Roger Engdahl and Susan Green

Nehalem Bay State Park, 8/17 – 8/30/2015

We made the long drive (35 miles) from Netarts Bay north up to Nehalem Bay State Park. This park is right on the ocean (a dune between the campground and the beach) and has 307 campsites, a large horse camp, a small airport and airport camping and many miles of ocean beach. Nehalem Bay is where the Nehalem River flows into the ocean. There is fresh water fishing in that part of the bay.

Right near the park is the small town of Manzanita and the smaller town of Nehalem and the even smaller area called Neahkahnie. My sister, Judy, and her husband, Bruce, own a quarter share of a beach house in Neahkahnie. They are here now while we are at the State Park and their son Eric’s family (Cyndi, Victoria and Hunter) are with them through this weekend.

At the beach house it is a lot of interaction with mobile devices.

I did manage to get Hunter and Bruce to fly kites.

The campsites are reasonbly well spaced and have trees. Our site has shade almost all day long.

The beach is just over the dune on a path that starts out in the trees, climbs over the dune and then out on to the beach.

The beach here is several miles long and very wide and flat. Even with the dune between us and the surf we can hear it all night long. Nice.

Judy and Bruce’s place is up towards the far end of the beach in Neahkahnie. They are one street up from the beach and have a great view.

The other end is a long way away.

We walked almost to their place along the beach and back one day. That was a 14,000 step day. The next day we walked out from the State Park and into Manzanita and then to their place all along the bike route so we knew where that went. That was a 15,000 step day.

We saw deer along the way on a watered lawn. They seem completely unconcerned with people.

We had a campfire and a weenie roast the day before the state wide burning ban went into effect. I baked home made hot dog buns as an experiment. They were good.

More to do, more to come, Later.

Roger and Susan

Netarts Bay, OR 8/15-8/17/2015

“Saturday morning. The sun is out. Off to the Farmer’s Market in Tillamook. It was about half farm stuff and the rest craft things. I got a nice wood block printed T-Shirt. I just don’t have enough of them. And corn and beans and tomatoes and blue berries and black berries and peaches, oh my! It was a whole block of near downtown Tillamook both sides of the street. There was music and ready to eat hot food too.

Just up Hwy 101 there was an old time power show. So we stopped there as well. Lots of old cars and trucks. But the stars of the show were old stationary gasoline engines from the late 1800s and early 1900s and lots of old tractors from the first half of the 1900s.

This was a fire department water truck.

And a 1939 John Deere. Looks just like the one in a Foyle’s War episode.

And a spectacular 1951 Dodge Power Wagon with front and rear engine driven winches. Very brutish looking.

And many single cylinder stationary gasoline engines. The box on the top with the hole in it held water for cooling. A governor would limit the speed by only allowing the engine to fire about once every 15 revolutions. As it started to slow down the governor would allow the intake valve to open and the engine would fire, “chug” and the the flywheel would keep spinning, and what ever it was hooked to kept working. Water pumps were very common. A gallon of gasoline would last almost two days of continuous use.

You can see and hear one of these engines run on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nV4yDOc3TA

Here is a gasoline engine driven Maytag washer. There were many of the engines for these around but just this one functional washing machine.

And a Minneapolis Moline tractor.

Then we drove up the coast a bit to Garibaldi where we had a very nice lunch of local fresh caught fish. This is a working harbor with lots of fishing boats. They seem to mostly favor very large outboards. Getting out of the harbor and through the surf looks challenging.

This 26′ boat had two 350 hp outboards. There was another of similar size with two 400 hp engines.

Sunday we went to the beach. It felt good to be on the beach. The ocean is beautiful here, bright blue sky, white clouds and very green hillsides behind us.

Our beach chairs worked well. We brought a lunch and enjoyed a day doing not much else.

Tomorrow we move about an hour north to Nehlem Bay State Park.

More later,

Roger and Susan

Netarts Bay, OR, 8/13-8/14/2015

Netarts Bay is about 30 miles south of Nehalem Bay, down US 101. This is a very windy narrow road, lots of hills and some of the worst pavement, dips, bumps and uneven roadway that we have seen. I am glad that we aren’t going very far on it and at the same time sorry to see it in such tough shape.

Netarts Bay is about 6 miles from Tillamook (where they make cheese). There are lots of bays along this section of coastline. It is a rugged part of the coast. On the other side of the bay towards the ocean are almost mountains.

