Thursday, September 18, 2014

Back to the Blog... for a bit

Technology being what it is.. that is, always changing, I have been in a tech gap for awhile. I had hoped to be able to move everything from this set of blogs into Google+ but the lack of connectivity bandwidth and the ongoing changes in Google's platforms and requirements has had me chasing a butterfly.

I don't doubt that I will be able to do this...eventually, and until then, I will still post my daily content in Google+. It is far more consistent and easier to manage. Unfortunately, it is still so misunderstood by so many that they don't want anything to do with it. It is not Facebook but does have a social media aspect, which can be ignored if you choose.  In the meantime, I will occasionally update these blogs with useful but less than timely information. Just to keep a thread of interest going until the tech makes it easier and more appealing to move to G+... or somewhere else.

The Past Year

The past year has been mostly about our travels with some extended stays in places we liked (except for Fallon, NV).

To recap starting 9/2013



Fallon, Nevada (working Amazon)

While staying in Fallon, NV, we had some nice weather, but also some very un-nice weather with temps dropping to -19 and some snow. A couple of nights I had to keep the Precision Temp demand Hot water heater defrosted with a hair dryer.  Batt Insulation didn't even completely prevent it from freezing, but nothing broke or leaked.  I added a complete bypass  kit to it so I could at least, completely empty the whole thing if it ever got this cold again... but it hasn't.

We wrapped up our Fallon Stay (Remember, Merrily was working at Amazon in Fernley, nv) on Dec 18, 2013 and we headed up to Lake Tahoe the next day. We spent Christmas week in Lake Tahoe South Tahoe Village Campground, but Merrily was bad sick the whole time so not much fun.

Redding, California

12/27/2013 saw us move to the lower and warmer Redding, Ca. We stayed at the Premier Resorts RV park in North Redding and loved it so much that we stayed there until April 5, 2014. The weather was great and so were the people.  Redding has never been a destination for me but it was so convenient that when we moved on to Arcata, CA, it was with a lot of reluctance.

Up the California Coast and the Redwoods

A few nights in Trinidad, Ca which was a waste and then we moved on up the coast staying only a few days to a week in places like  Klamath, CA, and Crescent City (Actually, Hiouchi Hamlet just 5 miles east of CC). The Jedediah Smith Redwoods State and National Park was fantastic!

Hiouchi RV park is right on the eastern edge of this National Park and daily excursions into the groves of original growth Redwoods always left us wanting even more.

Oregon, at Last!

When we finally left Hiouchi RV Park our next stop was Gold Beach, OR and we stayed right on the beach at Ireland's Ocean View RV Park. That was a really nice small park and we really liked the Gold Beach area, too. Not nearly as touristy as Brookings.

If you recall, our west coast goal was Port Orford and we finally made it there but did not stay. A day trip to it showed it to be interestingly small and insufficient in our kinds of resources so we planned to continue on up to  Bandon, OR.

Bandon by the Sea RV Park in Bandon, OR was nice with big pull through sites.  Weather was pretty blustery while we were there for a few days but it was exhilarating to walk the overlooks at the point at elephant rock.

Coos Bay had long been pulling us as a prospective long term place to stay but a week there, though very interesting, left us still wanting a better matchup of our needs and wants to available local resources.  We stopped in Coos Bay at AAA Midway RV Park which was very well kept with dense hedgerows between the sites but there were only 2 pull through sites we could fit into. It worked out perfectly for us, though, and we spent a week there checking out the area and the history of Coos Bay. Lots of interesting things we didn't get around to at that time but reason enough to come back.

We moved on to Woahink Lake RV park where the huge coastal dunes sprung right out of the back row of RV sites. Man, these things are huge and maybe 150 feet to the top of the nearest ones. The ocean is at least a crow's mile from there, across the dunes.  Obviously, a big ATV recreation area.. These things are awesome to see and climb.  Katie loved the unlimited running and digging and for the first time really learned what off leash really can mean.

