Tag: Cabela’s

On the road again!

Finally! I had my last PT on Monday morning followed by my last orthopedist appointment. I am officially released. I am still not recuperated completely though, and I will need to work on strengthening the unused muscles a lot more. I still get store and stiff, and I have trouble sleeping in the bed, but we are out traveling!

We left on Tuesday afternoon, hoping to beat the “Bomb Cyclone” leftovers headed for the Midwest. We made it to the Cabela’s just south of Omaha Monday night and stayed in their parking lot. A bit noisy, but better than a Walmart. We left early, still trying to get as far ahead of the forecast winds as we could manage. We only made it to North Platte, NE where we have been stuck for 3 nights. Luckily the campground, Holiday RV Park is a reasonable place to stay. They still have water on, and it is nice to have access to electric heat. We had lunch one day at a great place downtown – Good Life on the Bricks. It was mostly a BBQ place, and we both enjoyed it. We also ate at Sonic one night – green chili hamburger!

Here’s a picture of winds that came through. See how narrow the frontal boundary is? And it was right on top of us. There was over an inch of rain dropped, but it was accompanied by hail, thunder, and lots of lightening in addition to 50+ mph gusts. The MH definitely rocked and rolled. The campground has been filling up the last 2 days with other work refugees. Luckily Friday is looking good, and we intend on heading out early in the morning,

Wind forecast. Gusts were much worse.
Rain forecast. The pink is for wind warnings.

While we are stuck in North Platte, we got groceries and wandered around some. There was one older house that had gone all out for Halloween.

Combo of plastic and carved pumpkins
Lots of inflatables

But the one that caught my eye is the house with tan siding next door. This was their sign:

Why compete?

The cats have adjusted pretty well. Luna is still her cuddly self. Minnie hides more so no picture. Minnie is actually on anti-anxiety meds, and they are helping. She probably will always be easy to spook, but it doesn’t seem like she lives in terror of everything. Poor baby!

Don’t leave me!

Kevin went to Golden Spike Tower, a railway museum. North Platte is home to a HUGE rail yard, and he said there were lots of various locomotives on view. I stayed back and got a bit of sewing done. I always like having some bowl cozies around as gifts, and I was completely out. I now have two available if I need them. I used my new edge stitch foot and my roller foot, two feet I bought this summer during Bernina’s 25% off sale. The vintage 830 Record machine I have in the MH doesn’t use the same feet the other Bernina does, so I have been adding to the nice selection that it came with.

Speaking of sewing machines, I almost forgot the lovely vintage 730 Record I picked up a month or so back. I wanted a backup machine, and this was sold by a Bernina store in Minnesota. We drove up, and it was in perfect shape. I should have gotten pictures, but I was so sore when we got back I forgot to take any. Lovely machine, heavy, perfect stitch, all the original accessories, all tucked into a cool green suitcase.

We are leaving here tomorrow morning heading to Rawlings, WY. Hopefully we will make it to Salt Lake on Saturday early enough to see some trick or treaters in the KOA campground. I was told the Mormon Church, pretty strong in the area obviously, had decreed Saturday was Trick or Treat Day so everyone can concentrate on church on Sunday. Sigh. I figure we will be ready both Saturday and Sunday. I am hoping to do some banking, connect with some friends, and do some shopping before we head to Death Valley on Tuesday.

ETA I fixed the typos! I have to improve my proof reading skills.

COVID-19 update

Yes, it has been a while. The last post was made from Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, an absolutely beautiful, isolated place surrounded by mountains. I am writing this update from our house in Iowa, and it has been  7 weeks or so. I had better note what happened.

We left Kofa and decided to go towards Grand Canyon National Park. We spent the night of 3 March south of Lake Havasu at a BLM site. Not very scenic, but fine for an overnight. It was very unlevel though and a pain to get the rig parked well. We were planning on going to one of the many boondock areas south of GCNP, but Kevin decided to see if Trailer Village had any openings. Surprise, surprise – they did! We stayed there for 5 nights in a full-hookup campground. We got our laundry done, caught up with some streaming shows, and wandered around the park and surrounding areas.We even road the bikes quite a bit. It was a good thing we didn’t depend on the boondock sites. Everything was terribly rutted and muddy with snowmelt, and we wouldn’t have fit comfortably in any place we looked at.

Mountain bluebird decided to pose
Gotta have at least one canyon shot

We were just marking time until the FMCA Diesel Club Chapter meeting, and we decided to stay in the Yavapai FS campground outside Prescott. Lovely place, no reservations that early in the season, but the site was pretty cramped due to encroaching vegetation along the sides. It rained and rained, and we were very glad to have a solid surface site in a beautiful place. No pictures because it really did just rain and rain and rain with a little snow thrown in.

