TravelStream™ news feed for member havervwilltravl on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/havervwilltravl en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:39:36 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245295190/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245295190/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245295190/tpod.html Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:39:36 -0500 RV Trip, Take One

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Colter Bay Village, Wyoming, United States

We had planned to wake up early this morning and get a hike in in Yellowstone before the rain set in and we drove to Grand Teton, but Jim didn't even bother waking me up early because it rained hard several times during the night and kept right on going in the morning! When we finally did get up, we decided just to go straight to Jackson, Wyoming and hope for better weather later in the week. By the time we were ready to go though, the sun was out again! I have never seen weather change as fast as it does in Wyoming and Montana – and we thought Mammoth weather was fast. :P


Anyway, we enjoyed one last drive through Yellowstone and I’ve decided to move all of our Fountain Geyser (aka "Four Triscuit") pictures to this entry so you all can see what was there on the first day before it started spewing – nothing!
In fact, the "before" pictures had to be taken today because I hadn’t taken any of the site yesterday as there was literally nothing of interest there to see! I did see the sign but there are a lot of features here that have dried up or are not as impressive as they once were, so I figured it was an old geyser now dormant. But no! Imagine our surprise when all of a sudden it “turned on” behind us with no warning at all!


We left Yellowstone via the south entrance to Grand Teton National Park, with the intention of driving to the Gros Ventre (pronounced “grow-VANT”) campground near the southern exit toward Jackson. We had read online that the moose viewing here was excellent! However, Jim stopped at a visitor center in Colter Bay Village, which is the first town you come to driving from the north, and we overheard two girls telling other tourists that they had JUST seen a moose not five minutes ago outside the visitor’s center! Well, that clinched it – I ran outside to get my camera and we were staying here tonight.


As it turns out, the moose had a baby with her too! VERY exciting!!!! We found a nice campsite (they have tons here; almost 350 dry spots for very reasonable $$) and tried to get internet. No such luck – it’s too slow to upload much and I can barely use my cell phone to make calls, so I’m afraid my updates are going to have to work until we get to decent service closer to Park City, Utah. :(
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1246256782/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1246256782/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1246256782/tpod.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:24:02 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Mammoth Lakes, California, United States

This entry isn't as boring as it looks, but unfortunately I forgot my camera on the last day of the day of the trip so all I have in the way of pictures are these awful ones of me back in my cubicle!

On Tuesday, Jim and I woke up in Park City and went for a stroll down historic Main Street. Then we packed up (i.e. dumped/filled our RV tanks) and left our beautiful Jordanelle campsite for Salt Lake City. Once there, we drove around the University of Utah campus (very nice!) and then to Franklin Covey field for a Triple A baseball game. Unfortunately our team, the Bees, got beat but it was a lovely night and such a nice sunset over the mountains from the stadium!

After the game Jim and I drove to "the center of the Universe" around which all of the SLC streets are numbered - the Mormon temple. Have you ever been to SLC? The entire city is on a square grid with the temple in the center, and the streets are numbered according to how far north or south you are from the center. My friend who moved there recently is still trying to figure out how "300 N 600 E" constitutes an address! And I must agree with her, for those of us who have not grown up using "directions" like this, it is a bit confusing!

We wished we could have been there during business hours because they have a nice looking visitor's center, but alas it was late and after three weeks of travel we had to start heading for home. (Well, technically at this point "Home is where we park it" since we have no condo, but you get what I mean!) So we drove to West Wendover, Nevada and dry camped for the night at a casino so the drive wouldn't be so terrible the next day.

Sure enough, Wednesday was a REALLY long day of driving, but it sure is better than riding in a car when you can park anytime, anywhere to enjoy your lunch and a nap in your own bed! :) We drove through Ely, Nevada to Bishop where we enjoyed a nice Mexican dinner at Amigo's - our favorite! Gassed up at Vons again and we were off to Mammoth.