A few days later, we moved on to Seal Rocks RV Cove in Seal Rocks, OR. This was just the opposite. The cove was just across highway 101 with a short path and steps down to the large tidal pools area that all but disappeared at high tides.  Great little place. Yes, there is highway noise during the day but the scenery and beach makes up for most of it.  We found an ICE cream/fudge shop that makes the best brownies and ice cream. Good thing we didn't discover it until the next to the last day there. By this time it was getting close to our May 20th destination in Lincoln City so we could not dawdle as we would have liked. 

On May 20th we made our last short term move into the Premier Resorts RV park in Lincoln City, Oregon. It is a sister park to the one where we had stayed in Redding, CA, just after Christmas. One of the very best parks so far. Unfortunately, for how well it is run, the concrete parking pads and sites are all sized for RVs with no slides so we have to park our truck in different places depending on how full the park is expected to be. sometimes it is parked out on the street. Merrily flew out of portland a few days later to visit the kids and doctors for a few weeks and Katie and I stayed and just soaked up the Lincoln City ambience.

The beach is 2 blocks away and across US Hiway 101 but that was not a problem.  The weather was fantastic! High temps were generally in the upper 60s to mid 70s and nights plummeted <grin> to the mid to upper 50s.  Neither heat nor A/C hardly ever ran and each day we got in at least a 1 mile walk along the cliffs overlooking the beach.

But we had an agenda so after extending our stay twice, we finally left Lincoln City for Astoria, OR. on 9/19/2014.

Though we had previously made a scouting trip from Lincoln City to Tillamook and toured the Tillamook Cheese factory, we had to stop again just for a great butterscotch sunday as we passed through.

Astoria, Or 9/11/2014: What a great place! Called Little San Francisco, it really is like its namesake.  Hills, a tower, legendary river mouth, massive port for commerce and flush with nostalgic cultural roots.  We have "played tourist" more in the short time we have been in Astoria than anyplace we have yet visited. We planned for a week's stay and figured that might be a bit too long but we have already extended our stay to another week.

So, that is our catch up history since Leaving Fallon Nevada. I have been posting most of my day to day pictures and adventures on Google+ because it gives me a lot more control, automatically does a lot of things, like photo enhancements, panoramas and neat little stories. All the pictures I take with my SmartPhone automatically go up to my G+ photo albums as I take them so I just pick the ones I want, stick in some description and then post them to my circles of family, friends and rving buddies groups.

Far more details are available in my Google+ posts along with a lot of pictures and movies of places and events. Just click this link: Budd Nash  or go to Plus.google.com and search for Budd Nash.
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Kept them doggies rollin’…. Rawhide!

As we have traveled almost daily, I have been trying to keep our progress posted on Google+ in my RVBudds circle. It is just too hard to always setup the computer each night (no laptop ATM) and blogging from the tablet is too hard. I may see a laptop or ChromeBook in our future instead of a second tablet.

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We have crossed from Sioux Falls, SD to Rapid City, SD, Custer, SD (Nice area), Dubois, WY, Grand Tetons National Park for a week, Yellowstone NP (Stayed in Gardiner, MT) then on to Helena, MT for a week.  Phew!  I have to ck my maps to keep it all straight.

While still in Gardiner at the north entrance to Yellowstone NP, Amazon put out another Workamper hiring notice and since we had been toying with the idea of working for one of their facilities. 

Although our long term destination is still Southern Coastal Oregon for the winter, the recent costs of new trailer tires and the electrical problems on Clifford have left us feeling the need for some supplementary income. The Amazon facility in Fernley, NV is not too far off-track so Merrily took a shot at a job. 

We really had no idea how long the process would take or if she would get the job so we decided to hang 7 in Helena. If a job came through we would head down to Fernley, NV. If not, we would head on over to the Oregon coast.  Either way, the weather (and government) has been getting too unpredictable to follow our original plans to trek up to Glacier National Park before heading to Oregon so a short holding pattern in Helena was a good chance to catch our breath, strategize our possibilities and see if Amazon was going to work out.

It did!

Our trip from Helena to Fallon, NV has been fairly direct. We swung through Dillon, MT, ARCO, ID and drove through the Craters of the Moon National Monument (closed, of course.. dumb government management style!) to Twin Falls, ID.

