October ... Road Time - 4500 miles

On the road again ....  We took the motorhome to Nevada to put it in storage.  We thought it would be easier to drive it down in October than to wait until the dead of winter to take it down.  By doing so we missed the cold, snowy roads.  Now it's already there so all we have to do this winter is drive down in the car.  The storage fee is only $15.00 per month so it's cheaper to leave it there than to drive it back and forth twice a year.  We spent a couple of days in Kalispell visiting kids before we hit the road.  The brakes started making noise in our car and our daughter's car so I ended up replacing the front brakes on our Cherokee and her Subaru before we left.

Our first stop for food and gas was in Missoula.  The motorhome did better on gasoline than expected, getting nearly ten mpg on the trip.

Of course no trip is without vehicle problems (it seems!).  We replaced the starter twice on the way down.  The exhaust is burning holes in the starter solenoid.  It sounds like the exhaust gasket needs replaced.  I'm assuming that's what's burning up the starters too.  The worst problem though was that one tank has dirt in it and plugged up the lines and filter from it.  We ran the main tank about half the way there but that left the auxiliary tank full of gas (about $200 in gasoline in it!) so we'll have to take care of that when we get back. this winter.

The last leg of our journey caught us in some high winds in Nevada.  (Actually we had high winds all through Idaho and Utah too.)  We were greeted at our destination with a full-blown sandstorm.

My bicycle tire was about worn out so we purchased a new one for it.  I installed it once we got to Overton.

We spent a few days in Overton (Nevada) then put the motorhome in storage and continued on our journey.  As we were driving out of the storage lot I noticed steam coming out from under the hood.  The overflow hose from the radiator to the fill tank had broken.

I was about ready to hit the car with a sledgehammer but the fix was an easy one.  It's not a pressurized hose so I bought a hose splice at the parts store and we were on our way again.

This is a rest area we stopped at in New Mexico.  They had mile after mile of road construction going on and very few rest areas.  The wind was howling and the only thing that kept it where it was were the rebar stakes driven in the ground to anchor in in place.

We finally reached our destination in Texas where we met some friends for a weekend at the lake.  We left our motorhome in Nevada and were now down to using our tent.  We did take advantage of the electricity in the campground by running an extension cord in to the tent so Scott could watch movies on the DVD player.

This guy met us the first morning we were there.  We don't have them at home.

I opened the door to get something and while I was rummaging around Scott spied his cookies.  He grabbed the bag and ran around to the front of the car to open one bag.  He must have thought we'd have said no.

Susan planned ahead and packed a small wading pool for Scott and his friends to play in.

Which they did!

From Texas we went to Kansas to see my mother and sister.  The morning we left Texas I got word that my mother-in-law had broken her hip and was in the hospital.  She's doing very well for someone in her nineties. 

 

In the photo above Scott is clutching a skateboard he found in the thrift store.  He loves anything with wheels, wings, rotors, or propellers.

He's giving his skateboard a run on the ramp at my mother's.

On the road home now.  We spent the night just inside the border of Wyoming due to a snowstorm that closed I-80 to the west of Cheyenne and I-25 north of there.  Here we're near the Montana border on I-25.

Coming into Billings about the time the sun was setting.  We still have 500 miles to go!

Back home harvesting potatoes.  Scot is enjoying the freshly turned soil!  (Don't look at the weeds!)

 

Now we have firewood to cut, hunting season (and hopefully venison to can) and getting the place ready for winter which in our neck of the woods is almost here.