Author: Steve

We know the brake buddy works. With the big Bounder, I can’t feel the brake
buddy in the tow car when it kicks in, so I hooked up the monitor light.
There is a sending unit in the tow car, and a receiving unit plugged into
the dash of the motorhome. This stuff isn’t required to make the brake
buddy work, it’s just feedback for the driver to see if it’s working, so I
don’t usually plug it all in. In the gas motorhomes, I could feel when the
tow car brakes went on, so I didn’t need it. In the diesel Bounder, we use
the brake buddy mostly for appearance. State law requires tow car brakes. The jake brake and wheel brakes are so good, we don’t need the tow car
brakes too. Except. Except this trip, we discovered why tow car brakes are
a good idea, even on level ground, even when you don’t think you need them.
It was the car on the shoulder up ahead. We’re driving seventy miles an
hour on the freeway. There is a car on the shoulder. I checked the left
mirror to see if I could move over. I figure we create a pretty big whoosh
going by, so I always move over for someone on the shoulder if I can. Not
this time. There was traffic beside me. Up ahead, the left blinker came
on. I had just enough time to say out loud, “just don’t pull out”, before
the car pulled into our lane at about 20 mph. I got on the brakes, the jake
brake, and the air horn, in that order, at full mash. I hoped the car in
front would pull back onto the shoulder, but no luck. It just held its
position, and gradually accelerated up to speed. Ultimately that speed was
about ten miles per hour under the speed limit. I guess it wasn’t really
that close, either. We never got closer than about fifteen feet to it.
Going from seventy to thirty, it seemed like quite a while, though, before
we knew it wasn’t going to be a very bad experience. The next couple hours
included more adrenaline in our systems than we needed. I guess the law to
have tow car brakes is a good idea, even if you don’t think you really need
them. Our first night out, we stayed at River Dance RV Park. We’ve been watching
this park take shape for the last couple years. You can see it from the
highway, just east of Glenwood Canyon. It’s between the highway and the
Eagle River. We stopped there last year just to drive through and check it
out. We ended up talking to Rusty, the owner/operator. He brags that his
property has the best trout fishing on the river. What an ambitious guy.
This is not a large corporate operation. This is a guy that likes to camp
in his RV and wants to build a park just like he would like it. It’s coming
together slowly, but he’s doing a good job. It’s one guy doing it himself.
Our site was level. We had water and 50 amp electricity. It was an easy
walk to the river. He has put free standing lawn swings overlooking the
water. He was right about the fishing. Five rainbows in an hour. All good
size fish. I fished a parachute adams for a while, but even though there
was a caddis hatch on, there wasn’t any activity on the surface. I tied a
pheasant tail nymph on as a dropper and drifted them through some currents.
That worked very well. After a few fish on the nymph, one even came up and
bit the dry fly off the surface. That’s my favorite; a rainbow trout
explosion on my dry fly. All fish survived the experience and the barbless
hooks. Riparian habitat. Kingbirds and orioles in the river valley brush.
Warblers along the water.

Alex, aka “the water rat” joined us for a little fun in the bird bath this
weekend.

A new baby. Conner Thomas Alexander. Born at 6:14 am, Tuesday, July 6th. 6 pounds, 14 ounces. 19 inches long. Mom, Dad, Baby, and family doing fine. It’s all good.

Friday. Simple day. Las Vegas to Mesquite. Passed Highway 93, Brother bill’s
favorite Highway. St. George, Cedar City, Beaver, turn right at Cove Fort.
Cross the steep mountains, up the Sevier Valley, through Richfield and
Salina, cross the badlands (San Rafael Swell), and cruise into Green River.
Stayed at the Shady Acres RV Park this time. Cooling down into the
eighties. Found some more rough cement road. Drove in the left lane for a while.
That helped. Judy was being silly tonight. We went to the edge of a field to show Annie
the cows that were grazing on the other side. Annie loves cows. But they
were on the other side of the field. Judy started calling them. That was the silly part. Cows don’t come when
you call them. Besides, she was making the same noise she makes when she’s
calling horses. She wasn’t calling cows, which don’t come when you call
them, she was calling horses. Just as I was gathering momentum in sorting
this all out for her, there was this random shuffling movement on the other
side of the field. All those cows started moving for no apparent reason.
Our direction. Judy called again, and they broke out into a run. They all
ran straight over to our side of the field, and stood there at the fence
waiting expectantly. Maybe it was feeding time and they mistook us for hay. New Mexico. I don’t really want to work there much. Only during the months
it’s cold in the Colorado high country. After that, given a choice between
more work in Colorado, and new work in New Mexico, I’ll take Colorado.
Maybe it’s not fair to sign up clients there if I only want to be there
during two or three months a year.
A four hundred mile day. Tomorrow, cross the high country.

Saturday. An easy day from Green River into Colorado, through Grand Junction, third
gear over Vail Pass, third gear up to the Eisenhower tunnel, down into
Denver in the rain. Driving over mountain passes, it’s not unusual to see signs at the top
warning truckers to stop and check their brakes. So I wonder: how do
truckers check their brakes. They pull over and what? Touch the wheels to
see if they’re hot? Reach around and pinch the disk? Really, what to
truckers do to check their brakes at the top of a mountain? And why? I understand that they will need their brakes going down the other side, but
they just came up the front side. Did they have to use their brakes to get
up? Unlikely. What is there about driving uphill for about an hour without
using your brakes that would make it necessary to stop and check them to
make sure they’re okay? In Barstow, on Thursday, we pulled up at the RV island to fuel. Both lanes
were occupied, so we picked one and waited. In front of us was a new white
pickup truck with flames painted on it, towing a big white fast boat. In
the other lane was a new white motorhome with flames painted on it, towing
the white jet skis. We wondered if they might be together. Judy got out to
check. It turns out they were together. He and she. A couple, with three
kids. They had been out playing and were headed home. She is a
schoolteacher. He is retired. He’s pretty young to be retired. 35. 35
years old, retired, three young kids, and playing with toys like that?
Retired from what? Football. Pat something. Played with the Raiders and Patriots. Tall
skinny guy. Must have been a wide receiver or db. At Susie’s house on the river, we sat out at night and watched the bats.
John would get out his 5 million candlepower hand held light, and shine it
into the sky until he spotted a flying bug. He’d hold the light on the
flying bug until a bat swooped through the beam to snatch it up. We saw a
lot of bats. We saw nighthawks, called riverhawks there, and stars and
satellites. We listened to the screaming moans coming from the other side
of the river at night. Screaming moaning frogs in the desert. A three hundred fifty mile day. The trip is over. We saw lots of good stuff. Picked up some new birds.
Made it to 300. Didn’t get to see the purple martins in Kansas. Didn’t get
to see the black swifts in Ouray. Didn’t get to see the giant condors
flying free in the Grand Canyon. Guess we just didn’t stay out long enough.