On the big road

We are at Little America, a travel stop on I-80 in western Wyoming, between Lyman and Green River (map).  The place has been here since the 30s, named for Byrd's 1929 Antarctic base camp.  A stuffed emperor penguin, brought back by the expedition, sits in the lobby of the motel.  Over the decades, the facility has expanded to include a large truck stop, two c-stores, showers, laundry, post office, motel, bar, and restaurant.  Alas, they seem to have eliminated their long-time logo mascot penguin, who adorned billboards for hundreds of miles in either direction beckoning travelers here.

We parked in the most remote corner of the truck lot, which was fairly quiet and gave us a nice view of the hills in the distance.  In addition to availing ourselves of the laundry facilities as well as the post office, we had a passable dinner at the restaurant.  The place is a bit shop-worn now, bypassed by much of the traveling public who prefer to stay in places with a choice of chain motels and chain restaurants, whereas all of Little America comprises just a single business enterprise (not counting the lone post office employee).  Travel was much more difficult when it first opened, and it was a welcome sight in this very remote place then.  I think the choice of Byrd's outpost as namesake would have made more sense to travelers of the day, as well.

Yesterday's drive was scenic and easy, and we also made stops in Rawlins for diesel oil and in Rock Springs to put air in one of the tag tires.  Over the course of three hours en route to Rock Springs, we discussed the travel times and other factors, and ultimately decided to just remain on I-80 all the way to the bay area.  That cuts two and a half hours off the overall travel time, over ten percent of what we have left, and we'd rather have the extra margin of safety at the end of the drive.  On top of that, other than a small stretch in Pennsylvania, the full width of California, and a very short segment just west of here, Odyssey has not done I-80, and it is the lone route through some scenic sections of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.

By contrast, we've already been across Nevada on US-50, and through Flaming Gorge on the west side.  In fact, we posted a photo seven years ago, and that excursion involved the short section of I-80 from Lyman, WY to the junction of I-84 in Utah.

In a few minutes we will continue west.  Having made the decision to remain on the Interstate, I expect to be on the west side of Utah tonight, perhaps as far as the state line.  Today's drive will take us over several mountain passes, so translating miles to travel time is less straightforward.

Emigrants

 

We are at a Wyoming state rest area on Highway 220, adjacent to Independence Rock, about 50 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming (map).  Out our windows just a hundred feet or so away, we can see the wagon ruts of the old emigrant trail, and beyond them the Sweetwater River.  Independence Rock was an important landmark on the Oregon, California, and Mormon emigrant trails.  While the department of transportation manages the rest area and parking, the park service manages the rest of the Independence Rock site, which includes many descriptive signs and a replica Conestoga wagon.

As rest areas go, it is very nice, with modern facilities designed around a passive solar arrangement, picnic shelters with grills (bagged at the moment due to a local fire ban), and even a dump station.  A sign prohibits overnight camping but one of our guides clarifies that Wyoming does not prohibit overnight stays of self-contained rigs so long as they show no signs of "camping" such as the extending of slides or jacks, awnings, etc. -- basically the rig needs to remain in "drive off" condition.  We deployed the satellite dish, but here in Wyoming we can drive off with that up without worrying about hitting anything.

After we got parked we walked around the rock, along part of the old highway grade, and past the interpretive signs.  It's actually a nice historic spot, and as a bonus our views of the surrounding hills are spectacular.  220 is lightly traveled at night, so it was quiet here, and we selected a spot where even the handful of idling trucks that spent the night did not disturb us.

Yesterday we had a nice drive west along US-20.  In Lusk, Wyoming it rejoined our old friend US-18, which arrived there via a longer and more circuitous route than we took.  Immediately west of Lusk is a Wyoming rest area much like this one, only with a fancy playground attached, which apparently was one of the first highway rest areas in the region.  It was also the first to receive the modernization program with the passive solar system.  On a different schedule, that, too, would have been a good overnight stop.

US-18/20 took us all the way to Casper, although it was colinear with I-25 for 34 miles.  We bailed off the Interstate at the first opportunity, west of Glen Rock.  In Casper, the Gas Buddy web site told us a small service station in the middle of a mostly residential part of town had diesel for $3.899.  I was skeptical, since it was a good ten cents or more higher at every other station, but we rolled down there anyway.  The price was indeed correct, and we squeezed Odyssey into the tiny lot where it took me a half hour to put in 160 gallons.  While this was $0.19 per gallon more than we paid back in Missouri, it's the cheapest we've seen since, and we won't see fuel this low again anywhere west of here.

Ironically, we also fueled the last time we were in Casper.  Back then, fuel was so high, and our tank so empty, that this was the single largest fuel bill we ever paid -- $1,310.  Good practice for the boat, I suppose.  On this visit, the little neighborhood station, a Kum & Go, had no trouble ringing up our $620 purchase on a single ticket, in stark contrast to the Safeway and its rigidly-controlled point-of-sale system.  Long-time readers may also remember that we then spent two extra nights in Casper, to install new flooring over at the Home Depot.

Today we continue on WY-220, past Devil's Gate (another emigrant trail landmark) and to its intersection with US-287, which will take us south to Rawlins.  There we will pick up I-80 west, incredibly for the first time in eight years on the road.  That's the only reasonable route west to Rock Springs, where we will face a choice to remain on the Interstate, or turn south on US-191 past Flaming Gorge to pick up US-40 in Vernal, Utah.

One last National Park before deployment

We are at the Cedar Pass campground in Badlands National Park, South Dakota (map).

As I wrote earlier today, we had intended to spend the night at the Bear Lodge campground in the Black Hills National Forest. It was an idyllic spot, just a half dozen sites nestled in the pines, with only one other camper in the whole place. We had paid for one night, and I had already scoped out a dispersed site a bit further up the road to perhaps settle in for the remainder of the weekend.

We arrived early in the day, no later than perhaps 1:00. The phone rang with the deployment news while I was out hiking -- scoping out that dispersed spot and walking an old alignment of highway 24, now long abandoned. I walked back up to the bus while Louise was still on the phone with the Disaster Operations Center. So there we were, scrambling around at 3 in the afternoon, looking at possible routes to Austin, and trying to get guidance from Disaster Staffing about actual deployment orders and travel reimbursement.

I looked very seriously at turning south at Rapid City, which would shave another dozen miles off the total -- in the neighborhood of 1,300 miles or so, of which perhaps 900 would be reimbursable at the rate of 58 cents per mile (it costs us about a dollar per mile to operate Odyssey). But all the routing software was adamant that it was quicker by an hour to drive east on I-90 to US83.

Now, before the deployment call, our plan had been to continue east to Sturgis, and maybe scope out the town and the ongoing preparations for the motorcycle extravaganza that will descend upon it in four weeks' time. We planned to stay at the nearby Fort Meade National Recreation Area, then continue east to the Badlands, staying at the primitive campground on the west end of the park, down a five mile gravel road.

All of this had also been on the agenda four years ago. When we first embarked on this grand tour, departing Sumner, Washington in September of 2004, we had an October commitment in Billings, Montana, after which we intended to continue across the northern states all the way to Chicago, and then onwards to New Jersey, where I have family. I'm sorry to say that none of this is recorded here in the blog, because we did not start blogging the adventure until we were already in New Jersey, in November of that year.

We indeed met our commitment in Billings, and had a wonderful drive across Montana and a small corner of Wyoming on US212, which brought us into Belle Fourche, SD (and who can go there without thinking of that classic John Wayne/Bruce Dern film, The Cowboys). From there we drove south and did the canonical tourist loop of Mount Rushmore and the black hills. We were just about to continue east to Sturgis when we got a phone call.

That was before we were Red Cross volunteers, though. In that case, it was a call from my attorney (in a lawsuit against a former employer), saying I was needed in San Francisco for a settlement hearing. Few of the other ten plaintiffs could attend, and my presence was deemed critical to a successful negotiation, and so, somewhat reluctantly, we turned south, to Denver, which was the nearest airport from which I could get a flight at anything less than a king's ransom.

That was an interesting diversion, in part because it meant Louise was on her own with Odyssey for a couple of nights, after dropping me off at DIA. She had a great experience, as I understand, at Cherry Lake state park. In any case, when I returned from SF, we continued our eastward journey from Denver, missing the rest of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and not rejoining our originally planned route until Chicago. (We have since learned how to solve this: we don't plan our routes now more than a day or two in advance.)

