13-20, August 2012 - Raspberries, Zoos, and Propane Tanks.

The last time I used my sleeping bag I noticed that it needed a few repairs so it was time to unbury my sewing machine.  Of course Scott thought he should get the first look at it.  I took the needle out and let him play with it a bit before I put it to work.  In this case I needed to sew up the compression sack with the machine but  had to use a needle and thread for the seam in the sleeping bag.

This old machine still sews a nice, tight stitch.  I wish it had a reverse though!  We keep a spare belt on hand.  They usually last many years but we have to order them from Lemans which sometimes takes awhile.

Scott's my little helper when doing things outside.  Here we are getting the big generator moved to where I need to do some welding.

My latest project on the camper is building a rack to mount the propane bottles outside.  I brought out the generator and welder.  The wheel barrow has tools in it like vise grips and clamps, tape measure and squares.  I do most of my steel cutting with a skil saw and metal cutting blade.  If you're going to cut metal be sure your saw has a steel blade guard.  The sparks will cut right through a plastic blade guard.

I have the frame welded to the truck.  Scott wanted to test it out so he climbed onto it to play.  At this point I still need to bolt it to the back wall and finish the framework.

The next step was to run the line for the propane through the bathroom to the stove.

Under the stove you can see the fitting and copper tubing that goes from the steel pipe to the stove.

This is the left rear corner.  I welded in a strap hinge to the upper rail.  There's a hasp and padlock on the other end.  You just take off the lock then the top rail swings up and over to give clearance to remove the tanks.

The tank hold-down was fabricated from some old angle iron and an extra trampoline spring.  It's attached by a loose bolt at the rear so that I can lift it up to release spring tension and remove the tank(s).  The front part is retained by the top rail.  There's a bolt welded to the underside of the rail that engages a hole in the tank hold-down (like a pin).  When you close the top rail it presses down on the retainer to keep spring tension on the tanks.

I used a hasp and padlock to secure everything.

This is what it looks like from a distance.

We went garage saling on Saturday morning and picked up a few things.  Scott's lawn chair was one of them.  It's quickly become a favorite.

The closest major zoo (Seattle, WA) is about 600 miles away. We traveled with our daughter and son-in-law (Scott's parents), spent a day getting there, a day there and a day coming home again.  We stayed in hotels for two nights and ate every meal out.  Scott did well for a little guy but he was sure happy to get home.

We just took him out of the car seat and put him in the stroller.  He wasn't too happy about that!

We took approximately 130 photos each.  Obviously I'm not posting them all here!  Susan is looking out over to where a giraffe is feeding.

The snow leopard taking his siesta.  In striving to present the critters in their "natural" environment they also made them difficult to find at times.  Especially for the little guys.  Some of the animals were so far away and so well hidden that Scott never saw them.  We didn't even see all of them.

We headed for home in late afternoon and got a refresher course on what we hate about cities!  Traffic jams!  Once we broke free we drove a couple of hundred miles before finding a hotel for the night.

We stopped at the Cabelas store in Spokane but didn't buy anything.  They didn't have the only items I had on my list and I don't go shopping at Cabelas unless I have a list!  Otherwise I spend way too much money! 

The garden is doing okay considering that we've kind of neglected it this year.  This is Mint that Susan is harvesting and drying for future use.

Susan is picking raspberries.  We got several gallons on the first picking.  It'll slow down just little bit now.  We also have peas ready to pick but we may just let them dry on the vine this year.

The raspberries are very good this year.  We've had a fairly wet and warm summer.  So far the yellow jackets haven't found them.

Two canner loads finished.  We've given some away and frozen others to can or eat later.

Our strawberry beds aren't doing well.  Several small beds died out last year and the big one is struggling.  When the grocery store put theirs on sale we bought five pounds.  We're dehydrating three pounds and we'll have the rest fresh.

5-12 August, 2012 - More camper mods, Camping, bicycle riding, kids-n-grandkids.

We were gone most of the week camping at Red Meadow Lake north of Whitefish, Montana and at our favorite huckleberry spot.  Before we left we finished up more of the interior of the camper.

I put the panelling on the framework around the bed area.

Susan painted the new shelving and installed it on the side walls.  She also put better curtains over the food storage area and put some decorative trim around the top of the walls.  She's also packing to go camping.

