Author: canoepam@yahoo.com

Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park

We finally got out of town! We are taking a trip to Estes Park and RMNP as an anniversary present to ourselves (40 years). We are not camping this time but instead staying at the Inn On Fall River, a first for us. It was a very, very long drive! We did eat dinner at an incredible Thai restaurant called Bai Tong in Loveland. We will definitely have to do that again. We got a two room suite that has a huge patio next to Fall River. The place is standard tourist rustic but clean and tidy. Chairs and lounges are on our private patio, plus a number of other “common” spots around the property. When we are here we have mostly just stayed on the patio. I love the sound of moving water. The pictures are from when we arrived and the next morning.

 

On Monday we took the standard RMNP drive: up the Fall River Road to the top of Trail Ridge Road, continued down the west side of the mountain, then back to town on Trail Ridge Road. It was an incredible first three miles. We saw 2 moose (an unusual sight), a herd of elk, and a herd of mule deer. I didn’t get pictures of any of those, but we made up for it later. We took a break for a bit, then we went to find the bugling elk, the primary purpose of this trip. I have seen thousands and thousands of elk, but we have never been here for the rut when they bugle. We ended up at Moraine Park, and we found this guy and his harem.

 

It wasn’t a big harem, but he took it very seriously, bugling like crazy when another buck came into range.

We also saw a number of mule deer including this guy.

I didn’t get a good picture of the harem, but he had six does with him.

Besides animals we obviously saw some gorgeous scenery. The aspen are changing colors on the hillsides, and it is glorious. I took this from the west side of Trail Ridge Road, and even with the haze it is lovely.

 

Since Monday was so successful we went to Denver today to visit their REI. It is huge, but a royal pain to get to and park since it is right downtown. We did get some new Helinox folding chairs. I found them obscenely expensive, but comfortable and very compact. They will fit in a backpack or on the bike carrier with ease. We also bought a Big Agnes air pump for our tent camping air mats. They are downfilled so you can’t just blow them up with your mouth, and we haven’t found our old pump since we moved! We still have some hope of going tent camping in Ely, MN next week though the weather is not looking good.

We came back from Denver though Boulder to Nederland to Estes Park. Much nicer scenery than I-25!

We haven’t decided what to do tomorrow, but we will probably go to Horseshoe Park to look for elk there.  We have a Chuckwagon Dinner scheduled for Thursday evening, then we head home on Friday. My poor kitty is staying with my son, and he says she isn’t terribly happy. She did come up to get petted for a few minutes, so it should improve. She just isn’t an animal that likes change or new people.

WordPress work plus the cat

I really, really need to update my WordPress templates so they look more like a “normal” blog with search keys and date markers so I can navigate through old posts easier. I ended up buying a book on WordPress that I picked up at Barnes and Noble. Yes, I know I can find anything I want online, but I really like books. I can skip around easier, underline, and use an index among other tasks. So I am now going through the book beginning to end. I am still working through it from beginning to end, but it is slow going. The first chapters include material I already know, but I don’t dare skip something because I undoubtably will miss something important.

I did take a break from reading for a couple of reasons. First, it was our 40th anniversary on Sunday. We spent the night at Nicolet Mansion B&B in Jordan, MN, southwest of Minneapolis. It was a lovely evening, night, and breakfast. We had dinner at an odd restaurant – Suzette’s in Jordan. The exterior and much of the interior screams “Diner!” due to the block exterior and booths with blue vinyl upholstery. The appearance is quite deceiving, though the European reproduction paintings give a hint. The chef is Cambodia by birth but European-trained, and the food was fantastic. For dessert we had ordered a chocolate fondue at the B&B which was quite fun. Of course it rain a lot the day of the anniversary and today so we didn’t get to the Renaissance Festival or the zoo like we had planned. It was still quite nice.

Our other distraction has been my poor cat. She had one surgery to remove a growth that turned out to be a skin cancer. She then had a second surgery to make sure they had got it all, and she is still recovering from that.

Doesn’t that look terrible? It is basically almost half her neck covered in a bunch of huge stitches. It is in the wrong spot to protect by an Elizabethan collar, and she pulls off any bandages we put on top of it. It must be dreadfully itchy, and she tries to scratch it. Luckily we head back to the vet tomorrow, and hopefully the stitches can come out.

On successful note, Kevin got all the solar installed. Our sons didn’t come up, so he had to do it himself. I was fairly irritated about it, but he took it better than I did. Oh, and I got a new electric bicycle, but I will talk about that next time since I haven’t got much of a chance to ride it.