It was against this backdrop that we decided that, as long as we were blasting east along I-90 today, that, by golly, we had enough daylight left to loop through Badlands, and between choosing the faster route and electing to bail out of our paid-up camp site to get an early start, we'd be okay taking the roughly one hour detour through the park. Besides, we needed a place to stay tonight, and this campground was as good an option as any.

We did take a few minutes en route to actually admire the breathtaking scenery here in the park. We arrived at the campground around 8:30, just at sunset, and immediately headed up to the concessionaire-operated Cedar Pass Lodge for dinner. Unfortunately, our late arrival meant the only dinner option was the buffet, which was completely unappealing, and so we returned to the bus and I grilled a steak, despite the late hour.

We're glad we made the detour, but, just as I said four years ago, we need to come back and do it right. I am hoping it is not another full four years before we return here.

Tomorrow we will get an early start, heading south to Interior on SD-377, turning east onto SD-44 which will take us all the way to US83, somewhat south of I-90. 83 will take us all the way to Texas.

Very, very quick update...

We are at the Bear Lodge Campground in the Black Hills National Forest, still in Wyoming (map). We're only 30 miles from where we started the day at Devils Tower, but this place really appealed to us.

This is a great spot, and we had figured to settle in for the night, or maybe two. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Even though we've already paid for the night, we are packing up right now to head out, as we have been called to Austin, Texas by the Red Cross.

There is no disaster in Austin, of course. But long-time readers of this blog know that the technology maintenance center is located there. Tons of equipment is now coming back in from the various operations around the country that have been ongoing for the last few weeks, including the Midwest floods and the western wildfires. In order for that equipment to be ready to go right back out again for the next disaster, qualified folks need to be in Austin to clean it up and "re-certify" it.

I'll post more about this later, as we are now under the gun to get rolling. They'd like us there by Monday, and it's at least a 25-hour drive. We'll put as many miles under our wheels as we can tonight, to get a bit of a head start. And we'll consider our $8 camping fee here a donation to the Forest Service.

The Bear's Teepee

We are in the Belle Fourche campground at Devils Tower National Monument (map). We can see the tower out one side of the bus, and the Belle Fourche river out the other.

The guides had advised that this Park Service campground fills up by early afternoon, and so we got a relatively early start from Gillette. We took US14 out of town, shunning I-90 as is our custom. There is, however, a 30-mile stretch where the two highways run side-by-side, separated only by a grassy median with a barb-wire fence.

We elected to spend two nights here, even though most visitors to the Monument, other than rock climbers, spend a mere matter of a few hours here. Yesterday afternoon we explored the small park on our scooters -- the park's 25MPH limit makes for easy travel even on the 49cc Honda.

This is our first visit here, and, I have to say, the photos and postcards do not do it justice. It truly is impressive and imposing. Of course, only the white man, in his arrogance, calls this place Devil's Tower -- the native Americans call it Tree Rock, the Bear's Lodge, or the Bear's Teepee, depending on tribe.

Today we are having a day of relaxation around the campsite. We will also take another ride up to the visitor center, and perhaps even walk around the tower on the paved trail. The temperature is projected to be in the 90s today, and so we'll also walk over to the river later for a dip, which will involve reclining, as the river is perhaps five yards wide and a foot or two deep.

Tomorrow we will continue east into the Black Hills National Forest.

Last day in Gillette

We are still in Gillette, in the same spot behind K-Mart (map) where we planted ourselves on the way in to the Escapade. We finally finished presenting our Red Cross training Monday night.

We were the last rig left in the Reata campground (really just an enormous field with some power panels sprinkled around and water run in above-ground pipes) late yesterday morning. As we packed up the hot tub, patio furniture, and scooters, the Cam-Plex staff was mowing the field all around us. We were paid through noon, though, and we held firm until then, when we rolled out and headed over to the dump station.


Dillon, Alex and Dawson enjoy the 80-degree tub. Louise baby-sat while their grandparents and Sean taught a class.

Our next stop is Devil's Tower, and we certainly could have made it there yesterday. But Louise had a Red Cross class to teach last night by teleconference, and we were concerned that cell service might be too spotty there, so we decided to stay here in town one more night. Additionally, we need to restock our supplies, and between the K-Mart and Wal-Mart we should find everything we need.

After we're done shopping this morning, we'll roll right across the street to the Flying-J. We still have over half a tank, but Gillette has the cheapest diesel in the country right now, at $4.439, and so we'll fill the tank up to the 325 gallon mark. That will also give us roughly a 1,900-mile range in case we get deployed to any disasters, although Bertha's current track projection shows it heading into the North Atlantic without threatening the US. (Bermuda, however, will likely not be so lucky -- the projection has Bertha hitting it dead center Sunday morning.)

We're heading into the store now, and I expect we'll be at Devil's Tower early this afternoon.

Red Cross training in Gillette

Just a quick update from Gillette.

The Escapade is over, and we are now in the middle of Red Cross training. We're in the same spot at the Cam-Plex in which we've been parked since arriving here last Saturday

Thanks to everyone who came by on Friday for the tour. I would guess we had about 30-40 people come through in the course of about two and a half hours. We probably got more comments about the hot tub than anything else, and I think one couple might even end up buying one.

Wednesday, I only managed to clean out one bay (tool drawer, actually). It was the worst of the lot, though, so it felt good to get through it. I added a bunch of stuff to our "free" pile, most of which is now gone. In fact, we only have a small handful of items left, including the toaster. People have also been coming by and leaving things on our free table, so we'll be taking more than just our own stuff to the Goodwill.

Wednesday afternoon I also made another pass at the Webasto. After all else had failed, I finally did what I should have done right off the bat -- I replaced the nozzle and cleaned the little flame sensor window with WD-40 and some elbow grease. I'm not sure which of those things did the trick, but the Webasto is now working normally. (I should have done these one at a time, but it's such a pain in the butt to open up the burner head that I just did them both while I was in there.)

The nozzle I installed was a used one that I had saved from the last time we had a full service on the burner. I'll now need to order a new one so that I have a good spare. While I am at it, I will order a spare fuel screen and a pair of copper washers for the supply banjo -- removing the banjo and checking the screen would have been the next step had these last two changes not fixed the problem. With the Webasto running well now, we've enjoyed soaking in the hot tub every night this week.

In a few minutes, I have to head over to the conference room to teach a Technology class. Tomorrow I'll be in the classroom all day, and Tuesday they boot us out of the Cam-Plex. We're not sure where we'll be next; if we don't get called up, we will visit Devil's Tower and then head to the Black Hills. However, we go on the availability list Wednesday, and, in addition to the ongoing flooding in Iowa, tropical storm Bertha is taking aim at the east coast.

Escapade

We are at the Cam-Plex in Gillette, Wyoming, at the Escapade (map). For those who are here, we are in Reatta B-31. We've been swamped since we arrived here, which is why I have not had the chance to post until tonight.

After some last minute exchanges at both Wal-Mart and K-Mart Saturday morning, we made our way here and were directed to this spot by the efficient parking crew. Had we been fifteen minutes earlier or later, we would have had a more favorable north orientation -- we are now facing south, which means the covers will stay up on the windshields all week, to keep the heat down. Also, we need to be careful when on the deck not to step in front of the satellite dish.

The electrical service here is a central panelboard with a dozen 30-amp pendants hanging from the bottom, and just four 50-amp receptacles mounted to the sides of the enclosure. I immediately pounced on one of the available 50's, which required dragging out the 50' 6-gauge extension cord, since we were just a tad too far away for the 25' shore cable to reach. Many rigs had to use multiple extension cords to reach, as they were quite some distance from the panel.

We came in with full water tanks, but I hooked up a hose to the provided water service, also centrally located and consisting of a "tree" of Y-adapters, so we could fill the hot tub. I wanted to get that set up early, before lots of folks hooked up and were then counting on city water pressure. So I pretty much immediately started to work on finishing my compressed-air adapter for inflating the tub, which involved opening the street-side tool drawer.

Wouldn't you know, the darn latch on that drawer failed? We had just been through the ordeal of disassembling the LPG bay door on Friday, after its latch failed, and now this. No latches have failed for nearly four years, and suddenly we have two in the span of three days.

