Our Travel Blog

After breakfast, our last motel waffle for a while, we headed out to the truck in 22C temperatures…. beautiful.

I must admit to having been somewhat apprehensive about heading out to the trailer after it had been left in the California sun for a year. Would the tyres still be inflated, would the trailer have been colonised by hundreds of mice, would the roof still be waterproof etc?

After about 40 minutes of twisty-turny driving we arrived at the storage facility, our gate card worked (another concern!!) and in we went. The trailer was still there, whats more there was no visible signs of damage and all 4 wheels were round. Things were looking up.

While I got the truck and trailer ready to hitch up, Lyn opened up the trailer. No mice, or signs thereof, and no water or signs thereof! The battery still had enough power to raise and lower the legs supporting the trailer, and as a major bonus I connected onto the trailer at the first attempt.

All we had to do now was to get some air in the tyres, the trailer tyres had dropped from 80PSI to 65PSI, and the truck is normally set to 50PSI, but needs to be raised to 80PSI for towing. Luck was still on our side as the storage place had a commercial size compressor that I could use. Ten minutes later all 8 tyres were correctly inflated.

We pulled the trailer out of its parking spot, checked all the brakes and headed out. Having not driven with the trailer for over a year it was a little strange, particularly as we were on back roads that were neither straight nor level.

All went well though until about 300 yards after we turned onto another road, there on the side of the road was a sign that proclaimed that this road is not recommended for trucks towing trailers!! Too late to turn back now.

Luckily the road was not busy, nor was it too treacherous. It was steep though, and for the first time I felt that the truck was really working near its limits to keep us moving. Gas consumption at this stage was about 2.1 MPG. We climbed about 2000 ft before heading back down, this now put a strain on the brakes, even with engine braking the the brakes got pretty hot and smelly.

We finally got to the bottom, and headed through the vineyards of Napa Valley. Thirty minutes later we arrive at the campground, not the best we’ve been at by a long way; it’s situated in the middle of a residential area and has very little grass, mostly gravel.

Its most serious deficiency is the lack of internet access. We can connect to the WiFi, but the WiFi has lost its internet connection, being Sunday there is no one around to fix it. Realising I am morally obliged to publish the blog we went for plan B, I renewed my T-Mobile plan for a small WiFi/Cellular box that we have.

We only booked this site for two nights, primarily to allow us to get the trailer set up and fix up any problems that there might have been.

Headed out this morning for the final long haul into California. The weather was cool, but high cloud and dry. Nothing different from previous days as far as driving and scenery were concerned. We hit our first “major” city, in the form of Reno Nevada. It came as a shock as everyone seemed to be out driving.

Reno Skyline

We climbed back up to 7500 feet to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range, then started a slow descent towards the coast.

Diesel prices in Nevada were higher than other states so I decided to tough it out and wait until California before fueling, my magic computerised fuel thingy said that I had plenty to spare, so we carried on. The gas needle proceeded to slide nicely into the red zone and the computer insisted I still had 9 gallons in the tank (~200 miles). We arrived at the lunch / gas stop, the low fuel light had remained off (so at least 5 gallons in the tank). The computer told me I would need 25.6 gallons to fill and the tank eventually took 26 so it was pretty accurate. It’s just a little disturbing to see the needle so low when there is plenty of fuel left.

After filling up both ourselves and the truck, we headed off again. As we were still descending I got some pretty impressive fuel readings; 1075 miles till the tank ran dry and an average of 31.8 MPG (remember this is a 6.2 litre engine).

The next city we passed through was Sacramento, the traffic here made Reno look like a small English village in the off season. We made it to the hotel unscathed and happily got out into the 27°C heat.

A lot of the plants are in bloom, and right outside our hotel window is a cherry tree full of fruit.

Note the blue sky!

Tomorrow we head off for another 50 miles into the back country to pick up the trailer. I must admit to being a little nervous as to what state the trailer might be in after being left for year.

A couple of planning errors came to light yesterday, I am glad to say I can’t take all the credit for them!

