Saturday, September 6, 2025 Moving West

 

Saturday, September 6, 2025 Moving West

Ha ha!  I got out when my human wasn’t looking.  Now she is coming after me.  I run under a car.  Ha Ha!  Can’t catch me!  She follows me… I am under a big house that moves.  Ha Ha!  Can’t catch me!  Wait, who is that coming out of the big house that moves! Oh No!  I can run real fast to MY big house that moves!  Ok, human, you can catch me!

Our morning walk took us on the many hiking trails through the state park.  Soft trails through desert landscape.  Desert sage, bright happy yellow sunflowers and junipers laden with berries.  Enough juniper berries to open a gin brewery, that’s for sure.  There are a whole variety of waterfowl.  Geese, osprey, ducks, magpies, herons and more.  A coyote runs across our trail.  Rudy heard them baying earlier this morning, and his ears were totally perked up.  We follow the curve of the river.  This is truly a pretty park.

Getting Artie off all the blocks we put her on was artwork.  Back and forth, and we finally got her where we could move on. 

We continue west.  There are farms, many with crops, based on the smell, some cattle farms.  It is still hazy.  We were a bit happy when we got some raindrops as it helped clear it up some.

In Boise, we stopped for Thai food.  Ohhh it was so good.  Then we decided to stay at the elks in Caldwell.  It is warm and we want convenience.  This will work.  Many of the elks offer RV spots.  Some are pretty.  Some are utilitarian, as is the case for us.  It is warm, it is getting late, we want electricity…  This works just fine!

Friday, September 5, 2025 KOA stands for Kiss Our Ass

Friday, September 5, 2025 KOA stands for Kiss Our Ass

It is morning and my humans have not yet fed me.  When I crawl on them, I give them a little ‘mao’.  Not a full meow, nah.  A gentle ‘mao’ with an upward lilt at the end.  That makes it seem I am not demanding, even though I am.  A ‘mao’ and turning my purr box all the way up certainly gets their attention.

We are staying at a KOA Kampground.  We normally don’t use KOA’s as they are expensive and have amenities we don’t use.  But we wanted to do laundry, and according to Spouse, the price was right.  So we started our morning in the clean laundry room.  We decided to stay an extra day here to catch up on some things.  When Spouse went to pay, he was shocked when they told him it would be $40 more than last night.  Needless to say, he told them to KOA, if you know what I mean.  We finished our laundry and readied Artie for the road.  The tanks are all empty, we have fresh water…

I must make a correction…  The cracks in the windshield are not 6 or 7 inches.  They are more like 11 or 12 inches… F’n truck…

We stopped in town to do our morning walk.  Lava City is a small town, but it is cute.  The Pontneuf River runs behind the town.  There are a gazillion tubing options where they shuttle you up and down the river.  We thought about doing it but found out it is only about a quarter mile float down a couple of rapids.  Then they pick you up and you do it again.  We once did the Au Sable Chasm in New York (or Vermont, not sure).  We floated for miles through rocky canyons.  It was so much fun.  But this… a quarter mile?  Nah.  We found a nice sunken garden.  They had some grape sized plums that were sweet.  There were apples on the ground.  There were flowers and stone walkways and all things garden pretty.  Then, back to Artie.

 We are working our way to La Grande in Oregon.  There, Arctic Fox and Outdoor RV have their factories and we were thinking of touring them. 

We are always prepared to boondock.  As long as the temperature is not too hot, we keep boondocking as an option.  If it is too hot, we can use the generator to run the air conditioner, but probably not as long as we would like to.  So if it is hot, electricity is good.

We start off on hwy. 30 west, then I15 north to Pocatello.  There are mountains, but it is very arid, and we are back to the color of straw. 

