Monday, August 9

We are home!!!! Most will agree that vacations are great, but it is always good to come home. We have had warm welcomes from our great neighbors and will be planning times with them soon to share stories of our adventures. Curt and Yvonne are spending an extra week in Bishop, CA, just relaxing and winding down before arriving home. We miss them very much and will be happy to have them next door again soon.

Love and thanks to all of you who have faithfully followed our blog. It was fun for us to know that you were tuning in to our travels. We’ll be doing some short trips in the near future (1-2 weeks), so we’ll be in touch and will let you know where and how we are.

Saturday and Sunday, August 7 & 8

These final few days were really tiring because of the winds, but none of this put a damper on our fabulous trip. Our dear friends, Yvonne and Curt, made it the trip of a lifetime for us. We are all, not only still speaking, but are even closer for having had this experience together

Friday, August 6

Ivan battled very strong winds today for 300+ miles. We were both pretty exhausted when arrived at our campsite in Fillmore, Utah. This is the time for decisions. Do we go with our original plan to stop at Mammoth, CA and fish for a couple of weeks, or do we head for home? I had been a bit “under the weather” for the last week (fine now), so we decided that we would fish on the next trip out.

Travel Day to Idaho, Thursday, August 5

We left Yellowstone this morning and drove 215 miles to Village of Trees RV Park in Declo, Idaho. Aaaah! The land of potatoes. The park is situated on the Snake River, which we were hoping to fish; however, it is too wide, too deep, too fast for our kind of fishing. We spent the afternoon catching up on the blog and watching the rain storm.

West Yellowstone & Laundry, Wednesday, August 4

A 6 mile drive into “town” included a walk along both sides of Main Street. We searched in shop after shop, only to find the same touristy junk in each. We did have a good time in a book store, where we each found something by our favorite authors.

The campground laundry was fully occupied this morning, so we decided to check it out when we returned this afternoon. Surprisingly, it was empty! Ivan helped me load 6 washers and I stayed to complete the task. The event that occurred next was one that definitely warranted a picture, but I couldn’t leave long enough to retrieve my camera. One of my washers had apparently been sabotaged by a previous user, leaving enough detergent in the dispenser to float the entire area! It was truly an “I Love Lucy” re-run! Soap suds were flowing out onto the floor. Quite a site! I returned to the RV (home) about 2 hours later with a report that it was a laundry experience from H---! Another adventure!

Yellowstone, Tuesday, August 3

We drove to Yellowstone today, with a beautiful river beside us along most of the mountainous road. We quickly set up and hopped in the car to drive to the National Park. “Old Faithful” was only about 30 miles into the park and we had a brief ½ hour wait (along with hundreds of others) for the old geyser to do its thing! It was a pretty exciting thing to anticipate, then see, but I’m easily amused, and/or impressed. Ivan’s expectations are much higher, but he did enjoy it and now we can say we actually saw it!

On the drive to Old Faithful, we did see a grizzly bear, deer and a huge bison. Ivan had commented, when we saw hundreds of buffalo in South Dakota, that they were not as big as he had always imagined, and I agreed. This guy was the the picture we had!

We had hoped to do some fly fishing here, but were disappointed to find that the waters close to us are still too warm to be productive. Maybe we’ll investigate further tomorrow. Meanwhile, Ivan’s idea of a fabulous meal is to stop at KFC and take home chicken. I fixed my favorite……salad, and afterward managed to burn a bag of microwave popcorn. It will be a challenge to eliminate the smell from our coach. Another lesson learned!!!

Curt and Yvonne’s 36th wedding anniversary, Monday, August 2

Today is Curt and Yvonne’s 36th wedding anniversary. We traveled together to a campground in Bozeman, Montana, and celebrated with them at Outback Steakhouse for dinner. This will be our last night together for a while, since they will be heading for Glacier National Park and we will go to Yellowstone. We will miss each other, but will be in touch and possibly catch up again on the way home. Stay tuned!!!!

The Little Big Horn, Sunday, August 1

We traveled 330 miles today, which is a pretty long stretch for us. It was a very nice highway that landed us in a campground only 8 miles from the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, Montana. The Montana license plate which boasts “big sky” is quite accurate. It is amazing how the terrain changes from state to state. This is beautiful country.

We were able to include in our afternoon, a ranger talk and a walking tour of this famous site of “Custer’s Last Stand”. Remember that from your history books? The details were foggy to me, but I soon learned much about the major battle fought on June 25, 1876, between Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, against the U.S. Army. Major General George A. Custer was victorious in the Civil War battles he engaged in with Confederate forces; however, we stood at the site where he was killed in this battle. The headstones mark the spot where each solder in this battle was killed. Custer’s headstone is black and white. His remains were later moved to the cemetery on the grounds of the West Point Naval Academy in New York. Another history lesson for us today.

Ivan's Ear Phones, Saturday, July 31

This was a pretty uneventful day, unless you consider visiting Radio Shack where Ivan bought a set of wireless ear phones, so he could watch a DVD in the RV at a volume level that wouldn’t deafen me. We also went to the grocery store. Exciting!