Life goes on

The Guppy is gone. We left the beast parked in a storage lot in Arizona in mid-May along with instructions to The Younger Daughter to try selling it. We weren’t particularly optimistic about it going anywhere. After all, her instructions included being totally honest about its various mechanical flaws: the problem with the gas line, for example, and the fact it had a mystery relay problem that the S.O. was reasonably sure he’d finally solved but was burnt out on dealing with. Then when you add in the metal pan sitting under the engine with transmission fluid dripping into it. . . We were more or less resigned to seeing the Guppy again in November.

It took the YD a few weeks to get to a point where she knew for sure she’d be around to deal with potential buyers – she’s an archeologist so does have to get out in the field on a regular basis – but she did get it listed last month. Her phone immediately blew up with messages. Apparently ancient RVs of marginal reliability are in greater demand than one would think. She posted the ad on a Monday; by Friday afternoon the Guppy was gone, heading down the highway to its new home.

The Guppy went for a proposed use that was more or less exactly what I thought would happen. Cheap local housing. The young woman who bought it was a single mom with small children; they were part of a multiple generation household. She was living in her grandfather’s house. The Guppy was going to get parked in her grandfather’s yard; he said he could easily connect the sewer and water to his own. For a relatively small amount of money, they acquired a two bedroom, one bath addition to his house. The young woman was enthusiastic about getting a room of her own. The kids would get the dinette bed and the bunk over the cab. Grandad was not thrilled with the fact the air conditioning was dead on the Guppy, but you know the old dude was going to remedy that pretty quickly. Paying for a cheap a/c unit to keep the granddaughter comfortable would be a small price to pay for getting her kids out of his house.

It was actually the perfect solution. We would have felt a tad guilty if anyone bought it planning to actually travel with it, but for affordable housing? I have no doubt that when the time comes that the woman no longer wants the Guppy, she’ll be able to resell it to someone else locally for a similar purpose.

It does feel a bit odd to know that it’s gone. The S.O.  and I experienced a strange mix of relief and regret when we got the news. It sold for less than our asking price but more than the amount we had decided we had to get so I guess we’re happy. I know the S.O. is not going to miss having to work on the Guppy’s engine. Thanks to the design and the way everything was crammed under the hood, it was never fun. Lots of inaccessible parts. You shouldn’t have to put a vehicle up on a jack stand and remove a wheel just to change spark plugs, for example.

As for why we decided to jettison the Guppy. . . the bottom line was it had gotten to the point where we couldn’t relax in it. I knew the S.O. would have eventually gotten the mystery problem solved, but we also knew that even if he did solve it, we’d always be expecting something equally weird to happen. There’s only so many times you can sit by the side of the highway waiting for a tow truck before you have to admit the beast should have been painted bright yellow. It wasn’t a fish. It was a citrus fruit.

On a side note, when we decided we’d try selling it, we rented a U-Haul truck to get our stuff home. We had an amazing amount of shit crammed into not many square feet. Stuff really does expand to fill whatever space is available. 

Hitting a flat spot? Apathy? Burnout?

The S.O. and I had been sheltering in place in Arizona for longer than we really wanted to, especially once daytime temperatures crept into the 90s. With the sun shining directly on the Guppy, the interior walls felt warm -- there is effectively zero insulation in the beast. Still, given the COVID-19 situation, we were kind of stuck. Couldn't head for home until we knew snow levels in Upper Michigan had dropped to the point where we could drive into our place. So we hunkered down, invested in a small window air conditioner, and were quietly grateful the electricity at the fairgrounds RV park isn't metered. The original equipment a/c on the Guppy wasn't working when we bought it, but it was never an issue until this year.

And then, commensurate with the rising temps, the Kid mentioned she could smell gas when sitting in a lawn chair next to the Guppy. The S.O. checked and, oh shit, gas was visibly dripping from the top of the gas tank. A fuel line was leaking -- higher temperatures apparently pushed enough gas up or through the line to make the leak noticeable. Okay. Definite problem. Need to fix that.

Fixing it kind of implied dropping the gas tank, not an easy thing to do while the Guppy was parked with limited maneuvering room under it. Still, the S.O. figured out a way to siphon the contents of the tank -- there was a fair amount of fuel in it because we'd gassed up in Lordsburg on the way to Safford, and Lordsburg is only about 70 miles away. He gets the gas out, and then goes to work on trying to drop the tank. Bolts are suddenly rusted in place, of course. Everything under the Guppy is solidly rusted in place. After fighting with it for a few days, spraying on penetrating oil, getting a longer breaker bar, trying with a chisel, he decides maybe just smearing some sealant on the area in the line that's leaking would work as a temporary fix. So he does that.

He then starts putting fuel back into the tank. Gets enough in that it should be possible to get the Guppy running again. Except it won't. It's fuel-injected and it's now air locked. So he spends more time trying to eliminate air from the fuel line. Nothing's working. . . and then it hits him. Maybe the problem is the leak in the fuel line still exists and that's how air is getting in. What to do. . .

Well, the Guppy has two fuel lines. One from the gas tank to the engine; one from the gas tank to the generator that would provide power to the "house." Except that generator doesn't exist; it was a basket base when we bought the Guppy 7 years ago. The gas line is still there, but it's not being used. The S.O. re-routes it, and, voila, success! The Guppy fires up and all seems to be well. We're now into May, so it's safe to head north. We proceed with getting ready to leave.

Departure day comes, we get everything squared away, and we head out. Stop at a gas station to fill the tank, and then aim for New Mexico. Barely 20 miles out of town, the Guppy starts losing power. The S.O. pulls over, tries to figure out just exactly what has gone wrong this time, admits defeat, and we call AAA. Several hours later we're back at the fairgrounds.

And that's when we decided maybe it was time to cut our losses. This was the third time we'd called for a tow truck on this trip; I had no desire to experience a 4th any time soon. We'd list the Guppy on local sales sites, the equivalent of Baraga County Stuff for Sale, and let the Kid handle it for us. At first we considered leaving the Guppy at the fairgrounds, but it turned out we'd have to pay the regular full monthly rent. They had no provision in place for allowing seasonal residents to leave RVs in place at a reduced price. The S.O. figured out the problem with the Guppy was electrical -- a relay of some sort was heating up and cutting out -- so he was confident he could get it running long enough to move it to a storage lot. Which he did. When the day came, with the engine cool, the Guppy fired right up and ran just fine the two miles down the highway to where it's now parked. 

Next step was figuring out what to do with the ton of stuff that was in the Guppy. We rented a UHaul truck and a tow dolly. Minor glitch with the UHaul, of course. We made the reservation on a Saturday, went to pick up the equipment on the day specified, and the incompetent woman working at the Thatcher Chevron had managed to lose the reservation. No truck or dolly available. Holy fuck. Pissed doesn't begin to cover how angry we were. We had reserved a 10-foot truck; the idiot woman tried talking us into renting a 26-foot one instead. And no tow dolly.

