Day 101

Day 101 ( Is this a book for dummies?)

The rest area at mile marker 104 on Interstate 70 East, Missouri, really was a rest area. Extremely quiet, and no overhead floodlights to bother us.

A very good night’s sleep, despite the rain which woke us in the middle of the night.

Then, it was off to Mother in Law country!!!

!50 miles of farmland, rolling meadows and hills, with farmers scurrying about on their combines, and haystacks everywhere. We actually noticed the fall colors had started to appear, seems a bit early.

We landed in Ballwin, St Louis at noon, and all the neighbors came out to stare at the huge behemoth parked in the road, blocking everything.

After a light lunch of turkey and grapes, it was out to the back patio and a fight to the death with some wasps.

With the aid of a step ladder, a stick and a can of bug spray, Marlipops and your fearless captain prevailed. They didn’t have a chance.

Then, luxury of luxuries, a hot, steaming, high pressure shower. I could have stayed there for hours!!

We had a pleasant dinner in an Irish Pub, fish and chips, which was good, but not on a par with those of Alaska.

Afterwards, we didn’t do much of anything, except chill and watch TV.

We will be here for a couple of days for a much needed break.

Wildlife watch today, was some squirrels and a bright green hummingbird hovering around Wilda’s back patio.

Day 100

100 days on the road…………..almost a prison sentence!!!!!

Happy Birthday John!

It’s tomorrow, but you won’t read this tonight, so tomorrow’s will be too late for today, or was it yesterday?

Anyway, you are old.

We both apologize for our recent blogs being boring, but sitting in parking lots, or on the side of the road, broked down is not exactly fascinating.

We tried to make up some lost time today, and drove 500 miles. It was all freeway, all cruise control, all flat and again, all bloody boring!!!

We left Sioux Falls after finally sorting out our bills and claims, and got on Interstate 29, and went all the way down, through Sioux City, past Omaha, Nebraska, and to Kansas City. The countryside is all farmland, but not much livestock, only the occasional cow or horse.

The highlight of the day was a flock of wild turkeys, about twenty, scampering away from the side of the road.

But overall, a non event as far as interesting stuff, in fact nothing even remotely worth exaggerating

We are off to see The Marlipops Mother!!!!

I’m sure I can get some candid pix while we are there!!!

Day 99

So, here we still are, on Cummins parking lot, in Sioux Falls. That is the bad news.

The good news is we think the problem has been fixed. The technician was knocking on our door at 7.00 am, and started out by attempting to connect to the ECM management computer for the engine. There was no voltage getting to it, so he bypassed the system, and finally found the problem, and it was a duff relay switch.

It was a $ 5.36 part, and took him 2 hours to diagnose, but he was diligent and finally found the problem. A different technician came with a new switch, (as our original guy had to go on a call out), put it in and nothing worked. We sat there for 4 hours while the shop foreman was on the phone to the coach manufacturer, trying to trouble shoot the problem. Then the original technician came back and saw immediately that the second technician had installed the new switch incorrectly!!

We had been sitting on the grass bank, reading and snoozing, totally bored out of our skulls, and we eventually agreed to stay here overnight, so we could argue with Cummins Calgary tomorrow. Turns out none of what they did was necessary, and of course we want our money back.

So, we will leave here tomorrow, to points anew.

We did not take any pix.

Wildlife watch today was some pretty butterflies, a dragonfly which hovered around us all day, and we thought was a drone alien spy thing, a fluffy white tailed rabbit, and some big silver noisy birds with U.S. Air National Guard written all over them.

Day 98

We have modified our wonderful journey yet again!

We are now going to continue on a tour of Cummins Diesel Repair facilities throughout our great nation!

We left our excellent campsite at around 10 of the clock this morning, and cruised for 3 hours at a steady 60 mph.

We had the generator going, running the roof AC units, we were singing and enjoying our own company immensely, not a care in the world.

We pulled over for gas at a very RV friendly service station, did not make the mistake of turning off the engine, (coz we knew it would not re - start) and continued on our merry way.

By 5.00 pm local time, we had moved into the central time zone, we were only 6 miles from Sioux Falls South Dakota, having blasted 350 miles under our belts.

