Westward Ho

 After Washington DC, we turned our nose west and headed out with any real destination in mind.  We had a vague idea of stopping in Branson Mo for a show and Picher Oklahoma where we have family history.

A storm our first night inspired us to stop and overnight at a Walmart in Virginia, right at the border into Tennessee.

We then crossed into Kentucky and while meandering along decided to visit Mammoth Cave National Park.  There was a Thousand Trails nearby that had room, so we updated the GPS and changed course.

We were at the Thousand Trails only for two nights.  We went up to the National Park the morning of the second day and unfortunately found that all the tours of the cavern were sold out.

Oh well.  But the grounds of the National Park were quite nice and Ginger got a good workout on a nice long walk.

After Mammoth, we got back on the road and again headed west.  We then made a wrong turn and ended up on the road to St. Louis.

We hadn't planned on going to St. Louis, but figured what the heck.

We got into a Casino RV Park just across the river from the Arch.  The Casino was undergoing renovation with most of the features you'd expect in a Casino closed - Just one bar and a corner Deli for food.  We decided the Casino wasn't really for us, so we took the Metro across the river to the Arch. 

The Arch was quite fascinating and you can ride to the top in little pods and experience one of the best views we have ever seen.  

We highly recommend it.

We have had a couple of mechanical issues.  

First, our steps broke.  A rivetted part came un rivetted.  We discovered this when we were preparing to overnight in the Walmart we mentioned above.  We got some nuts and bolts from the hardware section in the Walmart and proceeded to "bush fix" the steps.  The bush fix will probably hold until we get home.

The other major thing was that passenger side mirror glass fell out of the mirror while running down the highway.  The heater wires kept it from hitting the asphalt and we managed a probable permanent fix while in St Louis.  Just in case though there is a bit of duct taped helping hold the glass in for a while.

Duct tape makes it all better

Just  as we were getting ready to leave St.. Louis, the dog decided to puke on the bed.   While we have laundry equipment on board, the stuff that needed washing was too big.  That necessitated a 1.5 hour stop at a roadside laundromat.

We eventually made it to the Oklahoma border and decided to spend two days in a Casino RV park in Quapaw just outside of Joplin.  Other than the fact that the Downstream Casino is a very fine Casino/Hotel resort with an excellent (no sewer) RV park, the reason we stopped here was to explore the town of Picher Oklahoma where we have family roots

October 9. 2021

Watson Lake, Tetsa Lake and Whitehorse Yukon

After we pulled out of Liard, we proceeded to Watson Lake, Yukon.

Watson Lake is the home of the world famous Sign Forest.  This is a tradition that got started back in WWII when a homesick GI working on the original Alaska Highway made a milepost marker that included a arrow pointing and the distance to his hometown.

Watson Lake History

Over the years, travelers along the ALCAN have stopped and left their own signs for people to admire.  The town of Watson Lake supports this activity, dedicating land and wooden sign posts for people to hang their signs.  It has grown to probably an acre of densely populated signs.

Good luck finding any particular sign in there.  We tried to find the KYD (see you tube for the KYD stuff) sign, but had no luck.

All and all we found the Sign Forest to be a worthwhile and interesting stop, however I doubt we will stop there again until we have a sign to post.  Note to self:  Make it metal....

We did go to the Northern Lights Center across the highway from the Sign Forest and enjoyed their presentation of the Aurora Borealis.  This is a planetarium like theater and is quite good.

We stayed one night in a full hook-up RV park in Watson Lake.  All the RV parks are essentially parking lots with semi and full hookups.  Nothing remarkable there.

Tetsa River

We took off for White Horse the next day and overnighted in a RV park in the rural mountain area at the Tetsa River Lodge and RV park.  This was a rustic RV park where the water was supplied to our site via a garden hose and 15 amp power via an extension cord.  The generator did not sound healthy so we declined the electricity and lived on our own generator.

This place claims to have the "Best Cinnamon Rolls in the Center of the Galactic Cluster".  They may well be.  The Cinnamon Rolls earned them a spot in the RVs GPS for future stops.