Fortunately, the UHaul dealer in Safford did have a truck and tow dolly available. After we told him what happened with the Chevron station, he rented us a truck and tow dolly at the rate the original rental would have cost us even though the truck was bigger (a 20-foot, still a lot bigger than we needed, but not as ridiculous as a 26-foot would have been).

We decided to totally empty the Guppy even though there is a possibility we'll be back in it in the Fall. The S.O. thinks he may have figured out the problem -- the ignition control module -- but we were out of patience. It is really hard to work on anything when outside temperatures are hitting triple digits. If the Guppy sells this summer, we'll call it good, and if it doesn't we'll try getting it on the road again in November. But for now we're heading home.

As a side note, emptying the Guppy was a revelation. We had an amazing amount of stuff stashed in it, way more crap than we actually needed. I think it was a rolling example of what happens when there are empty spaces. The storage existed so we felt compelled to fill it. If we go out in the Fall to spend the Winter in the Guppy, it's going to be a lot emptier. We'll just have what fits in the car. I have a hunch this will be a good thing. Less clutter, less claustrophobia. But of course whether or not we ever see the Guppy again is unknown at this point. The Kid might get lucky and have a buyer materialize. After all, the Guppy does run. It just doesn't run far. 

The countdown has begun

I'm sheltering in the shade of the Sparklight pole, watching traffic zip by on US-191, and thinking that it can be really hard here in rural Arizona to grasp that big chunks of the rest of the country are a mess. People elsewhere are dying from a virus that not long ago only virologists knew existed, but other than stores putting up spit guards to protect the cashiers not much has changed locally. Well, Walmart did do an interesting barricade using shopping carts to channel people going into the store into a single line and get them to think about social distancing. The barricade was kind of cute. They also put trash cans next to cart returns in a no doubt vain attempt to get people to put their disposable gloves in the garbage instead of on the ground.

And it's not actually just rural Arizona. I can understand people here in Safford or Thatcher still acting like not much has changed. Graham County has had two confirmed cases of COVID-19, both of which were diagnosed over a month ago and both of which did not require hospitalization. It's hard to take a disease seriously when you see no local evidence of it. Tucson, on the other hand. . . Pima County has not been as much of a hot spot as the Phoenix area, but it has had quite a few cases and at least (as of the last time I checked) over a dozen deaths. We were in Tucson on Saturday. It was a bit odd.

Our first stop in Tucson was -- no surprise here -- at Pull-a-Part.The S.O. was looking for a part for my Focus. It being Saturday morning, it was busy. There was a line of people waiting to get into the store/junkyard. Parking was tight, and got tighter. The Kid and I were waiting in the car for the S.O. She finally got bored enough that she went for a walk to see if he'd even made it into the store yet. He had -- no sign of him in the line. When she got back to the car she said things were tense in the parking lot. When a car went to leave, there were multiple cars wanting the empty slot. Two guys got into a shouting match, both obviously totally pissed off and yelling in rapid fire Spanish. She said they were talking fast enough that she didn't understand anything except one phrase that must be universal: Fuck You! I would have sworn that Spanish contains some really colorful insults, ones that are much better than fuck you, but maybe they had exhausted all of them and the fuck you was just the final shot. Pull-a-Part. It's not just cheap car repair material. It's also entertainment.

It can also be lunch. There's a guy with a mini-van who sets up not far from the store entrance. He sells bagged snacks, cold drinks, and has food of some sort that requires condiments. Hot dogs and burros maybe? He's even got a few folding chairs so you can dine in rather than walking your snacks back to your car. We chose not to patronize him. Instead, after the S.O. emerged triumphant, we went looking for a Popeye's drive-through for lunch, and then decided to seek out a Target.

Holy wah. The parking lot was full. You would not have known there was a Stay at Home advisory in place. The store had signs up saying they were limiting the number of customers in the store at a time, but you could have fooled me. It looked like Target always does on a Saturday afternoon: crowded. If I end up dead from the world's worst chest cold, I'll have to blame the desire for cheap cat toys, because that was about all I purchased -- a scratching post for Beelzebub. Oh, and some Oregon Chai. In any case, it was pretty clear most of the people in Target were not taking social distancing seriously. They were also mostly young (as in not gray hairs), the age slice of the population most likely to walk around asymptomatic.

The Kid and I had talked about stopping at JoAnn's Fabrics but when we saw the line there changed our minds. JoAnn's was keeping in store numbers low; there was a line of probably 100 people waiting to get in, all spaced the recommended 6 feet apart. You know, I like fondling yard goods as much as the next person, but there isn't a bolt of batik on the planet that could get me to stand in line for more than 2 seconds, let alone potentially hours. The ladies in that line must have a serious addiction to sewing and crafting.

In any case, I think that was the last trip to Tucson for us. This was the third time we'd been there this spring; that's more than enough. Traffic is horrible, and there's always something kind of seedy and run-down feeling about the city even in the good neighborhoods.

As I've mentioned before, the S.O. and I are staying home, sort of, in the Guppy parked at the Stables & RV Park at the Graham County fairgrounds. It is not a bad place to be -- it comes with built-in social distancing because the RV area is only 25% occupied (total of 5 RVs in area that could accommodate 20) and those RVs are widely spaced. That's better spacing than we would have gotten had we been able to get into our first couple of choices, both of which were totally full and are set up with sites so close together people with slide-outs get to worry about hitting the neighbor's rig. There is a communal shower house but it's pretty clear I'm the only woman using the ladies' side. The S.O. tells me that for the last couple of weeks it's basically been just him on the men's, too. In short, no fears of contagion from that particular facility.

In any case, here we sit waiting for it to get far enough into May in the Upper Peninsula that we can be reasonably sure of being able to drive the Guppy on to our property without either having to bust through snowbanks or sinking in axle deep mud. Going by photos a friend who lives a mile or so away from where we do, the smart thing to do is just sit here until the next rent payment on our site is due, which is still a good 2-1/2 weeks away.

I had been worried about just where we'd stop with the Guppy en route. I was having visions of Walmart parking lots and interstate rest areas. Well, turns out KOA has opted to stay open nation-wide. They rightly view campgrounds as essential services. There are a surprisingly large number of fulltime RVers out there. Folks who do not have a bricks and sticks home to go back to; their RV is their only residence. Some of those people got left hanging when work-kamper jobs got cancelled, some were doing the ambling around the country spending the maximum allowed time in state and federal campgrounds, and some were extended stay to begin with: KOA does do monthly rates.

