Escapade 5/13/14

Day 11 - Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Day 2 of Escapade

The educational seminars began today.  They cover all sorts of topics that might interest an RVer, such as products you can add to your rig, handy tips for making life easier while traveling, ideas for places to go, safety, volunteering or working while RVing, full time living in your RV, etc.  I attended three seminars this morning.  One was by Jim and Chris Guld.  They are Geeks On Tour and travel full time giving seminars about all sorts of electronic devices and programs for them that one can use while traveling.

I went to two different seminars about RVing to Alaska this morning as well. 

At the one, given by Adventure Caravans, there was a door prize drawing at the end of the talk.  I was lucky enough to win the gift certificate worth $500.00 toward one of their adventures.  We have been to their Rose Parade and Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta rallies and really enjoyed them.  I am sure that whatever trip we choose to apply the certificate will be just as much fun.

This afternoon, we toured the Montana Trailer assembly line.  It is amazing how the trailers are put together.  They were not building our model of Montana, but the process is basically the same.  They start with a frame, attach the under belly insulation, axels, wheels, tires and jacks.  Then they run wiring, hoses, water lines and drop in the holding tanks for waste and fresh water.

After everything is in place, the floor goes on top.  Here, the board is on and some linoleum has been placed.

 

Next, the interior walls and cabinets go in as well as some of the fixtures are completed.  The shower is about ready to be put in place on this trailer.  The trailers are on dollies that you can see fairly well here.  This allows the units to be moved side ways down the assembly line

You may have noticed a lot of pieces higher up on a second level in the previous pictures.  All around the assembly line, various cabinets, fans, light fixtures, etc. are prepared to go into the trailer as it passes the appropriate point on the line.  That is some of what you are seeing.  Here, toilets are placed, one on top of the other, ready to be installed on a trailer as it arrives at that spot .

These are the exterior wall units that have been fabricated and laser cut for where windows, doors hatches, and slides will be put on later in the process.

Now the outside walls have been attached.  This is the pass through area before they hide it with black fabric covered walls, such as you can see off to the left in this photo.  You can also see the plumbing pipes, water heater, and water pump (little black thing at the bottom right with a white label).  Interestingly, you can see into the next trailer ,that is further in the assembly line, through the hatch opening of this trailer. 

Ceiling and fixtures have been added.  Since this trailer will have a large slide on each side, it is easy to see the trailer that is preceding this one down the line.

The roof and slides have been added, trim, windows, exterior lights, and vents installed and hatches are covered.

 

It is just about ready now.  The graphics have been added and furniture is in the process of being added inside.  The company is still recovering from the recession, but they are finishing the assembly of 18 trailers per day now.   Our tour is finished.

There was another evening of door prizes.  Getting ready... 

And the winner is out there...

Entertainment, tonight, was the Homestead Pikers from Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO.  The guy in the middle played the harmonica as well as sing.  The acoustics in the hall, that we were in for the performance, were not very good to be able to understand them.  I'm sure that they sound much better in their own theater.

That was a pretty busy day.  I think I'll get some sleep to be ready for tomorrow.

Escapade 5/11 & 12/14

Days 9&10 -Sunday and Monday, May 11 & 12, 2014
Mother's Day Sunday and Escapade Begins Monday

Sunday was Mother's Day.  We had a nice day getting settled in at our campsite at the Escapade, a rally of Escapees RV Club members.

The official Big Red Truck with all of the supplies for the rally is here, too.

There are RVs of all kinds here.  They are parked in different areas of the fairgrounds depending upon whether they are boondocking, have water and electric hook ups, or full hook ups.  Here is the area we are in.

We are in the infield of the fairgrounds grandstand.  This is looking down our row which is at the left.  You can see a trailer for a cleaning service, one of the services that can be arranged here at Escapade.  If you buy items such as awnings, AC units solar, etc. for your trailer, it can be installed right on site, so we will see installers throughout the camp, this week. 

There are Montana trailers everywhere.  There is one above and one across from us, our truck is on the left, plus one behind the brown trailer in the photo below.  There are many more in the other areas around the fairgrounds.

