Our Travel Blog

OK, thinking up titles is getting difficult!

For the first time on this trip we didn’t need the fire on in the evening or over night. We woke up to partial sunshine and a temperature of 17°C…… bliss! We are still pretty high up at 5200 ft, but a little further south. Added to that there is a very strong SW wind blowing today bringing up warm Mexican air.

Below is the view from the dining table at this site.

This morning we hung around the trailer doing very little. The temperature climbed to 26°C, unheard of on this trip! So warm I braved shorts for the first time this year. After lunch we took a short trip out into the middle of nowhere to visit the worlds first breeder reactor to provide electricity. I guess it was located out here in the middle of nowhere just in case……

The site was started in the late ’40s and produced its first electricity in 1951. In 1963 Arco, where we are now, was the first city (well small town really) to be provided with nuclear power.

The pictures show the control room, no monitors, no LCD’s everything was large.

Above are the names of the staff at the site written with chalk on the wall of the building. This is protected today within a glass case.

The staff here also experimented with a nuclear powered aircraft engine, I guess they didn’t follow through with the project. Overall this was a worthwhile and  interesting visit.

We headed back to town where I wanted to get an oil change for the truck, with our recent experiences I don’t want to take any avoidable risks, we were already 86 kms beyond the recommended change time!!!

Being a small town there weren’t too much choices as where to go. The first place we found had closed down, the second place wanted $90 plus the cost of the oil and the filter, they didn’t get my business! The last place quoted $80 all in. They provided the best overall oil change I have ever seen. Apart from the oil and filter, all fluid levels were checked, including the rear diff. All parts that needed lubrication were lubricated and all tyre pressures, including the spare were checked. Most impressed.

Tomorrow we are off to the moon.

CORRECTION (maybe)

There may have been a mis-indentification of some animals in previous blogs. What I thought were mule deer may well be elk. If any one can confirm one way or the other please let me know.

These photos should have been posted yesterday, however in our rush to pack stuff to take from the trailer to the hotel I didn’t pack a suitable USB chord.

I jacked up the trailer to release it from the truck and the operator pulled the truck forward and onto the bed of the tow truck with a winch. A fifth wheel coupler was then added to the boom at the back of the tow truck, and the trailer connected up.

Above is us just arriving at the dealership before anything was off-loaded. Our first (and hopefully last) ride in a tow truck.

Finished up spending the night in a hotel, not the worlds cheapest at about twice the rate we normally pay. We were lucky as, after explaining our predicament, they were happy to extend our check-out time from 11 AM to mid afternoon if we needed it.

Woke up to a sunny day and an included hot breakfast, good for me, bad for Lyn! Lyn is trying to shed a few more pounds, while much to her annoyance I have lost too many pounds, and am trying to keep the weight steady.

I checked in with the dealership, and the good news was that they were working on the truck. It should be ready by mid afternoon provided a road test doesn’t reveal any additional internal damage. My original assessment was correct, the hoses carrying the transmission fluid from the gearbox to the front radiator had self destructed. As I had stopped the truck within a few seconds of the problem occurring I was fairly certain I had limited the damage caused.

With nothing better to do we headed off to find a couple of geocaches. Only problem was, the GPS was back at the trailer and although I could have used the phone, it was out of charge and the cable was back at the trailer! Plan B, get the coordinates of the caches, enter them into google earth, remember the image and go hunting. It worked, we got about one and a half miles walking in and found two caches. One cleverly disguised as an Idaho potato!

After the walk we headed back to the hotel for some time in the hot tub and pool. By the time we got dried off it was time to phone the dealership again. The truck was ready. As this was a dealership the price was way more expensive than you would expect for “a couple of hours labour and some parts”, unless the labour rate down here is $250 per hour. Anyway it had to be done, hence the title of the blog which seems to be my favourite saying these days. Previously my favourite saying was “What are they going to do, fire me?” Well we all know how that transpired!!

We grabbed some lunch, hooked up the trailer and headed off 24 hours late. In a lot of respects this was a good place for this to happen (if there ever is a good place for this type of thing) as we really didn’t have too much planned for our next destination, Arco Idaho.

