Well, That Was Close….A Few Belts Short Of A Tire BlowOut!

That’s the look of a broken belt

Paul and I are very, very careful about our RV tires. We religiously check tire pressure, cover them whenever we are parked, keep them clean, use 303 Aerospace Protectant (the best stuff out there IMHO) and keep a close eye on datecode. Almost any RV tire you ever buy will “age out” rather than actually “wear out”. The vast majority of RVs simply don’t get that much road-time (compared to a commercial truck, for example) and at some point the rubber just starts to get too old and you risk problems. Exactly when that happens is a favorite debate on RV forums that usually elicits at least 10 pages of heated answers. Many folks will push their tires to 10 years, but we’ve always held that we would replace ours at 6 years of age no matter what…and for “the beast” that year was 2013.

Jeff starts work on the rig

So, the good news is that I knew this and had spent the last couple of months researching tires, looking at load and dimension specs and figuring out cost. We run 275/80 22.5 H-load tires on our rig and there’s only around 4 manufacturers (Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear) that offer that particular size and load. I had carefully narrowed down our choice to a couple of options, joined the FMCA Tire Program (which gives awesome discounts on Michelin tires) and even chosen the very place we’d get them done in Oregon (no sales tax, ya know). Oh yeah, we were all set and prepared. No problem baby!

But, as you know, sometimes RV life isn’t always as smooth as you expect. In fact, one of the age-old laws of RVing is that things will always happen at the least opportune moment….in other words you will inevitably have a major tire problem when you’re within agonizing reach of Oregon (but not quite there), in a place where no-one has your size and where you definitely can’t get any tire discounts.

“the Beast” at Les Schwab

We noticed the bulge on our front tire as we were sitting in the RV park in Boise. Originally we thought it was the curb a person-who-shall-not-be-named had scuffed on the way in, but shortly after we realized BOTH front wheels had the same damage. It’s the classic look of a broken steel belt and the way you can tell is the bulge is apparent in the same place on both sides of the tire (front-facing and inside-facing tire-walls -> run your hand radially along the front, over the tread and continue along the back and you’ll feel it on both sides). BAH! BUM@ CR*P! Given the abuse we put our tires through (especially with boondocking and crazy, bumpy, rocky roads), I guess it’s kind of lucky this didn’t happen before, but the timing just sucked.

The ONE thing that is NOT acceptable on a 33,000 lb beast is a bulge in the tires. No, no, no, no, no….!

Paul chats w/ Jeff after the work is done

Back view of “the beast”

Knowing there was no way we could drive with this, I started calling around to all the tire spots in the area. The 2 commercial truck tire guys in the area did not have the size we needed, or could only get it 2 weeks from now and/or could not guarantee datecode (very important this -> you should always ask about datecode if you’re buying tires), and most of the regular tire places didn’t have the facilities to handle us. But there was one place, and one guy who could answer all my nit-picky questions (I’ve never been an easy customer) and had the facilities to take us. Les Schwab on Jefferson (208-336-3110), and more specifically Jeff knew exactly what we needed. He was able to get the tires within 2 days and could guarantee a datecode of 1013 (that’s the 10th week of 2013, almost impossible to get fresher). Total SCORE!

That’s an AWESOME datecode!

Happily tucked into the pines in Oregon

I was ridiculously nervous about the 5-mile drive over, but we made the drive painlessly and Jeff was there to personally greet us and get us going. He started work as soon as we stepped off the RV and had the 2 front tires changed (brand new Michelin XZE’s) within an hour while we went for a Starbuck’s and lounged with doggie in their waiting room. An overall fabulous experience! We’ve decided to keep the back (undamaged) tires until we get to Oregon, but feel 500% better with new steers even though the cost {{groan}} caused us to hyperventilate and cackle hysterically like old witches. Ah well, ’tis the price we pay for no mortgage and utter freedom, right? The new ride is smooth as silk and I couldn’t be happier with the service.

We’ve now made it (FINALLY) to Oregon and are hanging for a few days in deep pine forest (oh yeah!) before we make the drive to spend the next few weeks in the Columbia River Gorge. Onwards and upwards Scotty…we averted another near-disaster and are still on the road.