We had a fish based foil dinner that has fish and vegetables seasoned with dill and lemon, one of our favorite dinners, for Mother's Day dinner.  Then we rented a movie to watch while the thunder storm raged outside.  We had a lot of lightening and thunder with the rain, but no real bad winds.  The organizers of the rally sent us an e-mail telling us where the safe places were should the severe weather sirens blow.  Fortunately, they were not needed this time.

Today, Monday, it is cloudy with scattered showers predicted.  There is a front that will come through tonight and tomorrow with more rain and thunder showers, then the temperature is expected to drop from highs in the 80's to highs in the 50's and 60's and lows as low as the upper 30's and 40's.

When we took the movie back, we saw this elk statue painted with puzzle pieces.  It looks like other animal figures that we have seen, in previous travels, that have been painted by various groups in the town.  There have always been a multitude, each with a different design.  The only thing is, we have not seen any others, so we don't know why this one is here.

The official opening of the 54th Escapade was 3:00 PM.  Here is the stage where all of the general assembly activities take place.

The participants are gathering.  We have not heard how many attendees there are.

 

There were announcements followed by the local VFW presenting the Colors.

Then there were door prizes and a parade of banners from different chapters.  The opening ceremony was followed with an ice cream social.

There were evening door prizes before the entertainment. 

Johnny Counterfit is very talented.  He impersonated many singers and famous figures.  His backup band members are also very talented and had their own spotlight performances.  In addition, he is a great comedian and we enjoyed his performance very much.

 

Tomorrow, the seminars begin.  We will have more to tell you about then. 

 

 

 

Travel to Escapade 5/10/14

Day 8 - Saturday, May 10, 2014
Arrive at Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds
Goshen, Indiana

Saturday morning came.  Earl had done some research on the Level-Up system and had an idea to disconnect the wires to the control box for awhile to see if it would reset, like when you reboot your computer.  While we were waiting and hoping that would do the trick, we decided to dump our holding tanks.  When I, Fran, pulled the galley tank's handle, it became disconnected with only a small hole in the underbelly covering through which it had come.  We were beginning to think "What else could go wrong?"  Well, between the two of us, we managed to cut the covering and find the place that the handle screwed onto and that fixed that.  Next we tried plugging the wires back into the Level-Up control box.  We pushed the retract button and IT WORKED!!!  We finished packing up, hooked up the trailer to the truck and slowly pulled out of the campsite trying not to skid in the mud.  WE MADE IT!!!  Things are looking up.

We drove the approximately 80 mile to the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana where the Escapade will begin on Monday.  We planned an early arrival so that we could set up and get the lay of the land before all of the events.

We are in the Amish country of Indiana.  There was some other event happening in another part of the fairgrounds, when we arrived.  We disconnected the trailer at our spot and did a basic set up.  Then we needed to go fill the truck with fuel and get some lunch.  As we were heading out, these two buggies were leaving the fairgrounds before us.  The picture was taken through the window, so there is a reflection on the right side of the photo.



 



Now, I have lived very near the Amish country of Ohio and have seen many Amish buggies over the years.  I have seen large family sized ones, smaller single/couple sized ones and even small kid sized ones pulled by ponies, but I had never seen a buggy pulling a trailer.  We saw many of them today, filled with various things.  They looked much like this one and appear to be very practical. 



 



Happy Mother's Day tomorrow! 

 

 

Travel to Escapade, 5/9/14

Day 7 - Friday, May 9, 2014
Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana

I did not write a post yesterday because it was a very bad day, so I am writing about yesterday.  It started out OK.  We continued to travel through Iowa.  The farms were scattered across the rolling hills.  Fields had been planted, but have not come up yet.  There are some green pastures with cows and sheep and interesting barns.

We crossed the Mississippi River at Davenport, Iowa.  Here is what the approach looked like. 

The view up river toward Davenport, Iowa

                                      Looking down river.  Still very rustic in that direction.