This morning I am back at work and you know, it's not all that bad, really. I like my job and I do love the people I work with! For a job, I suppose it's decent. But unfortunately I have come to the realization that the working life will just never be as fun as cruising around the country at one's leisure in an RV. Thanks for reading "RV Trip, Take One" and we'll see you again soon for "Round Two"!!! :D

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245737377/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245737377/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245737377/tpod.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:08:17 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Hailstone, Utah, United States

We had breakfast at a local bagel shop that my friend recommended, which was good. Then we were off to Park City Mountain Resort, home of the alpine slide and alpine coaster! I had ridden a slide before at Winter Park in Colorado, but had never heard of an alpine coaster. They are FUN! Unlike the slide, you can't fall out of the sled or go so fast that the sled flips out of the track, so you can safely go as fast as gravity will propel you.


Jim made me a bet that the last one down would have to buy dinner, so I flew down the hill and won the race. He claims there was a "dead rat" (probably a ground squirrel) in his track which slowed him down…. But I saw no such thing! ;) Oh well, doesn’t really matter – I had to buy dinner anyway because he still hasn’t found that wallet! And don’t miss my video from the coaster; I was afraid I might lose my camera trying to take it!


In addition to the slide and coaster, the base area also has a carousel and trampolines for kids, mini-golf, mountain bike rentals, scenic rides and hikes from the top of the chair lift, snow cones, ice cream, riding stables, a climbing wall, an adult zip line and a human maze! (This all is what should be included in a “year round destination resort” but Mammoth can’t seem to get its act together. We don’t have ANY of this except the bike park, which to be fair Jim says is light years ahead of everyone else.)


Anyway, we bought tickets to the human maze, in which you are supposed to get your card punched at each of four stations before racing to the exit (the punched letters spell M-A-Z-E). Jim says he was "WAY" ahead of me and had passed all the letters before making a wrong turn and winding up lost. But by that time I had gotten all my punches too, found my way out of the maze and up to the “peanut gallery”, and snapped this picture of him getting helped out by some other bystanders! When he got up to the platform, I also realized that he hadn’t punched his card a single time – so how do I know he really found all the letters??? So I won that challenge too. :)


After that excitement we headed off to the Utah Olympic Park to see the winter sports training facilities. I think Jim and I both enjoyed this tour a lot more than the one we did last summer in Colorado Springs, but that could have been because there was a lot more activity here than last year too. (In 2008 we arrived a week after the summer games ended, so all the athletes were on a well-deserved break!) Check out the two videos I took of kids practicing their aerial ski maneuvers into the pool!


The park also has facilities for Nordic ski jumping, bobsledding, lugeing and the skeleton race – which is actually the safest of the three sliding sports. (Bet you wouldn’t have guessed that! I didn’t.) This center is the home turf for many international teams, including the famed Jamaican bobsled team featured in the movie “Cool Runnings”. In fact, the coach in that movie now coaches our Team USA too and even takes tourons like us in summer bobsled rides here! (These have wheels, no ice; and they are pretty expensive though so that will have to wait for another year.)


Finally, the complex is home to two really great museums; one about the history of skiing and one about the 2002 Winter Games. And both free to the public! The skiing museum is very interactive and the photography in the Olympic museum was spectacular. We watched a great movie about American skeleton racer Jimmy Shea. And do you remember any of these characters from the opening ceremonies? Overall we were both totally impressed with what there was to see and do here, and we said the $7 we spent for the official training grounds tour was the best use of $7 on the whole trip!


We met my friend and her family again for dinner at Red Rocks Brewery, which was good too. Then Jim and I drove around town a bit looking at all the historic old houses on Main Street. What a diverse collection – most were built around the turn of the (20th) century, and some really haven’t had much of a facelift since. But others have been gutted, added on to, completely remodeled, etc. and the facade in front is the only original piece of the house left!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245648104/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245648104/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245648104/tpod.html Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:32:10 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Hailstone, Utah, United States

This morning I woke up (still in the Walmart parking lot) and Jim immediately told me that today we have to "collect two of each animal we see". Still groggy and totally confused, I couldn't figure out what on earth he was talking about until I realized that it was still raining outside. And he was suggesting that since we are already traveling on an enormous ship, we should take over Noah’s job for Flood #2! (Actually there is more truth to that than you might think; we talked to a local woman yesterday who said that today would be their 35th consecutive rainy day!)


