Bozeman to Billings under the Big Sky

Well, it's day six of our life on the road and I have to say that I have quietly put aside all my fears about living in a container the size of my hobby room. RVing is simply a ton of fun and not to be missed, though it's not without it's minor -- and sometimes major -- problems and inconveniences.

Like last night in Bozeman, Montana, where the RV park was achingly beautiful, our individual space wonderful and level, and the laundry room totally vacant and waiting for our load of towels. Absolutely everything about our experience there was great except their WiFi was on the fritz due, not to their equipment (I could connect to their router) but due to the local phone company's faux pas. We had fun anyway, especially when we got to tour the owner's greenhouse where they were growing absolutely prize-winning tomatoes.

We've found the some things just don't go your way no matter how prepared you are. Like today when I attempted to park on a quiet city street in Bozeman so I could dash around the corner and buy a circular polarizer filter for my SLR. Little did I know that the pool of water next to the curb hid a park bench-sized hole that, when the motor home's tires to dropped into it a good six inches, the coach tilted crazily and brought the refrigerator's rooftop evaporative cooling coil's plastic housing in fatal contact with a century old tree planted in the parkway. The result was one largely destroyed cover. That kind of fun stuff.

On the other side of the coin, the things you get to see and the people you get to meet make you quickly forget the pain and suffering and make you realize that things just don't get much better in life than when you can cruise the highways of America searching for adventure and literally find it around every corner.

Today Concetta and I make an absolutely amazing find in Bozeman in the form of an attraction called, "The Museum of the Rockies." Wow! What a place! We wandered the halls for at least a couple of hours looking at everything from Dinosaur skeletons to plains Indian crafts, from horse-drawn wagons to natural history exhibits. It was all so well done that we just hated to leave. When lunch time came and our stomachs told us we needed nourishment we headed for the RV to have lunch. But before we'd gone far we discovered that next door to the museum they were hosting a full-fledged Chautauqua surrounding a nineteenth century farmhouse. There were exhibits on period gardening, vintage firearms, weaving, kitchen chores, music and singing, antique machinery, and, well, you name it. It was all so colorful and exiting looking, we determined to go have lunch and then come back and take in the fun. All this meant that we didn't hit the road until 2:30 in the afternoon. Still, we made our next port of call, Billings, Montana. From here I think it's a short jaunt to the Custer Battlefield park.

Just a word on Bozeman itself. It is one of the nicest, cleanest, most historic looking towns we've seen in many years, certainly the most attractive place we've seen on this trip. Since we were intent on both finding a photo store for the purchase of my filter and finding the Museum of the Rockies that had been advertised on the freeway, we did a considerable amount of roving around. Here can be found block after block of vintage homes, all well kept, and a main street which boasts several blocks of well tended commercial buildings. I know there must be the inevitable ugly parts somewhere, but we never saw them. Santa Fe, New Mexico used to be my favorite "other place" I might see myself living if I had to leave Carson City, but I think I'm going to move Bozeman, Montana into the front-runner spot for future re-location. It's just that charming. Concetta, for her part, liked my buddy Charley seims' neighborhood near Portland, Oregon. Granted, Portland is mighty pretty owing to the fact that everything is so green. Unfortunately it gets that way because the rain falls steadily for months at a time. Everything turns green -- your lawn, your foliage, your roof, the cover on your boat. You get the picture.

Our route this trip involved us driving north from Carson City, Nevada, as far as Washington State just south of Seattle. At that point we started East with an intended destination of somewhere on the east coast -- Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, or somewhere further south. Along the way we intend to visit a couple of days in Connie's girlhood state of Ohio. Other than Ohio, the only places that we wanted to make sure we saw were The Custer Battlefield and Mount Rushmore. Now, with our arrival in Billings, we are close to the site of General Custer's defeat and we hope to be able to take that in tomorrow.