Fortunately, the latch on the opposite tool drawer had failed once before, not long after we were on the road, and I had, at that time, fashioned myself a little tool to insert through the gap around the door and, in essence, jimmy it open. I have since weatherstripped those gaps, however, so I did have to force the tool past the weatherstripping. I was able to get the door open after four or five minutes of fiddling (again involving swear words), to find the release wire had jumped off its guide roller, which was better than the first time this happened, where the swage had come loose and I needed to re-crimp it. (Lacking a swager, I used our 30" bolt cutters instead.)

Once I got the drawer taken care of, I was able to finish my little inflator gizmo and try it out. The hot tub was inflated in just a few minutes with the compressed air, as opposed to several times longer using the little electric blower we have, followed by a hand pump. I've already ditched this latter item, and the blower is history just as soon as I confirm that my gizmo will work equally well on our inflatable boat.

After we got ourselves fully squared away, we tracked down some friends and went to dinner. My vote would have been for the prime rib joint, but there were grandkids involved, and we ended up at Dairy Queen. We had a lot of catching up to do, which killed the rest of the day.

Sunday involved yet more setup, as we wanted to deploy the deck, and I needed to set up the funky external fuel tank for the Webasto (to continue with troubleshooting and also to heat the hot tub). We did take time to enjoy the steady parade of new arrivals from the deck -- Sunday was the official arrival day. We also did a full pass of the exhibit hall before the afternoon's opening ceremonies, keynote speaker, and other activities.

Monday we had a visit from Brian and Hillary, whom we know through the bus conversion bulletin boards. They are converting an MCI 96A3 in their spare time, and travel in it periodically when they get time off work. They just happened to be passing by here on a whirlwind three-week vacation, and we enjoyed getting to see their rig and the progress they've made in the past five years or so. We had a nice couple of hours sitting out under our awning and talking shop -- great folks. Although we had to do a little two-step with the security patrols, since our guests were not registered for the Escapade.

Today's gig involved cramming bus projects in between seminars, along with Louise having to deliver a Red Cross training teleconference this evening. After I spent some time on the phone yesterday with Sure Marine, I made another attack on the Webasto problem, this time changing the burner nozzle out (for a used one that I saved after the last routine service), as well as aggressively cleaning the flame sensor photocell. After getting it back together, I fired it up to heat the hot tub, and it ran for four hours with absolutely no evidence of the problems we've been having. I have my fingers crossed that I finally have this licked.

I also spent a frustrating few hours working on the toilet's water supply. One of the problems we've had ever since we hit the road is that the toilet uses way more water than we expected. The specification says it's two quarts per flush, but it's actually been somewhere north of three quarts. For a while, I tried to adjust this using a stop on the supply line, but with minimal effect.

Things get worse when we are plugged in -- the slight bump in DC voltage caused by the charger makes the 24-volt water pump run at a slightly higher pressure, causing even more water to flow to the toilet during the (non-adjustable) cycle time. I've long suspected that installing a water pressure regulator on the toilet supply would cure this.

That said, I've never been able to find a regulator small enough to fit in the limited space in the toilet "tank" (actually a hollow in the porcelain fixture, in which sits the complex air and water valve mechanism). Turns out, though, that one of the vendors here in the exhibit hall had just such an item for sale -- I merely needed to remove the garden-hose style fittings from it and replace them with appropriate pipe-thread items.

To make a long story short, I wrestled with the new fittings for quite some time, trying to get the brass-to-plastic junction where it connects with the PEX to stop leaking. I finally got it down to a slow drip, stuck a towel under it, and called it a day -- I'll need more parts to fix it right. By that time, the hot tub was up to 104 and we enjoyed a nice soak after a long day.

Our soak was interrupted by sudden 30+ mph wind gusts, which prompted us to get out and take down our new little bug-screen room, one of the items we had so carefully set up on Sunday so we could have a mosquito-free place to sit outside.

Tomorrow is mostly set aside for cleaning out the bays. We'd like to add any items thus removed to the little pile of "free stuff" we've been displaying in front of the coach. Some of that is moving quite slowly, but the vacuum disappeared within mere minutes of setting it out. I've also promised a number of folks that we would offer tours, and I would announce them here. Right now, that's looking like sometime Thursday or Friday -- stay tuned.

Increasing Escapee density

We are parked behind the K-Mart in Gillette, Wyoming (map).

We had hoped to avoid wally-docking here in Gillette, since we knew that the entire town would be thick with rigs waiting to get in to the Escapade (you are not permitted to enter the Cam-Plex before the date on your admission credentials). Unfortunately, there were absolutely no other opportunities between Sheridan and here. There is no public land to speak of, and virtually no towns or services at all along US14. Reluctantly, we continued all the way to Gillette, knowing that, among other things, there was a Flying-J here and we could probably avoid the crowds by tucking in with the trucks.

The Flying-J is right across the street from here, and we needed to stop there anyway to dump the tanks. The tanks weren't very full -- barely a quarter capacity -- but we'll be sitting for 12 days straight here, so we needed to start out with completely empty tanks.

That proved to be more of a challenge than we imagined. I pulled up to the dump, and extended the fresh water hose over to the clean water spigot to start filling the water tank (our registration includes a water connection, but we're never certain until we see it). When I went to open the LPG compartment, which contains the tube where we store the sewer hose, only one of the two latches would release. Various attempts to free it with percussion (note: percussion = kicking. -Louise) and a pry bar were unsuccessful, and we had to pull away from the dump and regroup.

We briefly contemplated just running over to Wal-Mart and getting another sewer hose and bayonet connector, so we could at least get dumped and deal with the issue later. I knew we'd still need to get into that compartment in the near future anyway, and it's also a safety issue, considering the LP valves are in there. Besides, I didn't want to end up own not one but two used sewer hoses, and it seemed a waste (pardon the pun) to buy another hose just to throw it out in a day or two.

Instead we pulled around to the truck parking area and started to disassemble the door. That involved removing the rubber hinge connecting it to the other section of door above it, using pliers, WD-40, and a lot of swear words. Once the hinge was out, I could pry the door away from the compartment far enough to get my hand in and free the stuck latch. It turned out that the release bar which connects the latch on that side of the door to the release handle in the center of the door had come off, so pulling the release handle had no effect.

Once the door was off completely, we could reattach the release mechanism and secure it with a Zip-Tie, clean up the hinge track, and start to put everything back together. Easier said than done -- getting the rubber hinge back into the tracks in each door section was nearly as hard (and involved as much swearing -Louise) as removing it in the first place -- more lube and both of us working at it finally had it in most of the way, although it seems to now be a half inch too long. We're hoping it will relax back into its former shape.

After about an hour of wrestling with the bay door, we returned to the dump station, finished our business there, and headed across the street to Wal-Mart. We had already scoped out the truck parking at Flying-J, and determined that it was a very small lot, perhaps only 50 spaces, and we wanted to leave them for the truckers -- we assume they fill completely nightly.

When we pulled in to the parking lot here, we saw dozens of rigs in front of the store, and decided to check out the back lot. That's when we discovered we were really at K-Mart -- turns out the Big K and Wal-Mart share a large parking lot here. Just as well, as Wal-Mart seldom puts customer spaces in the back, yet there was a large section of unused parking here at K-Mart. Only one other rig, a B+, is back here with us.

We ended up doing a good deal of shopping at both stores, after a tasty dinner at the very popular Las Margaritas restaurant across the street. We're figuring to unload a bunch of things here at the escapade, for example our upright vacuum cleaner that was great when we had carpet, but which we no longer need. So we ended up picking up a diminutive shop vac, which will be more useful in our all-vinyl world. And a pop-up-tent style screen room, since we're expecting lots of bugs.

We need to be at the Cam-Plex tomorrow between 8 and 2. I expect we'll actually be there around noon -- it should only be a fifteen minute trip -- after doing a little more shopping in the morning and maybe finding someplace where we can stop and wash the rig -- it's filthy from myriad dirt roads over the last few weeks.

Surrounded by Escapees

We are at the Wal-Mart in Sheridan, Wyoming (map).

