Hello and Howdy! It’s officially fall – and it sure looks like it where we are. We arrived yesterday in Chama, NM. We’ve been here a few times before and we love it in the fall. But….first I need to bring you up to date of our happenings of the last month or so. It’s been awhile since my last post – sorry! We were busy with visitors and soaking up the beauty of our most favorite campground ever – Priest Gulch in southwest Colorado, between Dolores and Telluride.
We arrived Priest Gulch on September 1 and were there for almost 6 weeks. We were lucky again to get our favorite site there – site number 42. It is amazing. Huge by RV site standards. A really big yard all to ourselves, trees, and I decorated with mums and pumpkins. We’ve already made our request for site 42 again for next year – fingers crossed!
Home Sweet Home at Priest Gulch
It was the perfect spot to host our visitors – first my sister, Laura for 2 weeks, then, Guy and Katelyn for 5 days. We were so happy to get to share our little piece of heaven with them. It was fun showing them all our favorite places, favorite hikes, our special coffee shop, riding the gondola in Telluride, and seeing it all fresh again, through their eyes, was so rewarding for us too.
The mountains and aspens did not disappoint – they put on their best fall show for everyone to see. Golden leaves, fresh snow on the mountain tops. Crisp cool mornings and warm days glowing with sunshine. Blue skies making the perfect backdrop for nature’s show. Really – it is that good. There are many who have tried to capture the magic that is fall in the San Juan mountains – books, magazines, photos much better than ours. But it simply cannot be fully appreciated until you are standing in the middle of it all. Or sitting next to a stream babbling over the rocks while admiring the golden leaves mixed with the alpines on the mountainside. I highly recommend it to anyone – you will be amazed at how you feel standing at the top of a mountain after a good hike up, taking in the views all around. Better yet, get an RV and really immerse yourself in it all. Just don’t try to take site 42 at Priest Gulch for the month of September or you’ll have to arm wrestle us for it!!
Of course we made our usual rounds to all the area’s farmer’s markets – Cortez, Dolores and Telluride all have wonderful farmer’s markets. And the very quirky, tiny, mountain town of Rico, which is about 10 miles from our campground, has 2 wonderful coffee shops. It’s really remarkable – this tiny, historic mining town (no stop light and if you blink you will miss it) has 2 great coffee shops run by very energetic young women. They both have great food – one focuses more on baked goods, one more on breakfast/lunch. Both using high quality ingredients and made from scratch cooking and baking. I don’t think there was a menu item left untried at either place by the time we left. So great to see young people embracing good food and the value of sharing it together over a great cup of coffee or tea in a cozy and welcoming space.
We made several visits to Telluride which is always fun. We love riding the gondola and so does Gerry! There’s a vibe to Telluride that is hard to describe but engaging and welcoming. It’s quirky. It’s beyond beautiful. It’s extremely expensive to live there – beyond imagination – many millions of dollars for even the most modest of homes in town. But it’s very approachable and not stuffy. Whatever it is, we like it and always look forward to spending a day there. Guy and Katelyn were there during the Telluride car show – many of you know Guy loves sports cars – so it was great for him to get to experience the car show there.
Hiking. Yes! We did tons of hiking. We revisited all our favorites and found a couple of new ones too. All spectacular. We always say, you simply cannot have a bad day out on the trail. And we took Laura to Mesa Verde National Park, we enjoyed seeing it again. It’s only about 45 minutes away, but has an entirely different climate and landscape. Very high desert, with sandstone cliffs and mesas.
I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. There’s something about visiting with loved ones while in the RV in the mountains. Maybe it’s the fresh air and all the natural beauty. Maybe it’s living in the middle of nature, really immersed in it. Maybe it’s all the good food and meals shared together after a great hike. Whatever it is, I’m thankful for it all. This time spent together is special and meaningful. Life is good!
All in all a perfect stay at our favorite spot. We literally took hundreds and hundreds of pictures (probably thousands!) I have tried to pick out some of the best, but be warned, there are a lot of them! So grab a cup of tea and enjoy the pictures!
Howdy again everyone!! I’m writing to you from my dining table looking out the window from our RV at our very favorite spot ever, Priest Gulch Campground, near Telluride. We arrived a couple of days ago for a 6 week (!!) stay. We are beyond excited to be lucky enough to grab a spot here for 6 whole weeks. But that’s for the next post! We recently spent a few weeks in the Ridgeway/Ouray area and I want to share that with you for today!
We really like this area, we’ve been a couple of times before. Big mountains, lots of hiking and a couple of cute mountain towns. Perfect. We stayed in two places here – one was a KOA, and one was the Ridgeway State Park. We had not stayed at the KOA here before – hands down we like the State Park better, and it’s half the cost. But we took advantage of the KOA jeep rental for another hiking adventure. I mentioned I was learning more about some of the “bigger” hikes in southwest Colorado, and I’m learning you just can’t get to many of the “big” hikes without some type of off road vehicle. So we rented another jeep and hiked Wetterhorn Basin. Spectacular and totally worth the jeep rental. And – we met some new friends – Chris and Al, from Colorado Springs. They were stopped at the point of the road to the trailhead that you just can’t go past unless you have an off road vehicle (they were in a regular SUV). We stopped and asked if they’d like a ride the rest of the way to the trailhead. They squeezed into the backseat of the jeep along with Gerry – and so we hiked together for the day. Was great meeting new folks and sharing the day. We’re looking forward to visiting them in Colorado Springs later this year!
