Yellowstone

After leaving Twin Falls, we drove to West Yellowstone and arrived at The Grizzly RV Park at 12:50 pm. We saw snow in the mountain passes and could see where the park had recently had a lot of snow. Thankfully, there was no snow when we arrived, but there were some small piles around the park. Of course in the week we were there, it did melt.

The whole seven days we were at the Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, we never knew whether we were going to have Internet or not. The park charges for unlimited WiFi, but not all the spots receive it very well. As it happened, we were in one of the worst spots. No, we didn’t pay for the usage, but did opt for “coupons” which allowed us to connect free every 10 hours. As I said, the connection was terrible (actually, it sucked!!) but I worked around it. I couldn’t even get good cell reception on my air card, so that wasn't even an option! I did use my iPhone to get emails and such when we were in town. There were a few times I was able to upload and get stuff done on the PC, but that didn't happen often. When I did manage to get on line, the service was more like dial up and not speedy at all....it seemed to take forever to get anything done on it. Even though Internet and cell reception were an annoyance, it didn't stop us from enjoying the days we were sightseeing (and geocaching) in Yellowstone Park.

Friday morning we woke to 33 degrees, but the sun was up and shining bright all day long. The temperature actually got up to 67 degrees, but the evenings were so cold that we had to use the heater. We hurridly got our stuff together (cameras, binoculars, snacks, and jackets) and drove into Yellowstone. Boy is it nice to have the Golden Age Pass! We just showed it to the ranger at the entrance and drove through with no charge.

Since Yellowstone is a National Park, no physical geocache containers are allowed to be placed there. The only thing allowed is Earth Caches and Virtuals. Earth Caches deal with geological formations, and the person who places the cache asks the finder to email them some type of historical data (or post a picture) in order to claim the find. As for virtuals, the finder has to go to a certain spot and email the owner something about what you see there (usually a name or something). Of course, there are many geological features in Yellowstone, so there were a lot of "caches" to locate. As it was, we ended up finding 29 of them.

Since Friday was our first day in the park, we drove to the most famous spot of all (Old Faithful). Old Faithful, as usual, was great. Almost as soon as we got there, the geyser was about to go off. However, we were in for a surprise and got to see both Beehive Geyser and Old Faithful going off within 2 minutes of each other. The ranger said that is not a common occurence, so we were really fortunate. The first picture is of Beehive going off and the second picture is the world famous Old Faithful spouting off.After watching those two go off, we continued to walk around the boardwalk and saw more hot bubbly pools and spouting geysers.

It was still early when we left the upper geyser basin, so we wanted to go see the Grand Prismatic area (mid geyser basin) but it was closed to bear activity, so we ended up going further north to Mammoth Hot Springs.At Mammoth, we climbed the steps to the top of Minerva just to find the answers to one of the Earth Caches we were researching.Some of the stuff needed was pretty technical, but we managed to send the owner an email on what he was looking for. We had planned on having dinner at the restaurant in town, but ended up with an an ice cream instead. Neither of us was very hungry after climbing up and down the steps around Minerva.

As we were driving back to West Yellowstone, we saw a group of Bison (cows and calves) on the road. These animals are so big, the cars don’t even bother them. We all had to stop and wait for them to move on down the road.

Saturday, we headed northeast to Canyon City and drove around both the north and south rims to view the the falls areas.The prettiest spot is the overlook called Artists Point. The colors were awesome! It was a fantastic 70 degree day, and we spent a lot of time walking the “many” steps up and down to various view points.

From Canyon City, we headed south to Fishing Bridge, then back by Old Faithful and north again to Madison and on to West Yellowstone. During that drive, we saw a Grizzly Sow and her cub, along with a lot more Elk and bison. This is a long distant shot of the sow and her cub. The sow shows up ok, but the cub is really hard to see.Here is a good close up of a cow Elk.Sunday, we got up early and actually looked for, and found, three physical caches that were hidden near town (not in the park). It was cold and sprinkling rain, so we didn’t stay out long. Good thing we went back to the coach because the skies turned black, and it started to rain very hard. It poured the rest of the day and most of the night. Again, we had to have the heater on because it didn’t get over 59 degrees that day.

Monday, the sun was back out and the temps were back up. This time it actually hit 70. Could not believe what a beautiful day it was. We went back into the park and drove south to West Thumb and walked around the basin there. West Thumb is actually a crater within a crater inside the huge Caldera of Yellowstone. Confusing, but with all the earth caches we were doing, we learned a lot about how the whole area was formed. We spent a lot of time in West Thumb and took our time driving back to the coach.

Tuesday, it was again a very nice day, so we drove to Jackson Hole. Now that was a long drive!! We were amazed to see Lewis Lake completely frozen over.Yes, there was a lot of snow along the Continental Divide, but once down in the Tetons the only snow we saw was in the mountains.

Jackson really hasn’t changed since we were there several years ago. We stopped at a couple places and even had lunch there, but everything was so high priced we didn’t buy anything. We spent more time stopping and taking pictures of the Tetons. What amazing mountains. No matter how often we see them, they continue to awe us.It was late by the time we got back to the coach, so just had a quick snack before cleaning up and calling it a night.

Wednesday was a clean the coach day (inside and out) and get ready to leave on Thursday.

