The road to Dinosaur Mountain

Flaming Gorge was a rainy two days.  The ride there was reasonably tame and the campground hosts greeted us beautifully.  We hunkered down and enjoyed the rain with outings to a nearby resort who put together a temporary shelter for our great chili cook off.  We were beautifully hosted at the Flaming Gorge pine forest rv park.

As usual I had some trepidation about the ride to the next destination, knowing we had ten switchbacks to negotiate.  The beauty of being in a caravan is that we followed three other airstreams and were followed by one as well.  We also use CB's to communicate enroute.  The good news is it was easily negotiated at a very slow speed and I wasn't even scared.

It was one of the shorter distances between two venues at 66 miles and an hour and twenty minutes.  The new campground is wonderful.  Dry camping, but often that is where the best views and sites are I am learning.

I opted to take the afternoon off of the group activity of seeing dinosaur bones and cook a nice meal, take a walk and knit.  It worked really well for me.

Here are some of the views that I took during the drive.  The skies here have been so dramatic.

During one of the TEN S curves on the way down the mountain we came along this river.

I especially like it when there are guardrails!

Two photos of what look like red painted rocks.  Very pretty stuff.

Tomorrow we are off to Grand Junction, about a three hour drive and a three day stay which is always nice.  We'll have two free days, one of which we are using to attend a local wine festival.

This trip has been exhilarating!

Last day in Jackson

We had a group breakfast at Dorman, chuckwagon style which I am guessing means outdoors.  Fortunately I had my down jacket in the car and thoroughly enjoyed a Wyoming french toast breakfast, two eggs over easy and crisp bacon!  A great start to the day.

A little further up the road we traveled to Jenny Lake and opted for the Hidden Falls trail.  This could be accomplished by a 5 mile round trip hike or......a shuttle boat and a 2 mile road trip.  We chose the shuttle boat which was very scenic.  I did however where my 'cute' hiking boots!

these were both from the boat ride

and this was the top of the hike with the hidden falls

We also stopped at the Teton Pass visitor center where I was able to obtain my senior national park pass.  These are available at the age of 62 and grant you the ability to enter all national parks for free!  A nice perk for being 62.

Jackson Wyoming

We arrived midday in Jackson and got settled into our rv park home for the next four days.  Unlike Madison where we had much distance between campsites, here we are all in a row, or several rows actually, which makes a good photo op.  We're also at the foot of a mountain covered in pines which makes a nice backdrop.

Just a few of the 26 rigs we are traveling with!

Getting ready for our 'float' down the snake river.  We had a choice of white water rapids or the gentler, drier float and we picked the float.  Having once been dumped on a white water raft I have no desire to repeat the experience.

Here was the second of the two boats.  The scenery was spectacular.  The weather was perfect, and lunch at the end was delicious!

This is Nick who was our guide.  He did both white water and floats down the snake river in the summer and is a ski instructor in the winter.  In between seasons he visits his older brother in Venice Beach California.  I'd say he's living the good life.

and in between adventures I'm still managing some beading time.  My goal is a pair of earrings in each venue, we shall see.  These were accomplished on my 'trailer day' in Madison.   

Today we're off to downtown Jackson to explore!

Madison Wyoming in Yellowstone

I left you after Fillmore where we stayed in a nice park that was mainly for off road vehicles and every RV had 1 or 3 and the park was filled with 6 year olds driving these ATV's.  But despite that we parked next to another couple who we enjoyed spending time with, lots of similarities!

Day three had us driving through Utah and spending the night in Pocatello.  The 'campground' was lets just say rustic with 12 spots, but we did pull up along side a river and with only 3 other RV's it was a quiet night.  The temperatures were heading downward but we stayed nice and warm in cozy in our airstream.

Day four is where the excitement was due to start as we finally joined up with the caravan.  We had a leisurely drive through pretty country and entered Yellowstone through the West gate, traveling 11 more miles to Madison campground.

This was our first venture into dry camping and we did fairly well, watching our water tanks, and charging our battery as needed.  We were not expecting internet and cell service to be virtually non existent but it was a fine thing.  The natural beauty was awe inspiring and we spent the day meeting up with 52 other caravaners.

Everyone made us feel incredibly welcome and were happy to share knowledge and make us feel comfortable as first time caravaners.  Many have done more than ten caravans and several of the group also lead caravans.

On day two of Madison we drove to Mammoth to listen to Jim Halfpenny speak on the carnivores of Yellowstone.  Wolves were his particular speciality and I was surprised to learn that the lifespan of a wolf who makes it past 6 months is still only about 4 years.

He also talked about one of the great animals that are impossible to miss.  Often they come right up to the road and you must proceed cautiously.  This group was on our way out of the park.  I liked the geyser backdrop.

We followed up Mammoth with a visit to Old Faithful as I might have been embarrassed to have been in the park and had to say I hadn't seen it.  I must say it was spectacular.  I have a 2 minute video but no still.  It was definitely worth seeing.

I took advantage of a 'trailer day' as I'm informed the lingo is.  I skipped a planned outing that Mark went on, and I sat in the trees, gentle breeze surrounding me, peacefully quiet and very pretty and I beaded all day.  What a treat!  this was the result of my 'trailer day'

This is our official caravan photo!   This group does things right with a notebook which contains a photo of each couple along with a myriad of information about each days activities.

We'll be in Jackson now for 4 days and start out with a group dinner this evening at a nearby restaurant.  Tomorrow is a float trip which sounds refreshing (it's hot here....the day started at 29 degrees and is now 78)  Then we'll be free to explore and it looks the like kind of town I'd like exploring in.

