Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

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Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

After departing Wisconsin Dells we took the following day to trek to Gurnee Illinois, home of a Six Flags theme park that I had visited many years ago and we wanted to visit again with the whole family.

We arrived in the early evening and once again decided to boondock near the theme park itself, not so much because of the money saving aspect, but simply because there was no campgrounds remotely close to where we wanted to be early the next morning - near the park. Quote to the contrary, with our holding tanks nearing capacity and our fresh water supply nearly exhausted, we would have welcomed a campground, but weren’t going to inconvenience ourselves for the privledge as we were not yet desperate.

Our choice of overnight location ended up being great, until the lawn care company arrived at 6AM and started cutting the expansive grassy area immediately in front of our parking spot. At one point I could smell the exhaust of the lawn tractors and weed eaters as they passed our spot. They seemed to take no issue with us being there, but at the same point in time they weren’t exactly trying to be quiet, and really, I don’t blame them - they had a job to do.

As a result of the early wake-up we got breakfast out of the way and packed up. We made a quick stop at a gas station to fuel up the generator. With the blessings of the staff we also commandeered the garden hose and took on some fresh water as we had exhausted our water tanks after my morning shower.

The park ended up being great despite a heavy thunderstorm that passed through in the evening. After it passed we stayed until the park closed at midnight.

Upon closing I wanted to make the short drive through Chicago during the night hours instead of fighting rush hour traffic the following morning. I was extremely tired, but we pressed on, and made it. We crashed for a well deserved good nights sleep.

The second last day took us most of the way across Michigan where we stopped at a large campground for a single night. This allowed us to relax for an evening after many busy days, and also allowed us to (finally) empty our now brimming-at-the-seams holding tanks.

The morning of day 29 took us to the science center in Detroit, and then across the border via the Detroit/Windsor tunnel. We pressed on to London Ontario where we once again boondocked due to the hour we eventually stopped at.

Awaking on our last day it was bittersweet. We had been on the road for a month, we had seen so much, yet only a few hours from now it was all over except for the aftermath of unpacking and resuming our normal lives.

For the kids, I think that the last several hours was the longest day of the trip despite only covering a short distance. Of course, the anticipation of finally being home and getting to see their friends was bearing upon them, and I can’t say I wasn’t going to be glad to get home myself despite all the fun we had.

Arriving at the house we found everything exactly as we had left it a month before. We unpacked the trailer in record time and I went and parked it.

Returning home was nice, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. :-)

(Pics, followup and such to follow…)

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

We departed the Mount Rushmore area on Monday shortly before lunch. The poor weather from the night before had washed out any chance of one last campfire before a long stretch on the road, and also left us packing up in a particularly muddy campsite.

The next few days would take us 1400 Kilometers (~900 miles) east, eventually reaching Gurnee Illinois (Just north of Chicago) where we planned to spend a day at the Six Flags theme park there. We had absolutely no schedule or itinerary for these 3 days, agreeing simply to go wherever the wind took us and take in any interesting sights or attractions along the way. With a fairly leisurely schedule requiring slighly less then only 500 Kilometers per day of driving we should have lots of time to stop as we saw fit.

The days blended together. With the beautiful mountain scenery that we had spent the last few weeks enjoying now behind us, the transition back to the flat-lands was a bit of a let-down. This particular stretch of the I90 is rather nondescript and with the exception of a few tourist attractions we stopped at (the, in our opinion, much over-hyped “Wall Drug” being one of them) it was a fairly unmemorable ride.

One notable exception was a lunch stop in the picturesque city of Fairmont Minnesota where we enjoyed a relaxing few hours taking a dip in the lake after eating. Our Garmin GPS really proved worth it’s weight in gold when it came to leading us to great little areas like the park we were at, and then back to the interstate again afterwards.

On the third day we did spent a day in Wisconsin Dells (in Wisconsin, obviously) which is monikered “The Water Park Capital of the World”. After a few days on the road this was a good opportunity to wind down. We chose one of the smaller water parks which was fairly quiet compared to the larger most-popular ones, and this led to a day without lineups and frustration.

We opted to boondock for this entire section of the trip - no campgrounds, no hookups - just us, the RV, the generator when we needed power, and the road ahead.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Our luck with the weather had started to wear thin - we received the brunt end of a storm through the night that was loud enough to scare my daughter into waking up in the middle of the night assured of the fact that she needed to sleep with us, instead of in her own bed.

The storm passed, but the crowded bed arrangement lasted for the rest of the night, leading to a less then ideal nights sleep.

Regardless, when the morning arrived it was once again bright and sunny, so we’ll take it.

Todays sole goal was to visit Mount Rushmore. There was some question if we should go through the day, or if we should wait until the evening hours and perhaps catch the supposedly great laser and fireworks show at the nearby Crazy Horse memorial. If we waited for the evening hours we planned to enjoy some of the wide-variety of entertainment at the campground through the day, or vice versa.

Unsure if we actually wanted to visit Crazy Horse (the cost was surprisingly steep compared to the extremely reasonable $10 Mount Rushmore charged) we decided to go to Mount Rushmore right after breakfast. This would turn out to be a wise decision later in the day.

Mount Rushmore itself was amazing. Clearly they have spent a lot of time and effort improving it in recent years and it shows - the grounds, buildings, walking trails, and everything else about the memorial was top-notch. Without actually seeing it for yourself there’s not much that can be said for the experience, but for anyone who is in the area, don’t pass it by.

We spent a surprising amount of time at Mount Rushmore and it was well after lunch when we finally departed. We decided to visit one other attraction that was a short distance away but wanted to stop for lunch first. Unfortunately we discovered that the dining options in Keystone South Dakota were limited at best, especially if you wanted something to eat on the run. With little other option we eventually settled on grabbing fast-food from Dairy Queen. The food was OK (for Dairy Queen) but clearly there was a huge tourist-town price gouge going on as it cost us nearly $40 for 2 kids meals, 2 adult meals, and a few extras.

