THE KOMBI KONNECTION

Roadcow

This will be a loooooooooonnnnnggg trip report consisting of many pictures and lots of great camping shots. It all came about when Kate wanted to visit her mother in Washington and I booked her a train ticket for $255 and then foundm out I had the weekend off. That meant that I had 6 days to go have fun, and if I canceled her train ticket i could use that money for petrol and get a camping trip with my wife. To add another carrot some good friends from the Buskatiers were heading out to Wyoming from kansas and we could meet them and i could show them some cool extreme camping sites. So after work last thursday about 10 pm we had roadcow loaded to the gills with all of the camping gear, Kate's stuff and my fishing stuff, plus 2 laptops ( you'll see the need for 2 later) 2 gps systems ( see a trend here??) Laughing

and camera and cell phone. I did my usuall once around the bus pre check and felt the tires for out of round and bald spots and all was well. We drove about 6 hours and stopped in Grants pass, Oregon at my Sons house for a few hours. Got up to some slight rain and i turned on the windscreen wipers and nothing..... ( mI knew what was wrong but was too lazy to fix it). so i pulled into a Petrol station and got some RainEx and coated the winscreen. All was good and we drove up to Olympia, Washington and met kates mom and said out goodby's. I then got under the dash and wiggled the fuses and when I hit the right one , WaaaLaaa!, we had wipers again. The fuses do that when Roadcow sits for so long. We drove about 70 miles east on Hwy 12 to a small town where they were having their yearly rod run and I stopped to admire some very n ice cars. Nice setting too, on a huge grass lot infront of a hotel. We went into the local Grocery store for supplies and I asked a Park ranger who just happened to walk in if there was a place where we could stop and cook dinner which would be in a nice setting.. She (yes a She park ranger) said ' sure, up at slate creek about 7 miles up is government campgrounds right along the creek and they are FREE!" I was glad to hear the last bit so off we go, up the hill in light rain but in very beautiful scenery.

We drove along the creek and there were several small turnouts where people were camping but it was right on the road almost! Evil or Very Mad

I didn't want to camp on the road, so we went about 5 more miles up the hill and I see this US Forrest Service dirt road off to my left. I passed it then stopped and backed up. "Ah Ha" says me, I could see the road hadn't been used in awhiule so it fit the criteria of ( Backroadbussing) very well. We turned up this wet dirt road and started climbing a serious grade in 2nd gear. I drove about 2 miles up ( Chris was white knuckling it by now) and I see another unmarked road at this junction.

I turned up it and said to Chris " Now this is my kind of road" you see it wasn't even as wide as the bus and had trees over growing into the road.

It had a few small puddles to drive through as well.

Here's roadcow in a wide spot ( I was being a wuss and didn't want to get out where it was tight and get all wet Laughing

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We continued up about a mile when the road opened up into a trail head where I decided it would be a nice place to camp. It was spectacular, the rail falling kept it nice and cool, not a soul around for miles and we were self contained. I popped the top and Chris started dinner. I don't know why, but camp food is always the best.

After dinner we were feeling fat and sassy so we unpacked the Laptop we set it up in the over cab roof and watched a DVD. As chris said " Weren't we posh" Cool

Had a great nights sleep with the rain lulling us to sleep and being woken up by the birds singing.
Tomorrow's topic

BREKADOWN IN WYOMING or POOR PRETRIP CHECKOUT BY BRITT