As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, Wednesday was a long, hard day on the road. We covered over 440 miles, and some of those roads were narrow, rough, and uncomfortable.

Then we had a hard day’s night at the city owned Leach Park Campground in Spencer, Iowa. It was humid and sticky hot, and the electric power was terrible, cutting out every few minutes. We finally decided to heck with it, turned off just about everything electrical in the motorhome, opened up our windows, and put our three roof vent fans on high sped, just to move some air.

About midnight it began to rain, and a few minutes later a strong thunderstorm hit us. We have been in some really nasty storms in our lives, and I even survived a tornado once, but this one was probably the worst storm either of us could remember. All night long the thunder boomed, lighting was hitting close all around us, and the rain just poured down. We had to close all of the windows and the roof vents, because rain was blowing in from every direction, which turned the motorhome into a sauna.

We also discovered that the leak around our living room slide, which Duncan RV in Elkhart had said was fixed, is still leaking, along with several new leaks that came from the driving rain. To be honest, it was coming down so hard, I think it would have even gotten wet inside a bank vault. We brought in the living room slide, both to try to minimize the leaking, and to present a smoother profile to the wind.

We were up most of the night, because it was impossible to sleep. Since we were parked on grass, near a river, we debated whether we should just unhook and drive to the nearby WalMart, where we’d at least be parked on pavement. But with so much lighting all around us, we were worried about going out to unhook the water and electrical connections.

We debated firing up the generator so we’d at least be able to run our air conditioner, but since we were plugged into shore power, I wasn’t sure if the automatic transfer switch would allow us to get power from the generator. At one point, I told Miss Terry that I had had worse nights in my life, but back then people were shooting at me!

Finally, dawn broke, and the rain stopped for a few minutes. I looked outside and we were surrounded by pools of water. I knew that every minute we stayed on the grass brought us closer to sinking, as more rain was on the way.

I started the Winnebago to let it air up, then went outside to unhook the water and electric connections, slogging through water over the tops of my shoes. While I was waiting for the leveling jacks to come up, I tried to move the van out of the way, and the rear wheels promptly sunk. Hmm… that’s not a good sign. If the van got stuck, I knew that there was no way our heavy diesel coach was going to get through the soft ground in front of us, to make it to the road.

The ground seemed a bit firmer behind the rig, so I had  Terry guide me as I very carefully backed across the grass to a gravel roadway. Once I got the RV moving, there was no way I was going to stop until I was on something solid. I left some deep ruts in the grass, but I made it, and I sure felt better once I had that hard packed road under me!

Then it was time to get the van free. With me pushing, and Terry gingerly using the throttle and transmission to rock it, we managed to get it moving and back onto firm ground.

We were lucky. These folks were parked in an RV site right in front of us, and this huge tree limb came down, narrowly missing their trailer, but taking the side view mirror off their truck! I guess they were lucky too, it could have been much worse!

We hooked the van up to our Blue Ox tow bar as it started to rain again, and set out eastward on U.S. Highway 18. We ran in scattered rain showers all the way to Forest City, 91 miles away, but at least the wind had died down.

We arrived at the Winnebago Visitors Center and were assigned a back-in site with good, reliable 30 amp electric, and then walked down the hill to the Customer Service building to put our name on the list for a time slot. It looks like our fast trip across the country will pay off, because we were given an 11:30 a.m. standby time for today. That means that as soon as another job gets finished, we’ll get called in. If we don’t get in today, I’m sure we will on Monday. Since we were originally told it might be Tuesday or Wednesday of next week before we got on the list, we’re glad we rushed to get here.

Once we were we parked and hooked up, our pals Ron and Brenda Speidel came by to give us much needed hugs, and to show us around the grounds. The annual Winnebago-Itasca Grand National Rally ends today, and they have 1,750 Winnebagos and Itascas of every model here for all of the fun. We have never seen so many Winnies, all in one place!

We even saw a rare vintage Winnebago fifth wheel!

Mike and Elaine Loscher, wonderful friends who have helped us so much with our Gypsy Gathering rallies over the years, are also here, and later in the afternoon we went to dinner with them. It was a treat to have some quiet time with this sweet couple, away from all the hustle and bustle of a rally.

