The Year of Upgrades is Officially Over!

OK, not really by the calendar, but because we've finally run out of money.

OK, not really there, either, but we've accomplished everything we needed or wanted to do this year as we approach the 7^th anniversary of our RV journey.

Seven years of retirement. Seven years of great roads, seven years of horrible roads, and everything in between. Seven years of memories that most people don't accumulate in a lifetime.

Some of the upgrades came in the form of repairs or replacements to aging and road-weary systems, others were legally necessary, and others were just because it was time and we wanted them.

It all started back in January, and the scene of the crime was our annual visit to the Florida RV Supershow in Tampa. In past years, we've managed to curb our (well, MY) nature to spend money on shiny new things. When it comes to RV innovations, everything says “SQUIRREL!” to me . . .

And when deals are to be had, sometimes it's time to pull the trigger.

I've covered some of these individually in previous posts, but to look at them in their entirety ends up boggling my mind, especially with Barbara being so much more fiscally conservative than I am. I'm no spending maven by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were to win the lottery I might become one. Barbara wouldn't. She's the sane balance to my spending urges.

The Roadmaster Invisibrake tow vehicle braking system is everything I had hoped it would be. Always on, nothing to install or adjust on moving days, and once installed, never has to be touched. Got a very good deal saving a bit more than 25% off for a Supershow special, then actually spent more on the installation than I paid for the product! But thank God we did, because there was no way I could have installed it myself given the challenges our Jeep Cherokee gave the technician. Plus the fact that I wouldn't know what I was doing under the hood.

And as was explained before, it was legally required in order to tow the Jeep.

Also at the Tampa show, we finally pulled the trigger on theater seating to get rid of our uncomfortable couch. The hide-a-bed portion no longer worked due to a punctured mattress, and the cushions kept sliding out. Bradd & Hall was having a show special, but it was going to take 90 days to build the theater seating, so that got installed (and the very heavy couch removed for free!) almost 4 months later. THAT particular trip to Indiana and Ohio to visit friends exposed us to another needed upgrade:

New front shocks

Our Liquidspring system has been giving us a smooth ride in the rear of the coach since the beginning, but they didn't have a front end system ready until about 3-4 years into our journey. And as much as I wanted it, I wasn't ready to shell out about $11k for the upgrade.

The folks who created and installed our Safe-T-Steer product back in 2019 also manufacture and install Koni shocks (as well as their own brand). Koni's at the gold standard in the inductry for RV shock absorbers. Many RV-ers change out their OEM shocks early on after purchasing their rig, but I had been holding off on the Liquidspring front end option. But after the roads in Indiana and Ohio, and realizing that I had almost 65,000 miles on the original POS Ford shocks, it was time.

On our way to Red Bay, Alabama for our semi-annual chassis service, we stopped in Tallapoosa, Georgia, home of Safe-T-Plus, where new Koni EVO shocks were installed in about an hour. These Koni EVO's are massive compared to other brands, and while we only have a couple of hundred miles on them, they are a huge improvement! The coach was also weighed for the first time in 3 years there, and we found out we dropped about 2,000 lbs in the coach over the past 3 years! Gold star for us!

The folks at Safe-T-Plus are some of the best in the business, and they LOVE dogs! So Grover was naturally a big hit with them in the customer lounge.

 

Grover sporting his spiffy new bandana from the great folks at Safe-T-Plus

Our final upgrade / repair was our House batteries. I have been religiously taken care of our wet-cell lead acid batteries each and every month, removing our front steps to access the batteries stored under there, and checking and filling them with water.

Because we full time RV, it was a necessary pain in the rear.

But they had been setting off the CO detector in the front of the RV on a twice daily basis recently, and I suspected that it was due to excessive out-gassing during the extended charging cycle they were going through each day.

I hate being right.

I had been pining for an upgrade to Battleborn Lithium batteries for years. Greater power, lower weight, and zero maintenance. But pretty expensive. I didn't want wet-cell anymore, either. So I compromised by replacing the House batteries with AGM sealed batteries. No maintenance, lower weight. The great folks at Vina RV Service just outside of Red Bay got them and installed them in less than 2 hours! Money well spent, and we ended up saving another 200 lbs on our front axle weight.

