Cody is in the
northwestern part of Wyoming and the eastern gateway to Yellowstone
National Park.
Cody is in the heart of the old west, and the city reflects its
heritage. The
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, "Greatest Western Museum",
is a must see. The museum has five wings each displaying a vast
array of western art, Native American exhibits, firearms, natural
history and the life and times of Buffalo Bill. In addition we will be enjoying two catered meals at the campground and the grand buffet at the Irma Hotel. A catered breakfast will be served on the day we depart for other adventures or home, and there will be a continental breakfast the other mornings. Freddi will begin our day with a walk each morning (optional). I am sure Emery Stora will have some interesting topics to discuss at the tech seminars. Fay Curtis will be setting up the nontech sessions. Our plans are to have enough free time to allow you to explore the town shops and museums. We have set up a tour of Yellowstone National Park if at least 30 sign up for it. The tour is Sunday and leaves the campground at 7:30 A.M. making six stops along the way. Lunch will be on you own at the two-hour stop at Old Faithful Lodge. The tour returns to the Ponderosa Campground at 7:00 P.M. The cost is $35 plus the entry fee to the park $10 or free with the Golden Age Passport. This will be a stress free way to get a good look at the southern loop of the park. We will have
at least one open house so we can peek into those updated coaches
and lot of good fellowship and a great time that the GMCers always
have when two or more of us get together. Included in this newsletter is a registration sheet, directions to reach Cody and a tentative schedule of events.
The Western States Spring Roundup 2003 will be held in Southern California. A great time is being planned for April 28 to May 3 at the Pechanga RV Resort and Casino in Temecula, CA. There are plans for a wine tour, shuttles to the historic town of Old Temecula with its many antique shops and museum, interesting seminars of GMC care and upkeep and interesting women's workshops as well. Phil and Joanne Hernandez and Ed and Eileen Staal will be your roudupmasters. They welcome your suggestions as to topics you would like covered for both men and women. Check out the websites "Pechangarvresort.com" to see the beautiful facility where our event will be held and also see "Temecula.com" to get an overview of the area. Mark your calendars for this event.
We had been to the top of Mount Washington, the mountain in New Hampshire that holds the record for the highest winds in America, where my 13 year old grandson Patrick and I had fun "flying in the 50 mph wind at the top of the mountain" only to return to find the GMC kneeling down on its right front due to a very flat tire. I discovered a leak where air was coming out as fast as I tried to pump it in. We had taken the last train down the mountain, and now all was quiet with nobody around. I knew the tire pressure was OK when we were traveling, because the new SmartTire monitor system was in operation, and we had no alarms. We must have run over something just as we came into the parking lot. We were more than fifty miles from a large city, and it might take an hour or more for a service truck, so I decided that I would have a go at it. I then called the campground, which was forty miles away, and told them of our situation, and they assigned us a site number. We were set for a campsite that night, which was the weekend before July 4th. The man who remodeled our coach had put an 8-ton bottle jack in the coach for just such an occasion. I had relied on his experience and had never tried it out myself. With great confidence I pushed it under the coach only to find that it was too tall to fit under the front crossbeam when the tire was flat and the stroke was too short to lift the flat tire off the ground at the front suspension. Not only that, its small footprint would just sink into the semi gravel parking lot. Patrick and I could see some wood pieces and assemblies scattered around near the cog railroad service area. We collected some nailed assemblies and dragged them 20 yards back to the coach. Patrick tried his new hatchet as well as a claw hammer and screwdriver, but they were too small for the job, so we got out the coach tool kit, and it took both of us wielding screw drivers and claws on our hammers to pry the nailed pieces apart. We put a big block of wood in front of the rear tires and set the parking brake to keep the coach from rolling down the slight grade. My experience with the GMC parking brake told me not to depend on it alone. Next we layered some wood planks under the jack and jacked up the front suspension as far as the jack would lift it. The flat tire was still on the ground, but it did raise the center crossbeam. It became clear that this tire changing thing would have to be done in multiple stages. Back to the railroad service yard for more wood. We stuffed another layer of wood supports under the raised crossbeam before ever so gently venting the jack. The coach slowly lowered, crunching the pile of wood planks to a stable position. I sent Patrick to pick out a log to stuff under the frame in case our tower of wood planks collapsed when the wheel was off. Now we could stuff more wood pieces under the front suspension and put the jack on top of that pile. I used the torque wrench to loosen all the nuts before lifting it to the clear position and rotated the tire to be sure an inflated tire could be put on. We put the spare on and torqued the wheel nuts. I measured the spare tire pressure only to find it was only 50 psi. Now the little pump had to bring the tire pressure up to 65 psi before we started on our way. While Patrick manned and monitored the pump, I started putting things back and cleaning up. The whole operation took about two hours, but we were successful with our makeshift jacking. We drove to the campsite, showered and had a late supper just as the sun was setting. The happy ending to this story includes finding a 2-ton floor jack at Wal-Mart on sale for $40, testing it to make sure it would work well on soft ground when I replaced the tire myself, getting the tire repaired and balanced, and spending the weekend rain-bound in our GMC working on models with my grandson. Well, Patrick said he wanted to learn more in his travels this year, but I didn't expect his learning (and mine) would include this. He enjoyed the experience much more than I did!
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Fellow GMCers, September 6th to 11th will find us gathering at
Cody, Wyoming for the Buffalo Bill Roundup.