Running a bit late on a post today. No, I didn't forget - just a full plate. Yes, we were out on the scoots today; yes, I shot some video; yes, I kinda ran out of time to finish working on the video. Here's a couple stills I shot...
Video when time permits. It was a warm, but delightful day. And, the riding was good!
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Video editing done...
Me? Oh, heck yes - we got out on the scoots today, riding some great roads. But the title here is about Rufus - he loves to walk in the grass here at Hart Ranch...
Did I mention: out on the scoots? We discussed it before heading out: the plan is to take it somewhat easy, since we are both a little rusty on blasting through the curves. I shot some stills and video with the One X2.
We started with some of our nearby favorite roads: Spring Creek Road, Neck Yoke Road, S. Rockerville Road, Playhouse Road, and the well-known Iron Mountain Road.
I shot a bunch of video, edited down to this...
Great day for riding!
We have now been on the road, heading north, for 17 years. Yes, I'm kidding; it has only been 14 years. OK, it only feels like it. We left home one week ago today. About 1,600 miles. Two of those days were non-traveling days. We have tried to be off the road by 3:00 on the travel days; earlier is OK by me, too. Today was about 270 miles, and it didn't get above 75º most of the way; drove through a couple rain storms, one of which dropped the temperature to 59ª... I don't recall the last time we saw 59º.
Our route today took us through northwestern Nebraska and into South Dakota. People think of Nebraska as being flat, but this part of the state has some significant hills, and our elevation topped out around 4,300 feet...
You can see the difference in our side of the road compared to the lane coming at us. It's going to take some scrubbing to get that kinda "dust" off the coach, car, and trailer. We stopped for gas along the way and paid the highest this trip: $2.99. Rolling into South Dakota, the prices seemed pretty fixed at $3.09. Our first views of the Black Hills, with some rain shafts...
We rolled into Hart Ranch mid-afternoon; while I went to the front desk to get us checked in, Joan got the tow stuff disconnected. We drove to our site - we have a system: Joan pulled in first with the cargo trailer, we unhooked that, moved the car, then parked the motorhome. That puts the cargo trailer with the ramp door facing the street, so we can come and go easy with our scoots.
After being in travel mode, it takes a while to get set up to be in one place for a while. The motorhome is set up, all utilities connected, windshield cover installed, then on to the cargo trailer... scoots unstrapped and rolled out, chocks removed, stuff rearranged, scoots back into their "portable garage." E-bike and e-scooter out and put together. Patio stuff set out and arranged.
Then, into the motorhome to get the inside set up. Yep, it takes a lot of work to have this kinda fun. ;-) I did take each of the scoots around the block to make sure they made the ride OK - all good. Too much to get done for any more of a ride than that today. Just feels good to be here.
Rufus got to be outside for a bit... until the neighbor dog (about the same size) came charging from under their motorhome to bark and growl at Rufus. The dog was on a long leash, so Ruf just looked at it until the lady came out to holler at her dog. I told her, "He's a friendly cat, as long as dogs don't get aggressive." Just letting her know that her yappy dog could wind up with his nose ripped open if it comes this way again. Ruf was just happy to be outside in the grass by our patio.
It got to about 78º while we were getting set up... really nice. The high temperatures that are baking the western states will make its way here in a couple days. Sure glad Mother Nature let us get moved in during this lovely weather.
After traveling for the past week, we'll need to do the same thing we'd do at home: grocery shopping and laundry. But, not today. After getting all that done today, we'll cool our heels this evening.
It's a thing. If you live in an area where there are other Vespa riders, or even better: a scooter club, today is an officially designated day to ride your Vespa in a parade. Not gonna happen with my classy blue Vespa... alas, it is still strapped down in the cargo trailer.
Will be another couple days before it gets to see the light of day, other than when the trailer door gets opened.
An easy driving day today: point the coach west when we left the RV park, and drive 'till we get to the next RV park. ;-) We drove under the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument over I-80...
It tells the story of the Platte River Valley in the development of America. It is an impressive piece of architecture. A pretty driving day today - very light wind, temperatures between 69º and 80º, and blue sky...
Rufus was his usual good-traveler self...
"That's enough pictures, Pops!"
We gained an hour as we rolled into the Mountain Time Zone, which put us into the RV park early for tonight's stay. We could have gone further, but tomorrow is our arrival date at Hart Ranch... this RV park is a good stop (stayed here many times over the years)...
If you said, "From the Wizard of Oz, 1939, sung by the Munchkins," you get 50 bonus points. When I got up this morning, this was on my Facebook news feed...
