Junction City, Kansas  Time for RV Repairs

This is our second visit to Junction City Kansas this year.  We arrived for our first visit of the year on March 29 and stayed for most of April while we completed a number of warranty repairs and upgrades that we wanted.  The two main objectives of the first visit was to address our low carrying capacity in the trailer ~ 1,000 lbs (after adding fresh water and propane), not nearly enough for full-time RV living; the second major objective was to figure out what was going on with our bubbling fiberglass roof and correct that.  We completed an air ride hitch, steel pin box, and trailer wheel upgrade on our first visit.  These changes increased our carrying capacity to almost 4,000 lbs, quite an improvement and we believe is more than we will ever need.

Because things were so busy at New Horizons (our RV manufacturer) they asked us to come back for the roof repair, which was determined to require a complete replacement.  While we were apprehensive about the scope of the work required to accomplish a roof replacement we figured we didn't have much choice if we wanted a viable roof.  A return date was set for June 23rd and we were back a day early and waiting for our turn.

The original schedule estimate was a 3 to 4 week job.  Because so many additional customers enroute to other obligations arrived we are now halfway through week 6 on this second visit and growing more restless to depart each week.  We are guessing mid-August may be our departure timeframe if things continue to go well with repairs.... but we know any number of events can change that very quickly.

We have kept ourselves busy while we wait for our repairs to be completed.  We visited Topeka, Manhattan, Clements and Council Groves, KS.  Plus we have explored extensively around the Junction City area.  Pictures of these adventures to follow.  For now we will include some shots of the awesome RV rigs that appear and disappear on the New Horizons lot on almost a daily basis.

This is our rig Penelope with her front and rear caps off and headed to the Production side of the factory to have the old delaminated roof remoced and the newly remanufactured roof dropped back into place.

This is a shot of the old delaminated roof in the rack that was removed from Penelope.

This is our temporary home, a loaner 2007 Teton 37' trailer.  It is very similar to our Penelope so we are comfortable.... but it's not our Penelope!  You can see Pepe our truck parked around the corner with the tool chest on the rear receiver while Penelope is in the shop.  When we get Penelope back we will put the tool chest on the receiver at the rear of the trailer.

This rig is Doug's from Baltimore.  He purchased a custom Volvo from Canada and has a Toy Hauler that he carries a Harley and a Trike in the back.

This Freightliner rig is Jeff's from Sacramento.  The Ford is the New Horizon's Show Hauler truck; it's a 2015 F-550.  Jeff also had a F-150 pulling an enclosed cargo trailer.  He kept his racing tandem bicycle in there.  You can see a glimpse of the white cargo trailer to the right of his white Freightliner truck below.

This truck is Pat & Rosemary's.  They have been fulltiming for 12 years.  They travelled with a Newfoundland dog for most of that time.

This rig is Jim and Sue's.  They are from Ohio and California, now fulltiming.  They are in the process of selling this trailer and buying a new one with the latest features.

This Vovlo belongs to a couple from Mississippi who we have not met yet.  They have not been here since we have been on site, but they sure have a nice tow vehicle!

Stone Arch Bridge, Clements Kansas

Gari found this little gem within 60 miles of us and it seemed like a fine distraction to go and visit.  The bonus was that there is also a Corp of Engineers project near Council Groves, KS on the return trip.  We thought a picnic at the lake would be a fine idea.  This was also a chance for us to run a little more fuel through the new auxilary diesel fuel tank we installed in the back of the truck.  We are happy to report that the fuel transfer worked well and the truck ran just fine; no differences detected after install.

We quickly found the bridge with GPS and Google Maps.  The creek barely showed up on the map, although it was a good sized creek, a small river I would say.  The view from the top of the bridge was quite high from the creek below, I estimate 30-35 feet.  We could see some large fish swinging their tail fins in the strong current below.  We are guessing they were 10 lb+ catfish, they were big rascals!

Arriving at the bridge.

 

 

Council Groves Lake, Corp of Engineers Project 

Council Grove Lake was built by the Tulsa District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1960 and 1964 at a cost of $11.5 million.  It was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1950, and construction was prompted by the devastating flood of 1951.

The lake was built for the purposes of flood damage reduction, water storage, water quality enhancement, fish and wildlife conservation and recreation.  To date, the lake is credited with preventing an estimated $175 million in flood damages.