The other side of the river is Illinois.  We drove through Illinois and discovered that they have some of the worst roads we have been on yet.  They have a portion of I-80 that is a toll road that isn't any better than their non-toll portion.  This is one of the toll entrances, on the right.

The Illinois toll road has bridges across the highway.  They are rest areas used by both directions of  traffic.  We have been to rest areas that are shared by all traffic, but usually they are located off the highway and you drive to them.  These, you pull off to a parking area, like at most rest areas, but you walk in and up to the bridge where all services are located.  Of course, there are more services here, since you are on the toll road and ordinarily don't get off until you reach your destination

 

Now, things took a turn for the worse.  Like I said, Illinois has some of the worst interstate roads that we have been on this far, in the last week, since we left home.  We thought California had bad roads, but these top them in disrepair.  The pot holes are like craters and you can't avoid them.  Traffic is so heavy that you can't slow down because most everyone else is going at least the speed limit and you would be creamed.  You can't shift sideways to miss them, either, especially with a 1 ton pick-up pulling a 35 foot fifth-wheel trailer.  So, you hit them.  There were people off to the side of the road changing tires in groups of two and three.  Apparently, this is and has been quite a problem for some time.  The news that night, Friday, had a segment on the bad roads and how people wanted the government to take responsibility for damage done to their cars.  We were feeling pretty lucky that we weren't among that group with flat tires or a broken spring, after our experience on the drive through Illinois on I-80. 

When we took a break from driving and went inside the trailer, things were tossed around so much that somehow, either by being bumped by another object or just twisting and bouncing, the glass front to our electric fireplace was shattered.  Thank goodness it was safety glass and turned into little pieces not shards of glass.  Also, it still worked, which is nice.  We had secured the cabinet doors, in prep for our travel to Alaska later in our summer adventure, so nothing had fallen out of the cabinets.  Could the roads in Alaska be worse than what we had just experienced???!!!

That wasn't all.  Once we found the campground for the night, we barely made it into the site as the truck was beginning to skid on the mud as Earl was backing in.  To make things even worse, the leveling system for the jacks decided to be totally out of sync, causing it to say we were at a severe angle even though we were almost level.  It wouldn't let us move the jacks up or down.  We gave up trying and continued to finish hooking up the trailer.  Wouldn't you know it.  The electricity didn't work at the post for our site.  We ended up running an extension to the site next to ours.  Totally frustrated, we went into the trailer to get dinner, clean up the broken glass and prepare for going into the Escapade rally on Saturday, provided we could figure out what to do with the jacks to get them to retract and that we did not get stuck in the mud as we left the site.

We have eaten dinner, cleaned the trailer, and are going to bed and are hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Travel to Escapade, 5/8/14

Day 6 - Thursday, May 8, 2014
Nebraska to Iowa

Today started very early with an appointment at the Crossroads Ford service department in Kearney, Nebraska.  Our truck told us it needed an oil change and they were nice enough to accommodate us as we traveled through the area.  After the service was completed, we went back to camp and packed up to continue our travel to Indiana.  As we left Kearney, NE, we passed under the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument.

We finished crossing Nebraska and are now in Iowa.  Today was the first day that we had to drive in the rain.  The rain was very heavy, but not dangerously so.  Now that we are in camp for the night, the wind is strong and there is heavy rain again, but we are assured that the bad storms are staying away from this area.

Although Nebraska and Iowa have beautiful farm land and rolling hills, I did not take any photos.  This part of the country is much more populated so traffic was heavier and needed more concentration.  One thing that is different in this area and much of the eastern part of the country is that entrance onto the freeway is a "Yield" not a "Merge" like we have in California.  You really have to be careful because, often, the drivers on the freeway do not slow down or scoot over for you if you are coming onto the freeway. 

That's it for today.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Travel to Escapade, 5/7/14

Day 5 - Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Nebraska

Last evening we were treated to a light show.  California doesn't get lightening very often, so  it was very exciting and interesting to watch the lightening jump from cloud to cloud in the distance.  We were far enough away from the actual storm that we had stars above us and we could not hear the thunder from the lightening that we saw.  However, during the night, we were awakened by the thunder and rain hitting our trailer.  That was all gone by the time the sun came up.

