Camping – Page 10 – TooBusyForWork

Cody, National Byways, and Yellowstone -good stuff!

We are in Cody at the Ponderosa Campground. The sites are tight, but that is to be expected in a town where the emphasis is on tourist activities away from the RV. Fun town, but too many people here on this holiday weekend for us. We are enjoying our time with the Diesel RV Club, but we had yesterday off to do sightseeing. We decided to drive the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, the Beartooth Scenic Byway, and take a detour into Yellowstone since we were nearby.

I am first going to show you some pictures of lovely tundra flowers since they were out in full bloom. These are found more abound 9,000-10,000’ this time of year. They are all incredibly small, the tallest poking their heads up 4”, but most 1-2”.

Around 8000’ the meadows were awash with larger flowers due to their milder conditions. White, shades of purple, pinks, yellows – a riot of color.

The meadows around 8000’ were awash with flowers

Oh, and the roads themselves? Marvelous as usual! I never get tired of the views.

Looking down on the Beartooth Scenic Byway

Near Dead Indian Summit on the Chief Joseph National Byway

The Yellowstone detour didn’t get us a lot. We did see only the second moose we have ever seen in the park itself only a few miles from the northeast gate. We have seen a number of moose outside the park, but they stay pretty hidden inside.

Only the second moose we have seen in Yellowstone NP proper

And of course we had a bison jam. It was a small group with a bunch of cows, yearlings, and a few calves.

Red dogs (aka bison calves) have a nickname that is descriptive

The bison slowed us down for about 20-25 minutes, and just as it cleared we were stopped by tow trucks removing three wrecked cars just a few miles down the road. That took 45 minutes, so we just took a bit more sightseeing and turned around. We finished our drive back to the campground from Red Lodge on the flat roads, and the entire trip took about 8 1/2 hours.

And yes I know this is terse, but the data service here is dreadful! I can’t get anything more than 1-3 mbps down and 0.5 mbps up even sitting right outside the campground store. Our phones and hot spot are only picking up LTE signal, and everything is painfully slow. Maybe we can find better service soon.

I love the Bighorn Mountains

We left Salida early on Sunday on our way to Cheyenne. It was one of the most tiring drives I have ever made. We took HW 50 to I-25, and that part was lovely. Yes, the road was twisty since it followed the Arkansas River, but it was beautiful and not too busy. We took a cutoff on CO 115 that was fine too, dropping us off south of Colorado Springs. All that enjoyment changed when we hit I-25! I think the entire front range is under construction! Lanes were narrow, busy (even on a Sunday morning), and nerve racking. I drove from south of Colorado Springs all the way to Cheyenne without a break, but that was stupid. I was really, really mentally exhausted by the time we stopped. Note to self: don’t do that again!

We stayed in another Boondockers Welcome site Sunday night. It was set high on a hill in the northern suburbs, and it was really easy to get in and out. We had some lovely weather and didn’t need the AC at all. I didn’t do anything except crash though the views were lovely. We left the next morning in no rush to make it to Buffalo, WY and the KOA. We had wanted to stay 5 nights, but when we called 2 weeks earlier they only had 4 nights available. We did exciting things like laundry and watched some streaming shows (we hadn’t had good enough data service to do that until now). We did do a lovely drive along Hwy 16 from Buffalo to Tensleep.

I like the combination of rocky peaks, forests, and parks.

We investigated boondock spots along Hwy 16, and we ended up staying at Grouse Mountain Trailhead about 10 miles west of Buffalo. Amazingly it had a small amount of cell data, but I couldn’t post pictures.

Onour last full day, two cattle trucks deposited a bunch of calves to fatten up on the meadow grass. It was impressive watching the cowboys work the cattle. I couldn’t get a picture of the border collie they had working with them, but the dog was definitely helping. Also note the clouds. It rained a lot! It would rain hard for 30 minutes, the skies would clear, they would cloud up an hour or so later, and a big drizzle would come. Then the clouds came back and more rain would follow. It did it pretty much the entire weekend.

Oh, and I think the cats are doing just fine in the motorhome! They sleep snuggled up in the driver’s seat a lot.

The bad news was that on Saturday morning the Forest Service came by to tell us they were closing the area to all activities on Monday morning due to an invasive grass that was discovered. We drove Hwy 16 again, and we found a few decent places, but most were muddy from the rains. We also took some scenic drives. One of the prettiest was Crazy Woman Canyon.

