Twin Cities Dinner Cruise, Mall of America, Sold Tires!

September 9 - 11, 2013   

We hitched up again with Patty at the helm.  This is her 3rd day driving the rig.  She has been hoping for a back-in site and today she got her wish.

We were only in Chippewa Falls for one night. We were too far away from Minneapolis.

Welcome to Minnesota

Some sort of art in the campground in Chippewa Falls MN.  They had these all over the campground.

We left Chippewa Falls around 11am for our 108 mile trip to the town of Apple Valley.  Basically, Apple Valley is a southern suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota or the twin cities. The drive there was very easy on I 94 West to I 35 South.  We decided that while we are passing through the Minneapolis/St. Paul area we should see the Mall of America even though we are not really Mall people.  We haven't been in a Mall for 5 or 6 years and then probably 5 years before that.  But the Mall of America is a true piece of Americana now so we want to see it.

Lebanon Regional Campground entrance.

On the way, we decided to get the rig weighed.  After the tire issues we have had, we decided that at our earliest chance we would get the rig weighed at one of those CAT scales.  
This is not the best method of weighing as it does not give the weight of the individual wheels on the RV.  However, it will give us a starting point with some gross numbers.  

Weighing at a CAT scale is very simple.  The CAT scale is made up of 3 load pads that are marked with yellow paint. When you pull up to where the intercom is, your truck front wheels are on the first weigh pad.  The rear truck wheels are on the second weight pad and the two 5th wheel axles are on the 3rd weight pad.  After stopping you press the intercom button and give the weight master any info they need which isn't much.  

Once the weigh master says they are done, you pull off the scale, park, go inside and get your weight ticket, and then pay for it.  The cost is very low at only $10.  In our case, I went in to get the ticket and pay while Patty parked the rig. This is a truck stop so there is plenty of room to park temporarily.  

The weight ticket gives you 4 numbers; front truck axle weight, rear truck axle weight, the weight of the RV on its axles, and the Gross Combined Vehicle Weight (GCVW). The GCVW is the combined weight of your rig (Truck + RV).

These are our numbers from the CAT scale:
Truck Front Axle:  5,480 lbs. (Truck Rating is 6,500 lbs.) OK
Truck Rear Axle: 8,040 lbs. (Truck rating is 12,000 lbs.) OK
RV Weight on its axles: 12,220 lbs. (Axle Rating is 14,000 lbs. on two 7,000 lbs. axles) OK
Gross Combined Weight: 25,740 lbs. (Truck rating is 33,000 lbs.) OK

These are the RV Specifications:
Dry weight: 12,883 lbs.
Gross Weight rating: 15,441 lbs.
Cargo carrying capacity: 2,558 lbs.
Hitch weight: 2448 lbs.

We don't know yet what the exact hitch weight is, which is the weight of the RV carried by the truck.  We also do not know what the distribution of weight is on the individual RV axles or wheels.  So, the next thing we are going to do is have the truck weighed without the RV.  That will give us both the truck weight and the RV weight.  Then we will know if the RV is overweight or not.  Well, at least preliminarily, we are OK with the weights.  I obsess a lot about this as you can see.

We arrived at our new site in Apple Valley around 3 pm and were set up by 4pm.  We are staying at a county park called Lebanon Regional Campground.  The campground is perfect for visiting the twin cities as it is just a mile from I 35 and about 8 miles from downtown.  

This was the first time Patty has parked in a back-in site. This was a left hand site so she would be backing in on her side. That is the easiest side to back in on.  The site also only had a small tree on her side to contend with.  She did have another campers truck across the road that would be in play. 

Since this was our first time doing a back-in with Patty at the wheel I needed to communicate what she needed to do.  I didn't do a very good job of that.  However, by taking it slow she got it in the site within 10 minutes, it was just crooked a little. This is where I still have problems, when the truck is not straight to the RV and the RV is not straight in the site.  This requires that you pull forward in a manner that you are set up for the backward move that gets everything straight.  Usually you end up doing this a few times.  Patty was in her second forward/backward maneuver when a neighbor camper came over to help.  It helped but we would have preferred to do it ourselves to get practice. Anyway, it was a great first try.  We were in the site within 20 minutes.

We decide we would head to the Mall of America after we got set up.  The Mall is just as advertised, it is huge!  It basically is a 4 story traditional mall with an amusement park in the center.  Each ½ mile long floor is circular so you can walk to where you started from and then go up another floor.  This is not a gimmicky thing; it truly is an amusement park.  The park has 5 coasters and a log flume for what I think is 25 rides.  It also has a miniature golf course.

