We have made several trips down to Rexburg & Idaho Falls, ID to do our shopping. There is also a movie theater in Rexburg which is $6 for seniors, which is cheaper than going up to Bozeman where it is more. We do have a movie house right here in West Yellowstone and of course, being the tourist town it is, costs $8.00 for seniors, but, think of all the gas we save in not driving 1 1/2 hours south.                                                  

One of the days we drove into the park, about two weeks ago, I think it was, we, of course, saw many bison on and off

the road, with many babies. I think that day was the most I've ever seen of them running. Most of the time, they are just standing or walking around. Lots of traffic jams, of course, because of them, as well as road work within the park. We did see a yearling bear, fairly close to the road, and there was a road block just getting up to see him, as there was nowhere to turn off the road. We got

some pretty good pics, though, even though most of the time he had his butt towards us, those always make such good pics, don't you know! :) On our way out of the park that day, we got into a traffic jam to end all. We must have inched forward for a good half hour before Ron noticed a buffalo herd running towards us, not on the road, but, off in the bushes beside the road. After that, our way was free to drive. Found out in town, when we stopped for some bread, that some photographers

had decided to stop in the middle of the road to snap some pics of the bison standing in the river and that is what caused the massive back up!!! I tell ya, some people have no respect for others who might be driving the same roads!

Last Sunday night, one of the fly fishing shops in town were giving free fly fishing lessons.

Betsy & John

They have a man made pond nearby so people can practice casting. Both Ron & I went, as well as our Boomer friends, Betsy & John Crawford. It was great fun, learning the different casts and trying to perfect them. I would have gone this past Sunday night, but, it was raining and I didn't want to get wet. The classes last

That's me in the red and blue

all summer and you can go as many times as you want to practice, practice, practice on their equipment. I will probably do that, as I have always wanted to learn how to fly fish, it is so different that regular fishing, that is for sure.

Probably about three weeks ago, on a Monday night, the Crawfords, us and Larry & Claudia King, another Boomer couple who are working in the town of West Yellowstone, all drove up to the 320 Ranch, which is about 50 miles north of here to have dinner. The ranch roasts a whole pig about 20 hours, then, puts on an all you can eat dinner for $10, which consists of the pig, baked beans, potato salad and coleslaw, along with non-alcoholic drinks and the best tasting cookies. This particular dinner only happens on Monday nights throughout the summer, the rest of the week, it is pretty pricey!

Today we were going to go to Ennis, which is about 77 miles away, just to walk around. There are also two historic gold mining towns from the old days nearby, Virginia City & Nevada City, which are also neat towns to walk around in, so we've heard. But, again, we've been plagued with rainy, cool weather for almost the whole time we've been here, with a couple nice days thrown in here and there. So, we're thinking about going up there next week, when the temps are supposed to be in the 80's.

Ron's birthday is coming up on July 8th and he thought it would be a good idea to stay at the Jenny Lake Lodge in the Tetons, until he looked up the prices. $600 to stay one night in one of their cabins!!!!! The cheapest cabin I found was right here in Yellowstone park up near Roosevelt, a pioneer cabin with minimal amenities for $69 a night, and of course, they are all booked up by now. So, he is just going to have to content himself with having dinner at one of the lodges instead...



Speaking of weather, this is the weirdest place we've been for weather. One day, it will be beautiful, sunny, warm, the

A beautiful spring fed river in Idaho

next, we are having snow flurries and never gets out of the 30's!!! As our boss says, we are in our own little microclimate of weather, we never know what it's going to do until we wake up in the morning and that is so true! If we can believe the weather on the internet, today is actually going to be the last of our rain for awhile, it's supposed to be up in the mid 70's tomorrow and the rest of the week into the weekend and all next week is supposed to be in the low to mid 80's,

A closeup of how pretty this spring is

we do hope that it is true. I need to see some sunshine for more than a day or two!

Our campground is finally getting busy! Our boss keeps telling us we are going to have non stop people coming in at all hours of the day and night to either register, switch spots, buy merchandise, etc. We've had some pretty busy days already, but, they haven't been consistently that way yet. I like it when it's busy because it makes the day go by so much faster, than when I'm standing around wondering what to do. There is just so much cleaning, re-stocking, etc, to do, and when you are done, you are done. We also make fudge right in the store. Our boss' wife makes it twice a week and it is real fudge, the kind you make with cream and butter. YUM!!! There are so many flavors it's unreal, but, every single flavor they make tastes like the real thing, like for instance, root beer. We have a great deal going for the customers, if they buy a pound, they get a half pound free, but, we also sell it in smaller increments. When they are making fudge, it makes the whole store smell wonderful!

