2012 Puget Puller 2 Dakotas Long Trip - Day 1

Day 1

Let the travels begin.  Our Puget Pullers RV Club is heading off for the clubs “2 Dakotas’ Long Trip”  We will travel through the states of WA, MT, ND, SD, & WY and back home to WA again of course.  There will be several of the big rigs involved, so it looks like we are going to have a great time 

As we drove along I-90 out of Moses Lake, WA we could see an in-progress forest fire that had devoured all the vegetation off the face of the hill which we could see, as well as laid claim to at least 62 homes.    Despite the devastation, the resulting smoke filled the afternoon sky with a grayish haze that translated into a beautiful sunset, full of hues and pastels of red, orange and purple, offset by silver lined orange-grey clouds.  The rays of the sun had been diffused by the smoke into a pallet of soft dusty colors. 

Driving thru the wheat fields of eastern Washington in 99 deg. Heat I found that a couple of drops of doTerra’s “Citrus Bliss-Invigorating Blend” placed on a small sponge and then stuck into one of the air vents, made it quite bearable.  The sweet smell of citrus gave us the sense that we were off on Hawaiian holiday.  Go doTerra.

After pulling the big rig 335 miles from Gig Harbor, WA, to Post Falls ID, we pulled into the Coeur d’Alene RV Park where we met up with the rest of our traveling companions.   It looked as if every RV owner in the state had the same as we did, filling up the later part of August with an RV trip, as out of the 189 RV sites, we managed to snag the last available one.

The rest of the group had already arrived and the finger food pot luck that they were enjoying  was a welcome feast after a long day of Coke,  Snickers bars and Peanut M&M’s.

There is always something that goes wrong with someone’s rig on a trip like this.  I had the honor of claiming one such problem.  If it is a particularly hot day and I run the Chevy DuraMax diesel all day in a hot temperature of above 80 degrees, when I stop and turn off the engine, it won’t always start again.  I had taken it into the Chevy dealership in Federal Way WA, and they replaced the fuel filter and miraculously pronounced the problem solved.  Don’t you just love it when you pay $300 plus for a job that ends up as just slightly better than throwing some pixie dust at the problem and yelling “be healed you demon”.

 In the meantime I have found that if I prime the fuel system,  by pressing up and down on the fuel filter priming pump,  I can get the beast started; and it didn’t cost me a cent, nor an intensive class in diesel mechanics at the local trade school.  Well we shall be paying that dealership a visit again as soon as I return.