Here’s where my automatic transfer switch is, in that box on the back of the Circuit Breaker and Fuse center, it’s OK, I just wanted to find it:
For those unfamiliar with large RV’s, most have this transfer switch that protects the equipment on board if you’re both plugged into shore power and start the Generator (Genset). The switch only connects to one source at a time, either shore power OR genset, not both. Fire would be a likely result if they were connected together.
I finally headed into Mexico Jan. 31, 2006 on a sunny warm day. I entered at Naco, Arizona/Mexico. I had to go get the US customs agent to unlock the gate for RVs. The regular opening guy was suppose to be there at nine but still wasn’t there at 9:30. The car route was way to small for my rig.
After crossing the boarder, I stopped at the first official looking building…perhaps 25 feet inside the gate, and a young female guard asked me (nicely) if she could come into the rig and inspect. Not a problem. Anyway, she looked around quickly but I noticed that she didn’t bother to open the door to the back bedroom! I could have had 10 people in there. The door was held closed with a bungee cord so it wouldn’t bang around while driving but not hard to open.
After that quick inspection, she tells me to go to a building across the street but I should park first. I ask her if it’s OK to back up the rig and park in some spots behind me and she indicates yes. So I start the rig and promptly back the rig into a sign that wasn’t high enough for my rig. A guard walks out and tells me that I should go park across and up the street a couple hundred feet. Doesn’t mention the damage to the sign and neither do I. So I drive over and park. Grab all my credentials and wander back to the boarder.
I go into the office, hand the guy my passport and he says, “We can’t let you enter the country with this”. My chin drops. Then he flashes a smile and says, “Until you sign it senor!”. Whew. So I sign it and he tells me to go outside, up the street and get a stamp on the entrance documents after paying $21. So I go out and search for the ‘banco’ to do that. Passed a street kid asking for money. Didn’t give him any. Turned into an alcove and found what looked like a bank…she says, ‘Nope not here, up the road farther’. I pass the kid with the can again. Don’t give him anything. Get to a bus stop with three girls waiting. Ask them. They think they know and call the kid with the can to guide me. He takes me back to the place I’d already been to, wrong place. She tells the kid in Spanish where to take me. He guides me back around the girls, chattering to them in Spanish, and into the correct place. Inside they finish my paperwork, stamp it and collect my money. I wander back (you’re suppose to go back) and give the kid a couple bucks as I pass him. He seems happy. I return to the boarder station, the agent checks it over and says, ‘Welcome to Mexico’.
So I start out going south from Naco, Mexico generally heading to the west coast. I haven’t any special destination in mind but from my reading the west coast will be the safest and quickest way to get familiar with Mexico and it’s people.
My first picture in Mexico, heading due south:
So I passed though a small town in the desert mountains, Cananea, with the regular old Mexican building style and spot a couple clean cut young men a couple hundred yards up the road. I can see them talking and flashing smiles as they happily threw out their thumbs for a ride from me. Probably joking, and probably very surprised that I stopped to pick them up. I don’t speak a word of Spanish and they don’t speak a word of English. But we had a great time playing at trying to understand each other. They turned out to be nice young men on the way to Magdelena. They had hard hats and indicated that they were miners. I handed them an English to Spanish translation sheet and the best they came up with was asking me if I had a ‘wiff’. No, I say, I don’t have a ‘wife’ but did have two bambinos. (Italian I know). They got a 100 mile free ride and I got some company.
After Magdalena I start hitting toll roads. They’re everywhere down here. The feds contract out to road building companies and then don’t pay them. The contractors set up toll roads to pay for it all. Lots of left over corruption from the PRI days. And they’re still around. Or so I was told by a local. One thing, there is always a toll road bypass maintained by the government. Usually an old two lane road. So far, when I’ve been able to find the bypass, they have been fine, just require a little more effort to stay on the road and try to remember to slow down for the topes.