Of course there are lots and lots of other places we'd like to see, especially a couple of Civil War battlefields such as Gettysburg and or Antietam, some nautical areas such as Mystic Seaport or New Bedford, and some great New England covered bridges and century farms. We're pretty much winging this whole trip based on what looks interesting on the map. Yes, I know we're missing tons of interesting things which will have to wait for another trip, but we prefer not to plan so tightly that no time is left for stumbling over something interesting like we did today in Bozeman.

One of the things we've been doing is listening to books on tape as we travel the more mundane stretches of interstate. Naturally, we try and avoid the interstates as much as possible. But, as we experienced in Helena yesterday, sometimes you can't get here from there unless you include a bit of divided highway. There ARE roads from Helena to Billings that don't involve interstate driving but had we taken those particular roads I'd still be driving instead of sitting here typing.

Anyway, our book on tape for the last several days is really THREE books on tape by Bill Bryson. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Bill: "William McGuire 'Bill' Bryson, OBE, (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of North Yorkshire for most of his professional life before moving back to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University

Bill is just the wittiest, most marvelously well spoken writer I've come across in a long, long time. I've read many of his books, most recently "A Walk in the Woods," which I thought was wonderful. Bill has a way of stringing together the same old words we all use in such new and inventive ways that he has me pounding the steering wheel with laughter every time we listen. Give Bill a try. I think you'll like him.

Well, Concetta just poked her head out of the bedroom and asked if I planned to come to bed sometime soon. I guess that means it's getting late. Actually, I'd like to get a little reading in before lights out, so for now I'll say, Ciao.

Moving in on Missoula

Today we traveled from Spokane, Washington, to Missoula, Montana -- just not right away. The first thing we had to do was track down a new gas cap for the motor home. Yesterday, realizing that sometimes it becomes necessary to share the wealth, I decided to be magnanimous and leave my gas cap atop the pump in the Shell station in Ellensburg, Washington. I'm sure it was found soon after by someone who desperately needed just that design of cap. I felt good about it all day. But before we could hit the road this morning we had to track down an RV center (they had no caps) and then an auto parts store so that we wouldn't be strewing gasoline down the interstate and maybe get pulled over for polluting. Once that chore was complete, we were able to gas up and be off. My new cap is a locking one so that I can leave the keys in the cap and thus be reminded to return it to its natural place.

Our next goal, once we ventured out of Washington and into Idaho was to find my long lost buddy, Pete Blackmore, who, along with his wife of many years, had left the over-crowded confines of Carson City back in the nineties and moved up to the pristine environs of lake Couer d' Alene in Idaho. Specifically, he was living in the tiny (population 200+) town of Harrison just south of Couer d' Alene itself. Man, what a wonderfully beautiful place!!! You leave the interstate and wind your way slowly slowly for miles around the lake on a tiny two-lane road. It's a little hair raising in a thirty-foot motor home but the scenery is definitely worth it.

Pete, a native of Thetford, England, had worked with me at a printing establishment for all of my nine years in the business. In fact, Pete and I had at one time been offered ownership of the business when the owner retired. But along came an offer of a state government position and away I went, never to hang around with Pete again. I've been sending him Christmas cards for years but all I had was a post office box. Still, I thought that since the town was so small more than one person would be able to tell me where to find him.

As fate would have it, Concetta and I stopped in an ice cream parlor and asked to see their phone book. I easily picked out Pete's number and dialed the phone. Unfortunately, only his son, Simon, was home and I soon learned that Pete and his wife were off to Couer d' Alene to do the weekly shopping. Much disappointed, we headed back to the motor home parked right on the main street. As we approached we passed a woman putting the finishing touches on her sidewalk sign advertising her Wine-tasting shop. As we lingered there next to the motor home the woman stood, and came toward us. I recognized her instantly as Pete's daughter, Julie, whom I hadn't seen since she was a young girl but whom I instinctively recognized. "Are you Julie," I asked as she came abreast of us.

She got a big smile on her face and said, "Yes. Do I know you?"