Crazy Woman Creek was a noisy mountain stream

We decided we would stay a Lake de Smet north of Buffalo because it was gravel and not muddy. The weather was still lovely on Monday, and the solar was cranking! We didn’t need the generator at all.

We had planned on driving Hwy 16 to Cody, but we were told there was a lot of construction. I really didn’t want to get a bunch of tar on the motorhome, so we drove Hwy 14 to see how it was, and it is completely doable. We decided to head that way. We had thought about spending Tuesday night somewhere along the road, but we decided to just stay put at Lake de Smet. It is a decent spot with good sized sites, gravel pads, and no hookups. It also has no reservations, so it is quickly filling up for the upcoming holidays.

We will take off tomorrow to Cody for a rally with the FMCA Diesel Club. Full hookups will seem pretty luxurious!

More sightseeing in Salida

We arrived last night at another Boondockers Welcome site in Salida, CO. They are having a big kayak festival this weekend, and the town is really busy. We decided to do some sightseeing today, so we drove across Monarch Pass to Crested Butte. The Madonna Mine is one of the biggest sights on the eastern side of the pass.

The pass is high enough that Kevin and I were both yawning a lot to get more oxygen in our lungs. We live at 800’!

The views in Crested Butte were the standard lovely vistas.

Looking from Mt Crested Butte to Crested Butte

We had Father’s Day dinner tonight because tomorrow will be a hard day. We are driving all the way to Cheyenne, WY, and we have to get going early to miss the hoards coming from the front range into Colorado Springs and Denver. The roads can come to a complete halt by late afternoon so we want to get through early. Our host has been lovely here, and we are going to another Boondockers Welcome site before heading to Buffalo, WY and a real campground! We disconnected from our host 20 amp electricity as soon as it cooled down enough to turn off the AC, and we will be running on battery and solar until we get to Buffalo. Checking out the new lithium batteries!

Back with internet so more about NM and into CO

We are at a nice little RV park in Del Norte, CO called Woods and River. We got a lovely shaded RV site right on the Rio Grande. The only problem is there is a major mayfly hatch going on! I am talking enough mayflies to make every trout in the river gain a half pound without really trying. Mayflies by the hundreds! Add to it the cottonwood fluff that is coming down, and we look like we are in a blizzard. We haven’t been able to stay outside, but at least I can get a good river view out of the motorhome front window. However their in-park WiFi is bad, and my Verizon Mifi is experiencing network management, so I have to tether to the phone. It is a pain. We drove out a few miles to a BLM site, and the Mifi is screaming fast! I will try to mostly catch up on my pictures.

The nearby town of Del Monte, CO has an old fashioned drive -in movie! We had a great time watching “In the Neighborhood,” a musical with modern, rap style lyrics and lots of dancing. It was a great show, but we got back way past my bedtime! Worth it though.

I left off with the Dawson cemetery on Saturday, 12 June. We continued along the road to Cimmaron. The town has really invested in tourist infrastructure with lots of signs and historic markers. I particularly liked this old mill.

There was lots of beautiful country, as one might expect. I took pictures of the views, not the towns. Every town was crowded. Taos was dreadfully crowded, and we didn’t get out of the car at all. I was bummed because it was one of my favorite places. Interestingly the Taos Pueblo has been cut off for COVID precautions. The road is closed except to key card access.

Bighorn sheep were grazing along the road

On Sunday we headed to Capulin Volcano National Monument. Nice place. The views are amazing.

The view from the top of Capulin National Monument are spectacular

A nearby much smaller cone to show the shape

The next day we packed up leisurely and went to Del Norte, CO as I noted in the first paragraph. Tuesday we took off on more sightseeing, this time along the Silver Thread National Scenic Byway which is basically highway 149. Much of the road parallels the Rio Grande, and I particularly wanted to see the headwaters. Couldn’t quite get there because a creek had the road flooded, but we did get a decent long distance view.

Click on this link to hear the falls in a video.

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Slimgullion was a massive landslide 850 and 450 years ago

The Rio Grande headwaters are at the end of the farthest lake

Mining history everywhere! This was a bentonite clay mill.

I will continue with our last two days in Del Norte later. This has been hard enough. Hopefully the Mifi will have good service.

