An awesome hike.

Went on an awesome hike today on the Rescue Creek trail. It's an eight mile trail through aspens, meadows, and the Rescue Creek gorge with a 1,400 foot decent. The first half of the trail was covered by a couple of feet of snow and the second half was nice and dry. We saw six elk carcasses. Looked like the bears, wolves, and coyotes had been eating well.

Cross-country skiing.

I got to do some cross-country skiing at a park near West Yellowstone today. Conditions where sort of klistery (mushy) but it was nice to get out anyway.

Give me a home where the buffalo roam...

While checking out Madison campground today, I came across our local herd of bison. They where originally hanging around the visitor center, then they ran (an impressive sight) past me down the river. I later saw them sauntering down the road as I was returning from West Yellowstone. Here's a shot of some of the handsome devils walking past my car while I sat in the bison jam.

And yup, we still have quite a bit of snow. I expect I'll be shoveling out the campground for the next few weeks.

Is This Spring??

The weather here has been about as much winter as we want to experience. For two days we had snow flurries off and on all day, and yesterday we woke up to about 6 or 8 inches of nice, soft snow. The temperature has barely gone above freezing, and right now the wind is ferocious.

Lenny walked into Gardiner with a new friend, and came back with a few groceries. Here he is starting down the hill into the RV park. Yesterday morning the whole hill was covered with snow.

Almost the End of the Journey

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I did get to see some of the statues and scuptures in Loveland. Here are a few of them.

We’re here! For the next week and a half we’ll be here at Yellowstone RV in Gardiner, MT. We don’t have to report for work until Friday, the 17th, but we’re glad to be here early since some really cold and probably wet weather is expected here by Tuesday. Besides, we can see the Yellowstone arch from just down the road – we’re that close!

After two nights at Johnson’s Corner we drove on up to Casper, WY – with a short detour in Cheyenne to Sierra Outdoors, where we bought a few things for cold weather (gloves and long underwear and another pair of Yak Trax).

As soon as we got into Wyoming, we saw more and more snow beside the road. I love driving through eaastern Wyoming. It’s totally open, and the top of each long hill reveals a whole new view of mountains beyond bare, rolling hills. This time of year the mountains were white, and the hills had patches of snow where it had drifted deepest during the winter. Luckily the day was mostly clear and there was no snow in the roads.

At Casper we planned to stay at the WalMart/Sam’s Club parking lot. I was gathering our cans, etc. to recycle when I looked out the window and saw Lou, one of the men I worked with at Madison last year! Amazingly, he and his wife, Jody, and two other couples we worked with last year were parked in their RVs behind Sam’s. He had run into Lenny in Sam’s. We moved our RV near theirs, and we traveled with them the rest of the way here.

This afternoon Lenny and I walked into town, across the Yellowstone River, and back down the river to take some pictures of our RVs from across the river. By the time we got back, I had about 17,000 steps on my pedometer, compared to 3,000 yesterday.

Still heading Northward.

Monday, April 5, 2009

We had a great visit with Lenny’s GRDA friends, and Saturday we started North and West again. The wind was behind us as we went North into Kansas, so Lenny decided to make it a long day and we finally stopped in Salina, Kansas.

The wind was strong coming North, and it got even stronger, so we decided to stay over 2 nights at the Sam’s Club in Salina. Sunday when we woke up it was 43 F inside the RV without any heat, so we ran the (propane) furnace and the (gasoline) gernerator off and on during the day. We also attended the tasting event in Sam’s to get some lunch and get warm.

Weather radio said the wind was in the thirties, and had gusts to around 45 mph – and I believe it. Walking in a straight line was NOT easy! Thank goodness Lenny had put some scotch tape on the window weep holes so there was no more Dante’s inferno noise.

Wed. April 8, 2009

From Salina we had a beautiful, if windy, day, and Lenny drove through to Limon, Colorado, where we stayed in a Flying J parking lot for the night. We were also able to top off our propane there – in case it gets cold again. :-)

Now we’re in a campground outside Loveland, CO. I was able to do the laundry this morning, and Lenny fixed the weep hole covers on the windows (NO MORE Dante’s Inferno!) and set up his computer to use the internet. I hope to get into Loveland to see and photograph some more of the bronze “sculptures” this afternoon.

The view is from our RV at Johnson’s Corner, a little north of Denver, Colorado, with the snow covered Rocky mountains in the background.

Still hiding from winter weather!

We are still hiding from winter weather by staying in the southern latitudes.

Spent a couple of extra days in Arkansas. Went to a beautiful forest/gardens (Garvan Gardens) near Hot Springs, AR. The tulips were awesome!

We are currently at Snowdale State Park, east of Tulsa, Oklahoma, enjoying a beautiful, sunny day and visiting with our GRDA friends.

Still hiding from winter weather!

We continue to hide from the winter weather!

Spent a few extra days in Arkansas. Went to a beautiful forest/gardens (Garvan Gardens) near Hot Springs, AR.

We are currently at Snowdale State Park, east of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Enjoying a beautiful, sunny day and visiting with our GRDA friends.