Yesterday morning Daryl and Judy Patterson stopped over to say hello and goodbye as we were getting ready to leave Elkhart Campground.  We only had a minute to chat before they left so we could get everything unhooked and ready to take off.

Experienced RVers like Daryl and Judy know that if you get preoccupied while doing the hooking up or unhooking chores, mistakes can easily happen. We’ve all had it happen at one time or another… somebody comes by and you get to talking, and the next thing you know, you’re pulling away from the RV site and forgot to unplug your electric power cord, or to put your tow vehicle’s transmission in neutral. Mistakes like that can be not only embarrassing, but expensive too!

After saying goodbye to Bob and Gita Patel, Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour, Greg and Jan White, and everybody else in sight, we pulled out of the campground a couple of minutes after 10 a.m. and headed east on Interstate 80.

Across northern Indiana, Interstates 80 and 90 run together as the Indiana Toll Road, and it’s a route we’ve been over many, many times. A little over an hour later we crossed into Ohio, after paying our $11.10 toll to the good people of Indiana, or at least to the private company that leases the toll road from the good people of Indiana.

We got onto the Ohio Turnpike, and stopped at the Fallen Timbers Service Plaza near Swanton for fuel. The price of diesel was three cents a gallon more than at the trucks stops off the turnpike, but it was easy access to the fuel pump, and I didn’t have to wait for anybody ahead of me. Since I only needed 75 gallons or so, it wasn’t worth the hassle of paying a toll, getting off, fueling up, getting a new toll ticket, and getting back on the turnpike. I like saving a buck or two just as much as the next guy, but there’s something to be said for convenience too.

We made good time crossing Ohio, with a gentle tail wind helping. My Silverleaf VMSpc engine monitor said we got 8.4 miles per gallon between Elkhart and the service plaza where we stopped for lunch, about 30 miles west of Cleveland. That was running at 64 miles per hour with the cruise control on. 63 to 65 seems to be the sweet spot for our Winnebago, where we get the best combination of fuel economy and power.

I like the service plazas on the Ohio Turnpike. They are clean, have lots of room to park a big rig, good restaurants, and some even have back-in RV sites with electric for a few bucks a night!

I wish I could say I liked the turnpike too. Most of it was actually pretty good, but west of Cleveland we ran into a long stretch of very rough road, and I sure appreciated the Koni shocks that Redlands Truck and RV installed on our motorhome last year! The toll all the way across Ohio on Interstate 80 for our two axle motorhome and van was $31.75. Ouch!

We crossed into Pennsylvania, and immediately the road got better, and the terrain more hilly. Pennsylvania is one of my favorite states, in terms of beauty. The interstate in western Pennsylvania is a good road, and trees crowd right down to the edge of the highway, with occasional breaks to see the pretty countryside.

We passed lots of pretty farmland as we drove east.

Before long we were in what folks back east call mountains, though my friends in Arizona might not agree. But the hills did take their toll on our mileage. We dropped down to 6.9 MPG.

Here is a nice shot of the Allegheny River that Miss Terry took as we passed over it. I didn’t even snivel about the bridge because the scenery was so pretty!

We had planned on about a 300 mile day, but that put us right at the state line, and it was still early, so we kept driving. We decided to spend the night at the Flying J in Brookville, and by the time we got there, I was getting tired. But they only have four designated RV parking sites, one of which is marked handicapped. There were big RVs in two of the other sites, with the one between them empty. But the way they were parked, it would have been a very tight squeeze to get in between them, if we could have made it at all. We checked out the truck parking area, which was about half full, but we really don’t like to use them if we can avoid it. They tend to be pretty noisy, and we don’t want to take a space that a trucker might need.

So we decided to push on another 42 miles to the WalMart SuperCenter at Clearfield, where we arrived just as the sun was starting to set. Miss Terry had called ahead to make sure RV parking was permitted, and the nice lady she talked to said no problem, just park on the outer perimeter of the parking lot.

Here is an example of what not to do when you boondock at a commercial parking lot. He had both of his slides out, his TV antenna up, and notice the leveling jacks down! 

This fifth wheel was just as bad – jacks down, slides, out TV antenna up. They look like they’re camping! In both cases, their slide rooms are extended right into the roadway where cars are passing close by.

When we are parked like we are here, with our bedroom slide facing the outer perimeter, I’ll run the slide out at bedtime to make it easier to get in and out of bed. But we wait until bedtime, and we never extend our living room slide or jacks. That’s just poor manners.

