Lil Devil's Geocaching Pages

Because we lost so much time back in Montana due to our truck breaking down, now we have to make up time. Today is Monday and we want to be in Nashville by Thursday afternoon. It's only about 1,100 miles total, but we decided to do 512 miles today because a) there is nothing really to see in South Dakota and Nebraska, and b) we wanted to get to one of our club campgrounds where it's basically free. Well, already paid for anyways

I did manage to find three caches during this long day, though, so all is good in the universe

We had a lot to do today so we got an early start and were on the road by 9am. That's early for us

Our first couple of stops were for geocaches along the road. Our third stop was more exciting: Devil's Tower in Wyoming. I love any place with the word "devil" or some variation in the name. I even have a waymarking category to collect them. We took a walk all the way around the tower and found a virtual cache along the way.

Then we were off to our next stop: Mount Rushmore. By the time we got in the area it was almost 5pm so we just headed to the Rushmore Shadows campground and rested for the evening.

We woke up and had breakfast, and just as I was looking for the phone number of the muffler shop, the phone rang. It was the muffler shop. The truck is done. It was actually done late last night, but he didn't want to call at almost midnight

There was some complications, but it got done anyways. It turns out that one of the special aspects of this being a California truck, is that it has what Kirk called "pre-cats" before the main catalytics. These pre-cats are barely larger than the header pipe itself. Apparently one of them had literally disintegrated and plugged up the main cat behind it. Thus the out-of-range readings by the computer and the resultant rough running engine. It couldn't exhale!

After several uneventful days driving through Nevada and Idaho, we arrived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We were planning on spending the next couple of days in the Grand Tetons National Park, but just as we were coming into Jackson Hole, some guy pulled next to us and pointed at our trailer then made an urgent spinning motion with his hands. We pulled over to the side of the road, and I walked back to inspect the trailer. Because of his signs, I checked out the tires first. Nope, none were flat. But when I walked around the rear, I smelled burning rubber. I then looked closer at the tires and noticed the two on the driver side were rubbing against each other. Hmmm. That could be a problem

Not much to write about today. We got a late start and only got a couple hundred miles to Wells, Nevada. Found a few caches along the way.

We were headed to one of our club campgrounds. As we pulled into town, there was a beautiful, brand-new campground right at the first exit. But the GPS led us further. When we got to the club campground, are jaws dropped. It was basically a dirt lot that backed up the the railroad, with a few electrical and water hookups. We turned around and headed back to the brand-new place on the edge of town. Sometimes it's worth paying full price just to be in a ni

I got up this morning, and after taking care of normal morning business, I got on the phone looking for a place to get the cat bathed after yesterdays adventures. I really didn't know where to look, so I just called the big places like Petsmart and Pet Co. They could help if I had a dog, but not the cat.

I shrugged it off and figured we'd find a place later during our trip. I went off to fill up the gas tank on the truck. It's much easier to do this without the trailer. Along the way, I got lucky and spotted a little dog and cat grooming place in a strip mall. Their phone number was on the sign, so I called as I was getting gas. A nice lady listened to my dilemma, then said to hold on. I could hear her yell, "Mom, do you want to bathe a cat this morning?" She said bring her on down.

After a week-long delay, we finally left California. First we're heading to Tennessee, then we plan on exploring New England.

We've got about 3 weeks to get to an event in Tennessee, so we're going to take a northerly route through Yellowstone, across the northern states to Upper Michigan, then south to Tennessee. Yeah, it's a lot of extra miles vs. a direct route, but we've never seen some of these northern states and it sounds like fun.

The first night we made it to Sparks, Nevada. There's a KOA next to one of the hotels that we have stayed at before. This evening was extra exciting because when we got to the campground, as soon as we opened the trailer door, our cat, Kira, jumped out and ran off. Normally Kira is pretty good when we travel. When she gets out, she usually stays close, and she comes back when she gets hungry. This time she jumped out when we were at the front of the campground, checking in. We couldn't stay there and wait for her, and the camp space we were assigned was a good quarter mile away.