Wednesday, July 18, through Tuesday, July 26, 2011: Off to Victor, Idaho, the Gateway to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone:
The first stop after McCall on our way to Victor, Idaho, where we will be leaving our trailer while we visit Grand Teton National Park and go to Yellowstone National Park for a family reunion, was the Fort Running Bear RV Park, located 23 miles outside Mountain Home, Idaho, next to the Little Camas Reservoir.


There is nothing---not even a ghost town or closed gas station---in that 23 miles, and the last 3 1/2 miles are not paved. We arrived with a rather dirty truck and trailer. We were told we couldn't wash them due to a water shortage, but that it didn't matter because they would get just as dirty on the way out. Sound advice. The RV park is nice, considering its remote location and rural setting, and the owners are very nice people. I share a picky attitude about the abuse of English with one of the owners, a former teacher from Arcadia, California. We were originally scheduled to stay four nights, but decided to cut it to two and make a stop in Sun Valley on the way to Pocatello. Because of its remoteness, there was little to do at Fort Running Bear but read (which I did) and walk the dogs (which Becky did).


On Wednesday, we made the short (85 miles) trip to Sun Valley, Idaho. Very uneventful, except for about an hour of aggregate delays due to road construction. We are staying at the Meadow RV Park in Ketchum, which is adjacent to Sun Valley. Wednesday afternoon, we biked 11 miles (round trip) through Ketchum to Sun Valley,


stopped at the Sun Valley Inn, had a drink at the Sun Valley Lodge, and a magnificent steak dinner at the Pioneer Saloon in Ketchum, a local favorite.



Thursday morning, we had a nice breakfast at The Moose Girls Cafe & Bar in Ketchum with Lois Ukropina, a former Citigroup client of Becky's. Lois happens to be the aunt of Bill and Rob Ukropina, who went to high school with Becky. Lois moved to Ketchum several years ago. I had never met her before. She's a kick.


Thursday night, we went to Kirk Dushane's house in Bellevue (15 miles south of Ketchum) to have dinner.


Kirk was a long-time client of mine.


He served us elk that he had hunted himself. Yummy. It was good seeing him again. It's been quite a while. He has a new dog (he loves black Labs) named Rip (the grandson of another Rip that Kirk had), who is as cute as can be.


Friday day was a travel day---165 easy miles to Pocatello. On the way, we went through the Craters of the Moon National Monument---a 50+ mile long lava field. Fascinating.


We called Bill Wheeler on Friday to check up on him. He and Pat are still in Michigan, visiting their family. Bill was scheduled to have one of his knees replaced on Friday. Apparently, all went well and he expects to be ready to play pickle ball in a few months.

We are staying at the Cowboy RV Park in Pocatello. Nice place.


We decided there's not much to do in Pocatello, so we watched two movies from the Red Box: Cedar Rapids and The Lincoln Lawyer. Both were well worth the effort.

Sunday was a travel day, 115 miles to finally land in Victor (Population:840). Between Idaho Falls and Victor is beautiful Swan Valley. Spectacular scenery and a graceful country road cutting through it.


We are staying at the Teton Valley RV Park in Victor. It's a nice park in a nice rural setting.


Today we met up with Frank and Pat Vonau, Denver-based RVers we met on our Peru/Ecuador trip 2 1/2 years ago.


They are staying at the same park. Becky has been in email contact with them consistently, trying to figure out how we can match our itineraries enough to see them. It finally happened.

On Sunday night, we went with the Vonaus (and two of their three children and four of their I-don't-know-how-many grandchildren to a "cowboy barbecue" on Sunday at the Bar J Chuckwagon (21 miles away in Wilson, Wyoming), on a large horse and cattle ranch. The barbecue operation is quite an institution, running only four months a year (Memorial Day weekend through the end of September) serving 600 people a night with barbecued chicken, beef, ribs, etc.,


and with entertainment following dinner. As corny as it sounds, it was actually fun.


On Monday morning, we went with the adult Vonaus to the Grand Teton Brewing Company to taste some of its wares. Naturally, we bought some. Fortunately, it is located only two miles from our RV park, so we had little difficulty getting home.





Tuesday was a rest day, preparing for the Yellowstone adventure.

Saturday, July 9, through Sunday, July 17, 2011: Heading for McCall, Idaho:
The trip to Clarkston, Washington on Saturday was 228 miles---long for us---and it took six hours at the pace we were able to maintain. The bulk of the trip (generally, along the Lewis & Clark Trail) was winding through the Clearwater National Forest, up and down fairly steep hills.


It was beautiful scenery, and the large and exciting Lochsa and Clearwater Rivers snaked along next to the road the whole way.


We are staying at the Hells Canyon RV Park & Marina in Clarkston. The park is on the Snake River, with Lewiston, Idaho right next door. This is obviously Lewis & Clark country. Lewiston and Clarkston. Get it?

The RV park is very new and very nice, though fairly moderately priced. The pull-through spaces are set up with utilities on both sides, so you can enter the space from either end---giving you the choice of which side of your rig gives you the preferred view. I've never seen that before.


The project for Sunday was to travel about 40 miles to Moscow, Idaho to have lunch with Gulnara ("Gulia" to her friends) Zaynutdinova, a former employee of Becky's at the Zion Lodge gift shop in 2003, and Levan, her "significant other."


