Bozeman to Kalispell

We headed up to Kalispell today, on the way to new tires, alignment, and a visit to Glacier National Park on the way to Canada.

On the way, we took a side trip into Butte (or "boot" as the nice lady on the Ford referral switchboard called it ;-), which is a neat old mining town. It reminded me a little of Santa Rosalia in Baja, but bigger; it was very historic, on the side of a hill, with lots of neat old brick buildings. And a HUGE copper mine, bigger than the town. Apparently, Butte is the place to be on St. Patrick's Day - lots of Irish in the town and the whole town goes nuts. Sounds like fun, if you're into that sort of thing. We just liked the view from the Butte Hill.

Other sights along the road:

A big smelter chimney - according to Josh it was once the tallest freestanding building in the country. All brick.

As we turned to follow the Blackfoot River from Missoula, we saw Bighorn Sheep - a herd of ewes right on road! Our first bighorns of the trip.

The road paralleled the river, and we saw a raft full of girl scouts waving - and giving the "honk your horn!" sign. We honked and made them very happy :)

Lots of tubers and flyfishers on the Blackfoot - nice river!

Devin saw a bear at Big Fork, our second for the trip (and Devin said maybe his best bear sighting). I missed it, so I can't confirm that he wasn't just making it up (kidding). He said it was standing up to see and when we came by it ran back into the woods. Good call, bear!

We passed Swan Lake (and several others along the road) full of lily pads - beautiful!

The Kalispell area is a nice combination of hayfields, rivers and lakes (like the HUGE Flathead Lake), forests and farms.

Once we got to town, we took a tour of Kalispell RV Parks - they all look pretty nice, but those long-term residents... the "neighbors" can make all the difference in your experience.

We went with a beautiful park right on the river with big trees and green grass, but apparently we chose poorly... we immediately were treated to a screaming foul-mouthed rant argument by guy who must be an announcer for Monster Truck Rallies or Wrestlemania - I could hear the veins bulging out on his neck... I was shaken and a little scared - worried about getting caught in crossfire! THEN... we were given an overflow spot on someone's yard with a regular (20amp) extension cord and a garden hose for water - ewww. At the regular price.

We went across street to another park that was mostly visitors, nice folks, had a spot with full hookups for same price! The first park was really nice, actually - the people that worked there were very friendly and they really tried to make it right, but the only other open spot was next to another motley looking group - cue banjo music - eek! Some spots at the first park were great, but taken. In good "neighborhoods" and on the river, very cool and shady, grassy - nice. Too bad about the redneck crack ho's and meth addicts that live there....

Today was a really long day of driving (over 300 miles) and we are getting new tires tomorrow, and alignment on Friday (...the 13th... dun dun DUN).

Speaking of tires,

"Tire-O-Drama," continued...

The 40 mph shudder, the one that disappeared after getting the new wheel, reappeared today. WTF? We also had a 60 and 70 mph shudder. Devin says they've always been there, but I wonder. Seems our alignment is getting worse by the minute. Hoping the alignment is the cure-all! maybe we've got major suspension problems - but we do have that Continued Service Plan from Good Sam that should help, if so!! We also bought oil and fluid for hydraulic levelers. Devin decided to change the oil himself, and we are having an oil drain quick connect shipped to arrive Friday also. AND, we are also getting an air compressor for our tires, and a new battery for my laptop. So Kalispell/Whitefish will be business days!

We do hope to get a trip through Glacier National Park in, too.

Mo Tires

OMG - our tires were almost bald!! the left front WAS half bald, and it wasn't when we started out yesterday morning!!! So in one day, we had an inordinate amount of wear. These tires have only about 5,000 miles on them!! Bad alignment can really mess with your tires when you weigh 9 tons. No wonder my feet hurt... ha.

We are going to check to be sure we don't have worn king pins or the like that would allow the tire to wobble, but we think maybe it was just cumulative - the tire was so unevenly worn that it pressed even more on the worn side - like driving with it on the side almost. We'll find out when we get our alignment in the morning.

WOW - what a difference!!! The alignment was WAY off and is now fixed, and with new tires, inflated properly, it's like gliding on ice it's so smooth!!! Well, in comparison anyway.

All's Well That Ends Well - no more tire drama! Hooray!!

Tire-O-Drama

We moved up to an RV Park in Bozeman, but ended up having to deal with motorhome stuff instead of visiting my brother-in-law like I had hoped we would do. The main thing I regret on our trip are the people we've missed - I wish we could do this forever so we could take the time to visit everyone! But since this is the only year we'll have to do this huge of a trip, we do feel a bit of pressure to get places like Alaska before winter so we'll have time to get to all the places we want to see.

Wheels, Tires, Aligment - Oh My!

Background:

First, we developed a shudder at 40 mph - this happened after we replaced our spare and flat (from Baja) in southern California. At first we thought maybe the wheels had been moved around, since we did a tire shuffle to make sure we had matched sets, and maybe the wheel that was out of true had been in the back where we didn't feel it. Now we are starting to suspect that it was the alignment we got in San Dimas. I think it was a really, really bad alignment.