Fun times with family in Minnesota

My oldest son, Alan, and his wife co-own a great lake house in southern Minnesota. We took a family weekend there along with another son and my daughter and her family. Kevin and I obviously have more time so we took off early to do some sightseeing along the way. We spent some time in Northfield, MN, a lovely little college town. We wandered around the downtown area which was full of historic brick buildings and lots of artisan-type shops. We also visited their historic museum. One of Northfield’s claims to fame is that the bank was (rather unsuccessfully) robbed by the Jessie James and Younger gang. The “guided tour” was with a high school student who obviously was very excited to be able to tell about the robbery. The old bank teller area was still original, and the little museum is well worth the $4 or $5 fee (depending on age).

Northfield also has a great olive oil and vinegar shop. Alan had told me it was a great place that he bought things from regularly. We ended up with one cooking oil and one flavored oil for dipping bread in. I admit I don’t use enough vinegars to appreciate the options of those. I intend on using both for dinner tomorrow night! We also found a great Mexican restaurant, Gran Plaza. I had Pollo Loco with the best Mexican rice I have ever had! It is a bit silly to rave about rice, but it was really outstanding. It had been cooked with grilled onions, and that was certainly a help.

The days at the lake house were fun. Alan’s BIL is a contractor, and he just finished a bathroom remodel for them hours before we showed up. Very nice! Handy too since I wasn’t looking forward to having 7 adults and 3 children sharing a single shower stall. We chose the bedroom closest to the new bathroom – surprise! This is the way I spent most of my time. (This was at the end of the day; it was sunnier most of the time.)

On Saturday Kevin, daughter Cheyenne, and grandson Clay went to the Apple Valley view in souther Minneapolis area. They had a good time, but they all said Clay’s favorite were the goats.

Everyone except Kevin and me spent lots of time in the water.

Neither Kevin or I are overly fond of lake water, but we did enjoy some fishing and boat riding. We also had some great pizza at an artisanal place in Montgomery, MN. Yummmmm.

Most of the folks left Sunday afternoon, but Alan’s family, Kevin, and I stayed until today. We got lucky, and the rain that had been forecast to start last night waited until after we left around 10:30. We ended up having a classic Midwest pork tenderloin lunch at a place called the Elbow in Albert Lea. Good, fried tenderloin sandwiches are one of the things I missed most about the Midwest when we lived in Utah.

Other than the trip, Kevin continues to be busy on the motorhome. He completed the final cosmetic work on the EMS installation, the solar controller, and the Trimetric battery monitor. Now he just needs to get one of the kids here to help install the panels. It should be one of the next two weekends.

Just hanging around home

We have just been hanging around home for the last couple of weeks. Kevin is really busy working on the motorhome’s electrical system. He has added a Electrical Monitoring System (EMS) that protects against low voltage as well as high voltage situations. The coach had built in surge protection, but low voltage can be really hard on electronics so it is good to manage that too. The EMS detects bad incoming voltage and then shuts down external power so nothing gets damaged. Once everything works again, power is restored..it has already been helpful. The storage unit we have has only 15 amp power, much less than the motorhome really needs. Turns out we were running at 104 volts instead of 110, so some adjustments to the charging system had to be made. Kevin never would have known about the problem without the EMS, at least until electronics started randomly failing.

Kevin has also had a great time planning out the solar system. The panels and controller plus all the miscellaneous mounting hardware have arrived. He has already installed the controller in the storage bay near the batteries, and the panels are in the garage waiting for one of my son’s and my son in law to help in a couple of weeks. They will have a much easier time climbing around the roof than Kevin would! He is still going to supervise, but they should get the entire system installed and operating in a day.

I have been remarkably lazy. I did take the three local grandkids to Vacation Bible School last week which was pretty tiring. I keep forgetting just how much energy children (4 and 8) have! They had a blast though. We are pretty happy with one of the local Presbyterian churches, and we will be joining it soon. They have a much more socially active ministry than my church in Salt Lake City, and I am very comfortable with it. I also visited the ophthalmologist in Cedar Rapids I went to before we moved. As I suspected, I have had another vitreous detachment, this time in my right eye. I knew what had happened as soon as the numerous new “floaters” showed up. As with the left eye a year ago, no retinal involvement so it is just a bother, nothing more.

