Archive for ‘June, 2007’

Idaho into Utah

Ready to unplug and roll – should be on the road by 7:30 this morning – hoping to beat some of the forecast wind, get through SLC early and also get to Green River, UT (450 miles…) but will be happy with any place past Spanish Fork which is where I leave the interstate.

This little park is great – (Exit 135 off I-15 north of Idaho Falls, ID) for any travelling through with dogs and in this vicinity for an overnight – GREAT walking for dogs and people on some ATV gravel roads…nice grassy/brushy areas and a good long loop.  Time to hit the road.

Temp at 7:00 a.m. is 51 – overnight low 48 – forecast high of 85, clear and windy along my route.

 4:30 p.m. arrived Green River, UT – Shady Acres RV park which will NOT get a recommendation but I’m beat…  ugly park, $33.10 for water/electric WITH Good Sam AND 6.95/day for Wi-fi – which the sign says “Wi-Fi Internet Access”, I asked before check in (there is a KOA in town) if there was Wi-fi at the site… “Yes, at all sites”, and was even handed a slip with username and password but NEVER told it was a subscription.  HA – my aircard works fine…I was getting no bars on my phone but the aircard gets 2…  I don’t mind paying, I just HATE when it seems like they hide the fact.  Also, I’m cranky because I hate I-15 through Utah and it was horrible and traffic, etc. and then several **K#*$) passed me on the hwy 6 2 lane – with dbl yellow, even though I was going the speed limit of 65 and there are turnouts – which I used – and passing lanes every 5 miles. 

Ok – I feel better – will feel even better when the sun goes down and I get a glass of wine, not necessarily in that order…- it is 101 – not helping with the cranky…   Karl thinks he wants to go out…fortunately we had a nice long walk this morning.

Hwy 6 was beautiful – I might get some photos up later…  Also, northern Utah was pretty – don’t think I’ve ever travelled through this early in the summer and it was green as was Montana and Idaho.  I only got out the window shots so not sure there is anything worth posting. 

South from Missoula

Per special request from my ORS friend, Houston – the weather this morning in Missoula, MT… 55 partly sunny, partly cloudy degrees at 8:36 a.m. – was in the mid-40’s overnight.  Couldn’t resist taking a photo of this little sign…. Flower sign

Starting a little late this morning as I’m headed east before the turn south and don’t like driving into the sun.  Also stopping just up the road for tire pressure check and propane so I imagine probably 10-10:30 before I really start making progress.  Shooting for Pocatello or South.

6:00 p.m. – didn’t make Pocatello or South…getting air in tires and propane was quick but hit wind in Monida Pass and beyond and slowed down…then just got tired so stopped.  I saw a sign for Western Wings RV Park – middle of nowhere about 20 miles north of Idaho Falls.  I got off – 2 Alphas got off from the other direction…sign said 3 1/2 miles…off we all go…arrived at the park which also has a bird/clay pigeon shooting range/lodge and you could see the RV spots and the power pedastals but not a single rig in the place.  We all pull in 1-2-3… no one jumps out…finally I get out and go talk to them – everyone is dithering about staying but group dynamics and we are all tired win…we check in.  VERY nice people, full hookups for $21.60 – quiet and pretty – lots of grass fields around, pond.  It is blowing about 30 mph but I imagine it will calm down as evening progresses.  A 5vr came in shortly after. 

Weather – 20 miles north of Idaho Falls at 6:54 p.m. – Windy!!!, 82 and sunny.

Bob

Karl 

Time for dinner… what Captain Karl and First Officer Mr. Bob do while I pilot “Wild Thing”… next photo just after crossing the Continentel Divide.

Monida Pass 

Monida Pass – Idaho side

Rolling

11:10 a.m. – Jeep is hooked up and we are ready to roll.  Early departure!  and might need the extra time to get through construction south of Polson.

5:30 p.m. – Set up at Jim n Mary’s in Missoula…have had a walk with Karl, been out with Bob, cleaned up inside and have a glass of wine!  Dealer appt was a bust – they were crazy busy – other minor glitches with them…I paid and left before I got rude…have my door and will install it at my folks.  I left the dealer about 3:30 but weather was looking iffy – windy and see the photo below – so decided: first day, I was a bit “excited” – best to go someplace I knew and relax and hit the road early in the morning so here we are.

Weather moving in - Missoula

On board

Timer My low tech watering system…2 zone timer and 3 sprinklers.  It has been working and the neighbors are keeping an eye on it and the house and picking the strawberries.  The boys and I are on board – loaded and ready to leave after a morning appointment.

It is a beautiful evening – clear and cool…  The view of the woods and mountains from the motorhome is wonderful – this is a great RV spot! 

 Will head to Missoula about noon tomorrow for a 2:00 appt at Bretz RV – should check in at Jim and Mary’s RV Park in Missoula between 5 and 6.

The Zen of going

This blog will really start on June 13, 2007 when I leave my home in Montana on a trip to visit my folks in Colorado.

In the opening pages of Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, there is a description of the wanderlust that is behind “going”:

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck, and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayard man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He as a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdon, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it.

Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip, a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.

And also from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley :

I am in love with Montana – for other states I have respect, recognition, even some affection but with Montana it is love, and it is difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.

I do love Montana – my chosen home – and especially my own little corner of it. As it gets closer to the time I plan to leave, all of the things “here” become more dear and I have a faint wondering of “Why am I going?”. I look out the window at the newly thinned and healthy woods with the shadows of the mountains of the Swan Range in the background. I think about the mornings and evenings on my front porch with my dog and cat for company and them enjoying the freedom of this semi-wild place with no leashes – all of us going in and out as we please. I walk through my little house that glows with soft reflected light on warm wood and especially my cozy bedroom – knotty pine all around and fluffy down comforters and pillows – the always cool nights. But the plans are made and as the time to leave gets very close, there is no turning back, no second thoughts and suddenly it becomes impossible to think of not going – the trip has become an entity.