Its Oregon, its the coast, its summer, its cloudy and its rainy. Actually better than the 90s and 100s we have seen over the last couple weeks. Netarts Bay is famous for crabs and clams and oysters. The tide was out as were the clam diggers.

We thought Pheasant Ridge was a bit tight but this is even closer, but that is OK. We are here and there is lots to do in this area.

The guy across from us spent an hour moving in and out, a little to the right, a little more to the right trying to find just the right spot and when he was all done he still couldn’t get one of his slides all the way out. And then he was putting down wooden blocks and trying to level his coach on hydraulic jacks. It made me pretty happy to have a computer controlled air bag leveling system on our Foretravel. Push one button and the coach levels itself.

This morning (Friday) it was seriously misting so we went off in search of indoor things to do.

First stop the Tillamook Cheese plant for a tour, samples and what ever else there was to see and learn. Everyone else had the same idea. It was packed. Tillamook County has quite a bit of flat land along the Tillamook River where there are many dairy farms from as far back as the mid 1800s. Cheese has been made here for a very long time. The Tillamook Cheese brand is actually a co-op owned by the farmers and workers. 1.76 million pounds of milk come to the dairy every day. Every day they turn out about 176,000 pounds of cheese, mass quantities of cheese. And yogurt and ice cream too. On average cows produce 70 pounds of milk a day (isn’t that amazing!). So that is the milk from more than 25,000 cows getting milked twice a day.

This is not a very good picture. Shot at an angle through glass, it is not focused well and the color came out odd. They were packaging one pound bricks of cheddar cheese. The cheese is made in enormous closed vats that each turn 60,000 lbs of milk into 6,000 lb of cheddar cheese three times a day. The new cheddar cheese is pressed and cut into 42 pound blocks that are wrapped and sealed in plastic and sent off for aging. In the picture above the 42 pound blocks are cut into 1 pound bricks. All the scraps go into making shredded cheese. The bricks are weighed, wrapped, sealed, boxed, the boxes go into bigger boxes. Those go into cases and then back into refrigeration for shipping.

They make many other types of cheese as well but most of it is cheddar.

You can visit the creamery and see cheese being made. On this rainy day it was very busy. The line for free cheese samples was long. There were two places serving ice cream (not free), lines even longer. They were the biggest two scoop cones I have ever seen for about $3. Most folks got it in a bowl, about a pint.

And there was a gift shop where you could buy cheese of course and all sorts of cheese, Oregon coast and Tillamook related things.

And a cafe for breakfast or lunch. The line was long but moving steadily. It was still raining. So we had lunch there.

We had to laugh. The menu was almost all things with cheese.

Cheese curds, tatter tots with cheese, mac and cheese, grilled cheese, cheese burgers, cheese soup. Oh ya, it was a cheese factory.

Lunch was big and tasty.

Next stop was the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center. This is a local center that promotes quilting and textile craft. There ware many items on display and for sale as well as supplies. It was in the old Maple Leaf school house that was built in 1892 and used until 1958.

One big room had many folks working on quilts and other projects. Lots of chatter too. One lady was spinning yarn. There were quilts on display, some for sale and drawers of things that had been collected over time. One drawer had items from one lady’s sewing basket from the late 1800s.

Another room had a display of baskets made by a local person. Some were woven from grasses, some from bark, some from very thin pieces of wood, all very nice.

The third room was full of looms. There were two of particular interest, a beautiful walnut 60″ wide loom and a very warm cherry 48″ wide one. I have always thought that a loom would be a nice woodworking project. Where to put it ???

There was a driving tour of barn quilts. We followed the map and saw several, missed a few. There were barn quilts on many buildings in Tillamook. Interesting to see the different designs. We keep talking about doing one for the shop and the barn at home.

Then we went to the Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum. During WWII the Navy built giant hangers for bilmps that patrolled the coastl waters looking for submarines. They built 48 of these around the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coast lines. Two were in Tillamook to cover the coast from southern BC down to northern CA.

Cloudy and misty as you can see. These monster buildings we 192 feet tall, 296 ft wide and 1076 ft long. A modern day Nimitz class aircraft carrier would fit inside. During WWII they stored 7-9 blimps inside each hanger.