We walked around the first floor and found a place (Twin Cities Bar) for drinks and appetizers during happy hour.  After the pit stop we visited 2 more floors before calling it quits, enough Mall for us!  We didn't ride anything; we just took it all in.  Our goal was to see the Mall and we did that and now we were done.

Large Lego characters. 

Tuesday the 10th we took a hike on a trail from the campground into the county wildlife preserve next to us.  The trail was set up for cross country skiing with a shelter at one point back in the woods.  We hiked about 4 miles which was enough for a 90 degree day.

View from our 4 mile hike.

That evening we did another dinner cruise.  We like doing these cruises wherever we are.  It allows us to see some of the cities in a relaxing environment.  This cruise was not that good however.  

Dinner cruise on the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

The cruise navigated down the Minnesota River from St. Paul to the Mississippi River up to just south of Minneapolis.  The cruise left port at 7 pm which is almost dark here in the Central time zone.  So after leaving port in St. Paul, we looked at mostly a dark river bank which is not very exciting. We had nice buffet dinner a little before 8 pm which took us away from looking at the dark.  I thought we might get to see downtown Minneapolis but the boat turned around way south of there.  The best views were coming back into the St. Paul port in the dark.  The city skyline was all lit up for good pictures.

The sky line of St. Paul MN

Sunset on the Minnesota River.

View from the front of the boat before dark.

View from our dinner table.

St. Paul skyline at night.

Wednesday the 11th we hitched up the rig and moved to Story City Iowa.  Again, Patty is at the wheel.  There is nothing special about Store City for us it is just a convenient stop over for a one nighter.  We arrived at the Whispering Oaks Campground at 2 pm and were checked in and set up by 2:30.   This, we think is a record for us.  

Don't know what this is but it was pretty cool on the to Iowa.

Interesting, Minnesota has a nice sign letting you know you are leaving the state.

Entering Iowa.

Sign for a casino in Iowa.  The barn on the right is the casino.

We decided to head into town to get fueled up and check out the little RV dealer there.  Maybe I can sell the old wheels to them and I needed a new hitch lube plate.  The dealer didn't want the wheels but told us about a place that might want them.  This place was just 5 miles down the road. 

So off we went before the place closes.  Nope, this guy is not interested, but the guy across the road might be.  Ok, so we head across the road to talk to Matt.  Matt was interested and we got a deal of $300 for them.  I might have gotten a little more for them but I was happy to unload the wheels and tires. 

Back at the rig we made a nice chicken breast dinner and then took a mile walk.  We watched a little TV and called it a night.

Our site in Story City Iowa.

Looks like lightning struck the tree leaving it with a large hole.  We don't know what is holding up the rest of the tree.  One good wing and this is coming down.

Tomorrow we head 190 miles to Lincoln Nebraska. We will travel through Des Moines IA and then make a right to head west toward Utah/Arizona and the Canyons.  We plan to be at Arches National Park in Utah by next Saturday the 21st and then Bryce Canyon on the following Monday the 23rd.

Stay Tuned!

RV Repair Complete and we are, “On The Road Again!”

September 7 – 8, 2013

Saturday the  7th, RV Tech Ron said he would show up at 9 am to fix the rig. He was early; he arrived at 8:30 am, yeah!  By noon he was done with the cosmetic fender skirt repair.  Then there was the repair of the hydraulic line for the leveling system.  That’s when it looked like we were going to be here until Monday. 

The damage was to the connector from the polyethylene hydraulic line to the leveling cylinder.  We either needed a new line with connectors or a “field” repair that required a new connector.  RV Ron was told by Lippert (manufacturer of the leveling system) that the line was a 2 wire hose.  The hose is in fact not a 2 wire hose.  It is a polyethylene hydraulic hose without any wire.  This hose is commonly used in areas where you do not want the house to be electrically conductive.  We have no need for a hose that is non-conductive, but we are guessing that the hose was used because it is lighter than the other wire reinforced hoses. 

Anyway, the part that Ron brought would not work on this type of hose.  In fact, this hose can only have a crimped connector.  Crimping can be done in the field but you would need somewhat expensive tools.  The answer is to change the whole hose and use regular hydraulic hose, not the special poly stuff.  The trick though, is to find someone to make a 30 foot hose on Saturday afternoon.  Ron came up with a guy 100 miles away to make the hose.  So, by 5:30 pm we were done and with a new hose installed.