Terry and I were worn out from the fast trip across the country, 950 miles in 2 1/2 days, combined with our long, scary night. Back at the motorhome, we felt like zombies. I wrote my blog post, downloaded some photos from our digital cameras, and Terry caught up on e-mail. We sure were looking forward to getting into that bed and getting some sleep!

Thought For The Day – Daughters hold your hand for a little while, but they hold your heart for a lifetime.

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After boondocking in the parking lot overnight, we pulled out of the Flying J in North Platte, Nebraska just after 9 a.m. and headed east on Interstate 80. There were some clouds overhead, but no rain coming down.

For years I have driven under the huge wooden arch that spans Interstate 80, near Kearney, Nebraska, and wanted to stop. Yesterday seemed like the perfect time to do so.

The official title of this impressive work of architectural wonder is the Great Platte River Road Archway, and if you like history as much as we do, you just have to stop here! Displays and audio descriptions inside tell the story of the pioneer trails that all came through here, headed west, and the brave people who set off for a new life in the wilderness.

More contemporary displays cover early auto travelers and tourist camps.

Executive Director Gary Roubicek greeted us, told us a little about the history of the archway, and then sent us off to explore. We had a wonderful time, and I’d love to tell you all about it, but I’m saving this story for a feature in the next issue of the Gypsy Journal!

But I do have to tell you one very impressive fact about the arch. It was constructed in two halves, one on each side of the interstate, and then when it was time to put it all together, the highway was closed at 11 p.m. one night, huge cranes lifted everything into place, set it all up, and twelve hours later traffic was flowing again! What an engineering feat!

Here is a view from the arch, as traffic speeds past under us.

After touring the arch, we browsed the gift shop, where we picked up some excellent local history books, and then walked outside and across a bridge to view a Pawnee earth lodge. Very impressive.

A huge school of large carp live in the river, and we paused on the bridge to drop some food down to them, and watched as they made the water boil, fighting for it.

Just a short walk from the Archway is the Nebraska Firefighters Museum, and though we didn’t have time to stop, we made a mental note for our next trip. If you are traveling through central Nebraska, take the time to stop and check out the Archway. They have lots of room for RVs to park, and even welcome you to dry camp overnight!

Back on the highway, we continued east, crossed the Missouri River at Omaha, and on the Iowa side we got onto U.S. Highway 30, which took us through several small towns until we connected with U.S. 59 at Denison.

Now, I love traveling the two lane roads, but I have to say that U.S. 59 sucks. I have been on cow paths that were wider and better maintained. We bounced and rattled our way north for 15 miles or so, then the highway suddenly ended in a construction zone and we found ourselves detoured onto a series of narrow county roads that were still much better than the U.S. Highway. Where the heck are our highway tax dollars going, anyway?

Somehow we managed to escape being eaten by a Holstein, and wound our way north to Spencer, Iowa, where we pulled into the city-owned East Leach Park Campground about 7:30 p.m. We had driven 441 miles, which is a long day even on a good road, let alone some of the trails we covered in western Iowa.

We love the campgrounds in small town city parks that we have stayed in from coast to coast, but we were really disappointed in this one. For $15 a night, we got an RV site with water and 30 amp electric, which sounds like a good deal. We had lots of room, since there were only a half dozen RVs in the campground, but even though we were the only RV in our section, the electric power was terrible.

Our Progressive Industries electrical management system (EMS) showed 123 volts of power, then it would drop down to below 106 volts and the EMS would shut done to prevent damage to our coach, which is what it is designed to do. The power would come back on at 123 volts, and then start dropping again any time we turned anything on. We shut down the air conditioner, put the refrigerator on propane, and turned off the battery charger, and at  one point we were only drawing two amps, but the circuit kept tripping. I tried two other outlets with the same results.

If it hadn’t been so late, and if we were not so tired, we would have moved to another section of the campground, but it didn’t look like any of the other places available were any better.

We only have 90 miles to go to get to Forest City, and if we don’t get stuck in the grass from the storm that is just rolling in as I post this at midnight, we should be there early enough in the day to get our names on the list and a head start toward a factory service slot.

Thought For The Day – Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers; what you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow!

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We slept in yesterday morning, taking advantage of the calm before the storm of activity this weekend, when Terry’s son Casey marries his lady love, Leslie.  River Dance RV Resort has cinnamon rolls on some mornings, and Rusty and Rebecca, in the office, had insisted we allow them to treat us to a couple, as compensation for the short delay getting into our RV site yesterday. 

