Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Montana - The Detour State

Today was a nice drive. Both the transmission and the fuel filter seemed to behave themselves. We are still keeping our fingers crossed.

Yesterday's drive was a hot one. The truck measured the exterior temp as 99 degrees. Hotter in Montana than in Austin! Today was mostly cloudy and that kept the temp down with a high of about 74 degrees (plus we are still going north and higher in elevation.

We had no less than 5 detours today. Some roads were completely gone, and the detour used mud covered side roads. Some detours had wonderful roads. In addition, we had several construction zones where traffic would have to wait on one side for 15 minutes while a "pilot" car led vehicles from the other side for a single line of traffic. These side trips were limited to 30 mph. I guess they only get a few months to fix the roads without ice.

The country side in Montana seemed more green and prosperous. Lots of cattle, sheep, crops. The roads seemed to follow long valleys instead of going up and down hills. Large centralized ranch operations with big buildings and lots of cars for people working there.

We arrived at the St. Mary KOA and got a nice roomy pull through sight. Dogs have been walked a couple of times and we are fixing turkey cutlets for dinner. Tomorrow should be spectacular.

Wyoming

Yesterday we got the RV closed up and hitched in 20 minutes. It turned out to be a really good thing that the campsite behind us had been emptied, because after the RV was hitched to the truck there was not enough room to pull out. I had to back it up into the other site in order to make the truck turn onto the road. That is one of the disadvantages of having a bigger rig.

We pulled out before 8 and went through the town of Estes Park to go east on highway 34. Another spectacular drive through the Big Thompson River canyon. The walls were rocky and covered with trees, and the river crashed over rocks as it wound into and out of sunlight and shadows.

It was a long drive day of 541 miles. Nothing much to see along the way. Rolling hills with sparse grass and vegitation. Almost no evidence of people in some long stretches, no buildings or cattle. Just the highway. Mile after mile. When there were structures, they were set into the south side of the hills so the winter winds would blow over them. Not my idea of paradise.

I noticed we were going right past the Little Bighorn National Historic site where Custer was wiped out by the Indians he was chasing. We had visited there before and I thought we could stop and get our parks passport book stamped and get a vinyl sticker for the RV and count it as a visit. Even with the stop we could still get to Billings by 7pm.

The roads in Wyoming were better than the rough roads of Colorado. The horrible front/back rocking of the rig was minimal, but there were plenty of repaired cracks that would vibrate the rig up and down and make a constant racket. Many miles of road were single lane and drive with one wheel on the shoulder as they were grinding up the previous asphalt and putting down new in the other lane.

Terri's part of the drive convinced her that the truck was handling the hills very nicely. Better than she remembered from any other drive. She wondered if the trouble code reset had improved more than just fixing the transmission self protection mode problem. The new rule is not to think that what we just fixed was the last problem we would have with the truck. (Ominous organ music indicating pending doom.)

We stopped at one paved parking area along the way for lunch. When Terri opened up the RV to get lunch out of the frig she found that the freezer door had opened and all the ice and ice cube trays had been dumped onto the floor. The frig has a nasty habbit of being a sealed box with two doors each for the freezer and frig parts. When one door is closed, the air pressure often opens the other just a bit. We need to be more careful, but no harm done. We bought ice at the campground in Billings.

Terri had been driving about 67mph (speed limit of 75). I decided to push up to 72mph and try to get there sooner. The Little Bighorn site was open till 9pm but it is always nice to set up the RV and relax. A couple of days ago with Terri driving, the truck acted like it was shifting up and down changing the engine speed as we climbed hills. It did that for me too, and I dropped it into manual shift mode to prevent it. But it continued without actually shifting. Odd. (Organ music begins to build.) I continued to be bored by the landscape and decided to set the cruise control to 75. Everything was running well, but on steep hills we could hear a knocking sound from the engine for a few seconds. (Organ music continues quietly with the stars of the show unaware of the problem.)

At the instant we crossed into Montana, the engine began knocking badly and lost power and the check engine light came on indicating a problem. I pulled over with a "what now" look on my face. I used my little PPE computer to read the code, but cell phone coverage again prevented me from finding out what 0087 meant. As if by magic, cell phone coverage went to 4 bars and I could see that it meant low fuel pressure. When I had prepared to the truck for the trip, I had not had the fuel filter changed because it still had 30% life. The truck dashboard computer said it had 16% life left, but it seemed by the loss of power and other problems noted that it may be on its last bit of useful life.

