She shore looks purty!

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8:30 am - Tuesday - October 17th - 31º F, 69% humidity, wind 4 mph out of  the southeast......clear blue skies.....forecast high for today at Downata Hot Springs is 67º F, and in South Jordan, UT, where we are headed, 72º F!  Things are looking up temperature wise!

We walked over to the park office Monday morning around 10 am to extend our stay one more day so we could soak in their hot pools again.  After paying for another day, and for hot pool tickets (the swimming pool, and hot pools are a separate charge here at Downata), we found out the pools don't open until 6 pm Monday through Friday.....winter schedule.  Oh well, that gave me time to do something I haven't done for 6 months......wash and dry the Newell exterior!  Over those six months I had used my waterless  cleaning system, Firecoat My Truck, to clean and wax the Newell exterior 2, or 3 times, so when I actually wash it the dirt comes off easily, and the paint shines like it is brand new.  I just used water in a shallow Rubbermaid dish pan,  an RV brush, and an old towel to dry it.  In all it took me about two hours to work my magic, and then I was done.......

.......I think she turned out well, what do you think?  She shore does look purty!

I forgot to mention in yesterday's missive that I spent about an hour Sunday checking the air pressure of all 10 tires.  I usually check the tires before we roll our wheels when we haven't moved for a few months, and usually there is maybe one, or two tires that need a few pounds of air, but this time all 10 needed anywhere from 5-20 psi added.  All 4 trailer tires were exactly 5 psi low, and 5 of the 6 Newell tires were 10 psi low, with one inside dualie tire 20 psi low....I'm going to have to watch that one!  No doubt the extremely cold temps the last 6 weeks contributed somewhat to the reduction in air pressure.

There was one more thing both TLE and I needed to do and that was inventory our clothing and thin out the herd a little.  This took me about 15 minutes, but TLE spent the better part of the afternoon going through her clothing and shoes.  The result?  Two large trash bags of clothing to donate.......

......there were a few t-shirts and short pants with which I really, really did not want to part, but in the end I was brave and said goodbye to some good friends.  I really wasn't wearing them, so now they will have a new chance at at good life.

Around 6 pm we walked over to the hot pools and took a good soak for about an hour.......

......we had the entire facility to ourselves, for which we had hoped.  

When we returned to the Newell the MLB ALCS game between the Asros and Yankees was in the fourth inning with the Yankees leading 3-0.....by the end of that never ending inning the Yankees had extended the lead to 8-0, and ultimately won 8-1.  It was not a very good game to watch so we spent some time watching more recorded shows (NCIS: LA, and NCIS: New Orleans) until about 10:30 when we called it a day.  Tuesday we will move another 140+ miles south to visit with my brother and his wife.....haven't seen them in a couple of years.

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Thawing out.......a little

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7:12 am - Monday - October 16th - 26º F, humidity 78%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....it will be sunny once the sun rises......forecast high for today is a whopping 62º F!  It has been far too long since we saw temps in the 60's, and that is what we have on tap the rest of the week as we work our way southward.

I've been dealing, somewhat ineffectively, with an increasing problem as respects my air system......once I turn off my engine I lose air pressure quickly.  For a while I was associating this problem with the extremely cold temperatures in which we have found ourselves lately, but I had to finally face the possibility that I have a significant leak in my air system.  As you may know my Newell has air brakes, and air suspension, so proper air pressure is very important.  Additionally, I use my air suspension to level my coach when stationary.  As long as we are underway my mechanical air compressor is able to overcome the leak, but once I stop, as I mentioned previously, I lose air quickly.  

So, I said all that to say this.....since it was going to be sunny, and much warmer Sunday I was going to spend some time checking for leaks.  I started in the right rear engine bay where the rear 'six pack' (6 Mac valves) that controls the rear suspension is located...........

