Day 50, 51 - Oatman and Kingman

Sunday (50) - Wow! Fifty days have passed since returning from my trip to Fairbanks. I can’t believe how quickly the days go by. Almost time to head back north again.

Trying something new with the sous vide. Yellowfin tuna rubbed with salt and sugar and cooked at 120°F for 30 min. This will top a salad. Butter lettuce, small potatoes, kalamata olives, eggs, tomatoes, and broccoli with a rice vinegar-dijon herb dressing. Tuna, potatoes, broccoli, and eggs are all cooked in the sous vide.

Monday (51) - We visited Oatman again for a while as it’s on the way, via a scenic route, to Kingman, AZ. The train museum that Bridget wanted to visit was closed today  but other places were open. We went through most of the shops in Oatman but I only picked up a couple of stickers.

Upstairs of one of the shops was a small motorcycle museum. Maybe a dozen vintage bikes. Mostly HD but a few Indians and a Cleveland. Pretty nice.

“Cool Junk” would be a good way to describe a lot of the stores in Oatman. Most of the stuff was overpriced especially the antique stuff. I remember using a lot of the stuff being passed off as “antique”.

This is the electric vehicle museum in Kingman. There is also a Route 66 museum. The entry fee for these museums plus two others was $3 (senior) for lifetime admission. That’s a pretty good deal.

This Santa Fe steam engine (originally coal but converted to oil in the 1940s) is parked in front of the visitors center. Below is one of the murals and a Studebaker inside of the Route 66 museum. It was a pretty nice museum.

Today’s dinner was wonderful home-made pork tamales from the local Mexican grocery store. Very tasty! But then again, I haven’t had tamales for quite a while. We used to make them around Christmas after friends of my sister showed us how.

RV Apps and Memberships

In preparation for this road trip, I had joined a number of RV "clubs" and downloaded a number of iPhone apps. Some were very useful, some less so.

Good Sam's Club: This is one that I've used on just about every RV trip over the last 25+ years. It gets you 10% off on the daily campsite fee at participating campgrounds, a 10% discount at Camping World stores, and a discount on diesel at Flying J truck stops. I more than recovered the membership fee on this trip. I used their app to find campgrounds down the road.

Good Sam's Road Assistance: The one tow in Redding,CA, paid for this. I could have called them in Idaho to change the blown trailer tire but figured it would be faster to do it myself. They have an app but I never used it. I just called them on the phone.

Passport America: Another discount campsite club. If you stay at one of their member campgrounds, you get a 50% discount on the daily rate. The discount is usually only for one night. I think we broke even on this as most of the campgrounds don't provide the discount during their peak season. But the membership paid for itself after only being used three times. I used their app to look for member campgrounds and to look at their discount policies.

KOA: We stayed at a couple of KOA campgrounds and received a modest discount. Probably not enough to warrant joining. Their campsites were generally had more amenities suitable for a family such as miniature golf and larger playgrounds. I used their app to look for campgrounds down the road and they usually had space as they generally cost a bit more.

Harvest Host: We stayed at four of their sites. You need to join before getting access to their database. It was worth joining as we enjoyed staying at all four of the location. The locations can be wineries, fruit stands, farms, or museums. Generally, they ask you to visit their site, store or tasting rooms in exchange for the free parking site. Generally, no hookups but one of them had water and electricity. There is no app, just a web site.

AllStays App: This was our go-to app when we needed to find campgrounds, rv parks, rest stops, truck stops, Camping World, Costco, Walmart, BLM sites, etc. It was well worth the $10 and it was used regularly when looking for the next campground or when we needed fuel or food. The app also lists road grades and low bridges.

GasBuddy App: Useful app to compare fuel prices. What the apps don't tell you is how open the parking lot is to maneuver a 33' trailer that is over 13' high.

The last app that I used regularly is LevelMatePro. It works with some hardware mounted to the wall and communicates using low energy bluetooth. It's really convenient to see how level the trailer is side to side from the drivers seat when pulling into a camp site.

