Glacier National Park is about 1 hour north of Lakeside and Flathead Lake.  This park is in the middle of the Rocky Mountains so the scenery is amazing – difficult to capture with a still camera.  We left ‘home’ a little late (9am) but we don’t think it made any difference – the place was crowded.  It was not as crowded as Yosemite or Yellowstone but still very busy.

Mike had suggested a couple of easy hikes – he knows we are not in hiking shape – and the ranger at the park suggested more.  The first stop suggested by both of them was Avalanche Creek.  There is a little hike on a wooden path suspended over the forest floor and then onto a paved path.  This was really nice but at the end of it there was a trail to Avalanche Lake.

The sign at the head of the trail to Avalanche Lake said it was about 2 miles and a 500 foot altitude gain.  It said the average time is 2 to 3 hours.  We took almost 2 hours to get there and only about 45 minutes to get back.  The altitude gain may be only 500 feet but the ups and downs make it seem like a lot more.  It was worth it though.

The road through the park from the east to the west side is called the ‘Road to the Sun’ and it is truly amazing.  Carol drove the Tracker most of the way but there was lots of construction – and flag people making us stop for up to 10 minutes at a time – so we decided to just go out the east side of the park and go around it on the way home.  I don’t think we saved any time but it was much smoother than it would have been going back the way we came.  Check out the photos below – put the mouse pointer on a photo and it will show the caption.

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We are lucky!  The Northwest Montana Fair & Rodeo started on Monday and we took a walk around to see all the kids with their animals – 4H and FFA.  It was entertaining and the kids were fun to talk to.  We saw small ponies, sheep, cattle, and pigs.

Mike and Pam invited us to dinner at their house – fun and delicious.  They live in the Cherry Hill Yacht Club in Lakeside – a gorgeous place.  We took a walk down to their dock for a little after dinner exercise and a couple of photos.

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We made it to Lakeside, Montana and to the Edgewater Motel and RV Park.  It was 90 miles and the coach ran great so switching to the front tank fixed or at least bypassed the problem.  I really like this RV park because they will let me work on it here if I need to and they even allow you, for a $5 charge, to wash your RV which I plan to do.

The trip from Seeley Lake to Lakeside was different because Carol drove the tow car and I drove the coach – what a difference.  That tow car is a real burden on this old girl (Barbie).  I would like to do without it but it sure is nice to have – like Saturday when I had to get to the parts store.

We parked and got organized and then drove over to our friends Michael and Pamela’s house for a visit – it had been years since we saw them.  They have a beautiful house up on a hill in a community of about 45 houses right on the lake.  They have a boat and took us for a ride along with some other friends in another boat up the Flathead River to try to see some bald eagles.  We did manage to see an eagle and several osprey.  There is a photo of the eagle below – the first one shows the eagle zoomed in and the second shows what we could see from the water.

We rode around the lake for a while and then had dinner in a restaurant called “The Docks” which is right across the street from our camp site.  Great burger and friendly people – lots of fun – all capped off by a dramatic moon rise.

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Just a quick post in case anyone was as concerned as I was last night.  We started out this morning and got about 5 miles – Carol following in the towd – and it just quit again – no warning.  It restarted but would not run.

Last night, I had asked JimK for some suggestions of what to do if it continued to fail.  He mentioned a few things that happen including clogged in-tank socks.  I had not switched tanks as a diagnostic tool because the failures were so sudden.  A little hesitation now and then did not last long enough to do anything either.  I decided to chance another run down the highway – luckily, this one had ended at a very rare turn-out – running on the front tank.  It worked – no problems whatsoever.  Now to find a place to work and some compressed air.

More later –

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I am getting better at handling the bad stuff that can happen when you drive a 36 year old “antique hot rod with plumbing” – but it is still stressful.

I am having more fuel problems right now.  We are sitting in a parking lot at Seeley Lake, Montana – in the Flathead Lake area.  I think the problem is fixed but I don’t know and if it is not I don’t want to be on this highway in the dark with no breakdown lane – people here don’t stop to help if you are broken down (confirmed by a local and by our experience this afternoon).

Earlier today the coach was acting like it was starving for fuel again.  Early this afternoon we were driving down a 2-lane highway with no breakdown lane – just a sloping dirt shoulder – and the engine just died with no warning .  We st-opped as far off the road as we could get and it would not start so I replaced the big filter just after the fuel pump, then I replaced the one in the carb and that seemed to fix it.

We drove about 10 more miles and then topped off the tank with about 10 gallons.  As soon as I left the gas station it started acting up pretty badly but we got about 10 more miles – to this parking lot – and it quit.

It seems to me that the only thing left that can just quit would be the fuel pump.  I have just the Carter P4070 (no mechanical pump) mounted outside the frame and I have a fuel pressure regulator after it with a gauge on it.  That gauge was showing less than 3 pounds and the engine would not run.

