We continued north on U.S 89 to Thayne, Wyoming and the Star Valley Resort and RV Park.  This place is RV Nirvana.  Large pull throughs, full hookups, a large clubhouse, a store, a golf course and it is Coast to Coast.  Star Valley is owned by the same folks that own Star Valley RV Park in Apache Junction, AZ where we stayed back in late March. We pulled in along with the Emonds and registered for a three nights.  Rich and I immediately grabbed our golf clubs and headed for the course.

Being Macho kinda guys, we decided to use our pull carts and walk 18 holes.  Things were going well for the first 9 holes, but then I started to get really tired.  On 14 I told Rich I had enough and slowly walked by to the rig.  When I got there, I checked my GPS and found out that we were sitting at 6200 feet elevation!  No wonder it was to tough to walk that course.  Rich finished up with a single that we met out on the back 9 and when he got back I told him what the elevation was.  He was amazed and also decided that might be the reason he was struggling for breath too!

One afternoon, we drove to the Field of Dreams, a pizza place just down the road from the park.  I promised the two teenagers who waited on us I would publish their pictures, so here are Becky and Sandy.  This place served great food and they had a miniature golf course made with real grass! 

The next day we opened our curtains to snow falling.  It snowed for most of the weekend with the temperature staying just high enough to keep it from accumulating.  Needless to say, we stayed inside most of the weekend.  We did go out for lunch and breakfast at the Cheese Factory in Thayne.  Libby and I drove back to Afton to take pictures of the Elk Antler arch that crosses the main road in the middle of town.  Before you get upset that someone killed all of these Elk, the antlers were picked up at an Elk reserve near town as they were shed each year. 

Sunday night, I got terribly sick and spent the night trying to decide whether I was going to see the morning.  (ok, so I wasn't that sick, but it sure felt like it)  By midday on Monday I had recovered somewhat, but we had to extend our stay another day at Star Valley.  Rich and Diane decided to stay also since the weather didn't look so good toward Yellowstone.  (we found out from the Holders that they had three inches of snow on Monday morning).

By Tuesday, I felt much better and we all headed for Yellowstone.  We took the scenic route through Teton National Park.  When we entered Yellowstone, we headed for the Fishing Bridge RV park.  The cost at this park is $30 a day for full hookups, but it was worth it.  The Holders were there along with our old friend Hawk Milner.  We had a grand reunion with all of them.

Grand Teton NP
This is the second time Libby and I have been to Yellowstone and actually the third time I have been there.  In all of those trips, we had never seen a bear in the park.  Not this time.  We managed to snag views of four grizzly bears during our week at the nation's first National Park.  The first one was a big male who was feeding on a bison carcass in the river just north of Fishing Bridge.  He was out there at least three of the days we were in the park.  Of course, this created a big traffic jam and folks were all over the place.  Some of them were down at the river's edge about 10 to 15 feet from the bear.  I guess some of these folks think they are at Disney and the animals are animatronic!  Of course, the park Rangers came along and chased  them back to the road after the bear charged them !

Our next bear encounter came the next day as we were driving the toad south from Mammoth Hot Springs.  We were about 5 miles north of the Norris basin campground when we came upon an animal jam.  For those of you who have never been to Yellowstone, an animal jam consists of a bunch of crazed people who ignore the park rules, leaving their vehicles parked in the middle of the road, doors open, to jump out and view or shoot pictures of wildlife.   The size of this tie up told us that it must be a bear and being herd creatures ourselves, we also jumped out of the car and grabbed the camera.  The event was caused by a sow grizzly bear with two cubs who was meandering up a hillside about 100 yards from the road.  She was walking slowly up this hill and all of a sudden accelerated, jumping over a fallen tree and pouncing on something.  There was a blood curdling scream and we realized that the grizzly had just killed an Elk calf that was hidden behind the tree trunk.  Her cubs bounded up to partake of dinner, while the cow elk, whom we had not seen before, approached.  She had been trying to lure the bear away from her calf, but to no avail.  While it was sad for the elk cow and calf, it was like watching the Wild Kingdom in real life.  The only thing missing was Marlin Perkin's narration.  A ranger late told us that the sow grizzly bears take about one calf a day each.  Luckily for the elk herd, there are not many grizzly bears and the elk herd is very large this year due to a fairly mild winter.    

One day we almost had a moose as a hood ornament as we were driving north from Canyon Junction over the Dunraven Pass.  She darted across the road in front of us.  Even though our Tracker sits pretty high, it is still a small vehicle.  We were looking at lots of moose leg and knee as she crossed in front of us.  Later that same day, we spotted a wolf along side the road wearing a radio collar.  Of course, we saw hundreds of bison and elk in the park.
 

One of the really interesting events or outcomes of a natural event in Yellowstone is the aftermath of the 1988 super fires that burned about a third of the park.  Local and national news reporters were condemning the park service for letting these fires get out of control.  There is no doubt that the park looks quite different than it did in the late 80s when Libby and I were there the last time.  However, the burned areas have recovered nicely and are covered with thousands of new trees about 6 to 8 feet tall.  It turns out that the Yellowstone areas have these super fires about every 250 to 300 years and they are just  a natural part of the ecosystem.  All sorts of good growth and new life has sprung up in the burned areas.  In another 10 to 20 years, the old trees will all be down and the new growth will be much taller. The cycle of life goes on!