Wetterhorn Basin Hike
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Ridgeway and Ouray area. We’ll definitely be back. I have tons of pictures and a few videos from our time in the area. I think they speak for themselves, so I’ll keep this extra short and let you enjoy the scenery!
Hello again friends and family! What has happened to the time this summer?? Almost the end of August already – wow. I hope it’s been a good summer for everyone. We certainly have enjoyed it. We recently spent a couple of weeks in Lake City, Colorado. It’s been on our list of places to go for a few years. It’s in southwest Colorado, in the San Juan mountains, but on the eastern side of the San Juans – we have been going to the western side of the San Juans (Priest Gulch, Telluride, Ridgeway, Ouray) for the last few years. So we worked in a visit to Lake City this year, and we’re glad we did.
Lake City is not somewhere you just “swing by” for a visit. It’s out of the way, not on the way to anything else. Their marketing slogan is that it’s “the most remote place in the contiguous 48 states”. I’m not so sure about that, but it is pretty remote. We like remote. And we were at a campground that was a few miles out of town, in a beautiful setting, with a couple of lakes, mountains all around, and we had a great spot deep in the woods. Perfect. The campground was accessed by a dirt/gravel road. We didn’t know this before hand – and we happened to arrive on a day when they were repairing the road from washout from recent rains – they were spreading fresh dirt/gravel/oil mixture and we had to drive through it on our way in. Left a mess on the truck and RV that Steve is still working on rubbing out. Let’s just say that Steve was a little unhappy with the road on the day of arrival – he was wondering if I had lost my mind when booking us at such a place. But we soon realized it was a great location and we settled in.
Our home in the woods at Castle Lakes Campground, Lake City, ColoradoEarly morning at our campground
So you guys know we like to hike. It’s our favorite thing to do. And these past few years, I have been learning more about hiking in the San Juan mountains since we spend so much time there, and, someday when we get our house built, we’ll be living in the San Juans. I found these 2 books a couple of years ago, featuring day hikes around Telluride, Ouray, Silverton and Lake City. I’ve been reading these books, marking hikes I think we want to do, and spending the winter time in Ohio dreaming of these hikes. Both books provide a lot of detail about each hike, it’s length, difficulty, terrain, etc. They also provide driving directions to the trailhead, and describe what type of vehicle is needed to reach the trailhead: car, SUV or 4×4.
Of course I have a story to tell you about this! I have a hike picked out – Handies Peak, via American Basin. Handies Peak is a 14’r. 14,028 feet to be exact. We’ve never done a 14’r before. I’ve decided this one will be the first! All descriptions said it was one of the easiest 14’rs in Colorado. Only 6 miles round trip, from parking lot. Only 2,800 feet of elevation gain (hike starts at about 11, 300). The people who wrote the book I was using as my guide were a couple in their late 60s. They rated it as moderately strenuous. Said needed a SUV to reach the trailhead, not a 4×4. The trailhead was about 12 miles from our campground, on the same road. How easy is that?? Of course we can do it!
Well. First, we couldn’t reach the trailhead in our truck. We set out one morning to go do the big hike. I’m so excited, I’ve been waiting for this day! About 5 miles from our campground the road goes from the gravel/dirt road into a “jeep road”. It’s part of the Alpine Loop, which is a jeep road that goes over a couple of mountain passes and you can get to Silverton over the mountains on this jeep road. BUT, I had carefully researched, and the trailhead to Handies Peak was BEFORE the road got really gnarly and was accessible only to 4×4 vehicles. Or so I thought. At about 5.1 miles in, about 7 miles to go, the road became impossible for us. Totally a “off road jeep” road – boulders, holes, narrow, steep drop offs. We have to turn around. Our truck is absolutely the wrong type of vehicle for these kinds of roads. We are extra wide (a dually), and extra long (long bed truck). Our truck is perfect for pulling our big, heavy 5th wheel. It is absolutely the wrong vehicle for these types of roads. You need a short wheel bed, high clearance jeep or, most people were using Polaris RZR 4×4 off road vehicles.
So we turn around, no hike up Handies Peak for us that day. I’d like to say I was understanding and that I took the no-go into stride and rolled with the change. But, I would be lying. I pouted, I was in tears, I was mad at the book authors for describing the road as passable by a SUV and not needing a 4×4. Maybe that was true in the past, I don’t know, but for sure, the road was not safe for us in our truck. Steve was really unhappy to find himself suddenly on a narrow, rocky road and having to figure out how to turn around without falling off the cliff. He managed, and back home we went.
The good news is that our campground had a Jeep Wrangler 4×4 available for rent! So we rented it a couple days later, and off we went for our Handies Peak adventure. Wow. It would be safe to say we’re not big fans of Jeeping. Some people love it, and Lake City is a destination for lots of folks with Jeeps or the RZR 4x4s or other OHVs. There’s tons of jeep roads through the mountains and folks drive them all day in those vehicles. It took us 1.5 hours to drive the 12 miles from our campground to the trailhead. It was a beautiful drive. It was a scary drive. It was exhausting. And, we did not think it would take that long to get there, so we didn’t start out as early as we should have, to allow time to do the hike and get back down the mountain before the almost daily rain storms.
But we were there! So exciting! A couple, I would guess in their 60s, were returning to their van, having just finished the hike as we arrived (it was 10:00 am). They had slept at the trailhead so they could get an early start. They said they completed the hike in 4 hours. We’re thinking we’ll be able to do it in 5 hours, plenty of time to get the jeep back by 5:00 when it’s due.
