7/9 Sterling, Colorado

I’ve been sleeping very well, getting up at about 8:00 am without an alarm clock, and heading out on the road by about 9:30 am.  This morning, I headed west on I 80 for Colorado.  Stopped at noon in Olalallah, Nebraska, when I saw a sign about a visitor center at a lake, and here it was. 

Nice place for lunch in my RV—cold shrimp cocktail and a candy bar.  Weather is a lot cooler now, especially since a lot of places had rain in the last couple of days.  Temps at noon here were about 80 but with a very nice breeze. 

Then onward to Sterling, Colorado, where I had reservations at Sterling North Reservoir Recreation Area.  In its infinite wisdom, my GPS kept telling me to get off the interstate about 40 miles earlier than the directions I had recommended.  However, the scenery on I 80 was getting dull, so I finally said, “What the heck?” and got off, following its direction at an intersection with absolutely no signs of life.

First, it took me down a country road and over the Platte River.  No problems taking this photo at all, due to lack of traffic:

Next, we went past a herd of these guys, or rather girls.  They seemed interested in being photographed:

Then over a barely marked railroad track.  No need for crossing arms or warning lights here.  Just stopped right on the tracks and took this photo:

Next, I turned onto this road:

And this very similar one:

And finally, after a lot of cornfields and a couple of barely noticeable tiny towns, plus a sign that warned that construction was about to begin and to watch for delays, voila, I was here:

No one on duty, so I checked in and put my money for my day-pass in an envelope:

 And here I am parked:

It’s actually very pretty around here.  Nice lake/reservoir and easy pull-through parking spots.  Just enough campers for security, but not too many to make you feel crowded.   

I went for a brief walk but forgot to take my binoculars with me so I could identify the birds down by the lake.  Temps have really cooled down here--highs in low 80s and lows st night around 50.  Tomorrow I see mountains!!!

7/8 Grand Island, Nebraska

Second day here.  Visited an indoor-outdoor museum, but my old camera died while I was trying to take photos.  It has been telling me it needs new batteries, but when I put them in, it still says batteries are low.  (I guess I have dropped it too many times.)  Today, it just refused to open and close and kept shutting itself off as soon as I opened it, so off to Best Buy!!  Found a very nice Sony Cybershot DSC-H90 with panorama, image stabilization, and good optical zoom.  Hope I made a good choice!  Battery is charging now so I will try it out later.

Dinner was a rotisserie chicken from a local grocery store, stovetop stuffing, cranberry sauce, and frozen mini-cream puffs.  I now have several cooked meals I can heat up any time easily.

OK, I am going to try to upload a photo.  Here goes. This is a photo of my very comfortable living room.  Note the stepstool that doubles as an end table:

And here is a photo of my handsome nephew and his family in front of their home in Minneapolis.  Sister Makayla is 13 and just got an adorable, tiny new kitten last week.  Kyle will be a college student next Fall. I had not seen their house in a long time, and they have really made some improvements since they bought it 12 years ago:

I'll try to take some more photos with my new camera next week.  Hope I can get the few I took today off the old camera.  Luckily I downloaded a bunch last night.  Must have known.

Tomorrow morning I get my tire pressure checked and then head for Sterling, Colorado!  Yea!  Tuesday will be Rocky Mountain National Park, where I will be camping without power or any hookups for four days.  Good thing that it will be very chilly at night, so no need to have AC.  My batteries do fine powering lights and most systems, but no AC, TV, or microwave.  There are shuttles throughout the park and to nearby Estes Park, so I should be fine without external power.  I can run my generator briefly, if needed to recharge batteries. 

Westward Ho!!

7/7 Grand Island, NE

It's beginning to feel a little more like I have gotten somewhere because the landscape is looking just a bit different--things are farther apart and fewer trees among the rolling hills.  I am here in a dusty campground for two days.  Tomorrow I visit the Stuhr Museum and will try to post a photo or two tomorrow morning. 

It is taking me a full day to drive about 280 miles, partly because I am driving only 60 MPH and partly because I keep stopping a lot.  Yesterday, I did grocery shopping and today I found a Home Depot to get some velcro strapping and some hose washers to replace the one I lost so my water connection does not spurt water.  I also stopped at JoAnn Fabrics to get some foam to try to construct a booster seat for myself since the one I have is really, really uncomfortable and cuts into the backs of my legs.  It is just too small and not the right shape, so I will try foam in a pillow case for now.  I also looked at cameras at a Best Buy but did not buy anything.  I would really like one that takes panorama photos.  Rocky Mountain National Park here I come in three days!!

