Murphy Returns

We found the mountains!

At the moment I'm sitting in my computer spot, the dining table. We are parked at Grand Teton RV Park just outside of Grand Teton National Park. And it's sprinkling. It is still beautiful here though.

I have a request from The Pilot. He asked me to tell you that he actually fixed the windshield wiper and the hair band and paper clip have been retired. After the sun finally came out he went out and figured out how to adjust the blade and now it is working perfectly. Thank goodness because where we go rain follows...or precedes us.

Heading toward the pass

Yesterday our plan was to make a two day trip across Wyoming to our current destination. We stuck to our plan stopping in Riverton, Wyoming last night. I didn't take any pictures of Riverton or the RV Park. There really wasn't anything to photograph. We left the wonderful KOA park by Mt. Rushmore and headed out of South Dakota on Highway 18. Winding down out of the hills was beautiful. Then we hit the grasslands of eastern Wyoming. It is a vast space full of grass, fences, cattle guards, cattle and an occasional wide spot in the road where neat and tidy little towns flourish for the people who live out in cattle country. There was one town...well not quite a town...called Lost Springs had a sign that said, "Lost Springs" and under that, "Population 1". We passed through in less than a minute so I didn't have time to grab my camera and get a photo. We drove and drove and drove picking up bugs on the windshield and flies in the coach. Must be all of the cattle. Ransom is a bug dog. He loves to chase the bugs and flies. I don't have a fly swatter for the coach so bug hunting has become his job along with entertaining Breezy. I can tell that he has played with a lot of dogs bigger than him because his technique is to attack from down low. He ducks under her immediately putting her at a disadvantage. It is hilarious to watch. She tries everything she can think of to dislodge him but he just hangs in pulling on her tail and legs. Eventually she rolls over and he is exposed changing the balance of power until she stands up again and he ducks under her again. They can go on like that for quite some time before they both wear out.

We are having a problem adjusting to the time change again. This time I decided to change the clock on my computer and my watch so I actually know what time it is. The problem is that we are asleep by 8:30 and awake at 4:30 in the morning...too early to get up. Last night we went to sleep but were awakened two hours later by something that we have yet to identify. It sounded like someone driving by the coach on a loud lawnmower. It drove by once. Two minutes later it went by again. Two minutes after that it drove by again. This repeated itself until we both sat up and said, "What the HELL is that?" Then I got a whiff of something that smelled like sulfur. It was gross! It went away and I finally went to sleep having nightmares about dying in my sleep from asphyxiation...gassed by some noxious fumes from a homicidal maniac on a hopped up lawnmower. Not a restful night. This morning we were actually sleeping past 4:30. We were both sacked out, sleeping hard when all of the sudden Ransom barked and sent me straight up in the bed. "Ransom shhhhhhh!" I said. He barked again. Then I listened carefully to what had his ire. The guy next to us was getting ready to pull out. The parking surface in the RV park was gravel so his foot steps were quite loud. It was 4:45 and he was hooking up his truck and trailer (which in my estimation should have been done the night before so as not to disturb all of his neighbors at an ungodly hour). He started the truck and let it run. And run and run and run. It was right under our bedroom windows and they were both open. He crunched around the thing for ten minutes, slamming the door to his trailer ten times before he shut the motor off. Then he crunched around for another five minutes before he started the truck and pulled out. We were relieved and both of us actually dozed off again. At 5:15 the next rig pulled out. They pulled out, driving by us on the gravel road at the rate of about one every ten minutes, just long enough for us to start to relax and go back to sleep. Finally at 6:00 I gave up and got up. Ransom and Breezy were thrilled. I felt like I had just crawled out from under a rock...or maybe gravel. I think Murphy has returned.

"We're not in Kentucky anymore..."

