Our Travel Blog

Ahhhhh.. Cooler temperatures, but an increase in humidity. I guess you can’t win them all.

We woke up to a sunny, but cooler day. It was tempting to switch off the A/C, but the outside humidity dictated otherwise. After breakfast we headed off to the local hardware store to get the fittings I needed for the plumbing job. Problem was, there was no hardware store, there was a closed down hardware store, but that wasn’t too much use! We came back to the trailer and searched the web for another store (who would have thought that getting plumbing fittings could be so difficult!)

The nearest store was in Paola, about 12 miles away, so off we headed. This area seems far more prosperous than recent places we have been to, many large houses on 1 acre + lots, with well kept grounds.

Finally …… success, I got the fittings I needed, in addition we discovered that Paola was an interesting old town town with a central square dating back to the mid 1800’s. It also has a well known BBQ shack… we’ll be going back.

After lunch I installed the new faucets while Lyn went to do the laundry, evidently this is the cheapest place we have discovered on this trip at $2.25 to wash and dry the load.

We took a wander around the campsite, which seems to have a mixture of semi-permanent residents and weekly visitors with very few one nighters.

The grounds are quite well laid out, despite the Kansas heat, with flower gardens and a large fishing pond / lake.

Late afternoon was spent sitting under the awning as a thunderstorm tracked by us! Tomorrow we’re off for a tour around the tri-State area of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

We seem to have got this packing up down to a fine art now, within 45 minutes of falling out of bed we were on the road.

Today’s destination was Louisburg Kansas, on the Kansas – Missouri border.

The day started off nice and cool at around 21C. The sky ahead looked quite black and threatening, but we never caught up with the bad weather although the roads were wet in places.

The trip today was mostly downhill, literally. For the first time in a couple of months we descended below 1000 ft. There were a number of wind farms along the I-70, given the way the wind was always blowing at the campground, they must produce a fair amount of electricity.

The scenery changed from large wheat and corn fields to gently rolling, wooded hills. About 350 kms of the trip was Interstate and the remaining 150 kms on smaller, but straight roads.

We arrived at the campground around 2 PM, and the truck surpassed itself, not a single problem the whole day!!

Unlike the previous campground, this one was pretty full when we arrived, I think it is going to be more tourist traffic than itinerant.

We also seem to be a bit closer to civilisation, perhaps I’ll get the new kitchen taps in tomorrow!

Again a coolish night, no problem sleeping.

After breakfast I headed out to the local hardware store to pick up the fittings I needed to install the new faucets. Well that was an exercise in futility, the store had nothing that could even be cobbled together to get the required end result.

Back at the trailer Lyn was busy quilting, so I played computer programmer for a while.

The weather forecasters here aren’t too bad at forecasting the weather, but leave a lot to be desired when it comes to forecasting the temperature. Again we reached up into the low 90’s. I think the heat has been one of the reasons we have been happy to hang around here and do very little, another reason is that there is very little to do.

Some kids had the audacity to take over “our” swimming pool (we’re usually the only people in the campground in the early afternoon) playing a noisy game of Marco Polo. We gave the pool a miss!

I started packing up a lot of the outside stuff in preparation for an early morning departure tomorrow. The next campground will be the last on this trip except for 2 days in Alabama which will be the new permanent home for the trailer. Hopefully the next week will see a little more activity in the touring department.

A cool night last night, down to 18C at one stage. We managed to leave the A/C off all night and most of the morning.

In keeping with the idea that this stop is a “vacation within a vacation”, nothing was planned for today, and likely not for tomorrow either!

Lyn continued working on her quilt, and I started on installing the new faucets. I got the old ones out without too much bother, installed the new ones and went to connect them up….. whoops, different fittings, they won’t connect. No problem, off to the local hardware store, they’re bound to have what I need. They almost certainly had the right fittings, but being deep in the heart of darkest rural Kansas the shop was well and truly closed, this being a Sunday. Back to the trailer, take out the new faucets, put in the old ones, pretend nothing happened and wait until tomorrow!

After lunch we headed out for a walk, we decided to see if we could find the cache that eluded us the other day. After 30 seconds of searching we found it. We managed to get a 1.5 mile walk in, which is the first lengthy walk for a couple of weeks due to the heat.