Some less than useful apps are Sanidumps+, Roadtrippers. Due to the number of RV parks we stayed at, finding dump stations between RV parks wasn't needed. If we were dry camping more then maybe. Roadtrippers is an app that helps you find things to do while on the road. I never really had the opportunity to try the app out. 

Not really an app but one of the "fails" on the trip was the Spot 2. The hardware failed, the company said hmmm, and in the next breath said no refund for the remaining ten months. Basically, too bad. I'll never get another one again… 

Road Trip Summary (Cont.)

The question has come up on what, if anything, we would do differently. There are a few things. Traveling through the desert in the summer was silly. But one of Bridget's must see destinations were the Utah national parks. And one of the things that I had scheduled was the MOA rally in Salt Lake City. Given the MOA history of having the rally in some miserably hot areas, I won't have the rally as a destination again unless it is really convenient and somewhere cooler.

I would've scheduled our travel days differently. Maybe travel for a day or two then stay put for several days. We wouldn't cover as much ground but that was never the goal. We used a planner/calendar put out by a full time RV couple on this trip to keep track of where we stayed each night and how many miles we traveled each day. It was useful information as I had pre-filled in the campground reservations as I made them. This allowed us to see how far we needed to travel between those reservations. And reservations were only needed if we wanted to stay in popular areas such as near national parks especially if it was the weekend. We were generally unable to camp in the national park campgrounds as most of them could not accommodate an RV longer than 30'.

Making reservations the day before worked well enough especially when we could use an app to look for a campground. Many times, the campgrounds would fill up by early evening so it's better to arrive at your destination by mid-afternoon. Most of the Walmarts no longer allow overnight parking. Mostly due to local ordinances. Many of these local ordinances were put in place due to pressure from private RV parks and campground organizations such as Good Sam's. Another reason is there are many that abuse the free RV parking. Examples of abuse are using it like a campground (lawn furniture, awnings, etc), sleeping in your car (no RV), or staying multiple days to months instead of simply overnight.

To us, the only useful time when overnight parking made sense was when we simply needed a place to stop when we were traveling between locations. We used Harvest Hosts for some of these and a casino for another. Walmart or a rest area would've been a last resort.

It would have been really convenient to have some sort of motorbike on the trip. I saw a number of RVs with rear mounted carriers with modest sized bikes and scooters. I wouldn't use a carrier that only fit into the receiver hitch but would reinforce it with some attachments to the trailer frame unlike the one pictured.

I think this post will be continued later. Including a list of apps that we used.

On the maintenance front, I pulled out the anode rod from the RV water heater today as I suspected that it was in pretty poor shape. I had no idea how poor it was. On the right is what a new anode rod looks like. This is a picture from Amazon. Below is what the anode rod from our water heater looks like. Quite a difference. It's essentially completely consumed.

The purpose of the anode rod is to protect the steel parts of the water heater from rusting away. It is made from a magnesium alloy that will corrode faster than the steel components in the water heater. All that is left of this rod is a thin layer of metal on the steel rod in the center which provides mechanical support. If the water heater tank starts to rust away now I know why. Fortunately, it isn't leaking but I should plan on replacing it in the near future. As part of the winterizing process, the water heater is usually drained by removing the anode rod. It's an opportunity to check its condition. Last October, I had asked the previous owner about draining the water heater and he said that he had never done it. I didn't have a 1⅛" socket with me at the time. I had brought one with me on the trip but I had forgotten to check the water heater.

Road Trip Summary

Some basic trip stats:

• 92 days on the road
• 89 days outside of Alaska
• 12 days in Canada

One of the limiting factors for our trip was I couldn't be out of the state for more than 90 days according to the state retirement system.

Here are some camping statistics.

• 50 nights in private RV parks
• 17 nights in public campgrounds with and without hookups
• 6 Nights in family/friends home (Whitehorse, Woodland, Corvallis)
• 6 nights driveway surfing (Helena, Sun River)
• 4 nights using Harvest Hosts
• 3 nights in motels (Fort Nelson, Prince George, Merrit)
• 2 nights at Walmart
• 1 night camping w/tent (Hood River)
• 1 night casino camping

Most of the camping had some sort of hookup including one of the Harvest Host sites. The hot temperatures forced us to look for campsites with power so we could run the air conditioner. I only used the generators once at one of the Harvest Host sites to run the air conditioner for a couple of hours. Most of the public campgrounds had generator restrictions as does Walmart.