The other attraction we visited was called Cosmos - a unique attraction based solely on optical illusion. It was difficult to explain exactly what it was all about, but once again, if your in the area, it’s worth the $8 admission.

The afternoon was wearing, and with the kids wanting to get back to the campground to go swimming we decided to head back. Dinner ensued and the kids did get a swim in, but then the weather started to take a turn for the worse, eventually deteriorating to heavy rain and hail shortly before sunset.

Our good weather stretch was officially over, and our decision earlier in the day to go visit Mount Rushmore in the daytime hours (instead of the evening) was now turning out to be a very wise one.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

We slept in, but as the sunlight bathed the mountains and cleared out the deer, cars once again ventured up and down the roads and the traffic noise eventually work us up through our open windows. We did the usual morning routine, snapped a few pictures (the scenery was actually quite nice from the outlook) and the hit the road.

Enroute again we stopped in the city of Sheridan for some quick shopping. I once again made a few more phone calls to local repair facilities in an effort to find someone to attend to our still ailing truck, but being the Saturday of the fourth of July weekend it quickly became clear that everybody was closed tight.

Anxious to get to the Mount Rushmore area we simply pressed on - the truck was running better now that we had descended from the high altitude, seemingly having an easier time making boost again with the now denser air. It was far from perfect, but it was performing much better now, so my fear that we actually had fairly serious engine problems started to fade away as it seemed that the problem might be nothing more then a partially blocked catalytic converter. We could deal with that later - the roads ahead were easy in comparison to what we just surmounted.

We made good time and arrived at the KOA Campground we chose to stay at in the early afternoon. We discovered upon arrival that this was actually the second largest KOA Campground in the entire KOA system, and despite being borderline stupidly expensive (Really, $75 a night for a campsite?) it did offer a great deal in the way of entertainment, from several pools, a small water park, hot tubs, water slides, and a large variety of activities.

We checked in for two nights and crashed for the rest of the day while the kids played. We would save the tour of Mount Rushmore itself for tomorrow.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Sure enough the next morning it was plenty cool in the trailer - my forgetfulness that led to me forgetting to set the furnace thermostat led to a frosty morning as it the temperature had dropped significantly overnight.

After getting the trailer warmed up everyone else eventually crawled out of bed and we did the usual morning routine.

Todays plan had us heading east out of Yellowstone with an intended destination of Sheridan Wyoming. Ahead of us lied not only the descent out of Yellowstone along the much maligned state highway 14, but the (as we would discover) marathon climb to the summit of the Bighorn mountain granite pass, and then down the other side again - a full day was ahead.

After saying farewell to the friends we had made the night before we departed, but not until after a long (and annoying) wait ensued at the RV dump station in order to empty our holding tanks and pickup a full tank of fresh water.

Once on the road the miles flew past. The horror stories that I had heard of the descent out of Yellowstone on 14 seemed like a non issue really, given prudent and careful driving.

We stopped in Cody Wyoming for what turned out to be either a really late lunch, or an early dinner. Cody itself was an amazing little town that we could have easily spent a day exploring - it had that characteristic (almost stereotyped) “wild wild west” town look and feel to the point of looking like a movie-set at times, except it was a real town. Unfortunately with plenty of miles ahead we had to suffice with a quick drive through town, and our lunch stop at the local Pizza Hut.

It wasn’t long after hitting the road again that we reached Greybull WY where the warning signs of the mountainous roads ahead began. After another aborted attempt to find someone to address our trucks ongoing issues (a long story in itself) we eventually decided we needed to make a run for it and get up, over, and down the mountain range before darkness set it. So, off we went.

The Bighorns turned out to be one of the most challenging mountain ranges we experienced on this whole trip. After passing Greybull the roads took a precipitious upward pitch, and it seemed to go on forever. I’d estimate that the roads were easily anywhere from a consistent 8% grade to upwards of 10% in brief stretches, and since there were only relatively short distances between switchback turns it was near impossible to maintain any momentum.

The truck, despite being signifigantly down in horsepower due to the boost issue huffed and puffed it’s way to the top without a great deal of fanfare. At the summit I snapped a picture of our GPS unit reading just short of 9,100 feet of elevation. Wow!

A short distance after the summit we stopped at a gravel pull out and the kids were amazed to see snow, and plenty of it. We stopped to get out and stretch after the long climb and the kids took turns trying to climb the long trail of snow that led up the granite walls, and then we all had a snowball fight. In the middle of July. In shorts. Great fun!

The summit reached, the reality of going down the other side was upon us - the roads down were just as steep, and now the added challenge of keeping our truck and trailer under control from a speed perspective was my primary concern. Thankfully the truck once again did a great job but it was slow going - second gear was marginally too high at some points to maintain our speed without the need for brakes (which would quickly overheat and become useless if not used sparingly) so at times we had to crawl along at about 15 MPH in first gear, switching back to second in areas where some speed was OK.

Unfortunately we were behind schedule and darkness was falling, and with that, the number of deer on the side of the road, and increasingly darting across the road was becoming concerning. At about 4000 feet (2000 feet above the city of Sheridan below) we pulled off into a rest area / scenic lookout so that I could check the trailer brakes for temperature. It turned out that the rest area was occupied by plenty of people sitting in lawn chairs along the guard-rail. It suddenly dawned on us that they were waiting for the 4th of July fireworks.

We quickly made friends with a few people and subsequently did the same thing, pulling out our lawn chairs and taking in the show (from three different cities, none the less) ourselves. It was a great evening.

After the show, with continued concern about proceeding down the rest of the mountain with the deer everywhere, we decided to simply camp-out overnight at the outlook - it was cool and comfortable, and with virtually no traffic to be seen, it was silent with the exception of the crickets.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Despite a good effort to get up early, I slept in. I had slept like a log, but still didn’t feel well rested when I got up - this altitude thing is getting to me more then I expected. At least I hadn’t fallen prey to the head-splitting headaches that many with even less altitude tolerance fall prey to - I can at least deal with lethargy.

