July 27, 2007

Yesterday morning we decided to drive over to Medora for the day and eat at the Pitchfork Fondue and see the Musical. I made ticket reservation on-line before we went over. It was the first time that we have ever paid for tickets, but at least we didn't have to do any work. It is only about 60 miles from Glendive, MT to Medora, so we just left the trailer in Glendive and drove over. We spent the day looking up most of our friends and visiting with them. We enjoyed catching up on not having been to Medora for the last two years. We saw everyone that we were looking for with the exception of Randy and Lyle. A lot of our friends have changed jobs and many of the young ones are advancing into positions of greater responsibility.

The Fondue and Show were as good as always but we missed having Wade Westen in the show. He has been in every one that we have previously seen. We did get to visit with Wade and his family (they have two children now). Teddy Roosevelt is played by a new actor this year and he brings a lot of enthusiasm to the role.

This morning we were tired since it was midnight when we got home. We slept late and just rested all day. The weather is still nice with high temperatures in the low 80's. We will probably stay here until monday and then go by and visit our friends in Powers Lake.

July 25, 2007

Well, to catch up a little now that I have a good internet connection. We left Boulder, WY on the 19th and moved to Cody, WY. That put us a little closer to Yellowstone National Park. The campground at Cody was nice, but the Wi-Fi never worked a single time for the four days that we were there. One morning we drove from Cody into Yellowstone. It was a long drive but was very pretty. Many of the ponderosa pines were dead due to beetles and fire. It seems that they re-seed rapidly though. We saw places where the old trees were dead, but new ones were coming in almost solid.

Since it is such a long distance to cover the whole park, we just drove the so-called lower loop. We saw Old Faithful (Note To Floye: do you still have Daddy's walking stick?) and Yellowstone Lake along with lots of waterfalls and mud and sulfer geysers. We also saw lots of deer, elk, buffalo (that's Bison to the tree huggers), swans and other birds. It was an interesting day, but after the 250 mile mountain drive we were really tired. We just rested the entire next day.

On monday we left Cody and headed north not knowing where we were going. We hit Interstate 94 at Billings, MT and then hesded east. We made it to Glendive, MT and stopped at a nice little RV park that we had stayed in several years ago. This is our third day here and we might stay a few more. We are having a good rest. Today has been cool although yesterday it got up to 112. It was so hot in the trailer that we had to get in the truck and drive. We went the state park just outside of town and then stopped at a fast food place that was cool and read our books.

July 15, 2007

We had another storm last night with strong winds and hard rain. The satellite antenna was blown down and I had to wait until the wind and rain stopped to put it back up. This morning I got up and went to church in Pinedale. The First Baptist Church is not very large and there were only 25-30 people there. The pastor was a good preacher (and Music Leader) and we sung hymns from the hymn book. I really enjoyed the service. I went back tonight since he was preaching about end-times and the antichrist. There were only about 8 people there tonight but it was a good service with a lot of singing. The preacher said that he graduated from Bob Jones University many years ago.

Sheryl, I met a family that were from Ore City, Texas this morning in church. He is a pipe-line welder and has worked out here for about four years. They live in an RV but are not in the park where we are. They said that Ore City was about 20 miles from Hallsville.

July 13, 2007

With Emily gone, I just rested yesterday and today. The only extraordinary happenings yesterday were that the electrical power was off from about 1:30 till 10:30 last night, there was a large grass fire just north of Pinedale near the lake, and it rained for several hours last night. Fortunately the rain helped put the fire out and the clouds cooled it off enough that I didn't miss the A/C. I heard that they had to evacuate the RV park that is on the shore of the lake. They wouldn't let anyone hitch up their RVs but just the people had to leave. I haven't heard if there was any damage to RVs.

Today is somewhat cooler; only about 80 degrees now. I went in to town and had one of the propane bottles filled. No excitement, so that's all for now.