I proceeded to tell her about my association with her dad and we soon fell into a lively conversation about Carson City and what her family had been up to all these years. During the course of the conversation Julie invited us up to her wine shop and we spent a lovely half hour sampling her supply of "fruit" wines, not derived from grapes. The wine was wonderful, had about 14% alcohol, and we selected a couple of different flavors (pear and Italian plum) and thanked Julie for a very nice experience.

The town had a very nice picnic area just up slope from the lake and we spent an additional half hour eating lunch before we packed up and headed back toward the interstate and our intended route to Montana. We arrived in camp here in Missoula about 5:00 p.m. and Concetta immediately set about fixing some lovely trout given to me by my buddy, Jeff, from Public Safety, some chard from our garden back home, salad, and a bottle of Menage a Trois. For dessert, we had more blackberries carefully (and painfully) picked by the roadside in Oregon.

The motor home is behaving very well and I'm getting quite comfortable handling it. I even had to back it into the camp spot tonight which went off without a hitch. My only complaint is that in order to make our rendezvous in Ohio sometime after the 12th I'm having to bypass a lot of stuff I'd really like to stop and see. Of course the downside is that there would be days that I wouldn't get anywhere at all. The route we're taking is truly beautiful. We've never spent any time in the Pacific northwest and the area obviously deserves a lot more attention in the future. I'm not exactly sure where we're going tomorrow except to say I'm headed toward the Custer battlefield national park in Montana and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Beyond that, who knows. I do have a date to visit George (Legislature workmate) Aldrich's mother in Wisconsin, so we'll be heading generally in that direction.

I've tried numerous times to upload photos for this segment of the blog, but the WiFi connection here at the Missoula RV park refuses to let me for some reason. So, until next time, I bid you ciao and great traveling.

Singing in the Rain

Day 4 – Yakima to Spokane

Yesterday we traveled from Yakima to Spokane in the beautiful state of Washington. Much of the terrain looks like our home, the Carson Valley, with vast fields of green carpeting the valleys and sage-covered rolling hills ringing the fields. In other valleys, ones where cover crops like wheat (or maybe hay) had been grown this past summer, a short-cropped golden carpet flowed away to the horizon interrupted only by the lazy patterns carved by a myriad of farm machinery wheels in the stubble making it look as if someone had been more interested in art than in farming. Quite a beautiful sight. To heighten our experience, the sky as we headed eastward, billowed with rain clouds and bristled with the occasional lightening strike; an awesome and magnificent vista. Only later, as we neared the end of our drive, did the skies open up with their long-promised rain and envelop the landscape.

Concetta had navigated us to a KOA in Spokane that we truly hoped would have some vacant spots since it was the only one that the AAA guide had recommended. When we at last arrived and discovered that the camp did indeed have a number of open spaces, the check-in clerk asked me what sort of space I’d like. “One where it’s not raining,” I said, for by then it was raining like mother nature had to get a month’s supply on the ground so she could go on vacation. Fortunately, I was able to get the electric and water hooked up and get myself back inside before I needed to be rung out like a sponge.

The day started out with us looking for two things: one, the Yakima Trolley museum; and two, a Ford dealer so I could discuss my “Check Engine” warning on the dash. We wandered around for some time finding neither when I suggested to Concetta that we feed a fictitious address into the GPS for the trolley museum since the guidebook was kind enough to offer none. Miraculously, the fictitious address turned out to be almost exactly correct and we were soon at the front door – only to discover that it was closed. Sigh. Oh well, on to the Ford dealer which I assumed would be on the main street of town just like the Chevrolet dealer we had already seen. Unfortunately, locating the dealer was not to be and before long we found ourselves back in the vicinity of the freeway on-ramp that we needed for our journey north. Promising to check the next town for the sought-after dealer, we headed for the town of Ellensburg hoping to have better luck.

Ellensburg was where we stopped for coffee yesterday morning to post the previous blog. McDonalds has easy-to-use WiFi and surprisingly good coffee. I usually have the blog roughed out in Word Perfect (yes I own Microsoft Word, but consider it to be an inferior product) and just have to upload to the web. As you may or may not know, I bought a remote uplink device for this trip sponsored by Virgin Mobile/AT&T. But as yet I have not been able to connect with it. The device will talk happily with the mother ship at Virgin. I even downloaded the manual in PDF format this evening. But when I try to get to Google or AOL it simply tells me that it has timed out. No other explanation. Not sure how to outwit it, but for now McDonalds is my savior.