Thursday, May 28, we were up early and off to Boise, Idaho. We are now in Ken's brother's driveway (huge parking area) until Monday morning.

Fun with Family

We had a great time visiting with our son and his family the six days we were in the Twin Falls area. The kids live in a small town about 40 miles north east of Twin Falls, so we had a long drive each day just to visit and to attend the three huge events that our twin grandsons were celebrating.

On saturday, May 16, we were honored to watch the boys (James and Edward) receive their Eagle Badge from the Boy Scouts.Grandpa Pavelek, who is an Eagle, had the privilege to speak at the boys “Court of Honor.” His speech touched on how much work the boys had to do in order to reach the Eagle level. Plus he spoke about the history of the Eagle, and how things were different 50 years ago when he received his Eagle Badge. James and Edward had to work their way up many levels in the scouts and finish a public service project in order to qualify for the Eagle. We are very proud of them for sticking with their goals and not letting “girls” or other peer pressures sway them from attaining their goal.

On Sunday, we were in attendance when the boys graduated from their church’s Seminary class.They along with others from their class had to attend a 4 year religious training and history class that began at 7 am, Monday thru Friday. In order to graduate from “Seminary,” they had to have an 82 percent attendance. The church where the graduation took place is in Carey, which is another 15 miles east of where the kids live, so it was a long drive for us, but it was gratifying to see these two boys again stick with something and complete it.

Finally, on Monday the 18th, James & Edward graduated from High School.
This is Edward.This is James.
That day it was 95 degrees and the graduation took place in the high school’s “very hot” gym at 8 pm. The class of 2009 was the largest class Richfield has had, and I think every person who lives in Richfield was there to watch. The “huge class” of 20 had been together since grade school.The long speeches and accolades ended at 10 pm, then everyone received their diploma. That’s when the party began. Our grandsons had a group of kids over to their place for Pizza and Root Beer (they don’t drink alcohol) and were up all night long partying. It was a hot, glorious evening for all!! We didn’t stick around for the party because we still had the 40 mile drive back to the coach, so we left right after the boys received their diplomas.

The week’s visit with the kids ended all too soon, and we pulled out of the KOA park Thursday (21st) morning.

Drive to Twin Falls:

Friday, May 15 was not fun!! We left the park around 8 am and made it down the road a few miles before being stopped for road construction. We had a long wait before a pilot car led us through the one and only lane that was open. We then made it down the road about 45 miles and 6 police cars coming at us with lights flashing forced us to the side of the road because they were escorting 3 huge loader bodies on trailers down this very narrow highway. These police cars were spread far apart, so thankfully they gave us several miles of warning. Thank God there was a wide enough shoulder for us to pull over on and wait until they all went by! After about a 10 minute wait, we were back on the road and heading for Jackpot (on the border of Nevada and Idaho).

The road from Ely to Jackpot was a very long boring drive, and Ken needed a little break, so we decided to pull into the rest area about a mile south of Jackpot. As we made the turn into the rest area, we saw a sign that said “NO TRUCKS.” Oh, Oh, we were already committed and couldn’t turn out, so we headed on in. Well it looked fine and we really thought we had enough room to turn around in.Ken wasn't worried, so he went ahead and took his long needed break. With the Jeep attached, we measure about 65 feet in length, so our turning radius is not good.

This is a picture of what we look like hooked up and ready to roll. No, this was not taken in the rest area. This was actually taken a little south of Ely.After Ken had his much needed rest, he decided to try and make the turn to get back on the road. Well, he turned the coach and Jeep as sharp as he could, but we ran out of room. Of course with the Jeep attached, we couldn't back up....SO, the only thing we could do was to go outside and unhook the Jeep. After we unhooked, Ken had the ability to back up and jog the coach around to make the drive out. All of this time, we had the entrance blocked and people were driving in watching and waiting for us to clear the area (not fun). Finally, he got the coach in position where I could pull the Jeep up behind, and we re-hooked up and got the heck outta there.

The final 40 minute drive to Twin Falls was uneventful, but then we got on Blue Lakes Blvd on the north side of Twin Falls. As far as we knew the route through Twin Falls to the Jerome KOA (where we were staying) is north on hwy 93, then east on hwy 30, and north on Blue Lakes Blvd to I-84. Yes, we were using the GPS, but that was/is the main route and we didn't want to try any unknown routes with the coach. Well, we made it to Blue Lakes Blvd with no problems, then, just a couple blocks north on the Blvd, we ran into more road construction (aarrgghh). All the south bound lanes were closed and were being routed on to one of the two north bound lanes and the left side of the north bound lane was merging into the right hand land…..Thankfully, we were already in the far right lane that was being merged into, but the traffic was extra heavy and the traffic lights (many of them) seemed to last forever. Plus, there were those idiots who thought they could rush up as far as possible then force their way in ahead of those already in the right lane. Well Ken kept the nose of the coach as close as possible to the vehicle in front, so no one was going to get in front of us (grin).

It took us 30 long, nerve-racking minutes to travel five miles, but we finally made it through the mess and to the KOA just north of the I-84 interchange. We checked in and were settled by 4 pm.

When we checked in at the KOA RV Park, we were told of another way to bypass the construction, so we did drive back into town to do some shopping at Costco and get a marvelous dinner at a local Thai Restaurant. Temperature was 67, but the forecast was for warmer weather in the next couple days.