Tag Archives: WFPB

2013_07_27 (Sat) Where We Go From Here

We have had an intense but wonderful week in northwest Wyoming and the Green Creek Inn and RV Park has been just the right spot for us to base camp. The RV park is away from the hustle and bustle of Cody, yet close enough to be convenient for shopping and entertainment, and is close enough to Yellowstone N. P. and Grand Teton N. P. to make them accessible as day trips. And although it’s a small RV park with only nine sites, we had excellent full hookups, laundry facilities, a WiFi connection to the Internet, and free popcorn. Our 50 Amp site allowed us to run all three house air-conditioners all day while we were away to keep our cats safe and comfortable. We needed to do this because of daytime highs in the mid-80’s with bright sunshine and constant wind that prevented us from using our awnings to shade the passenger side of the coach.

Although $45 per night is more than we generally pay to stay in an RV park, it was a fair price given the location and facilities. The WiFi/Internet bandwidth was limited, but we were glad to have what we had as there was no useable Verizon 4G/LTE signal here, and even 3G EVDO was marginal for making phone calls. The WiFi connection was generally very strong thanks in part to or WiFi Ranger Mobile Titanium, which has been working very well for us since we bought it at the FMCA rally in Gillette, WY last month. Interestingly, the only OTA television signal we could pick up was Wyoming PBS from the general direction of Cody. (Smile)

This was a quieter day for us, but by no means an idle one, as we needed to prepare for our departure tomorrow morning. We noticed this morning that it was overcast, the first time since we arrived here a week ago. We did have clouds today, and a few drops of rain, but Jeff informed us that the haze we were seeing was from the various forest fires burning in the west.

Linda drove to Cody in the morning to do our shopping. The main attraction was the local Farmers Market, located, conveniently enough, in the parking lot of the Whole Foods Trading Company. She came back with quite a few bags of stuff!

While she was gone I drained the waste tanks, stowed the hose, and added our Pine Sol / water / Calgon solution to the tanks. I also drained the little bit of fresh water that was still in the tank, flushed it with a bit more, and then refilled it. I left the fresh water shore line connected so we could use if until we depart, conserving our onboard water for use on down the road. I also worked on getting our blog postings up-to-date.

When Linda got back she did the laundry. At our house in Michigan this is usually my chore, but for some reason she seems to take care of it on the road. Although we are trying to learn not to over-plan, we are not full-timers, and we have a house and family to which we have to return from time-to-time. We knew the route we wanted to take back to S. E. Michigan, but the timing and overnight waypoints were still undecided. We want to see the Theodore Roosevelt N. P. in western North Dakota, but the campgrounds there do not have any hookups and do not appear to be big rig friendly. Medora, ND is the closest town, but it is 410 miles driving distance from Wapiti. That is more than we care to do in one day, especially given our planned stop at Interstate Power Systems in Billings, MT to visit with Cherie and Chris of Technomadia. (http://www.technomadia.com).

Using the online Good Sam campground finder we located the Meadows RV Park in Miles City, MT, 280 miles away, and made a reservation for tomorrow night. That should give us a 5.5 -6.0 hour drive, leaving plenty of time to stop and visit in Billings.

I continued to work on our blog while Linda paid our bills and continued to research overnight stops. We decided we would try to stay two nights at an RV park in Medora if we could find an opening. And we did! We made a reservation at the Red Trail RV Park just off I-94. It is walking distance to downtown Medora and convenient to the Theodore Roosevelt N. P., which we will now have a day-and-a-half to explore.

Linda took time out to make wheat berry risotto with mushroom /garlic/onion /asparagus. She used some of the Argentinean Malbec wine we had on board, and served the rest with the meal. This was a fragrant, earthy dish with great “chew” that somehow fit the wildness of this past week. When she has the time to cook we eat very well indeed.

While the risotto was cooking we pulled the tray on the passenger side of the bus that houses the chassis battery disconnect switches and the Vanner equalizers (we have two as it turns out). We located the circuit breakers, and pushed them in to (possibly) reset them. (This refers back to the BAL light that came on while traveling from Sheridan to Wapiti on the 21^st of this month.)

Beyond Medora we hope to stay at a winery in Buffalo, ND about 30 miles west of Fargo. It was personally recommended to us by Harvest Host founders Don and Kim Greene. If they can accommodate us on the 31st, it will be our first use of our Harvest Hosts membership.