As luck would have it, there is a NAPA store about a mile from here and he was open and he had a Carter P4070.  Not only that but the counter man, Ted Lockwood, offered his cell phone number and said he would come in tomorrow if we needed anything.  Then the owners of this business – it is the Sinclair gas station just south of town- were willing to let us spend the night so we don’t have to see if the repair worked until morning when it will be safer.  No one stopped to offer help but they are very nice people.

I talked to a mechanic who just happened to stop for a drink and to JimK and both seem to agree that the fuel pump must be the culprit.  Bad gas was mentioned but the gas stop was very busy so I doubt that.  We’ll find out tomorrow.

By the way, “Barbie” is what we call our GMC – after the Barbie-mobile of the ’70s

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The only thing mildly interesting – or aggravating in this case – today was some sort of accident on I-15 just about 20 miles into Idaho.  The accident happened on the southbound side of the highway – we never did see it – about 5 miles ahead of us.  For some reason – we heard that a propane truck was involved – they shut off both sides of the highway and routed traffic off the highway behind us after we had already passed the last available exit.  We were stuck in a line about 2-3 miles long for about 30 minutes when people started turning around and heading back to that exit.  The “rumor” was that it would be a couple of hours before they would let us by.  Eventually, we turned around too – exciting driving down the wrong side of the interstate in broad daylight.  All in all, it cost us about an hour – not bad, at least we were not involved.

We had planned to spend the night in Idaho Falls but it turns out that the camp ground was right next to the highway and promised to be loud all night.  We decided to spend the night in a nearby Wal-Mart that’s a little farther from the highway and the train tracks – it will be loud too be at least it is free.  We are only a couple of blocks from the falls so decided to take a look.  More pictures are provided for your viewing pleasure at the bottom of this post – enjoy.

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On Thursday, Aug. 11th we left our site at Cadillac Ranch in Bluff and drove to Provo – a drive of about 300 miles.  It seemed like it took us forever.  Not knowing where there were gas stations we kept filling up after only about 100 miles so we wouldn’t get too low.

The weather was a little hot – low to mid 90s – but the coach ran great except for a couple of cases of what seemed like fuel starvation for just a few minutes at a time.  One very curious thing happened along the way though.  It seemed like it was vapor locking or starving for fuel and Carol suggested what her brother told her about loosening the gas cap to break a potential vacuum in the tank.  I had just read about someone having that same problem on the GMC forum so I decided to give it a try.

We stopped at a rest area – more than 100 miles since the last fillup – and I loosened the cap and immediately heard the rush of air I hoped for – but instead of rushing in, the air was rushing out and was followed by the flow of hot gasoline, quite a bit of it.  I quickly put the cap back on and stopped it.  I loosened the cap again and slowly let the air out but there was a lot of it – so much that I again got gasoline flowing again when I let it go too fast.  It took at least a minute or more to slowly let all the air out.  The problem did not recur but I am puzzled about what caused pressure to build up in spite of the very leaky vent line in the rear driver’s side wheel well.

We got to Utah Lake State Park about an hour and a half later than we would have liked – mostly due to the frequent stops for gas and the construction along the way.  The roads were good, the scenery was beautiful the whole day and the Utah Lake park we chose to camp in was great – see Carol’s review in the RV Review section for photos.

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I can’t say Monument Valley was on my bucket list.  Actually, before this trip, I could not recall whether or not I had ever been here before.  When Carol told me that we could stop a little early on Tuesday in Bluff, Utah and that it was convenient to Monument Valley I voted to go for it.

Today, Carol drove us the 45 or so miles to the visitor center at Monument Valley – she drives me around when we are in the Tracker.  The entrance fee is $5 per person and that entitles you to ride around the ’17 mile’ trail in this area.  They recommend that you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle but the weather was great and the road was dry so I’d estimate that 90 percent of the cars were not 4WD.  We even saw a pretty new Mustang Convertible coming out.  Pretty rough though.

I would say that it was worth the drive and it is pretty awesome.  Some of those formations are over 1000 feet above the road.  I took a lot of pictures and usually I would edit them down to just a couple but there were so many I liked and I figured it would be OK if you can look at just the ones you want.

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We stayed in Lakeside, AZ until Tuesday, Aug. 9th.  On Wednesday we headed north to Utah.  We decided to camp at Cadillac Ranch in Bluff, Utah – about 260 miles from Lakeside.  The temperatures were in the low 90’s and everything ran great on the trip.  We stopped for gas several times for 10-12 gallons because we didn’t know how far it was between stations and I hate being low and worrying about it.

The scenery was awesome and the roads were good.  Bluff is set down on a river that has carved out some amazing rock formations – probably something to do with the Monument Valley stuff which we will see on Wednesday – about 45 miles from here they tell us.  They recommend a 4WD vehicle for the 17-mile dirt road that we will take once there.

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  It’s Saturday night in Show Low and there is a mud track where the admission is only $12 and the noise and mud are irresistible.  It wasn’t crowded either.  We only stayed through the qualifying heats for the super modified which seem to be big powerful engines, another class that was powered by 1200cc motorcycle engines – very exciting to me, and a class of junkers that are not modified much.  More like a demolition derby class of cars trying to go fast.

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