We immediately began driving slower (less fuel needs to go through the filter) and cancelled our planned stop at Little Big Horn. We had no real problems getting into Hardin MT where we filled up with diesel and found an auto parts store where I bought a new fuel filter and wrench. No obvious place to take the truck to have the fuel filter changed, but the worst case was now much better as I had one in our posession if we actually broke down. Terri drove since she likes to go slow.

As we entered the town of Billings MT where we were going to stay, I spotted a billboard that indicated lube jobs for semis and RVs at the 1st exit. We pulled into a huge building (RV attached), and three guys were able to do one guys work (no other customers and they were bored). Terri walked the dogs and in 10 minutes we had a clean filter. I paid them for one of their filters and kept the auto parts one as a spare for the trip. (Organ switches to "Take me out to the ball game. Home Run! Wait, didn't I say earlier not to assume fixing the current problem was the last problem.)

The KOA campground we stayed at is the 1st in the nation. EXCELLENT facilities. I had a buffalo burger and Terri had a cheeseburger at the campground grill so we didn't have to figure out what to cook. So far, that is the only meal we have purchased in 5 days.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Trouble in Paradise

We left at 8:30 and had to travel all of 1/4 mile to make it to Colorado.  Interstate 25 is the worst road we have ever encountered in our RV (though Terri refused to let me call it the worst road in America).  There was a lot of construction and patch on patch on patch on the road surface.  Even the new sections were very bumpy and bounced the RV both up and down as well as forward and back.  One bump bounced one of our wheel chocks out of the truck bed.  The speed limit was 75, but we went about 67 to limit the pain and suffering.

We decided that if it was uncomfortable for us in our plush leather seats with lumbar support, imagine what all this vibration and bouncing felt like for the dogs.  We pulled out Garmin and found the location of the next Walmart (in Pueblo).  We bought the dogs a nice coushy pad for their truck cage as well as items we needed in the RV.  I also stopped at a Lowes (hardware and home repair) and got the metric bolts I needed to repair the mud flap.  We topped off the fuel tank with 10 gallons or so and got back on the road.

The driving for the day was supposed to be about 280 miles, but it seemed like it was taking much too long.  The traffic was not bad till we got into Denver/Boulder, but even then not too bad.  Terri commented that it was like a holiday weekend where everyone is trying to get home.  We wanted to fill up the fuel tank, but all the stations in Boulder were on the wrong side of the street, and with the traffic we didn't want to do a lot of left turns.  Our last town before Estes Park (a town, not a park) was Lyons, and the only station there had dozens of cars, RVs, trailers with boats, and there was no place to get in.  We still had over 1/2 a tank so we pushed on to Estes Park.

The road  (Rt. 36) through the Roosevelt National Forest was spectacular.  Most of the way the speed limit was 45mph due too the road wrapping itself along the sides of the mountains and rocks.  The truck seemed to have no problem pulling the RV and we never had to pull over to let any lines of cars backed up behind us go around us.  As we were pulling forward from a stop sign headed up hill, we heard (and felt) a violent "klunk".  (Dramatic pause for effect.)  We had no idea what it was, but it was from the truck.  It seemed to be running OK so I attributed it to a "bad shift" from the automatic transmission (6 speed Allison) and we proceeded on our way. 

We had no problems making the turns and keeping our speed up, but the engine seemed to be revving much faster (3K rpm).  The gauge for the transmission oil temperature which normally reads about 180 degrees was now up to 250 and rising.  When I tried to switch to manual gear shifting to downshift and use the engine to brake going down hill, I noticed that the engine was ignoring the upper gears.  That is not good.  We pulled off onto a wide spot and pulled out the owners manual.  It said that if the transmission overheats it will force itself into a self protection mode, but it would light a warning light on the dashboard if it did that.  We had no such light, but we did have the check engine light on.  This check engine light had been on since Austin, and was due to the reprogramming of the fuel mixture for more power (discussed in a much earlier blog entry).

I pulled out again and confirmed that we only got to 2nd gear, then pulled into a "slow vehicle" pull out to have lunch and let the rig cool down.  Exploring the owners manual did not lead to any new knowledge, and we began to fret about what to do.  It was only 7 more miles to the campground, and I knew we could get there going slow.  That would allow us to unhitch the trailer and get the truck looked at.  We are members of several travel services that would get us into a repair shop.  I decided to read the diagnostic codes to see if there was anything other than the air mixture warning.  The code 0700 came up, and we tried to get to the web site that would tell us what that meant, but the cell service was bad enough that we never could connect.  I reset the code to turn the check engine light off, and when the transmission had cooled down to 190 degrees I tried again.

Boy were we lucky.  The transmission returned to normal operation!  When we got better cell service, I found that the diagnostic trouble code was indeed for the transmissioin control.  Resetting the code apparently took the transmission out of self protection mode.  So the bad shift did cause the problem.  I need to remember not to push the pedal so hard climbing hills.

