Missoula, MT

Tuesday - It is definitely warmer than it has been the last couple of weeks. Today’s forecast is for a high of 85°F. This morning, we went to REI and Costco. We are looking for appropriate clothing for an upcoming trip. 

The Costco stop was to replace several food items that we weren’t allowed to bring into the U.S. from Canada. 

I also set up the JPC-12 antenna to check my Winlink email. I need to use a “form” with the check-in email that I will send out this evening. The form is just a method of delivering data in a pre-defined format. 

Wednesday - The Winlink email was sent last night about ten minutes after midnight Eastern Time using the RMS in eastern Oregon. After it was sent, I tried the Las Vegas RMS and easily established a connection. I'm amazed at how well 40m works at night, not well at all during the day.

I participated in the morning test session. The only Starlink issue is the number of WiFi access points. This is not unusual at most RV parks since just about every RV has an AP of some sort these days. Whether it Starlink or a cellular hotspot. Plus, the park itself has quite a few APs scattered around on poles. 

Today was another relaxing day visiting with friends without ridiculous temperatures or humidity. 

Thursday - I participated in the morning test session from behind the RV. It was a cool 66°F at 10am. The forecast for this afternoon is for 91°F. 

This morning after the test, I broke out the tools to tighten all the bolts on the tow bar. They aren’t torqued but just have locknuts so I just made sure that they were not loose. 

The sink drain is still leaking. Very little water but you can feel moisture above the trap. I think the P-trap may need replacing as the hand-tight coupler to the sink may be cracked from repeated tightening. It’s always something if you have an RV.

This afternoon, we went to the visitor center for the Missoula Smokejumpers. There was a nice, small museum but the tours were already done for the day.

Shelby, MT

Friday - A short travel day to just across the border. The border crossing at Coutts was really slow. The line of cars was long and only one lane (of three) was open for non-trucks. It was probably around 45 minutes. We are at a first-come first-serve campground in Shelby, MT, with 30amp electricity, scattered water spigots, and a dump station on the way out. It has been raining for most of the day but the forecast is for warmer temperatures this weekend. 

We will be here for a couple of days before heading south and west to Missoula. On the way, we filled the onboard propane tank with 32 liters which comes out to 8.5 gallons. I believe the maximum for the 12 gallon tank is about 9 gallons so we were almost empty. The needle on the built-in gauge was way below “E”. I think the last time we filled the tank was on our way out of Corvallis. 

Saturday - A quiet, non-travel day. We were originally planning to head east to a Harvest Host but decided to just stay here a second night. After all, we would be going through here again tomorrow on our way to Missoula. I had to adjust the air mix on the water heater last night as it wouldn’t stay lit. I’ve needed to adjust both the water heater and the generator several times on this trip. We are at 3300’ now and it was last adjusted when we were near sea level. I don’t think it should be that touchy.

We went into Shelby for a few groceries and lumbers putty. The sink drain is leaking so I am planning to just remove and reinstall it. I had messed with it a couple of days ago when trying to figure out why the sink wasn’t draining. 

Mossleigh, AB

Tuesday - We are here at Aspen Crossing RV Park near Mossleigh, AB, for one more night and will head south tomorrow for Montana. I've been going through the refrigerator and pantry to try and identify what needs to be tossed before crossing the border. There is a surprisingly long list of items that are restricted.

There is a lot of rain in the forecast for the rest of the week. I packed up the clam after drying it out. At the suggestion of friends, I inverted the clam to dry out the bottom parts. It worked pretty well. 

Wednesday - We decided to stay here for a couple more days since heavy rain is forcasted for most of today and tomorrow. The next place was a first-come, first-served campground, so no reservations. It's convenient to stay here for a couple more days.

The refrigerator/freezer/pantry clean out continues. Trying to use up what we have instead of getting more groceries and trying to find places to put them. Space is much more limited in the class C.

Last night at 10:01pm MDT, I sent my Winlink check-in on 40m using the RMS in Las Vegas, NV. The connection was pretty noisy but the message still sent. I initially tried the RMS in eastern Oregon but there was a lot of intermittent noise. Possibly from the storms.

Thursday - It dropped into the high 40s (°F) last night. Time to start heading south. 

I signed up for the morning test session but the potential candidate didn’t finish the paperwork nor pay the fee so no test. 

I packed the HF radio and antenna yesterday so I just used the telnet interface to check for a confirmation email. Very quick and easy but not really in the spirit of radio-email. 

We have been right at the edge of all the rain for most of the morning. And with the cooler temperatures, we have been going through the propane. We are under ¼ tank for the first time on the trip. I think that the Petro Canada station in Vulcan sells propane and that will be on our way south tomorrow morning. 

Mossleigh, AB

Saturday - The music festival and the crowds it brought are noisy. The group next to us in the rv park were going at it until after midnight. I think it’s a group of five or six RVs. I could hear the music from the festival stage from our site. It was loud enough to turn into noise for me. But that’s just me I’m sure it was just fine. 

We went to the tavern with friends for pizza. It was decent. The crust wasn’t too thick. 

Monday - The weekend had several RV repairs needing done. We thought the kitchen sink had a clog since the water wasn’t draining. It turned out that I had forgotten to open the gate valve for the grey tank. I had already disassembled parts of the kitchen so I need a larger channel lock style pliers to tighten the plumbing. 

The plastic flange the toilet mounts to broke. It turned out to be an easy temporary fix as the flange had two more mounts 90° away. So loosen the broken flange, turn 90° and screw into place. Permanent fix is a metal, two-piece flange. Readily available on Amazon.

We got more rain this evening. At least there wasn’t any hail! We had hail a few nights ago. Friends, who are leaving tomorrow, wanted to fill their truck with diesel, so we went to Vulcan. While we were there, we stopped at a hardware store to pick up the larger channel lock pliers. The plumbing drain pipes are now tightened. 

Mossleigh, AB

Wednesday - This morning, I needed a few things from the grocery store that I probably should have picked up in Cranbrook, BC, as there was both a Safeway and a Walmart in that town. I drove 20 minutes south to the small town of Vulcan (as in Star Trek). It was a decent small-town market, much larger than a Dollar General. We are meeting up with friends this afternoon, and I am making some potato salad for the potluck.

Thursday - A couple of minor repair projects completed today. I moved the door latch up around ⅛” (with a file!), which allowed the latch to catch without needing to slam the door. We’ll see how long this fix lasts. The windshield cover had a cut in the middle. I remembered that I had some clear Gorilla tape in a storage bin. Hopefully this fix lasts for a while. 

I also dug out all six of the DeWalt batteries and charged them. The inflator gets used frequently to air up the tires when the temperature goes from hot to cool, which has happened often on this trip.

Friday - It looks like the Winlink Wednesday email worked as I showed up on the participant map at around the correct location. 

It is relatively cool for this time of year. I wasn’t sure how much wind we would have, so I didn’t initially set up the clam shelter. But it needed to dry out, so I set it up. It’s a good thing that I set it up, as the floor was also damp. It's a nice place to do the testing from as long as it isn't too hot. At 2:15, it's 74°F, which is borderline too warm.

There is a music festival scheduled to start this evening and run all day tomorrow. I hope it isn't too loud, but it does mean that the RV park may fill up.

Cranbrook, BC

Monday - We crossed the border into Canada today. It was a longer wait than “usual” but we were only asked a couple of questions. The road had a lot of twists and turns and tomorrow we cross the Canadian Rockies. Our destination is Aspen Crossing RV Park east of Calgary, AB. 

We are at a small RV park in Cranbrook and had dinner at an Indian restaurant near the park. It was pretty tasty food and a nice change. 

Coeur d’Alene

Sunday - Today was a travel day with some uncertainty due to fires in Oregon and Washington. We saw smoke but no flames. We went through Spokane around 12:30 and it wasn’t too crowded. Maybe because it is Sunday. 