I must admit to being a little nervous every time I accelerated up a hill, waiting for the lines to blow again! We took this picture as we passed the “incident” site, it was easy to find as I had marked the position on the GPS and also the large oil stain on the hard shoulder was a bit of a give away. As you can see it is a little remote.

We made it to the camp site, which is a little less remote than the last two…. just. WiFI is good though.

Another sunny wake up. After breakfast we packed up and set out on a short 150 mile trip to the next campsite. We stopped off to pick up some groceries on Rexburg Idaho, then headed off on the last 60 miles to our destination, Arco ID.

All was going well until the truck started shifting gears erratically for no reason at all, then the “check engine” light came on. I coasted to the hard shoulder as there was no power to the wheels, although the engine was working fine. A little investigation came up with nothing obvious, other than we weren’t going anywhere soon.

A check outside gave a fairly obvious clue, transmission fluid was leaking from the radiator area! Time to phone the towing company. After a few mix ups on their end, they finally got a tow truck out to us. Our truck was pulled onto the bed of the tow truck, and the trailer hooked up behind, and we headed back to Rexburg.

Luckily the dealer there had a secure area where the trailer could be left, and they had a shuttle service we could use to get to a hotel. Now all we have to do is wait! I am hoping it is just a split in the rubber hose that takes transmission fluid to the cooler, as all the leakage appeared from the front of the truck where the radiator is. If that is the case then we should be on our way tomorrow.

Again , blue skies for the wake up call, however it was pretty windy out! Today was a cleaning / fix it day. Lyn has been determined to clean the windows inside and out since we moved in. I had a couple of jobs to do on the truck, the air filter holder got damaged when I had the brake lines replaced, so a quick application of duct tape was in order. There has been a very annoying squeak coming from the passenger side of the truck (NO, not Lyn), that we had tracked down to the doors. A few sprays with grease should have quietened that down

Inside the trailer I gave the stove a good cleaning, but in the process managed to knock a small sheet of plastic down behind it. Not wishing to risk the plastic melting / smelling /igniting, the stove had to be removed. Once I had access down the back I founded the plastic, and also 6 US quarters! We’re rich, at today’s exchange rate that must be at least a million dollars Canadian!

After lunch we went for a walk along a side road that led to a lake behind the campground, although the temperature was around 18°C, the strong winds made it feel a lot cooler. Hopefully this will be the last of the cool weather for a while, tomorrow we head south 100 miles or so, and down 2000 ft. The forecast at our next destination is in the 28-32°C. We’ll soon be complaining that it is too hot!

I started a little packing up outside, but as we are in no great rush to depart tomorrow, most of it can be done then. While I was doing that Lyn was whipping up another quilt!

Next job, fill in the census!

Next stop Arco ID.

Finally…. the weather is improving. Sunshine and blue skies this morning, and warmer temperatures. After breakfast we headed back to Yellowstone Park. The line up to get in was far, far greater than a couple of days ago, the long weekend and good weather has brought out the crowds.

Today we were heading to the north end of the park to see Yellowstone’s version of the Grand Canyon. Very quickly it became obvious that on our last visit we were lucky to see so many bison, many of them close up. Today we saw far less, and most of them off in the distance.

Our first stop was at the canyon, where there were a couple of sets of waterfalls, the upper and lower. To get to the lower set we had a short hike downwards! It was ½ mile one way with a 600 ft. drop. Lyn needed a little persuading to make the trip, but it was worth it. All the recent exercise and weigh loss paid off on the return journey, it was a little “tiring” but we both made it back up with no lasting damage. Below are a series of pictures of the falls and the canyon.

Once we regained our breath from the walk up, remember we were 7000 ft up when we started the walk! we headed out towards Mammoth Hot Springs to see the terraces. Shortly after we got moving we hit a traffic jam; traffic moved very slowly but it turns out there was a good reason for this:

This black bear was just munching away on the grass a couple of hundred yards off the road (I love my new camera!)

No sooner had we got moving again we hit another slow down:

This elk was sitting regally in the field, a little further away from the road than the bear was (did I mention I like the new camera?)

We started climbing yet again until we reached Dunraven Pass at 8876 ft. This was a good place to stop for “lunch with a view”.

As you can see we were in snow country.

From here we start descending 2500 ft. into Mammoth Hot Springs. One look at the parking lots here was enough to convince to drive on through to the terraces.