Oklahoma and into Texas and New Mexico

We spent the last day, 9 June, at Canton Lake in Oklahoma driving to Boiling Springs State Park. The park doesn’t have hot springs like the name implies, but it has bubbly natural springs that have been an attraction for thousands of years. The park is small, and it was really, really hot, so we mostly just drove through, stopping at some of the sights. The park facilities were mostly built by the CCC in the 1930s. The big pool and wading pool have had updates since them, but the buildings are still mostly CCC work. The National Park Service did the architectural work, and it is pretty obvious.

A church group was enjoying the big conference center, also built by the CCC

A wonderful old water tower built by CCC

We left Canton for our first Boondocker’s Welcome stay on 10 June. We stayed at a working ranch just barely into Texas off I-40. BW is a subscription service for overnight stays offered by volunteer hosts. There is a $50/year charge for the service, but no charge for the location unless there are other amenities offered. In our case, we got a halfway level site with a gravel base, 50 amp service (!), and nice views for no cost. The hosts get “paid” with a membership in BW themselves. The electrical service was nice because it was still hotter than hell! We could have used our generator of course, but the lack of noise was nice. I gave them a thank you gift – two bowl cozies made with a great camper fabric with a red background. It turned out the wife of the couple was also a member of the FB group RV Quilters, just like me. We had a nice chat.

The forecast was for significant wind on 11 June, so we left our BW site by 7:15 to get as much driving as possible in before the winds got extra bad. It was over 300 miles to Raton, our next spot, and some of it was white knuckle driving. I can handle 20-25mph steady winds without issue, and up to 30-35 in a pinch, but we eventually got winds so gusty we had to pull off the road for a couple of hours. It was NOT a fun drive, but we eventually made it.

The Raton KOA is the lowest level of KOA, a Journey. This category is for locations oriented towards those passing through, not those looking for many amenities. They gave us a tight 30 amp back-in site with nice trees for shade, but we had to position the rig very carefully to fit; it was not designed for a 40’, 4 slide motorhome! We made it, but there was no option to open the awning! Luckily the trees were quite nice, and I sat in the shade for a few hours each day. This KPA has pull-through and 50 amp sites available, but those are held for the overnighters. It was rather amazing watching the park transition from mostly empty to completely full in 3 hours each day. Every morning the first folks started leaving around 6:00 am (yes, I wake up ridiculously early!), and the park was empty again by 10:00.

Since the drive in was so tough, we ate dinner at the Colefax Ale Cellar, a brewery with good sandwiches and better beer. We ended up buying some of their great dark beer to take with us. It is hard being a stout and ale drinker in a world of IPAs, but they had some good ones.

We got around the next day to drive to a long loop to Cimaron, Eagle Next, Red River, and Taos. It was a great trip! I always stop and read all the historic markers, and we accidentally found one about the town of Dawson, an old Phelps-Dodge mining town. What a serendipitous find! The drive in was lovely. The community was a classic company town with a population of 6,000. When the mines closed in 1950, some parts went to other company towns but most was just razed and the debris removed.

The community was infamous for two horrific mine explosions, one in 1913 and another in 1923 with a total of 383 miners killed. The company provided the metal crosses since so many were immigrants away from their families. Some families added traditional markers later. The cemetery is maintained by an old settlers group, and they have big gatherings every 2 years.

The old cemetery was well kept and poignant

I have really bad internet here, so I will leave the rest of our trip for another post.

Gilcrease Museum

Today’s visit was to Tulsa, OK and the Gilcrease Museum. Thomas Gilcrease was an enrolled member of the Creek nation who became one of the numerous oil magnates in eastern Oklahoma when oil was discovered on his family land. He was fabulously rich, but his passion was for the history of the Americas. He collected hundreds of thousands of items, buying entire collections when he could. There were paintings, sculptures, pottery, textiles, and an incredibly valuable collection of paper and books. He was in debt in 1954 and offered the entire collection to the city of Tulsa for a greatly reduced price of $2.5M, promising to pay even that back in the future. The museum is managed jointly by the University of Tulsa and the city of Tulsa. There are now over 500,000 items in the collection making it the largest collection of material regarding the Americas in the world.

When I was a child, I came to the museum. I remember most the wonderful impressionist paintings. At that time they had the material organized by type of artifact, so the paintings were all together. Now the museum is organized by what part of the Americas the material came from, a more helpful view IMHO. I will show a tiny bit of the wonderful items.

