JUMP OR SWIM

There is a fine art to RV septic dumping. Gaila is an expert after dumping for five months when I hiked the Continental Divide. Now and then she will let me take a turn at the dump station. That was the case recently in Cody, Wyoming. We found a city RV dump station by going on the internet. Yes, the internet can even tell you where to take a dump. I did everything by the book as Gaila stood by to grade my performance. My plan was to fill up nearby with fresh water after dumping, but before I could do that a large tour bus pulled up. There was a big sign that stated, “No Commercial Dumping” but these two Canadians must not have understood English. I could see them considering their options. One was obviously the driver and the other was a slick looking tour chaperone who seemed most talented at smoking his cigarette and suggesting how the driver should go about dumping his bus full of ballast. I heard Slick say to the driver, “We can just back it up close to the hole and let ‘er go, eh?” When they started backing up next to us I told Gaila to run for her life. We jumped in the motorhome and we made a quick retreat. These turkeys didn’t even have a sewer hose. They just backed over the dump station and let’er fly, splashing everywhere. The driver was doing all the dirty work, and Slick Willy was running in the opposite direction holding his nose, puffing on his weed and yelling, “Oh, my God that stinks, eh?” 

The septic outlet on an RV is on the driver’s side of the vehicle so that irresponsible people cannot dump on the side of the road. It is obvious that this isn’t true with tour buses. I am not sure when the RV industry implemented the new location for black and gray water outlets. Trailers in the 50’s and 60’s had the dump outlet on the road side of the vehicle so that trailer owners could dump on the shoulder. I can see how that would have fallen out of favor as millions of Americans took to the road in recreational vehicles. Anyway, our new method of dumping the motorhome septic is to first check for Canadian Tour Bus operators, then get in and out fast. --Keep Smilin’

CASCADES TO THE ROCKIES

I don’t know why we had never been to Crater Lake before. We just skirted it on past trips. What a cool place. My knees have been giving me problems since my hike in Glacier or we would have done a lot more hiking around the lake. 

The morning we were leaving the park our Saturn decided to die. My brother-in-law (a much better mechanic than I)  was heading back to California and not even out of sight when it stopped running. We have still been using it but have to push start it. I push and Gaila pops the clutch. She is getting better at it all the time. The first time she didn’t have it in gear. I’ll have to put a starter in it when we get home, I just don’t feel like climbing under it and dealing with it on the road. 

This traveling is wonderful. Gaila used to complain that I drank too much coffee but now she has decided “If I can’t beat ‘em, I’ll join ‘em.” As you can see by the picture we have a supply wagon full of coffee that shadows us wherever we go. 

Once we reached the Eastern side of the Cascades in Oregon there was a dramatic change in scenery. It is very dry and rolling terrain. A lot of second gear climbing but not a chore with an air conditioned motorhome. I think it might have been a bit more difficult with a covered wagon full of arrows. Idaho flattens right out and we watched ranchers combining and haying this year’s last cutting. 

We followed “Goodale’s Cutoff” http://www.idahohistory.net/OTgoodale.html one of many shortcuts along the historic Oregon Trail. We visited Craters of the Moon National Monument and hiked through a lava tube 60 ft. deep and 800 ft. long. Blistering hot up top on the lava field and amazingly cool through the tube. Pigeons were roosted in the cool tubes which proves that birds are not stupid.

Fifty miles west of Idaho Falls, ID the Rockies come into view. You can see from the bottom of the Wind River Range up into Yellowstone, with the Grand Tetons anchoring the center of the horizon. This area is the largest volcanic region in the world and the surrounding landscape make it evident. 

Teton Pass into Jackson Hole, WY is a first gear, slow climb up, and a first gear, fast, sphincter tightening ride down the other side.

Jackson Hole was a unique, small western town when I was a kid but I see no resemblance today. We drove through quickly and I think I will just drive around it in the future. We camped just inside Grand Teton National Park and ate breakfast the next morning with the mountains framing our motorhome picture window. Not a cloud in the sky, four moose in the field and me pushing a Saturn through the campground as Gaila pops the clutch. Is that sucking the juice out of life, or what?

Yellowstone is closing up for the winter and although the weather is perfect, they must know from the past that it’s going to get cold soon. 

September has always been a golden time of year to travel. Once school starts around the country the vacationing traffic thins considerably. But I am noticing a silent invasion. It is getting much busier during the fall. It is the invasion of the boomerang gang (boomers). As the Geritol Posse grows, the busier recreational destinations are becoming in the fall season. Maybe with global warming we will have extended fall seasons that will accommodate larger crowds. 

The other thing you have to deal with at the end of the season in National Parks are some cranky rangers. They have spent the last several months answering every stupid question imaginable and they just can’t take it anymore. I just love stopping at the Visitor Centers and asking really stupid questions to see how many of them I can push over the edge. 

That’s all for now out here in the Wild West. Keep Smilin’, Dick

HOW TO BLOW YOURSELF UP ON THE ROAD

Hauling a large tank of propane around under your seat is maybe not the best idea but it is convenient. It runs the motorhome hot water heater, refrigerator and furnace. It’s a necessity if you want cold beer, a bath and a warm space to enjoy hot coffee on a chilly morning. The tank itself has what is known as a pop-off valve. When filling the tank you want to make sure the attendant opens the pop-off valve. When the liquid fuel reaches the valve it starts spewing gas and you know the tank is properly filled to 80%.  

The way you know it is not done right is very simple. You start in Montana with a guy with brown teeth who’s complaining about it being cold and that he was lassoed into doing this filling job. I should have been watching him but I was busy doing other things. I thought, when he handed me my bill, that $39.78 was a little steep for propane, but I paid and headed down the road into Kalispell, MT. 

All of a sudden it sounded like someone took a shot at us with a shotgun. A few seconds later they fired again. My thought was the refrigerator was trying to light and getting too much gas. I pulled over in the perfect spot--a funeral home parking lot. After inspecting the propane tank I thought maybe it was through expanding in the morning sun and finished with the mini-explosions. Again, we started down the road, and again the explosions. 

I saw what I thought was another propane dealer. I pulled in and discovered it was a Schwan’s Food distributor. Luckily for us, the manager was well-trained in propane as all their trucks are run on propane. He grabbed a pair of gloves and popped the valve, releasing lots of pressure. I could see the dollar bills shooting out of the tank. He said not to touch it without gloves as it was two million degrees below zero. He also suggested not releasing it like this around any smokers or open flame of any kind. On a cold morning he said it would just float low to the ground looking for something to blow up. The moral of the story is: Know how your propane fill should be done. Watch the attendant to make sure it is done properly, especially if he has brown teeth and complains a lot about having to work on a chilly morning. 

ON THE MOVE--WE HOPE!

Once I cross the Mighty Mac and start heading west on Hwy 2, I am born again. It almost didn’t happen this time. After a month of readying the motorhome and getting techno road abled with a laptop and DC powered printer, so we could take the book business anywhere, things went south fast the night before we were leaving. Gaila was working at Munson Urgent Care when she started having chest pains. They were not sure she was going to make it to her 59th birthday, just hours away. They gave her an EKG, a chest and abdominal X-ray, blood pressure monitoring and a check of all her vitals. After checking her vitals they discovered her problem was vittles. I could have saved her a ton of money. I had just told her that morning that she was full of shit. But she wanted a professional opinion I guess. Now she is on constipation meds and I will be looking for RV dumping stations all the way to Seattle. Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird