Here we are, on the road: We’re “Home” in Rapid City

Sunday, June 03, 2012 Lorraine’s report

We arrived in Rapid City, SD, our home of record, yesterday afternoon, after what seemed to me like a really long time on the road. Nevada roads are pretty nice roads to drive on; they are in a lot better condition than the roads in California. But I have to say I haven’t ever seen so many sage and tumbleweeds plants as what we saw on the way here. Nevada has acres and acres of sage and tumbleweed; miles after mile.

So last Sunday, Chuck and I took a drive up to Virginia City, having never been there before. We headed out on a lazy, sunny day, temps in the mid 60’s, billowing clouds in a bright blue sky. The area was warming up from the snow on Friday. The climb into the mountains to get there was steep, and I was grateful we didn’t take the rig because some of the switch backs were daunting.

Virginia City was packed full on tourists; Chuck drove all the way through to the other end of town, turned the car around and headed back, finding one spot to park about mid town. VC was the heart of the silver rush, dating back to the mid to late 1890’s and is now a big tourist trap; full of tiny shops and restaurants. Of course we had to check it them out, but the good news was, I didn’t find a thing I needed or wanted. I just took lots of pictures of the town.

We got home from Virginia City and rested. Chuck then took me to Boomtown’s all you can eat Lobster Buffet. Chuck didn’t eat at the buffet; he cleaned the lobster out of the shell for me. All I have to say is Boomtown didn’t make much money on me. I was wishing Rick, our son and our friends, Rick and Joy, and Rob and Norma and Barb and Dennis were with us to enjoy the feast.

Monday, Chuck took me to Reno’s Dillard’s Department Store, where I scored some items I had been looking for. We then went to the Silver Legacy for a short time of gaming and a free dinner on SL, then back to the rig to pack up.

Tuesday found us back out on the road, heading east. Chuck had wanted to drive “The Loneliest Road in America,” highway 50 a short way east of Reno, so we did just that. It was very long, lonely road, and we passed very few travelers headed either way. That road is where we thought Forrest Gump decided to stop his running from the movie of the same name, but alas it wasn’t. The vistas from horizon to horizon were awesome. We stopped and stayed at the KOA in Ely, NV

Tuesday we crossed into Utah and at the first rest stop, we called our friends, Katie and Joe who live outside Salt Lake City in a town called Tooele. Katie was very surprised and excited to hear from us, and that we wanted to stop and see her and Joe, and her boys, Jared and Lance. She hadn’t read our blog for several weeks and didn’t know that we were back on the road.

I couldn’t contact the RV Park we stayed at last year, so Katie went down to the park and secured a site for us for the night. The Homestead RV Park right in the middle of Tooele had just completed a new section and we took one space for $20.00 for 50 amp, sewer and water. We set up and went over to meet Katie, Joe and the boys at their home and to go to dinner. Pizza Hut was the place we all decided on and was an excellent choice for all of us. We walked up a block for ice cream, which the boys really enjoyed. Thank you Katie, Joe, Jared and Lance for a great visit, and we will see you again.

The following morning we stopped at Speedco, on the way out of Tooele, to have the oil checked again, since Chuck found some oil on the car and the back of the rig. We had the oil changed at a Speedco in Portland, Oregon a couple of weeks ago. Pulling all those big mountains with the rig, we thought we had sprung a leak. Turns out, the workers at Speedco put the wrong oil filter on and that was what was leaking. We were there a couple of hours while they worked on the rig, figuring out how to charge the warranty, etc. We spent that night in Rock Springs, WY at the KOA.

Next day was uneventful, just miles and miles of changing vegetation and scenery with long steep vistas. We crossed the Continental Divide four times, but I could never get a picture of the sign. We were up above 7200 feet there for most of the day, and both Chuck and I could feel the altitude, as we both had trouble breathing in such “Thin” air.