When we first got here, we were told that we could go on free horseback rides and whitewater rafting trips, but, it’s been such terrible weather every day we have been off, we just haven’t bothered. We might take advantage of going on one of the tours inside the park, though. We also get a discount on some of the attractions in the town of West Yellowstone such as the IMAX theater and the Wolf & Grizzly Bear Discovery Center. We think we can get in there free, but, a discount would be good, too. 



 

Hi everyone, it has been much too long since I have posted an update to our blog and for that I apologize. I have been doing this blog since the beginning of 2006 and I think I was getting burned out. Of course, if I’d done my updates in a more timely manner, I wouldn’t have this problem. Anyway, I am going to try and update it to our current time, just bear with me, I have lots of pictures to share in the last year alone, never mind while we were in West Yellowstone….

 I just discovered a blog post that I never posted, probably because I thought something happened to the pics I was going to post, but, guess what, they are still on the post…so I will try and get that posted somehow and be more up to date than I thought I was….

Hi everyone! Well, it has been 6 weeks since we arrived at the West Yellowstone KOA . We had a nice uneventful drive up here once we left Las Vegas and was glad to get out of the heat of the desert.

our campsite

great views all around

  

views from the back of our campsite

 

looking through the trees at cabins and rv sites

When we first drove up to the campground it was a pleasant surprise. As

deluxe sites, deluxe cottages

you will see in the pictures,

the landscape is mostly wide open spaces, so as we came

snow right up against the boards

around the corner we saw trees, lots and lots of trees.We found out later that

the father of the son who owns it now planted each of the trees by hand way back in the early 60's. This is a big

entrance to swimming pool

campground with about 300 sites including

cabins and tents.

When we got here in early May, they were just opening up everything up, because of the late snow they didn't get it open as early as they would have liked.

it's as nice inside as it looks

You will see in the pictures that the boards are still up over the entrance to keep the snow off the windows. As it was, there were still big snow drifts here and there throughout the campground.

dorm rooms above the garage and beyond that the owner's house

Since it was Saturday when we arrived, we were told to take the weekend off to get settled in and come to work on Monday morning. As it

on the way to the Grand Tetons

was Mother's Day weekend, we decided to drive down towards the Grand Tetons and maybe look at some of

Looking at the Teton Range towering above Jackson Lake

the lodges there. Much to our disappointment, when we got to the south entrance of Yellowstone, there were signs

looking at a glacier

there telling us that none of the lodges in the Grand Tetons were open, guess it was just still too early for them. We took the loop road through the park,

Entrance to the National Museum of Wildlife Art

stopping to check out the different areas. The mountains were just gorgeous so we took many pictures. The snow glistening on them made

Ron playing cowboy in a bar in Jackson, WY

for some great pictures, as it was a bright sunny day. Since the lodges in the park were closed, we were not going to have that lovely Mother's Day lunch, so we decided to eat at a Mexican restaurant we knew about in Jackson. We

Entrance to city park made of antlers

had eaten there with our friend, Gail, when we were visiting with him during the summer of 2009. I had remembered the food as being quite tasty, but,

where we had Mother's Day dinner

this day, not so much. We probably won't be going back to that restaurant anytime soon, but, even though it wasn't that great, we still had a great day

driving and seeing the beautiful surroundings

Looking at the western side of the Grand Tetons in Idaho

of the Grand Tetons & Jackson, WY.

 









 




  

 
 

We left Yuma on April 17th, going first to San Diego to stay at our membership park for a week to visit with friends and family, then it was up to Riverside area to visit more friends and family. We were going to stay a week, but, needed some maintenance done to the bus up in Oak Hills, (near Victorville), at Charlie & Lynn's house, they are members of our bus club. Good thing we went up there, because Charlie found some more stuff that needed to be fixed. We had a good four days up there, visiting, four wheeling, eating together and another friend of ours, Margie came up on Monday afternoon to spend one night. So now our brakes are adjusted, we got new oil and filters, as well as fan belts and new bearings to run the fan pulley.

We are now in Las Vegas, got here last Wednesday and will be pulling out this Wednesday for an overnight stop at the Cedar City KOA. As KOA workampers, we can get vouchers to stay at KOA's on the way up to our jobs, so we picked Cedar City because we want to look it over in case we might want to work there next summer. It is near Bryce & Zion Nat'l Parks. Don't know how hot it gets there, don't want to be too hot, that summer in Blythe was enough HOT for us!