My thanks to Kurt Niles for the morning laugh!
On a Saturday. If you said, "The Commodores, 1977," you get 25 bonus points. If you said, "Jim, I've heard you say it isn't easy being pretty. Or was that: it isn't pretty being easy?" you get an additional 100 bonus points.
Today was an easy drive: about 200 miles, straight north. When we ran out of Spur I-135, it turns into US Hwy 81. Even found a Love's gas station that could accommodate our length. It was also at that same gas station where the Honda wouldn't start. I make it a point to start the Honda at each fuel stop; it helps keep the battery charged and a quick run through the gears keeps that lubed up. I pulled out the jumper and it fired up.
When we got to today's RV park (yes, this is an RV park, compared to last night's campground), it was early enough to consider a late lunch at the nearby Taco John's. No, we do not have Taco John's in the Tropical Tip - it is an upper Mid-west chain. While I went to the office to get us checked in, Joan started unhooking the car. Then, gave me the not unexpected news: the Honda wouldn't start again. Time for a new battery. The nice lady at the office said, "I have a set up jumper cables; let me pull my car up to yours." Very nice of her. We pulled onto our site and went to work getting the coach set up.
Taco John's is right in front of the Walmart, which we can see from our RV site. I got a new battery for the Honda while Joan picked up a few groceries. There was no one ahead of us in the Walmart service bay - within 15 minutes, they were done with the car (they install the battery free, so... why not?) and Joan was done with her shopping. Fast and easy.
No one in line at the drive up at Taco John's... in fact, with only two cars in the parking lot, we wondered if they were open. Yep. We got our TJ needs met and brought it back to the coach. A very easy late lunch.
"Why only 200 miles today?" you ask. Thanks for asking. We had a built-in "pad day." An extra day or two of no traveling, in case we run into bad weather or any kind of equipment issue. Once we are about 3 days (or 600 miles) from our destination, we can make it easy driving days, or up it to 300+ miles and still stay on schedule. We have a fixed reservation at Hart Ranch and can't come in earlier than that... Monday is our planned arrival day. So, about 220 miles tomorrow, then another 250 or so on Monday. Easy.
The weather today stayed around 75º and mostly overcast. A north wind, so we said bye-bye to the tailwind we had enjoyed until today. It dropped our fuel mileage by about 1mpg. Four lane highway all the way. And still in early enough to kick back. Right now, I have Rufus sitting beside me with his head on my leg... he's a good traveler, but I think he enjoys "the house not moving all the time." ;-)
If you said: "Kris Kristofferson, 1970," you get 200 bonus points.
It was still raining (not pounding) when we went to bed in our "skinny" bedroom, with the slide-out pulled in; more "closed in feeling" on Joan's side of the bed. And, no, changing sides of the bed doesn't work for long-time couples. ;-) To add to the fun, right before we turned in, I got the emergency warning alert (yes, it's loud) on my phone for flash flooding. I turned on the outside light and opened the shade on the entry door window... nope, no rising water. I had already looked up what county we were in, but if you are just passing through, it is hard to know if you are in a "low lying area" or near streams, creeks, or rivers.
I slept pretty good last night. I was a party of one, as apparently, Joan didn't. When I got up this morning, I opened some shades up front to look outside: lots of tree damage and branches, some quite large, strewn around. I turned on the TV to get some local news... lots of damage being reported. A gust of 85mph was recorded in the town where we are located. I had guessed it at 70mph last night... either way, it was ugly. More flooding expected today as streams flow down. Still over 5,000 homes without power. West of us, baseball size hail reported; the county east of us had 8 to 10 inches of rain.
But, right now, all is quiet. It isn't raining. Isn't blowing. Solid overcast and a good chance of rain throughout the day. We'll be heading north, but we aren't in a hurry today... I'll let someone else be the first one out on the rutted campground road; no idea how deep those puddles are.
I made a reference in the previous post to the Wizard of Oz. This one's on me.
About 5:30, we were playing cards and watching the weather on the local TV station. Just east of us had just received about 4 inches of rain in a short time. It was raining here, but not pounding. I pulled up weather radar... "Oh, that's 'a hook' in that storm - that is a chance for some seriously ugly weather... and it's coming up on us."
A couple minutes later, the rain was seriously pounding and we got hit by several major gusts... by "major gusts" I'm talking: I would estimate well over 70mph. You couldn't see but 20 feet out the windows, but the debris hitting our coach told us to hang on. Branches busting off trees and flying by. Fortunate for us, we were pointed pretty much into the wind. This tree next to us busted off about half way up (photo taken from our door)...
