On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Ontario, CA

Saturday  evening,  November 15, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

I have traveled to Ontario to teach a Mechanical Drives and
Shaft Alignment class.  This is what is
called a “regional” class where folks from various companies attend the class
in a hotel.  NTT also offers “On Site”
classes where we teach at the customers business location.

This class was held at the Holiday Inn Express (here).  The class only
had four students, but that made for a great group. 

I had NTT make plane reservations so that I could stay over
Saturday and attend one day of the National Drag Racing event in Pomona.  When I was the “Blower Belt guy” at Gates, I
attended quite a few races at this rather historic track.  I had hoped to see several old friends, but
the pits were very hectic.  I did get to
briefly say hi to a good friend who is also a major Gates customer.

Friday after class, I decided to visit the NHRA museum.  It is not a huge museum, but they have a significant
number of historic race cars.  Many of
those cars were racing when I first got interested in drag racing (over 50
years ago).  Lots of fun memories.

The weather has been pretty decent – mostly 70s during the
day.  Unfortunately, I left Pat in the
middle of a record setting cold spell in Denver.

Tomorrow I catch a very early flight (6:05 AM) back to
Denver.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Evergreen, CO

Drafted Saturday morning, 
October 18, 2014   (second  post of this travelogue)

Posted Wednesday November 12, 2014

Note:  Sadly, a few
hours after I worked on this draft, we learned that our nephew (Michael Spring) had been killed in a tragic ATV accident. 
He was a wonderful 35 year old man full of life and it has been very
hard for us to even start to get back to our normal activities.  That said, I wanted to finish the
documentation the rest of our trip.  The
following is what I had prepared for posting with only a few added details.

Well, can you tell that I have writers block?  About my only excuse is that I was having fun
at the Eagle rally and in Iowa and did not find the time to post another blog
entry.

First I will try to catch up on Branson.  We went to two shows.  The first show was Mark Chesnutt.  That show was attended by most of the rally
attendees.  We also went to see Mickey
Gilley.  You may recall that we went to
the Gilley show the last time we were in Branson (two years ago).  At the time he was in the fairly early stages
of recovering from paralysis due to an accident in his home.  This time, his recovery was notably
better.  In spite of his physical
limitations, both shows were fabulous. 

One of the rally attendees did an excellent job of
documenting the highlights on her blog:  (link)

Wednesday (10/8/14) we headed to Iowa.  That is about 400 miles.  We have done it in one day, but we chose to
take a leisurely two day jaunt.  Good
thing, as we encountered more tow dolly problems.  We ended up staying at a Walmart in the north
Kansas City area so that I could work on the dolly.

Let’s catch up on the tow dolly problems.  Just before we got to Branson, my walk-around
inspection revealed that we had lost an axle hub cover and most of the liquid
bearing lube was lost.  We unloaded the
car and Pat drove it the final 30 miles. 
During the rally, I changed the hub covers to the Bearing Buddy
technology which is used on many boat trailers and is a grease based system
with zerks on the hubs.  I also had to change
the disc brakes and have the rotors turned. 
All seemed well until we got close to KC and got a low tire pressure
warning on the dolly.  Fortunately it was
a slow leak and we were able to add some air and limp to the Walmart.  I changed that tire with one of the two
spares I carry.  Then, just before we got
to our destination in Iowa, we got another warning.  The newly mounted spare now had a slow
leak.  I changed that tire and we made it
to Prescott, IA (our Iowa home away from home). 
It turns out that the two spares that had slow leaks were the tires that
had to be repaired on our last trip to Iowa (road grinding debris caused
punctures in both tires on that trip – story here).  This time
the tire shop determined that the small tire size coupled with the high
pressure (90 PSI) caused the tire repair system to fail.  We ended up buying two new tires.

We had two fun events during our stay in Iowa.  The first was attending a play at the newly
restored opera house in Corning, IA.  The
“play” was really a musical related to Route 66.  It was a great show with fun music.  The restoration was well done – it is great
to see small towns devote the efforts and dollars to retain parts of their
history.

The other event was dinner at the Prescott fire station for
fire prevention week.

During our stay, the weather was very cool and rainy.  Indeed, some evenings were cold enough I had
to turn on the heater.

Bill and I worked on his daughter and son-in-laws
motorhome.  It would not start and we
finally diagnosed a failed fuel pump. 
Unfortunately the pump is in the tank and the tank is huge.  We were able to remove the tank (with a lot
of grunts and groans) and then drag it to the shop.  Bill got one of his tractors and lifted the
tank so that we could drain about 25 gallons of fuel (about 200 pounds) from
the tank.  We ordered the replacement
fuel pump, but it did not arrive until after we left.  However, Bill and his son were able to
install the empty tank  without too much
trouble.  Once filled with gas, the
motorhome started right up.

