“Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!” (OK, OK, So I Mean “Elk & Bison & Bears, Oh My!”)

Out of Provo it was northbound for a couple of nights stopover at the Idaho Falls Elk’s Lodge. I had some toilet repairs to complete and they had a Camping World (yuk!) store with my parts in stock. We spent one day showing Max the town’s namesake Idaho Falls which are smack dab in the middle of downtown. Coincidentally, the Snow Eagle Brewing & Grill was right across the street from the falls. We gave Max another shot at a brew pub meal, of which he availed himself another of his newfound favorites, bacon cheeseburger (plain). We tried to talk Max into a walk along the falls path/trail, but he was having none of that. Oh well…

Ryder Park Lake is a small fishing “lake” (more like pond) in town and Max wanted to try his hand once again. We spent about 3 hours at the lake fighting some healthy winds, but alas, it was not to be. It settled our disappointment to later find out from locals that catching fish in that particular lake is about as productive as sighting a Sasquatch. 

From Idaho Falls it was onward to our base camp stay for Yellowstone N.P. We lucked out, sorta. Originally we were to stay at the Livingston KOA north of the north entrance to YNP. But severe storms and snow melt at the beginning of June caused catastrophic damage to Hwy. 89 into Gardiner and the north entrance, as well as cutting off Gardiner from the world. Initial thoughts were that the north entrance into YNP, as well as the entire northern “loop” (Mammoth Springs, Lamarr Valley, Tower Falls et al.) would not be able to be repaired for opening to the public for the rest of the season. However, word being spread is they may be able to save some of the season with timely repairs, it is always best to call them or check the nps.gov website for current conditions and closures. In the meantime, the west, south, and east entrances are open to the public and the entire lower loop is available for use. Due to the severe partial closure, the park has initiated an even/odd system by license plate numbers for even/odd day access to YNP. 

Needless to say, we cancelled Livingston and found space at the W. Yellowstone KOA. Outrageously expensive, but a good base for the park and surrounding sights. This was a great family campground with lots of things for the kiddies to stay occupied and had a very nice indoor swimming pool. It also sports a good sized office/camp store with a fudge shop, a small restaurant with outdoor tables, a coffee & snacks shack, clean laundry, and propane for sale. The knock I have to say is the pull through sites are skinny and between thick pine trees with tight turns to get into them. And with all the kids at the park, the bathrooms absolutely need more regular visitation by janitorial staff.

We made (3) every-other-day trips into YNP, one of which we drove through to Grand Tetons National Park, all in a quest for Max to see the wild critters. We did manage to stop off at some of the scenic features; Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Prismatic Springs, Fountain Paint Pot Trail, Dragon’s Breath Spring, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Lewis Falls, Gibbon Falls, the Grand Tetons viewing, just to name a few. Spectacular viewing they all may be, but Max’s highlight was seeing a couple of bull elk, a mama bear with her (2) cubs, a couple of coyotes, a boatload of bison, a bighorn sheep, and the one non-highlight where Max slept through seeing a golden eagle while on a road trip. Max did get to make good use of the pool on our non-YNP days, and got to meander through the many shops in W. Yellowstone.

We finished our visit to YNP and decided to meander over to…well, you’ll just have to stay tuned, until next post…

Our Time in Sheridan, Wyoming

Sheridan was a quaint little town of about 17K omni-generational residents. We found home at Peter D’s RV Park at the northeast corner of town. A clean little RV Park, but sites are stacked on top of each other like cord wood. And you’d better love howling winds. Those winds got so bad our last couple of nights, we had to bring in the windward slideouts or risk thrashing of the slide toppers.