I said earlier how much I like Impressionists. This is a piece by Kevin Connywerdy (Kiowa/Comanche) called Touched by the Spiritt

This was one of my favorite modern paintings

Then there was this one by a Portuguese Hawaiian, Harry Fonseca) of a Hopi subject, Three Coyote Koshare. What a great take on the legend!

This is the first painting in the gallery of Native American ethnography – a modern view

Then there are the landscape. Blow this one to the largest size you can to see the beautiful rendition of a prairie scene.

One of the Native American impressionists

Traditional paintings are also in the collection.

Very traditional painting of a Crow encampment

Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the ruling the agreed the Cherokees were an independent nation whose treaty rights should be respected. Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears where thousands died. It was painted by the nephew of the famous founder of Methodism, John Wesley, who raised him.

Chief Justice John Marshall by John Wesley Jarvis

I live in Black Hawk County in Iowa, named in honor of this Sac and Fox chief.

Chief Black Hawk and his son whirling Thunder, also by John Wesley Jarvis

Classic American landscape artists are well represented like this one from John Singer Sargent.

But my favorite of the landscapes had to be this study of the Grand Canyon. The photo I took of the attribution is too blurry for me to make it out!

My favorite of the Grand Canyon landscapes

And then there is sculpture. The Gilcrease owns 18 of the 22 bronze sculptures created by Frederic Remington. They are wonderful, but I found this life-mask of Abraham Lincoln’s face and hands more moving.

There is a nicely done exhibition of artifacts from the Pacific Northwest. This raven effigy made from a whale vertebrae was amazing.

There was an entire wall of original paintings by Audubon. I chose the American Turkey to photograph.

Again I was lucky my back held out, but I sorely regretted not being able to spend more time just standing and enjoying the individual items. We spent 2 hours, and it wasn’t nearly enough. It was also raining so we didn’t go see the historic gardens. Obviously I need another visit!

Mostly Woolaroc

After Hamilton, MO we drove to northeastern Oklahoma and Copan Lake, a relatively small Corps of Engineers lake just at the OK/KS border. Site was fairly unlevel but lovely.

Copan Lake at sunset. Lots of trees in the water.

I set up the sewing machine since we would be here a few days. This is my current setup. I got a bunch of appliqué done, but it was so slow!

I also experimented with our newish Air Fryer from Gourma. I took a “just add water” muffin mix and added some gorgeous blueberries. I reduced the recommended temp by 25 degrees and the time by 15%. It worked!

We found this grumpy snapper trying to cross the road. He was big; his shell was close to 12” long.

Moved this very irritated snapping turtle across the road

We were primarily here to visit some places neither of us had been to since we were kids. The first spot was Woolaroc Animal Preserve and Museum near Bartlesville, OK. It was the retreat of Frank Phillips of Phillips Oil Company (Phillips 66 fame). There is a LOT of old oil money in this part of the state, and they spent lavishly. Frank decided he wanted a large ranch with exotic animals, space for his friends to come out and play cowboy, and to show off the early American artifacts he had. As you enter the attraction (now owned by a foundation), you drive through a series of large animal pens.

Eastern Oklahoma is known as “Green Country” for a reason. The small building is the Phillips family mausoleum.

This year they had a fur trader’s encampment set up with two re-enactors. We are close to the Arkansas River, and fur traders travelled up the river to the mountains.

The older re-enactor was voluble and knowledgeable. He even let Kevin fire his muzzle loader! Kevin didn’t hit the target, but he did get close!

We finally got to the museum. The entry is definitely old school “Noble Savage” style, and much of the interpretation inside is similar. The artifacts make up for it though!

A tiny piece of the outstanding pottery collection at Woolaroc

Hand made birchbark canoe made by an Ojibway woman in Minnesota. They didn’t think she was worthy of identifying by name 🙁

My normally very sore back let me walk through the entire thing, though I didn’t get to dawdle much. All the physical therapy I have been doing seems to be (finally!) working.

Not everything was old. There is a scale model of an oil field and a lot of equipment. The airplane was one of many built by small companies in the heyday of early aircraft. The company that built it no longer exists.

A few miscellaneous things to note:

The restaurant is just a concession stand in these COVID times, but the BBQ bison burger was pretty good. We at dinner at a local diner, the Cohan Restaurant which just happens to be the only one in the very small town. Mediocre, but edible.