We are at the fairgrounds RV park which has full hookups. When I fill the fresh water tank, I’ll measure it to see how much we used. The RV gauge panel says 1/3 fresh and a full black tank (it said only 1/3 yesterday). The grey tank sensors stopped working last Summer. 

The breaker for the 30amp outlet blew yesterday evening when I turned the converter back on. The converter charges the original AGM coach battery. It is powered through the inverter so it gets power through shore power, generator, or the lithium batteries. Anyway, I turned down the max shore power from 30amps to 25amps and reset the breaker. It tripped again. I turned it down to 22amps and it tripped. A bad breaker. Probably from being repeatedly overloaded. I then plugged the RV into the 50amp outlet using an adapter. No problem even after turning the max shore power back to 30amps.

Tomorrow, we have a modest travel day into southern British Columbia. 

Rufus Landing

Saturday - Today is a windy day and there are a lot of people here taking advantage of it. 

When we arrived here, there were maybe ten RVs here with no one really around us. Not the case now. It is pretty entertaining watching all the activity on the river. 

The gusts are supposedly over 40mph. There are a wide variety of floating toys out here from kayaks to these wind powered boards with underwater foils. All are very fast.

The batteries were at 65% this morning and I really don’t want to run the generator with all the people around. I turned off most thing except for the 12V chest fridge/freezer to recharge the batteries. 

By evening, we were at 89%. Enough to get through the night. A couple of videos showing some of the river activities. The last is a launch and landing. 

Rufus Landing, OR

Wednesday - Another Winlink Wednesday, though I usually send the message on Tuesday evening (0010EDT) as required by the "rules". The "rules" are only if you want to be counted and posted on their web page and map. We are still at the TT, but I'll start packing things up today and tomorrow. Friday is a travel day into the town of Hood River and then east on I-84 to Rufus Landing.

Friday - Today was a short travel day to Rufus Landing, a free camping location right on the banks of the Columbia River. This is the view from the RV. I suspect it may be kind of crowded tomorrow as it is a popular windsurfing location. I should get some good pictures tomorrow.

We will be here for a couple of days. It's more challenging to find places to stay on Friday and Saturday nights, especially if you are near populated areas such as Portland. We do have the generator running as it is 92°F here mid-afternoon. There is no one parked around us right now so it seemed to be an opportune time to run the generator.

By 5pm, the smoke started to come in. It’s still hot and it looks pretty grim.

By 8pm, it started to look better. Less smoky. And it started to cool off!

Timberline Lodge

Tuesday - After the morning test session, we drove to Zig Zag Falls trailhead. It was a short hike to the falls from the parking lot. 

We then drove up to almost 6000’ to the Timberline Lodge. It was a WPA project in the late 1930s. 

We had lunch at the restaurant, and probably had the best table in the whole place. This was the view from our table. 

It’s hard to believe that the lodge took less than 18 months to build. Including all of the carvings, artwork, and furniture. It was dedicated by Franklin Roosevelt.

Still the Same Place…

Saturday - Two test sessions today, including an early morning one. There was a small farmers market at the RV park, and they had the normal stuff. Overpriced veggies and artsy items. We picked up a couple of squash. We then had lunch at the little deli/restaurant next to the office. The Italian sub was good, though I would’ve expected some sort of salami or spicy deli meat. 

This place got a lot more crowded on the weekend. I’m not even going to bother checking out the hot tub today. 

Sunday - This afternoon, we drove about 12 miles east as Bridget wanted to see proof that Mt. Hood still existed. Being Sunday, there were a lot of cars on the road. There are a lot fewer RVs in the campground compared to yesterday. 

Monday - Yesterday, we saw smoke, which prompted a search for fires. There are quite a few, with the closest one being Hood Meadows. 

StarLink is still useful here even with all of the trees. Here are the obstructions as seen by the antenna. It is looking through a hole in the canopy. It still works fine for streaming due to buffering within the app. But I’m not offering to lead as real-time apps such as Zoom or voice would have random outages. 

