On to West Yellowstone, MT and Yellowstone National Park

This morning, August 26, Sandy and I went for a drive to the area northwest of West Yellowstone, MT. Along the way we went through an area called the Madison River Canyon Earthquake Area.



This earthquake, a 7.5 on the Richter scale and the fourth largest at that time in the US, happened on August 17, 1959 at a little after 11:00 PM. The first area we came to was Hebgen Lake. the Land surface along the north shore of the lake dropped 19 feet causing the lake bed to tip which sent the water sloshing back and forth. Cabins and resorts on the north shore were inundated with water while the south shore was left high and dry. The first building was shaken apart from the earthquake while the second was immersed in water because of the land tilting.





The most significant event from the earthquake was a major landslide that occurred where over 80 million tons of rock blocked a canyon. This eventually formed Earthquake Lake which now has a depth of over 100 feet where, previously, you could wade across the Madison River at this point.





There was a Federal campground at this point with approximately 250 campers. 28 did not survive. One of the amazing facts of this lake is how fast it filled. In less than a month the Corps of Engineers had to cut a 150 foot wide by 15 foot deep channel on the top of the slide to let water out. Then less than a month later they had to deepen it by another 50 feet. Later that evening Sandy and I were walking around town and came across these painted buffalo.





We heard that there are over 20 around town. It seems everyone is getting into the act of doing similar projects. Saint Paul, MN has the Snoopy’s, Amarillo, TX has the painted horses and who knows what else is out there. On the 27th Sandy and I spent the day in Yellowstone National Park.





We drove the north loop in Yellowstone for the first time. Although we have been to Yellowstone a couple of times before, we had never made it up here. One of the more interesting stops was at the Mammoth Hot Springs. This is an area that keeps building up from the mineral deposits. Here are several pictures of the area.











Later on down the road we were traveling along the Yellowstone River and stopped at several of the pull outs. At one of the spots we had 3 Osprey’s soaring around, I would have said above, but a lot of the time they were below us in the canyon. Here is a picture of the Yellowstone as it flows north out of the park.



Now if you are extremely sensitive about bad taste, you should read no further. And then of course there has to be the obligatory photos of the wild life.



Now I can’t tell, but for a buffalo, was that a good or a bad smell.



Bye for now,
Dave and Sandy

The road to the Grand Teton's

This morning, August 16, we left Aberdeen at 8:30 and headed for the Grand Teton’s to meet up with our friends Ron and Jane. It sure is nice driving this time of the year with the wheat fields being harvested, the hay being cut and the tall corn still green with the white tassels. We also drove past a lot of sunflower fields in full bloom with their yellow heads turned towards the sun.



We drove most of the way on US 212, crossing the Missouri River at Gettysburg, SD.



Summertime always seems to be road construction time. We managed to hit about 15 miles of fresh tar and gravel near Eagle Butte, SD. You guessed it, the front of the truck and the back of the motorhome were full of tar. When we arrived in Spearfish, SD we stopped at the Elkhorn Ridge RV Park Resort for the night.

The next morning as we were starting to disconnect the water system, I noticed that there was some red fluid on the ground under the motorhome. A closer look confirmed my first thought that it was engine coolant. After getting under the coach and analyzing the situation I figured it was a loose hose clamp. But as my luck has been lately, it was buried behind a metal shield that was there to protect the bottom of the radiator. An hour later we were ready to hit the road. As long as I had the shield off, I tightened up 6 more clamps that I could see. Our first part of today’s travel was on I-90 west from Spearfish. I took this picture as we were approaching the Bighorn Mountains.



In Buffalo, WY we caught US 16 which took us over Powder River Pass at 9,666 feet. The next picture is taken after the pass in Tensleep Canyon.



When we got to Worland we headed south on US 20. After Thermopolis we passed through the Wind River Canyon.



This looks like an area we might come back to visit sometime. From there we headed to Riverton, WY for the night. We don’t think we need to spend any more time than just an overnight stop in this town again.
The morning of the 18th we left Riverton heading to Gros Ventre Campground 6 miles north of Jackson, WY in the Grand Teton National Park. We followed US 26 the whole way. We did go through Togowotee Pass, which is also the Continental Divide, at 9,658feet.



After the pass we ran into several miles of more road construction. At least this time tar was not involved.





Sandy decided to take a picture of me relaxing behind the wheel.



I spent the next couple of days cleaning tar off the truck and motorhome.

This morning, Sunday the 24th, Sandy, Jane and I went on a walk to Taggart Lake so we could get some pictures of the Grand Teton’s with their reflections in the lake.
On the way over there we had to stop for a herd of buffalo that was heading to their watering hole.



Later a group of elk passed in front of us.



The trail to the lake was a moderate 3.2 mile round trip, Jane had her hand on the bear spray all the way up and back. Well, maybe she wasn’t holding the bear spray, but she sure did not leave home without it. The views were beautiful on the way up the trail.