 

Our old lead acid wet-cell batteries looking pretty worn

New AGM batteries take up less space and weigh less, not to mention the consistent power they provide and NO MAINTENANCE!

All up, all in, our upgrades and replacements to critical systems this year cost us about $10,000. Sounds like it's a lot of money, but when you consider that the only other real maintenance in the past 7 years has been oil and filter changes every 6 months and a couple of minor repairs, our maintenance costs ended up being about $0.21 per mile!

Worth every penny.

Where to next? At this point, even we don't know. A couple of weeks back in Georgia to enjoy our grandsons before Jace has to go back to school in August, but we literally have no reservations anywhere after that. Not even for the winter.

Yet.

Midwestern Madness - RV Style!

So after a couple of weeks in North Georgia to acclimate away from our Florida winter extended stay, it was back on the road again to close out our Tampa RV Show purchases from back in January.

We've already been enjoying our new collapsible storage containers since January. They are much more functional and save more room than our previous nesting containers, and of course they're prettier colors. Those were Barbara's big purchase from our visit to the Supershow.

Mine took a bit longer to complete, and were WAY more expensive!

First, we finally upgraded our Jeep to add a brake assist module. It helps to slow down the Jeep while towing, allowing the RV to slow quicker. Technically, we've been illegally towing for 4 years since we got the Jeep because it's mandated in all 50 states, but we had never quite gotten around to making that purchase at the time we upgraded to the Jeep as our tow vehicle.

The folks at Roadmaster had a really good show deal on their Invisibrake product, which differs from every other brake assist product in that the unit doesn't use a mechanical arm on a box to depress the brake pedal while towing. It uses the car's vacuum system to draw down the brake pedal, thereby applying the brake. What's really nice about it is that the product is always installed out of sight under the driver's seat, instead of being installed and removed during every trip.

The downside is that it really takes a professional to install the product. So it's a good thing that the Roadmaster sales rep had a really knowledgeable installer in the Tampa area to make that happen, especially when we found out that our Jeep was manufactured in a transition year from Jeep proper to their new owners – Stellantis. The laser sensor which is installed on the brake pedal arm requires a flat surface, yet for some reason our 2015 Jeep Cherokee had a rounded arm. So that had to be ground down to provide a flat surface. There was also the whole “tapping into the car's vacuum system to make it work” thing. So the new system worked out great once we had a proper towing cable for the RV.

Our last purchase at the Tampa Show was theater seating to replace our large, uncomfortable and HEAVY Flexsteel sofa bed. We went with the folks at Bradd & Hall in Elkhart, Indiana. Made by Amish craftsmen, this is the top of the line furniture for RV-ers, and given our full-time status of heavier use, was worth the extra cost (almost double) of other RV furniture manufacturers. They were also going to take out our old couch, trim off about 8” of window valance, and bolt the seating onto our slide.

But Bradd & Hall were in Indiana, a state which has quite possibly the WORST roads in America. By the end of the trip I had almost lost one of the bedroom closet doors to the jarring we were taking and had to tighten a few screws in our panoramic window in the kitchen.

Btw, next on our purchase list: New front shocks!

However, the folks at Bradd & Hall were every bit as great as advertised. The theater seating is incredibly comfortable, the fabric has a buttery kind of feel and nearly matches our existing furniture color, and the motors used are whisper quiet for both extending the seats and adjusting the headrests for easier TV viewing or for just taking a nap. That part came in handy on a drive day when I was particularly tired and needed a break.

They managed to squeeze us in during an already full day of installs, and had us out in less than 2 hours. The new seating is also Grover-approved, which as you know is the most important thing to be in the RV.

  

The big, bulky HEAVY Flexsteel sleeper sofa

Our nice new theater seating. Grover approved! Those tray tables can be simply lifted out and stored if need be, or just swung to the side when not in use.

So Tampa Show purchases complete.

Next up in Parental Parolees: seeing some friends and visiting a new state!

Can We Remember All We Need To Do?

