With only minor editing and updating, this journal is made up of the email messages we sent back to family and friends as we chronicled our trip from Midland MI to Yellowstone National Park starting in August 2003. I consider this far too long and boring to post here, but our friends have made a big deal of how much they enjoyed reading the whole thing (probably just saving our feelings), so here it is. The characters mentioned, familiar to the original recipients but unknown to most folks reading this now, are: Doug - Doug Wilson, your humble scribe Sherry - Sherry Wilson, my best friend and wife of 34 years so far Cookie - Our 7 year old Sheepdog / Lab mixed breed dog Our photo gallery for this trip may be found at http://members.toast.net/fdw/ynp/ I hope you enjoy the trip. Doug Wilson, makaiguy@iname.com 26 Jan 2004 Part I - Doug and Sherry On The Road We're now on our way hauling our 5th wheel trailer out to Yellowstone to work in a campground there through the end of September. Compiling this as we go along. Hope eventually to get connected and send it out... No sooner had we pulled onto the US 10 Xway leaving Midland than we realized we had forgotten to put the mirror extensions on our truck. So a turn around at Stark Road and a quick return home was mandated. But after that .. First day on the road (Sat 8/2) we got across "The Bridge" (that's the Mackinac Bridge, for you non-Michiganians) without any high winds or anything, but lost our sun when we turned west on US 2 to cross Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Skies kept getting more and more threatening but the rain only started just as we pulled into our reserved campground just west of Champion MI. At least we got to set up in the LIGHT rain before the REAL storm hit. Stormed off and on most of the evening and night and Cookie was a nervous wreck. 400 miles behind us. Started out day two (Sun 8/3) in more rain and lots of thick fog patches. Lots of fun on two lane roads. Just as we reached Duluth the skies finally started to break up and the rest of the day's drive was much more pleasant. After about 350 miles, we checked into a Corps of Engineers campground on Gull Lake outside of Brainard, MN. Very nice roomy site, well separated from its neighbors, with firewood provided. Never saw so many voracious mosquitos in our lives! Had some "family friendly" bug spray that did slow them down some but that's about it. First stop next morning was Wal-Mart to get some bug spray with DEET!. Got a late start the next morning (Mon 8/4), because Sherry discovered that our truck license plates had expired the end of July -- A YEAR AGO! It's a long story but what it boils down to is we had to get on the cell phone with the MI Sec of State office and get a new registration going right away. Had to fax in a request with credit card number and signature so right after Wal-Mart and the DEET bug spray we stopped at an Office Max to find a fax. Didn't actually hit the road leaving Brainard until 10:45. Sure have been driving carefully now that we know our registration is invalid! Don't want to give any cop a reason to check it before the mail catches up with us in Yellowstone. At least day 3 started out as a pretty day with blue skies and sunshine, making all the neat little Minnesota lakes we went by look blue and inviting. By the time we crossed into North Dakota, the skies socked in again and we ran thru a few more showers. At least there was no thunder to creep out the dog. Ran out of the rain, but not the clouds, before reaching Bismark ND and pulled into the KOA there. 350 more miles down. Got hopeful that we could send this off when we found Bismark to be a Verizon Wireless Digital area and we should be able to connect via the cell phone. But I can't get it working as a modem, darn it, despite quite a while on the phone with Verizon support. Hard to do much when you're talking on the same phone you need to troubleshoot. My dialup service doesn't have a local number here, so even though there IS a modem hookup in the office I can't connect that way. Grr.. Day 4 (Tue 8/5) found me waiting at the door of the Bismark Verizon office when it opened. Spent three hours on the phone with their technical support folks. Tried everything including swapping out our phone with a new one, but no success. So ANOTHER late start hitting the road... One neat thing about driving across North Dakota in late summer is the acres and acres planted in sunflowers. Their bright yellow heads seemed to stretch on forever in places. Aside from that, there sure isn't much to see driving across western North Dakota, except for a few miles of badlands around Theodore Roosevelt National Park that provide some more interesting scenery. With our late start we only put in about 280 miles and pulled into a campground in Miles City, Montana. Had a message on our cell phone from Yellowstone, wanting us to call them tomorrow to get our campground and job assignments. We had another message also, this one from the Michigan Secretary of State office. Seems they had quoted the wrong amount for our truck registration by $1 and needed our approval to charge the correct amount, so our registration has not even been processed yet. Arghhh... Tried the cell phone computer connection here, since Miles City is a Montana Verizon site and IT WORKED. Tech support had suspected the problem was with the Bismark set up, not with me, and it looks like he was right! So all those hours with tech support in Bismark were a real waste of time. Sigh .. Day 5 (Aug 6) started with a call to Michigan to authorize our registration charge, since offices were already open in the eastern time zone. Then after 8:00 we returned the call to Yellowstone. We'll be working at the Grant Village campground by West Thumb. Our initial assignments will be at the checkin desk but we may also work outside some as needed. We'll have several days of training first, so they'll be putting us up at a private campground in Gardiner MT, just outside the park, while we take our training at Mammoth, then move on down to Grant. Only 250 miles today and we arrived at our Conestoga Campground in White Sulphur Springs, MT. We actually have a membership here, bought cheaply as an entrance into the RPI system of affiliated campgrounds, but when we decided to head out this way we figured we may as well stay there for a while. We're staying for four days of acclimating ourselves to 5000+ ft elevation before we go to Gardiner on Aug 10. Most of the day was on narrow two-lane US 12 which climbed several thousand feet in 200 miles or so. Not a whole lot to see along this route, but we did spot our first pronghorn antelopes of the trip, plus a few mule deer. A big surprise was one black bear out in an open meadow right beside the road. It took one look at our rig and beat a hasty retreat before we could get a good look, let alone a picture. Temps up in the mid-90's and had a tremendous wind come up that rocked the trailer after we got set up. PART II - Still On The Road Aug 10 - Well, there's not much to the town of White Sulphur Springs. We went to the one local grocery to get some needed provisions, but unless one needs western clothes or a cold beer there's not much else of interest here. But WSS is located in a flat valley surrounded by several mountain ranges, so there are good exploring possibilities. The breeze always seems to increase to a stiff wind in the late afternoon as scattered thunderstorms build up over the mountains. With the lack of trees in the valley we can watch the storms pass by. So far the only one to hit here was around midnight one night. One day we took a trip over the Big Belt mountains (or is it the Little Belts? There's a range by that name too and the signs seem to be conflicting..) to go to Helena, the state capital. Found a Wal-Mart and loaded up. We've taken several other nice drives into the mountains. On one, we found a rocky spur road up the mountain to a fire lookout tower and since we have a 4wd truck, went on up. The young lady volunteer on duty welcomed us up for a fantastic 360 degree look at the surrounding mountains. Could see