About rvrrat520

Retired L.E. from Sonoma County, CA. We've been full time RVers for 8 years, covering all lower 48 states and not nearly seeing a fraction of what is out there. Enjoy life in the "here & now" for the future is not guaranteed. Live, Laugh, Love...Grandkids rock!

5/24/2023 Where in the World is Entiat?

Posted on May 25, 2023 by rvrrat520

Since we have been doing more and more reservations while hangin’ in central Washington, we had a couple days to kill before our next reservation at the Pasco/Tri-Cities KOA. Jeanne found a popular boondocking spot called Rufus Landing right on the Columbia River in the massive dot-on-a-map town called Rufus. It is close to the intersection of Highway 84 & Highway 97, just west of the John Day Dam. It was literally a large dirt lot used by salmon fishermen with its very own pit toilet. The views in this area continued to be spectacular as we could see the John Day Dam, Mt. Hood, and even cruise ships heading up river.

The one touristy thing we did manage during our stay here was a short crossing of the river into Washington to see a replica of the English monument “Stonehenge”. This one was built to honor the (13) WWI veterans who died in battle that were residents of Klickitat County, WA. In addition, there is another memorial on site to honor the Klickitat County veterans who died in battle during all of our wars, up to and including Afghanistan & Iraq.

Pasco/Tri-Cities KOA was our next temporary home. This stop was more chores than fun. However, we did manage to give the bikes a workout, albeit on a trail(s) we had ridden back in 2020, the Sacagawea Heritage Trail/Columbia Park Trail combination. Some of the pictures may be similar to those taken the first time, oh well…

Wenatchee River County Park in Wenatchee was another return trip for us, we needed to kill a little more time before our next reservation. It is a small RV park right on the Wenatchee River and boy oh boy was there some water in that river! It looked nigh on close to flooded as the waters raged downriver appearing to have expanded beyond their normal boundaries. We took a pass on a revisit to the Apple Capital Recreational Loop Trail and again took care of some shopping chores before heading farther north (hey, Wenatchee is not so small as to not have a Walmart, what can I say?!)

Next up for a new home was the Entiat City Park, still on the banks of the Columbia River. This is a VERY nice campground! It seemed to be popular for locals to do some family camping, a lot of barbecues and suntan lotion whilst lazing at riverside. The campsites are very well maintained, surrounded by the greenest of green grass, and have nicely maintained raked sand tent sites besides the paved RV sites. There is a bit of an over-abundance of geese taking their walkabouts throughout the park, depositing the remnants of their last meals all over, keeping the camp hosts and city workers very busy cleaning the pavement/walkways and firing off some type of fireworks to shoo the geese along (kinda like the bird cannons the wineries sometimes use to keep the birds from eating the grapes). They also have a nice paved walking/biking path alongside the river through the entire park, then continues as gravel alongside the Entiat River which empties into the Columbia River at the park. At the confluence of the two rivers there is what locals refer to as “Numeral Mountain”. It seems since the 1920’s each graduating high school class scales/repels the cliff of that mountain and paints their graduating year on the rocks. Oh boy, rural entertainment at its finest!

About 30 miles up the Entiat River off of Entiat River Rd. we found Silver Falls Trailhead in U.S.F.S. territory. Always up for a look-see involving waterfalls, we headed out one fine early morning. Now Silver Falls is on, you guessed it, Silver Creek, which feeds into the Entiat River. The trail is pretty well maintained, USFS built quite a few sets of rock stairs throughout the whole trail and they have a lot of wood rail handrails scattered along the trail. The trail heads up the mountain alongside the creek, to a point where it forks left and right (it is a loop trail and this is where the two converge). I would suggest taking the right fork; this will afford you spectacular views quicker. The trail gains a lot of altitude pretty quickly but after the steep climb the trail makers took pity on us old folks and transitioned to several L-O-N-G, more gradual elevation gain switchbacks. It is very well worth the effort to get to “the top”, very beautiful scenery. I gotta backtrack a little. The body of water really is named Silver Creek. But it starts at the top of the mountain and flows/falls/cascades ALL the way downhill, in essence a continuous water fall down to the road! And a little more backtracking, I mentioned getting to “the top”. Well, the trail loops up to a point where it is pretty much “the top”, but you can see the creek is still slightly cascading from farther above your “at the top” viewpoint. But by this point at the top of the loop all of the dramatical waterfall action has been experienced. In all it was about a 2.3 mile round trip hike with a 700’ elevation gain and it took us about 80 minutes.

On our drive to Silver Falls we happened upon Box Canyon Viewpoint. OK, we’re in! It was a short dirt road to a parking area with a small trail down to the viewpoint. Box Canyon earned its name from early settlers who found it and described it as a straight sided box. The Entiat River created it by chewing through the granite over a whole lotta years. There was a nice viewing platform from where to observe the raging waters.

As if none of the previous day’s activities infirmed us enough, Jeanne found the Chelan Butte Trail and decided we would tackle at least part of that one. The trail starts in the city of Chelan and quickly gains elevation as you climb the massive mountain. We hiked (huffin’ & puffin’) a couple of miles to near Elephant Head, then doubled back. This trail affords vista views overlooking Lake Chelan, Chelan, Manson, and a great amount of the area around them. Once we got back to the Jeep, it was off to Chelan Butte Rd. and a run up to the lookout near the top. Part paved, part gravel, part 4-wheelin’, the views at the top covered the lake and a big swath of the Columbia River.