This is what the damage looked like.

RV Ron arriving Saturday morning with the parts on his roof.

The damaged sheet metal removed (note new wheels).

View of the work area.

The finished product including the new wheels in the background.  You can't tell we even had a tire issue!

  
The rig is now ready to leave.  We needed to also be ready. We spent some time after Ron left to rearrange the truck and the RV storage space.  Since we have not found a buyer for the old wheels and tires, we are going to carry them with us until we do.  Well, at least until we winter in Texas.  But we did get  buyer for our smaller air compressor! Yay us!  

We now have the 2 wheels in the back seat with 2 sets of golf clubs and Patty’s folding bike.  Believe it or not, we can still see out of the rear view mirror!  The truck bed has my bike, the ladder, and the other 2 wheels.  I also had to find room for the new and larger air compressor.  I relocated the sewer hoses to above the generator and some in the sewer hose tube that came with the RV.  That left me enough room for the new air compressor.  

The golf clubs were in the storage compartment (basement) under the RV.  Our friends who also full time, Howard and Linda, have these in the truck.  We felt like the truck is just a better place for the clubs, so we are going to leave them there even after the tires are gone.  

The space the clubs took up in the basement allowed us to move the grille and a plastic wheelbarrow from the truck bed to the RV.  The club movement also allowed us extra space in the basement. Right now that means it is just easier to get at everything.

Sunday the 7th we are ready to leave by 11 am!  That is actually very late for us, but we were still messing around with last minute reorganizing and I wanted to top off each of the new tires with air.  (Patty's note: he just wanted to try out his new toy. The tires were fine yesterday.) We are finally on the move again headed out west!

Patty has been very eager to drive the rig, so that is what she did.   She is probably better at it that I am anyway.  Patty drives better and I worry better.  That there is a perfect RV marriage!

We had 205 miles to reach our next site in Chippewa Falls WI which is about 4 hours for us.  Four hours is our standard RV pull.  We prefer 3 hours, usually do 4 hours, and occasionally do 5 hours max.  There were no issues for the drive to Chippewa Falls.  We arrived a little after 3 pm and were set up by 3:45 pm ready for 4 pm happy hour.  

Entering Wisconsin, finally!!

Our park for the night, Pine Harbor.  Pine Harbor is about 4 miles off of US 29.

Our huge site.  Too bad we are not staying here longer.  Free WiFi also!

We are only staying here one night; not our standard 2 nights on travel days.  The park is full tomorrow with a rally and we want to visit the Mall of America.  The Mall is just outside Minneapolis MN and only about 100 miles from here.  So we are hitching up tomorrow and heading to a campground about 15 minutes from the Mall.  Our travel time should be just about 2 hours maximum. There we will spend 2 nights giving us a day at the Mall.  We are both not sure if we can handle a whole day at the mall.  We will see!

Stay tuned!

RV Parts Arrived, Wheels are on

September 4 - 6, 2013   

Wednesday the 4th I finished putting on the new wheels and tires. I had already finished the left 2 the past 2 days so I just decided to finish by installing the other 2 today. Then I rearranged the truck to accommodate the old tires and wheels. Yea, I am taking them with us to see if we can find a home for them down the road. Patty put the tires and wheels on Craig’s list in Iron River, Minneapolis MN, and Denver CO. No hits yet. I am going to try an RV dealer when we get near a larger city. We will take the old tires as far as our winter place in Texas and they will not leave there.

I'm using the trucks jack to raise the axle.

New wheel waiting to go on.   Good picture of a sewer hose too!

Pictures of me working on the wheels.

Final torque with a torque wrench. 

Thursday the 5th the RV Park (Chamber of Commerce) put on a free concert on the front lawn. It was very well attended by the town with, I’m guessing, around 125 people. The music was performed by one guy as lead and he had several people come up and accompany him. The music ranged from Country to Classic Rock and a lot of very good originals. One of his songs (not original but first time I heard it)) that stood out for me was Pontoon.  It was a song about the summer time having fun on a pontoon boat. Sort of reminds me of our lives right now.  Anyway they played until it was dark and it got cold out there also. 

Friday the 6th we got the word from our RV tech that the parts had arrived from Indiana and he would repair the RV on Saturday Morning! YES!! This was perfect timing for us. We are paid up until Saturday night so we will leave and continue on down the road on Sunday.