Poor Lily had surgery Friday to remove a spot that just wouldn’t heal. It continued to weep fluid and scab even after multiple treatments with antibiotics,  so we finally had it excised. She has a huge incisision and lots of stitches. She is also in a lot of pain. She is getting an opioid narcotic painkiller every 8 hours, but you can tell from her behavior when it starts wearing off.

The stitches don’t come out for over another week. The vet did send the sample for a path report, but we aren’t expecting any bad news. We all think it was just a spot that was inflamed and never healed. Cats have weird skin issues.

Leaving South Dakota

We haven’t made it completely out of South Dakota, but we are almost out. Tonight we are staying in the Cabela’s parking lot in Mitchell. It wasn’t our first choice, but the Badlands National Park campgrounds was full. Instead of paying a lot of money for a “regular campground”, we decided to just drive a ways farther and spend the night in the Cabela’s lot. Cabela’s encourages RVers to spend the night in a corner of the lot. No services provided, but it is generally safe and quiet. Being free doesn’t hurt a bit either. After all, our unit is fully self contained, so why spend $35-40 for a spot in a private campground?

The Badlands camping alternative was just a wild hope. It was a Friday in the prime tourist season, and I didn’t have high expectations of finding a spot. We did get to drive through the park though, and it was even more beautiful the usual. The grasslands were amazingly green due to the very wet summer South Dakota has been having, and the contrasts between the multi colored rocks and the vegetation was striking. Since we were in the motorhome towing a Grand Cherokee we couldn’t really stop anywhere – too big. We have been there a number of times before though, so we just enjoyed the ride.

I have more pictures of our Black Hills sojourn though. The first is a picture of a spring/waterfall in the town of Hot Springs.

The next is the sound of the Fall River just outside of Hot Springs. I love the sound of water. You will have to click this one to hear it. I really should figure out how to embed videos.

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We also had a fabulous encounter yesterday with a huge herd of mountain goats right at the entrance to Jewel Cave National Monument. We were driving by after doing some back roads from Hill City, rounded a corner, and there they were blocking the highway.

I didn’t get all of them in any one picture, but there probably thirty or more ewes and lambs. They were definitely not too worried about the cars, all of which came to a dead stop.

Also during yesterday’s running around we ate lunch at a good German restaurant in Hill City – the Alpine Inn. We both had jager schnitzel, and it was lovely. We went to this restaurant last year when we were on vacation with the kids near Spearfish, and it was just as good as we remembered. Across from the restaurant was a shop with hundreds of metal yard sculptures. I ended up with a peacock whirly gig and some roses. I will take a picture when I get them in the front bed.

We are actually going to spend tomorrow night at a campground in Waterloo so we can get the motorhome all cleaned up. It won’t be out again until late September or early October. We do have other trips planned, but they will be with the tiny tent camper or the car.

Southern Black Hills

We have a lovely campsite at Angostura State Recreation Area. There are actually 6 separate campgrounds. On the west side of the reservoir is a small regular campground and a horse camp. On the east side, where we are, there are four campgrounds. We are in Cascade campground, the second from the north. Lots of trees, a very nice toilet and shower building, playground for kids, and access to a really nice bike trail make it a good choice. I took some pictures at night, but I haven’t taken any good day time pictures around they campground. I will try to do that tomorrow. Here is one with the full moon poking through the trees last night though.

We have taken some nice drives so far. We went to Rapid City for a prescription refill, and we went through part of Wind Cave National Park. It is a different view of the Black Hills showing the prairies that are intermixed with the mountains. Gorgeous!

We also went into Custer State Park to drive the Wildlife Loop toward Rapid City. It did not disappoint! Turkeys, prairie dogs, deer, pronghorn, donkeys, and, of course, bison.

The bison were actually crossing the road, and they caused a massive traffic jam. We were luckily heading north and only had 5-6 cars dead stopped in front of us. The road heading south was ‘bison jammed’ for at least a mile. Another interesting thing was that there were bulls in the middle of the nursery herd. They were definitely creating harems. The bulls aren’t often with the cows and calves – only when they are getting ready to mate. One big guy, on the right in the picture just above, had collected at least three cows, and he was giving low bellows trying to attract even more.

Today we just hung around the coach and took a quick trip into Hot Springs. There is an aptly named “Skyline Drive” we took toward the top of Battle Mountain. It was definitely a high clearance road due to the wash outs, but the view downhill was lovely.

This picture shows the old sanitarium, now a VA center, and a part of the National Cemetery. The red sandstone buildings are a feature of Hot Springs. Before our common pain medicines were known, hot springs were the primary treatment for most joint and muscle issues so there were a number of sanitariums in the area.