Yesterday, we left Twin Falls (would have liked to have stayed there a few days because there is lots to see and do in that area) and arrived in Elko, NV mid afternoon.  The Pacific TIme zone runs east/west across the northern Nevada state line so it was odd to be traveling south but setting clocks back another hour.

Here, at the Iron Horse RV Resort, the weather is very pleasant as it has been on our whole trip.  We skirted around behind one big storm as it swung around south of us headed to Denver so we have had no rain, no snow and nighttime temperatures have been above freezing for all but 2 nights.

Today, we move on the 288 miles to Fallon, NV to get setup for Merrily’s gig at Amazon in Fernley, Nevada. She still does not have a starting date but all the prelims are done but the drug test which will be on Monday.  (UPDATE:  She starts the 19th.) We got reservations in the Fallon RV park, about 22 miles from Amazon’s Center. It’s not as close as we would like but it is a lot closer than the 35+ miles to the RV parks in the Sparks and Reno areas.

Amazon just started placing workampers in this park so I think that we were fortunate to get in with no lead time. Amazon approves and pays the parks, directly, so we must stay where they will pay. We will see how it goes.  Amazon does allow folks to switch campgrounds so after we have time to spec out other choices we may have something open up, closer to work. If not, Fallon is not a deal breaker distance.  The good news is that there is a WalMart in Fallon so we are gold.

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Budd

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Things Change…

imageNorth By Northwest is a Hitchcock movie (1959) that has held a spot in my memories ever since the first time I saw it. Staged at Mount Rushmore and in the surrounding areas, its scenes are the first to leap forth whenever Mount Rushmore is brought up. Growing up in the flatlands of central Florida,  the real mountains were a dreamland of evergreens and massive views.

In 1960, my family took a “Summer Vacation”, not unlike National Lampoon’s movie. My brother, Smith, had passed early that year and Daddy had an Army reserve class to attend in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. We all needed to be together but needed a break from our reality, thus this vacation trip with him to Kansas.

We crossed the US on route 66 from Florida to Los Angeles then up through Yosemite NP to San Francisco and back across the northern route via Yellowstone and Rapid City to Ft. Leavenworth Kansas.

Our stop at Mount Rushmore was a perfect match to the North by Northwest movie scenes. image

The café where Cary Grant was shot by Eva Marie Saint, the terrace outside and those irrepressible faces.  All indelible memories tied to my life events of that time.

 

In 1966, I again visited this memorial on my drive from San Francisco to Rochester, Minnesota on business.  It was the same. All that was missing was Cary Grant.

As we have planned out this trip over the past few years, Mt Rushmore has always been a pivotal point on our route. I have even watched North By Northwest a couple of times to refresh the nostalgia. MMmmmm  good stuff!

Merrily, too, has fond memories of this place from visiting it many years ago with her parents.

Yesterday, Merrily and I finally visited Mount Rushmore together.  We both remember vividly how beautiful the surrounding mountains were with all the exposed rock and deep green trees. Our anticipation of seeing those faces was finally peaking after so many months of planning.

But as we drove over to the monument from Broken Arrow campground just south of Custer, SD, we were stunned at the vast stretches of dead ponderosa pine trees.OL3OL4 There are massive acres of standing dead for mile after mile. Some trees had obviously been killed some years ago but the majority of these dead trees still have the characteristic brown needles of freshly killed trees. We saw miles of house-size piles of cut dead trees along SD 89 in less vertical terrain.

When we moved from Boulder, Colorado in 1983 the area was beginning to show signs of this Pine Bark Beetle scourge but the vast landscapes of brown and grey trees we see here are heartbreaking. These are not the mixture of green with occasional brown tinges we remember. There is little green at all in many of these areas. Whole mountainsides are now flash kindling waiting for a lightning strike.

It was just not quite the same experience as we remembered so vividly but we pressed on following the signs to the monument and occasionally glimpsing the eternal faces when we got close to the park.

As we turned into the entrance something was definitely different! Instead of a winding narrow gravel road to the parking lot, there is now a massive row of toll booths for collecting parking fees. It looked as though we were entering the Jersey Turnpike instead of entering a favored National Monument.

