Big Sky Country

It is crunch time.  We are at the point now where we need to head east towards Yellowstone or north to Montana.  The weather has improved in Yellowstone and most of the roads are now open.  However, the forecast shows overnight temperatures in the mid to upper 20's and 30-40% precipitation for the next few days.  It was doable, but would probably not be much fun.  We decided to skip Yellowstone and turn north.

Camp at Sturgis.  Where are the bikers???

Yeah.  Right.

We departed our camp in Sturgis after a night of light rain and a low temperature of 37 degrees.  We left I-90 and headed north on US 85 and US 212 headed towards Billings MT.  We soon cut through the northwest corner of Wyoming and then crossed into Montana.

Montana is very scenic

The drive across southeastern Montana was very scenic and uneventful.  We saw a number of Pronghorns along the road side.  During our drive we crossed a number of historically significant rivers:  the Yellowstone, Little Missouri, Missouri and Little Bighorn.

We arrived in Billings about 4:00.  Sam's Club had a very good price for diesel, so we topped off with about 82 gallons.  Since we were not going to Yellowstone, we found that we had more time in our schedule to cross Canada.  Consequently, we decided to spend the night at the Billings Cabela's store next door to Sam's, rather than continuing to Great Falls.

Camp Cabela's in Billings MT

More dead animals at Cabela's

Neat aquarium!

We visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which was directly on our route.  The Monument honors the combatants on both sides who died in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25 and 26, 1876.

They had excellent RV parking next to the Custer National Cemetery, a part of the Memorial

The Memorial on Last Stand Hill

Markers on Last Stand Hill, where many soldiers fell, including General Custer

There are also markers for fallen Native Americans

The Indian Memorial

At Great Falls MT we visited the Lewis & Clark National Historical Interpretive Center, a part of the Lewis & Clark National Forest.  The center has exhibits on much of the explorers travels through Montana, but particularly describes the ordeal of portage the five great falls of the Missouri, where the river drops 500 feet.

The Missouri River at Great Falls

Black Eagle Falls at Great Falls

Your intrepid reporter

The Lewis & Clark party traveled with a Newfoundland dog named Seaman.  A Newfoundland named Buddy was a greeter at the the center.  Buddy was really friendly.  His owner carried a huge slobber cloth.

Buddy the Greeter

Exhibit depicting the portage at Great Falls

Overlooking the Missouri River.  I love coach pictures!

We are camped at Trails West RV Park in Shelby MT, on I-15, just 36 miles from the Canadian border.    This is a very nice park and is actually a part of the Best Western Inn.  We have been on the road for 8 days now and have traveled over 2300 miles.  It's time for a break.  We have decided to lay over a day here in Shelby and cross the border on Monday.   We have a number of chores to perform.  We never really got organized from our hasty departure a week ago.  There is good internet here, and we will plan our itinerary across Alberta and British Columbia, and make reservations for our ferry passage.

Our camp at Trails West RV Park/Best Western Inn

They offer a great buffet breakfast here.  You can even cook your own waffle.

On Monday we will cross the Canadian border and head towards Calgary AB.

Breaking Bad ...lands

There was a light rain overnight, but the storms stayed away.  We departed Mitchell SD in a light drizzle and with an ominous forecast.  The overnight temperature was 61 degrees, but as we drove west on the the longest highway, it plunged to 51.

A necessary evil: the sewer dump station at Cabela's

At this point our itinerary is not set.  Options include destinations of Badlands NP, Rapid City SD, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, and/or Glacier NP before crossing the border into Canada.  The weather is an issue.  It has been cold with snow and ice in the rocky mountains parks, and the forecast is the same for the next few days.  We'll take it one day at time.  Actually, the weather could be worse; there have been severe tornadoes north, south and east (behind us).  Today we plan to overnight in either Badlands National Park or Rapid City, depending on the weather.  We have been bucking strong head winds, about 20 mph out of the west and north, making driving tedious, and destroying our fuel mileage.

We continue to experience the check engine light indicating lost rpm signal.  I consistently record a single event about 5-10 miles after starting out in the morning and when starting after a long stop.  It is a bit worrisome, but I don't think it is a problem ... yet.  I will continue to monitor its frequency and duration.

The Missouri River

We took a long break at the Lewis and Clark Information Center at the Chamberlain rest area, which is a stop on the Lewis and Clark Trail, overlooking the Missouri River.  The visitor center here features exhibits depicting the Lewis and Clark expedition and a life-sized replica of their keel boat.  It also features the new 50 foot stainless sculpture "Dignity of Earth and Sky", depicting a native American woman draped in a star quilt.