I know this is a long story, sorry! You know how I am. I should have told you to go get a cup of tea at the beginning of this tale. Here’s the shortcut to the ending. We didn’t make it to the top. I couldn’t do it. Steve and Gerry were doing great, no problem. I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop frequently to catch my breath. At 13,000 feet I had to turn around. 1 mile and 1,028 feet of elevation to go, but I couldn’t do it. I tried to get Steve to go without me. There was a pretty lake I could sit by and wait. But he didn’t want to go on without me, and we were getting worried about time. It took us 3 hours to get to the 13,000 point. It would take at least another hour for him to get to the summit and back to me, likely longer. As it was, it took us another 2 hours to get back down. So 5 hours, only made it to 13,000 feet. How did those people do the whole thing in 4 hours? And they were old like us! And they didn’t even seem tired when we saw them. We passed young children with their grandparents on the trail, they all had made it to the top. One little boy said to us: “I’m 11. I just did it. I think you can too.” But not me. At least not on that day. I hope to get to try again someday.
But the hike was simply amazing – beautiful in every direction. All above the tree line, views forever. I have lots of pictures below for you!
We enjoyed our stay in Lake City. We’ll go back again some day for sure. We saw a mama moose and her baby one evening (picture included below). We got in a few really nice hikes. I learned a lot about the access roads to some of these “must do” hikes I have been reading about. It’s all good, and life is indeed good!
Hello again! We had a great couple of weeks in Idaho recently. You might remember, in my last post, I was heading out to St. Paul, Minnesota to help furnish our new sober living home, and we were moving from northeast Oregon to Clarkston, Washington. Clarkston is on the Snake River, and across the river is Lewiston, Idaho. I flew in and out of the airport in Lewiston. So Steve and Gerry hung out a week while I was in Minnesota. As it turns out, it wasn’t a great place to be. If I hadn’t been traveling, it’s one of those places we would leave and find somewhere else to go. While it is on the Snake River, it was not a very pretty section of the river. In fact it was pretty ugly. And it was 100+ degrees every day. No hiking, and even if there were trails near by, it was way too hot to even think about hiking. So poor Steve and Gerry were pretty much stuck in the RV air conditioning all day while I was gone…. on the other hand, I had perfect weather in St. Paul, a very successful trip and a great visit with Guy and Katelyn. I tried to not sound too happy each day when I called Steve, but I think my enthusiasm was evident anyhow!
Aspire Sober Living house number 4!
We left Clarkston the day after I returned and moved to Riggins, Idaho. We had not been there before. It’s on the Salmon River, and tons of whitewater rafting there. Some are day trips, some are multi-day trips. We’re not into rafting, but it was interesting to see all the rafts on the water. We found a very nice campground a few miles out of town and it was a welcome relief to be in the trees, along a nice little stream, much cooler temps. We did a couple of hikes, explored the Salmon River canyon (very beautiful) and guess what? We found a great local orchard! We never tire of these great fresh food finds. And what a find it was – berries, peaches, plumbs, plus lots of veggies they grew too. We stocked up (again!).
Salmon River Canyon, near Riggins, Idaho
Then it was on to McCall, Idaho. This was a new destination for us also. We liked it. It’s a nice little town on a big, beautiful lake. In some ways it reminded us of a small Lake Tahoe. We tried to rent a boat during our stay, but there was no availability. We found a couple of nice hikes in the area, and we really enjoyed the campground. It was a “luxury” campground with lots of nice amenities and we enjoyed just being there. McCall and Riggins are both on the “go back to someday” list.
McCall, Idaho
We left McCall for a 3 day drive to our new location, Lake City, Colorado. It’s deep in the San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado. We’ve been here in Lake City for a couple of days now. I’ll give you a full report on it soon!
Also, I wanted to share some pictures, plus a video from a really cool thing – back when we were in Wallowa, Oregon, we went to their annual Nez Perce celebration. It was literally next to our RV park, we walked to it. They have this even each year, it is a celebration of the various Nez Perce tribes in Washington and Oregon – it focuses on traditional dances, and is a 3 day dance competition. They dress in their ceremonial dance regalia and it is really something to experience. We are so glad we happened upon this event. We went on the opening evening, for the opening ceremony. It was very moving to experience – the drums, the singing, the costumes, the dancing. The pictures do not begin to show (as usual!) but, hopefully you’ll get a little taste of what it was like.
Hello again everyone! So happy to be sitting at my dining table in the RV sharing our latest adventures with you! Do you believe it is mid-summer already? The weather here in northeast Oregon has been absolutely perfect – days of sunny warmth, cool evenings and mornings. Blue skies all around.
We’ve really enjoyed exploring this northeastern corner of Oregon. The Wallowa Mountains, the Hell’s Canyon National Recreation Area, nice little towns of Wallowa, Enterprise and Joseph. It’s been a good home base for us the last 8 or 9 days. Lots of hiking, farmer’s market, farm stands – you know us – we are eating ourselves silly on the abundant fruit and produce available here. Combine that with beautiful hikes and we’re happy campers!
