A cavalcade of trip photos, Pennsylvania-Nevada-Pennsylvania

[jen b]

I posted my video of racing Rucio my Burro around on the Bonneville Salt Flats, but finally have organized the rest of the trip photos enough to share some stuff.

This was my first major trip with the Burro. I had taken it and my husband and a friend on an overnight shakedown trip to Assateague, a 3 hour drive from home in Philadelphia (reported previously in this section), but this trip would be a little more than two weeks, to Nevada and back. The first week was just me and Rucio, as the man could only take one week away from teaching. I picked him up at the airport in Salt Lake City after spending the first week visiting friends in Illinois and spending couple of days photographing mustangs and stuff in Wyoming.

Here's Rucio (1) ready to head out from our city storage lot, in the rain, (2) departing our friends' farm in northern IL after a couple of days visiting, and (3) taking in the view at the Long Hollow overlook in NW Illinois's hilly Driftless area, along US highway 20.

[jen b]

From IL I headed west on US 20 through Iowa and Nebraska on the way to Wyoming. I did my first truck-stop campout in Waterloo IA. That worked just fine. We drove through Sac City...do I understand correctly that Burros used to be made there? Rucio is a 1980, and I'm not sure where they were building these at that time. So I wasn't sure whether or not it was a special moment.

Photos:
(1) We did stop briefly at the Klowndoll Museum in Plainview, Nebraska. Sad blue faces to see that the museum was closed. Plainview has a thing for clown-dolls, spelled with the K. I took all the politically geared signage in town with a large grain of salt for that reason. Can Klowndoll fanatics be trusted?

(2) After the disappointment of the Klowndoll museum we headed through the sandhills. Beautiful country. This was my first time in Nebraska and I very much enjoyed the scenery.

(3 & 4) I camped at the Steer Creek campground in the McKelvie National Forest. A lovely site. I was the only person there, which was slightly creepy for the first 5 minutes, and then entirely enjoyable. I live in a rowhouse not far from Center City Philadelphia - always lots of people around and boy was this a refreshing experience.

This was my first camping night bathing in a rubbermaid tub. Fun. Temps dipped to 27 degrees F, which I hadn't entirely anticipated. Accuweather had been assuring me of low temperatures in the low 40s. But I had plenty of warm bedding so that was okay. No heat in the Burro just yet apart from that generated by cooking and warming up bath water.

[jen b]

Next stop, Alcova Reservoir just a little bit southwest of Casper, Wyoming. Boy oh boy I really liked Wyoming - it was also my first time in that state. Too bad the university in Laramie doesn't have any openings for historians and political scientists just now. Although being used to the hustle bustle of Philly and taking the ability to walk across the street to a great bar for granted...I would probably get bored in a couple of days actually living there.

Alcova was nice. They have several nicely maintained primitive campgrounds circling the reservoir. The campgrounds all have clean pit type toilets, and I was able to get some water at a water station at the southern tip of the lake. I chose a site right next to the water, and it was lovely to hear the waves gently slapping the shore all night. Because of the wind I hedged my bets and parked right next to this tree so that a heavy gust would not send the camper into the drink. It was way colder than advertised here as well. I started considering hunting around for a portable catalytic heater, although I certainly wasn't suffering. Just a little heat on waking up in the morning would be nice, though, I thought...

A couple of photos of wyoming wildlifes:







Rucio photos: (1) Alcova campsite, and (2) pronghorn country! in Bairoil, WY where I got momentarily lost, and (3) the Rock Springs KOA where I spent a couple of nights as a base camp to the White Mountain/Pilot Butte area where I was lurking around taking pictures of the mustangs. It was at this campground where I had my first experience of understanding my Burro as a dwarf compared to the standard RVs. That was funny.

[jen b]

Then over to Wendover, Nevada - we were visiting friends who have a not-yet-open-to-the-public small wildlife park just west of West Wendover, off I-80. We had gotten a very cool chausie cat from them almost 4 years ago, and when they offered us another kitten by the same cat sire, we didn't even hesitate to say "yes, we'll be right over to pick her up!" -- hence the reason for the trip.