the Absaroka Range, 125 miles away, which we were told meant it was an unusually clear day. On the same drive we took a short trail up a steep climb to a nice little waterfall. I always was a sucker for waterfalls. Yesterday we headed out to a reservoir in the mountains -- it was very pretty and was a good place to let Cookie out to run a bit. Then we found a 4wd trail thru the Castle Mountains that went through an old mining ghost town. Last night was our last night here in White Sulphur Springs, so I'm writing this as Sherry is doing a load of laundry before we load up to hit the road again. We'll be heading 100 miles or so south to Gardiner, just outside Yellowstone Park. We'll have a couple of days there before we start our training. PART III - Made It!! Aug 10 - We made it to Gardiner, MT, just outside the northern border of Yellowstone National Park, in mid-afternoon. Hot as blazes here -- the thermometer in our trailer registered 99.7 at its peak. Sure glad this rig is equipped with air conditioning! Since we'll be receiving three days of training at Mammoth Hot Springs, only 5 miles into the park, Xanterra is putting us up here in a campground outside the park. Hot, dusty, and tiny spaces, but beggars can't be choosers. We couldn't resist the temptation to bop into the park in late afternoon/early evening to look for wildlife. Climbing from about 5300' at Gardiner to well over 7000' in just a few miles, we were very pleased to have the temperature drop to 80 or so. Saw a bunch of elk, including one bull elk with a magnificent rack of antlers, and a couple of coyotes. Even Cookie seems to be getting a charge out of looking for the animals -- in fact she was the one who first spotted one of the coyotes! PART IV - Starting To Work Mon, Aug 11 - Today was our last day before starting to work with Xanterra. Since we'll be assigned to a campground in the southern part of the park, we decided to spend the day seeing some of the stuff in the north that will be harder to get to once we move down to Grant. Spent quite a while exploring the Mammoth Hot Springs area, then drove east toward the Tower area, but we turned around and returned back to our current campground before getting there, after a neat slow one-way narrow dirt road through the mountains. Had a coyote lope right past the truck, but couldn't get the camera out in time. Good thing we turned back before Tower, too, because we found one of the tires on our trailer had gone flat. Close examination showed a nail embedded in the tread. (We'd both noticed that the trailer, that we thought we had leveled out really well, was leaning to one side a bit..) But a call to our Good Sam Emergency Service sent somebody out to change the tire (we don't have a jack that can lift the trailer) and we had enough time left over in the afternoon to get the flat fixed. Glad all this came up on a day when we had some time for it. After dinner, we again took Cookie for a ride into the park to help us watch wildlife. We checkin with Xanterra tomorrow morning and start their indoctrination (they say "orientation") tomorrow. By the way. We began a photo gallery for this trip online for you. You'll find it at http://members.toast.net/fdw/ynp/ Tue, Aug 12 - We're now officially Xanterra employees, complete with khaki shirts, warm jackets and Yellowstone Staff ballcaps. Our orientation had all the stuff anybody familiar with a decent sized corporation would expect: fire safety, non-harassment policies, hazardous materials/right-to-know/msds, etc. Darned thing went long enough we couldn't get to the post office to see if our Michigan truck registration came in today. Since we are both going to be Guest Service Agents and checking campers in/out, assigning sites, taking reservations for other Yellowstone campgrounds, etc, we'll spend the next 2-1/2 days getting trained on the antiquated mainframe reservation system they use for the campgrounds and hotels. We were given the manual to take home and read tonight, but without having the actual system in front of you it is simply overwhelming. No time to go wildlife watching tonight. Wed, Aug 13 - Our training started in earnest today. The heat wave continues and the training room is not air conditioned -- but as they say it's a DRY heat. The thermometer on our trailer indicated a max of 106F, but Mammoth is a bit higher in elevation and it would have been 5 or so degrees cooler, if that makes any practical difference. Could we already be getting used to the heat? It seemed plenty warm, but not overly oppressive. Nice small class of 4 allows for some good training. A definitely cumbersome hotel-based mainframe system, but does appear to be pretty capable. Doug's experience with various mainframe systems while working at Dow Chemical helps, but Sherry is doing very well too. Maybe we can actually DO this job! As an extra added bonus, we checked our mail at the Mammoth post office during lunch break and our forwarded mail has finally started to arrive, including OUR MICHIGAN REGISTRATION. Now we're legal again! Too whipped from the training to even consider running into the park tonight. Thur, Aug 14 - One more very full day of training. It isn't all that difficult, but like so many mainframe systems, there isn't a lot of consistency on how things are done from one part of the system to the next. Until we're getting on and using this system on a regular basis, it will be hard to develop proficiency. This same system is used for all the lodging in the park (our campsites are labeled as "rooms"). It is a commercial system used throughout the lodging industry. Now I understand why harried desk clerks have so much trouble checking me in to hotels. Now that we have our valid auto registration, we were able to get our employee window sticker to get us thru the park entry stations, both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Things are starting to come together at last. Our training ends tomorrow noon, and we'll be dragging the trailer through the narrow, twisty-turny, up and down roads in the park, down to Grant Village where we'll be based for the rest of our work term. We've learned our instructor will come down with us to help us through our first shift or two, which was VERY welcome news. They'll be putting us right to work on Saturday, which is good -- we'd rather not let it get any staler than necessary before we start putting our newfound knowledge to work. We have good cell phone access here in Gardiner, but we'll probably have none down at Grant. As a result, we won't be able to use the cell phone for doing email from "home". Don't know yet what sort of access we might have at the facility, but if we have to rely on driving to somewhere that we can get digital cell phone service, you may not be hearing much from us except when we bop out of the park. The good news is, of the campgrounds managed by Xanterra, Grant is the one nearest to the south entrance so we should be able to get down to Jackson WY where there is supposed to be good Verizon digital service once in a while. Guess that's it for this installment. We'll write more when we can. PART V - Our Feet Are Now Definitely Wet Sun, Aug 17. -- Well, now we're set up in the Xanterra employee campground at Grant Village. Pretty basic, no frills place, but full hookups (that's electric, water, and sewer for you non-RV folks) so we've got all the comforts of home (except for those thin RV mattresses ...). The drive down here (southwest-central Yellowstone) from Gardiner (north Yellowstone) took about 2-1/4 hours. Had to slowly drag our way up a few of the slopes, but we made it okay. Coming through the area north of Madison the smoke and haze from the wildfires in the park got pretty thick to the point that the sky looked pink and our eyes got very uncomfortable. The east entrance to the park has closed temporarily a couple of times in the last few days, and when they closed it yesterday they projected it would be down for at least a week - supposed to be 50 miles of downed trees all over the road that need to be cleaned up now and the fire is still not under control. It's a great relief to get