Back at the campground we went over to the pool before the itinerant hoards arrived and had the place to ourselves.

There was one other group that stayed for the day, they were in a rather sophisticated tent. Not the best picture as it was in the shade.

About 2 AM we awoke, or were awoken, by the sound of rain and thunder. There was also a near non stop display of lightning from above the clouds. After watching the spectacle for a while, it was back to sleep until our usual wake up time.

After breakfast we hung around the trailer, although initially it wasn’t as hot as it had been, the humidity had risen to about 60%. Recently humidity levels had been below the 30% mark.

Lyn did some quilting, and I set about devising a way to create some storage space in the trailer from a wasted area we had found that existed behind a panel near the entrance way.

After lunch we headed out to Hays, about 30 miles away to do our weekly shopping. We also wanted to get a new faucet set for the kitchen as the current set is beginning to corrode and is getting difficult to move. A job for tomorrow.

The humidity was increasing, as was the temperature which peaked at 34C, we then got a few showers and the thunder started rumbling again. After a quick visit to Home Depot for the faucets, there was a more leisurely stop at Hobby Lobby then we got the grocery shopping out of the way. This was the last major grocery shopping of the trip.

Back at the trailer we sat outside surrounded by dark grey clouds, the rumble of thunder and a severe thunderstorm warning. The storm was still a fair way off as far as visible lightning was concerned, but the the rumble of thunder was nearly constant. As the storm got closer, it started to rain, a good hint to head inside. We were then treated to more intense lightning and much louder claps of thunder. Looking at the radar, these storms are likely to continue well into the night.

The good news is the temperature has dropped to 20C and we can switch off the A/C. Forecast temperatures for the next few days are more reasonable at around 28C.

A coolish night, the A/C didn’t need to run all night long!

Today was a vacation day, of sorts! This morning was reasonably cool, so we sat outside for a while in the breeze. Then I got bored! I needed to do a little first aid on the truck, it suffered an injury going through the car wash a few days ago. As the car wash machine started up and approached the truck I decided it would be a good idea to read the warning signs, one of which was “we accept no responsibility for damage to bug shields”. Umm, wonder if that applies to me?? It was too late do anything about the situation, so I just sat there and watched as the revolving brushes attacked my bug shield, pulling one side off the hood. Out of the car wash I managed some temporary repairs, then yesterday in Great Bend I got some replacement fasteners. Unfortunately I wanted fasteners that fitted a 9 mm hole, 9 mm is a foreign language down here, so I got a pack of what looked like 9 mm. I was close they were 3/8″, just under 1 mm too large, nothing a sharp knife couldn’t fix!

The bug shield is now firmly back in place.

Next project was to fix the igniter on the BBQ, I have four deceased igniters here from previous repairs (I have problems throwing some things away) but no new ones. Much to my amazement all 4 dead ones had come back to life, I guess they just needed a rest!

BBQ now ignites at the push of a button.

After lunch we headed out on a geocaching session, we found 6 out of 7. Not bad, after a bit of research I think I can find the 7th as well.

Yet again the temperatures were in the high 90’s so we were pretty warm after we got back to the trailer, so it was off to the pool to cool down.

I will NOT mention BREXIT and our pensions

It must have cooled down quite a bit last night as the A/C was not running when we woke up. After breakfast we decided to head out for a day trip to Great Bend, about 100 miles away. There was a quilt walk that Lyn had read about that described the life of early settlers and their quilting patterns. There was also a pioneer type village that sounded interesting. To top it all off we could get there and back on a scenic drive.

As we headed south the sky ahead of us got darker and darker, but that wasn’t a worry as the scenery was superb as we passed through some Kansas Mountains.

A few miles further south we made a 90 degree left turn and the weather ahead looked much better, although about 20 minutes later the radio programme was interrupted with an Emergency Broadcast Message warning of severe thunderstorms and hail to the south of us. As we were heading east we weren’t too concerned, beside we had the sights of the scenic byway to look at.

The area was generally crop farming, with a few cattle herds added in. In addition there were a number of small oil wells in many of the fields, I guess this provided supplementary income to the farmers?

Below are a couple of general views that we took along the way.