We appreciated the gesture, and the cinnamon rolls were huge, but since Miss Terry makes the very best cinnamon rolls in the world, it’s hard for anything else to compare.

It was another hot day here in Colorado, well over 90 degrees, and we are finding that our Norcold refrigerator doesn’t keep things like milk nearly as cold as the residential style refrigerator we had in our bus conversion. Our awnings help shade the sides of the motorhome, which helps a bit, and the air conditioner keeps it nice and comfortable inside, but the refrigerator is definitely working hard just to keep things cold.  

The Eagle River runs right along the edge of the campground, and we walked down to check it out yesterday afternoon. The water was moving along pretty well, and it would have been fun to get our kayaks wet.

At one point there is a wide gravel sandbar just a couple of feet off shore, and Terry rolled up her pants legs and went wading. She said the water was cool and felt wonderful on such a hot day.

The water is very clear, as you can see in this picture. We didn’t spot any, but the folks in the campground office said beaver are seen frequently in the river.

While Terry was out wading, I took some photos of the river and the campground. It sure is located in a scenic spot. The campground stays busy all season long, and because it’s the weekend, it’s even busier. All day long everything from popup trailers to huge motorhomes were pulling in.

I spent much of the afternoon working on the schedule for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering in Elkhart, Indiana the end of August, and I hope to have the preliminary schedule posted on our main website by sometime Monday. I’m still waiting for last minute confirmation on a few seminars.

About 6 p.m., Terry’s son Cody and his wife Jonna came by to visit, and we went out to dinner at a place in Eagle called Moe’s Barbecue. It was pretty good, but not in a league with Hog Wild in Cottonwood, Arizona, or any of the Bandana’s Barbecue or Famous Dave’s we’ve been to at different places in the country. But, it was nice to spend time with Cody and Jonna.

Back at the RV, we chatted for another half hour or so, but since Cody has a lot of responsibilities with his twin’s wedding on Sunday, including the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner today, we soon called it an evening.

We’ll be busy with family activities the rest of the weekend. Terry’s other son, Shawn, and her daughter Kelly, are arriving today, from New Mexico and Nebraska, respectively; and her parents and sister Dani will arrive from Arizona this afternoon. So we’ll have lot of family to spend time with.

Thought For The Day – My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

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We were up by 7 a.m. yesterday, which is way too early for us, but we had a lot of miles to travel. We pulled out of Pony Express RV Resort in North Salt Lake, took Interstate 215 around the west side of Salt Lake City to where it joined Interstate 15 on the south side of town. I-215 was a nice road, but as soon as we hit I-15, we ran into heavy traffic and road construction that lasted all the way south to Spanish Fork. By the time we left the interstate there and got onto U.S. Highway 6, I was sure glad to get off the superslab.

It was 133 miles to Interstate 70 at Green River, and a lot of it was two lane road. U.S. 6 is a good road, but not one where you’ll go very fast. In some places it is narrow, there are no shoulders, and it does some climbing.

It also has a couple of steep downgrades, but they are relatively short.

Did I mention it has a lot of twists and turns, especially as it goes through Price Canyon? Note the road sign. It didn’t exaggerate!

Price Canyon was pretty impressive, in spite of the bug on the windshield.

We also had several stretches of road construction to deal with. At one point, the road was down to one lane, and we passed a long line of cars and trucks headed the other way who were waiting for their turn to go.

We also saw a wind farm. Nothing strange about that, except most of them that we have seen are on top of ridges to get the most wind. But these were down low.

Miss Terry ran down the batteries in both of our Olympus digital cameras, but she got some great pictures. There were quite a few railroads tunnels through the mountains.

Once we passed the little town of Price, about halfway along U.S. 6, the road became wider and the countryside flatter. We even had some four lane stretches of roadway.

It was hot! When we got onto Interstate 70, my dashboard thermometer said it was 104 degrees, and later on, as we crossed into Colorado, it was 106! But, our Winnebago performed well and climbed up the steepest grades without hesitation.

We saw some gorgeous scenery in western Colorado, including lots of impressive rock formations.