The lake derives its name from the nearby community of Council Grove, Kansas.  As early as the 1820s, the place where Council Grove stands was mentioned by travelers.  It is said that mountain man Kit Carson cut the name “Council Grove” on a buffalo hide and nailed it to a huge oak tree.  Under that tree in 1825, a treaty was signed with the Osage Indians to establish the Santa Fe Trail.  The huge oak became known as the Council Oak, and is now a National Register Historic Site. 

We saw the General Custer Elm Tree but not the Council Oak tree when driving through town, but didn't know what it was and didn't stop :(

Custer Elm Tree

CoE Project

 Our picnic site

Traveling back to Junction City, Kansas

Just a short update as our warranty repairs continue at our current location in Junction City Kansas. 

Below is a shot of us performing a routine task of torquing lug nuts.  We were in route from South Dakota to Kansas in this shot.  We were in Nebraska at this particular time.  Right after this picture the back fell off of the Kobalt 250 Ft-Lb Torque Wrench and the gears spilled out!  I caught the inerds before they hit the ground as was able to push them back into the housing and it still worked!  It turned out there were two spline machine screws holding the back of the torque wrench housing in place and one was lost and it was the second screw that let go right after the picture.  It wasn't until the cover fell off that I realized the screws were loose.  The first screw I am certain was long lost and all that was holding it together was the second screw.

The Fix... we tried the hard way at first.  We tried to get just the cover screw that had gone missing, but that was not to be.  The easy fix turned out to be returning the entire $100 wrench to Lowe's for a Kobalt warranty exchange.  Worked great, now we have a new torque wrench after a good year of use!  Thank you Kobalt and Lowe's!

Hot Springs, South Dakota

Sadly we departed Rapid City and struck out for our next stop over, Hot Springs, South Dakota.  We hoped to see the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs and stay at a State Park on Angostura Lake.  We settled into a nice campsite with a peek-a-boo view of Horsehead Creek, one of the branches of Angostura Lake.

Angostura Lake is one of the larger lakes that we visited and has a hydroelectric dam facility. 

Hot Springs is a very small town and the people are very friendly. There was a pretty waterfall right in the middle of town.  

This is a shot of the local government building right next to the Bates Motel...

We visited the Mammoth Site as we had desired and it turned out to be even better than I had anticipated.  The story really brought together the fascinating geology and paleontology that we had been observing during our time in the Black Hills.

The geology story is very old, a few billion years old, 4.6 billion to suggest a number.  In that time the Black Hills were formed along with the Rocky Mountains.  Upwelling of magma pushed the rock layers upward to form the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills.  The layers of limestone and shale inherent to the Black Hills are what made the Mammoth Site possible.  The limestone being very porous allows water to seep into cracks setting up erosion and then caves, which we witnessed at Jewel Cave, one of the many cave systems in the Black Hills.  At the Mammoth Site, such a cave formed then collapsed forming a sink hole.  This happened only 27,000 years ago, relatively recent in the grand scheme of things.  The water in the limestone sprung up as an artesian well and filled the sink hole with water that was 50+ degrees year round.  This allowed the grasses to grow very well even during the cold Dakota winter months and what ultimately lured the animals into the pit.  It was
the shale layer that prevented the animals from escaping the pit.  That shale gets very slippery when wet. 

The Black Hills timeline finally came together for us at the Mammoth Site after seeing and hearing it at several of our previous tours at other attractions.  The hills formed a few billion years ago, the dinosaurs showed up between 50-250 million years ago, and the mammoths arrived only 27,000 years ago.  Big time differences indeed!  The dinosaur bones found around the Black Hills are fossils; the bone is replaced with minerals and are like stone.  The mammoth bones are really bones, preserved by the unique shale mud of the Dakotas.

The capture scenario of the pit went on for only about 900 years, a mere blip in time!  We know 67 Mammoths have been discovered in the pit so far, and the scientists expect there are a hundred or more individual remains in there yet to be discovered. The Mammoth Site pit is only about 250 feet by 120 feet and they have covered 90% of it with a large hangar type building.

The dig site is an active dig and all of the findings are left just as they are found.  It dramatically demonstrates the positions of the animals as they struggled in the mud of the pit.  They have found both Wooly and Colombian Mammoths, the only place in the world where both have been discovered together.  They also found Short-faced Bear in the pit, which make a Grizzly Bear look like a ground squirrel! The mammoth specimen below was one of the older and most complete skeletons found.  Since this one was older the bones were more fused together by the more developed cartilage and therefore the scientist found that there was "no pulling his bones apart" so they named him Napoleon Bonaparte.  

Downstairs was a laboratory where the students worked with some artifacts.  You could see the workstations through the windows.  That is a mammoth tooth in the mold below left.