We drove back to the town of Sandy to pick up some groceries. We had to be a little careful as we will be heading into Canada in about a week. So no raw poultry, eggs, citrus fruit, or some vegetables. I'll look up more specifics later on in the week. Unfortunately, the restricted items seem to change depending on who is asking.

Welches, OR -TT

Thursday - I set up the clam for the first time on this trip. It’s not windy but there is some in the forecast. I still need to add guy lines. I also set up the JPC-12 and checked my radio email. Propagation is pretty poor but I could still reach the RMS in northeastern Oregon. An indication of the poor propagation is the speed of 18bps. 

Quite the temperature change from yesterday but no complaints from me. 

Not quite the same as the Blackstone but a whole lot lighter. The results are similar. I still prefer the Blackstone. This is sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnips, and green beans. With some balsamic vinegar. It came out decent, though the sweet potatoes could have been cooked longer.

Friday - A morning test session followed by warmer daytime temperatures. The A/C got turned on mid-afternoon while watching the Starship launch on YouTube. It’s still an hour away but it’s  entertaining enough. 

Welches, OR - TT

Wednesday - We are back on the road again. The class C had the oil changed this morning and now has a full tank of propane. We still had 3/8 of a tank but the gas station had propane. So it was convenient. 

We are at a newly listed TT park near Mt. Hood. The elevation is only 1100’ so it’s still hot and it is kind of smoky from all of the fires around Oregon. The site is large Ang backs up to the woods. It’s pretty nice.

And, the hot tub and pool are open! Not that you needed it with todays 90° (°F) temperatures. But I felt a need to try it out anyway. 

Last Day in Corvallis, OR

Tuesday - Today may be a prep day. We had unloaded a lot of stuff at my sister’s home sine we made use of the kitchen, laundry, showers, etc. while we were here. It’s already 91°F and still before noon. I have the A/C running at 50% to keep it from getting too hot during the afternoon. 

I checked my Winlink email on 40m this morning and will be sending my weekly check-in just after 9 PM PDT which meets the criteria of after midnight EDT. Then I can pack up the radio, computer, and antenna into the RV. 

Tomorrow is a modest travel day around 120 miles. I plan to stop at an oil change place here in Corvallis. I stopped by a couple of days ago to make sure they were willing. Last summer, I had a heck of a time finding a place willing to work on an RV even though it’s basically a Ford Econoline. The Circle K on the way out of town sells propane. 

We had lunch with my mom and then stopped at a couple of stores including the Asian grocery store. I picked up a few items including some odd things that a new favorite cabbage dish called for. Salted kelp and dashi powder. And I picked up a small squeeze bottle of okinomiyaki sauce. The last time I found some, the bottle was huge. 

Almost triple digits around here! Time to move on.

Corvallis, OR

Friday - I was having a hard time keeping track of which day on this road trip, so I stopped including that in the blog post title. Yesterday, we had a short travel day back to Corvallis, and we are mooch-docking at my sister's home. Actually, a bit more than that, as we are staying in their guest room, using their Internet, and cooking in their kitchen. The RV is parked and plugged in to keep the refrigerator cold and the batteries charged. 

Saturday - I tried both the JPC-12 and the ATAS-120a antennas on the deck, and both performed poorly. The radials were not, obviously, resting on the ground. As I understand it, if the radials are elevated, then they need to be adjusted to a different length every time you change frequencies. This morning, I moved the JPC-12 to the ground since I brought plenty of coax. It works great now.

Monday - Today's "excursion" was Costco in Albany, which is only about 12 miles north of Corvallis. We will be heading out in a couple of days, and we're not sure where the next Costco opportunity will be. Google Maps always tries to route us on the interstate because it is a minute or so faster even though it's further. There must be a setting for that somewhere.

It is hot but not humid. I ran the A/C in the class C for a while as I was breaking down the Costco chicken. It cooled down pretty quickly. 