The leaking black tank valve really limited our ability to boondock. The fresh water tank overflow was not connected to the overflow on the fill so anytime we were off camber, such as at a rest area, we would lose water from the fresh water tank. Even if we started out full in the morning, by the afternoon we lost some percentage of our fresh water. We ran out of water once after only 2 days of dry camping. It should've lasted much longer than that since we weren't using it for cooking or showers.

The battery bank and solar panels worked great. No issues. The lowest we ran the batteries down was 65% of capacity or about 150 amp-hours. We never had a day when the batteries weren't at 100% by evening. The converter was never used to charge the batteries. We never had to "ration" the power and regularly used the induction cooktop, rice cooker, Keurig coffee maker, electric fans, computers, microwave, TV, furnace, CPAP machine, etc. all off of the battery bank. We did have to try and remember to switch the refrigerator from "auto" to "gas" when the inverter is on. Otherwise, the refrigerator would be a continuous 350 watt load on the battery bank. It may be an idea to add four more solar panels just to power the refrigerator while traveling. I think that 90% or our cooking was on the induction burner and only 10% was on the stove. The oven was only used to store frying pans.

The Ubiquity network setup worked well. I needed to downgrade the Ubiquity firmware at the one campground that was still using WEP. Having the Nano allowed us to connect to almost all of the campground wifi including the Google wifi available at one of the Starbucks next to the Rock Springs Walmart. Where campground wifi wasn't available, I could connect the Ubiquity to either my AT&T iPhone or Verizon iPad. The iPad service was more for emergency use only as I only have 1GB of capacity available. We did not use a cellular booster.

The Berkey water purifier was probably the best addition we made. We were never out of great tasting water and we never bothered to sanitize the fresh water tank as we did not use it of cooking or drinking. I do have to come up with a way to secure the Berkey for travel in the trailer. For this trip, we always moved it onto the floor of the back seat of the truck for travel.

The air conditioner was nice to have since it was so hot. But it struggled to keep the temperature in the trailer much more than 10°F cooler than the outside temperature. An option is to rewire the trailer for 50 amp service (new electrical panel, new cord, new surge protector) and add a second air conditioner. In Moab, we picked up some Reflectix bubble pack insulation and put it on some of the windows. It really did help. We needed to add some to the other windows especially the picture window on the rear of the trailer. For moderate temperatures, a second fan for the living room vent would help. Though, due to the height of the ceiling, the model with the remote control would be needed.

One addition needed before the next trip are new tank level sensors. The SeeLevel II system can be retrofitted without drilling into the tanks and uses the existing wiring.

We used five 30# tanks of propane during the trip. The furnace is, by far, the largest consumer of propane. During the +100°F days, one tank would last a month. On the way back through Canada, maybe 10 days. 

Back Home

A huge thank you to Ian for getting the trailer into the driveway and to our neighbors for letting us park it in their driveway for the weekend. Due to the steepness at the top of our driveway, the bed of my truck hit the overhang of the trailer. Ian has a flatbed with the same gooseneck hitch so the 5th wheel hitch just popped right in. The flatbed has no bedsides so there nothing to hit. Since the flatbed was longer, the back corners were watched and they cleared by only a couple of inches. This does mean I that I may be looking for either a used flatbed or possibly building one on the truck before the trailer can leave the driveway. I may also lower the hitch on the front of the trailer a couple of inches further increasing the distance between the overhang and the truck bed.

Now that it was in the driveway, we finished unloading it. The trailer really looks huge relative to the house. Tomorrow, I will be picking up several 2x10 pressure treated boards to put on the dirt behind the trailer. Then, I'll be able to back the trailer further into that area next to the garage and have it level.