......with the help of my very good friend, Tom McCloud, we rebuilt this '6 pack' back in February of 2012.....above is a picture of the finished product.  At any rate, I had no sooner removed the portable fireplace and the portable 'pancake' compressor than I found the problem.  At the top middle of the picture you will see the air pressure regulator/filter (has an air pressure gauge at the top of it)......that is where the leak is coming from.  Often it is difficult to figure out where an air leak is coming from, but this time it was quite obvious.....I could hear it.......this is the only part of the rear '6 pack' that we did not replace back in 2012.  I snapped a picture of the 'badge' which has all the pertinent information on the regulator,

and then went on eBay to find a replacement (I checked Amazon, but they did not have what I needed), and found it pretty quickly......

......I used the 'BUY IT NOW' option to buy it, and now it is just a matter of getting it to where I am going to be later in the week.  The easy part will be removing the old one and installing the new one.....easy peezy!

Oh, and by the by.......Sunday was a beautiful day in Southern Idaho......high 50's and NO wind........

.....the park completely emptied out by Sunday afternoon, and now we have the whole place to ourselves.  Unfortunately, the hot pools are closed on Sundays, but we will get another dose of thermally heated hot mineral water on Monday......

.....it was such a nice day that I was inspired to polish up my ALCOA wheels.  They've been covered all summer so it was just a matter of cleaning them with Windex.....

.....then it was on to installing the new tongue jack on the trailer (cost $27).  I coated the new bolts with 'Locktite' before installing them to be sure they don't come loose......

.....and then for my last task of the day I affixed my 2018 California tags to the rear license plate........then it was time to sit outside to watch the sun set whilst smoking a 'Deadwood Tobacco' Sweet Jane cigar I received in my 'wedding party' gift at my son's wedding.  Of course,  a little single malt scotch is always called for in such situations.......

.....it was a very, very good cigar, and I cherished every single puff!  Eventually the chill which follows the setting sun chased me back inside the Newell, but it was a nice interlude in what has been extremely cold weather these past few weeks!

For the nightcap I watched game two of the MLB (Major League Baseball) NLCS (National League Championship Series) between the Chicago Cubs (or Cubes as my good friend Keith Speaks says) and the L.A. Trolley Dodgers.  It was very well pitched game which was still tied 1-1 going to the bottom of the 9th inning.  Two Dodger batters were walked and were at first and second with two outs when Justin Turner came to the plate who promptly hit a booming homerun to left center field on a 1-0 count for a walk off homer giving the Dodgers a 4-1 victory and a 2-0 lead in this best of 7 series.  This was the Dodgers' first walk off homerun since the immortal Kirk Gibson did so against the Oakland A's in the first game of the 1988 World Series.  They still have to win two more games to get to the World Series for the first time in 29 years, but it's looking good right now!

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.....and then the Jello jiggled once again.....

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7:51 am - Sunday - October 15th - 23º F, 91% humidity, wind - CALM......got down to 19º F last night.....glad we are plugged into 50 amp electrical service....rocking four electric heaters right now.....

Where in the world are we?

......wait a minute.....where is the snow?  Where is the lake?  Read on......

When last we bid our daily adieus, there was 5" of snow on the ground, and we had pretty much decided to just spend one more day at Ririe Reservoir.  Seemed like a solid plan.....I thought it was a solid plan......TLE thought it was the prudent thing to do......and then the snow began to melt on the campground road.....and then I began to think about a certain hot springs about 90 miles south of our position where the sun was shinning, and there was no snow on the ground.  Within an hour I had unhooked our umbilical cords and we were descending Meadow Creek Road down to US-26.