Anyway, after I got my brain in gear we figured out that we were really in Evanston, WY, not anywhere close to Salt Lake City. So we got back on the freeway and continued to Park City, where as you can see, it was GORGEOUS and SUNNY!!!!! :D Our campsite is at Jordanelle State Park, overlooking a beautiful reservoir! This is probably the best site we have stayed at the whole trip, thanks to the view, the electric and water hookups, and the VERY reasonable price of only $20 per night!


Another perk – the internet works well here, so I spent most of our first afternoon making up for lost time on previous trip updates. I left the internet running overnight too and was able to upload all the videos I couldn’t get posted before now. Sorry about that!!! They are such huge files and I thought they would upload faster than they do. I’ve tried to do several while we’re driving, but invariably the cell phone service conks out halfway through and then I have to start all over again. So anyway, if you were looking for videos I mentioned in other posts and couldn’t find them, here they all are. My apologies!


Later in the afternoon we went over to my friend’s house in Park City for dinner. She’s a good cook and her house is right below the Olympic training center’s Nordic jumps! I haven’t seen her much since we worked together at Mammoth Mountain three years ago, so it was good to catch up. We got a mini-tour of town on the way to get Coldstone ice cream. She and her husband and kids all LOVE Park City, and I am beginning to see why! It’s a lot like Mammoth, only with the benefits of a larger town, resorts who actually know what they’re doing, and a big city nearby.


For my final trick, I'd also like to leave you with a story Jim found in the news recently.... Seems like our route is VERY popular this summer! ;) Wolverine Article & Another!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565164/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565164/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565164/tpod.html Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:14:50 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Colter Bay Village, Wyoming, United States

Today we had to leave Grand Teton National Park. :( Overall, I thought that this park was not only every bit as beautiful as its reputation says, but also really underrated for animal sightings and for being particularly well-managed. (I was impressed by the management here, but NOT by Xanterra in Yellowstone; there we were disappointed by the food quality, the roads, sign issues, online camping info, etc. But here Envision / GTLC seems to do a really great job. And did you know that it's really Vail resorts, like the ski area???)

We drove through Jackson, Wyoming but due to the weather and our super-sized rig we were unable (or unwilling!) to stop and look around. Jim has been there before and said we would have really liked to spend a few days there, but alas, I guess you can't see everything in one trip! So we’ll save that one for the next time we come back. We are already talking about this fall or next spring… ;)

Right before we drove through Jackson, the rain became downright torrential! People were hiding out in building entrances, running through the streets trying to get covered, and the cars were splashing through enormous puddles just driving down the road. The lightning was putting on quite a show as well! I didn’t get any pictures of that because it’s so difficult to predict, but I did try to document the rain.

At one point we had to turn off the road and wait it out because the wind too kicked up and then the rain was falling in big SHEETS such that our windshield wipers couldn’t keep up! I felt bad for the horse trailer we had passed a few miles back – they were trying to change a tire and had their horses out and everything. I hope they made their repairs ok and didn’t get too wet. :P

Anyway, once we got back on the road the rain didn’t continue in "severe thunderstorm" fashion, but it did keep up consistently all the way from Wyoming through Idaho and into Utah. Literally, we drove for HOURS in the rain and eventually we just ran out of cloud! That was pretty amazing, to drive out from under one huge big storm like that. We stopped in a town called Evanston, WY, and unfortunately we seem to be back to long drives and Walmart camping again. :P
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565109/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565109/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245565109/tpod.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:05:49 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Colter Bay Village, Wyoming, United States

Sure enough, today's weather looks like the big improvement we have been looking forward to! We showed up to the stables in short sleeves and sunscreen, although it definitely wasn’t hot by any means. The trail we took was very pretty and I think we were both happy with our horses. Two hours later we slid off our horse and were trying to regain our walking abilities so we could do another short hike.


We picked the Hidden Falls / Inspiration Point trail which leaves from Jenny Lake’s south shore. The trail was about six miles round trip for us, although a ferry boat runs across the lake which would shave off two miles each way for anyone with $9 who hikes during business hours. As is expected at this time of year, the falls were very impressive! And the lake is full and the view was beautiful from the top of the ridge we climbed to.


Many of this entry’s pictures are of the local flora and the smaller fauna – today was a great day for seeing wildflowers and rodents. And I bet the peak of the wildflowers season isn’t even for several weeks from now, just like Mammoth!