Merrily audibly choked when she saw the price; $11 per vehicle and no discounts accepted.  She was ready to skip the whole thing but I could not abort my nostalgic needs over a few dollars more so we paid and tentatively entered the park.

Driving the quarter mile to the parking decks was indistinguishable from entering the parking complex at a major US airport but the signs, arrows and curves eventually got us into the multilevel concrete parking deck.

As we left the car for the parking deck elevator to the top level we carefully noted, as directed, the level number where we were parked.  Once topside, we began the very long uphill walk towards those enigmatic stone faces. A long, long walk.  I felt we were entering Disney World.

OL5Even with a sidewalk that was 20 yards wide, the myriad of folks trying to take pictures of their companions with the mountain were frustrating our progress all the way up to the visitors center.

The massive granite columns and the runway-sized sidewalk guided us as the faces slowly grew larger yet, somehow it all seemed a little different.  Any moment we just knew we would be synced with our memories when we walked out onto the viewing patio outside the café…. any moment, now….

But the massive curved building ahead was not quite right. It was sort of in the right place and similar but not what I remembered.

We walked on uphill through the center of this structure of gift shops and headed up the avenue of flags. The columns of granite containing the carved names of the states and the dates they had joined the union, looked more like monuments in a cemetery than celebratory benchmarks.

Hmmm.  Now that’s different for sure….. Here we are at the viewing area but no restaurant. Just an expansive patio of granite pavers showcasing the mountainous faces above.

We snapped pictures and wandered around trying to get our bearings eventually seeing a sign mentioning a theatre presentation. We took the elevator down to the level beneath this huge patio and as the doors opened, there was the view we had been straining to see!  The massive faces viewed through roof high glass windows!

… But it imperfectly matched our 40 year old memories. The anticipated view from the café had morphed

OL2OL1

But wait, there’s more…  2 theatres showing the carving of the mountain and an exhibit hall full of historically related artifacts and information stretched out to our left…. but no café?

As we watched the movie I struggled with this paradox of being where I expected to be and seeing what I expected to see but things were different at the same time.

As we left the theatre I chatted up a Ranger about my earlier visits, the movie and the changes since 1966. She helpfully pulled out a photo album and explained that the café, viewing patio and all the old buildings that I remembered, had been torn down.  We were, indeed, standing on that same ground I so vividly remembered but these huge granite halls had replaced those buildings in the 70s. The old facilities could not handle the millions of visitors each year but their replacement could handle Disney World quantities.

On the long walk back to the car I felt a little disappointed as I mulled over how different all of this is now.  Somewhere, somehow something was misplaced.  It was not lost as I can always watch North by Northwest, again, but it is just not what I remember and that has left me slightly unsatisfied… and $11 poorer.

The good news is that I can hang onto my parking pass and use it anytime I want all of the rest of this year…. NOT the same thing.

ttfn

Budd

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Time for a little moseying music

We are taking a few easy days as we make our way from Sioux Falls, SD to the Custer / Rapid City area, reflecting on what has happened so far and what might yet happen. Blowouts and engine problems tend to make one instinctively duck at just the thought of something unexpected happening. A few two hour driving days help settle us back into a calm confidence so we stayed the night in the Kennebec KOA and tonight will be in the Badlands KOA.

I am not a connoisseur of KOAs but they are a pretty sure thing as decent stays go and always overpriced. This one is fine for overnight but surprisingly, they have a butt load of sandspurs. Poor Katie could hardly take 4 steps without picking them up in her paws.  Merrily finally had to walk her on the other side of the highway. None over there. Who woulda thunk it?

Plans (right now) are to mosey on over to Hart Ranch Southeast of Custer for a couple of days before moving on to Big Pine Campground just west of Custer. A couple of days ago our next door neighbor, Phil, was really adamant about how nice Hart Ranch is. Since we are Coast to Coast members (have not made back our investment, yet) we could stay for $10/night w/FHU.