Once we got showers, dog walks and breakfast we hit the road. We didn't have far to go, just about 120 miles to our destination so we weren't in a hurry. I checked the weather report. Rain in Jackson and surrounding areas for the next three days. Go figure. Once we left Riverton and started to get closer to the mountains the terrain changed from wide open to greener hills and rivers and then bigger hills and lots of trees and then huge mountains. It was gorgeous. We wound up the side of the mountains, John piloting Mary, the dogs wrestling in the back of the coach and me snapping photos through a bugged up windshield (I forgot to clean it before we left this morning). The closer we got to the mountains the darker the sky got. It finally started to sprinkle and then rain. The road got really steep and narrow (and bumpy) and I said, "I wonder how high the pass is here?" John said he wasn't sure so I grabbed the road atlas and started looking for a number. While I was studying the atlas John spotted the sign. He said, "It's nine thousand six hundred and..." I yelled, "Shit! The air mattress!" and darted toward the bedroom. I heard John laughing as I worked on letting the air out of the Sleep Number bed. Neither of us would have thought it was funny if either chamber burst. We would have been sleeping on the pullout bed in the living room until we could replace it. When I hit the button on my side it read "100" ...as firm as it can get. The other side was the same way. So I let the air out to "5" on both sides and started toward the front of the coach. "Whoa Nelly," I said as I looked out the window, getting tossed from one side of the coach to the other. The road, which was bad when I dashed to save the bed, had deteriorated to terrible and it was now raining hard. John said that we just passed a sign that said, "The views won't get any better but the road will." Not before it got worse...way worse. They are rebuilding a huge section of Highway 26. Much of it is one lane and you have to be escorted by a pilot car for miles...it seemed like hundreds of miles to John. It went from pavement to gravel to mud and muck. At one point I could feel Mary sliding in the mud as John eased her along behind the pilot car and a few others in front of us. It kept raining and the road kept getting worse. Finally we pulled out of the mess and back on to the paved road where, relieved, we made our way down here to the RV park and pulled in.

Coming out of the muck to pavement on the mountain

Of course the first thing we did was to check and see if we had a satellite signal (have to keep up with the mud slinging, spit ball blowing, low down and dirty crap going on with the election) and then I looked at John and said, "I'll bet the Camry is a mess." He looked at me and smiled. "Let me clean it up before you look at it." I said, "No, I can take it." He said, "You should wait." Well that was enough for me to head out the door to see the car. My first shock was Mary. Our beautiful shiny coach is mucked. MUCKED. Then I stepped behind her. My mouth fell open. Only a photo will work for this one. Be sure to click on it to get the full effect.

Looks like a mud bog machine

I got my camera and took photos, shaking my head and wondering how we would get it clean enough to drive around in and then came back in to get things set up and take the dogs for a walk. Then I went to work on the last blog post. John was busying himself in and out of the coach and then he disappeared for a little while. I thought he was visiting with other coach owners in the park or something. Then he came in and told me to go and look at the Camry. Again, only a photo will do this justice.

Sparkling!

The Pilot is my hero! Camry is clean and we have a car to tour around in tomorrow. He's snoozing at the moment and Ransom is sacked out. Breezy is lobbying me for her dinner. She hasn't adjusted to the time change yet either. At 2:00 she starts. She thinks she is starving. She gives me the big sad brown eyes and I tell her that its too early. She sighs and wanders away for ten or fifteen minutes and then comes back. This repeats until she breaks down my will. She's just accomplished that for today so I'm going to go and feed her. Besides, the wind has picked up (like REALLY picked up) and is rattling Mary. I heard something go clank so its time to check out what got blown off or away. More later.

We've had dinner and had the dogs out for some exercise. It is cool and breezy out now and just spitting rain. Tomorrow we are heading to Yellowstone with the dogs and then into Jackson for some groceries. Friday we will go up to Old Faithful. Jimmy and Helen Robertson will be here on Saturday and we will meet up with them then. Our doggies will have to go to the kennel for a week while we go to Triangle X Ranch for a week of fun. This time they will have each other to provide company and comfort. They have bonded well since we have been on the road so I'm not worried about them. But I'll miss them both a lot!

I'm going to go to work on a web album next. In my next post I should have it put together so you can see what we have been up to so far!

Thanks to Kelly for the nice message!