So now you are caught up with us. Stay tuned for our next destination. Until next post…

5/11/2023 Playing In The Columbia River Gorge

Posted on May 12, 2023 by rvrrat520

Continuing our trek northward, we made a short stopover in Bend, OR and a return stop at the Elk’s Lodge. Since the Bend Elk’s Lodge RV sites are E only, it was a short stay. Jeanne had a gift certificate for REI so we ventured on down to the Old Mill District on the Deschutes River so she could spend her money. We did a little walkabout and checked out the scenery there also. Being in a fairly good sized city, we needed to get a new set of shoes for the Jeep, so a stop at Discount Tires was in order. A little tip for ye who don’t live in snow country…April/May is a bad time to want to get new car tires here at Discount Tire. Everyone and their mother who run snow tires on their family ride seem to go to Discount to get the snow tires swapped out with the good weather tires. We waited almost 4 hours for our tire job! Oh well, the joys of full-timing…

A peek at the iconic 3 stacks of the Old Mill District

We managed to avoid the on again off again snow forecasts for the areas of Oregon we were in, but still got some good rain showers. We plugged on, our next stop being the Cascade Locks KOA at the Columbia River Gorge. A little bit of rain and cloudiness was not enough to discourage a little outdoorsiness. The area is permeated with hiking/biking trails, waterfalls, and overall great scenery along the river.

First order of business was a quick recon spin through the megalopolis known as Cascade Locks on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. The view across and down the river from the Bridge of the Gods was pretty cool. We also checked out the old historical locks in town, a set of locks from days of yore, no longer operating. In fact the lock doors aren’t there any more. But it gave us a straight shot down the river to the Bridge of the Gods.

The Wahclella Falls Trail was our choice for the first hike. It is a fairly easy 2+ mile round trip on a well maintained gravel trail with no real rock scrambling to speak of. The trail follows along Tanner Creek and actually accesses 2 separate water falls. The first one is Munra Falls. That was a neat “little” falls that is just a matter of feet off the wooden bridge along the trail. I say “little” with just a touch of sarcasm…Munra Falls is about 68’ tall and classified as a horsetail falls. A couple of more wooden bridges (well built, sturdy, well maintained, and solid) and we arrived at Wahclella Falls. It is a two-tiered waterfall, the upper falling about 50’ while the lower horsetail style fall is about 65’ and lands in a nice little pool area. We did hit this trail fairly early, right around 7:30 am, and found nobody else on the trail all the way to the end. But judging by the number of hikers we encountered on the return trip, it seems to be a fairly popular and busy trail as the day goes on.

The trail started out wide and clear anyway…

We made one road trip from Cascade Locks, a little over an hour’s drive to the area of Goldendale, WA. We crossed the river and drove Hwy. 14 along the Columbia River and got some cool views from that side. At the area of Little White Salmon River flowing into Drano Lake which flows into Columbia River, on Drano Lake in an area locals call “the Toilet Bowl” there were multitudes of small fishing boats trolling in a circular pattern at a tiny end of the lake. Kinda like the “Keystone Kops” version of a fishing tournament.

A view up river from the Washington side

Bonneville Lock and Dam just happened to be up the road from our homesite and Jeanne discovered they have a fancy visitors center. We graced them with our presence one morning just after they opened up. The dam is huge in the world of power generation and churns up the river in a pretty big way. There is a large fish ladder system on site as well, with a nice fish viewing window area at the lower level, below the water level of course (no duh!) Due to all the rain this season, the water was a bit, OK, a lot murky but still the fish are drawn by the back lighting at the windows so you can still get a glimpse of the power swimmers. The lock area was closed to the public, so we were unable to get a close peek at the massive lock system that elevates/lowers the big barges pushing cargo up and down the river.

These were guard shacks from WWII. These big power project dams were and continue to be high value targets for attack.

After a couple of hours at the dam, it was time to break out the bicycles for a two-wheeled road trip. The Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail runs right through this area, so we hopped on at the Bridge of the Gods and headed west. It was a nice, paved bicycle path which had some pretty healthy grades as far as pedaling goes. The path travels alongside Hwy. 84 and the Columbia River. At one point we crossed Ruckel Creek and got treated not only to fantastic views of the creek cascading down the mountain, but Jeanne spotted what I think was an Osprey’s nest in a treetop nearby. We got to see incoming and departing Osprey’s, very cool. We rode the trail to the Cascade Salmon Hatchery at Eagle Creek. A quick self-tour of the holding tanks and it was back to base. I have to hand it to the infrastructure folks of the state of Oregon. This stretch of Hwy. 84 we were on had a ton of construction activity going on, and all of it an improvement project for the Highway State Trail. It’s nice to see governments spending our tax money responsibly on projects to benefit We The People.

