Our Travel Blog

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.

We woke up at 7 AM, early for us! It was still raining.

After breakfast Lyn set about clearing up the inside of the trailer and I went outside to disconnect the hydro and water. Once that was done it was time to hit the road, we had 402 miles in front of us.

The rain continued for a couple of hours, then started to ease up a bit, for much of the time we were literally up in the clouds,

but as we progressed east from Idaho into Montana things improved, the roads dried and the sun made a few appearances.

Then we saw the dreaded “white stuff”!

As we continued east we climbed slowly to cross the Continental divide, we got as high as 6600 ft. before dropping back down for a while.

We stopped close to the top of the divide to go into the trailer and make some lunch, restaurants are a rarity on this route, as is pretty much any other form of civilisation.

About 100 miles from our destination we left the Interstate and picked up a State road, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this road when I planned out the trip, but it was fine. We maintained the same speed on it as we did on the Interstate. We crossed back int Idaho, and also lost an hour as we crossed from the Pacific time zone  into the Mountain time zone.

We arrived at the campsite about 4:15, having . The site is yet a gain in the middle of nowhere, but has great views AND WiFi. Unfortunately there is now no cell phone service! The internet is sufficient, but they do threaten to limit its bandwidth if you use it too aggressively. In reality I am surprised we have it at all out here!

The rain seemed to have continued overnight, as did the cooler temperatures. It was around 10°C with low overcast at wake-up time. Today is the last day here, despite the weather of the last couple of days the only thing we hadn’t done was a trip to the Wallace silver mine. Given it doesn’t (shouldn’t) rain underground, we headed out mid morning to Wallace about 20 miles east of here.

The tour started in downtown Wallace on an open trolley car that took us to the mine a couple of miles away, at about 8°C now, and continuing rain it was a chilly journey. It turns out that the local area is the largest producer of silver in the world! There are a number of mines in the area, employing around 2500 miners. The silver was discovered back in the 1850’s.

The mine we visited was first started around 1890, but after a number of years digging no silver was found, so it was closed down. It was opened up again around 1960 when a large company took over and dug down a few hundred feet deeper, still no silver. They gave up and the mine was closed again. A mine about 5 miles away dug down to about 5,000 ft. and ran a number of tunnels out. On of these tunnels stretched out under the Wallace mine, where they stuck large deposits of silver together with lead copper and zinc. They had the right location but the wrong depth!

The mine was reopened in the 1980’s and served a class room for high school students. The mining companies were having problems recruiting new miners so a ‘mining’ course was offered to grade 12 students. Successful graduates were guaranteed a job in the industry if they wanted one.

Given the lousy weather we were the only ones on the tour.

We entered the mine via a horizontal tunnel bored into the side of a hill.

One of the first things we saw was the various methods used to stop the roof of the tunnel either collapsing or fracturing. This was achieved by driving long steel rods into the rock, the rods could then be twisted so that their diameter increased (think 12 ft. long wall anchors). These rods were either used on their own or as anchor points for strapping. This strengthening is particularly important here as the mine lies close to four fault lines, and the blasting has been known to trigger small seismic events.

To me this tour was unique, as the tour guide was a miner, and there was working equipment in the mine that he demonstrated. All the equipment in the mine is air operated. Their 12” diameter air hoses operating at over 100PSI put my ½ hose on the air compressor at home to shame, as did the noise generated by these machines compared to the tools I use!

The picture of the miner operating the air drill is a little blurred, I blame it on the noise and vibration caused by the drilling, it was insane.

One of the key indicators to the presence of silver is veins of white quartz.

After the mine tour we had planned a tour of Wallace, as it had some interesting old buildings, unfortunately the weather was not going to cooperate, I got a couple of pictures on the trip back to downtown with a general view,

and a view of the old railway station.

After lunch, and a WiFi fix we headed back to the trailer. As we headed west the rain eased a little, so back at the trailer I prepared it for another early morning departure. The truck is hooked up, sewer disconnected etc., all that needs doing is disconnection of water and hydro.

Next stop is a visit with Yogi and Boo-Boo

The rain that started last night continued through the night. We woke up in the morning and it was still raining.

After lunch it was still raining.