The area around the town of Estes Park is beautiful.  Our campground is ringed by tree covered mountains and has a very nice stream making a pleasent background roar.  Lots of kids and families having a great time.  We set up our chairs on the side of the stream and watched hummingbirds, swallows, and hawks all do their various activities.  We played the minature golf course.  I grilled chicken for dinner and we had to move the picnic table under the RV awning due to rain.  It was very nice listening to the stream and the rain.  With no TV stations, we watched the DVD "Invictus" about Nelson Mandella and the South African Rugby World Cup, on the same day as our daughter Julie watched a soccer World Cup match in South Africa.

We slept with the furnace off, and it was 57 in the trailer when we woke up, 43 outside.  We used the electric fireplace to warm things up.  Today is to be spent exploring Rocky Mountain National Park.  We also need to fill the fuel tank with the local 20% overpriced diesel for the long drive tomorrow.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Getting High

We started our trip at 2pm on Friday with Terri Driving.  Tom still had phone meetings to participate in and IBM mail to process.  Aren't cell phones wonderfull?  I was able to jail break my iphone (allows loading apps from places other than the Apple app store) and use MyWi to have laptop access to the internet using the iPhone unlimited data plan.  No need to get a special wireless card and pay extra.

We had reservations at the Abilene KOA which was inserted as Day 0 to shorten the distance we needed to drive on Saturday by 200 miles or so.  We encountered very little traffic and arrived around 6pm.  We didn't unhitch from the truck as we wanted to make it easier to leave in the morning.  Up at 6:15 and on the road Saturday morning at 8am (The target was 7am.  We need to get faster.)

Our Garmin Nuvi decided that we should travel the back roads towards Raton, NM.  Many of  them were four lane and some were two lane.  Every one of them was absolutely deserted.  We were able to travel at 70mph (the posted speed limit) for almost all the way.  The "worst" road was a two lane road out of Amarillo where it was quite a good shortcut but I was uncomfortable doing 70 and probably averaged 60.  Back on four lane roads, we went through a very nice "downpour".  It was not just a rain, it was a lightning filled heavy rain that did a very nice job cleaning bugs off of the windshield and cooled the 94 degree day into a 62 degree day in 15 minutes.  Terri drove the last leg and encountered a little bit more traffic.  This gave her the chance to drive on the right shoulder to "drive friendly" and make it easier for people to pass (not that passing got them very much farther along as there were cars in front of us).

The 510 mile trip lived up to it's predicted negative expectations.  The 5th wheel trailer pulled very easily and tracked behind the truck perfectly.  That is their reputation.  The problem is the forward/backward pull that the trailer exerts on the truck.  It makes it hard to drink coffee, read the newspaper, etc.  Not much that can be done to improve this except the change the king pin (the peg that connects the trailer to the hitch in the bed of the truck) with one that has shock absorbers.  That is an expensive fix that we will try to avoid.  The dogs seemed to ignore the motion and traveled well.

We are starting to realize that we need to manage our diesel fuel purchases with some diligence.  We have a 34 gallon fuel tank which at 9mpg (mountain mileage) only really allows 270 miles between fill ups with some minimum safety margin.  We plan to only go 230 to 250 miles, so I have to look on the Garmin and iPhone to see where diesel is available along the route.  We expected to get 11mpg as it appeared that we were traveling on level ground, but we only got 9mpg.  In reality, we climbed over 6000' in elevation and that probably cuts into our mileage.  Hopefully, we will get it back on our return decedent to Austin.

We are currently in Raton, NM at 7888' elevation.  Much harder to climb stairs!  When we got to the park, they had lost our reservations.  Their computer lost three reservations yesterday and four today.  They say it has never happened before.  Lucky us.  In reality, it was not a problem.  We were assigned a suitable spot that allowed us to remain hitched.  We also lucked out for dinner.  The RV park sponsored a pot luck barbecue and we were treated to a wonderful "RV experience" of getting to know other people on their travels.

While the dinner was being prepared, a localized thunder storm passed through.  Very heavy rain and some lighting hitting the mountain behind us.  We moved the party inside the recreation/office building as it got pretty windy and cool, but by the time we had gone through the buffet line we ended up sitting outside to eat.  As the storm passed and the sun came out, we were treated to a triple rainbow.
We plan to stay in this same RV park in 3 weeks on our way home.  Pretty views of the valley from this mountain pass.

