Fri 12th - Winnemucca, Nevada

Winnemucca RV Park

Site #57 - $29, p/w/s, Internet, Temp 27C

Another day and another state! We decided there was no reason to spend more than 1 night in Twin Falls (where Evil Kneivel did his attempted jump across the Snake River Canyon). We were on the road shortly after 9 a.m. today.

Nevada is definitely desert. As desolate and uninhabited as it is, I found it very pretty for the most part. Especially the NE corner. Sagebrush as far as the eye could see, but yellow flowering low bush lining either side of the highway - beautiful. 

In the distance you see the hills and then the picturesque Ruby mountains. There are also some huge and interesting piled rock formations in that NE corner. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera in the vehicle. 

We hit a few ugly stretches on Interstate 80 -- the dreaded concrete highway where the tires 'wine' and you bounce along like you have a flat tire. (It shakes up your lunch and you need a good support bra). 

We stopped in Winnemucca for the night and we filled up with propane, fuel and groceries. (Fuel/diesel has ranged from $3.96 (here) to $4.49 since we left home).

Today we burned up lots of diesel bucking some winds and with the uphill climbs. With the 27C temp, it is time to put away our 'fleece jackets' and our electric heater and bring out the shorts! Next stop Reno area where the forecasts are showing 34C.

Day 7 - Twin Falls, Idaho

Twin Falls 93 RV Park

Site #8 - $30, p/w/s, Internet

It's hard to believe that we have been on the road for a week already!! And, it's Sept 11, today. It took us a bit to figure out why all the flags in the communities were at 1/2 mast. 

We were on the road by 9:30 a.m. and very quickly crossed in to Idaho -- potato country! A lot of the area was very similar to Med Hat & southern AB. Without the irrigation it would be a desert. 

We pulled over for lunch just south of Idaho Falls. That was a unique area. Mounds of black lava rock has pushed up and cracked with large fissures, "Hells Half Acre" as it is known. This looked like recent activity, but it happened thousands of years ago. Plants are just now starting to grow where the sand & soil has blown in. Mostly just sagebrush. 

At Blackfoot we drove through an Indian Reservation like we've never seen before! Huge, beautiful homes that would probably sell for .5 M to 1 M in big city suburbs -- wow!

We arrived at Twin Falls around 3:30 after a few detours :-) No, you certainly don't want to miss your exits when you are on the Interstates!! You go WAY further then you intend before you can get off! (Also, Ron likes to choose the 'scenic' routes when he can so our destination stops are always further than they should be!!). Anyway, a cold beer certainly tasted good' when we DID arrive. 

We are also having trouble figuring out what to wear for the day. It was only 6C when we left this a.m., but it's a bright sunny 21C now and we were sweating pretty good the last few miles. We rolled out the canopy for some shade. Ron is reading up on the sites while I take advantage of internet in the campground.

Day 6 - Last Day Yellowstone

9 p.m: I am sitting in front of a local hotel in the pitch black with only my little USB computer light (thanks G & K) to help me see so I can send & receive my emails!! Crazy, eh!? Anyway, today we didn't get our bike ride in. By the time we were ready to go (after our bacon & eggs & a leisurely breakfast), it looked like rain.

We did drive to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. The big attractions there are the grizzly & wolf viewing and I guess the only pictures of such animals that I will be taking in the park!

I always have mixed feelings about animals in captivity, but in the case of the grizzlies, they are orphaned youngsters who wouldn't have survived on their own, or they became nuisances in people's habitats and would have been destroyed. They rotate bringing the bears out after the staff has hidden food around the area, so they don't lose there foraging behaviours. These 2 particular bears were male & female siblings.

We also watched a couple of great videos on the animals in Yellowstone. It's a shame to watch movies on a trip, but we have really seen some great informational ones and today, it was a good way to pass time in the rain!

In the above pic you can see the alpha male taking the bone from the submissive wolf after he had eaten his own.