Along the same lines, we hope to stay the next night at the Forest Edge Winery in Laporte, Minnesota. Forest Edge is owned/operated by members of the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter. Being a kind of “virtual” chapter in FMCA’s International Area (INTO) our members are spread out all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Rallies are difficult to organize and most of our interactions are by e-mail. We even hold our annul business meeting electronically. Thus any opportunity to meet in person is a treat. The fact that Forest Edge is also a Harvest Host business makes it easier and that much more special.

From Laporte we plan to head to Hibbing, MN to visit the Greyhound Bus Museum. Beyond that, we will make our way across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to St. Ignace. From there we cross the Straits of Mackinaw (Mackinac) on the Mackinaw Bridge and head straight south on I-75 where we vector off on US-23 southbound to M-59, and home. Depending on when we get there we will have been gone almost exactly two months.

2013_07_22 (Mon) A Day Of Rest (Mostly)

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After a 6-day work week and a hard day of driving, we were exhausted and needed a day to rest. We slept in and then indulged ourselves with a later-than-usual breakfast of vegan blueberry pancakes. Yummy!

Buffalo Bill Reservoir (Shoshone River).

Mid-morning we decided to drive into Cody, but we had no plans beyond getting there and looking around. We stopped at the Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir Visitor Center on the way in. The dam, reservoir, and associated facilities are run by the Bureau of Reclamation. As with all federal facilities, the visitor center does a nice job of telling the story of the dam’s construction and provides a context in terms of the natural and human history of the area. They also had a stamp unique to the site so we stamped our “passport.” We also bought a nice guide to Yellowstone N. P.

Buffalo Bill Dam & Visitor Center (upstream side).

On the drive in we talked about visiting the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, but decided against it. The Center consists of five museums and the $18 adult admission is a 2-day pass, which is probably needed to do justice to them. That sounded too intense for our day of rest. We decided instead to just stroll up and down Main Street and then find the two organic/health stores in town and pick up a few things. During our stroll we saw a poster for free concerts in the park. Thursday July 25 from 6 – 8 PM will be a Celtic group.

You Don’t See This In Michigan!

We went to Whole Foods Trading Company first. It was also a sandwich shop, so we each had a veggie Panini with vegan Cole slaw and a pickle. We bought some produce and then drove to the Mountain High Health Foods store where we picked up some kelp noodles and black bean “burgers.” We also discovered that Albertson’s was across the street, so we stopped there to pick up a few more things.

Our shopping and introductory tour of Cody completed, we drove back to Wapiti, by which time it was mid-afternoon. Linda spent the afternoon using our new Yellowstone N. P. guidebook to get some idea of routes, distances, and time for our visits to the park. I spent the afternoon responding to e-mail and working on our blog. Based on the Thursday concert we learned about, we decided to drive the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway on Thursday as we end up in Cody anyway.

2013_07_15 (Mon) HFH Week 2

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It was 66 degrees at 7:00 AM this morning. Very pleasant, but it is usually in the upper 50’s at that hour, so we knew we were in for another hot day. The forecast high was 93 degrees F.

View of Bighorn Mountains to the SW on our drive to the Works site from Peter D’s RV Park.

Although reduced in numbers, our team reconvened at 8:00 AM to continue working on the Works house. We were only scheduled to go until noon today, but we had significant tasks to try to accomplish. First was getting the walls plumb and square followed by setting the trusses and starting to wrap the house in Tyvek.

Trusses laid out and ready to lift into place.

We learned at “circle” that 4-6 more volunteers would be joining us for the morning. They turned out to be a group of four, but were an experienced group from Castle Rock Colorado, and they worked right in to the tasks at hand.

Trusses being nailed in place.

Linda and I nailed some wall bracing in place, but we quickly had more bodies than we had tasks or room to work, so I took up my semi-official photographer duties for a while. Posey , John, Linda and I then went in Brian’s HFH truck to the Poplar Grove site to fetch the 5/8″ OSB roof sheathing. It was a big stack and if took us two trips.

We learned that being idle on an HFH build is a minor “sin” unless you are “taking a break”, so Linda and I grabbed a couple of shovels and started back-filling the small trenches along the east edge of the slab. The sun was very hot, made worse by the reflection of light and diminution of breeze from the Tyvek, so we found a shady spot at the northwest corner of the house and moved dirt around until Jack whistled for the team to quit for the day.

