Busy day

August 27, 2012
Douglas, WY
Fairgrounds

Boy was this a hot, hot day.  Too hot to dry camp so we stayed at the Fairgrounds, as long as we had power for the A/C we didn't care where we stayed.  It was about 98' when we arrived at 2:30 pm, all we did was hook up the electric, turn on the A/C and the floor fan and take a nap.  We are just not use to this heat.  This was the 3rd day of a 3 day of a pro-rodeo, horse trailers everywhere.  The campground had three sections of about 50 sites per section.  Later in the evening we walked over to the grandstands to watch the last of the rodeo.  The barrel racing was the best.

Our next day was going to be only about 150 miles so in the morning we headed out to Ayres Natural Bridge with a small county park and about 10 camping spaces with a few that could take up to about a 30 foot trailer, but no electric, which would be ok if it wasn't so darn hot.  A beautiful oasis, big trees, creek going under the natural bridge.  The bridge is one of only three natural bridges in the world with a trout stream running  underneath.  Wagoneers traveling west often rested in this spot which sits only a mile or so from the Oregon Trail..

On approach to park

The Bridge

I had to climb up the trail going to the top of the bridge, it's a good thing I had my hiking stick, this was very steep and rocky.  I wasn't sure just how I was going to get back down.

I made it to the top. 

 The white rock is the top and the reddish is another outcropping of rock

Looking down you can barely see the truck where Joe and Buddy are taking a rest.

Douglas is also known as the founder of the great mysterious " Jackalope".

 In fact you can to go to www.jackalope.org for information on the city.

At the visitor center is a museum of old trains. 

 I don't know what it is about old trains but I seem to be drawn to them.

The dinning room car.

  I would have loved to travel "back in the day" on this train.

The sleeper car

It's sort of hard to focus on this picture, it's looking down the isle of the sleeper car.

 I didn't see any rooms that were like the bunk bed style that was in

 "Some Like It Hot" (one of my favorite movies)

Visitor center of Douglas Wyoming. 

 A charming small town with many interesting things to see and do when it's not too hot. 

 There was a cute little lady in the center about 5 feet tall, she said she was born and raised here and in her 82 years she has never seen it this hot. 

 She said it might get hot for a few days in July, but never all summer and never in August.

Since we only had about 150 miles to go we didn't leave until about 11:30 am.  We were headed to Scottsbluff, well actually to Gering, Nebraska about 3 miles south of the actual Scottsbluff.

Well you know us and BLOW OUTS.  Yep, it happened again.  A reminder, these tires are from Discount Tires, luckily we bought the flat tire insurance policy on these tires. There is no Discount tire around here, but when I called they said to replace the tire and then take in the receipt to the next Discount tire center and they will pay us for the new tire.  

This time we went to a Good Year tire center in Scottsbluff and got a Japanese tire instead of the Marathon.

The 150 miles took us about six hours to complete, luckily we were able to pull into the drive of a farm house with a really really nice lady and her high school age son.  He changed the tire for us and we were on our way.  We gave him $20.00 for his efforts, I hope that was enough,  probably 25 or 30 would have been more appropriate.  He was a lifesaver, otherwise we would have had to wait for AAA for about an 1 1/2 hours or more.  We were in the middle of ?????

We eventually settled in at Ribidoux RV Park, a City Park.  Very nice place, big spots.  Did I mention that it was 103' when we got there?

Safe travels to you and may you have a blessed day

Thanks for stopping by

Nancy

Gone with the Wind

Well I lied on my previous post.  I thought I would be without internet for a week but I totally forgot that I can use free WiFi at campgrounds.  How awesome is that.

July 12, 2012

After taking care of a few things at home, we are off again, this time our destination is Hill Spring, Alberta and the Great Canadian Barn Dance RV Park.  Wow that's a mouth full, I don't even know if I have the correct title.

Well we started off on an uneventful morning.  We waited for the Seattle traffic to calm down a little and then we left about 9:30 am.  North on I-5, east on SR 18 and then picked up I-90 east.  Just before I-90 we came across fellow Airstreamers that live in the same park as we do; Phil & Pat pulling their trailer and Judy driving her motor home.  They were going to Glacier Park and then up to Hill Spring and we are going north on 95 to BC and then east to Crows Nest Pass to meet up with our BC friends.

After the crest of the mountain pass on I-90 we were going to take exit 93 and go to our favorite little fruit stand on the other side of the Hwy.  A very nice family runs the fruit stand and the fruit is always good and fresh.  Once they even let us boondock for one night behind their stand.

About 3/4 mile before our exit a car passed us with their windows down and everyone having frantically at us and trying to tell us something.  Luckily there was a safe place to pull over to try and figure out what was wrong.  Oh, by the way it was HOT and Windy and the outside temp was 101'.

Just our luck we had a blown tire, a very blown left front trailer tire.  The rubber and steel belts were sliced and diced on the tire but luckily no damage to the trailer.  Wow, were we lucky, if we had gone much farther who knows what might have happened.  This is our 2nd tire problem in less than a year.  The first was in Yuma and we replaced all four tires at Discount Tire.  I don't know about other trailers but on Airstream trailers the trailer keeps rolling along on three tires and you never know the difference.  I know this story is getting long, just skip to the pictures if you want, I like to have this info to look back on.


We have a safety vest and a collapsible traffic cone, this is the first time we have had to use them.

I'm not sure what Joe is doing but doesn't he look cute in his safety vest that I made him wear.  The little dinky cone collapses down to about one inch and it fits nicely in the rear truck door along with his vest.

AAA to the rescue

Joe is telling me to stop taking pictures, get in the truck and lets get the hell out of here.

The trailer tires are from Discount Tire and the truck tires are from Lew Schwab.  The closest Discount Tire is in Spokane Valley 180 miles away.  I called them and spoke to a very nice man named Nick.  After explaining the situation to Nick he said to go purchase a used tire to carry for a spare and then come into his shop and he would buy the used tire from us and replace the torn up tire.  Well, wasn't that nice!

However, just try to find a trailer size tire in farm country.  All the used ones go to the farmers for their "farm implements" is what I was finally told, after sever phone calls.  MY OH MY, where would we be if not for the cell phone and the air card.  Verizon certainly does a good job.



"The East side", that's what the people of Seattle area call it, (or sometimes "the other side of the mountains" is looking good.  Lots of nice healthy looking grains, they will be harvested in late summer.  I have always liked keeping an eye on the farmers' fields, just to make sure they are doing it right. lol

Stacks and stacks of hay is already being covered up, waiting for the highest bidder to truck it off later in the season.  Later in the summer there are acres and acres of these stacks of hay

Finally we come to the wind generators. 

 If you are traveling at night on a full moon they are spectacular to see

Crossing the mighty  Columbia River that Lewis and Clark came down. 

After crossing the river, up on the east side are these metal  cut-outs of wild horses.  Every time we come over this way I try to take a picture of them and today I finally got a decent picture.

Look close between the first horse and the  second horse is a person standing there.  There is a view point to stop and see the horses, but so far I have not been able to convince Joe to stop there, something to do with the fact that we are pulling a trailer up a long grade.

That's it for yesterday, safe travels to all, and thanks for stopping by

Joe and Nancy