We camped there for 4 nights, with the kitten in the camper with us - a supreme organizational challenge. But we made it work, even though there was kitty litter everywhere as well as mud due to the rainy weather.

(Oh! I forgot to mention that I did end up picking up a little heater at a Wal-Mart in Rock Springs after temps dipped to 25 one night - found something called a Black Cat which did the job very nicely.)

Photos: (1) with Wendover Will in town, (2) kitten in a camper, and (3) the little ghost town on our friends' property. Apparently Kit Carson stayed in one of the little huts during some expedition or another. It was pretty cool to camp right alongside these structures. Well, except for the part where the peafowl would sit on top of the Burro during the night and shriek, maybe protesting that THEY owned this ghost town, not us.

[jen b]

At the wildlife park we spent time walking the wolfdogs (holy cow, impressive animals), photographing the lion and tiger and jungle cats, as well as several other species including coatis, gordon's cats, bobcats, lynx, etc.

[jen b]

And then finally off for home - we allotted four days to get the approximately 2200 miles from Wendover to Philadelphia. That would mean long driving days at Burro-towing speeds along with the challenge of trying to sleep with a kitten bouncing around on our heads and occasionally deciding that the bedding was a perfectly nice place to take a whiz (thanking all available deities that she is eminently trainable, just confused by the setting).

The only photo I managed to take of camping on the way back was this moment at the KOA near Elkhart Indiana. We aimed for KOAs on they way back for the sake of knowing there would be clean showers and just-in-case laundry facilities. Trying to get ourselves home with a kitten in tow meant as efficient a line back as possible, no messing around exploring boondocking in this forest or that.

Anyway, a great kitten who traveled exceptionally well in her dog crate in the car. Being so contained during the day, she was full of beans each night. We had a rainy night near Omaha at the end of a long day, and she simply would not stop jumping on our heads. By 3:30 in the morning we finally gave up on sleeping and hit the road. We landed in Elkhart Indiana by 5pm shaking and exhausted and were able to enjoy a nice temperate evening, letting the kitten romp around on her leash. She charmed the other Kampers something bad. But we were able to get her playing so hard that she fell asleep with her face in her supper, letting us get some solid sleep before the final day's drive from Indiana to southwest PA. The photo is of the kitten in her safety zone just inside the Burro's door where she would return when chasing a toy in the grass started to feel a little too exciting.

Overall, a super successful trip. I didn't have any problems or emergencies, but I did find that the vibration of the road ended up shaking some of my cabinet hardware apart. Bummer, that, but learning experience I guess. I developed some ideas about future modifications, too. MORE STORAGE! mainly. Some overhead racks above the bed would be very nice, for starters. And I'm going to kick out the old AC refrigerator and just make a space for a cooler. And the other success is that the Mr. had a great time, having been slightly skeptical of this enterprise at first.

Next big trip is to Newfoundland in September; no kittens will be along for this one.

[cpaharley2008]

Jen, 2 questions. (1) Are you wheels balanced? This can cause a lot of roughness inside and (2) type of mpg with your tv? thanx

[jen b]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Jen, 2 questions. (1) Are you wheels balanced? This can cause a lot of roughness inside and (2) type of mpg with your tv? thanx

Jim, the trailer wheels are brand new (save the trip from Pittsburgh to Philly and the Assateague trip), installed by a pretty good RV guy, so....I am guessing they are balanced? To be honest I did not ask about this at the time, just didn't occur to me. US 20 was pretty rough in places, especially in Iowa, and I-80 through Illinois and Indiana was pretty much crap for a driving surface, so maybe that contributed?

MPG ranged a good bit depending on wind conditions. 16 was the worst and 23 the best. Wind seemed to have a much bigger impact than hills. My best MPG on that Forester without a trailer has been 29 highway. It's usually closer to 23-25 in the city, so whenever I was getting 22 mpg hauling Rucio I was pretty happy.

