Yellowstone National Park Day Two

It's no wonder President Roosevelt made this the first National Park and set aside the land so that it can't be ruined and will be there for our children and grand children to cherish. When you visit the Park, take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but foot prints so that others can enjoy God's handiwork.

On the second day we toured the area where the water falls and canyons are. The water falls are real big and can be seen from quite a distance. Some of the canyons are almost as big as some in the Grand Canyon. This is indeed a place worth the long drive to see. When you get here don't be in a hurray to see it and leave, take at least a week to see everything.

Water Fall

Beautiful Water Fall

Big Water Fall

Fire Smoke in Mountains

Big Canyon

Yellowstone National Park Day One

Geyser Pool


Jim and "Torchie" joined us in Hardin, MT and we spent a couple of days relaxing before we joined forces and headed to Yellowstone. We saw some of the most beautiful mountains on our trip. We stayed at a real nice campground at Emigrant, MT which is about 12 miles from the entrance. There was a nice river running in the back of the campground and mountains on three sides. The sunrises and sunset were out of this world.

Our RV Park Yellowstone Sunset

On our first day we toured the area that has all the geysers and especially "Old Faithful". It's awesome to see how pretty and colorful they are. Some of them were not as active as they once were due to the long drought they were having in this part of the country.

Thar She Blows



Old Geezer and Geyser

Blue Geyser

We're On The Road Again

The drive from Rapid City to Wyoming was nice, the weather was great and the winds were mild. In this State there are times when the winds hit 40 miles per hour and they'll really get your attention when you're driving a 40 foot motor home. We had a good view of the Black Hills and they are beautiful. The Black Hills are actually made up of Spruce trees and the needles are so dark and close together they look black.

We're driving along minding our own business when one of the famous Wyoming storms hit about 60 miles south of Sheridan. We fought the rain and wind as long as we could and finally pulled into one of our favorite campgrounds, "Wally World" to spend the night. Not long after we got settled in we were joined by five to six other RVs and before morning there were about twelve there. "Wally World" is a fine place to park when all you're looking for is a place to get some sleep.

Hardin MT RV Park

The next morning the weather was great, no clouds or wind and nice and warm. We headed on to MT to see the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Hardin, MT. We pulled into a KOA campground and started our tour of the battle site. Its awesome to see where the famous battle was fought and see head stones showing where some of the soldiers were slain. When you see the battle in the movies it sometimes shows General Custer fighting "up hill" and this is not true. He and his troops were on the high ground and the Sioux were coming up at them. Also some of the movies depict the Indians wearing almost no clothes and again this is not true. They thought they might be killed and when they go to meet their "great spirit" they wanted to be dressed in their finest. Therefore they were dressed in their finest costumes. Oh well you have to sell movie tickets.

Mount Rushmore

With Wall, SD as our base camp we made trips to Mount Rushmore. Security was tight due to 9-11 and also since this was July 4th . We ate at the restaurant there and the food was real good and the price was reasonable. We had a good time at the Mount and I believe John and Sheryl did too.

Avenue of the Flags

We took a drive to Devil's Tower and it was well worth the drive. It is very interesting. The Indians say that the marks on the side of the Tower came from a big bear. It seems that there were several Indian maidens sitting on the Tower and a bear came after them. They climbed to the top and it grew larger and larger to keep the bear from getting to them.

Steven Spielberg came out here to get information and pictures of the Tower. Contrary to popular belief the movie "Close Encounters of a Third Kind" was not filmed at the Tower. All they did was to come here and take pictures of the Tower. They then went back to Mobile, AL and filmed the movie in the world's largest sound stage.

We enjoyed our stay in South Dakota and found some good places to shop and also good restaurants. It would be possible for someone to spend at least a month in the Bad Lands area.

This is our second time to visit South Dakota and we see something new with each visit. The weather during the summer is a little hot and I believe it would be better to visit either in the spring or fall.

After spending two weeks in South Dakota we decided it was time to move on to Montana and see the sights there.

Another Long trip

We took off for our long trip out west. We went to Illinois heading to Rockford to see our friend Judi. Everything was going fine until we got about 50 miles from Peoria, IL. when we blew both right rear tires on our coach. We were of course in the middle of no where and it took over four hours to get them replaced. We were parked alongside the Interstate waiting for the tire service people. We broke out lawn chairs and made our selves comfortable. When they finally got the tires replaced we went back to a restaurant at a truck stop for supper. We were all worn out and I asked the manager if we could park in his lot for the night. He said "no problem" and that he'd leave a note for the owners who were going to open up the next day that he'd given permission for us to park there. John decided that he'd use his diesel generator to use the MotoSat Satellite. He turned it on and I noticed "white smoke" coming out and went to see what was wrong. The generator ran for a couple of minutes then quit. Since it was dark John decided to wait till morning to check it out. The next morning we found it had no coolant in it. We added some and it ran again but still had white smoke and after about three minutes it quit.