I'm guessing there were easily a dozen rigs here last night, maybe more. I would suspect that many (most?) of them are fellow Escapees, also en route to Gillette. (None was "camped" -- unlike the Cody scene, these folks were all passing through.)

We had a nice scenic drive yesterday from our wonderful little camp in the Bighorns. We stopped at Burgess Junction, where the Forest Service has a free, four-lane dump station. We didn't need to dump, but we did need fresh water, and there were two clean-water spigots there as well. Oddly, no trash collection, though, and we had packed out not only our own trash, but also whatever we found in our site (the fire ring was loaded with it), as there were no receptacles at Porcupine, either.

A mile or so further on, we came across the visitor center, which, I must say, is the nicest Forest Service visitor center we've ever seen. In addition to watching the little film about the medicine wheel, and browsing the exhibits, we bought a Bighorn Mountain pin for the pin collection, and dropped two small sacks of trash into their barrels.

It was, as they say, all downhill from there. We gave back every bit of elevation we gained on the Oh My God Hill. We got to partially make up for the crappy mileage we got on the up grade by getting infinite mileage coming back down, and free battery charging to boot. And while this grade was pretty steep, between 5% and 7%, it was not nearly as bad as the other side -- I was able to stay off the brakes, for the most part, with judicious use of the retarder. Some time ago I wired a momentary foot switch (under my left foot) into the retarder, in parallel with the on/off switch on the dash, and it really came in handy yesterday.

Upon arriving here in Sheridan, we proceeded immediately to the post office, where I expected my pair of DirecTV receivers from eBay to be waiting for me. However, they were not. I've already filed a dispute on them -- they were paid for on the 4th, and I'm guessing the seller never bothered to ship them. So the first set of receivers disappeared into the USPS, never to be seen again, and this pair is similarly irretrievable, which puts me back to square one on fixing the DirecTV system. I'm a hair's breadth away from just canceling the service.

There's a coin laundry in the strip mall across the street from Wal-Mart, and that was our next stop, with Louise doing a humongous load. The weather's been flip-flopping so much for the last couple weeks that we've gone through most of our summer and winter clothes. We're back down in the warmth now, so I think we're done with the winter stuff for a while.

That sapped the last of our energy for the day, and, after getting Odyssey squared away here at Wal-Mart, we walked across the street to the Sugarland Mining Company restaurant in the Holiday Inn for dinner. The food was a bit pricey -- it's a hotel, after all -- but bottles of wine were half price last night, which made up for it (we chose the Coppola Syrah).

Our Escapade ticket is for a Saturday arrival, so we have one more night before we're due, even though we're within striking distance right now. We'll meander over to Gillette on US14, rather than taking I-90, and probably end up someplace along the way for tonight.

A couple of readers have inquired just where Odyssey is in the photo we posted yesterday. You really can't make it out, as it's only a few pixels wide in the shot. I had the camera on it's highest optical zoom (2x), but we were over two miles away. We could clearly make it out with our 7-power binoculars, and so I know which pixels to circle here in this version (as with all photos here on the blog, click to view full-size). To save some resources, including upload bandwidth, since this is a repost, I have reduced this version to half size and saved it at a lower resolution, so Odyssey is even fewer pixels here:

Quiet again at Porcupine

We are still at the Porcupine campground in the Bighorn Mountains.

The place seemed absolutely crowded last night. There were two "Scamp" trailers (unrelated) and three more sets of tenters, in addition to Mike and Ellen from Wisconsin, whom we met the day before. This morning, however, we are again all alone. One set of tenters, also from Wisconsin (at least from their plates) is still occupying their site, but they're out for the day. Two sites, actually -- there are a pair of nice "walk in" sites set off from the road a ways in the trees, and this large family has taken both and set up three tents and a large tarp across the two sites; they look well-prepared (although they, too, were caught by surprise with the water situation).

One reason for the empty status at the moment might be the storm that blew through in the night. It was not as bad, or as early, as predicted -- the weather radio had gone to alert mode several times late yesterday, with dire warnings about 60mph winds and quarter-sized hail. Louise even made a trip around the loop passing the word to all the other campers. Other than the vault toilets, Odyssey is the sturdiest thing around, and we offered to be the storm shelter should the worst happen.

The weather early in the day was quite pleasant -- sunny and relatively warm, though not as warm as Tuesday. I took advantage of the conditions to change the oil in the scooters; Louise's was overdue by a few miles, and I was early by only 150km (the correct oil for each was part of the massive Wal-Mart expedition in Cody).

After that was done, we took a ride down to the ranger station another mile along the road, then a "GS" adventure (for you motorcyclists out there) down an unmaintained road by the creek. On our way up to the main highway, we turned in to a dirt driveway (off the dirt Forest Service Road) just about a mile from here with a sign curiously advertising "Store Open -- Beer, Gas." We didn't make it all the way to the store, although we could see it -- a serious mud bog was more off-roading than we wanted to do just to see a store in the middle of nowhere. This actually turns out to be the Wyoming High Country Guest Ranch. Nice to know there are supplies near here if one needed them.

We also rode up Medicine Mountain to the parking area for the Medicine Wheel -- somewhere around 10,000'. Unfortunately, the road was not cleared beyond that point, and a mile and a half through snow was more hiking than we wanted to do to see the wheel. We did spot Odyssey in the valley below using binoculars -- I tried to capture a photo, which turns out to be a nice panorama, but I doubt you'll pick the bus out in it.



At the summit, just a little further uphill from this point is a large radome for the FAA's regional traffic control radar -- this is the highest point in the region. The road to the summit is closed to the public.

In a few minutes we will pull up stakes and head out. We already stowed the scooters, at 11:45 last night, upon hearing the dire warnings on the weather radio (we didn't think they'd remain standing on the dirt road in 60mph winds).

Oh My God, that's steep

We are at the Porcupine campground, at 8,750' in the Bighorn National Forest (map).

Yesterday we drove through the main part of Cody -- wow, what a tourist trap. I did note, on our way out of Wal-Mart, that six of the rigs I noticed yesterday were closed up for the day, and the tow or towed vehicles were away doing whatever. We decided that printing copies of the etiquette letter to leave on these rigs would be a waste of paper and expensive ink.

We had a pleasant drive along US14A to the Yellowtail Wildlife Management Area, along the Yellowtail Reservoir just south of the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. Our guides indicated primitive camping there, and the sign on the roadway did, indeed, have a tent symbol. After half a mile of rutted dirt road, though, we had to turn back due to low trees.

As we continued east, we noticed a few more camping icons at various other turn-offs into the Wildlife Management Area, but our guide books were silent on these. Not knowing whether the camping was one mile down the road or ten, combined with the fact that the temperature had already climbed into the 90s, persuaded us to continue east into the Bighorn Mountains.

Little did we know that the grade ahead of us is called the "Oh My God Hill," and consists, according to our Mountain Directory West, of a section of 8% grade followed by a section of 10% (really!) grade, a total of 13 miles worth.



We averaged 13 mph (not counting stops) up this hill, at a fuel rate of 1.2 MPG. More than one full hour and at least eleven gallons of diesel later, we pulled off onto the brake check area at the summit. I say "at least" because that does not count the fuel we burned sitting in turnouts on "high idle" for several minutes to let the coolant temperature come down from 215 or so back into the 190s. We turned out four or five times; once onto a patch of fresh asphalt into which we sank -- I could not get the bus rolling forward even in low gear at full throttle, so we had to let our 24 tons pull us backwards down the hill until we were back out in the traffic lane. (My humble apologies to WYDOT -- we left some humongous ruts in the asphalt both on the shoulder and into part of the lane.)



I can honestly say that, not counting short bits of driveway and the like, this is the steepest continuous climb we've ever made in Odyssey. It is also the longest it has ever taken us to drive 13 miles -- I think Louise could have blown by me on her 49cc Honda. There are precious few turnouts, as well, so I felt sorry for the one poor bloke who was stuck behind us (at 12 mph) for a good three miles or so (the whole grade is double-yellow).



We had our sights set on the Bald Mountain campground, a mile or so beyond the summit and just off the road. The campground is apparently open, and completely empty -- that's because a foot deep snow drift blocks the entrance road for perhaps 30 yards. I did try to power through it, but even our aggressive traction-tread drivers began to spin as the snow under foot compressed into ice. Too bad, it was a great spot. We backed out onto the highway, and backtracked a quarter mile to Forest Road 13.