Starting off on our run down the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail

The Eagle Creek Trail was in our gunsights, so it was off and running (no, hiking) one brisk early morn. The trail length approaches 14 miles, one way, to the end at Wahtum Lake. Since Woodrow Wilson (the family ankle biter) has given up on family hikes, he gets to stay and guard Rosie (the bus). Unfortunately, we get to suffer in that our hikes must be limited due to said ankle biter and his peanut-sized bladder. This hike we chose to go as far as Lower Punchbowl Falls, which made it a 5+ mile round trip. The whole trail boasts 8 “main” waterfalls, with numerous small falls along the way. Our trip we got to see Lower Punchbowl Falls, Metlako Falls, & Sorenson Falls. The trail was well maintained with not a lot of signage needed (or so I thought). There is some minor elevation changes, the steepest bit was going down the mountain to arrive at Lower Punchbowl. There are a couple of very narrow stretches along the cliffside high up on the mountain where the Forest Service people have installed thick cables for hand-holds, those sections might not be suitable for the squeamish. But hey, I’m squeamish and I made it, breakfast still in tact…Metlako Falls and Sorenson Falls are in the same area however they are not visible together (twists & turns in canyon and trail, you get the gist). Sorenson Falls is said to be about 100’ tall and is the first one you will spot. A touch further on the trail you will be given a view of Metlako Falls. It is about 82’ tall and both feed into the same deep pool in the creek. All along the trail we spotted a myriad of small falls and leaking mountainsides. We were able to hike all the way to Lower Punchbowl Falls and do some rock/tree scrambling around that small area of canyon. The sad thing about it, (as we learned after our return) is that supposedly about 100 yards upstream we could have encountered another waterfall called Punchbowl Falls. The entire canyon and its stability were compromised in the big wildfire of 2017. People used to be able to walk the creekside to see those falls, but now some major rock scrambling or wading/swimming the creek is required. This would be one of those times a little signage would have been helpful. Oh well…Water break and snacks done, it was off on the return trip. We encountered only a few fellow hikers on our trek out, but quickly realized we picked a good time to do the hike because on our way back we passed a whole bunch of hikers headed up the mountain. This trail requires a $5 use fee, or in our case the America The Beautiful pass. I think there is a point where back country use permits are also required, but as long as we have the Woodster, we will never be in danger of needing one of those.

Our final excursion for this area we chose to hike Beacon Hill. It was across the river in Washington and described as the core of a volcano 848’ high. Over the years, the Columbia River has eroded the outer parts of said volcano, leaving only the core standing tall. The rock (as I call it) has some limited areas for mountain climbers to scale, but none were there for our entertainment. There is a trail to the top with an intricate system of switchbacks (55 to speak of, if my count was close) to help mediate the 800’+ elevation gain in the 1 mile distance up. The trail has a mix of sections made of concrete, rock/basalt, and some wooden boardwalks. It definitely will give you the willies if you have altitude issues, thankfully there is solid hand railing all the way. The trail and top give you sweeping vistas of this area of the Gorge and a long-distance overview of the Bonneville Dam. The hike took us a little over an hour to go out and back and again, we did this one early in the morning, no other hikers around. But once we started the downward trek, we met numerous upward bound hikers, one even had her dog along for the trip. I’ll let these pics speak for themselves, no captions…

Well, weather looking like it is improving, it’s time for a change of scenery. Stay tuned, until next post…

5/2/2023 Chores And Visits Over, Back to Land Roaming

Posted on May 2, 2023 by rvrrat520

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been a few months, I know. From our venture into Joshua Tree N.P., we headed deep into the belly of the beast (Kalifornia) for some birthdays, Spring Breaks, a little babysitting (Chad started a new job, Crissy was out of town on business, so we had a week of babysitting Hailey & Ellie), some routine medical appointments for Jeanne, and general family visits. We did manage an outing or two with family, but for the most part I will not bore you with a lot of verbiage here, instead let the following pics describe our time here. (Viewer alert: Lots of photos of the wee ones!)

This makes me appreciate those back road highways of Mississippi & Alabama!

Happy Birthdays to Ellie, Hailey, and Jeanne’s brother Dave, it was Kalifornia in our rear-view mirror once again and “Off to see the Wizard…”. We decided we wanted to do some more wandering throughout the Northwest, keeping a sharp eye out for a possible “landing spot” for our eventual exit from “life on the road”. Just a reminder, we have been full-time RVers since 2012. We are currently of the mindset to downsize from the 40’ motorhome when we locate our landing zone and maybe doing some seasonal recreational wandering. But for now, we are not close to finding that one spot.

First stop outside the Twilight Zone was Klamath Falls, OR. It has been over 40 years since we were last here and not much has changed other than the addition of a few “modern” stores such as Walmart, TJ Maxx, etc. We made our home at the Klamath Falls KOA which was right in the middle of town. From the frequency of jet engine noises and fighter jets buzzing the treetops we discovered we were smack dab in the flight paths for the jets out of Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base. Oh boy. We were blessed with less than optimally pleasant weather during our stay, being on the receiving end of more icy cold rain and chances of snow (in April/May !). But on a couple of semi-clear days we took road trips on Hwy. 97 up to the area of Chiloquin. That stretch of the highway traverses the shoreline of Upper Klamath Lake which is the largest body of water in Oregon (in surface area, 25 miles long by 8 miles wide). During those trips we saw NOT ONE boat anywhere as far as the eye could see (dang near all the way to Mt. Shasta) on the water. We did manage to see no fewer than 9 Bald Eagles on the hunt for top water fish/snacks. I later asked some locals about the lack of boats on the lake. They advised me that Upper Klamath Lake is a dying lake, average depth of about 9 feet, and currently experiencing not only some type of toxic algae bloom but also polluting chemicals/nitrates from local farmers being dumped into it. They did not recommend bodily contact with the water. Oh joy.