out of Gardiner with its over-100 degree temps and get to Grant, which at 7800 feet is considerably cooler. We went thru one real downpour during the trip, and we had an intense but short deluge shortly after we arrived, that generated one of the most intense rainbows we've seen in years when it had passed over. We arrived at the employee campground just in time for a lot of excitement. There is a helipad at the end of the employee campground that is used for emergencies. That very day the NPS (National Park Service) started clearing an area to add a second helipad and a place for the fire fighters to set up a large camp. Reportedly they're making room for 1000 firefighters in Grant Village, but I don't see how they could all be going in here -- there must be some other spots scattered around. Meanwhile we've had quite a bit of helicopter activity hauling food and supplies out to the front lines and lots of truck traffic in and out of the campground. So far, at least, it has all been during daylight hours. From the end of our campground road, there used to be a nice view east out over one of the arms of Yellowstone Lake. We're told there are some pretty impressive mountains on the other side of the lake, but except for an occasional glimpse, they've been obscured by smoke. But now with the fire camp there we've lost our view altogether. Other than that, the fires aren't affecting us much here. We arrived here late Friday afternoon and were put to work manning two of the campground registration windows Saturday and Sunday. As rmentioned earlier it is a pretty complex system (Dow folks, think "GPDIS") and hard to master all the nuts and bolts, but we've pretty well got the basics down now after locating lots of existing reservations, making new ones, and checking in lots of campers, and we're working on learning the ins and outs of some of the more esoteric chores like accomodating campers who want to switch sites, extend their stays, or check out early. The feedback from our supervisors has been unbelievably positive. I think they've been shorthanded for so long that they want to be sure we don't quit on them. It is amazing the rate at which the visitation to the park is dropping off. While we were up in Gardiner, the signs posted at the park entrance every day showed all the campgrounds full by 5 pm. What with the kids going back to school, and perhaps the fires to some extent, less than half are filling now. Our co-workers tell us it's almost like somebody throws a switch right around August 15 every year. We're scheduled to work the windows through the next week or so. Since we're pretty much assigned as fill-ins, once we get into September and we've presumably mastered that computer beast, they'll probably be splitting our time between "inside" on the desk and "outside" doing campground attendant work. Everybody has been very open and friendly. Most of the campground workers are living at our end of the employee campground and they've gone out of their way to greet us and make us feel welcome. It's really a pretty cool community of folks and we think we're really going to enjoy it here. Which is a good thing because we are really remote here. There are few receivable am or fm radio stations, except for the park's low power station (you know, tune to 1610 for park information ...) that just runs the same loop tape forever. Our tv antenna gets zilch - good thing we have our satellite dish. Unless one is willing to pay the exhorbitant prices for the in-park concessions, to make a quick trip to the grocery store is an all day event, bopping down to Jackson or West Yellowstone outside the park. Cody to the east is another popular shopping spot, apparently, but that is out of the question right now with the fires in the east. In fact we're planning on heading to Jackson tomorrow on our first day off to replenish the larder. It's supposed to be a Verizon Digital area, so we hope to be able to connect to the internet and get this update sent off. PART VI - The Saga Continues Tue Aug 19 - Well, our first two days off are coming to an end, and it's back to work on Wednesday. We're used to just bopping out to the grocery and having them home and put away in a maximum of maybe two hours. Here, it's an all day event. Monday we tooled on down to Jackson for a little shopping, with an eye on the cell phone to see where we'd get back into Verizon range. We had to get all the way out of Yellowstone and into Grand Teton NP before hitting the first little pocket of service. By the time we reached Jackson it was good and steady. We stopped at the Visitor Center on the way into town, plunked ourselves down on a picnic table in the shade of the tree, and while Sherry went in to pick up some literature, I hooked the cell phone up to the laptop, and uploaded a couple of pages of pictures and our previous update. We've never been to Jackson at this time of year before. What a ZOO with people all over the place, jamming every intersection. Whew! The smoke from the Yellowstone East fire had filled the valley here too, and the normal magnificent views of the Teton range were all but obscured. We felt really bad for the tourists who weren't getting the chance to experience the exceptional views and grandeur this area normally provides. After a nice lunch and a trip to K-Mart and Albertsons grocery, it was back on the road to return to camp. Total driving time for this little jaunt was about 3 hours and 20 minutes. Looks like that's how we're likely to be spending one of our two days off every week -- bopping out of the park to do some grocery shopping. We have the option of eating at the Employee Dining Room, and fairly inexpensively, but we're finding we don't like to do that every meal. So instead of going on the full board plan, we've just bought a bunch of breakfast, lunch and dinner coupons we can use at the EDR when we want to. With the necessary chores taken care of, today we were able to play on our second day off. Grant Village is only about 17 miles from Old Faithful, so we went up there for the day. We've been there several times before, so we didn't really need to go see EVERY geyser, hot spring, and fumerole, but we did stroll around the main walkways, and took in the major sights. We were amazed not to see any wildlife there in the Upper Geyser Basin, as every other visit we've made the place was almost crawling with elk and bison -- but those visits were always much earlier in the season. We were able to catch eruptions of several geysers, including Daisy Geyser, one of the larger ones. We used a couple of our employee meal coupons and had lunch at the Employee Dining Room there, getting out just in time to see Old Faithful go off. We made a point of going to all three of the gift shops run by Xanterra, taking advantage of our employee discount (the Xanterra gift shop at Grant leaves much to be desired). Fri, Aug 22 - We're back to work checking in campers. The last two days we've been on late shift (2:30-10:00), which doesn't fit with Sherry's daily rhythms very well. They've had to do some work schedule revisions as one of our fellow Guest Service Agents decided to pull up stakes and go home. I think he was waiting for the new help get on board before dropping that bombshell. As a result of the schedule shuffle, Sherry is on early shift today, starting at 6:45. I don't go in til 10:00 so I've got a chance to catch up on this journal. The job itself is getting easier as we get better versed in dealing with the mechanical aspects of how to do what we need to on the computer terminals. Looks like our days off will be Monday and Tuesday every week, and we've been told we should get an occasional 3 day weekend. The big talk around the campground yesterday was the minor earthquake we had Wed night, around 2 am. We were racked out after our first late shift and slept through it, but apparently it woke up a few of our campmates. The epicenter was 30 miles southeast of the park, and I haven't heard of it causing any damage. The employee camp is set up with phone lines, but they tell us it takes about 2 weeks to get one installed to your RV, so it