Rock Island RV Park

John called ONAN and informed them what happened. They told him to take it ONAN service center in Rock Island, IL. When we got there they checked the generator and determined that coolant was leaking from the system and it had also burned the heads of the engine. Since it only had a very few minutes of time in it ONAN would replace it under warranty. The big problem was it had to be shipped from Detroit, MI and would take about a week to get here. We went to a campground not far from the service center and waited for the new generator. We were in Rock Island for a little over a week before we got back on the road. We finally got the new generator installed and it worked fine. Yea, we can get back on the road.

We left and started to South Dakota to see some sights. The first place we stopped was Mitchell to see the world famous Corn Palace. Each year they remove all the decorations and renew it with new corn items. There is a farmer in the area who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for growing different colors of corn which is used to decorate the Corn Palace.

Our next stop was Wall, SD,the home of the Wall Drug Store. The store covers two square blocks in town. It's famous for it's "Free Ice Water" and it's said ,"you haven't traveled in SD unless you've stopped and had a glass of Free Ice Water."

We wanted to go to the FAMCAMP at Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City but since it was during the 4th of July they were booked solid. The private campgrounds in and around Rapid City were full as well. We were forced to stay in Wall as a base camp for our sight seeing. It was about 40 miles from Rapid City so it wasn't too bad.

"Gone Again"

We had an appointment in Leesburg, FL on May 21, 2002 with Monaco to get the slide out leaks fixed. Taking Jim's advice we drove the "red road" from Montgomery to Leesburg. Except for about 20 miles it was all four lane highway with minimal traffic. We checked in at "Camp Monaco" and were treated like royalty. Everyone was real nice and went out of their way to make sure we were comfortable and the work was done right the first time. The young technician assigned really did a good job in finding and correcting the problem. He said the slides were not properly sealed at the factory. He sealed and tested the slides to make sure there were no further leaks. The front slide passed but the rear one didn't. He resealed it and tested it again. Still no passing grade. He then had the slide completely removed. Once it was out he found some water damage on the floor and on the bottom of one of the cabinets. He had all that replaced and sealed. He had the pad and carpet replaced. They reinstalled the rear slide and tested it again. They had a rain device on it all day and there was one technician inside the coach and one outside looking for leaks. It finally passed. The slide was out from Thursday to Tuesday afternoon before they declared it ready. Monaco put us up in a "suite" and paid for it. We had two rooms with all the things you might want.

Each morning the technician would come get the motor home around 7:00 or 8"00 AM and when they finished with it they would bring it back and hook it up again. The sites were concrete with water and 50 amp service. There was a large dump site on the way out of the campground. During the day when you couldn't be in the coach, there was a real nice lounge with large over stuffed chairs and sofa, coffee, TV and daily news papers available.

We left Leesburg and headed to the FMCA campground in Cincinnati, OH. We were to meet John and Sheryl and have the MotoSat Satellite System installed on our coach. The system will permit us to receive Internet and TV at the same time no matter where we're parked. We arrived there on Thursday and left on Monday. The system was installed on Saturday. After it was installed we turned on the TV to see what signal we could get. In the past the best signal strength we've gotted was 80's or 90's. When the TV came on the signal strength was at the peg of 125. That night we had a little storm and we lost the TV signal for about 3 to 4 minutes and then it came back on and we never lost it again even though the storm got a little worse. Boy is that system great.

On Monday we left and headed to Franklin, IN so John could get the base plate and tow bar installed on their new Saturn VUE. The items were being shipped from Washington and it took about a week before he got it installed.

"We Sold Our House"

We closed the sale of our house on October 5, 2001 and now we're able to go "full time" and begin to do things we've wanted to do for a long time.

Now that we're homeless we moved to the FAMCAMP at Maxwell AFB. Jerry arranged to have necessary knee surgery and has done very well with it. I had needed hand surgery and it came out great. We spent 6 full months at Maxwell getting over surgery and trying to make plans as to when and where we'd go on our first "full time" trip.

When you're retired and are now a full timer you realize you don't have a schedule you have to follow and don't have to cut short your plans to get back to work. We decided we'd like to leave about 8:30 or 9:00 AM and stop and park about 3:30 or 4:00 PM. Those things we are going to see have been for millions of years and it's sure no one is going to remove them tomorrow. Therefore why drive long hard hours to get to them and when you finally get there you're so tired all you want to do is sleep. Also it is possible we won't get back that way again so let's find a good camp ground to be able to see everything before we move on.

Our friends, Jim and Torchie" came over from a trip through Georgia and spent a week with us at the FAMCAMP. She made a trip to the commissary and boy did she really stock up.

We left and followed them on the "red roads" through the Alabama country side on the way to the Smokies. We had a real good trip and the roads were surprisingly good. Jim doesn't believe in traveling the Interstate roads if at all possible. He says you can see more of the country by traveling the "red roads". I've used some of them and I agree with him that by and large they are better than the Interstate and you don't have to worry about large trucks and construction. We met a friend Steve at a Flying J Truck Stop in GA and had breakfast with them. We then traveled with them to the Smokeys.

We arrived in the Smokeys for our OLC campout and we had about 40 rigs there. This is one event we really look forward to because it's like going to a "family reunion". You have a chance to see friends you haven't seen in a year or so and in some cases meet new friends.