Tag Archives: VFW

FCRV Campvention [Day 3: Rockpile Museum & Eagle Butte Coal Mine] (Cam-Plex, Gillette WY)

2015/07/09 davidhobden@mac.com

Day 3 (Wednesday) here at the Cam-Plex for the FCRV Campvention stayed somewhat overcast with a comfortable 72° Perfect weather for getting out and walking around, so that’s what we did.

There weren’t any seminars or activities scheduled today that peaked our interest, so after walking little “Coach” and finishing up yesterday’s blog post; we jumped into my Dad’s Jeep to go check out the area along with my Dad and his camera (so fair warning – extra pictures today) 🙂 Unfortunately, my stepmom Elaine was scheduled to pass out the final door prizes from 2 – 4 PM so her unswerving sense of duty and unwavering dedication to the cause prevented her from joining us 🙁

The Wyoming Center building here at the Cam-Plex Multi-Event Facility.

We drove around to the northwest corner of the Cam-Plex and stopped at the Energy Exhibit, which is a permanent collection of vehicles and equipment that represent this area, which often calls itself the ‘Energy Capital of the World‘ due to the huge low-sulfur coal mining concerns that still sustain growth and support jobs in the town of Gillette.

Grandson Kaan and I climbed aboard a Burlington Northern GE U30C locomotive.

Stilla and Dad skirting along the side of a Burlington Northern GE U30C locomotive.

Grandson Kaan peeking out from the front of a Burlington Northern GE U30C locomotive.

There were quite a few representative pieces of equipment from the coal mining operations of the area on display…

Stilla standing next to a huge tire commonly used on the heavy coal-mining trucks.

Kaan standing inside a huge earth-moving bucket provides size perspective.

Our grandson Kaan even started a little earth moving of his own…

View from the Energy Exhibit towards the Cam-Plex; RVs in the background.

Kaan wants one of these to play with in the backyard Mom…

Kaan climbed up the back of this giant earth-moving truck to check out the massive engine, and…

of course, had to follow up with the front side…

to sit in the drivers seat…

After we had our fill (pun intended) of the earth-moving and mining equipment exhibit, we plugged the Rockpile Museum into the iPhone GPS and maneuvered our way to the north side of Gillette.

We had no trouble finding the Rockpile Museum thanks to the GPS, the sign (below), and the rock pile itself…

Don’t forget to click on this link to the museum to see more.

Not sure what this is, but it sure looks cool… an old stone age wheel maybe? 🙂 Maybe it’s a piece of petrified tree stuck in ancient sand that turned to stone with the middle of the old tree disintegrated and missing? My dad took this picture under the museum sign.

The Rockpile Museum is… you guessed it… located next to a rock pile! The rock pile is a local landmark and at one time overlooked the massive stockyards and rodeo shows. In even earlier days it was a favorite landmark that the cowboys used to find town and they often camped out under the boulders.

Additional out-building (extension) to the Rockpile Museum in Gillette, WY.

Strange looking windmill at the Rockpile Musuem in Gillette, WY.

Here’s some pictures inside…

Now this is an old RV…

This old RV has all the amenities of home…

More pics from in and around the museum… enjoy…

We watched some really cool short films… I really liked the one on setting off explosives to loosen up the overburden to get to the coal…

Inside an old schoolhouse. Kaan isn’t too happy about being back in school… he thought it was still his summer break 🙂

We worked up an appetite at the Rockpile Museum, so we drove over to nearby ‘old downtown’ Gillette to find something to eat. We found the Gillette Brewing Company with a pizzeria (Pizza Carrello) located inside the old Post Office building…

where we shared a pizza and Dad had a BLT wrap… yup, I said BLT wrap… they really make those here…

Mural on old downtown Gillette building.

Since we still had a little time to kill before we had to get back to meet up for Tacos at the local Elks Lodge, we drove several miles north out of town to check out one of the mining operations we heard about; the Eagle Butte Coal Mine.

