To Winterize or Not To Winterize

It's that time of the year when freezing weather might sneak up on you.  "So what?", you might say.  Well, for those who may have never thought about it, a RV is full of water and water filled plumbing.  Sitting above the ground and insulated about as well as an outhouse, it doesn't take extremely low temps to make liquid turn into a solid, an expanding pipe bustin' solid.  Ice.

Winterizing is a process of draining all the tanks and pipes and pumping special RV anti-freeze into locations where there might be some residual water.  Also, pouring anti-freeze into the sink traps.

So, we play the game.  We plan on heading out in Lil Pumpkin next week.  We haven't decided yet in which direction we'll travel.  We might go to St. Louis, in which case, we probably should go ahead and winterize. But, we're also considering heading south, maybe clear down to the Gulf, in which case we'll need water on board.

What to do, what to do?

Well, I guess winterizng and de-winterizing is easier than repairing busted plumbing.

Arkansas trip

We made a trip around a bit of Arkansas. I've consolidated the entire trip into a single page on the "Special Pages" list.  See Arkansas Travelers.

Wild West days 43 - 44 - 45 - 46

Hurrying home and across Nebraska and Kansas. Not much to tell, so I'm piling the remaining days onto one post.

Six weeks and still counting. We head on home from Devils Tower. Next stop is Minatare State Recreation Area near Scotts Bluff, Ne. We camped here before while on our 2011 trip to Custer State Park. I didn't get a photo, but here's one from 2011 in old Pumpkin. We camped just about next to the same spot as before.

Next stop, Lafayette Park in Gothenburg, Ne. Nice city park.  Behind us was a small field and one lonely pinto horse who was being tormented by flies. The poor thing would stand under a tree and try to get away from them in hanging branches. That failing, he'd whirl and run to the other end of the field, out in the open, and fight with them there. Shortly, he'd come trotting back for the hanging tree branches. We wished we could have helped, but we couldn't.

I didn't get a photo of our campsite, but here's one as we were parked in front of the office.

Sylvan Park on Wilson Lake in Kansas.  This campground is located below the Wilson Lake dam. A decent place for the night, though not a particularly good campground for a lengthy stay. It was mainly a boater's camp.

Elk City Lake, Ks.  Last night on the road. This was actually a well hidden little jewel.  It had received a recent update.  I didn't take a photo here but should have.  Most of the campsites backed up to the lake.  Ours backed up to the boat ramp which wasn't a particular advantage because of the boat launching noise in the morning.  Little else to say about it, however.  Now let's head home.

Home tomorrow! 47 days on the road - well, except for the stay at Rosie's for 5 nights. Whew, what a trip!

Wild West day 42

A 3 1/2 hour drive from last night's campground and we're there - Devil's Tower National Monument. Love this place.

We arrived mid afternoon, so we had plenty of time to take in the sights.

A summer shower popped up, but we got a bit more than expected. It poured. There was a shelter in place just across the parking lot from the visitors center. We parked in a handicapped spot right in front of the shelter so we had a front row seat.  People came running from the walk around the big rock, heads covered with whatever they could find.

Then the real fun began. It started to hail...a lot! There will still hikers running for cover. Even some climbers running with their ropes and picks. How many climbers were left hanging out in the storm, we don't know, but there were bound to be some. There was even a guy in a wheelchair being pushed by his family making darts from tree to tree and finally to their minivan. It was very entertaining.

We headed on to the campground as the storm subsided. The roads were covered with "great balls of ice". Well, actually, it was about 1/2" balls.

The storm is over, but still cloudy. It's moving on out quickly, though.

I missed the turn into the campground and had to go out the gate then back in. But, no problem. My Senior Card gets us in free.

Beautiful view from the camp. I was somewhat concerned about getting a campsite here, being July. But amazingly, it was probably less than half full. Huh?!

Wild West day 41

Bright and early Monday morning we hit the Billings Mercedes dealer. They hadn't even had their coffee yet.  But, it didn't take them long to bring us in and, wow!  I don't think I've ever been in a Mercedes dealership before. They know how to put on the dog. Now if they just know their products and maintain them as well.

Actually, the RV was due its 20,000 mile service anyway, so this stop served two purposes - I hoped.  Anyway, they checked me in and took my complaint information and Lil Pumpkin went out of sight.  Sort of like checking your kid into the emergency room at the hospital, leaving you sitting in the waiting room. But, it wasn't that bad. Their customer lounge was well outfitted. We had a TV remote so we could watch what we wanted. There were the usual coffee and a vending machine and several relatively recent magazines. Even Ditto was allowed to sit and wait with us. The wait wasn't too bad, either, maybe an hour. Then the service manager said Lil Pumpkin was ready, but there were a couple of problems.  #1 - they couldn't duplicate the miss problem, the main reason we brought it in. I'm sure the tech tested by stomping on it. #2 - as part of the 20,000 mile check-up, the on board computer software is checked for updates. As service bulletin indicated there was an update, but their Internet service was down and they couldn't do it. I asked if driving the RV back home might cause damage with the miss they could not duplicate. They thought not. So, $300 later, we hit the road, hoping we wouldn't have any serious trouble going home.

