Ogden

The Great Motorhome Story, Part 5

Posted by Rick on in Comedy, Misc 0 Comment

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To recap, my Motorhome is broken down in Ogden, Utah. I live in Portland, Oregon. It’s roughly 1000 miles between the two. I already went down to help see about repairing it, but we found a bent rod and the piston is busted and burned. That was my second trip to Ogden.

A few weeks later I’m starting to think about this again. My mother starts calling around and finds that my Uncle has a truck powerful enough to two the motorhome on a trailer my Cousin owns. The kicker is that it had to be done THAT weekend as he was going to be busy for the next month.

I contact the guy who’s place it’s at and let him know we’re coming down. He’s out of town, but lets his wife know. The plan is that I drive down to Klamath Falls, spend the night, drive to Ogden. Spend the night in the motorhome, load it up and drive back to Klamath Falls where the Motorhome will be dropped off at my Cousins who will put the new engine in it.

So I leave Portland at about 9pm. I’m using the IM app on my cell phone to update my location via Ping.FM and keep everyone in the know. Now, I absolutely love the drive between Portland and Klamath Falls via Bend. I don’t know why, but I feel it’s a great little trip. The scenery is awesome, high desert, mountains, cities, small cities, old barns and buildings, rivers, canyons, and LOTS of deer.

So many deer that at about 2am and 75 miles north of Klamath Falls I simply didn’t feel safe driving on the road any more. They were jumping out in front of me and I did come fairly close to a wreck once. So I pulled over in either someone’s driveway, a country road, or maybe just a wide spot in the road and took a nap. I was woken up about 5am by a truck, but felt well enough to drive in to Klamath Falls again.

I stopped at the same bakery again, then my Aunt and Uncles house. Being as it was 6:30 and he’s retired, the bum wasn’t up quite yet. When he did get up, we changed the oil in the truck just in case. Got the trailer, found that the heavy duty winch was missing and the spare tire had a huge gash in it so it wouldn’t take air anymore.

Whatever, we’re off. We stop in Bly, Oregon to pick up a bigger and more powerful winch from a friend. And we’re off! I’m enjoying the road between Klamath Falls and Lakeview due to the scenery. And then from Lakeview to Winnemucca. And then Winnemucca to Elko. Elko to Salt Lake City, and then to Ogden, where we arrived about 1am.

Now, the motorhome was parked in an alley. But the road it butted up on is a two lane each direction with turning lane in the middle type road. And the motorhome is locked. I start banging on the door to the house to get the keys to it and apologizing up and down once his wife opens the door. She was friendly about it, but obviously hurried back to bed.

My Uncle is looking at this, and thinking about it. He decides that we’ll just load the motorhome up now before traffic gets too bad. So we unhook the trailer in the parking lot across the street. Throw a tow chain on the motorhome, and pull it out of the alley up into the same parking lot. This parking lot has an angle on it, so we put the motorhome at the top side, and the trailer at the down side.

Pop the break on the motorhome and suddenly is going towards the trailer, UP and over the hump. But… the trailer hitch drags on the ground and sticks the motorhome halfway on to the trailer. Not a problem, we get out the winch only to find out that neither one quite has the power to pull the motorhome the rest of the way on to the trailer.

Much cussing and swearing happens. We have to keep the truck hooked to the trailer so that it doesn’t slide. So I go back to the house and attempt to knock on the door to see if we could borrow their early 90’s Chevy Suburban to get the motorhome the rest of the way up. They’re not answering the door.

We find a come-along in the box on the trailer. Hook it up and start jacking on it. It tightens, but the motorhome doesn’t move an inch. So I dig into the Triple A for motorhome info and call them to see if they could get a tow truck out to help us. They work on doing so and just as we’re about to get someone, the motorhome starts moving.

Apparently my walking around inside and shaking the motorhome caused it to loosen just enough for the come along to start working. At this point I’m a bit scared. I’m in an 8000 pound vehicle being winched on to a trailer that only has six inches of clearance on one side and about a foot on the other. And, is only about 8 inches longer then the motorhome itself. PLUS no power steering. If this thing falls off the trailer, it’s done and I’m probably seriously injured.

Some how it gets on safely. And is tied down. We head down the truck stop to fill up and take a nap in the motorhome. My Uncle decides as we get down there that he wants to go ahead and get out of town before rush hour hits Salt Lake City. It’s coming up on 5:30 am at this point so I agree as it’s going to take 60-90 minutes to drive from Ogden to Salt Lake.

We start driving. And driving. And after getting through Salt Lake, another stop at a truck stop for some food and gas top off. Then we KEEP going. Some where along the line here we get a call from my Cousin. He doesn’t have a place to put the motorhome, nor the time to work on it due to his new job. I’m soon taking 15 minute cat naps in the passenger seat. We stop for lunch and gas in Winnemucca, Nevada.