Anyway, after blogging and drinking our coffee we headed for the neighborhood Ford dealer using instructions offered by the girl serving our coffee. And her directions turned out to be spot on. Moments later we were pulling up in front of the service entrance to Ford and serendipitously caught two service employees smoking outside on the sidewalk. I jumped out and approached them with my problem. “Do you want me to pull it into the service area?” I asked.

“Nah,” the older of the two said. “We can check it out right where it sits.”

And that’s just what they did. Ten seconds later one of the chaps emerged from the building with a tester of some sort. Maybe a minute after that he’d hooked the device up to some place under the dash, run the test, and ambled over to tell me that his tester indicated the problem was with the emissions system. “Probably just a leaking vacuum hose. Plastic you know,” he said. “You probably don’t need to worry about it and can just track it down when you get back home.”

Now how is that for fortuitousness? I thanked them, hopped back in the truck, and was on my way in less time than it took to type this blog entry. I was stoked to say the least.

For most of the trip from Ellensburg to Spokane we shunned the interstate and traveled the back roads of America, just like the American Pickers. I didn’t dare suggest to Concetta that I while away the afternoon rummaging through any of the two dozen antique shops we passed, but it was fun to think about it. We don’t really have any room to bring antiques along with us anyway. Still, I’m going to pick one out one of these fine afternoons on some little-traveled country road and bring home some treasure. I promise.

Taking to the mountains

Day 3 – Portland to Yakima

If you payed attention to my previous blog entry you know that around noon yesterday we had decided to head for the Pacific Ocean west of Kelso, Washington. As fate would have it, we decided quite on the fly not to head West but East to Yakima via Highway 12. There was no deep thought involved. The highway just looked like it transected some pretty exciting and scenic country, running as it does between Mount Rainier to the north and Mount St. Helens to the south.

Indeed the country has been as beautiful and sparsely populated as you could ask for. Route 12 is just a two-laner, and as such attracts far less traffic than the interstate. Dismissing the occasional speeding lumber truck cruising just scant feet from our rear bumper, our sojourn up Route 12 was a dream.

Enter the subject of road construction. Now I have to admit that we were forewarned that road construction on Route 12 would cause as much as ninety minute delays. But as I often do, I chose to disregard that warning, assuming that ninety minutes was probably the longest we could expect and the actual wait would turn out to be a far smaller chunk of time. So it was that we rounded a corner and encountered a road block complete with a very friendly female roadblock attendant who duly informed us that we could indeed expect one 45 minute delay just beyond where she had stopped us as well as an additional 90 minute delay further up the mountain.

“Of course, you could go that way,” she informed us, pointing off to her right. I looked over to where she was pointing and saw a two lane road even narrower than the one we were on. “That way leads to break-a-heart pass,” she said, or something like that. “Not really recommended for motor homes, but you could give it a try. Adds 22 miles to your trip.”

With images of Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball trying to bend their long, long trailer around tiny hairpin curves high in the mountains and barely keeping the whole rig from tumbling into the yawning chasm, I said, “No thanks, we’re not in that big a hurry.”

And that’s how I came to have time to work on this blog entry. The typing table was a little tipped since we were sitting on perhaps a 15 degree upslope angle. But at least the computer kept sliding toward me and not away. I thought about getting out the wheel chocks that I had paid big money for back in Carson City’s Wally World, but then I thought, hey, the 18-wheeler behind us would have to slide backwards first before I could.

In the end I was caught figuratively with my pants down as before I had gotten firmly into the third paragraph of the blog I heard a shout and Concetta said, “better get the truck started they’re pulling out.” I didn’t get to shut down the computer, stow my glasses, or much else and had to dive into the driver’s seat, start the truck and be off before the aforementioned 18-wheeler ran over the top of us.

