The Breakdown

    It's the domino effect that comes to mind.  I didn't realize it at the time but it all started Saturday morning when we left Glacier National Park. I keep 2 separate sets of keys for the RV.  One set has the ignition, gas cap, and door keys.  The second set was the receiver lock, tongue lock, dolly tilt lock, engine compartment and lower stowage doors.  I put the car on the tow dolly Saturday morning after draining the black and grey tanks and we headed south watching the beautiful scenes changing outside as we drove.  I forgot to put the dolly tilt locking pin on, the second set of keys was still attached to it as it sat on the back bumper of the RV. The first domino falls without notice.....

    Our fist stop was in Stanford, Montana at a simple roadside RV park with full hookups and I was able to get the last blog posted Saturday evening.  Sunday Morning we continued south toward Wyoming.  Two and a half hours into the drive, an odd vibration urged me to pull to the side of the road and do a walk around.  You might recall we had a flat on the car dolly the day we left Yellowstone.  With a busy schedule in progress, I never got that tire replaced.  The spare had never been on the ground before so it was almost unthinkable that I would find it completely shredded with the rim grinding down into the pavement.  Domino 2 was the odd vibration urging me to investigate.

    MacGyver would have been proud.  The car dolly was basically on the ground.  No way to even put a jack under it to change the tire.  There were train tracks running alongside the highway and I walked over and found an old 2 by 4 there.  I uncoupled the car from the dolly, wrapped a rope around the rim and tied it to the bumper so I could get the lug nuts off and used the old 2 by 4 to lever the dolly up high enough to mount the flat back on it.  Surprisingly, I was able to get the flat to hold air,  not enough to carry the car but enough to limp along with the dolly empty till we could get a new one.

    Lynn was working away on the phone all the while trying to find a tire shop with a replacement.  It wasn't easy being Sunday and Monday happened to be Labor day.  A domino chain reaction was in play now.  AAA was no help at all and no-one had the tire we needed.  Meanwhile, as I'm getting all this figured out, two more vehicles are pulling over on the side of the road with flats and blowouts.  The dominoes are falling like raindrops.  Not allowing it to get me down, we pushed south to Sheridan, Wyoming and our next scheduled campground with an empty car dolly and Lynn following behind in the car.  

    Next morning, Lynn was still working to find a tire and was able to schedule a tire and mounting at a Walmart in Rapid City, South Dakota.  We departed early and made it to Rapid City by 3pm.  With a deep sigh of relief, the tire was mounted, the car was again coupled to the dolly, and we pulled into Custer State Park for a well deserved two night stay.  We were here back in June 2023 but did not have the car in tow then.  Having the car this time allowed us to do a bit more exploring.  The Iron Mountain Road was constructed during the Great Depression and has 3 hand carved one lane tunnels aligned to frame the presidents on Mount Rushmore as you drive through. 

    After the past few days, Custer State Park was a welcome respite.  We pulled out this morning and followed I-90 East across South Dakota settling into a campsite beside the Missouri River just below the Big Bend Dam on Lake Sharpe.  Tomorrow we'll be following the Missouri River southeast, stopping next near Vermillion, SD for a few days barring any further domino's.   CHEERS!

To the Clouds

     Time to catch up a little.  The National Park Service has strict limits on cell towers.  We spent the last few days camped outside of Glacier National Park.  The last 2 outside St. Mary entrance on the northeast side.  The Johnson Campground had wi-fi but it was less than I have in my home.  Completely worthless unless you sat on the front porch of the office.  There was a very strong wi-fi signal coming from the campground on the other side of the highway but without the password it was of no use.  Still, like so much of this trip, the view from our parking space made the place bearable.

    We drove through the park Friday from St. Mary's lake up to Logan Pass and beyond.  I'm not usually one to take pics like the next one but sometime I can't help myself and Lynn was open to oblige.

    The drive is called "Going to the Sun Road" by the park service but for us it was Going to the clouds.  Its a 50 mile scenic mountain drive crossing Glacier National Park.  There are strict restrictions on vehicle size permitted on this road and for very good reason.  Even driving the car, there were a few places that were less than ideal even at 25 mph.  Calling it a scenic drive is almost an understatement.  The next few pics can display their worth but I wanted to provide a link to see it for yourself in a Video on YouTube.