The Yellowstone Museum?? It was a bit of a disappointment. You'd think with all the history and geological wonders in the area that the museum would be a must see. Nope. It was a lot of old dishes. It is in the old train station which was a neat building. Ron's at the ticket wicket.

We did learn a bit more about the Earthquake and forming of "Quake Lake" of 1959 where the earth's crust dropped 19 feet in seconds. It affected geysers in the park.  Some shut off completely, new ones formed and the interval times, including Old Faithful were changed. We did make another quick drive to see that quake area after.

That concludes our time in Yellowstone Park. We will probably go as far as Twin Falls, Idaho tomorrow.

Day 5 - Yellowstone

It was another great tour day and with more fantastic scenery. This time we did the north loop of Yellowstone. The landscape within the park area is SO amazing. You see a sample of everything here. From the mountains covered with lodgepole pine, the waterfalls, the rolling meadows, the flats and plateau areas covered with sagebrush and of course, the unique thermal areas with the geysers, hot springs and mudpots.

The areas that were burned in the 1988 forest fires (800,000 acres or 36%) are still evident, but much of it is supporting new healthy looking growth. You can see all the different kind of terrain in the pics. And we are only experiencing a small area of the park There are over 1,000 miles of trails. It's a hiker's paradise!

We returned our virtual tour guide - the programmed GPS tonight. Once again we were very impressed. We learned so much about the area and we were directed to all the "must sees'.

We found that two full days of driving and soaking up all that information was exhausting! We were out over 10 hrs. yesterday and 8 hrs today. We also managed to squeeze in 2 of the IMAX shows and particularly enjoyed the Lewis & Clark one we saw this evening. It was something to see the re-enactment of a portion of the expedition paddling down the mighty rivers and portaging over the snow filled passes through raging winter storms.  All this on the giant screen.

Tomorrow, we have a more leisurely day planned beginning with a bacon & eggs for breakfast!! We will take our bikes around town once again and probably go to the Bear & Wolf Discovery Centre and maybe the town museum in the old stone Railway Station. Next day, we'll move on.

Day 4 - Yellowstone

I forgot to mention that on our drive here we drove through a rather interesting area -- the Madison River Canyon. In 1959, it was struck by one of N. America's largest earthquakes causing over 80 million tons of rock to tumble in to the canyon obstructing the river flow. Lake Earthquake or "Quake Lake" as the locals call it, was formed. It's a busy resort area now. And something in town that made me smile. They have these roads with 45 mph signs posted and then a sign saying "No wheeled vehicles"?? And I am wondering what this road is for?? What goes that speed with no wheels!!??

okay -- I get it. It doesn't take long to discover that this is a very popular ski-do and Nordic ski destination. There are rental shops everywhere. This a.m. we woke up to -2C and a frozen water hose. Plus our truck tire was low again!

This made for a slight delay in our tour, but the hose thawed quickly and a $10. tire stem from the tire shop took care of the slow leak and we were off our our GPS Tour!

What a GREAT way to go!! It's all pre-programmed, we could plug in to our FM radio and as we drove through the park, the various narratives were 'triggered' and we learned so much about all the points of interest. There was a lot of interesting facts, some trivia and even an occasional joke. I would highly recommend this tour for anyone. You can go at your own pace and stop as long as you choose. (We were over 10 hours and only covered 1 of the loops!!) We have the GPS 'rented' for 2 days and will head out again tomorrow and do the 2nd loop.

The park? It was MOST enjoyable! It's so amazing to see all the geysers, hot springs, and 'mud pots', all mixed in with the forest, waterfalls and of course the animals. We didn't see any grizzly on this trip, but lots of buffalo, elk, deer, and coyotes. It was a busy park with all the tourists (gray hairs!), and all the fishermen out fly fishing. It turned out to be a perfect/beautiful day, sunny & 21C.