We did not get lunch today as it was originally scheduled as a day off and no one expected Angel to arrange food on short notice. Brian worked with the new crew after lunch to finish setting most of the trusses. Tomorrow he is supposed to move them to the Woodland house to develop a final punch list and get it wrapped up. That house has been under construction for almost a year.

It ‘s starting to look like a house.

Although not our personally most productive day, the team accomplished most of what it set out to do. Tomorrow we will finish setting trusses and wrapping the house and should start sheeting the roof. There is still a lot work to do at the Poplar Grove site, but no indication that any of us are going to work there.

When we got back to our coach we had a light lunch. We were both surprisingly tired but opted for different solutions. I took a nap while Linda went for a four mile walk to downtown Sheridan and back.

Jan stopped by around 3:00 PM to see if I was available to work on their Internet connectivity. She and Kent have a WiFi Ranger X (WFR-X) and it has the same web browser control panel as our WiFi Ranger Mobile (WFR-M), so that was a plus for me. I suspected that the SSID and Password for the WFR-X followed the same pattern as the WFR-M, but we found the instruction sheet and confirmed that. They also had a Motorola cable modem (that they had used at a fixed location). It wasn’t hooked up correctly, but it didn’t matter as cable modems are generally of no use in a mobile lifestyle. I was able to connect their iPad mini to the WFR-X and reconfigure the password. We then got Jan’s iPhone and Mac connected to the WFR-X. Finally, we got the WFR-X connected to one of the public/open/free WiFi networks in the RV park and from there to the Internet.

I suspect that their setup is fairly typical of full-time and extended-time RVers, for whom connectivity has become a significant part of the lifestyle. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, even cameras, often two of each, create a complex arsenal of devices with multiple methods of connectivity, including cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Even if you have some understanding of this technology, this is a complex environment that requires active management by the user. Devices like the WiFi Ranger products (X, Go, Mobile, etc.) appear to add to this complexity initially, but properly configured and used, actually simplify the user experience.

After dinner we watched an hour-long presentation by Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. on the leading causes of death and the preventative and curative effects of a Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet. You can find it at http://nutritionfacts.org but if you are not interested in changing how you eat in order to be healthier, you probably shouldn’t watch it as it will just make you unhappy.

2013_07_08 (Mon) A Day To Get Ready

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The historic Sheridan Inn.

Our nominal HFH work schedule is Tuesday through Saturday, so we had today available to do whatever we wanted/needed to do. The Sheridan visitor center is close by so we went there early to get information and a walking tour map of downtown. Sheridan has more than 50 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, many from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.

Just coincidently, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo is taking place this week (it’s a big deal), so there is a lot of signage and commerce related to that. Accommodations are hard come by, and a bit pricier, in the area because of the rodeo. Fortunately our spots at Peter D’s were pre-arranged far in advance and at a slight discount. We were asked to contribute $20/day towards the $32 cost of our site, and the local HFH affiliate picked up the difference.

Our walking tour done, we found the local Albertson’s grocery store using the Point Of Interest feature on our Garmin 465T GPS. (This is the GPS we use in the car. We can use it as a handheld unit, but we rarely do. We have a DeLorme handheld GPS that we use for hiking and geocaching. We use a Rand-McNally RV GPS in the motorhome.)

The Mint Bar. “Meet me at the Mint” is what the locals say. Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores.

Besides a few grocery items, we were looking for some wine. The Albertson’s in Gillette had a separate, attached store, but the one in Sheridan did not sell beer, wine, or liquor. In this county you can only buy alcoholic beverages at a “liquor store.” There was a small one a few doors down from Albertson’s, so we went there.

Back at the rig I continued working on my blog posts until it was time to go to the 4:30 PM social at Steven Gullette’s trailer. A glass of wine and finger snacks with our new(est) friends; RVing is a good life.

For dinner, Linda made a flatbread pizza with caramelized onions, peppers, olives, kale, mushrooms, garlic, and a touch of balsamic vinegar. There were severe storms in the area that we were tracking using several weather apps on our smartphones, but none that appeared to be a concern for us. Before she got the pizza in the oven, the wind came up very suddenly and flipped up the front arm on our large driver-side awning. We scrambled outside to retrieve the ladder and poles needed to stow the awnings, and were assisted by Marvin and Leo from the motorhome just to our west. Linda hung on to the patio awning strap (barely) while we got the driver-side awning straightened out and stowed. We then ganged up on the patio awning and got it stowed. I then stowed the two small awnings. The wind in Wyoming is constant and can get very strong very suddenly. Hot, bright sunshine notwithstanding, we may just leave our awnings up for the duration of our visit.

