On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Black Hawk, CO

Tuesday Morning   January 22, 2013   (First travelogue of this trip).

Black Hawk, CO??????  Yes, Pat and I are at the Ameristar Casino and Resort in Black Hawk (map).

As was the case last week, I (and this time, Pat) are/were close to home (less than 30 miles).  Pat and her cousin, Linda, come up here every so often to feed the slot machines.  Apparently AMERISTAR is reaching towards the bottom of the membership barrel and offering a free two night stay at their hotel.  Who can pass up that offer?

Pat and Linda have stayed up here at least once, using Linda’s points.  She had told me many times how neat it was.  I had to drop the hint that I would like to be her roommate {grin}. 

I have long been frustrated at the huge amount of “damage” that the casinos did to this historic area of Colorado.  Gold was discovered in 1859 in a gulch between the towns of Black Hawk and Central City. and that created a “gold rush” to the area.  It became known as:  “The Richest Square Mile On Earth”. Reasonably good documentation of the history of this area can be found here:  http://www.centralcitycolorado.com/history.php and here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_City,_Colorado. 

I spent a lot of my younger years touring  and being immersed in the amazing history of the area.  As a kid, I would drag my folks all over the two towns looking at mechanical relics of the past (mecca for me).

For years I refused to come up here because of the loss of focus on what was a major part of Colorado history.  But after 20 plus years, I guess I had better get over it {sheepish smile}

This a fabulous casino/resort.  The room is the equivalent of  a 4 or 5 star hotel.  The casino is huge.  The architecture and interior of the building are very well done in what I would call early American.  The buffet is among the very best we have been in.  With her points, we were able to have dinner last night for less than $5. 

This morning, I used our Starbucks cards to get oatmeal and scones.  So far, a pretty inexpensive trip.

As I write this, Pat is up a bit less than $100 playing the “penny” slot machines.  Me, that is another story.  She still has a lot of playing to do and we will see how that all plays out at the end of our stay.

That is all for now.

Hello from Centennial, CO

Thursday Evening   January 17, 2013   (First travelogue of this trip).

Centennial, CO??????  More a bit later.

I had been meaning to finish up the travelogue for our last trip to Missouri and Iowa, but never could find the time.  Indeed, I had one person contact me and ask if I made it home OK.  The trip, a bit over 1900 miles, went very well.

Periodically, I update our bus statistics.  Since we made our maiden voyage in the bus in March of 2006 (to San Diego), we have traveled just a few miles shy of  70,000 miles.  We have spent 773 nights in the bus.  It has been a great vehicle for us. 

We were kind of sad when we shut the business down, because we knew that we would not be travelling as much in our “home away from home”.  It is looking like we might be making a few more trips in the bus this year.  We will have to see what falls into place.

Now, for this trip.  I am all of about 35 miles from home, but am staying at the Drury Inn (map).  I recently contacted a company that I did a lot of training for after I retired from Gates:  NTT.  From about 2000-2002 I taught a continuing education class titled:  Mechanical Drives.  It covered belts, chain, gears, bearings, and couplings.  It was a very active class in those days and I traveled all over the US (including 2 weeks in Alaska).   I always enjoyed teaching the classes (mostly to maintenance personnel).  Unfortunately their business dropped off pretty significantly and I was laid off.

As noted, a few weeks ago I contacted them to see if there was any opportunity.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I am now an “employee” (even had to take a drug test).  There is a fancy job tile, but it basically says that I am a part time trainer.  I have no idea how many sessions I will teach.  The Mechanical Drives is not taught all that often, but an off-shoot is a class on bearings, lubrication and shaft alignment.  That is the class I am auditing this week in preparation for teaching.  I will be auditing another class in Atlanta in a few weeks.

As I have said repeatedly, this blog is primarily a travelogue.  Since I traveled a few miles and am staying in a hotel, I guess it qualifies.

That is all for now.

Hello from Lexington, NE

Friday evening   October 19, 2012   (Sixth travelogue of this trip).

We got a late start today.  It was really cold and windy.  Of course, it was mostly a head wind out of the north west.  Given the conditions, we resigned ourselves to taking three days to get home.  However, the weather cleared up a bit and we were able to travel a bit over 300 miles.

We are at the Wal Mart in Lexington, NE (map).  We are a bit short of half way, but we should be able to get an earlier start tomorrow and get home on Saturday, as planned.