The scenery was absolutely spectacular, and the highway had lots of curves and, of course, more construction zones.

The highway follows the river, and we saw lots of rafters and fly fishermen.

Did I mention the road construction?

The battery in the second camera died just as we got to Glenwood Canyon, which was disappointing, because it was breathtaking.  I want to go back and drive this stretch of road in the van, and see it again.

We arrived at River Dance RV Resort in Gypsum just after 4 p.m., covering 397 miles in one day. That’s a lot of driving, and we much prefer 250-300 mile days. But sometimes you just do what you have to do.

Rusty and Rebecca at River Dance are super friendly people and really made us feel welcome. There was a little snafu, because the full hookup site they had reserved for us was still occupied by the previous person, and he was off sightseeing somewhere.  Rusty had us pull into another site, with water and electric, so we could plug in and have our air conditioner on while we waited. They were both very apologetic, but what the heck, things happen. It was no big deal.

Once we got into our site, we had a great view out of our windshield. You can’t see the Eagle River in this picture, but it runs right alongside the campground, and if we had time, I’d launch our kayaks.

Here is the view behind us. I don’t think there is ten feet in flat land in all of the western half of Colorado!

By the time we were settled into our site and hooked up, we were famished. Terry drove the 7 miles to Pazzo’s Pizza, in Eagle, where we had one of the best pizzas we have had in years.

Between getting up earlier than usual, the long drive, and the elevation, we were really worn out by the time we finished dinner and got back to the campground. The mosquitoes here are about as big as sparrows, and as aggressive as hawks, so we made a mad dash for the RV. But I still got bitten two or three times before I could get the door unlocked and we could get inside.

Today we plan to sleep late, and then do a whole lot of nothing. We had a busy week in Salt Lake City, and we have a busy weekend ahead of us, so we need to take advantage of every quiet moment we can.

Thought For The Day – The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.

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We woke up to gusty winds and scattered showers Sunday morning. Normally, we would roll over and go back to sleep on such a gloomy morning, but we had company coming, so we had to get in gear.

About 11 a.m. Mel and Charlene Schwartz arrived for a visit. I wrote about Mel and Charlene’s close call when a tree limb came through their windshield in an earlier blog post titled Life Is A Crapshoot. We were happy to see them safe and sound, and we had a very nice visit, talking about our mutual RV adventures. One of the best things about the RV lifestyle is the wonderful people we have met in our travels!

I guess my reputation for being a night owl has preceded me here to Pony Express RV Park,  because Mel said when they stopped at the office to find out what site we are in, the person at the desk said “Are you sure you won’t be waking him up?”

After Mel and Charlene left, Terry worked on a crochet project she has been busy with, and I tried to answer a backlog of e-mail that had piled up. Our internet service on our Verizon air card has been really flakey here. Sometimes it is very fast, and five minutes later it is about as slow as sludge. Since the park’s WiFi system is having problems of it’s own, communication is pretty spotty at times. So if you have written me and not received a reply, please be patient, and I’ll try to get to you as soon as possible.

By mid-afternoon the sky had cleared up, and it began to get pretty warm. We sure are pleased with the basement air conditioning in our Ultimate Advantage. Our first Class A motorhome, and our bus conversion, both had rooftop air conditioners, and we much prefer the basement unit. It is much quieter, and even on the 90+ degree days we have had here in Salt Lake City, it gets so cold inside the motorhome that we have to adjust the thermostat upward.

I had an interesting e-mail the other day from longtime readers Mary and Frank Maniaci, with a question for all of you. They wrote that they had issues with their Winegard satellite dish, contacted both Winegard and Camping World, and that the two companies coordinated to get their problems fixed.  They had just finished writing letters and emails commending both companies because in their words – “We will be the first to complain when something is wrong, but feel that obligates us to comment when things are right.  Are we  the rule or the exception when it comes to writing letters of commendation to those that deserve it?”

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always try to compliment good service, whether it be in an RV repair shop, a store, or a restaurant. Having been a business owner much of my life, I sure have heard my share of complaints, and I can tell you that, in my experience anyway, while the complimentary  comments may not come as frequently, they are always very much appreciated. So how about you? Do you write letters, call, or e-mail to say thanks for a job well done?

Thought For The Day – A fair-weather friend is one who is always around when he needs you.

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