We work our way to Pocatello, then head west on I86.  There has to be a fire somewhere as it is just too hazy.  But there are permanent signs on the freeway about reduced visibility.   Who knows… 

We weren’t on the road long when we saw a sign for Massacre Rocks State Park.  It is only 2:30 and we haven’t been on the road long as we got a late start.  But it is a Friday, and it could get busy, and State Parks rock.  It is a small park along the Snake River.  There is one site suitable for us and it is unlevel big time.  It took us 4 blocks to level off, and our stairs could be dangerous, they are so high.  But we have a beautiful view of the river.  We have electricity and water.  This will be nice.

Massacre Rocks was part of the Oregon Trail. It received its name from wagon party skirmishes with the Native Americans that occurred in the area.  There are many large rocks in the park that have some significance.  If we had a level spot, we would disconnect and check things our more thoroughly.  We know better than to disconnect being this unlevel.

We did take many of the walking trails through the area.  They offer spectacular views of the river.

Thursday, September 4, 2025 On to Lava City

 

Thursday, September 4, 2025 Lava City

I like sitting in the big house that moves.  I sit at the door and look out.  Sometimes, my humans think I want outside, but I know there are bad critters out there, and I am content to just sit and watch.

It was cold this morning.  We bundled up for our walk.  We saw what looks like a trail out of one of the group camps.  We followed it through the forest.  The floor is soft dirt with pine needles, very easy walking.  After less than ½ mile, we found ourselves at Jackson Lake.  We had no idea it was so close to our campsite.  The beach is littered with some incredible driftwood.  I would so love to drag some of it home for my orchids, but that wasn’t going to happen.  It is quiet, and all we hear is the water gently lapping up on shore.  It is quite pretty.  Once Spouse and I parted ways, I continued walking on some of the forested trails in the campground.  I prefer the Grand Tetons over Yellowstone.  But the skies have been quite hazy.  You can barely see the Tetons on the horizon.  The Oxbow bend scenic lookout is almost colorless.  Having been here before, I know how beautiful this scenery normally is, and I can live off of that!  Not sure what the haze is.  No fires that we know of.  Who knows.

Spouse had a little run in with the trailer hitch, but he ultimately got Artie hooked up.  We didn’t leave till almost 11 am.  We headed out of the park, and turned south towards Jackson.  My, it is hazy.  We pass the buffalo herd, continuing past the Elk Refuge (we did not see any elk), and enter the insanity that is Jackson.  We pick up hwy 26/89 south, which passes through the Targhee National Forest.  Rugged mountains loaded with pines and aspens tower above the Snake River.  Spectacular scenery.  At the town of Alpine, we become only hwy 89 south, as 26 turns north.   It is still rural, but lots of establishments spaced way far apart… a post office… a stone mason… etc.

We then turn onto hwy. 34 towards Wayan.  I must admit, I have been having some disputes with the GPS.  She wanted to take us way south to go north.  Naw, not when there is a road that will cut the mileage in half.  I always have a map on my lap.  Hwy 34 is a narrow road through rural farms.  You then get the scenic mountains, and the trees, and the streams.  We are starting to see more orange in the aspens.  Every now and then, we get the full pop of scarlet, but we know that is only a tease for the upcoming autumn.   It is 50 miles till we hit Soda Springs, and the road is stunning for about 40 of those miles.  Then the industry sucks the life out of the road!  Coal mining, processing plants, railroad cars.  It is a working town, and not pretty in the least.

We leave Soda Springs on hwy 30 and we get our eye candy back.  Spouse saw (on YOUTUBE) something on Lava Hot Springs, so we thought we would check it out.  We actually got an RV spot, with full hookups!  On our way here, a truck passed us going the other way, and was kind enough to fling something on to our windshield leaving two cracks about 6 or 7 inches.  Ouch…  hope we can make it home without having to repair it.

It is a short walk from the RV park to the hot springs.  The Pontneuf River runs along our walk, with a couple of little rapids here and there.

 At the springs, we gave it a soak, starting in the 102-104 degree pool, then the 105 pool, then the 106-110 pool. It all felt good. I was very thankful there were no mirrors in the dressing room.  The way I have been eating…  sheesh!