And then there are the snowbirds, of course. People like us who went south for the winter and would like to go home eventually. KOA campgrounds have closed communal facilities like shower houses but noted that people traveling in motorhomes or with travel trailers are self-contained. As long as there are hook-ups, they can shelter in place in their RV with minimal social contact. The KOAs are now set up so you can register and pay for a spot using a phone or the internet; no need to step into an office and talk with anyone in person.

I have to say quite honestly that KOAs would not be my first choice when ambling home. I'd much prefer a state park or federal campground. But, as the cliche goes, any port in a storm. Now all I have to is get out the KOA directory and start plotting a course north.

The blogging drought has ended. Maybe.

We have been in Arizona for over two months now and I have basically posted nothing. No photos since San Angelo, no thoughts on what we did or did not encounter along the way, no discussion of how we wound up camped at the county fairgrounds instead of an RV park with more bells and whistles, and for sure nothing about COVID-19 except one cartoon.

Only time fairgrounds have been busy; a rodeo weekend in February.

It's been an interesting two months. We had a wee bit of trouble getting here -- the mechanical issues in Texas capped by negotiating a messy snowstorm as we traversed the Davis and Guadalupe Mountains -- and then were greeted by a singular lack of available RV spaces. I knew getting into the 55+ RV park we stayed at in 2016-2017 was a long shot because we weren't able to make reservations. I did not, however, expect the second choice park to also be full. And the third choice. We were starting to wonder if we might end up dry camping out in the Coronado National Forest in one of the dispersed camping areas. There are a couple spots that the Guppy can get into without too much trouble, but it wasn't something we really wanted to. We also thought about the established BLM campgrounds, another option we weren't overly keen on -- the Guppy could manage the road out to the Riverview Campground in the Gila Box National Riparian Conservation Area, but the single lane road with the blind curves would not be fun.

Then I remembered seeing signage several years ago for RV parking at the county fairgrounds. So that's where we are: the Kevin Burns Stables & RV Park (or maybe it's RV Park & Stables) at the Graham County Parks & Recreation Complex. The RV sites are lined up along a fence that separates the parade paddock from the stables. There are 20 full hookup RV sites; at the moment, only five are occupied. Given that the other RV parks were bulging at the seams when we arrived in February, a combination of snowbirds and copper miners (the Safford and Morenci copper mines are both hiring so if you know any down and out depressed unemployed coal miners tell them to check out the Freeport-McMoRan website), it surprised me a bit that the fairgrounds park was so empty.

Granted, there is always a faint whiff of horse dung in the air, but other than that it's really not much different than any other Arizona RV park. The site is basically bare dirt, and there's no shade for most of the day, but that's true of just about every RV park I've seen in this state. It's fairly bare bones, no clubhouse, swimming pool, or laundry room, but it does have an amazing view of the Pinalenos, Mount Graham and the Pope Scope. It's quiet. It's secure. If you want to do extended stay here you have to pass a police background check. Because it's part of the recreation complex, there are some nice picnic areas close by, there are playgrounds (currently closed thanks to COVID-19), and there's a trout fishing pond stocked by Arizona's fish and wildlife agency.

One thing the fairgrounds lacked was wifi. That definitely cramped my style as well as keeping me out of the Internet swamps as much as I normally like to wade in them. My phone is a TracFone; it doesn't have a whole lot of mobile data for me to burn. We were going to the Safford Public Library to check emails and do other Internet stuff, but that had its limitations: the library was open only 4 days a week, it tended to fill with kids (junior high and high school in the afternoon; preschoolers being read to in the mornings), and it wasn't real close to the fairgrounds. Then health officials found two COVID-19 infected persons in the county. County officials moved remarkably fast to shut things down and to encourage people to stay home. They were ahead of the state when it came to taking things seriously. Although I can't dis the Republican governor too much. He did issue an executive order closing bars and restaurants in counties with COVID-19 cases pretty quickly, at least compared with what's happening in a lot of other red states.

It's been a wet spring; there are gazillions of wildflowers.

No library, no easy access to wifi. Choices became burn data on the cell phone or sit on a bench in the middle of Walmart. Notice I left out the third and most logical choice: forget about the Internet, Facebook, blogging, whatever for awhile. After all, we're lucky enough to be sheltering in place in a location with no near neighbors (we see the other RVers only in passing, not to talk with), where the days are sunny and pleasant, and we could do other things, like sit outside sipping cold beverages and reading. If we were back in the U.P., we'd be stuck inside watching it snow and cursing the slush covered mud (the muddy slush?). We don't need the Internet.

Except I sort of do. I do the online stuff for the Baraga County Historical Museum -- the EBay sales (anyone interested in some instant ancestors? We have some late 19th century cabinet cards we'd love to unload), the Facebook page (which hasn't been updated in much too long), the Amazon book sales, the emails from various people asking questions that always make me want to respond with "Would you like me to Google that for you?" In short, in addition to my own desire to waste time with social media, I'm obligated to be online occasionally for other reasons.

Discouraging grave robbers?

So how am I on the Internet now, inquiring minds want to know. Corporate generosity, believe it or not. One of the local ISPs decided to set up a couple free hot spots in town to help out folks who were in that category of people who relied on places like McDonald's or the library to stay connected. One of those free hot spots is in a fairgrounds parking lot. It's not quite close enough to the RV area to reach the Guppy, but it's a whole lot closer than a bench at Walmart. So here I am, sitting in my car in the shade of a telephone pole with an antenna on it. A pole which, incidentally, does not actually cast much shade and this is Arizona. My Focus is evolving into a sauna. Time to salt in a few photos, proofread, and then head back to the Guppy for the above mentioned cold beverage.

Next time, I may actually do my version of A Journal of the Plague Years. Or not. In these interesting times, you may find a description of the best RV camping in Fort Stockton, Texas, (the Walmart parking lot) more diverting.

A Rare Misdiagnosis

It wasn’t a fuel line problem.

The Guppy’s behavior certainly resembled that of a beast starved for sustenance. It stalled out going up hills, which definitely made it seem like gas wasn’t making it from the fuel tank located toward the rear of the vehicle to the engine. So when we limped into Brownwood, Texas, and the S.O. and Billy Cook conferred, they decided the first step was to change the fuel filter.

Mooch docking in Brownwood

Which they did. Then they ran the Guppy for awhile – problem seemed to be solved. We’d had a good time in Brownwood, been lucky enough to meet a really nice person who let us mooch dock in her yard while the guys engaged in male bonding over the Guppy, but the filter was changed, Guppy was running, time to move on down the road.

I think we made it 36 miles west of Brownwood before the Guppy let out an asthmatic sigh and coasted to the side of the road. So we turned around and headed back to Carol’s yard. The filter obviously was not the problem. It must be the fuel pump.