This is the area around Red Meadow Lake.  There are a couple of marshes at the top.  This is looking west from our campsite.

This is Red Meadow Lake to our north.  It's a beautiful little lake at the top of the pass.

This is looking east from our campsite.  The treeless parts of the slopes are winter avalanche chutes.  There have been several snowmobilers killed when they triggered avalanches while "high-marking."  They attempt to take their snowmobiles to the very top but few have ever done it.  It takes a very powerful machine and skilled rider.  The slope is  lot steeper than it looks in this picture.

The last time we were there the snow was about fifteen feet deep where the camper is sitting.

Scott loves to climb so we always park the bicycles in such a way that they won't fall if he climbs up on them.  He's making "motor" sounds as he pretends to ride the bike.

Being a toddler he eats his peanut butter sandwiches from the peanut butter side first.  Maybe someday he'll get the idea of eating the bread too.

We took a bike ride toward Glacier Park (east).  These are some of the wild flowers along the road.

We went about 17 miles round trip with the way back all going up hill.  We took a break along the stream and the dog decided to cool off her feet a bit. 

This picture is in the wrong order.  It should be under the next one.  This was taken where we turned around to go back to camp.  The peaks are in Glacier National Park.

This is the view of GNP from where we began our ride.  The road goes through the valley.

This is part of Upper Whitefish Lake.  It's about 6 miles from here up to Red Meadow Lake.  This is a very popular lake for fishing.  All the best places were taken and it was only Wednesday. 

This is where we parked to pick huckleberries.  The road that direction leads to the fire lookout.

If you go this direction you'll end up at Highway 93.

Even though our parking spot was relatively level if the truck rolled back it was all downhill.  I blocked the tires then anchored the truck to a tree for a little added security.

The bushes you see are Thimbleberries.  They look like raspberries and have a mild raspberry flavor to them.  They were loaded with unripe berries.

The huckleberries were pretty sparse.  I forgot to take a camera with me and didn't feel like going back down (then back up!) just to take pictures.  We got enough for a fresh huckleberry pie which Susan made the first night.  We also had huckleberry pancakes with a few huckleberries left over. 

On our road home.  Montana is an open range state meaning that it's not required to fence in your cattle or other livestock so it's not unusual to see small herds on the road.  In this case the fences are to keep the cows out rather than in.

Two of the kids and their spouses came up Friday.  Of course Scott was ecstatic to have all the live entertainment.

Saturday morning I took a little time to shoot my Sharps replica (45/70).  I've never liked the sights on the rifle so I modified them slightly by filing the notch deeper.  It's much easier to acquire a good sight picture now.  I only had about 7 cartridges loaded up for it but I don't often shoot it much more than that at a single time anyway.  The recoil can get a little rough and I don't like developing bad habits like flinching.  I have the same rule with the 338 Win. Mag.

I found one of my mouse traps that I'd forgotten about.  Of course there wasn't a lot left of the mouse!

Had another daughter and her husband come on Saturday.  This is our youngest grandchild (for  now, we have another one due in September).

This is Hanna.  If you read our blog a couple of years ago when we were in Nevada you saw her there also.

This is Logan.  He's a couple of months younger than Scott.

After my shooting session I was going to load up some more 45/70 ammo until I found out that I needed to lube and size some more bullets.  I use Lee Liquid Alox lube and a Lee sizer die.  It works okay but is slow.  These are 405 grain flat nose bullets.  I cast using a Lee Bullet mold.

26 July - 4 August, 2012 - Kayaking, Dust and Camper Mods

It doesn't seem like we've accomplished much the last nine days but we've sure been busy.  There've been several trips to Eureka and Kalispell and we've both done quite a bit of writing.  We purchased/signed up for a jetpack so we're hoping to have internet access more often when we're out camping.  That should make it easier to keep up with our writing and blogs without needing to drive into the nearest town.  We expect it to be especially helpful when we head south for the winter.

We've had a couple of small thunderstorms move through which has helped keep the fire danger down (we actually got rain with them ... sometimes we get thunder and lightening and no rain!).  My book should be done in September.  The final editing on the galley is finished.  I like the way Paladin put it all together.  Susan added one more book to her Kindle books and her sales keep climbing.  The garden is doing well.  We had our first raspberries a couple of days ago and we have peas ready to pick.  We've had so much rain that we haven't needed to water the garden yet this summer.  That's a first in the nine years we've been here.  We had some problems when we were gone too which leads to the first photo. ...