After a good breakfast I walked back to the shop to check on the truck.

The good news: It was ready.
The bad news: The bill was horrendous.
The worse news: It only partially fixed the problem.

As I drove the truck back to the campsite it was clear to me that something was still awry - there was still a serious lack of turbocharger boost with a corresponding lack of power.

With few other ideas of exactly what could be wrong, I decided we’d set off down the road and see if the problem cleared up - perhaps a sensor wasn’t registering the high altitude of Yellowstone correctly and it was incorrectly metering fuel, or wasn’t adjusting the turbocharger waste-gate properly. I was grasping at straws, but with few options for mechanical repairs in West Yellowstone and no indications that driving the truck as-is would lead to impending doom, we departed.

Unfortunately we weren’t 20 feet out of our campsite when another gremlin took hold - we had no trailer brakes. No amount of tweaking the brake controller of checking the electrical connections would remedy the situation. WTF?

To keep a long story short, we happened upon a mobile RV repair as we cruised towards the exit. With zero interest in descending the (notoriously steep) mountain roads exiting Yellowstone to the east without functioning trailer brakes, I commandeered their assistance to troubleshoot the problem. The story got even longer, but it ended up being a bad brake magnet, the problem which was solved by methods I won’t discuss here.

The good news: We had functional brakes on the trailer again.
The bad news: It took an hour to diagnose and repair what turned out to be a stupidly simple problem.
The worse news: It cost us another $100.00 for the hour worth of labor.

What the hell else could go wrong?

Todays plan took us about an hours drive away to Bay Bridge campground, which was actually a state park within Yellowstone National Park itself. We wanted to spent at least one night inside Yellowstone, and having made these changes very last minute we were lucky to get a reservation at any campground at this side of the park, so despite being one of the lesser-preferred locations, we took it.

Once again the drive through Yellowstone resulted in a number of animal sightings (Bison and deer) but not in the numbers we had expected, and to my daughters dismay we didn’t see a single mountain goat, moose, or grizzly/black bear.

We stopped at a few scenic lookouts (most of which I simply pondered what was going on under the hood of the truck while Christie and the kids took pictures and enjoyed the sights) and then arrived at Bay Bridge. We checked in, listened to the same “there are bears in this campground, stow your food inside, etc etc” speech that we had heard many times before in Banff and other campgrounds, and then headed for our site. We had problems actually getting the trailer to fit since this campground was clearly designed in the days of much smaller trailers. I’m quite adept at maneuvering our trailer around, but given the locations of berms, trees, signs, and the narrow bits of asphalt that they actually give you to work with (with warnings that you must stay on them) it was tough. Eventually, with much wiggling and several blocks of wood on one side to get us level, I managed to get it situated so that we could unhitch.

We enjoyed the evening and met another couple from Pennsylvania who’s children enjoyed the company of ours. They came over after dinner and we enjoyed the campfire together at our site - the social aspect of camping is one thing that I greatly enjoy, and we’ve met some great people while RV’ing.

The weather threatened as the evening wore on - the winds came up, the skies blackened, and lightening was visible. I was sure that we were going to be dealt our first real downpour of our vacation, but as has been the trend it seemed to simply skirt past us once again, dropping only a handful of rain-drops on us.

With the temperatures dropping and the evening wearing on, our neighbors headed back to their RV and we retired for the evening. We tried to get a television station to catch the evening news (I’ve been feeling particularly detached from the news, although I think that’s a good thing) but as I expected there was no television stations (or radio stations, for that matter) to be found on the dial. Instead we ended up watching “The bucket list” on DVD.

We headed off to bed, but I forgot to set the furnace beforehand. Ooops - a cool night was ahead.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Yep, Beautiful weather, again. The only moisture to be seen was what the RV parks sprinkler system had deposited on the side of our trailer through the overnight hours.

I planned on being at the garage bright and early with the hope that they could get started on the truck ASAP and hopefully (if their estimate held true) have us back on the road by noon-ish. I dropped it off, and walked back to the RV park which was actually only about 10 minutes away.

Since we were going to be stranded in town for at least the first half of the day we decided to make the best of it. We registered the kids at the “Junior Smokejumper” program in town (which was free with donations accepted) and me and Christie took the opportunity to have a bit of alone time. We checked out many of the small shops, bought a few things, and then wandered some more. I decided to take in the Yellowstone museum in town (Christie sat it out, opting to curl up in the sun and read instead) and was quickly pleased that it was not only priced reasonably, but actually turned out to be extremely interesting, at least from my perspective. It was kind of nice to not have the kids dragging me along with the usual “Can we leave now? This is boring!” situation.

With the kids still occupied me and Christie ducked into the only Chinese restaurant in town and treated ourselves to what turned out to be a scrumptious meal.

The kids called us on the FRS radios to let us know that they were done just as we were finishing up lunch, so we trekked back the few blocks to pick them up - turns out they’d had a great time and enjoyed the program a great deal.

I decided to run over to check on the truck (everything is only a few blocks away in this little town!) and was dissapointed to see that despite it being noon, they hadn’t even touched it. Ugh. The more I hung around and inquired, the more it became obvious to me that we weren’t going to be seeing the truck back much before 5PM, if at all today.

Sure enough, I called at 4PM and they were having nothing but problems repairing the issue and they said that we could come and get it in the morning.

With no other option we simply hung around town for the rest of the day. There was plenty of neat little shops and such that kept us occupied, and then late in the day Christie and the kids decided to take-in the local Grizzly and Wolf interpretive center. With the extreme lethargy still upon me I opted out, deciding instead to hang out at the trailer and try to get some sleep. Of course, despite my best effort (and seeming exhaustion) I couldn’t sleep, simply tossing and turning in bed instead. I decided to make myself useful and got up to make dinner instead.

With West Yellowstone being small, as mentioned, one advantage was that our FRS walkie-talkie radios worked effectively to and from just about anywhere in town - we were always able to touch base at the press of a button, which is exactly what I did when dinner was ready.