Whitehorse

Most RVers consider Whitehorse a point along the way - They stop an Walmart, fill-up and are on their way. They are missing one of the most interesting places in Canada.

There are many museums in town, excellent restaurants and wonderful natural history.  One of my favorites was the "Worlds Largest Weathervane".  This is a real DC-3 mounted on a pole and is turned by the wind.

Whitehorse is the start of the Yukon River and one if its claims to fame is the worlds longest fish ladder.

Claire at the headwaters of the Yukon

The Worlds Longest Fish Ladder

Headwaters of the Yukon

We stayed in Whitehorse for about 10 days for logistical reasons, but we were not bored at all.  We will be stopping at Whitehorse during our return leg.

Antenna Repair

We had our first overhead accident.

While trying to get into a gas station we went under a previously damaged canopy that had part of the roof dangling down. We heard two bangs, stopped and realized what was going on and then spent the better part of an hour manipulating the RV out of that gas station without causing further damage.

And we didn't even get any gas.

We pulled into a vacant lot and went up to see the damage. The satellite cover was stove in and the OTA TV antenna was at a weird angle.

Fortunately we were able push out the dents in the satellite dish over, but the OTA antenna was not quite so lucky.

The stem of the OTA antenna was badly fractured and because it would leak it became a high priority to replace it.

Fortunately the King Jack antenna used for OTA on Winnebagos' is not that expensive relative to other RV parts.  We got the part and sealant numbers from the Winnebago Support site (Yay! Winnebago!)

A call to King assured us that the Winnebago part was very close to their OAU200 antenna - they mentioned that they had recently dropped the height a bit on their antennas.  Ok.  Cool, ordered one from Amazon and ordered the sealant from Winnebago Parts.

The sealant was stuff we had never used before - "self leveling".  I read up on that and discovered that it is thinner than normal sealant and will flow into the area being sealed. 

One concern was the amount of effort needed get the old sealant off.  One person posted on an RV forum that it took a "couple of hours" to get the old sealant off.  So with trepidation and a new scraper knife from the local hardware store we attacked the old sealant.

We shouldn't have worried - the old sealant just slid off with the knife.  In less than 20 minutes, we had the sealant off and the area cleaned up and the screws holding the antenna on the roof exposed.

The new antenna is white since it doesn't make a lot of sense to male component of the team to have black heat holding components on the roof.  The above picture shows the difference in the heights of the antenna.  The new one is maybe 4 inches shorter.  That shouldn't make that much of a difference in the reception and we think it will be a heck of a lot less likely to get snagged by a tree limb.

We used black rubberized roof sealant to a bead along the base of the antenna and then screwed it down.  The screw pattern was almost the same - where it was different it the holes were sealed and new ones drilled.  While waiting for the black seal to set, we went inside and hooked up the inside electronics.  We decided to keep the old electronics in place since it was identical to the new stuff.  While waiting for the black seal to dry, we fired it up the antenna and watched the Olympics.  Granted we are in an "RF rich" environment, but we could not see any performance degradation from our old antenna.

After it sat for a few hours we put final sealant on it.  This was the whole to tube Nu-flex 311 self leveling white sealant we bought from Winnebago.  We applied it all to the base of the antenna and true to the advertisement, it flowed out, onto the surface and formed a wonderful  water tight seal.

What we did right and wrong:

1. Broke the damn antenna in the first place.  We need to be more careful about overhead obstructions.
2. We used the Nu-Flex 311 self leveling sealant.  Self leveling sealant is our new best friend.
3. We installed the stem that turns the antenna backwards and didn't realize it until after it was sealed.  This had no effect on the operation of the antenna and we are not going to fix it.  All it means is that the little arrow on the knob inside is pointing 180 degrees off.
4. We applied the self leveling sealant too gingerly.  We should have just quickly gooped it on.  While the sealing characteristics are not harmed, the surface of the sealant is a bit dimpled.  Not quite as pretty as Winnebago applied sealant.  But who are we going to offend - the seagulls?