“Loose Meat” – Rochester, MN

Remember on the Rosanne (Barr) show, she and her sister had a restaurant named “Lunch Box” and their specialty was “loose meat” sandwiches. Well, we went to a “Made-Rite” fast food joint and had “loose meat” sandwiches. Basically, they are cooked hamburger free-form no patty just the ground beef. A little like “Sloppy Joe’s” but not so sloppy nor so spicy; in other words, bland bland bland. But we finally had one!

Parked - Rochester, MN

We are here for 2 nights then on eastward. The roads out of eastern South Dakota and most of Minnesota (so far) are a bit rough (bumpy, holely, etc.) Sometimes they pavement is a red/pink color both in South Dakota and Minnesota. Not all of Interstate 90 (nor both directions at the same time) - weird but true. All that federal money spent on the roads in Montana could have been useful here in Minnesota, too.

Another thing we keep forgetting to share is that South Dakota is mostly ranches / range areas in the Western side and farms on the eastern side. I know you all were waiting with baited breath for that tidbit of knowledge. You just never know when a Trivia or Jeopardy question needs this very bit of fact!

We are very glad that Minnesota state government is back in business because the rest stops would have been closed. We have never met a Rest Stop we didn’t like!!!

So Hot - Blackhawk SD

It is so hot here that when taking Karma for a walk she walks in our shadows.

Seashells Museum – Broadus, MT

The main reason for stopping in Broadus was Mac’s Museum, which houses, among other things, 20,000 seashells. Boots and Kassie share a love of and have quite a collection of seashells, so this was a must. Given the high temps and the museum not having AC, Boots rushed off to see the seashells after crawling out from under the RV and doing a quick shower. She parked the truck under a big shade tree and did a speedy tour, while keeping one eye on the temp.

“Mac” McCurdy, born 1888, collected, identified and catalogued the specimens. He left his collection to the town and it’s housed at the Powder River Museum, which is well worth several hours of attention (in cooler temps). Museum is free, run by volunteers, 2 of whom are 90+.

Broke Down – Broadus, MT

You know how when you are driving along the road you sometimes see strips of tire or even whole sections of tread. Well, now we know what happens next! After a short day (120 miles from Hardin, MT to Broadus, MT) in very hot weather (getting up to 100⁰), we pulled into our next RV Park. The interior roads were a bit rough. We got out of the truck and scoped out the site options. Picking the best (we think), Boots pulled to the outside of the pathway and turned right into the spot. While Ruthi directed and generally ensured she didn’t hit the water/electric/sewer connections.

Then all hell broke out – loud metallic noises, things flapping around the passenger side 5th wheel tires, and water is gushing out of the fresh water (? we are hoping – and finally proven correct) tank storage. We stop and look aghast stunned by the event. The very high temperatures sent us into speed mode to get set up and inside to the air conditioning where we begin to think out the situation. Realizing we need more information, we wait until it cools and do the look-see. Knowing we need to go under the rig, we finally agree that due to the high temperatures (and an excess of grasshopper and black flies) we need to wait until early in the morning to crawl under there.

So, we start looking at the area around the 2 tires. Look at the prior blog entry to see how it’s suppose to look. Here’s how it looks now.






This metal bar was originally horizontal with the ground, supporting the edge of the fender, and attaching the “fender” light between the tires. It is now detached from the “fender” and perpendicular to the ground with the electrical wires ripped from the side light.

To the left of the wheel the “fender” and its own bar are twisted and broken. The fender has been cut/split and bent out and up.






Now both Boots and Ruthi take turns crawling under the rig to see what is what – The fresh water sensor (and later identified as quick release flushing switch) is shown here.





Electrical wires are ripped out of the front tire braking mechanism.







And finally, something is hanging from the back tire brake. It’s kinda flat ribbony of unknown origin.







Now, we begin the serious discussions. We are in Broadus, Montana, population 500 very nice friendly people. We are 150+ miles from our next stop – Rapid City SD (population 67,000). We already have a repair guy waiting to do work on the fresh water tank while we are there. So, we call him concerned not only with the size of the required work but the safety of driving 150 mile with this type of damage (realizing that towing would be very expensive). We disagree on an approach – Boots wants to drive slowly to Rapid City and deal with the problem there. Ruthi is worried that the whole thing is unsafe and worth the money. Boots is more frugal and thinks driving is the best way – plus the fact that even our roadside service can’t tell us if there’s any place closer than 150 miles that does RV repair OR that can tow us. This means a tow truck has to come 150 to get the RV and then tow it back – yowsa!! Ruthi’s wondering just what her life is worth; while Boots worries about the money.