This area is full of water – rivers, streams, creeks, lakes – everywhere we look there is water. All of our hikes have had lots of stream crossings, which we love. Gerry loves splashing in the streams. We’ve hiked through several river canyons – the sound of the water flowing through the canyon is always beautiful. And, on our hike yesterday – we met up with a big black bear! It was early on our hike, only about .25 miles from the trailhead, and this bear came out of the woods right onto the trail, about 20 feet ahead of us. Gerry was in front of us and started to run after the bear. The bear turned around and looked at us and ran up the trail and off into the woods on the other side. Meanwhile, I’m yelling (well, more like screaming!) at Gerry to stop. My wild screaming got Gerry’s attention and he stopped to turn around and look at me, which was a good thing. It was great seeing the bear, especially since he ran away from us and not towards us! It’s about the closest we’ve been to a bear. We’ve seen several throughout the last few years, but not usually this close up.
Our current RV park – the Wallowa River runs right through it.
More good news to share – there has been a lot of “house and home” activity recently – Samantha and Sam just bought their first home in Denver! They moved in a few days ago and are loving having a home of their own. And today, we are closing on the 4th house for Aspire Sober Living in St. Paul with Guy. This will add another 9 beds to the Aspire Sober Living offering. It is truly amazing to watch the success Guy is having with providing quality sober living for the St. Paul recovery community. And, we have finalized our house plans with our architect for a home in southwest Colorado! We purchased 3 acres last fall and plan to build next year. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to share about that when the time comes. In the meantime, we’re thrilled to watch our flock feather their nests.
We’re moving tomorrow to Clarkston, Washington. It’s about 3 hours to the north, along the Snake River. I’ll be flying out to St. Paul to help get the new sober house ready for occupancy, and Steve and Gerry will be hanging out in the RV.
Our house on wheels, or the “house truck” as the grandkids like to call it – continues to bring us so much happiness. We feel connected to nature when we’re in the RV. I think partly because we literally have such beautiful views out our windows that are always changing and interesting, and, partly because it takes us to so many beautiful places where we get to go hiking and really immerse ourselves in the beauty of nature. We meet so many friendly people on the trails and in the campgrounds. People just seem happy when they’re out doing this. Combine that with our roaming around looking for the best local produce and food we can find and you have a winning combo!
Hello, hello, hello! It’s been awhile! I’m a little slow getting a post up this year – sorry! I’ll bring you all up to date with the happenings in our RV world – grab a cup of tea and let’s chat!
We left Ohio the end of May. The RV was in Elkhart, Indiana – we had taken it in to the dealer about a month before we left for a variety of service needs. We had taken it to Port St. Joe, Florida in February and again had some things not work right – so it was back in for repairs. I think you just have to expect this in the RV world – at least from all the folks we talk to it seems to be pretty normal to have it in for service regularly.
Anyhow, and I’m going to keep this part short – we made it about 200 miles down the road and then discovered a brake shoe had fallen out, the brake caliper was hanging and flopping, and all 3 of the other brake calipers were loose and wobbly. Not a good thing. Especially since we had the exact same brake fail last summer and had to have a mobile repair fix it. And, especially, especially since the manufacturer had just recalled the brakes on our model and they had just replaced all 4 brakes and calipers as part of the recall. Hmmm – how does that happen one may wonder??? Well it happened, took about a week of phone calls, part shipment tracking, finding a very nice young man who had a mobile repair service and some luck on the shipment timing and it’s done. 4 new brakes. Hopefully last time we deal with that!
We had a great visit in St. Paul with Guy and Katelyn, and Katelyn’s parents came to visit and we had a nice picnic together at the RV. Then it was on to Denver and a great visit with Samantha and Sam. One of the things we like most about our RV life is that we get to go around visiting family and friends.
Then we moved to Boise for about a week. We haven’t spent time in Boise before. We’ve driven through it a couple of times, but this time we were able to do some exploring. A nice city, great farmers market, and a really nice green space that goes all along the Snake river, about 25 miles long of walking paths.
By the time we left Boise we were pretty much done with being in big cities. After St. Paul, Denver, then Boise, we had pretty much been in “big cities” for longer than we enjoy. So we were really happy to arrive in northeast Oregon, where we are now.
We’re spending several weeks in northeast Oregon, staying at a few different RV parks, all around the Wallowa mountains. We’re getting lots of hiking in and we’re really enjoying being in a “growing region” – tons of fruit and produce here. We are eating ourselves silly on strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blackberries, spring lettuce, spinach, and all the other early summer veggies. We went to a “u pick” farm the other day and picked a bunch of strawberries. Our freezer is overflowing with our bounty!
We just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary this week! We were talking about how we celebrated our 30th anniversary in Fairbanks, Alaska, during our very first RV season. Seems impossible that 5 years have gone by. Without a doubt, adopting this RV life has been the absolutely best thing we could have done for ourselves. We are so glad we “took the leap”! It still feels like a wonderful adventure and we love it.
In the meantime, we are absolutely loving being back in the RV and settling in to our “RV life” routine. I will keep you updated as the journey continues to unfold this season! Exploring, discovering together, hiking in beautiful places, farmers markets, good food. Life is good!
I know I say it all the time, but, really – where does the time go? Mid October already – does not seem possible. Anyhow….I’m past due on giving you an update! I’m sitting outside our RV in Chama, NM, with a fire going in the firepit, enjoying the piercing blue sky behind the glowing, golden aspens all around us. I really am at a loss of words (hey! I hear the laughing!) to describe the fall beauty in the Rocky Mountains. Sunny, warm days, cold nights, the glowing of the golden aspens and the mountains are getting snow on top now. It is truly amazing. We try and try to capture it in pictures but it just isn’t possible.
