07-09-04
Started up the motor home this morning and the fan belt started
squealing again. Had tightened it up yesterday morning.
Pulled the doghouse cover off and low and behold, the belt was
loose. Looked a little closer, and found that the alternator
alignment was off and it was chewing up the one side of the belt.
Not bad, but enough to allow the belt to drop down into the groove
further and loosen the belt. Ok. Time to look for another
parts house. Went back into Flying J and asked the cashier.
She gave me directions to one a few blocks down. Off we go in
that direction. Before we got there, I saw a small local parts
house on a corner street. We stopped and waited a little bit
until they opened. They had one and plus one down the street, so
I took them both. Put one on and have a spare. I'm not sure
this will last til we get home. Now I have a new spare plus the
old one which will go for a while. If I get a change later in the
trip, maybe I will try to fix the alignment situation. Overall,
we only lost an hour of time from the trip for this situation. No
big deal. Away we went headed up I 84 North in Utah headed for
Idaho. Josh, our son called and said we needed to call our credit
card company's fraud department. They noticed unusual spending on
our card and needed to verify that no one had stolen our card. I
called and verified that everything was fine and it was us buying gas
in other states. We drove into Idaho and stopped at Boise for
gas. What a view from their town. A few miles from town is
a huge mountain (s) that are very steep. Wonderful scenery.
We took state route 55 North toward Moscow. Hadn't driven very
far and discovered one of those 7 or 8 % grades that we had to
climb. Not fun. Topped the hill at about 35 mph in second
gear using all of the two barrel carb. Did not want to use the 4
barrel portion if I didn't have to. Got to the top and guess
what? Now we get to go down the opposite side at 7 or 8 %
grade. Once we got on the other side the road runs along side of
a river for miles and miles. Wonderful scenery. Funny thing
though. With all the ups and downs, after a while you can't tell
if you are going uphill or downhill. I would have sworn we were
going downhill, except that I was using almost all the throttle and
looking at the river - water still runs downhill - even in the
west. If it wasn't for that - I'd swear we were going
downhill. Go figure. Anyhow, this stretch of road has many
small villages, with whitewater rafting, boating ramps, etc.
There is even a big lake at one point. When we got to that town,
if I hadn't known better, I'd have thought we were near the
shore. Sand and all. Anyhow, route 55 runs into route 95
North heading toward Moscow. This was another scenic
adventure. Following a road that winds through the mountains with
the sides of the mountains going almost straight up is an awesome
sight. We got in to a small town called Lewiston. There was
a Flying J there,
that I thought we might stay at, but there really was no place to park,
so we decided to keep going. Lewiston is at the base of a large
mountain along a river. Temperature there was about 88
degrees. As
soon as we left there, we started up a steep grade. Rats, another
huge
hill to climb. 10 minutes later we are at the top of a mountain,
several thousand feet in the air, and the temperature had dropped to
about 72 degrees. They had a pull off for a scenic view - got
some
pictures - awesome is the only word to describe the sight.
Pictures
don't do it justice, but will give you some kind of idea what it looked
like. Anyway, we kept driving and got into Moscow about 9:00
Pacific
time. Hunted up a WalMart and went to bed. Yes, after 11
hours of driving, even a 48" wide bed 75" long for 2 people feels
great. Temperatures ranged from 60 degrees this morning to a high
of about 88 or so. Gas mileage from Ogden, Utah to Boise,
Idaho was 9.98 mpg, the best so far. Total mileage to get to
Moscow, Id from Annville, Pa. was 2862 miles according to the
odometer on the motor home. Average gas mileage for the trip was
about 8.9 and we used 320 gallons of gas. Gas prices were usually
1.779 to 1.829 until we got to Boise, Id. There it was
1.889. Once we got to Moscow, the first station was 2.099 per
gallon. Bummer. Hope I don't need much gas here.
Anyhow, here we are. Time for sleep.
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