But then again, the wheel ~was~ out of true and couldn't be balanced (we found this out in Grand Junction at the Big O Tire Store). Anyway... in Arizona (Dead Horse Ranch State Park), we noticed there was this black residue on the sides of the RV and we couldn't figure out what it could be... we now think it was tiny shreds of our tires being grated by the road and the really bad alignment... the tires looked fine then, on the outside, and they still do. We got all the left side tires balanced in Grand Junction and found out about the wheel.

Now:

We bought a new wheel in Bozeman, and got it put on - no more shudder! yay! But they pointed out that our front tires were really worn. Upon inspection, they were right - they are badly worn on the insides, indicating a very poor alignment. Maybe they couldn't align the tires properly because of the one being out of true, and maybe it was moved from rear to front, which is why we didn't have the problem before, so maybe it's not particularly anyone's fault, but the combination of these things has eaten up a pretty new (and really damn expensive) pair of 19 inch RV tires.

So now we need new tires and an alignment.

Devin called everywhere and no one seems to do alignments on RVs! Not the Ford Dealer, not the RV service center, not the tire store that replaced the wheel and pointed out our bad tires and need for alignment... Tire-o-Rama in Belgrade could do it, but not until Friday. We've already been here almost two weeks, and would really like to move on, before it gets too late to go to Alaska!

And not only this, but no one in Montana, apparently, sells (or has in stock) the Goodyear RV Tires we want!

Finally we found an alignment shop in Kalispell - still no appointments till Friday, but at least it is near Glacier and we can move on a little closer to Canada.

The reallly funny thing about the tires is Devin was searching on the RV.net forum and found a guy that was having the exact same problem about a month ago - he was in Missoula, and was looking for the exact same tires! He finally settled on Michelins and had them installed in Kalispell, so we may end up doing the same thing.

Colorado One Night Stands: Steamboat Springs

After Leadville, we headed out to the north, over three passes, to Steamboat Springs. Along the way, we passed some major mining operations. Leadville was, of course, a mining town, as was Coaldale (guess what they mined there?) Today, there is still mining - a huge Molybdenum mine is near the summit of one of the passes. They seem to be taking the mountain down - it appears quite destructive compared to other mining operations in the area. And there are large toxic looking lakes as well as tailings.

When we got down to I-70, there was a Starbuck's! So we got coffee and lunch. We headed east on I-70 through several large ski towns that were very developed, then turned north again and were in the country. We saw lots of rivers today - the Blue River, Colorado River, and Yampa River are three large ones.

When we got up to 40, we headed back west over Rabbit Ears Pass and crossed the Continental Divide again and descended into the Yampa Valley where Steamboat Springs town and ski area are. We got the last spot at Steamboat Campground (or maybe just the last spot they deemed big enough for us). It was a pretty nice place - the ONLY place in Steamboat - full hookups, cable, WiFi, laundry, store, and the Yampa River runs right through campground!

We ate dinner at an Italian place in town with a porch. The food was okay, but we enjoyed sitting on the porch overlooking the river and train tracks. We watched a coal train that went by forever and thought about mining and energy - where did the coal come from and where was it going? I once read that 70% of the electricity in this country comes from oil and coal burning power plants! Coming from California, where the perception is that much of our energy comes from hydroelectric dams, this was surprising to me. But we also get power from the Navajo Coal power plant that is dirtying the air at the Grand Canyon, among other fossil fuel burning power plants around the state.

We are really glad we have solar panels on our RV, and when we move into a "stick house" again, we would love to go solar! We are also glad we bought Terra Passes (we bought 3) to offset our carbon emissions and have done what we can, such as adding the Banks Power Pack Exhaust System, watching our speed/acceleration, and keeping our tires inflated with our SmarTire Tire Pressure Monitoring System and our Air Lift Heavy-Duty Air Compressor to increase our gas mileage (even though we have those primarily for safety). Even in a rolling house towing our Jeep, we get better gas mileage than a Hummer (H1, anyway). Of course that's not saying much! I guess we are using up all the "credit" we earned from walking or, in Devin's case, gliding (on his Segway) to work for years. We hope to have a low impact lifestyle after this adventure, but we are glad we are doing this while we still can.

See more photos of Leadville to Steamboat

Day Six: Wednesday, March 21: Flat Tire!