My sister Laura just left day before yesterday – she was here for 12 days and we loved every minute of it. It’s always wonderful sharing our RV life with friends and family. This visit was especially special, a time for healing, connecting and recovering after a really tough year. Mountain air, hiking up to 12,000 feet (we were at 12,000 feet twice!) sharing meals, tea around the campfire – nature’s remedy. Snuggles with Gerry – coffee wrapped in blankets – golden aspens everywhere – a little heaven on earth.
And isn’t that what it’s all about? Life is Good.
Sisters
Lots of pictures and a few videos of our hikes and fall beauty in the San Juan mountains. Enjoy 😊❤
An attempt to capture some of the fall color near Chama, NM – right on the boarder between Colorado and NM in the San Juan mountains: https://photos.app.goo.gl/uLVWTN6rV1Biwvxu5
Howdy from our favorite little corner of the world – we’re in southwest Colorado, at our very favorite campground ever. This is our 3rd visit here and we’re already booked again for next year for a month. We’ll be here for about 4 weeks this year. You may remember the last time we were here, in 2019, my brother Dan and his wife Christine visited, and I had so many pictures and stories to share back then. We really love it here. We’re deep in the San Juan mountains, and the campground is at about 8,100 feet, so we get that great mountain weather – cool nights and mornings, sunny afternoons and hiking all around. The campground has been here for decades and it’s done right as far as we’re concerned. All the conveniences you could want, yet nestled in the trees, along the Dolores river. The river goes right through the center of the campground. Mountain views everywhere. Stars at night, we are several miles from any town with lights. Telluride, the very nice ski resort town is about 45 minutes away, and Dolores, a very small town but with a fabulous local market that carries tons of organic and local produce is about 20 miles in the other direction. And somehow we got lucky and got this super nice, HUGE by RV camping standards site. We are spoiled now for sure!
Our HUGE site at Priest Gulch
Anyhow, we’re all settled in here, we arrived about 10 days ago (I can’t believe how fast time goes by). But I need to back up a little, and fill you in about our brake repair, and our time in Ridgeway, Colorado.
First – the brake – it’s all repaired! I mentioned how the part caught up with us finally. We carried it around with us for a little while. Then, while in Ridgeway, Colorado, we found a mobile repair technician who came out and installed it for us. It’s a relief to have that done.
We really enjoyed our stay at Ridgeway State Park. Big mountains all around and the state park campground had very nice walking paths along the river and a couple of lakes. Easy to get Gerry out for walks. We did a little hiking in the area, although Steve ended up with Strep throat and an ear infection and needed some relaxing time at home. So we set up our chairs and sat outside a lot enjoying the blue skies and clean mountain air. Sometimes we forget that we’re not really on vacation, even though it feels like it a lot of the time. This is our life and some days we just need to stay home and clean house or take a nap. And so we did. 😊
September 16:
OK….so that all is what I wrote back on September 8 when I first started this post (really – where does the time go?!) NOW I need to fill you in on what I consider to be a Big Deal that has been going on. You really do need to go get a cup of tea now….and get comfortable.
This is a story about my stove. Range. Oven. Yes. An appliance. But in my life, a very important appliance. Most of you know we changed how we eat along with our lifestyle a few years ago. We continue to evolve our diet as we learn more and as we observe how we feel based on what we are eating. You know we look for farmer’s markets everywhere we go and access to quality food is a criteria we use in determining where we go. Shopping for quality food has become a hobby we really enjoy doing together. Cooking is my favorite thing to do when not out on a trail. Eating the results is Steve’s favorite thing to do. It’s all good, and it makes us happy.
A big reason we purchased the new RV we have this year is because it has a larger kitchen, and a real, residential, range. The oven has 2 racks and is much larger than the oven in our last RV. Here’s a picture of it:
My Range
Well. I’ve had problems with it from the very beginning. I had a mobile RV service technician come out when we were in Minnesota, before the wedding. I was having problems getting the pilot light to light (it runs on propane). He showed me how to make it work, by taking the cover off the bottom of the oven, where the flames are, exposing the pilot light assembly, and using a lighter I could light it. The pilot light assembly, which includes the thermocouple (yes, I now know what a thermocouple is, unfortunately!) is not aligned exactly right (welded together out of alignment) and that makes getting the pilot light to light difficult. I read online in a variety of RV forums that others were experiencing this same problem with this brand of range in their RVs. Ok. Not a huge deal, I can live with that. And I did – using a lighter and wiggling the pilot light assembly I could eventually get it to light.
It was getting harder and harder to get it to light, I have been having to really wiggle and play with the pilot light assembly to eventually get it to light. But I figured I’d live with it until the end of our trip, and add it to the list of things to be repaired when we take it in for service at the dealership.
I had learned from calling around trying to find a service person for it, no one will work on an Insignia (that’s my brand) range. It is a Best Buy private label brand, no one has any parts for it, and no one wants anything to do with them. This on top of the experience we have had this year that all RV service places, and all RV mobile repair guys, are booked up to their eyeballs. Booked out for weeks.
I had been getting “whiffs” of propane smell here and there. Not all the time. And not really right by the range. More around our loveseat which is near the range. I would check inside the oven (when it was off!) to see if there was a propane smell in it, and there wasn’t. Anyhow, I had convinced myself that I was worrying too much, stressing over the difficult oven too much and let it go. We do get propane whiffs from time to time from the main big tanks outside, maybe that is what I was smelling….
So I spent all day the other day cooking. Had the stove top and oven going for hours – you know, one of those cook ahead, make lots of things kind of days. A perfect day in my book. The next morning, we left to go to a farmer’s market. I didn’t use the stove that morning since we wanted to leave early (turned out to be very fortunate decision). We had several windows open and the ceiling vent/fan open, since it’s sunny and warm after the morning chill wears off. We left Gerry in the RV and went to the market.