Two miles of slightly muddy dirt, with patches of snow, brought us here. The entry road here also had several snow drifts, some perhaps two feet deep, but none wider than a couple yards. This place was also completely deserted, and, as with Bald Mountain, the iron ranger was covered over with plastic and tape (free camping!). There were no gates or "closed" signs, however, and so we powered through the snow drifts and found this most excellent site with a view of the valley, and plenty of open sky for both satellite access and passive solar heating -- it was in the low 70s when we arrived, in stark contrast to the valley 5,500' below where it was 90 as we began our climb.

Our solitude was relatively short-lived -- around 8pm, a couple from Wisconsin drove in, and set up two sites down from us -- about the only relatively dry site in the whole place for their tent. They did the whole drive that day, and are on their way to Oregon. They knew of this spot from a previous visit, and had called the ranger station before arriving, who told them it had been opened just last week.

Their last visit was in the month of August, and so they were a bit unprepared for early spring conditions -- snow melt has most of the campground very soggy, and the hand-operated well pump is still bagged and closed for the season. We ended up giving them a couple gallons of water from our tank.

It was just the four of us here last night. This morning, another set of tenters and a Scamp travel trailer have pulled in, and at least another two cars came through for a look. My own fault, I guess, since Odyssey compacted and/or leveled all the snow drifts blocking the road yesterday.



It's exquisitely beautiful and peaceful here, and since we drove four hours rather than the planned two yesterday, we are going to spend two nights here. Tomorrow we will continue east through the Bighorn National Forest, rejoining US14 at Burgess Junction.

"Camp Wal-Mart" Hall of Shame, Part III

We are at the Wal-Mart in Cody, Wyoming (map).

Long-time readers will recognize from today's title that I am about to launch into one of my trademark rants. First, however, a short update: We had a nice drive here from Eagle Creek, stopping briefly to check out the North Fork Campground in Buffalo Bill State Park, which was nice, and a bargain at $12 for non-residents, but I was feeling like we really needed to get to town for provisions.

A few miles further along we stopped at the Buffalo Bill (née Shoshone) Dam visitor center. The concrete arch dam was quite impressive -- the world's highest dam at the time of its construction, at 325' (since expanded to 350'), and the first "Reclamation" project in the west. With the river raging, the spillway was in full operation, creating a spectacular spray at the base of the structure. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of debris against the upstream face -- tons and tons of wood, some of which we had witnessed making its way downstream (and one pool noodle -- no word on whether there had been a child attached).

We arrived here at Wal-Mart mid-afternoon and situated ourselves in the darkest and most remote corner of the lot, next to an unladen flat-bed semi. In addition to a gargantuan $200 shopping spree (see, I told you we needed provisions), I wandered around the lot taking the photos that follow. We had a decent, if pricey, dinner at iconic local eatery Cassie's Supper House, which is right across the street, before retiring to our living room for a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) which we rented from the Redbox dispenser right here in Wal-Mart.

This, by the way, is the first Wal-Mart where I have ever seen live lobsters for sale in the grocery department (and their diminutive brethren in the tropical fish department):



Now about that rant... I know I've said all this before (here and here), but it still torques me every time. In four years of living full time on the road, we've stayed at hundreds of Wal-Marts, and it is always disappointing when we come across one that, for whatever reason, does not permit it. Tourist destinations, in general, are the places where such is most likely to be the case; often, this is due to lobbying on the part of local RV park operators.

RV park operators claim they are losing revenue and that they have made extensive investments to ensure RVers have an appropriate place to park with proper facilities to enjoy their stay. The counterargument that RV travelers and their lobbyists (FMCA, Escapees, Good Sam, and others) have made, often successfully, is that sometimes all one needs is a safe place to park for the night while "passing through." Such travelers have no need of camping "facilities" and the requirement to pay for such unnecessary facilities is likely to simply cause the traveler to continue on to a different town. As part of the extensive lobbying effort, these varied organizations have even cooperated to produce this statement on overnight parking etiquette.

Cody is exactly the sort of place where this war is likely to be waged. It is something of a tourist destination in its own right, as well as being the gateway to Yellowstone. I can see two different RV parks right from my seat here as I type, and research shows around a dozen in town, including a KOA franchise, that arch-nemesis of Wal-Mart parking.

With that as a backdrop, these clowns come along and make liars of the rest of us:



These two rigs pulled in just across from us late in the afternoon. They immediately put the awning out, set up several tables and a half dozen or so chairs, and proceeded to have a barbeque in their private little patio area. Later, their several children used sidewalk chalk to draw an extensive hop-scotch area across three parking spaces. They had Wisconsin plates -- I'm guessing that this behavior has been the norm for them in a half dozen Wal-Marts across the country.



This couple has set up camp. They have their awning, mat, chairs, and table out, the dog (who later ran loose through the parking lot) tied up, and their tow vehicle detached for those sightseeing trips.



Later on, they hauled out the noisy little contractor generator on the other side of the rig. I'm glad we were not anywhere near them.



No word on whether these two rigs are traveling together. But when we arrived in the afternoon, the tow vehicles were nowhere to be found -- out sightseeing, perhaps in Yellowstone, is our guess. The rigs are set up for camping -- all the jacks are down. At least they put some wood under them.



This "hybrid" (hard-sided trailer with canvas pop-outs) is also clearly "camped." Popping the canvas parts out is somewhat of a gray area -- it's the only way to sleep in the rig (OTOH, when we used to travel by motorcycle, a tent was the only way to sleep; we would never have considered Wal-Mart an option with that mode of travel). But the lawn chair and the bicycles bespeak a different intent.

Now, I've showed you just six rigs out of over a dozen that were here last night. The remainder of the rigs looked to be more or less in "passing through" mode, with the exception of another couple of older travel trailers that appeared to have been "dropped" in the lot, and another detached fiver. But rest assured that the next time this matter comes up for debate at the city council meeting, one or more of the campground operators will come armed with dozens of photos just like these, as irrefutable evidence against the claim that people "just need a safe place to park for the night." Sadly, they will be right.

Incidentally, Wal-Mart's friendly parking policy is legendary; many long-haul truckers occasionally will stop at a Wal-Mart for their mandatory rest period. Here in Cody, I also spotted this bus:



This custom-modified Mercedes 0404 is owned and operated by "Rotel," which is an acronym for "Das Rollende Hotel" ("The Rolling Hotel"), a German tour company that offers budget tours all over the world in similarly equipped vehicles. This coach has 24 passenger seats and 26 sleeping berths (the two extras are for the driver and the guide). On the curb side across from the berths is an extensive drop-down "camp kitchen" set up.

We often see these coaches in the National Parks; Rotel often books a group campsite for the coach. People familiar with Rotel sometimes ask us if our German-built Neoplan is or was ever a Rotel coach -- odd question, since there is really no mistaking the extensive and unique sleeper/kitchen arrangement that constitutes the back half of every Rotel rig.

The Rotel left later in the afternoon -- I am guessing the customers were deposited at the museum or wherever, and the driver was here catching some rest or maybe stocking up on groceries and supplies for the evening. These tours, BTW, are offered exclusively in German, with German tour guides.

Sometime later, this nice Arrow Stage Lines Setra coach showed up in its stead; again, I am guessing the customers were at some attraction and the driver needed a place for some downtime.



Now that we are fully provisioned, we will continue east on US14A toward Bighorn Lake.

Along the raging river

We are at the Eagle Creek campground, right on the north fork of the Shoshone River, in the Shoshone National Forest (map).

What a difference from inside the park. Despite being a mere eight miles from the park's east entrance, and the closest open campground in this direction, only seven of the 21 sites here were occupied last night -- two thirds empty. That's in stark contrast to the campgrounds within the park, which have been filling completely every night.

The fee here is $15 per night, which is actually a buck more than we paid at Mammoth, and three dollars more than we paid at Norris. But checkout here is a sensible 2pm, and, since we arrived around 1:00 or so, we'll have gotten our money's worth at 25 hours in the site. While in Yellowstone, the Park Service booted us out at 10am -- we've normally just finished our coffee at that hour.