Here are three pictures taken at Taggart Lake.







This is one of the walks that should be taken before 8:00 AM or earlier so you can get the morning sun and beat the crowds.

We left Gros Ventre on Monday the 25th and headed up to West Yellowstone, MT. While still in The Grand Teton’s we stopped at an old Mormon homestead that was established in the 1910’s. Now here's a home with a view?.






Dave and Sandy

It's been a busy month

It’s been a month since we last posted, so we figured we had better post before we head out to the Grand Teton’s to visit with our friends Ron and Jane. A few days ago we received an e-mail from Denver, Ron and Jane’s standard white Poodle. She was asking if there was any chance that we could pick up some Purina Pro Plan Weight Management (not for the large breed mind you) Chicken flavor 20 lb. bag. It seems that her caregivers had miscalculated how long they were going to stay in the boondocks and provisions are running short. It seems that Jackson, WY does not have anything other then what high maintenance dogs would eat. Must be the California influence. Denver said it was a 250 mile round trip to the nearest food store and she thought that might be a little too much to ask of Ron and Jane. She figured that they would put her on some sort of Moose or Snake diet, even if it does taste like chicken. So Denver thought she would give her city friernds a try so off to Pet Smart we went. Denver, the food is on the way!
On the 12th of July Dale, a friend and business partner, and I went for a motorcycle ride south along the Mississippi on the Wisconsin side to La Crosse, WI. One of the small towns in WI was having a Catfish Days celebration and a bunch of motorcycles were parked along the street so we stopped for a rest.

From La Crosse we crossed over to La Crescent, MN and picked up MN Hwy 16, which we followed across southern Minnesota to Dexter. We then took a couple of back roads west to pick up MN Hwy 56 north that we followed back to home. It was a real nice day and we put on about 350 miles, which for me, meant I was a little sore across the shoulder blades as this was my first time out on the Moto Guzzi in two years.
This year the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) had their annual Convention at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in Saint Paul. About 2500 coaches camped there. On Monday the 14th, Sandy and I went to a couple of seminars and visited a little with Chuck and Lorraine. Minnesota’s infamous hot and humid weather set in so it was a little uncomfortable for those people without electric hookups.
Today, 7-21, we had to move out of Lebanon Hills because our two weeks are up. Before we headed over to Mystic Lake I went to Cummins NPower to have them look at an oil leak and a coolant leak we have in the motorhome. The coolant leak turned out to be a loose clamp, so all they had to do was tighten that up. The oil leak was another matter. We could not remove the engine cover in the bedroom so it was difficult for them to see where the leak was coming from. They thought it was the valve cover but had to put some dye in the oil to make sure and that’s where the leak was. Because I could not get the engine cover off, they decided to work from the back of the motorhome. Work can be done this way, but it’s much more difficult. It turned out that the valve cover gasket had a cut so they replaced it and sent me on my way. When I got to Mystic Lake and got parked, I took a look under the engine area and guess what? There was more oil under there. I gave them a call and told them what I had found and said that I was going to clean it off and then take it for a drive tomorrow to see if it was truly a leak or if it was just residual oil from when they worked on it. What are the chances of that being the case? Your right, NONE. After I took it out for a drive this morning it still had the leak. I called and made an appointment for the next Monday, 7-28-08.
There are a few projects that I wanted to do on the motorhome, one of which was to add a shelf in one of the bays. Sandy had a dentist appointment downtown, so I drove her to her appointment and then drove up to Second Street (there are a bunch of salvage yards in the area) to look for some pallet racking shelf wire that I could use to make some extra shelves in the storage bays on the motorhome. After stopping at a couple of places I found something that would work. Then it was back to pick up Sandy and head for home. You have got to save gas when you can. In the old days when gas was “cheap”, we would have made separate trips.
I installed one of the shelves after cutting the shelves down to size and painting them,. This required that I make some brackets for the front of the shelf. The dealer had welded on a couple of angle iron brackets in the back when we picked up the motorhome. So far, we are keeping one of the inside folding chairs, 2 outside collapsible chairs and the i-pod boom box on that shelf. I may put another shelf in the next bay, but I will have to do some rearranging first.

My cousin John, had a reunion of all the cousins out to the old family homestead on Sunday the 27th. Of the 14 cousins, all were able to make it except for one of my brothers, Glen, and our cousin, Cathy, in Florida. My dad was able to come with my brother, Joe, and his wife. My dad is the patriarch of the family as he is the last of 7 aunts and uncles to the cousins.

