Exciting last day

Got an early start yesterday and thought we would get home early but it was not to be. Just east of St Louis a passing motorist pointed back at the trailer so we pulled off expecting to see a flat tire but instead found a shredded tire and a hole in the floor of the camper. Got the spare on and kept going. Since most tire stores were closed on Sunday we stopped at Walmart in Mt Vernon to get a new tire to have a spare.  Finally made it to Tennessee but thunderstorms and wrecks in Nashville convinced us to bypass Nashville through Dickson. Finally made it home about 6:30 where Lee had homemade pizza waiting.

Hole under kitchen cabinet 

Hole continues under stove

Hole from underneath 

Dodging storms

Tonight finds us at the Jellystone campground near Pittsfield, IL.  We had planned to drive farther today but a large thunderstorm changed our mind when the wind made it difficult to drive. Last night there was a major storm in South Dakota where we were 2 nights ago. We delayed our departure today because of high winds in Iowa caused by the line of storms we ran into tonight. This is one of the more expensive places we have stayed but it is a nice campground with a large lake with a nice swimming area and a nice pool that we tried out before dinner. We hope to make it home tomorrow.

Middle America

Tired of interstates we took to the “back” roads on our drive from Murdo,SD to Pacific Junction, Iowa. Most of the day we were in central Nebraska prairie and farmland.
Tonight we are in the I-29 Hwy 34 Campground , a small campground with mostly permanent residents, no cable, no pool but the cheapest rate we’ve had this trip, $18.

Badlands again

Made a brief stop in the Badlands NP on our drive from Buffalo, WY to Murdo, SD.  Nice day with temps in 70s and low 80s.

History Lesson

Headed home today on a nice warm day with temps in 60s and 70s. After 5 hrs of driving we were ready for a break so we stopped at Ft Phil Kearney site in Wyoming.  Built in 1866 to guard the Bozeman Trail wagon trains it only survived 2 years and was witness to one of the few major victories of Indians over US Army, the Fetterman Massacre.

Watching for hostiles, I am.

View from inside the fort

Nancy and Yoda posing

Tonight we are in  very nice RV park, Deer Park RV Park in Buffalo, WY.  Gas ranged from 3.09/gal to 2.89/gal for regular.

Yellowstone Day 6 - Parting Shots

Wraith Falls
 

We planned to take it easy today, do some repairs, do a little shopping and prepare to head home tomorrow but since we had to go back to take some stuff to Shannon’s apartment we decided to take one more short drive into the park. It was a warm day with temps in mid seventies. Our short drive ended up being about three hours.  Here are some parting shots.

Moon set

 

Undine Falls

 

Yellowstone - Lamar Valley

 Much warmer today as we returned to the Lamar Valley area of the park. Our first excitement of the day came when a deer jumped on the road in front of us and I narrowly missed hitting it. Then we saw why he jumped if front of us, a bear was near by. Unfortunately, my dash cam had just fallen off the window so I did not get any video of the incident. We did see a coyote on the road.

We had been told we should see the Bear Tooth Highway just east of the park so we drove there first and stopped in a small town called Cooke City. An old mining town, it is mostly restaurants and hotels now.  As we were returning to the park Nancy spotted some moose, the first we have seen this visit.

After entering the park we saw some mountain goats and a moose cow and calf.

We had noticed people looking at a large nest on the mountainside so we stopped to check it out and saw an osprey.

The next thing we saw was a black bear and three cubs.

We had given up on seeing a grizzly this afternoon when we came upon a traffic jam and a man told us a grizzly had just gone behind some trees. We decided to wait awhile and sure enough it came into view for a few seconds.