The idea was for my wife and I to take a road trip in our 30ft Alegro class A motor home to see our son in Collorado Springs. We live in Salem Oregon. We also want'd to see a relitive in San Jose Ca.
We've made this trip befor in my wifes 2000 Tourus. That was 4,000 miles. This trip however got cut short. On the 2000 trip I saw 3 consummer size wind generators.
Hay 4 years latter things are lookin up. I saw 5.
We decided to leave late at night. Because of this we only drove 3 HRs. But we noticed a bad viration at 55 mph. This seemed odd since we just had 2 new tires installed the day befor.
The other 4 were fairly new and we'de had no problems with them. We went to the tire shop the next morning after a nights rest at Wallmarts parking lot 125 Miles from home.
The tire store we baught from has stores all over the west. The tire guy said the tires were not ballanced corectly and made the correction. Half a day latter we were on the road again.
Theres a lot of wide open space when travelling the great western US and speed limits are typical 75 MPH.
The old motor home was very happy to cruz along at 70 mph. Even hit 80 a couple times.
After travelling into early evening that second day it was time for a pit stop.
I noticed when we stop to get gas that the hub cap has missing from the rear dualls that the tire guy had worked on that morning. With a closer look I noticed that the tire valve extension was broken. The tire guy did not reinstall it correctly.
We had taken the 2 lane senic hyway. I thought the motor home swaying was the road. Turns out we had one flat tire most the way.
We wanted to travel further that night but had to see our tire guy againg the next morning. Wallmart parking lot again. Next day another delay. OK this is the 3rd day 500 miles from home. 3rd city for tire stuff.
3rd time sposta fix it right? Well we headed outa town again. 2 new tires runnin smooth runnin fast. Go through Idaho get into Utah. Midle of nowere I hear what sounds like some kind of exhaust leak. Then I see the dog house lifting up. My wife had a bunch of stuff pilled around it and I'm thinking something is going to sucked down into the engine area. I had to bring the beast to a panick stop along the freeway.
As I was going to get the tools to fix the dog house braket from the outside storage bay I hear this SHHHHH sound. Yep you guested it. The inside dual was going flat.
I yanked the hub cap off and saw the valve extension was floppin around and had broken off alowing the air out.
I got it stopped with 40 LBs of air left( sposta be 80). 10 miles to the next stop and no air. another 40 miles and got some air.
I was going to call DanB along the way but with all the problems and late starts I lost track of time and forgot(my bad).
We finally got to Fort Collins but is was late sat. night and couldn't find DanB or any one to tell us how to get to his remote location.
So we went on to Co Springs 128 miles further So. We visted my son for a couple days. Then I barrowed a car from my son and went back to visit OP HQ.
First stop OPs shipping HQ. I visited with Matt Dans brother. You can tell these guys are brothers. Soft spoaken freindly and very polite.
Matt drew me a map to Dans remote location. I'd say remote is a very mild term in this case. Its just shy of needen a donky. But what a buityfull location.
I asked several folks along the way if I was headed in the right direction. There all very nice and helpfull up there. I asked ?s of a store keeper, school teacher 1 room school,the US mail lady and a hippy lady. They all pointed me in the right direction.
We all see the pictures of OP HQ and all the projects both Dans and his very nice neighbors on this site. However its a real privlidge and blessing to be there in person.
DanB gave me the tuer. The 17ft genny was spinnin in just a wisper of wind and even at that it was making 250 watts. The old shop was as pictured but OH all the storys it could tell.
The new shop is a dream. Its not a cold preduction kinda shop. It very warm and homey and frendly. A place you could sleep and eat and just be happy if you feel like.
But wow its set up nice I expect to see many great things come from Dans new shop.
Nice folks, buityfull place. You guys are in heaven DanB.
Theres so much more I could talk about but its been a long trip and I'm tired and gotta go back to work tommorow (yuk).
Thanks for the nice visit Dan, Matt and the crew. I may come back some day?
JK TAS Jerry