We got to see "Old Faithful" erupt twice. And, Yellowstone Lake was interesting. It's a huge body of water and very cold even with all the hot springs and thermal beds that surround it. Our GPS guide tells us that in some spots along the lake you could catch your trout, drag it across the shoreline and have it cooked before you took it off the hook!

Many of the streams and lakes are extremely warm and would be great to swim in though. And then there are some that are deadly. Skin would dissolve immediately in the acidic water. One of the geyser pools had the same Ph level as battery acid. There have been more deaths from the geysers than from the bears in the park.

                                                               "Old Geezer" errr... Old Geyser

That's it for today's events.  We are looking forward to tomorrows travels!

Day 3 - West Yellowstone

Rustic RV Campground

Site #10 - $37, p/w/s, no Interne,t Temp 14C

What a beautiful drive to Yellowstone! The winding highway and the rock formations coming out of Great Falls is SO beautiful !! I wished I could have captured it on camera, but, it just doesn't' show in the pics!! Temperature wise, it was a bit chilly (9C) and we had our furnace going when we pulled over for lunch -- brrrrr.

I enjoyed having the GPS today, except for one problem. Ron most often has it in his head that we should be going a slightly different route than the GPS suggests!! (He chooses not to listen to me OR the GPS). So, I tell him -- fine, go the way you want and the GPS will make the adjustment ("recalculating"). Except, he then misses the turn that HE thinks we should take (!) and it's the GPS and MY fault !!! Grrrrr!! Anyway, the GPS got us where we wanted to go today and it took us the best route in MY estimation!! One feature my old GPS didn't have is that this one shows the speed limit.  That is very handy. We can see the km/h when one is travelling in mph territory.

We are now staying at the the Rustic RV Campground in West Yellowstone just outside of Yellowstone National park. No wireless in this campground, but there is a nearby hotel that I can tap in to. When we arrived, we did a bike tour around the townsite and tentatively planned our stay.  

You know how THAT goes!! The best laid plans. Tonight, we were going to take advantage of the 2 movie special at the IMAX. We ended up having 'before supper drinks' and an 'extended visit' with our neighbors (from Reno) which then lead to a late supper and missed shows!! Maybe tomorrow night! 

Tomorrow during the day, we are going to do a self guided GPS tour of the Park. You rent a pre-programmed GPS and it comes with an audio presentation. It is much cheaper than any of the bus tours and we can set our own time limits at each of the sights. It sounded like a great idea!! I'll fill you in on that trip tomorrow! 

Oh yes, I don't know what it is with us and tires (we had 4 new ones put on our truck in Alaska!!) but we think we may have a slow leak, so we will be looking for a tire shop here to have it checked. We had a fair bit of sway coming down one of the steeper hills today and Ron noticed a low tire when we fueled up.

Day 2 - Great Falls, MT

It was a busy day that went by much too quickly. We had planned to do some biking, but it was rainy, so we headed to the Lewis & Clarke Interpretive Centre. We have been following and reading about the Lewis & Clarke expedition for a few years now and have covered a fair bit of their route along the Missouri, Clearwater & Columbia rivers on our various US trips.

As most of you know, the interest evolved when I discovered a distant relative, George Shannon, was a part of this gruelling 3 yr expedition - at 19 yrs of age, the youngest member. (They were sent by Jefferson in the early 1800's to hopefully locate a water route from Ohio to the Pacific Ocean.) Today was interesting because our audio tour was narrated from George Shannon's perspective! I was pretty thrilled! It was after 2:30 when we got through the exhibits and the displays and watched video presentations.

After a late lunch and more city touring, we finally got to some shopping. (Ron loves to shop!) Actually I'm not sure you would call what we do shopping. There isn't much browsing (or buying!) going on. You go in a store, head right to the item you are looking for (in this case GPS's), make your decision to buy or not and-- if not, head to the next store for more of the same! So we were in numerous stores (!!) but yes, we FINALLY bought our new GPS! I AM happy about that and I look forward to having it available for the rest of our trip!

