Our RV Adventures

Jan and I left for Jackson, WY about 12 noon, heading over Teton Pass’ 8500 foot summit and 10% grades. But the scenery was great.

The 24 mile trip over the mountain saves you about 60 miles from the long way around, taking US26. But it can be a long, slow climb with a lot of hairpin turns and switchbacks. But cresting out at the summit makes up for it.

From up here you can look out over the entire valley.

Finally coming down off the mountain, we turned north on Moose-Wilson Rd. for the drive up to Moose Junction. And almost immediately Jan let out a squeal, “MOOOSSSEE”.

At first all we could see were two females in a pond only about 20 feet off the road. It looked like one of them was trying to chase the other one off. They both took out running along the far edge of the pond bank and then disappeared into the trees.

Then from the other direction this baby appeared and seemed to be trying to figure out what happened to momma moose. The baby kept going back and forth getting more and more anxious.

But finally momma showed back up and the baby ran back into the trees.

Momma then crossed the pond and followed the baby out of sight.

After waiting a few more minutes with no more moose, we resumed our 15 mile drive up to the Visitor’s Center at Moose Junction. Jan wanted some more moosey things from the gift shop, and more importantly, we had seen moose in the river there when we were here two years ago.

Jan did get up close and personal with this big guy, but said he didn’t have a lot of personality. and as it turned out, he was the last moose we saw today.

The river by the Visitor’s Center bridge was too high and running too fast at this time for moose, so we moved on to our next surefire moose place about 25 miles up US89 heading toward Yellowstone.

Along the way we passed the Teton Village Ski area,

and a lot of beautiful mountain scenery.

For a while some dark clouds moved into the area, threatening rain, but it never showed up.

And our ‘surefire’ moose place didn’t pan out either. They were doing road construction right in that area and our access road to the pond was closed off. So we headed back to Jackson for dinner.

We did however get to see the large herds of buffalo grazing along side the road.

Even got to the see some calves.

Getting back into town we found more road construction that made it hard to even get to our dinner destination, Bubba’s BBQ. But we finally made it about 4:15.

We ate at Bubba’s several times when we were here two years ago and really liked it. And this visit didn’t disappoint either.

Before heading home, Jan bought some postcards and I stopped off at a Maverik’s for a cappuccino before we headed back over the mountain, getting home a little after 6pm.

Getting back in the rig, we discovered the power had gone off and back on while we were out. The only problem it caused was screwing up our DirecTV HD DVR. Everything was working fine and it had signals from the dome, but it said it couldn’t find any channels.

I tried both a Reset Button reset and an unplug the power reset with no luck. So I finally called DirecTV for help. We tried a bunch of different things, before the tech suggested unplugging both the power AND the satellite cables and then reboot. And that fixed it.

Tomorrow we’re driving back over to Idaho Falls for some shopping.

—————————————————————————————————————–

Thought for the Day:

"Trying to save someone from their own stupidity is like trying to teach a pig how to dance: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig." – Robert Heinlein

adsfdsfa

or maybe Four for Four.

We pulled out of Village of Trees RV Resort near Declo, ID a little after 9 am heading back west for a few miles to Heyburn, ID to get diesel and breakfast.

The reason we were heading back the way we had come yesterday was I had my choice of buying diesel from the Shell station near the park for $4.399, or going back down the Interstate a few miles to get diesel from a Sinclair station for $3.959. Saving 44 cents a gallon on 70+ gallons was worth a short drive. And even better, the stop came with breakfast.

When we scouted out the station yesterday after dinner, we saw the Wayside Café right next door and commented how busy it was, so we decided to have breakfast there after fueling up.

It quickly became obvious why it was so crowded. Everything was great, with some of best coffee I’ve had in a long time, certainly better than Starbuck’s. Great thick-cut bacon too.

Although we’d had the great coffee at the café, we wanted to get cappuccinos for the road from the gas station because they had Jan’s favorite Pumpkin Pie cappuccino. Then walking back to the rig, we got the truck hitched up and were back on the Interstate heading east.

About 10 miles down the road we split off from I-84 onto I-86. A little bit later construction on the westbound side took the roadway down to two lanes for about 20 miles, but it didn’t really slow us down.Pretty much all day our route snaked back and forth across the aptly-named Snake River

It seemed like there were great views around every curve.

Later, going through Pocatello, we got on I-5N that took us up on to Idaho Falls. There we got on to US26 S for about 40 miles before turning off onto SR31, also known as the Teton Scenic Route. And scenic it was.

Getting up into the mountains, the road started to remind me of the Alaskan Highway, with narrow lanes, no shoulders, and sharp drop-offs with no guardrails. Our route took us up to almost 8000 feet before we came down into the Teton Valley at a little over 6000 feet.

Along the way I almost smushed a car into the side of the mountain. Going up the 5% grade I ended up with about 5-6 cars behind me, with no passing lanes or pull-outs for me to let them get by. Then coming down it didn’t get any better.

There was a cyclist in front of me, zipping down the hill and pedaling fast. He was doing about 40, but I was still trying to get around him. But to do that I needed to move to the center of the road for a few seconds because with no shoulder, the cyclist was on the roadway.

I had my left turn signal on and then finally reached an area where I could move over. I was already across the center line when the car directly behind me decided he’d had enough and zipped out and started to pass. By this time I was beside the cyclist and couldn’t move back. The guy in the car got about to my rear wheels before he finally realized that his lane was getting narrower fast. As I watched him brake quickly I was afraid that he would forget about our toad and try to swing in right behind us. But he avoided doing that, and both he and the cyclist made it through without a scratch.

We got into Teton Village Campground and were quickly led to our pull-thru site. While I was outside getting us hooked up, I put Mister on his leash to roll in the grass.

After getting power, water, and sewer hooked up, I heard Mister making friends with our next door neighbors. Checking things out, our neighbor said, “Hi, I’m Gretchen and we know you. We read your blog”.

In fact Bob and Gretchen Madison ended up here after reading about this park on our blog. Jan came to the door and we all talked for a while, finally agreeing to get together for dinner in a couple of hours.

Teton Valley is a beautiful park, with a lot of trees, but not so many to interfere with satellite access. This is the view out our windshield.

A little before 5 we headed out for have dinner at Big Hole BBQ, a place we found well-recommended on Yelp. Gretchen and Bob had ribs, I had a pulled pork and ribs combo, while Jan had a pulled pork sandwich.

Everything was delicious, They have a real different take on their BBQ sauce, with an unusual spice complement. Different, but delicious.

We said our good nights at the restaurant, and then Jan and I drove around Victor for a while, checking out some of the area, finally getting back home a little before 7pm.

Tomorrow we’re going to make the 25 mile trip over the mountains to Jackson, WY so Jan can hopefully see moose.

———————————————————————————————————————-

Thought for the Day:

"I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me." — John Cleese

fgsfdgfgs