The potential crisis averted, Linda finished assembling the pizza and baked it using the convection bake feature of the microwave oven. She bought a flexible silicone baking disk at Escapade and has been using it to great success. The pizza was fabulous; another example of how she is developing the ability to improvise dishes based on ingredients (G-BOMBS) that are the staples of our way of eating (WFPB). (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds. We also let G stand for Grains.)

It was still light after dinner, so we went for a ride to locate the two build sites and see a bit more of Sheridan. We found the county fairgrounds where the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo will take place and saw a magnificent sunset from there. We also found Kendrick Park, which has a wild animal section with Bison and Elk, but couldn’t find the entrance. The Kendrick family was prominent in the founding and development of Sheridan, and a number of buildings in town bear the “K” which was their mark.

2013_07_06 (Sat) Our Last Full Day In Gillette

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We went on a snipe hunt this morning. Nick Russell had mentioned a Gillette Farmers Market in his blog post, so Linda looked it up and got the address. Because of the way we eat, Farmers Markets are a real bonus for us when we can get to them. We skipped breakfast and drove to the location, and found … nothing. Nada. Not a farmer (or market) in sight. Surely Nick wouldn’t lead us astray? He and Terry said they were headed there themselves. Out came the smartphones (both of them) and we started Googling away. Ahhh, the market starts on July 20th. This was Just another example of the emotional roller coaster of extended/full-time RVing. But roller coasters are exciting, and the unexpectedness keeps you on your toes, presenting opportunities for problem-solving and unplanned discoveries.

One of our favorite statues in downtown Gillette, WY

We decided to drive to downtown Gillette and walk around. It was still early, and a holiday weekend, so the shops were not open yet and Main Street was deserted. Downtown Gillette has a nice collection of bronze statues that we enjoyed viewing as we strolled main street. We discovered the 311 Restaurant and studied the menu in the window. If we were going to dine out, this looked the place to go. We passed a bakery/coffee shop that was closed, although their signs suggested that they should be open. Someone else must have had the same impression, and more than once. A 3″ square sticky note was pasted on the window over the “hours of operation” sign that said “Is this place ever open when it says it will be?” Honest, I could not make that up.

When we got back to the bus we had a late breakfast. I continued working at my computer while Linda went for a walk. The sun was bright on the passenger side of the coach, so when Linda got back we deployed the awnings on that side. At some point John and Cheryl came over and we sat in the shade and had a nice long chat. I say “at some point” because I rarely know what time it is unless I look at clock or the shadow of our coach.

Being as it was our last night in Gillette, we decided to go to the 311 Restaurant for dinner. Thunderstorms were forecast for later, but the weather outside our window looked fine, so we left the awnings out and the windows and roof vents open. We started to back our car out of our site around 4:30 PM when Linda saw a large flash of cloud-to-ground lightning directly north of the RV Park. I opened The Weather Channel app on my smartphone and pulled up the current radar. There was a large cell to the north that appeared to be moving east and an even larger cell to the southwest that appeared to be moving northeast towards Gillette with strong winds and hail indicted. Rather than close everything up, we decided to cancel our dinner out plans and eat at home. This sort of flexibility is a necessary part of this lifestyle.

It was still early, so I resumed my photo organizing, and started selecting images to include with each blog post. Linda made the pasta salad that she is contributing to the HFH pot-luck welcome social tomorrow at the HFH affiliate ReStore in Sheridan. With that done, she started preparing African yam and kale soup, only to discover that the (organic) yam she bought was rotten to the core.

Plan B. Although not a whole-food, we keep a few prepared things on hand for just such situations, or when Linda doesn’t feel like cooking (it happens, but not often). The Amy’s brand has a particularly good selection of canned and frozen items, including soups, chili, and the best vegan pizza we have ever had. (The roasted vegetable, which has caramelized onions, but doesn’t even have vegan “cheese”. Vegan or not, this is a fabulous pizza.) They also have “fake” substitutes for traditional dishes. Other companies, such as Morningstar, Dr. Praeger’s, etc. produce similar products, and one of our favorites is “riblets” in Bar-B-Que sauce. The sauce is one of the best I’ve had (it’s sweet, naturally). The riblet has the texture of pork, and a reasonable facsimile of the taste, which I retain in memory to some degree. Riblets and Bush’s vegetarian baked beans; quick, easy, and tasty, with plenty of protein (for those of you who are concerned about the nutritional balance of our meals).