Our trip home was uneventful.  We left Iowa on Wednesday (10/15) and made
our usual stop in North Platte and then drove to evergreen the next day.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Branson, MO

Drafted Tuesday evening,  October 7, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

Posted Thursday morning 10/9/14

We are at an Eagle Bus rally at the Branson Lakeside RV Park
(map)

We left Evergreen on Sunday 9/28 about 9:30 so that we could
get to Goodland, Kansas in time to watch the races.  We stayed at the Walmart that we have stopped
at several times in the past.  On Monday
we drove to El Dorado, KS and again stayed at the Walmart.  

From El Dorado, it was a short 150 mile drive to Nevada, MO
where we stayed at…… Walmart.  We arrived
early enough to do quite a bit of genealogy/grave decorating.  This is the area where Pat’s grandfather was
raised and there are quite a few of his relatives buried in various cemeteries.  We made a large loop up through Butler and
down to a cemetery in Virgil City.  That “loop”
is about 200 miles.

On Wednesday we drove about 150 miles to Branson.  On the way, we had an issue with the tow
dolly and had to unload the car and drive it the last 35 miles or so.

The Eagle rally was well attended.  I think the count was 21 Eagle buses and an
assortment of other types of buses and motor homes (maybe 30 units total).

This post is getting old, so I will end it here and update
the events in Branson in a couple of days.

Hello from Sacramento, CA

Friday morning,  September
19, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

Posted: Sunday evening September 21, 2014

As happens too often, I started this post and was not able
to finish it till I got home.

I traveled to teach a four day class.  The first two days were bearings and
lubrication and the last two days were shaft alignment.  This is a “regional” class which means that
it is held in a hotel and the students are from various companies.  I really prefer this type of class (as
opposed to an “on-site” class held at a company with their employees
attending).  In the public class, you often
get better discussion because of the varied backgrounds.

The class is being held at the Holiday Inn Express (here).  The meeting room was very large for our small
group (5 students).  That is great, as we
have to set up the shaft alignment labs and that takes a fair amount of space.

In the past, the shaft alignment class used rather simple
tools (straight edges, calipers, and dial indicators).  When the class had somewhat experienced
students, it was difficult to fill the full two days.  We recently added laser alignment equipment
and that really makes the class powerful and fun!

For a change, the travel went well.  The flight out was typical, but I had a good
seat.  When I went to pick up the rental
car they said that the company had reserved a premium car.  That is not the norm, but the lady that does
the scheduling had a special offer and gave it to me.  The bad news was they did not have a premium
car so I had to “settle” for a Camaro {big grin).  Sure wish I had had an opportunity to “open
it up”.  The flight home was about half
full and I had a great exit row seat. 

My fun rental car

I arrived in Sacramento early Monday afternoon.  That allowed me to drive the Camaro up to
Nevada City to have dinner with a great friend. 
It would have been a good route to have some fun, but the traffic did not
permit very aggressive driving.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Holyoke, CO

Monday evening,  August 11, 2014   (Second post of this travelogue)

Holyoke? – there has to be a story about our location.  More later.

Yesterday we left Prescott a bit later than we planned
(about 2:00PM) and thus decided to take a more leisurely drive home.  If we drive the car, we usually go straight
through (10-12 hours with a few potty and meal stops).  In the bus we drive at 68 MPH (safer and best
mileage).  At that speed we take two
days.  This time we are breaking it up so
that we are taking 3 days.  Last night we
stopped in York, NE (at the Wal Mart, of course).  Tonight we are in a gravel lot at a huge
grain elevator in Holyoke, CO (map). 

Our route from Prescott was a bit different from our
norm.  We decided to avoid all the construction
on US 34 (and the possibility of more flat tires) and go north on CR N61 then
CR H20 to IA 148.  From there we took IA
92 to I 29.  That is a lot of back roads,
but it was a pretty easy drive. 

Holyoke is not on our normal route.  I had planned to stop at the rest area in
Julesburg, but we were fairly early and I thought there could be an issue with
staying too long (many have a 10 hour limit). 
So, at Ogallala, we took the exit to try to find a place to park for the
night.  Quickly, the town ended and we
were on a two lane with nowhere to turn around. 
I decided to continue south and then head west when possible.  The route took us down NE 61 and then on
NE/CO 23.  The two lanes were good in
some areas and pretty darn rough in others. 

Tomorrow we will travel a short distance on US 6 to Sterling
where we will dump the tanks at the rest stop and then head home on our normal
route.  This detour was really not all
that far out of the way.

It is kind of nice to drive shorter distances.  It is also fun to drive on some of the two
lanes and see the small towns.

That is all for now.