On the 28th we took the motorhome back up to Cummins NPower to have them check out the leak again. It turned out to be the gasket again, but this time it was easier for them as I had finally figured out where the screws were that attached the engine cover in the bedroom. The only problem was that they left a mess on the carpet that Sandy had to work hard to get clean. Next time we will have to open up the slides so we can inspect the floor before we leave the shop so THEY can clean it instead of us. At least the leak is fixed now.
This morning, 7-31-08, we got a call about 7:30AM while I was in the shower. It was Sandy’s mother calling to let us know that they had been hit by a storm around 4:30AM, and that they had a lot of trees down and had a couple of broken windows. It turns out that they had straight line winds over 100 MPH. After I got out of the shower and heard what was going on, we decided to pack up and head out to help them out. Of course, when you are in a hurry nothing seems to go right. We drove Sandy’s car up to the garage, left it there and came back to the motorhome to leave. After we fueled up the motorhome, Sandy pulled the GMC truck up so I could hook it up for towing. Now here is where the problem started. We had been having some problems with the transmission transfer case in the truck. The transfer case has a switch so that you can select 2 wheel drive, auto, 4 wheel drive high, 4 wheel drive low and neutral. By putting it in neutral you can pull the pickup behind the motorhome with all four wheels on the ground. Previously, on a couple of occasions after we have gotten to our destination and disconnected the truck the transfer case would not switch from neutral to a drive gear. It would eventually go into gear if you let it sit for about an hour. So we took it in and had it “fixed”. Guess what, they did fix the problem, except now it would not go into neutral for towing. Luckily, it was still in gear so we drove it over to the dealer in Apple Valley (30 miles out of our way) and left it for them to service as we did not have time to wait. So it was 10:30AM by the time we got on the road. When we arrived at Sandy’s folk’s around 5:00PM, John, Sandy’s brother-in-law, and Dad had the front yard pretty much cleaned up. They had sawed up a 50 foot spruce tree that had fallen into a big Maple tree. When John counted the rings he said it was 34 years old. Some of the growth rings were ¼ inch thick.

They had also taken a lot of broken limbs out of the Maple tree. We got the motorhome parked and pitched in until the mosquitoes got so bad we gave up for the day.
When we got up in the morning I went out to survey the damage to the trees in the back. Sandy’s Mom and Dad have 3 acres of land and I bet there must be 300 trees in there. It ended up that there were 10 to 12 trees that were uprooted or broken off.

John came out at 8:00 AM and we began to cut and haul trees for the next two days. With this many trees on the property there was no way to get a pickup in to haul the cut up trees out to the south and east side of the property, of course, all of the downed trees were on the north side of the property, so we started to drag them out by hand. By noon we needed to come up with a better way of getting the debris out. Sandy mentioned using the her Dad’s lawn tractor with a small trailer to haul the stuff, but after a couple of loads we just laid the limbs on the ground, tied a chain around them and her Dad dragged them out as John, Sandy and I cut and stacked.

A neighbor had lent us a 4-place snowmobile trailer to load all the debris and haul it out to a landfill. However, after hauling all the debris out to the road by hand we decided we needed a better way to get rid of it. We estimated there were about 10 loads to haul. None of us wanted to pick it all up again by hand and unload it by hand so we looked at the insurance policy to see if they would pay anything on tree debris removal and it turned out they would pay up to $1,000. The vote was unanimous to have a wood chipper come in to chip it up and haul it away. I sure did not have any trouble sleeping the next few nights. Her Dad has enough fireplace wood for many years to come. We headed back to the Minneapolis on Monday the 4th of August.
On Wednesday the 8th of August, several staff members of Fure Financial came out to check out our “house on wheels”. They were Johannes, Stacy, Beatrice, Dale, Karin, Laura and her husband Jeff. Thanks for coming out. We really enjoyed the visit . We all noticed that Johannes was getting pretty comfortable in the drivers seat.
On Sunday the 10th Dale, Mary, Brenda and Bob stopped in for a cocktail before eating dinner at Mystic Lake Casino and taking in a Larry The Cable Guy show. His humor was great, but you can’t be too sensitive because he manages to insult just about everyone.
The next few days were spent on more improvement projects. One day I set up the Gen-turi Exhaust systems for the generator and the Aqua-hot (hot water and furnace).

later in the week I installed the macerator system for sewage disposal. It leaked when I tested it with the gray water. The hose that goes between the macerator and the dump valve has a real thick wire in it and I could not get it clamped tight enough to keep it from dribbling. Perhaps I should have dumped the black tank and let the solids plug up the gaps. Maybe not. Looks like I will have to find some different hose. I also installed a 6 inch PVC pipe under the motorhome to store the sewer hose. This way I should be able to keep the bay reasonably clean.
After spending the better part of a day looking for some better 3’ hose, I drove by a Car Quest auto store and it dawned on me that they might have a radiator hose that I could cut up and use. It turned out that they had 3” hose in bulk lengths. I bought enough so I could make a mistake or two when putting it together.

This morning, Wednesday the 13th, we are starting out on our trip to the Grand Teton’s in Wyoming. The first stop will be at Sandy’s folks for a couple of days. On the way out to Aberdeen we noticed that the sweet corn canneries are starting up and that the farmers were also starting to harvest the wheat. Does that mean fall is not too far away? Where did the summer go?
That’s it for now,
Dave and Sandy