As we finished dinner the storms thickened and intensified all around us. We were treated to quite a lightning show for some time before the rain started. The rain began gently so we left the windows open to enjoy the sound and the cool air. (We have awning style windows that open out from the bottom, so they tolerate a certain amount of rain.) The rain gradually, but steadily, increased to the point we had to close up and turn on the air-conditioners.

Every time we have had a 30% chance of a storm in Gillette, we have gotten a storm. It appears that the 30% forecast means the storm will only be 30% as strong as the worst storm you can imagine.

We had fresh strawberries and sweet red wine and then turned in for the night.

2013_06_30 (Sun) Happy Birthday

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Sunrise over Boxelder RV Park, CAM-PLEX, Gillette, WY

Sunrise over Boxelder RV Park, Gillette WY CAM-PLEX

Linda was up early this morning and went for a sunrise walk. Perhaps she was too excited to sleep because it was her birthday, but this is the 53^rd Escapade and the 35^th anniversary of the founding of the Escapees RV Club, so it could have been that. When she got back I brewed up some Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee (from Irene’s Beans in Milford, MI) and she opened her birthday present. Linda now has her first “cowgirl” shirt! She liked it so much that she made blueberry pancakes for breakfast with real, fresh blueberries and real Michigan maple syrup. (If you are thinking that I should have prepared breakfast for her, let me state that in the past I would have, and could have, done this but she is the resident WFPB culinary expert, and I have basically stayed out of the kitchen, and out of her way, since we started down this path two years ago.)

We got a call from our son who was checking on our house. Linda had asked him the day before to check our answering machine because it wouldn’t pick up when we called. It turned out that we didn’t have a dial tone, but our Internet connection appeared to be OK. He said there had been a lot of rain this past week, so that may be the reason. Our phone and data service come over the same wire, so I’m not sure that is the problem. We decided to wait a few days and see if it clears up. If not we will have to contact AT&T.

We had more coffee at 9 AM at the WiFi Cafe and more conversation with Charles Martin. We returned the defective Camco hose and got a replacement. Their analysis was that the metal sleeve had not been swaged properly which is why the barbed fitting did not stay in. While we were there we looked at the Camco Genturi genset exhaust stack. This is an auxiliary exhaust stack that fits on the end of the generator tailpipe and carries the generator exhaust up past the roof line of the RV. It’s made of 3” PVC in 4 foot sections, so it can be taken apart and stored. A tailpipe extension curves up into the base of the 3” pipe with room to draw in cooler air around it and creating a Venturi effect, thus the name of the product. This is a fairly easily duplicated design; the main reason to buy it is that you don’t have to source all the materials and make it yourself. The vertical pipe has to be supported somehow, and suction cups are one of the options. The vendor suggested getting large ones from Harbor Freight that are normally used for handling windshields and other large pieces of glass. If/when I build one of these, I would like to be able to hook it onto the gutter rail where the roof starts, but the large suction cups are an interesting idea, although I am not too keen on that idea with the new paint on the coach. Our Aqua-Hot exhaust exits out under the driver side of the coach right next to the generator exhaust, and I have considered building a double stack that hooks to both of these. In both cases, however, I have to be careful not to restrict the exhaust flow and create back pressure.

We walked through the vendor area again and talked to Sean at WiFi Ranger about the factory default reset we got when we turned the power off and back on. I also bought a roof mounting bracket for our WiFi Ranger Mobile. Linda bought a silicone cooking sheet for use in the microwave from RV SpaceSavers. We stopped and talked briefly to Nick & Terry Russell of The Gypsy Journal and gave Nick a copy of the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine. Until a few years ago, Nick and Terry lived in an MCI bus that Terry had converted. (Nick is famous for not knowing how to use tools.) We talked to a vendor who provides mobile black/grey tank cleaning service, but deferred signing up. We also chatted with a satellite TV vendor who felt strongly that Direct TV was a far superior choice to Dish Network, especially if we were also going to use it at home. She confirmed that Moto-Sat had gone out of business and that RF Mogul was started by former Moto-Sat employees. We discussed the possibility of using a fully-automatic open style multiple-satellite dish on a tripod or other mount rather than having it attached to the roof. She seemed skeptical, but did not see any fundamental reason that it wouldn’t work. (In fact we have seen a lot of open style satellite TV dishes mounted on tripods or sitting on the ground, although most of them are manual dishes, not automatic.)