We were turned away at the entrance gate. The manned shack had a young girl inside that told us we had to make reservations in town before we could enter the main coal mine area for a tour, so we just went over to an overlook and took pictures from a distance…

My Dad’s camera can really zoom in for some quality pictures…

Giant truck being loaded at the Eagle Butte Coal Mine near Gillette, WY.

Giant truck dumping it’s load at the the Eagle Butte Coal Mine near Gillette, WY.

It was almost time to get back and pick up stepmom Elaine so we could meet up with Biff & Linda Anderson for Tacos at the local Elks Lodge. We made plans earlier in the week when we first stopped there; they need the business. This quaint Lodge performs double-duty as the local VFW post as well.

We made it back to the campground just in time to pick up Elaine and convoy over to the lodge… a whopping quarter-mile (or less) away…

(L to R) Kaan, Stilla, Elaine, Dad, Biff and Linda at Elks Lodge 2825 / VFW Post 7756 in Gillette, WY.

After filling up on Tacos we decided we still needed dessert at the local Dairy Queen…

And that’s it for Day 3 here at the Cam-Plex. If you get a chance, the Rockpile Museum is definitely worth the visit and was the highlight of our day. Hope you enjoyed the pics 🙂

This morning (Thursday) it’s a little windy and overcast. Someone told me that part of the reason it’s so gray and overcast is because of forest fires up north and west of us.

Our plan is to go visit Devils Tower today since there isn’t a whole lot of activity here at the Campvention that interests us. So after my Dad goes to a 9 AM seminar that he promised to take pictures of, we’ll head out on the ~62 mile trip, (104 round-trip). Hopefully the weather holds up for us. I want to take the Harley since we have my Dad & Elaine in their Jeep to take our grandson Kaan along with them. Check back for a full report…

Arizona

Havasu Springs Resort (Lake Havasu, AZ)

2015/02/19 davidhobden@mac.com

Our stay here at Havasu Springs Resort has come to an end 🙁 Time to move on today (Thursday). But first, here’s what we did the last couple days;

On Tuesday we hit the pool and relaxed in the hot tub for a while.

Then we took another long walk and explored the other half of the resort that we didn’t get to earlier.

Here’s another view of some RV spots and “vacation homes”… they can really pack-em-in when they want to, eh?

Another nice cactus garden.

Here’s the office building at the park’s entrance. This is where we first went when we rolled into the park.

We also visited the bar/restaurant. Looked like a very nice place, but we had already eaten so we just did a quick look-see.

Manicured tree near the motel area of the resort.

Our view out the windshield. All-in-all, a pretty uneventful day.

On Wednesday, we attended the mandatory presentation at the sales office.

It wasn’t painful at all. The presentation was very professional and no high-pressure sales tactics. They talked about their Colorado River Adventures resorts (9 of them I think) and their affiliated programs, such as Coast-to-Coast, etc., We watched a video presentation and then talked to the sales manager. We never got as far as discussing costs or their different levels of membership. We explained that we just weren’t in a position to commit to anything like this right now. We still haven’t sold the house and we already have other memberships such as; Passport America, Escapees, Elks, VFW, American Legion, Good Sam, and military fam-camps. So, we thanked them for the opportunity to stay here and said we would consider such a membership in the future.

After the presentation, we decided to take the raft out on the lake. We drove the Silverado over to the boat ramp and unloaded the Sea-Eagle raft from the back seat.

After mounting the trolling motor, I launched the boat while Stilla parked the Silverado.

I came back in to shore to pick up Stilla and little Coach. Then we toured the whole resort side of the lake.

We passed a pontoon-type fishing boat, also a Sea-Eagle.

And another miniature lighthouse.

We pulled in to the inner harbor after being on the water for an hour or so and visited the gift shop that was next to the snack bar/restaurant.

Then we headed back to our put-in spot, but before calling it a day we toured some more of the coastline away from the resort and went around an island or two while just enjoying the sunshine and scenery.

Not bad for $10 a night… even with the mandatory sales presentation. Anyway, it’s time to move on now.