    Clouds had been moving in from the west and visibility was near zero once reaching Logan Pass.  The visitor center was packed and there wasn't a parking space to be found so we continued on and drove to Crystal Point.

    We stopped at Crystal Point for a few minutes and then turned back towards Logan Pass.  Still buried in thick clouds and packed full of tourists.  I got a few more shots on the way back down but with all due respect, Nothing could do justice but being there.

    Not entirely satisfied with the day, mainly because of the low cloud ceiling we drove back down to the south end of the park and took some time exploring other areas we could navigate.

    Lynn was working on knocking a few things off her bucket list,  Yellowstone and Glacier among them but Animals were on the list as well.  For me it was Moose, but Lynn was looking forward to Bear and Big Horn Sheep.  We had already seen Bear a few times but we ran into a momma with 2 cubs and I thought I'd share this pic.

    Still no sign of Moose or Big Horn Sheep but I'm not giving up hope just yet.  We left out Saturday morning heading south past Great Falls, MT.  It'll be a couple of days driving to our next "Destination."  We've stopped at a small "mom & pop" roadside RV park for the night with not only good cell service, but they provided a good wi-fi enabling me to get this updated and online.  We'll be on the road Sunday and again on Monday to arrive in South Dakota.  Have a nice weekend, Cheers!

Elevation 2992 feet

     Counterintuitive.  That's what it is.  ...more on that later.  A nice day of rest & relaxation at Philipsburg Bay Campground under a forest of lodgepole pines situated alongside Georgetown Lake at a crisp elevation of 6337 feet above sea level.  There were probably less than a dozen campsites occupied.  It was quiet, peaceful, and the perfect break before heading (up? / down?) north to Glacier National Park.

    We packed up and departed Tuesday morning and I'm reminded how its usually "more about the Journey than the Destination."  Descending through the Flint Creek Valley, the landscape opens up into rolling ranch lands dotted with old barns before coming into the town of Philipsburg.  Continuing north, the scene changes and a canyon narrows framed by rugged granite cliffs before opening back up and dropping down into the Clark Fork Valley.

    Joining back onto Interstate 90 west, steep forested mountains close in and rocky bluffs tower overhead as the river curves through another canyon before opening back up into the Missoula Valley and the slopes of Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo.  From there turning north you climb over the Continental Divide again and cross into the Flathead Indian Reservation.  Here, the horizon breaks open into a wide panorama and off to the east, the sawtooth peaks of the Mission Mountains rise straight up out of the valley floor.

    Another steep climb and topping out at the town of Polson to reveal the expanse of Flathead Lake. The lake stretches for miles to the north framed by the mountains.  Driving down to the edge of the lake and then up along the west side, you look down on forested islands and hidden coves floating in deep blue water.  As we continued north, the scene levels out into pastures and the Flathead Valley. The final stretch opens up and draws you into the beautiful, massive peaks of Glacier National Park guiding you down into the riverfront town of Columbia Falls.

    We'll be staying here at Columbia Falls RV Park for 2 nights.  This is just a few miles from the West entrance of Glacier National Park.  From here at least, we can breath easily at a comfortable elevation of 2992 feet.  We'll do a little exploring from here tomorrow and then move across to the east side of the park for a couple more days.  There's a good signal here as well as wi-fi in the RV park.  I'll update again soon, thanks for stopping in. Cheers!

Georgetown Lake

     First things first.  Straight up, we toured all over Yellowstone National Park to the best of our abilities.  What that means is everything we could do, we did.  What we couldn't do was anything that required a long hike to whatever it might be.  On a couple of occasions, the parking area was full and we couldn't even explore to see what it would take to see something.  Most of the "sights" in Yellowstone are located on the southwest side of the park.  I think the only thing we missed that we were looking forward to was the Grand Prismatic Spring located in the midway geyser basin and so popular that the parking area was full.

    Yes, Yellowstone is busy, even after the kids have gone back to school.  There's about 100 miles of roadway to cover when touring the park.  Speed limit is 45 mph except in areas of congestion where it drops to 25 mph. Then of course there are the areas where an Elk or a Bison wanders into view and you slow to a crawl for an hour before you finally get to the spot where it all started and admire the signs explicitly forbidding drivers from stopping, parking, etc that were completely ignored.  I could rant on but, nah...

