Hills and buttes
We left the North unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park this morning, and drove south on highway 85 towards Belfield, North Dakota. There was a great deal of heavy truck traffic, especially trucks hauling wide loads of oil field equipment.
We stopped at Belfield for gas, and since there was Verizon wireless signal there I phoned and got the USB modem reactivated. It took quite a while, but once we had it going we were able to email everyone, and posted the last few days of the blog.
We drove on to Medora, which is a very small town, mostly just hotels and service industries. After entering the park we stopped at the visitor center to check on activities. Then we headed north about 5 miles to the Cottonwood Campground. We missed the turn as the sign says “Cottonwood Picnic Area” so we went on thinking that there would be another entrance to the campground. There wasn’t. We had to go another mile in order to get a place to turn around, and then returned to the campgrounds.
As we turned the corner into the campground we heard a squeal, and I looked back and saw that the trailer tire was smoking. We stopped, and when we started again everything seemed fine, but we hadn’t gone another 100 yards when we felt the trailer brakes grab again. We backed up a few feet, the brakes released, but once again after driving just a little way they locked, leaving a streak of rubber on the pavement.
We drove once around the campground loop looking for the best site and the brakes grabbed a few more times, but not as hard. However on the next loop they locked up again firmly. We could tell by now that it was just one tire, the front right, which was causing problems, and it was happening at random intervals, not when I applied the brakes. It is the same brake that heated up when we were in Kananaskis in July. The right front brake drum was very hot.
We set up our trailer in a nice site, then unhooked the truck. We drove to see if we could find the campground host to get advice on where we might get repairs in this very remote area. I spoke to a park ranger, and he said there would be nothing closer than Belfield.
Belfield is 25 km back on the Interstate highway, and there is no way that I would want to pull the trailer there with faulty brakes. Instead we called our Good Sam roadside assistance. After talking to a trailer technician, he advised that we would need to get a mobile mechanic to pull the wheel and find out what is happening. They have set that up, and so we should get some assistance tomorrow morning.
Since we really couldn’t leave as we had to wait to see if the mechanic would call us, Enid stayed at the trailer and worked on her photographs from Hawaii, while I hiked up to the top of the buttes to our east to see if I could find some buffalo. I did find several grazing on the top. I also stepped on what looked like solid clay to cross a creek, but which turned out to be very soft underneath. I sank over my ankles and got my shoes and lower pant legs thoroughly plastered with sticky clay. It was mostly dried by the time I returned to the trailer, but I washed my pant legs and socks in the washroom sink and hung them out to dry. They were very dirty.