By 5.01 local time we were still 6 miles from Sioux Falls, and stayed there for 4 hours.

Yes, our wonderful friends at Cummins Calgary, who fixed our engine last week, obviously didn’t.

We broke down in the middle of a construction zone with the exact same symptoms of last week.

We were not happy campers.

To compound our pissedoffness, we called the local Cummins dealer, who told us that only one tow company in the area could accommodate our rig, and this information was duly passed on to AAA. They then spent the next 4 hours looking for a tow company who could tow us, only to finally call us back and inform us that the company we had told them of 4 hours previously were on their way!!

Anyway, this tow company, Ace Towing was brilliant. The owner himself showed up with his helper, and accomplished in less than an hour what the Canadian bozo from last week took nearly 4 hours to do. Very impressed with their professionalism.

So, we are now parked at Cummins Sioux Falls, where the night manager’s first question was concern for our well being by asking us if we wanted to sleep in the coach on their parking lot. So, first impressions are positive, and hopefully our optimism will be justified in the morrow.

Despite these negative minor set backs, we are both still having a blast, and our relationship has actually got stronger. There ain’t nothing we can’t conquer.

Wildlife watch today………………some crazy, inconsiderate truck driver type people, driving far too close to the white line we were 6 inches away from, and not a cop in sight, again, to see if we had a problem.

Day 97

Another first for your two super heros.

The campsite has a train track running right alongside, and for the first time ever we were not woken by a train blowing it’s hooter at some unearthly hour!

We stayed up all night just to not hear it!

We did some laundry and chores. Well Marlipops did, The Captain sat and made sure no one stole the coach.

We then went to the Badlands.

First, we stopped at Wall. This town, 70 miles from our campsite, is supposebly world famous for it’s drug store, and free iced water. Of course, Me and the Pops obviously don’t belong to this world, coz we had never heard of it.

It was a nothing town back in the depression, which was the nineteen twenties and thirties era, (not when the Wolves lost ten in a row,) and a couple bought the local drug store and decided to give free iced water to thirsty travelers. The Mount Rushmore sculptures were being built at the time and they reasoned that when they were finished a lot of tourists would be in the area. They were not wrong. The town of Wall is now a wall to wall tourist trap. It does have one thing that made it to the top of Captain Cautious’ s***t list, the absolute worst fish and chips in the world. Garbage. I took one bite and threw them away.

So, we left quickly, and took the 35 mile scenic drive along the Badlands loop. This area is the first US National Park, so designated millions of years ago by some president, and is very pleasant.

It was named Badlands by some early French explorers or trappers, who said it was a bad land to travel through, meaning the terrain was difficult to traverse. Once again, we wondered why there had been a problem, since we followed all the signs and roads, without getting lost once.

A mini Grand Canyon is the best way to describe this area, compact, but varying vastly in color and texture. There are sharp jagged rocks and hills, and smaller rounded hillocks, and all changing color due to strata levels, yellows, reds, greens and pinks. Certain areas look as though the colors have been painted on.

There is one flat plateau called Hay Butte. This is several acres big, and years ago homesteaders used it for grass. However, the slopes up to it are so steep that grazing animals could not get up. The homesteaders dismantled a grass harvesting machine every year, took it up to the meadow on top in pieces, reassembled it, cut the grass, then brought everything down by pulley. Very ingenious.

There is a herd of bison, though we only saw one close up, an old male scratching his underside on a thick wooden post.

There are millions of prairie dogs, in and out of their burrows, unfortunately not too scared of humans.

We were also warned about the many rattlesnakes which inhabit this area, especially near the prairie dog towns, but despite our best efforts, we did not see one.

We saw quite a few big horn sheeps. These were wiped out or became extinct a long time ago, so were re introduced to the park, together with the bison, and are slowly making a come back. They all wear electronic collars for tracking purposes, which is a bit sad.

Still, they look quite chic.

An early evening, during which Captain Chef prepared a delish pork tenderloin on the Barbie. It had been marinating all day in one of the Pops’ concoctions, was cooked with some mega stuffed mushyrooms, again delectfully prepared by Marlipops, and was scrummy!!!

Wildlife watch today : Bison, Big horn sheeps, lots of deer, mule and prongyhorns, prairie dogs, all sorts of birds and a cat.

