Our Travel Blog

Yet another clear and sunny day, with the wake up temperature at 21°C. We may regret wishing for hotter weather soon, the forecast for the first 5 days at our next stop in Utah is 99, 102, 99, 98, 97 °F. OR 37, 39, 37, 37, 36 °C. I feel sorry for the air conditioner already. The consolation is the humidity, it is low at around 15%

This is our last day here before heading out, it is a 400+ mile trip to the next site, much of it on non interstate roads. Previous experience has shown that a realistic average on these roads is 45-50 mph, with stops for food, gas etc that could be a 10 hour day. We don’t do those any more, at least not with the trailer in tow. So tomorrow will be a hotel night, the chain we stay with sent me 4 $25 gift vouchers to use before September, coincidentally we have 4 more hotel nights between now and home. That brings the price for a night in a motel down to that of a night in a campground.

Today we decided to just laze around, and take a walk into the city of Arco. We also decided to get all the caches in the city, all 3 of them that is! Below is a pictorial visit to the city.

Back in the UK, to be a city you required either a University or a Cathedral. Arco has neither, but it does have 3 auto-parts stores, maybe that’s the requirement here.

Arco’s Claim to Fame

Main Street

Perhaps They’re Trying to Improve Things

Signs Like This Don’t Help !!

We found our first cache in a park, I’ve often talked about caches, but I don’t think I’ve shown any

Above is Lyn holding the cache, the top unscrews and there is a small paper log roll that you sign as proof of finding it.The Cache Back in its Hiding Place

Wasn’t expecting to see a submarine surfacing downtown! Another cache location.

The pronghorn I didn’t get a shot of yesterday!

A Few Horses

We walked 3¼ miles in 30 degree temperatures, should have shed a few pounds. Later in the afternoon I went out to fill up the truck, when I got back I noticed we had just completed 10,000 kms on this trip to date.

We woke up to yet another perfect day, 20°C and clear skies. The campground has filled up a bit for the weekend, but it is still nice and quiet!

After breakfast it was time to head out for some more exploring. Yesterday it was craters, today it will be The Magic Valley. I haven’t been able to find out the reason behind the name, I guess someone somewhere knows, but they’re not telling!

We set off after breakfast complete with packed lunch, it’s not too easy to find eating places out here.

We’ve noticed in many parts of the States that the towns initial is displayed on a hill close by; Arco has gone one, or several, better, the high school graduating class over the last few decades have carved out their graduating year.

The first stop was the MacKay reservoir.

There was a dam associated with the reservoir, together with a small hydro generating station, what was a little unusual was the dam appeared to be a natural one with the water exiting via man made tunnels, as shown in the above two pictures.

Looking down on the outflow.

Moving on from the dam we stopped for our first cache of the day at Leatherman Peak, this is Idaho’s second highest mountain, the highest is a few miles down the toad and about 400 ft higher

Further along the road Lyn spotted a solitary deer, this was different to previous ones we had seen. In particular it was much smaller.

This was a pronghorn deer, unfortunately this one had no horns. We saw one later on with horns but couldn’t stop in time to take a picture. There is indeed a prong at the top of the horn.

Below is Mt Bhora, 12,662 ft tall.

Next we headed a few miles up a gravel road to the site of a recent (1985) 7.3 magnitude earthquake. After the Walmart parking lot picture a few weeks ago, I figured I’d post the opposite rule here.

Below is a picture of the area where the ‘quake took place, the land here dropped 7.5 ft as a result.

Around the area we found a few more species of flowers

Next stop lunch, with the obligatory lunchtime view.
The valley was a mixture of land types, some areas were not cultivated at all, but consisted mostly of sage brush, you can see some in the lunch view picture above. They are the individual little bushes.

Other areas were given over to growing animal feed and other crops. There were also a number of horses in fields, and numerous cattle farms. There were a number of calves in the fields as well.

One thing I noticed many years ago when I frequently flew to LAX was the huge number of green and golden circles on the land below. I hadn’t really given them much thought until recently. They are fields of crops defined by the area that is watered. No water, no crops. The watering is done by long pipes mounted on wheels that rotate about a pipe supplying the water.

The system above only has two sections, in the larger fields they were 15 sections long!

After last nights calorie loaded dinner, its back to a simple BBQ and salad. Now the weather has picked up we can eat outside. Life is good!

Another warm sunny morning. Today we headed off to the moon, well the craters of the moon. This is a National Historic Preserve, first time we have come across one of them.

We headed out to the area, about 20 miles away, and pulled into the information centre parking lot where we came across a rather unique trailer.

The couple were from Colorado, touring around.

The craters of the moon is an area of volcanic disturbance and has a unique landscape as well as a few volcanic craters. Again I’ll let the pictures do the talking. There were a lot of unique flowers growing out of the volcanic soil,

Lyn managed to spot a marmot on one of the rocks

The area was laid out as a driving loop with a number of parking areas and walking loops running from these parking areas. All walking trails had information at the beginning.

Seems a little overkill, but I am sure there is a good reason for posting the info.

We were able to go to the top of a couple of volcanoes and peer down the rims, these volcanoes were only about 100ft high!

This one was known as Snow Cone, as there was an accumulation of snow in the core.

Another cone we walked up was Inferno Cone, but there was no crater at the top of this one, just a steep walk up and down, with some views from the top, the walk wasn’t as long as the one the other day where we dropped 600 ft, but the slope was twice as steep. A good cardio work out.

Many of the rocks had bright coloured patches on, this was lichen

Below is today’s lunch time view

The rest of the shots are just general views around the area

Back at the campground we tried Skyping Paul as it was our grandsons 2nd birthday, but they were too busy celebrating at Boston Pizza. Not to be outdone we headed over to the cafe associated with the campground, which was rumoured to serve up excellent ribs. The rumour was true!

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.