We also had a nice dinner cooked outside. Kevin grilled steaks on the Volcano charcoal stove, and I cooked potatoes and onions on the camp stove. Note mine just got put on the grill. I like medium rare;Kevin prefer medium. We added some garlic butter right at the end and it was delicious.

It isn’t a very big grill, but it uses only a few briquettes and works fine for the two of us. The whole thing, including an adaptor for propane, fits in a small bag for storage. Storage is important for traveling!

Tomorrow we intend on driving up to Hill City and wandering about that area some.

Gillette and the FMCA rally

I just found out all the iPhone pictures I posted in the blog were turned sideways on non-Apple products! How embarrassing. I discovered a fix finally, but it needed better internet than I was able to get in Gillette, so I just got around to fixing them. So far everything looks good since December 2016, and I will get the older pictures fixed when I get home to a high speed Internet.

I ended the last post with us getting parked at the FMCA rally. We actually had a pretty nice time. We met up with a few friends from RVForum.net, bought a new flagpole that attaches with suction cups plus a convection oven cook book and gear in addition to the SeeLevel. Kevin tried to buy a new TV antenna that mounted on the roof, but they were all sold out. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing! Our current movable DISH antenna works great, but it is a bit of a pain to set up each time. Because it is portable, it works in more locations than a roof top antenna ever would. The rooftop is just push a few buttons, and it works. The portable requires putting together a tripod, mounting the antenna, chaining it down, etc. We will keep talking about it and see later. It is the kind of thing we can easily get installed at Quartzsite in January.

The main reason to attend a big rally like this, in addition to seeing friends, is to go to seminars. They run seminars in 14 rooms, 6 time slots a day. Many are very product specific, but some are good for general interest. As an example of product specific seminars, Cummins puts on seminars about their engines and generators (the Onan brand). Kevin got some really good laminated handouts about maintenance and such. Examples of general interest seminars were ones about boondocking and planning long trips. Both of those were excellent. We did take one entire day off and did some sightseeing in the area. We went to a little museum in Wright, about 40-50 milesfrom Gillette. It exceeded my expectations. Fun fact: Wright is a company town for the local Black Thunder coal mine, but it is a public entity. It was incorporated only in 1985. That explains the modern city buildings and school. The guy the town was named after was a real character too.

We left on Sunday morning, and we went to a lovely little campground outside of Custer, SD called Beaver Lake. It was a private campground with lots of trees and a variety of activities. It was mostly full of people obviously in for a week vacation with kids and bikes. The site wasn’t very level, but we made it work. Have I mentioned how much I love the automatic leveling on the motorhome? I will,post more about the Black Hills later, and I will include pictures!

Spearfish Canyon and on to Gillette

We definitely had a nice trip through Spearfish Canyon. I wanted to check out the Forest Service campgrounds, and we did. Sadly they were either too small for our rig or too crowded. We took the loop through Lead and Deadwood back to Spearfish. The only pictures I took were of Bridal Veil Falls.

We also visited the High Plains Heritage Museum in Spearfish. Wow! I highly recommend it. The exhibits were very good and obviously recently refreshed. It covered some Native American history and lots about the western settlements, mining, and forestry. Veterans got in free, but Kevin made up for it when he bought a raffle ticket for a gorgeous commemorative rifle. I assisted by buying a raffle ticket for a beautiful painting. We also enjoyed a lovely dinner at Guadalajara Restaurant almost next door to the KOA. They had a sangria special that I really enjoyed in addition to the food.

We didn’t get in a huge hurry to leave Spearfish, but we were still in Gillette just before 11:30. We saw lots of pelicans, geese, and quite a few pronghorn along the way. The FMCA rally was a zoo. The parking guys obviously were new at their jobs, and they didn’t communicate well at all. Kevin and I were both steaming by the time we got settled in our (very close) site. We got a site with 50 amp power and water, but no sewer. We would be fine for a week without a dump, but it is more comfortable if we have one. They do have a pumper service available, so we will see about using that on Thursday or Friday. We will leave on Sunday morning, and I just got reservations for Sunday night at a private campground just outside of Custer, SD. That will let us get all the laundry done at least since we are going to an electric only site after that for a few days.

We did get one item installed already, a SeeLevel tank monitoring system. The installer had said Monday and Tuesday were the only days he was available, so we called him as soon as we got settled. Our current tank monitors are just 1/3, 2/3, and Full. That isn’t nearly enough knowledge about status to comfortably dry camp. This system shows in 10% intervals, and it uses inductance through the side of the tank instead of internal sensors.