We call our Reno, NV handy woman Connie of “Connie Can”. Much to Ruthi’s disappointment Connie agrees with Boots. Of course, at this point, both of us have failed to see the tire damage (it’s the innermost 1 ½ in. of tread AND it’s dark under there. So when she asks if the tires are ok, we say yes! She says “What difference does it make whether you tow it or a company tows, except for the price?” Ruthi suggests liability. There is no swaying Boots or Connie. So, we start looking for a towing company in Broadus first – thinking it would be faster (no need to wait for them to get here from Rapid City) and maybe cheaper – no luck.

We then think we need an expert opinion – somebody locally that could assess the situation and advise a solution. So, we ask a tow guy in Miles City (about 65 mi. north of Broadus) and he says it’s either Billings or Rapid City (well, Billings if 150 or so miles back west). We call a tire place in Broadus and ask who might we get to help us assess the safety of towing it ourselves to Rapid City. He suggests Grant Trucking & Repair in Broadus. Elwin (the owner) very fortunately has time available and comes right out with one of his team and they crawl under the rig.
Guess what? All of the damage was caused by the treads ripping off of the tires (yep both of them at approximately the same time). The treads pulled the front brake’s electrical connections, the cable for emptying the fresh water tank (hence the flooding), bent the “fender”, broke away from the side light’s wires, damaged the brake housing of one of the tires etc. etc. etc.

So, we need new tires, brake work, and minor body work (until we can get to a Camping World shop) at a minimum to get us to Rapid City. Elwin suggests we drive very slowly to his shop (3 miles) and then stop by Hi-Tech tires and see if they have replacement tires in stock - keep in mind this is Broadus, Montana – population 500 very nice people. We are in luck (maybe) they have 14-ply tires (better than what we had (10-ply) but a smart choice) in stock. Then we spend the rest of today hauling dead tires back to be mounted and staying cool in the air conditioned truck while Elwin and his team make repairs.

Fortunately, Elwin was very accommodating and we were able to stay plugged into land power and could keep the AC on and sleep in the RV that night. We are able to leave for Rapid City (Blackhawk, technically) only about 3 hours behind schedule.

Exterior Pictures - Hardin, MT

HOT - Hardin, MT

We are heading East right into the HEAT WAVE attacking the Mid-West! We backed-in to our site for the night at 2:15pm, temperature was 85⁰ and rising. Luckily we have electricity and air conditioning. So far so good! We are positioned East to West. That means that the rig front-end and truck are getting hot western sun but no windows on that end of the 5th wheel except for a small one in the bedroom that has a reflective insert to stop the heat. By the time the Eastern Sun gets up tomorrow, the building and tree at that end of the RV will shade the large “picture” window on that end of the rig.

Sunny - Boseman, MT

“Big Sky” country - that’s what they call Montana. After the 2 days of rain showers cleared late yesterday afternoon, it was easy to see why! The view is vast - from the mountain ridges and BLUE BLUE BLUE! Bozeman isn’t very large (35,000 + university) but it has a movie theater, Sushi (according to Ruthi’s sorority sister – Barb) and lots of restaurants with outside seating downtown on Main Street. There’s even a café named Zydeco (New Orleans-Cajun menu). We ran out of time to stop there but there’s always next time!! Ruthi likes the feel and look of the place; too bad it has snow and cold for weather.

Just an aside, we forgot to put in the Bozeman, MT entries. Our GPS (built-in on the Ford) has a lot of challenges with the streets beyond the highway routes in Bozeman. Our RV Park and Ruthi's Sorority sisters house we on unknown "yellow" paths on the screen. But Gypsy (our GPS voice) was able to tell us when we had arrived at our destination.

Idaho to Montana

WOW, WOW, WOW – if you haven’t driven through Montana from Missoula to Butte, you are missing an amazingly beautiful drive. The climb from the Idaho-Washington border is long and gradual through Missoula to Butte. The Missoula to Butte is really beautiful. Then just after Butte (which probably explains the name), we climbed straight up to 6383 feet above sea level at the Continental Divide in the Rockies. And, then knowing about gravity it was straight down – 6 miles of 6% grade – so steep and curvy that semis were required to go 25mph – DOWN HILL! But as soon as the 6 miles were up it was back to nice relatively flat curvy driving.

Montana, like all cold weather state is doing a lot of road work. While we are slowed to 45 or 55 and one lane, the lack of traffic makes it much less problematic. At least, in Montana they lower the speed limit from 75 for cars/65 for semis to 45 or 55 depending upon the type of road work being down. Wyoming never lowers the 75 mph limit at all. Even sometimes there are sections with no speed limit at all.