Related Post: Tire Maintenance & Handling Tire Blow-Outs

A Bike On The Boise Greenbelt

Nothing much to report today except I deep-cleaned the RV carpets (thank you very much Mr. Rug Doctor), and I biked 15 miles on the Boise Greenbelt (thank you not quite so much from my buttocks). My rather sore derrière will remind me of this ride for the next several days, but for the rest of you who are not quite so lucky I figured I would just give you a simple gallery of some of my shots. All-in-all a superb day and fabulous bike-path. It’s hard to believe this thing goes through downtown Boise…

The Paw-Friendly “Big City” – Boise, ID

Yup, we’re in the “big city” now!

A relaxing river-stop on the downtown Greenbelt

So yours truly is (one again) getting up to no good on her own while hubby is away. That means it’s just me and the paws…the paws and I, and we’re doing it all in “big city” Boise. I place this in inverted commas because Boise is one of the few capitals we’ve travelled through that doesn’t feel large at all. There’s a mere 200,000 or so souls living here, a modest-sized downtown and pretty much all the shops and conveniences you’d expect. But what sets this place apart and makes it special is the nature. Right behind the city high-rises, and in fact even through downtown itself there are massive dedicated areas of green all for the benefit of humans and paws…and that gives the town a whole different feel.

On the trails in the Boise foothills

Boise City boasts over 850 acres of parks and natural areas and backs up against the fabulous Boise foothills, a 130-mile network of scenic and loose-yourself-in-the-mountains trails. These areas are not only human, bike and paw-friendly, but many of them have dedicated off-leash trails! That’s a total rarity in big cities and for passionate doggie-lovers like me it’s akin to finding ice cream in the desert….a total treat! I’ve not even come close to exploring all the spots, but figured I would share two of my favs:

1/ Boise Greenbelt

The awesome Boise Greenbelt

In 1964 some bright guys had the foresight to hire some other bright guys to create a continuous “green belt” of public lands stretching the entire length of the Boise River. The outcome of this awesome idea was a totally green, totally preserved 22-mile bike/hike/walk trail through the very middle of town. Genius! Our RV park (Boise Riverside RV Park) just happens to sit right on the Greenbelt so pooch and I have been hopping out of bed and onto the trails everyday. They’re leash-only, but there’s tons of access points to the river where you can unofficially go for a dip and a splash. This trail also happens to be a popular fishing spot, a great bike-path and part of the Idaho Birding Trail so there’s a bit of something for everyone.

2/ Boise Foothills

Tons of off-leash friendly trails in the foothills

The Boise Foothills pretty much engulf the entire northern view of Boise and huge parts of it are public land. What’s ultra-cool is that they’ve designed a big portion of their trails as off-leash friendly so doggie and you can both amble along in nature in total freedom. These trails are not only clearly marked on the maps, but they’re marked on-trail too so there’s never any question of whether your untethered pooch is legal. Polly was pretty much trained to be an off-leash doggie so we seek out these kind of places wherever we can. One our our fav spots is the Old Fort Military Reserve which is only ~15 mins drive from our park and encompasses a huge 460 acre sub-section of the larger foothills. This time of year it’s bursting with glorious yellow blooms and the ridgeline gives sweeping views of downtown. There’s even a dedicated fenced-in off-leash dog park and archery range on-site. Pretty cool!

There’s tons of other pooch-friendly areas around town including 9 other off-leash dog parks and a good selection of paw-happy restaurants (we may well hit one before hubby comes home). Between everything out here it’s one of the paw-friendliest spots I’ve been and that always gives it extra points on my scale.

A rather brilliant sunset at our RV park

As to getting up to no good? Well, I’ve been ordering packages on Amazon and have received several new Benchmark Atlases (very exciting for me), a new vacuum (on the way…very exciting for the rig) and new empty boxes (very exciting for the cats), plus I’ve been dabbling with motorized needles and thread. The latter sounds dangerous I know, especially for me, and I really have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m pretty sure the outcome will be something to blog about. Hope springs eternal ya know….

