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.