We chowed down and the kids took off the play while me and Christie flaked out. I was still utterly exhausted and took the opportunity to head to bed shortly after 9PM.

This time, I got to sleep.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

For fear of sounding like a broken record, the weather was once again perfect. Our luck continues.

We slept in and even after such I still felt groggy when waking up. Even the usual morning coffee just couldn’t seem to wake me up. I remember reading that some people are effected differently by the altitude of much of Yellowstone, and given some of the massive elevation changes over the last few days (being at sea-level only a few days ago) it seems that I might be falling prey to at least the “lethargy” part of the altitude sickness.

Once again putting the truck problems in the back of my mind (as much as possible as I was quite honestly freaking out about what could be wrong, still unsure about the exact issue) we decided to start the day by taking the tour to Old Faithfull.

After lining up at the actual park entrance (about 15 minutes) we paid our entry fee and headed into the park. With a keen eye open for any of the famous Yellowstone wildlife we headed for Old Faithfull. Within 10 minutes traffic was slowing down, and then almost stopped. We had heard of the famous Yellowstone traffic jams before, but had hoped to be able to avoid them, but it seems that wasn’t going to happen. After about 10 minutes in the traffic we came upon a curve in the road only to see that the jam went on for at least another mile. Ugh.

As we came around another corner we finally got to see what the jam was all about - a bald eagle nesting site was just to the side of the road and people were slowing down for pictures. There was signs instructing people to not slow down, not stop, and not park, but despite the presence of a park warden, clearly people were slowing down regardless and causing the jam.

Once past this area the traffic (thankfully) opened up and we reached the main loop road, turning south.

It wasn’t long and we were at one of the many famous Yellowstone thermal attractions. I honestly forget which ones we visited in what order as we stopped at several on the way, but each was a unique site to behold, despite the quite strong rotten-egg sulphur smell emanating from most of the springs and vents that left my kids cracking “who farted?” jokes.

We eventually reached Old Faithfull only to find that the parking lots were jammed full. After much driving around we finally found a spot (which was actually conveniently close to the geyser itself) and unloaded. Many photos, much video, and a geyser eruption occurred. Cool!

We checked out the giftshops (I finally found a “Yellowstone National Park” sticker for our trailer that I liked) and after spending an hour or so headed out. With a 90 minute interval between eruptions we simply didn’t find a whole lot to do to cover the time, and with the crowds growing to crazy proportions we felt like perhaps it was time to run - we’d seen Old Faithfull in all it’s glory.

On the way back we stopped at another thermal attraction that we had passed the first time. As we had endured earlier in the day, we once again waited in line for 15 minutes for the bathroom, which as is the case with most stops in Yellowstone short of the built-up Old Faithfull area) are simply glorified vault toilets of seriously questionable cleanliness. One major pet peeve of Yellowstone was that the bathrooms are simply inadequate. Vault toilets are understandable since many areas don’t have electricity or running water, but to only put two bathroom stalls in an area which potentially attracts several hundred (perhaps a thousand or more in peak times) per hour seems silly - there were constant lineups at all times at every attraction, with some people in line clearly not doing very well with the whole waiting thing, deciding to run off into the bushes instead.

After our bathroom adventure we headed out onto the catwalk and checked out the massive hot springs and steam vents at this attraction. There are signs everywhere warning people of the danger of as much as stepping off the boardwalks as many areas apparently look firm, but are simply skins on top of scalding hot water. I had no trouble with staying on the boardwalk until the point when the winds suddenly picked up and the skies suddenly blackened. I had to grab ahold of my hat and take extra caution to not get blown off the catwalk due to the still increasing wind gusts - I thought we were about to get soaked as we could see the rain in the distance, and it seemed to be heading our way.

That said, as has been the theme with this trip, our luck held firm and the storm skirted to the north of us, leaving us dry and free to enjoy the rest of the attraction, despite having rushed through some of it due to what appeared to be an imminent soaking.

Unfortunately our mechanical problems were still in the back of my head and I wanted to head into town with enough time left to find an open repair facility and have it assessed, so we headed for West Yellowstone once again. As we expected traffic was still backed up at the eagles nest, and with the park warden now absent people were blatantly ignoring the rules and parking on the side of the road, exiting the vehicles, and blocking traffic to get photos.

Arriving back in town I found a shop willing to deal with our issues, and made arrangements to drop off the truck the next morning bright and early.

We did some grocery shopping and browsed around town a bit, and then retired to the campsite for the rest of the day.

I had a bad feeling about tomorrow. I think this is going to be expensive.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Again, nice and sunny. Our luck has been excellent from a weather front.

After breakfast the kids took the opportunity to enjoy the parks pool once again. With a fairly lax schedule today (only a few hundred Kilometers to Yellowstone) we felt no need to rush, eventually rolling out of the campground at around 11:30. We stopped at the local Costco location for a few supplies and then hit the road.

The first few hours were interstate driving, fairly straightforward, however once we exited the highway for the last hour or so into the park, the scenery got much more interesting very quickly. It was very reminiscent of the stretch from Calgary into Banff - you can see the mountains in the distance getting closer and closer, and before long you are upon them.

The stretch from the entrance of the park to West Yellowstone (where our campsite was reserved long ago) seemed level to the naked eye, but referencing my foot on the throttle and the GPS, it was evident that we were actually in a long sustained climb.

I had noticed that the truck was noticeably louder when I started it up this morning, and added to that there was a seeming lack of power. Checking the boost gauge showed that it was only making a few PSI of boost, and looking in the passenger side mirror I could see black smoke under hard acceleration indicating that the engine wasn’t burning it’s fuel completely. Added to that the characteristic “Tick tick tick” noise emanating from under the hood under acceleration, and I knew that I had an exhaust manifold leak. Sure enough over the last few miles into West Yellowstone it got worse. This isn’t good - a diesel not making proper boost is not only going to be seriously lacking in horsepower, but it can be harmful since a great deal of unburned fuel simply generates heat instead of power. As much as the prospect of such seemed terrible, I was probably going to have to get this fixed in Yellowstone.