Monday, I will stop at a nearby RV dealer to get someone to check my tire pressure and tell me where I can get a propane fillup.  I can't just transfer tanks because it is built in, so I need someone who can refill my tank directly.  I also want to stop at an urgent care clinic to get someone to look at some really nasty bites I have that are red and large, but I don't think are infected yet.  They are almost two weeks old, however, so I would have thought they would be gone by now.  Need to take more antihistimine tonight.  Not really an emergency, but I don't want to let them go. 

And for the couple of people who asked, no, I do NOT miss work!  Not bored, either.  I am really sleeping better than I have for years also, which is really nice!  No getting up five times every night! 

7/6 Des Moines, IA

It has been 100 degrees most of the drive today, and I am very glad the sun has finally set and my AC is finally getting this place cool.  It took me longer than usual to hook my water supply up because the rubber washer was missing on the hose, and I had to steal one from another hose.  In the meantime, I was dripping and miserable.  By a little after 6, however, I was inside and having a shower to cool down and was glad to put on clean clothes--no going out for a walk tonight!!!!

Janice and Jonesie and the kids took me out for dinner last night, which was really nice.  I am really glad I stopped by to visit them and their new kitty.  Hopefully, I will be back that way again next year.  I am getting a little tired of my own cooking every day, so treated myself to a sausage McMuffin with egg for breakfast this morning.  Tasted good. 

It was so nice to see the kids.  Kyle is getting to be quite a nice young man and Makayla is now a teenager.  It won't be long before Janice and Jonesie have an empty house!  Kyle will be off to college this fall, so they won't see too much of him, I think. 

Good drive to Des Moines today.  I found a good grocery store and stocked up on some things I needed, especially bottled water, pop, and some fresh fruit.  I don't trust drinking the water from my storage tank in this hot weather since it comes out warm anyway.  It is OK for washing and flushing on the road, and I have a water hookup in this park tonight anyway. 

Driving is getting fairly routine.  I think my biggest fear is wiping out gas pumps as I pull out of gas stations.  (Something called "tail wag" can do that on a long rig.)  So far, I am using my mirrors and not getting into any trouble. 

Also, I am sorry I did not take more time in naming this blog.  I thought today that "Travels Without Charley" might be more appropriate, since I don't want any "Charley's" of any species accompanying me on my travels!!!  Might still change the name.

Grand Island, Nebraska, and the Stuhr Museum of Pioneer Life is my destination tomorrow.  It is supposed to be cooler there on Sunday, and I will be there for two days.  I am going to get a very early start tomorrow so I don't have to dump and unhook in the heat! 

7/5 Minneapolis, MN

I am in a county park west of Minneapolis with nice, large, grassy spots and an electric hookup for my AC, which is keeping me nicely cool.  It is very quiet here, with enough neighbors for good security and the police do patrol at night.

Visited with my nephew and his family yesterday--very hot here, even if this is Minnesota!  We ate outdoors at a neighbors and then walked to a nearby park for a really nice fireworks display.  I believe I heard rain in the night, and it is cooler today, but not by much.  I need to run a couple of errands today, an important one will be to buy a tire pressure monitoring system so I don't have to worry about my tires getting flat or being overinflated.  It is really hard to check tire pressure when you have dual rear tires because you need a gauge long enough to reach through the rim of one tire to get to the inside tire, so I need to buy one of those also. 

I really feel secure in these campgrounds.  There are mostly families or older couples camping and a lot of big rigs of one sort or another.  I also leave my porch light and my steps retracted all night, but of course I forgot to turn the porch light on last night, so Jonesie had to use her car headlights when I got home late.  In spite of advice to have male dummy in the front seat and put a pair of men's shoes outside, it is pretty obvious that I am traveling alone, so I am skipping the silly subtrafuges!   And, no, I am not getting a big dog for "protection."  

