The Guessers

As often as I joke around about the "weather guessers" you would think I would give a little less credibility to them than I do, but every once and a while I get sucked in again, and make a decision based on someone else's "guess".  Normally when I know it's going to be very hot, or very cold we'll find a place to plug in for the day/night.  Especially important when it is very cold, because we need to turn on the block heater in the morning to heat the engine block/coolant up so we can start the 6V92 DD.  These series 92 engines are cold blooded and once it gets below 50 degrees are hard to start unless you have a block heater.  When we make a decision to dry camp on a cold night I will just start up the generator in the morning to provide alternating current and then turn on the block heater.  It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour depending on how cold it is.  

Had I known the low for Friday night/Saturday morning was going to be 25 degrees, and not the 35 the weather guessers predicted, I would probably have chosen to check in at the local RV park and get plugged in.  I've started the generator down to 32 degrees before, but Saturday morning it would turn over, but not fire.  The batteries were at 89% when I got up, so there was plenty of juice to start the generator, but it just wouldn't start......:-(

Fortunately I have a plan "B" in case this happens.....the only thing is I have never had to try plan "B".  What is plan "B" you query? Plan "B" is to pull out the small Honda 1000 watt portable generator and plug in the block heater directly to it.  The block heater draws just at 10 amps, and that is the maximum output of the Honda, so my plan "B" was standing on shaky legs to say the least.  I got out the Honda around 8:45 and it fired up on the second pull......whew!  I plugged in the block heater hoping the Honda would handle the load, and it did.  You may remember that when we were back in Washington D.C. back in late April we were using the Honda a lot as we were dry camping.  One day it stopped running suddenly and I had to take it in to have it serviced at a cost of around $300.  Well Saturday I was glad I spent the money and fixed it.  About 50 minutes after I plugged in the block heater I was able to crank the DD and it started......YAY!

We pulled out of the Walmart parking lot around 9:50 am with our next destination just a few miles away.....a Maverick fuel station where "Gas Buddy" showed diesel being sold for $3.53/gallon.  Of course, you can't always trust Gas Buddy......remember my fuel mishap in Melbourne, FL (click here to read the story)?  Saturday was another wild goose chase.....the advertised Maverick station does NOT sell diesel.  Oh well, we were only going to buy diesel because of the price.....we had 1/2 a tank left, so we just got on the Interstate and continued our journey south to drive our 177 miles to Ogden, UT.

About 50 miles from the Utah border we stopped for about 20 minutes at a Flying J to take a break.  On a hunch I tried to start the big generator again, and it fired up immediately, so the verdict is in.....25 degrees is too cold to start it.  The other silver lining is I have nothing to fix except my over reliance on Weather.com.  We officially crossed over the border into Utah at precisely 12:33 pm.....this is the first time our coach has been in a state/province other than Alberta, Montana and Idaho since July 2nd.

We have never been to Ogden, UT and there just happens to be a Passport America park there were the daily Passport America rate is $13.50.  We will stay in Ogden for 2 days.  There is a cool old town area about 8 miles from our park, and we are very close to Antelope Island State Park (Great Salt Lake), which we want to visit, too.

We took one final stop at a Utah Rest Area to recheck the info we had on the RV park we were headed for....we only had 19 miles to go after that and arrived at our destination in Ogden around 1:30.  Zach quickly checked us in, and took us to our spot, just a 100 feet away.....a very long and wide site with full hookups, and a clear view of the southern sky......it was NCAA football day, plus there was a World Series game Saturday night so it's imperative that my DirecTV works.

We quickly set up, and while I was hooking up the water TLE found a local micro brewery called "Roosters Brewing and Eatery" in the old town area.......so once we had finished setting everything up, including the satellite TV, we headed into town.

I had the Famous Fish Tacos, and TLE had the Blackened Salmon Sandwich.  We both chose the Junction City Chocolate Stout for our brew of the day.  Yelp gives this establishment 3.5 stars, but we would would give it a solid 4 stars.  The service was fast, and friendly (thank you Aimee).....the ambiance had a cool, funky kind of vibe, the beer and food were excellent.

We will probably ride our bikes back to the old town on Sunday and just take a walk around visiting a few "junk" shops, and enjoying the atmosphere.

After a quick stop at the local state liquor store we headed home where I turned on a football game, and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half.....:-)

We had a nice travel day, and love our current location for the next two days.  We'll head south Monday morning to my brother's home where we will do some interior remodeling that we have planned for a number of months now.

I watched the Cardinals vs. Red Sox MLB game, and what a game!  The first playoff, or World Series game to end on an obstruction call giving the Cardinals the victory in game 3.  The team that wins game three when the series is tied 1-1 wins the World Series over 71% of the time....wow!  We'll see if that pans out for St. Louis.

Thanks for stopping by!