The first day I made it to Guaymas, and the recommended park was full. So I head to the coast and found another place. It was also full. So I stayed in a little crummy campground that was asking $22 USD per night. Not worth it. Owners really needs a good spanking for ripping people off. It was right next door the full place that was cleaner, had cable TV with US channels, free WiFi, better in all respects for $20 USD per night.
Got this shot as I was leaving a place nearby along the coast…it was also full:
Here’s a shot of the beach near where I stayed looking West:
A shot looking west toward the RV park, under that yellow sign:
The next morning, I headed south on Mexico 15 (M15) towards Los Mochis and arrived there around 3:30pm, stopping at a WalMart. Found a cash machine there and got my pesos (dollars are OK in Sonora county) and found beer on sale. I spent the night in a campground nearby M15. This whole day was uneventful so I didn’t take any pictures.
The 3rd morning in Mexico I left the park early and headed to Mazatlan using the M15 Free route. It was a little dicey in places, I almost ran the rig off a 12″ high road edge for instance, but I recovered and made good time. I passed through several small villages with the traditional Mexican open air business along side the road but it never worked out that I was hungry when I found an interesting place to stop. I did see the stereotypical Mexican wearing a sombero sitting on a two wheeled cart pulled by a donkey once.
I arrived slightly north of Mazatlan City around 4:30pm and found the RV park I was told about the night before. It is newer then most here, pleasant, has WiFi and nice flat spaces, and is near the beach. After checking in and trying to set up my satellite dish, unsuccessfully, I go to bed with cool ocean breezes drifting through the RV. B-t-w, this park only takes pesos, no cards, and I only had around $300p. So I give the guy $200p. Next morning I head for the beach north looking for a bar that will be open for the Superbowl. No luck at the 3 places I stopped at, they didn’t even have TVs. But I got some beach pictures and spent an hour soaking up sun and wading in the water (kinda cool for swimming).
Here’s my first shot of the beach at Mazatlan, this is right next to several small business and this turn around is the furthest north, no road after here:
There’s an island way out there:
A view of ‘Hotel Row’ in Mazatlan. I’m on the northern edge of Mazatlan’s beach here:
By now, you’re asking yourself, “Were there any people on the beach in that 75F weather?”, here’s the shot that tells you:
Not on the beach.
Oh, wait, looks like people over there on the rocks…
Yep, there they are. There were more people later.
After leaving Dos Cabezas, Arizona, I timidly checked my brakes several times on the road down a mountain. Then boldly. They seemed to be doing great. I was expecting the pedal to be mushy (indicating air in the system) but they weren’t, they seem fine.
It’s a lonely road so I wasn’t to worried about running into anyone even if the brakes failed. I was planning on stopping in Willcox for supplies before I headed to Mexico, but couldn’t think of anything I needed. So I turned around, took a picture of the mountain that gave Dos Cabezas its name (two heads), and headed back up the hills. This gave me a new road to follow, and it looped back to where I was going anyway so no biggie.
Dos Cabezas: (That pointy double peak in the middle of the picture)
The road down south was pretty old but well maintained. Didn’t have any trouble on the trip. I spent my time driving and reached Bisbee, Arizona around 1:30pm. A quick check at the US side of the boarder in Naco informed me that I wouldn’t have any trouble bringing back into the US my shop equipment or parts.
Then I headed back into Bisbee to spend the night at a campground I’d read about. I wasn’t there at the CG more then 30 minutes and meet an artist who loves Bisbee and volunteered to show me around the place. Bisbee was once the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco. It was based around a mine that happened to have high grade copper ore during the electric lighting & telephone boom across the US. So, with all those miners, this town was huge. And at 5,000 feet, it has almost perfect year round weather. Back in the ’70’s to ’80’s, the place was a virtual ghost town until some hippy artists found it. You could buy a nearly new, excellent condition, 5000 sq ft house for $3,000! Soon the place was crawling with hippy types, and the place started booming again with all it’s art and history and is now a modern success story. I spent another day here just wandering around looking at the place. Late in the afternoon of the second day, I took the tour into the mine. The original mine started out as a shaft sunk into the hillside, later it became an open pit mine.