Fortunately, we never ran into the second road block. I think that dinner time had inevitably called away the asphalt workers and they just went home and left us to continue our journey in peace. Ultimately I had been right from the beginning. Our total wait had been about thirty minutes.

Once over the mountain we coasted down into Yakima and headed for the RV park that Concetta had found in the AAA guide book. We were feeling pretty good. The wait had been shorter than we expected, the sun was shining on us, and it looked like we’d be in camp with plenty of daylight left. We went on thinking just like that right up until the moment we rolled in the driveway of the RV park and up to the office. There, displayed for all to see, was a sign that said, “Sorry, full for the night.”

“Oh, NO! we chorused. But after a moment of feeling sorry for ourselves, we set off in search of the only other AAA sanctioned RV park in Yakima. But when Concetta fed in the address, the little GPS came back and said, “Sorry, no such place,” or words to that effect.

By this time I didn’t really even know where in the city of Yakima I had landed. So, we did the only sensible thing in such an eventuality, we parked the coach and tried to call the second RV place, which was a state-owned and run park. On the first try I got a fax line. Ooops! We tried a different number. But this time no one answered at all. Okay, there was an 800 number listed, too. So, I tried calling that. This time I thought someone answered. Only problem was I had reached a recording, and the man who narrated the message must have been eating a peanut-butter sandwich while the tape was rolling. He sounded completely unintelligible and just a tad dim-witted to boot.

So, we decided to do the only other sensible thing we could in such a situation, stop and ask someone who was sure to know: a motel desk clerk for instance. I pulled the RV across the street from a handy motel and started for the door. But who should pull up in front just at that moment but a cab driver. Even better, I thought.

The cab driver proved our salvation. She knew right where the park was located and inside of fifteen minutes we were rolling in the front gate. Of course both of us were holding our breaths as we waited to see if this new park would be filled to the brim also. But no, the place looked completely empty. Once we got to the rear of the park where the RV folks were directed we did find a couple of dozen rigs in attendance, but we easily found a nice spot for the night.

So, serendipity had triumphed again. Yesterday morning we didn’t even know precisely where we were headed except to say generally north and east. By yesterday evening we had found a park, got a fire going, had barbecued chicken, roasted corn, salad with cucumbers from our garden, and, for dessert, blackberries that we had picked beside a country road yesterday. Everything turned out just fine even though we’d been a tad uncertain at times. Today, I have no good idea where we’re going except to say we hope to visit the Yakima trolley museum before we leave town. Otherwise, well, we’re headed generally east until we reach the Atlantic Ocean. I hope that every day is filled with as much serendipity as possible.

Stay tuned.

On the Road Again -- this time in the U.S.

Day 1 – Carson City to McCloud

Sunday we slept in until about 6:00 a.m. and then went about getting ready to leave on our much anticipated cross-country adventure. We had spent the previous two days intensively finishing up the loading phase of our thirty-foot Tioga motorhome. I had spent several weeks figuring out just what should be brought along in the basement area of the coach. Things like wooden blocks to aid in the leveling at camp sites, tools for (hopefully) any occasion, and water and sewer hoses and attendant fittings, as well as more mundane things like folding chairs and a table, firewood, and a ladder to aid in extending the awning. For the two days before our departure, we had concentrated on a bit more cleaning and then packing our clothes and all the needed groceries and other supplies that would allow us to survive on the road.

It has been at least two decades since Concetta and I have been camping and, for me, well over forty-five years since I had been RVing. When I was teenager, my parents had begun traveling the west in a Ford pickup and a small, borrowed, aluminum travel trailer. I think it could not have been more than twenty feet long and was perhaps even shorter. I remember it as a sort of aquamarine and white, in stark contrast to Dad’s 1963 red and white Ford Pickup.