Jeanne found the OC&E Woods Line State Trail, another section of trail as part of the Rails to Trails system that runs right through the middle of town. It is a 100 mile section of trail, 50 of it from Klamath Falls to Bly, OR. We fired up the bicycles one day and attempted a ride down the trail but got forced short about 6 miles out due to a nice little thorn in my rear tire (not a goat head). We limped it back home, picked up a new inner tube, and hit the trail on another day. We did not go all the way to Bly (100 miles round trip? You bumped your head…) but stayed to the paved section of trail. Crappy weather cancelled any additional forays down the trail…

Jeanne on the trail along a no-name canal, headed to hook up with the OC&E

With an underwhelming experience in the big city of Klamath Falls, we went jacks up and headed…Well, you’re gonna have to wait until next post!

2/27/2023 Joshua Tree National Park

Posted on February 28, 2023 by rvrrat520

After several attempts over the years, we FINALLY made time to stop & visit Joshua Tree Nat’l Park. To get to this point was not without its little trials & tribulations. The morning we raised jacks in Pahrump, NV, we got snowed on. “&#*$^%@!!!” We were successful in our escape, but… Our chosen route was to cut over the mountain to Shoshone, CA, then Hwy. 127 into Baker to catch I-15 into Barstow. Holy smokes! Well, dust really. It seemed a massive, near zero-visibility dust storm was in the works along I-15 between Baker and Primm, which succeeded in rerouting a whole lotta truckers onto that poor ol’ 2-lane Hwy. 127. Once we made it to Baker, we hit several areas of thick dust storms from there to Barstow. Then, on our final leg down Hwy. 247 to Twentynine Palms, we hit several light snow flurries! Snow! In the southern California desert! Late February! You’ve GOT to be kidding me! “&#*$^%@!!!” Along the “lemons & lemonade” thought line, it was nice to see the severely drought-stricken areas getting some much needed watering, even though Nancy’s nephew is still saving those good old life sustaining Delta Smelt.

We made our home at the 29 Palms Elk’s Lodge for several days for our Joshua Tree N.P. visit. Wouldn’t you know it, crappy weather most of our time there! That would include major snow and slicing, biting winds! We toughed it out a couple of days and toured the park, even though when we made it to Keys View, a scenic viewpoint for the Coachella Valley including Coachella, Thermal, Indio, Palm Springs, and the Salton Sea, all we could see was a wall of snow-fog. The following photo gallery just about sums it all up. I am too lazy to caption them, so I’ll leave it to you to see if you can identify sites like Skull Rock, Split Rock, Hall of Horrors, and of course, the aforementioned Keys View.

One particularly nasty snowy day we ventured up to Pioneertown, a sort of ghost town which Jeanne informs me was an old Western set used for filming. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Even with the nasty weather, we were treated to some cool atmospheric views like several rainbows and a nice sunrise. We even got to see a 3-legged coyote. We definitely must be living in the Twilight Zone…

We searched, but dang, never found that pot o’ gold…

Joshua Tree National Park in our “completed” category, we were off and running towards grandkids, family time, tax time, and medical appointments. Until next post…

2/18/2023 “Taking the Slow Boat” to C-C-C-C-California

Posted on February 27, 2023 by rvrrat520

Our last pit stop in Texas was an overnighter return trip to the Wild West RV Park in lovely Van Horn. The last time we stayed there we got hit with about 3” of snow, but this time we survived without extreme weather. Continuing, apprehensively, it was westward ho’ on I-10 through the belly of the beast, aka: El Paso. We were pleasantly surprised, despite all the current issues at the border, we made it through without a hitch. We took it all the way to Deming, NM for another overnighter return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, Dream Catcher RV Park. Then it was on to a few days at the Apache Junction Elk’s Lodge in Apache Junction, AZ. They have a couple of areas around the lodge for RV’s, one containing designated camp sites, the other just an open field area, both strictly dry camping, with a minimal fee of $10/night for the designated sites.

We hit a couple of the Indian casinos in the area, but the highlight of that stop was a hike we took into the Superstition Mountains. Jeanne found the Siphon Draw trail in the Lost Dutchman State Park and we hit it on a crisp but clear morning. The trail is about 5 miles, round trip, with a 1,000’ elevation gain (according to the ranger) in the last half mile to the top. I would classify the trail as moderate; there is some minor rock scrambling, some surface areas similar to slick rock surfaces, and definitely a good elevation gain at the peak. The trail was busy, almost “crowded”, and well defined with little signage. The views were very nice as evidenced in the following pix.

Moving on, next stop was, again, a return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, North Ranch RV Park in Congress, AZ. We made good use of the stop to get thawed out (hook-ups, Yippee!), laundry chores (hook-ups, Yippee!), and a general respite from all the one-night stay traveling (hook-ups, Yippee!). While at North Ranch, one of the locals mentioned he knew of a few crested saguaro cacti along the dirt road to Stanton just a few miles from Congress. Always on the lookout to find those anomalies of nature, we took a drive out to Stanton. I don’t know about “several”, but we found (1) crestie about midway on the road to Stanton. The area of Stanton is definitely nothing to write home about, no real vestiges of civilization other than a “rustic” looking RV park and several scattered homes/trailers. The (6) mile dirt road to get to Stanton is a little rough as far as several “washboard” stretches, I personally would not want to drive Rosie down it.

Some of the views on the “road” to Stanton

Being sufficiently thawed out, we backtracked to Sun City for a few days of dry camping at the Sun City Elk’s Lodge. The lodge has a few RV parking spaces out in the back of their paved parking lot for which they garner a $10/night fee for the no-hookup enjoyment. The extra added benefit for our stay here was frequent fighter jet fly-overs, day AND night, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood military installation, Luke AFB. We found out quickly that this is one very busy Elk’s Lodge, evidenced by the packed parking lot every day we were there and the near standing room only condition of the lounge.