I am sure it will still be raining after dinner. To break the monotony of the rain we drove into Kellogg for some more Wi-Fi infused coffee.

Despite the weather forecast we awoke to a dry and clear day. We had nothing specific in store for today other than a trip into Kellogg to get our internet fix.

After breakfast I set bout re-stringing one of the window blinds, one of the strings broke a couple of days ago and it had just been hanging there waiting for me to fix it. Luckily I had saved the instructions, from a previous fix, on the computer so I was able to get to work without the internet. I recall the first time I did this repair (on a different blind) it was absolute chaos and took a couple of hours. This one was fixed in about 20 minutes, isn’t experience wonderful?

Next it was off to get our internet fix, in reality there was not much we needed, just download e-mails, uploaded the blogs and got some navigation info for the next leg on Tuesday. I have the pictures ready for the blogs, but it is a bit time consuming uploading them and getting them into the blog, so I’ll try to do that next week when hopefully we will have internet in the trailer! I miss the internet more when it comes to looking up info on the spur of the moment, so many times we have said “I’ll just look that up” whoops!

After lunch we headed out for a walk along the cycle path, the weather was looking a little more threatening, but we could do with the exercise. We even managed to find a cache along the route. As we got to the point where we had decided to turn around, the rain started. Drizzle at first, then a more persistent rain after that. At least we got to walk 2¼ miles.

Back at the trailer we dried off and settled into to relaxation mode.

We woke up to a high overcast with the sun threatening to make an appearance. The weather forecast, which we last saw 3 days ago, suggested that today may be the last of the better weather for a while, so we decided to head out on what the tourist guide classes as a Scenic Byway.

Before we started the tour proper we headed off just down the road to the Cataldo Mission. This is a Jesuit Mission built in the 1850’s and as such is the oldest free standing building in the State of Iowa (I think my Grandparents house was older than that!).

It is built on some high ground with a commanding view of the surrounding area.

From here we headed west on the I-90 towards Coeur D’Alene for about 15 miles before turning off to the south onto the scenic byway. It probably sounds boring to you that we just drive around the area, and my writing will certainly not do justice to the scenery, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was a worthwhile trip. The route followed the shores of Coeur D’Alene Lake, which seems to be the week-end home of the wealthy set, although quite where they come from is not clear, the nearest city of any size is Spokane Washington about 60 miles west. Anyway, there were a number of very nice homes built on the shore, or the bluffs overlooking the lake. As we progressed we climbed higher, and got some spectacular views.

We had missed our morning coffee, it was approaching lunch time and the route was going to be a lot longer than anticipated. Unfortunately, not only were we in the land of no electrons, we were also in the land of no anything, then as we turned the corner on a hilly road we saw an old trading post.

We picked up 210 calories worth of a hunger reducing devices each (KitKat and Snickers), as well as a small coffee each. The small coffee was 575 ml (so was the medium and large), “don’t worry” says the assistant, we only sell one size and it only costs $1. It was good coffee as well!

Further around the route we found a small loop that was a wildlife tour, so we headed off along it. Not too long after that Lyn spotted some “swans” in a lake, but they didn’t quite look right. Through the binoculars (and my new camera zoom lens!) we could see that they were more like pelicans than swans, except the only pelicans we had seen before were brown. Back at the trailer we checked the bird book and sure enough they were American White Pelicans.

Further around the loop we saw a number of very large nests atop wooden hydro poles, nothing really unusual about that, except these nests were occupied. Again, reference to the bird book identified the occupants as Osprey

We continued the tour back to the trailer, in places the land changed from mountainous forests to ploughed fields, grazing for dairy cattle and some horse farms. There was no sign of any industry though.

Our luck with caches changed on this trip, and we managed 3 for 3.

After a late lunch back at the trailer, the 2-hour tour took 4 hours, we headed out for a walk along the bike trail into the local town just over half a mile away. The town consists of two restaurants (one for sale), a gas station and a post office.

Back at the trailer I decided I really had to start waxing an polishing the beast. After that the three-day old forecast proved to be right, and the rain started.

We are surviving without the internet so far, although I feel there may be trip to MacDonalds in the offing tomorrow, purely for the coffee you understand!