July 12, 2007

Emily made it home safely. It was a hard trip since she was delayed in Denver about 5 hours and didn't get home until 3:00am or so. I heard from them this morning and they had rested some.

July 11, 2007

EMILY MAKING ARRANGEMENTS FOR FLIGHT




This morning we drove back to Jackson Hole so that Emily could catch a flight to Fort Worth. It is a long hard drive and I was very tired when I got back. I will stay another week here in Boulder and will go back to pick Emily up next Tuesday.

July 11, 2007

Yesterday, we drove up to Teton National Park. It was about a 250 mile round trip from where we are camped, but was well worth the drive. We had never been there before and the mountains are spectacular. We went through Jackson, Wyoming and stopped for a while. It is a very touristy place and there were lots of people. We walked around town, visited the museum and ate lunch. An interesting note is that the town is named Jackson and the valley in which it resides is called Jackson Hole (originally, it was named Jackson's Hole, but was later changed to Jackson Hole).

Emily got a call yesterday telling her that her Uncle had passed away at 11:00am in Fort Worth. We managed to get her a flight out of the Jackson Hole Airport at 4:35 this afternoon. She will return on Tuesday the 17th. We were originally planning to leave here tomorrow, but I extended for a week.

July 9, 2007

Today we went to the lake and spent the morning on the pontoon boat. The lake is beautiful and the water is crystal clear. We started at 7:00 am and just rode slowly around the shoreline and then stopped in a sheltered cove and ate our lunch. The weather was perfect. The temperature when we started was about 50 degrees but it warmed up quickly and there was very little wind. The boat had a canopy so we could alternate between shade and sun. When we got home we were tired but had had a great time.

July 8, 2007

Our friends from Iowa that were camped next to us for a few days left this morning. They are Leroy and Carole Rodgers and we enjoyed getting to know them and visiting with them.

July 7, 2007

IT REALLY IS AS STEEP AS IT LOOKS



We arrived in Boulder, Wyoming the day before yesterday. The RV park here is Wind River View Campground which is our Coast-To-Coast home park. Even though we are allowed to stay here for two weeks free every year, this is our first time. We are now at about 7000 feet elevation so it is considerably cooler than it was in the Salt Lake City area. This a beautiful area between two mountain ranges with snow on the mountain tops. Yesterday we rested from the 300 plus mile trip here. It was fairly difficult driving due to several steep mountain passes which make pulling the trailer hard. Fortunately, most of the trip amounted to driving fairly level on the high plains.

This morning we got up and drove in to Pinedale which is the nearest town of any size (population approximately 1400). We ate breakfast and then drove around the town and then drove up into the mountains to a beautiful lake. Fremont Lake is supposed to be among the deepest lakes in the US at about 600 feet. While there we made a reservation to rent a pontoon boat for half a day on Monday morning. We got rain this afternoon, so hopefully the weather will be good on Monday.

Last night we met a couple that are camped next to us and had a nice visit. They are leaving in the morning so they invited us to go out to eat with them this afternoon. We went back to the place where we ate breakfast and then came back and visited with them for a couple of hours. Coming in this afternoon we got a picture of the Bald Eagle that has a nest in the campground.

July 5, 2007

We stayed in Springville, Utah for 6 days. It was pretty hot during the day, but cooled off at night. We drove in to Salt Lake City and spent a morning visiting the Temple Square. I had been there many years ago, but it was still impressive. Emily had never seen it. A couple of LDS volunteers took us on a tour. We saw the Chapel, the Tabernacle, the Visitors Center, Brigham Young's home and The Temple. Only LDS members are allowed inside the Temple so we only saw it from the outside.

We drove out to the Great Salt Lake and then went to see the Golden Spike site above Salt Lake City. It was about 100 miles to the site and when we were about 20 miles away we saw a sign that said it closed at 5:30. Since it was then almost 6:00 we turned around and didn't get to see it. Since it was such along drive, we didn't get to go back. A trip to Cabellos took its place. At Cabellos I bought a digital altimeter and compass that has been useful.