Of course, since I was so close, had to visit Shoshone Falls. And on July 4th no less. I knew it would probably get crowded in the afternoon so I planned to be right at the falls by 10 AM. And it worked out nicely. Not much traffic on the way there on I-84 or as I headed south on US-93, not many people at the falls park when I arrived…
Here’s a local area map: Map of Twin Falls area
Hanging around Wendell has it’s advantages. With the amply stocked grocery store, the RV park with a RV repair business right there, the auto repair shops, tire shops, a couple excellent restaurants, etc., etc.. However, there’s not much to do in town. No theater, no golf course nearby, no night life to speak of. The town is pretty small with just a couple places to hang out, nondescript bars that could even be called dull. Tried to pry some history of the area from locals but nobody really knew much other than the story of how Wendell got its name. Well, whatever, while I’m here waiting for RV and car parts to arrive it was an opportunity to drive around the area and check it out. Going east and south of Wendell driving along the farm bordered roads you run into a larger town…Jerome. Jerome has a theater, a WalMart, and several businesses that cater to the RV crowd as far as repairs go. Interesting as I drove around the populated areas close to Jerome how I’d spot many RV type businesses. Diesel repair, body shops, etc.. Most all situated right alongside the freeway.
But today was a day to explore so I drove due west and south of Wendell towards the Snake River. And soon bumped into the Hagerman Wildlife area and Fish Hatchery. Big hatchery place. Larger than the hatcheries I’m use to in the Columbia River Gorge area.
When I left Fairfield, IA, it had been several weeks since my phone had worked…turned out that on virtually my entire drive to Idaho, it only worked a couple times and only near big towns. At this point I was still trying to discover if there was something wrong with my phone, or with Tracfone’s coverage. Turned out that their coverage map is a total lie. They do NOT COVER the entire US and Alaska like their map shows. Lying assholes don’t cover more than 50% of the US from my tests. What’s even more annoying is that if you call their tech support, they lie right to your ear…first asking your zip code, then telling you Yeah, we cover that town. When it still doesn’t connect and you contact them later on using chat, where there’s a record, then it’s NO, we don’t cover that town. Really madding they are allowed to get away with those total lies that might get someone killed someday if they drive just south of Savage, MN and need to use the phone but there’s no service where they expect there to be. As if it hasn’t happened all ready. And this lack of coverage where there are cell towers is in great swaths of the mid-west. Right in the same towns I visited are active Verizon, AT&T, and others. Tracfone just won’t pay them to carry any of the Tracfone customer’s calls. As I said, maddening. I went almost two months without phone service.
Well, anyway, after leaving Fairfield, headed straight west as it was summertime and I wanted to drift north for cooler weather. My destination was to be Twin Falls, Idaho because it’s cool there, there’s some Snake River activities I wanted to do, and there’s a RV park I wanted to stay at in Wendell. I planned on staying there a month and then drift over to Burns, Oregon where my home VA Clinic is, for my yearly checkup.
So this series of pictures is a lazy way to avoid having to create text. The trip was uneventful, taking 4 days of 6 hours per day. Through Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and finally Idaho. What’s interesting is the contrast in flora. Going from mostly green, to mostly desert like.
The above picture is as I’m nearing Omaha, NE. The following pictures are just random road shots as I cruised along, mostly on 2 lane country roads. Tried to avoid the interstates this trip just for the fun of it. Continue reading
Last time, I was complaining about the Tree Town Festival, and I’m done with that but I will mention one thing that happened as I was preparing to leave the following Monday. Most of the RVs had pulled out so there were only a few of us scattered here and there on the big grassy field. While I was in no hurry, I did notice that there was a honey truck roaming around and emptying holding tanks for RV’ers. So when the truck got to hooking up to the RV next to me, I went out and asked them how much they were charging, because ‘convenient’. Had to laugh when the guy told me they were asking $125. Literally, I laughed at the guy. He wasn’t surprised at that reaction however, had a bit of a crooked smile. Why was that funny? Because he and I both knew that less then 1/2 mile away were 4 dump stations that were free provided by Winnebago since we are on their property. And then 2 miles away in the town are free dump sites, at least 6 of them all in a row, all easy to get to, all free. So, yeah, wow, $125. Going to the dump sites might have cost some delay time due to lines, but from what I saw, not long at all. Well, it was only money. I really didn’t need mine dumped for that amount so I waited.
And then I had to decide whether I wanted to stay in town and gripe at Winnebago service for screwing up and charging me all that money ($1700 or so) and only sort of fixing my problems. I was pissed. But on the other hand, I’d only seen the rear slide pooch out once so far, maybe it’ll get better? I didn’t realize they didn’t fix the dash heat at this point. Too hot to need it anyway. Plus the heat pump A/C was working sooooo good, very quiet, smooth air flow, that I felt I might give them a little slack. Judgement call.
It’s the afternoon the day after the Festival, and I decided to stay in town and stay at the town’s RV park, spent the night just to check it out. Stayed two nights while I roamed the countryside and took pictures, all the while repeatedly checking on the bedroom slide. Which behaved.
Here’s a shot of the small town of Lake Mills, IA. Another small town in the mid-west that’s gotten to be over the top nationalistic. There’s nothing to indicate this is anything other than a flag display. I did tour around and there isn’t much here. There is another Winnebago factory but that’s about it. I had planned on visiting a cafe that had been recommended but didn’t find it.
Last time, I mentioned that I’d bought tickets for the Tree Town Music Festival, and that I was disappointed that I’d paid $525 for the RV parking space I’d chosen. The map was slick and professionally done, except they manipulated it in such a way it seemed like I was just steps from the front gate for the venue. They kind of took liberties with the drawing of their RV parking areas. Turned out that I was like 1/4 mile from the venues main (and only entrance) gate. Which was not in the same location as the map showed it.