Since we were meeting several sets of friends in Yellowstone, we all agreed to meet at the Fishing Bridge campground. This is the only full hook up park inside Yellowstone.  It cost us $30 a night there, far more than we normally spend for a site, but overall, we probably spent less money in Yellowstone than we would have in a commercial campground, since there wasn't a lot of other stuff to spend money on!    Besides, all the natural beauty and wildlife are worth far more than we spent on camping fees.

Of course, no visit to Yellowstone would be complete without a couple of shots of Old Faithful.  The following pics took about two minutes to go from no geyser to full eruption.

On Tuesday, the 12th, we left Yellowstone via the west entrance and West Yellowstone, Montana.  We debated on whether to leave that day because the weather service was predicting snow.  We decided to head out and try to get to a lower altitude before the snow hit.  Hawk Milner had left a few days before that, headed for a rendezvous with a caravan traveling to Alaska.  The Holders left on Saturday, headed for Cody and the Emonds left when we did, also headed for Cody, WY.

We turned north on U.S. 191 and started north toward Bozeman, Montana.  It rained on us most of the day, but the scenery was spectacular as we skirted the western side of Yellowstone and drove through the Gallatin Mountain Range.  We had lunch at a pull out along side a very scenic river, watching rafters float down in the very cold air and I am sure extremely cold water.
We eventually picked up I 90 just west of Bozeman and turned west.  As we were driving through western Montana, we started seeing some strange colors on the hill tops.  Pretty soon we came  up to the crest of a hill and there it was.  Ice and snow all over the interstate!  Bummer.  We slowed down as one can just imagine the consequences of losing control of 14 tons of RV and toad on an icy road.  For several miles, we negotiated the slush on the hilltops.  Then we crossed over the mountain east of Butte and dropped into the valley where I 15 and I 90 cross just west of Butte.  This was kind of neat since we were traveling south on I 15 last summer after we came out of Alaska.  We continued on past Anaconda, MT and stopped for the night at a Good Neighbor Park in Deere Lodge, MT.  We figured we were safe there as the weather service said the snow level was going to be down to 5000 feet and we are about 4400 feet above sea level.  Not true.  About 9 in the evening, it began to snow heavily.  By 11 pm the truckers were coming off the interstate and holding in a couple of truck stops near our campground.  We figured we would be in Deere Lodge for at least a day, but by the time we were ready to go in the morning, it had warmed up enough that most of the snow had melted and the interstate was clear.  We pulled out at our usual 10 to 10:30 am and continued on west.

We made it to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho by mid afternoon, went on to Post Falls to a Flying J to fill up with propane and diesel and then came back about 10 miles to Coeur d'Alene and the Riverwalk RV park, a GNP off of exit 11 on I 90.  This is a small park, with only a few sites suitable for big rigs, but it was clean and quiet.  The park managers were very nice and there is a modem connection in the office.  We spent a week in that park, taking in a couple of movies, a few restaurants and touring downtown Coeur d'Alene.  We also drove over to the west side of Spokane, WA to scout out a place to leave the rig while we flew to Florida at the end of the month.  We settled on the Yogi Bear Resort at exit 272 in Washington.

The Yogi Bear park, while pricey at $33 a night during the week and $38 a night on the weekend, was still a good deal for us.  They only charged us $5 a night while we were gone and we got to leave the rig plugged in.  This brought our weeks cost down to about $20 a night and we got to leave the rig in a secure place while we took our mini vacation.

The first night we were at the Yogi park, Dick and Kaye Ackerman pulled in beside us.  We first met them at the Y2K rally in Texas in 2000 and again in 2001.   They had been somewhere west of us, saw our position on findu.com and decided since they were so close, they would just stop and spend the night where we were.  Rich and Diane Emond had driven their toad over to our park, so the three couples went out to dinner.  It was a lot of fun and it was great to see Dick and Kaye again.

Since we had enough frequent flyer miles left from the w#$% place, we reserved some free tickets to attend our grandtwins third birthday party.  We booked the flight while we were in Earp, CA back in April or May and picked up the tickets while we were in Las Vegas in May.  We chose to fly from Spokane, WA because we could fly real airplanes from there instead of taking a commuter flight from a smaller airport.  We arrived at the airport for our 10:30 flight and boarded a Delta 737 for the first leg to Salt Lake City.  We had a short layover in SLC and then took a 767 from there to Atlanta.  A three hour layover in Atlanta put us on another 767 at 11:30 pm eastern time, getting us into Tampa at 12:45 a.m.  However, since our biological clocks were on Pacific time, we didn't mind the late hour.