I reserved us a spot at Alamo Lake State Park for the 20th thru the 27th. So we’ll still have to find a spot for tonight (the 19th) on our way there. We have about 110 miles to find something.

Stay tuned…

Arizona

YPG (Yuma Proving Grounds, AZ)

2015/02/12 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

Almost caught back up now with the journal entries… I’m only a couple days behind now 🙂

On Tuesday morning, we left the Coach parked at the noisy campsite behind the VFW post and drove the Silverado to the Yuma Proving Ground Museum.

Fair Warning – This post is picture heavy! As a veteran of 26+ years, I enjoy military history and equipment, therefore, I took lots of pictures.

These are the signs you see at the turn-off from US 95 to the Proving Grounds and Imperial Dam.

YPG sign on US 95 (taken later when we drove by in the Coach)

These giant cannons are on the west side of US 95 opposite the signs above… you can’t miss the turn to Yuma Proving Grounds with these landmarks! The “Atomic Cannon” was designed to fire a nuclear shell per this link @ RoadsideAmerica.com

Here’s another couple vehicle displays outside the main gate at one of the two base entrances.

The following tanks, vehicles, and other military equipment are located on the side of the road just a short way down from the US 95 turn. We parked and checked them out. No ID card or anything is needed to view these, they are open to the public… they are just off the side of the road and there is ample parking.

This is the museum entrance on the base located just across from the Fam Camp. It used to be the installation’s headquarters and is now called the Heritage Center Museum. (Click on the link)

We were going to stay at this Fam Camp but changed our minds when we were having too much fun down by Los Algodones. Besides – it would have cost us $130 for the week or $40 for one night.

You do need an ID card to gain access to the base which is the administrative side of this massive post. However, I assume they allow visitors with proper identification to get a visitors pass. Here’s another good link for more information.

It took us a couple hours to tour through the museum. You could easily spend more time here if you stopped to read all the literature or sit through the several recorded presentations.

Did you know that General Patton trained his tank corps here to prepare them for battle with Rommel during WWII?

And who doesn’t like Jeeps?

A couple cool pictures of vehicles being tested back in the day.

There were quite a few cool dioramas, I like dioramas… maybe it’s a not quite grown-up “guy thing”.

The original Installation Commander’s office has been recreated here with all the furnishings.

A couple more cool dioramas:

There was even an entire room dedicated to the cowardly terrorist attacks of 9/11. The video presentation was riveting.

Great museum – highly recommend it!

After our tour of the museum, we stopped at the mini PX and gas station to save a few bucks on fuel for the Silverado. Then we exited the base and headed farther down the road to check out the BLM sites in and around the Imperial Dam (Click link for more images) for possible future camping locations. Wikipedia has more interesting facts about the dam here if you’re interested.

The following pictures are of the Imperial Dam area. We saw many different long term visitor areas (LTVAs) and other nice camping spots. We might have to come back here some time in the future.

This guy was para-sailing… or is it para-surfing?

Typical signage seen throughout the area.

When we got back to the Coach parked behind the VFW post, we immediately got ready to roll on up the road. We weren’t going to spend another night here with the planes and trains.

We pulled into Parker, AZ (about 40-50 miles up US 95) and found the local Elks Lodge. They had 12 spots with 30amp and water for a suggested donation of $15 per night. We were packed in pretty tight – we couldn’t even put out the awning more than a couple feet or it would hit the RV next to us. Oh well, it was nice to have electric again. It’s been a while. Stilla loaded up the washer/dryer combo to get caught up on some laundry since we had hookups.

The Elks were having a lodge meeting and didn’t have anything to offer for dinner, so even though it was short-notice, we called some friends from Colorado Springs that we knew were staying at the Pirates Den Resort just up the road. They hadn’t eaten yet so we made plans to meet at the Black Pearl Restaurant located inside their resort.

“Greeter” inside the doors at the Black Pearl Restaurant located in the Pirates Den RV Resort, Parker, AZ.