The Jeep needed washed so that was my afternoon chore. It now looks better but the quick wash/dry in the sun shows. Good enough.

South Beach - TT

Tuesday - Another beautiful day. Around 70°F for a high temperature with clear skies. I tried Winlink on both VHF and HF and it worked great. No concerns with Winlink Wednesday tomorrow. 

BTW, all this means is I send out a specific email to a handful of email addresses using the Winlink program (Windows only!) and relay the message through a RMS (Radio Mail Service) between midnight to midnight Easter time on Wednesday. They’ll send me an acknowledgment on Thursday. And I’ll show up on their map. My call sign, AL6T, near the center of the map just south of Newport. The purpose is just to use the technology often enough for it to stay familiar. 

The pool and hot tub here at the park is still closed. I don’t know why TT has trouble keeping these maintained. Lack of staff expertise, lack of funding, or just lack of desire. Kind of annoying.

Wednesday - I was able to send an Winlink email last night just after 0000 EDT on both HF and VHF. I used the HF RMS station in, I think, La Grande, OR, and the VHF station here at the Newport airport. I initially connected to the Eugene, OR, RMS on 40m but throughput was dismal. I switched to the La Grande RMS, also on 40m, and got significantly better throughput. The local VHF station was significantly faster at 1200baud. 

Just out of curiosity, I tried the Las Vegas RMS and had no problem connecting though I didn’t have anything to send or receive. 

Things don’t look too good back in TX. These are the texts I received just last night with over a foot of rain yesterday and up to 20” of rain still in the forecast. On top of that, tornado warnings! The news reported that a tornado touched down near Six Flags west of San Antonio. Not good…

Later - The pool and hot tub were open again! 

My chore of the day was to regenerate the water softener. I really like the new much simpler process using the filter housing. Remove the filter element, put in the adapter ,fill the housing with rock salt, and run a trickle of water through the softener for 30 min. Then rinse for 6 minutes. Reassemble. 

South Beach, OR - TT

Thursday - I tried the Mobilink TNC with the dual-band Anytone radio since I noticed that there was an RMS on VHF only a mile from the RV park. I was able to make a connection and retrieve the messages, but was unable to make a connection later on in the day. I probably need to connect a better antenna. The upper frequency limit of the JPC-12 6m so I would need to dig out a different antenna.

Friday - There was a morning test session today (he passed!), and I set up the HF antenna again to fetch my Winmail again, as I was expecting the confirmation email from Winlink Wednesday. It worked on 40m through the RMS in eastern OR. I tried the Mobilink and Anytone to the local VHF station at the airport, and it worked great. I’m not sure what the issue was yesterday, as the station is only a mile or two away. I may try that for the next Winlink Wednesday. I also tried it in the evening. If the antenna was in the window, it was able to make a connection.

A rear marker light that I thought was dead turned out to be intermittent. I cleaned the connector, and now it seems to work. I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring and the light is a sealed unit.

Sunday - We walked to the beach and it was almost deserted. It was also windy and kind of cold. We didn’t stay long. 

I tried the VHF RMS station from outside the RV and got connected almost immediately. I will definitely be trying that for Winlink Wednesday this week. Though, I still plan to leave the 40m antenna set up as a backup. 

Centralia, WA and Newport, OR

Sunday - I packed up the ham radio gear as tomorrow is a travel day. Otherwise, it was a quiet day,

Monday - A modest travel day to the Oregon coast. The gps routed us through Corvallis to Newport, OR. The weather app calls this location South Beach but it’s only a couple miles south of Newport. It is much cooler, which feels nice.

Tuesday - I drove back to Corvallis to pick up an Amazon package. One of the taillights on the RV has a bunch of dead leds. Plus, one of the led marker lights has burned out. Both are easy fixes. 

I set up the JPC-12 antenna to try Winlink on 40m. I was amazed how well it worked even with all of the trees.

