Register Cliff and the UP BigBoy 4004 Locomotive

A short drive from the Wagon Ruts is Register Cliff, where literally thousands of Oregon Trail travelers carved their names into the rock cliff face. This resulted in a very interesting and amazing listing of names from about 1840 on.

Here are a couple of signatures from the 1857 era. Apparently, travelers left their names in the cliffs so friends coming later could see that they got at least this far.

Rick and Orinda left the coach at a parking area and took the HHR to see the cliffs. After we got there, we realized we could have driven the coach up there, but it is no problem to drop the car and tour that way.

I wonder what happened to G.O. Willard from Boston after he passed by in 1855. He still had a very long way to go to get to Oregon.

From covered wagons to railroads! We traveled from Register Cliff to Cheyenne, WY where we spent the night. However, we were able to see the Union Pacific locomotive #4004, also known as the BigBoy, since it was perhaps the most powerful steam engine ever built. Cheyenne remains a major UP service area and we will be checking out the restored depot and State Capital building as well.

Orinda thinks this thing is HUGE! Located in a city park, this is an impressive sight.

Hart Ranch and Following the Oregon Trail

We stayed for three days at the very nice Hart Ranch RV Park located near Rapid City, SD while we had some work done on the coach. Hart Ranch is a membership park and we took the very low pressure (and interesting) marketing tour which actually looks like a good deal if you would be in this area for a couple months each year.

After leaving, we headed south on SD 85 into Wyoming where we drove to the Oregon Trail Wagon Ruts (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Ruts_(Guernsey,_Wyoming) in Guernsey, WY.

Orinda and the Wonder Dog are getting ready to hike back to the actual ruts.

This accessible area is fascinating and well worth the stop. There is a paved walk up to the preserved ruts which look like this:

Yes, these ruts are actually worn down into solid rock! Apparently, several hundred thousand travelers came through here and their wagons literally worn down the rock.

Here, Cody shows how deep these ruts actually are -- they are several FEET deep. Imagine how many wagons it took to wear this down like that! We remarked that we have a bit easier time of it in our coach!

A New Tow Car -- Installing the Bracket and lights

We decided to give our Hyundai Sonata to our daughter as a wedding present and so needed to get a new car to tow behind the coach (a "toad" vehicle). We settled on the Chevy HHR, a smaller vehicle with lots of room and many neat features such as heated seats! However, we needed to install a new tow bracket, lights and related equipment to tow it successfully.

The first step is to install the Roadmaster tow bracket which mounts to the front of the car. As Rick shows, to attach this, we had to dismantle the front end of the car, which gives you pause on a car with 500 miles on it!

Here, Rick shows the torque wrench and socket wrench he used extensively. Orinda was also fully involved in this install and came up with a great idea to "fish" a bolt through a blind hole with fishing line! If you decide to install a braket on your HHR, I would suggest that you DO NOT torque the 21 mm frame bolts up snug (as directed to in the directions) UNTIL you fish the 1/2" bolt through the frame into the bracket. This little issue cost us about 90 minutes as we had to dismantle quite a bit of work already completed. Still, we got it done!

Hurray! After much work, the tow bracket is installed! It took us about 5 hours to install the bracket and re-assemble the car -- whew, we were glad to be done with that.I do think the bracket fit well and will do a great job.

Now, we needed to wire the car so that lights from the coach are displayed on the HHR. There are several ways to do this, but we chose to mount LED lights below the rear bumper and wire them like a trailer. This means that there is no interaction between the coach wiring and car wiring systems. I am delighted to report that these work great and are quite bright. A nice solution!

Finally, GM calls for the removal of one fuse before towing (controls the key removale switch and related items) to keep the battery from running down. The fuse is in a very difficult to reach spot (of course!), so Rick decided to solder up a switch that would allow us to bypass this fuse at will. Here are the components of the fuse switch.

The first step was to take an old fuse, cut the link and then solder wires to each leg after using a Dremel tool to remove the plastic housing, then soldering wires to each leg. I also used an in-line fuse holder to make sure the line is still protected.

Once this was finished, we mounted the switch into the fuse panel cover on the passenger side of the console. Here is a picture of the finished fuse switch.