There was a time where when a vehicle’s fuel pump died, you knew it immediately. There was no doubt about it. The device was purely mechanical, and when it quit, it quit. Now, thanks to the incessant need of engineers to make everything ever more complicated and the prevalence of various electronics in a vehicle’s various systems, it is possible for a fuel pump to go through long, complicated death throes that an amateur actor chewing up the scenery in a Shakespearean tragedy (or a Mel Brooks farce) would envy. There was also the question of “How many fuel pumps does the Guppy have?”

Mistletoe. A couple trees in Carol's yard were loaded with it. 

This would seem to be a simple question to answer. It wasn’t. The S.O. and Billy tossed the question around a lot. Is there a fuel pump in the gas tank? What if it’s the one that is dying? Asking the experts at the auto parts store didn’t help. Neither did Googling information about the Ford engine that powers the Guppy. That particular model year it appeared that some E-350s rolling off the assembly line did indeed have two fuel pumps. Some did not. If there was a pump in the tank and it was bad, the only way to replace it would be to drop the fuel tank. This was not a pleasant thought when it’s a fairly large tank (30 or so gallons), the tank was full when the Guppy left Brownwood, and even with the shit fuel economy RVs get a round trip of less than 80 miles wouldn’t have burned off much.

.

In the end, they decided to change the fuel pump they could get at and hope that solved the problem. So they did, and it seemed to work. The S.O. ran the Guppy in place for about an hour. No problems, other than the cat being annoyed he had to sit in his carrier outside so he wouldn’t end up asphyxiated. Then the guys took the Guppy for a test drive. They were gone over half an hour, took the Guppy up some long grades, and again, no problems. Great. Problem solved. Nice though Carol’s yard was, after a week in Brownwood we were about to be on our way.

Carol and Billy hoping they're about to see the last of us. 

So how far did we get, inquiring minds want to know, before it became depressingly clear it hadn’t been the fuel pump at all? About 100 miles.

The Guppy started stalling at about the 70 mile mark and flat out quit just south of San Angelo. We have AAA Plus, which includes RVs, so we called for a tow truck. After sitting by the side of the highway for what seemed like forever, a truck from Southern Industrial Towing arrived. The driver said their shop worked on RVs on a regular basis.

This was remarkably good news on an otherwise depressing day. It can be unbelievably difficult to find a shop that works on RVs. The dealers for the mechanical part (the Ford engine and chassis, for example) don’t want to touch RVs. RV dealers don’t want to deal with the mechanical part – they’ll fix a leak in the roof but avoid changing spark plugs. Garages that service large trucks usually have so much business with commercial trucks that they aren’t interested in repairing motorhomes. In short, there was going to be no debate about where the Guppy was going for diagnosis and repair: it was going to where the tow truck lived.

While SIE worked on the Guppy, we wandered around San Angelo, which is how we stumbled across Fort Concho. Quite a bit of it is a reconstruction, although it's all very nicely done. 

The driver dragged the Guppy to a safe spot for us to boondock for the night and pointed out where the business was located just down the road. Based on the way the Guppy had been behaving. The S.O. was sure that once everything cooled off, he’d be able to restart the Guppy and drive it that last half mile. In the morning, that’s what we did. Drove the Guppy to Southern Industrial Towing/Southern Industrial Engines and described the problem.

I have no idea what this building in San Angelo is, but it had one of the oddest roof-lines I've seen in a long time. 

The shop owner/manager then said the phrase I think the S.O. kind of dreaded hearing: you’ve got a plugged catalytic converter.

This was a problem the S.O. and Billy Cook had considered and rejected. The S.O. managed to talk himself out of it. He had even contemplated out loud while we were in Brownwood the idea of crawling under the Guppy, dropping the exhaust system, and rodding the converter – shoving a large pipe into the device to punch a hole through it so exhaust would have a straight shot out instead of being channeled through the honeycomb. He’s usually so good at figuring out what’s wrong with our vehicles when they malfunction that I didn’t push it. So we both screwed up. In retrospect, I should have nagged and urged him to do it while we were in Carol’s yard. After all, even if it wasn’t the problem it wouldn’t have hurt.

It was an expensive mistake on both our parts. Paying for repairs you know you could have avoided always hurts. I will say I have no complaints about Southern Industrial Engines. They prioritized getting the Guppy back on the road and did good work. The price of a new converter definitely made me flinch, but I’d Googled prices for catalytic converters and knew it was going to be painful. 

Now I’m waiting to see if AAA comes through on paying for trip interruption expenses. Supposedly they’ll reimburse up to $1,000 for things like hotel rooms, meals, and a rental car if your travel is interrupted due to accidents, theft, or mechanical failures. We did have to stay in a hotel one night while the Guppy was in the shop, and we did eat at a Texas Roadhouse, so I submitted a claim. The hotel was not cheap. We managed to be in San Angelo during the annual stock show and rodeo, an event that apparently draws a gazillion people from around the state, because simply finding a hotel room was a challenge. To say prices were a tad jacked up is an understatement. AAA had better come through on the reimbursement because it was more painful to pay an astronomical sum for a room at a Day’s Inn than it was to pay for the work on the Guppy. At least with the latter, I know the charges were honest. (I can understand why businesses take advantage of those rare occasions when demand  exceeds supply, but that doesn't mean I like it.) 

For what it’s worth, if we drive the Guppy enough miles, the replacement converter will pay for itself. The S.O. is fairly sure the fuel economy has improved significantly. The Guppy has never seen a gas station it didn’t want to pull into so even if we’ve just gone from getting ~7 mpg to ~8 mpg, that’s a 14% improvement. (And, yes, the mileage on motorhomes really is that bad, especially the older ones. This is why they always say that if a person asks about fuel economy when shopping for an RV, they really can’t afford to own one.)

Where we've been, where we are, or Campground Reviews, sort of

We’ve been on the road for two weeks now, sort of ambling toward southeastern Arizona and the opportunity to annoy the Younger Daughter. We had more or less planned to be there by February 1, but it’s looking like that timetable might get pushed back by a few days. The Guppy is currently suffering from a glitch in the fuel line. At the moment we’re mooch docking in Brownwood, Texas, while the S.O. and Billy Cook (aka BBC) work on replacing various pieces parts. They thought they solved the problem by replacing a fuel filter, Guppy fine ran for 36 miles. Managed to get it started and limped back to Brownwood. It died again after a little over 20 miles. Restarted, and now we’re back where they did the first attempt at a fix.

The current diagnosis is a dying fuel pump. A new one has been purchased, but the weather turned to what might be termed shit: dramatic thunderstorms and heavy rain during Monday night, mud and sopping wet grass and a bitterly cold wind Tuesday. Not much mechanicking got done. Today’s supposed to be better. One can hope.