My Verizon jetpack is working well, so it is nice to have internet access wherever I am.  We shall see if it works as well in remote places, however.  I am keeping up with my online class every evening, just as I would if I were at home.  TV, however, is very minimal, since I can only get local "air" tv and this mostly consists of old sitcoms and other such horrible daytime stuff.  Watched Price is Right yesterday morning--ugh.

Tomorrow morning I head for Des Moines, IA, and the day after that I arrive at Grand Island, Nebraska for two days.  There is supposed to be a very nice museum there, and hopefully, this heat will have abated a bit by then.

7/3 Getting into a Routine

I've learned that you really need to get into a routine if you want to make sure you don't have things crashing down or rattling horribly as you drive.  So, for example, as soon as I step out of the shower, I fasten the door open with the latch so it won't slam as I make a turn.  Ditto for putting down the TV antenna as soon as I am done watching TV, which is really very seldom these days since I have no satellite and most places have hardly any air channels.

So, as soon as I get out of bed in the morning, I make the bed and make sure all the drawers are shut and nothing is blocking the slide so it will shut properly.  Dirty laundry goes in a bag beside the bed, Kindle goes into a drawer, nightstand things get moved up to kitchen so they don't fly. 

Working my way forward, everything on bathroom counter has to go into a drawer.  Toilet lid needs to be kept closed so nothing falls into it.  Double-check shower door.  Items on dinette get put away, as do any items left on kitchen counter at night.  Slam drawers to make sure they stay shut.  Ditto for cabinets above sofa and recliner.  Anything that has to stay out goes into the sink or on the floor, because that's where it will end up in a sharp turn anyway.  Even with all of this, I can hear things rattle and fall as I drive.  It is slightly distracting to try to figure out what has happened, but obviously you can't stop to look. 

Today I drove only about 160 miles, some of it in the wrong direction (as I did in Scotland) because I had programmed the headquarters of this park into the GPS instead of the actual park.  I ended driving around subdivisions and an industrial park 14 miles away from here!!  Finally stopped, did some internet searching and found my way here.  Filled my tank with wonderfully cold water at this public park.  Felt like taking a shower in it right then and there!  I have a quiet, fairly large spot that is level and grassy.  Nice distance from neighbors also.  No water or sewer hookup, but I do have power for my AC, which is all that really counts in this weather. 

Tomorrow, I get to see my nephew and his family!!    

7/2 Driving Big - Living Small.

It takes some practice to get used to driving your home wherever you go.  A 14,000 lb vehicle does not turn quickly, it takes up a lot of space, and it takes some planning to make sure you do not get stuck in a situation you cannot get out of, like a parking lot where you cannot turn around in and get back out of.  When you want to go somewhere, you have to look at potential exits and problems before you go there--like the 10' 6" underpass in Mackinaw City I almost went under with my 11' 6" tall vehicle.  ( Have you ever backed up through an intersection while traffic waited for you??  Better than wiping out the AC unit, however.)  I was told they get about one vehicle stuck under there each week, so I was glad it was not me that week.

I have been puzzled lately about whether I was driving a car or a truck.  Do I obey speed limited for trucks or cars?  I certainly don't go through those truck weigh stations, but I do have to park in the truck area at rest stops.  Yesterday, however, I got charged a toll as a car, not a truck.  Need to check speed limit laws sometime, but I think I will obey truck rules for now.

I am also living small.  This motorhome is comfortable and roomy enough for one person, but the shower is small and hard to get into and out of, the kitchen and bathroom sinks about about half size, and the stove has three burners but a very small oven.  Can't even roast a whole chicken in it!  Storage for groceries and kitchen stuff is very limited.  I have a total of maybe one upper and one small lower normal house-sized cupboards.  Drawers are deep but only about 8" wide and there are only four of them.  Refrigerator is a whopping 6 cubic feet, and takes a long time to get things cold or freeze things, although it does function well enough for me as long as I do not open or close the door very often. 

Best things about this small home on a very hot day like today, however, is that it has a 15,000 BTU air conditioner that keeps it very chilly--nice!  Also, have a very comfortable bed now that I have added a 3" memory foam topper.  Another comfy thing is my old recliner which is in the place where the original, very uncomfortable dinette used to be. 

I am in northern Wisconsin today, on my way to Minneapolis.  Visited the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo today, where they raise cranes, especially whooping cranes and teach them to migrate.  Neat place!  More tomorrow as I learn to operate this blog.