Just look at the colors in those hills:
Bisbee proper:
Up the street a little:
One of the many quaint buildings along the street:
The courthouse doors, made in the early ’30s:
One of the numerous old buildings that use to be a brothel:
A view from the campgrounds:
A trip into the original mine:
Here’s where I was, and if I turn around and walk just 100 yards, you can get the picture after:
In the ’30’s the equipment was powerful enough that they could start this:
These pictures show how I lash my awning after I’ve locked and clamped it in place before a trip. The added rod and bungee cords help prevent the wind from picking up the awning and unfurling it while traveling down the road. The installed locking mechanism sometimes can be vibrated loose by the road or by wind gusts.
RVs that are unlucky enough to have this happen can end up in a ditch or can cause huge accidents. The awning can unfurl and flop over the roof or rip off and fly or can act like a parachute and lift the RV up and push it over a lane or two, all depending on wind speed and direction. Not sexy.
I had my awning unfurl about 12″ once while on the freeway not far from Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. I happened to notice it happening just as I was slowing down to make an exit. After I quit screaming like a little girl, I got on line and did some research. I found on my favorite forum, Woodall’s, that this happens often enough, and is dangerous enough to make it a worry.
One of the forum regulars had come up with a simple, inexpensive, and quick fix. I had the parts on board so the cost was $0. The following pictures are how I installed it. Since this works so well, I’m not certain I’ll do anything more for this potential problem. There are commercial products for this but they all start around $50 and seem needlessly complicated.
Here is the awning pull-down rod (comes with the awning) inserted into the hole in the end of the awning tube, and after the rod is lashed down, it prevents the awning from unfurling:
Here are the bungee cords that hold the rod and after being looped around the arm, they are hooked into the eye of the rod and then the bracket that supports the arm, they are 18″ long and have plastic hooks to prevent maring:
Here’s a side view looking toward the rear of the RV, note that neither the rod nor the plastic bungee cord hooks touch the side of the rig, helping prevent chaffing the paint or sidewall:
So I leave Big River, AZ, go south to Quartzsite and spend two days boon docking and shopping for RV stuff, then on to Yuma to do a look around. After that I head east and spend the night at Sierra Vista in a WalMart parking lot. Then on towards a little town named Willcox. This is the location of a potential contract job for me. The owner and I had been talking via email about me helping do some remodeling on their ranch up in the hills above Willcox in a little town named Dos Cabezas. I arrived here on the 13th of Dec. and I’ve been helping around the place now for 3 weeks. The remodeling hasn’t happened (and probably won’t) so I’m thinking of heading on down to Mexico instead. My plan down there is to hug the western coast of mainland Mexico and visit every RV campground on the coast. I’d like to find a nice place where I can hang out for 3 or 4 months. Maybe a place that has a nice bar on the beach and a restaurant nearby. I like the idea of being able to eventually ask my daughter and her band to come down to sing and play in a nice beach bar. That would be very cool.
Boondocking in Quartzsite
On the road to Willcox
Looking Northwest. Below is the Dos Cabezas valley where I’m staying.
Looking due North. That’s my RV way down there just this side of the tree.
Here’s a look at the hill I was on when I took the pictures of the valley…I was way up there on the tippy-top, middle peak.
On Dec. 27th, I leave Benson by Amtrak and head for Ontario, CA. Dan picks me up at the station and we head on down to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl between the Ducks and the Oklahoma Sooners. Funny they would name their team after cheaters…’Sooners’ were people that jumped the gun and cheated their way onto land not rightfully theirs during the Oklahoma land rush.
On the streets of San Diego.
From left to right, front row, Craig, Jane, Allicia.