In between shopping chores at the plethora of opportunities we had while here in the big city we found the New River Trail which winds its way through the heart of the beast alongside a “river” that was a typical desert river…dry as a bone. Nevertheless, out came the bicycles for about a 20 mile excursion along the well maintained, paved, well used trail. Not one of the more scenic trails we have been on, I have to say…

Laughlin, NV was next on our westward itinerary. We did a couple of nights at the KOA just outside of the “downtown” area, across the street from the Avi Casino/Resort. Laughlin does not offer much other than several large casinos, or you can cross the river back into Bullhead City, AZ for any shopping needs (they DO have a Walmart, for Pete’s sake!)

From Laughlin it was on to Pahrump, NV and another return stay at the Pair-a-Dice Escapee RV Park. We wanted to get some business done (aka: stay put to receive some Amazon deliveries, send for our mail, etc.), so we decided to stay for at least a couple or three weeks. Pahrump is about 45 minutes from Vegas, so we also wanted the access to civilization (aka: Costco & Trader Joe’s).

Check out the backdrop for our stay in Pahrump. Brrrr!

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area sits just outside on the west side of Las Vegas. We took Woodrow Wilson on a sightseeing drive through the canyon, along the approximate 10 miles long scenic drive. It was mildly scenic at best, comparatively speaking, since we happen to be here amidst REAL scenery like Death Valley to the west and Grand Canyon to the east (just to name a couple), those are pretty hard to beat. But, Red Rock Canyon is still a very busy park, numerous hiking and horse trails everywhere.

As is my custom, we got treated to the usual weather events in Pahrump. After checking the weather forecast (by the “expert”, well educated meteorologists at “WeatherBug”, who, as it so happens all must have failed the courses on “Accuracy 101”), seeing no rain in the future, I gave Rosie a bath and got her all shined up. That back-breaking endeavor got me a whole day of enjoying the shine before, not only did we get rained on, but we earned the simultaneous added bonus of extreme winds with a massive dust storm (dust storm during a rain storm?) I can’t help but feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulled the football…

After fighting the goofy weather swings and having water hoses freeze (again, the genius meteorologists did not forecast sub-freezing temps), we were happy to raise jacks and hit the road from Pahrump. Our destination? Stay tuned, until next post…

1/22/2023 More Freightliner Headaches To Start Our Year Off Right!

Posted on January 23, 2023 by rvrrat520

Several weeks ago we got our cracked coolant surge tank replaced by the Beaumont (Texas) Freightliner shop, a pure fiasco in and of itself as previously described in earlier blog posts. Well, the saga continues. When we got to our stay in the Nashville area I found the coolant level below the “minimum” line on the new surge tank. Not quite sure what to make of it, I topped off the tank with the last of my spare coolant. The day of our departure when I started Rosie’s engine, ALL of my alarms, bells, whistles, and dashboard warning lights fired up. The engine ran perfect but for the annoying alarms. After a short timeout, turning the engine on and off, I got the alarms and lights to return to normal operating mode…until I got a few miles down the road. A second round of “check engine” lights and sirens, coupled with my actual gauges failing, began to plague me on an intermittent level, lasting anywhere from minutes to hours. The drivability of Rosie was not affected, just had to put up with the off and on noise.

Due to my lengthy history of similar issues (described in painful detail on posts from many moons ago), I was not in a real hurry to get Rosie in for troubleshooting. It has been quite some time since our last dates of occurrence, so we continued on our way, our current destination of choice being the Waco, Texas area. We made short stops at Sam’s Town Resort & Casino (Tunica, MS), Cherokee Casino (Roland, OK), the N/E Tulsa KOA (another Cherokee casino and horse racetrack), and the Durant KOA (Durant, OK). All travel days my “check engine” lights and sirens continued intermittently. However, on our travel day to Durant, the warning lights and sirens abruptly stopped about an hour from Durant, Rosie returning to normal operations. On our last travel day to Waco we experienced absolutely no issues with the lights and sirens. Between all of our travel days I had been diligently checking the level of coolant without issues. Our final travel day landed us at the Camp Caravan RV Park in Lorena, Texas (Waco area). Another check of the coolant level revealed it was again below the “minimum” line. End of my rope reached, let the phone calls begin. I called several Freightliner shops scattered all over the Dallas-Fort Worth-Waco area looking for one that we could get into without a months-long wait. The closest was Doggett Freightliner in Austin (yuk!) TX.

Some of the pre-nightlight nightlights at Sam’s Town…

We cooled our jets for about a week in Lorena/Waco. Our friends Jim & Carol whom we met some time ago while we both were on the road happen to live in Lorena, so we spent some quality time visiting with them. One day they suggested a lunch spot called “Oscar Store”. This is a unique dining establishment, to say the least. It looked like a series of old rusty sheds. Inside it too looked like the inside of an old rusty shed. But if you are looking for some massive portions of typical southern style cuisine, this is definitely the place. Unfortunately I did not snap any photos of the food, but one of our table mates ordered the chicken-fried steak and HOLY MOLY! That slab of meat was larger than a full sized Frisbee! I got to revel in a good ol’ meal of fried chicken gizzards and fried okra, it was MMMMMM good!

Still in our search mode for a landing zone, Jeanne and I checked out several properties for sale in the area without finding any prospects. Most of them were just a touch too far from civilization.