In an earlier blog, I had mentioned our amazing fortune of finding the Dickison Cemetery (a bit north and east of Nevada, MO).  As I noted, the cemetery is on private property.  With permission, we traveled across a farm field and found the somewhat overgrown cemetery.  We quickly found Pat’s grandfather’s grandparent’s marker (in good condition, considering the stone was over 142 years old).  Below is a picture of the cemetery.

I also mentioned the wonderful color in Iowa.  Shown below is a tree at Bill and Jeanne’s house.  Shortly after the picture was taken, the storms moved in and the tree lost most of the leaves.

That is all for now.

Hello from Prescott, IA

Thursday evening   October 18, 2012   (Fifth travelogue of this trip).

Our trip to Prescott was pretty mundane. It was about 250 miles – a drive that we have made several times.

Since we arrived here, we have been on the go most of the time.  Pat has many relatives here and it is always fun to get to see them.  On Sunday we went to the auction at her Uncle’s auction facility.  Their whole family participates in the auction and it is always a fun event with a huge variety of items.  This time they even sold two semi-trailers.

We always stay with Bill and Jeanne at their farm.  It is so relaxing and friendly.  Bill has been able to get most of the harvesting done.  In spite of the terrible predictions of the harvest due to the severe drought, Bill has had some fields that had reasonable yield.  To be sure, the crop was damaged, but at least it was not a total loss.

The weather here has been pretty cool and rainy.  At our location, we got over 2 inches in a two day period (nice, slow rain), plus several periods of short storms.  In Branson the weather was a bit better, but there was still very cool nights and some rain.  We had packed mostly warm weather clothes and both of us have had to layer to stay warm.  As I write this, it is in the low 40s with 30 MPH winds and a drizzle – bone chilling cold!

The trees in Missouri were just starting to turn, but here in Iowa, the colors are beautiful.  I will include a photo in the next blog.

Tomorrow we start home.  We take two days to make the trip – about 650 miles.

That is all for now.

Hello from Nevada, MO

Friday morning   October 12, 2012   (Fourth travelogue of this trip).

Our trip here was fairly short – about 150 miles.  Part of the trip was on Missouri 96 which overlays part of the route 66 highway.  We saw several old buildings that were obviously support businesses for the historic route.

Wednesday, I went to an great IHC museum about 5 miles from here.  It is a private collection, but Dan Agee enthusiastically showed me his vast collection of everything IHC including a catalog of all the products they sold many years ago.

When I returned to the bus, we decided to visit a cemetery here in Nevada.  We found the gravestone of Pat’s great uncle and his family.

Yesterday, we drove over 200 miles visiting several cemeteries where Pat’s ancestors were buried.  The most amazing “find” was the Dickison Cemetery where Pat’s grandfather’s grandparents were buried.  In preparation for the trip we tried several searches to try to locate the cemetery.  We finally ended up at the Bates county seat (Butler).  Several ladies were very helpful and one found a very old county plat map which showed the cemetery.  We drove out to the area, but could not find it.  We stopped at a farm house and the lady was very helpful.  It should be noted that she has lived in the area 20 years and did not know about the cemetery, in spite of the fact she lived less than a mile from the lo.  She made a couple of calls and found that the location was on private property owned by a 94 year old lady.  Babe Morris gave us permission to drive out in the field and tour the cemetery.  It was very small.  We quickly found the gravestone.  We were absolutely blown away that we found the grave site! 

Now for another amazing story.  We are parked at the Wal Mart in Nevada (map).  In the mid west, Wal Mart has gasoline stations.  Indeed, there is one about 100 feet from our bus.  At the rally, several folks mentioned that Wal Mart fuel prices were lower than any other stations and if you buy a gift card, for the amount of fuel you think you need, you get an additional 10 cents off.  The stations are generally intended for “normal” vehicles and vehicles our size are very difficult to maneuver into and out of the station.  In the early evening I scoped out the situation and developed a plan to get the bus in and out pretty easily.  We waited for the traffic to slow down, unhooked the dolly (car was already off the dolly), and made a run for it.  Now for the amazing part, the posted price was $3.89, while every other station we saw was at least $4.19.  So we got over 90 gallons at $3.79 and that was a savings of at least $.40 per gallon!  But wait, the story gets better!  We looked out the windshield the next morning and noticed that Wal Mart had raised the diesel price to $4.09 over night!  We never get in on that kind of bargain!!!