So Wednesday marks the first time in 5 months that we will be moving the RV. That's the longest time between moves we've had in the 6 1/2 years we've been on the road.

 For us, that's an eternity.

Our initial 3 month stay in Chiefland, Florida was extended to 6 months due to the health crises detailed in my last post, and those 6 months aren't over yet. But we have the opportunity to head south of Tampa for a few days to make it easier for us to attend Plant City's annual Strawberry Festival, and we're finally getting a brake assist module installed on the Jeep. Roadmaster had too good a deal on some pretty good technology, and it was too good to pass up, and their installer is in the Tampa area.

So for me, it's back to having tire pressure monitors on the Jeep to keep track of them in the RV, it's balancing out the tire pressures on each of the six tires on the motorhome based on the weight of the coach and re-testing the TPMS system to make sure all sensors are reading right. Our towing pins and clips need to be reinstalled on the Jeep

For Barbara, it's sound-proofing the RV from rattles and other forms of noise that drive me crazy as we hit every bump, crack and pothole on our drive down. She's an expert at stuffing towels in strategic places to keep glass from clinking together, and sliding sound-proofing felt between dishes and pots and pans.

We have to make sure we lock the shower door in place so it doesn't slide and break into a million pieces, and we have to secure the contents on each refrigerator shelf with spring-loaded bars to make sure that liquids don't slide and spill.

Finally, a long plastic rug runner needs to be taped down on out living room floor so that the rollers underneath the main slide don't mark up our floor tiles.

Then it's just disconnect from shore power, water and sewer on travel day, and we're ready to hit the road!

If we can just remember everything we need to do that day . . . 

It All Started With Ants . . .

Black ants. Sometimes known as carpenter ants. Ants that like to eat wood.

 

Back in September, we stayed a couple of weeks at Duckett Mill COE park on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, GA. I've written about how much we enjoy staying at COE parks not only for their beautiful lakeside views, but their inexpensive cost to stay on those properties. Usually about $17 per night for a maximum of a two-week stay.

Camping in these wilderness settings can come with some negatives as well, usually in the form of insects of some kind. Bee and hornet nests can be a nasty surprise, mosquitoes of course due to the lake location, and occasionally ants. Mainly because in COE parks, deadwood isn't removed; it is sometimes buried during construction, and is always left in place where it falls (unless directly on a campsite) to decay naturally. This attracts carpenter ants.

I always spray around the RV to form a barrier from the ground to the paved pad on which we sit, but sometimes there's not enough insecticide to make a deep barrier, especially when ants are really prevalent. So in September we got invaded, but we didn't know by how much at the time. After a quick trip to Red Bay, AL for a gray and black tank cleaning, we began the 3-day drive heading down to our winter stay in Florida.

We noticed a few ants inside when we stopped our first night, but it was on our second night boondocking at a Bass Pro Shop where we realized how badly we had been infested. I had started our generator (which is right underneath and to the rear of our bedroom slide) to provide us power and air conditioning for the night, and all of a sudden we were swarmed in our bedroom. Apparently the ants had decided to take up residency in or around the generator area, and running it definitely made them mad. The good news was it also made them easier to kill.

But you never get them all, especially on the first try.

So we arrived at our winter digs in Florida expecting to spend the next three months doing the usual sightseeing, and maybe hitting some golf balls, and definitely spending time at the heated pool and hot tub.

But we were still getting ants; on the order of 3-5 per day making their way across our living room floor. So I set out some Terro Liquid Ant Baits around the RV where Grover couldn't get to them. And while it diminished their appearances, it didn't end them. Next step was to hit all the areas from the outside-in, such as basement bays and underneath slide seals with Terro Ant Spray Foam, hoping it would be a more direct and final ending to this infestation.

That's when our winter plans got derailed.

I was spraying underneath our main slide and had turned around to redirect the spray backwards when my feet got tangled with each other and I fell down hard. Like 3 feet down without any hand or arm to break my fall. Half my butt hit grass and sand, while the other half hit hard pavement. As I laid on my side for about a minute on the offending pavement, I began to realize just how much I had potentially hurt myself. I managed to roll out from under the slide and used our power pole to work my way to my feet and get inside to inform Barbara. Despite icing it down, within an hour I had what was going to be described by VA doctors as half a Kardashian, or half a Brazilian butt-lift.