After taking care of some routine business, Jeanne and I went into town to do our usual walkabout. Sheridan, like most of the other towns in Wyoming, was pretty much devoid of stray garbage and well maintained. It was also a continuing, refreshing experience to encounter ZERO instances of graffiti and homeless encampments/garbage dumps! Maybe a partial explanation for the lack of graffiti could be that there seems to be a proliferation of local residents who are well armed and willing to protect their environment from the thugs who currently infect a majority of our society. To borrow a famous movie quote (albeit altered), “Dorothy, your not in Kalifornia any more.” The main drag had a multitude of mostly cowboy & fishing themed statues. At Peter D’s direction, we had to poke our heads into King’s Saddlery, home of the world famous King’s ropes (as in those that are used in cowboy-ing and rodeos). King’s definitely jammed in a ton of goods into a small space! They make and sell saddles and all things leather having to do with the cowboy lifestyle. The back “room” to the showroom was a free museum of, well, you probably guessed it, everything of a western theme. Wall to wall saddles, guns, related equipment, and of course the prerequisite trophy heads mounted on the walls.

Jeanne, as usual, came up with our local sight-seeing adventure this time around – Shell Creek Falls. We loaded up Woodrow Wilson bright and early one morning and headed out on the 68 mile drive to the falls. This took us to Ranchester, then west on Hwy. 14 through the heart of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area in the Bighorn National Forest. There was still a bit of snow as we climbed into the 9,000’+ range, and we were giddy the whole way anticipating all the multitudinous herds of moose and elk we were about to behold. Sibley Lake sits right off the roadway and was a “cool” sight to see, totally frozen over. We stopped at Burgess Junction to have breakfast at the Moose Crossing Restaurant inside the Bear Lodge Resort. For any of you thinking of checking it out, better that you maybe start that diet you’ve been mulling over. A simple bacon-egg-hashbrown breakfast was absolutely ruined with the worst hashbrowns we have ever had (even Jeanne complained she dang-near broke a tooth gnawing on the badly overcooked potato shards). With our teeth still intact, we continued on to the falls. There is  a small Forest Service center on site and lots of concrete walkways leading to various sections of the canyon top overseeing areas of Shell Creek, as well as the waterfall. It was unfortunate for us that the FS center, the heads, and the parking lot were closed (I am assuming seasonally), however we could still access the walkways for all the viewing. In fact, there were many other folks taking in the views at the same time as us, I might suppose the place was just as busy as if it were open. We headed back home, planning on grabbing a little Jeep trail road (FR 26 aka: Copper Creek Rd.). Unfortunately (or very fortunately, depending on your perspective and whether you are a “glass half-full or half-empty” kinda spirit) the beginning of the road was covered with substantial snow. Not wishing to become a customer of the local Search & Rescue outfit, we sagely decided to backtrack Hwy. 14 instead. The whole moose-elk thing was a thorough disappointment, not a single sighting the entire 136 miles. We did happen upon numerous sightings of Pronghorn (sometimes referred to as Antelope, sometimes Deer) but like as was once said in another altered TV show phrase, as the Soup Nazi said in “Seinfeld”, “No photos for you!”

We have found the people of Sheridan to be over-the-top friendly. Special thanks to Peter D and to Tom Schwerr for your time, insights, and stories. We have successfully set up a visit by a mobile RV tech as soon as we land in Rapid City. Hopefully, we can get the grinding issue with the slideout resolved through him. Until next post we, as you, will just have to wait and see…

7/30/2019 Heading into Cody, WY

We found a city park in the town of Columbus, MT, called Itch-Kep-Pe City Park and decided to call it home for a couple of days. This park is run on donations only, no hook-ups, a real bathroom (albeit rustic, at best) with flush toilets, dumpster, and a central water faucet. The park is right on the Yellowstone River and is a popular boat launch area. The main drawback we found was the amount of yahoos barreling down the dirt roads in their “Bubba” trucks, stirring up dust. We were able to find a “site” open enough for our solar system to function at full force and obtain satellite reception for the “tube”. 