We had an uneventful and scenic drive over the hill and out of the park, stopping briefly at the Fishing Bridge visitor center, and picking up a couple of items at the general store there. After leaving the east entrance we passed the Pahaska Teepee, which is not a teepee at all but rather a "resort" (by which I mean a handful of cabins, a restaurant, a gas station, and, of course, a gift shop) built around Buffalo Bill's original 1904 hunting lodge, on the national register of historic places.

Our official Forest Service map showed a campground at Pahaska, but none was to be found. I think it is now just a trailhead for horse packers. In another mile or two we came to Three Mile campground, which is still closed for the season -- it's been a late spring here. A little beyond that, our map showed another campground at Sleeping Giant, and, while that facility very clearly was once a campground, complete with tables, fire rings, bear boxes, lantern hangers, and vault toilets, it is now only a picnic area and is closed after 9pm.

That brought us here to Eagle Creek, the very next option. We pulled in to check it out, expecting it to be mostly full. We were pleasantly surprised to get this spot right on the river, with a clear view to the satellite. Even though it was early in the day, and there are several more campgrounds east of here, we did not want to pass up this perfect spot, so we grabbed it. Previous occupants had left us a couple days' worth of cut firewood, as a bonus.

This is a great spot, and if we were not running short of both supplies and time, we would stay here a few days, and set the hot tub up (the river is, once again, within pumping distance). But we really need a real grocery store, and some scooter supplies (we are both due for oil changes), plus we'd rather have a leisurely drive over several days than to hustle the last 300 miles to Gillette. So we'll hang here until checkout time, then proceed a mere 45 miles or so to Cody this afternoon, where we know we can stock up.

We pulled the big scooter out yesterday and rode three miles or so back up the hill to the historic Shoshone Lodge for dinner. Less of a tourist trap than Pahaska and a mile or so closer, we found the staff friendly and the food good. We were surprised to be among only a small handful in the dining room, considering the cabins are fully booked. We ate early, though (6:30), and we suspect many guests don't come back out of the park until closer to dark.

The river here is very high and very fast right now. Every few minutes, a log, or sometimes an entire tree -- root ball, needles, and all -- comes racing downstream, occasionally to be snagged on a debris jam just beyond our little bend here at the confluence with Eagle Creek. We've seen five raftloads of tourists come downstream as well, outfitters hard at work at the oars steering around the debris.

We have yet to spot any bear, even though this is prime grizzly territory. So much so that this campground, as well as the yet-to-open Three Mile upstream, are now posted "hard sided" RV's only -- no tents or pop-ups. The ubiquitous bear boxes, lantern hangers, and vault toilets belie the fact that tents were once allowed here -- we can only guess that an "incident" in the past changed the Forest Service policy here. Apparently, tents are allowed in the lower and more open country to the east.

Closing our week in the park

We are at the Bridge Bay campground, on Yellowstone Lake (map).

We had a nice drive down from Canyon, with stops at the Sulphur Cauldron and Mud Volcano thermal areas, which were quite spectacular. We also made a lunch stop in one of the turnouts along the Yellowstone River.

After getting checked in here at the campground, where we were assigned a satellite-friendly space in one of the more open loops, we made reservations for a 2:45 scenic boat ride on the lake. The tour was interesting and informative, and at about $12 each, may just be the best kept secret of the park. We had perfect weather and conditions, and were treated to some spectacular vistas, including a view of the Tetons in the distance.

This evening is our last in the park, and so it is fitting that we dined at the nicest restaurant -- the dining room at the historic Yellowstone Lake Hotel. Afterwards we sat for a while in their "sun room" and listened to the string quartet, which plays nightly from 6 to 10. While we were in the neighborhood of the hotel, about a three mile scooter ride from here, we swung by the Lake Lodge and sat for a few minutes on the porch overlooking the lake, and also passed the world's oldest ranger station, which was pointed out to us on the boat tour.



Tomorrow morning will mark one full week in the park, and it has been a wonderful visit. We'll spend a bit more time on the way out seeing the sights along the east entrance road, and, with luck, will find a spot in the national forest east of here for tomorrow night. Reader Doug posted a nice write-up on these campgrounds in the comments section on my last post -- thanks, Doug!

Surfing the gap

We are at the Canyon Campground, near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (map).

Frankly, I did not expect to get on-line here; satellite imagery and anecdotal evidence all pointed to too much tree cover, and we knew our space was pre-assigned when we booked it yesterday morning, with no consideration for access. Nevertheless, we got extremely lucky, and we are on-line courtesy of a narrow gap in the trees in exactly the right direction. Had they put us in any other loop, with the roadway in any other orientation, we'd likely not be on.

The downside to this loop is that it is about as far away from everything as is possible to be here, but, hey, that's what the scooters are for. So we took them out just as soon as we arrived here about noon. Once we figured out that we had satellite access, we zipped right back down to the check-in about a mile away, and asked if the space was also available tomorrow night. It's not, so I booked a night at Bridge Bay, south of here, where I am also expecting to be off-line. We'll see how it goes.

That put us out and about on the scoots early in the day, and we rode through the little village, checking out the restaurant option for tonight (looks fine), the stores, and the visitor education center, which did live up to expectations. It was relatively warm (we're at 8K feet here, and there are still piles of snow throughout the campground) and sunny, and so we then rode down to Artists Point and took in the spectacular beauty of the Grand Canyon. June is the wettest month here, and the volume of water cascading over Upper and Lower falls was quite a sight.

We've now taken in most of the sights in this area, as North Rim drive is closed this season. So I don't feel too bad about spending only a night. In fact, we had planned to move Odyssey down to the visitor center parking tomorrow after checkout, while we rode around the area; now, however, I am thinking we'll load the scooters at checkout time and head to Lake Village, to get a mid-day start there tomorrow, too.

Tomorrow night at Bridge Bay will be our last night in the park; with any luck, there will be some space available at one of the half-dozen Forest Service campgrounds east of the east entrance Sunday night. If not, no big deal, as it's only another 45 minutes to the Wal-Mart supercenter in Cody, where we'll need to stop anyway for many sorely needed supplies.

Final night at Mammoth

We are still at the Mammoth campground in Mammoth Hot Springs. We had actually intended to leave this morning, but when I called Xanterra to see if they could fit us in the Canyon campground tonight, they said no, so we settled for tomorrow instead, and re-upped for another night here.

Tuesday we had a nice hike through the "terraces," the hydrothermal feature which gives this place its name. We also rode around the little community here for a little bit before I had to get ready for my teleconference presentation. My call took us all the way to dinner time and beyond, and we rode back up to the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel for dinner.

Yesterday I had another conference call in the middle of the day, which kind of nixed doing any serious sightseeing. In the afternoon we rode the five miles north to the little town of Gardiner, Montana, where were were able to pick up a few groceries and essentials in a store that was a good deal larger and marginally cheaper than the Xanterra-run stores here in the park, with a somewhat greater selection of items. We also scoped for future dinner options, but decided there was nothing there that warranted another ten-mile round trip.

On the way to Gardiner we passed the spot in the river where a hot spring empties into it, making a nice soaking area. Unfortunately, the area is closed right now due to high water flow and levels, just as Firehole was. The one-way "old Gardiner road," which we had wanted to take on the northbound leg, is also closed as impassable. When dinner time finally rolled around, I made the chicken that we had purchased down in Grant Village.

Today we rode over to Roosevelt and Tower Falls, to see the various sites that we figured to be inaccessible to us when we pass that way in Odyssey. That included the petrified tree and Tower Falls themselves, as well as driving right up to the Roosevelt Lodge, in front of which were parked no fewer than six ranger patrol cars, two with lights ablaze. The rangers appeared to be searching a car item by item, and it looked for all the world like a drug bust. One of our planned diversions was the Blacktail Plateau Drive, but that, too, was closed as impassable. Actually, the sign said "POOR" conditions, but someone had altered the "R" to a "P" and added a "Y."

As long as we were at Tower Falls on the scoots, we looped through the Tower Fall Campground, which is listed in the guide as suitable only for rigs 30' and shorter, and as having a hairpin turn. In fact, no such sign is posted at the campground itself, and we found at least four sites that would fit Odyssey. The hairpin, while perhaps an obstacle for more conventional 39' rigs, would pose no problem for us, either. We've already got non-refundable reservations at Canyon, so it's moot, but, were we to do it over, I would zip over there on the scooter at checkout time and snag a long site before they fill up.