We had originally planned to stay there but it seemed to be farther from most of the venues than we wanted to be so we changed to the Big Pine Campground.

BTW, this is one of the drawbacks to Coast to Coast: You are limited to a reservations window of 3- 60 days before you want to stay. This plays hob with a spontaneous camping style ie. “Where shall we stay, tonight”. Most C2C parks won’t accept walk-ins by members.

There is a lot to see around the area besides the Mount Rushmore monument so we are planning to see the Crazy Horse Memorial (at least as much as has been finished), Custer State Park, maybe the Rushmore Caves, and  long time friends we have never met, Mike and Pat McFall who live in the area.

More as we progress.

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Budd

Friday, August 30, 2013

Trying for some perspective

The events of our journey towards the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest Coast have really stirred our mettle. Though the tire blowouts in Tennessee and Iowa had been anticipated, they were not expected. The technical issues that Clifford has struggled with had also been foreseen but were not really expected to  become a problem.  They were just a few of the many, many “what-ifs” we considered in our planning.

Since leaving ST Augustine, Florida May 18th, 2013, we have experienced a really wide scope of emotions and situations that have upped our game of presence and purpose.

We found our extended time spent with close familyPhoto in Florida had given us irreplaceable joy and contentment so the personal power it has taken for us to leave that comfort zone to venture west to flesh out a life long dream has both surprised and empowered us to continue. 

 

It all began in the early 1990s in our growing awareness that economically, our retirement years could never fulfill the expectations being promised for decades by economic prognosticators and pundits. Our chances of living the promised life were less likely than our winning a lottery.

The short story is that as we studied this and sought solutions it became clear that there was no scenario that would let us stay in the home we had bought to raise a family and live out our years.

The inescapable conclusion was that we would not even be able to afford to live anywhere near Raleigh, NC after retirement. We realized that downsizing was inevitable and to do it without financial and emotional whiplash was going to take a lot of time and planning.  Eventually, it was obvious that we needed a means of transitioning between a work a day family life and our end stage lifestyle.

We both had always loved to travel in the western US and wanted to see a lot of the Pacific Northwest and east to the Rocky Mountains.

Clearly, our transition solution was going to be a lifestyle of living in an RV of some sort and using it as a home to search out our Shangri-La.

We formally engaged this plan in 1998 to transition from a full family middle life existence through a rescaling lifestyle of travel and eventually find a suitable end-life settlement.  Through that process, we expected to live an extended self contained life in a recreational vehicle and to that end we began the search for a suitable RV and vehicle to tow it with.

In November 2003 we found our prize, a 40’ King of the Road Crown Marquis fifth wheel trailer in Stillwater, OK. We eventually named it DaKotR because we got tired of saying “I’m going out to the King of the Road” ( aka Da-KOTR.)

That purchase decision took nearly 6 years of studying everything we could find on full time life in an RV and which vehicles were more compatible to that lifestyle. Much of that time was spent virtually “living” in any RV we could find at RV shows, on RV dealer’s lots and online. The hours and days we spent paid off and we have been very pleased with DaKotR and we have been very comfortable living in it for the past 6 years.

Now, our Steel Steed, the 1999 Volvo truck (Clifford) was also the result of a number of years of studying forums, websites and dealers. I even spent 8 weeks in July/August 2004 in the North Carolina Truck Driver Training School in Smithfield, NC to become a Certified Professional Driver. I wanted to develop the skillset, knowledge and muscle memory necessary to safely and confidently handle whatever vehicle we would find necessary to tow DaKotR. 

Believing the used truck salesmen motto, “A 1 ton dually can pull any RV on earth” we bought a 1999 Ford F350 CrewCab 4x4 dually. It was a great truck but after pulling a half a dozen different 5th wheel trailers weighing 10,000 to 16,000 lbs it was a no brainer when we dropped DakotR onto it in Tunica, MS to pull it back to Raleigh, that this just was not enough truck, period.

But, a year later it was a love fest when we found Clifford in West Memphis, AR in November 2004. He is a handsome brute with only 562,000 miles on him and all the recommended maintenance and parts replacements had already been done to him.  He was definitely a gem to score.