Back row, Dan, John. And yes, guys, Allicia is single, 24, 5’10”, a nurse, no boyfriend but not looking. Sorry.
Here’s Dan waiting for the trolley that will take us to the stadium…
I dared Allicia to wear her Ducks stick on tattoo to work…haven’t heard back yet.
It’s a pretty neat stadium, except below row 12. The pitch of the seating flattens out so that it’s hard to see over the heads of the people in front of you or those standing on the sidelines.
We lost the game, but I was still a little happy after the game. Must have been the free beer…
After spending the day at Meteor Crater, I headed back east on I-40 to Winslow, then south on US-87. This route took me through some small towns up in the forested areas of Arizona. I stopped in Pine at a small RV park but couldn’t find anywhere to park. It was designed in the 1950’s when RV’s were all tiny. And it really looked it. I went on to Payson. Stayed the night at a WalMart. I would have rather stayed in Pine but, oh well.
Next morning I headed on to Phoenix. There was a good reason for this portion of the trip, the Seattle Seahawks were going to be playing the Cardinals in Tempe at Sun Devil Stadium. There were 8 or 9 RV parks nearby the stadium so I felt confident that I could find a place to stay. WRONG!
The parks in and around Tempe are all very expensive. Because of the taxes mostly. Anyway, I had a week to kill before the game so I headed west on I-10 to a little wide place in the road named Tonopah. There is a large RV park there with reasonable weekly rates of $125 so I spend the next week hanging out there.
Here’s a shot of sunset just outside my front windows…
I arrived here on Tuesday. I’d already bought my game tickets a few days earlier, only $52 bucks! On game Sunday, I drove the rig over to the stadium and found that they want $40 to park an RV. Wow! Buttheads.
Here’s a view of the stadium.
The field…
We win!!!!!
On the following Tuesday, I head on over to Quartzsite, Arizona. I spend the night at a small campground, do my internet cruising, clean up the house, jump in the drivers seat, start up and drive away…with the water hose and electrical cable dragging behind. The owner yells at me a little, but gets the water turned off quickly, then repairs it all in less then an hour. Meanwhile, I’m fixing my electrical box that got ripped out of the basement wall. He charges me $20 for the damage, and off I head to Parker, Arizona.
Why Parker? Well, Quartzsite isn’t very interesting. It’s got the world’s largest flea market in January but the rest of the year it’s a dumpy little town in the desert. Parker is much larger then Quartzsite…like 13,000 or so, so it has larger and more stores and the like. I crossed over the Colorado River into California looking for a RV park. The best deal I found for a months stay was at Big River RV Park. I’ve been here since Nov. 10th and really like the park. Made some friends, had a lot of fun, found a nice bar.
Here’s a view of the river a few steps from my front door.
My space…
After spending 3-4 days in Joseph City, I head West on I-40 towards Flagstaff. Along the way is a privately owned landmark, Meteor Crater. If you don’t remember the story, about 50,000 years ago, a large iron-nickle composition meteor blasted a hole in Arizona. Traveling at 26,000 miles per hour, it vaporized upon impact but that was unknown to the miner that bought the land in 1903. Expecting to find a large iron deposit right at the bottom of the crater. Years later the head geologist of the US proclaimed that it was a volcanic feature. Wasn’t the first time the guy had been wrong.
Anyway, there have been movies made there, the astronauts have trained there, etc. Now the family of the original owner runs the place as a tourist destination. It’s pretty cool. I’ve been here twice over the years. They have a RV park at the entrance and a Subway shop in the museum.
Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to hike around the rim or go down into the crater, so all these shots are from the rim near the museum. The crater is 4,000 feet across, 550 feet deep.
A shot of the rim…
Down into the crater.
It’s me!
Off in the distance, the Mogollon Plateau? Can’t remember.
After leaving El Morro and heading west, I had a choice of either heading south to Phoenix or going back north to see Petrified Forest National Park and Meteor Crater. At the ‘Y’ joining US-61 & US-191, I headed north.