The switch looks good and works great. Now we can set up to tow almost instantly.

Cody and the Tortoise and Rick Hooks up the Car

Cody, the Wonder Dog, is a great retriever. He loves to pick up his pillow and bring it to anyone coming to the door of the motorhome. Still, he thinks of himself as the great hunter and recently, had the chance to prove it.

On one of our walks around the RV park, we came across a land tortoise and Cody was VERY interested! He had never seen such a critter before and wondered what it was.

The tortoise was not very worried at all and kept eating his meal of fresh grass. You can see Cody's interest in his expression.


Finally, he had to sniff the shell and was amazed when the tortoise's head withdrew. However, after a couple of licks and sniffs, Cody decided that this was not something he could easily retrieve and we walked on.

Shortly thereafter, we hooked up to head out on our journey. Rick is hooking up the car (a Hyundai Sonata) which is really an easy task. Click in two pins holding the tow bar arms to the car baseplate, connect the saftey cables, electrical wires, make sure the car is in neutral, and you are ready. We also us a braking system in the two car to assist the motorhome when braking.

We have also added a deflector screen that Rick is connecting now, that keeps road debris from hitting the car. This seems to work very well and is easy to connect.

Crusing the Carribean!

We left Port Canaveral on 5/16, right after Erica and Brian's wedding. We had a day at sea and then arrived in Nassau. We were fortunate to have great weather during most of the cruise and the traveling was great. Here, you can see the view off the Promenade Deck as we moved along at about 20 knots.


As we approached a port, the harbor pilot came out, boarded the Glory (while we were underway), and then guided this magnificent ship into port. Considering that the Glory is 973' long and 110,000 tons, this is no small feat! Here, the pilot boat is delivering the pilot as we approach Nassau.

After a nice day at Nassau and St. Thomas, we docked at St. Maarten island, which is beautiful and offered many shopping opportunities. Here, Orinda and Rick are on the port area to do some exploring.

The Glory was docked virtually in town at St. Maarten which made access very easy. As you can see, the weather is wonderful.

Each evening, the cabin steward would create one of these wonderful "towel" animals, such as this dog. Orinda and I went to the on board class that showed us how to make these fun little mementos. This touch was typical of the excellent service we experienced on board the Glory making for an outstanding cruise experience.

Erica's Wedding on board the Carnival Glory!

Our daughter, Erica, was married on board the Carnival cruise ship Glory on May 16 and had a wonderful day. Here, Orinda (mother of the bride) is standing before the Glory -- a wonderful ship!

We all assembled in the waiting area prior to boarding the ship. The wedding was held before the ship sailed, so everyone could attend, even if folks did not sail. Of course, those of us who were takign the 7 day cruise in the Caribbean were really excited.

Here, the groom, Brian (center), waits with his groomsmen. Looks pretty calm for just before the ceremony.


Brian is joined by his soon to be father in law, Rick (left) and his father Kurt (right). We were sure to keep him distracted as the time for the wedding approached.

Finally, it was time for the service and Rick was able to escort Erica down the aisle to give her away to Brian. The wedding was held in the chapel on the ship which was beautiful.

Man and Wife! The service is over and Erica and Brian Hansen walk down the aisle as a couple. The service was wonderful and the cruise line did a great job in getting everything together.

After the service was over, we had a wonderful reception (great food!) and the cutting of the cake, which was excellent. A great way to end the day and start the cruise.

At Canaveral Lock near Port Canaveral, Florida

We arrived at the Great Outdoors RV Resort a couple days ago and went down to Port Canaveral to explore the set up for the cruise we will be taking next week. Along the way, we discovered the Canaveral Lock.

This lock connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian River. It is also used to move the solid rocket boosters used by the shuttle back to Cape Canaveral. Here you can see some of the boats using the lock.

One of the neatest things about the lock are the many manatees, fish, and dolphins that you can see. These were amazing!

This guy is waiting for the lock to open and sure enough, he zipped right through with the boats.

Of course, we had to check out the cruise ships docked nearby. This is the Carnival Glory and the Disney cruise ships.

We will be taking this ship, the Glory, next week as Erica and Brian get married on board. Very exciting!