The terraces are large flat areas of travertine rock, which is a form of calcium carbonate. They were originally spring fed pools of water with a high calcium carbonate content, due to the super heated water from underground passing through limestone on its way to the surface. The terraces have been deposited by the spring over many years but, due to recent minor earthquake  activity,^]the spring vent has shifted, rendering the terraces dry.

the last two shots were taken at the base of the terraces.

From here we headed back to the park entrance, spotting a couple of mule deer on the way, note the big ears.

We also managed to find a petrified tree before we left. This particular one was genetically the same as a California Redwood, and is no longer found in this area. Many thousands of years ago, they were very common here until a large volcanic explosion caused a climate change. This explosion also caused a large release of silica which blocked all the pores of this tree, effectively turning it to stone.

This was the end of our trip to Yellowstone ….. it was well worth it. If you get the chance to visit, take it.

We missed out morning view of the mountain while we were eating breakfast, the campground had filled up quite a bit since we first arrived. We were surprised to see a few people who had been here since we had arrived leave this morning; we figured that they had set up early for the long weekend.

We spent a leisurely morning doing odds and sods around the trailer, as well as replacing a bulb on the truck. Lyn finished a jig-saw puzzle she had been working on for the last week or so and I did some e-Bay investigating for stuff I want to buy down here. Even with the lousy exchange rate, some things are still cheaper here. When Lyn checked her e-Mails she was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the quilts she had made was sold from a store in Osgoode. Now she has to figure out how much material she can buy with the proceeds!

After lunch we headed off around the local area, in particular a loop route around Lake Henry, the large lake just behind the campground. Idaho seems to be full of fishermen fisher-people and ATV’s. It also seems that you can setup your trailer just about anywhere you want. Many areas of grassland just off the road had trailers setup, and the number is increasing as the week-end progresses. Sorry, I still prefer somewhere that I can get electricity, water and sewer services on demanding….. ah the joys of glamping (glamorous camping I believe). With all the trees around this part of the world it is not surprising that there are a large number of log homes, some of them quite ornate looking.

We also intended to find a number of the local caches on this tour, although we did find 5 we missed a few due to the local mosquito population. Admittedly I have never been in Northern Ontario during the peak of mosquito season, but what I saw today was enough to put me off venturing outside the truck at a couple of locations.

Back to Yellowstone Park tomorrow.

High overcast this morning when we woke up. The plan today was to fix a couple of maintenance issues in the trailer.

After breakfast I did a little work on the TV / Audio system. The electric lift that raises the TV  from behind the fire kept stalling on the way up, the system needed a good clean and then some lubrication. Job 1 done. Next was repairing a video cable that had got damaged when the lifting system pinched it. Last job was to work on the kitchen sink taps, there was a build up of mineral deposits inside the housing which stopped the tap body from rotating (tap = faucet).

After lunch we headed south to take a trip along the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway. Shortly after leaving we ran through a heavy rain / sleet shower, why didn’t we go on the trip this morning? We were originally going to do the route from south to north, i.e. the scenic part on the way home, but having got clear of the squall we decided to reverse the route. This was a good move.

The route lived up to its name, it was scenic. Initially it was pine woods, but then opened up into  meadows and farmland. The first stop was at the Upper Mesa Falls, the weather was holding it was dry and warm(ish). I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Perched on top of the rock above was a bird enjoying a snack, any idea what the bird is?

Sorry about the rain drops above!

The orange patches above were caused by a volcanic explosion may thousands of years ago, the magma was expelled at such a speed it took on the consistency of dust, when it landed on the rock face it solidified.

We then drove a couple of miles down the road to the Lower Mesa Falls

This time we were high above the falls rather than level with them. As we walked back to the truck the heavens opened up again, another short sharp shower. We continued to the end of the route, passing acres of potato fields. At the end of the route was the town of Ashton where we stopped for a coffee before heading back up to the campground. Once on the main road, the rain started again. This time it was heavy enough to force a reduction in speed, and lasted most of the way home. Had we done the route as we had originally intended we would either have seen nothing or got soaked to the skin (and probably have seen very little due to the poor visibility).