Made it to Spearfish, South Dakota

We left Ely on Thursday around 11:00. We had just over 200 miles to go, and we weren’t supposed to check in before 4:00 so we definitely took our time. The road wasn’t too busy which is good because it was narrow and windy. I was very glad to be on a wider state highway after Virginia. We did get to see some minor wildlife. Not far outside of Ely we saw a pond with two swans on it, definitely a surprise. We also had to slow down while a momma turkey hustled a chick across the road. There were more chicks and another adult turkey waiting for them on the other side.

When we neared Itasca Lily decided she was going to be adventuresome and see what was going on. Normally she hides under the recliner, coming out rarely to express her displeasure, eat, drink, and use her box. This time she climbed right on the dash and looked outside the window for 5 minutes or so.

I was hoping this meant she would finally get brave enough to come out more, but it didn’t. She hid all day today.

We got set up at Bear Paw campground a bit before 5:00. The campsite was plenty long enough, but the interior roads were a bit narrow. It took two attempts to get it backed in correctly. Then we just enjoyed the park. We took the Wildlife Loop, but didn’t see any wildlife. We did see lovely green forests though. We ended at the big park lodge where we had a lovely dinner. I had a wonderful walleye stuffed with wild rice, cranberries, and blueberries with a side of perfect asparagus. Kevin had pot roast that he said was quite good. Here’s a picture of the campground.

The campground had a number of vacancies on a Thursday in mid summer, something that is good to remember for a future weekday trip when we can spend more time.

We left the campground by 9:00 am. We only had 300 miles to go to our destination – the Walmart in Bismarck, ND. There weren’t a lot of choices; North Dakota gets vacant really fast. The Walmart was clean and quiet though it was hot. We easily got leveled and turned on the generator since tonight was definitely going to be a night for AC. I feel pretty good about the generator since it was definitely quieter than another camper’s Honda 2000. We watched the evening news, and I was in bed by 10:15. Of course there was a little noise from the campround’s sprinklers going off at 10:00, but I took a cyclobenzoprene for back pain and was out like a light.

We left Bismarck by 8:30, headed another 300 miles to Spearfish, SD. We are at a KOA with reasonable tree cover and lots of grass. Full hookups mean that I am doing laundry in the coach. Have I mentioned how much I love the washer and dryer there? Yes, it takes a lot longer than going to a laundromat, but I get to do other things while it is running. It is lightly raining right now, and I am sitting under the awning writing this. Pretty good gig! Tomorrow we will head up Spearfish Canyon for some sightseeing. We leave on Monday morning for our first Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Gilllette. We will be going to a number of information sessions, seeing entertainment, and visiting friends from the RVForum.com.

I am definitely feeling more comfortable driving the coach. My arms aren’t stiff and my shoulders aren’t sore because I am much more relaxed. I do have a sore back though because of the seat. It has this odd bump out on the seat back just about where my shoulder blades are. I have started padding the lower part of the seat, and that is much better.

The rain is getting stronger and a bit of a breeze is with it. I think I will go inside, or at least take the iPad inside.

A lovely few days in the north woods

I really like the Ely, MN area. We are staying at Fall Lake campground, and it is the nicest Forest Service campground I have ever been in. The campsite had room to spare for our 40’ motorhome plus parking for the Jeep. We backed in the site, so I have a lovely view of Fall Lake from the big window. 

The campsite across the road is a tent only site, and it has been vacant for much of the time so my view is unimpeded.

We had a fun time with friends from the RVForum plus friends I know in Ely. We had a nice visit in the motorhome with one couple, lunch with another, and we also spent time with RVForum folks at the Winton Roadhouse while Pat Surface was playing. He did a great combo of covers (Elton, Dylan, the Beatles, among others) plus some of his original songs. Note for the future the pretzels are huge and the honey mustard sauce was lovely as was the stout they had on tap.

We decided to head out a day early to make the travel days to Gillette easier. We snagged a site for tonight in Itasca State Park which should be fun. The next night will probably be in a parking lot somewhere, then into the Spearfish, SD KOA for 2 nights.

Some more pics from this stay.

Friends at the Winton Roadhouse.

The road to Lake One at sunset after the rain.

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Times like this is when I wish I brought my camera instead of just my iphone. The colors of the picture does not do justice to the real thing. The sky was orange/scarlet.