"Dignity of Earth and Sky"

We stopped for a short visit at the Minuteman Missile NHP Visitor center.  The park has exhibits on the nuclear arms build up during the Cold War years.  There were a number of missile silos in this area, as well as other sites across the Midwest.  You can visit an old missile silo where a pair of young missileers worked 24 hour shifts, with their fingers on the trigger.  We didn't drive out to the silo since we did that once before during a trip in 2007.

A guiding principle of the Cold War was "Mutually Assured Destruction" or MAD.  There were enough nuclear missiles that both the Russians and the US knew that a first strike would result in a deadly counter strike, like resulting in total destruction of both countries.  Sun Tzu predicted the development of weapons that would make hand-to-hand combat obsolete.

We elected to spend the night at Badlands Nation Park, after a 311 mile day.  The Cedar Pass Campground there is a frequent and favorite stop for us when passing through the area.

We scored a site with 50A electrical service and hunkered down for a cool night.  There was a forecast of rain tonight and for the next day.

We both slept soundly, while the temperature dropped to 41 degrees overnight.  We broke camp and headed out on the park loop road.  One of the first stops highlighted the fossils found in the park.  As the prehistoric subtropical climate changed, all the species highlighted either adapted to the new climate, moved to a new region or died out.  Exhibits showed replicas of fossils found in the park and how that species fared as the climate cooled.  Alligators existed here and apparently moved to Florida.

We have always seen bighorn sheep when visiting the park.

It was a cold and blustery day

Prairie dogs are also common in the park

Another prairie dog?  Matilda has been very frisky in this cool weather.

Mule deer

Dorcas turned 62 last week.  That qualifies her to buy an "America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass", better known as a "Senior's Pass" or simply the "Geezer's Pass".  Use of this pass qualifies the user to free entry into most National Parks and National Forests and other federal recreation areas.  It also qualifies the user for half price camping at most federal campgrounds.  Acquiring this pass is a major rite of passage in the RVing community.  We memorialized the event with a photo.

After leaving the park we continued westward on I-90.  We drove into Rapid City and had lunch at The Firehouse Brewing Company.  We visited this micro brewery and pub in 2013 and really liked it. It is located in a former city firehouse.

Rapid City has placed statues of presidents throughout the downtown area.  We visited with a few of them.

Dorcas sitting with Martin Van Buren

We departed Rapid City intending to stay in Sturgis SD only about 30 miles away.  The forecast predicted an overnight low temperature of 37 degrees.  We wanted to stay some place with power in order to stay toasty warm.  There were 8 RV parks in the Sturgis/Deadwood area that are members of Passport America, meaning half-price camping.  We picked Days End CG and signed up for one night.

Our itinerary is still up in the air.  We want to spend time in Yellowstone NP, but they have had a lot of snow and ice and, when we looked this morning most roads in the park were closed.  Tonight, however, many of the roads have opened, so it may still be a viable destination.

We can view current Yellowstone conditions here.  The weather forecast can be seen here.  Tomorrow afternoon we will need to either layover again  and drag our feet or commit to a more easterly route north.  To be continued ....

Shucks!!!

This morning we departed our camp in Waterloo IA and headed north through the Cedar River valley.  The terrain was dominated by rolling farm land with rich black soil and lots of windmills.  We crossed into Minnesota and later turned west onto I-90, the longest highway in America, transversing from Boston to Seattle.  In my opinion it's also the straightest and flattest highways in America as welt, at least the portion in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota.

Lots of windmills all over the Midwest

A very quaint Iowa rest area

A beautiful day at a South Dakota rest area

We stopped in Mitchell SD and pumped 123.7 gallons of diesel into our 135 gallon tank.  I knew I was low, but I didn't know I was that low.  This was a near world record fill-up for us (once before we pumped 127.4 gallons).  We're still living on the edge!

We visited the Mitchell Corn Palace.  We have been here several times before, but it always a-maize-s me.  The corn palace is a civic auditorium which is decorated each year with murals comprised of ears of corn of different colors.  This year's theme was "Rock of Ages" depicting rock and roll icons.

Dorcas found a friend to talk to who was all ears!

There are murals inside as well as outside

Look what I found on farmersonly.com!

We ate dinner around the corner from the Corn Palace at a sports bar called Overtime.  They had great burgers.  Then we headed across I-90 to Cabela's to spend the night in their parking lot.  I love free camping!  Cabela's is a huge sporting goods store, similar to Bass Pro Shop.  It is very hospitable to the RVing public, with a dedicated RV overnight parking lot, complete with dump station, kennels and a corral.  Free camping at its finest!  We went in the store and bought some trinkets and enjoyed their wildlife exhibits.