Hello from Prescott, IA

Sunday morning,  August 10, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

Sadly, Pat’s aunt Jaris passed away on Monday (8/4) in
Corning, IA.  We left Evergreen on
Tuesday in the bus and stopped in Kearney, NE for the night. 

Wednesday, as we approached Corning, we encountered road
construction on US 34.  It was asphalt
grinding – a situation we have encountered many times.  Just before the highway that leads to Corning
(Pat’s home town), our tire alarm went off. 
We turned towards Corning so that we could stop at her cousin’s tire
shop.  By the time we got there, both of
the tow dolly tires were sending alarms and both tires were nearly flat.  We unhooked the PT cruiser from the dolly and
left the tow dolly at the shop.

Jerry (Pat’s cousin) determined that fairly large slivers of
asphalt had punctured both of the tow dolly tires.  Jerry was able to fix them.  I had a mounted spare and an additional un-mounted
tire.  I ordered an extra rim and now
have two spares (who would guess that both tires would go flat at the same time?).  All the other tires seem to be OK.

On Thursday there were family events related to the funeral.  Friday was the funeral, along with other
related activities.  Thursday we had a
family dinner at the Hoerman’s (family tradition of beef and noodles) and
Friday we had another family dinner at Mona and Terry’s.  Both were great events where lots of family
stories got exchanged.

Two of our daughters were able to make the trip.  Lisa flew in with Pat’s cousin Linda and all
of Kelly’s family drove back.  Pat’s
sister and her friend changed their travel plans for a Minnesota trip and drove
to Iowa.  After the funeral they
continued on to Minnesota.  Lisa flew
back to Denver Saturday and Kelly and her family left Saturday afternoon.  Pat’s friend (since early childhood) Linda
came down from Des Moines for the Friday events – it is always great to see
her.

After the various activities on Friday we needed some “happy
time”.  We went out to a family farm to
see some day old piglets – most of the Denver folks got to hold them (see
photos).  It does not take much to
entertain the city folk {grin}.

Madison and Kelly

Lisa

Kelly

 

Damon

We were worried about going to Iowa in August because of the
heat and humidity.  We are connected to a
normal 20 amp outlet for our power and that is not enough to power an air
conditioner.  It turns out that the weather
has been rainy and fairly cool.  Aside
from the humidity (somewhat damp sheets), the sleeping conditions have been
great.  The rain was great for the Iowa
folks as it has been dry and they need the moisture for the crops.

We will start home today.

That is all for now.

Hello from Natoma Kansas

Draft started Saturday morning,  July 26, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

Completed and published Monday July 28

This has been a bit of a crazy whirlwind trip.  More about that in a minute.

I need to add a note or two about our  trip to Salt Lake.

As we noted, we diverted from a direct route back home from
Salt Lake so that we could visit our two grandsons who attend college in
Gunnison Colorado. 

We drove from Salt Lake to Grand Junction and stayed the
night at a Holiday Inn Express.  Monday
we drove to Gunnison and again stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.  We were able to have lunch with Austin and
then Dinner with Thomas and Klara.  It is
so fun to see that these young men have matured so much and are doing well in
College (both will be seniors this year).

We arrived home Tuesday.

On Wednesday (7/23) I drove the bus to Natoma, Kansas to stay
at a friend’s house.  Natoma is north of
Russell and Hays on Kansas highway 18. 
Since this was mostly a boy’s trip, Pat stayed home.

The reason for this trip was to attend the KKOA Leadsled
Spectacular in Salina, KS.  The KKOA
website is here.  I have been a member since the early ‘80s and
have attended this event many times. 
Indeed, I completed the ’56 Chevy in ’87 and the whole family drove to
Springfield IL for that event.  Pat made
poodle skirts and sweaters for her and the girls (see photo).

For many years they held the event in various cities in the
mid-west (including three different Springfields – IL, OH, and MO – Pat and I
attended them all in the ’56).  I have
not driven the ’56 in several years – maybe next year.  They have now settled on holding the event in
Salina, KS because it is just about in the center of the country.

The car count dwindled over the years, as have many major
car events.  However, the count has
picked up in the past couple of years and it appears that there were over 1,000
registrations this year!

The show was great! 
Wish I could say the same about the weather.  It was 106 degrees in Salina on Friday when
my friend and I attended the show!!  Can
you say brutal? 

I had a good time visiting with my friend John.  He has 20 acres with a fairly large
percentage filled with out building with all kinds of good stuff in them .  He also has a large number of buses and 50’s
era trucks on the property. We visited a one of his friends whose family used
to own a GM dealership in a close-by town. 
The person has a huge collection of neat old cars, many of which were
very low mile trade-ins that the family kept.

I returned to Evergreen on Saturday.  The bus did fine and it was fun not to have a
toad behind me.