We covered 420 miles yesterday, which was quite a bit more than we had originally planned, but the good news is that today we only have about 150 miles to go to get to the Thousand Trails preserve in Hershey, thanks to a a different route that the man on duty at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center recommended. So we should arrive and be settled in fairly early in the day.

Thought For The Day – Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.

We have had a good week in Salt Lake City, and really enjoyed our time here. We look forward to coming back again.  Pony Express RV Resort is an excellent base for exploring the area, though we actually have not done any “exploring” while we’ve been here. Most of my time has been spent doing genealogy research at the Family History Library, and Terry has been busy finishing up a project for her son’s wedding.

Salt Lake City is an interesting town. Many of the city streets are very wide, 132 feet to be exact, designed by the early settlers, with room enough for a covered wagon pulled by a team of four oxen to turn around.

The Mormon influence is obviously very strong, but one of the first things we saw coming in from the west on Interstate 80 was a billboard advertising a topless “gentlemen’s club.” A local business owner told me that just a block or two away from Temple Square, the centerpiece of the Mormon religion, State Street is known for drugs, prostitution, and gang activity.

We have a long day ahead of us today. We’re headed for Gypsum, Colorado, where we will stay at River Dance RV Resort for a few days while we attend Terry’s son’s wedding in Vail. The route my Microsoft Streets & Trips computer mapping program suggested was U.S. Highway 40 into Colorado, and then state routes southeast to Meeker and on to Rifle, where we would pick up Interstate 70 into Gypsum. That’s about 370 miles from where we are.

But, I have learned that one cannot always trust mapping programs, or GPS units, for that matter. In talking to several people who are familiar with this area, we decided to take a longer route that they tell me is a much easier trip – Interstate 15 south to Spanish Fork, where we’ll pick up U.S. Highway 6 and follow it to Interstate 70, near Green River, Utah, and on to Gypsum. This route is about 25 miles longer, but looks to be an easier trip.

That’s a longer trip than most fulltimers do in one day, and we prefer shorter days on the road ourselves. But we can handle it, and we want to get in and settled so we’ll have a couple of days to relax and enjoy some family time before the wedding.

I’m not sure what kind of Verizon service we’ll have in Gypsum. Their coverage map shows they have high speed EVDO, but I have learned that one cannot always rely on what the maps show. Then again, here in North Salt Lake the service has ranged from super fast to just a little bit slower than sludge. So if you log on tomorrow and there is no blog, be patient and I’ll get it up as soon as possible. Likewise, if you send me an e-mail and don’t get a speedy reply, be patient and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

After the wedding is over, we have to make a fast trip across the country. We want to stop in Forest city, Iowa to have some work done at the Winnebago factory, and then we have to get to Traverse City, Michigan for Terry’s annual oncologist checkup the first week of August. From there, we have to rush down to Elkhart, Indiana to get all of the last minute details handled before our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally the end of August.

Several blog readers have invited us to stop and visit on our trip east, but I’m afraid there just isn’t time. One of these days, I’m going to stop all this busy-busy nonsense, get myself one of them there recreational vehicle motorhome thingies, and just relax and travel!

Thought For The Day – Yes, I do understand your problem. I just don’t  care.

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How’s that for a headline that grabs you? My old college journalism instructor would be so proud! I bet you’re wondering how I can tie those two things together, aren’t you? Well, keep on reading.

After a quick run to the post office and bank, we left the Gilroy, California Elks lodge at 10 a.m. yesterday morning and traveled east on State Route 152, which started out as a two lane road for the first 13 miles, and then became four lanes as it wound its way around golden hillsides and the sparkling blue waters of the massive San Luis Reservoir.

There was a pretty stiff wind coming out of the southwest. Not enough to make driving hazardous, but it did make whitecaps on the water in some places. There was a lot of traffic but we moved right along.  It took us an hour to cover the 44 miles between Gilroy and Interstate 5, where we headed north.

After a quick stop at the Flying J in Lodi for fuel, we continued north to Sacramento, where we got onto Interstate 80, eastbound. Traffic in Sacramento and for miles on both sides was busy, but moving well, so we had no delays.

As we began the long climb into the Sierra Nevada mountains, the golden grass covered hills of central California gave way to a thick conifer forest that crowded in close to the highway on both sides. (One down, one to go.)

The highway was divided three lanes for quite a distance, then dropped done to two lanes, with occasional truck lanes added on the steeper climbs. Some sections of the interstate were pretty good, but in others the pavement was so rough that it almost rattled the fillings out of my teeth.

The countryside was beautiful, and even though it was 87 degrees outside, in some places, there were still piles of snow on the ground, and a few mountaintops still had snow on them. I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked, because the road has a lot of twists and turns and there was a lot of traffic, so there was no time for sightseeing.

