Expensive Day

The day started out innocent enough. I called AAA to come out and change the flat tire. The plan was to remove the flat tire wheel, put on the spare temporarily while getting the flat fixed, and replace the spare with the repaired tire. No problem. AAA could only remove the wheel as they couldn't wait for me to get the tire repaired to place back on the trailer. Kristine and Philo came over and we all drove down the street to Les Schwab Tire to get the flat repaired. They couldn't do the repair while we waited, so they said to come back in about an hour.

We drove to Walmart and picked up a collar and leash for Jenny, their new puppy. She didn't like the leash at all:

After stopping at the local Windermere office to pick up some info on some properties, we returned to Les Schwab to get the repaired tire. This is where the costly part of the day began. There was nothing wrong with the tire. The problem was that the wheel developed a crack and would have to be replaced. Sure. You can't buy just one wheel that doesn't match the other three wheels on the rig, plus, any one or all of the other three could develop the same problem, so I had to buy 4 new wheels! Les Schwab graciously consented to come to our site at the Fairgrounds to do the swap.. This is where other problems developed. The spare that was placed on the trailer had one lug that was stripped and had to be broken off in order to place the new wheel on the rig. Obviously, the problem was created by the guy who placed the spare on the trailer. Anyway, to make a long story short, the company that put the spare on the trailer relented to pay for putting a new lug on the wheel. That will have to be done before we leave here next week.

The next problem was a water leak that developed in a plastic tube that runs to the refrigerator. Water was spraying all over the back of the refrigerator outside and I spent the rest of the day trying to find a solution to that problem:

Nothing I did would work, so we spent the night with no running water in the trailer as it appears that our water pump is not working either. The water problem is the priority for today.

We are getting very frustrated with the frequency and severity of problems with the fifth wheel. It is over 8 years old, but these problems are beginning to get us down. All we can do is handle them one at a time and hope that things stabilize and we can have some smooth sailing. We had a brief storm at the end of the day and to end the day on a positive note, we saw this beautiful rainbow:

Great Tour of Area

Before getting into the great day we had yesterday with Kristine and Philo, I want to share this surprise we had when we went outside yesterday AM for the first time:

We have no idea how that happened, but are thankful it didn't happen while on the road. We will take care of that this morning with our AAA Plus RV insurance.

We met Kristine and Philo at their house in Marcus at around 11 AM to take a drive around the area. We mentioned that we would possibly be interested in obtaining a lot (5-20 acres) where we could place our RV for the summer months. We saw some terrific properties and were awed by the beauty of the area. These are some shots we took of the day. Starting with this one of the Columbia River that splits this area of Washington:

And these of a stop along the way:

We also saw these whitetail deer along the side of the road at one point:

We stopped for lunch at a neat Bar and Grill in Northport before heading back home.

The net of the drive was that there are many possibilities in the area and it remains an excellent option for us. It is close to Kettle Falls and Colville, and only about 70 miles from Spokane. I also got a chance to drive by my old friend Burt Nokes' place where I hunted many years ago. Of course, he is no longer there, but the home and barn are still there and it was nice to bring back those memories. I forgot to take pictures of that stop but hope to go back again before we leave.

Today's agenda includes the tire repair before anything else is done, so it appears that this day is set aside for less pleasant activities...

Colville WA

We did it. We beat our normal departure time of 7:15 AM yesterday - by 5 minutes. The drive to Colville, WA was relatively short - 276 miles - and without any rain and wind, we got pretty good gas mileage - 9.5 mpg. There was only one incident during the drive and that was in Chewalah, WA. While leaving the downtown area, a small doe walked into the street to cross and we slammed on our brakes to avoid the animal. It was a scary moment, but the deer made it across the street and we went on to our destination with no further problems.

Our arrival in Colville occurred around 1 PM and we found the Fairgrounds and set up our rig for the visit with Kristine:

 

 

It isn't a great site, but certainly good enough for our stay.

Just as we arrived and were beginning to set up for our stay, we received our expected phone call from the Sales Manager at our new "pending" job location in Moose, WY. We were offered the job, and we accepted, so we are now employed once again at one of the most desirable locations in the Grand Teton Mountains - The Moose Visitor Center. We plan to arrive on May 24 and begin work on the 26th. That gives us more time to spend here in Colville and to visit with Kristine and her "new" family. Kristine made a turkey pot pie and brought it over to our location and we had a terrific visit with her and Philo (her boyfriend) and Cameron (his son). Oh, and their new puppy, Jenny, came along:

We look forward to a nice long - about 10 days - visit with them and we hope to make sure that Kristine gets off on the right foot with her cancer treatment program and gets all the support she needs. We also plan to spend the time doing activities with them over the next week or so.

It's nice to be here and visit with Kristine and  "family", and to learn about her new home in this part of Washington where I hunted many years ago and fell in love with the location...