Of course, there was one more thing that was really the impetus for our sudden decision to extract our home from the snowy environs of Ririe Reservoir......when it gets really cold....like down into the 20's the coach tends to lose air pressure in the rear air bags which results in the rear of the coach settling down quite a ways.  To counter act this I have been putting the trailer jack down when the trailer is still on the hitch to keep the rear end from settling.  This has worked well in cold weather, but as I was walking back to the bedroom there was this sudden loud 'BANG' followed by the rear of the coach dropping suddenly.  At first I thought the weight of the coach had pulled the hitch ball out of the tongue, but when we went outside to investigate we saw that the jack itself had failed.  Okay, well, that changed our plans somewhat.  We would need a new tongue jack.  The complicating factor was that we were going to head to the hot springs on Sunday, and I was pretty sure we would have to drop the trailer there as the nice lady in the office of the hot springs RV park said their only long pull through site was occupied.  In Idaho and Utah most everything is closed on Sunday's including trailer supply places, so that meant we would need to get the tongue jack replaced on Saturday, which, in turn meant that we would need to leave Saturday, not Sunday.  You might be thinking...."Why don't they just unload the VW and drive into town to get the jack?"....and that would be a valid question.  Trying to get the VW out of and then back in the trailer with 5" of snow on the ground would not have been pleasant.  Could we have done it?  Sure.....we just didn't want to deal with that hassle.

I quickly located a local trailer supply (State Trailer RV & Outdoor Supply) right on US-26 which a large parking lot.....perfect.  Within 30 minutes we were on our way, and within another 20 minutes we were parked and I was walking into State Trailer Supply.  I was greeted by a very helpful associate who walked me right to the correct jack, and then helped me find the new bolts to fasten it to the tongue.  I was in and out in less than 5 minutes, and we were on our way southward. 

The further south we got the less snow we saw in the fields through which I-15 passes.  The hot springs RV park to which we were headed has turned off their water for the winter, and they offer no sewer connections, or dump station so we needed to dump our tanks prior to our arrival there.  Just south of Pocatello we exited the freeway to stop at the local Flying J travel center which I was pretty sure had a dump station ($7.50 to dump), and they did!  So we dumped our black tank, and then refilled our fresh water tank adding just over 60 gallons.  

Within 12 more miles we exited I-15 to US-91 south, arriving at Downata Hot Springs just before 3 pm.  As it turned out they did have another pull through site in which we fit perfectly, so we didn't have to drop the trailer.  Within 1/2 an hour we were soaking in their hot pool.....

.....and that was how Saturday evolved.....that's the wonderful thing about having wheels on your home.....you can change your circumstance quickly and painlessly......most of the time.

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Jiggling Jello.......

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6:55 am - Saturday - October 14th - Ririe, ID - 31º F, humidity 80%, wind 7 mph out of the northwest.......there is NO wind whatsoever, but it is has been, and is currently snowing.....about 5" of snow on the ground as I write......

Looks to be about 5" and still accumulating

What a difference a night makes

......wait, what?  There was nothing in last night's forecast about snow......but, come on.....how cool is it to awake to a winter wonderland?!  And, then, of course, there were the Jello plans we had to move further south today......and then the Jello jiggled.  Just another reminder that we need to move south a little more quickly.

So, back to Friday's shenanigans......originally we had talked about driving into Idaho Falls Friday to do a little 'junking', possibly see a movie, and then have an early dinner at a local micro brewery we have frequented in the past, but as the morning wore on we decided to just stay home and enjoy not doing anything, or imposing any kind of a schedule upon our persons.  Another compelling reason for not going anywhere was the relentless winds which were in the mid to high 20 mph all day long with gusts into the 30's on a regular basis.  And, finally, there were about 10-15 recorded shows in our DVR queue (NCIS, NCIS L.A., Blacklist, Designated Survivor, Survior, Gold Rush, Last Ship, NCIS New Orleans, etc.) which we needed to whittle down a tad.

Of course, there also had to be a walk around the campground, and around 3 pm we did just that.......

 Yup, it is cold!

.....it was still in the low 40's, and adding in the windchill factor I would say it felt like the mid 30's, so we bundled up against the cold and walked for about 40 minutes taking a few pictures to memorialize our visit before retreating to the heated comfort of the Newell.

