Neversweat, Sinks Canyon, Grand Teton

 Upon leaving Rawlins, we traveled to Dubois, WY. It's pronounced DuBoys by the locals. According to Wikipedia, they wanted to name the town Neversweat, but that name was rejected by the postmaster. Out of spite, the locals rejected the French pronunciation of the name. DuBoys it is. 

We stayed at Windhaven RV Resort. While both of us agree that it's a campground, not an RV resort, you certainly can't beat the owners' hospitality. It's the only campground to which we've been that provided freshly baked cookies in the evening. 

Dubois scenic overlook - vast 360 degree vistas

On our first day trip, we backtracked to the Lander, WY, area to hit Sinks Canyon State Park. We had been intrigued by the description of the unique geologic feature of the park and wanted to see it for ourselves. The Po Po Agie River disappears into limestone caverns, known as "the sinks," and reappears about a quarter of a mile down the road into a pool, called "the rise." They have used dye tracers to determine that the water takes around two hours to make the trip and is a couple of degrees warmer when it arrives above ground again.  It's super amazing to consider.

"The Sinks" During the spring thaw, the water level is to the roof.

"The Rise" trout pond

While in the park, we opted to take the trail to the Middle Falls for a little exercise. We didn't know about "the slide" where folks slide down slick rocks into a pool of refreshingly cold water. After watching a teen try it, I'm not sure it would have been a good idea for us anyway. 

Part of Middle Falls

The slide

We toured the National Bighorn Sheep Center in Dubois and then drove the self-guided car tour to the Whiskey Basin in a vain attempt to see the bighorns. While we didn't see any sheep, we did take the short half mile walk to a footbridge over a waterfall gorge - beautiful and impressive.

Desert Bighorn, Rocky Mountain Bighorn, Stone, Dall (left to right)

Rushing falls near Glacier Trail trailhead in Whiskey Basin Wildlife Management Area

Dubois is now home to a new museum, the National Museum of Military Vehicles. We had a rather cool and somewhat rainy day, and I encouraged Harold to go while I stayed behind to get caught up on some laundry. Just about every guy to whom we had talked was excited about this place. All I could envision was hours of looking at tank after tank. Harold did enjoy the museum. I think he spent more time there than he has in any museum we've visited thus far. He stayed until closing time!

It's a tank

Dubois is about an hour's drive to the east entrance of Grand Teton National Park. We made the trip twice. The drive over Togwotee Pass in the Bridger-Teton National Forest is gorgeous, especially coming east in the late afternoon on the return to Dubois.

On the way back to Dubois

I was trying to think about what it is that distinguishes the Tetons. They're jagged peaks of granite without a lot of trees. You see retreating glaciers. The overall impression is of blue and white, hard and rugged peaks.

We did see those famous barns, the Moulton barns, that appear in multiple magazine spreads. We saw where Ansel Adams took his photos of the Tetons and the Snake River. We hiked partially around Jenny Lake and took the boat back to the starting point. We drove into Jackson and took our picture with elk antler arch in the town square.  We did not see any bear, elk, or moose. Bummer! We did see a herd of bison, the most we'd seen since Custer State Park. That counts! 

Cunningham Cabin

Jackson Hole - antler arch in each corner of the park square

Moulton Barn 

On the Jenny Lake Trail

Jenny Lake Trail

Jagged peaks and glaciers

Mount Moran

Byways and an Old Prison

 After leaving Cheyenne, we spent a week in Rawlins, Wyoming. Western Hills Campground was our base. The staff was nice, and we enjoyed our free game of putt-putt. The campground was essentially a gravel parking lot, so we didn't spend a lot of time outside there. Plus, the wind could rival South Dakota's wind. Then, there was the smoke from all the California, yes, California, wildfires creating a hazy sky for most of our visit.

Despite the haze, we took a scenic drive down the Battle Pass Scenic Byway. Our first stop was Aspen Alley. That will probably be really pretty in another month or so. The next stop was the Grand Encampment Museum. I'm not sure whether it was the exhibit of part of the tramway built for copper ore mining or the two-story outhouse that was the highest draw. We ended up skipping the hot springs at Saratoga, opting for some ice cream instead.

Once Harold heard that there was an old locomotive snowplow on display in Hanna, we had to drive out there and to Medicine Bow, where we went through the Medicine Bow Museum in the old depot. 

Since we were in Rawlins, we felt like we should tour the Wyoming Frontier Prison. Ugh, I was just sort of creeped out. A mock-up of the Julian Gallows where the inmate hangs himself and the old gas chamber along with the stories the tour guide so enthusiastically shared made me quite glad the tour was only an hour. 

Another day we took the Seminoe-Alcova Scenic Byway out past Seminoe State Park. Part of that road was gravel and they weren't kidding about there not being a lot of services out there. I'm glad we had enough gas in the tank. The area around the state park is quite scenic and the fishing is so good along the North Platte River, the area is known as the miracle mile. We don't fish though so we probably couldn't appreciate the location as much as an angler would.

Aspen Alley

Tramway for copper ore mining

Replica of a two story outhouse - deep snow or fake?

Frontier Prison

Thankfully Covid19 restrictions meant we couldn't sit in the chair

Locomotive snowplow

The Virginian in Medicine Bow - once the largest hotel between Denver and Salt Lake

Seminoe Reservoir area

Southeast Wyoming

 Well, it may not have been in our original plans, but a week in Cheyenne, WY, worked out great. We stayed at the famcamp on F.E. Warren Air Force Base. We did a little sightseeing downtown, especially the restored train depot and the Big Boy 4004 display. 