didn't seem worth messing with for our short stay. We learned from our next door neighbor (another big sized guy named Doug) that Verizon cell phone reception had been pretty good here but that their tower was put out of commission by lightning shortly before our arrival. So maybe there's hope that it will be restored soon and we won't be so isolated. Lack of internet access continues to be a thorn in our side, but what do you expect out in the wilderness? A couple of days ago we headed south to get back into Verizon wireless range so Sherry could call her mother. We found a good digital signal at Lizard Creek Campground, a small rustic campground at the north end of Grand Teton NP and pulled in there to call. Also hooked up the laptop to deal with email. That latest virus that's going the rounds filled our inboxes with so many bogus messages that I ran out of laptop battery life in the middle of cleaning out the junk before downloading the valid messages. Sherry went to the rest room while I was doing this and discovered it was a nice one with running water, and more importantly, an electric outlet. So I spent the next 40 minutes sitting on the concrete floor of the men's room with the laptop plugged into the shaver outlet, deleting the rest of the bogus messages, downloading the good ones, and uploading the next batch of pictures. Monday, Aug 25 - Yellowstone has an interesting tradition of celebrating "Christmas in August". The lore is that in the early 1900's an early snowstorm on August 25 trapped a bunch of visitors at Old Faithful Inn when the stagecoaches used for transporation then could not get through. They decided to make the best of a bad situation by decorating a tree and singing carols. Supposedly, Christmas in August has been observed in Yellowstone ever since. Grant Campground celebrated yesterday, i.e. "Christmas in August Eve". We decorated our office with the usual Christmas trimmings, greeted all our guests with a hearty "Merry Christmas!" and handed out slips explaining the tradition. The campground employees had a great turkey dinner with potluck accompanying dishes, and a chinese auction gift exchange. Afterward a bunch of us loaded into the back of a company pickup truck and cruised through the campground singing carols and throwing candy canes to the kids. We had a ball. Some folks obviously thought we were nuts, but most thought it was great. The ones who seemed to enjoy it most were our foreign visitors. So here we are on our Monday day off with no concrete plans, so we went a few miles up the road to West Thumb geyser basin. This is a small basin, and is mostly hot springs, but it's right on the Lake Yellowstone shore so it's still pretty neat. We also took a trail that took us 200' up a nearby hill for a really great lake overlook. It was a nice clear day so we could see across the lake very well and see a surprising number of smoke plumes coming up from the hills and mountains east of the lake. On the way back down, as we followed a turn in the trail we were startled to run into a female elk maybe 10' off the trail. Heading out of the park to West Yellowstone tomorrow and hope to be able to send this out then. PART VII - One More Yellowstone Report Sat, August 30 - In our last report, we were about to head for West Yellowstone for some shopping, and that's just what we did. The town sure has spread since our last visit there, something like 25 years ago. Gee, the streets are even PAVED now! There's an IMAX theater just outside the park and they sent passes for a free admission to all Xanterra employees. We took in a show about Lewis and Clark's exploration of the Louisiana Purchase and it was excellent. Took care of email (nice Verizon Digital signal), had lunch, picked up our supplies, and headed back. Picked up a 12v inverter so we can run the laptop off the cigarette lighter outlet in the truck -- no more sitting on the concrete floor of the Lizard Creek Campground restroom! That evening we went to the Ranger Program down at the Grant Amphitheater for a program on the reintroduction of wolves to the Yellowstone ecosystem. Very interesting. We had a night that was so clear that even with the lights on around the amphitheater we could see the Milky Way very clearly. Weather has turned cooler so we aren't going to work in shorts any more. We've had clouds and rain the last couple of days which has again cleaned the smoke out of the air. We're hoping it will have a positive effect on the fires. There is a rumor that they may actually be opening the East Entrance Road again tomorrow. Keeping our fingers crossed. Supposed to be clearing up but staying cool the next few days -- just in time for our next days off coming up in a couple of days. We really haven't been doing a lot other than working this week. By now we're feeling halfway proficient at the Guest Service Agent (GSA) jobs. Visitation is dropping like a rock, though, and sometimes we have a lot of time on our hands. Sure looks to us that they have too many people scheduled to work for this time of year. Sometimes we have all four registration windows open, when there isn't enough activity to keep even one or two busy. As late season replacements, we'll be assigned where they need us. Now that they consider our GSA training completed, we were scheduled to start training as Campground Attendants (i.e. restroom cleaner-uppers and general campground polishers) this morning. But when we showed up today, they needed to pull one of us back to the registration window because they only had one person on duty and the cold wet weather was causing a lot of early checkouts. Anyhow, Sherry went "out" for attendant training, and I stayed "in" at the window because I had my cash drawer key with me and Sherry didn't bring hers. Today was our 34th wedding anniversary. We think this is probably the first one we have ever celebrated away from home -- with all those years with Sherry as a teacher, we generally needed to be back around school at this time of year. A week or so ago I bought her a nice pair of silver and turquoise earrings at the gift shop at Old Faithful Inn as an anniversary present and I ALMOST had the purchase completed and the earrings out of sight when Sherry came over to me -- so much for any surprise! Tonight we went to the nicest of the three restaurants here at Grant and had a very nice anniversary dinner. Monday, Sept 1, Labor Day - The cool damp weather has departed, but while it was here it helped to bring the big East Fire under control. The East Entrance Road is now open again and they have taken down the firefighter camp at the end of our employee campground. Now we have bright blue sunny skies and warmer temperatures, just in time for our days off. The road between Canyon and Tower in the park is scheduled to be closed for rebuilding in about a week, so we thought we ought to go up to the Tower area for the day while we could still get there. We followed the Yellowstone River north from Yellowstone Lake (bypassing the Upper and Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone which we'll "do" at a later date) and headed over Dunraven Pass to Tower. We definitely agree that road is in serious need of rebuilding. We took a terrific hike on one of the lesser-frequented trails that runs along the rim of the lower Yellowtone River Canyon as well as a short hike to a waterfall behind Roosevelt Lodge that turned out to be nearly dried up this late in the season. Looks like it's back to West Yellowstone for groceries tomorrow, so I hope to be able to send this off. PART VIII - Are Those Guys Still Out West? Thursday, Sept 4 - At the end of our last update, we were about to head into West Yellowstone. Before heading in, I wanted to check our propane tanks to be sure we had a good supply before the weather turns much cooler. Since we have no guages on the tanks, I just unhooked them to take them out and "heft" them to see if they were full or empty. Unfortunately the valve on our second tank (which turned out to be the full one) failed and I couldn't shut if off -- it just spewed freezing propane uncontrollably. I managed to get it hooked