The next day of Day 27 we awoke alongside the river, where we received Mini Stevie’s approval 👍 of the our campground spot. After some morning coffee we where once again headed South through the mountains, which eventually opened up into rolling hills. A few hours later we arrived in our destination; the town of Weiser.
We stopped at one of the few grocery stores in Weiser to pause for a moment after driving, the heat getting pretty intense due to the fact we were still running in our cab without any air conditioning. At the store we ate lunch, and put to good use some of the fresh lettuce from Nick’s garden he had gifted upon us for our travels. It turns out this lettuce wrapping trick works really well- Thanks Again Nick!
While we were eating in the parking lot we watched this interesting little bird, that scampered in short bursts around the parking lot. I figured I’d share this little guy in case any of you might know what he is:
Not even five minutes away we went to visit our next set of special people; Arnold and Julie Seay. Laura and I used to both work with Arnie years ago; so it was really neat to get to catch up on what life he was enjoying in his well earned retirement.
After giving Arnie a tour of the Ohana, he gave us a tour of his sweet camper and then invited us into his home. We were very appreciative of the air conditioning.
On a side note: The temp thus far since we were in Oregon has been in the 90-100 range mid day. 🌡️ I’ve been handling it okay- but I am desperately searching for a very hard to find AC tube we need to replace because Laura is not. She is VERY not 🥵 – and I fear if I do not get us some air conditioning in our cab soon; she’s gonna kill me! ⚰️😅
Anyway, but I digress… Arnie invited us in to his wonderfully cool home, and his wife Julie excitedly greeted us and gave us some ice cold sun tea. We chatted for a bit and got a tour of their home before Arnie surprised us with a homemade cherry pie he had made that morning! 🥧 So we sat and caught up over fresh cherry pie, a scoop of ice cream, and more cold and refreshing tea.
Afterwards, once Laura had reduced herself to acceptable temperature range, Arnie took us outside to give us a tour of his beautiful property.
Unfortunately our stay was a shorter one than we would have liked; but nonetheless was a perfect and refreshingly pleasant catching up amongst the bursts of heat of our travels. Our goal was to get to one of the next towns down the road in hopes of hitting a few auto salvage yard meccas. Our (or my 🤣) survival depended on it….
So after giving The Ohana a much overdue spray down, we were headed South to the town of Caldwell. After another hot drive we decided to stay at the local Planet Fitness. A little while later we were given the no-go by security so we settled on trying out staying at a Flying J; a common truck stop throughout the South.
Once we arrived it took us a few minutes to get our bearings, pulling in the Semi area before we learned how these stops worked. Eventually we found the RV area and settled in for the night. As we settled in Laura’s She-Hulk rage glimmered through her sweat, 🤬 and she snapped the inside handle of our camper entry door clean off. 😳 It appeared my time was running out… and I had another project to do tomorrow. 😆
Day 28 was a hot one- in which we spent 5 hours driving between scrap yards looking for our holy parts. I managed to find some close matches to our AC hose, but no dice. 😟 Otherwise we scored a new rear O2 sensor assembly I would install when we got a chance. During our trip I worried about Laura- beet red as a cherry she was not taking the day well. Despite my attempts to wander some of the yards alone she insisted on persevering alongside me. 💘
By The Way: The yards we checked out are a chain of auto salvage yards called Jalopy Jungles. I was amazed by how many vehicles and how rock bottom their pricing was. We bought the O2 sensor for a whopping nine dollars!
Afterwards we headed over to a local RV parts store where I was able to find an updated camper handle that matched ours perfectly. It didn’t take us too long to get it installed, now I just had to figure out how to install the strike plate for it on the frame due to the fact the inside framing w as missing in one spot to mount it in to. But I’d figure it out when we had more time.
Now that the work we could get done in Caldwell was finished; it seemed fair to give Laura a little R&R time. We headed back over to Planet Fitness, but for just a soothing shower. We had decided that after such an intense hot day of work we could forego the workout for the day.
In the same mall was a City Buffet, which Arnie had told us were pretty good. We decided to break diet and relax a bit here before gearing up to hit the road again.
After our refresher we were headed to the city of Twin Falls; the sunset fading behind us as we cruised down the highway. Upon arriving we found a Planet Fitness we could stay at for the night- and got set up to rest.
Before hitting the bed though we finally got around to putting the Idaho sticker on our United States magnet.
Tomorrow would be another exciting day hunting for our elusive air conditioning part, with hopefully some fun times and memories intermixed.
Geoff Murphy 6/30/2022
You were here for the hottest 3 days of summer so far. Glad you two were able to stop by. I hope you enjoyed the cherries. I’ve Ben nibbling them for several days. That little bird you saw scampering around the parking lot is called a Killdeer. I have a pair that nest somewhere in my yard. They are expert at hiding their nest. Safe travels on the next leg of your journey.
Thank you for everything Arnie! The cherries 🍒 were wonderful. That’s an interesting 🤔 name for that bird. 😄