On the road

We spent two nights in Gardiner, MT at the North entrance to Yellowstone. It’s a charming turn-of-the-century entry point to Yellowstone Park. First night there had dinner at a bar/grill while listening to a very animated young man tell all he knew, everything that he has experienced and his family dynamics to a young Hungarian girl that listened patiently. The f-word was used in abundance, he seemed impassioned by crack. He was truly a character out of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

8/30/07 Jim spent the day with a fly fishing guide in Yellowstone while I cleaned the bus. Jim’s fishing guide’s name is Jared, he’s 21 and from Washington state. He is a doll! We thought he looked alot like Evan.

8/31/07 Left Gardiner, MT in the rain to head North through Bozeman, MT, a college town and looks like a great place to live. Very hip and clean surrounded by mountains and ski areas. We rested overnight in Helena, MT. Started out in a Staples parking lot where we were able to connect to the internet. I became a bit nervous about the area (very seedy part of town) so we moved to the Super Walmart parking lot just across the street. It was packed with RVs, horse trailers, generators, boats, lawn chairs…quite a site!

8/23/07 through 8/31/07 Onward to West Yellowstone.
We arrive at the Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone and begin our whirlwind consumption of Yellowstone Park. We visited and hiked and absorbed almost all of the spectacle of Yellowstone. It is truly a gem of American pride. Fortunately, we were there at the tail end of the heavy tourist season. We did run into many Europeans on holiday. Yellowstone Park is an amazing piece of earth! I’ve never seen such sights as boiling mudpots, steaming pools of unbelievably gorgeous colors, Monument Geyser, and of course, Old Faithful. I think that I have seen enough bison to last me for the rest of my life, though.

8/25/07 Jim let me choose the activities for the day, so I booked a horseback ride. Our riding partners live in Austrailia, originally from Wales & Transylvania.

Our guide, Paul, was a real cutie. His dog was along for the ride. Cutest dog I’ve ever seen. A smiley beagle and shepherd mix. See all pics.

8/21/07 Grand Teton National Park
Spent one night at a Teton Village RV park. Had an extraordinary hike to Taggart Lake and back. I broke out in song at least three times “America! For spacious skies….God shed his grace on thee…”
We soaked our tired feet in the cool waters of Taggart Lake. See the pics.

Quenched our thirst at the lodge in Moose, within Teton Park. Excellent view of the Grand Tetons from their picture windows. I discovered Moose Drool! See pics.

Leaving Jackson Hole, we stopped at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. I want to have a house built by the same artisan that built this museum.

8/22/07 Next stop, Colter Bay Campground within the Grand Teton National Forest. Great, huge campground with a gorgeous lake. Spent one night there and sucked all the glory that we could from our short time there.

We tried to hike to Emma Matilda Lake but couldn’t find it, then on our way out the next day, we took a drive to Two Oceans Lake and saw grizzly bears, a sow and 3 cubs. Quite a site. We were all alone with them right next to our Jeep. See pics here.

8/19/07 On to Dubois, WY, KOA with the largest cast metal moose I’ve ever seen. Spent a couple of days at the park. The only venture out was to the one and only grocery store that had mostly bare shelves. We did participate in the chuck wagon dinner and cowboy show at the old log home on the KOA lot. The food was cowboy inspired and the entertainment was a cowboy singing cowboy songs.

Our friends Bill & Debbie, that we met at the Worland Bluegrass Fest, came out to visit us at the KOA in Dubois.

8/21/07 So we head on out the Togwetee Trail to Teton Village in Jackson Hole, WY. The trail had a personality of its own. There was major road reconstruction along the way and at one of the stops we were met by a cowboy that presented us with a music cd and history of the Togwetee Trail. The cd turned out to be a polished piece of art. It entertained us all the way to Jackson Hole, similar to an episode of Hee Haw!

Monday, August 13, 2007
One night in Estes Park, CO
Not to be missed. Major beauty, major charming cabins along the river. We would like to return at a later date to spend more time there. View all pics.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Drove through Loveland, CO, through Cheyenne, WY and settled in a Laramie, WY KOA for one night. Took a bike ride. Not much going on in Laramie. View all pics.

From Laramie to Casper, WY for one night. Again, not much going on in Casper.

Thursday, August 16, 2007
We arrive in Thermopolis, WY through Wind River Canyon. What a gorgeous drive through Boysen State Park. We would have loved to stay there in one of their numerous campgrounds on the lake, but had no cell service. Can’t go without that, ya know.

Thermopolis was a treat. We had never even heard of the city. They boast that they have the largest hot springs mineral baths in the world. We experienced the free municipal pool. You can stay for only 20 minutes. It soothed our aching muscles and joints (we’re old!)

8/17/07 We really lived it up while in the area. We went to a Bluegrass & barbecue festival in Worland. Met the nicest people there. Heard outstanding bluegrass from The Krüger Brothers (from Switzerland) and John Reischman and the Jaybirds. One of the barbecue contestants (from Denver) used a pink pig smoker using manufactured wood pellets. He said that he had competed in Tulsa at the Harwelden barbecue cook-off. I asked him if he knew our neighbor John Klein…
As we were leaving the festival we met one of the barbecue judges. Bill Guthrie and his lovely wife, Debbie, live in Dubois, WY. More on them later.

8/18/07 Another hoot event was the demolition derby in Thermopolis. That is THE event of the season for those folk. The whole town comes out to see and celebrate the demolition derby. We had a front row observation stance at the fence and we were pelted with large clods of earth from the frenetic cars smashing each other to a compacted piece of unresponsive metal. See demolition pics.

See all Thermopolis pics.

Diane’s last day/evening was spent in Denver. we all went to dinner at a great seafood restaurant named Jax where they give you crayons and you can write your name (or whatever) on the brick walls. Fun! Here’s some pics.

What a team!

The day after the SCI hippiefest, we three decided to go on an intermediate (class III & class IV rapids) whitewater rafting excursion. Lots of fun and thrills, and Diane did us the favor of exaggerating our experience by being ejected out of the raft in the middle of one of the class IV rapids. We thought she was a gonner, but she just kept kickin’ and was saved by her new hero, Keith the Guide. See full set of rafting pics.

Diane & I just hadn’t had enough extreme sporting for the day, so we stopped at Heritage Square to ride the Alpine slide down the side of a mountain. You have to take chair lifts up to the top. We almost took a square dancing lesson after our slide, but that seemed a bit too extreme for us old folks.

All Heritage Square extreme incidents here.

My sister flew out to Denver/Golden to spend a long weekend with us. What a blast! Beth & her kids & Don were in Golden also for 3 nights of The String Cheese Incident at RedRocks Amphitheater. The three of us went to the concert Friday night. What a spectacular venue! As Evan said, “you’ve got to go to a concert there no matter who is playing”. I was quite surprised when one of Evan’s classmates from Monte Cassino days came up to me to say hi. We had never heard the SCI, but we quickly became fans. The audience was a treat, also. To give you a clearer idea, Diane did a little internet research before her trip and found these quotes:

“String cheese incident is like having to listen to Phish…..awful plus Patchouli oil and hits of acid are prerequisites for entry to one of their concerts.”

“The previous poster is correct about the String Cheese Incident - they are very much like Pfish. The crowd will certainly make for good people watching and you’ll most likely get high, even if you aren’t involved in the actual smoking part. ;-)”

The costumes that these young, new-age hippies had on were a treat. I don’t get the unicorn look of fuzzy bell-bottoms held on with elastic or velcro at the knees, but most of the young girls had these on. Young girls reading this blog: can you please enlighten me?

Oh yeah…I saved Diane from altitude sickness with these.

All Red Rocks concert pics here, viewer discretion!

Left lovely Longmont, CO the afternoon of August 7, 2007 and pulled into the Clear Creek RV Park mid-afternoon. It’s a smallish rv park within Parfet Park, a beauty of a city park with a roaring creek, bike paths, kayak courses, intertubing, and freezing water. Jim & I rode our bikes to the Kinkos/FedEx to overnight a wedding gift to Jarrod & Ayngel, and on our journey back to the rv park we stopped at a dinosaur fossil dig display next to a temptingly beautiful golf course. Next day we drove up to the top of Lookout mountain, saw Buffalo Bill Cody’s grave, and took a nature hike. Saw some black squirrels. They’re perty little critters. Lots of deer around.

Jim and I ventured into downtown Denver one night for a flamenco class that didn’t happen, but we did have an abbreviated tour of the design district and a good Thai dinner. Check out the pics in link below, especially the ones of the design district (yellow sculpture).

Check out the full set of Golden and Denver pics here.

We went to Longmont to get service for the cord reel and the reverse-osmosis water filtration system. Went to the recommended K&C Camping World in Longmont and they couldn’t help. They just don’t work on busses. Wanted to have the engine and transmission checked out because that had not been done since we owned this thing and we’ll be spending the next several months in the mountains. K&C recommended Transwest Trucking a few miles down the road for the Detroit diesel. A great group — Matt has to be the friendliest service guy ever. See the post on spending the night there. They work 7am to midnight just like Prevost in Ft. Worth. Very professional. The motor checked out with no fault codes. Got the computer printout that tells the motor history. All good. Went to near downtown Denver to Stewart-Stephenson for Allison transmission diagnostics. All is quite well with the transmission other than a little low on fluid. Got the full history and clutch analysis. Everything is good. Learning new things all the time.