Last nights motel was near the Salt Lake City airport in a high tech area with a few other motels. After we left the Interstate and drove to the motel there were no signs of ANY restaurants. In the hotel room was an order-inn menu, so we ordered from that, amazingly it was pretty good! When we left this morning we found a Perkins family restaurant about 150m away! Shame, their food is normally pretty good. The second error revealed itself when I was checking the distance to go. It showed a trip of 800km today and 270 tomorrow, which didn’t make sense for a couple of reasons; one why weren’t they a little more equal, and as tomorrow is the last day before we pick up the trailer, why did I have an overnight stay booked, we could have gone straight to the trailer!! The easiest solution was just to change tonight’s stop and eqaulise the trip, hence we are now in a town called Winnemucca, some where in the depths of Nevada.

We had a leisurely departure from Salt Lake and picked up Interstate 80 (again!), the temperature was around 10°C, with good visibility but the promise of showers.

We were soon driving along the edge of Salt Lake, and then out to the salt flats, famous for car speed runs. Today the salt flats looked more like saline puddles

Off in the distance we could see a huge pile of white “stuff”, first thought was a snow dump, second thought was correct – salt.

and a little closer

I recall last year being amazed at how many FedEx, UPS etc trucks there were on the Interstate, there seemed to be one every couple of minutes. This year they have upped there game with BIG trucks!

These trucks have the ability to go down hill very fast, albeit swaying all over the place. Uphill….. not so fast, we were continually overtaking / being overtaken by this guy for about 100 miles.

As we climber back up to the 6500ft mark we got a clearer view of the scenery compared to the last few days.

We also hit a few rain showers on the way, this one was about 250m off the road as we passed it, but we still got a reasonable fall out of hail from it.

With another time zone under our belt, we are now on Pacific time, we arrived at the hotel just before 4PM. Plenty of time for a walk and some geocaching. There was an interesting geocache that was actually a walk through historic Winnemucca, which guided you to various landmarks and you had to answer questions about them. The town seems to gain most of it’s “fame” from the number of banks robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!

Below is the court house, probably the most modern building here.

A sub-zero start to the day! We left Casper WY heading towards Salt Lake City UT. The first 120 miles were on the back roads (with a 70MPH limit and no traffic!). Again there was very little in the way of civilisation, but the scenery was quite rugged and interesting. We climbed up to around 7500 ft, into cloud and more snow. Luckily the temperature is not cold enough to allow the snow to settle on the road surface.

We picked up the I-80 and headed west into UT. There were a lot of interesting rock formations along the Interstate which gave us something new to look at.

The temperature was bouncing all over the place, from -2°C – +9°C. We slowly started our descent into Salt Lake City, and we got to a balmy 11°C! After a slight disagreement with the GPS we managed to find our motel! As usual we headed out for a walk and a spot of geocaching, 1.6 miles and 2 caches. Two more full days of driving and we should be in California.

After yesterdays high of 5°C, it was a shock to walk out to the truck at 0°C in the snow this morning! When we awoke the visibility was poor with snow, this did not bode well for seeing Mt. Rushmore. After breakfast I took a look at the weather radar to see whether we could expect an improvement as the day progressed. Amazingly the weather system causing all the problems was to the east of us, and although fairly stationary, Mt. Rushmore was on the edge of the disturbance, but could be affected at any time. Instead of hanging around the hotel waiting for the weather to clear (about 3 days!!) we decided to get moving before the weather moved further west. As we drove the 20 odd miles, it seemed as though we had made the wrong decision as the visibility decreased further as we climbed up to 5500ft. As we reached the area, things started to improve a little

Wooden Bridge at Entrance to Mt. Rushmore

“Miners Tunnel”

The closer we got, the better the visibility, so we headed into the park area to be met by the camouflaged park security.

Next are a few pictures of the carvings, the last one taken in return for me taking photos for a Chinese group!

On the way out of the park we were able to get a profile view of one of the carvings.

The weather deteriorated once we left the park, so although conditions were far from ideal, we at least got to see something!

We next traveled cross country out of South Dakota, into Wyoming. Again there were miles of nothingness.

But occasionally bizarre things turned up.

We finally got onto the I-25 for the final run into Casper. We braved the 1C temperature and went off for a 1.6 mile walk to claim another geocache. Now it’s back to the hotel, which seems to be packed with high school kids on some sort of trip…. could be a noisy night.