We returned back to the RV a few hours later, opened the door and Wow – big propane smell rolling out at us! We were really worried – Steve quickly turned off the big propane tanks at the main source. We took Gerry outside right away. WHY didn’t I think about turning off the main propane source before we left since I had been getting “whiffs”??? Did not occur to me, and poor Gerry had been sitting there with all that propane rolling around. Luckily, the open windows and the ceiling vent/fan must have kept the air circulating well enough he was okay.
Then began the huge process of trying to figure out how to deal with what was obviously a propane leak. I was sure it was the oven. Something must have broken or come loose and was letting propane run out. I spent hours on the phone. Calling our dealership, calling every RV dealership within a 100 mile radius (there were only 3), calling every mobile service guy we could find a number for. Talked to the workers at the campground for recommendations. No luck. Our dealership had a location in Denver we could go to – 400 miles away, in the opposite direction of our planned travel. Not one return phone call from the several messages we left for 2 mobile repair guys. Each of the 3 dealers that were kinda close (100 miles away in Durango) were booked up for weeks. One said that if we paid a $250 fee they would let us “jump to the front of the line”. We said no thanks – who does that? – did not have a good feeling about that one.
So now I’m in tears. We have 3 rounds of guests coming over the next several weeks. Cooking is my thing. What are we going to do? Tell them to not come? Try to get their money back on plane tickets? Eat out all the time? Yuck. And, with the propane turned off, we have no heat. And it’s getting into the 30s at night now. Water pipes will start to freeze before too long. So again – do we have our guests come, tell them we have to eat out all the time, and by the way, it’s going to be freezing in the RV, and we hope the pipes don’t burst so we can keep running water and flushing the toilets???
Steve kept trying to calm me down. We do after all, have a grill. And there’s that thing called a microwave installed in the kitchen. I don’t use the microwave. Why would we go to all that trouble to find good quality food and then kill it by radiating it??? Oh dear. Then I really went down the rabbit hole. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to live in the RV the way we do. Maybe it’s time to figure something else out. What if I had turned on the stove that morning? What if the leak happened the day before when I had the range going all day? We would have been blown up! And had a big fire! And what about Gerry being there by himself when the leak happened – what if……and on and on it went. Fueled by frustration about owning a 2021, brand new RV with a stove that doesn’t work that I can’t get fixed.
Remember, I told you this was going to be a story and to get a cup of tea. You might want to get another cup. Just saying…
So I call up the mobile service guy who came out to us at Ridgeway State Park and asked him if he would come help us. He is 120 miles away from us (one way) now that we moved to Priest Gulch. At least figure out where the propane leak is and is it safe to even continue to stay in the RV. Please, I beg. He agrees to come out, if we will pay a mileage fee (yes!). It’s a few days before he can come, and I must say I was probably not a lot of fun to live with during that time. Poor Steve. I just seem to have so much of my identity tied up into cooking and it’s so central to our RV life I can’t imagine how we’re going to manage.
We survived without heat for those few nights, and we used the grill to cook and ate out some. And the service guy came, and yup, we had a big leak alright. There is a regulator on the back of the stove, where the propane line goes into the stove. That regulator was faulty. Gone bad. How does that happen I ask? Just goes bad. Hard to know why. Maybe faulty manufacturing. Maybe installed too tight. Who knows. Just happens. Really??? So you just maybe blow yourself up when cooking??? I still can’t wrap my mind around that. But, it was registering way over the explosion level on his handy propane “sniffer” tool.
So he disconnected the propane line from the stove, and capped the gas line. So we can use the propane for heat safely. He can’t replace or fix the faulty regulator on the stove. Remember, it’s an Insignia. No One Works On Insignia. Any other brand, he had parts in his truck for. But, at least now we’re safe. And we have heat. And now I have to figure out what to do about the stove.
Several phone calls, and emails to the dealership and the manufacturer of the RV. They will replace the stove no charge. They will ship it to us. Our mobile repair guy said he’d come back out and install it. Wow. Things are looking up – but wait – the stove is not in stock. Special order. No one knows how long it will take to be shipped, or how long it will take to get to us once it does ship. And we’ll be leaving Priest Gulch in about 10 days from now. And, unlike the brake caliper, we can’t just carry around a stove (where would we put it???) hoping to find someone who can install it, knowing RV service is almost impossible to find. And, if (when) it shows up here after we have left – what will the nice campground owners do with a big old stove sitting in their office? They can’t throw it in their car and run it to FedEx and forward it to us….and so we go, round and round in circles. Are you dizzy yet? I am!
There is good news here and a light at the end of the tunnel. In case you were wondering! I got out the manual for the microwave yesterday. It is a convection oven/microwave. I never really new what that was. Our old RV had it too. Never used it. Well – guess what – it’s an actual convection oven! An electric oven. With a heating element, you set the oven temperature just like an oven (like 350 degrees), wait for it to pre-heat, use your metal baking pans and tin foil – it’s an actual oven! No microwave when you use it this way! Who knew??? And, we found a really nice hot plate at Walmart. So I have one burner I can use all my pans on like the stove top. Works great. I made a batch off shortcakes yesterday in the convection oven (almond flour, honey, a few other ingredients, a favorite) – turned out better than the oven. Since the convection circulates air all around, there’s no browning on the bottom. Steve had found these beautiful local, organic strawberries a couple of days ago – picked the same day – he bought 5 packages. And we had strawberry shortcakes with whipped coconut cream last night! Delicious and soothed my nerves.