By this time, we were getting nervous about the virus spread. The last time I was hospitalized in 2016 I ended up almost dying in an ICU, and I actually have some PTSD from it, so my anxiety began to ramp up. States were beginning to shut down, and the kids were worried about us being so far from home. After much though and agonizing over the decision, we decided to cancel our attendance at both the Diesel Club and the main FMCA rally. It was the right move even though we lost hundreds in fees. We spent our first night on the road, 13 March, at Verde River Resort in Camp Verde. We got the coach cleaned, laundry done, and were ready to dry camp back to Iowa if needed. Instead we spent our first night on the road at American RV Park in Albuquerque. Nice place, and we have stayed  there before. The next two nights were at Cabela’s in Lone Tree, CO south of Denver and in Kearney, NE (very nice!). Taking the toll road east of Denver was a brilliant move, worth every penny of the cost. We parked the coach in the storage unit and collapsed in bed in the house which always seems so huge when we first arrive!

My anxiety has still been pretty high in the last month which is why I haven’t gotten around to posting. Things are beginning to calm down due to more information being available, and I am getting along pretty well now. We have cancelled our Alaska trip planned for this summer. We also delayed until late July some motorhome modifications we are going to have done in Alabama. Until then we are self-isolating as much as seems reasonable. I have been busy in the sewing room, but I will post about that later.

That is the end of this topic, at least for now. Tomorrow I will post a much more positive piece about how I have been surviving isolation.

Yakima, Mount Rainer, and living on Pacific time

We tried to get a nice dinner in Missoula, but places either were closed Labor Day or had long waits. We ended up at Famous Dave’s BBQ, and it was its normal decent food. Tuesday we headed west again, and we spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot in Post Falls, ID. It is located one miles from Washington, and on Pacific time. We decided to go out to dinner, and we had an absolutely fantastic experience at The Oval Office Martini Bar and Bistro, a small casual restaurant with a great chef and lots of local sourcing. I had leg of lamb and Kevin had a steak, and both were outstanding! This is absolutely some of the best food I have had in ages. If you are ever nearby, you should stop by.

Wednesday found us in Yakima, WA at SunTides RV park. Nice enough place with lots of grass  and a small shade tree. We had hoped Yakima had some historic sites to visit, but it seems quite happy to be a major produce production town and not much else. We did pick up some wonderful peaches from a local stand, and I made a peach cobbler. Yum.

Of course the reason we are here is Mount Ranger National Park, we we took our first tour today. The first view of the namesake mountain was well outside the park at a scenic overview in the National Forest.

Nice clear day

It looks almost like a painting, but I did no post processing on the picture. We kept getting closer and closer. Sadly some haze/clouds crept in, but not too bad.

There are more glaciers on Mt. Rainier than I have ever seen at Glacier National Park. They are mostly still good sized, though they are shrinking like all the glaciers. The surrounding forest was nice too.

Still quite a few wildflowers in the Paradise area
The hillsides were just starting to change colors
Wish I knew what plant was providing the early color
Louise Lake was next door to Reflecting Lakes, but much more reflective!
Huge basalt palisades were most impressive

Even this time of year there were some waterfalls fed by glaciers that were decent. On this one, I took a picture of Kevin about halfway down the 168’ waterfall while he was taking pictures of the bottom half.

See that little tiny person at the corner of the fences?
The big drop from the top
Waterfall from my view at the top
From Kevin’s view part way down the big drop

The park also has some fabulous trees. These pictures were taken in a grove they called Hall of the Patriarchs. Fitting name.

Wish I had thought to put something against this for scale
Looking almost straight up

We were surprised at how little wildlife we saw. We visited the Longmire area first, had lunch at the National Park Inn, then drove to the Paradise section which was newer and much more crowded. As we were leaving the Paradise area, there was a rental motorhome pretty much parked in the middle of the road. Guess they had a good reason, because we saw this.

What’s that black dot in the meadow (on a bit of a zoom already)?
Oh that’s what the black dot is!

Other than the bear, the only wildlife we saw was a couple of ground squirrels and a few birds. Climax forests just don’t have a lot of wildlife I guess.

Tomorrow we visit the northern part of the park.

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.

Running from snow, Central time, and a closed campground

We had a great time with friends from the Wasatch Mountain Club this weekend at Antelope Island State Park. I led a paddling activity with 3 tandem canoes, two inflatable kayaks, and a white water kayak. The 9 of us had a good time. A few pictures taken by someone else:

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Obviously the day was a bit rainy, but the significant rainfall held off until we were all safely back at camp. We even ended up with a gorgeous double rainbow!

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This also was taken by someone else using a panorama mode on their camera. Impressive!

We left on Sunday morning to head to Iowa. As we got farther into Wyoming there were warnings about a winter snowstorm headed our way. Instead of stopping for our normal night in Laramie, we decided to run ahead of the storm. We ended up in Sydney, NE at the Cabela’s parking lot. Nice place and free. We set our clocks to Central time and decided to just stay on that for the next few weeks.

We were up and out early, planning to overnight at Adventure Land park in Des Moines where we stayed last year in mid October. We got there, and they had closed the campground to prepare for some Halloween activity! Even though it was after 6:00 pm we decided to drive the remaining 125 miles to the town our daughter lives in. We are now comfortably established in at Squaw Creek county park in Marion where we will stay until Wednesday. One of the cats doesn’t seem well so we are taking her to the vet too. Sigh. It is a laundry day too. We get to see our daughter, her husband, and our grandson tonight too, a real win.