There were amazing. The giant arches that support the roof were made of wood with concrete bases. All of the wood for all of the arches for all 48 hangers came from Oregon and Washington. The arches were built flat on the ground. Two side sections and one center section were raised up by big cranes and the sections were bolted together. The first one was built in the spring mud and rain. The second one, Hanger B, was built later when the weather was better and was completed in just 27 working days.

There were about 20 aircraft inside the hanger including an F14 Tomcat. Outside there was a Boeing Super Guppy. They were made from B29 bombers left over from WWII the giant bodies were retrofitted to much of the existing structure. They were originally used to carry many of the parts from the early space program and later for large cargo.

Both ends were hinged and could be opened to load the cargo.

The smaller round section in the front is the front end of the original B29. Modern cargo planes, the 747s, the C5A and two Russian behemoths are much bigger than this.

It was a good day to see all of this. Tomorrow the sun comes out.

More later,

Roger and Susan

Portland OR, 8/10 – 8/13/2015

We stopped by Portland near my sister’s home at the Pheasant Ridge RV Resort in Wilsonville. It is a pretty nice place, a little tight but for an in-town RV place just fine.

There were 132 spaces all on a hill side site.

There was a Target nearby as well as a Fred Meyer (sort of like an upscale WalMart, not quite a Target) and a Home Depot not too far away. Traffic was shocking. Non-rush hour time from downtown to Wilsonville is about 25 minutes. Rush hour starts very early and last untill 9:30 and then again by 2 until at least 7. Rush hour time then is about 90 minutes. So we managed to get to Judy’s in the off times.

We went there for supper on Wednesday. Thursday we went over just after rush hour and then headed for the Zoo. We wanted to see the new Elephant Habitat. It is not quite done yet, fully opening in Nov. 2015. About 1/3 of it is open now for the seven elephants there. The remaining sections have a valley that the elephants can walk through, a river and a pool for them to do elephant things, a building that they can go into that will have seating for visitiors, a health care facility and more. Near the entrance to the main building there will be a stone bench in my nephew Eric’s memory. It will be in a nice place where people will want to pause.

When we were in Santa Fe we were seriously looking at kinetic sculptures. We always do. But we never buy. This one was really pretty cool, a large moving sculpture that flew in 3D.

There was also a Zoo Train that took riders on a short trip. Looked like it was right out of Disneyland of the 60s.

And then for dinner we went to The Country Cat on the east side of Portland (took an hour to get there). It was featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”. They are famous for their grilled foods and for their cast iron skillet fried chicken. Since it was my Dad’s Birthday and his favorite birthday dinner was fried chicken that is what Bruce and I had. I haven’t had real pan fried chicken like that since my Grandmother made it, and no wonder, it was fried in lard after being brined and then soaked overnight in buttermilk and then dredged in a flour mixture. Wonderful. Great mashed potatoes with a sausage gravey and bacon braised collard greens. I also had a very nice vegetable soup in a ham hock broth withwheat berries. Susan had a very tasty crispy fried Pacific snapper with a fennel slaw and parsley rice. Judy had a “Potted Judy” cheese with crackers and raddish leaf raviolli and wild mushrooms tossed in hazelnut browned butter served over English peas and baby turnips. And there was dessert …

A very nice visit for a couple days. We are off to Netart’s bay on the coast for four nights and then back up to Nehalem Bay State Park until the end of the month. Judy and Bruce have a beach house (well a quarter share of it) about a mile away. They are going out on Friday for two weeks. Eric’s family will be there for a week as well. It should be a good time.

More later,

Roger and Susan

Still on The Oregon Trail, 8/9-8/11/2015

Well I thought I should mention that Susan deserves great credit for her patience at St Anthony. There wasn’t too much to do there if you weren’t out riding on the dunes. She did go out a couple of times. The going straight up the dune when you couldn’t see over the top and the turning across the face of the dune when the Jeep was tilted (especially to her side) about 45° was not included in the definition of the sissy ride she wanted to go on.

She read, she started a jig saw puzzle and she baked cookies and kept on smiling.

We left the dunes on the 9th and had two long (7-8 hours) driving days ahead of us.

The first day we headed south from St Anthony and then across the bottom of Idaho towards Oregon. We followed the Snake River in much the same way Lewis and Clark had done and then later folks heading west on the Oregon Trail.

There were places where it was quite flat and the Snake river pretty placid. Other places where the river twisted its way through narrow gorges. The Oregon trail followed the river. Some places it was tough going, many places had not much water for the animals or it was bad water, not much for them to graze on either. It must have been hot, dusty and difficult for everyone and all of the animals.