Our one big excursion from Itch-Kep-Pe Park was to drive the Beartooth Scenic Hwy. into Silver Gate at the northeast gate to Yellowstone N.P. It was a spectacular 220 mile round-trip drive up and over the Beartooth Pass Summit at 10,947 feet of elevation. We saw some beautiful mountain views, a little bit of snow, and some scenic water falls and lakes along the way. We pretty much got skunked on our main focus of attention – critter watch – with the exception of a small group of mountain goats grazing near the road. A midday stop at the Beartooth Cafe managed to get us fed and ready for the return trip home. I do say, they had some tasty Elk tacos.

We packed up and made it to our next stop, Cody WY. On the way we did our darndest to get hooked up with an RV campground with hook-ups, but wouldn’t you know it, nobody had space for us except for some dry-camping at the Buffalo Bill State Park. Since that park was a bit outside the town of Cody, we found the local Walmart instead. We had 2 days to kill before we could get a spot at one of the local RV parks. I will admit, we cheated just a tad, and stayed both days in the Walmart lot. This particular Walmart is an extremely popular RV-welcoming business. They have a sign posted directing RVers where dumps are located. They also have a water faucet in the “back 40” for RV use. It averaged about 20 rigs staying there both nights we stayed. We spoke with one employee about the length of stay for RV’s and he said despite the “1-day only” rule, many RV’s stay for “weeks”. Even though we “cheated”, we made it well worth Walmart’s while, going on a shopping binge both days there. To kill time while here, we took a drive up to the Buffalo Bill Dam & Reservoir. Just before we arrived we had to pass inside 3 tunnels into the mountains in an area popular for mountain climbing. At the dam we did a walk through of their visitor center. The dam is not wide, but very tall. It was completed in 1910 and at that time was the tallest concrete-arch style dam in the world, measuring in at 325’ tall.

After our Walmart stop, home became the Absaroka Bay RV Park in downtown Cody. That park is a tightly packed lot, but had FHU’s and was only $39/night. 

First up on our agenda was the scenic Southfork Drive along the south fork of the Shoshone River. It is about 84 miles round-trip and purports to offer frequent sightings of  bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, elk, and deer. In fact the Southfork Drive lays claim to one of the largest herds of bighorn sheep in America. Now, how could we pass that one up? Alas, we got skunked again, as far as bighorn sheep sightings go. But we did manage to see some deer, a couple of large herds of elk, some pronghorn antelope, and what Iooked to be a golden eagle. Great mountain/river views also reward the intrepid traveler who takes on this dead-end drive, part pavement and part dirt/gravel out to the end, including views of Carter Mountain and Castle Rock. Carter Mountain is a 30 mile stretch of various peaks and is touted as one of the largest in the Yellowstone system of mountains. Bonehead me, I was so mesmerized looking at all the mountains I failed to get a photo of the bulk of Carter Mountain. I am truly as sharp as a marble…

The City of Cody puts on concerts in the park during the season, so we packed up Woodrow Wilson and a couple of chairs and headed to the park for a gig put on by a local band named Beacon Hill. They were a kinda bluesy, rockabilly, country mix and drew a good crowd considering Cody also puts on a nightly rodeo at the fairgrounds which competes for an audience. We also would have done a very good job feeding the local mosquito population, except Jeanne found a lavender bedtime lotion for babies by Johnson & Johnson which we doused ourselves in and voila! No mosquito issues! It was better than reeking of deet…

What would a visit to Cody, WY be without a run through the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. The museum is divided into 5 basic sections that a couple of hours would normally be sufficient to cover. However, the section “Cody Firearms Museum” contains an extensive historical gun collection, with numerous pull out cabinets and drawers which you could probably spend one full day going through, especially all you gun nuts out there (you know who you are!). They also put on a short program about raptors where we got to learn about and see a couple of the “residents” of the museum, a golden eagle and an eastern screech owl. All of the “residents” of the museum are rehabilitated, previously injured (many hit by cars), but now unable to return to the wild due to their injuries. It was a nice program…