We got an early start the next morning for our longest drive yet to Guerrero Negro, and almost immediately after hooking up the Jeep and beginning to drive we got an alarm from our tire monitor – we had a flat tire!! We stopped and got out to inspect it, and you could hear air just streaming out of the tire!! I followed the tracks we’d made and found nothing that would have punctured the tire, so we pulled over to a spot where we would have easy access to the tire and unhooked and jacked up the RV with its built-in leveling jacks so Devin could crawl under and inspect the tire. It was no longer spewing air, and Devin figured out why – it was a deep but very narrow cut into the sidewall of the inside rear tire – probably happened when we pulled back onto the road over one of those rather sharp edges after pulling out. When we stopped before, all the pressure of the RV was on the tire and the cut was at the bottom, so it opened, but when the cut was at the top, it stayed closed, and when we had the leveling jacks down, the pressure was off the tires, so it stayed closed then, too. We may have had it for a few days before it leaked enough air to set off the alarm, but we sure wouldn’t want to get a flat tire in the RV while driving on the Baja Highways! There is really no place to pull over most of the time – we’ve come across broken down trucks that are just stopped in the lane with cones or triangles to warn traffic and the driver acting as flagger while waiting for some kind of help. We are very thankful for the tire monitor!! It could have literally saved our lives today – a wonderful Christmas gift from Devin’s dad.

Devin checking the air in the spare

Now the hard part is to find a way to fix it…. It’s not really repairable, since it’s a deep sidewall cut rather than a simple puncture. We do have a spare, but it came with the RV… checking it, Devin found that it is about 10 years old! It’s a new tire with the label still on, but has been sitting in the spare compartment of the RV since 1998. Some neighbors in the campground had a Sportsmobile with an onboard air compressor, so before they left, they came over and we filled the spare – no cracks in the sidewalls, so it’s probably good to go, but Devin is still nervous about driving the 18,000 pound RV on an old tire.

We drove into town in the Jeep in search of either a new tire, or more likely, someone to help us change the tire, since it’s a pretty major undertaking in an RV. We also needed to call our Mexican Insurance, because we had purchased the “Diamond Coverage” that included road service and repairs. The only phone in town was at the hotel, and they kindly let us use their front desk phone. Though we purchased our insurance from Vagabundos del Mar, an American travel club, the actual insurance came from Mexico, and when they answered the phone, it was not only in Spanish only, but it was a poor connection. Now my Spanish is conversant – enough to get by in most situations, but I am definitely not fluent! Telephone conversations are difficult under the best conditions, and with the poor connection, it was near impossible. Finally we got someone who spoke English and after much waiting and working on them figuring out where we were (Cataviňa was not on their map!), they said the nearest repair service was in Ensenada, 6 hours away! At least calling them gave us an excuse to go into the fancy La Pinta hotel – we of course took some photos!

We decided to look for more local help, and finding no one at the Llantera (tire shop) in the abandoned Pemex station, we talked to a guy who was selling gasoline out of the back of his pickup, with a sign that said “gasoline, aceites, mecanico.” The Mecanico part sounded promising. He said he could come out to Rancho Santa Ynez in about 20 minutes and help us – I asked what this would cost, and he shrugged and said it was up to us. I think this is not normally something he would do, but he was just being helpful. He showed up as promised with his wife and they checked out the situation – they didn’t have the right size lug wrench either, so they went back home to get another tool – twice! They were really nice and helpful, and I regret that I didn’t get photos – they seemed like down-to-earth good folks that had lived in the area their whole lives and appreciated its beauty and tranquility.

That night we met Ralph, who lives in the arroyo behind Rancho Santa Ines every winter – he had been out scouting the route for next year’s Baja 1000 and wants to have it come through Rancho Santa Ines next year! The people there were excited by the prospect because it would mean a lot of money for them. Ralph said the main guy behind the routing of the race was going to fly down that week to meet with him about it. He was very pleased with himself, and one of the great things is that it kept the race all on one side of the highway for much of the way – they don’t close any roads for the race and it must be really scary crossing the highway… or being on it when the race is on!

The best part about today was getting to watch another Cataviňa sunset:

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Go back to Day One of Baja Trip

RV work - getting closer all the time!

Today we got all new tires (6 of them) and our new Koni shocks installed, and dropped off the RV at a Ford dealership recommended by other RVers for service on the engine - just regular service like lube/oil/filters, plus checking transmission, brakes, and battery charging system. We got a new battery and now it is dead already. We think the engine may not be charging the battery properly. For the last couple of weeks we had it in a shop (J&L RV Repair) getting some interior work done. When the current work is done, our only major expense left will be getting the solar panel set-up we want.

Regret: We paid over $600(!) to have the carpets, upholstery, trim and ceiling steam cleaned, and can't really tell much difference. If I had it to do over again, I'd just replace the carpet!!! Or at least just do it ourselves. The carpet does not have that "new carpet feel" I had hoped for - I wonder if just shampooing it would be better? I may actually try that, hoping that the steam cleaning got out deep dirt. I think new carpeting throughout really would not have cost that much more and would have made a real difference. Sigh.

The only other major expense we are considering is a Banks PowerPack exhaust system. They are very expensive, but improve gas mileage (by 7%) AND power, so may be worth it.

Of course, we still have the TOAD to buy, and the braking system for the toad, and the kayaks, perhaps, and maybe a bike for me... and I still want to reupholster the furniture (but can do inexpensive slipcovers), and then there is also polishing and waxing the exterior...

We decided we definitely need to start taking it out and using it soon! It needs to earn its keep, so to speak, and tip the balance of expense and enjoyment back toward enjoyment. A weekend in the desert soon!