    There aren't nearly as many attractions on the north end of the park but taking in the view just for the drive was well worth it.  I am amazed by the fact that the background scene changes completely every few miles and sometimes from moment to moment.  I'm not entirely sure how many pictures I took but I only selected a few for the blog simply because if you wanted to see Yellowstone in pictures, its all online already including the places we didn't get to see.

    There was little to mostly no cell service within the park.  The only time we had service of any merit was at West Yellowstone either when we were entering or leaving the park for the day.  The rest of the time it was useless.  I got a text out of nowhere and responded but my response didn't send until the next day.  It rained most of Friday morning so we waited it out before departing the campground.  Thunderstorms were forecast for Saturday morning but got pushed back to afternoon and again to Saturday evening so we got out and toured the northern reaches of the park.

    Sunday morning and the plan is to get on the road again but when I got started breaking camp it started to rain and even hail.  I think it was the thunderstorm that never struck on Saturday.  It had swept past us pretty quickly and I got everything ready to go.  I don't remember if I mentioned this but, almost all the campsites out here do NOT have water on site.  That means you have to fill your water tank before you get to your campsite.  We managed to make the water tank (50 gal.) stretch the whole stay at Yellowstone but were virtually empty for the Sunday drive.  I could have filled the tank at the water point but it was located at the entrance to the campground and I would have had to drive through the entire campground loop again.

    We got about 7 miles north at our next turn and I pulled over to check the ratchet straps on the car.  Straps were fine but the car dolly had a flat.  45 minutes later we're back on the road again for another breath taking day of travel.  We stopped in Butte, Montana for gas and supplies this afternoon and made our way from there to the campsite at Georgetown Lake.  We'll be here for 2 nights but we got an evacuation alert right after we got set up.  Turns out there's a wildfire burning about 25 miles away.  The alert we received was actually downgrading from a red status to yellow.  We'll be watching that closely while we're here.

    This has to be the definition of camping out in the woods.  Sort of... At least I have a cell signal and can update.  Thanks for dropping in, Cheers!

The Grand Tour

  We got an early start Wednesday.  Lynn wanted to be up for the sunrise so I started making coffee at 6am.  This was going to be a relatively short mileage day but a very busy day for sightseeing.  Sunrise was at 6:37 and it was a brisk 46 degrees outside.  I put on my heavy sweat pants and a polo shirt and wondered if I had packed a coat after a few minutes waiting for the right shot.

I went ahead and got the tanks drained while Lynn stowed loose items for travel and we were back on the road again by 8am.  We had to stop for morning meds and breakfast and found a great pull-out spot just as we were entering Grand Tetons National Park.  

I had concerns about this trip early on after reading about the crowds and hoped coming after school had started back up it would be better.  I’m not sure but it was still a bit crowded.  There were quite a few places I would have pulled over but there wasn’t any room to do so.  All for the better I guess, I think I got plenty of photos anyway.  

US 191 highway goes straight through the park but the Teton Park Road by the National Park Service has pull-offs everywhere and its free for park pass holders.  Remember that concern about the crowds, spent 20 minutes in line at the gates before getting on Teton Park Road.  Oh well, not a day to be concerned, this travel day was planned with lots of stops in mind.  And this little alternate route made it all worth while.

It’s great to be seeing places like this for the first time.  We’ve both done our share of trips in the past but it’s not easy finding spots neither of us have been to.  Even so, after stopping to get these pics, I actually felt pretty foolish.  Here I am in this OMG majestic place trying to get a photo that doesn’t include 40 other people trying to get the same shot, realizing 20 million other people have taken the same pic already and posted it online for all to see.  It’s actually how I knew the best places to go for these shots….  Oh well, this is my journal and I like the pics.  

We finally got to our next campsite at Bakers Hole Campground, just west of Yellowstone National Park around 3pm.  Nothing special, a shaded campsite with electric and a picnic table.  We’ll be here for 4 nights while we drive around the park and see the sights.  We had a problem as soon as we got backed into the campsite.  The hydraulic jacks that level out the RV were locked out with an error and wouldn’t work at all.  I had to drive a few miles back to town in the car to get a signal so I could get the instructions to reset it.  It worked, but I’m writing this as just a plain text document in hopes I’ll get a signal later and can login and paste this in.