So Jeanne has to get kudos for digging up all these activities we do, she is a genius at social media apps. Our next outing was another scenic drive Jeanne found in a flyer “Buffalo Bill’s Cody/Yellowstone Country Scenic Drives”. The South Fork Drive previously described was found in this same flyer. This next one is called the “East Yellowstone Loop” and encompasses the northeast corner of the Yellowstone “figure 8” and Lamar Valley. Going out the gate at Silver Gate/Cooke City, it connects with the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway and heads back into Cody. In total, it runs to about a 224 mile loop trip. Even though the sun did not want to cooperate with us, we still got some spectacular views and got some critter watching in as well.

Cody considers itself the rodeo capital of the world, and during the tourist season they feature a nightly rodeo at the rodeo grounds. Off we went for a night of country music, clowns, and rodeo stock. Sorry, but I do not even rise to the level of amateur photographer, so my rodeo action shots are quite a bit less than average. We managed to stick it out for about 90 minutes-until a hellacious wind kicked up and we left under our own power before we would have left under wind power.

The ghost town of Kirwin is found about 62 miles south and outside of Cody in the Wood River Valley. It was a mining town (silver/gold) founded in the 1880’s until about 1907, when a massive avalanche gave some of the shacks new addresses and killed a few miners. Attempts to continue mining ran into the 1940’s, but now Kirwin is just a few buildings still standing with secrets yet to be told. A plus, we got to see a few critters on this trip, too. We topped it off with a stop in the megalopolis of Meeteetse, WY, for a cold one and some chow at the Elkhorn Bar & Grill. We both ordered, of all things, here in beef/elk/bison country, their hibachi fried rice. I had shrimp on mine and was amazed at the quality of the meal! I washed it down with a Jeremiah Johnson Scotch Ale (!) and I would highly recommend this place to anyone bold enough to drive all the way out here.

Well, tomorrow the jacks go up and it is onward and upward. Not sure where we will land, just “shut up and drive”. Until next post…

6/15/2016 Flaming Gorge Nat’l Recreation Area

We drove out eastbound on Hwy. 80 in hopes to hit cooler temps and take in Flaming Gorge. First stop was at the Rock Springs KOA in Wyoming. We wanted to do some recon at and around the Flaming Gorge Reservoir before setting up camp inside the area (after all, it was about a 3 hour round trip drive, not counting all the stops we made). The loop starts at Hwy. 191 at the west end of Rock Springs and pops out at Green River. The scenery was spectacular, even though it was kind of intermittently overcast and cloudy and the temps were mild (70’s). And the bonus, we got to see a few critters, both in AND out of the water. 

Recon completed, we relocated to a National Park campground we found called Mann’s Campground. There were numerous small campgrounds scattered mostly at the southern end (Utah side) of the Gorge, no hookups dry camping but numbered sites and most had pit toilets on site. The feds still charge fees for these campgrounds, and with our Nat’l Parks access pass ($80 per year gets you into the NP’s free) it cost a whopping $6 per night for our home at Mann’s. No extra charge for all the chipmunks running rampant or the stinging harvester ants either! The weather was great the 3 days we stayed here, our solar panels providing all the power we needed without use of the generator. The big bonus was we only had 2 neighbors in the campground, well scattered at that.

We got into camp kinda late, so we just chilled for the rest of the day. The next morning it was “up and at ‘em” and off to check out the Flaming Gorge Dam & visitor center, then on to explore the Dinosaur National Monument which takes space in both Colorado and Utah. It was about a 45 minute drive to get to the Utah half of the park where, in the town of Jensen, UT you access the Quarry Visitor’s Center and Exhibit Hall. The discovery and excavation of the dinosaur bones started in 1909 and at the Exhibit Hall you can see lots o’ bones exposed in the rock face.