Some initial stats for the road trip:

• 13,478 miles
• 1,035.05 gallons of #2 diesel
• 13.02 miles/gallon
• $3,224 for fuel 

Or about 24¢ per mile. Not too bad...

Actually, it's a bit less than that since I didn't adjust for the difference between U.S. and Canadian currencies. 

Day 92 - Fairbanks…

No pictures. Too hot. End of the trip... :-/

Day 91 - Tok, AK

Today was a long 386 miles (according to Google) but we had a time change in our favor. We stopped at Kluane Lake (photo below) for a late lunch before heading for Beaver Creek, the last gas station in Canada. We used the last of our Canadian Currency to get some diesel. No need to fill up since diesel would be (hopefully) cheaper in Tok. 

Day 90 - Whitehorse, YT

Today was a lazy day in Whitehorse, YT. We switched sites at the RV park as the one that was reserved for today had full hookups. After lunch, we headed for the Copperbelt Railway & Mining Museum on the north end of town. It was a pretty small museum but the modest entrance fee included a ride around their grounds on a small train. By "small", we mean that the engine is one that is normally used inside of a mine.

This was a display of lanterns. Lots of equipment and pictures on display showing the mine in operation.

After the railway museum, we headed into Whitehorse to wander around town and look in the trinket shops. There were a lot of tourists wandering around town, almost too many. It gave the town a weird vibe. And something I haven't seen for a while, panhandlers.

We wandered down to the wharf to look at the Yukon River. It was moving pretty fast and I was amazed that all of this water was running through Miles Canyon.

The wharf area was also the end of the line for the Whitepass Railroad, which is a narrow gauge line that is mostly run as a tourist attraction.

The last photo is our campsite for the second night here in Whitehorse. For future reference, having the door neared the middle of the rig would be nicer...

Day 89 - Whitehorse, YT

Today was a fairly short driving day. Just about 80 miles or so from Teslin Lake to Whitehorse, YT. We had a reservation for tomorrow but we went ahead and showed up a day early. They found a site for us and we will be switching sites tomorrow. I stayed at this RV park two years ago on the Ural trip and had no complaints. The sites have a lot of trees between the sites even though they are kind of close together. After getting set up, we headed for the visitors center to see what there is to do in Whitehorse. The main purpose for being there seems to be to use the free wifi. Everyone in the place was sitting around looking at their phones.

After the visitors center, we went to Miles Canyon about 8 miles from town. It is a steep walled, natural gorge that the Yukon River runs through. The water level now is about 10m higher than it used to be before a dam was constructed downstream. All of the pictures I've seen had a lot of white water. No longer after the dam was built.

I had wanted to visit Miles Canyon on other trips but it was always out of the way on a narrow windy road. Without any RV, no problem at all. We have been travelling everyday since leaving Oregon. No "down days". This is not really the way I prefer to travel. Heading east into Montana before heading north added quite a few additional miles to the trip. We are staying here an extra day as we are meeting up tomorrow with friends from Fairbanks who are just finishing hiking the Chilkoot Trail from Skagway to Lake Bennett.

Day 88 - Teslin Lake, YT

A short driving day today to Teslin Lake Government Campground. I think that in Canada a government campground is the same thing as a provincial campground since the Yukon is a territory instead of a province. We have a site with a limited view of Teslin Lake out the back window of the trailer. I've never camped here but I did camp at the now closed salmon bake restaurant next door often. If you were a restaurant customer, camping was free. They even took their customers out on the lake on a large pontoon boat.

We spent a bit of time at the heritage center where there were nice displays of wooden masks and beadwork. There was supposed to be a boathouse with some hand carved canoes. These weren't them as they were made of fiberglass. I think that they were part of a huge celebration the previous weekend. There were quite a few people straightening out the grounds and hauling away rented equipment. I think the boat house was locked as the staff was busy with the cleanup.

I believe that each of these carved poles represented a different group. At least that was our assumption based on some banners flying from the building. Not a lot of description.  The Heritage Center was well worth the $5 admission. 