Here in the Southwest there are few trees, the roads are wide, the vistas vast and the weather this time of year is exceptionally pleasant, so even if there isn’t someplace to go, there always is a view of somewhere.
Near the entrance to Petrified Forest National Park are two businesses that deal in polished rocks and all sorts of Southwest type nick-nacks. Wow, amazing all the beautiful forms the rock attains. The one store I wandered around had tons of polished and cut rocks. Some were huge and priced at $15,000 or more. Whoa! After spending an hour browsing at the shop I head over to Petrified Forest and trek around looking at all the toppled 150 million year old trees that have turned to rock. There is a small museum there that has several skeletons of ancient animals set up so it was very interesting. Spent a couple hours in the museum and trekking the trails around the park.
Here’s one of the trees…
After leaving the Petrified Forest, continuing north, brings you to several roadside sites. This spot along the highway has some spectacular multicolored hills.
A few miles down the road you come to another ancient Indian village.
And at the village are these petroglyths.
There were several other stops in the park with interesting features and eventually you get to the Painted Desert. This weird picture is not what I remember the colors to have been, but it is close. And my camera has never color faulted before. So I guess there was something going on with color and light on this day and time and subject that caused something to happen in the camera. Why there is a violet hue above the hills is beyond me.
Here’s another shot just a 100′ up the road and looking west instead of North.
After I got out of the park, and a few miles west on I-40, I stopped at a little town named Joseph City. There really isn’t much left of the town. It’s just barely hanging on and not much more then a wide spot on the freeway. I did find a nice little RV park there in town. The park was for sale so I wandered around the area on my bike checking out the possibilities. But the place was way overpriced. They were asking $450,000 for a property that should have been priced at under $100,000. They had a realtor from Flagstaff who convinced them it is worth more and I think they got greedy. The RV space rental was only $10.50 per night though. For all services including cable. Can’t beat that. And the Love’s fuel station in Joseph City was the lowest diesel fuel price I’d seen in months.
I was hired as a drive away driver by Classic Transport in Elkhart and spent 2 months, from late July to mid October, driving around the country delivering new vans, trucks, and cab-over trucks to various businesses. And once a Class C RV to a dealer. Mostly the rigs were UPS or FexEx trucks. Generally, no radio, cruise control or AC. And usually uncomfortable drivers seat. I traveled over 10,000 miles in the rigs, and the same amount in bus, train or plane on the trips back to home base. So 20,000 miles in 2 & 1/2 months. I had so much free time that it doesn’t seem like I traveled that much. But I kept records.
This business requires the driver to pay all the trip expenses, and then you are reimbursed for a portion of your fuel (as it usually works out that they pay less then the cost). The driver will also receive a fixed amount per mile for doing the driving. As you can imagine, if your expenses are to high, it can be touch and go whether or not you’ll make money. My gross income came to $7,000 for 2 months, but the net was only $2,000. So my expenses came to 70% of gross income. A 30% return. Better then a savings account and easy work too. (I haven’t figured taxes yet but they should be low). Some trips I netted 47% but others were much lower. The lowest return I made was -4.7%. Yes, I lost money on a trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Of course I made several mistakes, including missing an exit and running out of fuel. If I did the same trip again, I think I could make 25% income or so. Canada is pretty expensive. Travel and learn…
One big thing I found while driving was that I love the train! What fun during the return trip. Low cost, often being the same as bus. Easy to make or change a reservation, fun to ride and watch the scenery, easy to stretch out and sleep (some trips took 3 & 1/2 days). OK to bring your own food and beer onboard, etc. I had been using the bus…what a nightmare. The train is the only way to go. As they say on SNL, “Amtrak, the travel choice if you’re carrying weed”. But no, I didn’t see anyone doing that.