Pendleton OR

Our internal clocks must be stuck on 7:15 AM as that was the time, for the third straight day, that we finally got on the road. Our Travel day of 355 miles was in very different weather. This time, we had clear skies, but very strong headwinds. I commented to Josie that it seemed like I was driving with the brake on all day. Our gas mileage reflected the effects of the winds - 8.0 mpg for the day where we have been averaging close to 9.5 each of the other days. We did arrive at our destination at the Pendleton KOA Campground at around 2:15 PM which was the earliest arrival so far. We got set up in our space and I took this shot of our rig:

As we drove on the Interstate almost the entire day, we didn't run into any crazy drivers. There were a few truckers that came close though. For the most part, the truck has performed very well. With the exception of that one occasion when our dash lights went out for a short time, it has handled well and the fifth wheel tracks very well behind it.

Today is our final travel day on this leg of our trip to Wyoming. We will travel only 276 miles today to Colville, WA and the Northeast Washington Fairgrounds where we will stay for at least 3 or 4 days. Depending on what we hear as a final word from our job in the Tetons, we may stay until next week sometime. We did get a message from the Sales Manager - our "probable" new boss - yesterday while on the road. She would like to talk to us - I guess to put a stamp on the hiring. The original interview we had last week was excellent and this person is just anxious to talk with us to get to know us better. We hope that is the case.

We will try to get on the road before 7:15 this morning, so we'll see how successful we will be...

Twin Falls ID

Once again, we left at 7:15 AM for our 393 mile drive to Twin Falls, ID. It would be the longest travel day that we had scheduled out of the four that we will be on the road to WA. It was very cloudy when we started out, and it didn't begin to clear until about halfway (Wells, NV) on our scheduled trip. In fact, it spit and drizzled almost the entire trip until we reached the Idaho Border. This is what we drove through most of the way:

The route we took almost the entire day was US 93 which goes straight north through Nevada into Idaho. We did see some beautiful snow covered mountains on the way:

And, I can tell you that it is nice to be away from the 100 degree temperatures in the Phoenix area.

We averaged 9.3 mpg for the day - not too great, but still better than we ever did with the old truck - especially considering all the passes and mountains we drove through.

It was shortly after 3 PM when we pulled into our campground near Twin Falls - the Twin Falls 93 RV Park. It is a nice park and we got settled in short order:

We also had a couple lunatics along the way yesterday that almost paid the price for passing us illegally or in tight places where oncoming traffic almost wiped them out - and us. We don't know what is happening with today's drivers, but the ones we have seen over the last couple days could be classified as dare-devils.

Today we have Pendleton, OR as our target destination. It will be about 355 miles and we will try to keep the same schedule as we have so far by arriving around 3 PM this afternoon...

Alamo NV

We got a slightly late start at 7:15 AM yesterday. The weather was terrific for our entire trip until we got about 40 miles south of our destination - Alamo, NV. The rains came, and came some more. We drove the last 40 miles in a torrential downpour. At one point I had to pull off the side of the road as my dash lights went out for a short period of time. That must have been as a result of the rain getting into one of he lines for the lights because they came back on in a short while. We also had an extremely close call just before the heavy rain started. A pickup truck passed us suddenly that was going about 90 mph and narrowly missed colliding with a semi that was coming the other way. The semi slammed on his brakes as I hit our brakes and there couldn't have been more than inches between all of our vehicles while the pickup pulled in front of us. Phew! No more of those, please.

Josie took a shot of the weather that we were driving through during this final leg of yesterday's travel:

We arrived at our destination at about 2:30 PM. The park - Picketts RV Park - is nothing to write about but it is the only game in town and will do for one night. Josie also got a couple shots of our rig in our space:

 

We had a few minor issues while setting up, but they were taken care of and we didn't un-hitch the trailer for the one night. The truck provided fairly good mileage - 9.5 mpg - which was better than any stretch we drove with the old truck. Our destination today is Twin Falls, ID, and we hope to leave before 7 AM.

 

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

Short and Late Update

Sorry I missed the entry this morning but, to put it mildly, it was like a Chinese fire drill this morning. We did make it on the road by 7:15, but I had to skip the blog in order to make that happen. Today's activity and review will be in tomorrow's blog entry - I promise it will be on time.

The major event from yesterday was a telephone interview with our "new" prospective employer at the Teton National Park Administration. It was a fairly long interview and was very thorough. We feel we passed it with flying colors but we don't officially have the job until we hear from one more person on Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, and based on the feedback from our interviewer yesterday, we cancelled our participation in Cody at the Buffalo Bill Village. That was not an easy task, but I believe we did it without burning any bridge. Our experience over the three years that we worked the Lodge in Jackson was perfect for this opportunity at the Visitor's Center. We are very excited about the job and have our fingers crossed that it will all come together. It had better come together because as of right now, we have no job for the summer.

The new job provides some extra time for us which we needed. We would start on May 24 which is over one week later than the job in Cody. That gives us more time to spend with Kristine to help her get things started with her cancer treatment. We are confident that it has been caught in time based on information we have so far. The big thing for her is to get the treatment program started immediately.

Anyway, our travel day today to Alamo, NV was very good with a few exceptions which I will cover tomorrow...