Month: August 2021

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:

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.

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.

I don’t have a bunch of pictures to share, but here’s a few from our hikes at Brooks Lake in Dubois: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kaHqM4KQhb7DmqUz8

August 9, 2021 – writing from Stanley, Idaho

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!

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!

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.

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!

Pictures: Swan Valley, Idaho: https://photos.app.goo.gl/J89QAkZFJbfsTVEj9 and Stanley, Idaho: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nfixvhQYgqtfAzvb8