Elepent

The summer tourist season wound down, and the temperatures in the Black Hills dropped steadily.  We got ready to leave the Big Pine with the last of the summer campers, and seemed to run right into the real world as we left.  An early snowstorm sprinkled flakes over Custer as we headed south.  The snow and cold weather didn’t affect us much, but the accompanying windstorm certainly did!  As we rolled south past Hot Springs and into Wyoming, vicious winds ripping across the plains broadsided the Incorrigible, making it difficult to keep the vehicle in its lane.  This was merely annoying, until a particularly powerful gust tore our awning open.

What do you do when the wind takes your awning while you’re driving?  Well, the first thing you’ll want to do is stop, as quickly and safely as possible.  The noise of the support arms banging against the side of the RV and the thunderous flap of the canvas will make staying calm a difficult task.  Once you’re stopped, it’s time to assess the damage and get rolling again.  If you’re lucky, you just forgot to secure the awning, and it can be rolled back up.

We weren’t quite so lucky.  The canvas had been ripped partly out of its mounting bracket, and though we got stopped before anything ripped or cracked, the support arms were misaligned and possibly slightly bent.  It was far too cold and windy to try and realign and re-pack the awning, so I secured it with the next-best thing:  a whole lot of zip-ties.  One of the most important pieces of equipment in your RV emergency kit should be a large canister of zip-ties.  They may not look like much, but enough of them will secure just about anything, and unlike duct tape they aren’t affected by wind or water.  I zip-tied the awning’s support arms closed, then wrapped the section of canvas that had come unrolled and peeled back with several more ties.  It looks terrible, but it held up at freeway speeds and kept the wind from doing further damage to the awning.  We have a couple of busy weeks ahead of us, and the temporary repair should hold until we’ve got time to open the awning and assess the damage.

We stopped in Salt Lake City, long enough to visit with James and Kathie again, and to buy an extremely cheap Ford Ranger that will replace the AEV when it returns to Jeep in a couple of weeks.  It’s a humble little regular-cab, two-wheel drive pickup, but its light weight and efficient four-cylinder engine make it a good tow vehicle.  Besides, it cost less than a decent laptop computer, and the TLC it needs is within my ability to perform myself.  I never could resist a car that needed TLC.  James and I did some guerilla engineering to add a temporary tow bar to the front of the Ranger (which is having starting issues at the moment; we won’t be driving it much until I replace the starter) so the Incorrigible could tow it.  It’s not pretty with the front bumper removed, but it tows and tracks straight. We have named it the Crimson Haybaler, after our favorite racer from the old “Wacky Races” cartoon.  I can’t remember why I liked the Crimson Haybaler (and its pilot/driver “Red Max”) so much, but then, I was seven.  Besides, the Ranger has a damaged exhaust that makes it sound kind of like an old airplane.

After that quick stop in Salt Lake, it was back to the freeway to head farther south, to Las Vegas.  The wind hadn’t let up, and so much of the trip was spent with the moho heeled over several degrees to the right.  For much of the trip we were tilted so far over that the fender liner was rubbing the right front tire!  Driving into the wind sucks; driving in a strong crosswind sucks even more.

We made it to Vegas without major incident, however.  Once in town, we stowed the Incorrigible at a nearby Wal-Mart and headed over to the Road Runner RV Park (it’s sometimes easier to disconnect the AEV and drive to location in the smaller vehicle before trying to maneuver the RV in an unfamiliar area), which seemed like a decently-priced spot to hook up for the month.  Unfortunately, the Road Runner bars motorhomes built before 1999.

This was the first time we had encountered such a restriction, though we’d heard of them before.  The idea is apparently that older motorhomes are full of poor people and unsightly, so anything older than a certain age is verboten.  The fact that the Incorrigible is freshly polished and well cared-for (never mind the zip-tied awning, that’s temporary!) was no good, and we were turned away sight unseen.  Oh, well.  If they don’t want our money, it’s their business.

Las Vegas does not lack for places to put motorhomes, and we set up at the Main Street Station casino’s RV park instead.  Basically a parking lot with RV hookups right next to I-515, it’s not the most scenic location (or the most quiet), but neither of those things bothers us.  What we like is that it’s within walking distance of the cool Fremont Street Experience, it’s extremely inexpensive ($16/a day) and it’s well-patrolled by security.  The Main Street Station is pretty cool too, with lots of wood’n'brass décor and antique fixtures scattered throughout the place, and a pair of original Pullman rail cars on exhibit.