Gulia is from Siberia and Levan is from Georgia (the former SSR, not the home of the Atlanta Braves). He is teaching Agricultural Economics at the University of Idaho ("Go Vandals") in Moscow, and she is a doctoral student in Economics (with a major in Finance) at Washington State University ("Go Cougars") in Pullman, Washington, 8 miles from Moscow. They live in Moscow. It was fun seeing her again, and meeting him. He's an interesting fellow.

We met at the Sangria Grille, self-described as a mostly-Peruvian place, and had a delicious meal. Before lunch, we toured the campus of the University of Idaho. It's a nice campus, with attractive, traditional fraternity snd sorority houses.

On Monday, we traveled 30 miles South down the Snake River (actually, up the river, since it flows North in this area) on sometimes dirt roads, heading toward Hells Canyon.


Interesting scenery; remote locations for some very nice homes. Even this amazing tree house:


We encountered a group of young (I would guess high school) summer campers who had just finished a four-day whitewater rafting adventure on the Snake. They enjoyed playing with our dogs.


Tuesday was a short travel day (only 75 miles) to Grangeville, Idaho, a farming community without much to recommend it. We stayed for two days at the Bear Den RV Resort (more a park, than a resort), a middle-of-the-road place run by very nice people.


On Wednesday, we set off on a side trip to Pittsburg Landing, a viewpoint in the Hells Canyon area. It required a 17-mile drive on a loose gravel/dirt winding road up and down hills with big drop-offs and no guardrails. We made it 11 miles before we turned around in an exercise of self-preservation.


When we were actually looking at the scenery, we noticed that it was rather nice.

Thursday, we finally got to McCall, Idaho, a 120-mile trip that was uneventful. We discovered McCall 10 or so years ago (we can't remember when it was) on a car trip that included Sun Valley and Coeur d'Alene.


McCall is in the Payette National Forest, and is a combination of Sun Valley lite and Lake Tahoe 50 years ago. It has nearby skiing, a magnificent lake (Payette), a lovely adjacent state park (Ponderosa), and a charming center city. We are staying at the McCall RV Park, a beautiful place owned by a (former Denver) family that owns 7 RV parks in a tri-state area.

Friday night we had dinner at the local sushi bar (cleverly called "The Sushi Place").


Nice. Saturday, we toured Ponderosa State Park and took in some great views of the lake and the pine forest. We also walked the lakefront in the town. Very pretty, with a lot of tourists having a great time.


Sunday morning we had a very civilized breakfast at the Shore Lodge, an upscale McCall landmark, a place we had visited previously---when it was not quite so upscale.


Then it was time to rest up for our next move---to Sun Valley.

Saturday, July 2, through Sunday, July 9, 2011: Bozeman and Missoula:
The 151-mile trip to Bozeman was easy and quick (I-90 all the way).


We arrived at the Bozeman KOA in early afternoon, and were assigned to a nice site. We had decided to stay at the KOA for only one day and move to another local park for the remaining three days of our time in Bozeman. The decision turned out to be very prescient. The KOA was loaded with families (read: noisy children).


We left early on Sunday morning and arrived at the Bear Canyon RV Park (14 miles away) to find a lovely, quiet park with terrific views of the surrounding hillsides.
Before we left the KOA, we noticed (I don't know why it took so long) that when the bedroom slideout moved out on Saturday's arrival the bed did not go with it all the way. The bed assembly had torn loose from the outside wall. On arriving at Bear Canyon, I hit the local Ace Hardware for parts and spent the next two hours reattaching the bed to the wall and beefing up the substructure. I hope it holds better.

Monday was Independence Day, of course, and I put out both a flag and an appropriate banner.
I now have two flagpoles, since Becky gave me a portable one on my birthday to add to the one I have permanently attached to the ladder on the rear of our trailer. After a nice breakfast at a very popular, traditional cafe ("The Western Cafe"),
we headed to Bridger Bowl, a small, local (16 miles away) ski area catering to local folks, including students at the Montana State University ("Go Bobcats") campus located here. The ski resort was quiet, of course, since it's summer, but the scenery was lovely.
We spent the rest of the 4th quietly, cooking hamburgers and drinking beer (at least I did) and eating potato chips. I also started reading a book ("Innocent" by Scott Turow, a sequel to his "Presumed Innocent" from 20 years ago) I bought two weeks ago---and almost finished it in one continuous sitting. It's very lively reading. On Tuesday, I finished it.

Bozeman has 1/3 the population of Billings, and is charming. The old parts of downtown are very well preserved and the new parts have been nicely integrated architecturally.

The trip of 220 miles to Missoula on Wednesday was uneventful (again, I-90 all the way). We are staying at Jim & Mary's RV Park,

a nice place with, though, owners who are very picky about what one puts on the grass. (Our special step so Daisy can climb into the trailer without help is prohibited because it encroaches one foot onto the grass.) My immediate project on arrival was tracking down splash guards for the rear wheels of the truck. (I've noticed that the lower front of our trailer is quite pock-marked from flying gravel---something I never noticed on our old trailer because it was white with white primer and the new one is black with white primer.)
The first GMC dealer I called had what I needed and I installed the guards with only a few minor mishaps. I hope they help. Installing the splash guards was about the only thing of any significance I did during our three days in Missoula.