We took a day long loop trip stopping at Quebec 1, a historic missile launch facility, the Chugwater Soda Fountain, the Oregon Trail Wheel Ruts, Register Cliff, and Ft. Laramie. 

Another morning we headed west to Vedauwoo  Recreation area, where we watched hikers and a couple of rock climbers and checked out the free dispersed camping sites. We wanted to get a feel for whether such sites were even feasible with our bus. Of course, we had to check out the Ames Monument. 

Union Pacific's Big Boy 4004

15 ton blast door - Quebec 1 

Note the huge red shock absorbers for the launch facility, which is 50 ft underground

Commander's spot - Quebec 1

Salted Caramel Malt - oh yeah! 
Chugwater Soda Fountain - Wyoming's longest operating soda fountain

Oregon Trail wagon wheel ruts in the sandstone 

Register cliff - With so many others adding their names and dates, it was hard to tell what was real.

Ft Laramie - ruins and restored buildings

One of many restored rooms

Vedauwoo Recreation Area

Ames Monument

Roll & Pitch, Y'all

In a previous blog Plan B (Not plan 9 from outer space), I talked about how our HWH leveling system failed while I was driving down Floyd Hill just west of Denver CO.  Already on edge after a change of plans, we did not need a piercing alarm screaming that our jacks were deploying while traveling down the freeway at 60 mph. Some days, traveling can be a bit frustrating. 

The system deploys hydraulic jacks in the four corners of our home on wheels when we are parked in a campsite. 

The rear jacks deployed, proudly displaying the HWH logo

The system first vents the air out of the the air bag "springs" in the suspension and then it eliminates the flex of our eight tires by bypassing them with the four jacks.  The tires are still taking most of the weight of our RV, the jacks just stabilize our apartment on wheels.

In my life I have found that if I plan for the worst and hope for the best, life falls somewhere in the middle. Prior to this incident I had downloaded and printed the service manual for our 625 series HWH system.  The manual covers all types of casualties and the adjustments you can make to the system. I broke out the manual and started reading. Regrettably it does not cover a complete system failure which is what we had.  

I checked for power input, which it had, and checked that it was also receiving the parking brake set signal from the Spartan Motors built chassis. Both were good and that completed all the troubleshooting I could do without assistance or more training. So I called HWH Corporate Headquarters with the expectation I would be able to talk to a technician. However, due to the Corona Virus Pandemic they were down to one technician. The kind lady who answered the phone put me in the queue to receive a callback.  I expected the call in a day or two.

When I did not receive a call back after a week, I explored alternative assistance.  I left an after working hours voice mail message at Stuart's Services, which is a shop in Elkhart Indiana (AKA the RV manufacturing capital) that specializes in repairing HWH leveling systems. According to HWH's website, "Stuart's Service is the only exclusive and oldest HWH OEM dealer installation and service center."  It shows.

The next morning at 08:34 I received a call from Chuck Stuart, and he is VERY knowledgeable!!!  Due to my maxed out frustration factor, I was prepared to purchase the $913.61 replacement brain for the leveling system. He refused to sell me anything before I conducted some guided diagnostics. Talk about a; customer focused business model.

Our generator is mounted on a hydraulically operated sliding tray that uses the fifth channel of the HWH system. The sliding tray was not operating since the HWH system was not working. Therefore, it was very difficult to access the HWH control box, tucked away next to the generator.

Where the control board is safely hidden. Access is limited with the tray retracted.

I unpacked my adjectives when trying to remove the power connectors that have not been disconnected since 2007, the year our bus was built.  It was a very small space I was accessing while lying on the ground under the front of the bus.

HWH control box, hydraulic pump, fluid tank and solenoid valves.

I removed the unit, hoping to see a blown fuse or other obvious issues.  When I jiggled the box, I saw component L2 was dancing around...  on close inspection, one of the leads was broken. We had hit one too many dips in the road. 

Thankfully in our downsizing from our home to our bus, I kept my soldering tools.  I removed the component and used my solder sucker to remove the old solder from the circuit board through holes which would facilitate installation of a replacement or repaired component.

Component removed from the circle labeled L2

I carefully removed the heat shrink wrapper and the Cambric insulating tape from the inductor and was pleasantly surprised that the broken lead was from the outside of the winding not the inside.  If it was the inside lead, I would have to manually unwind and rewind the coil of magnet wire.

According to Wikipedia: An inductor, also called a coil, choke, or reactor, is a passive two-terminal electrical component that stores energy in a magnetic field when electric current flows through it. An inductor typically consists of an insulated wire wound into a coil around a core.

Inductor with its guts exposed.

The longer lead you see is after I unwound the inductor one turn which hopefully would not take it out of the circuit's tolerance as it appears to have several hundred turns of wire.

As I did not have any heat shrink tubing that was large enough on hand, I wrapped the coil with 3M Super 88 electrical tape.  I sanded off the magnet wire insulation then reinstalled the component on the board.  To lower the chance of a lead breaking again, I placed some 3M 9760PC adhesive transfer tape on the bottom of the inductor's core to bond it to the circuit board. This way the leads are not taking the mechanical load.

The mad scientist hard at work

Once I had it all installed, I powered it up and it worked flawlessly.  I was able to extend the generator tray to access the level sensing unit.  After tweaking the adjustments, I called it good.

All total, it cost me several hours of my time and zero dollars.

I would like to thank Chuck for refusing to take my money.