It would, incidentally, be easy to just sit here for awhile if we didn’t have a strong reason to get to Arizona soon. One of Billy’s friends allowed us to park the Guppy in her yard, we have electricity, and we have access to her house for replenishing water, taking showers, and doing laundry. She has been remarkably generous to people who were complete strangers. Best of all, there is no snow on the ground. I even dug out the sandals and wore them for a day or two. 

Then again, Billy has also been generous with his time and expertise. He was a professional mechanic and knows more than the S.O. about vehicles, but he’s also older than us, retired, and could easily have said he wasn’t up to doing anything hands-on. But as usual I’m starting off with a long digression. The title implies I was going to talk about the stops we’ve made along the way and not just the Guppy’s current woes.

This is a handicapped site so has more space next to it than the regular spots.

We hit the road Tuesday afternoon, January 14. It was a later start than we planned to make. Between a late morning dental appointment and the inability to load anything perishable until the last minute, it was after 2 p.m. before the Guppy was rolling south. Our first night was in a motel in Wisconsin. We had no desire to Wally dock when the interior of the Guppy was still similar to a refrigerator. We just kept our fingers crossed that it did not get cold enough in the Guppy for the canned goods we loaded to freeze. They didn’t.

In researching our possible route, I discovered the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois, has a campground that is open year round. During warmer months the campsites – 300 or so of them – are full hookups. November through March there’s electricity, access to a heated showerhouse, and a dump station. We wouldn’t need the later but power and a place to bathe sounded good. We planned to stop there for two nights. That would give me time to organize some of the chaos in the Guppy, get things that just got sort of tossed in at the last minute stashed more neatly, and also allow us to play tourist, which we did. Woke up on Friday to freezing rain so decided to sit for a day, which gave us more time for organizing stuff in the Guppy.

Each of those posts is the hook-up for a camp site. They're on both sides of that guard rail so the spacing isn't quite as tight as it looks. Still tight, but at least you'd be able to open side doors. 

The Illinois State Fairgrounds campground is a good example of the loose way the term “campground” gets tossed around. It’s more like a set of parking lots with utilities provided. There are about 300 sites, but the majority are in flat paved parking lots with the sites so close together that in the summer when it’s busy it must look like an RV dealer’s lot. There are tent camping sites on grass with shade from mature trees, but not many of them. It looked like there might also be some RV sites on grass, but again, not many. Most people who stop at the Fairgrounds campground are going to be backing their rig into a parking space in a lot.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It worked fine for us. It was actually a great place to stop at the start of our trip, just like it would be at the end. If a person just needs a safe, clean place for a night or two, it’s great. The showerhouse is clean, the fairgrounds overall are well maintained and secure. The grounds are fenced with access through just one gate at night and there are security patrols. It’s also quiet and easy to get to from I-55. If a person is interested in Lincoln sites, it’s not far from the cemetery where Abe is buried and it’s an easy drive into downtown Springfield to visit Lincoln Home National Historic Site and the Abraham Lincoln Library. Best of all, during the off season it’s cheap: $15 per night. It’s pricier in warmer months, but they do veterans and seniors discounts. There is also decent wifi, which seems to be a must for a lot of people these days.

Our next stop was at the Almost Home RV Park in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. I had found a couple of state parks close to US-67 that sounded interesting, but high water levels made us re-think that option. It seemed like once we dropped down into the five rivers area and saw that what was supposedly the Current River was looking a whole lot more like a lake (definitely way over its banks) we started thinking that maybe, just maybe, the campgrounds we’d considered cwould be a wee bit damp. Almost Home was in a good location, promised full hookups, and had the added bonus of a laundry room. When the S.O. spotted the sign, we pulled in.

There was no one around, so we called the posted number at the information kiosk. Turned out the owner was in Missouri at an auction. He told us to pick a site and he’d collect a payment in the morning. So we did. Almost Home is a small RV park and is probably an older one. It is clean, though, the wifi  was decent, the laundry room and shower house were fine, and there’s a play area for kids. Some sites are pull-throughs. Because the Guppy is a smallish motorhome, we did a back in. It seemed a little bleak in January, but I think it would be quite pleasant once the pecans leaf out. Most of the sites are shaded, or would be once there are leaves on the trees. We were close to the highway so did hear truck traffic, but that’s true of any RV park that’s close to a busy road.

As far as cost, it falls right in line with the typical private RV park that provides FHUs and wifi: it was $35 per night if you pay cash, slightly more if you use plastic (they tack on the fee Square charges them). I had no complaints; we’d stay there again. 

Our stop on Monday was our first on this trip at a federal campground, Beaver Dam in the Caney Lakes Recreation Area on the Kisatchie National Forest. I can say without hesitation it is the nicest national forest campground I've ever seen. We've stayed at some good ones, but this one hits all the high points. The individual campsites are big, none are in a bad location, the campground is clean and well maintained. The picnic tables had been replaced fairly recently (they look close to new), the showerhouse is spartan but clean, ditto the restrooms. There 27 sites with water and electricity, and the campground has a dump station so you can empty your wastewater tanks when you leave. I was regretting the decision to make it a just one night stop. I could see staying for the full 14 days you're allowed. 

Site was really deep. We could have parked the largest Class A easily. 

Like many federal campgrounds, sites are reservable through recreation.gov. This particular campground has a limited number of first come, first served sites in addition to the reservable. We did not have a reservation, but I had checked the website and saw that things were very slow in January. At a busier time of the year, I would have made a reservation rather than take a chance on doing a successful walk-in.

The itinerary put us in Waco, Texas, next. We planned to visit Yellowdog Grannie, do lunch and get caught up on what's been happening with her, and also take some time to play tourist in Waco. I wanted to visit Waco Mammoth National Monument, one of the newer parks in the National Park system. We hoped to stay at the same Corps of Engineers campground we'd stayed at before, but when we got to it the campground was closed. It is apparently still repairing flood damage from last year. That kind of threw us for a loop. 

View from a campsite at Beaver Dam

There was a private campground and marina nearby on Waco Lake so we went to check it out. One problem: no place labeled "Office" or directions on finding it, and when we called the number posted on a small sign the call went to voice mail. We drove around, discovered the RV area looked horrible, very raw and new with lots of loose gravel and no shade whatsoever -- the place is going to be hell in another month or two when the sun starts beating down on whoever is parked there, and no signage telling people where to find anyone in charge. So we did a Google search and found information for an RV park north of Waco. It looked pretty good on the web site.

Unfortunately, it apparently not being our day, it got dark before we got very far up I-35. We got far enough north that the S.O. became concerned we'd missed the exit. We doubled back, and then saw a sign for Waco North RV Resort. We figured that was it. Pulled in, discovered the office was closed already but there was a number up. Called it, asked about a site for two nights, and was told what might be open. The woman on the phone said we could just come to the office in the morning and also told me how to find the wi-fi. 

The Waco site was a pull-through but very narrow and short.