As we were driving back to camp, my sister called with some exciting news – she is still in for hiking Mt. Whitney, AND she has two super-surprise tickets to run the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco this October! (We had tried to gain entry to this via the stupid lottery in February but were denied for the second year in a row.) :P So now the hiking and running must begin in real earnest; I am already 50 miles behind what I hiked by this same time last year!


Despite the nice hike and great weather and unexpected Nike news, my great triumph of the day is still getting Jim to enjoy a horseback ride for two hours AND to say that he will go again in the future!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245464957/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245464957/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245464957/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:26:12 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Colter Bay Village, Wyoming, United States

You think you like lying in bed listening to the rain until you make plans for your vacation and wake up listening to it ruin your plans almost every day for a week! :P This morning was more of the same, so we had no other option but to start on the Grand Teton driving tour and hope that tomorrow would be better (forecasts say it is supposed to be).


We stopped at the Jackson and Jenny Lake Lodges just to see what they were all about, and about midway through the tour Jim said that it hadn't REALLY poured on us yet, just drizzled! Well, of course then all heck broke loose and we got a lot of rain all at once and even a few bits of hail, and we figured our hiking plans were done for good. But there seemed to be just a touch a blue sky ahead…


Sick of being in the car all day every day, we decided to chance a few miles around Taggart Lake anyway. A ranger had told us this was good moose habitat after being more recently released to the National Park Service from the Rockefeller estate.


As it turns out, the hike was gorgeous AND we stayed dry for 5.5 miles (actually to Bradley Lake and back)! The bugs here are pretty bad but we kept up a brisk pace so they didn’t get us too badly. Jim and I both agreed that this short first hike here rivals anything either of us have ever done in Mammoth for beautiful scenery.


Newly optimistic about better weather ahead, we booked a 2-hour horseback ride tomorrow around noon, and dinner reservations in front of the Jackson Lake Lodge Mural Room's huge picture windows for 7:45 PM – prime sunset hour! (Click here for reviews...)


Today’s wildlife pictures include two more moose (one is a yearling from last summer), elk, more bison, a very poor picture of a very fast coyote, a blue grouse, a yellow-headed blackbird, and the new highlight – a beaver!


Jim says many people were not impressed that a bunch of us were standing around to see a beaver, but I’m guessing they come from the Midwest where they see more rivers and beavers on a regular basis. I thought this was very exciting!!! (Do you have any idea how many times I have hiked in Lundy Canyon looking for one and have seen only the telltale signs that they must really exist???)


My camera takes pretty bad pictures in low light so you won’t be able to tell how beautiful and green the fields are beneath the sunset, but suffice it to say that the drive home this evening was one of the most peaceful and lovely I have ever taken. The Tetons are truly majestic and the ranches here live up to everything Jim has been telling me about them for weeks!


As I sit here I have been hearing more rain hitting the RV on and off, so I sure hope we were not too adventurous in booking (and paying for) our plans for tomorrow ahead of time! :P
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245262914/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245262914/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245262914/tpod.html Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:19:41 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Colter Bay Village, Wyoming, United States

Today we finished driving around the bottom half of the bottom Yellowstone loop, including Old Faithful. Unfortunately I think we had just heard too much hype about it, because we had expected it to be much bigger than it was and truth be told we were both a little disappointed.


It didn't help that just before getting there, we saw "Great Fountain Geyser" which we could view from much closer and the water spouted out much further but in all directions! Then a ranger told us that it only erupts every 12 - 16 hours so we really felt lucky to have seen it! And it keeps going for 45 - 90 minutes! So that is how we were spoiled before we
even got to poor Old Faithful. :P


Luckily the history of the area was not totally lost on us; we both really enjoyed the tour of the Old Faithful Inn and its wonderful architecture. Our tour guide was particularly interesting and had visited the same hotel as a teenager many years ago. They also serve huckleberry ice cream in the snack shop so of course we did not want to be rude
and pass that up either! ;)


The rest of the day was filled with “the usual” – geysers, hot springs of every color, and bison galore. More babies! We also spotted two coyotes and narrowly missed seeing a grizzly bear (the parking lot was still packed with looky-loos but the actual bear had already disappeared into the woods). Got another good bald eagle
picture near the nest on the west
side of the park too!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245130534/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245130534/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245130534/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:42:25 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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Big Sky, Montana, United States


*** Happy Two-Week Anniversary of Being on the Road!!! :) :) :)


Today we got another late start and it was raining (is anyone else seeing a pattern here???), so we decided not to finish our Yellowstone sightseeing and instead drive back up the highway a bit to the ski town of Big Sky, Montana. The ski resort looks really large and they seem to have wide variety of challenging runs so we were impressed with that! They also seem to have a LOT more to do there in the middle of the summer than Mammoth, which isn't terribly surprising since most ski areas do!