That is all of now.

Hello from Salt Lake City, UT

Saturday afternoon, 
July 19, 2014   (First post of
this travelogue)

We are in Salt Lake for Pat’s Stampin’ Up! convention.   We
were able to get reservations at the Marriott (Downtown) again this year.  This hotel is right across the street from
the convention center.  We got a corner
room, conveniently overlooking construction of a new building {grin}.

We left Evergreen Tuesday (7/15) and stayed in Green River,
UT (our normal stop).  Wednesday we
arrived in Salt Lake in the early afternoon and Pat started her meetings that
night.

There are about 4,000 SU demonstrators here this year.  In years past there were as many as 7,000 demonstrators
and they had to have two sessions of the convention.

I have been holed up in the room quite a bit working on a
computer project for our Eagles club.  I
have spent lots of time learning database management, software program code
modification and all those fun things. 
It is a fun challenge, but I have spent way too much time of the project
(probably 300 hours over the past several weeks). 

Today was the last day of the convention.  Pat has been going almost non-stop.  The last meeting just got out and there is a
huge line waiting for the elevator.  As I
draft this, I am stuck in the lobby until the crowd clears.  I had to come down here when they cleaned the
room – I knew the timing was terrible.

Yesterday, I drove up to Hooper, UT (about 35 miles north)
to visit with a good friend.  It is
always good to see Kent and talk about buses and cars.

Tonight we have tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
performance.  This will be the third time
that we have seen them and it has been an amazing performance in the past.

Tomorrow we will start home. 
We are changing our route so that we can stop in Gunnison to visit our
two grandsons who go to college there.

That is all of now.

Happy Fourth of July from Dillon, CO — Part two

Friday afternoon, 
July 4, 2014   (second post of this
travelogue)

One day we took a guided tour of the reservoir on a pontoon
boat.  The guide was a volunteer of the
Summit Historical Society (left in photo). 
The boat “captain” is left of Pat in the photo.  The tour focused on the history of  the dam. 
The captain took us around an island that had nesting Bald Eagles.  An amazing tour.

 

We spent the better part of a day in Keystone.  It is a really neat little town that looks a
bit like a European mountain village. 
The best activity was riding the ski lift up to the top of the main ski
area.

The first photo is going up and the second is going
down.  It was a beautiful day for the
trip.

This is the view of Dillon Reservoir (link to website) from the top of the ski area.  The elevation at the top was 11,640 feet.  The Dillon Dam crest is 9035 feet.  The maximum designed level of the water is
9025 (opening of what is called the “Glory Hole” that controls the maximum leve)l.  When we first got here the lake was a few
feet below the Glory Hole.  The water is
now fairly close to the rim.  A few additional
Dillon Reservoir facts:  The surface area
is a bit over 3200 acres (when full) and the height of the dam is 231
feet.  It is owned by the Denver Water
Board and was built in the ‘60s.  The
water is diverted from this western slope location to the east slope via the
Roberts tunnel which is over 23 miles long and 10 feet in diameter.  Both the dam and the tunnel recently
celebrated their 50 year anniversary. 

While at the top of the Keystone ski area, Damon and Molly
made a tube run on this hill.  The
picture is deceiving.  Right after I took
this picture, they disappeared over the hill and dropped a few hundred
feet!  Nothing like snow tubing in July!!  Damon also went snow skiing at Arapahoe Basin
on the last day it was open (6/22 – second day of summer)!!

That is all for now.

Happy Fourth of July from Dillon, CO

Friday afternoon, 
July 4, 2014   (First post of this
travelogue)

We will open this post with a timely photo.

We have been at the Heaton Bay campground (map) since Saturday 6/21. 
We are here with one of our daughters (Kelly) and her family.  This has been both a relaxing and at the same
time hectic two weeks.

 

The weather has been
pretty good.  The nights are cool (a
couple of nights into the high 30’s) and the days are in the 70’s and 80’s.  We have had several afternoon rain storms
with quite a bit of wind.  Indeed, one
day we came back and the Damon and Kelly’s canapé was blown over and a tangled
mess.  We took our canapé up to their
site and it has withstood the weather.

This blog will be a bit different than most.  I will post a picture and then give a brief
description.

 

 

We took a drive on Swan Mountain drive and then a short hike
to where there is a rock outcropping and a ton of hungry chipmunks.

This is the same rock outcropping with three generations and
a beautiful view to the south west.

We rented a pontoon boat for 4 hours and had a ball.  We each did a bit of fishing.  Not far from us, this sail pontoon boat capsized
and we had to help them get it upright (using a rope from their boat looped
over the top pontoon).  The water is very
cold and they could have been in trouble if we had not come along.  Towards the end, Damon fired up the grill and
we had burgers on the pontoon!!!