We found a site that looked okay, well removed from the interstate, so figured it would be fine for two nights. The park didn't look like what I'd seen on the website, but websites get creative with photos all the time. It was a full hookup park, which was nice. And the wi-fi worked, although it was an open network so not particularly secure. We were feeling pretty relaxed, glad the day was over and we were off the road for awhile. That's when the freight train came through the living room.

Or at least that's what it felt like. Loud, very loud, and very close. Turned out that train was not an anomaly. There were a frequent trains. Luckily, the S.O. and I can tune out freight trains. I grew up in a house next to railroad tracks. I find it easier to sleep next to railroad tracks than next to a highway with truck traffic. In the morning we discovered the only way we could have been closer to the tracks would have been to be parked on the right-of-way. The back end, the "quiet" end of the park is next to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks. 

We also discovered when we drove up to West to do lunch that there are a lot of RV parks along I-35 north of Waco on both the east and west sides of the interstate. All of them seemed to have "Waco" and "North" in their names, so no doubt all of them are hoping to be mistaken for the really good Waco North (North Waco?) RV park, the one that's a Good Sam park and gets really high ratings in the Good Sam guide. Live and learn. 

And now we're mooch docking. The Guppy developed a fuel line problem between Waco and Brownwood so we've been sitting for a few days. We were aiming for Brownwood so we could stop to visit Billy Cook, someone the S.O. and I met through blogging but had never met IRL until last week. He's a retired mechanic (among other things) but I don't think he expected the first phone call from us to be "Help. The Guppy died." 

He found us a place to park the Guppy while he helped the S.O. with repairs. The initial diagnosis was a bad fuel filter. Replacing the filter didn't make a difference so then the fuel pump got swapped out. We're still waiting to see if the fuel pump was the problem. There will be a test drive or two locally before we venture farther down the highway. 

If the Guppy had to develop a glitch, I guess Brownwood was a good place for it to happen. For sure it beats being broken down by the side of the highway.

So where is it?

We decided to linger in Springfield, Illinois for another day to avoid driving through freezing rain that was predicted for the St. Louis area and southeast Missouri. It's supposed to hit here, too, but so far all that's happening is it's gotten windier and grayer. Theoretically, the freezing rain hits here this afternoon, early evening, and then turns into just rain. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and above freezing so by the time we get our shit together and head out driving conditions should be fine. I hope. The older I get the more of a wimp I become.

The cow pilot my friend Teresa gave me  almost 20 years ago is still traveling with me. Think she's on her third dashboard.  

We're now into Day 4 of the Road Trip. We're convoying because we never got around to replacing the tow dolly that fell apart in Kansas three years ago. Allow me to say that I am not particularly enthusiastic about staring at the back end of the Guppy for 2,000 miles. That view gets old -- although the two legs had some potential excitement. There was still snow on the roof when we pulled into Springfield. Every so often a chunk of it would fly off. I was hanging back just in case a really big piece became air-borne but it never happened. No ice to speak of either, which surprised me. And, yes, we know that roof should have been cleaned off, but good luck doing that on an RV that's been sitting outside uncovered for multiple months.

Stop before getting to the highway so the S.O could check fluid levels. The snow on the bumper hung on until we were almost to Madison, Wisconsin, about 300 miles from home. There was still snow on the roof when we got to Springfield, about 575 miles. Which isn't bad. A few years ago there was still snow on the Guppy when we got to Farmington, Missouri, over an hour south of St. Louis.  

Got a late start on Tuesday, thanks to the combination of one final dental appointment and the inability to put anything that might be damaged by freezing into the Guppy too far in advance. I think when we were loading the Guppy the temperature in it was in the mid-20s. I had pre-packed all the canned goods, but even so . . . we had a lot more stuff than I would have believed before we started packing it all up. We did not get far the first day; wound up in a motel in Rhinelander feeling exhausted and vowing to never start a trip in mid-winter again.

Pulled into the Illinois State Fair grounds Wednesday evening. This is probably a pretty busy "campground" in warmer months: it's a convenient location and it's cheap. Right now it's rather dead. The fair grounds do extended stays so there are some RVs parked here that have obviously been sitting here for awhile. The folks to the north of us have skirting in place and enough dust-covered clutter around that it's clear they haven't moved  in a while.

I don't think I'd want to do extended stay here. The campground is fine as a transient, but considering it's basically a series of large paved parking lots it wouldn't be real pleasant for more more than a few days at a shot. The sites are full hook-up in the summer (right now they're electric only) but there isn't much space between them. I can see where when it's really busy here (like during state fair week) the "campground" would bear a strong resemblance to a RV dealer's sales lot. The people with slides would have a hard time extending them. It is also huge -- 300 total sites, most of which are full hook-ups in warmer weather.

S.O. in a typical vacation pose. 

On the positive side, the showerhouse is super clean, water pressure is excellent, and there's plenty of hot water. The fairgrounds do have security, and the grounds are fenced with limited access. It's also fairly cheap. We'd stay here again if the timing was right.

It is kind of neat seeing the fairgrounds. Really nifty old exhibit buildings and barns. It's an interesting site -- definitely not level, not at all the sort of topography where one would expect a fairgrounds to be built. It has an over-sized statue of a young Abe Lincoln, a sculpture that bears a strong resemblance to a muffler man but thinner. Muffler men are rather muscular; beardless ax-wielding Abe Lincoln is definitely lean. No photo because it's just too damn cold -- one thing I was not expecting was that central Illinois would be more frigid than the U.P.

We did play tourist yesterday and visited Lincoln Home National Historic Site. It was a gorgeous sunny day -- colder than the proverbial witch's tit but totally clear with an amazing blue sky -- but will do a separate post with photos. We skipped going to gawk at Lincoln's Tomb. I've seen it before and the S.O. wasn't interested. We also skipped the Frank Lloyd Wright house (the Dana-Thomas house). I've always thought Wright is overrated -- what's the point of designing eye candy if it's impossible to maintain and really hard to live in? -- and the S.O. has never been as keen on architecture in general as I am.

The countdown has begun

We moved the new mini-fridge into the Guppy yesterday, and the S.O. completed what he hopes is the last mechanical repair. If all goes as currently planned, two weeks from now we'll be somewhere considerably farther south and west.

The Original Plan had been to hit the road right after Thanksgiving, but a dental appointment I cannot miss got pushed back to January 3, which kind of meant we're here until then. I wasn't happy about the appointment not happening until after the holidays, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The change in plans does mean slightly less ambling -- we had planned to start off going southeast into Kentucky and Alabama before swinging west. Now we're going to just aim for Texas and the southwest. Not sure just what all we'll do in Texas, but I do want to cross Guadalupe Mountains National Park off the list of parks I haven't been to yet. For sure we'll stop in New Mexico at White Sands National Park (newest one to get the NP designation in the system; it was upgraded from a National Monument about a week ago). I want to go to Lincoln, New Mexico, too, and visit the grave of Smokey Bear, but the S.O. may feel that's a side trip that's just a little too weird for him.