After the news about the RV we took our longest drive since we been here and went to the “city”. We went to the largest city close to Iron River 44 miles away called Iron Mountain Wisconsin. We needed to get a larger air compressor to top off the new tires. The old tires had a maximum pressure of 80 psi and the new ones are 125 psi. I needed to get a compressor that was at least 150 psi. We looked here in Iron River and found nothing. We did some internet research and found the one we wanted at Home Depot and in stock at Iron Mountain. 

Old 110 PSI Air Compressor on left and the new 150 PSI on the right

So off we went to Iron Mountain. There is a Wal-Mart there so we just had to go there too. As a friend said, if you are a full timer, it is a law to go to each Wal-Mart in your area. Patty got a haircut and I picked up some transmission fluid for the leveler system on the RV. That was it for our trip to the big city.

We went out again to Alice’s for another fish fry. We were disappointed this time as they ran out of Walleye! Against my better judgment, I had the grilled Salmon. I love Salmon so it is very hard for me to resist getting it even though we are hundreds of miles from where it would come from. This means it has been frozen and probably for a long time. The Salmon had a good taste but it had been frozen for a very long time so it dry. However, it was only $16.95 so it was OK. Of course Patty had the grilled shrimp that was fantastic.

Tomorrow the RV Tech arrives at 9 am to fix the RV. We are going to get ourselves ready to resume our travels again. We are going to wash clothes, wash the truck, and get it topped off with fuel for our take off on Sunday for Chippewa Falls Wisconsin.

Stay tuned!

Insurance Approved and Parts are on the way! Local Entertainment

August 30 – September 3, 2013

For the past few days we haven’t done too much that's exciting.  Friday the 29th we walked into town and had a Fish Fry at Alice’s Restaurant.  We went to the Chamber of Commerce which is in the RV Park and asked about where the best Fish Fry is.  Way too many answers, so we chose the one we could walk to, Alice’s.

Alice’s was great; they were having a special Fish Fry with Walleye!  They must have known we were coming because we love a Walleye Fish Fry.  While there and waiting for our fish, we finally put together what their accent is.  The accent here is just like Sara Palin.  Now, when anybody here talks, we just look at each other and smile.  Of course, from here you can’t see Russia, but maybe you can see Canada.

One of the many ATVs here riding the long trails.

On our walk back from the Fish Fry I saw this.  Yooper Lakes Realty.  Yooper is what people call themselves in the U.P.

Saturday the 30th we walked to the Iron County Museum in the town of Caspian.  We wanted to make sure we could either walk or ride our bikes here tomorrow for the free Miner’s Day Picnic.  The walk is just 2 miles one way but we still get a 4 mile walk out of it. 

We ended the day with stuffed cabbage for dinner.  Not sure we would make the cabbage again.  It was a lot of work to make with a lot of dirty dishes.   It was tasty though and we had we have enough left over for another day.

Stuffed Cabbage.

Sunday September 1st we decided to bike the 2 miles to the Miner’s Day Picnic at the Iron County Museum.  This area in its heyday had something like 10 iron and copper mines active.  The last iron ore was shipped out by train in 1978. The area now is mostly a tourist destination for hunting, fishing, ATV trails, and snowmobiling.  

We learned that this area was largely settled by a Finnish population who did most of the homesteading here.  It continues to amaze me at the stamina the people had who settled this country.  There was a story about an unemployed Finnish man who, in his early 20s, drifted to Gothenburg Sweden from Finland and boarded a ship to New York for a better life.  In New York the guy was listed as unemployed. He managed to do odd jobs and got himself to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and homesteaded 40 acres of land. Later he added 40 more acres to that.  

Around the turn of the century he was determined to find iron ore on the land. So the guy drilled various shafts until he eventually found iron ore and that was the beginning of a large commercial mining company.  His son ran the mine until he died in the 1950s.   A lot of the equipment and buildings at the museum were donated by this guy’s family.

At 1:30 they had a wreath laying ceremony honoring all of the miners who died working the mines.  They had Miss Michigan here as well.  Inside there was a band playing acoustic Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead songs, very different!  There were many senior citizens lining the back wall who were tapping their toes to these songs.  I have finally reached the age where the music I listened to as a kid is the music of old people.  Wait, Oh, maybe I am getting old too!

Iron Ore Mine Shaft used to take miners into the the mine.

Interesting steam engine on rubber tires.

Original jail for Iron River.  It's just a cage.  Low cost, should use that today!

Old gas pumps.  Too old for me to remember these.

A device used to ride a bike on the rails!

This was long before automated switches.  