Cub Creek Rd. is about 12 miles of roadway meandering through various rock formations and points of interest. It ends at the Josie Morris Cabin. She settled here around 1914 and the cabin standing now she built around 1935. She was alleged to be an associate of Butch Cassidy and an accused cattle rustler.

Heading back out and E/B on Hwy. 40 we came to the town of Dinosaur, CO.  Harper’s Corner Rd. took us up about 32 miles to Harper’s Corner, which has a scenic view overlooking the Green River just before it meets the Yampa River and a 2 mile hiking trail down into the canyon. Unfortunately for us, we had Woody with us and the park does not allow dogs on the trails. Oh well, there will be other trails to conquer…There are no fossil bones to be seen on this road, it is all about the scenery with several lookout points as you re-enter Dinosaur Nat’l Monument. We finished the day with some good food and good beer at the Vernal Brewing Co. in Vernal, UT, then returned home to plan the next day’s adventure.

Our next adventure…KAYAKING! We loaded up our trusty Sea Eagle inflatable kayak and hit the water of the Flaming Gorge reservoir. We put in at the Sheep Creek Bay boat ramp, then proceeded to cruise over by Beehive Point near Dowd Mountain and Hideout Canyon. It was a bee-you-tee-full day weather-wise, not too windy, and the water was cool, not cold. We definitely got a “fish-eye view” of the very nice scenery…

After lunch, we decided to drive the Sheep Creek Geological Loop (also known as the Sheep Creek Loop Scenic Backway). HOLY COW! Very spectacular sights to say the least. And the loop accesses the Spirit Lake Scenic Backway. These are all state maintained dirt roads where high clearance vehicles are not necessary but if they get muddy 4-wheel drive would be nice. We headed off to Spirit Lake and quickly found ourselves going from about 75 degrees and partly sunny to 56 degrees, rainy, and snow still on the ground. Topping that off, part of Spirit Lake was still iced over! There is a small campground and lodge at the lake, but it did not look like it was operational as yet and I would not try to drive the bus there even if I wanted to.

Well, back to the bus we went to prepare for another moving day. Our target is Bear Lake in Utah/Idaho. We will see…

7/11/2014 Time Marches On

So we get to the Grand Tetons National Park area and of course we brought crappy weather with us, for mid June anyways. We actually got snowed on during our stay here! Our first views of the mountains were obscured by the heavy clouds and overcast. But it did eventually clear up so that we could see the mountains better. Jeanne got her wild critter fix, we had a Grizzly walk directly in front of the Jeep on the main road at Jackson Lake Junction. At Mormon Row, we saw a family of baby foxes living or exploring in one of the buildings. A moose also paid regular visits to us at the campground we stayed at, Gros Ventre Campground (pronounced “Grow Von” we found out after we had been shredding it to pieces). The campground also had colonies of what the local campground host called Whistle Pigs. They were like smaller versions of prairie dogs and they whistled to each other similar to prairie dogs. These drove our Chihuahua/Terrier mix crazy.. This particular campground has 350 individual sites, a few with electric, most just a site with table and fire ring. They do have a dump station and fresh water to fill your tank with. We boondocked here for 7 days with no issues, running the generator a couple hours in the AM and another couple hours in the PM. Sure is nice with an onboard 10K generator… It helped to have the yearly access pass (1/2 off) for the National Parks, it cost us all of about $11 a night to stay here. The electric sites  were a bit high at I think it was $36.50 a night. The Grand Tetons was not as much driving as we had in Yellowstone, but there was some. Some of the old settlement buildings at Mormon Row were cool to see with the Tetons as a backdrop. We are not much for early early rising, the weather was not very cooperative, so we never made it to the Signal Hill overlook for a sunrise, they are supposed to be quite awesome. But we did make it to the Snake River Overlook for a sunset. A bit cloudy, but still scenic. One of our neighbors from our Yellowstone stay suggested we hit the Bar J Cowboy Cookout in Jackson, so we did. They cook up an authentic cowboy-out-on-the-range meal, then do a musical entertainment show. Very nice.

