YELLOWSTONE

FIRST OF ALL......getting wifi in this part of the woods is almost impossible.  My phone had quit doing data, now it's slow data and no voice.  AT&T sucks here!  It's Aug 9, and I'm currently staying at West Yellowstone, Montana.  I write this, cause I wrote to a word document while driving without internet, and though it'd be simple to cut and paste it into the BLOG when I got internet.  Needless to say, that appears to be a near impossible task.  So, I'm going to publish this without downloading pictures, and then try a 2nd blog entry to get current.  Sorry for the confusion.

Connie


Here it is Tuesday, and I’m just now hitting the keyboard. As a matter of fact, we’re driving from Pueblo, Co., to Casper, Wy.. I have not internet, so I’m typing into a word document, and I’ll attempt to cut and paste it into my blog later tonight


Here are a few pictures from Sheila’s birthday. Not many, but considering I forgot my camera, I did pretty well.



I got all packed for our 4am departure Saturday morning, and Angie was late. We ended up starting the engine at 6:30 am, only to travel to the nearest McDonalds so we could have breakfast. We actually hit the road at 7am.

We got all the way to just south of Denton and stopped at the Destiny RV Park to dump the black and grey holding tanks. It was our first attempt ever. Are you ready for this? Gary and I actually did it without any cross words. Yes, it went that smoothly. After that, it was serious driving. We drove the first part of the trip without the generator running. We got 7 mpg. Sorta depressing, but it was actually more than we thought we’d get. Then, it became hot, so we drove with the generator running so we could run the rear air conditioner. That got up 6 mpg. Oh well.

We ran into rain as soon as we got near New Mexico. We decided to spend the night in Raton, NM instead of driving in the rain to Trinidad, CO. As soon as we checked in to the Cedar Rail RV Resort, it quit raining, but it was cold. I mean COLD. We spent the night, and decided we didn’t have enough warm clothes.

As we were leaving, Gary found that we had a flat tire, and a low tire. Both on the rear passenger dual wheel. The resort people got out a compressor and filled both tires, and we headed 11 miles to a Tire Store. Whoops…. Sunday and it’s closed. Walmart was close by, but they don’t have equipment to pull the tires. We got on the internet and the first quote to help us change the tire was $350 for the call and we would be required to buy a tire. WTF? We made more calls, and Angie found one tow company that would pull the tires for only $95. That was a bargain. Walmart could fix the flat, just not pull the tire. We were in the parking lot of Walmart, so it worked out. Ended up we had a bolt in the inside tire, and still don’t know why the outer tire was so low. About 3 hours and $150 later, we were on the road again.

We got to the mountain road to the park where we planned on spending the night. It was a steep mountain road, make that DIRT road, with ruts and loose rock. We’d call it a “washboard” road in Oklahoma. I was driving. It was 4.5 miles of switchback steep road when we arrived at the first campground. We looked at it, and headed up the other mile of steep rough road to the second camp ground. It had nothing but hiking trails to offer. Since it was raining, we decided to stay at the lower one so the kids could at least play in the stream. Back down we go. We got to the second one, and all of the trailers and RV’s around the only open site were families with a zillion kids and 100 or so dirt bikes. Whoops…… we decided to forget it. We headed on down to Cuchura.

We got there, and it was on the quiet side. We ate dinner at the Dog Tavern, it was wonderful. After that, we hit the shops, where we got a couple of items. Then we decided to head to LaVeta to spend the night. We selected the Circle The Wagons RV Park. It was nice. Tons of rabbits wildlife to watch. Deer out the wazoo. Rabbits, baby deer (fawn?), and one fox. It was great. Frank, my step dad, came down Monday and spent the day. He brought his sweetie, Pat, with him. She and I gabbed all afternoon. She used to RV with her husband. Frank bought steaks, and I grilled on the new grill. It worked out great. We had steaks, mac and cheese, and a strawberry spinach salad. We took walks, and lolled around the rest of the night. Franka and Pat headed back to Canon City around 9pm, and we all hit the sack.

Got up this morning, and loaded up. We’re now headed to Casper, where we’ll spend one night at a KOA. Then, tomorrow, we should arrive in Yellowstone. Then, we’ll have a rental car. We sure wished we’d had one in Cuchura. There were some side roads we’d have loved to explore. Next time!

I’m not sure Gary is having as much fun as possible. He does enjoy the girls, but I’m just not sure about the RV’ing. I’m going to wait till it’s all over and see what he thinks. That’s it for now. Here are a few random pictures.