After our jaunt through the vendor area, we visited “The Row” to get our “bingo” sheet filled in but ended up talking to many of the chapter and C-BOF representatives. We finally met Steven Gullette from the HFH BOF, with whom we had exchanged many e-mails in the last few months. He will be one of the co-leaders on the build in Sheridan in a couple of weeks. We chatted with Lou Petkus, K9LU, and signed up for the newly formed SKP Photographers BOF (no charge). We also talked to the Elks BOF and found out that we can join the Gillette lodge while attending Escapade, so we took some information and an application form. The initiation is Friday evening.

We got back to the coach around 12:45 PM and grabbed a quick lunch before running some errands. We went back to the Boot Barn to exchange Linda’s new shirt for a different size, and had to join their “loyalty program” in order to do the exchange. The manager had to approve the exchange and was a bit surly. We will not be shopping there ever again. We also mailed an anniversary card to our son & daughter-in-law. Linda received a birthday call from her sister and a video birthday greeting from our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. In many respects, RV life is just like regular life.

We attended the opening / welcome ceremony at 3 PM and were delighted to see and hear from Kay Peterson, SKP #1. Dinner was leftover risotto with the rest of the Lawrence Elk black currant wine from Prairie Berry Winery, and both were excellent. I was sorry that they were both gone, but there’s more where they came from.

We went over to the Wyoming Center at 7 PM for the Door prize drawings followed by the Rivoli Review for the evening entertainment. They do a good show, with lots of energy and humor, although the patriotism was laid on fairly thick, and there were moments that were just plain jingoistic and inappropriate. Although many of the attendees were enthusiastic about their show, there were plenty of folks sitting on their hands who were clearly not so pleased.

2013_06_18 (Tue) Early Arrival

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Upon our arrival at the CAM-PLEX in Gillette, Wyoming yesterday we quickly discovered that we did not have a usable WiFi signal so Linda Googled coffee shops and we found one with free WiFi. This morning we headed off early to City Brew for some coffee, bagels, and Internet connectivity. Alas, no bagels, so I had Raspberry strudel sticks (which were probably not vegan). We couldn’t connect to City Brew’s WiFi, but the adjacent Qdoba restaurant had a strong signal and no customers as they were not open yet. We mentioned that we were not able to connect and when City Brew reset their wireless router it worked fine. Linda caught up on our banking and entered receipts into Quicken while I updated Passwords Plus. I then tried to log in to our website (The Phase Place = www.omnibus-mi.us), which is a WordPress installation running on iPage servers, and discovered that I had not specifically recorded the username and password in Passwords Plus. I also realized that I had probably not updated the contact e-mail address with iPage since bfay@twmi.rr.com was shut down in May. Soooo…. I logged in to the iPage control panel and opened a new support ticket to get these issue resolved.

Our neighborhood – Boxelder, Lot 2, 7th St.

With our online business taken care of for the moment, we headed down the street to the HealthStyles Market to get some Daiya cheese for our dinner “cheeseburgers”. We received a 20% off coupon in our FMCA welcome bag, but didn’t have it with us, so we deferred other shopping for later in the week. What a nice surprise to find an organic market, with some of the vegan products we like, here in the heart of cattle country. The FMCA materials don’t even list grocery stores; instead they list “meat markets”. Yikes!

Because we both have personal and business need for Internet access, we stopped at the local Cellular Plus (Verizon retailer) outlet and purchased a Novatel Jetpack MiFi 5510L 4G/LTE Mobile WiFi hotspot device and added it to our existing Verizon “share everything” plan. This device creates a secure (private) relatively short-range WiFi network which will allow us to connect any/all of our WiFi capable devices together and to the Internet via our Verizon data service, as long as we have a usable Verizon signal. It’s a 4G/LTE device that is backwards compatible to 3G/EVDO, and supports IPv6 addressing in addition to IPv4. Many of its functions are accessible throughout the small device screen and buttons, but the full functionality is easily accessed through a web interface via a connected device.