Next post will be about the Gilcrease Museum, another incredible place we visited on this trip.

On the road south

We had the motorhome on the road Tuesday morning by 9:00 am. Yup, we were anxious to be traveling again! We had packed, vacuumed, and brought the slides in on Monday, so all we had to do was finish picking up the house a bit and packing toiletries. Oh, and there was a stop to pick up a McMuffin and a McGriddle. Luna responded ok to the traveling, finally coming out after a few hours on the road, but Minnie wasn’t seen until we parked.

We stayed two nights at Country Charm RV Park in Hamilton, MO. It is a pretty place but the interior roads were a bit tight with the Jeep hooked on. I did like the view though! We were on the outside loop, and summer is well underway here.

The view from my chair outside the motorhome

Hamilton is the home to Missouri Star Quilt Company, a sort of Mecca for quilters. They own a large number of shops in the small town, each one with a different style of fabric. For example, one shop was full of only batiks, while another was filled seasonal fabrics. I ended up buying some novelty fabric that will become a gift for someone when I get back.

The town also has a number of murals.

As you can see, it is also the boyhood home of J. C. Penny. We didn’t stop by the little museum that the house is now though. You can just barely see it through the trees.

It turns out that Sisters on the Fly, a women-only fishing group that has small vintage trailers, was having a gathering in town. They allow tours of their cute rigs occasionally, but we didn’t stay around for one. I am guessing they were the ones who planted a flock of flamingos on the grass nearby.

We also went to an Amish grocery in Jamesport, MO. They had all the wonderful bulk food items I usually get in Kalona, IA. We ate lunch at The Country Cupboard in Jamesport. Nice chicken friend steak! I think only southerners are really good at making this, and I certainly can’t fry anything well. We then came back to the campground, relaxed, and enjoyed the absolutely gorgeous weather – high of 75, puffy clouds, no wind, moderate humidity.

I also cooked some strawberry muffins using the bake setting on my Gourma brand Air Fryer. Tomorrow we head to northern Oklahoma. They were wonderful! I lowered the temperature 25 degrees and decreased the time by about 15% since the air fryer is basically just a small convection oven. I have an oven in the motorhome, but it takes a long time (and lots of power) to heat and cook. The air fryer should be very useful for baking when we aren’t connected to electricity.

Oh, and a bonus video of Minnie discovering another cat in the mirror. Watch the photobomb at the end.

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Kevin’s 3D printed goodies in the motorhome

My husband is an engineer in his soul, and he discovered 3D printing during COVID. I have been meaning to show the goodies he has printed for the motorhome. He has printed even more for the house, but those are more standard. These are almost all unique and built from custom computer aided design models he created. He uses FreeCAD now, but he previously used TinkerCAD. Note he uses PETG fiber for the items in the motorhomes. During storage on a hot day the more common PLA deforms from heat. He started with an Ender 3 printer, but he also has GEEETech 3 color printer.

Starting from the front of the motorhome, driver side.

On the driver’s side one of the first things he made was a holder for my phone and a pen. Then he added the eye glass holder. Recently he added an on/off switch and holder for the USB items around the dash such as the dash cam and the driver GPS. He added the screw holes to match the purchased switch. Note the passenger does the real navigation in our rig so the driver GPS is just for situational awareness and is an older model.

Combo phone and pen holder next to a switch to turn off USB devices. An eyeglass holder has my reading glasses in it.

Here is the charger and some cord wraps. Note everything is custom sized to fit the commercial hardware. All the items stay put by sliding a small attached “blade” between the wall and the dash.

Holder for USB and miscellaneous chargers

A cup holder with straight sides replaced the ridiculously short one that came with our Tiffin. We like straight instead of shaped cup holders because they fit more of our travel mugs.

Moving to the passenger side, the first item made was, again, a phone holder. Then he added a sunglasses holder and a chapstick/floss holder.

Holder for passenger phone, glasses, and lip balm

This gives a top view of the GPS holder on the passenger side. It is based on a commercial screw on base. Note it sits in the window groove for stability.

The TPMS has its own holder of course. It also sits in the window groove.

Our rig has a small drawer that is pretty useless by itself. Kevin printed this little insert to hold a travel mug, his wallet, a couple of checkbooks, and some miscellaneous documents.

Insert for small cockpit drawer to hold cup and papers

We have now moved out of the cockpit and to the living quarters. Kevin’s watch was always getting bumped off the charger by the cat, so he made a little holder to keep it more stable.

i love Janet Sadlack’ss RV microwave/convection cookbooks, but they are small and we’re always getting misplaced. Here is a spot for those plus a few other small cookbooks. It is glued to a holder for a power distribution center.

Holder for small cookbooks and USB outlet

The wall here is rather cool in cold weather, so I wanted a quilted wall hanging to block some of the cold. I had quilted this wonderful Stonehenge Fabrics panel a few years back, and I think it fits well. While the wood is attached with screws to the backside of the cabinet, the quilt is mounted on a rod made removable with the printed black end cap.

Here is the end cap close up. The quilt holder rod is made removable by the screw.

Moving more to the kitchen is this magnetic cover to go over the ridiculously bright microwave control panel. It was the test item on Kevin’s 3 color printer when he bought it.

I am generally happy with my utensil caddy, but there wasn’t much room for tall items like the spatula. Kevin printed the side car and glued it to the purchased caddy.

An add-on for my utensil caddy to support tall items

There is only one item in the bathroom, a small holder for the translucent box. The holder has clips that slide on the purchased soap dish attached with command adhesive strips. You can also see the wonderful soap my friend makes at Wild Waters Soapery in Salt Lake City.

Back to the bedroom. The electronic control panel made by Spyder is distracting in the night, so Kevin made a cover that slips over it at night.

Remember I mentioned earlier the cat knocks things off? It happens in the bedroom too, so Kevin made a holder for his phone charger that positions the phone for contact charging.

While we don’t watch the bedroom TV often, we needed a way to control the controls. This holds the one for the Dish and the TV itself.

I think that is everything! He’s been busy, and the Ender 3 printer is ready to go with us on our trips. It lives in the cabinets underneath the table in the kitchen area while traveling. When in use it sits on the bathroom dresser.

On the road again, but just a bit

We finally went camping again! On Wednesday we went to a local park that is a whopping 7 miles away – Big Woods County Park. It is a lovely place with long sites. Most are wide, but they have two rows of “buddy sites” where if you pull in correctly you will face the folks next door. Luckily we found a site that backed up on the bike route and lake. We were hoping to dewinterize the motorhome, but the water wasn’t going to be turned on u til Thursday. Whoops! We stayed at home for the night and went back on Thursday to dewinterize. We got everything set up except the water softener which we forgot at home.

We were doing this to have the three oldest grandchildren out – twin girls, 11, and a boy, 7. We picked them up at lunch after a soccer game on Saturday, ate some take out pizza, then went to the camper. It was much colder than the forecast had shown when we set it up, so I felt bad we couldn’t do the bike riding we wanted to do. A windchill of low 40s just didn’t appeal to me. We left the kittens at home, thinking an introduction to both the motorhome and three children would be a bit much! We did have a lot of fun even in the cold temps. There was a nice playground, a sand spot at the edge of the lake to build sand castles, and a nice fire pit. We made layered green chili chicken enchiladas in a Dutch oven and campfire biscuits on Saturday night. Sunday morning had monkey bread in the motorhome oven along with eggs and fruit. They said they wanted to do it again, so I call that a success!

We picked up the kittens after we dropped off the kids, and they adjusted faster than I expected. Luna was thrilled we could open up the screen door. Don’t worry; behind the grill is a screen!

I didn’t get a picture of Minnie because she was either running around like crazy or hiding out, her two favorite things to do.

The weather was so absolutely gorgeous while we were packing up on Monday that we decided to stay an extra day. We road our bikes around the lake and some of the nearby trails, soaked up sun, and generally had a wonderful start to the camping season.

Once we finally got packed up, we decided to drive to Cedar Rapids to get the motorhome washed. It hasn’t had a bath since July, and it was in dire need! We just don’t have a place to wash it ourselves, so we went to a newer truck wash, AFCS Truck Wash. Astonishingly no one was in line in front of us! They did a good job, and it was well worth the $75 it cost. As we drove out, there were 2 motorhomes and a semi truck in line behind us, so we really were lucky.

Next trip might be Mother’s Day, or it might be a warmer weather overnight with grandkids at a different campground. Time will tell. We take off for the summer right after Memorial Day – YEAH!