We got up this morning and prepped the RV for travel. Susie took care of some last minute things, we returned the car rental and took off for Idaho. I was pretty excited about going to Idaho because it has been a long time since I was in a state that I have not previously been to. After driving about 10 minutes we were in Idaho.
Well, that was unexpected…
Here I was thinking about what it was going to look like and BAM! We were there. While I am on the subject of Idaho, someone from their transportation department needs to travel to other states. The Idaho speed limit is 65. That’s cool, I don’t travel any faster in the RV anyway. Every time you come to a street, or a ‘Junction’ in Idaho parlance, the speed limit is reduced to 45. Then back to 65. It got to the point where trying to use the cruise control was a waste of time. Honestly, I started only dropped my speed to 55 since it was such a pain in the ass to keep going down to 45 only to increase my speed back to 65 in a quarter of a mile.
After six and a half hours of driving we arrived at the Mountain Home, Idaho KOA and it was 104 degrees outside. We arrived at just after 3:30 PM. Wow, was it hot!
My first thought was ‘Cool! We can finally test the air conditioning!’. We have been using the heater in the mountains because the morning temperature has been in the mid thirties. We know that subsystem works. I have not had the opportunity to test the air conditioner.
Well, after running it for several hours, I have to say to works pretty well. It is plenty cool in here and it is stil quite warn outside. Unfortunately, the air conditional does not cycle it just runs constantly. It is also a little noisy inside but you can’t even here it outside. You can sure hear the other air conditioners running in the other RV’s though.
All in all, I think it works pretty good.
This is the entry for 7/13:
We got up this morning and after going through the morning ritual I went out to start the car. Same thing. We called Avis, and left a voice mail asking to swap cars. I kept playing with it and finally got it to start. We went into the town of West Yellowstone to a) check the airport to see if we could find the Avis guy; b) see if we could find his wife who owns a diner just off the main drag; and c) check out the town we keep just driving through.
As we pull up to Avis man’s wife’s diner, he calls us back. He says he will be right there. He shows up in less than 60 seconds. (This is one weird town…) He tries it and of course it starts on the first pull. He mentions that he has had one other Ford vehicle with the same problem though and is more than happy to swap this one out for another vehicle. He gives us a Ford Mustang convertible. Talk about a change in vehicles. In the Excursion you could play racquetball, in the Mustang, there isn’t even enough room to read a book! Also, within a hour or so it started to sprinkle! Oh well. We took off for the park, looking for game.
We never did find a moose. We didn’t see any bear. But we saw everything else and boy do I have a story about a buffalo. (I also have it on tape.) I’m not sure how close you have gotten to a full grown, mature, buffalo but I have now been within a couple of feet of one. I’m talking less than three feet away. I could have touched it.
After taking pictures and video of one buffalo Susie and I get in the car and head down the road. We come around a corner and traffic is stopped. We are trying to see why traffic is stopped (Is it a Moose?) and I look into the other lane and this buffalo is walking down the middle of the road. I should say he is lumbering. Man are they big. We were stopped and he passed right by the driver’s door. (This is one of those times when I would have rather been in the Excursion, than a convertible Mustang) Talk about exciting! What an experience!
Once he was past, we took off and there must have been a mile of cars waiting in the other direction. It seems that he was traveling on the road for quite some time.
We continued on to Mammoth Springs. Did some more shopping, turned around and then headed home. We dropped our loot and then went into West Yellowstone and walked the streets and did more shopping.
We got home way after dark, and went to bed.
This is the entry for 7/12:
In our rush to arrive at the KOA Kampground in West Yellowstone, we drove right through Jackson, Wyoming. We also beat feet right through the park and did not stop anywhere. We happen to travel the primary tourist route on our way through Yellowstone and Teton National Parks.
Today, we traveled the same route except we stopped where we wanted. Using my typical anal retentive philosophy we only stopped at the attractions to the right. That way we didn’t have to make left turns across traffic and we didn’t have to wonder if we stopped at a particular location or not.
As an aside, our primary goals for the park were not to see any particular attraction, but to find as much wildlife as possible.
Susie had not seen a hot springs before and hot not experienced the sweet sulfur aroma. At our first stop, she got both. Well, that covered those two types of stops. It also drastically cut down on the number of stops we could make.
We drove all the way through the park, down through the Grand Teton National Park and into Jackson. We parked the Excursion in public parking, ate lunch and started shopping. And shopping. And shopping. But hey, we finally found the battery for our video camera. Ever since we started this trip we have been looking for an extra battery. We have been able to recharge the battery each night but it does limit the amount of video that we can shoot. With the extra battery and a 12 volt charger we no longer have any limitations.