The bad weather stayed to the south of us…….. until we got about 10 miles from our destination, then the rain started. The good news was that the temperatures had stayed cool, 21C by the time we hit Great Bend. As the rain was a little too heavy for walking, especially as we had left jackets and hats in the trailer (remember it was sunny and warm when we left) we went for a coffee. The rain began to ease off so we headed off to see the quilt walk. Unfortunately the quilt walk was on the same par as Kansas Mountains and Kansas Scenic Routes, just a tad underwhelming. There were four “quilts” inset into paving stones at four corners of a park surrounding the court house, no explanations, no history….. nothing to even acknowledge them.

The Courthouse:Next stop, the “pioneer” village. We didn’t even stop there, as we drove by we could see it was a group of less than a dozen buildings lined up along the edge of the street, many of them appeared to be closed up.

We found a place for a late lunch, then decided to head back. About 10 miles out of town the rain stopped, the sky’s cleared and the temperature climbed slowly from 21C to 31C. I guess Great Bend wasn’t to keen on us visiting!

NOTE:

No tongues or cheeks were hurt in the writing of this blog.

An early wake-up call for us today. Most of the pack-up work was done last night, and we were on the road by 07:50.

The first 100km or so of the trip was on 2 lane and 4 lane roads with traffic lights and varying speed limits. After that we joined Interstate I-70 for the rest of the journey. Total distance to our new destination Wakeeney Kansas. Kansas is another new State for us.

I have to admit to being a little nervous about this trip given our past record, but the truck and trailer behaved very well. No warning messages, no power losses etc. The temperature was not on our side as it climbed to 39°C or 103°F.

We arrived at the campsite and checked in, we then drove over to our site and started to set up. When it came to moving the truck to disconnect it, it wouldn’t start!!! It was the old problem of losing prime in the fuel filter, which was easily fixed. In some ways I wasn’t too upset with this little set back; the heat under the hood must have been somewhere above 150°F. I suspect this was more a case of air bubbling out of the diesel due to heat rather than air leaking in from the filter seal.

We have managed to choose another site in the middle of nowhere, but this stop is going to be a “rest stop” without too much site seeing. The blogs may not be too interesting for the next week.

Last night was the first time since we arrived at this site that we left the air conditioning on. Obviously we woke up to a nice cool trailer. As on most Mondays (the day before we leave for the next site) we had very little planned for the day.

There were a couple of mundane, but essential jobs that needed doing, e.g. flush out the sewerage tank, but other than that we just sat around either inside or out depending on how hot we felt reading or solving puzzles.

After lunch we headed into Cañon City to get some pictures from Skyline Drive, I remembered the camera this time.

Views to the west, showing the road we had just been on.

View to the east showing Cañon City

Views straight ahead, who needs guard rails (Hazel, you would have loved driving this road!!) From there we headed to the far end of the city where Lyn wanted to do a bit of shopping, then we headed back to get some gas and to head into a do it yourself car wash. I didn’t want to wash the truck, but I did want to clean out the radiator, transmission cooler and fuel cooler fins.

As I have said before paranoia is setting in with this truck after I had the fuel pressure issue on the way here. After a lot of reading, I am fairly certain there is nothing seriously wrong, many other people with this model of truck have had the same problem. The issue can be made to “go away” by resetting the check engine light.

The problem appears to be caused by high fuel temperatures. I never realised how important the diesel fuel was, apart from powering the vehicle, that is. It seems far more diesel is sent to the engine than is required to produce power. Some is used to cool the fuel system close to the engine, some is sent around parts of the engine as lubricant, some is sent to the injectors to power the truck and some is not needed. The fuel used for cooling and lubrication as well as the excess fuel from the injectors is returned to the fuel tank to begin its journey again. Of course, during this process the fuel heats up, when it heats up too much, any air in the fuel bubbles out. This air finds its way to the filter where it accumulates and prevents sufficient fuel from getting to the engine. The engine then complains that there is not enough fuel to go galloping up the next hill with 12,000 lbs of trailer in tow, this in turn cause bells, whistles and lights to go off in the truck, which in turn upsets the driver.

Anyway, answer is, don’t panic, reset the check engine light and if need be slow down until the hill goes in the general direction of down!

Tomorrow we are off to a new State for us, Kansas. This stop will likely be more of a sit back and relax (and use the pool) rather than a busy sightseeing Stop.