The final mechanical repair was to replace the calipers for the brakes on one front wheel. The S.O. noticed the brake shoes were hanging up as we were coming back from Pictured Rocks on September 30. He'd tried a couple things to see if that would make a difference, but finally bit the bullet, bought new calipers, and replaced them yesterday. We need to get stuff secured in the house part of the Guppy before he can do a test run to make sure the fix worked, but we need to secure stuff in any case.

The Plan for today is for him to get the doors back on the mini-fridge and for me to do Other Stuff, like securing various things that might bounce in ways we don't want them to bounce if they're not secured. I will start moving some clothes into the bedroom closet and drawers, too. I certainly will not be wearing my high water pants or sandals around here in the next two weeks. We may try to get some Reflectix cut to fit the windshield and other windows in the cab, too, while we're thinking about it.

We already did Reflectix on two windows in the bedroom. It turns the space into a cave, but it'll come off easy when we get to a place where it's warm enough that we don't have to worry as much about either keeping things warm or preventing condensation.

As for the mini-fridge, it's electric only so obviously we can only use it when we're parked were there's electricity. If we boondock it's basically just a pantry. It's a just-in-case fridge. My niece and her family spent a few weeks living in the Guppy when they relocated to the U.P.  in May. The original equipment refrigerator, which is now 30 years old, was in continuous operation for about a month and decided it didn't like it. First, it apparently began tripping a breaker when it was running on electricity. So we switched it over to propane. It worked okay for awhile, and then it did the same thing: decided it was time to quit. Given the age of the appliance, we figured it had reached the end of its useful life. We bought a mini-fridge and set it up in the Woman Cave so Bonnie would have a place to keep milk and other perishables instead of having to mess with a cooler.

We had experienced problems with the refrigerator while we were at Pictured Rocks in 2018. We were running it on propane and after about two weeks it quit. We got ice and used it like a cooler. It deciding to quit again this summer was not a huge surprise. We had been debating getting a small refrigerator, something bigger than a dorm fridge but not a real residential model. You know, something like the refrigerators you find in hotel rooms. The S.O. measured the space where the built-in refrigerator is and we looked for a small refrigerator that could go into that same space if that's what we wanted to do. We did not seriously consider purchasing an actual dual-power (gas or alternating current) RV refrigerator. We only paid $3,000 for the Guppy. We're not putting anything into it where the price includes a comma. We're old. Realistically, we don't have too many more years left of doing things like campground hosting or long road trips. [How much does one of those dual power refrigerators cost, you ask? The Old Fat Man described replacing one in his travel trailer recently. It ran about $1,800.]

The built-in fridge actually worked better at Pictured Rocks this year. It ran fine on propane most of the time. Every so often we'd notice that the temperature in it seemed to be climbing when it shouldn't so we'd turn it off. We'd let it rest for awhile, and then turn it back on and it would work again. Odd, and definitely a clue it's going to quit for good soon.

In any case, the new refrigerator is big enough that it has a separate freezer compartment. We know from it being used this summer that the freezer really works and it is big enough to hold frozen pizzas and the 1.5 quart size cartons of ice cream. Its overall capacity is less than what the original equipment fridge would hold, but it's more than big enough for just the two of us. I've never understood the point of having humongous refrigerators that hold enough provisions for a small army. All that happens is things migrate to the back of shelves and turn into science experiments and mold farms.

For now the new fridge is in a corner in the "living room" where we had a storage box. It fits into the space nicely, actually has a slightly smaller footprint than the box did, so it's not eating up much square footage. It's going to start out functioning more as a pantry; the old fridge is currently stocked with frozen water bottles so that's going to be where I stick whatever perishable food we have when we hit the road. Next summer we'll deal with the issue of what to do with the old refrigerator: leave it in place and turn into a full-time definitely mouse-proof pantry, pull it and put the new fridge into that space, or pull it and turn the space into storage.

I know there are people who will wonder how I can talk so openly about us disappearing over the horizon for a few months. "Isn't that an open invitation to burglars?" Well, no. Not if it snows -- and it will. Thieves are lazy. They're not going to bother a place that's at the end of a 600 foot unplowed driveway. And even if they do? Doomed to disappointment. I don't think we own a thing that would be worth stealing.

Adventures in Volunteering: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The S.O. and I spent the month of September functioning as campground hosts at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This was our second time at the Hurricane River Campground, which made the whole experience much smoother than the previous year. We knew exactly what we were getting into. The biggest mystery was what type of attagirl swag we'd get at the end of the month. Turned out to be coffee cups,  a whistle that can double as a key ring, and stickers. Last year we got baseball caps, lapel pins, and stickers. We'd have gotten the caps again this year except we already had some. (The baseball caps actually appear on the first day as a VIP; it's part of the uniform that helps identify the camp hosts to the public.)

Among other certainties, we knew that the one phrase we were going to be uttering a lot was, "Hey, you fucking moron, don't you know what 'No Parking' means?" Well, okay, we didn't phrase it quite the way we were thinking it. What actually came out of the mouth was "Excuse me, ma'am, but this is a fire lane. You can't park here. The sign right next to your car does say 'No Parking.' Seriously. You can not park here. Yes, you have to move to the parking lot. Really. The parking lot. Yes, it does mean you'll have a longer walk to the light house. Yes, it'll turn a mile-and-a-half walk into a mile and six-tenths one way." And so it went. . . the downside to the host's camp site being right next to the Au Sable Lighthouse Trail/North Country Trail, which at that point is a gated access road to the light station. People would pull up by that gate on a regular basis and then get annoyed when they were told to move.

That whole business with people being reluctant to walk an extra 500 feet never failed to amuse me. You're planning a round-trip walk of at least three miles, not to mention the wandering around the light station grounds and maybe climbing a fairly tall tower, but you can't handle having another 2/10ths of a mile tacked on to it? Unreal. The totally predictable part, of course, is that it was generally someone who looked remarkably fit who was reluctant to do any extra walking. The ancient old ladies dragging oxygen bottles and pushing walkers never complained. They just headed up the road with a determined look and came back a few hours later still with a spring in their step, sort of. Or as much of a spring in their step as anyone who looked like a relative of the Crypt Keeper could manage.

Au Sable Lighthouse Trail. People loved to park right in front of the gate (which has a no parking sign on it) or right next to the No Parking sign on a post to the left in the photo. 

I wasn't the only one who noticed that the geezers weren't fazed while the young dudes who looked like gym rats would be collapsing from exhaustion. One of the interpretive rangers who worked at the light station told me he regularly had ostensibly fit young people asking about a shuttle service back to the parking lot while the senior citizens just smiled and kept on truckin'. More proof looks can be deceiving -- just because someone looks healthy doesn't mean they are and vice versa.