Looks like it may have gone done some damage to the roof of the bath-house. Of course, our power went out. But, the TV can run on the inverter, so we still had some local news/weather... and no mention of the conditions we were in. A large tree on the other side of us has busted branches dangling...
Hard to tell through the rain, but that low portion to the right of the tree wasn't low just a few minutes ago. We are now getting pea size hail and even more rain. The storm that was supposed to move on over us now looks like it is just sitting here.
The woman who owns the campground was out surveying damage, when I went out to try the power at the pedestal... power is out to the whole campground. Her husband is driving around with a tractor with a front end loader, picking up tree debris. A camper across the road from us had a pop-up shelter up, looks like no one is there - that shelter is trashed. Joan just pulled up a local power company website: power is out all around us... I'm guessing lines down due to the wind and power surges thanks to the lightning.
People in rigs who got in just as the ugly stuff hit are waiting it out in their trucks. Some sites look like they are ankle-deep in puddles. The interior roads are going to mucky when people try to get out of here... I think we'll not be the first ones out tomorrow morning.
More rain and thunderstorms are predicted through the night. We'll keep our slide-outs pulled in (less surface area for the wind to tear at or hail to beat up). We should be good on our batteries; the fridge switched itself over to propane when the power went out.
6:35 - the power just came back on and people are trying to get set up as they roll in. The owner lady told me they are full tonight... sure looks like it, with the way people are pulling in. There's a worker out there with a chain saw working on that busted tree next to us.
Earlier, I was concerned about getting sleep due to the sketchy look of some of these camping conveyances and the off-level slope of the site. More likely, I'll be watching weather radar - looks like more crap coming our way.
That's a graphic for a bit later - the ugly part to the upper right is what went right over the top of us.
... and sometimes you reach down for that nugget and it's a dog turd.
It was another brutally hot day, but Joan assures me that by tomorrow the temperatures will drop. On the bright side, we were heading pretty much straight north and had a south wind... so, yeah, a tailwind.
We left our lovely site at the RV park connected with the casino. Our stop for tonight is a place we booked on-line; the reviews were so-so, but it is about the distance we wanted to travel today.
We drove out of Oklahoma and into Kansas...
It was a relief to drive into Kansas. Well...
I kept looking for the woman flying by on her bicycle, cackling: "I'll get you - and your big cat, too!"
On to the campground. Now, I will freely admit that what I look for in an RV park is different from what "campers" look for. I like paved roads, a concrete pad to park the motorhome on, with a concrete patio; none of those pesky trees to get in the way of a satellite signal or drip sap on the roof of the coach; level sites; 70 or so cable TV channels. The place we booked on-line for tonight is pretty much the opposite of all of that. Some would describe it as "primative... maybe rustic;" I wouldn't be that kind with my description. I would say "shit-hole," but they'd have to spruce it up a bit to get to that description. Some of the campers in here look like they have been ridden hard and put up wet. Others aren't that nice. The site we're in is long enough for our length (that was one of our criteria for chosing this on-line), but it is narrow and so uneven that, even putting large blocks under our jacks, we can't get level. The road is a sandy/gravel, with huge potholes - and you can't tell how deep they are because they are full of water from the rain. If you step outside your RV, you will be tracking sand and dirt in with you. On the bright side, all we need tonight is a plug-in, and a quiet place off the road. For the price, I have to give this place one star out of ten.
When I show you photos, I'm guessing you will say, "Jim, that looks woodsy and quaint." Perspective.
The cost was more than the nice RV resort we were in last night. Until you've actually been to a campground, you can't know how it will work for you. Assuming no one kills us in the middle of the night, we'll take this one off our list. ;-)
On the bright side, we have some over-the-air TV channels and an adequate cell data signal. There are weather alerts for potentially severe thunderstorms through the night... hoping the dirt/sand roads don't get us stuck here. But, as I told Steph in our daily update: It's fine, really. Don't worry about us; we'll be fine. Really. I'll take the first watch after dark tonight, since I probably won't sleep anyway... the site slopes significantly to the rear, and I think all the blood will rush to my head when I get in bed. But, it's fine. Really.
The thunder is rumbling right now, but Rufus is sitting beside me, keeping me calm. It's fine. Really. We didn't put our slides out, just in case the weather gets ugly. But, it's fine. Really.
;-)
Sitting at the dinette this morning, when I raised the shade, I was greeted with this lake view...
That building you see in the upper right corner is part of the casino complex here at the Winstar World Casino and Resort. I'll have more photos in an edit.