With the help of Barbara and a cane, we managed to get me into the Jeep, and she drove the 40 minutes to the VA Medical Center in Gainesville, Florida, whereupon I was whisked into the ER for evaluation. After some morphine to help reduce the pain from a 10 to an 8, I had both a CT scan and X-Rays to make sure I hadn't broken anything in my pelvic area, I was eventually sent home with painkillers and instructions to lay low, ice it down, and everything would be fine. It was determined that I had suffered a lemon-sized hematoma, and that the best thing for me was a lot of bed rest.

Two weeks go by, and except for the occasional short walk to the hot tub for some hydro-therapy, I have followed my doctor's orders pretty well. The hematoma is about 90% reduced in size, and I'm ready to get back to being active again.

But then my left leg began swelling. Back to the Emergency Room, where I'm diagnosed with a blood clot and given an initial dose of the blood-thinner Eliquis, and a supply of Eliquis tablets to take over the next 30 days to reduce the swelling and allow the clot to begin breaking up.

A day and a half later, the Eliquis is working all-too-well, as it has allowed the formerly controlled bleeder in the initial hematoma to open up in spectacular fashion, and my half-Kardashian comes roaring back. Plus, my left leg had swollen to twice the size it had just a couple of days earlier. I get yet another ER experience at the VA, where they decide to admit me due to the internal bleeding. Now I'm off the Eliquis, just in case surgery is in my future, and put on a Heparin drip to thin out the blood. Good call as it turns out, because not two days later I'm rushed into surgery to embolize (cauterize) the bleeder and wrap a coil around it to keep it sealed. Apparently in about 50% of these hematoma cases, the bleeder erupts with even more spectacular results so it was fortuitous that I was already in the hospital at the time.

After a six-night stay on a Heparin drip, I'm released to go home again and I'm back on the Eliquis.

Ten days go by, and the left leg decides to swell up all over again. Thank God the hematoma is behaving. But another trip to the ER and an overnight stay at the VA ensues. They put me back on the Heparin drip yet again, and surmise that the Eliquis isn't being properly absorbed by my intestinal tract, because the blood clot is even bigger had as moved a bit. So the only solution at this point was to keep me on a liquid blood thinner, which unfortunately for me meant I was going on an injectable for the next 90 days!

Oh, joy . . .

And these aren't the nice little injectable pens where you hit the button, hear a click, and the drug is injected quickly into the fatty areas around your stomach via a short needle. Noooooo, these are real syringes with a good inch-long needle you gotta put in at a 45-degree angle and SLOWLY empty the contents into your fatty area. Most times it doesn't hurt much. Sometimes it hurts a LOT.

And this has to be done twice a day, every 12 hours. Not 12 ½ hours one day and 11 ½ hours the next day. Every 12 hours on the dot. No skipping doses, either. For 90 days. Maybe more depending on the results after 90 days. Or maybe there will be surgery in my future to remove the clot if this doesn't work. The good news is that the hematoma has finally healed completely.

But thank God for the VA. The people could not be better, from the nurses who took care of me all day and night or attended to me in the ER, to the doctors and surgeons who have no problem keeping me informed every step of the way. I know that some veterans have had their problems with the VA in some areas of the country, but I have had nothing but great service from them as we've traveled across the country, and certainly here in Gainesville, Florida. It's been a rough 2 months for both me and for Barbara. Even for Grover, who wondered why Mom would leave with me but come home without me for days on end.

So we've canceled out travel plans west for the time being, and have extended our stay in Florida for three more months, just in case things don't get completely right during the initial 90 days.

And all this because of some stupid ants. We still see one occasionally, but their sightings are fewer and far between, and they don't move nearly as quickly as they once did; hopefully due to the bait they're ingesting.

Damned ants . . .

Late Fall and early Winter Update some changes are afoot!

A Change of Pace

As many of our readers might remember, we have spent past January's, February's and March's in sunny Florida at Strawberry Fields for RV-ers in Chiefland, Florida, about 35 minutes southwest of Gainesville. It's a very nice resort, with a pool and hot tub, level pull-thru lots, and very friendly owners and fellow travelers.

