Prevosts and Moonshine at Spearfish

[dale farley]

Well, it has been great, but as can be seen in these pictures, by 9 P.M. tonight most of us are hitched up and ready to pull out in the morning. It was actually pitch dark, so the moon was the main light source for the pictures.

[Ray Davis]

Nice shots Dale!

[JIM KELLER]

Nice pictures Dale. Hope you and Paulette have had a great time these past few months and that your new Bus has served you well !

[rickdesilva]

Great shots Dale....Everyday we looked forward to the daily "update".

[dale farley]

Jon left us this morning at 3:45, and many others followed during the next few hours. Truk, Roger and I left at 8:30, and took it easy for a few hundred miles. Truk got bored with us and took a "road less traveled" while Roger and I drove to Sioux City, Nebraska for the night.

We are having our own mini-mini rally at the Scenic park Campground, and it is a nice place. Full hook up, WiFi and pull-through spots for $22. Made a couple shots just before we went to eat dinner.

[Sid Tuls]

Dale great job with the pictures!! Kinda hate see the rally come to an end. I love seeing all the pictures of the differant coaches makes me want to get mine out and weigh it! Thanks again!

[dale farley]

Jim K., We have had a great summer. The experience with the kids was rewarding, and the weather was wonderful. And yes, the CC has served us well. I hear you and Karen are getting settled in your beautiful new place. Thanks.

[garyde]

Well, I made it home in two 12 plus hour days. Its about 1440 miles with one 20 mile back track for deisel. As it turns out, I left at 5:15 AM, drove thru the black hills down to Casper, back tracked for deisel when I couldn't find a station on the south side of Casper. Then ran into Harry and Shirley at a rest stop about two hours later. They left Spearfish at 7:15 AM. So much for an early start.

[Ray Davis]

Wow, that's a lot of driving in two days. Glad to hear that you made it home safely. Looks like it was an exception rally.

Ray

[hobobimmer]

Jon left us this morning at 3:45, and many others followed during the next few hours. Truk, Roger and I left at 8:30, and took it easy for a few hundred miles. Truk got bored with us and took a "road less traveled" while Roger and I drove to Sioux City, Nebraska for the night.

Deb, Eric, Jay, and Radar (dog) Faires left Spearfish at 8:15am Wednesday. Saw Orren/Karen Zook at Wall Drug, then at fuel stop, then at Rest Area for nap time (at least for us), then they passed us for good.

Also saw Roger/Micki, Dale/Paulette, and Tom/Nancy when they passed us as we exited for Wall Drug.

Wednesday made it to Minnesota state line and turned around for Sioux Falls, then I-29 south to Vermillion, SD truck stop for night.

Thursday Roger/Micki and Dale/Paulette passed us again, but no Tom/Nancy with them. Visited with them for about an hour (maybe more, maybe less) at a Rest Stop near Mile Marker 82, I think just south of Mound City, (IA or MO, can not remember which state). Deb, Eric, Jay, drove to Rest Stop just north of Litchfield, IL on I-55 and slept for night.

Friday made stop in Harrisburg, IL to visit my 98 year old aunt and celebrate her birthday. Made it home by 11:45pm Eastern time.

So here is final big western U.S. trip route. TN, AR, TX, OK, TX, NM, CO, UT, AZ, CA, NV, OR, ID, OR, WA, ID, MT, ND, SD, WY, SD, MN, SD, IA, NE, IA, MO, KS, MO, IL, IN, KY, TN. Did not tally miles yet. Want to sleep tonight.

Had so much fun with all Spearfish attendees. Bus did great throughout travels.

eric faires
huntsville, TN

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Unfortunately we didn't meet anyone along our return home, but we did 1490 miles in two days. When we left Spearfish we set all the clocks to eastern time and drove from 6:00 AM eastern (when we were actually heading east on I-90), to 6:30 PM. The following morning we departed at 6:00 from just north of KC, MO to arrive in Knoxville at 7:30.

The Pro Driver says the mileage from Knoxville TN to Jamestown NY to Spearfish SD to Knoxville TN is 7.31 MPG towing the Hummer at just over 62 MPH.

We had a lot of fun and the frosting on the cake was when Jim announced he was buying the King's Liberty.

[Coloradobus]

Hey Jon, At 51,200 coach lbs and 4800 Rover lbs, we did our entire up to Spearfish and back at 7.2 at 63 mph. Not bad for a beached whale.:D
Glad everyone made it home safely.!

[dale farley]

We left Roger and Miki late Friday evening and arrived at home about 3 P.M. today. When we stopped in Montgomery to fill up with diesel ($3.85), we had a clean bus. When we arrived at home 3 hours later, this is what it looked like. Thousands of Love Bugs.

[rfoster]

Dale, you need someone to wash the bugs off the front of that bus.

Micki and I got home Sat about fiveish. We went 4272 miles in 12 days. You dont want to know how much fuel I bought and then gave 100 gallons to some thief in Gillette, Wy.

Note to everyone: When fueling at a truck stop, be sure to lock your tanks. We left our bus unattended for a couple of hours while eating out and shopping at Wal Mart (were all bus owners shop) we got ripped off for 100 gallons of fuel. If you have a new to you bus and don't believe the fuel gauge telling you that your empty you will run out of fuel as I did. I was certain that I could go another 600 miles. NOT! Thanks to Dale, Paulette, Eric, Debi, and Jay for assistance while sitting in the middle of the road at a rest stop.

