Fly Fishing

Watch a few YouTube videos on fly fishing, and you might think it's impossibly hard.  It's not.  You might get your money's worth if you take a $100 lesson in any town in the mountain west, but if you just wing it, you'll still have fun.

It's more expensive than buying an all-inclusive regular fishing pole with some lures.  A respectable starter rod plus lines and flies will run you almost $200.  Add a net, a cooler, and some rubber dungarees to keep you from freezing your butt off in the river, and it might be double that.  But the actual act of fishing itself is pretty easy.

The rod's longer than a regular fishing pole, the reel's less intimidating, and the line is much thicker.  The line is actually what counts for weight and helps you cast your fly. 

Watch any video or movie about fly fishing and you'll see beautiful back-and-forth casts.  That's (somewhat) doable right off the bat.

But what you're really aiming for is simple:  Get that fly upriver and let him float down as though he's a real bug.  Keep your thick line out of the water so the fish doesn't see what you're up to.  Repeat when the fly is done floating freely.

There's a lot more to it, but anybody can float a fly down the river, with or without beautiful rhythmic casts.  And no matter how graceful you are, you can appreciate the beauty of being out there and giving it a shot.

Idaho's Best BBQ

It's called Blister's BBQ, and I'm here to tell you that the brisket and slaw combo is phenomenal. 

You don't need a food photo to figure out roughly how it looks.  All you need to know is that it was voted Best BBQ in Idaho, and that it's delicious. 

What is photo-worthy is this dining area:

Notice anything unusual?  The best BBQ in Idaho is literally located inside a gas station! 

The Caribbean of Southeast Idaho

Bear Lake's beautiful turquoise water is a sight to behold on a clear day.  It really is called the "Caribbean of the Rockies."  The lake is 109 square miles, with roughly 48 miles worth of shoreline.  It's split north to south equally between Utah and Idaho.

Limestone is the secret to its beautiful color.  You'll have to take my word for it, because I forgot to photograph it.

I did, however, meet a nice real estate agent who happily took us out for a little adventure on the water.  Here's me water skiing for the first time in over 20 years:

And here's my friend Charlie, who grew up on a lake, channeling his childhood with a massive air:

The area around Bear Lake also has tremendous raspberries, just FYI, and Idaho's raspberry festival is apparently a very big deal around these parts.

Also witnessed around Bear Lake:  A fire truck pulled up to a restaurant and blipped its sirens.  A large family dining together turned to see what the fuss was about.  When they turned back to the table, a young man was on his knee in the midst of proposing to his girlfriend.  Nicely played, sir.  All patrons burst into applause.

Bear Lake has a shallow shoreline and soft sand that an unsympathetic observer would call mud.  It's also mobbed with vacationers during the summer, so the regular boat launches have huge lines.  If you're a local with a house near the beach, you bring your boat ashore with one of these beauties.

It's amazing to watch, and they work quite well.  Apparently it's impossible to find an old tractor anywhere near the lake, because everyone wants one for boat-launching purposes.

 Classic Idaho.  What a great state.

We're Back!

Joe the mobile mechanic came to fix the shorted slide-outs, and he discovered the faulty wire in no time.  It only shocked him (as in a spark and an "ouch") a medium amount.

Here's Joe fiddling with a slide-out:

And here's the scene on our last night in Utah.  

We're on the road bright and early tomorrow.  Idaho awaits.  

Saturday Ride

"Central" Utah -- the area to the east of Provo and Salt Lake -- is tremendous.  My only beef is that it should be called northern Utah, because it's pretty dang close to Idaho.  

Some private land with a little river running through it. 

A lake connecting to a giant dam, about 5 minutes from where I'm marooned. 

It's Important To Stay Grounded

Today I learned about fuses.  I now know how they look when they're functioning, how they look when they break, and how to change them.  That's a nice skill to have on a bus full of fuse boxes. 

I also discovered a new fuse-box location, and swapped out a whole bunch of busted fuses.  It took a few trips to Napa Auto Parts, Wal-Mart, and AutoZone (I like to spread my business around), but it's knowledge that'll keep. 

Speaking of new knowledge, I also learned that "slow-burn" fuses are a thing.  And if you're really in the mood to mix things up, you can turn your fuse receptacle into a circuit breaker with the right purchase. 

I gained this valuable knowledge because my slide-outs stopped working today.  Slide-outs are incredible.  They're large sections of your RV that slide right on out and expand your living space.  I have two.  One expands my living room to palatial proportions.  The other changes my bedroom from a nook to a comfy master suite. 