Our original expectations in 1998 had included using the truck as a daily driver but as the costs of diesel fuel kept rising that became a fading hope. We had to have something to run around in wherever we stopped that would be comfortable, cost effective and not too large to wander small byways and trails. 

At that time, quite a few Full Time RVers were double towing (pulling a small car or Jeep behind their 5th wheel trailer). This seemed to be an efficient solution but it was always a very risky scenario to me. The previous owner of DaKotR had done it so I was sure that DaKotR could handle it. We seriously considered it for along time, but this never developed into a palatable solution for us.

Finally, along came Smart cars!  They were only 98” long which was short enough fit crosswise on a bed between the cab of the truck and the front of the towed 5th wheel Trailer.  I just had to find a way get it up and down from there. 

PhotoA few other RVers also caught this idea and built a variety of mechanical platforms to ease the process of winching a Smart car up onto the bed. However, we chose to design a bed and a system using a couple of ramps that would allow loading and unloading from either side without winches, extraneous mechanics or hydraulic lifts.

Finishing this bed in 2009 gave us this solution and it completed the construction of our caravan. All that was left to do the logistics of planning and initiating the start of our quest. 

The obvious similarities of our efforts to those of many of the pioneers and settlers of the western United States are clear. They had to think about what they wanted to do. Think about what they would have to be prepared for and plan their journeys with a strong focus on contingencies for the unexpected. Making the end goal for their journeys set a direction for their travels but their contingency planning is what defined their benchmarks and way stations along the way.

Today, as I sit and relate life to this point, the parallels that pop out at me are even more personal. Each time one of these unexpected events have happened, there has been a small sense of very old déjà vu as though somewhere, sometime in the past this same event happened but just involved different technologies.  Instead of a horse throwing a shoe our cargo carrier on the back of the trailer fell apart.  Instead of a broken wagon wheel, we blew a tire… and then another.

Instead of a horse coming up lame or with colic, Clifford had a loose pin on a connector to his engine computer.  For some of the pioneers, their events could have been show stoppers  They certainly felt like they might be to me as they happened to us along the way.

Last Sunday as we limped the excruciatingly long slow 2 miles to the Sioux Falls KOA in a broken Clifford, I was suddenly starkly aware of the similarity to events our ancestors may have experienced  in this same place many decades ago.  On impulse I proposed this similarity to Merrily with the question; “I wonder what the settlers would have said if their team of horses suddenly died here?”  She shot right back with, “We’re HOME!”

So now, Emery, South Dakota is officially our home base… for now…

ttfn

Budd

Thursday, August 29, 2013

In a Holding pattern

Today we became official South Dakota residents!  Got our home address at MyHomeAddressinc.com in Emery, SD, became registered SD voters and swapped our North Carolina CDLs for South Dakota’s versions in Mitchell, SD. home of the world famous Corn Palace.

This was a really big benchmark for us to reach.

But, we are still in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota KOA. It has  Killer Wi-Fi  (6 Megabit download rates) and this has really helped us work out a lot of the unexpected kinks. However, it is really hot (90s – 100) in the whole area so it is not as much fun as it could be.

Clifford is still in the shop with his electrical problems.  It is unlikely that they will have him working before next week so we are here over the Labor Day Weekend. This will give us some “free” time to focus on a lot of little things we have been putting off for months while getting ready for this trip.

A lot of “stuffed here and there” paperwork that needs to be handled and filed properly and a few RV things to fix. We are comfortable, cool and happy despite the frustrations and apprehensions about Clifford’s ailments and the eventual costs to put him right. Things happen and there’s no point getting all twisted up about it. Just take care of business and make the most of the unexpected opportunities that have come with these things.

Photo

One of these has been a visit to the Falls Park in downtown Sioux Falls.  It was quite hot when we went there and I was not expecting much besides rocks and water but it is really beautiful and a very pleasant place. Although they do have formal sidewalks and a pedestrian bridge crossing the river, it is all open spaces to sit, wander or play in.  Very pleasant experience. Of course, temperatures in the 70s and 80s would definitely be nicer.Photo