We met Bob and Mary McCord and had an awesome BBQ rib dinner while we caught up on things. It was sure nice to see them again, it’s been several months since we saw them last in COS. They belong to the Family Campers & RVers (FCRV), Rolling Springs Chapter that we also belong to along with my Dad and Stepmom. We only get to see them during campouts or meetings.

After dinner we went over to their site and relaxed in their nice Coach. They recently got “upgraded” to a spot overlooking the Colorado River instead of being a couple rows back. Nice Coach, Nice spot! We called it a night, said our farewells, and headed back to the Elks lodge in downtown Parker. We’ll see you down the road Bob & Mary!

Stay tuned…

Arizona

VFW (Yuma, AZ)

2015/02/11 davidhobden@mac.com

Still trying to get caught up with the posts. Let me bring you a little closer up to date. But first, I forgot to mention in my previous post about the Yuma Territorial Prison that our neighbors’s (Don, Kevin, and others) invited me to tag along with them to the races Saturday evening at the Cocopah Speedway back in Yuma. I’m not sure why I forgot to put it in the post for Saturday… guess I better start keeping notes if I get behind. Anyway, what a blast! The speedway was well laid out, not a bad seat in the bleachers. Thanks for taking me along Don! Stilla opted to stay in the Coach with the dog and catch up on TV shows… her loss.

Here’s a couple pics:

We even had a beautiful Arizona sunset as the races got started.

Anyway, back to Monday… in the morning we folded up the chairs and patio mat, pulled in the slides, and raised the jacks to go to the nearby campground just this side of the Los Algodones (Mexico) border crossing. I don’t think it was more than a mile away. We just needed to dump and take on water. This campground charges $50 for a night. I’m assuming most folks that stay here are getting dental work done across the border but they probably pay the more reasonable weekly rate. We paid the $10 fee to dump our tanks and take on water. Then we stopped back at our campsite to say goodbye to our good neighbors from the last several days.

After saying our farewells, we hit Interstate 8 towards Yuma and then turned north on 95. There was a Barons gas station that Don gave me a tip about – easy in – easy out, and diesel was around $2.54 a gallon which was a pleasant change.

Since we didn’t have to be in Lake Havasu for the Fireworks Rally until the 11th, we decided to pull in to another boondocking spot (BLM land) located right next to the highway (95) and behind a VFW post. We still wanted to visit the museum at Yuma Proving Grounds since we didn’t stay at the Fam Camp there as previously planned.

Here’s the VFW post. The entrance to the BLM boondocking land is right behind the building. The post has a band playing almost daily from 2 or 3 until 5 PM. We stopped in for a refreshment after we got parked and settled. Unfortunately, the post didn’t have a kitchen… no snacks at all except for chips and pretzels behind the bar.

This tank is on display out front of the post.

Here’s a view of our boondocking spot. No hookups here.

Most of the rigs spaced themselves out pretty well from each other. We found what we thought was a quiet corner.

Here’s our spot.

Now, after spending the night here, all I can say is – avoid this spot at all costs if you want any peace and quiet. There was a plane, maybe a crop-duster, that continuously zoomed in and out around the area until late into the night. And the train tracks across the highway must be one of the busiest railways I’ve ever seen (or heard) to date. We had to keep hitting the pause button on the TV every time another train went by or the plane made another run, it was so loud. I can’t understand why anyone would stay here for more than one night when there are so many other opportunities to boondock along 95. We won’t make this mistake twice.

The next morning (Tuesday) we visited Yuma Proving Grounds and toured the BLM spots around the Imperial Dam area for future reference. I’ll put that in my next post.. until then, have a nice and quiet night 🙂

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Tag Archives: VFW

FCRV Campvention [Day 3: Rockpile Museum & Eagle Butte Coal Mine] (Cam-Plex, Gillette WY)

Havasu Springs Resort (Lake Havasu, AZ)

YPG (Yuma Proving Grounds, AZ)

VFW (Yuma, AZ)

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