This was taken outside of the Flying Pig BBQ in Winnemucca. The food was pretty mediocre, but I can’t really expect anything better when in the middle of the Nevada desert.

The next leg of the trip was Winnemucca to Lakeview. This is 240 miles. With one very small gas station in the middle at Denio Junction. Luckily the gas station is ran by the bartender inside so you can get gas pretty late. But trucks like us coming through and loaded down need that gas there. And the locals of course.

As we were pulling in to get gas there, we found another guy hauling cars doing the same thing. He only topped off a couple of gas cans. This guy was crazy though. One of the tires on his trailer had some sort of bubble coming out of it. And he was driving fast. The hills along highway 140 to Lakeview are dangerous if you’re going to fast.

We caught up with this guy in Lakeview and I noticed that he had severely damaged the cab of his pickup truck when backing his trailer up. Add in the tire problem and the way he’d been driving before and I’m surprised we didn’t have to stop to help him out of a ditch.

Anyways, made it into Klamath Falls about 9pm. After a quick bite to eat, bed came calling. I was up again at 6am and snuck out of the house so as to not wake anyone up. As it was early still, I took the opportunity to check out a couple of locations I had seen from the train. Nothing to special was seen, until I got back up to LaPine. I found this old house in a pasture. It was obviously being used as a storage shed/horse barn in the recent past.

Another stop further up the road was Petersen Rock Garden.

But finally, I got home again. My Aunt and Uncle decided to bring the motorhome up to Portland a couple of days later. I was going to have them put it into my yard, but decided to send to my brother’s house instead.

Unfortunately, I still needed to get the engine. So…. a fourth trip to Klamath Falls with my dad, my father in law, and my dad’s pickup truck to get it.

This little adventure touched every member of my family it seems. I’m sorry that the original trip didn’t go through, I was really looking forward to visiting Roswell, San Antonio, and maybe Hollywood/LA a little bit too. I didn’t always enjoy the next three trips, and was cursing quite a bit at times.

But it was an adventure!

The Great Motorhome Story, Part 4

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So I finally arrived home. My motorhome is broken down in Ogden, Utah about 800 miles away.

After about a month, maybe two, I’m starting to get itchy about getting it taken care of. I call my cousin up who expressed interest in trying to get it fixed and send him a chunk of money to buy parts. The guys house it’s parked at is a mechanic too and would help. He diagnosed it, and as I later found out, was able to drive it around the block to park in the alley behind his house.

So my cousin makes arrangements to head to Ogden from Southern Oregon. A trip of about 700 miles each way. On the spur of the moment (and still unemployed,) I decide to go down, meet up, and drive the motorhome when it’s fixed. My cousin was planning on driving it and having his wife drive their car home, so I thought it’d be a bit easier for me to help and pay for gas/food/etc.

Everyone agrees this is a great idea. Or possibly everyone was just being nice about my spur of the moment idea.

So, a bit of research later and I find that the Bus is cheapest, even though it takes about 18 hours to get there. I pack up, take a couple of large novels to read. At the bus station I forget my cell phone in the car and board without it.

The bus ride was… entertaining at times. I had a seat to myself until Boardman when I had to share with some kid going to see his mother in Salt Lake City. A 20-something girl kept tormenting a little Mexican kid, while an older Asian woman joined in the fun after quite sometime. I think the 20-something was mentally challenged as I seriously thought she was going to start hitting the kid at a couple of points.

As the bus drove to the different bus stations in each town, I got to see quite a bit of each of the towns. Unfortunately most of it was from the bus window, and a good portion was at night. The stop over in Boise was nice, I walked around a few blocks and watched kids cruising down the street. Annoyingly, we drove right by a Chevy Dealership in Twin Falls. And they even had a motorhome of about the same vintage and make sitting over near the repair bays.

The bus finally arrived in Ogden at 1am. The bus driver almost didn’t get me my bags, but I blocked the baggage door before he closed it. At that point, I was just dead tired. I had napped on the bus as well as can be done in those uncomfortable seats. I thought about just sitting on the ground and sleeping, but the amazingly comfortable bed in the motorhome beckoned.

I started walking. And walking. And then walking some more. After about 45 minutes I realized I was going the wrong way. It took me several blocks to realize that I was passing landmarks that I saw when I was here the first time – on my long Sunday stroll. I got turned the right way, as I was going towards my destination I found Ogden’s Historic 25th Street. Which, had several bars, several dining establishments, and several even had hours posted for Sundays!

I also found a strip bar, and pretty sure I saw a prostitute walking along the street. This was not the town I had seen two months ago!