Day Two of the Rocky Mountain Adventure

And an update....read below first if you haven't already....We pulled into the Utah KOA and our Rv neighbors said 'hey were you in Las Vegas last night at the Oasis?  Well yes we were...so obviously we had traversed the same route so I had to ask...'what did you think of that pass with the roadwork?' This well seasoned RV'er pulling a trailer said ' that was some scary passage' So I felt both vindicated and calibrated.....this was indeed maybe some of the scariest stuff we will face.  Turns out our neighbors were from near San Diego and had a lot of similarities.


We left the Las Vegas Oasis park at 7:15 a.m. for what we thought was going to be shorter drive but according to the gps lady we would arrive at 1:09 p.m. very close to yesterdays time.  We puzzled about that and set off and mid way through the trip discovered that the analog clock said 11:15 while the digital watch said 12:15.....time change, our first and we totally forgot about it.

The morning cloud formations were beautiful, which is great because the beauty is a counter balance for my fear......and today was scary for me.  You may have gathered from previous posts, I'm the chicken in the family, the scaredy cat, the fretter.......I can rationally tell myself all is well, and I am happy I'm  out here challenging my fears, but yep, I'm a little tad anxious. So....first the beautiful scenery.

I drove for a couple of hours yesterday and today I announced I'd take a turn.  All was well, nice wide 2 lane roads, some gentle curves and smallish grades no sweat and then.....Well I need to preface it with I have had a recurring nightmare since I was young.  I take a wrong turn while lost and end up on a scary windy high road to nowhere.  I'm sure there are plenty of dream interpretations for this, and they are probably very revealing, but I've not had the dream for quite a while which I interpret as having arrived at being mostly comfortable in my own skin.  So I'm driving along and it's clear there are some mountains and it's always a bit hard to tell, are we hugging the foothills or going through, is there a canyon we don't see yet....no, it was a pass and there I was on it.  No problem, I can do this, people do all the time right?  Then it gets a bit curvier and a bit steep and then there is roadwork!  It is one lane wide, it's high, it's curvy and there is a jersey barrier on both sides.  It's my nightmare and I'm driving.  There is nowhere to pull over of course and there is nothing to be done except to avoid the full on panic attack I thought was approaching.  I asked Mark to just talk to me calmly, tell me we were fine, it was ok to go slow......well we made it of course.  It was about 2 miles of sheer panic and once I had two lanes again I thought, heck I can do this, THIS is easy.  Which is about the only upside of the experience.  This is day two, I suspect we'll have more uncomfortable (for me) moments, but I'm betting the good experiences will far outweigh them.

I relinquished the wheel soon after and sat back to relax and take a couple of more photos.

We're staying in Fillmore which apparently used to be the capital of Utah.  Hard to tell it now.  But it's the type of campground I like....gravel with lawn and trees between RV's.  I look forward to the desert sky tonight and the cooler temps.  It's currently 82 but that's substantially down from yesterdays 99.  We're enjoying a breeze and an afternoon off.  I'm about to decide whether to bead or knit and if it's knitting which shawl will I knit?

We're on our way! Day one

We left at 7:00 a.m. which is our about our usual start time when we have several hours to travel.  We're both morning people, so once we're up we just go ahead and do the required work and hit the road.  We usually have a target in mind, and we usually come pretty close.

We divided the trip from San Diego to Yellowstone  into 4 relatively leisurely drives.  Today ended up being six hours to the first stop in Las Vegas.  Our driveway in Lemon Grove, ready to go!

Somewhere near Temecula we saw three hot air balloons.  It was rather grey without a whisper of wind so they kind of went straight up and then down.  I've never been brave enough to fly in one so I don't know if that would be disappointing or not.  I prefer to appreciate their charms from the ground.

The ride was traffic free with the exception of one small backup after the 215 and 15 merged.  It's hot here, hovering between 95 and 99 all afternoon.  This made a dip in the pool quite refreshing.  We followed that with dinner out and then some downtime.  We want to arrive at the next destination, Holden Utah, pre lunch so we'll likely be taking off between 7:00 and 7:30 again for what looks like a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive.

Poor Miss Maya has a new training regime.  She prefers to be cuddled next to me as close as possible.  Which means every time I want to get up I have to negotiate.....so she now has a bed on the floor, within two feet of me and I'm training her to use that instead of the couch.  She does get to sleep in our bed at night so she's not terribly mis treated.  Also since we are likely to encounter some rainy days in our travels, we'll keep the couches cleaner if she's not allowed up.  

We've found the majority of RV parks have dismal to non existent wifi and this one despite their pamphlet to the contrary is no exception.  We have a mifi so we can use that, but being data constrained is very limiting!

The interior

As we continue to prepare for our first long outing, I continue to fine tune what we'll take and how to keep things really simple.

Yesterday I described the benefit of the twin bed option we chose, so here you have a photo.  I love the way the eye travels the entire length of the trailer.  The rug is a new one that can be picked up to shake out.  Rugs we've learned are a magnet for campground dirt and really mostly in the way, but I do appreciate having one when I step out of the shower, so this one will likely be rolled up in the shower until it's needed.  The only other one that truly makes sense is a doormat size just inside the door to wipe feet.   I'm trying to initiate a no shoe zone once in the airstream but am being met with resistance.

These hooks are handy for the dog leash, dog bags, keys and….a hotel room key?  The gaskets on the windows tend to stick when they've been closed awhile.  Mark has treated them, but  they do still stick occasionally.  The best tool (I've been informed a knife is not an appropriate tool) is a credit card or hotel room key.  I found a generic, no advertising hotel room key and punched a hole in it so it will always be handy and we won't need to find purses or wallets to open a window.  Sometimes it's the little things.

 A little decorative Washi tape, an idea I adopted from one of my favorite airstream blog reads, just 5 more minutes.  

Three more days!  Food has been cooked and frozen, things that require packing are being staged in the dining room, important papers are being collected and organized and the excitement is building.