Next stop was Lander Wyoming and the Lander Mountain View Campground and Cafe. Wow, talk about Sticksville! A very nice older couple, the Maleks, operate this place, it used to be a KOA way back when, the building burnt down and was re-built, but the whole tiny campground area is in need of a little help. And the cafe is the owner, I think her name was Lu Ann Malek basically cooking out of her kitchen in the main building which is also the slash office slash dining area slash living quarters, you get the picture. Hubby, Joe Malek, is currently running for his State Senate District seat.  Good Luck, Joe. After a couple of days here it was on to Fort Casper Campground, Casper, Wyoming.

We stayed with the same crappy weather theme in Casper. The winds kicked up something awful, we actually pulled our slides in one night, I thought the wind was going to rip off our slide toppers. And the rain dumped BUCKETS on us. It rained so hard the sirens went off in the night, warning of impending flash flooding. Oh boy, what excitement! Well, we did not float away… We found a veterinarian who could squeeze us in at the last minute, Woody was due for shots, so we got that taken care of. When we got ready to pull up stakes, our steps to the bus went goofy on us and I could not get them to operate properly. I ended up getting them in the travel position, then disconnected the power to them and added them to my growing “laundry list” of fixes needed at Tiffin for when we get there. Luckily still, none of them are Earth shattering imperative to get done. Yet. 

Into South Dakota, our “home” state. We opted to stay at the Elk Mountain Campground in the Wind Cave National Park outside of Hot Springs, SD.  The campground is bare bones, community water spigots but otherwise dry camping sites, with nearby restrooms, no showers. With the Access Pass for the Nat’l Parks, it was all of $9 per night for staying here. The sites were nice, level and the grasses were kept mowed and neat. We checked out the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, an active archaeological dig for Mammoth fossils, very cool. A trip up the Needles Hwy found some interesting rock formations, particularly one appropriately named “Eye of the Needle”. We made the loop around Mt. Rushmore and found that the 3 big, low clearance tunnels blasted through the rocks were actually engineered to be done in that manner so that when you approach/look through the tunnel, you can see the President’s faces framed at the end. Wow.

Off to Snake Creek State Recreation Area near Platte, SD. This was a very nice state park area on the Missouri River, an area called Lake Francis Case. Like most SD state parks, Snake Creek had electric only sites. The grounds were kept neat, lots of green grass, trees, and shrubs. They also had a nice groomed beach area. We only stayed a couple of nights here, but in the short time there, our neighbors thought they had celebrities in their midst, I guess they never saw a Phaeton motorhome before. Jeanne is still giggling about that one, she wanted to give out autographs… 

Moving on, we parked at Hills RV Park in Plankinton, SD for the next couple of nights. It was a small place but with full hookups for doing laundry and with a Passport America discount. Check in was self-service, the owners lived in a house on site but never made contact with us. Jeanne heard there was a tornado that ripped thru this area a few weeks ago, in Wessington Springs, so we had to do a road trip there. The damage was not extensive, but some of the local folk I’m sure would beg to differ. A few buildings, a few cars, a few signs, but I don’t think there were any fatalities. 

Big Sioux State Recreation Area was next on our dance card. This was a state park in Brandon, just outside of Sioux Falls along the Big Sioux river. This was electric only and the whole area felt like a mosquito breeding ground. We were PRISONERS! in the bus, afraid to go outside and ring the dinner bell for the mosquito smorgasbord to begin! It’s a shame, and HAS to be a hilarious sight, to see grown humans taking the dogs out for a walk, wearing long sleeved hoodies in 95 degree heat! But we did. We got a chance to actually pick up our mail in person at this stop, since Alternative Resources is here in Sioux Falls. Mosquitos were not bad in town, so we got a chance to take the Princess (Madison) to the groomers at PetSmart, took Woody for a walk around the actual Sioux Falls, and stopped by Billion Jeep Dealership where they were able to get me in for an appointment in a couple of days, bless their souls. The Jeep has been making a high pitched cricket type noise as we drive on down the road and it is similar to listening to fingernails on the chalkboard, been driving me NUTS! We had to escape the mosquitos, so we left for the Tower Campground in town for the one night to get us to the Jeep appointment. Tower is a fair sized park, we stayed here 2 years ago while establishing our residency here, but it is in the flight path of military jets that come and go at all hours. Jeep got our problem solved (quick adjustment to the passenger side manifold flap or something-or-other) and off we went.