Road Work - Missoula, MT

It was raining when we left Cheney. We thought that might be good news because there is a lot of road work between the campground and the Idaho border. Well, we were wrong – a little or a lot of rain didn’t keep them from working and slowing traffic to a single lane.

Up, up, and away – we started climbing as soon as we got into Idaho. And continued to the Montana border, where we crossed the top of the Rocky mountains (these are nowhere near as high or scary as the Canadian’s version – there were white lies, guard rails, and shoulders!) and headed down to Missoula. It didn’t take very long to get to the high valley that surrounds Missoula. If you want to read about the settling of this area, try any of Ivan Doig’s books. We both especially liked Whistling Season!! We must have crossed the Clark Fork- largest river by volume in Montana- most of its path runs parallel with Interstate 90, at least a dozen times.

There was road work again in Montana – Interstate 90 was reduced to 1 lane each way on the West-bound or East-bound depending upon which side of the bridge they were working on. That went on for about 60 miles total.

Visiting - Spokane, WA

On our way to Spokane, WA Tuesday, we noticed that the high desert growing valley extended quite a ways from Yakima, WA. We had thought that Eastern Washington would be more forested with fir and old growth oak, etc. But the desert extended to about 50 or so miles West of Spokane. Then the trees started to show. In one rolling field, there were just 2 fir trees standing alone on the hillside. Our campground is very treed and we are unable to get satellite even with our mobile dish setup.

We went into Spokane, WA today. It was a challenge to find an appropriate dog daycare that is large enough for the number of dogs and would take Karma for an evaluation after 9am (we called too late to get her in there by 9am). Also, we are finding out that off-leash dog parks are not even present in Spokane, WA but maybe in Coeur d'Alene, ID (30 miles East of here). We haven’t seen any recycling bins here at the campground or around Spokane, WA, either.

Seems we might be in “white” country. Looking at the demographics (460K population) , it doesn’t look too colorful or diverse overall – 89% white. They have a pretty standard looking “Bell” curve for the ages between “Under 5” and “75-84”.

The streets in Spokane, WA itself are very rough. We think they are the roughest we have seen in cities. We saw a couple of large parks. There are 7 bridges that cross the wide Spokane River. We had to cross a couple of times and found the traffic moved well back and forth. On Interstate 90 coming back West to the campground, the right lane is rutted down about 3-4 inches. They are working on sections of it to re-pay. It looks like overweight trucks/haulers are to blame. Going East into town the ruts were not very deep and we weren’t having trouble staying smooth.

Pet Peeves - Spokane, WA

One of the constant problems with RVing is that the parks have sets of rules that are enforced arbitrarily. For example, “all pets must be on leashes”; unless they aren’t! Even when informed of cats or dogs not leashed, the parks rarely follows through on enforcement. We asked our neighbors on the North side to leash their 2 smallish fluffy dogs (nicely, I might add). As we were heading out to tour Spokane, we called the office and asked them to enforce the rule. Upon our return, the neighbors had moved the dogs further away from our space but did not leash them. And, they had left small poop in our space.
Chris Matthews (of MSNBC) pronounces VP Cheney’s name the way it’s pronounced in Wyoming. So, we tried to figure out if Cheney, WA is pronounced like the VP does or like Matthews does. Well, some people did it each of the ways. So, we asked around and were told that they pronunciation was changed after he became VP but it didn’t stick – at least in Cheney, WA.

Ford F350 - Spokane, WA

As we drive across America, we often wonder what crops are being grown on the fields to our left/right. Sometimes, our history and childhoods helps us out – corn and wheat for Ruthi and cotton for Boots. Today on Interstate 90 from Yakima, WA to Cheney, WA at about miles 151 to 180, there are signs (like street signs size and lettering) on the fencing that separates the highway from the access/frontage roads. We are guessing that some local 4-H group did the work to make us travelers much more informed. We passed potato, grain corn, sweet corn, grass hay, and timothy hay fields.

Occasionally, we have a lot of traffic going our way but (as today) we have noticed that fewer cars are going our way. We like to think it’s because we are free thinkers on adventure but since we mostly are on interstates, it doesn’t seem likely. When we were going North on WA 97 to Yakima, WA everybody was going South. In fact we saw a 5th wheel with a very long parade behind them. There had to be at least 100 vehicles waiting to get around the slower moving 5th wheel.
Since this drive was a bit smoother (i.e. more level) we were watching our MPG. There was a 30+ mile part of the trip where the message was “Cleaning Exhaust Filter”. That seemed to make a difference and we slowly moved from 9.0 to 9.1, 9.2 and ended at the campsite with 9.4 MPG. So, we are hoping that it is finally back on track because our call into the Spokane, WA Ford dealer was less than helpful. We have had relatively good customer service and responses across America, with the exception of only a few (Bishop, CA; Gresham OR; and now seemingly Spokane, WA).

