On the way to Yellowstone - Montana Owners Club

padredw · 07-18-2005, 02:59 AM

We left home on Friday, spent the night in Dalhart, Texas where the Corral RV Park is seriously UNDER rated by Trailer Life. A very nice park in our opinion. We arrived here at Buena Vista, Colorado around noon on Saturday where we are "camped" in our daughter's yard.

Today we will pull out on the way to Yellowstone. We will spend the night somewhere around Steamboat Springs, Colorado--a very easy distance from here. I started to say "a very easy drive", but I'm not sure about the mountain passes we will have to traverse.

Tuesday night we will stay around Lander, Wyoming. We are trying to break this trip down into shorter segments. That means we will arrive in the Yellowstone area on Wednesday, where we will stay until Sunday.

I won't go into detail about the remainder of the journey except to say that we will stop by Zion National Park, the NORTH rim of the Grand Canyon, and Mesa Verde National Park before heading home.

stiles watson · 07-18-2005, 03:27 AM

That sounds like fun, folks. So have some, huh!!!

HamRad · 07-18-2005, 03:31 AM

David and Shirley,
You have a wonderful trip plan. Beautiful country and great time of the year to be doing it. Seems like a really short stay in the Yellowstone area but then one could spend months or years in each of the areas you've mentioned. Enjoy your trip. If you don't have reservations for the NORTH rim you will be VERY lucky to get in. But I'm sure you know all this.

HamRad

Wordsmith · 07-18-2005, 03:42 AM

David, Sounds like you and Shirley are off on another wonderful adventure! Enjoy the sights for all of us who cannot!

Be safe and please let us know how you handle the mountain passes!

sreigle · 07-18-2005, 11:26 AM

Nice trip, Padre! Be sure to post pictures or at least tell us about your adventure. We'll be in Yellowstone in about a month but the rest of your trip is on my "someday" list. Next year, I hope. Have fun!

jsmitfl · 07-19-2005, 03:35 AM

Padre, There is a nice campground right at the entrance to Mesa Verda. It'll be on the North side of the bridge. Enjoy your trip.

sreigle · 07-19-2005, 05:57 AM

Padre, how did you find the "air quality" in Dalhart? We've been through there on US 54 a number of times but I always avoided overnighting there because of the feedlot odor wafting across US 54. Is the RV Park maybe upwind of that?

8.1al · 07-19-2005, 08:57 AM

Steve,
I see you are in Hungry Horse right now. We will be there in a month and were wondering where to stay

Charlie

vickir · 07-19-2005, 06:57 PM

Charlie ... Steve is not online right now but asked me to pass along the info you're requesting. We're staying at Mountain Meadow RV Park and highly recommend it ... MOC member Roman4 and his lovely wife are also here. There are a number of RV parks in the area, but we haven't checked out any others.

Don't know for sure, but the summer rush could be over in a month ... right now it might be a little difficult to find a decent park.

We leave here 8/14 ... be sure to let us know if you're in the area before then!

8.1al · 07-20-2005, 02:59 AM

Thanks Vicki, that's the park we had picked out but you never know till you get there if it's good or not.

sreigle · 07-20-2005, 07:54 PM

Charlie, will you folks be here before 8/14? Also, I believe Adelmoll will be in this park the first week of August, last I heard.

8.1al · 07-21-2005, 02:09 AM

Steve,
We won't be there till Sept.1 and only for 3 days on our way to Seattle.

Padre,
You're going to some wonderful places with magnificent scenery. Let us know how the trip is going.

Charlie

sreigle · 07-23-2005, 04:08 PM

Sorry we'll miss you Charlie. Be sure to tell them you want a site that gets the free wifi signal. Only 'selected sites' receive the signal.

padredw · 07-24-2005, 11:05 AM

OK, now for a word from "Silent Padre" and "Silent Countrygirl". We have had very bad luck in getting internet connections since we left our daughter's house in Buena Vista, CO. SO... I will have to make this a very brief summary:

First night from BV near Hayden, CO in the Yampa River State Park. I wondered why the water was so far away from the site (I have long hoses because of need at our daughter's house), until I realized that the sites there do not have water, only electric. Since I made an innocent mistake, I left the water connected to the distant hydrant for the stay.

Next day on to Dubois, WY and a delightful little RV Park, Riverside Inn and Campground, where our next door neighbor was from Grapeland, Texas, the small town where we purchased our Chevy pickup, and where we found that we had several common friends. He lost his wife not long ago and is staying at that RV park where he assists as friend and handyman.

