Our RV Adventures

After a quiet morning, and coffee, of course, Jan and I headed up to Brandi’s in Katy. We were all getting together for Landon’s pre-birthday birthday.

His real birthday is tomorrow, August 20th, but today we were all meeting at his favorite Rainforest Café over in Katy Mills Mall.

Not only were Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper with us, but Landon’s Aunt Sherry as well. In addition, close friends, Chantelle, Eric, and Maddox were also there.]

And as a side note, Chantelle is the travel agent who’s putting together our upcoming European River Cruise/London/Paris trip.

After we’d finished our meals, and Landon had opened his presents, they brought a Lava Birthday Cake for everyone to share.

Later, getting our hugs, Chris and Linda headed back to Kingsland, about 4 hours away, while Jan and  I, along with Miss Piper, left for the Clear Lake. We dropped Piper off at her apartment before we finally got home a little after 4:30pm.

Brandi and Lowell are closing on their new house this coming Friday, but it could be Thursday. Then just as soon as the closing is done, the movers are scheduled to show up. They expect to be completely moved by the end of the day.

Landon still has another birthday party to go, this time on September 8th at the Smith Ranch north of Katy once again. This will be the one with all his friends, along with the giant water slide, the petting  zoo, and a lot more.

I thought I’d fill out this blog with another look at our 2013 to the Jackson Hole / Yellowstone area. We stayed over the mountain in Victor, ID at a very nice Passport America park. Much cheaper than trying to stay in Jackson Hole or Yellowstone.

Going Back To Jackson, Jackson, Jackson . . .

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

fasdfas

I had planned to lift up the bed this morning and see if I can see an obvious oil leak high up on the side of the rig’s engine.

But we got a call to meet Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper for lunch up at the Cheddar’s in Webster. Chris and Linda are down from Kingsland this weekend for Landon’s Birthday, so it was good to get together.

Chris said they’re really enjoying the slower country life up in the Texas hill country, especially the lack of traffic. Miss Piper’s working at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center up in Houston, where Jan worked back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, so it was interesting to hear them compare parking lots, buildings, and jobs. Neat!  And it was great to see everyone even though we’re all getting together again tomorrow at Brandi’s up in Katy.

Coming home we made a WalMart stop for a few things before we headed back down to Santa Fe and home.

Since that was about it for today, I thought I’d repost our June 2013 visit to Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone & Supermoon, Almost . . .

We left the rig at Yellowstone Valley Inn & RV Park about 9am, heading for the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone National Park, but this time I got to sightsee a little more since I wasn’t driving the rig this time.

And it was a lot of really spectacular views.

Our road paralleled the Shoshone River for a good while, with a lot of whitewater and kayakers enjoying the water.

And as we got closer to the park, we started our climb up the highest point on our trip, Sylvan Pass at 8530 feet.

We were surprised to see how much snow was still around up there.

sdfgfdg

We knew we were getting close when we took the curve and looked out on Yellowstone Lake. When we left the rig it was bright and sunny, but as we got deeper into the park the overcast rolled in and stay with us most of the rest of the day.

sdfgfdg

A few miles before the Fishing Bridge we had our first animal sighting, this female elk out in a field. There was a small herd of more off in the trees.

sdfgfdg

Getting to the Old Faithful area about 11:30, we got parked and headed over to the Old Faithful Inn for lunch. I remember eating here with my family in 1964 when we did a two month trip out west.

We both had the lunch buffet with such items as Sautéed Trout, Wild Rice, Chipotle BBQ Chicken, and our favorite, the Bison Chili.

BTW When did buffalo become bison? We don’t sing “where the bison roam”. We don’t read about “Bison Bill Cody, and Nick Russell’s contribution, we don’t sing “Bison gals won’t you come out tonight”

So who decided we needed a new name for buffalo, and why wasn’t I consulted?

sdfgfdg

Finishing up lunch, we walked over to the Old Faithful Geyser to wait for the next eruption.

Luckily for us we only had to wait about 20 minutes, since the sun had disappeared in the clouds and the wind had picked, making it pretty chilly.

After watching the Big Blow, we made the obligatory visits to a couple of gift shops before getting back on the road and heading north on the Grand Loop Road.

Passing Madison Junction, the west entrance to the park, we headed over to Norris, and then Canyon Junction. Along the way, we came across this gray wolf running across the field.

And this pair of swans.

Next was this group of adult buffalos and a couple of calves.

sdfgfdg

And a little later, this big guy was just glaring at the traffic going by.

sdfgfdg

Coming on around the Grand Loop we came back to our turn at the Fishing Bridge, and after making a pit stop at the General Store there, we headed home.

Just as we were leaving the Yellowstone Lake area, we once again came across this one-lane stoplight system.

It’s there because of this washed-out section of roadway. The only problem is that this same section was washed out two years ago, and protected by the same automated stoplight system.

So either this section of pavement washes out regularly, or they just haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.

Personally I think it’s the second reason.

We finally got back to the rig about 5:45pm and settled in. Since we had a big lunch, I made coffee and then we popped some Orville Redenbacher’s Kettle Corn.

All in all, a very nice day.

I thought tomorrow night was supposed to be the SuperMoon, but this one will do in a pinch.

Thought for the Day:

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

sdfgfdg