I have no Idea when I’ll get a chance to upload another post but, I’ll keep a log and post again as soon as I’m able.  Thanks for stopping by.  Cheers!

Northbound and Down

     We pulled out of Crawford, Colorado at 9am. and headed to Grand Junction to take a short break and see the Colorado National Monument.  I hadn't been here in over 50 years.  I think is was around '72 when we came to visit cousins who lived outside of Grand Junction back then.  Like most photographs, there's only so much the camera can capture but, here's a few shots from Colorado National Monument.

    Afterward we slipped back down into Grand Junction and restocked at Sam's Club before heading north for an overnight stop in Vernal, Utah by way Colorado 139 north and over Douglas Pass. A scenic drive in northwest Colorado. The pass is known for its steep grades, sharp curves, and dramatic views of the Canyon.  It was probably the hardest workout Georgie Girl has ever had so far.  The speed limit drops to 25 mph as you wind through the sharper curves and steeper grades.  It's a good thing too,  25 mph is all I could get out of her there.  We pulled off at the top and took this pic of the canyon we had just come out of. 

    After that, the drive was almost routine the rest of the way to our next overnight stop at Steinaker State Park Campground.  It's located on the Steinaker Reservoir just north of Vernal, Utah.  Unfortunately, this area as most all of the "high desert" on the west side of the Rockies has been in a drought for so long that the reservoir was down to only 19% of its designed water capacity.  The park itself was very well maintained and our campsite was nearly level. At an elevation of only 5500 ft. we were able to breath easier too.  We settled in for the evening and as I was about to record the blog for the day, I realized there was no wi-fi and a less than satisfactory cell signal so, it would just have to wait. 

    Tuesday morning and a slightly shorter drive was in store so we took our time getting going.  On a positive note, our next overnight stop was on the same road.  No worries about navigation today.  We headed out around 10am and made our way north going past Dinosaur National Park and making note of it in case we happen back this way again.  It was another uphill climb but not near as steep.  This was the view looking back toward the south.

    This was just a beautiful drive.  The scenery was constantly changing and I could have stopped to take in the view almost every mile of the way.  We came upon another uphill climb, just a little steeper than the last but much more manageable and as we started back down we could see the Green River Reservoir in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area below.

    Its a Huge Lake covering over 42,000 Acres with 350 miles of coastline.  This would explain the inordinate number of vehicles I came across towing boats.  After that, what was such a beautiful drive suddenly became bland. Topping out at an average of about 7500 ft above sea level, this was like seeing an old Western with a cowboy riding out across the plains.  Nothing but scrub land as far as the eye could see.  Thankfully, we noted a Love's Truck Stop was up ahead off Interstate 80 and had the cheapest gas we had seen in the last 5 days.  I try not to think too much about the amount of fuel needed for a trip like this but when the cheapest gas is $4.19 it's hard to ignore.  Still, we saw plenty of stations along the way that were approaching $5.00/gal.  We filled up and drove the next hour towards Boulder, Wyoming where we would make our last "overnight" stop for a while.

    We could finally see the mountains fading into view on the horizon as we approached ever closer to the Highline Trail RV Park.  We got in about 3:30 and I finally got to get this update posted.  Here's the view for this afternoon, an Ultra Hi-Res preview of tomorrows drive through Grand Teton National Park.

Cheers!

A little adventure

    We've been enjoying time with family here and set out to explore the area.  I'll not bother attempting to articulate the experience. I couldn't hope to express it so well and, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Don't forget, just click on a picture to see it full screen. 

These first shots are from atop the ridge near where we are camped.

We took a scenic drive south along the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and stopped at a few of the overlooks.

Heading East of Gunnison, we had lunch in a little Canyon outside of Almont, CO

Drove through a forest of Aspen trees coming down from Kebler Pass...

And made our way west again passing the ragged mountains on the way back.

All in all, quite the little adventure on our stop here.  Time for a break, good food, friends, and  get ready for the next leg northwest into Utah.  Till then, sit back, relax with friends, and have a glass of wine.  Cheers!