We ran the microwave off of the inverter again. While running in defrost mode, it alternates between 100 amps and 5 amps DC draw off of the battery bank. I would think that the cycling may be a problem when running on a generator but I guess people do it all the time. I'm really liking the 12 volt setup. Currently, the microwave is on a separate 15 amp circuit in the fuse panel. So if I want to run it off the inverter, I need to use an extension cord. 

There is, obviously, no Internet at the Teslin campground. I think we will be at an RV park in Whitehorse for a couple of days. Some time to rest from the constant travel. So this will be posted a day late. 

Day 86 and 87

Today, we are dry camped at Tetsa River Regional Park somewhere between Fort Nelson and Toad River. There isn't much on this stretch of highway except for trees, rivers and mountains. At least the heavy truck traffic we were seeing this morning died off south of Fort Nelson. I guess oil and gas development sort of dies off as you head further north. I think the only stop today was to fill up in Fort Nelson and have lunch in the visitors center parking lot. BTW, it is a very nice visitors center. The Testa River can be seen through the trees. There were a lot of warning signs about the steep bank down to the water. It looked like a pretty fast moving river. 

The campsite is well shaded and there are a lot of mosquitoes. So far on this trip we've not needed bug spray very often. But it is nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy the blue skies and moderate temperatures. I don't think it got above 70°F (21°C) anytime today. 

I filled up the fresh water tank again this morning. We'll see how long it lasts before running dry. The notoriously unreliable led gauge says that the tank is only 3/4 full even though water was running out of the tank overflow. 

I'm not sure when this post will get uploaded. Probably in Watson Lake at the visitors center. They have free wifi. 

Day 87 - Day 86 post never got uploaded. The stretch of road between Fort Nelson and Watson Lake has very few services available. It would have been right at the limit of our fuel range so I opted to top up the tank at Toad River, BC. Diesel was $1.60CAD/liter. We have stopped at Nugget City, YT, which is just past the Cassiar Hwy junction. I've stopped here before. BTW, the picture is Coal River where we stopped for lunch. It had been raining lightly for most of the morning. Hopefully we drove through the weather and it'll be clear and sunny for the rest of the trip. 

Day 85 - Alaska Hwy Mile 62

This morning, we went through Dawson Creek, BC,  which is the start of the Alaska Hwy. The GPS said that our next turn was in 1383 km which is our turn into the RV park in Whitehorse. This is the grain elevator that has been turned into an art studio. The visitor's center is just on the other side. The "official" mile 0 marker is about a block south though they placed one in this parking lot for pictures. There were a lot of vehicles here waiting for their turn in front of the Alaska Hwy sign.

We kept going for a few more miles, actually 62, until we passed Fort St. John. Today being Saturday, many of the RV parks and campgrounds near town were pretty crowded. We stopped at a new place. Pretty barren but it has full hookups. That is the first place that had full hookups since Corbett, OR. We don't really need electricity any more since air conditioning is not needed (yay!!!). We are finding that we go through the fresh water tank in only a couple of days.

After getting used to the fuel prices in the lower-48, the Canadian prices are a shock again. It's already up to $1.10CAD/litre which translates to $3.34 USD/gallon which isn't really that high but it seems much higher at the pump. Even with our modest driving days a daily fill up is still over $100 CAD. Diesel has been around $2.50USD/gal occasionally dipping down to $2/gal. 

Day 83 - Leduc, AB

We went about 270 miles today to a small town called Leduc in Alberta. We are still about an hour south of Edmonton. We opted for another small RV park so there would be power for the air conditioner. It is still pretty warm and there seems to be a lot of haze or smoke to the north and west. I was originally wary of this route due to the traffic. But the gps routed us on a nice bypass around Calgary and it looks like there is a beltway around Edmonton. It's been a while since I was on this route. I think it's been over 15 years. 

The wifi here at the RV park is barely functional due to another poor IT company. They came and took down their access points (to be examined back at the office) then they went on vacation for a couple of weeks without a word. Why am I not surprised. They contracted another company to put in all new radios that are about $80 each (sounds like Ubiquity gear) next Monday. 