We had not planned to spend two nights in Nevada, but we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to visit several historical cemeteries.  In a few minutes we will head to Prescott, IA

That is all for now.

Hello from Branson, MO (part two)

Tuesday evening   October 9, 2012   (Third travelogue of this trip).

As noted last time, our Eagle Rally is in Branson.  To be specific, we are in the Branson Lakeside RV Park (map).  We have an Eagle rally at this location every two years.  This rally was extended to seven days this time and that has been great.  It gives us time to relax, and time to do tourist things.

As you could probably tell, the last post was a bit rushed.  I wanted to get some details documented, but we were rushing out the door to see the Gatlin Brothers.  We got half price tickets and the show was good. 

One of the details that I left out of the last post was a mention of the great catered barbeque dinner we had Wednesday evening.  It was a great way to start the rally.

Friday the men went to Springfield to tour a diesel engine rebuilding facility, have lunch in a very unique diner (Caspers), shopped around at the Grizzly tool store (fabulous) and then went to Byron Pigg’s wonderful shop that has all kinds of bus memorabilia and projects.  The women went to a tea room in Ozark.  Some of the ladies then went to do some shopping at an antique mall.  That evening we had a hamburger cookout.  Just a quick note on Caspers.  It is a small quonset hut building that serves great greasy hamburgers and bowls of chili.

Saturday evening we went to a wonderful dinner at the College of the Ozarks.  The school is very unique.  The student pay their way through school by working.  They have a huge dining room that serves wonderful gourmet food.  The meal is prepared and served by the students.

Sunday we had our potluck dinner – always a great feast!

During the days, we relaxed, talked buses and went to restaurants.  I led a couple of roundtables and Pat had a stamping class.

There are 31 coaches at the rally – 26 were Eagles.  The coaches came from 18 states.  As usual, there were some really fabulous Eagles that just make your mouth water.  Given the cost of fuel (over $4 per gallon), that is a great turnout

The weather has not been too bad.  We had a couple of days of rain, but it did not dampen the fun.  It has been quite cool at night.  At least one night got down to 32 degrees!  Fortunately, we are cozy in our bus.

Now, for the highlight of the trip so far:  last night we went to see Mickey Gilley.  It was a wonderful show!!!  He had a terrible fall in 2009 and was paralyzed.   He has recovered quite a bit of his mobility.  His voice remains strong, but his hands are quite deformed and he is no longer able to play the piano.   He puts on a very unique show.  He is talks about his career with lots of humor intermixed with wonderful singing.  He has to do part of the show in a chair, but you really don’t notice it.  We had seats in the fourth row (center) and could see his wonderful expressions.  He seems to really enjoy entertaining the audience.  He made sure that he sang all of his 17 number one hits. 

Tomorrow we will say goodby to the group and head to Nevada, MO for some genealogy activity and I will get to see what is supposed to be a wonderful IHC truck collection.

That is all for now.

Hello from Branson, MO

Thursday afternoon   October 4, 2012   (Second travelogue of this trip).

Monday we drove a  bit under 400 miles and stayed at a Wal Mart in Iola, KS  Our route took us to Salina, KS and then south on I 135 to just north of Wichita where we turned east and took US 54.  US 54 is a nice road and took us through some rolling hills and great farm land.  In spite of the drought this year, the grass and hay was green.  We could see that the crops had suffered.

On the drive, we hit several small rain storms.  Not a lot of rain – just enough to mess up the bus and car.

Our drive from Iola took us through the towns of Nevada and El Dorado Springs, MO.  Those towns are significant in that they are locations where some of Pat’s relatives (several generations removed) are buried.  We will return to the area after the rally and before we head to Iowa.

Tuesday, we arrived in Branson in the early afternoon.  I gave the bus and car a quick wash and we got settled in.  The rally started yesterday and will go for seven days.

That is all of now

Hello from Colby, KS

Sunday evening   September 30, 2012   (First travelogue of this trip).

We are on our last trip of the year in the bus.  We are headed to Branson, MO for the Eagle Bus Rally and then to Iowa to hang out with the relatives.

We really had to scramble to get ready for this trip.  I had quite a few things going on this week, we had a few family things and then Pat went to the Women of Faith event (her birthday gift from the girls).  In addition, Pat had quite a bit of Stampin’Up! things going on.  I had some bus projects that needed to get done.  As a result, we did quite a bit of last minute packing of the bus – something we try to avoid on departure day.  That said, we were able to leave about 11:00 AM and drove a bit over 250 miles.  We needed to get settled in so that we can watch the races tonight.