After yesterdays high of 24°C, it was a shock to walk out to the truck at 5°C. It was a damp misty morning with nothing to look forward too other than 500 miles of interstate.

The weather did clear for a while, but then it took a turn for the worse with heavier rain, falling temperatures, then ice pellets and a little snow as we climbed up to 3300ft. The scenery was pretty much the same for the whole trip, fields, fields and more fields. At times we could see no signs of human civilisation around us, including vehicles on the Interstate! The only saving grace was an 80MPH / 130KM/H speed limit. Problem was my fuel consumption increased by about 50% going from 65 to 80MPH.

Given the boring trip, I was convinced my choice of a $38 HoJo motel would haunt me. Wrong!!! This hotel is fantastic, even at double the price, King bed, sofa, superfast internet, pool, hot tubs, FREE beer and wine between 6 and 8PM and free breakfast. By far the best of the cheap hotels we have stayed in on all our travels.

I needed some exercise and fresh air so, despite the weather, I risked a walk to get a local geocache, although Lyn felt her time would be better spent staying in the room.

Time to go find the booze!

No great rush to get going today as the place that Lyn wanted to go did not open until 10AM. The place in question was a store called “Nancy’s Notions”, which is run by a person who has her own TV sewing show. Lyn has been a fan of this show for many years, and when I suggested she may want to take a more scenic route to California via Beaver Dam, she jumped at the chance (I figured a few brownie points may come my way as well!!)

While Lyn was doing her thing I was off on an errand of mercy (hopefully collecting even more brownie points). Just before we left Lyn’s long arm quilting machine decided to die! She switched it on one morning and there was nothing; absolutely nothing lit up moved or beeped. After checking the obvious like was it plugged in, had the fuse blown etc, it was time to call the professionals. I called the dealer who sold and installed it, who in turn put me in contact with a factory technician who coincidentally lived near Beaver Dam where we were staying. We arranged to meet in a small town about 10 miles away, I would give him some parts from the dead machine and he would have them checked and fixed. Once fixed, the parts would be sent to our final destination in Alabama. This will save us a lot of aggro with mailing and Canada Customs!

Once all this was done I headed back to town to extricate Lyn from the store, seems my timing was perfect as she was ready to leave…. but not empty handed!!

We traveled about 40 miles to pick up the interstate, then just headed west for 300 miles, climbing slowly up to 1400 feet. As we went west we got into more fertile country, we also saw more herds of cattle which supported Wisconsin’s slogan of Americas Dairy LandRandom View on the Interstate

We then passed through some rocky hill areas and into Minnesota, where the earth was a rich black colour, with plenty of farms all over the countryside.

The road was pretty well deserted, both in terms of traffic and civilisation. At one point there was no MacDonald’s (or any other coffee stop for close to 100 miles!) .

We arrived in Blue Earth Minnesota around 5:40, checked into the hotel then went walking and geocaching. We found three caches close by, including this well hidden, micro cache!!

The town of Blue Earth is closely associated with the Green Giant food company, and the local area supplies much of its produce. The giant is 58.5 ft tall and weighs in at 8,000 lbs.

The last cache of the day took us 8 miles south to the Minnesota – Iowa State line, where there was meant to be a cache right on the border, that one escaped us, but we did get to briefly visit a new State.

Nothing very exciting today, we headed out after breakfast on a cool and wet morning. We followed the north shore of Lake Michigan heading west before turning south west and heading into Wisconsin (a new State for us), and the Central Time Zone. It was mostly two lane roads, but very little traffic. The rain eased up for a couple of hours, but then returned with a bit more force. We by-passed the largest city on out trip to date, Green Bay, before heading past the famed airfield at Oshkosh. One year we’ll get there for the fly-in.

We arrived at the hotel around 3:45, and headed out for a combination walk, geo-cache hunt, somewhere to eat tonight trip. We found a restaurant about 50 yards form the hotel! We also got in a mile of walking hunting down a couple of caches. I am not sure whether the exercise was to burn off last nights french-fries, or to create an allowance for further “sinful” food tonight. Traveling to the trailer always seems to involve poor eating choices!!