Leaving - Portland, OR

We got up as usual at 8-ish and got organized to leave our spot in Portland about 10am. We had gone about 25 miles when our display showed a WRENCH and the message “Engine Reduced Power”. Just prior to that Ruthi had heard a sort of “slap” sound. But pulling a 5th wheel there are a lot of sounds of things flying around hitting other things. But the truck definitely slowed and cruise control no longer worked. It didn’t die totally so Ruthi was able to get it off at the next exit and we called Ford Road Side Assistance.
We were sent back to Portland to the Ford dealer/service who had so recently replaced one of the many radiators. We stopped at the RV Park and dropped the rig in our old space we had so recently vacated. Then off to the Ford dealer. We told them we were heading to Yakima, WA and needed to get out of town as soon as possible. Their response was if it’s simple – ok but it might require an order for parts.

So, the three of us sat (or in Karma’s case lay down and went to sleep) in the customer waiting room. We finally were able to get them to shut off the TV - was on CNN constantly covering the Casey Anthony returned verdicts – so we could at least sit in somewhat of a peace. Then our service rep told us that it was just a new thermostat that was covered under warranty and we’d be off soon. Well, soon for them and soon for us isn’t exactly a match.

3pm - we get the truck and rig re-connected and ready once again to head to Yakima, WA (175 miles). Off we go, tired but energized to “get out of dodge”. Interstate 84 along the Columbia River Gorge is flat and picturesque but when we cross over to WA 97 it was very hilly (mountains maybe but nothing like the Rockies). We had filled up the tank (diesel at Safeway was 3.89 with customer savings) the day before we left but with errands and this 50 miles wasted trip out of town and back, we were less than full when we took off the second time. We notice that they reset the mileage indicator so it was pretty low. With the hills up and down it was to be expected to be low calculating from 0. But then we noticed it wasn’t getting past 8.9/9.0 MPG. EGADS – we can handle the pricing of diesel at 3.99 or so with MPG at 11.5 – 12.0 when towing and 12-5 – 13.0 when around town or on the highways (not towing). But this was BAD.!

We starting watching our gas gauge, miles-to-empty status and looking for diesel stations that are big enough for our rig. We finally pick the place to have both a potty-break and fill up diesel. About 6 miles out we see signs about some detour coming up. Well, Gypsy (our GPS) didn’t know about it, so we slowed down trying to figure out what it means to us – no gas station for us, the EXIT was closed. So, on we go to our camp ground. After signing in and getting assigned our space, Boots starts the car and gets a beeping with this message “45 miles to empty”. She parks and we talk with the RV Park about the closest diesel station in Yakima, WA near us.
Ruthi is out walking the dog and sees a diesel station about a block away. Both of us are concerned that we seem to be using diesel entirely too fast. Something has to be wrong. We also did not get the message “Cleaning Exhaust Filter”; which is a very frequent staple of towing 200 miles a day between stops. Tomorrow morning we’ll again fill up and track out mileage to the Spokane, WA area (190 miles).

Stores - Portland, OR

Beauty Salon - Ain't Ms B Haven
Another Beauty Salon - The Greatest Little Hair House in Gresham, OR
Animal Rescue - Chase Me Again
Thrift Shop - Bizarre Bazaar
Russian Mini-Mart - Babushka

Books - Portland, OR

Last year when we were in Portland, a cousin of Ruthi’s recommended that we check out Powell’s Bookstore in downtown Portland. With Boots' medical events we ran out of time before we had to cut short our stay and head back to Reno.

Now that we had a little car off we went. OMG!!! Ruthi spent an hour in just 2 rows on the first floor (Orange Room). We would need a month camped downtown to even begin to appreciate the immense selection!!! Luckily, Ruthi was able to review some options for a customer but not buy anything! SO, if you are ever in Portland, do go see Powell’s. With our modern age of email, tweets, texting, etc. etc. etc. it is amazing to find every imaginable genre and title just on the shelves for a look-see.

And, then we found a used book store - “Barely Read” in Gresham (NE suburb of Portland). While nowhere near as large as Powell’s, it is tightly packed with every possible genre for $0.60 each. They also took all of our books we’d finished - that rarely happens.