I will always lock my fuel access doors from now on. Although in this case I wonder if they would have just pryed the door open and stole the fuel.????

We certainly had a safe and fun trip. It was great to see everyone again.

[rickdesilva]

Roger
Well at least you know that your fuel guage is accurate! You were really lucky that you were pulling into a rest stop and not out on the road and you had some POG's to help out. Thankfully everything ended up OK. The only problem is, I think that this is one of those things that will just keep coming back to haunt you. It would however make a good MINI commercial :)

[Darl-Wilson]

I know this is a little late but I wanted everyone to know about an incident on our return from Spearfish.

We were staying at the Double Dice Campground in Elko where I met a fellow from MD driving a nice Liberty. He was worried because his main alternator belt was shredding and he hadn't been able to locate one nearby. They were going east and there isn't much from Elko to Salt Lake. Guess what, I had bought a spare at the auction in Spearfish for 5 bucks (a hell of a deal!!) so I gave it to the poor Prevost owner. The next day he wanted to pay me so I finally accepted the amount I paid for the belt. I also told him about POG and gave him a brochure and my card. Now that should have been the end of the story, right?

Well, yesterday a package arrived at my office and in it was a brand new belt. This fellow is Jim Hatfield and he owns a Body Shop called Ed and Jim's in Baltimore, MD. I called Jim and thanked him for being such a 'classy' guy'. He simply said he went to buy a spare belt and bought me one too. And paid damn near nine dollars to send it.

What is the moral of this story? I think this just reinforces my belief that some of the 'Classiest' and nicest people I know drive a Prevost.

Darl

[dalej]

Great story Darl!

[merle&louise]

Dale, you need someone to wash the bugs off the front of that bus.

Micki and I got home Sat about fiveish. We went 4272 miles in 12 days. You dont want to know how much fuel I bought and then gave 100 gallons to some thief in Gillette, Wy.

Note to everyone: When fueling at a truck stop, be sure to lock your tanks. We left our bus unattended for a couple of hours while eating out and shopping at Wal Mart (were all bus owners shop) we got ripped off for 100 gallons of fuel. If you have a new to you bus and don't believe the fuel gauge telling you that your empty you will run out of fuel as I did. I was certain that I could go another 600 miles. NOT! Thanks to Dale, Paulette, Eric, Debi, and Jay for assistance while sitting in the middle of the road at a rest stop.

I will always lock my fuel access doors from now on. Although in this case I wonder if they would have just pryed the door open and stole the fuel.????

We certainly had a safe and fun trip. It was great to see everyone again.


Hey Roger,

How difficult was it to bleed the air out of the series 60? How did you do it? Is it self priming?

[Joe Cannarozzi]

If you should run one dry removing and filling the fuel filters tends to add years to the starter.

[truk4u]

Great story Darl.... You never did tell me how you made out with the Alternator?

[rfoster]

Tuga: It ain't a good thing to run out of fuel in a bus. It is helpful to know that you are out of fuel. It took a while for it to sink in that I was truly out . To increase the fun, we were directly in front of the rest rooms, and blocking the road for the truckers, even tho they would squeeze by, while Eric Faires & I(he was there too) held our breath. Would you believe a Mini Cooper would push a Prevost - it will and did.

Dale Farley was with me and we even changed the Rycor filter and he obtained enough fuel by draining some fuel from his Rycor filter to fill mine to the brim.

I finally fired up the gen and when it ran for about 2 minutes and died and would not restart, I was pretty well convinced that I was out of fuel.


The service truck guy from a truck stop from about a mile away poured in 10 gallons, then I held the rear start button down while he multi tasked by holding the schrader valve in on the cartridge filter (letting the air out), and intermittenly squirting starting fluid into the breather. It would partialy run while I continued to engage the starter, and sooner than I expected he stated that the filter is full now, do it again and it started, sputtered a few times and smoothed out.

I later pumped 213 gallons into a 208 gallon tank. Which is wrong here the chicken or the egg?

I thought that I would have to bleed off the generator but no, it cranked up and ran sooner than I expected.

I would have preferred not to run out, but having done so I knew A1 had rigged up a primer hose on his Liberty and had a small sprayer that he could pump fuel into his filter, but A1 was up at 2:30 am and a couple hundred miles away. I did call him, he offered to turn around but , I declined.-NOT

Fuel doors are locked and the price of fuel is dropping.

Since my experience with this- I have been told by several truck stop folks that there are professional thieves that can suck 60 gallons a minute out of your tank. That is a lot faster than I can put it in.

[merle&louise]

Thanks for the info Roger, I have had to bleed off air whenever I change my generator fuel filters. I was just wondering how it was done on the series 60.

It is amazing that people would steal diesel fuel in a truck stop; but I guess that is what the world is coming to. Good post.

[Orren Zook]

It is amazing that people would steal diesel fuel in a truck stop; but I guess that is what the world is coming to. Good post.

What better place to find trucks and maybe a bus with full tanks of fuel.... they watch who is fueling on arrival at the truck stop then while the driver is in the restaurant, c-store or shower drops a siphon hose into your tank for a couple minutes then off down the highway. Keep your fuel doors locked and don't park where big trucks can pull along side your rig.