Because stretch cab pickups had not been invented yet, Dad had fashioned an aluminum canopy over the pickup bed and, for seating, acquired an old brown and cream-colored Studebaker front seat where brother Cliff and I would ride as we wandering the byways of the six or seven western states. Here Cliff would sleep and I would be studying each and every passing rustic town, farmstead, and roadside attraction. At that time I was absolutely addicted to western Americana. Dad seldom stopped but I took in as much as I could from the bed of the pickup. Actually, I didn't mind being out in the open air at all. I got to see more, I think, than I would have in the cab. Cliff and I even slept under the canopy at night.

Our current adventure finally began just after 10:00 a.m. as we headed north on Hwy 395 through Reno and on toward Susanville, California. The drive was through mile after mile of farm and ranch lands, punctuated only occasionally by civilization. The truck ran as smooth as glass and despite that fact that we had loaded it with every possible thing we might need, in every possible situation, it still pulled the hills with ease at 55 to 60MPH. We never tried to do more that about 65 miles per hour so as to afford us easy stopping should trouble crop up. By around 4:30 p.m. we reached McCloud and Concetta directed to the campsite she had picked out for us, a wonderful park-like facility with spaces for nearly a hundred RVs. Our camping experience was about to begin in earnest.

Concetta eased us into the evening with some vodka and cranberry juice cocktails, some cheese, salami and crackers, and a couple of comfortable chairs beneath a spreading Ash Tree. It has been a long, long haul getting to this vacation and as we sat there and clinked our (plastic) wine goblets we toasted our success. Both of us had been hired for the legislative session which mandated us starting work back in late 2010 and, for me, working through June. Concetta worked even longer, right up to last Thursday, so the coming of the road trip was especially long-awaited for her.

Dinner that first night turned out to be steak, though the RV park we chose in McCloud did not have barbecue grills so the steaks had to be cooked in the RV.
After dinner and dishes Concetta insisted that I produce the Scrabble game so we could have our usual contest played in the glow of the Coleman lantern. Miraculously, we weren’t bothered by any bugs though during our steak dinner about a dozen yellow jackets came calling. This didn’t prove to be a problem since I had purchased a bug and fly zapper that looks sort of like a badminton racket. The device runs on a couple AA batteries and actually electrocutes any flying pests if they touch it. Most of them were not inclined to touch my murder machine but after some coaxing they were quickly dispatched and dinner proceeded as before.

After the Scrabble game it was back to the RV for some much needed showers and then to bed. This was the first time, of course, that we had tried out the shower and to our relief it works fine. We had intended all along to take the RV out on a dry run for a day or two to make sure everything worked, but alas, there simply wasn’t time.

The Tioga has turned out to be quite comfortable. I’m so glad that I held out for a unit with the built-in banquette seating. Since we’re not traveling with a group of people we can leave the table set up for the banquette.

The following day, Monday, we once again got rolling around 10:00 as we made our way up I5 toward Portland and a rendezvous with my long-time hiking and traveling buddy, Charles Seims. Charles has a cute little bungalow filled with antique electric trains and other antiques and a garage full of antique autos. He and I have known each other since we were kids together in Altadena and enjoy many of the same interests.

It was kind of a long haul to Portland since we started so late so we didn't really stop for any site-seeing. We rolled up to Charles' door about dusk and then walked down the street to his favorite local restaurant for some truly wonderful Italian food and a glass of wine. After dinner, Charles and I reminisced until late over bottles of Corona and then, thanks to the wine and the beer, I had a wonderful nights sleep. This morning, after a short tour of the neighborhood in Charles' 1964 poppy-red Mustang, we hit the road once more. I think that this is the point that our adventure really begins because now we don't really have anywhere we have to be at any specific time. We just rolled off the freeway here in Washington State and once I update this blog we're headed west to the Pacific. We're going to try and stick to the secondary roads and I'll be including photographs on a regular basis. The remote connection device that I purchased to provide me with the Internet seems to connect but won't allow me on line -- at least yet. Not sure what's wrong, but I'm typing this in McDonalds over a crispy chicken sandwich and a pretty darn nice cup of coffee. So, until later, I'll say ciao.