Old thrashing machine.  They were having a hard time keeping the single cylinder engine running.

Band playing Grateful Dead and Stones songs.  Miss Michigan is in the foreground.

Patty got her face painted.

Labor Day we didn't do much.  I spent most of the day working on a new route to the Albuquerque NM Balloon Festival.  The Balloon Festival is the first weekend of October.  We got a reserved and paid for RV space there back last year in November.  We still are not sure when we will be able to leave Iron River but we picked the date of September 11th.  Even if we leave sooner we are going to follow the same basic path.  We can add days to our stay if we want if we leave sooner.  

We have abandoned the original plan to visit the Badlands in SD and Yellowstone in WY.  Just not enough time this year. We will do that trip another time with maybe Washington state in the plan too.

We will now be traveling pretty much straight to the canyon area of Utah and Arizona then over to the balloon festival. This route will take us through the US plains states.  We will go southwest to Minneapolis MN, then south to Des Moines IA, and then basically west through Omaha NE, then to Denver CO. From Denver, we cross the Rocky Mountains on I 70 into Utah and then head a little further south to Bryce Canyon.  

After that we will travel to the Grand Canyon a little farther south in Arizona.  From there we will be 400 miles from the balloon festival in New Mexico.  We plan to spend one night at a FHU (Full Hookup)  site in Albuquerque to make sure we have a full fresh water tank before entering the Balloon festival site.  The Balloon Festival site is dry (no hookup site) so we need our own water.  After the Balloon Festival we have lots of time.  We plan to bum around Texas until we fly back north for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Then we will winter in south Texas this year.

We ended Labor Day with a campfire and a BBQ.  The temperature tonight is expected to drop to the upper 30s so a fire sounded good.  We bought the wood from the camp host for $5 a wagon load which is very good price.  The wood was nicely cut and dry making for a quick and hot fire.  We stayed around the fire for dinner of grilled hot Italian sausage with sweet potato fries.  When it started to get dark we called it a night and went inside for some TV.

Tuesday the 3rd I got a text from the mobile RV tech that our parts will leave today from Indiana.  Great news! We are not sure when the parts will get here but it would be nice if they arrived Thursday so we could have the RV finished on Friday.  We could leave at the end of our second week here on Saturday.  However, we are not going to hold our breath on that.  We are still planning on next Wednesday.

I decided to put on the new tires myself instead of having the RV tech do it.  He was only going to charge $75 but it’s a job I can do if I have enough time.  I like doing things like that but only if I am not rushed to do it.  I decided to do one wheel a day.  The first one took me an hour to do.  It would be a little quicker if the hydraulic levelers were working and I could just raise up one side of the RV and change out the tires that way.  Since they are not working due to the leak caused by the tire blowout I am using the bottle jack from the truck.   I am just raising one end of the axle which I guess is no more than 2 tons.  The jack is rated at 4 tones so it should be safe enough.  The first wheel replacement went great with no issues.

Proud of our new tires and wheels!  First one installed.

 While I was doing the wheel replacement, Patty defrosted the freezer.  These RV freezers require that we do this every so often.  This is the 3rd time we have defrosted ours in 13 months.  We could probably only do it every 6 months but it is fairly easy to do and gives us more room.  The next time we will defrost will be when we shut down the rig for a month when we fly back for the holidays at the end of November.

After the wheel replacement and the freezer defrost, we took a walk on a new trail.  This time we took the Snowmobile/ATV trail.  This trail goes in a 25 mile loop through Crystal Falls MI.  Then it runs around 100 miles North West to MN.  We were only going to walk to the next town on the trail, Stambaugh. We walked a loop of just over 4 miles coming back through the town of Stambaugh.   It was a nice walk.  We stopped and browsed a couple of shops and just took in the town views.

This is the cross roads where the 25 mile loop joins the 100 mile trail to MN.  The signs are for directions and for local restaurants and bars along the trail. 

The snowmobile/ATV trail we walked to Stambough.

The bearded Apple in Stanbrough is a non-profit selling coffee and tea.  They help other small businesses start.

I had to look this up.  This is the water tower in Stanbough with a 3 legged lion.  It is called a Wycon which is the mascot for the high school here. 

We ended the day with spaghetti and meatballs.  Still can’t make an amount just for 2.  We have another meal frozen for another day.

Tomorrow it is going to be cold again with temps at just low 60’s in the daytime and going down to 40 at night.  So I see another camp fire for us.  Also will do another tire.

Stay tuned!