Spokane or Bust!

Echo Pass, Utah

At the end of another travel day, we find ourselves in Mountain Home, Idaho. God has blessed us with a trouble-free day. Nothing broke. Nothing fell off. Nothing stopped working. Praise the Lord!

That wasn't the case yesterday, however. From Laramie, we headed into the Rocky Mountains. The highway cuts through a very wide pass, and the terrain is mostly high plateau. A windy high plateau, with gusts of 40+ mph in places. We were tooling along at 60 mph, when I noticed out my window that the awning that covers the door was extended a few inches and shaking in the wind. That didn't look right to me. Mark pulled off the road immediately to check it out and discovered that the locking mechanism on the awning had broken. It brings to mind the Twilight Zone episode of years gone by, starring William Shatner, where he's looking out the window of an airplane soaring along at thirty thousand feet, and sees a feisty little gremlin sitting on the wing pulling parts off the airplane. I didn't actually SEE the gremlin break the locking mechanism, but I'm running out of plausible explanations 

A "bandaid" on the awning support

What's left of the trailer light wiring

for all the stuff that keeps happening. When we pulled into the next rest area for a break, Mark did a walk-around and found that the trailer lights that were magnetically attached to the back trunk of the car had blown off and were trailing behind in a shambles. The gremlin probably ripped those off when he was finished with the locking mechanism. They weren't working right anyway, but really! Was that necessary?

Devil's Slide rock formation, Utah

The road trip was mostly good, though. The coach is running better than ever. The scenery has been beautiful. What a spectacular country we live in! Today we drove through the canyons of the northeast corner of Utah. Especially fascinating was the "Devil's Slide" rock formation. I wish I could have waited for the truck to move out of the way for a better picture, but no luck. 

Our Wednesday stop was Evanston, WY, right on the border with Utah, and we found a reasonably priced park there, Phillips RV Park. The park itself was lovely, but the staff wasn't too friendly. And, they charged extra for water. So we opted out of water, hooked up to electric and hit the sack. Unfortunately, Mark didn't get too much sleep because he was somewhat obsessed over the noisy furnace. The sooner we get THAT thing fixed, the better.

Evanston, WY - Phillips RV Park

Since we've been staying at RV parks the last couple nights, we decided on a Walmart parking lot for tonight. Walmart has graciously permitted us to level the coach and take out our slides, so it will be almost as though we were in an RV park. We found a dump station along the way to clear our waste tanks and fill up our water. The generator is out of gas until we fill the tank in the morning. But the batteries will take care of lights and the gas furnace should keep us warm through the night, noise or no noise. It still isn't working quite right, no matter how much tinkering Mark has done with it. When we get to Spokane, I think we'll have to call out another repair tech to look at it.

Though we've been enjoying the scenery, this trip isn't for sight-seeing. We are Spokane-or-bust, before winter hits, to see the kids and grandkids. It's looking like we'll arrive there on Saturday or Sunday. Everything depends on...well, lots, but mostly how soon we leave every morning, and how long we drive each day. Of course any number of gremlin-related issues could crop up, but I'm not going to worry about that until I have to. 

Below are some additional pictures from the past couple days. 

Wyoming

Wyoming

Utah

Utah

Utah