We made our first foray into the state of Minnesota, “land of a thousand lakes”, and, as we quickly found out, “land of a bazillion mosquitos because of a land of a thousand lakes”!!!!!! We stopped at a podunk campground, Shady Acres Campground (Passport America), in Garden City, MN. This campground is the actual county fairgrounds (very small county) and the sites are all on the lawn area. I HATE MOSQUITOS! Give me rattlesnakes, copperheads, spiders, bears, wolves, mountain lions, ANYTHING but mosquitos! I look like a connect the dots puzzle…We snuck into Mankato last night for dinner and ate at Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant-very good food if you are ever in the area. Awesome Margaritas…Because of the mosquitos we won’t be able to get out of here fast enough tomorrow, but flee we shall as we continue eastbound toward Green Bay, Wisconsin.

We made our way to Apple Creek Campground in De Pere outside of Green Bay. There is a big shortage of RV campgrounds around Green Bay, so we settled here. Very quickly I thought we landed in the middle of a Jerry Springer show. Enough said, you get the picture. We took the tour of Lambeau Field, a very interesting and informative venture, learned a lot about the only publicly owned team in the NFL. Unfortunately they were just finishing up on a massive renovation to their Pro Shop and we missed the Grand Opening by a day. All in all, Mr. Rodgers’ neighborhood is very nice, lots of brick and brings thoughts of Pac Bell Park to mind. 

We also checked out a couple of the local cheese factories and got our fill of curds. You just can’t be in Wisconsin without sampling the cheese! One of the cheese factories was near Algoma, so we trekked over to see Lake Michigan. It is kinda weird to look out on the horizon and see nothing but water but to realize you are only looking at a lake, not an ocean.

After a couple of days it was off to the Chicago area of Illinois. We stayed at a very nice county park, the Paul Wolff Campground in Burnidge Forest Preserve in Kane County, near Elgin. From here we tripped into Chi-Town, against the warnings from the campground host not to drive anywhere near the city because of the so-called congestion. We braved it in the Jeep, drove to Wrigley Field then to the Magnificent Mile and on to Navy Pier. Yes it was congested a wee bit, but it was no different than driving in downtown San Francisco. The problem in Chicago is trying to find anywhere to park, the camp host said most parking garages were going to run about $40 to park. But we did find curbside metered parking near Wrigley. Magnificent Mile was pretty awe inspiring and JAM PACKED with pedestrian traffic. While in Elgin, we were aimed at Giordano’s Pizza by the camp host. I don’t think I will be able to look at a Round Table pizza ever again! Giordano’s serves a stuffed pizza pie that is out of this world.

In the limited amount of total time spent driving through the state of Illinois, I have now crowned Illinois drivers, truckers in particular, as the absolute worst drivers of all the states we have been in. Cell phones stuck in faces and ears, tailgating is their way of life. At 60 MPH on freeways a couple of times I had truckers race up from behind me to within 3’ of my bumper and stay there, with opportunity but no attempt to pass me. Where are the cops when you need ‘em? The toll road system in and around Chicago is a serious pain in the buttocks too.

Shipshewana, Indiana is where we are now for a few days. Amish/Mennonite country. Wow, they are everywhere, carts and bicycles. We went and ate at one of the Amish restaurants, the Blue Gate Restaurant and Bakery. Food was OK, a bit salty, but they serve a lot of food. We walked the main drag, checking out the shops which included many furniture stores with good quality Amish furniture. It’s a whole other world here.