Putting the problems in the back of my head we logged the last few miles and arrived at West Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park. Check-in was effortless and we were on our way to our site a short while later.

The first thing I observed is that it’s clear we were outclassed by probably in excess of 80% of the RV’s in this park. Everywhere you look there are million dollar private coaches and $200,000 high end travel trailers. There was a spattering of middle-of-the-road RV’ers like us, but I was astounded by how few. This is a fairly high-class (and much more expensive) RV park compared to some others in the area, but I’ve began to notice from park to park that many of the casual campers are no longer coming out, probably because of the price of fuel. For the million-dollar coach owners I’m sure the price of filling the tank is inconsequential, but for middle class families or those on a tight budget it’s been my observation that RV’ing seems to be much lower on the priority list.

We backed into our campsite and were greeted by the mosquitos who immediately targeted us as easy pickings. First priority before all others was to douse ourselves in bug spray, and then setup camp.

As we expected in Yellowstone, the weather goes from one extreme to another - we were sweltering in the AM, got comfortably cool (and then hot again) on the way into the area, and by sundown we were shutting the windows and reaching for the furnace controls.

It was too late to bother actually going into Yellowstone park today, so we opted to simply enjoy dinner, enjoy the RV park, and then retire for the evening.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

The alarm went off at 7AM. The generator was still humming away despite my concerns that it might run out of fuel through the night, and upon inspection it still had over 1/4 of a tank of fuel, meaning it had only burned about $10 through the night - not bad.

I setup a pot of coffee, flipped up the TV Antenna long enough to see that there was zero television channels worth watching while we fixed breakfast, and eventually dragged everyone else out of bed.

We had a quick breakfast and after a bit of sightseeing (it really was a nice scenic outlook!) we set out onto the road again. Todays milage was approximately 550 kilometers which shouldn’t normally be a huge deal, but was once again elongated by the reality that there was some fairly notable mountain passes ahead of us. Once again the truck spiked a few uncomfortably high temperatures that kept me concerned. I would learn tomorrow that it wasn’t unwarranted concern as troubles unfortunately lie ahead.

We stopped in Spokane Washington for groceries and fuel, and after about an hour (and some lunch) we were back on the road.

We arrived in Missoula just before dinner, choosing a KOA to overnight at. I don’t usually prefer KOA campgrounds since they all feel rather sterile in my opinion, but this one had a pool and it was early enough for the kids to be able to enjoy it, so we opted to stay there. Of the many we’ve stayed at, it was well maintained, well organized, and generally enjoyable, but the actual campsites themselves still resemble glorified parking lots as it common at most KOA’s.

Since we’d had a late lunch we weren’t terribly hungry for dinner until later in the evening at which point we anxiously visited the local Cracker Barrel. We all absolutely love the Cracker Barrel but since there are none in Canada it’s a rare treat for us, one that we were surely repeat at least several more times before crossing back into Canada.

It was late when we got back to the campground so we retired for the evening. Me and Christie enjoyed the parks cable TV service and watched TV for an hour, and since I had WiFi internet for the first time in days I caught up on my blogging and surfing.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

It was Saturday morning, and it was time to pack-up and leave Vancouver. We had a great time, but unfortunately ran out of time to do all the things we really wanted to do - a whale watching adventure, a trip to Gastown, a ferry trip to Victoria and a few other excursions that we had hoped to accomplish simply didn’t happen.

The hot weather had arrived - we switched on the AC for the first time since the trip began and stayed cool while we packed up. Still beautifully sunny, the hot weather coupled with the humidity actually made it a bit uncomfortable, but we weren’t about to complain, although I was now glad that we had fixed the charging system on the truck as it meant that we could actually use the AC, rather then trying to conserve power to make it into the USA.

Our trip towards the border crossing at Washington state was only about 50 kilometers, of about a 45 minute drive through downtown and south towards the border. The trip went well until we reached the border and then came to a grinding halt about 2 kilometers from the border.

Listening to the radio it seems that the expected wait was about 3 hours. Crap. Perhaps we should have considered the fact that this was the Canada Day weekend and plenty of Canadians were headed south. Coupled with some grumblings we heard while waiting in line that there was some sort of border guard protest happening on the US side that was causing the delays to begin with, the wait seemed like it would really screw up our day.

And it was a long wait - for the first hour we moved no more then a few hundred feet. Others were growing frustrated and were shutting their vehicles off and walking ahead to see what the problem was. We took turns driving (a few feet at a time) and the other person would hop into the trailer and use the bathroom as necessary, etc.

At about the 1.5 hour point Christie ran back to the trailer and fixed us lunch which was actually quite enjoyable. Others in the line went hungry, or took the trek to the duty-free shop and payed massively inflated prices for mediocre food at the small cafe inside the store.

Once we actually arrived at the booths (in excess of three hours later) we found out why the delay was occuring - they were spending at least 3 to 5 minutes per vehicle - some sort of protest indeed I would guess. When we pulled up ourselves we got the fuzzy-eyeball on why we were crossing the border so far from home (apparently RV’ers don’t travel anymore?) and then the guard seemed to think that my truck had just been recently painted. Now, I can understand why this would cause concern (stolen vehicles routinely get repainted) but if anyone cares to look closely you can quickly find plenty of indications that despite being clean (I had just washed the truck in Vancouver before departing) it was anything but fresh paint.

I answered all the questions, was patient as he did everything short of crawl around underneath (He was curious why it was so “wet looking” underneath? My rust prevention spray I would guess?) and finally waved us through. Four hours after we left Vancouver, we were finally on the interstate.

This seriously screwed up our plans to be into the campground early in the afternoon - with about 400 Kilometers still ahead of us, allowing for a few rest and fuel stops, as well as the grades ahead, it was looking like we wouldn’t arrived until around 8:30 to 9:00 PM now. Ugh.