Just across the border into Oregon they had a trecherous crossing of the Snake River at Farewell Bend where they came up on the bluffs and left the river for a long trek through the low mountains north to the Columbia River. Today there is a State Park at Farewell Bend.

They were watering in the park but everywhere around the park was parched dry. Grassland fires were burning in Washington and the air was very hazy and smoky smelling.

Our campsite looked out over the river. The big green island in the middle is normally not seen. The river was about 30 ft below its normal high water mark.

Look closely at the vertical pilings that hold the docks in place. The top of the white part of the poles marks the normal high water level. It is very dry out here.

The next day we headed north through some very big hills or small mountains on our way to the Columbia River, the same way the wagon trains went.

There was a lot of road construction. During one slow down we were following this truck with very shiny rear doors. Pretty interesting view of our coach.

We didn’t actually start to see trees until we were quite a way down the Columbia River and then it was a pretty amazing drive. We were heading to Ainsworth State Park, only an hour east of Portland. The air was still smokey.

Looking across the river towards Washington the burned hillsides tell the story of where the smoke came from.

We got to Ainsworth State Park late in the afternoon, another long day of driving, about 6 – 7 hours. It is not hard driving the coach and Susan drove a couple hours but we rarely drive that long. It is a long way to the Pacific from Minnesota and there are some vast distances to cover.

Sorry no pictures from Ainsworth. We try but sometimes forget. It is a small campground off old US 30. It has very narrow roads and is on a fairly steep hillside. Our spot was a pull througn, one of about 15 way up at the top. That made it easy, didn’t even have to disconnect the Jeep. It was in the 90’s that day and by 10 PM it was still in the 80’s. We had the AC in the coach on earlier so it was cooler inside but still a warm night.

In the morning we are heading for Pheasant Ridge RV Resort in Wilsonville, OR only 20 minutes from my sisters house. But wait, if there is traffic (they have very, very long rush hours and it is very congested) it is more like an hour. We will be there for two days.

More later,

Roger and Susan

Idaho Sand Dunes at St Anthony, Idaho, 8/3-8/ 9/2015

Our Foretravel friends, Brad and Phyllis from Virginia, have been telling us about this place since we met them last winter in Parker, AZ. Well mostly Brad, for an old guy (78) he likes to play. It was very close to our way to Oregon so we planned a few days to visit and play in the St Anthony Sand Dunes. This 35 mile x 5 mile area is sand deposited from white quartz sand that made up the bottoms of two giant lakes more than 10,000 years ago. As the climate warmed and the lakes shrank the wind has blown this sand and sand from the river basins of the Snake and Teton Rivers eastward to form the St Anthiny Sand Dunes.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages this area and has a campground at Egin Lakes near St Anthony. This campground is very nice with 50 amp electrical hookups, covered concrete pads, water and a dump station. The Egin Lakes are a chain of fairly large lakes that hold water for irrigation. Every day we could see the lake levels rise and fall more than a foot as water was added or removed. They are only about 3 ft deep in the middle so they are a great family recreation resource too. There is access to the dunes here for off highway vehicles of every type. There were jeeps, motocycles, ATVs, side by side and four seat ATVs and sand rails (custom built high powered sand machines. The park has two former Army Hummers which were quite capable. We also saw many people on horseback.

The sand dunes are up to 600 ft high. The wind blows from many different directions which changes the shape and slopes of the dunes. It also scours huge bowls swirling round and round throwing sand up and over the edges. The biggest of these is Deadhorse Bowl, more than 400 ft deep and 1/3 of a mile across.

Brad saved us a spot right next to him. The sites backed up to a wooded area. There are moose in there, I didn’t see any but Brad said he saw two.

The first time out in the dunes I just rode along with Brad. His 4 seat Can-Am Maverick has lots of power and paddle tires in the back for sand. It really goes.

Barney always likes to ride along.

The dunes are very big and steep. Hard to get the scale across.

We met these nice folks from Colorado. The guy in the red hat really knew his way around the dunes so it was just fun following him. We were out for more than two hours, pretty much non-stop roller coaster of our own making. Way, way fun!

Barney is such a nice dog.

Here are some video clips I posted on youtube. Pretty neat. Never done these before. One was from our dash cam and the others are just hand held iPhone video. I’d have more but the internet speed has been unfriendly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mX1IuFUTcz4

https://youtu.be/Va7ZcwQoNgU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BqcmSCvk4kA

We ran into a gang of sand rails, mostly guys our age having loads of fun.