I didn’t have the room to take a camera with me, you must travel light, I used one carry on luggage sized backpack/wheeled bag. I had to have a blow up mattress and a blanket, plus clothes for all seasons, plus shaving kit, phone, etc. No room for my camera. So I didn’t get any pictures of my adventures on the road. Neither did I get any of my stay in Elkhart. There really isn’t much in Elkhart that is worthy of a picture. The 3rd month I spent in Elkhart I was nursing a back problem so I didn’t get out much then either.
I resigned my association with Classic Transport in mid October and headed out of town on my way to Quartzsite, Arizona. But first I got lost…
I use a program named MS Streets & Trips 2002 that I had gotten free at Lake Tahoe. Usually it was accurate enough for my travels around the US but it lead me wrong on my way out of Indiana. I was trying to bypass the major portion of the toll hiway into Illinois to save some bucks. Well, I did accomplish that, but the misdirection by the program cost me an extra 4 hours of driving time. Damn Microsoft.
So, since I’m four hours late, I arrive at my son-in-law and daughters farm in the dark. I’m driving down the gravel road, and since they haven’t cut down the damn weeds from in front of their driveway sign, I miss the turn and float out onto thick, sticky, clay infused mud! I get 100′ into this stuff before I realize that I ain’t goin’ no further. And that I can’t turn around or back up. So I spend the night there at a steep angle in the mud, next to a 12′ deep ditch. While I’m walking around the rig inspecting, the damn mud is sticking to my shoes. Ended up with 10 pounds of mud I had to scrape off before I could get back in. Next morning I get my bearings and find that I can walk to their place (didn’t know that the night before, I was a little lost). So I walk up there and bitch them out for ignoring me the night before when I heard them drive into their driveway (didn’t know it was them at the time – and they had to have seen my rig, it’s huge!). Since Brett has lots of experience with getting stuck in this mud from outer space, I take his advice, wait two days while the mud dries and finally with his Dodge Ram 4 wheel drive truck, we pull out the rig. Like I said, it was right next to a 12′ drop off so we were all a little worried. And it rained later that night. Whew. But I forgot to take a picture. Damn.
After spending a few days there, I head off south westy taking the most back roads I can. Of course the MS program lead me wrong from about 3 miles away from the farm, but I wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t care. I wandered around like an idiot (IOWA) for several hours before the map and reality started to agree. Then…zoom! Off down the road. Funny that once I got out of Iowa, I was never just wandering again. The maps and reality always agreed. Guess it’s true what they say about Iowa.
There weren’t any cool pictures to take on this portion of the trip. I discovered that Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas top hat are not picture worthy. Even though I don’t have film anymore (digital camera), it still wasn’t worth taking any shots. I followed US-54 all the way to I-40. Then west to outside of Albuquerque. I stop in a little town named ‘Grants’ in New Mexico for a day.
When I leave Grants I head south on US-53. This takes me to the privately held Bandera Volcano and Ice Caves. The season was nearly over so I had the place pretty much to myself most of the day. I trekked the trails and got a few pictures but it was cloudy so they didn’t come out as well as hoped.
Here’s the access trail up to the caldera.
The caldera.
A collapsed lava tube.
Entering the ice cave.
And inside…the ice is actually 20′ thick. Little hard to see however.
After spending the morning at the volcano, I headed up the road to the El Morro site. The El Morro has been used probably for 12,000 years, as it is the best source of water for hundreds of miles around. As a result of that fact, there is ancient as well as recent carvings on the sandstone along its base. The little pond is the reason people have been stopping here. It was really interesting to be able to see a message left by people hundreds and thousands of years ago. The modern dated messages started with the Spanish from the 1500’s through to about 1790 and then Americans that traveled through in the 1800’s.
On the trail to El Morro. El Morro is that big mountain thing there. The whole thing. The dark streaks are water trails that drain into that fenced area at the bottom of the monolith. That’s the pond that attracted so many travelers over the centuries. The rose color of the trail is the result of using colored stone, found near here.