The drive went well despite one large grade that gave Rogers Pass in Alberta a run for it’s money - the weather was hot and sticky all day and the truck spiked a temperature that I had never seen before. Rather unsettling, but the truck seemed to handle it in stride.

We pulled into the State Park we had hoped to camp at (Petrified Forest state park in Vantage Washington) only to find it was full to capacity. (sigh) The park ranger came out and spoke to us - I tried to see if there was an overflow area that we could set up in for the night (since we were only here for a single night) but there was nothing available. He did however tell us about a scenic lookout a few miles up the road that might be a good area to boondock for the night, so with little other option at this point we set out down the interstate again.

Sure enough we found the lookout, and at 10PM with all of us tired, it looked pretty good to us - there was no signs that prevented overnight camping, and not a sole up there, so we setup camp for the night. I started up the generator to run the AC and we simply left it on all night long to stay comfortable. We watched a bit of a movie with the kids, and then quickly running out of steam, we crashed for the night at about 11PM.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

The drizzly and cold weather of Thursday was gone and the sun was shining once again and the temperatures were forecasted to be pleasantly warm all day. Despite being thwarted in our efforts to go horseback riding yesterday, todays weather actually turned out to be vastly better then what we would have been riding in yesterday.

We departed camp early in the AM in order to arrive at the stables ahead of our 10:30 appointment, and also leaving plenty of time to accommodate the anticipated construction delays. Despite encountering plenty of delays as expected, we arrived into Squamish with time to spare so we stopped at the unique tourist information center and killed some time.

Despite our stop we still arrived over 45 minutes early at the stables. This actually worked out well as our kids got the opportunity to help brush down the comb the horses in preparation for saddling. They both enjoyed this a great deal despite it being considered “Work” by anyone accustomed to horses.

The ride went well. Unfortunately as is common with riding stables the horses were pretty much on “Autopilot”. For our kids who have never been on a horse in their lives this was good - it’s tough to make a mistake when the horse knows the routine (and the trails) and could do the ride with it’s eyes closed. However, for slightly more experienced riders who would like to be able to have a little more control, trail horses leave a lot to be desired - they simply don’t respond to much, choosing to simply fall in line. Only twice during the ride did my horse actually answer my requests, breaking out into a trot once, and actually going where I wanted it to (over to my daughter for photos) at another point.

Regardless, the kids absolutely loved it (and the stable owner talked up my son to make him feel like a million dollars) so it was worth the hefty $160 price tag for the one hour experience. My daughter was just speechless about the whole situation and was grinning from ear to ear the entire time - I see riding lessons in her future.

Before long we were all done and back on the road for the 45 minute drive south back to Horseshoe Bay. Again, unlike yesterdays cold and dismal weather, today was beautiful and would be quite enjoyable for our boating adventure.

We only booked for an hour - the allowable operation area for the rentals was fairly small, and one hour seemed like plenty, so we figured we’d keep it short. I was surprised at the ease of renting a boat - in Ontario there is at least some basic training required in order to be set loose with a rental, but apparently here in BC all you need is a valid credit card and the ability to pay.

Not that this is a bad thing (I’m quite experienced with boats, having rented 70′ houseboats in the past and having grown up with a variety of boats as well) but I’m sure that others who are less experienced could be problematic if simply set loose with little to no training of operational basics.

The hour went fast, but was great fun. My daughter was unsure at first, grew fond of the whole experience, and then after a few bumps and bruises caused by some unexpected waves, unsure once again. I think overall both kids enjoyed it, but it was a bit overwhelming.

Despite grandeur plans to see all sorts of wild life, we only spotted one seal and a variety of common sea birds.

After returning the boat we experienced issues with our truck when we went to start it up to leave. The alternator had been malfunctioning for some time now and I had been “Nursing” it along with hopes to address it in the USA at significantly less cost, but unfortunately with the batteries now reaching the point where even starting the truck was becoming problematic, it was time to address it now.

We headed back into North Vancouver and returned to an auto parts shop that me and Cameron had scoped out the night before and I picked up a new Alternator. Once back at the truck I immediately prompted our GPS to show me the nearest repair facility that could install it for me which turned out to be a mere 300 meters away - we simply drove down the side street and pulled up in front.

Despite being only minutes from closing the guys took on the job after I explained my situation. In about 30 minutes we were back on the road, batteries charging.

A bit later then hoped we headed directly to our friends Cameron and Colleens for dinner which they had graciously invited us to. I felt a bit bad having held them up due to our unexpected repair, but the alternative was quite possibly breaking down on the side of the road on the way there, or not having enough battery power to adequately light way home afterwards.

Dinner was excellent - we must get the recipe for the pasta sauce!

We socialized and had a great time for a few hours, but eventually the evening drew to a close as Colleen had to head off to bed for her usual early-morning start to her day, and the kids all had to head off to bed. We took some last minute pictures, said our goodbyes, and headed out for the 30 minute drive back to the RV.

About 15 minutes into the drive my level of exhaustion from a few rough nights of sleep suddenly caught up to me and I literally felt like I was going to have to pull over for a nap at a few points, but I pressed on (jealous of everybody else napping during the drive) and made it back to camp. It’s been a great many years since I’ve felt this tired.

Needless to say the evening came to a quick end as we all crashed immediately.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

Sure enough when we woke up Sunday morning it was raining, and had been on and off through the night. Many of the one-night local campers were disappointed and promptly packed up and departed early, but we were in no rush, not technically having to check out until 11AM, and with only a planned ~300 kilometer drive today to Kamloops British Columbia.

I was glad that I had done much of the outside packing the night before as although it was not pouring rain there was a constant drizzle that would have made much outside work unpleasant.

We fixed breakfast and enjoyed a morning coffee before getting ready to break camp. Since we had been stopped for several days there is a bit more work involved in getting underway again - all the goodies inside that make there way out of storage during a multi-day stop must all be stowed again, and all of the umbilicals that tie a trailer to a campsite need to be disconnected.