This one was a big V8 with stuff on it I don’t know how to spell. It sounded like a drag racer and flew off across the sand like one. These guys were lots of fun to talk to. They would tell you about their thises and thats. Gear heads. Honda, Subaru, VW, Chevy and Ford , 4, 6 and 8 cyl engines, 4 to 8 speed manual transmissions, some had the engines oriented front to back, others back end in front, they used symetric transaxles to change the direction of rotation of the drive wheels to be correct no matter how the engine was oriented.

Standing start right up a 45° face of a dune, 400 ft high and right over the top and down a slope almost as steep. Power, traction, momentum, a healthy respect for the sand and about 50% crazy is all it takes, well lots of money too.

There is the Jeep with Brad’s 4 seat Maverick.

So that’s about it from the dunes. Next we are off to the Snake River in Idaho and the Columbia River in Oregon.

More later.

Roger and Susan

Summer and Fall, 2015. Following Lewis and Clark

We departed Hastings on Wednesday July 29th, 2015 for a trip out west.

Our general plan is to go through North Dakota so that we can see Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Then through Montana over the top and down the west side of Yellowstone National Park to St Anthony, ID where there are huge sand dunes to meet up with other Foretrvel friends. Then through ID and up the Snake River to the Columbia River and west to Portland for a couple of days. Then out to the Oregon coast for about three weeks. My sister, Judy and her husband, Bruce have a beach house only a mile or so from where we will be on the coast. They will be there most of the time we are there. Fun!

And then down to Crater Lake National Park for a day or two and then back to Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone National Park where we will be for two weeks. Then we will wander towards home stopping at Devil’s Tower in WY and the Buffalo Roundup at Custer State Park in SD. We will be in Hastings for about a week to pick apples and then off again to Indiana to a big Foretravel event and back via Michigan’s UP. Home by the end of October.

Wednesday morning, July 28, 2015. The wagon is loaded, horses hitched, trailer connected and we are ready to hit the trail. Most of the way through North Dakota and Montana we are following the trail of Lewis and Clark. Neither of us can ever remember being in ND before but I must have as a youngster on a family trip to Glacier National Park.

We are ready to go.

Heading West

From Hastings, the only way NW is all around the Twin Cities to I94. That takes more than an hour. As we approached Rogers, MN traffic slowed and then came to a stop. A sign proclaimed a roadway incident ahead, expect delays. So it was stop and the a very little go and stop for about thirty miles which took more than two hours. It was a section of pavement that failed. Lots of construction folk standing around looking at a hole. These are always patience testing events but there was no good way around and nothing to do but work through it. Good thing we didn’t have any hard itinerary to meet.

We got to Fargo, bought fuel because it was cheaper and headed to the State Fairgrounds campground. Nothing very fancy but for overnight just fine. We met some folks there who were staying for the summer. Not sure why but for $420 they got a shady spot with a paved parking pad, electricity, water and sewer connection. Very inexpensive. They spent the winter in TX.

To be honest we were dreading the drive across North Dakota. We expected it to be worse than SD which was sooo boring. But we were surprised. There is quite a variety of things to look at. The terrain varies. Not boring at all.

There miles of sun flowere. Nice. We got to Mandan and then started following the Lewis and Clark Trail. It follows the Misouri River westward and later in Montana picks up the Yellowstone River.

We got to Medora, ND only 25 miles from the Montana state line. We stayed at the Red Trails Campground. On the way there we saw John and Kathy Juelfs heading east in their 2003 Foretravel. They had just been at the same campground for three days. Their coach has teal and cream colors and we remember it from last January when we were in Nacogdoches. They were there shopping for a FT and we (and others) spent quite a bit of time answering questions. They bought it while we were there.

Medora is a very small town with lots of history. And it is the entry to the southern part of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Virtually everything in this town is devoted to tourism. We wandered through town and checked out all of the shops, eating places, threaters, museums and everything else. They have a big musical theater production about the history of Medora. There is a theater that has a play every day about Teddy Roosevelt. There is an all you can eat buffet sort of place. A place that serves steaks skewered on a pitch fork and deep fried. I hope they cleaned the pitch fork. We had supper at a small local place called the Cowboy Cafe. Susan had Chicken Fried Steak, apparently a standard menu offering almost everywhere but Minnesota. She won’t be ordering that again.