Back at the campground the rain had eased, and the camp ground had filled up with a lot more trailers. Unfortunately we have lost our mountain view from the dining table as we now have neighbours. This is the memorial day weekend in the States which seems to be the unofficial start of summer and the camping season.

Woke up to a cool, but sunny morning. I guess cool is relative in some ways. Temperature decreases with altitude and we are about 7000 ft up, this means the temperature here is approximately 10°C cooler than it would be at sea-level, so our wake up temperature of 10°C would be a balmy 20°C at sea level.

Breakfast, with a view:

Once we had eaten we headed off for a three State trip. We started out in Idaho, crossed into Montana after about 10 miles, then about fifteen miles after that we entered Wyoming. Of course we had to pick up some caches along the way, among them was our first Montana cache, which was also my 400th.

Today’s destination was Yellowstone National Park. Again, thanks to our friend’s, Alan & Marie, donation of their National Parks pass from last years Alaska trip, we were able to save on the $30 entrance fee! It seemed we had picked a good day weather wise for a change, we had good visibility, blue skies and warmth!

The title is borrowed from a comment Lyn and I made to each other when touring S. Africa. In one particular area, there were zebra everywhere, hence the phrase “Not another bl**dy zebra” Today was similar if you replace zebra with bison. They wander freely throughout the park, along the road, on the road and crossing the road. We pulled off into a lay-by when we saw other cars ahead doing the same thing. There were three bison walking along the edge of the road, they passed within 6 ft. of the truck.

A little farther along we spotted a calf.

We headed off around the park and got our first view of geo-thermal activity in the distanceThere are a number of these areas around the park, consisting of geysers, steam vents, bubbling water and “glugging” mud.

The first area we stopped at was called Fountain Paint Pots, the water was deep and clear with a vivid blue colour

Also in this area was the Red Spotter, one of the “gurgling mud” holes.

Moving further down the road we came across the Grand Prismatic Pond

Here 4000 gallons of boiling water flow into the Madison River every minute.

Next stop lunch, we’ve had a picture of Breakfast with a View, so here is Lunch with a View.

Next stop on the tour is what Yellowstone Park is famous for, Old Faithful. This geyser erupts every 92 minutes ± a bit.

Below is the start of the eruption

and this is it in full swing. We had to wait about 45 minutes for Old Faithful to do its thing, during which time it started to rain. We weren’t sure whether to wait it out, or leave. We decided to wait, which was the right decision. The show went on for about 8 minutes and was quite spectacular.

We were also lucky enough to catch sight of another geyser erupting, this one blows randomly, sometimes twice a day, other times once a week.

As we headed back to the park entrance we stopped at a spot we missed earlier, Black Sand Basin.

The last picture is of the Sunset Pool.

We headed out of the park into the town of West Yellowstone to get a few groceries that we couldn’t find locally. Guess what, the town also had a quilt shop! We picked up another cache on the way home, and got back to the trailer after a long and pleasurable trip.

See Lyn, I didn’t mention Chinese tourists once!!

We had a few flashes of lightning and some showers last night, unfortunately the showers continued throughout the day, but it was an improvement over the rain of the last few days.

After breakfast we settled down to the luxury of reading our e-mails! Isn’t WiFi wonderful. It seems to work pretty well here. I managed to get all the pictures added to the previous blog entries, so I am now up to date.

Mid morning we headed out to get our weekly shopping, and also to refill one of the propane tanks. When we asked at the office we were told one of the gas stations had started up a small convenience store, but if we wanted a better selection there was another store just 30 miles south! I think the nearest “real” stores are about 85 miles away. We got to the store, and it was pretty good, a little lacking in fresh fruit and veg, but the necessities were there, and at a reasonable price.

When we got back Lyn headed over to the laundry and I put the propane tank back in the trailer (I got the better job!).

After lunch we headed out for a walk, coincidentally there happened to be a geo-cache about ¾ mile away. Lyn found the walking a little harder than usual, we thought it may be due to lack of exercise over the last couple of days, then we twigged… altitude! We are 6700 ft above sea level, so I am sure that may have something to do with it. We’d better get in training as Tibet is 12,500 ft above sea level.

We really are quite isolated here, as the picture of the camp ground shows. (The campground is where the little blobs of white are behind the trees)

Below is a view from the campground

and a view of the lake behind the camp ground.