By the time we returned to the coach it was lunchtime. After a light lunch we decided to deploy the large patio awning. We apparently failed to put the manual for the new Zip Dee Awnings on board, but still had the manual for the old ones. Design changes have been minor in the last 20+ years, and I was familiar with the changes, so though we could figure it out. We weren’t able to open it very far due to the close spacing of RVs in the campground and the fact that our neighbors had slide-outs (as most of the RVs here do). The manual indicated that partial deployment was possible and acceptable, but we could not get the rafter (upper) arms to latch onto the roller tube. Our new Zip Dee awnings are very nice, with a translucent fabric that allows some light through so the interior doesn’t get too dark. They are manual awnings, however, and deploying/retracting the patio awning requires a step ladder because our coach is so tall and the latches are out of reach.

We left the patio awning in what we felt was a secure position and walked over to the CAM-PLEX offices to take care of our camping arrangements for the 4 nights between the two rallies. On the way we stopped and visited with the owners of four vintage Flxible bus conversions that were on display in front of the Wyoming Center. Three of the owners were Great Lakes Converted Coaches members, and the 4th one was the son of a member. Bruce brought sample copies of the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine, and said he would bring some over for the owners.

The folks at the CAM-PLEX office were very helpful and gave us our parking placard for the Windmill RV Park. This park is smaller than Boxelder. Most of the sites are 30 A electric, but some are 50 A FU. We were told we could move there on Sunday morning the 23rd at 10 AM as specific sites were first come, first served.

By the time we got back to our coach a predicted storm was building to the west and moving our way. With 50+ MPH wind gusts expected, we decided to retract all of our awnings and close up the windows and roof vents. Thick clouds, a cool air mass, and strong winds kept temperatures inside very comfortable. I went for stroll around the campground to take photographs of the clouds. I then came inside and preceded to nap through storm!

After dinner we finally turned on our new MiFi device and connected our phones, tablets, and computers. We spent quite a while trying to set up the computers on the network so they could see each other and share files, and appeared to have it working, only to have it not work and not be able to get back to where they did. It was not essential that we be able to do this, so we let it go for now. Since we now had functioning Internet access I checked the iPage support ticket and found that they had responded. I followed their directions and once again have administrative access to my WordPress installation and have updated my contact e-mails for iPage.

2013_06_16 (Sun) The Geographic Center Of The Country

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We were not due in Gillette, Wyoming until the next day, so we had another day to play tourist in Wyoming. Today we did the area northwest of Rapid City, SD. We drove from Black Hawk, SD to Sturgis, SD via I-90, where we walked up and down the main street of Sturgis, which was very empty on a Sunday morning. The place appeared to be mostly bars and T-shirt shops with architecture that was not that quaint or interesting. We met a shopkeeper who was straightening up the T-shirts on sidewalk tables outside her shop. She said that the three main businesses in Sturgis are bars, clothing shops, and banks. We talked with her a bit about the famous motorcycle rally, which takes place in early August every year. We speculated that it must be quite a place to be with 20,000 to 30,000 motorcycles. She vey politely corrected our naïve misunderstanding, and told us to for the week the Sturgis rally is going on, and a bit before and after, there are 400,000 to 600,000 motorcycles in the 100 mile radius surrounding Sturgis! She also offered that many of those motorcycles never even come to Sturgis itself; that groups come year after year, stay at favorite campgrounds, and never leave except perhaps to ride around the countryside.

The Geographic Center of the U. S.

We then drove from Sturgis to Belle Fourche, SD (pronounced “Bell Foosh”) to see the Monument for the Geographic Center of the (50) United States of America. The center shifted here (actually a point 20 miles north of town in a privately owned field) from a point in Kansas after Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union. We met an excellent volunteer at the visitor center who tipped us off to the Aladdin, WY General Store, 17 miles to the west. That wasn’t on our itinerary for the day, but we might visit it as part of our Devil’s Tower sightseeing day. He also asked us where we were headed this summer and when we mentioned that we would be headed for home by way of I-94 through Montana and North Dakota, he asked if we already had reservations at RV parks and campgrounds? We told him that we did not, and he suggested that we make them. There is apparently a major oil boom going on in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, and the workers have taken up residence in every RV park, campground, and motel in the area. We thanked him for sharing that information, and find that folks along our way are often very helpful.