We stopped for the night in Douglas, WY at another KOA for the night. Chuck washed the wind shield as he does every day after driving and I cooked fried chicken and made homemade potato salad for dinner. Chuck had to fix the drawer underneath the dish washer; it came crashing out while he was driving. You just never know what is going to break or wear out while you are driving your home down the road.

Saturday we crossed into South Dakota for the first time in a very long time. There was lots of traffic coming into Rapid City, and one area on Interstate 16 was quite intense for me, with no safety rails or anything. The steep drop offs made me hang on for dear life and pray a lot. We saw Chief Crazy Horse Monument from the road, and Chuck made the comment that it looked like it hadn’t changed at all since the last time we were here.

We are now at Hart Ranch and took Sunday off, although I have done six loads of laundry since we have been here. We have lots of business to take care of while we are here; like drive’s license, new license plates, etc.

I want to go next Friday night to the “Race for the Cure” walk; it will be my twelfth year I have walked in the survivor’s lap. Hurray for me!!! I thank God every day He gives me, and I’m grateful for all He has given to Chuck and me, I try not to take anything for granted. Life is good!

Until next time,

Lorraine

6/3/12 Chuck’s Report

Last Sunday, after we posted our blog, we decided to do some tourist stuff so we drove down to Virginia City. Although we didn’t see any of the Cartwright clan, we did see lots of tourist trap shops. The drive over was through the mountains, boy did they have a tough live getting around back then. We drove past lots of old mines, at least there was a bunch of mine tailings. I forgot how much silver and gold they got out but there were lots of millionaires made during the heyday.

Afterwards, we stopped by Boomtown for their Lobster Buffett, at least Lorraine did, I don’t eat the stuff. But I did try to make myself useful, I went through the line to get her more lobster when she was ready and even cleaned a couple for her. I think she got her fill, even though we had steak and lobster the night before.

Monday Lorraine wanted to do some shopping then we stopped off at the Silver Legacy for a couple hours on the slots. We knew we would be stopping at Ely and probably hitting a casino there on Tuesday so didn’t feel the need to hit it too hard, ha. After we got back to the coach, we started the process of getting travel ready for the next morning.

Tuesday we got on the road around our normal time, stopped for fuel just down the road then headed East on Highway 50, the Lonest Highway in America. Boy does it live up to that name, miles and miles of nothing but tumble weed, sage and sand. I know Lorraine took lots of pictures, I’ll add some of them to show the drive. The road was fine, in fact, we found all the roads in Nevada to be good, maybe it was because we had just experienced California roads which need some work.

We stopped for the night in Ely, not sure what to expect but figured it might be like Elko, we stopped there last year. But Ely is much smaller and “older”. There wasn’t much to experience there, we drove the town, stopped at a restaurant where they wouldn’t even wait on us so we went to a casino to eat instead. Both Lorraine and I left there with some of their money, the slots were good to us.

We had a choice to make after leaving Ely, continue on I-50 to Denver or head North to Salt Lake City. After checking the map and computer we decided not to drive to Denver, the passes were too high, heck we were having trouble with the air at 5000’ and Eisenhower Tunnel is at 1100’ if memory serves. And besides, if we went to SLC city we could see our friends Joe/Katie and their kids. We stopped by to see them last year and had a good visit so that helped make our decision easier too.

So on to SLC, still not too many folks, towns or much of anything along the way. The scenery was nice, a bit different from I-50 as there were more hills and passes plus it wasn’t as barren and desert like. A couple of places we had some steep grades to climb/descend but mostly it was a nice drive. We do drive with the house air conditioner on and it seem to be running most of the time due the bright, sunny day.

We couldn’t find a phone number for the place we stayed at last year when we were visiting Joe/Katie so Lorraine called Katie to see if she could find it for us. She volunteered to run over there to talk to them, thanks for that. Anyway, they had a spot saved for us when we got there and helped us get settled in. Later we drove over to Joe/Katie’s place then headed out for dinner at a pizza place just down the way from their house. We had a good visit, too bad it was just for the evening but guess we’ll take what we can.