back up to the hose to stop the flow, and that's what we're running on now. When and if it gets empty we'll have to have a new valve installed. Meanwhile we had the other tank filled in West Yellowstone and should be ready if we get a really cold snap. The trip into W Yellowtone this time was pretty cool. We had to stop for a large bull elk with a huge rack of antlers that decided to stroll across the road in front of us. Ever ready with the camera, we got a great picture which we'll undoubtedly post for you to see soon. The wildlife scenario continued in W Yellowstone as we visited the Grizzly Discovery Center. They have a small preserve where they've taken in orphaned bears and wolves. It was a chance to see them from a manageable distance and we learned a lot. If you ever get out this way, we both recommend this place highly! The last couple of days we've been working "out" as campground attendants, rather than "in" at the registration windows. The attendants clean the washrooms and generally keep the campground in good shape. Seems a kind of waste to us, now that they've invested all this time in training us to work in the registration building, but ours not to reason why.... We both think we prefer working "in", not that we mind the work "out", but we both really enjoyed the guest contact at the registration windows and there seems to be much less guest contact as an attendant because the people are out touring the park. For the next couple of weeks the schedule has us moving back and forth between "in" and "out". Then it sounds like several of the attendants will be leaving and we'll probably finish out the season mostly "out". A little "present" in the mail. DirecTV, satellite provider, says our credit card bounced. A quick call to Visa confirms there's nothing wrong with the account. Gad, this stuff sure is a pain to work through when on the road. Saturday Sept 6 -- Last night was a big event up at the employee campground. We had a "fin and feather" potluck, featuring baked chicken and fried fish. This gang sure does know how to eat! The whole thing was set up at Doug Prettyman's trailer next door, as he was cooking the chickens, so we were right in the center of activity. Good thing we don't eat like this every day or we'd come home looking like blimps. Monday Sept 8 -- It was bound to happen sooner or later. So far every day we've had off work has been sunny and beautiful. Well, today started our first 3-day weekend and we had a cold front come thru and give us clouds and rain most of the day. It wasn't that big a disaster, though, as we took a trip out the East Entrance to Cody WY, now that the East Entrance road is open again, to take Cookie to a kennel. This will allow us to spend a couple of nights up at the lodge at Canyon Village. Since it is approximately a 2-1/2 hour drive from Grant to Cody, plus the time we spent finding the kennel and having lunch, we didn't get back into the park until midafternoon and most of the rough weather had passed by then, although the temperature was only about 50 F. The drive out the East Entrance and back took us through the recent fire area and it was amazing to see the blackened hulks of trees right up to the road. Although we don't understand the reason for it, no stopping is permitted in these areas, so we tried to take some pictures from the moving vehicle but they didn't turn out. Canyon Village is the hub for viewing the impressive falls of the Yellowstone River and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We went to a few of the canyon viewpoints along the north rim of the canyon this afternoon, including a hike down to the brink of the Lower Falls (600 ft elevation change in 3/8 mile) -- easy going down, murder going back up. We later learned that this trail had been closed most of the season for repairs and had just been reopened in the last few days. After a decent but not inspiring dinner at the Dining Room, we headed out to catch the end of the day looking for wildlife. The Hayden Valley is just south of here, and we knew from past visits that it is an exceptional place to view the bison and other animals to be found here. Tonight we saw some mule deer, but the big thrill was just as it was getting dark we ran into some elk. Now, we'd been seeing elk all over the place, mostly females and young, but with the occasional antlered bull. But now that it's turning colder, the big bull elk are coming down from the high country and starting to round up their herds of cows. This time we saw several groups of bull elk and their harems through the gathering dusk. But what made it special is now they are starting into their bugling - loud, haunting calls the bulls make as mating season approaches. We pulled off the side of the road and just listened long after it was too dark to see anything. We at least have some Verizon digital service here at Canyon so we should be able to send this off. Of course, we aren't lucky enough to get a signal here in our lodge room, but we won't have to haul the computer too far to connect up. PART IX - More From Yellowstone Tuesday Sept 9 -- Our first full day at Canyon Village was pretty chilly, but the sun came out and kept things pleasant most of the day. We're staying at the Lodge here since Xanterra employees can get rooms 50% off on a space available basis in September. We started the day with breakfast at the Employee Dining Room (EDR) and picked up a couple of sack lunches, then "played tourist" the rest of the day. We went to the awe-inspiring viewpoints along the south rim of the canyon then over to the Norris Geyser Basin and the Artists Paint Pots. We came back to our lodge room in mid afternoon for quick naps. As I had up/downloaded our email before starting out (found a barely useable Verizon digital signal out in our parking lot), we had a few messages to reply to after our naps. Just as Sherry was finishing her turn at the computer she jumped up shouting "Oh My God! Get up! GET UP!" I thought she'd broken the laptop or something. But she had seen a large male bison just outside our window, munching on grass. We dashed out to get some pictures, along with everybody else in the lodge. Eventually we strolled (out the OTHER door, away from the bison) over to the EDR for dinner, and when we came back the bison was still there. Then we drove out into the countryside for another evening of looking for wildlife, but we were barely able to back the truck out because of the bison. We were a little disappointed that we didn't see but a few distant elk and didn't hear any bugling tonight, but when we got back that bison was STILL THERE. As a matter of fact, he appears to have bedded down for the night on a little grass island in our parking lot, just outside our window. Now THERE'S something we don't see at home! Now that we're away from our trailer we can't even check the Weather Channel via our satellite dish to have any idea what's headed our way -- no phones or tv at the lodge. When we left yesterday morning, they were predicting another cold front to come thru tonight, with possible snow down to the 8000' level. Here at Canyon we're over 7900' so we might just find one snowy bison outside our window in the morning. Wednesday Sept 10 -- Our bison moved on sometime during the night, but as we walked over to the EDR for breakfast we found a bison, presumably "ours", a few buildings away. We overheard a couple of the Canyon employees talking on their way to work, and as they came in view of the bison one said, "Oh, that's just Norm" -- so apparently our buffalo was a well known character in these parts. Finally managed to get through to DirecTV and get THAT mess squared away before they shut off our service. To our relief we didn't see a bunch of snow when we got up although it was apparent it had rained. There was a light drizzle falling that couldn't make up its mind whether to be rain or snow. But as we headed south to get to the East Entrance Road, we saw that the mountains and some of the higher hills had acquired a light coating of snow overnight. That made things look pretty bleak as we climbed up through the clouds and rain/snow