Monday, Aug. 26-27-28
Since we were melting in the Texas heat, we decided to take our trailer and take a trip north in search of cooler weather. The forecast for Gordon on Monday, Aug. 26 was 106, so that looked like a great day to start our journey. We started out with a run through the panhandle, but even after driving for 458 miles, we didn’t quite make it out of Texas. We ended up stopping in Stratford, just south of the Oklahoma border, due north of Amarillo. It seemed like we were bucking a brisk wind the whole way and our fuel mileage was horrible. With my tiny 26 gallon fuel tank and 7-1/2 mpg, we were stopping for diesel about every two hours!
We located an interesting park right off US-287 that was basically a gravel parking lot, but did have 60 full hookup “campsites”, including WiFi. It was called the “Star of Texas RV Park”, but it wasn’t very fancy. There were no camp hosts or staff onsite (or trees, for that matter). You just paid $30 at a kiosk at the gate and then went to whatever open site you wanted. There were about 50 or so to choose from so we picked out one of the most level sites we could find. Definitely not glamorous, but it served it’s purpose. Oh, and it was ONLY 90 degrees there, so definitely cooler than at home.
On Tuesday, we started out with high hopes of better mileage as we began our 420 mile leg to Cabela’s home town of Sidney, NE. Forecast high for the day in Sidney? 75 degrees!! Well, fuel mileage did improve, but only very slightly to 9.1 mpg. In addition to that, I was getting a message that the truck was “Cleaning Exhaust Filter” about every 100 miles. Something was definitely wrong that was going to need to be addressed before we went too much farther. So, we pulled into Cabela’s for the night and went inside to hopefully not spend too much money. We got out of there relatively light, ate some Mexican food across the street, and retired for the night. We opted to stay in the free “bookdocking” area which ended up being parked with more truckers than RV’ers. Lucky for us, the semi that pulled in next to us at about 10:00 was a reefer. So, his cooling unit ran all night right outside our bedroom window. Guess what pulled in on the other side of us about 1:00 a.m.? You guessed it, another reefer! Serves me right for passing on the actual RV campground that Cabela’s had onsite because the area we were in was “more convenient.”
On Wednesday morning, as we pulled out of Cabela’s, fueled up, and started down the road, I noticed that one of the truck tires was low. Also, with the cold weather (62 degrees), the trailer tires were all about 4-5 psi low. Since access to the air at the gas station was virtually nonexistent, I pulled out my new Viair RV compressor. I’ll just say that the Viair is an awesome purchase. Fast, quiet, and had everything necessary to reach all of the truck and trailer tires without moving the pump all over the place.
Since Sidney, NE has no Ford dealership, we started looking for the nearest one on our route to our next destination of Hermosa, SD (just south of Rapid City). Well, it was nearly two hours away in Alliance, NE. I called as we were leaving Sidney and was told that they would get us in just as soon as we got there. Upon arrival, the dealership was a small place (but still much larger than Stowe Ford in Gordon) and didn’t have a parking lot big enough for our rig. So, I turned on a side street, found a vacant gravel lot to pull into, and started walking over to the dealership. I was met by a service tech long before I even got across the street. He helped me unhook and had my truck in their service area before Debbie and I could get into the building. They felt that the truck needed a “static regen”. If you’re familiar with diesel trucks, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Otherwise, just imagine them charging you $150-200 to burn up a bunch of your own fuel. After they were all done, the service manager came in to give us the good news. The problem was actually caused by a problem that was on a Ford recall. Total cost to us, ZERO!
With that, we topped off our fuel and headed on towards Hermosa where we are staying at the Heartland RV Park for four nights. Checking fuel mileage for that last 134 miles would have been a good idea, but once we got our RV set up, we were early enough that we decided to head over to Mount Rushmore without topping off the tank. Once we got back and did top off, the combined mileage on that tank was 11 mpg (69% towing, 31% not towing). I guess we’ll find out when we leave here on Sunday how our “free repair” worked out as far as fuel mileage goes.
Since the first few days were mostly traveling, there really aren’t any pictures to share just yet. The next few days will cover many of the attractions here in the Black Hills area; Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park, Badlands National Park, and a couple of others that have slipped my mind. Check back in a couple of days for the take on those places and I promise that there will be some pictures.
LyndDebTravel 