The Rolling Home

Tuesday, August 1st we left Grand Junction for Montrose, which is about 60 miles from Telluride. We drove to Telluride in the afternoon to see Taylor and Faith. The drive over there on highway 62 and 145 is a pleasure to the eyes. There are huge mountains not too far in the distance that tower to 11,000 to 14,000 feet. They are very rugged massive shapes with patches of snow. There are beautiful farms and we saw deer and fawns on the route.

Friday, August 4th, the four of us went to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park that is only 15 miles east of Montrose. What a magnificent place this is. The Black Canyon just became a national park in 1999, so it is the newest. Every viewpoint offers an example of pure raw beauty with its deep narrow gorges, its rugged sharp peaks and steep canyon walls. At the very bottom you can see the Gunnison River snaking through these formations and churning the water into grade 6 rapids. We decided to take the road to the dam, which is part of the national park. As we entered there was a sign letting everyone know that they were about to experience a rather lengthy 16% grade, which is the steepest we have encountered. It is a good thing we were in the Tracker. The drive was quite beautiful and on our way out a cinnamon faced black bear walked onto the road and stood erect for us. We were so excited. This was the first bear that Taylor and Faith have seen in the wild.

   August 5th the four of us took a narrow gauge steam train trip from Durango to Silverton and back to Durango. We left Montrose at 7:00 AM and arrived in Durango about 9:15 AM for a 9:30 departure. It took us that long to drive about 118 miles up to 11,000 feet and through 3 mountain passes. The train left on time and moved along a route, totally different from the road, that took us over cliffs and so close to mountains that we could touch them from the train. Hikers and campers flagged the train and we picked them up as we proceeded toward Silverton. We arrived in Silverton at 1:15, had lunch, and left at 3:30 for the return trip. Silverton is an old town with wide dirt streets and very old renovated buildings. It is in a rounded valley snugly held by mountains on all sides. We arrived in Durango about 7:15 PM. On the drive back we encountered many very large deer on the road and did not arrive in Montrose until 10:30 PM. What a great day! They run the steam engine over the same route during the winter, which intrigues us. We are going to try and take that as well.
 

Sunday, August 6th, the four of us took it easy at home and relaxed for the most part. We did go to the movies to see Space Cowboys. Monday night we ended up  the Montrose ER to take care of a problem with John.  After they took care of him, we went home and the next day took it easy. Taylor and Faith had to leave to report back to work on Tuesday morning. We hated to see them go. We were lucky to have 7 out of the 8 days together.

We met Jim and Patti Hammond in Cheyenne, Wyoming on Wednesday, August 9th and plan to travel together until mid September when the Goshen, Indiana Escapee Rally will close. While in Cheyenne, we pretty much relaxed with one side trip to a museum in the downtown area. Downtown Cheyenne has many large impressive buildings and the grounds are manicured. The articles in the museum were quite interesting and we enjoyed it immensely.

We headed for North Platte, Nebraska on Friday the 11th and stayed through the 13th. North Platte is home to the largest railroad switching center in the world (Union Pacific). There were two towers, with one controlling the west traffic and one for the eastern destinations. The yard has a visitor center, which is not open.  Jim stopped a fellow getting off work and ask how we could see the switching center.  He sent us to the control tower, where we met Scot, the Yardmaster.  Jim asked him if we could observe the operation and he agreed.  It was quite amazing. The eastern yard master, Scott  let us enter his control station and he showed us the operation. Each yard master is in control of 64 tracks.  As each car is pushed over the east Hump by two engines, it is weighed by the computer.  The computer then computes the ambient temperature, the wind speed and direction and how much track is left before the car hits the last one in its train.  It then uses retarders that basically grip the wheels as the car comes off the hump to adjust the speed so that the car barely bumps into the next car in the train.  It is truly an amazing operation and once again points out the value of computers to our society.  There is a diesel facility that does minor and major repair to the engines. We have never seen so many engines in one place. He told us that each engine has 4 computers on board. The sophistication of the software applications and the computers in the control tower far exceeded what we thought they might be. What we saw and heard during this visit was impressive and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
 

North Platte also has one of the most beautiful parks we have ever visited. The park had about 25 camping sites, picnic areas and fenced sections of Elk, deer and other animals. There was a carousel and small rides for children along with a snack bar. There was an antique train museum on the property that displayed a steam engine called "Big Boy". It was built in the 30's and it is the biggest steam engine we have ever seen. The grounds are bordered by a river where people were swimming and children were swinging on ropes into the water. The grounds are immaculate and many people were enjoying what the park had to offer.

We went to Scouts Rest Ranch, which was Buffalo Bills home. The house has 18 rooms and is open to the public. It is nestled on 25 gorgeous acres that was once surrounded by 4,000 acres that he and his wife owned. The huge barn contains additional antiques and posters from his wild west days. They also showed a film explaining more about his life and noteworthy people in his life. We enjoyed the visit very much.

We arrived in Yutan, Nebraska on August 14th and plan to leave on Friday morning the 18th. Since Omaha was only about 20 miles from our campground we went in to the Henry Doorly Zoo, which turned out to be the best zoo we have ever experienced, even better than the San Diego Zoo. We especially enjoyed the rain forest that surrounded you with three stories of birds, animals, fish, waterfalls, waterways and stunningly beautiful trees, plants and tropical flowers. The birds and monkeys were so comfortable in their environment that they had built nests for newborns. We were lucky to be there for a special exhibit of Australian birds and animals, which was interesting for sure. The Aquarium was a place you could get lost in and enjoy yourself for some time. There was an underwater tunnel that was surrounded by a section of the Aquarium that made you feel like you were walking on the ocean floor. Truly neat! The remainder of the zoo was very impressive. They also had three IMAX presentations throughout the day that you could take advantage of and we did take the opportunity to see one about dinosaurs that we thought was very well done.