While we were in the camera store we were petting and playing with the owners Siberian husky. It was a blue eyed sand colored dog. Another customer came in with her two dogs. None of these dogs were on leashes. The customer’s dogs were very excitable and one even tried to nip the husky. The salesman, who was not the owner of the dog, was starting to get agitated. The husky was starting to get that look like ‘it’s my store, you can get the hell out’. I thought it was best if I took the husky down an aisle and started petting it and scratching it until the other customer had left. Once she was gone, the salesman started complaining about her lack of control over her dogs.
As we started to leave Jackson, Susie went to the restroom while I started the car. It didn’t start. Hmmmm. Dead as a doornail. I wiggled the shifter, I put it in neutral, I tried starting it with my foot on the brake and then off the brake. All of a sudden, it started with no problem. Either an odd occurrence or an electrical short of some type.
Our next stop was Old Faithful. I mentioned to Susie the fact that the car had difficulties starting. We figured that the heavily populated tourist attraction was a good place to test it out. After watching, and recording the show, we came back to the car and sure enough, it didn’t start. After trying everything I tried previously twice, I finally got it to start. We continued on but left the motor running.
We got back to our campsite late tonight and basically went to bed.
I finally got the video working from the first day. If you go back here and click on the video link you can finally see some action. I am now going to try and add some other video and pictures to other previous entries.
We are connected at 11mbps right now. Just like at home. Feels good!
Last night in Rock Springs was a real drag. I took pictures of the place and will put them up later. Imagine a gravel parking lot. Place RVs next to each other with about 5 feet of clearance. That is where we were. No trees. No grass. Nothing.
Since we were only spending the night, we didn't take the extra time to level the RV. It was pretty close but we ended up leaning a little to the driver's side. We didn't have fast access so we ended up reading a little and Susie started crocheting an afghan. We went to bed around 11:00, got up at 7:30 and were on the road by 8:15.
The drive to Yellowstone was pretty cool. We started out going through the prairie again. The first 150 miles or so was this way. Then we started to climb into the mountains. Before we knew it we could see the Grand Tetons. Traffic was surprisingly light until we got to Yellowstone.
You would think that we would remember that traveling through a major national park is not something that is done at speed. But we forgot. We figured today's drive would be about five hours but it ended up almost seven hours before we arrived at the KOA Kampground in West Yellowstone.
By the way, we were convinced that if the KOA in Yellowstone was anything like the KOAs in Wendover or Rock Springs that we would never visit another KOA Kampground in future trips.
To say we were impressed is an understatement. The West Yellowstone KOA won the KOA Presidents Award for 2003. It is probably the nicest campground I have stayed in. I have not taken any pictures yet, but I will get some up on here as soon as I can.
Since we are here for three days, I took the time to level the RV, set up the outside area and even connected the sewer lines. We also rented a car through Avis so we would not have to drive the RV around the parks.
We were supposed to pick up the rental car tomorrow morning but felt that since we still had six or more hours of daylight, that we would pick up the car early. When Susie called Avis, he only had one car available. He asked if we really were concerned about what it looked like. We said that we didn't care. He said "OK, then I will give you a new silver Ford Excursion." Whoa!
Luckily, I have been driving the RV for over a week. Since the Ford Excursion is the largest vehicle on the road, I would have normally been a little hesitant to drive it. Now, it seems small! Also, I drove one back from Las Vegas a few years ago when they first came out.
Well, off to the local BBQ. This KOA has nightly BBQs. Told you this place was great!
This is the entry for July 9th:
The original reason to rent the RV and take this trip was to get together with Susie's side of the family. Today, we were able to finally get everyone at the campsite at the same time. But first, we had a little excitement...
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.......
Coming out of a sound sleep, I'm trying to figure out what the beeping noise is coming from. The Carbon Monoxide detector in our bedroom is going off. We had been running the propane heater throughout the night and it now appears that we have filled the RV with CO! Yikes!!! We open the vent in the roof (Which we should have done before we went to bed...) and reset the alarm.
I get up, get dressed, and go check the status panel. It seemed to us that the heater ran an awful lot last night and I fear we may have used up a lot of propane. When I check the panel, it is dead. It appears we also completely drained the house battery. Damn. Well, we'll start the generator and recharge the house battery.
As an aside, I thought I only had these types of cascading problems with computers. Obviously not...
Now I have to sit and think a minute. Well, I should be able to start the RV engine and that will charge the house battery as well. Once that is going I can then start the generator. All of a sudden the propane detector at floor level goes off. Now, I have read a lot, and I mean a lot, about RV's but I have never heard of this before. If there was a system in the RV, it was complaining.
After resetting the propane detector, I started the RV engine. It started immediately (Whew!). I stepped out of the driver's seat and checked the status panel. Our batteries were fully charged, the propane was at 3/4 tank and everything looked perfectly fine. I started the generator and it fired right up.
It appears that I happened to reset the system that somehow got confused. I was actually getting false alarms. After awhile everything was back to normal. Mitch came by, and said hello and I told him what happened and how I solved it. He said these things happen (!!!). Well we won't be buying a Coachman...
Mitch leaves to go fishing and we are eating breakfast....BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP... Not again! This time it was the propane detector. Susie resets the detector and we finish up breakfast and decide to open up the RV shut everything down and let it air out. We are hoping that whatever we are doing will be stopped once we get out of there.
We go sit by the campfire and we can smell propane. We start to follow the scent and find that one of Mitch's propane lines and struck a leak. His trailer was upwind of ours and the propane was being detected by our RV! I shut off the propane at the tank and we decide to find Mitch. We are not sure that shutting off the propane was the right thing to do and also fear that with the propane off other bad things can occur.
We eventually find him and bring him back to camp. He said we did the right thing and that it is OK to completely shut off the propane. After checking his hoses Mitch finds that the other hose is suspect as well so we decide to take a trip into Steamboat Springs to pick up some new hoses.
We are expecting Mitch's brother Rich and Susie's brother Mike at any time. We make a quick trip to town and get back to find them both here. Mitch will have to leave shortly to go pick up Susie's sister Isabel.
After Mitch got back with Isabel, Mitch, Rich, and Mike went fishing. Mike's kids went hiking, and the rest of us sat around the campfire and talked.
Once the guys got back, we ate dinner, roasted marshmallows, talked until 11:00 PM and then went to bed.
This entry is for July 8th:
I'm not sure that the intention for today was to track deer, antelope, and elk but that is what we ended up doing.
The day started out innocently enough. Mitch had left early to go creek fishing and was gone when Susie and I got up. We had breakfast and then proceeded to level our RV. Not that it was out of level, but we tried to make it more level... Well, you had to be there...
Once that was done we started to walk up the road. We ran into Mitch walking back down after his fishing trip. We walked and talked with him back to the camp site. He changed clothes and asked if we wanted to take a look around the mountain. We said sure.
He asked who wanted to drive and I volunteered. We drove up a dirt road to about 10,000 to 10,500 feet. (I forgot the GPS, damn) On the way we saw a few deer. We took some pictures and listened to Mitch tell us about the elk hunting he has done here for the last 15 or so years.
I turned the keys over to him and he proceeded to drive us around the complete mountain. We saw numerous deer, a couple of elk, several beavers, chipmunks, prairie dogs and other varmints. We drove over some rough roads and generally had a blast. At one point, we got out of truck and went one way and Mitch circled around to see if we could flush any wildlife out of a particular area. It was really fun to get back in the woods again. It reminded me of backpacking trips with the Boy Scouts and my father.
We came back to the campsite and had lunch and then Susie dropped Mitch off for some more stream fishing. After a couple of hours Susie and I drove to the dam spillway and waiting for Mitch to show up. He had caught another three fish and we drove him back to the campsite.
Mitch changed out of his wet clothes and then we went looking for a mountain lion and some elk that were up on the top of the mountain. We never found the mountain lion but saw some elk. We got back to the campsite after dark.
We again made a campfire and talked to about 11:00 PM. This evening we had clear skies and it got down into the 30s. We went to bed and turned on our furnace for the first time.
This is the original July 7th entry:
We left Grand Junction around 2:30 PM this afternoon. I made a rookie mistake and took the Business 70 entrance and not the I-70 entrance. We ended by driving through town and not catching I-70 until about 15 miles out of town. Nice countryside though.
We were really surprised at how much the highway has changed since we last came through here in 1991. What used to be a two lane highway that hugged the creek side is now an environmentally friendly four lane highway that goes through several tunnels and sometimes has opposite facing lanes above each other. They also ended numerous bike trails and rest stops.
We only saw one train in the canyon.
We turned off of I-70 and began the climb to Yampa. This was a windy two lane road through the prairie. There were several climbs up hills and descents into valleys that really allowed me to hone my RV driving skills.
Just after Craig we had to stop for a coal train!!!!! We actually waited about 15 minutes while it lumbered across the road. The two lead engines had just passed when we arrived at the crossing. After about 50 cars, two more mid-train helpers passed. After another 50 or so cars, the two rear helpers went by. Keep in mind that each car weighed 100 tons. That was one heavy train!!!! It was only going about 15 MPH.
After another 30 minutes of driving, we arrived in Yampa. Susie's dad was waiting for us at the gas station at the corner. We went into town and had a burger before heading to the campsite.
Yampa is a cool looking town. I am not sure of the size but would estimate it at between 500 and 800 people. There are no street lights (red, yellow, green) but the road we ate on had street lamps running down the middle of the road. The Road was dirt and about 40 feet wide. There were between six and eight street lamps spaced about 100 feet apart running right down the middle. Pretty cool looking.
Sadly, with the excitement of seeing Susie's dad, Mitch, we didn't get any pictures of this.
After dinner we followed Mitch up to the campsite. We went from the prairie to a little over 9500 feet and were smack dab in the middle of the aspens and the evergreens. It was a great campsite and not what I expected based on the drive up to Yampa.
Once we got settled in, Mitch took us up to the highest reservoir. Notice I didn't say drove us. Susie drove us! Mitch asked if either of us wanted to drive his new 2004 Ford F-350 diesel. I said Susie would love to. (Secret plan at work here....)
Susie had a ball driving the truck. We looked around and then came back to the campsite, made a campfire, and talked until around midnight.
For those who have been expecting daily updates, sorry for the delay. The last three days of the trip have been up in the mountains and we did not have cellular service good enough to establish a data line.
It is not that I didn't have daily things to say, just that I have been setting them aside for today. We have arrived at the KOA in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
I was pretty excited about getting here as this was going to be the first place I was going to have genuine broadband access. I was finally going to be able to upload the videos and pictures. Well....
As we checked in, the lady behind the desk mentioned that the WiFi connection will be down for about a week.... BUMMER!
We called ahead to the West Yellowstone KOA and inquired about their WiFi Access. They assured us that theirs was fully functional and they have reserved a slot in direct line of site of the KOA store where their access point is located. Supposedly, we will have the fastest access of the campers there. Whoo Hoo!
So here is what I am going to do. I am going to start adding the entries in chronological order starting on July 7th. I will subtitle the entries in case you get lost.
This is my story and I'm sticking to it...
I was sitting in the kitchen of my mother-in-law's house using the cellular modem to connect. We had just finished dinner and my wife and her mother were cleaning up the kitchen. Once the kitchen was clean, the conversation migrated to the living room. I decided to take my laptop with me to the living room.
As I sat down in the living room WinXP dutifully notified me that I had access to a wireless network. I clicked on the informational notification and it said the wireless network 'linksys' was available but was not secure. I choose to connect anyway and it failed. The signal was too weak. I moved to the extreme west end of the room and was able to connect with a low signal.
Since it was dark, I went outside into the middle of the street and walked to the end of my mother-in-law's property. I had five bars strength. 11mbps.
Well, I opened my VPN and downloaded my Email. Just like at home.
Now, if you purchase a Linksys router. One of the first things they suggest is that you change your SSID, not to mention turn off the broadcast mode. I suspect that the neighbor has not even changed the password to the router. I'm guessing that I have complete access to their home network and can completely take over their router and make it my own.
Luckily, for them, I am not that kind of guy. I will probably go over there and tell them what is happening and show them how to change it....Right before we leave for Yampa on Wednesday
We have arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado. We have traveled 900 miles in two days with a new 31' Class C RV. While the driving distance is not that big of a deal for me, I normally drive the 900 miles in a day, doing so in an RV is another matter.
I have read that the so called 'RV Experts' suggest that you drive from 100 to 200 miles a day. Well...before this trip started I am not sure I would have agreed with this opinion but now I think that I would have to agree.
Luckily, the rest of the trip is comprised of shorter drives. This will also allow Susie and I to spend more time at each location. For now, we will be spending the next few days in Grand Junction.
I attempted to upload the 4.6MB video file several times last night and just don't have the bandwidth from Wendover. I will be sending the file once I am at a location that will let upload it in less than 15 minutes. Once it is up, I will let you know.
Today's agenda is to drive from Wendover to Grand Junction, Colorado. We will be going through Price and Helper following the Utah RailLink(?) line over the mountain.
It’s getting late, and the bed in the back of the RV is calling my name. I didn’t realize that we shot an hour’s worth of video today. It took quite some time to download the raw footage to the laptop and then edit the segments.
I ultimately chose a segment that most represented what our day was like. The day started out nice and then turned overcast, and then between Elko and Wells there was a genuine storm that we drove through. Luckily by the time we reached Wendover, the clouds broke and sunshine was hitting the ground.
The clip below shows the banter between my wife and I as well as our general attitude today. You also can get a close up view of the cab of the RV and how we have it configured.
We are currently at the KOA Kampground in West Wendover, Nevada. Dinner is cooking and we are fully connected. Unfortunately, this campground did not have wireless access so I am using my cellular modem.
Shot some video while driving here and will attempt to get some up on the blog before the evening is over.
Well this is it. This morning we embark on our vacation. We have made lists. We have picked up last minute items. We have rigged the house for vacation running. We have bought food. We have made food. We have repackaged food. We have...
We're tired. We need a vacation!
For those that are following along, I hope to make an entry a day. That entry may or may not include video. It should at least have pictures of no video. Tonight's destination is the raging metropolis of Wendover, Nevada.