Custer State Park In All It's Glory

We made it to Custer State Park, one of my favorite places to visit and make a day of it on the Wildlife Loop Road. Ditto loved it.

Ditto loved it.

Roadblock ahead! Some rather aggressive pedestrians crossing the road.

And in my rearview mirror, a young bull bison satisfies an itch as he rubs his head on my taillight. Luckily, no damage.

2017 West Day 1

Leaving Stephen's Tuesday morning, heading north along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Our first stop is Riverview SRA located beside the Missouri River just north of Nebraska City.

Ditto took Joyce for a walk.

Eclipse!

We finally got away, headed for the Great Out West. But first, we want to observe the full solar eclipse. And what better place to do this than at our son, Steven's house in St. Joseph, Mo., directly under the path of the full eclipse and mostly on the way on our western trip. We were in for a treat.

Steven lived in a duplex apartment with a good paved driveway perfect for parking Pumpkin for a few nights. We can watch the eclipse from our lawn chairs right there in the driveway.

We're ready for the once in a lifetime eclipse, but the weather is not. It is very cloudy and threatening rain. The view overhead doesn't look promising.

We were very disappointed. We were unable to see the moon shadow pass in front of the sun. The only evidence we could see was it got dark and the streetlights came on for a few minutes.

That was it.

Oh, well. There's always 2024 when a solar eclipse passes directly over the Bootheel area and Cape Girardeau, Mo. Maybe Wapapello State Park will be a good place to view it...if it doesn't cloud up.

Making Preparations

We've been busy lately, making preparations to get underway - we're heading west again.  Our first stop will be at son, Stephen's, new home in St. Joseph, MO.  He has just taken a new job at Missouri Western State University as General Manager over all food service at the college.  He's pretty busy right now as the Kansas City Chiefs have their summer camp there and Stephen has to see to feeding a bunch of prima donnas.

Anyway, we plan to hit the road no later than Sunday, Aug. 20 but will likely make it a day or two earlier as traffic is expected to be fierce for the total eclipse on Monday, Aug. 21.  We don't have to worry about a place to stay, just getting there intact.  We'll be staying in Stephen's driveway and should have a spectacular spot for eclipse viewing.

I had new tires put on Pumpkin and a front-end alignment done several weeks ago in preparation for this trip.  In addition, I've been doing some fine tuning on electronics (GPS, phone, tablet), hoping to improve our navigation.  At least, if we get lost I should be able to find some bread crumbs to follow.

I, also, got a special gizmo that plugs into the OBD II test port and sends the codes and other info via Bluetooth to my tablet.  I can use it to monitor stuff like transmission and coolant temps in the mountains, stuff like that.  Plus if I do pop a check engine light, I can reset it myself.

Over winter, my engine start battery went south.  When I tried to start it, it wouldn't even click.  Most RV's, mine included, have a special switch to interconnect the engine's start battery with the RV house batteries.  Sort of like giving yourself a jump start, but that didn't work.  Turned out that the solenoid that it supposed to do the interconnecting was burned out.  So, I had to replace that before I did anything else.

I, also, added another gizmo to help keep the engine battery charged when just sitting plugged in.  It's called a Trik-L-Start.  The solenoid and these circuit breakers are located in the front passenger seat base.

Today, I flushed the fresh water tank.  It had gotten kinda funky over winter so I had drained it and refilled with an extra shot of bleach to kill whatever.  Today, I drained that bleach mixture and refilled with fresh water.  I'll probably drain and flush one more time before we leave home.  Maybe even rinse with a bicarb solution to 'sweeten' it a bit.

I built a simple headboard for the beds.  Our pillows tended to travel north while sleeping.  They wouldn't fall off or anything, but they tended to mess with the rear roll down shade and we were afraid the shade would get damaged.  The headboard is just a 1x12 attached at either end.  It needs a finish put on it, but there's not enough time to let the odor clear before we leave, so it will just have to wait.

The headboard has some other advantages, too.  I installed some hooks and clips to mount the water hose, power cord, awning crank and a couple other items that previously have been stored on top of the folding chairs and the big storage tub I have in the back.  This makes them easier to access and frees up space for whatever.

Tomorrow I'm going to the tire shop that installed the new tires and get some work done on the rear valve stems.  They need bent a little so I can access them with a tire chuck.  Then later this week I'll have the oil changed.  I normally change it every 10,000 miles.  I'm a little shy of that, but would have to have it done on the trip and not just any oil change shop can handle it.  Having the oil changed in this beast is not cheap either.  It takes 13.5 quarts at about $8-$10 per quart...plus a $10 filter.  Thank goodness it doesn't need changed for 10,000 miles.