Monthly Archives: May 2010
Gillette, WY and the ACA…
Well, we made it out of Billings without getting snowed in this time.
We left Billings a little before 8 am heading for Gillette, WY about 240 miles away. We are going to spend the next four days at the American Coach Association (ACA)National Rally.
It was a pretty uneventful trip, thought we did see some prong horn antelope along the way.
We got into Gillette about 12:30 pm and drove over to the Cam-Plex, a large fairgrounds/meeting complex, and were led to our parking spot by rally helper.
There are about 120 American Coaches here, and 9 vendors.
What was really a surprise for me is that about 3 coaches down from us is someone with the exact same coach as ours in the exact same 4 colors.
At 3:30 pm Jan and I sat in on a seminar given by representative of Cummins Engines, the make of our 350 ISC Cummins engine. Dale Eddy discussed maintenance and upkeep of our engines.
Then at 4:30 we attended a meeting for newcomers to the American Coach Association and got welcomed into the club. We also joined the Happy Wanderers, the ACA chapter for full-timers.
The rest of the afternoon was various social get-togethers, culminating in an hors d’oeuvres hour, followed by a presentation of the history of American Coaches.
We got back to our rig a little after 8 pm and settled in for the night.
More tomorrow…
So far, no snow…yet
We left Riverfront RV Park in Garrison, MT about 8:45 am heading for Billings, MT about 270 miles away. We had planned to leave about 8 but it was in the mid 30’s outside, and the bed was warm, and we overslept. What can I say.
This park had some really nice views. Here’s a close-up of the mountain I showed you yesterday.
And here’s the view in the other direction. You just can’t beat views like this.
But before we left I wanted to put some air in one of my tires, so I started up the coach engine and went outside to air up the tire. All of a sudden I hear the engine accelerate to what sounded like wide open throttle. Running around to the door I looked in and saw Mister standing on the left hand control panel looking out the window at what I had been doing. Unfortunately, this meant he was standing on the cruise control switch. When you’re idling, the cruise control allows you to set the engine speed.
Mister set it to wide open!
But luckily there didn’t seem to be any damage done.
Anyway, about an hour after we left, and after a long slow climb, we crossed the Continental Divide at 6393ft and started back down. There was still a lot a snow along the road up there.
About 11:30 am we stopped at a rest area and Jan fixed sandwiches for lunch. Then it was back on the road.
Then, about 1:30 we stopped in Big Timber to take on diesel. The last time I got diesel in Washington state, it cost $3.70 a gallon. Today it was $3.04.
A big difference!
We got into Billings about 3 pm and got parked at the Billings’ Trailer Village. It was certainly nice to have better weather than the last time we were in Billings.
Here’s how it looked today.
When we first came thru on our way to Alaska the end of March of 2008, we had only planned to stay a couple of days to visit a friend of Jan’s. However the weather didn’t cooperate.
We ended up staying a week due to heavy snow. Here’s how it looked then. Here’s my beautiful wife taking in the snow.
And here’s Mister first encounter with snow. He put one foot down on the step and reconsidered going outside.
Then he just sat in the door and looked around. He absolutely refused to go outside. After all, he’s a Texas cat. He doesn’t do snow.
Then, coming back from Alaska the first part of October 2008, we again stopped in Billings for a couple of days, And again we got snowed in for a week. With even more snow this time.
14 inches!
But this time we broke the jinx. But as Jan said, “the day’s not over yet.” We’ll see.
About 4 pm we headed out for some errands and dinner. We first stopped by Sam’s and picked up some kitty litter, then it was on to Great Clips to get my bi-annual haircut.
Which took about 5 minutes. Hah!
Then it was off to Famous Dave’s, one of our favorite BBQ places, for dinner. They have a great new BBQ sauce called “80 Proof” made with Jack Daniels. And it is good!
We got home about 5:30 and Jan went across the street to do some laundry. She likes to do our throw rugs in the bigger commercial machines. It’s quicker.
While she was gone, I vacuumed the rugs and floors, and cleaned some spots on the rug.
Then it was in for the night.
Tomorrow we head for Gillette, WY, about 238 miles away, for 4 days of the American Coach Rally.
More tomorrow…