Usually, I hit the button for either slide and watch the slide-out wheeze and moan ... and eventually slide out. Each time they open, I look the heavens in astonishment and count my blessings.  Today was that other day.  I hit the buttons and got bupkis. 

After some calls and questions to other RVers, I was advised that if nothing happened when I hit the buttons, it was probably a blown fuse.  No problem!  I already knew about a fuse box on board.  I took a look, went to a store for more fuses, and began to examine each fuse.  Every one of them was fine... until the last one, a measly 5-amp straggler.  I swap it out, turn the coach batteries back on, and -- nothing. 

Some heavy Googling and further networking reveals that other fuse boxes may lurk on my bus.  I begin with the front right storage compartment under the bus, based on the advice in some RV forum discussing a totally different RV.  No dice.  I keep going clockwise, through each and every compartment, until I discover this gorgeous array in a suspiciously pristine storage compartment in the very last spot I checked. 

It contains a great many fuses! 

I methodically yank each one out, replace about 8, and strut back to the bus to hit the slide-out buttons, already preparing my celebration (I was thinking the "I made fire" celebration from when Tom Hanks finally lit a fire on a remote island in Cast Away). 

The slide-outs didn't budge. 

More heavy Googling leads me to revisit the second-to-last storage compartment, which contains this device.
 


Fun fact about Dewald Manufacturing Incorporated:  It doesn't exist. I called the number on the device in the picture.  Dewald got bought by a powerful company called Power Gear, which probably made great stuff.  But they don't exist either.  Some other company bought them.  It's a dog eat dog world in the slide-out game. 

Anyway, the device pictured above is my slide-out motor. And better yet, hiding behind that device is yet another busted fuse. Yahtzee! This is surely the culprit.  I'm hopeful and optimistic.  Tidy up this fuse and maybe we're back to normal. 

So I swap it out, and it breaks.  I swap it again, it breaks again.  Rinse, repeat, etc.  I'm into fuses these days now that I know a little about them, but eventually even I don't want to sacrifice another at the altar of being stupid. 

I ask around some more, and I'm reliably informed that the fuses keep breaking because "it's a short."  As in, the slide-out motor shorted.  I do not know what this means. 

How does one fix that?  I'm pretty sure I know the answer.  I call a mobile mechanic, who says he may be able to come in a few days.  I take the Walk of Shame over to the front desk of my RV Park and inform them that I'm grounded because I can't drive with my slide-outs slid out (and I already checked and there's no easy way to close them manually). 

They say hey, no problem, sometimes it's important to stay grounded.

And they're right.  The weather's good here.  I love my neighbors.  The dog's adjusting, and I have a list of things I'd like to do and places I'd like to visit.  Let's stay a while see how it goes.  

Everybody's in Park City

Park City, Utah has some incredible skiing.  They're very proud of the fact that their snow is much fluffier than the wet stuff over in Lake Tahoe.  So it's no surprise that winters in Park City are jam-packed with visitors, even when food and lodging cost a fortune. 

I'm here to tell you that summers are no different.  The main road out of Park City is so crowded in the evening that it can literally take more than five minutes to find a gap in traffic to make a left turn. 

It's probably still worth joining the 3+ million tourists that reportedly visit each year, even in the summertime.  The summer weather is perfect (20-30 degrees cooler than Salt Lake City, on average), the restaurants are wonderful, there's fun outdoorsy stuff to do, and the scenery can't be beat. 

The main road in and out of town is pretty, even when it's jammed with cars.  But if you're driving something smaller than a semi or a giant RV, consider taking the back way out of town, towards a nice little town called Midway. 

The back route takes you right up and over the mountains, through some crazy twists and turns. 

I saw only a handful of cars over a gorgeous 15-mile ride in cool, crisp air with views like this.

3 million tourists can definitely be wrong.  But in this case, they really aren't.

The Hitch

My bus has a hitch.  In that hitch sits an inexpensive motorcycle holder.  It's a thin metal plank that holds the bike while you drive.  The bike sits perpindicular to the bus, so it only extends the overall length by two or three feet. 

To put the bike-holder together, you screw in a few screws and then insert a 2" square piece of metal into the hitch, keeping it in place with a big pin. When I drive the bus, I can't see the motorcycle or the carrier at all.  It's out of view of my mirrors, and well below the images I get from my backup camera.