The drizzle let up long enough for me to take care of much of the last minute requirements outside - unhooking the water, hydro and sewer connections, rolling up our mat, stowing the awning, and lastly, hooking the trailer to the truck again. Christie and the kids busily packed inside and then came outside to help. It wasn’t long and we were ready to roll out of Banff.

One of the advantages of driving in an area like this is that you are never at a loss for interesting scenery. The next several hours brought us upon one scenic mountain vista after another, one seemingly more awe inspiring then the last. Countless mountain streams and waterfalls dotted the landscape keeping my daughter busy “Oooh”ing and “Ahhhh”ing. Unsurprisingly our son had his face back into his video games and movies again, but he did lift his head to see the notable scenery when prompted.

It wasn’t long before the famous Rogers Pass was upon us - the uphill climb seemed relentless at about 13 kilometers long, and just short of 6%. The 6% grade was notable (but we’ve been up steeper), but in conjunction with it being 13 Kilometers long (and pulling a heavy trailer), it did call upon the truck to work hard, which it did without a hitch. Once at the summit there is a gift shop and historical/interpretive center, and a short distance after that the official summit marker - we stopped briefly at both.

While decending the other side of Rogers Pass I noticed the alternator on our truck had stopped charging as indicated by a charge guage that showed no activity. Sure enough as time wore on the battery voltages started to drop, confirming my diagnosis. Grr - we’ll have to address this on the road somewhere. It had been problematic for some time, but apparently the heat built up under the hood pulling the pass had finally cooked it for good.

The half-way point of todays drive put us near Revelstoke British Columbia where we decided to stop for lunch. Being a large ski-town I expected Revelstoke to be quite different then it actually was, but it turned out to be surprisingly bland after what we’ve come to expect of tourist destination cities in the mountains. We parked in the designated “RV Parking”, which turned out to be little more then the shoulder of the road, and had burgers for lunch.

I ran the generator to not only power up the trailer, but manually charge the batteries in the truck. Curiously, our parking spot was located immediately adjacent to an auto-parts store, so I went in to see about the cost of a new alternator for the truck, having little hope that they’d actually have the (very rare) model in stock. I was surprised when they said that they did indeed have it in stock, but after some discussion it became clear that there was nobody local that could actually install it for me, and I didn’t bring the tools necessary to do it myself. With no ability to get it installed locally I passed on the actual alternator purchase, deciding to address the issues in Vancouver instead.

After a little shopping afterwards we hit the road again. The last leg of the drive would take us into Kamloops BC where we planned to spent one last night on the road before the last leg into Vancouver on day 11.

It was interesting to see the landscape change once again as we got closer to the Kamloops area - the scenery changed from the lush mountain landscape we had gotten used to and became surprisingly desert-like as we approached the city.

The first campground that we stopped to investigate didn’t really seem like it would fit our needs, so we moved on into town and decided to checkout another. Unfortunately it was only marginally better, but by this point we were all fairly tired and the priority was setting up and making dinner, not finding a nicer campground. Aside from that, the winds were absolutely miserable, making it quite uncomfortable to even be outside when coupled with the cold temperatures. I did the bare minimum to get the trailer hooked up, and then retired indoors to turn on the furnace and warm up.

We did venture into town after dinner, but there was little notable - unfortunately the historic steam train that we were interested in was not yet running on a full summer schedule that would have allowed us to take a ride the following morning, so it was looking increasingly like day 11 would be an early start into Vancouver.

Despite the winds howling outside we soon asleep.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

(Note: No, we are not dead! We have arrived in Vancouver and are having a blast, but WiFi has been tough to find so I’m a bit behind updating the blog. I’m trying to catch up tonight- Wednesday)

Day 9: Second day at Banff National Park.

Again, we awoke to great weather. Given the dismal report on the recent weather from the locals, we were apparently very lucky to have arrived to the weather we were receiving.

After breakfast we decided that we’d have a bit of a slower today given the hectic pace of yesterday. My daughter was excited about riding the Banff transit system as each of the busses were animal themed - there was a Wolf bus, a Mountain Goat bus, Grizzly Bear, and Elk bus. We split up at the campsite and my wife indulged her with a ride into town while me and my son drove in shortly afterwards.

We wandered through town again. Being Saturday it was already much busier then it had been earlier on Thursday and Friday (the area was swamped with tour busses and rental motor-homes), so it was nice that we had done most our browsing already and didn’t need to fight the crowds. We checked out a few more stores and then went down to the waterfront to let the kids play for a while and burn off some energy.

Our only real goal for today was to visit the Banff upper hot springs - a pool that is fed by natural hot springs that emanate from the mountains themselves, and once we left the pool we took the short drive to the springs which were actually situated right next to the tramway we had visited yesterday.

I was quite surprised at the cost of the hot springs admission, but there was a discounted family pass for $22 - still a fairly stiff cost for what amounted to a swim, but the novelty of it being a naturally fed hot spring was what justified the extra cost, as well as the tourist-trap status.

The actual pool itself was quite enjoyable at about 38c (103′ish F?), although the weather had warmed up to a level where it became uncomfortable to be in the pool for more then about 10 minutes at a time. We took turns getting in and then sitting up on the decks to cool off. I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed in the level of repair that the actual pool area was in - there was several areas where masonry was cracked and literally falling apart, and some areas of the pool showed a lack of care.

We spent about 2 hours total at the hot springs and then headed back to the campground. Our GPS was once again confident that it needed to take us off the beaten path so I decided to indulge it’s insistence for us to “Turn left!” at one point and it took us up into a residential area. I can’t say that this wasn’t interesting as the architecture of many houses in the Banff area is unique, but it seemed that the GPS was completely brain-dead as it started to take us in a perpetual loop, apparently unable to find the blatantly obvious route back to the Tunnel Mountain campground where we were staying. Of course, we knew how to get there (and the city has excellent signage) so we eventually ignored it’s insistence to drive in circles and got back en-route, at which point the GPS came out of it’s daze and routed us directly to the campground.