Time to move on, still headed toward Red Bay Alabama. Not quite sure where our next stop will be…

6/14/2014 Yellowstone Park!

“Hey, hey, Boo-Boo, let’s get one o’ them pick-a-nick baskets!”  We made it to Yellowstone! We are on “Yogi watch” status.  We weren’t real thrilled with the great state of Idaho’s Department of Transportation road repairing skills. To get here we came over Hwy 93 to Hwy 43 and into Montana. The road/pass through the Bitterroot Mountains was good but the Idaho parts of Hwy. 93 and Hwy. 43 left a lot to be desired as far as the cheesy pavement repairs Idaho made. They threw loose oily asphalt over damaged areas but I guess they never heard of rolling the repairs. The rocks and tar kicked up and assailed our toad Jeep, making an extreme mess requiring tedious and time consuming laborious efforts to clean up. It still left dings in the paint. We immediately ordered a Roadmaster Guardian protective shield for towed cars. Not happy with Idaho DOT.

Yellowstone is an awsome National Park. We have been here for a 10 day visit, we stayed just outside the North entrance at Yellowstone RV Park in Gardiner, MT. The RV park is right on the Yellowstone River and the majority of the spaces are occupied by Yellowstone Park employees. It is a bit pricey, base nightly rate of $52 minus Good Sam discount. It does, however, have numerous large sites, both back-in and pull-thru, which more than accomodate big coaches.

The weather during our stay has been erratic at best. We’ve been rained on, thunder and lightening’ed on, serious wind blown, clear sun some days, and it has just kept us guessing as to what way to dress for each day. One night it got sooooooo windy we feared for the safety of our slide toppers, so we pulled in all 4 slide-outs. And, a majority of our time here was spent in very cool weather. “I AM TIRED OF BEING COLD!”

Yellowstone Park is a large expanse of real estate, with basically a figure 8 for roads through the park which covers more than a couple hundred miles, plus entrance/exit roads to the 5 entrances of the park. We spent 7 days inside the park, I was focused on the different geological sights whereas Jeanne was INTENSELY focused on seeing critters of the large variety! She was not disappointed, we got to see coyotes, mule deer, bighorn sheep, bull elk, grizzly and black bears, buffalo, and pronghorn  antelope. About the only critters we did not get to see were moose and wolves. We spent one early evening out in Lamar Valley, popular for critter watching, and one early morning. Herds and herds of buffalo and elk…

The geological sights here are spectacular. Prior to coming, I had no clue about such things other than Old Faithful. But there are lots of other features to be seen, the most awesome, in my opinion, being the Grand Prismatic Springs which is near Old Faithful. The colors are overwhelming. There are many geysers, springs, waterfalls, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and Mammoth Hot Springs, all very scenic experiences. There are many trails throughout the park, unfortunately for you dog owners, dogs are not allowed more than 100’ off any roadway and not allowed on trails or boardwalks. Another downer for the park is the construction they are doing in certain areas. Even though we were here early in the season, traffic became problematic with road closures and flagged  traffic areas, especially between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris.

My suggestion for anyone new to Yellowstone, DRIVE CAREFULLY! You never know when coming around a curve if you might encounter a stopped traffic jam. Some folks are clueless about driving two lane roads with no shoulder area and will stop dead in the middle, even after a deep curve, just to see a critter. But there are many long straight-aways where you will be able to see traffic stopped and lots of folks spread out along the shoulder with high powered spotting scopes and cameras. That would be what we will call “a clue” that maybe a large critter would be visible nearby.

Our only regret is that we never brought the kids here when they were young to see the awesome beauty, power, and variety that nature has to offer. Suggestion number 2: if you have young kids, bring ‘em here if you have the means and opportunity!

Now, it will be off to the Grand Tetons for a spell. TTFN…