Miss Hap or Good Luck?

I’ve often wondered if Miss Hap is Mr. Murphy’s daughter.  I’ve been trying to avoid both of them whenever I travel, but I think I made Miss Hap’s acquaintance today.  Either she’s not as experienced as Murphy, or I sort of had some good luck.

Before I get into that, I want to cover what we did yesterday first.  We headed out on what turned out to be a 302 mile day trip to visit Grand Teton National Park.  The very few pictures I have tonight are from that sojourn.

First stop was at the visitors center in Jackson, WY.  Some of you may remember that I had almost worked at the Elk Refuge in the summer of 2013, but I turned them down when I found out that my only duties would be in this visitors center 32 hours a week.  That’s how I ended up at Tamarac NWR.  Anyway, this visit confirmed that I had made the right decision for me.  It’s a gorgeous refuge though.

Eventually, we made it to Grand Teton.  As it turned out, this was not the exciting day we thought it would be.  Yes, it’s beautiful, but we both agreed that after Yellowstone, it was a bit of a let down for us.  Maybe we were just worn out visitors after Theodore Roosevelt NP, the Beartooth Highway, and three days in Yellowstone.  There’s also the fact that neither of us are able to immerse ourselves in the many hikes available like Sherry and David and others can do.  At any rate, we headed back over the Teton pass for home, and to get ready for today’s travels to Ogden, Utah.

That’s when life got interesting in a not so wonderful way.  About forty miles down the road, we ran into four miles of very challenging construction going on in one of the mountain passes on US 20.  It was one of those drives filled with a lot of pucker power that didn’t quite work.  Neither of us noticed it when it happened, but apparently I got up close and personal with one of the construction cones.  I now have a nice pin stripe down the side of the rig.  Some of the passageways were very tight, white knuckle sections.  I at least avoided the most hazardous obstacles.  Kurt also says he can take care of that pin stripe when we get to AZ.

About that time, I also noticed two not normal sounds as we drove along.  One sounded like a stone in one of the hubcaps.  I had heard a bit of that sound when we drove from Columbus, MT, to Island Park, ID.  I had checked all the tires, but couldn’t find anything wrong.  It got worse today.  Once we got to our present campground (which is a whole other story), Kurt found the problem.  It seems one of the lug nuts that hold the fancy hubcap on was missing, and the other one was loose.  They were both fine when I last checked them.  That’s what accounted for that sound.  The hubcap was rattling back and forth until we got up to speed.

Had the second one flown off, it could have created a real problem as it probably would have ripped off the valve extenders that are attached to it resulting in a loss of air pressure.  Thankfully that second lug nut held.  There was no danger of the wheel coming off.  Those lug nuts are just fine.  So tomorrow, we will be searching the city of Ogden for a new lug nut.  Lots of rain is predicted for tomorrow, and I had made reservations for two nights because of the approaching storm.  We won’t leave until it’s taken care of, and the storm moves on.  So, I had a meeting with Miss Hap today, but I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.

It certainly has been nice having a second person traveling with me who knows how to take care of some of these minor defugalties.  I’m also feeling a little spoiled about not having to do all the chores of set up and take down myself.  I do the driving, but he takes care of the outside stuff while I level the rig, put out the slides, and take care of the inside stuff.  Sweet!  Hmm… I wonder if he would be interested in another road trip next spring when I leave Imperial NWR?? 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy