Our next big adventure - West Coast

I've seen many pods on the road, and have spoken to several people about coming to the forum.  Even spoke to a newbie couple in the RV section at a Wal-Mart who had many questions.  Even though they don't have a pod I suggested they pop in here for future help.  We saw a pod knockoff by Palomino yesterday, didn't get a pic.

Saw the Sequoias, didn't like that experience much with too many others around, but we were in awe of the size of the trees.  Ditto on Yosemite, we even had to skip the valley tour because traffic wasn't moving at all so we drove along the ridge road instead.  We'll need to get back to both on the off-season in future years.  We loved Jedediah Smith Campground and the Redwoods.  Completely different feel to the parks (state and national) compared to Sequia.  Minor snafu at Jedediah, the campground was full and they put us on a site that even with my skilz I could not get our camper into.  Luckily I could shoehorn it along the road in front of our campsite for the night.  The 2nd night I was able to move us to a non-reservable site that I could maneuver into although I couldn't park the truck there, still too small for both.  On to Crater Lake after that, we loved that park.

One highlight of the trip was stopping in Portland for a few hours to meet and chat with Bob and Sue (Camper Bob) and their son Russ, and get treated to the first home-cooked meal we had since leaving home.  Smoked ribs and potato salad, plus home baked pie and premium ice cream.  YUM!  I think we talked our heads off too much after almost 3 weeks stuck together in the car and camper, and Bob and Sue were our victims, so sorry!    Thanks a bunch for the hospitality.

In Seattle we did the Boeing tour which was cool, and had a late lunch in the Space Needle (worth the bucks).  Next up was Glacier Park, so sad to read that the glaciers will all be gone by 2020 after 7000 years in their current form - but this is why it was a must-see for all of us on this tour.  Today we did the Painted Canyon/Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Enchanted Highway, currently camped in a full-hookup grass lot at the end of the Highway in Regent ND.

Another highlight today was crossing into North Dakota.  I have now officially been in all 48 CONUS states!  The rest of the family can make that claim when we enter Michigan in a few days.  Oh, and we finished finding all 50 US license plates while in Glacier Park.  We've seen 2/3 of the Canadian Provinces, too.

We've had a few hiccups.  The truck mysteriously died while seeing the Sequoias.  I wasn't towing at the time and had no other problems before or since, but it just simply died.  Started right back up.  Don't know if it was vapor lock since we were at 6000 feet (rare in modern cars), or something else.  Bent one of the stabilizers on a stump at the campground at Crater Lake, but I plan on taking them all off after this trip.  We ran out of gas yesterday in the barrens of Montana.  Reminded me of west Texas.  Looked for a gas station for 150 miles and came within 10 minutes of the next town and sucked the tank dry.  I was beginning to move gas from my generator into the truck to limp into town (praying they had an *open* gas station) when a generous lady, Anne, stopped and offered to take me into town.  I have an emergency gas can for this contingency so I grabbed it and off we went (after helping her chase down her cat that escaped her car as I got in).  I was even following my "fill up at half a tank west of the Mississippi" rule.  Final issue is I have a dragging rear brake on the truck so we need to find a shop that can hopefully fix it quickly tomorrow.  Probably will suck it up and find the next Chevy dealer since they'll have all of the parts on-hand but I know it won't be cheap.  Gotta get it done, I hear it grinding at every stop and that tire is always running at a higher psi from the additional heat.

All that said we are having fun and I can't believe it will all be over on Saturday.  Not just this trip but the 4-summer quest to see all of the US.  Next year will be a cruise and then I'm thinking we'll have to start some exploring north of the border.  

Over 8500 miles, a little over 200 hours with the engine running.  Overall mpg was 7.7.  Being in the Rockies for so much of the trip hurt that number.  I tried two different tunes and found the more economical one (with little difference in power between the two up where the air is thin), and ultimately the octane of the gas in the tank determined available power going up the big hills.

I have a long list of things to fix and mod now!