Now thanks to Freightliner, our plans to head due west changed to due south to Austin. Doggett found a leaking coolant hose that they determined was due to “failure of installation” by the Beaumont Freightliner replacement of our surge tank. They contacted Beaumont to request they cover the new repair, but got denied by the on-duty service manager. OK, now really, I have truly reached the end of my rope! I am so fed up with these big corporate companies, I see stars every time I have to deal with them. An e-mail with a follow-up phone call to the general manager of Beaumont was now in order.I finally spoke with the GM at Beaumont, who said he was going to speak with his service manager. Final decision: Beaumont would reimburse me for my out of pocket expense. Hallelujah!

Leaky coolant hose fixed, several deep breaths taken, we got out of Austin as fast as we could. Back to our original goal of meandering W/B toward the grandkids in Kalifornia. With most of the big highways messed up by construction in the great state of Texas, we found some very nice back road highways with very little truck traffic or construction and made our way to San Angelo for our next stop. That would be the San Angelo KOA. We were only going to stay a couple of days, but dealing with Freightliner required a four day cooling off period. This KOA was not the greatest, but sufficient for our purpose. The sites were gravel and a little too close (slide-out to slide-out), but it was centrally located to civilization.

Jeanne found the touted “art district” of San Angelo, a couple of places called “Art In Uncommon Places” and “Paintbrush Alleyway”. We just had to stop off for a gander. It was a typical local “showcase” for all manner of graffiti art. I think it helps, when viewing local art such as this type, to drop a few tabs of acid or munch on a few ‘shrooms in order to fully appreciate the artistic nature of such displays.

San Angelo is home to the Civic League Park which boasts a world famous water Lily collection. We found it and discovered mid-January is not a time you would want to view Texas water Lillies. The ponds had very few Lily pads, no flowers, and a lot of algae. We could only imagine what it would look like in Spring/Summer seasons.

Their sign needs a disclaimer, “But not in winter.”

San Angelo in our rear-view, it was “Westward Ho”. Stay tuned for the next set of adventures, until next post…

12/23/2022 Here Comes Santa Claus!

Posted on December 24, 2022 by rvrrat520

Moving on from Weatherford, Texas we made a couple of short stops at the Texarkana Elk’s Lodge and a return visit to the North Little Rock KOA. From there we shot up to the Bowling Green KOA then our Kentucky “home” at Three Creeks Campground in the town of Corinth. It’s been a freaky coincidence (or omen?) that we have been getting deluged with rain for a few days as we were on our way to view “the Ark”. I sure hope there is room for us, three down, thirty-seven to go…

Home, at Texarkana Elk’s Lodge. Hey, nothing fancy but at least we got 30A service…

The Ark Encounter is surely MASSIVE! For you secular heathens out there, The Ark Encounter is one of two very large attractions run by the organization Answers In Genesis, the other is the Creation Museum. The Ark is a life sized replica of Noah’s Ark as described in the Bible. It contains non-stop historical depictions/re-creations/stories of the biblical times leading up to and after the Great Flood. The whole “encounter” covers over 800 acres and besides “the boat”, it contains a zoo, zip-line stations, play areas for kids, petting zoo, virtual reality attraction, main auditorium for various presentations both live and video, and during this time of year they decorate for Christmas with massive quantities of lights, putting on a nighttime Christmas program. There are also the prerequisite food/snack stands, restaurant, and several gift shops for all your gnoshing/shopping pleasure. I’ll just leave it at that and let you gawk at the following photos, no captions…

With our Ark encounter completed, the rain morphed into snow on the day we raised jacks. I’m not real fond of the thought of driving in a snow storm, but we managed to drive out of the light flurries within the first hour. Our “Destination Alpha”? A return visit to the Grand Ole RV Resort on the north side of Nashville in the town of Goodlettsville. We originally planned a short stay and to get out before the forecasted “bomb cyclone” hit with it’s accompanying single digit & below zero high temperatures, but plan change #8,962 had us extend through Christmas Day and stick out those temperatures.

We have made several visits to Nashville over the years and have seen many of the sights, including the Christmas decor at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Cheekwood’s Mansion, The Hermitage, and many others, so we gave all those a pass this time. We did manage to find ourselves down in Marathon Village, so we paid the area a visit. The old car manufacturing complex is now a series of shops which includes the store for the TV show “American Pickers”. It was antique heaven for those who are into old stuff. The hallways were full of antique tools & equipment, I’ll jump out on a limb here and venture an opinion that a lot of it was car manufacturing related. Other shops included boutiques, music related “stuff”, all manner of souvenir knick-knacks, and even a couple of distilleries on the block with swag sales and tastings.

A foray down to Broadway was necessary to pay a visit to Famous Nashville, the highly touristy rooftop bar. We were thoroughly unimpressed immediately upon arrival, but the view from the roof was nice, looking down at the Cumberland River and across to the Titans’ stadium. Our search for lunch found us at the good ol’ reliable Hard Rock Cafe (basically next door to Famous). After stuffing my face with some pretty tasty pulled pork sammich, we walked it off to check in on some of the nearby touristy venues, like John Rich’s Redneck Riviera, Luke Bryan’s Luke’s 32 Bridge, Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk, and Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row. The weather being what it was (COLD!) on that Thursday, the “crowds” were well thinned out.