D. C. Booth Historic Fish Hatchery under water viewing window

From Belle Fourche we traveled south to Spearfish, SD. Expecting only to pass through to get to a scenic drive through the Black Hills, we stopped to see the D. C. Booth historic fish hatchery and ended up staying quite a while. The hatchery is a wonderful site adjacent to a lovely city park and across the street from a city owned RV campground. Here again, we met a volunteer at the museum who was a full-time RVer. He and his wife were both volunteers at the hatchery and were staying in the RV park across the street. He had lots of information to share about our intended destinations in Wyoming, and did so quite freely.

We decide to scout out lunch before continuing our trek and found the Green Bean Coffeehouse, and organic café with vegetarian and vegan choices. We had the Woodstock wrap consisting of hummus, cashews, and veggies, and it was excellent.

We left Spearfish and drove US-14A through Spearfish Canyon, and the towns of Lead, and Deadhorse before returning to I-90 E to Exit 52 (Black Hawk) and 3 Flags RV Park. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are two of the more famous people buried here, but we did not stop as it was getting late in the day and we were getting tired. Deadhorse definitely had the look of the old west, but it was hard to tell how much of it was authentic/restored and how much was re-created. It was also mobbed and it looked like finding a place to park might be difficult, with quite a walk back to the main part of town. Maybe some other time.

BTW: Linda has done all of the sight-seeing driving in the Honda Element, which gives me a chance to study maps and look at scenery that I don’t get when driving the coach. When driving on/near I-90, as well as when we are at our coach (watching the traffic on I-90), we have observed a steadily increasing flow of west-bound motorhomes, many presumably headed to Gillette, WY for the upcoming FMCA Family Reunion and Motorhome Showcase (rally/convention). We will be headed that way ourselves tomorrow so we cleaned the outside of all the windows on the coach. We are due to arrive at the CAM-PLEX in Gillette on 6-17-13 in the PM. We figured it would be 2.5 hour drive and discussed hooking up the car before bed this evening so we could just disconnect the utilities and leave. We decided against it for emergency/safety reasons. (Should we need to leave in a hurry for some reason, the delay involved in unhooking the car could make the difference between a good and bad outcome.) We planned to pull out at approximately 9:30 AM, which gave us plenty of time to make ready for travel in the morning.

2013_06_09 (Sun) GO!

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Ready or not, our first long journey began today. We finished loading last minute items, including some refrigerator items and the two cats. The bus started right up, I backed it into the street, and we hooked up the car. We were aiming to be underway by 9:00 AM, and actually pulled away from our home in S. E. Michigan at 9:25 AM. Not bad. Our destination was Twelve Mile, Indiana via M-59, I-96, I-69, US-12, M-217 (Michiana Hwy), US-20, US-31, and IN-16. The weather was good and the drive went smoothly. The over-the-road (OTR) air-conditioning even worked well, although we continued to get an occasional “low pressure” warning light for the system. We stopped at Gallahan’s, a truck stop at US-24 and US-31 not far from Twelve Mile, and topped off the tank. We arrived at Service Motors, Butch and Fonda Williams business in Twelve Mile, around 3:30 PM.

After a quick “hello”, Linda went to work with Fonda on their business records (Linda is a retired CPA) while Butch and I began working on the genset exhaust and fresh water pump low-flow problems, as these seemed to be the ones most likely to adversely impact our summer travels if not resolved.

Butch and I decided that the only reasonable solution to the genset exhaust pipe problem was to use unions on both ends. This in turn would require parts and welding. We discovered that the attachment that goes through the floor of the bay already had a union, but the exhaust outlet from the turbocharger did not. The problem with the water pump appeared to be bad plumbing design; the lines are undersized PEX and there are too many right-angle and T-fittings that are further constricted in diameter. That wasn’t a problem we would be able to solve in the day or so we had to work, but we had some ideas of a few other things to check out the next day.

We only worked for a few hours and then drove into Logansport to have dinner at one of the Mexican restaurants. We stopped at the Home Depot first to get parts, but they had just closed. Since Linda and I follow a “whole-foods, plant-based” (WFPB) way of eating, our choices of restaurants and restaurant menu items are usually quite limited. Many Mexican restaurants have “veggie fajitas” on the menu, and these work well for us. (BTW: the story of the naming of Twelve Mile, IN is that is 12 miles NE of Logansport, 12 miles S of Rochester, and 12 miles NW of Peru. Most of our runs, however, are to Logansport.)