The next morning we got up and drove to the TRNP visitor’s center for a map and some history. TR came to this area hunting in the 1880’s. After his wife and mother died on the same day in about 1884 he moved back here to immerse himself in a ranch life, one of hard work and character building. He lived near Medora for a year and then moved 70 miles north to his Elkhorn Ranch. Some very severe winters and bad luck left his ranching invetments in shambles, the lessons he learned here, the people and their devotion to the land and honesty and upright character of the people formed the foundation for his future role in the US especially the formation of the National Parks. This park is dedicated to his legacy.

The TRNP is surrounded by the Little Missouri National Grassland. It is a huge are of original prairie grass land. Where the Little Missouri river has cut through it has that SD badlands look.

We drove on into the park stopping at a couple of overlooks heading for the campground to check it out. We didn’t quite make it. At one stop the Jeep wouldn’t start. Turn the key, nothing. Tried jumping it but the battery was OK. So we got a tow back to the campground and made arrangements for a service stop in Bozeman at the Jeep dealer. We got there Sunday evening and dropped the Jeep off in front of the service entrance, went to get fuel (everywhere west of here diesel was close to or over $3/gal) and then back for an overnight at the Jeep dealer.

The Jeep was done about noon. Our next stop is St Anthony ID where there are huge sand dunes, places to play. Our frienda Brad and Phyllis Metzger are there along with Barney the wonder dog. We met then in Parker AZ last winter.

More later,

Roger and Susan.

Hastings, A Mini Foretravel Event, 7/21- 7/29/2015

We were scurrying around trying to get last minute projects done at home and on the coach for our late July departure for “out west.” Our Foretravel (FT) friends Amanda and Douglas who we met this winter called and said they were going to be our way and wanted to stop by. We knew they were going to try to get here this summer so here they came. They were arriving on the 21st. Then more FT friends Rudy and Carolyn called. They were going to be in Iowa at some event and wondered if they could stop by. They were here last summer too. Of course! They were arriving on the 25th.

So for a 7 days we had a mini get together, three Foretavels and great friends.

Our coach is around the other side of the shop.

Rudy and Carolyn on the left, Amanda and Douglas on the right. They are all full timers, living all year round in their coaches. Rudy and Carolyn have a home base near Houston, TX. Amanda and Douglas near Austin, TX.

We ate well. S’mores several evenings cooked on our gas fire ring.. Rudy had never had them. He ate several. Actually, we all did.

We ate at the American Legion. Always tasty.

There was a Car Show in Downtown Hastings that Saturday night. So we went.

A clown car from Italy, two cylinder motor, think we would fit? Maybe Rudy.

Lots of restored WWII trucks. And 1940’s ladies. They were cute.

And a big V12 diesel hot rod.

And a 1937 camper, very nice.

And more treats.

One evening we went up to Schaar’s Bluff for an evening stroll. It was beautiful up there looking out over the river as the sun was setting.

And we helped each other out with coach projects. I helped Rudy put on his air deflector.

Just like mine. It doesn’t look like much but it helps keep dust and rain away from the air inlet. I had an air leak in an air regulator under the front end. We took it off, cleaned it, reinstalled it and no leak. Amanda very carefully washed their coach. Rudy showed them how to use WashWaxAll (a cleaning, polishing, waxing product) to shine everything up. I helped Rudy tidy up his incoming water manifold and install a new water filter and showed him a 3M dry silicon spray that made his windows much easier to open and close.

Just like on-line, there is a never ending exchange of ideas and help when we need it. It is a great community of people most of whom we have never met and many really nice ones we have.

And then every one was on their way. Amanda and Douglas to Madison WI and Rudy and Carolyn to Davenport, IA and Susan and I off to North Dakota.

So for an unplanned, unscheduled impromptu get together we had a great time. Those kind always seem to be the best.

Next, we depart following Lewis and Clark’s trail to the west coast.

Roger and Susan

Coach Service at Cummins, July, 2015

I took the coach up to Cummins in Shoreview at the end of June for regular maintenance, oil and filters and a transmission service and to have them check a few other things.

This is an exerpt of what I posted on the Foretravel Owners Forum. This is a story that could have turned out much worse than it did.