Wednesday, Setptember 3, 2025 Rudy's BIG DAWG

Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Big DAWG

Yeow!  Look at that!  That is the BIGGEST dog I ever saw!  He is looking at me!  Do I run?  I am in the little house that moves.  No place really to run.  He is making eye contact!   What do I do?  My human is touching me.  I guess I can calm down… maybe.  Gosh that was one big dog.  I am watching it walk away.  Gosh that is a big dog!  I gotta catch my breath!

It was a quiet night at the Buffalo Bill State Park.  I took my morning walk alone, around the campground, across a bridge, around the launch ramp.  The reservoir water level is low.  The launch ramp doesn’t quite make it to the water.

We readied Artie, then headed west towards Yellowstone.  We enter the Shoshone National Forest.  There are streams, meadows and rocky mountains.  We are climbing in altitude.  We are surrounded by pines and aspens.  We climb to 8000 feet.  As we cross into Yellowstone, we come upon a lone buffalo in the street.  Naturally, we stop.  It is bigger than us!  It slowly saunters by us.  We have never seen Rudy’s eyes so big!  He did not know what to make of the buffalo.  As the buffalo slowly walked by, he looked at Rudy.  I didn’t know if Rudy was going to bolt or what, but he was all sort of antsy!  He did not take his eyes off the buffalo until it was way past us!

We continue on past the beautiful Yellowstone Lake.  It is a huge lake, and it is very calm this morning.  We follow the roads left till we are on the John D. Rockerfeller highway, which will take us down to the Grand Tetons.

We do NOT have a reservation so we are not expecting much. We were last here 12 years ago, and if you didn’t have a reservation, they would find a site and you were good.  Now, you have to go through reservation hell.  Recreation.Gov allows you to book online.  The problem with this is that people make the reservations, and then don’t show up.  Thus, empty sites are unavailable.  It is far more crowded now than we have seen in the past, and we were here in prime season last time.  Fortunately for us, Debbie the ranger decided to put us in a group site for the night.  It is secluded and quite nice.

Once in the site, Spouse decides he wants to go down to Jackson.  It is about 40 miles away, through the viewpoints in the park.  We pass through the area where we saw a shemoose and  her baby the last time we were here.  Certainly, they would still be there, right?   Yeah right…  Once on the main highway, we pass a herd of buffalo.  I swear these are the same buffalo that were here the last time we came this way!

We pull into Jackson… oh my it is busy.  The square in Jackson was probably built in the 1800’s.  While the buildings might have been updated, the square limits traffic movement.  There are all sorts of art galleries and western stores.  Cowboy boots are the thing.  Not quite as flashy as Nashville, but still big.  I tried some on when we were in Nashville…  I have never been so uncomfortable in my life!  Not my thing. 

 It is busy and it is hell finding a parking place.  But we find one.  We found a Thai restaurant, but it was closed.  We are told of another one, and we walk there… it is closed.  We started back towards the truck, and find a Mexican place… closed.  Doesn’t anybody in this town eat late lunches or early dinners?  It is crowded, we are hungry and we FINALLY find a place that has a happy hour going with their happy hour menu.  Limited options but we were able to stuff our faces.  We stopped long enough to get a picture at one of the antler arches in the square.  Then, we fueled up and got the hell out of town.  We have been here a few times, but this was totally insane.

We made it back to the solitude of Artie.  Maybe we are secluded enough that we will see some wildlife…  Some deer did wander through the area, acting like they owned the place.  Oh wait… they do…

Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Tis the Season

 

Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Tis the Season         

There are lots of good smells here.  My human let me walk all over.  I got to roll.  Then I heard noises and ran back home.

Last night it was DARK!  DARK DARK DARK!  And Quiet.  Every morning, I do a wee walk just to loosen up my knee.  This morning, I went outside and there were 4 deer.   Spouse can’t hear too well…  Shhh, Spouse… there are 4 deer right outside here.  What?  Shhhh, there are 4 deer, bucks right here.  WHAT?  THERE ARE 4 F’N BUCKS RIGHT HERE!  That finally penetrated through the y chromosome force field, and Spouse came outside to view the spectacle.  They didn’t seem bothered by us.  Doesn’t hunting season start in September?  I guess they didn’t get the memo.

We took our walk out of the campground and on the dirt road we came in on, but in the opposite direction.  It is beautiful here.  The road is heavily forested with pines and aspens.  We see huge hoof prints.  Probably an elk or maybe moose.  We found out elk season started yesterday…  We should probably be wearing our bright orange bicycle vests!  We don’t hear any shots, but a truck or two does pass us, probably scouting out the scene.  After Spouse left me, I continued on.  I found a trail with a nice view of a lake below.  This area really is gorgeous!

We really like this style of RV’ing.  We are campers at heart so staying in places like this is good for our souls.  We probably should stay another day… but…

Back at camp, we readied Artie and continued west through the Bighorn National Forest.  This road is a pass, and we hit an elevation just under 10,000 feet.  Once over the summit, the grassy mountains turn into rocky mountains.  There are streams where you can see the riparian foliage lining the way.  Once we pass the town of Tensleep, the scenery reverts back to straw colored nothing.  There is such a stark difference between the Bighorn National Forest, and the boring landscape leading up to it.

At Worland, we turned north on hwy 20.  This was a battle with the GPS as she wanted us to go south.  Why would we go south when we are headed north???  This is why I always have a AAA map on my lap.  She can be evil at times. The scenery is a bit better, with lots of farms.  But there is still the straw nothing too.

We fueled up when we got to Cody.  We did check out one RV park, and we just couldn’t do it, it seemed so crowded, so we started up towards Yellowstone.  We found the Buffalo Bill Cody state park up about 10 miles.  It is on a reservoir and the spaces are all nice and big.  And we have a site with electricity.  Now that is nice… 

Those noseeums are very clever.  I was sitting outside enjoying the view when I felt my ankles getting bitten.  I looked, and saw NOTHING!  Then a droplet of blood formed…  Am I about to spontaneously combust?  How can something so small have such man eating teeth?  Just amazing.  I still have my Benadryl handy!

No internet, and minimal cell service.  But it is a darned nice site!

Monday, September 1, 2025 Wyoming Blahs, and OOOhs too

 

Monday, September 1, 2025  The Blahs

MEOWT!  MEOWT!  Some times, my stare is just not enough.

This is our last morning here.  We took our walk through the ‘hood, up and down the streets.  There is a lot of building going on here.  There are lots, and there are new houses on the lots.  It looks like you pick which model you want, and then it is built.  The prices are not inexpensive.   After Spouse left, I walked on my own.  A deer ran across my path from the golf course across the street into a field, where it disappeared.  It was probably one of the deer that is eating this poor man’s garden.  He chases them away, but they pay him no mind!

There is no dump station at the Elks, so when we readied Artie, our first stop was a KOA right down the street where we could dump our tanks.  We then headed west on I90.  The interstate curves around on the outside of the Black Hills.  Rolling hills and pine trees compliment the commerce, which is spaced out nicely.  As we cross into Wyoming, the scene continues for a while.  Then the green turns to straw color, and the rolling hills roll a little less.

At this point, it is vast and it is… well, I guess you would call it a whole lot of nothing.  Miles go by.  We see a herd of antelope grazing.  More miles go by.  Oh!  There is a prairie dog town!  That view lasts a whole second.  We pass through the town of Gilette.  Yawn, yawn…  We continue to the town of Buffalo.  We fuel up, then start heading into the Big Horn National Forest.  We have been on the northern road through Bighorn before and it was so pretty.  We were hoping for the same on the southern road.