My convection oven and hot plate
So we have cancelled the attempted ordering/delivery of a new stove, and are going to have them hold the new stove for us for when we return. I can manage with this set up. And still make good food and enjoy company, run the furnace, not worry about frozen pipes and generally get back to our plans. Whew. Was a roller coaster for several days.
I guess I’ve learned through all of this just how much I love our RV life. When we were facing the possibility of having to end our trip and return back to Ohio I was really disappointed and sad. Right when we were getting ready for our visitors to come. We absolutely love sharing our RV life with friends and family. And I also was reminded of how much I love cooking and sharing good food with everyone. There really is nothing better than sharing a meal over the table with love between us. I know it sounds sappy, but it’s true. Somehow life in the RV is more real and up close and personal than it is otherwise. At least it has been for us. And that is what makes sharing it all the more special. Like most things, you don’t always realize how good it is or how much you love it until you’re faced with not having it. It’s clear to me now. We could have really been hurt or worse, and lost everything in a fire. And a stove is just a stove, and we can have good food and share our table with friends and family without it. Life really is good.
So there’s the big long story. I’ve put together some pictures for you, and I promise more to come. My sister will be arriving the end of the month for a visit. Can’t wait!
August 19, 2021 and August 20, 2021; writing from Dubois, Wyoming
Hello again friends and family! Well, you know, things can get interesting when your home is on wheels and traverses the windy, bumpy, frost heaved, pot hole filled roads we find ourselves on. And so it did…
You know that nice chatty update I gave you on the day before we were to leave Stanley, Idaho? Well, the next morning, things changed. After we hitched up and while doing my usual walk-around-look-at-everything, I discovered a shiny spot on one of our tires on the inside of the wheel. Looked up from the shiny spot and noticed the brake line to that wheel was loose. There was just a tiny bit of brake fluid that had dripped out. I learned to check the brake lines to be sure they are tight and look good from our incident a couple of years ago when we experienced a broken brake line. I learned then that if one line leaks brake fluid, eventually all the lines will lose their fluid and the wheels will lock up. While you’re driving. I’m pretty sure I wrote about that experience in a post back then.
Anyhow, I also noticed this big metal hunk/part that was in the wheel was loose and I could move it with my hand. That is definitely not good. I may not know what that big metal hunk/part was exactly, but I knew it shouldn’t be wobbling around in the wheel. Oh dear. So I say to Steve – “We’re not leaving. It’s not safe. I know we’re in the middle of the mountains and there’s no service place anywhere near. But, we can’t drive down the road with a wobbly metal hunk in the wheel and a loose brake line that I can’t get to tighten up. Double Oh Dear.
The campground, Stanley RV + Camp is owned by a very nice young couple. Joe the owner came over and asked if we needed help! Yes! He was able to tighten the brake line, and said that big metal hunk that was wobbly was the brake caliper. He said it was still partially attached and didn’t think it would be dangerous to drive with it that way. Each wheel has it’s own brake, so we still had 3 working brakes on the RV plus the truck. So we drove to Idaho Falls, the closest “big” city, which took us about 5 hours to reach. We stopped often to check the wheel and all was ok. In the meantime, I started calling for a service appointment. Let’s just say that was a frustrating experience all in itself. Places were booked weeks out before they would even look at it. I finally found a diesel truck repair place that said come on in! They agreed with the earlier diagnosis and set about getting a replacement brake caliper. That is another story in and of itself…talking to the manufacturer (after many attempts to figure out who the right person was to talk to), and delays due to the manufacturer’s phone system being down from a rain storm in Indiana where they are based. They shipped the part overnight, finally. But wait! That would be all to easy! FedEx failed to deliver the part – they were days behind. Of course we couldn’t find out exactly how far behind or when it would actually show up.
We had moved to a hotel since the RV was in the repair shop. We ended up spending 3 nights in hotels, a different hotel each night. And wow it was expensive! Idaho Falls, Idaho…who would think hotels would be so expensive? We paid about $300 each night for very, very average hotel rooms. Nothing special or nice. Of course Gerry was along for the adventure and he rolled with it just fine, although I don’t think he was thrilled:
Gerry at the hotel
After 3 nights we bailed and decided to leave with our bad brake and pick up our schedule to be in Dubois, Wyoming, on the eastern side of Grand Teton National park. The very nice people at the diesel truck repair promised to forward the brake caliper when it finally showed up. And our time in Idaho Falls was not all bad – we had grocery shopping to catch up on, found the inevitable Walmart, and explored the nice town.
Idaho Falls has a very nice greenbelt that runs for several miles right through the middle of the city. The Snake River runs through the city, and they have made walking paths, bike baths, gardens, and picnic areas all along the river. We hung out at the parks each day while we waited for our brake part to arrive.
Yes there’s falls in Idaho Falls!We met Misty the Weimaraner – aren’t they cute together?? They could be twins!Our drive through Grand Teton National Park – a little hazy from smoke
So we have now spent about a week in Dubois, Wyoming, and guess what? Our brake part showed up today! The very nice people at the diesel truck repair place in Idaho Falls received it finally, and they re-sent it to our new location, and it finally showed up, although it was 2 days later than FedEx said it would arrive. But, at least we have it now. We’re leaving here tomorrow, heading for Colorado. We’ll take it with us and find someone to install it.