Our first equipment problem happened today.  The rear mud flap on the driver's side broke free.  It is missing a bolt at the bottom of the fender and the bolt holding the inside top ripped through the flap.  I was able to repair the top hole with a fender washer but I don't have a suitable bolt to tie down the bottom so I removed the flap.  We can try to pick up a bolt along the trip.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Preparing to Depart

We have spent a lot of time on our itinerary and getting reservations at RV parks.  You can see how well Terri did in using Google Maps to document each driving day in our blog below (distance and times for each leg), but she has also prepared a 3 ring binder with all the routes and RV park and National Park info.  It is broken up into weeks so it is easier to find what we are looking for.

We also bought a National Parks Passport binder to get dated stamps at each park we stop at.  We bought a complete set of yearly stamps and they are in the binder waiting their visit.  The Garmin has been updated with all the newest rest area locations, Walmart Stores,  and more.  The iPhones are up to date and have links to find diesel gas stations.

I finished installing Steady Fast RV stabilizer bars on our Montana 3400RL 5th wheel.  They are used when parked, and are supposed to stiffen up the front landing gear and rear stabilizer scissor jacks.  We are looking forward to seeing how well they perform in windy conditions and in minimizing vibrations as we walk around in the RV.

We got the oil and filter changed in the GMC Sierra.  12 quarts!  Did not change the fuel filter as it still has 30% life in it and is fairly easy to take care of when travelling if necessary.  We also had them replace the front end parts that appeared to be loose and worn.  Upper and lower ball joints, idler arm, pitman arms, tie rod.  Terri had complained about the play in the steering (178K miles on parts that should be good "indefinitely" with proper care), but it is much better now.  The muffler had a broken clamp that had to be welded back on, and the rear air bag on the driver's side had a broken bracket that had to be repaired.  We removed the Back Flip cover over the truck bed as it will be open most of the time anyway due to pulling the RV.  Only 4 knobs to undo and it lifts off.  Nice.

When we travel with dogs, they both stay in a metal cage in the rear seat.  The stiff suspension of the truck makes the cage rattle and squeek. I came up with a simple way to get rid of most of the rattles.  I hooked a bungee cord to one side and up over the top and down the other side.  That takes out almost all the rattles, but leaves the squeeks as the doors slide against the sides.  I think I have a solution for that too.  I have some 1/2" foam insulation cord that I slit half way through.  I used zip ties to attach it to specific points between the doors and sides where there was rubbing.  Seemed to make a big difference with only the 1st two so I will continue with more.  The dogs are groomed and will get a bath (Annie's 1st full bath in her 4 year life.)

We plan to get a vinyl sticker at each park to display on the RV exterior somewhere.  Kind of like bragging about where we have been.  Most RVers have been to many more places than we will have been on this trip, but you have to start somewhere.  There are also vinyl US maps (like in the top right of our blog) that allow you to add states as you camp in them.  (There is some argument about the "proper" use of this in RV circles.  Some mark off the state if they drive through it.  Some only if they camp in it.  Some only if they both camp and have a destination in it where they spend more than just an overnight stay.  We choose "camped".)  The old style of these had solid colors for each state.  The only ones we can find now use an icon that represents each state, mostly from what is on the license plate for the state.  We prefer the older style, but will compromise on the new style if we don't run across one on our travels.

Right now our dining room table is getting filled up with things we are gathering to take.  We plan to pick up the RV tonight and park it in front of our house to plug it in and chill the refigerator and load it up.  We decided to leave Friday afternoon (before rush hour) and get 5 hours driving in instead of having a very long drive on Saturday.

It snowed in Glacier this week and will probably hit 100 degrees in Palo Duro Canyon, so we have to pack a wide variety of clothing and coats.  All the laundry is done, so it should really come down to take the clothes we want on hangers from our closets and just rehang them in the RV.  Nice to have lots of room!  Lots of lists of things to turn off in the house and people to notify about things.  Our son David has agreed to come by the house and water plants and check on things.

The excitement builds.

Tom

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

1st Campground Back In Attempt

Terri and I decided to take the Memorial Day weekend and spend it in the RV in the Texas hill country.  We got the last 50 amp site at the Oakwood RV Resort, and it was in "the forest" and required backing in.  Terri drove the RV through Austin traffic on Friday (her first time) and nobody got hurt!

Our initial attempts (3 or so) to back into the spot (#21) ended in failure due trying to avoid a car parked in the adjacent site.   It required the truck to be too close to a barb wire fence preventing the truck from straightening out the RV.   Reversing the direction (by driving around the park roads) resulted in a much cleaner approach.

The site actually required a very precise placement of the RV.  Trees on one side had to clear the big living room slide.  On the back side, the electic/water post had to be positioned between the other living room slide and the kitchen slide.  Very nice shady spot.