Day 96

The coach started first time this morning, as we were confident it would. Like everyone else, it needs a good nights rest after traveling over 400 miles.

Off we went, 170 miles from our weigh station rest stop to Rapid City, South Dakota.

The journey was some of the bleakest, prettiest we have seen. Miles and miles of prairie, interspersed with rolling fields of wheat. The prairie had millions of cows of all shapes and sizes, some were even the same grey as the scrub, so they were camouflaged!!

There was quite a strong cross wind blowing, with lots of tumbleweeds flying across the road.

And, at several places, in no sensible place or pattern, there were miles of triangular shaped fences. We thought they might be snow barriers, but they started and stopped for no apparent reason.

They reckon up here there are more cows than people, by a factor of about four to one. Well, there are more deer than cows, so that’s a lot of deer, dear.

We saw pronghorns, mule deer, partridges, hawks and chippymonks.

The prairie, we found out, is actually known as high plains, as in High Plains Drifter, starring Clint the Eastwood.

We went past a place called The Center of the Nation, but had absolutely no idea what it meant.

Marlipops came up trumps yet again with our campsite. It is called Three Flags, and is ½ mile off exit 51 on Interstate 90, and is perfect.

We are right in the foothills of The Black Hills, South Dakota.

Marlipops is fed up of me imitating Doris Day…”Take me back to the Black Hills”

She said she wished they would take me somewhere!!

Anyway, we have booked in here for two nights.

We got here around 11.30, hooked up everything, then off in the peril to see Crazy Horse.

A tribute to the original Indians of the nation is being built, along the lines of Mount Rushmore, and is a statue of Crazy Horse, on a horse. The only trouble is that it is nowhere near finished, the sculptor died 20 years ago, they keep running out of money, so it may never get finished.

See pic.

Next, we went for a steam train ride through the hills, from Hill City, see we are famous, to Keystone, where the kops are, and back again.

It is a 10 mile ride over tracks laid by gold and other stuff miners, over 100 years ago.

There are a gazillion fallow deer, and trillions of wild turkeys, both running around together, none of them seem to be fazed by the train.

The Black Hills are different from the Rockies, they seem closer together, and have Ponderosa Pine everywhere, which seem to grow straight out of the rocks.

The ride takes us over the same road 14 times, and I’m sure we saw the same car 14 times.

In my next job, I am going to be a train waver.

The folks whose houses are near the tracks come running out every time the train goes by, and stand there like windmills, their arms flailing around.

Apparently they do this all summer long.

Why do people have to wave at trains and boats for that matter?

Get a life!!!

Then, on to Mount Rushmore.

Before we got there, we saw another rainbow, as well as a weird cloud pattern. No rainbows for years, then two in a few days. Just like English buses.

Also, there were a couple of mountain goats eating the decorative shrubs off the median wall, in the parking lot.

The sculpted mountain is impressive, but not as big as we thought, maybe coz we were not right underneath it.

After it got dark, they did a big screen show, about the birth of the nation, etc, then sang the national anthem, and lit up the sculpture, very gradually.

It was done very slowly, and just white light, not lasers or any glitzy stuff which would have ruined the dignity of the place. Full marks for tastefulness. Well done and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

A worthwhile trip, and a lot fitted in to the day.

Wildlife watch today: Pronghorn antelope, partridge, mule deer, hawks, sheeps, dux, various cows, fallow deer, turkeys, and chippymonk things.

We also saw some yellow bellied birds, but we have not identified them yet. Watch this space.

Day 95

White Rabbits and good morning everyone!!!

Hope your day was better than ours!!

We left Havre Wal Mart at around 10 this morning, and drove for 4 ½ hours non stop, at a steady 65 miles per hour, on wonderfully smooth and very often straight for miles roads.

Brilliant.

We then stopped for gas, in Wolf Point, Montana, and made the dreadful mistake of turning off the engine. It seems that our four day stint with Cummins Calgary was a complete waste of time, and we are back to square one, yet again. The engine would not start.

So, on the phone to Cummins of Calgary, Billings, and all other Cummins dealers within 400 miles. Not one of them wanted to help, coz it is Saturday afternoon, a holiday weekend, and you’ll have to get in touch with the offices when they open……….on Tuesday.