The pond. It isn’t a spring, just rainwater that drains down from the monolith. But it stays all year. It’s deep and nearly clear. Would be very refreshing to a desert traveler trying to get to California during the summer years ago. There is evidence that the ancient Indians built a dam here, old logs and rocks, to trap the water. It’s still working after a thousand years.
Little hard (or impossible) to see but this shot is of graffiti on the wall over there.
This is some of the really old graffiti. The darker writing was by the Spanish in 1609. The age of the other petroglyphs under the dark writing is unknown but could be 5,000 years old, more likely 1,200 or so.
After circling the base of the monolith and looking at all the old graffiti, I started up the trail heading towards the top of El Morro. This is a shot looking back on the trail. I liked that giant rock just hanging there, ready to drop over.
At the top of the monolith, is this box canyon. After you skirt around this canyon you climb a little more and find an ancient Indian village.
Anasazi once lived here and built this village on the top of El Morro. Note the style. Rectangular. Right next to this style, and used at the same time, are round structures. Then there are many other structures just beyond that have fallen to ground so they know that there were as many as 800 people living here once.
This is the kiva…
The ancestors of these people still live near here.
Here’s the plack.
After the July 4th weekend and the great time we all had at Lake Billie Chinook, I headed to Indiana to try out a job as a ‘drive away driver’ for a firm in Elkhart, IN. Elkhart has a reputation as the RV capital of the world since it has several RV manufacturers there. There are also several companies there that have sprouted up in order to drive vehicles from the manufacturers to their purchasers. As well as several companies that specialise in new parts for older RVs.
I figured I could make a quick $3,000 driving for one of those companies, while during my off time I could wander around and find replacement parts for my RV.
But before I got to Elkhart, to take the test I needed to take, I had to drive there from Portland. I decided to take the northerly route using the interstates as seldom as possible. I started by heading east on I84 and then turned north at Biggs Junction. There’s a bridge there that crosses the Columbia and puts you on US97 heading north to Yakima. Once far enough north, I got on US2 and stayed on that highway all the way to Michigan. I did get a few pictures and had a great time at a couple bars along the way, saw a real wicked lightning storm over North Dakota, saw a few historic sites, etc.
Sunset at Holter Lake in Montana.
Another view of Holter Lake.
Later on, in North Dakota, I found this place along US2. It has something to do with Lewis and Clark, I just don’t recall what it was. This is the Missouri River.
A couple of days later and I’m driving through areas like this in Minnesota. You could see for miles and miles and miles and miles…well, you get the idea.
Finally get to Wisconsin and find that I can’t see the great lake! US2 only goes right by it, it’s just that there are so many trees that you can just catch a glimpse or two as you drive by.
US2 goes right by three of the great lakes and crosses two of them. But because of the lack of good shots available from the highway, I didn’t get any pictures of Lake Superior except this one at Duluth.
Looking East toward Duluth from the hill overlooking Lake Superior
The next day I finally get to a place where I can actually take a picture or two and can get my feet wet. This is a shot I took while standing in 12″ of Lake Michigan, looking West. The water was surprisingly warm.
And the little park I stopped at.
This bridge crosses the narrow area between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and from Wisconsin to Michigan, it was difficult to both drive and take a picture.
After crossing the bridge, I headed due south on I75. About half way to Grand Rapids, I ran into a freak sudden onset rain and lightening storm. It was so powerful that I bailed off the freeway at a rest stop. Parked the rig so I had the best view and let the storm roll over me. There were several motor cycles parked around but the riders had already found places to hide or I would have offered safe haven.
When I took this shot the lightening was hitting the area hard. There was a strike less then 100 yards away. And I parked just about 15′ below the crest of the hill this rest stop was built on. After about 1/2 hour, it rolled on northward and I headed on. About 6 hours later I was in Indiana, and 2 hours after that, parked at a RV park in Elkhart.