But as in Mammoth at this time of year the town is a much different story -- the stores were closed, the tourists were gone and the hikes were still snowed over! In addition, whereas Mammoth has a year-round population of about 7,000 people which makes it (barely) a town in its own right, the town of Big Sky seems to have very little besides seasonal staff and vacationers: only 1,500 full time residents. We couldn't even find one open coffee shop! So all in all this is going to be a pretty boring update.


Besides that, Jim has been very patient tonight, sitting in the car outside of World’s Most Expensive McDonald’s for more than two hours now waiting for my LAST three updates, so I think I better leave it at this for tonight, and maybe I’ll get a chance to put the pictures up tomorrow. (That always takes the longest anyway.) :P
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245128608/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245128608/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/havervwilltravl/1/1245128608/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:29:08 -0400 RV Trip, Take One

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West Yellowstone, Montana, United States

It was a good thing we didn't have much to do today besides get ourselves to camp in West Yellowstone, because when we turned on the engine it told us there was "low oil pressure" and kept shutting off! Jim checked the oil level several times but all seemed in order, so we were stymied as to what possibly could be wrong! While he was poring over the owner’s manuals the owner of the RV park and another RV’er came to see what the problem was. (But what else would you expect from a park with such great service?) :)


Eventually the three of them figured out that the emergency system was turning the engine off to prevent “catastrophic failure” due to low coolant level instead, so Jim ran into town and bought more and we were on our way. However, per the usual all of this took several hours to A) diagnose and B) remedy, so by the time we got on the road it was probably near 3:00 PM and I had totally forgotten to take pictures of our wonderful park in the meantime! :P So the ones I posted two days ago are from their website – but they show you much better than I could how close we were to the river! What they don’t show you is the incredibly friendly service we got from the moment we checked in until the moment we left – I miss that park already. :(


Right now we are “boondocked” at the Baker’s Hole campground only three miles outside of West Yellowstone. These USFS areas cost only $14 per night, so for the three nights we plan on staying it will cost the same as just one night at a typical park! We are a little bit over budget so far on this trip plus we just extended it by 4 days (nevermind how or why), so we are going to try to stay on the cheap for the rest of the time if possible. Luckily Jim found a great government website that gives site lengths, directions, maps, etc. so searching for these unadvertised places is going to get much easier. There aren’t any hookups at the site we are at, but some places have electric, there’s a dump station down the highway just a few miles, and besides that we have a 100 gallon water tank so who cares! :)


We are also cooking our own dinner here in the motorhome tonight, which sadly is one of the first times we have done that the entire trip! Between arriving late to our campsites and being totally thrilled to eat anywhere that we can’t in Mammoth (which, let’s face it, is just about anywhere!!), we haven’t been making much at home besides cold cereal in the morning and the occasional salad or sandwich.


Jim says that by dry camping and cooking in we are taking our RV’ing to the next level! It sounds silly, but it’s really true. It’s relatively easy to pull into a full-service facility and plug everything in, but it is harder to find the non-commercial sites, conserve resources and plan your own meals while traveling. Doing all that will stretch our travel dollars though, so it makes great sense – besides, we also like boondocking better because the sites are more wooded and it feels fun, like camping!


The only BAD thing about boondocking is that, as its name implies, we are just too far out of town limits to get cell phone service. And that means (gasp!) NO INTERNET! So I apologize about the slow entries the last few days and today's really shoddy picture choices! Since I don't have many new ones uploaded, I thought I'd feature a setup that Jim thinks we sill try on our next trip -- a motorcycle with sidecar for two kids AND a trailer in the rain! And the other two pictures are the "Devil's Postpile" of Yellowstone. Sorry, but ours is better. ;)

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