We were slightly ticked off.

Wolf Point really is in the middle of nowhere, rolling farms of wheat as far as the eye can see.

However, the people here have hearts of gold.

Marlipops went into the local auto parts store to ask if there was a diesel mechanic around, and two guys overheard, and came to the coach to help. They got on the phone to some of their friends, and another guy dropped what he was doing and came by to help. They impressed us immensely with their complete openness. After the usual “where are you headed to”, that was it. They didn’t ask about our origins, or other stuff, like most folk do, they just tried to help two travelers in distress. Very, very honest and genuine people.

Of course, everything they and we tried did not work, and it was 2 and 1/2 hours later, when the engine fired up. We think there is an electronic problem which either overheats something, or shuts down something for a set period.

After that we drove for another 5 hours for a total mileage of 450 today, which considering the trials and tribulations wasn’t too bad.

The scenery was very samey, just like yesterday, but still incredibly beautiful, with yellow fields, which weren’t supposed to be yellow, but needed rain, as told to us by the guys mentioned above, who have 4000 acres of yellow.!!

We are parked at a weigh station parking lot in North Dakota, but only 12 miles north of South Dakota!

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s travelog about a little town we passed while still in Canada. It was a ½ horse town, that’s how small it was, but had a Lancaster Museum, consisting of a couple of US jet fighters outside a building, which housed a real second world war RAF Lancaster Bomber!!

Fascinating!!

As I proudly said to the Marlipops, this is what WE used to bomb THEIR chip shops!!!!

( Some of you will get it)

Wildlife watch today was some pronghorn antelopes, deer, and a owl, and three dead porkypines.

Sorry, no pix today.

Day 94

Happy Birthday Karen!!!!!

After another uneventful night in Calgary, we went back to Cummins at dawn, and demanded an explanation as to the exorbitant costs, which we felt were totally unjustified, and of course we got fobbed off with a bunch of BS.

However, this matter is not yet over, coz later in the day we had starting problems, so we called Cummins Calgary, and told them we would be going to a proper Cummins dealer, in the US, and any charges for fixing our problem would be back charged to them.

So, off down the road and out of Calgary and Canada as quickly as possible. The southern part of Alberta is flat, open and surprisingly pretty. It is all prairie land, rolling wheat fields, and this time of year the harvest is in full swing, with combines creating clouds of yellow dust all over the place.

We went through the town of Lethbridge, which has a humungous iron bridge over a gorge or river or something, and then we went past the best named town so far:

Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump.

Back in the olden days, Indians used to stampede buffalo over a 1000 ft cliff, thus killing them quickly, and saving money on arrows.

But, this town was not named for that. Apparently some “brave” (get it?) Indian decided to stand at the bottom of the cliff and watch the entertainment. He got hit by a passing buffalo, and was enshrined in glory for ever more as the head that got smashed in.

We got to the border, and were asked the usual questions and then they wanted to know if we had any meat on board, so we said yes, just normal grocery items.

We were made to pull over, and were taken into the customs office, and told to fill out a customs declaration form. Meanwhile, two customs officers inspected our fridge and confiscated the steak, kidney, liver and limes we had.

“National Security”

“If we let you take Canadian steak into the country, the terrorists have won!!!”

Such crap. Anyway, it was only about $20.00 worth of stuff, so we smiled and said have a nice day.

So, we wandered on and are spending the night on Wal Mart parking lot, in Havre, Montana, about 120 miles east of Shelby.

We did see some wildlife today.

Two jackrabbits, a bunch of quail, and lots of sheeps.

Day 93

Hopefully our last day in Calgary, Canada.

After a quite uneventful night on Cummins parking lot, we were in their office bright and early at 7.30, fully expecting to be given the run around again. However, we actually got some response, and the coach was finally examined.

We were told the existing fuel filters were the wrong sort for the engine, so they needed to be changed.

OK

We were told that one of the connections to one filter was the wrong type and needed to be replaced.

OK

We were then told that “the plumbing” for the fuel system was wrong, should never have been built this way, and we didn’t really need both fuel filters.