I finally made it to the motorhome, (and surprised to find it parked in the alley,) and fell asleep for a couple of hours. I thought I got to the motorhome at 5am, but I can’t believe that it took me 4 hours to walk that far. Even half asleep. Interestingly, I was awake again at 9am and very wide awake.

After scrounging for breakfast at the (1960’s size) super market across the street, I found that my cousin hadn’t shown up yet. Not too big of deal, it was a 14 hour drive for him after all. As the motorhome had been moved, wireless access was now impossible. Stuck, in Ogden, again. This time with no communication technology beyond semaphore, I bravely struck out for parts unknown in an attempt to gain such access.

Two hours later, on 25th Street, I found a small cafe that offered Internet access. Ironically the movie theater and “lifestyle” shopping mall just down the street offered access too, but the signal was too weak to get anything no matter where I moved. So I had an unmemorable sandwich for lunch, and was able to get enough wireless signal to let my wife know I was OK, and to tell her about the phone via IM. And to let her know about my communication challenges.

I wandered town for a bit more then headed back to my four wheeled home away from home. I read, wrote on my novel, wandered around, ate, read some more, visited the strip bar that I saw the night before just to say that I’ve been in one in Utah. Finally my cousin showed up, we talked about what needed to be done on the motor home, and I went back down to find some place to eat.

The next day, we get a few parts and then start working on the motor home. Front seats are taken out. The engine cowling is loosened, and we start breaking down the engine to replace the water pump and something else. As we’re doing so, I see one of the rods is bent. Get into it and there we are, a blown cylinder. After a round of general cussing, and then shoving all the parts back into the motor home, we go for beer.

But never fear, cousin has an engine to put in so we don’t have to rebuild the old one. Bad news, the motorhome is still 700 miles away from the Engine.

So next morning I beg a ride back to Southern Oregon. I offer to drive, but my cousin is too much like me in that I prefer to drive. We make fairly good time getting to their house about 9pm or so. His wife and kid get unloaded and bundled into bed, then he takes me down to the Train Station then heads home.

All the trains to Portland are done for the night, but there is one bright and early at 8:30 or so. So I find a cheap hotel down the road and sleep in a real bed. Across the street is the old Ford Dealership building, which has some Egyptian Motifs on the front. I remember this building was talked about in an Art Appreciation class I had to take in college. I just don’t remember why it was important.

I got breakfast at a little bakery/coffee shop. They have a huge kitchen which looks bigger then the dining area, and were making fresh pastries of all types. The smells alone were worth visiting the building.

So I waited around in the cold outside the train station. It really wasn’t that bad, but in Early Spring, the wind off the lake gets everywhere. Plus there was fresh snow in the nearby hills.

The train station opened, and those of us foolishly waiting outside were allowed in out of the cold. About 30 minutes later the train arrived. Now, I’ve never really ridden a train before. I’ve gone on a couple of different Dinner Trains such as the Mt. Hood Rail Road.

My initial experience was slightly ruined by an EXTREMELY fat guy who took up a good portion of my seat in addition to his who was also eating tuna fish with crackers. The smell of the tuna fish drove me to take my camera up to the Scenic view car, for which I’m glad I did.

A couple of people from the Klamath County History Museum were in the scenic car giving talks about what we were seeing. I knew most of what they were talking about already, but it was still pretty interesting. One of the things only viewable from the Train is a place called Root Beer Falls.

The water is a bit dirty, but is apparently very nutrient rich which gives it the frothy whiteness. I want to get back here, but just can not find exactly where it is at all. Even then it’s going to take some hiking to get in.

As we continued, the train started climbing into the mountains. It was a pretty gradual climb, but the fresh snow the night before was very nice. We also passed Clear Lake, but couldn’t get a good view of it due to the trees.

Saw some other interesting things, like a covered bridge (didn’t expect it, so didn’t have the camera out,) old and historic train stations. The Willamette River, Oregon City, and Downtown Portland.

So I’m finally back home after another 2000 miles trip.

But the Great Motorhome Story is not finished yet.

On to Part 5

The Great Motorhome Story, Part 2

Posted by Rick on in Comedy, Misc 0 Comment

Back to Part One

So my motorhome is broken down about 80 miles north of Ogden, Utah. This is what I see:

That’s where I came from.

This is the way I wanted to go. Yes, that sign says Elko, and means Elko, Nevada.

And this is what I saw to the West. The East was the highway and a hill blocking my view of anything useful. I am literally in the middle of nowhere.