Brilliant yellow in the foothills

Polly poses with downtown Boise in the background

A happy cat

Pretty weeds

Morning walk on the Greenbelt

Gorgeous flowers

Green, Greeen, Greeeeen!!! Three Island Crossing State Park, ID

A very happy kitty

This park has a ton of cool displays about the historic Oregon Trail

On Wednesday we arrived at Three Island Crossing State Park and saw GREEN GRASS!! Now, this may not seem like much of a thing for most of you, but since we’ve spent the last 4 months in semi-arid desert it was a total revelation. We parked the rig in the lush GREEN lawn, piled out of the RV and ALL 5 of us flopped down and rolled around with reckless abandon in the grass….GLORIOUS!!!

This green stop also marks the end of our desert travels, the end of our time in Utah and the bridge to our summer in the Northwest. Since the beginning of January we’ve been in desert mode and have spent the vast majority of our time either boondocking or dry-camping. In fact when we arrived at Antelope Island early this week it was the first time we’d dumped or re-loaded on water since Monument Valley! That’s almost 3 weeks “in the boonies” on our tanks, a pretty typical span for us these days with good water conservation. It’s also one of the things we love about the SW in winter -> tons of easy boondocking, low-cost camping and opportunity to get in the “wilds”.

Not a bad view for afternoon cocktails!

Afternoon walk on the trails

Now that’s a nice, green pad!

From here on out we’ll be spending more time in campgrounds and thus a little more $$ on camping, at least until we get to our summer jobs in Bandon, OR. This is not because there are no boondocking opportunities in the NW (there are, although you’ll get less and less of them as you approach the coast), but mostly because we really, really love the NW state parks. So we’ll be taking a rather cushy tour along the Columbia River Gorge and down the WA/OR coast with the luxury of hookups, at least part of the way..

As for Three Island Crossing State Park, it’s a spot we discovered on our dash to OR to get our big slide issues fixed a few years back. We found it and immediately fell in love. It’s a super-easy stop on 84 north with huge sites, TONS of green grass and a really neat visitor center. Apparently we’re not the only ones who think so. Yesterday afternoon we noticed a rather familiar rig enter the campground (Paul and I both swore we’d seen it in Antelope Island) and a short time later we got a visit from some blog readers. Indeed they’d been following the same route and ended up in the same spots! We spent a fabulous evening chatting with young fulltimers Brian and Sharon who are on their way to a workamping job in WA. We had so much fun I took zero pics, but can you can share the creative side of these fine folks through Brian’s self-published Amazon book Indian Paintbrush.

But first we’re making a stop in Boise. Paul is taking a quick trip home, I’m going to be getting into trouble tackling a few RV projects and we’ll be stocking up. So it’ll be back into “the maw” for a while before we get back into the wilds. All part of the journey

P.S. I also want to say thanks to blog reader Ward who braved the gnats at Antelope Island to come out and visit while we were there. Your company and bottle of wine was most appreciated!

Hiking at the park

Polly cools in the Snake River

Gorgeous sunset

And moody sunrise

Oil Change & Pooch Play – Boise, ID

"The Beast" waits for her oil change at Cummins

As you know we’ve been storming our way West to our RV repair date in Oregon. With all the travelling and driving I’m actually several days behind in the blog so although my pictures show hot and crazy days in Boise, you’ll be happy to know we’re cooling our heels in pine-forest-weather-perfect Oregon. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Early morning hiking with Polly in Military Reserve Dog Park

After our few days relaxing at Glenns Ferry we did a quick skip and a jump through Boise, ID. We took advantage of the highly recommended Cummins Coach Care Center to do our yearly oil-change as we were passing through and the place certainly impressed. Spacious, clean, with two entertainment rooms, a grassy pet area, picnic table and even RV hookups. We were in by 10AM and out ~3 hours later. I think this is the route we’ll use for future oil changes. I like the fact that mechanics who know the engine inside and out are doing the work. The Beast was rather happy too and seemed to purr all the way to our RV park.

Off-leash trails. My kinda place!!

Our next day was rest, recoup, shop and explore. Boise is a fairly compact for a “large” town with a pretty downtown river and (surprisingly) a reputation for good Basque food, a nod to the unique history of Basque immigration to the area. It’s also got a bunch of green parks, and a big draw (for us) the rumour of a completely off-leash, non-bordered dog park right near the city center. The Military Reserve Dog Park totally delivers as promised and even offers several miles of off-leash trails with panoramic views of the city. BONUS!

With fridge restocked, wine cellar full and all furry and non-furry animals happy we motored on cross-country. Next stop, Oregon….