OK

We were then told that they had discovered the fuel lift pump was not working, and needed to be replaced.

OK

Then, after taking off the old lift pump, they told us that they had been mistaken, and the plumbing in fact was correct.

OK

So, after spending all morning here, we finally left around noonish, to finally continue our journey towards somewhere, anywhere else.

Not OK

100 yards down the road, coach engine stopped, exactly the same symptoms as before, but with us having just paid over $ 1000.00 to have it fixed by the “experts”.

We spent the next two hours sitting on the grass at the side of the road, watching the clouds, snoozing, eating ham sandwiches and gently sipping from a bottle of water, while the mobile mechanic worked on the coach.

Finally, the coach was running and we went back to Cummins, where we sat for another couple of hours while they finally figured out that the fuel filters had not been bled properly, and it was quite possible that we did not in fact need the lift pump replacement after all. Of course, by this time, the service foreman had left for the day, so we were asked to go back in the morning!

We will be there at 7.30, demanding a partial refund, since we have no confidence that any of their diagnoses were correct.

We drove two blocks away, and parked next to an empty lot, in the heart of the industrial area of Calgary.

This is a good tip for any potential RVers out there, boondocking and generator running in industrial areas is OK, all office staff have usually gone home, so you won’t be disturbed.

No wildlife today, sorry.

Day 92

So we awoke to the delicate sounds of a motel cleaning crew vacuuming the corridors!!

We partook of the continental breakfast and then gently wandered over to Cummins Diesel to check on the coach.

As expected, nothing had been done, so we politely discussed our situation with the Service Foreman, who was, again politely, worse than useless.

He told us that they could probably look at the engine “this afternoon” and that we would be telephoned and kept updated.

So, with all day in front of us, we went across the city to Guarantee RV dealers, and bought some latches to replace those broken during the rough road trip out of Alaska.

The staff at this dealership are extremely helpful and friendly. They obviously went to a different charm school than the Cummins employees!!

We had a pleasant lunch at the little local airport café, and then ,with no phone call from Cummins, we decided to do what all 50 year old lovers do, we went to the movies!

What was neat were the automatic ticket machines, no waiting in line to talk to a speaker in a piece of glass, in front of some bored looking, pimply faced adolescent with an attitude.

We saw The Bourne Ultimatum, excellent finale to the trilogy, full of action and suspense, very good.

We then drove back to Cummins, because, as anticipated, we had received no phone call, and when we got here, the Service Foreman had already left for the day.

The night foreman is a study in negativity, and we think he wrote that best selling book, “ How To Cover Your Ass 101”.

So the upshot was that we drove the coach onto the front parking lot of Cummins Diesel, and spent the night there.

So, not exactly the most exciting report of the journey, but we have to take the bad with the good.

Calgary is a quite large, very clean, flat and suburban city. Bland just about sums it up.

It has hosted the Winter Olympics (we think) and has a very impressive place called Olympic Park, with toboggan runs and ski lifts and a massive ski jump complex. Of course, there is not much snow about at the moment, in fact with temperatures in the high 70’s, there is no snow at all, so despite our pleading and begging, we were not allowed to do the ski jump or anything.

The province of Alberta is very green conscious, which is extremely refreshing. No pun intended.

Wildlife watch was non existent today.

New beer watch was Rebel Ale, Grasshopper, and Kokanee. All of these are local Alberta brews, and were excellent.

Day 91

Marlipops and The Captain learned all about pouring concrete bridge supports today.

Our Banff campsite had a checkout time of 11.00 am, so we left at 11.03 coz we are rebels.

We got to Calgary at 1.30, and promptly broke down. The engine just died, and we were right before a stop light. Dead as a Dodo. Not a glimmer. Kaput.

So, we did all the AAA things, got a flat bed tow truck arranged etc etc. “we’ll be there within two hours” they told us.

5 hours later, the truck finally showed up. By that time we had watched the nearby bridge construction crew pour 10 million tons of concrete, and we had resorted to counting the squished bugs on the windshield, and the number of cars permitted through each traffic light cycle (9 at this intersection).

There was evidently a big construction project going on nearby, as lots of big double trailer dirt hauling trucks came by time and time again. We got on first name terms with some of them!!