There is lots of traffic leaving the area.  The holiday weekend is over and it looks like it was pretty busy in the area.  The elevation climbs.  These are mountains, but not like the Sierras.  These are grassy high hills with stands of pines and aspens.  It is very pretty.  We stumble upon a campground and call it a day.  It is NOT an RV park.  It is a primitive campground with no electricity, water or sewer.  There are pit toilets if you want.  But the sites are huge and woodsy, with fire pits.  And we emptied our tanks when we left Rapid City, so we are ok to rough it.  There are other people here, but I would say the campground is less than half full.

It is so nice and quiet.  I didn’t want to upset the silence with our generator to use our microwave to heat up our dinner.  I did it the old fashioned way.  I put things in pots and pans and turned on the stove.  It was so primitive to reheat leftovers like this.  Did you hear me curse?  When I was done, I heard a generator in the distance.  So much for being quiet!  I am sure you heard me curse…

Sunday, August 31, 2025 More Mickelson Eye Candy

 

Sunday, August 31, 2025 More Mickelson Eye Candy

MEOWT!  MEOWT!  There are birdies I need to watch.  I really like it here.

We decided to do another leg of the Mickelson Trail today.  The other day, we stopped at Mystic, today we decided to start at Mystic and head up to Dumont.  It will be about 19 miles each way.  The weather looks threatening, but supposedly, no rain is in the forecast.  We bring all sorts of rain gear just in case.

The ride to Mystic takes us through Hill City.  We then catch a road that parallels the bike trail.  The last 10 miles or so of the road is unpaved, but it is nicely graded so it is an easy drive.  And it is gorgeous.

We unload the bikes at the trailhead and head north.  The trail cuts through a narrow valley.  On one side are rocky walls with Christmas trees.  On the other side is a stream, bordered by more Christmas trees.  The Christmas trees are small to ginormous with all sizes in between.  Douglas firs, noble firs, and all sorts of aspen line the trail.  Most of the aspens are still green, but we do see a few that are starting to yellow, signaling the coming of autumn.

The stream winds its way around the landscape, cascading over rocks.  The trail crosses the stream several times.  The sky is blue with big puffy clouds.  If you are still, it is warm, but moving on the bikes, it is cool.  Perfect for bike riding. We cross through a couple of tunnels along the way. After we pass the Rochford Trailhead entrance (about 8 miles from our starting point), the valley widens.  Beautiful alpine meadows, and large ranches with grazing cattle surround us. And of course, the stream is there too, as are ponds here and there.  It is green… just so green.  And crisp.  And cool.  And total eye candy.  For a holiday weekend, we expected to see a lot more people on the trail.  But it isn’t crowded at all.  We do see a garter snake.  It posed for me.  Other garter snakes need to learn that sunning themselves on the trail may not be a good idea…

At 19 miles, we are in Dumont.  The trailhead here has an actual cabin with two picnic tables inside, with a heat stove, and room to throw down a sleeping bag if you are so inclined.  We did meet a girl that was walking the entire 109 miles of the trail (not in one day!), so this might appeal to her.  Each trail head has water, and a bike repair station with various tools you may need to make a repair.  There is also a pit toilet. 

In the winter, the area outside the trail is used for snowmobiling.  The actual trail in winter is used for cross country skiing.

Time to turn back and view the scenery from the other side.  Amazing.  It is more downhill going back.  I used very little pedal assist going back, while Spouse is pedaling and pedaling.  I am coasting and trying not to run in to him.  I can’t figure out how he can be pedaling so much and not going any faster.  Finally, at about mile 35, he decided to crank it up a notch.  At 35 miles, whether YOU are done or not… your crotch is done!

We were looking forward to going to our German restaurant again.  But alas, it was closed on Sunday.  With utter disappointment, we headed back to Artie to finish off some leftovers.

No matter how good we are… there is always at least one little bastard fly that makes it inside Artie, AND the truck. 

We head into Wyoming tomorrow.