In the last 72 hours we have covered close to 2800 miles and traveled through 7 states, driving to
Washington state, from here in Colorado to pick up a truck camper. During the course of that time we went through every season, except summer, having driven in rain and wind traversing Washington and Oregon, with a finish going over Monarch Pass here in Colorado in a snow storm with somewhat icy roads.
this all got started about two weeks ago when we saw the ad for a
Okanagan 117DBL. As mentioned, in last week's post we have been on the look out for one of these going on 12 months.
After the calls had been made and the monies exchanged,
Marlys and I up anchored on Wednesday evening for the drive to central Washington.
It was raining when we left Denver and being a weather obsessive, all of the websites had been checked to try and read the tea leaves on what could be expected. I suspect that the "professionals" must use the same sources, as I was about as accurate. It looked like other then the weather we were driving out of in Denver, it should be a pretty nice drive, there and back, but more on that later.
We made it to Buffalo, WY before calling a stop and checked into the Comfort Inn. BTW: if you haven't stayed at one of these lately, I would recommend it.
Knowing that Thursday was going to be a haul, because we wanted to get within striking distance of
Ephrata, we were on the road by 5:30am.
Montana can look a lot like eastern Colorado, but the NW region where I-90 crosses into Idaho is pretty nice.
We noticed that there was still yellow in the forest, but we couldn't quite figure out what we were looking at, since the trees looked like pines, didn't look like beetle kill and were bright yellow like Aspens. We found out at a fuel stop that they were Tamaracks (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarack_Larch ) a
deciduous coniferous tree, meaning they drop all of their needles in the fall and re-grow them the coming season. I for one had never heard of that.
It had been cloudy all day, with
intermittent rain. Not a good forecast omen, especially when my tea leaves had said otherwise less then 24 hours before.
We got into the
Coeur d'Alene/Spokane metro area mid-afternoon.
Coeur d'Alene is a city in a forest, it went on the list of places to visit again when we weren't on a schedule.
The region between Spokane and the Cascades appears very
arrid with miles of center pivot
irrigated fields of corn and hay. Once off the super slab the orchards and vineyards also became visible.
We finally crashed (not literally) in Moses Lake, WA, about 25 miles from our objective.
Paying careful attention to the forecast while trying to get rid of the shaking from the constant road
vibe of the day, it looked like tomorrow would bring a chance of showers, but one we would drive out of as we headed south.
My a??! They use the same forecast sources in Spokane as the folks in Denver. We woke to rain, with a forecast for rain, but it still should end as we head south.
The plan for the return was not to go back via I-90 and I-25, but to head south to
Kennewick and pickup I-84 to Salt Lake City, via Boise. In
SLC we would grab the I-15 to Spanish Fork, then two lane it into Green River, Utah and pickup I-70. Then on to Grand Junction switching to US 50 and through
Montrose,
Gunnison and
Salida to home. We would stop in
Gunnison and show Derek the rig and take him to dinner.
We had talked about how long we wanted to spend in
Ephrata, so as to get a good start on the drive home. We wanted to be back by Saturday night.
Our planning pretty much went out the window
the next day, when we met Marylin and Jim. They were great people and we ended up spending 4 hours doing paperwork, going over the rig, getting it loaded and just talking. It was time well spent, as they are great folks
They took a couple of last pictures of the camper, we said our goodbyes, got in and headed down the road...slowly as the Porsche of trucks suddenly was slower,
pondering in movement and now stopped on a...well it took longer to stop.
My initial impression, about 2 minutes into the 20 hour drive was...this was going to be a long drive.
As we went down the two
laner back to the freeway and traversed a few rolling bumps, I thought a couple of time this thing could get divergent, but no, it generally settled right back and never headed for the corn field. It has after all a binder
diesel, and did exhibit a slight pull to the right.
Every time I check the mirror to see who was around us, I could see the bottom of the overhang above, which gave the feeling of driving without taking the car out of the garage.
Did I mention that it rained the whole time Jim was going through the systems and loading the rig? Well it was still raining. And as we crossed the Columbia in
Kennewick the wind came to play also. We had a warning on the wind because as we started up to the SE out of town the ridge we needed to crest was covered in wind generators...and they were up to speed.
We finally called it quits for the evening in Twin Falls, ID and pulled into a wayside rest. Instead of crapping out in the truck cab, we went back to the camper, made the bed, (put in ear plugs) and went to sleep. It was about 10:30pm. We woke at 5am and got ourselves together and back on the road by 5:30.
I had slept real well. Its nice to have your bedroom on your back.
By this point the driving was very...well normal other then watching for overhangs and canopies when pulling in for fuel/food and consideration of stopping distances. Even in the mountains of Colorado we were not a pylon for others to figure out how to go around.
We arrived home at 9pm Saturday night. We were tired, but very happy with the purchase and going over trip ideas.
The TC traveled well and our research in the pairing with our 2008 F450 dually paid off. The only mod (beyond the factory camper package) was a set of airbags (set to 50PSI). I noticed that when parked the factory camper/overload springs were not even in play.
As you would imagine MPG was very MPH influenced, but at 75 in Utah it stayed in the 7.5-8 MPG range and at 60 was in the 10-12 range, but is was very windy during that stint.
So, now it sits waiting for an adventure.
Maybe the first REAL trip, should be to the
Las Vegas
NASCAR race in Feb/Mar.
That's the ticket.
This morning when we headed back into Denver it was covered in snow and the temp was -5F.
I am sure glad Jim winterized it last week.