Next day (Wednesday) on into Yellowstone from the South entrance, visited West Thumb area, and Old Faithful area with our fifth-wheel in tow. Had lunch in the historic Old Faithful Lodge, and saw the obligatory performance of Old Faithful herself. By then it was time to move out the West Gate, through West Yellowstone, Montana and out to Red Rock RV park in rural Idaho. A bit further in experience than it seems on the map.

This is getting too detailed. Just let me say that we spent the four days there with two more visits to the park and some interesting experiences in the area where we were staying.

We left this morning (Sunday) and are now in a nice park Springvale, Utah, East Bay RV Park, where we have wireless internet ($7.95 per day) for the first time. Very good connection.

Tomorrow we will drive on down to near Zion National Park and with one short move (50 miles) we will have a brief visit in Zion and on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. From there we move on to Mesa Verde for a couple of days. And I'll save the rest for later.

We are having a great time.

sreigle · 07-24-2005, 01:29 PM

Padre, I would be very interested in your opinion of Red Rock RV Park in Idaho. We have reservations there but could always look for something else. Thanks.

padredw · 07-24-2005, 02:48 PM

I have selected a few photos to share with friends. If you wish, you may visit the following site:

http://dwilliamson.com/Yellowstone/Page.html

Steve, an answer to your question will follow here.

Charlie · 07-24-2005, 02:56 PM

Great pictues padre....makes me wish I had a digital camera instead of the 35mm when I was there several years ago.

padredw · 07-24-2005, 03:22 PM

OK, Steve, here are my comments. First of all, I think this will be a better situation for you than it was for us because of the length of your visit. For us the 20 miles of distance to West Yellowstone twice a day made for a longer trip than we would have liked. Also, the WIFI should be up and running by the time you get there. The dialup connection we had to use was not adequate at all. The owner promised that the WIFI would be finished by the end of this month. The sites are all side by side, but there is a very nice space "for the front yard" of the facing units.

Only problem we had was related to the fact that I had agreed to move from one site to another after two days. That was OK, but on the day of the move they did not handle it well and therefore we had to stick around instead of using the day as we would have prefered. Later I noticed that several of the units had to move within the park. I never noticed that anywhere else as much as I noticed it here. If you have not agreed to a move I don't think that would be a problem, and it need not have been for me but for some failure of communication.

We enjoyed the little "teen agers" rodeo down the road. They have several performances a week and you can have a trail ride+rodeo+barbecue or just the rodeo and barbecue as we had. There are some nice places to visit around the campsite. The lady at the office has several iteniraries worked out.

We got good satellite reception (direct TV) but no local stations. That's about it. Hope you enjoy your visit to Yellowstone.

sreigle · 07-25-2005, 07:04 AM

Thanks for the thorough description, Padre. Back in February they told me they hoped to get wifi but I'd heard nothing more and had resigned myself to just doing daily email on the central connection. After reading your post Vicki handed me the phone and I called and requested a site where we'd be sure to get a good signal. They have the DSL in place and are just waiting for "his brother" to come install the computer side of it. Hopefully they know what they are doing. We've been through some of the new-wifi-shakeout period before and it's frustrating.

We did not agree to a move and made our reservations in February so I would not expect to have to move. We've done the moving in other places where they did not have one site for the duration available so we had to move in mid-stay. I'm not sure why that happened to several but I guess this is their peak season so maybe it's tough to slot some of them. Who knows. We'll be going into the park probably 3 days per week plus maybe one other day going places outside the park. The 20 miles is a bit long but the monthly rate of $350 is very very decent this close to a major attraction. It's one of the very few I could find with a monthly rate and one of the few that still had openings with full hookups. Those in the West Yellowstone area were going to cost me from $900 to almost $1800 for a month. So we'll drive the 20 miles!

Thanks again. Your pictures are beautiful. I really liked the bull elk picture, especially. Glad to hear you are having an enjoyable trip.

padredw · 07-27-2005, 05:34 PM

Just a quick update. We are in Cortez, CO tonight with full and free WIFI internet access at the Mesa Verde RV Resort. Tomorrow we will spend some time in the Mesa Verde National Park. Yesterday we visited the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (quite different from the South Rim which is what most people have experienced.) Some photos of that visit may be found at:

http://dwilliamson.com/GrandCanyon/Page.html

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