[cpaharley2008]

Next time you can, look at your wheels for little weights attached to the rim alongside the tire bead. If none, that may contribute to your roughness. Any garage can balance them for less than $10.

[jen b]

Little weights...hmm, doesn't really ring a bell. I will check this out - thanks for the tip!

[Greg H]

Awesome trip, thanks for sharing it with us.

[Bill K]

This is what a wheel weight looks like, is put on the rim (back or front side) to balance tire.

Bill K

Originally Posted by jen b

Little weights...hmm, doesn't really ring a bell. I will check this out - thanks for the tip!

[jen b]

Bill, thanks! I'm thinking I don't have these on the trailer - definitely will look into adding.

[melissab]

Hi Jen! Georgous photos! I too will be traveling on US 20 starting in IA (coming from US 65 N) all the way to WY. Did you notice many campgrounds along the way or should we just plan on "Walmartin" and "Truck stoppin" once we get that far North and West? You said parts were pretty rough, what areas and rough enough to find another route? I can take US 65 N on up to US 18 if that's a better road.

Thanks!
Melissa

[mike_bc]

Thanks for sharing Jen. You have a keen eye thru the lens.

[jen b]

Originally Posted by melissab

Hi Jen! Georgous photos! I too will be traveling on US 20 starting in IA (coming from US 65 N) all the way to WY. Did you notice many campgrounds along the way or should we just plan on "Walmartin" and "Truck stoppin" once we get that far North and West? You said parts were pretty rough, what areas and rough enough to find another route? I can take US 65 N on up to US 18 if that's a better road.

Thanks!
Melissa

Melissa, it was mainly off and on ridginess on the 4-lane sections of the highway between Dubuque and Waterloo. Somehow the ridges in the road were spaced to set up an unpleasant bump-feedback between my car and the trailer. With my TV rear wheels extra-inflated for the trailer, it made for an uncomfortably stiff and bumpy ride. It was less bad in the passing lane, so when the road was lonely I used that lane.

For campgrounds, you'll find that several of the small towns along US 20 in both Iowa and Nebraska have little municipal campgrounds in their city parks where you can camp for cheap (check out Free Campgrounds for RVs). I have no idea of the type of crowd at those places, though, since I didn't end up using any of them. But they seem useful for the overnight stay on the way to someplace else, certainly.

Nebraska has some beautiful natural areas - I stayed in McKelvie National Forest ($5 on the honor system) but the Niobrara River valley has some very lovely camping areas too. Farther west there's the Nebraska National Forest and Fort Robinson State Park - both super lovely places.

[melissab]

Thanks Jen! I'll pick up US 20 on the West side of Waterloo so I should avoid that stretch between Dubuque and Waterloo.

How did you find the municipal parks in the towns? Did you look them up in advance (although you, like me, probably didnt know where you were stopping for the night) or did you just ask at a gas station or were they on your GPS? I've never checked mine for local parks listing but I will now, lol. How did you know you could overnight there?

[jen b]

Originally Posted by melissab

How did you find the municipal parks in the towns?

Check the link in my previous post. The free/cheap campground site is not the easiest to use but it should help you identify several camping locations along your route.

[CindyL]

Melissa,

You will miss the stretch of Iowa Highway 20 that was in the film, "Field of Dreams."

I know though that you cannot tolerate some roads that have that kind of bump for long. There is a stretch of 35 south of Madison, WI that is that way, as well as 90 between LaCrosse, WI and Rochester, MN. Vibrates the teeth in your mouth.

CindyL

[melissab]

Darn, that would have bee neat to see.

I cant afford any more dental work right now paying for my daughter's braces, LOL! There is a stretch in s. Carolina on I-95 that is like that too. Thought i'd go crazy before it ended.

Originally Posted by CindyL

Melissa,

You will miss the stretch of Iowa Highway 20 that was in the film, "Field of Dreams."

I know though that you cannot tolerate some roads that have that kind of bump for long. There is a stretch of 35 south of Madison, WI that is that way, as well as 90 between LaCrosse, WI and Rochester, MN. Vibrates the teeth in your mouth.

CindyL