We've also spent October, November and December in North Georgia to be near family (and especially grand kids) during the holiday season. But North Georgia hasn't been very weather-friendly the past 5 years for people living in a motor home. In short, too many sub-freezing temperatures and too much snow for our much more – modified – tastes in weather.

After thinking things through for travel in early 2026, and the realization that North Georgia is only about 7-8 hours away by Jeep, we decided to head south earlier in the season, and use early 2026 to travel out west to the California border, then spend some time near my brother and his wife for a couple of months.

While there is little to no room at either daughter's homes for us in which to stay, there are plenty of dog-friendly hotels at relatively reasonable rates that could take Barbara, Grover and me for a couple of days.

The pluses: no snow or sub-freezing temps thru December in Florida. Hot tub every day. Very reasonable winter rates and level lots.

Potential minuses: October IS the tail end of hurricane season, so we'll need to keep a weather eye out for impending storms. We can be slides in and jacks up in 20 minutes if need be, and we have enough gas in the tank to drive 380 miles.

This will also give us time to scout out potential late 2026 winter quarters nearer to Tampa, where many of our fellow RV friends reside.

As to January travel out west, we had visited near Baton Rouge, Louisiana this past spring, but it was too hot and muggy to do any sightseeing in the city proper, so our first stop in the New Year will be there. After that, there's a friend in the Houston area we want to see, then a visit to famous Quartzite, Arizona, where the boondocking is legendary. Hopefully we'll meet up with a whole lot of fellow Tiffin owners when we stay there for a few days. Next will be Yuma, Arizona, the furthest west you can get without entering California. As I've stated before, THIS motor home will never cross the state line into California as long as their gas prices are $5.00 per gallon and higher. But Barbara has a friend in San Diego we'd both like to visit, so our hope is to meet her halfway in the Jeep.

By the time February rolls around, we should be in the Casa Grande area of Arizona, about 40 minutes outside of Phoenix, Spend a month there, then start heading northward with the goal being to FINALLY hit the Grand Canyon during the end of March or early April.

Finally, it will be house battery replacement time after almost 7 years on the road, and it will be done in either Nevada - where Battle Born batteries are located, or back to Red Bay in late April to have the upgrades done there.

So expect a few posts over the next couple of months depending on what we do and who we meet. As always, there will be ample Grover updates, because we know how much some of our readers worry about him.

Jace's 2025 Summer Vacation Part 5 – We're “Home” in South Dakota

As I have stated before, can anyone actually be “home” when you full-time in a RV and your “residence” is a mailbox?

Nevertheless, we have finally brought Jace to our home state of South Dakota, specifically to the Rapid City area. Barbara and I have yet to explore parts of South Dakota much outside of Rapid City, and one of these days we'll schedule a trip to other portions of the state, but Rapid City has a lot to offer a young lad of 9 years, and after all, it's HIS vacation.

However, our first morning there was taken up with legal issues at our lawyer's office, so exploration had to wait. The campground we stayed at, Spokane Creek, was unfortunately for me at an elevation above 5,000 feet, so my High Altitude Sickness was still a problem, and would be for the next week. The recommended drive up to the campground consisted of a 1 ½ lane local road with a series of switchbacks and inclines that challenged this seasoned driver for almost 20 minutes. Fortunately, no car came down in the opposite direction! We later found out that their website doesn't mention that that particular route was not recommended for motor homes, but for cars. We did manage to find a more suitable route on our way out that was much more RV-friendly, thank goodness!

The campground was located on Iron Mountain Rd, which locals proudly proclaim consists of “17 miles, 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, 3 pigtails, 3 tunnels, 2 splits and 4 presidents”. And it was all that. Iron Mountain Road was our gateway to Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park and the nearby tourist trap of Keystone, SD. Fortunately, the campground also had a world class playground for Jace's enjoyment, however, their heated pool was NOT heated, with the water coming in somewhere in the mid-to-low 60 degree range.

 

Great sign in front of our campground advertising the wonders of Iron Mountain Rd.