to climb over Sylvan Pass to return to Cody, WY. We've now been away from home for over six weeks, so our first order of business once we reached Cody was to get a couple of haircuts. Then we took in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center - or at least as much of it as we could see in several hours. It is quite an impressive establishment with five separate museums. We toured the Buffalo Bill Museum and the Natural History Museum, then ran out of steam while viewing the Gallery of Western Art. We bailed out then and hit the Walmart for provisions, then out to the kennel to get Cookie back. Then back into the park via the ol' East Entrance -- our 4th trip over this narrow twisting mountain road in three days. I think that will last us for a while. We probably won't see this road again unless we decide to leave this way when we return home. We made it back "home" around 7pm, in clouds and light rain. The indoor/outdoor thermometer in our trailer indicated the temp had dropped to 28F the night before -- good thing we left a trickle of water running to keep our supply hose from freezing up and bursting. Guess it's time to pull out all those warm clothes we have stored under the beds. When we pulled in we were shocked to see Doug and Esther Prettyman's trailer was gone from next door. A note on our door from the campground office manager explained that Esther's mother had fallen and was in bad shape back in St. George UT, so they had to leave. Since that leaves the Attendant crew short a couple of people, looks like we'll be starting our week as attendants tomorrow instead of working the registration windows. That's okay, except that we were scheduled for the late shift and could have slept in, but as attendants we'll have to start at 8:00. Oh, well ... Managing our affairs from afar is proving to be a pain in the gluteus maximus. On top of all the other aggrevations we've had so far, now we've received notice that the escrow on our mortgage has not paid our latest household insurance bill and our coverage is about to be cancelled. Guess there will be one more trip to the ol' pay phone first thing in the morning -- at least with the two hour time difference we have a chance to conduct some business back east before going into work in the morning. Friday Sept 12 -- Ever since we started to work here, there has been a parkwide fire ban because of our severe dry conditions. No wood or charcoal fires allowed anywhere, including the campgrounds. The ban went into effect the very day we started at Grant on Aug 16. This added one more thing we had to relate to campers checking in, in addition to the bear safety lecture and other information we had to impart. This also meant that our normal firewood sales were discontinued and we didn't have to mess around with the small change transactions that they entailed. When working as attendants out in the campground, it also meant that we didn't have to spend time cleaning out the fire pits at each campsite. The cold damp weather we've had off and on the last couple of weeks has eased the fire danger and the fire ban was lifted while we had our days off at Canyon. Yesterday was cold (40's), damp, and blustery, in general a great day to work inside -- except that we were outside. Most of the day the sky was gray and threatening and looked more like November than September. Without our former neighbors' trailer parked to the west of us, we've got two empty spaces on either side now and there is nothing to break the wind. Gusts now can rock our trailer noticeably. Today's weather is about the same with the unwelcome addition of occasional cold showers -- the last couple to come through have been hail instead of rain, building up to 1/2" on the ground but then melting when the sun breaks through between the clouds. Sure hope this is just a passing system, and not an indication of what our weather will be like through the end of the month! We're back to working the registration windows today, but Sherry's working the early shift (7:45 - 2:45) while I'll be going in on late shift (2:30 - 9:00) so we won't see each other much today. At least that gave me a chance to deal with the escrow/insurance issue and make sure all the ends are tied up. Turns out nobody had informed our insurance agent that we had refinanced recently so they sent the bill to the wrong place. One more disaster averted. Saturday, Sept 13 -- Got down to 25F last night. Good thing they don't meter our water with all the flow everyone has going thru the pipes to keep things from freezing. If it keeps this up we'll be burning up a bunch of propane in the next couple of weeks. We're still running off the propane tank with the problem valve. Gotta get that empty before we can get a new valve installed. The prediction for tonight is 15-25 -- at that rate we should have that tank emptied sooner rather than later. Today Sherry worked the registration window and I worked outside as an attendant. Danged cold when I started but by midmorning I was able to shed my jacket and sweatshirt in the bright sunshine. It really only got up to about 50F today, but felt much warmer in the sun. While out in one of the more remote parts of the campground I heard an elk bugling -- first time I've heard this during the day. The big thrill of the day was spotting a bald eagle in a tree down by the lake just below the employee campground. Unfortunately this was just before I had to drive down to the public campground to pick Sherry up at the end of her shift, so I couldn't take the time to hike down and get some good closeup pictures. Sunday, Sept 14 -- Down to 25F again last night, but at least it didn't go lower. Blue sky and sunshine all day, so it warmed up fast and almost reached 60. Terrific star display tonight. Today was our final shift as Guest Service Agents, and in commemoration, the office staff presented us with certificates proclaiming us to be Rookies of the Year. We have the next couple of days off and when we start back on Wednesday we'll be working outside as Attendants from now on 'til the campground closes in a couple of weeks. After dinner we took a drive up to the picnic area on Lake Yellowstone where I've been doing most of our internet connecting via cell phone. But this time there was no digital signal at all, so I guess this installment will just keep getting longer until we can get somewhere from which to send it out. On the way back we stopped along the lake to give Cookie a walk. When we got down to the shore we spotted a bull elk and a couple of cows wading in the water perhaps a quarter mile away. Too far away and too dark for any good pictures, but still a memorable sight. Tuesday, Sept 16 -- For our day off yesterday, Sherry didn't feel like exploring due to a cold she's been coping with for the last few days, so I ran up to the Upper Geyser Basin alone. I wanted to take the trail up to Observation Point to get a good overview of Old Faithful and the entire basin. I managed to time it to see Old Faithful erupt from up there. And the prediction for Castle Geyser was about 45 minutes later, so I had time to descend the trail and get over there to catch it too. As I was pulling out of the Old Faithful area the Yellowstone Animal Early Warning System (i.e. a bunch of vehicles pulled off the side of the road) led me to a bull elk, two cows, and a yearling, which resulted in some great pics. Meanwhile Sherry cleaned house and fixed a dish for the evening's event. That evening we had another staff potluck. This is the potluckingest group we've ever seen. The excuse/reason for this one was to take group staff pictures. Everybody brought their cameras, and we found one agreeable camping couple to take picture after picture with all the cameras. We rewarded them by inviting them to the feed. Now that the campfire ban has been lifted, most evenings we have a fire at a large firepit up at the employee campground. I wandered over there with Cookie last evening. While we were chatting around the fire, Cookie started trying to pull toward the dark woods behind us, and eventually started growling. Pretty spooky. I'm guessing she