One guy even stopped his truck in the middle of the road and asked us if we were going to camp there for the night!

To be fair, several people stopped to offer help, but not one of them was a cop.

Interesting.

It took the moronic tow truck driver another hour and a half to load us on to the trailer, at one point we had to even manually push the coach backwards!!

We eventually got the coach dropped off at Cummins Diesel at around 9.45, and finally got into a Super 8 Motel (at a mere $150 night, for the most basic of motels) At least we had full hook ups!!

So, we are not sure what is wrong, hopefully just a fuel filter or other fuel related glitch, coz as we were off loading the coach, I started it. The tow truck driver said that the ride to Cummins may have shooken something loose, so I turned the key and bingo, it started. Then, I touched the brake pedal, the engine died. Did it twice more, both times the engine died. So, we don’t know. It’s with the experts, we hope!

We were told it could be there all week, they are busy, backed up, a holiday weekend ahead, blah, blah, blah. It must be an American company, all the BS we heard.

So tomorrow, we are going to beg.

We did see an unusual sunset type event late at night. Check the pic.

Wildlife watch today was two bored Rolling Hills.

Day 90

First of all, congratulations to Jamie on her Hollywood debut.

We had no squirrel chorus this morning, but were awoken around four o’clock by a howling wolf.

Today is the first day of winter.

We had snow, and we got the pix to prove it!!!

In fact we had so many different types of weather, it’s difficult to know where to start.

Having decided to retrace our steps of the other day, we went first to Lake Louise, by way of highway 1A, which is a 58 kilometer scenic bypass, through some lovely wooded roads. We saw our first coyote for several weeks, walking along the railroad track, obviously training for something.

Then, the lovely Lake Louise, with the obligatory Fairmont hotel and Spa, and millions of far eastern tourists, doing their posing again.

Very pretty, and very touristy, but we got out quickly, and the rain turned to hail.

Then on to 93 and the Icefield Parkway. First stop was Peyto Lake, in the snow!!

The rain, which had turned to hail, decided to turn to sleet, and we said “ Wouldn’t it be neat if……….” And it did!! Snow!! Yippee!!

Peyto Lake is a brilliant turquoise blue, set deep in a valley under a glacier and some towering snow capped mountains, and what is special is that it is not accessible for the general public, so is completely unspoiled.

There is a half mile hike up the side of a mountain from the parking lot to get to a viewing platform, which overlooks the lake, but is hundreds of feet above it.

We rushed about taking pix in the snow, coz by this time Mr. Sun had come out and was melting the white stuff as quickly as it had come down.

Onwards we went, through the stunning scenery once again. We trust by now that you have all looked up the Icefield Parkway on line, studied it, and can name each mountain we send a picture of.

We stopped at Athabasca Glacier,

right in the heart of the Columbia Icefield, and they have these huge six wheeled bus beasts, for carrying passengers actually on to the glacier itself. So, we stopped, took pix, and then looked over the road, and saw people walking on the glacier!

So, we thought, let’s do that!

So we did. Parked the peril, hiked uphill for what seemed like six hours, but was only about fifteen minutes, and we got to walk on a glacier!

It was very slippery, and after about ten feet or so, there were signs warning of the danger of cracks and crevasses and people falling down them, never to be seen or heard of again.

So everyone ignored the signs and kept on walking, except Captain Wimp. I just stayed by the sign, taking pix of the Pops as she headed into the distance.

Of course, nothing untoward happened and we went on our merry way, back towards Banff, Marlipops in the driving department.

As we got nearer the town, the rain eased off, the sun came out and there was the most incredible double rainbow.

You may not think this is much to report, but when you think back, how many times in your life have you seen a full, double rainbow, one which is extremely brilliant, and lasts for about half an hour?

For us, it was a fantastic end to the day, with all the weather changes we had.

Mark and John, I met a guy wearing a Leicester City shirt. We talked for a while, and it turns out him and his wife were at The Mol on 10.25.03, when we came from 0-3 down to beat them 4-3. Quite made my day reminding them of that!!

Taylor and Kitty, enjoy school, it beats work. ( but then again, how would we know?)

Wildlife watch was another coyote later in the day, and a squirrel hiding his nuts for winter.