Meanwhile, we have enjoyed our time in Dubois. We were here a couple of years ago and we are glad we came back. We hiked the Brooks Lake area again, twice this week. It is absolutely beautiful. Then the rain moved in and we’ve had rain the last few days. Unusual here, but they are always glad for the rain. So we have caught up on banking and other life maintenance stuff, I’ve been crocheting, cooking and relaxing. So we’re now all rested up for some adventures in Colorado.
Hello, Howdy and Hey There! So glad to be chatting again – I have a fresh cup of Cardamon Cinnamon tea so I’m all set on this chilly morning to catch up. It was 32 degrees this morning – and it will get up to about 80 this afternoon – gotta love that mountain weather. We sure do.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Idaho these past few weeks. First we stayed in Irwin, Idaho – in what they call “Swan Valley”. We were about 45 minutes from Jackson Hole, WY and also Grand Teton National Park. So we were on the western side of the Teton mountains. It was wonderful. We did several great hikes and loved exploring a new area. We were near a couple of cute little towns, Victor and Driggs. We found a great natural grocery store (a big deal in my life!) in Driggs and were regulars there. We also found a very nice, small, farm to table restaurant that we celebrated Steve’s 70th birthday at (more on that later!). The RV park we stayed at was very nice also. We were in two different spots while there – the first spot was extremely small and tight – I knew this when booking, but it was a challenge getting into it. Once again, we were lucky with a super nice neighbor who was from Ohio also, and who drove trucks with trailers for a living, who had just arrived and was not even done unhitching his own rig when he came to our rescue and directed Steve to maneuver in between the trees, low branches and onto our tiny pad. When our slides were out we were about 3 inches from the tree on one side, and about a foot away from our friendly Ohio neighbor’s rig. We enjoyed a few days visiting with them and also the people that moved into that spot after them – the new neighbors were from Boise and visited the area often, and gave us tons of helpful local tips. It continues to amaze me how nice and helpful people are in the campgrounds. I truly don’t know how we would manage sometimes with out these kind folks.
After a few days in that spot, we moved to the Most Wonderful Camping Spot – it was huge, had a large yard, a patio with a gazebo, beautiful large rock waterfall fountain, and a big fire pit. Same campground, but for some reason they had this really nice camping spot in the back – I’m guessing it was built for the owner’s use at some point. Anyhow, we loved being there. As soon as we moved into that spot we looked at each other and said – we really need to call our friends Don and Patty in Montana and have them come stay with their two beautiful labs, we have such a big spot and are right on the Snake River which is a world class trout fishing spot and Don loves to fish and wouldn’t it be great to have them here for a few days….and so we did….and they came….and we had a great time!
Now it was Gerry’s turn to share his house with Kody and Hunter. Everyone made themselves at home and a fun time was had by all!
Dog Day Afternoon Kody and Hunter at home in the RV
I need to back up a bit here – we celebrated Steve’s big 70th birthday while in Swan Valley also. And, I have a story to tell you about that! He was a little stressed about this big birthday and I wanted to make something special for him. He has always talked about this special cake his mom made for his birthday each year when he was young. A spice cake with raisins and caramel frosting. I have never made the cake before, but his sister Rene had found a recipe that was similar and shared it with me. So I set about to make this for his birthday. I think most of you are aware we have changed our diet quite a bit in recent years, and we don’t typically eat sugar or anything made out of wheat. So I found a way to modify the cake recipe to use almond flour instead of wheat flour, and used apples and honey instead of sugar. No problem, was easy and looked perfect and smelled great. I baked 3 layers – he loves tall cakes! Now on to the frosting. Here’s where it got interesting – I spent hours and hours trying to make a caramel frosting with out sugar or milk. I used coconut milk, honey, maple syrup, all kinds of combos. Total flops, all of them. Tasted terrible. So, finally, on the morning of his birthday when I was desperate, Steve went to the grocery and purchased both regular sugar and powdered sugar, along with heavy cream and I made a traditional caramel frosting that was outstanding! He loved his cake and we both enjoyed every last bit of all that sugar!
Happy 70th Birthday Steve!
Birthday Dinner in Driggs, Idaho
Cake Success!
We got to FaceTime with all the kids and grandkids and we all sang happy birthday to Steve. Really – Life Is Good!
Then it was on to Stanley, Idaho, in the Sawtooth Mountains and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Absolutely beautiful. Mountains everywhere, rivers, streams, natural hot springs, hiking galore – perfect in our book! We leave here tomorrow but we will most certainly come again. We have hiked for miles and miles here, sat in the hot springs (an amazing feat of nature!) and we made new friends!
While hiking one day, we ran into this lovely couple from Hawaii. We chatted, they told Gerry how cute he was, and we each continued on. But we kept running into them all during the 10 mile hike, and we really enjoyed talking. So we ended up spending a few days together, hiking, sharing meals, sitting in the hot springs, and getting to know each other. Wonderful people, Richard and Greta. We quickly realized we had a lot of similar interests and we really enjoyed hearing of their life adventures which have taken them all over the world. What a joy to spend time together, sharing our lives, each of us enriched from the experience.
Heading down a forest service road for a hike in Style!
You guys know how much we love exploring all these new places and having our adventures and hiking. And we really do. But, the people we have met along the way are the real gems. And being able to share our home on wheels with family and friends has made us so happy. The warmth around our table, the lunches along the trail, marveling at the beauty of nature all around, is so much more when shared.
So new friends and old, we thank you! Visitors, keep coming! Life is Good!