Noisy neighbors, Hard Rock Cafe & Famous Nashville

The clock ran out on us and WHAMMO, we got slobber-knockered with the “bomb cyclone”. Woke up to below zero temps, EVERYTHING was frozen up. I learned from some fellow RVers some years ago that to keep the on-board hoses/pipes/etc. from freezing up in freezing temps, leave the wet bay interior light on over night. I did that, rolled up my water hose and used towels to blanket the whole reel. Alas, that no work in sub-zero temps. Solid as a rock. It is also fun when the electric/gas AC/heat pump units don’t operate on electric when temps are too extreme. So it was fire up the gas and let ‘er rip (glad I had a full LP tank). I broke out my little Big Heat electric 1500 watt space heater and set it up in my wet bay to thaw things out. It’s nice that I could plug it into the 20A power post outlet and not risk blowing out any of the MH plugs. It only took about 8 hours for water to be restored to the bus. So, here we are, waiting for Santa, icicles hanging off our eyebrows, with forecast temperatures “soaring” up into the 30-40’s on Monday, at which time we will be heading warp factor 8 south in search of a tiny bit more temperate weather.

Our neighbor at Grand Ole RV Resort. Now I’ll bet this thing will freeze up in a heartbeat when the bomb cyclone hits…

Stay tuned for the next “adventure”, until next post…

12/8/2022 Christmas Season Has Arrived

Posted on December 8, 2022 by rvrrat520

College Station has a Christmas themed park called “Santa’s Wonderland”. Since it was a short sidetrack, so to speak, from our chosen course we scooted over to take in the sights. Our home for a 3 day stint was the appropriately named Holiday RV Park. It was a basic park, not a lot of frills, but concrete sites with FHU’s. Jeanne also got to be the beneficiary of yet another extended round of “4-letter vocabulary” lessons on our attempt to arrive at the park. Ever since we have been here in Texas this time around, it feels like the state DOT has decided to fix ALL of the roads in the entire state right now, all at the same time. College Station is not exempt, construction is everywhere, and Holiday RV Park is right on a main highway that is currently tore up. Needless to say, maneuvering around on side and back streets in a 40-foot behemoth towing another vehicle was a tad stress inducing. But we got there…

We got set up at “home” pretty quickly, then decided to hit Santa’s Wonderland for some holiday cheer. We got there in daylight and stayed into the nighttime for the lights. The park is very large and spread out; they have a hay-ride feature that takes folks throughout the lighted scenes. It is a popular feature that we endured about an hour wait in line (ala Disneyland) for, but it was worth the wait as I will let the following photos describe the scene…

Weatherford, TX was next up on our chosen destinations list. Our home was Oak Creek RV Park. This park had nice facilities, however it is right on Hwy. 20 with 24-hour traffic/truck noise. The sites are concrete, FHU’s, interior roads are paved, but there are a few too many trees for good satellite reception.

Our first excursion out was to check out the historic downtown Weatherford. Another typical historic small town district, and what historic downtown district would be complete without the requisite old courthouse with functioning clock tower?

The town of Granbury was touted as a REAL historic town in the area. A little walkabout was in our calling. Again, what historic downtown district would be complete without the requisite old courthouse with functioning clock tower?

A run into Mineral Wells provided exposure to the Crazy Water mineral water company. The story goes that a “crazy” woman used to drink from a mineral well here on a regular basis back in the late 1800’s. As she continued to drink, her “crazy” seemed to go away. Bada-bing-bada-boom some enterprising doctor founded the Crazy Water company in 1904. We actually picked up a case of their #4 (most heavily concentrated mineral content), and now we are quaffing away trying to heal all that ails us…

Well, son of a gun, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Ft. Worth’s Stockyard Station has a twice-daily longhorn “cattle drive” that occurs rain or shine. Our fortune was being there for their yearly Christmas parade as well. We attended the 4:00 p.m. “cattle drive”, immediately followed by the parade (during daylight, no light show involved). The “drive” was certainly a touristy event, it is comprised of (15) long horn cattle paraded down the street by cowboys on horseback. The Christmas parade was underwhelming as well. It was more of a marketing/advertising parade for local businesses, with horseback folks interspersed among the vehicular traffic, all “decorated” (I say this facetiously, the decorations left a lot to be desired…). But, ’tis the season. Ho-ho-ho!

Our plans continue without alterations, onward and upward toward our Christmas goal of the Ark Experience in Kentucky. We are certainly tempting fate, weather-wise, praying for leniency as far as freezing and snow go. We (and you) will just have to wait and see…until next post.

11/26/2022 A Texas Thanksgiving

Posted on November 29, 2022 by rvrrat520

Our next jaunt was from Beaumont to Edinburg, TX. Our RV-ing friends Bud & Meredith live there and invited us to enjoy Thanksgiving with them, so we humbly obliged. We set up camp at the Monte Cristo Golf Club which has an RV lot as part of the business. Our hopes were to enjoy the area in nice, temperate, short-sleeve-weather, but instead we got soaked and cold in the San Francisco-like-summertime-weather. We spent almost 2 weeks there in pretty consistently cold and often times rainy weather.

We really wanted to experience South Padre Island in the sunshine but were denied Mr. Sun. On the best of the worst days we stubbornly ventured over anyway. Not a great experience, scenery-wise.

Jeanne learned that Elon Musk had set up a small business venture near the island, something called “Space-X”. We took the drive over and peeked at the launch facility from the road, in the rain. I am not sure, but unlike NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, I don’t think they run public tours of this facility. We did our drive-by and returned “home”.

Bud & Meredith wanted to take us around to see the sights, but the weather put a damper on that idea. They did take us to a local eatery that has live music, the Riverside Club. It truly is “riverside”, right on the Rio Grande River. We had some snacks and listened to the silky smooth sounds of Steven May & the Southern Knights, indoors of course.