We picked up the rental car and headed for the downtown Holiday Inn.  We chose this hotel because we had a coupon for a free companion airline ticket if we stayed with Holiday Inn.  The hotel was right downtown so we hurried inside so we wouldn't get mugged in the parking lot.  As we exited the car we found that someone had left their predigested dinner on the parking lot right next to our car, so we got to wash our shoes off when we got to the room.  A very unpleasant beginning to our weekend!
The next day, we drove over to our daughter and son in law's house and spent the rest of the day playing with the twins.  Being a grandparent is such fun!
 

In the evening, we met Libby's brother and our sister in law for dinner and then returned to the hotel to rest up for the big birthday party on Sunday.

Sunday morning we went back to the kid's house and our oldest son and his wife arrived a little early, so we got to visit with two thirds of our kids for a while. The twins were really excited and in the late afternoon we all headed for the beach and a pavilion that our daughter had reserved for the birthday party.  Now you must understand that our daughter is very involved with a twins group in St. Petersburg, so many of her friends have twins.  The party was attended by several folks with kids, but there were also six sets of twins, all in the three year old range.  It looked like a clone convention!  The kids all knew each other and no trouble telling who was who, but the parents and visitors were not as good at picking up on which kid was which!

The party was a lot of fun and the boys got a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff.

We returned to our kid's house for an hour or so and then went back to the hotel.   On Monday morning, we again journeyed to their house for a couple of hours to play grandparent and then headed for the airport to fly "home".

We left Tampa on a 767 at 1:30 and arrived in Atlanta for our next three hour layover.  Interestingly, the exact plane we flew from Tampa went on to Salt Lake City, but as frequent flyers, or nonrevs as our retired Delta friends the Hammonds call us, we didn't get to take that flight.  We left Atlanta at about 5:30 on a 727.  This time, however, we stopped in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and finally to Salt Lake City.  We laid over in SLC for about an hour and then got on a new 737 for the last leg into Spokane.  We arrived back at our RV about 11:30.  It was quite a day and we managed to be in six airports on our cross country sojourn in one day!

When we got to the RV park, the Emonds were parked next to us.  On Tuesday, we just rested and went to the grocery, but on Wednesday, we were at the Cummins service center that was only a mile or so from our campground for an oil change.  $111 later we all headed back to Couer d'Alene, Idaho where we picked up US 95 for our trip to Kamiah.  We rolled down 95, through Moscow in a driving rainstorm and then we came upon the Lewiston grade.  This is a 7% grade that rolls down into the Clearwater, Snake river valley about 1500 to 2000 feet below the prairie we had been traveling across.   Exhaust brakes engaged, we crept down the grade at about 35 mph and then turned east on US 12 and drove up the Clearwater River canyon.

I have read several articles about the Lewis and Clarke resort in Kamiah, Idaho.  This park is a top rated resort and we thought it would be neat to spend a few days there, especially since it is a C2C park.  We pulled in, paid them with five C2C coupons and drove back to our site.  We had a back in, next to some kind of building.  The next morning, we discovered that the building was a sawmill that starts work at 6 a.m. during the week.  Needless to say, we were awakened at 6 a.m. each morning.  We were looking forward to Saturday, but some clown showed up to start a front loader and drive around the sawmill lot for about an hour on Saturday.  Sunday, thankfully, was quiet.  The resort is not a 5 star resort in my book.  No pads, semi gravel, old,  one modem line in the office that they charge a dollar for 15 minutes.  A dinky pool and a residential hot tub.  I would rate this park as about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5.  We did run into four couple that we know from other places, and we really liked the area, but would not stay at Lewis and Clarke again.

We did a couple of day trips, one to Nez Perce,  up on the prairie above Kamiah.  Nice drive, bad roads.  Both the up hill and downhill routes (two different roads) were gravel, narrow, no guard rails and had very steep drop offs.  Rich was driving, so of course, it was more thrilling than driving yourself.  A fellow passed us on the uphill run, and promptly missed a curve and ran off the road.  Luckily, he was on the mountain side of the road when he went off and was not hurt.

We ate lunch one day at Becky's Burgers in Orifino.  Neat place, a must see.  The sign on their door said "Sorry, we're Open".

Lewis and Clarke was so noisy that we left with one day to go on our C2C coupons and moved to the Pink House BLM campground just downstream from Orifino.  A wonderful park.  Big paved sites, full hookups, fire rings and barbecue grills at each site and right on the south bank of the Clearwater river.  This is the route that Lewis and Clarke took through the mountains.  The cost was $15 for us under 62 folks and they take checks.  If you are over 62 and have either the Golden Age or Golden Access pass, the cost is only $7.50.

We left this park on Monday the 2nd of July and headed back to Lewiston and then Moscow.  We were to meet the Paynes and Hammonds in the Walmart parking lot in Moscow between 12 and 2 pm.  As we pulled into the Flying J in Lewiston to top off our tanks for two weeks of boondocking, there they were just ready to pull away from the pumps.  It was pretty funny and we just caravaned the last 30 miles together, pulling that big Lewiston grade in the uphill side this time.  Six miles of 7% grade is pretty cool.  We climbed about 2,000 feet on that grade. What fun!
 
 

Next month, Life On Wheels and Oregon
 
 
 

Fuel for June                        $    175.51
Campground fees for June    $    486