By now, Joyce was smelling the barn and, I guess I was too. We were beginning to feel the need to get on back home.  But, part of my bucket list was Devils Tower National Monument, even though we've been there before. So, we headed southeast down to Greybull, Wy. where we picked up US Hwy 16 east. We camped at Lost Cabin Campground in the Bighorn National Forest.

We were on the outside row of the main road through the camp.  Behind and below us was a long low creek valley.  We had a perfect view and a fellow camper told us to watch for the deer and maybe a moose or two.  Of course, we didn't see any.  But, we did see a beautiful field of blue wild flowers in the creek valley and a camp full of kids on bicycles across from us.

The worst thing about this campground was the mosquitoes. Boy! They could swarm you. I made the mistake of walking down to the entrance to drop our payment envelope off in the self-pay box. I'm old and don't normally run anymore. However...

Wild West day 40

We left the Mountain Range RV Park and took County Route 313 east to Crow Agency just outside the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument.

For the past several hundred miles, the RV has had a miss or sputter when accelerating through about 40-45 MPH and only if the acceleration is mild.  It has seemed to not do it if I mashed the pedal down and has been very intermittent and mostly unpredictable. Well, as we were touring Little Bighorn, it began to happen more and more and I was able to reproduce the problem almost at will.  We were not that far from Billings which was the nearest Mercedes dealer.  We decided to backtrack to Billings and have it looked at.  But first, we'll finish our Little Bighorn tour.

We visited Little Bighorn in 1970.  Since then, the area has been enlarged and several Indian monuments have been positioned where an Indian was known to have been killed.  There were not many because most of the Indian casualties were carried off by survivors and the Indian women.  Of note, is the relatively new "Peace Through Unity" Indian Memorial honoring the Native Americans who died in the battle.

It was getting late, so we headed to Billings.  We did not know what the next day might hold and if the RV would be in the shop for quite a while leaving us without wheels and homeless, so we wanted to locate as close to the dealer as we could and, hopefully, near restaurants and motels.  We opted for Billings Village RV Park.

Wild West day 39

Moving on, we headed for Cody, Wy.  My plan was to pass through Cody then take the Chief Joseph Hwy (State Hwy 296) up to the Beartooth Hwy (US Hwy 212).  A quick stop at Wal-Mart and hello-goodbye, Cody.

We found the Chief Joseph and headed north.

Now, this road had real promise, but a quick stop was required.

As we headed up the Chief Joseph, we were followed (and usually passed) by motorcyclists, bunches of them.

Below is a 10 minute video taken by a motorcyclist last year riding up the Chief Joseph.  I chose this video because of the motorcycles.  There were literally hundreds of them up and down this highway and the Beartooth.

The Chief Joseph tied into the Bear Tooth Hwy just east of Cooke City, Mt.  So, actually, we didn't go into Cooke City.  Instead, we made a hard obtuse right turn and headed up the Beartooth.

We arrived at the Top-Of-The-World-Store/Resort at Beartooth Pass, only to find all the motorcycles in the world (so we thought). We pulled off in a parking area across the highway from the store.  Several motorcycles were parked there and as we stopped, a couple of women cyclists were just dismounting their bikes. I asked what was the big attraction and why all the motorcycles. One pointed to the Coors and Budweiser tents with the beer kegs stacked around and the other explained this was a pit stop for the annual Beartooth motorcycle rally.  Today is the 1st day of a 3-day rally held by Red Lodge, Mt. just up the road.  Oh great! There go our chances for a campsite near Red Lodge.

We continued on, leaving hundreds of motorcycles at the beer trough. Now keep in mind, this is mid-July.

Beartooth Pass was well worth the drive...and the motorcycles.  But, let me say, the motorcycles were NOT a problem.  It was not the old Hell's Angels.  Many were professionals (doctors, lawyers and such) and many were just good old boys.  All were mostly just motorcycle enthusiasts out for a good ride.

Rest stop...a scenic pull-off just outside Red Lodge.

Beartooth Pass on a Goldwing

Then we hit Red Lodge sometime around 5ish in the evening.  The motorcyclists were gathering for the evening.  Keep in mind, we are ahead of all those at the Top-Of-The-World Store and the scenic overlook and strewn up and down the highway.

And the last one as we continued on through town.

We continued on up to Columbus on I-90 west of Billings.  Found a Good Sam park that fit the bill for the night, Mountain Range RV Park.  A bit off my intended path and little more expensive than planned, but a nice park.

Tomorrow we're heading for the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument.