Almost ready to tow

Earlier this week we had a 50 gallon fuel tank installed in our new truck and just a bit ago had a call to tell me that the hitch install is done.  Now it is waiting for the 7 pin power connection to be installed inside the bed.  There is a plug below the rear bumper but it is more convenient to have a connection inside the bed where the cord from the trailer only lays down in the bed without draping over the tailgate.

The truck came with only a 26 gallon fuel tank which at 10 +/- mpg it would have been necessary to find a station twice in each days drive.  The 50 gallon tank just replaces the original tank and now we will be able to drive to our campground each day, unhook, and then find a station without the trailer in tow which is much easier to maneuver in busy fuel station lots.

pictures

Here are a couple for show-and-tell with the truck in position.

It's in the carport

Yesterday we made the trade for a new truck.  I need to get a picture or two but it is white, like our other one, and this one is a full four door crew cab so it will be much more comfort for anyone traveling with us.  It is also 4X4 so it sits a bit higher off the ground.  It has lots of bells and whistles to get used to and we will need a new fifth wheel hitch.  I have the hitch on order and will get it installed before we head out in September.  Maybe I can get a couple of pictures tomorrow.

Home again

Made it to the Martin Manor RV park a little past 2:00 and "safely" backed into our site, those spots painted in the driveway sure make a big difference.  At least it's a whole lot cooler here than it was in Kansas, right now it's only 98° which is a whopping 15 degrees cooler than yesterday afternoon.  The thermostat in our house was programmed to be warmer in the house than we usually have it during our absence but then cool down yesterday back to our normal settings.  It was nice to come in to a cool house and a yard that had been recently mowed.

Warm welcome in Kansas

A very, very warm welcome back to the Midwest.  Actually it is down right HOT! at 113° when we were getting set up this afternoon.  Fortunately it only takes 10-15 minutes to get all hooked up and the power cord was the first thing connected so the AC units could get started.  Tomorrow we head toward the Martin Manor and then we have a few weeks to get ready for our next outing, pulling with our new truck.

out of coolness

We have greatly enjoyed these past couple of week in the nice comfortable temperatures using our heat pump most evenings.  Today we traveled eastward a bit over 300 miles to Ogalalla, NE and dropped 3/4 miles in elevation to a current temperature of 99.5°.  Tomorrow we are heading to Salina, KS where the forecast high is 108° so it is a good thing we have a trailer full of cool Idaho air to take along with us.  It's also a good thing that we have two air conditioners in this trailer so should be able to manage.  The rest of the week at the ol' Martin Manor is forecast to be in the upper 90s with a slight chance of showers.

homeward bound

After our very nice visit with Curt and Renee we are now headed eastward toward "ye old" Martin Manor RV park and are scheduled to arrive there on Wednesday.  Tonight we are in Rawlins, WY which is right on the continental divide at 7,000' elevation.  We were a little bit disappointed most of the way across Wyoming because we didn't see any antelope and there usually are many out along the side of the road in this State.  We were about 20 miles from Rawlins when we saw the first four and I think Jo counted 15 by the time we arrived at our campground.

very nice visit

This morning after a nice breakfast with Curt and Renee she took off on her bicycle for Pocatello, almost 20 miles.  We headed that way in the car a bit later and caught up with her at the farmers market in town.  She bought some fresh veggies for dinner this evening and then we took a scenic drive back to the house.  I took these pictures this morning and plan to edit this post with more pictures later this afternoon.

Okay it's getting close to bedtime so I have added a few shots to the album below.

Curt & Renee

I also want to add this next album of Curt and Fred on the deck before dinner.  It was loads of fun to play a few tunes with Curt and his banjo and a few with his guitar.  We definitely need to practice to get into duo performance shape,still it was great fun.

pick'n & grin'n

nice visit

We arrived at Curt & Renee's place around 4:00 yesterday afternoon and backed into their driveway, it took 3-4 tries but eventually had success.  We got hooked up to water and electric and then enjoyed a very nice visit and dinner.  We even got out the instruments and did a bit of pick'n but I'm sure there will be more of that today and promise to get a photo or two of the dynamic duo.

Their address is Inkom, ID but Curt said that their property deed indicated that this area was originally called Onyx, ID and he has the rights to the official telegraph station.  That is why I called this stop the Onyx, Idaho Telegraph Station in my campground listing on the website.