Last fall we had out coach serviced at Cummins. They did all the normal coach service including checking the air filter. It was OK. A couple trips after service and then in the barn for the early part of the winter. Early January had us heading to Houston to visit Rudy and then to NAC for work at Xtreme. Three weeks there and a few more days in NAC and then west to Arizona and New Mexico. We were on the road for four months.

Somewhere along the way we got a significant amount of water into the air intake, down the snorkel and into the air filter canister where the air filter got wet.

In four months we only drove in the rain one day, from Prescott to Parker, AZ on Feb 28. There was a really big storm, lots of rain and wind heading south from Prescott, same heading west towards Parker. The other way, north, west and then south had lots of snow, 20″ at the Grand Canyon.

Well, the result of this was that the wet air filter failed and air filtration to the engine was compromised. After leaving Parker we went to the Grand Canyon. I noticed for the first time ever that there was some oil spatter on the Jeep and the back end of the coach. There was oil coming out of the breather tube hanging down on the right side of the Engine. I checked on the Forum, no hints about checking the air filter. No reason for me to check it but even if I had I think the damage had been done.

Another two thousand miles before we got home. No performance or mileage issues. I did have to add some oil. This concerned me because the coach has never used any oil at all.

The verdict at Cummins was abnormal engine wear.

So they started tearing the engine down to see how far the damage extended. Turbo, charge air cooler (CAC, this is after the turbocharger and cools the high pressure air going into the engine), valves, cam, head, pistons, cylinder sleeves, crank shaft bearings and air compressor all had some damage. Cummins recommended a high level in-frame overhaul. That means they could do the work without removing the engine. I said do it.

The Service Manager at Cummins suggested I check with my insurance company since the damage was caused by rain and water intrusion which caused the air filter to fail and all of the collateral damage. Good suggestion.

My insurance company agreed after seeing weather reports from that area on that date and the damage reports and pictures from Cummins. Comprehensive covered it as flood damage, minus my deductible. And the oil change, coolant change and transmission service were required as part of the rebuild.

So it took Cummins about three weeks to get the parts and do the work. They even replaced the engine computer (ECM) because it had water damage and was intermittently misbehaving and the fuel pump. They reused the block, the valve cover, the oil pan and the crank shaft and the injectors. Pretty much everything else is new. They ran it on their break in program on the dynomometer (about 30 min). Steam cleaned everything and painted it to look like new.

I picked it up about 10 days before we were leaving on this current trip. The ECM reported to the VMSpc 0.9 hours and 2.7 miles. 35 miles to home, 9.5 mpg on an esentially brand new motor. Amazing.

So my out of pocket will be my deductable, about what I would have paid for the service anyway. I bought a spare air filter and I will check the installed one frequently, especially after rain. I got a deflector for the air intake from John Haygarth. I had several chats with the engine tech, Arvie, who has more than 30 years with Cummins. He was very deliberate about this job, he was the only one who worked on it. He saved every part to show me the wear. He was very careful inside the coach. Susan says it was very clean, even the outside of the coach. He commented every time I talked to him that the Foretravel engine access was great to work on. He showed me a couple other coaches that were not. He was especially impressed with how nice the coach looked after 15 years. They just don’t see that level of care, pride of ownership and quality on other brands.

The bottom line is check your air filter more often than you are doing now especially after a rain event or a wash down. Get an air deflector. Reports are that they extend air filter life. And make sure your insurance coverage is adequate for catastrophic events.

More than 40 forum members reported that they went out to check and then changed their air filters. At last count more than 25 had ordered John Haygarth’s air deflector. One of the great things about the forum is that we share our successes and our difficulties. This problem has not happened to any other FT owner that we know of. It really was an extraordinary event. If folks are aware, maybe it never will again.

I learned a lot about diesel engines.

Now confidence building starts over with our new engine.

I now have 27.5 hours on the engine. All is working well.

We are in Bozeman today, 8/3, getting the starter replaced on the Jeep. Another something. Better here than 20 miles off road.

Roger

Coach Projects, Waste Bay Redo, Late May, 2015

Third Waste Valve, 2001, U320, 36′ single slide.

This is an excerpt from a ForeForums post I did on this project. The help given and received on this forum is enormously helpful. More than 3,000 owners and interested members make this an extraordinary resource. It is also a great place to meet and make new friends. The project was done over the past couple weeks.

http://www.foreforums.com

This task, replace the interior waste valves and add a third valve. Add a direct fresh water fill.