We were back at the campground early, and I can’t say that this wasn’t welcome - we had a relaxing evening to unwind and fix a great dinner.

Shortly after dinner there was a coyote that strolled through camp - our kids thought it was quite the sight, and we managed to snap a few excellent pictures before it sauntered back into the mountains behind the campground.

It began to cloud over as we settled in for the evening - perhaps our luck with the weather was running out, and a quick glance at the forecast confirmed that we were due for some rain overnight and into the next morning. Since we were leaving in the morning I decided to fold up all of our camp chairs and stow them, and get everything else under the awning - just in case.

That was a good decision.

Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there.

We awoke to brilliant sunshine outside our bedroom windows. I cranked open my blinds and sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at the view - and wow, what a spectacular view - one of the 8000 foot snowcapped mountains that surround the city of Banff are my morning scenery.

We fix another big breakfast while the kids sleep in a bit, and then rouse them when it’s time to eat. Coffee once again ensues although the anticipation of the day ahead has me anything but sleepy.

An hour or so later we pack up our gear and head off for the 10 minute drive into downtown Banff, trying to beat the crowds that I guess will build later in the day. It’s a short drive and it doesn’t take us very long to find free parking in the downtown core. This is a very tourist-friendly city, and there is free on-street parking, parking lots, and even RV parking right in the core. Unfortunately the main street, Banff Avenue, is under construction and closed to traffic. Construction crews are busy jackhammering the street and installing new textured crosswalks.

After parking we grab our camcorder and camera (assuredly the locals have no problem spotting the tourists here) and make the one block trek from where we parked to Banff Avenue.

The scenery is simply amazing as are all the shop fronts, - it’s hard to beat a city nestled in between several major mountain ranges, with every single building in the city maintained to impeccable standards and many exhibiting the attractive “mountain cabin” style of architecture. Even the local three level parking garage was made to blend into the mountain-town style of the city. The landscaping and parklands were maintained to what were clearly very high standards, and everything seemed perfect - except for the construction barricades and ongoing construction itself.

It wasn’t long before we found a shop to visit - one of hundreds on Banff Avenue alone. Most shops are based (unsurprisingly) based around the tourists, offering a mix of unique and interesting items, plenty of clothing stamped prominently with “Banff”, and of course, a broad mix of incredibly tacky (yet apparently still sellable) “souvenirs”. There’s also lots of food shops ranging from a unique artisan bread shop to on-site made fudge and other assorted sugary treats. Of course there’s also a few of the big chains - McDonands, Subway, and Starbucks, but a curious lack of a (normally ubiquitous) Tim Hortons coffee shop.

Within an hour and a half we had visited probably 6 or 8 shops and spent nearly $100 already, but considering we had spent very little of our entertainment budget to date, that was OK.

After a few hours in town it started to get noticeably busier as many of the other tourists wandered into town along with us. We decided it was time to grab a bite to eat - the kids wanted McDonalds, Christie decided to take in dish from a local restaurant, and I chose Subway. Unfortunately the laid back pace of living here also seems to translate through to at least some of the restaurants - service at the McDonalds was dismal with it taking almost 15 minutes from the time I ordered to the time that someone actually taking the kids meals (which had now sat on the warmer for over 5 minutes of that time) and packing them into the happy-meal bags for us. Service at the Subway was better, and Christies dish at the restaurant was also served promptly.

One of the most curious (but strangely entertaining) stores we visited was the “Cows” store where there was a mix of products all built around a Cow them, and another notable one was a huge gemstone store where there was every imaginable (and some mind-numbingly expensive) pieces.

We retired to the local park for a rest, and then decided to head to the Sulphur Mountain tram experience for the afternoon.

The admission to the tram wasn’t inexpensive at nearly $80 for the family, but wow, what an experience - an 8 minute ride takes you to around 8000 feet to the center at the near top of the mountain, and the view is nothing short of excellent. From where the tram lets you off, there is about a one kilometer long staircase that takes you from the observation center / tram station literally to the peak of sulphur mountain where a historic cosmic ray observatory is located. The hike took us about 40 minutes on the way up - despite being an excellent system of staircases up and down with rest stops (and scenic lookouts) on the way, the simple fact that you are at 8000 feet of elevation (at virtually the tree-line) means that effective oxygen transfer becomes more difficult, especially when your out of shape like me. Even after small uphill climbs we found ourselves stopping and resting.

Arriving at the observation station itself presents an interesting lesson on the history of the station, and wow, what a view. It was however somewhat windy and chilly, unsurprising for being at literally the highest peak of a mountain. We took countless pictures and probably a half hour or more of video of the mountain vistas, the town of Banff far below, and all the surrounding scenery. Unfortunately the mountain goats that my daughter had been anticipating were curiously absent, although there was lots of interesting animals around to see none the less.

The hike back to the tram station went quicker as it was mostly downhill, and we then spent about 30 minutes in the station at the gift shop and upper observation level.

At about this point my neck started to stiffen. About 6 years ago I had a C1/C2 cervical spinal fusion, and I live with some constant residual pain as a result, but this was an unusual level. Once we boarded the tram for the trip back down the mountain the pain only got worse until we reached the bottom where I was in probably the worst level of pain I’ve experienced with my neck since the surgery itself. I don’t know whether it was simply a result of me craning my neck around constantly without noticing it, or something to do with the rapid altitude changes, but it was quite unpleasant. It was tolerable, but unpleasant none the less.

We packed up and headed back into town to pickup some groceries, and then headed back to the campsite for dinner. I immediately took a bunch of Tylenol and relaxed to see if my neck pain was just muscular, or something worse. Thankfully the Tylenol alone seemed to relieve most of the issues, so it must simply have been too much strain, perhaps accentuated somewhat by the altitude extremes.

The rest of the evening was enjoyed at the campsite, exploring the grounds. Deer and elk are often within a hundred feet or so of the campsites, and we have seen at least one wolf, one fox, and there was reports of black bears in the area.

Just another day in Banff. :-)