Elkhorn Scenic loop drive

Today we decided to follow this scenic drive and glad that we did.  It was a 106 mile drive around and through the Elkhorn Mountain range starting and ending right here in Baker City, OR.  Most of the drive was on Forest roads but all were paved and all were just beautiful.  The weather was the absolute best with a clear blue cloudless sky and temperatures holding in the 68-70 degree range.  We kept our eyes on the lookout for some elk, especially in the high meadow areas, but none were to be found.  Since we didn't see any elk we stopped in Sumpter, OR at the Elkhorn Saloon for lunch and had an elk burger, yum.

Elkhorn Scenic loop

As we passed back through Baker City we saw these trees in the landscaping for a bank parking lot.  The leaves are maple but the bright, light yellow was what caught our eyes.

Back on Track

This morning I turned in the rental car and waited at the dealership service lounge for the completion of our repair.  I paid my share a little after 10:30 and we were on the road before noon.  YEA! ;-)

We took a shortcut from Moses Lake, WA to Baker City, OR so we now are back on the original track and only one day behind schedule.  We had originally planned to be here three nights but we will make due with two nights and one day to explore Baker City. We were here in September of '04 on our Oregon Trail venture and visited the trail information center so we will see what we can find to get into tomorrow.  Friday we are off again as we have reservations at Onyx, Idaho telegraph station for Friday and Saturday nights.

Boy am I glad that I purchased the extended warranty for this truck.  The engine and drive train were originally warranted for 5 years or 100,000 miles and even though we are below the mileage limit our 5 years was up last January.  Because of the known problems with this engine I bought a 36 month extended warranty last December and it sure paid off.  My share this morning was a bit over two hundred while the total cost was a number that began with a 6 and there were three other numbers between that 6 and the decimal point. WOW! They also will cover the rental car for $30/day which will be 3/4 of that cost.  I will continue to have doubts about this engine, even though it;s almost all new, until we get back to Martin Manor and look forward to beginning our next ventures with our new truck and a new 5 year warranty.

It was good to be rolling again!

Wake-up call

... as if we needed any this morning.  We are anxious to get back on the move and just have to wait for business to open this morning to settle-up for our truck repair.  But, I have written in a previous post about the major agriculture industry in this Grand Coulee basin and this morning at 4:30 am they began crop dusting a near-by field by aircraft.  Talk about a wake-up call, with a repeat jolt on every lap across our campground as they made their turn around.  It kinda took the place of the railroad tracks that are not anywhere near this campground.

finally

Just finished talking with our service shop and our truck is almost ready to go. ;-)  They are flushing out the engine coolant system because the problem caused diesel to get mixed in with the coolant.  They say that I should be able to pick it up in the morning which will allow us to get away about noon and it will be good to get "on the road again."  The past couple of days of just twiddling our thumbs has not been much fun.  This campground is super nice and the weather has been the best but it's just not what we had planned for this outing.  We will have to shorten our stay in Baker City, OR by one day and then we will be back on our schedule.

Bummer!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our call this afternoon from the service department working on our truck wasn't the good news that we were wishing for. ;-(  Dave told me that one of the major parts needed, when arrived, was not the correct replacement so this adds at least another day to our stay in Moses Lake, WA.  This still allows us to get back on schedule with only one day in Baker City, OR instead of the planned two and then it's on to a visit with Curt and Renee.

I have been busy today in discussion with our local (at home) Ford dealer and have actually made a purchase of a new 2011 truck for our future travel adventures.  The engine in our current truck is known to have major problems which is why I purchased the extended warranty but even with this current repair I would always be concerned about it's ability to get us to our many destinations and back, especially into the Maritime Provinces of Canada with Phyllis in September.  We know our salesman that has worked with us on several  of our last vehicle purchases and after my research on the internet we have an agreed difference.  We will make the actual trade as soon as we return home next week.

a day of rest

We didn't get too far from the trailer today with only a short trip to Wally World to support the local economy a little bit.  We are hoping to get some good news tomorrow from the Ford service that we will soon be back on the road.

a bit of exploring

We took off this morning on a drive around this area of Washington west from our campground.  A few miles down I-90 and we came to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park which is located on the banks of the Columbia River.  Jo and I had stopped there once before but while in the area it was worth another look around the information center.  They have many specimens scattered around the visitors center and some petroglyphs that were relocated to this site when the river was dammed years ago creating a lake that would have covered them.

After our stop there we continued west to Ellensburg, WA for fuel and lunch.  On our way we topped over a crest to a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier and off to the north was a good sighting of Mt. Stuart.

This area around Moses Lake, WA is high plains desert country and was not productive until the building of Grand Coulee Dam and the main function of that dam was for irrigation with electricity and flood control being secondary.  The irrigation made possible by that construction has made this a highly productive area and this county brags of raising more potatoes than any other county in the USA.  Washington State also brags of raising more potatoes than Idaho.  With apples being the number one crop in the state, grapes for wine is number 2.

Ginkgo Petrified Forest

extended stay

The progress report from the Ford dealership yesterday afternoon indicated that it will probably be next Tuesday before our truck will be ready to go.  This morning I went to the campground office and paid up for a few more days here in Moses Lake.  This is a super nice campground with nice grass areas between sites that has a watering schedule.  We were given that schedule on check in and our site gets "rain" from 7:00 am to 7:30 am twice a week.  This would not be a good time to sit out under our awning.  This morning after the sprinklers were turned off I went out and dumped our holding tanks and washed the back window of our trailer that had accumulated some road grime.

Then I got out the Martin and did a little practice pick'n before trying to keep up with Curtis.  Jo is trying to learn about her convection oven and has a cake going now for a first time use.  It's just nice to have our own comfortable home to use while having to wait on the truck repair.

Grand Coulee

Since we have been given a bunch of lemons we have made lemonade today and took a drive up to the Grand Coulee Dam and enjoyed the history and geology lesson.  We also learned the difference between a Coulee and a Canyon.  The Grand Canyon was formed by the forces of the Colorado River.  This Grand Coulee was not river erosion but instead was formed by the forces of the floods of the ice ages thousands of years ago.

It was a nice drive up to the dam and then we took the tour of one powerhouse and got a few pictures from inside the generator house and from the top of the dam that can't be taken without the tour, security is strong around this major facility.  We had a nice lunch just before our tour and then on the drive back we took a few pictures to show the scenic beauty of this Grand Coulee basin.

Grand Coulee

un-coolness

We had a not-so-good phone call this morning from our Ford dealer's service shop.  After getting started early this morning it was soon discovered that our problems were larger than first thought.  The problem seems to be a cracked head or heads and they won't know until totally removed to check.  It looks like we are here for a few more days than we first thought.  Our warranty service has agreed to cover the cost but they want their own independent inspection once the heads are removed which will delay the time of completion, bummer.

Just for grins and since I have lots of time to spend (more than money) I sat down with one of their sales staff and discussed a "what if" we were to trade for a new truck so we could be on our way.  This dealership only had one truck that would serve our purpose but it wasn't totally equipped the way we would need.  They then went to work searching for one in the area that would fit our needs and that they could do a dealer trade.  The frustration for me was that the sales person I was talking with had to run to someone in the corner office whenever I ask a question.  He would come back with that answer only to have to take off again when there was another question, he obviously didn't know much about trucks.  It is a small dealership and I guess the floor staff is just there for taking time with paperwork.  They only found two trucks within the vicinity that were anywhere close to our needs and they both had extra options that we really don't need.  There are many logistic items with such a trade that really made it questionable/difficult but worth a try I thought.

Coolness

Eureka, we have found it!  We really feel for our family and friends back in Missouri who are still suffering with what we left, but this morning we had the heat on and it really felt good.  If we have to be stranded, which we are, it is nice to be comfortably situated in a very nice campground with these very pleasant temperatures.

After yesterday's excitement we are going to just take it easy today and will probably find something around this area to explore tomorrow.  I think we were fortunate that our problem with the truck happened early in the week and can only hope that we don't get hung out over the weekend.

Reading a little bit about our location we find that he town of Moses Lake is the same age as JoAnn.  Before that it had a different name but in 1938 the name was changed to reflect the name of the lake where it is located.  The lake was named for Chief Moses of the Sinkiuse tribe that negotiated with the white settlers in the late 1800s to begin settlement in this area.  The lake at that time was a small salt lake but now after the dam was built in the early 1900s it is a fresh water recreation area.