About 3:15 we stopped at Truckee to tour the Emigrant Trail Museum at Donner Memorial State Park. I had called ahead to ask if the parking lot could accommodate a 40 foot diesel pusher towing an extended length van and the ranger assured me it was no problem, they had big rigs in and out all day. The ranger lied.

We arrived to find a rather small parking lot filled with cars. Not only couldn’t we park hooked up, we couldn’t even get out while the van was still hooked up! So we unhooked, I parked the Winnebago off to the side, and the van in a regular parking space, and we went in to tour the museum, which is dedicated to the ill fated Donner Party, pioneers who were stranded in what is now Truckee, in the winter of 1846.

Admission to the small museum was $8 per vehicle, and it took a few minutes of discussion with the ranger on duty not to have to pay for two separate vehicles because we had unhooked the van, but we got that done, and then toured the museum, with artifacts from pioneer days, and watched a 20 minute video on the Donner Party.

Their story is tragic, but also glaringly shows what can happen when people who are not prepared set off into the wilderness, be it 164 years ago, or today.  There were 87 people in the wagon train, 42 of them children. When they ignored warnings to turn back, because it was too late in the year and the mountain crossing was hazardous, they sealed their own fate. What ensued was a story of survival at its most desperate. By the time their ordeal was over, only 41 were still alive, the dead including 14 children. When the rescue party finally reached them, they were horrified to learn that some of the the survivors had resorted to cannibalism to stay alive! (Two for two!)

Today a striking monument of a pioneer family stands outside the museum, to honor those who perished here, and those who survived, as well as the other brave pioneers who settled the West.

We were delayed leaving the museum, because one of our inside duals was very low on air, but I’m running long now, so I’ll tell you about that adventure tomorrow.

But leave we did, and we ran right into a short but nasty thunderstorm as we made our way down the eastern slope of the Sierras. We pulled into Boomtown Casino at Verdi, Nevada about 6:30 and had a mediocre dinner at Denny’s, then came outside just in time to see this beautiful sunset.

We boondocked at the casino overnight, and today we’ll push on east. We covered 288 miles yesterday, and have another 520 to go before we get to Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday. We’ll have a couple of easy days driving ahead of us, and then we’ll squat down for a week or so.

Thought For The Day – Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.

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Miss Terry is still feeling pretty bad, so I wasn’t sure if she was up to traveling yesterday. But when we woke up she said that maybe her problem is not a cold, but rather allergies, and she wanted to get out of the area to see if that made any difference.

So we left Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground about 9:30 a.m., drove north a few miles to U.S. Highway 36 and took it east to Hannibal. We crossed the Mississippi River and the road became Interstate 72 on the Illinois side of the river.

The weather had predicted scattered thunderstorms, and we had a few sprinkles as we were leaving Missouri, but they soon disappeared. Traffic was light and the bus was running good, so it was a great day for traveling.

We had talked about stopping in Springfield, Illinois to see the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site, but Terry was feeling so bad that about an hour into our trip she went back to the bedroom and laid down. She was still asleep when we reached Springfield and I didn’t want to wake her, so I just kept driving. Terry woke up about 160 miles down the highway, as we were passing by Rantoul, Illinois on Interstate 57.

We try to avoid driving anywhere near Chicago whenever we can, so at Gilman, Illinois we took U.S. Highway 24 east into Indiana and turned north again on U.S. Highway 41 and followed it until we came to U.S. 30, drove east again for ten miles, then got onto Interstate 65. It was a short jog north again to Interstate 80, and we followed it all the way to Elkhart.

Except for one short stop for a late lunch/early dinner at one of the service plazas on the Indiana Toll Road, we just kept on rolling, putting about 450 miles behind us. This is more than most RVers like to travel in a day, but sometimes we get out there on the open road and the miles just keep going by effortlessly.

It is always nice to pull into Elkhart Campground, which feels like home to us because we have been coming here so many years. We know all of the regular visitors here, and got lots of waves as we drove past. As soon as I stopped the bus in front of our regular site several fellows came by to say hello.

It always takes a while to get the bus set up when we arrive at a new location, and I told Terry to just let it go until she got to feeling better, but she likes things in order, so she insisted on getting organized while I hooked up our utilities.

After more than a week of very slow National Access service on our Verizon air card, it’s great to have four full bars of EVDO high speed internet again. We’ll be here for much of the summer, with some trips out to visit family members in Michigan, and maybe to a few RV rallies in the region. It’s good to be home again.

Thought For The Day – When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

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