Taking the glass out

We FINALLY got new eyebrow windows for our bus a few days ago. If you'll remember, they were damaged in that hail storm we were in last May while enroute to our visit our friends in Texas. Ron spent

Inside looking out, no window!

one morning calling all around and it seems no one cuts their own glass anymore. Finally, he found one, they came right out, looked at it, measured them and told us they would be back in an hour, take our windows out, using them as their pattern and cut them out on the spot, which they did.

Cleaning out the tracks prior to installing the new glass

They did a great job! Now, all we need is to get them tinted, but, that may have to wait until we get back to Yuma in Nov/Dec. No matter, we'll probably want all the bright light we can get into our coach in the cold north.

We met our good friends, Dan & Jenny, (they live a few blocks away from us in Yuma), we both got up here on the same day. Had a few nights of cards, eating out at one of the casinos and a dip in the pool. They left a couple days ago to have some maintenance done on their rig up in Utah. We may get together with them when we get to Salt Lake City on Thursday.

 When we leave here, I'll be taking pics, as we've only been north on I-15 once before, back in '09. Once we leave I-15 at Idaho Falls and start heading north on Hwy 20, that will be all new territory for us.

We spent about a week visiting with Ron & Carol, then, moseyed on down the road, headed towards San Diego, with overnight stops in Visalia, just for one night, a week stop in Menifee at the Thousand Trails to visit friends and relatives and a couple weeks at the Thousand Trails in the San Diego area, spending Thanksgiving with family. We finally made it home to Yuma before the end of November.

Over Christmas we decided to go out to Lake Mittry, which is about 20 miles away, with fellow Boomer travelers. Before we left the house, we had Boomer friends, Chuck & Jan, staying in our driveway, they were on their way to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA, to help with the floats. They were staying until the day after Christmas to attend the dinner out at the lake.

Christmas morning, Chuck was watering our trees when he heard the hot water heater running and thought it was a bit odd, since we weren't home. He called Ron and told him, "I think you have a problem." So, Ron left the lake and came home to check it out. As he walked around the front windows of the mobile, he saw condensation dripping down, thinking, "uh oh, this doesn't look good!". Sure enough, there was standing water in the bathroom, hallway and into the bedroom carpet. The pipe going into the shower burst and water was flowing out of the bottom of the cabinet and onto the floor. Ron turned the water off, kind of wiped

How it looks under our floors

up a bit, not realizing we could have called the insurance 24 hours a day to report the problem. Instead, he came back out to the lake to tell me what happened. The next morning we both went

Water damage in pantry and half of kitchen

back to check out the damage. Of course, by the time we got there, all the water had disappeared into the floor, down the heater ducts & into the flooring under the carpeting. Another friend,

A whole different view of our bathroom

Gene, came over with his extractor and got as much water out of the carpet as possible, then, we pulled up the carpeting and put the fan on it to blow to dry out the floor. Ron called the insurance companyand they gave

Putting the cement board down

Ron the number to call a local restoration company to come out.

We decided when we got back out to the lake, we would just come home the next day and take care of getting the flooring fixed, which is what we did. Ron decided instead getting someone else to re-do the plumbing, he would do it himself and save a ton of money. So, while the

Friends, Troyce & Lisa visiting with us

restoration guys were doing their thing, Ron was doing his thing. The whole project to get our house back to the way it was before the flood was about a month and a half.

We are very pleased with how everything came out. We decided to upgrade the flooring and installed tile throughout the whole mobile and now it looks bigger inside and it's very easy to keep clean, that's for sure.

We did make it up to Quartzsite for our annual bus rally, it was very small this year, smaller than normal, the weather probably had something to do with it, as it was colder than normal. Both Ron & I were sick, so we didn't go out much and socialize except at the dinners. We should have stayed home, but, Ron was determined to go...I felt so awful that I didn't even visit any of the vendors and this is probably the first time I haven't gone to Hardies bead shop in years.

We usually join the Boomer rally during the second week, but, as we still had workers coming over to the house doing things, we felt we needed to go back home. Wouldn't you know, this particular year, since the weather was too cold to do much of anything outside, most of the activities at the Boomers was the second week, so we missed it all, drat!!!

Here in Yuma, we've been having our normal get togethers at each other's houses, Wed movies & dinner afterwards, card games, etc. We're starting to wind down the winter

Roadrunner on our back wall

season, getting excited about leaving for our next workamping adventure in West Yellowstone. Our departure date has been pushed to the middle of April, as we plan on taking our time getting up there, staying at some of our Thousand Trails parks on the way. Sitting here in mid March, dealing with 90 degree temps, I just can't wrap my head around having snow on the ground! We'll probably have our heater on more than anything else, doubt if we'll even need our air conditioning there, as we'll be up at 6600 ft. But, being around that beautiful area for the entire summer is going to be wonderful.