Ever wonder just exactly what a brick shithouse would look like? Wonder no more. The Au Sable Light Station has two, one of which is in this photo. It's the small structure on the left. The other two small buildings are paint and oil lockers. 

Anyway. Pictured Rocks. Hurricane River. Wrote about both before but that's not going to stop me from nattering on a third time. Hurricane River is a small campground with a total of a mere 22 sites (including the host's). It is a true campground, completely basic, no amenities other than fairly new vault toilets and a source for potable water. There is a well with a solar-powered pump so people can fill containers. The sites in general are nicely laid out and are great for tent camping. For RV campers, though, probably not so much. The parking pads tend to be narrow even when they're long enough so anyone with slides could have issues. Most of the sites have the added issue of not being particularly level. I know with the Guppy the S.O. had to put a fair amount of blocking under the right rear wheels.

It's not obvious from this photo, but this is a great site in the lower loop for tent camping. It opens up a lot past the parking pad -- lots of space for a tent, a sun/rain canopy over the picnic table, nice fire ring, and lots of trees to screen you from the other camp sites. For an RV, though? Marginal for anything bigger than a Class B. The narrow pad has a distinct slope. 

We did not see many RVs this year, definitely fewer than last year.  Most campers used tents. For those who had an RV of any sort, the micro teardrop trailers seemed to be the most popular piece of equipment with pop-ups and Class Bs a close second, particularly on the lower loop. The upper loop is better suited for larger travel trailers and motorhomes, and we did see a fair number of both up there. The most astounding was probably a 40-foot Class A. They did manage to pick the one site in the loop that is  the easiest to back into, but that was probably sheer dumb luck and not planning. We heard from some locals that they had encountered that same Class A when its GPS sent it down an ATV trail instead of the county highway. They came into the campground to see if the people had managed to find Hurricane River after they'd told the driver how to get back to a real road.

Found at one of the camp sites. It had a cute little saying on the back. I threw it in the trash. Painted rocks, cute or not, are litter and in the same class as discarded water bottles and other debris. They violate the Leave No Trace ethic. 

We also saw a huge 5th wheel in the upper loop. They weren't as lucky as the Class A. We could tell from the tracks in the dirt that it had taken the driver multiple tries to get the trailer where it needed to go -- it was a very tight turn with a couple of rather large trees on either side of the parking pad. Never did see the owners when we were making our regular patrols through the loops. If I had, I'd have been tempted to ask them just how much K-Y they'd had to use to get the trailer on to the site.

Beelzebub napping in the Guppy. I wasn't sure how he'd take to being stuck in a space that small, but it turned out mice had moved in sometime in late August. He found ways to amuse himself. The mice did not have as a good a time. 

There had been changes at the park. Dogs are now allowed on the lighthouse trail. Last year they weren't so we were in the uncomfortable position of telling people if/when we spotted someone with a dog that they had to take the beast back to their car. I have some thoughts about the folks who want their dogs to accompany them everywhere they go -- I don't think it's such a hot idea to be walking a dog anyplace that's both crowded and has a lot of other dogs around because no matter how behaved your beast is you never know if some other idiot has Cujo on an inadequate leash. (Small digression: we were at Tahquamenon Falls on Labor Day and witnessed a couple walking a large dog that snapped and growled at every other dog it saw and almost bit a kid. That dog definitely should not have been in a state park on a super busy day.) But if the Park Service has decided dogs are now allowed on trails where they weren't before, I'm going to be quietly relieved that's one less thing I'm required to nag people about.

The S.O. working hard at camp hosting.

Another huge change is the park went to all campsites being available by reservation only. It is a real-time system. If you come to the campground and think a site might be available, you can get on the Internet, go to Recreation.gov, check on the site, and pay for it immediately. I talked with campers who had reserved their site while stopped at the Grand Sable Visitor Center 20 minutes before arriving at the campground.

I think it's a great system. No questions about whether or not a site is available, no having to get to the campground super early in the hopes that someone is leaving. And no one cheating NPS by failing to put money into the envelope like they did back when camping was first come, first served and payment was on the honor system. We heard a few complaints from people who didn't realize it was now reservation only until after they arrived at the park, but considering the campground was close to 100% occupancy until the last few days of the month I'd say most people had done their research. I know one annoyance is now gone -- the large number of cars and trucks coming into the campground and circling repeatedly hoping to see that someone has vacated a site.

Hurricane River flowing straight out, at least for a day or two. 

We did have one site where people managed to completely ignore the multiple signs all saying camping was by reservation only and set up on a site. I had to give them the bad news the site was reserved by someone else and they had to take all their stuff down and leave. They weren't happy, but they complied without much argument. As camp hosts, we received a report each morning listing the names of incoming campers. It helped. Except for that one incident we didn't have anyone trying to squat on a reserved site, but it was still reassuring to be able to do random spot checks to make sure people belonged there. And for sure it helped a lot to have a clipboard in my hand with a multi-page printout as I told the unauthorized campers that if their names weren't on the printout they were SOL on that particular site. If they were lucky, the state forest campground a few miles down the highway had space -- and all state forest campgrounds are still walk-in, first-come, first-serve. (Michigan state parks do use a reservation system, but they also have staff on-site and offer more amenities than the campgrounds.)

One first this time around was people wanting to park vehicles on the tent pads. Had one guy who had one of those nifty tents that's mounted on the box of a pickup position his truck right on the tent pad -- his reasoning was that it was the one level space. True, but he was lucky he didn't get stuck. Tent pads are designed to be comparatively soft. They're periodically maintained to keep the dirt from becoming too compacted. Another dude backed his pop-up camper onto a tent pad using the same reasoning: the pad is level. Given that he was already on one of the flattest sites in the campground, I wasn't real sympathetic. Pop-ups are remarkably easy to level almost anywhere. I gave him the speech about never parking on a tent pad because they're soft and you can easily get stuck, too. I doubt if it registered.

We did tell the park we'd be happy to come back next year. September is a great time to be at Pictured Rocks. The bugs are gone -- Hurricane River would be an obvious mecca for mosquitoes and biting stable flies in the hotter months; there's a lot of swamp around it -- and the weather has that nifty crisp feel to it. When the sun shines, the sky is an incredible shade of blue and so is the Lake. And when it's rainy and the wind is blowing, the wave action on the Lake is nicely dramatic. Large waves always mean getting to play the "which way will the river flow out now?" game. The mouth of the Hurricane River changed on an almost daily basis. Sometimes it went straight out, sometimes it swung west, sometimes it swung east, and on at least once occasion it split: long sand bar right in the middle and the river going around it. You know life is good when the biggest question each day is which way is the river flowing now?