The weather was comfortable, so we decided to hit Mt. Rushmore early in the stay, just in case bad weather moved in. Jace enjoyed the end-of-day ceremony where veterans were recognized by park rangers.

 

Keystone, SD, is a small town nestled in a valley below the Mt. Rushmore area. It features quaint shops, small eateries, and the typical tourist traps you find in small towns everywhere. It is a VERY conservative town once you see some of the merchandise being sold there. It's also home to Ruby's House, a very nice restaurant that features their signature Bison Stew served in a sourdough bread bowl. So naturally I had to continue my quest to reduce the bison population of SD, right? Yummy!

We never stay in South Dakota without a day visit to the town of Wall. Wall consists largely of the world famous Wall Drug Store, a sprawling multi-building one-stop shop for just about anything, including a bison burger (there I go again) for me. The reason we always stop there on every visit is because in one of their shops, they have a supply of those brass Christmas ornaments representing each state, and we're trying to get an ornament for each state we've visited to put on our little half tree that's set up in the RV. This year we picked up another 4 ornaments to add to our collection.

 

Jace found his jackalope!

The closest Jace will ever get to a bison if we have any say in it

 

 

 

Bronco buster!

 

I've mentioned in previous installments of our desire to spend at least one night at “The Wall at Wall”; a section of Bureau of Land Management real estate rising more than 300 feet above the Badlands. It's a spectacular sight, and the weather looked good for a one-night stay on our way to return Jace back home. Unfortunately, as we were taking a short reconnaissance drive through the area, the single road in and out was severely rutted, with a couple of deep holes that I felt couldn't be avoided with the motor home. We barely got around them in the Jeep! So once again, we bypassed the Wall at Wall with hopes for another chance on a future trip.

Custer State Park is always a great part of any visit to the Rapid City area. There's always a herd or two of bison working their way across the main access road to block your path, and this year was no different. The herd we encountered was smaller this year, but the speed with which the bison moved was incredible! Those beasts can move!

 

Our one disappointment this trip was the wild donkeys were missing entirely. Usually they are parked by a particular area next to the road, but they were all gone. We had bought 2 bags of carrots to feed them, and Jace was pretty disappointed we didn't get to use them.

The most stunning part of any drive through Custer State Park is the Needles Highway. Narrow, winding roads, a couple of low one-way tunnels, and rock formations that are simply out of this world. It looks like aliens came down and formed rock spires soaring hundreds of feet in the air for miles. Barbara and I never get tired of the view, and Jace was pretty impressed with the needles and the tunnels.

 

Needles from a distance

Since our animal adventure was a bit more limited at Custer State Park than in previous visits, we took Jace to Bear Country, USA, a drive-thru animal sanctuary about 20 minutes away from our campground. You pay your fee, keep your windows closed, and take a leisurely drive hoping to see some wildlife. It's not bad. We spotted elk, and bighorn sheep, and there were plenty of bears to see up close and personal, but due to the hot weather they were all pretty lethargic except for the bears in their pool or the bear cubs in their enclosure.

 

Baby bears!

 

Big bear!

Swimming bear!

Goofball!

With the days getting closer to Jace's return to school, it was time to break camp and head back to Georgia, but not before we introduced Jace to Barbara's and my good-luck charm when driving through South Dakota; 'Dignity of Earth and Sky'. After first seeing it on our initial trip to establish residency, we have made it a point to stop by – even for a moment – to pay our respects to her. Day or night, it doesn't matter. She resides in an I-90 rest area heading eastbound overlooking the Missouri River so she's easy to get to, and it was time on our way out to introduce Jace to our very special lady.

 

They grow them prairie dogs big in the Dignity Visitor's Center!

Jace meeting our very special lady - Dignity of Earth and Sky

We were able to hotfoot it back to Georgia in 3 day's time, with one memorable stop in southern Missouri where we were able to have dinner at Lambert's – Home of the tossed rolls. Yes, they really throw dinner rolls across their dining room, and they are fresh and hot and delicious. Their drinks also come in a huge mug which will have your bladder floating by the time your meal is over. But it was good food and good fun, especially for Jace who was able to catch his own roll!

