Day 16, Burlington, Washington

Now this is what I expected to see in Washington.

Snoqualmie Pass - our highest point today

We have now arrived in Burlington, Washington.  We are staying here Friday and Saturday nights.  On Sunday morning we head north to Canada.  Yeah.  We'll catch the ferry to the island.  Eager to get settled for the winter months.

Day 15 - Ellensburg, Washington

We're not lost or in Saskatchewan.  This is central Washington.  I for one did not expect a prairie landscape.  I thought it would be hilly and green with lots of trees.  Wrong!

Cowboys riding horses

Interesting pattern

Rows and rows of tarped piles of hay

Heading back into the hills

Approaching the Columbia River.  We crossed over on the bridge.

Columbia River

As requested,  pictures of the landing gear.  There is a leg on each side of the trailer at the front.  You drop the outer portion down to sit loosely.  Then the legs extend or retract electrically to raise or lower the trailer.  This is necessary to hitch the RV on or off the truck hitch receiver.

Landing gear

This leg broke inside and wouldn't move. Wayne had to jack up the trailer with an external hydraulic jack to lift the leg off the wood.

Techs added paint so we don't move the legs beyond the usable range.  Very helpful.

This picture shows the motor and gear box reducer.  The gear box reducer is the slab that the motor is mounted to.  The brown rectangle was welded on by the techs in Butte.  It stops the gear box reducer plate from moving.  The original problem was that a stop post broke off.  The motor and reducer were moving and kept blowing fuses as the legs didn't line up.  No fun at all.

Wayne just checked with Camping World in Burlington.  (Our destination for tomorrow)  He hoped they would be able to schedule us in to replace the bad leg.  No luck.  They are booking appointments for two weeks from now.  We will wait until Nanaimo.

Day 14 - A Three State Jaunt (Spokane Valley, Washington)

Today we began our trip in Montana, passed through Idaho and finished up in Washington.  And all in less than 200 miles.

We did a lot of up and down, round and round today. Elevation was around 4,100 feet. Not a bad day, not many places to stop though. Also we crossed into the Pacific Time zone. All in all we were finished travelling quite early.

After watching an episode of Matlock, Wayne and I decided to go the the mall. We went to JC Penney. New balance shoes were on sale for $49.50. I bought a pair and by applying for a JC Penney card 30% was deducted from the cost. In the end the shoes cost less than $39. In Canada they would be over $150. What a deal!

We had supper at Outback Steakhouse. Wayne had a rib eye and I had prime rib. Yummy! No room for dessert.

Our landing gear has cooperated for two days. Hooray! However, we still do not trust them and will replace the legs at the earliest opportunity.

To sum up: today was a great day.

Day 13 - Missoula, Montana

We made it Missoula.  Touch and go though.  We packed up this morning or rather tried to.  It started well and rapidly went downhill.  End result - big dent in tailgate and 1 leg that wouldn't move and broke the new gear box.  Wayne had to jack up trailer with our hydraulic jack to release the broken leg.  We were a little late - only 15 minutes for our service appointment.  The techs welded a bracket to leg so gear box doesn't move, removed broken leg and replaced a shear pin and painted both legs to show the limit of safe movement.  They feel that at least one of the legs is damaged inside and should possibly be replaced at some time.  All this took until about 1230pm.

We hitched up and hit the road by 1pm.  We are now settled in Missoula.  So far so good.  Trailer is level and landing gear cooperated.  Final test will be hooking up tomorrow.  However, there is a huge RV service dealer here if we do have more trouble.  I sincerely hope not as my wallet is empty.

The drive today was really pleasant.  No passes or really steep parts.  I believe that we have already hit our highest altitude.  We were about 6,400 feet high just the other side of Butte.  Hope the rest of the mountains are as good.

Tomorrow we pass through Idaho and enter Washington - the last state of this trip.

Day 12 - Butte, Montana

Some random shots of Montana scenery:

This is a 90 foot tall statue over 8,000 feet above sea level.  Our Lady of the Rockies.  The statue honours mothers everywhere.  At night it is lit up glowing over the city.

Well, we still have a problem with the landing gear.  The fuse blew when we set up this afternoon.  How frustrating.  However, we did manage to get an appointment at a repair shop for tomorrow morning.  We have to be there at 830am.  I sure hope they can fix this.  It's ruining our trip.  Think good thoughts for us.  I'm not sure where we will be tomorrow night.  If this problem is fixed fairly early, we will go to Missoula, Montana.  Missoula is 120 miles away.  If not we will stay in Butte.