Day 82 - Fort Macleod, AB

Today, we crossed the border into Canada and made it about halfway between the border and Calgary, AB. For some reason, just about all of the northbound rest stops in Montana were completely empty. I guess it sort of matched the landscape. Most of the fields were being harvested and looked pretty hot and dry. There were some really strong winds at times but no problem towing.

Once we got to Fort Macleod, AB, I was feeling kind of worn out from the heat (97°F earlier this afternoon). We stopped at an older RV park near the north end of town. They gave us a nice, shady spot. Since the reunion, we've put in 914 miles so far. Our next "planned stop" is Whitehorse, YT. We have eight days to get there and it's about 1500 miles according to Google. So we can start leaving later and stopping earlier.

Day 81 - Helena, MT

Thank you again Kevin and Annie for your wonderful hospitality. It was another 300+ mile day from Mead, WA, to Helena, MT. Tomorrow, we will cross the border into Canada. Daily destinations are approximately known and our goal is crossing back into Alaska in a little over a week.

The last time I was here, I had Kevin pick up a Ubiquity Nano and a long range gateway so there would be wifi in the shop. I spent more time than I thought getting the gateway and Nano configured.

We went through a couple of really smoky areas as soon as we crossed the border into Montana. I thought that we would be missing most of the fires but I guess they are all over the place. I heard that there were a lot of fires in British Columbia along Hwy 97 which is my normal route.

This morning, the batteries were at 67% and it pretty much took the entire day to get them back to 100%. The smoke and haze meant that they didn't really get full sun for much of the day.

Day 80 - Mead, WA

Today was one of our longer mileage days while pulling the trailer. About 379 miles. This is also the beginning of our trek back to Alaska. The B.C. fire website was reporting a number of brush fires along our normal route north so we are heading east before heading north. Tonight, we are staying at another Harvest Host site on a farm with a fruit and vegetable stand. We arrived after they closed but they described where we should set up and left the gate open for us. Tomorrow, we will visit the stand. I hear they have home made pies!

One of the animals on the farm. I don't think the dogs quite know what to make of them. They just stare at each other. It's looking like we may get a nice sunset from our location near the top of the hill. BTW, even with the hill, only two bars of AT&T but 5 bars of Verizon.

Tonights dinner was made completely off of battery power. Even though I could've used the propane stove, inside the trailer was kind of on the warm side. It was 93°F today. So electric rice cooker and induction burner for our chicken stir fry used about 5% of our battery capacity. This is one of the staple meals on this road trip as Costco had vacuum packaged chicken and pre-shredded cabbage. Add some slice onions, celery and some random frozen vegetables and it's done. My kind of simple cooking.

Tomorrow is another 300+ mile day to Helena, MT. According to Google, the distance from Corbett, OR, to Fairbanks, AK, through Helena, Calgary and Edmonton was about 3,050 miles. We have 12 days and I like to get some longer days in near the beginning of the trip. Then back off on the daily distance.

Day 79 - Corbett, OR

Today was the final day of the reunion. This is a so-so iPhone photo of the Columbia River just after sunset. There was some nice light on the cliff. This was taken last night when we were down near the lookout roasting marshmellows. The staff had started a really nice fire in the very old outdoor fireplace with hardwood. So there was some really nice coals.

Another shot from last night as we walked back up to the main building. I kind of liked the light coming through the windows. Since we aren't staying on the grounds, we headed back to the Crown Point RV Park at this point.

This morning there was a light drizzle. Kind of appropriate for the end of the reunion. Fortunately, we took the family photo last night. This time, they made an announcement that since everyone had access to the Internet, only one person would take a picture and send it out to everyone. At times, there would be a couple dozen cameras out for pictures.

For lunch, most of the group went to McMenamins - Edgefield after checking out from Menucha. It has become sort of a tradition. After lunch, we went back to Corvallis to pick up the dogs before heading back to the RV park. Tomorrow, we start heading back to Alaska.

Day 78 - Corbett, OR

The reunion continued today at the Menucha Conference Center. Today's activities included nature walks, sushi making, giant bubbles, frisbee golf, origami and other crafts. 

Later in the evening, Japanese dancing.