 

The 3-day drive kind of wore me out, but we got Jace home with plenty of time to get ready for his new school year. As for Barbara and I, we got to stay at Yonah Mountain Campground near Helen, GA with full hookups and a pool for an entire month without having to worry about anything.

And I could recover in a lower altitude for a while.

Not exactly the vacation we had all hoped for, but Jace got to see everything we planned on him seeing, and then some. Over 3,000 motor home miles, nearly 5 ½ weeks, stops in 5 states and dozens of new memories with our grandson. Life couldn't be better.

Jace's Summer Vacation Part 4 - the Cowboy State Earns It's Name

We escaped Colorado with my health relatively intact (hey, no pulmonary aneurysm is a win!), Wyoming was next on our list, specifically Cody, Wyoming; home of Buffalo Bill and relatively close by to the East entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

The trip northward was surprisingly beautiful once we got off the interstate, with a few changes in elevation that didn't give me or the RV any issues. We also drove through a beautiful canyon inside the Wind River Indian Reservation which brought us along side a river and went through a few narrow and low hanging tunnels – just to keep me honest.

Cody, WY is a small city/town in the middle of nowhere (which I believe describes many areas within Wyoming), but has managed to maintain a vibrancy due to it's relative closeness to Yellowstone and to it's being the home of Buffalo Bill Cody. Many of you likely learned about Buffalo Bill Cody in history class growing up, but in this area, he's practically deified. Not that that's a bad thing mind you, but a little Buffalo Bill Cody goes a long way. When you're inundated with him for almost a week . . .

Anyway, they have a very nice museum covering his life and accomplishments, but it also includes a naturalist and conservation set of wings that highlight the importance of preserving the remaining open spaces in the area and across America. It features a raptor show that Jace loved, and he got to sit in an actual eagle's nest!

One of a few teepees in front of the Buffalo Bill Museum

Could this be the elusive Jace Eagle?

Jace coming up a bit short on the wingspan of a Golden Eagle

You'll find that when you travel to many isolated small towns out West which have some measure of historical value such as Deadwood, SD, Tombstone, AZ, or Cody, WY, there is the ubiquitous gunfight street show. The first two towns I mentioned try to recreate an historical event such as the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone or the Showdown on Gold Street in Deadwood. Cody had no such historical gunfight, but they had a street gunfight show anyway.

So here's the thing: It's free (unless you want to pay $3.00 to rent a chair – suckers that we are, we did) and it's worth every penny. The problem is that when you have nothing on which to base your 20 minute play, it's tough to write a good play. It also didn't help that the sound quality was pretty poor. That being said, it was campy enough to be fun. The other nice thing about travel out West is their overt show of patriotism and respect for those who serve our nation and their community as evidenced by their prelude to the show itself.

Yellowstone National Park was the reason why we were visiting Wyoming in the first place. As there are few camping opportunities in the park itself (limited spaces in total and very few spots that would take an RV our size), we opted to stay outside the park. We could have stayed closer to the West entrance to the park which was closer to the attractions within, but you actually end up staying in Montana. So we opted for Twin Peaks campground equidistant to Cody and the East entrance to Yellowstone.

A visit to Yellowstone National Park is a must for anyone who loves to experience the outdoors. It features some of the most gorgeous scenery in the US, gives the visitor the opportunity to see wildlife up close and personal on a good day, and let's the visitor see some of the most incredible natural geysers in the world. Old Faithful did NOT disappoint. We were able to get to the area with about 20 minutes to spare before it's “scheduled” eruption, and got a decent view without obstruction. The anticipation as it builds is exciting; there's movement for about 3-5 minutes before the actual eruption, so the excitement builds as each burble underground comes to the surface.

 

Pretty cool!

Jace was given a kid's guide to the park at the entrance, and the goal was to find as many animals in the guide was you possibly could – 20 animals in all. It said that if you found more than 7, you were doing good. In our two days in the park Jace was able to find 12, one with the help of a nice lady who had a telescope on a tripod and showed Jace his first and only elk.