sensed a coyote, but one never knows. Later, after returning to the trailer, we heard some odd noises outside and Sherry and I sat out on our picnic table to listen. It didn't sound like the elk bugling we'd heard before, so we didn't know what it was. It was more high pitched and almost musical sounding -- kinda reminded us of recordings we've heard of whale song. The gang this morning told us that was the call of a female elk. This morning, we bade goodbye to two couples who pulled their trailers out. We were surprised after our short time here how we hated to see them go. Kinda cool and grey today with rain possibilities. We had thought we might run down to Jackson and the Tetons for the day, but we'll save that for our next days off in the hope of better weather. So it looks like we'll be running into West Yellowstone shortly for a few provisions, and we should be able to send this off. PART X - Down To The Last Week Sunday Sept 21 -- Sherry's cold is still hanging on. Trooper that she is, she's hanging in there as campground attendant, but pretty much collapsing when we get home. As reported above, I ran into W Yellowstone for provisions, alone. Sherry just wanted to stay home and nurse her cold. The propane tank had finally run dry and I wanted to get the valve replaced and get the tank refilled. Unfortunately the dealer was closed with everyone out working on a major gas leak. I went back after picking up the groceries and having a nice lunch at a favorite place called Bullwinkles, but they still weren't back. After checking every other place in town that anybody could suggest as a possibility for getting a new valve, I ended up back at the propane dealer's parking lot. Eventually they returned and my errands were completed, but I no longer had enough time for a hike I'd hoped to take on the way back. It's probably just as well, hiking alone in Yellowstone country is not recommended anyhow. But it WAS a nice day, so when I got back I washed the truck. This was the first washing since White Sulphur Springs, and boy, did it need it. The next morning Sherry surprised me by telling me somebody had pulled into the site next to us during the night -- seems there was a clean blue truck that wasn't there before. Weather continues to drop below freezing, well below freezing, at night, but the last several days have been sunny and bright, with the temperatures climbing up into comfortable mid to upper 50s during the day. Today was so nice after work that I sat out in the sun and finished reading my latest novel, then washed down the trailer. It was amazing how nice it is to look through clean windows. Most nights we have a pleasant campfire up in the employee campground and good times chatting with our new friends. Yesterday while we were working out in the campground we came across a large bull elk, two cows and one yearling. At that time of the mid afternoon all the campers were out enjoying the park, so we didn't get to share them with any of our guests. When we came back in at the end of the shift we received performance evaluations from the campground manager. They were so glowing at to be almost embarassing -- think they'd really like to have us come back next year. Don't know if we'll be up for that or not -- we'll have to digest this whole thing over the winter. They are shutting down two more campground loops tomorrow as we get closer and closer to the campground closing date. It's hard to believe that a week from today, we'll be pulling up stakes and heading home. Monday Sept 22 -- I think it's been about three days since we've seen a cloud. That makes for cold nights in this thin dry air, but marvelous days. Too bad we're working. Today it got up to 64F and it felt GREAT. On this attendant job, we spend most of the mornings cleaning the restrooms, then the afternoon is spent doing whatever other odd jobs need to be tackled. Most of the time we wander through the campground "picking", that is, picking up loose trash. Today we spent the afternoon cleaning out the firepits in three of the campground loops. Shortly before noon, Sherry and I came across a loose dog, dragging a leash. It looked like an Australian Collie and was very skitterish and wouldn't let anybody approach it. Eventually we radioed in for assistance and the Park Service sent out their nearest available help, which turned out to be an ambulance and fire truck that happened to be in the area. We probably all looked like an old Mack Sennett comedy as a bunch of us ranged all over the campground trying to get hold of the dog. Eventually one of the NPS guys managed to snag the leash and they took the dog back to the ranger station. When we got back from lunch we learned the owners had shown up to claim the dog. Seems they had put it in their van as they were packing up their camp, and what with all their kids and gear they didn't realize the dog had jumped out when nobody was looking. They got all the way down to Jackson Lake in the Tetons before realizing it. So dog and owners were reunited, and the story has a happy ending. Wednesday, Sept 24 -- One more sub-freezing morning, but another sunny day with blue skies so it should warm up nicely. Things at work have been largely directed at getting the campground ready to close down on Sunday -- giving the closed loops final cleaning, shutting down the rest rooms, collecting the extra paper goods from each restroom, etc. The folks who have been here all season are more than ready for it to be over. For us, it's sort of bitter sweet. With the proliferation of digital cameras, several of us contributed pictures we've taken this year and we compiled them together into one CD-ROM disk that we've made copies of for the whole staff. Kind of a neat way to remember the year. This is our last day off, so we're heading down to Jackson for a few groceries, do some email, and to put in some tourist time in Grand Teton National Park. We did our laundry after work yesterday so we'd have the whole day free today. PART XI - On The Road Again ... Thursday, Sept 25 -- Wow. It only went down to 40F last night! One more bright sunny day. One could get used to this. Yesterday's trip down thru the Tetons was fantastic. Our employee passes are good for admission to the Tetons too, and the weather was superb. Sunshine and blue skies, temp reached 75F, the aspens turning bright gold, and great views of the fabulous Teton range. You may recall that our previous trip down that way was at the height of the wildfire season and there was so much smoke in the air that we could barely make out the mountains were even there. Not so this time. That sure is one amazing mountain range! We made sure we got home in plenty of time for an evening event planned by the campground staff. We have one loop that is set off away from the others and is used for group camps -- when a Boy Scout troop comes out and wants to all camp together, for instance. At this time of year there is little demand for the group camps, so we set one of them aside and a bunch of us met there last evening. We had a nice fire, fried up some bananas in butter and brown sugar, and listened to the elk bugling all around us. Since that loop is fairly remote the elk put on quite a concert. It was surprisingly warm (when we got back to the trailer at 10pm it was still about 45F) and the sky was perfectly clear, giving us a great star show on this moonless night. Between the stars and the bugling, it was, like, totally awesome, dude. Sunday, Sept 28 -- The last few days at Yellowstone are now history. As the end drew near, we made a point of using up as much of our foodstuffs as possible, and then had dinner at the employee dining room the last few nights. Friday morning we had a big staff breakfast down at the Grant Restaurant at 6:30 am (yawn!). We had had a silent auction up in the employee campground a couple of weeks ago where people sold off unwanted items, with all proceeds going toward the breakfast. Since we didn't have a qualifying snowfall (what a great pity!!) the snow pool funds went into this too. And campground management ponied up for any remaining shortfall. Saturday was the