To get the bike on the carrier, you need to wrestle it up a ramp and jam it over a 4" tire holder.  The bike is tiny by motorcycle standards, but it still weighs 360 pounds.

Once you get the bike where it belongs, you need to strap it firmly in place.  So you buy some straps.  They latch onto some metal loops on the motorcycle holder, and then you affix them to any solid metal part of the bike that seems like it will hold.

The pros tell me that two straps will suffice.  I have 9.  Anything to escape the mental image of the bike being dragged across an interstate while dangling from a lone, tired strap.

Each strap has a slightly different ratchet mechanism.  Crank this, squeeze that, and it's taut.  Then, start driving and hope you did it right.

"Check your straps" is the biggest pearl I've received from other RV folk.  So I stop repeatedly to tug on them, always grateful the bike is still there.  Less than a week in, I've gone from terrified to mildly concerned as I bound down the highway and wince at every bump.  Soon enough, I expect to almost forget the bike's back there.

But I'll still check my straps.  

283 Miles

It's 283 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada to Marysvale, Utah.  That's less than four hours by car, according to Google Maps.

Not so for the bus.  Try double that time, if you're lucky.

My bus is a 2000 Gulf Stream Sun Voyager.  It's 35 feet of glory, with two slide-outs, a v10 under the hood, and only 25,000 miles on the odometer.  Its SERVICE ENGINE SOON light is perpetually illuminated.  I ripped the interior apart and had it put back together to my specifications, and it's ready to roll, but it doesn't roll fast.

The bus needs about a mile to achieve its near-peak cruising speed of 65 mph, give or take.  Down a hill or with a nice tailwind, it can hit 75-80 no problem, but every last piece of the bus vibrates and rattles at that speed.  Trust me -- you don't want lean into a hill or a tailwind with the bus.

Let's say you're cruising on a nice highway at about 55mph.  What's tough about that?  Actually, a lot of things.

The whole bus moans and groans, squeaks and grinds, even at 55.  The engine roars and gurgles and occasionally screams, and the generator sounds like a semi-muffled jackhammer.  The air conditioners blow, the suspension augments every imperfection in the road (potholes sound like cannon reports), and the only thing that's silent is the motorcycle that may or may not still be on the flimsy hitch attached (hopefully, still) to the rear of the bus.  The slide-out behind the driver's seat squeaks so urgently that you'd go crazy if you focused on it for two straight minutes.  The brakes make all kinds of noises, some of which sound like birds.  The chassis itself seems to bellow at you without warning or reason.

And the wind.  A refreshing breeze hits my billboard-sized flanks like a gut punch.  Go under a bridge and you'll zag five feet left or right without any warning on the other side.  (Wind, it turns out, is invisible.)  A 15 mph wind moves you violently across lane dividers no matter how vigilant you are.  And any semi truck that passes you will lurch the bus four feet away from it -- or right toward it -- depending on the direction and severity of the gust.

The steering wheel is big and loose.  You constantly correct it a few inches in either direction, by instinct, but when the wind is really blowing, you have to yank that wheel to the side, as though you're banking through a curve -- just to stay straight.

The brakes work, but you can't be in a hurry to stop.  Keep an eye on the speedometer, because if you're above 30mph, stopping soon is out of the question.  Even from 30, you'd better hope you're going up a hill.  I've shamefully cruised into the very middle of an intersection because I lost track and was going 35 when I mashed the brakes.

My driving instructor also gave me brilliant advice for stopping at intersections when you're going pretty fast:  Lay on the horn and punch it.  You can't stop, so don't try.  Keep an eye on the crosswalk signs and either begin to stop a half-mile out -- or crank that horn and floor it. 

The bus is enormous, so you can't drive it like a car.  If you do, you'll be straddling two lanes.  You need to feel certain that you, the driver, are actually plowing through the white line you're supposed to be inside.  Only then will the far side of your bus actually be in your lane.

My driving instructor said that I should check both side-view mirrors (there is no rear-view mirror because I'm driving a house) every six seconds.  It's good advice, but every time I fully divert my attention from the road to a mirror, I swerve into another lane.  With my sensitive steering wheel and the other factors at play, there's no margin for error, and no hope for quick mirror checks.

Back to the highway.  Add in a nonstop stream of cars and trucks passing you on both sides while going at least 25-50mph faster than you, and that's why 283 miles can wear you the hell out.