Agriculture is definitely one of the main occupations in Nebraska.  The highway passed fields that have been recently planted or are just beginning to grow and several that have not been worked yet.  There was a lot of pasture land with cows, sheep and goats being the most seen animals.  Spring is just beginning in this area.  The leaves on the trees are just starting to emerge.  Even the spring landscaping is yet to be done in many places, for example,  around the sign below.

Traveling along I-80, you come to this huge arch across the highway at Kearney, Nebraska.  Over the years, we have passed by this arch and wondered what it was about.  It is the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument.  We did not go inside this time, but did a few years ago.  If you ever get a chance, stop by this attraction.  There is an amazing museum inside that covers the time from wagon trains heading out to explore the west and progresses through modern times.  It is very well done. 

 There is also a small fort that contains a maze inside and "guard towers" on each corner.

The entrance to the archway is behind the fort.  As you enter, you are guided to an escalator that takes you up to the arch that crosses the freeway.  The museum winds around in the arch and comes to an area that you can look out at the traffic flying by beneath you.

The reason that we are staying in Kearney, tonight, is because we need to have the oil changed in our truck.  Our new truck is so computerized that it tells us when we need to get service and what it needs.  So early tomorrow morning, we will be taking the truck to the local Ford dealer for a service appointment.  Therefore, I better cut this post short and get some sleep. 

Travel to Escapade, 5/6/14

Day 4 - Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Wyoming to Nebraska

It has been cloudy to partly cloudy everyday so far on our trip, but today, we woke to a bright sunny day.  It was cool, but not cold.  The view that we had out of the car window, as we continued across Wyoming, was of rolling hills, mountains in the distance and mostly ranch land, some oil wells and a few cities.

We did go up in elevation, but it was mostly by going up rolling hills.  There was very little long haul mountain driving.  We did see many, many snow fences used to keep the snow from drifting across the highway.  If you noticed, in the previous picture, there aren't many trees to stop the wind from blowing the snow. 

Just before we got to the highest point on the highway, we saw how the snow had drifted along the fence and has not melted yet.  As the wind blows across the prairie or field, the snow blows up against the fence which acts like a riffle causing lower pressure behind it   That causes the snow to be "sucked" down rather than continuing on across the highway or where ever.

There is the Summit rest area, which is located at the highest elevation on I-80.  The leaves still haven't come out on the trees, in the background, at the 8640 ft. altitude.

There is quite a display explaining the history of this area, at this rest area.  Mostly, ranching and farming are current occupations, but in the 1880's there was a lot of logging of the forests that used to be here.  The logs were used for housing and for building the railroad which was used to transport the livestock and crops to market.

Much of I-80 was built along the path of the Lincoln Highway.  The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway going from New York City to San Francisco.  It was completed in 1913 when automobiles were first becoming popular and affordable for families, who , of course, wanted to travel to see things that they had only heard about before.  In 1959, a monument of Abraham Lincoln was built and it is the only monument to Lincoln along the highway that was named for him.

Some stats of the monument are that it weighs 4500 lbs. and it is 13 1/2 feet tall.  That is the head only.  See it compared to the man in the picture below.  The monument was moved to this location in 1969 when I-80 was completed.

 

There is another monument dedicated to Henry Joy, who was the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association as well as president of the Packard Motor Car company.  He is often referred to as the father of the national highway system.

As we were walking back to the truck, we passed this little guy, a prairie dog.  He seemed very brave to stay out of his hole while we were only about 5 ft. away.  A crow flew by and that made him disappear.  It is so unfortunate that someone did not take care of their garbage and now the prairie dog has taken that plastic bag into his hole.

 

Tonight we are in Sidney, Nebraska at the Cabela's RV Park right next to the store.  Cabela's has outdoor supplies and sporting equipment.

Tomorrow we will continue across Nebraska.  It is a very wide state, so we may still be in Nebraska by the end of our driving day.