But that wasn’t the only disappointment. This festival is in the middle of the country and the excessive nationalism was on full display, which included a truckload of good ‘ol boys standing up in the bed of their pickup truck cruising around the parking grounds, swilling their Bud light beer, waving their oversized southern surrender flags, the bars and stars. In addition the overt religion on display was rather off putting too, but that was nearly all by the stage announcers and many of the acts. The jumbo trons meanwhile, kept up displaying support for war and guns nearly non-stop between promoting up coming acts and local businesses. Several concert goers had the surrender hats or shirts on. I saw ONE person of color at this concert, a black guy who was working on one of the big generators. That’s not exactly the kind of ‘inclusion’ I like to see at concerts.
But I’d chosen to buy the ticket and be here so tried to make the most of it. After leaving the Winnebago customer service park, it’s a 1 mile drive to the entrance gate of the venue. I had planned on waiting a day before coming over but there was already a line of RVs entering the grounds when I drove over to check it out in the car, so I went back to the Winnie lot, hurriedly packed up, attached the car to the RV and headed over to the entrance to get in the RV que.
Two hours earlier when I’d been here in the car scoping it out, there was only one of these lines filled up with RVs. Now there’s 3 of them. And the lines are moving, though slowly. All three of these lanes get necked down into one lane. There’s a forth lane being filled up too as more RVs showed up. This area is just behind Heritage Park. One of those parks where they’ve bought and moved entire houses here to display how life use to be in these parts. I wanted to visit but it never opened the week I was in the area. Seems they missed a golden opportunity with all the people nearby as it’s a paid style museum. I would have visited for sure.
The wait was long enough that my engine was off most of the wait, and some folks got out and wandered around, beers in hand. A couple drunk guys spent 20 minutes just in front of me trying to talk up a couple gurls in their car. They resisted so the guys eventually wandered off.
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It only took 3 hours or so to travel from Savage, MN to Forest City, IA but since I had an appointment for service with a place to park the RV with all the services, I wasn’t too worried about what time I arrived. One thing that was a bit strange was that at the Savage RV park I couldn’t find my umbilical electrical cord connecting the RV to the car as I was preparing to leave. Hmmm, where did I put that? I just couldn’t find it, and I couldn’t remember from the previous week whether I’d unhooked it and put it away, or where I might have put it. Usually I just toss it into the car’s trunk, but nope, not there. I wasn’t even sure if I’d put it away when I’d detached the car or just left it dangling there on the RV plugged in. Or put it on top of the electrical power tower next to my RV.
Ok, so I’ll just drive for 3 hours without brake lights on my towed car. Not too worried about it as I felt I’d just stowed the umbilical somewhere strange in the RV and that I’d find it later. And also, my RV has the brake lights up high on the back of the RV, so people following me would see them even if the car didn’t have any brake lights. Well, anyway, off I went heading due south.
Most of the countryside along the route looked liked this. At least until I turned off the freeway and onto a 2 lane road heading to Forest City.
One of several small towns the road passes through after I left the freeway. Or it may be Forest City. Not sure.
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After a couple weeks in Sioux Falls, I had all my chores done and it was time to move on to Minneapolis to visit with my daughter and her SO. She’s been living there for several years and it was about time to pay her a visit. First though, here’s a look at the entrance to where I stayed. Tower Campground. It was a challenge to find how to get into the park when I exited the freeway just a block from their entrance for my first visit. Have to pass the place, in order to get past the barrier in the middle of the street that prevents turns, than make a 180 at the next light to head back. Or do what I did and turn left as soon as I could onto a nice wide street (and there’s a place to do that just a block on), go a block or two on that street, take another left, and so on. That way worked my way back to the main road so I could approach the parks entrance from a westerly direction.
Well, anyway, it’s a nice park and I’ll be staying here whenever I visit Sioux Falls as it’s the only economical RV park in the area. Here’s a shot of my RV space…
And a shot of some of the rest of the park. 
Occasionally I’ll publish a new repair page and let everyone know here in the general posting thread, and that’s what’s happening now. Here’s the links to some new repair pages or folders for those that like reading about my adventures fixing things on this giant RV.
Added new info about having to replace some Eternabond roofing tape that had peeled off: Roof End Caps…
Added a section that explains how I added a preventative fix for Winnie’s poor excuse for attachment points on the front end cap: Body Work…Front
Added a thread about replacing the old, worn out: Windshield Washer Tank
Several months ago I spent some time learning about the J1587 protocol we have on this era of Winnies and published what I learned here: J1587 Port – Serial Communication
Last time, as you remember, I arrived at Sioux Falls and visited downtown.
So now it was time to visit the falls themselves. This was almost a week after I’d arrived in town and I’d pretty much taken care of all my chores so time to do some sightseeing. And as I promised last time, here’s my visit to Sioux Falls!
First, I parked in the restaurants parking lot. This is the Sioux River as it exits the falls.
This old building was something once, power house maybe? I don’t remember. It’s a restaurant now. 
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Spent the night in Burwell, NE, without Wifi except those times I tethered the phone to the computer to check email. Was running out of data on my phone plan for the month though. Wasn’t much to warrant staying in Burwell another night anyway, so off I headed to Sioux Falls.
Pretty neat picture of the road. Much of the trip was through countryside like this.
And here’s the Missouri River. I dropped the camera and wasn’t going to dive for it while driving so this is the only shot I got. Didn’t see an appropriate place to pull over either. 
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