We had an understanding with our neighbors that there'd be no road work done across our property without our permission.  This was hammered out in court after one of them widened the lower road one day while we were gone.  They are from California and seem to believe that they had/needed a 20 foot wide right-of-way through our property.  At one point we had a bit of a stand-off with me parked in the road at the corner of our property and the neighbor wanting to get through with a backhoe.  The sheriff's dept. finally arrived and told him to wait until we went through the court.  They lost.  We are not against them having a smooth road but we are against them widening it.  The agreement was that they could put down all the gravel they wanted but no blade was to be used on the roadway without our presence and permission.  While we were gone this last time the road was graded but no one is claiming responsibility.  The guy who did it was paid through a landowner on the other fork in the road and denies knowing who paid what.  We have one part time resident who was involved and I've talked to him and his story is that he only paid to have his driveway graded.  We're all going to get together next time he's up here and we're going to straighten things out.  To say we were a bit angry would be a huge understatement.

One of the problems we have with new out-of-state residents is that they think they need a wide, smooth road to travel on.  They buy their property knowing the road is bad then try to "improve" it  without regard to private property rights of the current landowners.  Most of us just drive slower.

To compound the problem they try to build roads like they do in the flat lands.  That doesn't work in the mountains.  The road itself needs three to six inches of crushed rock to make it gradable.  The rock that's on it is large so when they try to smooth the road they pull in dirt from the edges and fill in the holes.  Then we have both potholes and mud.  When it rains and the snow/ice melts in spring the mud washes down to the low spots then you drive through mud that may be 12 to 18 inches deep.  In the summer we end up with huge clouds of dust.  Plus the idiots drive faster and beat the potholes out larger than they were before.

It amazes me that people say they like the laid-back life out here then live it at the same intensity they had when in the city and drive like morons on the road.  Why didn't they just stay in the city.  I have a complete chapter in my book about this kind of garbage!

Rant off!

Our daughter driving behind us.  We came in at 5 mph and still had clouds of dust.

We had to run the river once more before the season ended (meaning the water level dropped) so we left Scott with his parents and Susan and I took the kayaks out again.  It had dropped about a foot but was still a lot of fun.

Some of the locals.  When we rounded the corner there were five deer (two were fawns) in the meadow but three ran off before we could get pictures.

When you have chickens you get some odd eggs now and then.  This one is large (jumbo size at the store) but the shell is wrinkled a bit.  It's still good eating though!

This one is small.  All of our chickens are full size (no bantams) and have never laid an egg this small.  Our little chicks are too young yet so I don't know if one of the older hens or one of the younger hens had this biological malfunction.

We spent some time in Kalispell visiting kids/grandkids.  Scott and his cousin Anna always get along great. They are about the same size even though Anna is older.     

We have the money so we bought some things to spruce up the U-Haul camper and complete a little more of it.

Susan has been in a painting mood and painted the front bumper with a coat of black paint.  It looks much better now.

She painted the roof white to keep it a little cooler inside.  It made quite a difference.

We bought some more lumber to complete some more of the inside.  I use a lot of 2x2's in the camper but they cost more than 2x4's so we buy 2x4's and rip them down to 2x2's.  It saves us a pile of money.  My table saw is better for ripping wood but it's down in the shack so I used the radial arm saw.

I'm marking one of the shelves to cut relief holes for the shelf framing.  I always unplug any tool I've been using in case Scott wants to try them out as he's doing here with the sabre saw.

Scott has been an active participant in the latest round of improvements.  Here he's making sure I have the screws driven in all the way in the shelves.

Here he's reminding me that I still have some paneling to install at the end.

Now he's checking my notes to see if I've forgotten anything.

Mission complete ... for now anyway.  We have more to do but we're doing this as we have money and time.  Susan put some shelves up this morning while I'm working on the blog.  She painted them yesterday.  The buckets you see contain a six (plus) month supply of food.  Should we ever need to leave in a hurry (probably due to a forest fire) the camper is completely stocked with food, clothing and other necessities, and ready to go.  Hopefully that won't ever happen.