"Pearl" in Winter Garden, Florida
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Long shadows in Wyoming
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 We took a couple of rides heading west on the Lake Wobegon Trail from our campground. This post documents the longest of our rides west. We had ridden the western portion of this trail (from Osakis to West Union) back in 2014 when staying in Alexandria, MN. Unfortunately, on that day, a storm prevented us from riding as much of the trail as we'd hoped. So this time, we hoped to ride the rest of it. Here's a map of the trail. Melrose, where we camped is close to the center point. To complete the western half of the trail, we rode from Melrose to West Union and back.  For an excellent discussion of the Lake Wobegon Trail and the towns and cities along the way, check out this website. We pretty much had the trail to ourselves. Of course, the temperature was in the 90s on this afternoon, which will keep most sane folks indoors! :-)  One of the interesting sites along this portion of the trail, just a couple of miles west of Melrose, is "Memoryville". It was quite interesting to see all the well-preserved transportation-related items. I read that there is a museum there but didn't see any signs of it being open when we passed by.  Memoryville    Going through the small city of Sauk Centre, about eight miles west of Melrose, we stopped to take a photo of this tidy yard and flower garden. The owner was out on his riding mower cutting his extensive lawn, but I was much more interested in the parts that were not lawn. He obviously puts a lot of work into his yard.    When we made it to the tiny town of West Union, we saw these cute barnyard animal sculptures we remembered from our ride in 2014, when this was as far as we got coming from the other direction. So this would be a perfect turn-around point for our current ride. I must have known we'd see these guys again, as I was dressed to match them. Moo moo oink oink!  I'm hanging out with the barnyard animals in West Union, MN On our way back through Sauk Centre, boyhood home of Sinclair Lewis, we took a trail spur into downtown. We stopped at this pretty park and lake for a couple of photos. I particularly loved the charming center fountain here. And the flowers were lovely.   We continued our ride on the well-maintained Sauk Centre Main Street. Perfect small-town Americana. We've been fortunate to drive and bicycle through so many appealing downtown areas on our journey through this part of the US.   On the edge of downtown was this pretty Bed & Breakfast in an attractive historic house.  We eventually made our way back to the newer part of town and stopped for a treat at DQ. Perfect for a hot day!
Stay tuned as we ride in the other direction east to St. Joseph in our next post.
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 After a fine two weeks in Jackson County, MN, we continued our travels north to the small town of Melrose. Our only reason for visiting this town was to cycle the Lake Wobegon Trail, but it ended up being a very nice little town with an excellent, authentic Mexican restaurant and a fine city park campground, so we were glad we decided to stay here. When we first pulled into the Sauk River Park, we weren't overly impressed. Many of the sites were primitive and very small, geared towards folks in tents. There were only a couple of larger sites with hookups available, and we would be up against the fence of a softball field. Fortunately, in late July, there were no games in this field, nor on the soccer field across from us, and we ended up liking this park quite a lot. There were good places to play with Paisley, and from our site, we could walk anywhere in town. Sometimes parks just take awhile to grow on us, because they're all different.  Pearl parked in Sauk River Park site 11   Storm clouds as seen from our site
The Sauk River runs behind some of the smaller campsites.  Right across from the park, the Sauk River is dammed up to form Sauk Lake.  Sauk River Dam  Sauk Lake  Catholic Church of St. Mary The Mexican restaurant I mentioned, El Portal, was a mile walk from the campground, but so well worth it. It's a true mom and pop place and very authentic. Other than the fact that it was not open air, it reminded us of places we'd eaten in Mexico. The decor, food, and Mexican beers took us right back there and made for a very special experience.
  In our next post, we'll take you riding on the Lake Wobegon Trail with us. Come along!
Way back in late June, when we arrived at Prairie Rose State Park in Iowa and started settling into our site, Barry started leveling the coach as he always does, using our Atwood Power Leveleg system. Within two seconds, the alarm sounded on the driver's side front leveler. We've had occasional problems in the past with the leveling system, but normally pulling the fuse and trying again clears things up. In this case, that didn't help, so Barry took a look underneath the rig. Uh-oh! He quickly discovered that the gearbox housing had completely cracked through, rendering the leveler useless. We have no idea how this could have happened, but I guess in a nine-year old coach, things just give out, or we may have hit the leg on something as they hang down below the chassis and are a bit vulnerable to potholes and the like.  Gearbox housing cracked through! With only three level legs operational, the automatic leveling function of the leveling system was inoperational. So now, leveling the coach required manually extending each leveler one at a time, checking the level, and adjusting each again (rinse and repeat). And depending on the slope of the site, putting boards under the driver's side front tire was often required as well. Of course, this required additional time (and headaches) at each campsite. No, we were not happy campers! Getting the old leveler off was a real battle. Barry's socket wrench wouldn't budge it, so he bought a breaker bar. Still no luck. As a final attempt before taking Pearl in to a service shop or calling a mobile RV repair outfit, he bought an impact wrench to use with his air compressor. The third try was a charm. He got it off! And it was a heavy, heavy thing to move. But here it is. By this time we were at our next campground, Brown South in Jackson County, MN.  We looked into buying an entire replacement level leg but this would have cost around $600. And the leg itself was fine, so we hated to spend that much when only the gearbox was broken. Barry emailed the Atwood company about the possibility of replacing the gearbox only. They told him the part number, but nowhere online could we find a picture of the item to ensure that it was actually what he needed. After chatting in email and on the phone with an employee at CarID, the company Atwood recommended, we decided to take the risk even without a photo. We ordered the gearbox and had it UPS'd to the campground. With shipping, we paid less than half the cost of a full level leg. When the gearbox arrived, Barry thought it would be just fine. There were some extra wires that were not used in our older system, but another email to Atwood confirmed that he could simply tape these off.  In around an hour, he had the gearbox installed on the level leg.  And the entire assembly bolted back onto Pearl's chassis!  But now for the moment of truth. I can't lie; I was terrified. Barry fired up the engine and gave the leg a try. IT WORKED!
So, we saved a bunch of money over going to an RV dealer, and Barry got the satisfaction of fixing something that most RVers would probably not even tackle. And we have a working automatic leveling system again. Definitely one of our better accomplishments since becoming RVers and a happy day indeed! |
Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. 
Paisley, May 2016
States visited (pre-RV)
Pearl, a 2007 Newmar Bay Star
States visited in "Pearl"
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