annual Survivors Dinner down at the employee dining room. The managers cooked up some steaks and chops and chicken and served the remaining employees. We were told this was a dinner not to be missed and since we were eating at the EDR anyhow ... There was one last campfire up at the employee campground. We did our best to burn up all the remaining firewood, but it was a futile effort, as we're all a bunch of old farts who have trouble staying up past about 9:30. This morning we shut down Grant Campground. We had done as much as we could ahead of time so today all we had to do as Attendants was cover over all the wooden signs with black plastic, remove the barricades from the loops that had been shut down earlier, then starting at 10:00 am checkout time, shut down and lock the restrooms. We were done by 11:00am, turned in our keys, turned in our uniforms, and got signed out. We ate lunch in the trailer, then tore down our camp, hooked up, and hit the road by 12:20. We went out through the East Entrance and down through Cody, then headed south to Thermopolis where we pulled into a campground for the night. Ever since that short period of cold blustery weather in mid September, we've had nothing but fantastic blue skies and cool but pleasant temperatures. Today was no exception and that made it a super travel day. Looks like we have a good digital phone signal here, so we'll probably get this sent off tonight. It's been a great experience, and it was surprisingly difficult to say goodbye to the staff that we've only known for seven weeks or so, but it feels really good to be heading home. Part X - It's Not Over Til the Fat Lady Sings Tuesday Sept 30 -- Well, we thought the previous message would probably be the last until we reached home, but... Our trip leaving Thermopolis on Monday was interesting. Started out through the Wind River Canyon then spent the rest of the day driving across the hills and prairies of eastern Wyoming. Saw pronghorn antelope in droves, to the point that we quit looking at them (well, almost ...). Crossed into Nebraska in late afternoon, passing by Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock National Monuments. The visitor centers for both were already closed so we just kept on truckin'. We pulled into the campground at Cabella's home store in Syndey, Nebraska just in time for one fantastic sunset. We strolled across the road for a Mexican dinner then bopped into Cabella's for a quick look around. We haven't been to other Cabella stores so we don't know if this is standard but they had an amazing display of mounted North American animals that dominated the central area of the building. Cold, cloudy, and rainy this morning. Went back into the store and picked up a few items for the trailer, for ourselves, and as gifts, then hit the road with destination Lincoln Nebraska to see our friend Rita for a couple of days. Not much to see on this stretch of road and Sherry was starting to go buggy. But then... Just past Kearney our Good Sam Emergency Road Service once again proved its worth. We blew a tire on the trailer and had to pull over on the side of I-80. Good Sam had help to our side in about 20 minutes. The spare was put in place, and we were on our way again. But we were not comfy running without a spare, and the treads flapping around from the blown tire had done some damage underneath the trailer -- some cosmetic damage that can wait til we get home and a couple of copper propane lines to the furnace and kitchen range that we need to get fixed ASAP. The next town of any size was Grand Island, so we headed there. The Good Sam-recommended RV dealer there made an appointment to work on it tomorrow afternoon, tentative upon his technician who was off sick today getting back to work tomorrow -- not too reassuring. They don't carry tires but there was a tire business next door that didn't have the size we needed in stock. They ordered one that should come in tomorrow by 11:00. Good Sam has an additional nice service - local Good Sam members who have volunteered to be contacted when one needs a helping hand. They had somebody listed for Grand Island so we called him. He recommended a nice camping area where we could spend the night, a State Recreation Area just off the X-way, and a repair service that could work on the propane tubing. We set up camp as recommended in a nice site with an electric hookup, then called the repair service. He is going to come down to the campground and fix us in place first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, we headed into Grand Island to find the Walmart and get an electric ceramic heater to use in the trailer since our furnace will be out of commission with no propane supply. While there we found another tire dealer who was just closing, but who has the tire we need in stock. So with any luck we'll be able to have everything taken care of and get back on the road by late morning. I took Cookie for a walk around the lake, a little over a mile, I'd guess, and chatted with some of the fishermen there. One of them claimed to have pulled a 40 lb catfish out of the lake the day before! Friday, Oct 3 -- Wednesday morning the repair guy showed up at our campsite first thing as planned and set to work replacing the damaged copper tubing. Once he had things well underway, I went into town, told the guy at the first tire dealer I wouldn't be waiting for the tire to come in, cancelled our appointment at the rv dealer, and went down to the second tire dealer to get our replacement tire. By the time I returned to the trailer our repair guy was just finishing up. So between the repairs and the tire we were able to hook up and go, $200 poorer. Next stop, Lincoln NE and our friend Rita Skelton. Rita had suggested we could park in her apartment complex, but the weather forecast held the possibility of freezing, so we opted to pull into a campground where we could hook up to the utilities and make sure the trailer stayed warm and wouldn't burst the pipes. Although Sherry had visited Rita a couple of times, I hadn't seen Rita in several years and it was great to see her again and catch up on old times. Although we've spoken on the phone many times, it's not the same thing as face to face. Rita fixed us a dynamite dinner on Wednesday and a super breakfast on Thursday. She took us on a quick guided tour of Lincoln then and we went to an amazing ice cream place for lunch where we overindulged appallingly. When we went back to Rita's apartment, I spent a while getting her cable modem installed for her while the girls gabbed. Eventually we went out for a pizza that none of us needed at all, but we managed to polish off the whole thing with no problem. Eventually we bade Rita adios and headed back to the trailer. Lincoln is about an hour away from Omaha on I-80. We opted to delay our departure this morning til about 8:30 to make sure Omaha's rush hour had cleared, then headed out. We pushed a bit farther than we thought we might and made it out of Nebraska, all the way across Iowa, and as far as Joliet, IL. The campground we found here is associated with the Empress Casino. We strolled down to the Egyptian-themed casino and had an excellent dinner, all the better because we hadn't been planning on anything special. We figure we're less than a full day's drive away from home from here, so we should be backing our trailer into our driveway sometime Saturday afternoon if all goes well. And, boy, will it be good to be home! So unless something else noteworthy occurs, this could well be the last entry in this odyssey. Part XI - Home At Last! We'll keep this short and sweet. After about 6-1/2 relatively uneventful hours on the road, we backed the trailer into our driveway around 4:30 pm. Cookie immediately ran next door to see her friend Maggie and they had a great time romping back and forth between our two back yards. We think Cookie is thrilled to be able to run free without a leash again. Although it's only been 6 days since we left Yellowstone, it already seems much longer ago than that. Good thing we have all those pictures to remind us .. Best to all, Doug, Sherry, and Cookie