We also went to the Strategic Air Command Museum. This is a three story facility, with one below ground, that houses airplanes and helicopters from all periods of our history. The museum was quite crowded and once we started our self guided tour we could understand why. This is also a place we would recommend in the Omaha area. 

We also enjoyed Yutan, population 1,064, that was just down the road from us. We met a nice gentleman and his wife at breakfast that are ham radio operators and live so close to the restaurant they can walk to the building. He and John had a lot to talk about. He also gave us a shout on the radio as we were leaving town.

We left the Yutan/Omaha area on Friday, August 18th,  for our next destination, Grimes, Iowa, to join up with Liane, Don and Tommy Holder. We basically did some shopping, visiting and eating out with friends for two days. The Holders headed south on Sunday, August 20th and we, along with Jim and Patti, headed for the Amana Colonies in eastern Iowa.

We arrived about lunch time on Sunday the 20th and stopped for lunch at a restaurant we liked the last time we were here. We will be in the colonies until Wednesday morning the 23rd. We were here a year ago, but John was still working then and we only had time to spend a day here. About 26,000 acres were purchased in this area by Germans seeking religious freedom during the mid to late 1800's. They formed a communal system that remained essentially unchanged for 89 years, one of the longest lasting communal societies in the world. All land and businesses were owned by the community. Today, many of the businesses in the Amana Colonies (7 villages) are independently owned and operated. This area is known for its working artisans and crafters. The quality craftsmanship can be seen today in the products they make, such as; clocks, woolen goods, brooms, baskets, needlework and quilting, hand forged ironwork, arts, baked goods, wineries and breweries and chocolates.  They also make Amana appliances here. We will have plenty to do and see in this area..
 

We also met Ken and Lee Jacobs here in the colonies.  Lee and Ken have been cyber friends for a while now, but this is the first time we have met our fellow SKPs.

We left the Colonies and traveled a couple of  hundred miles to Joliet, Illinois to one of the worst Coast to Coast Parks we have ever stayed in.  Like many of the C2C parks, we got only water and electric.  We don't have a lot of heartburn over this, after all, for $6 a night you don't expect prime sites.  The only problem this ever causes us is an inability to use our washer/dryer since we need a sewer connection to safely get rid of the washer water.

As we pulled toward our campsite, we passed a dumpster that was filled to overflowing.  The spaces were rather small, but Jim and Patti  did get a pull through.  They had to reposition their coach because the electric hookups were shared by multiple sites.  The Hammonds generic cord was not long enough to reach the pedestal when their rig was in the middle of their site.  Our hookup was so far away that I had to use both of my cords, about 40 feet, to get to the pedestal.  As we were parking, Jim parked his Tracker on the grass to help Patti position the RV.  As soon as he touched the grass, a campground worker started screaming at him about not parking on the grass.  It was amusing later to reflect on how concerned this jerk was about the grass with the garbage can overflowing right next to him, trash all along the shore of a once very pretty lake and the general run down condition of the park.  The outdoor pool was green with scum floating on the surface.  The clubhouse looked as thought the WWF had had one of their summer rumbles inside it.  The park is right next to I 80 so we got to sleep with the symphony of 18 wheelers roaring by all night.  This park is called Leisure Lakes and we recommend that if you are looking for a nice campground for a quiet and restful nights sleep, go somewhere else.

On Thursday the 24th, we moved 111 miles around Chicago to Buchanan, Michigan to another C2C park called Bear Cave Resort. While we don't have sewer again, some C2C folks here do.  I guess its just the luck of the draw.  This is a very nice resort, even though the guy doing registration got testy with Patti when we had to go back and tell him that a rig was already in one of the sites assigned to us.  He said they weren't.  Of course, it would have been pretty interesting to see Jim back his Dutch Star over the 5th wheel that was really  in the site assigned to him.  Since the guy was in crooked and had his truck parked partly in our site, we asked for another site also. (the truck owner wasn't home to move his vehicle)  The registration guy told us we needed to learn to drive if we couldn't get into our spot!  I guess many of these camp host folks have never worked in a service industry.  Some of them surely do not understand good customer relations.  Most are just wonderful, but some are just real nasty folks who should never work in an industry dealing with people!  Anyway, the park is great.  Lots of trees, a river, a cave, a nice pool and hot tub etc.  We will be here until the 31st when we need to move down to Bremen, Indiana for Labor Day weekend.  After that, we are moving to the Elkhart RV park meeting Rich and Diane Emond, Norm and Linda Payne and of course, Jim and Patti will be with us too.  This foursome has been emailing each other for over a year now and this will be the first time all four couples will be in the same place.  We have met all the others, but Jim and Patti have only met us and the Paynes.  It should be fun.

While here, we visited Cereal City in Battle Creek.  This was a really fun museum with lots of information on the Kellogg's and other cereal manufacturers in the area. We met their special guest and he was GREEEEEAT!

Campground fees for August   $339 or $9.97 per night.

Fuel for The Rolling Home  $248.73
 
 

Next time, the Escapade