Wednesday - After the morning test session, we went into the touristy part of Newport to look around and find some seafood for lunch. I had some local oysters. Can’t say that they were the best I’ve had but not bad. 

I replaced both taillights on the class C and the Amazon replacements were easily swapped in. No wiring sheet but it was pretty easy to guess the right colors. The rear marker lights are red and I had ordered amber. I’m not going to return them as they are identical to the installed marker lights. 

Day 28 - 29 - Mt Vernon, WA

Friday - We drove north to Mt Vernon this afternoon with Dave and Ginny to go to the Seder-Woolley PRCA Rodeo where their daughter was singing the national anthem. There was quite a bit of traffic after going through Seattle. 

I haven’t been to a rodeo in quite a while. There was a lot of pageantry and celebration of the semiquincentennial (I think that’s the correct term). It wasn’t a huge rodeo but did have all of the standard events. 

I only took s handful of pictures as we weren’t really close to the action. But, it was entertaining. 

Saturday - It was a quiet, uneventful drive back to Centralia. Unlike yesterday, there was light traffic through Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia. I guess people are where they want to be for the Fourth of July.

We made a chicken paella for dinner. Dave is a master with plenty of experience. Chicken thighs, peppers, cauliflower, tomatoes, green beans, and lots of garlic. 

Day 25 - 27 - Corvallis, OR to Centralia, WA

Tuesday - Another cool-ish day with a high in the mid-60s (°F). We spent most of the day visiting with family before getting ready to head out tomorrow. 

Wednesday - We headed out around 10 after filling the propane tank and adding some air to the tires to compensate for the cooler temperatures. It was hectic, as always, going through Portland. Fortunately, it was a short-ish drive day to Centralia, WA. We will be here through the holiday weekend at a friend’s home.

Thursday - This morning, I searched for a lab to do a blood test and send the results back to the clinic in TX. There was one about ten miles south and it was quickly and easily taken care of. 

I set up the JPC-12 antenna to fetch my Winlink mail just to make sure my message was received within the time constraints. It was and I now have seven logged. The initial goal is one hundred. I also quickly checked for any FT8 traffic on 40m but there was none. 

I finally finished a minor RV project. The TPMS system needs a repeater to reach the sensors on the Jeep. I mounted the repeater above the status panel and a latching, lighted switch (blue light) on the panel. 

Day 18 - 24 - Corvallis, OR

Monday - Another relaxing day. We met my mom for lunch at the senior apartment dining hall, then went to my sister's home for the afternoon. 

Tuesday - I set up the JPC-12 antenna this afternoon and verified that Winlink email worked over 40m. It worked. I checked FT8 on 40m and no activity.

Wednesday - We had a delicious dinner at a Japanese restaurant in downtown Corvallis. It's been quite a while since I've had any good Japanese food. It seems to be a bit rare in TX. This is multiple types of sashimi served on a bed of sushi rice. Very delicious. We had dinner with my mom and a good friend of hers that she met at the gym. She will be helping out with the 100th birthday party on Friday.

This morning, I connected with Winlink RMS (Radio Mail Server) in Lubbock, TX, on 40m and sent my Winlink Wednesday email message. There were closer servers, but they were busy. Oklahoma City and Lubbock seemed to have less traffic.

Thursday - I fired up Winlink this morning and received my Winlink confirmation email. This time from a server in Las Vegas. I still think that this is kind of cool. 

Friday - This afternoon was the first of three birthday parties celebrating my mom's 100th year. This one was held at the retirement apartment building and was very well attended. My nephew and his wife made a fantastic charcuterie board for the 80+ guests.

Saturday - This afternoon was the second party with relatives and a few long-time friends. Food was Yum bowls with bulgogi beef, tofu, and teriyaki chicken as the protein. Delicious.

Sunday - A much smaller gathering of family and relatives, including a couple who couldn't make it yesterday. 

Monday - It was wonderful to see so many family members. It was almost like a reunion, except it included both sides of the family. 

A long test session this morning followed by setting up the JPC-12 antenna again on 40m.