This evening I did the ranger-led walking tour of old Fort Yellowstone before we retired to our third and final dinner in the hotel. Tomorrow we will head down to the Canyon area, where I understand the visitor center is fantastic.

Yellowstone!

We are at the Mammoth Campground, in Mammoth Hot Springs at the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park (map). Lots to update today, so long post here.

On Sunday morning we finished packing up the hot tub, stowed the rest of our gear, and were on the road at a fairly early (for us) hour of the morning. We had a pleasant and scenic drive north into the park; at the entrance station, we inquired about supplies, as we were running low on many things. They indicated that stores were available at Grant Village and Old Faithful, but not at our intended destination of Madison. They also confirmed for us that no campgrounds were open between the entrance station and Madison.

Too bad, really, because Lewis Lake was beautiful and we would have loved to spend a night or two there. Also, Grant Village had many services, including two restaurants, the aforementioned store, and, more importantly, five bars of digital coverage on Verizon, which I will need tonight for a Red Cross technology class that I am teaching by teleconference to some 60 volunteers. Lewis Lake was scheduled to open Sunday, but is still snow-bound. Grant Village is not scheduled to open until next weekend.

We did avail ourselves of the store, and stocked up on a number of overpriced essentials like tissues, toilet paper, fruit, veggies, and some frozen chicken. The service station also had the ¼" fuel hose I've been needing. While we were there, we had lunch in the little grill attached to the store. The other thing that happened in Grant Village is both of our cellphones sprang to life with oodles of voice messages that came in during the week we were completely out of coverage. Several of which were from the Red Cross trying to see if we were available to be deployed to the massive flooding in the Midwest -- there was apparently some mix-up in my availability record. Oops.

I spent some additional time while we were there talking to our Red Cross chapter to straighten out the availability information. While we could have been deployed sensibly while we were still in Laramie, we're too far now in terms of arrival time, and also too close on the heels of the training we are scheduled to present in Gillette in two weeks. We will go back on the deployment availability list on July 9th, when we are done with the training. While that's too late to be helpful with the current spate of disasters, we'll be available throughout hurricane season, and the flooding and tornadoes now are rapidly depleting the volunteer pool (many of whom have just three weeks to give each year).

Since we did not find everything we needed in the Grant Village store, we also stopped at Old Faithful. While we were there, we walked over to the Old Faithful Inn to see about dinner reservations. Sunday night was already booked, and we settled for the best they had on Monday, which was a 5pm seating. 9pm was also available, but we did not want to eat that late, or to be riding the scooter back to Madison at 10:30 -- the first hours of darkness are when you are most likely to encounter large, scooter-obliterating wildlife in the road. Old Faithful also had good cell coverage, which we took as a good sign.

By the time we arrived at Madison Junction, it was already nearly 3pm. We knew that all the park campgrounds had filled between 7 and 9 Saturday night, and we wanted to arrive no later than this hour. Unfortunately, it was already too late. While the campground was not full, they have a limited number of sites that would nominally fit Odyssey, and they told us they had none left. Now, we did not necessarily believe them, because Odyssey has easily fit in any number of nominal 30' and even 25' spaces before. But this campground is operated and staffed by concessionaires, and they would not let us even walk through and look at the available sites to check.

Without knowing which sites were already reserved, it would do us no good to walk through on our own to argue the point, so, miffed and disappointed, we simply left, not wanting to miss the last spots at Norris, the next campground north. We also noted that there was no cell coverage at all at Madison, and the extensive high tree cover also meant we could not have gotten our satellite on-line. At best, we could have stayed one night, to facilitate our scooter ride back to Old Faithful, before moving on to someplace with both cell coverage and a clear view to the satellite.

We made the 14-mile drive to Norris in a little under half an hour. As we were parking near the self-pay kiosk to walk the three loops (we did not want to get the bus stuck halfway around a loop due to low trees, tight turns, etc.), a ranger walked over and told us there were some 30'+ sites left in Loop C, and we were welcome to drive through and see if any would accommodate us. What a difference in attitude from the surly Xanterra employees over at Madison. As a bonus, the Park Service-run campground at Norris is a tax-free $14, whereas Xanterra charges $18.50, plus tax -- the $5.50 or so that we saved would pay for the extra 28 miles of scooter fuel twice over.

We found three sites in Loop C that would fit us, and we tried the satellite from each. No dice -- the tree cover was just too thick. The only spots with a clear view to the southeast were in Loop A, and they were already taken and also too tight a squeeze for us. The lateness of the hour convinced us we had better just take one, before we got aced out of the park altogether, and, besides, we did not want to get any further from Old Faithful than the 30 miles we already were. We ended up in space 90 (map), which was easily ten feet longer than we needed.

With the lack of cell coverage at Madison and Norris, and the difficulty getting on line, I was getting nervous about my teleconference tonight. I knew we needed to conclusively nail down a spot that would work, but now I had no Internet access with which to do the research. We decided to do it the old-fashioned way, and we pulled my scooter out and rode the 21 miles up to Mammoth, compass in hand, to check out the campground.

Mammoth is a much different microclimate, and the campground here turns out to have a clear view of the sky from almost every space, and there are plenty of 50'+ pull-throughs. It's also run by the Park Service at a reasonable $14 per night. The down side, though, is they take no reservations. We inquired with the camp host about the best time to get a good selection of sites, which, unsurprisingly, is just after check-out time at 10am. Our cell phones indicated 2-3 bars of digital service, which is adequate.

After we wrapped up at the campground, we retired to an excellent dinner at the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel, our reward for making the 40+ mile round trip on the scooter just to see if I could do my teleconference here. Full and pleased, we headed back to Norris in the last of the daylight (which hereabouts is quarter till ten, at this time of year). We got only about half way before coming upon an immense traffic jam (in Yellowstone, at 9-something in the evening). We struggled and strained to look past the line of perhaps three dozen cars, RVs, and even tractor-trailers, and we finally saw it: our entire conga line was following a herd of bison down the road, and we were all stuck until whenever the bison decided to leave the roadway for greener pastures.

That took about twenty minutes -- bison move very slowly, and the road through this section was bounded by a stream on one side, and a sharp drop-off on the other. In the meantime, crawling along at perhaps two MPH (I stopped frequently and shut off the engine), we had to constantly dodge fresh bison poop and large, umm, puddles in the road. I had to keep a good carlength or so ahead of me so that I could see the "hazards" in time to avoid ending up stopping someplace where I had to put my foot down in them. That prompted some [rhymes with witch] in a Mercedes SUV to cross the double yellow and pass half a dozen cars behind me to try to squeeze into the space in front of us -- I cut her off, and lectured her, through her closed window, about traffic etiquette when following bison herds, advice which is sure to stand her in good stead when she returns to her home in the northeast. Her husband had the good sense to look embarrassed.

When the bison stepped off the road and the conga line of traffic, now perhaps five or six dozen vehicles, started to pass them, we dropped further and further back so we could gun it past them. They were perhaps ten feet from the road, and bison can run 30MPH -- almost as fast as the scooter with both of us aboard. We felt just a tad naked as we made our way past. We did make it back to camp without further incident.

Yesterday morning I moved Odyssey out of the campground before the 10am check-out, and drove about a mile south, behind Louise on the scooter, to the large parking area at the Norris Geyser Basin visitor center. Louise got the dish on line, and had a nice hike around Norris Basin while I rode back up to Mammoth to secure this space. I again brought the compass to spot the satellite, and picked out a nice 50' pull-through with good satellite access and close to the entrance, in case we arrived after dark. The volunteer host staffing the booth seemed a bit confused by the guy on the tiny scooter who wanted a 50' space, but was happy to accommodate me. I put the little "Occupied" tag on the post, and left one of our orange cones in the site before returning to Norris by way of the Mammoth Hot Springs post office (yesterday was Tax Payment day, and I wanted to watch them date our payment envelope).

Between the slow ride both ways, the transaction at the campground, waiting in line at the post office, and putting fuel in the scooter at the Mammoth Conoco station, it was two hours before I returned to Norris. Some of that time was waiting in another traffic jam, this one due to fire crews thinning fuels along the road -- they closed the road down in both directions for fifteen minutes while they felled trees. That put me just in time for lunch, and to spend ten minutes on line sorting out Red Cross availability and to handle some urgent emails. Not enough time to blog, though, as we wanted to get rolling back down to Old Faithful and the other geyser basins in that part of the park.