So after taking the dog for a bit of a walk again, I check for cell phone reception. Hurrah! I have some on BOTH phones. The bad part, due to the constant transfer from one cell tower to another, both are down to two bars of battery. I call the AAA for Motorhome people (the name escapes me at this point) and start talking to them. I’m trying to explain where I am, but they can not find Snowville Utah in their system, because there are no towing companies there. They can’t find the corner of the two highways I’m on. They’re asking me to describe where I am and if there are any landmarks nearby. (See above)

After a few minutes of this, I get them GPS coordinates which finally work. I had to translate them myself so that they could insert into their system. The lady says “OK, We’ll find a Tow Company and get them out too you.” After an hour, she calls back and tells me “The repair shop in Snowville is not answering their phone, they must be closed for the weekend.”

I was like “Ok, I’m trying to head to Ogden Utah. Is there anybody there?” They lady starts getting really excited, she says “Oh! I didn’t realize you were near Ogden.” Well, I’m not, but I mentioned Ogden at least three times in our original conversation as the maps I had showed nothing between Snowville and Ogden.

Two hours later a tow truck shows up. He drove 80 miles from North Ogden. He hooks the motorhome up, disconnects the drive line, we get the dog into the cab of the tow truck and start heading into town. We chat about all kinds of things, how Triple AAA is trying to screw their company over and wants them to paint ALL their trucks Yellow. About the Winter Olympics held in Ogden and how their company was the official Tow Trucks. His time in Iraq, and the fact that he did 85 combat (parachute) jumps as an Army Engineer. Anything to pass the time.

As it’s Saturday, the odds of any shops being open is extremely low. He decides to take me by the house of a guy he works with who can repair the motorhome. We get there, and the guy is a grizzled old biker dude. Sober for ten years, telling his kid to watch the drinking, ticked off at the guy who “stole” his old pickup truck.

We get the motorhome half apart, and get a new belt on. This takes about three hours. I finally get back on the road, but just as I hit the highway and start getting up to speed, smoke starts pouring out the back. It’s mostly white, but there is some black. There is no shoulder on the highway for me to pull over so I nurse it to another exit. The engine dies as I’m coasting down it, luckily it’s empty of cars but I honk the horn as I run a red stop sign and pull into a Village Inn Parking lot.

At this time the motorhome is still smoking and I’m afraid that it’s on fire. I bail out, grab the dog, grab the checkbook, laptop and camera and start walking to attempt to find a place to either get it towed too or repaired. Again, Saturday. Nobody is open except for Midas Muffler and they want nothing to do with it.

I contact the RV Triple A people again, they send another tow truck from a different company with the thought of towing me to a campground. As I was able to keep the family in the loop, I find that my cousin had a friend who had just moved to Ogden two weeks before. The tow truck driver drops me off in front of his house.

Now, I’m sure Ogden is a nice town if you live there. But as a visitor, on foot, it is hideous. There is a grocery store across the street, Dominos pizza, and a Chinese place. The “downtown” area is about 1/2 mile away. But at least I was able to piggy back on someone’s Wi-Fi access, and I was able to run an electric cable from the house so that I could keep the fridge going (too late for the food in it,) and charge the laptop and cell phones.

The next day, Sunday, I get a bit restless and decide to explore what I can. By this time I’m thinking I’m going to buy a used car as I couldn’t find a car rental place that would allow me to drive to Portland. I find the Ogden Dinosaur Park, which is not open on Saturday OR Sunday. I find a single history sign telling about how this road used to be a toll road.


(Take through the fence of the park since it was closed)

I start walking and find that Ogden is a dead town on the weekend. Even McDonalds is closed on Saturday. I manage to find a small hole in the wall Mexican place advertising that they’ve been in business for 14 years. I figure if they’ve been around that long the food must be good. So with three tacos and a drink in hand, I keep walking down the road. I end up throwing away full taco and they are the nastiest things I’ve ever tasted.

I end up walking miles, from twentieth street down to sixtieth. Not a single used car dealership is open. Not a single fast food place it open. The auto parts store I found was closing at 3pm. I walk back to the motorhome and start searching the Internet again.

Finally, I find a Hertz rental place in Ogden. Apparently I was in “North Ogden” which is a TOTALLY different town which was why I didn’t find anything when looking before. I reserve a Chevy Impala for the next day, and make arrangements to leave the motorhome where it is for later.

Picking up the car, I find they’ve given me a Jeep Comanche instead of the Impala I wanted. I was a tiny bit mad about that, as the Impala got better gas mileage. But the Jeep had more cargo room which I exploited to the fullest.

During this time, one of my high school friends that I had not talked to in years let me know via Facebook that he was in Ogden! Woo Hoo! So I went down the road to Hill Aerospace Museum, before meeting up with him for lunch. The museum is OK. It had a few planes (and helicopters) that I’d never seen in person before. But compared to Boeing Field Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, it wasn’t that impressive to me.

On to part 3