As beautiful as Old faithful was, I found the most spectacular feature in the park to be the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Nowhere near the size of THE Grand Canyon, but it's steep cliffs and roaring waterfalls are a sight to behold.

Jace wading in Lake Yellowstone. He had to be carried into the water because we didn't bring his water shoes, and the shoreline is loaded with very sharp rocks!

One of the coolest things about the drive through Yellowstone is the ability to cross over the Great Continental Divide, separating one side of the Rocky Mountains from the other. Fortunately, we weren't at altitude long enough for it to affect me in any negative way.

 

Our journey back and forth from our campground to Cody took us past Buffalo Bill Dam, up until a few years ago the highest dam in the world. We stopped In at the visitors center they have on-site, took a quick tour and watched video of the very interesting history of it's difficult construction; not only due to it's proposed height, but due to the private companies involved that were ill-suited to constructing a dam in the first place! The results were ultimately good for the area with control of the river and the creation of Buffalo Bill Cody Lake.

Our final night in the Cody area found us getting a quick supper at the local DQ, where they had the most interesting kids seating available. It was then onto the Cody Stampede Rodeo, held each and every night at 8:00 from June thru August. Another beautiful recognition of America and the people who served it, followed by local talent performing in various riding and roping competitions. At one point they asked all kids in attendance to come down onto the ring and participate in a chase for a few ribbons attached to small cows. Needless to say, Jace had a blast, even if he never got near a cow!

 

A saddle seat in a Wyoming DQ? Sure, why not?

 

Jace getting excited to see his first rodeo

Jace on the field with all the other kids waiting to chase cows. What could be better than that?

Our last stop in Wyoming was going to be at Devil's Tower in the east, but getting there proved to be a bit of a challenge. Leaving Cody, we found ourselves on a gradual decline in elevation, so gradual I hardly noticed it. We got to a small town called Tensleep with a river running through it, and saw that our only route to Devil's Tower was going to have to climb up and over a particular mountain range with 10,000 feet of elevation ahead of us. Now, I can maintain some pretty good speeds going uphill so long as I keep my gas pedal to the floor, but once I get into switchbacks and hairpin turns I have to slow down, and I can NEVER regain my speed until I crest the mountain. That meant that after the first reversal in the road, I was down to 25-30 MPH no matter how straight the road became – for more than 35 interminable minutes. The motor home's engine was getting a real workout going up, and people behind us weren't very happy with me because if I ever used one of the few turnoffs, my best speed from a standing stop would have been about 15 MPH.

Worse yet was the drive downhill. No matter how much I used the engine and downshifting to keep my speed safe, I had to use my brakes – a lot. Got so that my tire pressure management monitor starting singing out high temp warnings on my front tires about 2/3rds of the way down the mountain. We're talking temperatures exceeding 150 degrees, and pressures beginning to run into the high range as well. I found a long pull off where we had lunch and I waited for the pressure and temperatures to start dropping back to normal, but nothing was happening. Finally, I decided that Mother Nature needed a bit of help (it WAS a warm day), so I got a 5-gallon bucket out of my basement bay, filled it with water from our fresh tank, and started pouring over the tires. The water would literally steam away as it hit any metal and dry instantly when it hit the tires. After about 20 minutes and 10 or so buckets of water, the tires were near enough to normal that we could get back on the road. We still had another 15 minutes of descent, but I used the engine to downshift almost exclusively.

Arriving at Devil's Tower campground and restaurant, we had a small and fairly un-level pull through site with electrical hookups only for $50, but it was the closest campground to the Tower except for the much higher priced KOA at the base on the mountain. It also claimed to have the best bison burgers in the state. Truth be told, they were very good!

If you ever watched 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' back in the '70's, Devil's Tower became famous in that film as a base for aliens from outer space. It's a very weird and very striking butte in the middle of nowhere, rising almost 900 feet from base to summit. You can climb it if you're younger and in much better shape, but we were just happy to see the monolith up close from the base. No alien spacecraft were spotted during our time there.

 

At the entrance to the park, prairie dogs are all over the place. Thousands of them make their nests in fields next to the access road.

Wyoming was to give way to our “home” state of South Dakota, but that's for our next report in Parental Parolees.