I had noticed the front of our car had oil on it, it must have come from the motorhome. We had the oil changed in Oregon at Speedco and there happened to be a Speedco on the way to the highway after leaving Tooele so we stopped by to have them check out our oil leak. At Speedco, they allow the customer to go into the “pit” when they are working on their rigs so I was able to check out the oil leak too. The oil appeared to be coming from the filter area and they checked their books and found that we didn’t have the correct oil filter installed in Oregon. They covered the new filter under their warrantee and sent us on our way. I was once again satisfied with our dealing with Speedco.

We were too far away from Rapid City to make it in two days, at least the way we travel so we stopped over in Douglas and Rock Springs, WY one night each. Normally we avoid KOA camp grounds but here this was the fourth straight KOA we stopped at, Reno, Ely, Douglas and now Rock Springs. We even thought about joining KOA but had only stopped at them twice in five years until this stretch and it would take about 10 nights to get a payback. I will say they are a bit more expensive than the normal parks we stay but also they were clean and well kept up.

Saturday we continued on to our planned stop here at Hart Ranch just outside Rapid City. We decided to take a short cut, knowing it would take us over a couple of passes once again. It was a very scenic drive this time, in fact we were in trees again for the first time in awhile. Two of the grades were 7% and a couple more were 6% so we worked the engine and jake brake pretty good once again.

We drove by Crazy Horse Monument, didn’t stop but did see it off the road. We stopped there about three years ago and liked their museum and displays but couldn’t see where there had been much work on the monument since the old man died a few years earlier. Most of their efforts appeared to be in the buildings and displays and advertisements to draw in the tourists.

We pulled into Hart Ranch, one of our favorite camp grounds we’ve been too. It accepts our RPI membership, only $10/day but this time they charged an extra $5.50/day for services. They told us that everyone, even the members, have to pay the extra service charge. Still a nice place to stay however, large back in sites with cement parking and lots of grass. The place is kept up very nice, they have security driving by all the time too. Just across the fence from us is the outside storage area, must be a couple hundred rigs stored there and we’ve seen lots coming out in the last two days, must be the warm weather and I think school is out here also.

Only problem is the oil leak returned, bummer. The coach and car were both oil leak free from Ely to Rock Springs but there weren’t too many hard passes. But from Rock Springs to here was hard work so I still need to check this out. I’ll look into checking into a Cummins Engine Repair place while we are here, should be something in a town this size I would think. I’ve heard some folks have developed oil leaks when the only problem was they had overfilled the engine, hope that’s our problem. Another thing I’m going to look at is the “slobber tube” or vent pipe from the engine, I’ve heard of problems with it too.

By the way, our dog Misty is almost back to normal after her stroke. The major difference is she doesn’t attempt to jump up on or down from the couch, won’t climb the steps into the coach and is somewhat unstable when we go for a walk. But if you didn’t know she had a stroke, you probably wouldn’t notice these small changes.

The weather has been just short of fantastic, in the 80s with lots of sun. We have had lots of wind however, especially in the desert in the afternoons. But we try to get off the road and into our site between 3 and 4 so the wind wasn’t too bad while we were driving. Saturday night, here at Hart Ranch, we had storm pass by in the evening, thunder, lightening, wind and rain. Guess it isn’t too unusual to see hail with these summer storms but we didn’t have any this time. The forecast is for more of the same, 80s with possible afternoon storms.

We normally try to post our blog on Sunday morning but decided to just take it easy on Sunday morning. We both were sort of dizzy, still rocking I guess. We had traveled for the last five days, don’t remember the last time we did that. But at least we are seeing some new country and the fuel prices are falling the further East we get, yea. Notice I didn’t say the prices are cheap, the last time we paid $3.85/gallon, much better than the $4.25 we paid in Washington when we left there almost a month ago. Here’s hoping the price drop continues and we get to “cheap” prices, somewhere in the $2 range would be good, ha.

Ok, enough of that, I’ll add a few pictures and get this posted.

Virginia City, Nevada