Colorado - again

Our favorite RV park in the country is Clear Creek RV in Golden, Colorado. It's small, it's right on a river (Clear Creek), it's walking distance to breweries, restaurants and other attractions in Golden, AND it has really good Wi-Fi! What more could you want? So, when our route was taking us thru Colorado, we wanted to stay there. But, we're not the only ones who like that park! It's hard to get a reservation, and this time was no exception. We wanted to stay there Wednesday - Sunday, but they were all booked up except for Friday ... we'll take it!
We spent a night at a Walmart in Wyoming (we actually like Walmart nights - more later) then found an opening in Estes Park Campground at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. There was absolutely NO Internet here! So, we did what you're supposed to do in a campground - we relaxed, walked around, and read books on our Kindle apps.

This campground wasn't actually in the National park, so when we left we took a short detour to the Visitor Center to get our Passport stamped. We have been here before and spent a bit more time in the park, but this summer, we're doing better at recording our National Park Visits in our Passport App, so we had to go to the Visitor Center to get a stamp.

Then, on to Clear Creek in Golden! We were disappointed to only have one night here, but we'll take what we can get. And, of course, we didn't get a site on the river, but this one was still nice.

We walked into town and found a brewery (surprise!) and dinner, then mosied back just about sunset time.

So, where to now? It's the weekend and we'd like to do our show on Sunday, we need good Internet for that. There's an Elk's lodge nearby and we've been there before - in fact we did our very first "What Does This Button Do?" show there 4 years ago. So, we know there's good Verizon there. This Elk's lodge has a true, full hookup, RV park. It may be full. With our little rig we know that we'd be able to just dry camp in the parking lot if the RV park is full, so it's a good option. As it turns out, they did have several sites available "along the wall" - this is kind of their transient spaces. The "real" RV park is up on the hill. It worked fine for us.

We were able to do our show just fine here. Check it out.

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We like hot water

We seek out hot springs wherever we are and we found one of the very best during our first year on the road. Thermopolis, Wyoming is where the hot springs are. Just north of Thermopolis is an RV park called Fountain of Youth. They've channeled the hot spings into 3 large pools. We discovered it and stayed there in 2004, and then again in 2013. We got another chance this year and jumped on it.

We had some computer/website work that needed to get done, so we couldn't stay if the Internet wasn't good. We were heartened when the Verizon signal was at 4-5 bars driving thru the town of Thermopolis, but it didn't last. Even though the RV park is just a few miles north, the Verizon signal was down to 1-2 bars and the speeds were abysmal. Jim put up our cellular booster antenna, but it didn't improve it much. The park had Wi-Fi but it was up and down. Jim put up our Wi-Fi Ranger and it seemed to help significantly. The Wi-Fi was good enough to get our work done, so we registered to stay 2 nights! Aaaaaahhhhhh

See more photos in our July Photo Album

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Grand Tetons - a Rendezvous

Next stop is Grand Tetons National Park. These elegant, majestic mountains have brought tears to my eyes. We've also been here before once for each RV!

But,both of the other times were just passing thru.This time we arranged a rendezvous with my oldest friend. I mean, friend I've had for the longest time ... we're both old! Lanz and I went to Jr. High together in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and we've stayed in contact over the years. He now lives in California and loves to travel - usually overseas. When he asked where would be a good place to take a trip in the US, I said we would be in Wyoming in July/August and had some time. Yes! He and Blake would love to visit Yellowstone and Tetons, so he booked a trip and we arranged to meet them in Jackson. He made arrangements for a river rafting trip for a day and we went along. Cool! Jim and I rarely splurge for such things. Actually, we usually just don't think of it. We're on the road to work, and it's just how we live. We don't have the tourist frame of mind. 

We started the day by going up the mountains in a Tram.  Then came the river trip. We saw several moose during the day.

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After Lanz and Blake left to go back home, we checked our maps and found a Winery nearby! What a delightful place. We just sat and watched the horses and the beautiful view as we drank some wonderful wine.

This view still brings tears to my eyes ... these mountains are so beautiful.

See more photos in our July Photo Album

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Next stop: Yellowstone

Our good friend, and long-time Florida dive buddy, Debby Bradford, is now a fulltime RVer and she is work-camping in Yellowstone this summer. This is her second summer there and we are thrilled to be able to visit and see it thru her eyes. We scheduled our visit to coincide with her days off work - Wednesday and Thursday.
We had been to Yellowstone once before also in our first year on the road, but we only spent one day there. We saw Old Faithful and that's about it.

Debby at work in Yellowstone's Canyon Village Adventure Store

Yellowstone is pretty crowded this time of year, so we were extremely grateful to have a place to park with Debby in the employee campground. Of course, it really helps to have a little rig like ours that can fit in any parking spot!

Debby's RV in the employee campground, our camper van fit in her car spot.

What a great tour guide she was. We didn't even look at a map. We told her we wanted to see Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and that's all we knew.

We are not early risers! So,our first stop was for lunch at Lake Yellowstone Hotel. Beautiful place, beautiful view, yummy lunch, and time to catch up with our old friend. Does it get any better?

After lunch we visited several of the thermal pools around the lake - at "West Thumb" (see the map above.) The colors of the pools are even more dramatic for being right next to the lake.

I didn't even realize there was a big lake in Yellowstone park. It's not hot water! But, Debby knew about it and made sure we got booked for a boat ride on the lake. We will always try to add some water to our visit wherever we are!

She planned the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone for the end of the day - best for photos!

The next day, Debby took us in the other direction. She said there were more Bison to be seen along with spectacular views to the north. She was right.

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10 Days, 3 National Parks

Once the FMCA rally was over on July 22, we're on vacation! Our next "gig" isn't until August 27 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. That's a little over 1,000 miles - 3 days of driving - and we have 35 days to get there! I know I'm short-changing these 10 days by lumping them together into one blog post, but I'm writing this in the middle of August and so much more has happened, if I don't get something written quickly, I may never get it in here at all! In the 10 days after FMCA, we visited Devils Tower, Yellowstone, and Grand Tetons.

First stop Devil's Tower

We were there once before, in our first year on the road - 2004. It's a magical place and we've always wanted to go back. We rarely backtrack, but it was only one hour back east from where we were in Gillette, and we weren't expected at our next stop in Yellowstone for 3 days, so ...

We took advantage of lots of walking paths and even got up for sunrise and walked all the way out to the east of the tower for some great views. I even thought ahead and downloaded the movie "Close Encounters of a Third Kind" while we had good Internet back in Gillette. I bought it from Netflix and downloaded it to my iPad so we could watch it even without any connection while in Devils Tower park. It was so fun to watch that movie about Devils Tower and be able to look out our window and see the real thing.

I can't do it, I can't lump all 3 national park trips together :-) Here's a video where I put together everything we did in Wyoming, but then I'll write separate posts for Yellowstone and Grand Tetons.

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