After securing Odyssey for the day, including posting the FAQ in the front window for the hundreds of park visitors that figured it (by their gawking) to be one of the exhibits, we hopped on my scooter to ride down to the geysers. When we thought we'd be at Madison, our plan had been to ride both scooters, but with Louise's top speed in the neighborhood of 30 and the roads being posted at 45, we decided 30 miles was too far for that (16 miles would have been just barely doable).

After passing Madison (thumbing our noses at the Xanterra concession on our way past), we diverted to the spectacular Firehole Canyon Drive, which is one-way southbound. We stopped briefly at the Firehole River swimming area, currently closed. A few miles south of where that route deposited us back on the Grand Loop road, we turned off onto Firehole Lake Drive, a short one-way loop northbound past the Great Fountain Geyser and White Dome Geyser, the latter of which we were fortunate to see erupt on our drive. We also walked around some of the thermal pools, which I won't even attempt to describe -- you just need to come here and experience this all first-hand.

By the time we wrapped up at Firehole Lake, it was past three, and I was eager to get to Old Faithful so we could see an eruption before our 5pm dinner reservations. I'd been to Old Faithful three times previously, and somehow missed an eruption each time. After getting parked and settled, we learned the prediction was for 4:20 (really), +/- ten minutes, so we headed to the comfy benches on the second-floor porch of the Old Faithful Inn at quarter to four, where we could see the show in comfort with a glass of red wine in hand. (This, BTW, is the only way to go -- if you're early enough, you'll have a choice of shade or sun, and the benches and chairs are wide and have backs, unlike the Park Service benches around the geyser, which, while a hundred yards closer, are all in full sun, narrow, and backless, not to mention the fact that the folks in front of you will doubtless stand up when the geyser erupts.)

The eruption started at 4:30, almost on the dot (we think the Park Service predictions are intentionally "early"), and was spectacular if trite. It looks just as it does in thousands of tourism brochures, photos, and videos. Neither is it the most impressive geyser in the park. Still, it's one of those requisite things to do when in Yellowstone, and I was glad, on my fourth try, to finally catch one. The period, BTW, is now about 90 minutes, and we caught the next one on the dot of 6 as we left from dinner. So I guess I'm really two for four now.

Dinner was very good. We both opted for the "Signature Buffet Dinner," which was the best value on the menu and included soup, salad, large peel-and-eat shrimp, prime rib (a bit overcooked for our tastes) and chicken, as well as a variety of side dishes and bread pudding for dessert. There was also an extensive a la carte menu, which looked nice. After dinner we spent some time admiring the historic lodge, one of the great National Park lodges, in the same league with the Ahwahnee, El Tovar, and the Furnace Creek Inn, some of our other favorites. It's a pity there is no camping close to Old Faithful, as we would like to spend more leisurely time there.

On the return trip, we stopped at Midway Geyser Basin, one of the more spectacular groupings of geothermal features in the park. Again, I can't do it justice here. By the time we returned to the Norris parking area, the place was deserted. On Louise's suggestion, I wandered over to the Porcelain Basin overlook before we headed out.

We had an uneventful but scenic drive over the now-familiar road to Mammoth, arriving here at the campground just at dusk. We blew past the "Campground Full" sign and right up to space 12, where my orange cone was still sitting undisturbed. The camp hosts happened to be standing right there, and looked very confused that a large rig was pulling in so late. It looked like they were about to lecture us on the campground being full, when I stuck my head out the window and reminded them about the guy on the scooter...

Finally warm in the John D. Rockefeller Parkway

We are still at our near-secret free camp site in the J.D. Rockefeller Parkway, a mile or so from Flagg Ranch.

When we were passing through Flagg Ranch Tuesday, we thought we might stay here for a night if we found a nice spot. When we arrived at this perfect spot here along the river, we decided immediately to stay at least two nights, and we set up the hot tub. On Wednesday the forecast was for more miserable weather Thursday, and we decided to delay our departure for Yellowstone until Friday morning. And by Friday morning, as the weather was improving dramatically, we decided it was so beautiful here, and free to boot, that it made no sense to battle our way through weekend crowds into Yellowstone, and we just decided to stay until Sunday.

Unfortunately, tomorrow (Sunday) we will, indeed, have to leave this spot. When we left Colter Bay village, we figured to be in Yellowstone in a day or two at the most, and so we put in less than half a tank of water. Then, once we were here, we figured to be here only two or three days, and so we were not ultra-conservative with the water, as we are when we know we need to stretch it. Consequently, we are down to the bottom of the tank today -- after our post-hot-tub showers tonight, we've got enough left to flush the toilet and do the dishes for another day, but no more showers until we fill the tank.

Yesterday a Park Service ranger came by -- the first official presence we'd seen here. He chatted with us briefly, checked all four picnic tables for bear warnings and all four bear boxes for securement clips. He also checked the bear-proof doors on the trash receptacles, as well as emptied then into his unmarked pickup truck. Today he was back briefly, in the full-zoot law enforcement ranger truck.

We've had the place mostly to ourselves until yesterday. The young family has been here the whole time as well, but today saw four other groups come in and set up camp (in the remaining two sites -- there seem to be "boundary" issues). Also, we've seen other cars and even rigs heading down the road. Our own scout of the road on Thursday revealed that it is closed past Camp 4 -- the ranger told us a culvert is washed out. This area, Camp 1, has four sites, and camps 2-4 have two each, for a total of ten open right now. Camps 5-8 are each a single site, bringing the capacity to 14 sites when the road is open. We figured Odyssey could make it into any of the sites in Camp 1, Camp 2, and Camp 4. Camp 3 had a bus-trapping mud puddle on one entrance and low trees on the other.

So unsurprisingly, I suppose, these free camp sites do fill up on the weekends when the weather is nice. The ranger did tell us that it's usually possible to find at least one site open, though, on all but the biggest holiday weekends.

Flagg Ranch next door is also at capacity for the weekend (at least as far as the cabins are concerned -- there appears to be plenty of room in the RV park). They're busy enough to require reservations for dinner, which we discovered when we wandered in Thursday night. We ate there again for breakfast this morning and dinner this evening -- another consequence of not planning on being here this long is that we are running low on fresh food. The little store here carries only packaged items, at a significant markup.

Speaking of the store, which is also the gas station, they did not have any fuel hose, which forced my ongoing Webasto diagnostics in a different direction. I spent most of yesterday taking the whole thing apart, so I could move the control box from behind the unit, where I could not reach it, to the front of the unit, where I could. This let me stick my meter on various signals while the unit went through its cycle, and I discovered that, indeed, the flame sensor is indicating that the flame is going out, at which point the igniter system kicks back in. You can hear the igniter coil firing pretty regularly after the unit has run for several minutes. It seems the flame dies down momentarily, the sensor catches it immediately, and the igniter gets things going again as long as any fuel is still flowing.

As luck would have it (we keep a spare seat available for Heisenberg, or was that Murphy), we could not get it to fail completely while I had the meter on it. But it seems clear that, at some point, the flame goes out long enough, without being restarted, that the system declares itself out of fuel and locks out. This, combined with the restriction gauge evidence, pretty strongly validates my suspicion that we have inadequate fuel flow due to some kind of blockage. I am back to needing a length of ¼" fuel hose to confirm this conclusively, at which point the onerous task of finding and repairing the blockage will begin.

At least we are now at a point where we don't need the heat -- today it was in the 70's here, quite a change from our arrival. I took advantage of the nice weather to install a new hour meter on the Webasto (the little LCD one that is built in to the external relay box supplied by Sure Marine gave up the ghost -- I added an electro-mechanical one elsewhere in the system). I also finally managed to install a delay timer in the battery-tie relay, to give the main engine a minute or so to warm up before connecting the house batteries to the giant engine alternator for charging.

When we got back from dinner we stowed the scooters, and after our evening soak, we drained the hot tub back into the river. Tomorrow morning it should be thoroughly dried out and we can deflate and pack it, then get on the road. Our destination is the Madison campground near the west entrance to Yellowstone. Everything between here and there is still closed.