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Exploring the World...
No, we didn't trade the Aspect for the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. The RV park we are in is connected with the Winstar World Casino and Resort. Taking today as a kick-back day (after the Texas City Tour and Traffic Jam, yesterday), we went to the casino for lunch and a bit of gaming. It is an impressive casino - it is billed as "the largest casino in the world," and after walking it from end to end, I believe that. A couple views of the exterior...
With the different "fronts" on the exterior, it reminds us a bit of New York, New York, in Las Vegas. And, speaking of New York...
Inside, Joan took this photo of me with a Big Bang Theory machine...
It was just before lunch, and our timing was good: it was delightfully uncrowded...
I was craving Chinese, so we did lunch before "hiking" from one end to the other. There are "themed" areas representing different places around the world...
Thousands of slot machines and gaming tables. Joan had a hankering for "something with a big wheel at the top," (technical gambling description) and I was looking for a poker machine. Apparently, poker machines are very old school and don't provide the noise and flashing lights that the other slots have; it took a while (and asking a couple employees if they had any poker machines) to find them. In the non-smoking section, I had the machines all to myself...
We split up and Joan went to find her choice. When I had about as much fun as I could stand (and broke even), I went looking for machines with a spinning wheel on top... and, surprisingly, found her...
She was just scoring a "Big Win" (it said so on the machine) when I found her. That put her pretty close to even, so not much expenditure for a couple hours of entertainment... and a couple miles of walking around in air conditioned comfort.
On the way back to the RV park, Joan suggested some ice cream at a Sonic on the resort grounds... she did not have to talk me into it.
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If you are somewhere with a reasonably clear sky this evening, step outside and take in the full moon - it is gorgeous! The last "Super-Moon" this year, called the Strawberry Full Moon. No, I didn't dig out a camera, but I did go outside to take in the view.
If you said, "A movie about D-Day during World War II that was released in 1962," you are probably as old as I am. Oh, and you get 30 bonus points. If you said, "The Summer Solstice is the day in North America that has the most daylight hours, but you missed that, Jim - it was the 21st," you are also correct, and you get 10 bonus points.
Today was our longest driving day; well, the longest that we expect to do this trip. I like to refer to this stretch as: The Texas Big City Slog. Today's drive would take us through San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Fort Worth. We were out relatively early and slid through the San Antonio commuter traffic easily. A very minor slowdown as we rolled through Austin (where the traffic on I-35 can be ugly). The stretch north of Austin used to be kinda wide open, but is now city after city. Plenty of road construction, too. The traffic was heavy all day long, and we were down to 2 lanes of crappy road in the Waco area. North of there, traffic generally settles down a bit... well, it has in the past. We took the road to the left where I-35 splits (E to Dallas, W to Fort Worth); I was beginning to think we wouldn't get caught in bumper to bumper traffic... we sure saw that in the southbound lanes. I was wrong. As we got close to Fort Worth, traffic came to a standstill. Nearly an hour of stop and go, mostly stop. An accident and loads of construction.
On to the photos: Rufus slept on his tower between us...
As we came to Fort Worth, this was our view for most of an hour...
I'm not a fan of being stuck behind a semi, since we have very little forward view; no doubt cars behind us feel the same way, staring at the back of our cargo trailer.
The range on the motorhome is decent, especially compared to the small fuel tank we had on Big Red (loved that truck, though). This means we can kinda pick where we want to fuel up; and this was our choice...
Yes, Buc-ee's. We passed two other Buc-ees today; this one is north of Fort Worth, south of Denton. After topping off the tank, I pulled to that spot out on the perimeter (above), and we went inside to get a couple pastries, and Joan wanted some freshly-made potato chips. By this point in the afternoon, it was hot. Damn hot. We turned on the generator and put the air conditioner on full blast so Rufus would be comfortable while we stepped out. He got a "third lunch" before we left, so he was all about a nap.
Back out on the Interstate and another slow-down where I-35 E & W come back together. Less than an hour at that point to our stop at the RV park at Winstar Casino, just across the TX/OK border into Oklahoma...
It was hot when we set up. Joan wants to take the car to the casino (their shuttle still isn't running due to Covid restrictions), so we took the time to unhook and back the trailer towards the motorhome so we can drive the car there. Maybe tomorrow. After today's drive through traffic, I am looking to kick back this evening. Seemed like everything we did to get set up took longer than usual, probably because of the heat. They don't show people sweating like farm animals in the ads for new RVs. ;-)
If it cools down enough overnight, Rufus might get to go for a walk outside. Early.