We are at the Wal Mart in Colby, KS (map).

We are getting pretty good mileage on the bus.  Right now, I show over 10 MPG on this trip.  That is a bit optimistic as I need to put a fuel correction in the computer, but it is well over 9 MPG actual.  We are pulling a much lighter vehicle (PT Cruiser on a tow dolly vs our service truck that weighed over 9K pounds).  The weather on our route was great and we did not need to run the air conditioner and that helps.  Plus, I have slowed down from 68 to 66 MPH.  That does not sound like much, but it can have a significant impact since the wind drag on our big barn door is a square function of the speed.

That is all for now.

Hello from Chugwater, WY

Sunday Evening   September 16, 2012   (Second travelogue of this trip).

We are back in Chugwater, WY (map).  We left Gillette this morning and made the short trip down here today.  It turns out that Chugwater is about half way between Gillette and Evergreen and is a nice stop as we have mentioned in other blogs.  Tonight we made it in time to have Chugwater Chili at the fun little store on main street.  When we came through last Sunday, they closed before we got to the store.

The rally was interesting.  I did not get my inventory until the second day of the rally and then it was not all that extensive.  Indeed, we missed two $1295 sales because we did not have the product.  The rally itself was pretty small. We were told that it was about 360 coaches.  The other problem is that several vendors skipped this rally in favor of a rally in Missouri.  We heard that some attendees left early. 

We were pretty busy in the booth.  Folks like to talk about the product and had good questions.  My seminar went well and Pat’s went very well.  She got several great compliments and the ladies seemed to have a very good time.  She got a couple of nice orders and that is always a plus.

Gillette is an interesting place.  They have a huge amount natural resources (oil, natural gas, and coal).  We are told that the economy for the area is very good.  Just across from where we parked, there was a great display of mining equipment that included a drag bucket that was as tall as the bus and an ore truck that was much bigger than the bus.  I would have liked to spend more time, but we needed to leave the facilities by noon (we left closer to 1:00, but they did not call the cops {grin}).

It will be interesting to see if SilverLeaf will ask us to do other rallies.  We hope so as it is fun to do a rally where you don’t have to worry about paying the bills.

That is all for now.

Hello from Gillette, WY

Tuesday Evening   September 11, 2012   (First travelogue of this trip).

We are at the Cam-Plex multi-event facility (map) attending an FMCA area rally, representing SilverLeaf electronics (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/).   When we were doing trade shows, we often represented SilverLeaf by purchasing a double booth as shows where they did not attend.   Over the years we got to know the owner of the company very well.  He is a genius at developing electronic equipment for the RV industry and is a wonderful person to work with. 

In the past, we paid the cost of the booth.  After we closed the business, Martin and I talked about our continuing to represent his company.  We reached an agreement where SilverLeaf would pay our costs and offered a commission on sales over an agreed upon amount.  We probably will not get the income, but we have the benefit of attending a trade show where we don’t have to worry about how to pay the bills.

We have always enjoyed being vendors at trade shows.  It is fun to interact with the attendees.  You also develop a strong friendship with many of the vendors.  Even though this is a small rally, we have at least one vendor that we are glad to see.

The Cam-Plex is a great facility.  Indeed, the International FMCA rally will be held here next year.  A rally of that size demands top notch facilities.  We did a Fleetwood rally here a couple of years ago and noted then how wonderful the facilities were.

At this rally, I will do a SilverLeaf seminar and Pat will do a rubber stamped greeting card seminar.

The trip here is a bit under 400 miles.  While we could drive that in a day, we try to keep the driving to a more pleasurable number.  As has been the case in the past we stopped in Chugwater, WY.  We have talked about this little town in previous blogs.  Years ago when we belonged to a membership ranch, the ranch outside of Wheatland, WY,  they would pick us up in an Eagle bus (a model perhaps 15 years older than ours) and we would stop in Chugwater to pick up meat for the meals.  There was a great meat market there at the time.  Today Chugwater is a mere shadow of the town we used to know.  It is still fun to park on Main Street and see all the old buildings.  Most are no longer used, but there is something about this little town that makes us feel comfortable. 

That is all for now.