Day 11 - Still in Billings, Montana

Life is good.  Today we were killing time waiting to get in touch with an RV tech on Monday.

We got up and went to Denny's for breakfast.  First time this trip to eat at Denny's.  You all know how much we enjoy this.  Then we spent time at 2 hardware stores, a grocery store and a car wash.  Covered pretty near the whole town wandering. 

At home I decided to do laundry and Wayne was fiddling with the landing gear thing.  Couldn't clamp it tight enough to stop motor from moving.  While in casual conversation with a fellow laundry person, we discussed our landing gear problem.  Gary disappeared for awhile and when he came back he said that Wayne and him had fixed the landing gear.  Yeah!  Amazing how helpful some RV'ers are.  While sitting having a congratulatory beer or two, another neighbour wandered over.  It turns out that our two neighbours have worked together in the oil fields.  What a small world.  There seem to be several oil field workers in this park.

Last night we saw two deer wandering around the neighbourhood.  Amy, today I saw a peacock in the park.  It was missing most of its tail feathers.  Do they shed them?

Tomorrow we head for Butte, Montana.  Let's hope that's it for problems.

Day Ten - Billings, Montana

Montana's logo is Big Sky Country.  Boy is it appropriate.

So awe inspiring!

Thought this was funny - casino and church - side by side

Lots of cattle ranches

So here we are in Billings.  The first service appointment at the RV place is two weeks from now.  They may be able to fit us in Monday afternoon.  We did manage to get the part we need.  In order to install it we have to jack up the trailer somehow.  There is a mobile repair guy, but he doesn't work on the weekend.  We left a message and hope he gets back to us early Monday.  We may be developing large arm muscles in the near future.  So long story short, we are here until at least Monday.  At least the truck is fixed and Billings is a nice town.

Day Nine - Troubles Come In Threes - Right? Sheridan, Wyoming

This was not an ideal day.  To begin with:

Wayne cut his head on a slideout.  Boy did it bleed!

Problem number two: The front landing gear(legs that hold up trailer) kept blowing fuses. We looked at the motor and discovered that it was moving on the bracket. A post had broken. We had to crank the legs manually. Took both of us. One to hold assembly and one to crank. Ok we can deal with this. We'll get it checked asap.

Problem number three: While stopped at a rest station, a man approached Wayne and said that we had a problem with one of our truck tires. The wheel was leaking oil.
Okay, at this point we are in the middle of nowhere - 60 miles from Sheridan. Hope it lasts that long.

When we limped into the KOA at Sheridan, the campground lady helped us call around looking for a mechanic. No dealer could help us until Wednesday. However Piatt's (a mobile repair service) sent a truck out to us. The young mechanic fixed our wheel - the seal was gone and determined the problem with the landing gear. He could have fixed that too but it would have taken about a week to get the part. We decided to hand crank again and get it fixed in Billings. Thank you Piatt's.

Now back to our regular program:

Marilyn and Tom:  This is for you.  Next year hopefully you can go to the motorcycle rally.

These buses are full of returning troops.  People lined the road waving flags, banners etc to welcome them home.  School kids were out in force.  Very touching.

Wyoming Scenery

Wyoming had the best welcome centre that we have visited.

Easy to mount - not so easy to dismount. lol

Cougar statue with beautiful scenery in the background

First view of Bighorn Mountains - Check out the snow covered peaks

Tomorrow we head for Billings, Montana.  Hopefully we can sort out the landing gear issue.

Day Eight - Non Travel Day, Mount Rushmore Tourists

Today was a rest day. We went to Mount Rushmore. Very interesting monument. The carving was completed in 1941. The mountain rock is granite. The workers blasted away 450,000 tons of rock to complete the sculpture.

The road up to the monument has a grade of 10 percent. Boy am I glad we didn't have to travel this road towing the RV. I don't like such steep roads.

Road to Mount Rushmore

Flags of all the USA states

Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln

These presidents were chosen to be part of the monument for the following reasons:
  Washington represents the beginning of the country
  Jefferson is the author of  the Declaration of Independence
Roosevelt established land conservancy setting aside over 230 million acres of land
Lincoln held the country together during the Civil War and abolished slavery.

View from parking lot

Tunnel through rock leading to Keystone

Keystone is the town site below Mount Rushmore. Very touristy. Much like the stores at Wasaga Beach.

Red Earth of Rapid City

Tomorrow we head to Sheridan, Wyoming. After that we have changed our plans for the weekend. We are staying at Billings, Montana on Saturday and Butte, Montana on Sunday. The campground where we were originally scheduled is full this weekend. Such is life. Now we will have two short travel days instead of one longish travel day and one rest day.