Cabela's sells lots of guns and archery stuff.  They love dead animals.

Camp Cabela's

We made 379 miles today.  Not bad but not great.  I want to hurry up and get to Canada; Dorcas wants us to drag our feet a bit. We are compromising with frequent rest breaks and stops at interesting places.

The forecast tonight is for rain and maybe a storm.  Better batten down the hatches.

Trouble in River City

We left Bloomington happy and confident after a good driving day the day before, and after getting a  good night' s rest.  Then trouble!  After driving about 10 miles the check engine light came on, and my Silverleaf engine monitoring system displayed a code indicating a loss of signal from the engine RPM sensor.  This has been a periodic problem.  This code seems to pop up once or twice every few years, and in fact came up just 10 minutes after leaving home on Saturday.  After stopping and shutting down the engine the code does not usually re-appear again, at least not for a while.  This sensor is actually one of two identical parts, one seeing crankcase speed and the other sensing camshaft speed.  If one fails completely the other will provide the same information to the engine computer.  If both fail the computer thinks the engine has stopped turning and cuts off fuel to the engine.  This means the coach stops and won't go no more.

A view from the SilverLeaf EMS

In the summer of 2011, while on our previous trip to Alaska, this same problem reared its ugly head. The code first occurred in Alaska but while we were starting to head towards home.  The first viable service opportunity was in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  We stopped there, and they confirmed my diagnosis of a bad speed sensor, but had no part in stock.  The next place on our route that had the part was Fort Saint John BC, almost 1500 miles beyond where we first observed the code.  Long story short, we had both sensors replaced in Fort Saint John.  It was an all day job and fairly expensive due to all the systems that had to be removed to access the sensors.  You can read about that experience here.

OK, so here we are near the beginning of a long trip. and we have had 2 identical "check engine" events in 3 days.  There was a Cummins service center about 100 miles west along our route, in Rock Island IL, near Davenport IA (both towns are on the Mississippi River and mentioned in "The Music Man", hence the reference to trouble in River City. From Wikipedia: The "river" in River City is probably the Mississippi River near Davenport, Iowa: the Rock Island conductor's announcing "River City, Iowa! Cigarettes illegal in this state" implies crossing the Mississippi from Rock Island, Illinois into Iowa.)  We made a call to Cummins and they could work us in.  Upon arrival the mechanic attached his scan tool to our engine data port and recorded a code indicating a single event of a lost engine sensor signal.

I hope he moves before we pull out!

The mechanic suggested the problem was a momentary "blip" with the sensor and was not persistent. He could not explain why it was occurring; could be a failing sensor, could be an iron particle or other debris on the magnet on the sensor, an electronic cable fault,  or one of several other problems.  There was no way to tell without removing the sensor ($$$$) and performing a more detailed analysis (delay!).  He did suggest the sensor was unlikely to fail completely any time soon, and that we were not likely to be stranded, and it would not damage any other engine parts.  We decided to let it be and continue on.  There were a number of Cummins service centers along our route, and we could always stop later if the problem worsened.

We left Cummins and immediately crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa.  Then the RPM error occurred again.  CRAP!.  We called Cummins and they said to come back.  They checked the ECM again and, once again, there was just one single occurrence of the error.  We again considered whether to have the sensors removed and the system tested.  Actually Dorcas and I debated for almost an hour.  She's a take no chances kinda girl, and my philosophy is: if it ain't really broke, don't spend over $1000 to fix it and lose a whole nother day to boot.  Finally we decided to head on and take our chances.  We still had more opportunities for a repair along our route if things turned for the worse.

In the meantime, the day turned into a scorcher. The high for the day was about 92 degrees.  But the temperature dropped substantially in the late afternoon as we skirted some thunderstorms.  After a  304 mile driving day, we pulled into the Walmart at Waterloo Iowa for the night.  Pretty good progress considering we spent almost 5 hours at the Cummins facility.  It would have been a nice quiet night if it weren't for the Chysler/Jeep dealership next door to to worry.  We were so tired it made no difference.

Parked at Camp Walmart Waterloo IA

By the way, check out our new Yakima Skybox.  I bought this off Criaig's List while in Florida, specifically for this trip.  It holds paddles, fishing rods, tackle, packs and a host of other relatively   light and bulky stuff that would ordinarily be in the way in the back of the car.

A new toy

North to Alaska

Dorcas and I traveled in our motor home to Alaska in 2011 (click here to read blog entries for that trip) and had a great time.  We had planned to return to Alaska in 2016, but circumstances conspired against us, and we just didn't make it.  So we tried again for 2017.  This year was looking tough too.  We didn't arrive home from Florida until Saturday April 22.  The following week was clogged with a total of 6 doctors appointments, and I was determined to play pickleball for 3 hours each Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.  Additionally, I had follow-up doctor appointments, labs and a chest scan in the following weeks.  If anything would prevent us from taking this trip, it would be concerns about my continued health monitoring and care on the long trip, and while passing through Canada.  Thankfully, all my specialists gave me the green light to go.  Several said they would love to make house calls along the way!

There were a large number of chores to perform including social obligations and time-consuming maintenance and repairs to the coach.  In addition to going to Alaska, we would return through Minnesota for our traditional annual Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness adventure, which by itself takes the better part of a week to pack for.  We set a target date of Saturday May 13 to leave, which would allow us less than 3 weeks to prepare.  Even then we would be leaving a little more a week later in the month than we did in 2011.  We will have no specific itinerary, but are intending to follow a similar route to the one we took in 2011.  We expect to spend the latter part of May in the US and Canadian Rockies, June on the inside passage island hopping via the Alaska Marine Highway, July in southern Alaska proper, including Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula, Denali NP and Fairbanks, and August working our way down the Alaska Highway through the Yukon Territory and British Columbia, eventually landing in Minnesota towards the end of August.  We will be home in mid September for a few days before attending two back-to-back Country Coach motor home rallies in the tidewater Virginia area.  Whew!!!  No moss on these rolling stones!

It went down to the wire.  Motor home chores that should have taken an hour or two took half a day.  (Note to self:  motor home crankcase holds 28 quarts of motor oil: my drain pan holds only 25 quarts.  CRAP!!!!  Next time do the math and pay attention!)  As the 13th approached we thought we might actually make it.  The LP gauge in the coach read zero.  No LP means no refrigerator while driving down the road.  A local RV dealer sells LP at a loss for $0.99 per gallon.  The market price is closer to $3.00, so I really wanted to buy LP there on Saturday.  That left us a specific time to leave home and still be able to pump ~20 gallons of LP at the sale price.  On Saturday we both busted our humps doing last minute chores, and at the end, just throwing things into the coach and the Honda.  The RV shop would be closed on Sunday, so if we didn't make it on Saturday, we would have to wait until Monday to get cheap LP there.  Plan B was to buy LP at the Flying J in Wytheville VA, but that is a difficult place to get into, and the LP supply tank is almost always blocked by some moron in the store buying cigarettes.  Besides, their price was $2.90 per gallon.  Thankfully, we were able to get away about 3:30 and managed to buy LP before closing time.

The drive north up I-77 through Virginia and West Virginia was very pleasant and the weather was cool and clear.  Temperatures dropped into the 50's on the drive through the WV mountains, and I actually turned on some heat in the coach.  We spent the night at Tamarack, a WV gift and craft center, in Beckley after driving about 165 miles.  Tamarack is a great place to over-night, and we have stayed there several times in past years.  We parked in one of their designated RV spaces along with about 6 other RVs, and enjoyed a cool and quiet night as the temperature dropped to 48 degrees.  West Virginia is very scenic, and admittance is free, however, they hit you up for $10 in tolls on your way out the door.

Camp Tamarack

Today, we continued northward on I-77 and then west on I-64 before taking US 35 north to Dayton OH.  Along the way we entered the first of the dreaded midwest "vowel" states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.  There is nothing particularly bad about any of these states, but the scenery along the interstates is rather boring.  We also enjoyed a stiff headwind, which sometimes was a stiff cross wind, reducing our fuel economy and resulting in a few abrupt sideways maneuvers, causing Dorcas to make her dreaded sucky-hissy sounds. We stopped for a break about every 2 hours.  Matilda loves to break!  In Octa OH we stopped for lunch and noticed that the price for diesel here was significantly less than what we had seen anywhere else so far.  We topped off with about 55 gallons at $2.18/gal, while it was in the high $2.40s everywhere else we passed.  I love driving with a full tank of cheap diesel! We finally stopped for the night at the Walmart Supercenter in Bloomington IL, after driving 536 uneventful miles.  Here we will buy all the groceries that we didn't have time to load from home yesterday.  I expect we will have another long diving day tomorrow, before eventually slowing down in South Dakota.

Enjoying a break from the wind

I'd love to visit this farm!  Pick your own?  Somewhere in Ohio. 

Camp Walmart in Bloomington IL