Actually we did buy one other item. A small TV for our 5th wheel to replace the one that didn't survive our Alaska trip. Yes, those were rough roads!! (Sorry Mike, from the Brick, we forgot about this 'need' and we didn't check with you before we left on our trip!)

So I am busy downloading updates for the GPS (gee, it's great to have wireless in campgrounds!!) and Ron is researching our next locale which will be Yellowstone Park. I just hope this moisture we are getting here doesn't turn to snow which is what kept us from heading there in the fall of 2007!!

That's all for now. On to West Yellowstone tomorrow!

Day 1 - Great Falls, MT

Dick's RV Park
Site #48 - $31.50, p/w/s, Cable, Internet, Temp 17C

Well, here we are on the road again... yay@! It's such a relief to get in the truck and drive off after the last minute rush/stress of packing and loading. I quickly discovered I was over dressed with my long sleeved T-shirt!! It was a cloudy cool 12C when we left this a.m. but the sun came out and it quickly warmed up to 23C.

We were amazed at all the destruction along HWY 3 to Taber that is still evident from the big wind storm last month. Upended grain bins, mangled chunks of metal, elevators with walls blown out or pieces of roof missing plus SO many irrigation systems lying on their sides !! Like how can wind blow over these pipe structures with their splayed wheels and no resistance??!! 

Hwy 36 south of Taber was a new road for us. Rolling hills with very little traffic and the outline of the Sweet Grass Hills of Montana in the distant southeast. I think we've seen them from all sides now! 

A stop at Milk River for lunch in the 5th wheel, our duty free purchase and on through the border. Have to tell you about our duty free stop... I picked up 1.14 L Stoli vodka ($16.75) & Ron his 1 litre of Wisers rye ($13.95). We get to the check out and today's special was 2 for $20. !!! Man, can you believe!! cheap cheap!! We should have bought 2 more bottles and paid the duty! We were about 25 min. in the lineup at the border and had a very unsmiling, officious & abrupt young man questioning us, but I'm always thankful when we don't have to go through the 'big' search. (I'm surprised they don't haul us in when Ron comes out with the 'smart remarks'. Like "Are you planning on leaving anything in the States" and Ron says "Just what we leave in the toilets!") The border guys face didn't crack a bit! 

We arrived at Great Falls at 3 pm but you get on these damn I-States and you are by a place in a blink!! We ended up in Ulm 10 miles down the road before we could get off !!!! Anyway, we fueled up and backtracked to Dick's. It took us awhile to find it! WE NEED A GPS!! 

We booked 2 nights so we can shop tomorrow.

Fall Trip 2008 - Yellowstone & Oregon Coast

Well we are about to embark on our Fall 5th Wheel excursion. Things are pretty much packed with just some last minute items for morning. So as most of you know, the plan is to go south to Yellowstone, through Reno, wander towards the Redwood Forest in northern California and then up the Oregon Coast. It sounds fairly simple, but it will probably take us well in to October. I hope we are as lucky with weather on this trip as we were in Alaska!! That was an unbelievable 47 days!

So, I will try to stay in touch. Once again I am hoping for some of that 'free wireless' along the way. Remember, you can always 'unsubscribe' if you would rather not receive our travel updates.

I believe our first stop will be at Great Falls. I am hoping to replace our 'lost GPS' so we can find our way around for this trip! For those who hadn't heard, ours was lost in the mail when it was sent to Quebec for some warranty work. It was insured for $300. and Canada Post is currently doing a trace on the parcel, but I suspect it won't be found at this stage. Hopefully a cheque from Canada Post will be waiting when we return home!

We hope you all have a great Fall yourselves, and don't forget to keep in touch with us via email! (You can hold your jokes with large attachments until we arrive back home though!)

Well, supper and more packing awaits, so that's it for now
cheers!