The extra structure in my 2001 36′ with one slide changes the arrangement of the parts compared to coaches without slides and other model years. The original setup had a single fiberglass panel onto which all of the parts were mounted plus a top piece. The 3″ waste drain pipe comes through at the bottom, the gray and black tank valve handles are mounted in this panel and the service faucet is also mounted in this panel. And there is a 110v outlet, a phone jack and the cable input connection. The lower section of this bay in our coach has a black rubber liner that come up about 5″ on the sides and the fiberglass panel.

Disassembly
I turned off the water to the service faucet and drained as much water out as possible. Disassembly requires peeling the glued-on rubber liner from the fiberglass panel, removing a dozen or so screws and then trying to manipulate the panel with the valve handles and PEX lines to the faucet still attached. The PEX lines need to be disconnected as well as the cable wires from each valve and the cable guide from the valve cable mount. The 110v outlet has to be removed as well as the cable/phone connection. The faucet can be removed from the panel from the outside but the rest of the faucet and the water connections are attached to the panel. mark which cable goes to which valve.

This was not easy, sitting on the ground, bad knees and hips bent like pretzels, arms through impossibly narrow openings doing things you cannot see. It took a while but I got it done. All I could think of was trying to put it back together and then trying to service any of this stuff in the future.

Replacing the main waste valves.
I carefully located where the new third valve was going to go on the waste exit pipe. I marked the location so that when the third valve was installed and a 45° fitting attached the drain hose could be connected and the door closed.

The gray and black tanks were emptied, flushed and emptied again and the coach tipped toward the curb side. Each valve has four bolts that go through the flanges on each side of the valve body and the valve body. They also go through the two halves of the valve cable attachment. (These bolts are a bit longer.) There are two bolts and nuts at the top of the valve cable attachment. Once all of these bolts are off the “h” shaped outer drain pipe assembly can be removed. Clean the flanges carefully. I cut the outlet pipe to the correct length.

Use plumber’s silicone grease on the four cleaned flange faces, one rubber gasket goes on each flange, wipe some silicone grease around the face of each side of the valve blade. Carefully reassemble the valve bodies, cable attachment and the outer “h” section and tighten the bolts. Check the operation of the valves as you go. Some long socket wrench extensions and a universal joint made this easier. Once the cables are ready to go back in the outer cable sleeve fits into the top of the cable attachment and the wire goes into the valve handle. A set screw makes the connection firm. Save the allen wrench.

I wanted to keep the rubber liner, it seems to help keep things tidy. And I wanted this to be easier to reassemble and service if needed in the future. So I sketched up a three piece solution and went to see my neighborhood sheet metal guy. “No problem”, he said.

Reassembly
The Bottom Section (14 ga stainless steel) has the rubber liner and the valve handles attached. With this part installed, the cables are easy to attach to the black and gray tank main valves. I added a few gallons of water to each waste tank, leveled the coach and did a paper towel under each valve for a couple hours drip test. Dry towels.

The Middle Section (14 ga stainless steel) has the 110v outlet and the cable/telephone connection and the connections for the hot and cold PEX lines. This was pretty easy to install. The PEX connections are hand tightened (plus a half turn with a wrench). The electrical outlet is crimped on to the Romex cable and feeds through the hole and is attached with two screws from the front. The phone/cable also feeds through the hole and attaches from the front. Once that was fixed in place I reinstalled the outside part of the service faucet (use silicon grease on the rubber washers). I opened the manifold valves to the faucet, bled out air and ran water through the lines. I left the pump on and did another paper towel under each set of connections behind the panel for a couple hours drip test. Dry towels.

We talked for a while about no faucet, maybe just a set of valves and a spray hose. Lots of appeal there but we use the faucet frequently for some warm soapy water to remove bugs from the front of the coach before they petrify. There are bugs up north here that approach the size of small birds and seem to be made up of mostly green and yellow goo. So we kept the faucet. I repurposed a 50′ 3/8″ air line with hose fittings on each end as a service hose. Very compact on an extension cord reel. easy to get all around the coach as needed.

Then I fit in the Upper Section (also 14 ga stainless steel) and finished attaching it. A bit of silicon seal went here and there. The light was attached to the top panel. I didn’t even know there was one there until I started taking things apart. I moved it to the side wall and used an LED bulb.

I doesn’t look all that different from the original but it is much more serviceable and the third valve will work well.

And I got the direct fresh water fill installed as well.

There was a reason for the big side doors on the barn.