Meredith did a very nice job on the Thanksgiving celebration and meal. A big thanks to Bud & Meredith for inviting us into their home for the festivities. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The next day, Black Friday, it was jacks-up moving day. In keeping with our on-going weather theme, we headed back north, in intermittent pouring rain and some areas of pea soup fog. I guess it was a good thing; Texas, like a lot of the country, has been experiencing drought conditions.

A scene re-created in millions of homes on Thanksgiving…

We landed for a couple of rainy days at the Little Lucy RV Park in Lampasas, TX. While driving around checking out the town of Lampasas, Jeanne stumbled upon the historic courthouse. Not only the courthouse, but she got a twofer, the local farmer’s market was in full force in front of the courthouse. We got out pretty much unscathed, just a loaf of craft bread and some local coffee in tow.

A short hour’s drive brought us to the “jammin'” town (LOL) of Salado where we located the Chupacabra Craft Beer & Wine shop. We stopped off for some snacks and a beer tasting of course. I was not impressed with any of the beer, the Cobb Salad was good.

It was an unplugged kind of stop, all conditions precluded us from experiencing sufficiently operational wifi. That makes it tough on any type of research for our next destination. So, from there it was on to…(?) Stay tuned.

11/9/2022 The Frightliner (sic) Wait is FINALLY Over!

Posted on November 10, 2022 by rvrrat520

The Beaumont Elk’s Lodge sits here right on top of the very busy Hwy. 90, across the street from the Exxon Mobile Polyethylene Plant and a very busy railroad route. (It would sure be coincidental if that very plant was the manufacturer of the plastic engine part that we have been waiting on for over a month and a half.) Needless to say, there is a teensy bit of noise associated with every waking minute, not to mention every sleeping minute…the dang trains run ALL NIGHT LONG, and they love to toot their horns! While here we got a couple of really good drenchings that brought out the mud bugs in the temporary swamps that got created at the rear of our rig. The fire ants seem to thrive here, even the golf courses are covered in ant hills.

Beaumont, Texas not being one of the most exciting areas of the world, we tried to make the best of our stranded-ness. Jeanne found the Gulf Terrace Hike & Bike Trail only a couple miles from “home”. It is a small city-type park area with a nice paved path and several nice shaded rest stops. We strolled the 2-mile loop section while I molested as many of the fire ant hills as I could (I really really really hate fire ants!)

One of the Elk’s members suggested a couple of food stops while we were here. The first one we hit was the Pine Tree Lodge which is located right on the Taylor Bayou. We drove out one day in hopes of catching sight of a wayward gator or two while enjoying lunch at our table. Alas, Al Gator failed to show up, I guess I should have made an appointment with him. But we did get to watch the soft shelled turtles swimming around the bayou.

Welcome to the Pine Tree Lodge on the Taylor Bayou.

I found the Cattail Marsh for another little outing. It is located on the Hillebrandt Bayou at Tyrrell Park. There is a path that circles the marsh but we only needed to walk the length of one side to find the object of our search…Al Gator! And then we saw his little sister Allie! (OK, I’m no biologist, I couldn’t identify the sex of a gator if my life depended on it! But it makes good print…) They also have a very nice boardwalk that extends into the marsh for all the bird watching you can stand. While we were there one birdwatcher had his scope set up on a bald eagle, probably over a mile away. He gave Jeanne the opportunity to take a gander (c’mon, man, ganders are gooses, not eagles!) Tyrrell Park also had a nice 9-1-1 Memorial display. The associated golf course was terribly covered in fire ants.

Jeanne did another “Griswold” thing and found the world’s largest functioning fire hydrant, so we just HAD to go see it. Yep. It was large! It is located across the street from the Fire Museum of Texas in Beaumont and next to the Texas Firefighter Memorial. Since we were in the area (downtown), we wanted to check out the famous Crockett Street area. This is Beaumont’s locale for celebrating Mardi Gras. It was a bit disappointing in size & scope, as well as the entire area was DESERTED when we were there, not a soul or vehicle moving in any direction, nothing open.

Next excursion was a trip over to see the Port Arthur area. On the way, we passed through Port Neches and wanted to stop for snacks at the Neches River Wheelhouse on the River Front walkway. This was a nice atmoshphere with views of the Neches River. I had some awesome seafood nachos, loaded with shrimp, mud bugs, and lump crab, but had to fight the dive-bombing birds who like to hang out around the patio area, like the sea gulls at Pac Bell Park during game days.

After lunch we continued into Port Arthur proper to a point near the Louisiana border. Port Arthur is one of the very huge ports for the oil industry and is covered in oil refineries, therefore not a very scenic area. But here, you can judge for yourselves…

Towards the end of our stay, we were treated to a Blood Moon, supposedly the last one until sometime in 2025. We actually caught a clear night sky and I figured out how to use my timed shutter release on my camera.

Freightliner is very low on my fan-favorites list. They knew we had been waiting for over a month and a half for our part to arrive and yet, they failed to call me when it did come in. We just happened to call them for a status check and were told it was on their shelf. #@$%&*^$#%! A quick run in to get it swapped out and bingo! Ready to Rock-N-Roll! Now the only hold up is we already ordered our mail be sent to us here, so with tomorrow our anticipated delivery date, we have to stay put just a smidge longer. We should be jacks-up by weekend, next stop?

Road Trippin', Watkins Style

Prowled county roads for a living, prowling country roads in retirement!

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