There was another very good MLB ALCS playoff game pitting the hated New York Yankees against the Houston Astros......it was a well pitched game with Houston prevailing 2-1 in a game which could have gone either way.

Back to the present (7:41 am, Saturday), waking up to 5" of snow on the ground reminds me of how well built Newells are......well insulated, heated water bay, electric heaters, gas heaters, chassis heaters.....they are definitely 4 season coaches.  We have plenty of propane, we have 50 amp electric service (really 100 amps), and we have no schedule to keep.  We may, or may not roll our wheels today.  Oh, and one more thing.....it has stopped snowing, so we've got that going for us!

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The 'IT' factor......

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8:34 am - Friday - October 13 - Ririe, ID - 34º F, humidity 53%, wind 9 mph out of the south by southeast.......when you see windmills on the hill near your camp there is no way it is not going to be windy, right?

We awoke, finally, to a windless environment Friday morning.  I haven't talked a lot about the the wind, but over time wind kind of wears me down.   Any day I wake up without the ubiquitous sound of the wind makes me happy.  Our original Jello plan was to continue south from Dillon, MT on I-15 to Idaho Falls which is always a natural stop off point for us when traveling the I-15 corridor.  Sometimes we have stayed at a local in town RV park, or in the local Walmart parking lot.  As I was thinking Thursday night about where we might stay my mind kept rejecting these familiar options so I began to look outside of town for someplace new to stay for a couple of days.  I checked Freecampsites.net and found numerous free boondocking options, of which there are many in this area, but knowing the overnight lows would be in the very low 20's I began to look to places where we could at least have access to electricity.  Initially I thought we might stay at the local Elks Lodge, but they only offer 20 amp service with no water, or sewer, or dump station.  The price, $10/night, was attractive, but I really didn't want to be back in a situation where we had to think about what electric appliances we could use.....we did that all summer and, frankly, I'm over that.  I just want to plug in and not have to manage our electrical consumption, especially with the cold temps being forecast.  I checked Passport America, but none of the parks nearby had that 'IT' factor, even at a 50% discounted rate.  Finally I checked RV Park reviews dot com and found this cool out of the way Bonneville County Park which overlooks Ririe Dam/Reservoir.  This park seemed to have the 'IT' factor, so that is where we headed about mid morning.

We had one big pass, Monida (6,870' elevation), which stood between us and the Idaho border.  Fortunately the grade heading up to the pass is quite gentle and I was able to keep the Newell in cruise control the entire time.....that is rare......95% of the time I have to shift down to 2nd, or 3rd gear to get over most passes, or summits.  Our total driving distance for the day was modest......just 146 miles.  Normally I would take time before we leave a location to clean the windshield, but it was soooo cold I decided to put it off until we got down the road aways.  About 45 miles into our day I spotted a rest stop near Lima, MT which we had stopped at previously, so we pulled in and I spent the next 15 minutes cleaning the windshield and side windows......it was still quite cold!

We exited I-15 about 10 miles shy of Idaho Falls and took a few country roads over to US-26 which took us the final 6 miles to Juniper Campground, which is aptly named as there are juniper bushes everywhere.......

.......as we entered the park around 2 pm it was obvious that we would be the only ones there.....we essentially have the entire park to ourselves!  Most of the sites are long pull throughs so it was just a matter of finding one with the 'IT' factor, and then settling in for two days.  Since the overnight temps are getting below freezing most nights the water has been turned off.....that's cool as we had over 100 gallons of fresh water still left in our tank.....more than enough for two days.  At least we have access to the sewer to dump our gray tank water, and we have 50 amp service!

Around 7 pm we noticed we were getting a great sunset.......unfortunately, my meager photographic skills did not capture its true grandeur, and beauty......

.....we spent most of the evening watching the MLB game five between the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals.....the game lasted over 4.5 hours and was ultimately won by Chicago 9-8.....the Nationals just made too many errors in a game they should have won handily.

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