could not see the nearby hilltops and the air quality was bad. So, we stayed at the visitor center and didn’t do any of the hikes in the nearby Sheep Rock unit.

The Thomas Condon Paleontology and Visitor Center told the story of this area, including eras of wetlands and swamps interspersed with drier times of forests. And interspersing them all were times of volcanic eruptions of both lava and ash flows. Fossils include nuts and seeds, insects, small and large mammals as well as plants and leaves from each time.

Mammals include small animals similar to beavers with horns protruding from their lower jaw, and large mammals similar to rhinos, mammoths and horses.

There were fossilized bones as well as tree and nut fossils in the visitor center. Because it’s all behind glass pictures didn’t come out very well.

We monitored the air quality and smoke closely for the next few days. We noticed that each day started out fairly clear but as the day went on the smoke and air quality worsened. The Clarno and Painted Hills units, which were both over an hour west of where we were staying, had pretty good air quality predicted for a few days so we got up real early and headed out, planning to visit at least the Clarno unit before lunchtime.

We took a couple of short hikes in the Clarno area and there were no other visitors so Chloe was able to run around during the hikes (dog were allowed but were supposed to be on leash). One hike went to where there were great views of some rock formations where erosion made the various layers very visible. Another hike went around some of the rocks that had fallen from the rock formations and where several leaf and branch fossils were visible. The pics we took include several showing sycamore leaf and branch fossils. Very interesting!

Because the air quality was still very good we headed to the Painted Hills area the same day. The sloping hillsides with distinct colored layers were very interesting. We took one short hike around a hillside where several fossils had been found, but the hill was surrounded by a fence to dissuade people from collecting their own fossils so we couldn’t see any.

The rest of our visit to the John Day area was spent sitting inside the rig using the A/C when needed to stay out of the poor air quality. I’ve included a picture showing the various fires that surrounded us – we were staying at the blue dot.

Here are pics we took: