On the road again - to Medora ND (and a new State camped)

We left Miles City Montana yesterday, June 16th, and headed to Medora North Dakota, adding another State camped while full-timing, and continuing our expedited trek to the North Shore of Lake Superior for the summer. Here is the updated 'States Camped' map which has been updated on the left side of our blog.

It was approximately 140 miles along I-94. Here is the route we took.



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We are staying at the Red Trail Campground right next to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Medora is a very small town, when Bob asked at the office about services he was told that the park office is the largest grocery store and largest hardware store in town. 


We will be here for three nights and once the weekend crowd goes away we will go to the National Park and eat out on Monday.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

TIP - reading glasses

Time to time we like to post tips on things that make the full-timing lifestyle easier for us.

We recently saw the neatest thing at our home away from home, Wal-Mart, that we have never seen before. We also saw them at Sam's Club. What we found was sun glasses that are also reading glasses. They are available in three powers of +1.50, +2.00, +2.50.

We thought that we would use them alot while in Arizona where we sit outside and read. What we just found was that we can use them right now. Bob was cleaning the front cap and was using "Amaze" and "The Solution" for the first time. It was very sunny so he had his new sunglasses on. Using the bifocal reading lenses he was able to read the instructions without removing the sunglasses. We are totally sold on our new sunglasses that are also reading glasses.


Now it will be so much easier to text and drive :-)

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

New Additions to 'Our Favorite Things! (Food)'

We really enjoyed our stay in Idaho Falls, if you have to be delayed in a place for 5 extra weeks you would be hard pressed to find a better spot. The sightseeing was great but the food was tremendous.  Having all that extra time we were really able to explore the Idaho Falls culinary scene.


We have added a few more items to "Our Favorite Things! (Food)" list on the left side of our blog in addition to the sourdough waffles at Smitty's Pancake and Steak House recently added to best waffles. The sourdough pancakes also from Smitty's have been added to best specialty pancakes. As you can tell we like our pancakes and right now Bob feels that the sourdough pancakes are his top choice for pancakes.

With pancakes on our mind it made us realize that we have to add a new category for international pancakes. The winners are: German at Smitty's (get them with the apples) in Idaho Falls ID; Swedish (get them with lingonberries) at the Swedish Pantry in Escanaba MI; and Finnish (pannukakku) at Suomi in Houghton MI.


We like our hamburgers and Big Jud's qualifies. We ate at the Ashton and Rexburg locations, only have the Boise location to complete the set. We still will leave the Double Double at In-N-Out on the list but will add the double cheeseburger and the single mushroom swiss burgers to our list.


After all of our good eating in Idaho Falls we have created a few new categories. First is the best Eggs Benedict (unique) for the southwest benedict at Cedric's in Idaho Falls ID that we blogged about earlier. As mentioned before the Southwest Benedict is potato pancakes instead of an english muffin, topped with pork carnitas instead of ham and then guacamole and cheese. It is then topped with an egg and smothered with green chile hollandaise.

With Eggs Benedict on our mind we realized that the best we have had has been at TJ's Homestyle in Avondale AZ. 


The last new category to be added is best Steak and Eggs and the winner has to be Smitty's in Idaho Falls. This is not some thinly sliced cheap steak but a thick 7 oz Prime cut of sirloin served with two eggs and a starch option. Bob chose pancakes and then substituted for the sourdough pancakes combining the best steak and eggs with his favorite pancakes.


There were a lot of other good places to eat in Idaho Falls like the Hometown Kitchen, Sandpiper, Jakers, Carinos, Jaliscos and others but they just didn't rise to the level necessary to get on the "Our Favorite Things! Food" list.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

On the move again - to Miles City MT

We left Billings today and headed to Miles City Montana as we continue our trek to the North Shore of Lake Superior. It was an approximately 150 mile drive first along I-90 and then I-94. Here is the route we took.





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We were blocked by a tree in our site in Billings so we could not get satellite reception. We had to watch live television three straight nights which cut into our blog preparation time so we have a few blog entries to finish on Yellowstone National Park and stuff in Billings which we hope to do soon. We really like the convenience of DVR staged viewing and skipping commercials so that having to watch live television feels too much like camping :-)


We will be in Miles City for a couple of nights only.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

On the move again - to Billings MT

We left West Yellowstone yesterday and headed to Billings MT as we continue our expedited trek to the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Here is the route we took. It was a scenic 230 mile drive on MT 191 first through Yellowstone National Park then a National Forest.



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We are staying at the Trailer Village in Billings, a nice older park in the area although we are a little shoe horned in. We plan to be here three nights and then it is off to Miles City MT.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Our First Snow!!

In almost three years of living full-time in our RV we have had snow flurries but never anything that has accumulated. We knew when we bypassed tornado alley to head north through Idaho and Montana that we might see some snow. We mistakenly thought that an extra 5 weeks in Idaho Falls would make us immune to snow but we were wrong.


We toured Yellowstone National Park yesterday (we will blog on that later) until we got chased out by snow and sleet. Jo said that of the three bad things, cold, wind, rain that she can handle two of the three. The addition of sleet on our face made it all three as it was already windy and cold so we headed back to the park. Luckily we had just finished watching Old Faithful and saw a bunch of geysers and scenery and wildlife.


We woke up seeing the park looking like this:

Here is the tree right next to our Cameo:

The roads still look OK but enough snow to probably accumulate an inch on the trees and grass and this is June 10th. The outdoor thermometer showed 27 degrees when Bob got up this morning. 


We head out tomorrow for Billings Montana (weather permitting).


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

FINALLY on the road again and a new State camped

Although we enjoyed our extra time in Idaho Falls due to the broken window it is time to move on which we did today, Friday, June 8th. The replacement window was received early enough Friday to be installed and since it was only 108 miles to West Yellowstone, Montana, our next destination we decided to head out. 


We got a price break from the park for our troubles plus we got to see more of the area and eat some great food so all is good but it is good to be back on the road again. Here is the route we took.



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Here is our updated States Camped Map which has also been updated on the left side of our blog.

While in West Yellowstone we plan to visit, wait a minute it will come to us, we plan to visit, you guessed it, Yellowstone National Park. Due to our extended stay, 6 plus weeks we will only have 3 nights to see all we can see in that short period of time. We will have to pass this way again and spend more time all along this route, except in Idaho Falls of course :-)


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Legacy Flight Museum

We finally made it to the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg Idaho after trying to go there earlier when it was closed and we are glad that we did. This is just another example of a small town museum that is excellent. We had the museum all to ourselves so we got a very good guided tour. What we liked probably the most is that there were some things we have never seen before. The Legacy Flight Museum is also a working hangar, any plane that you see on display is airworthy and is seen frequently in the sky over Rexburg. For a fee they will even take you along.


What tipped the scales as to whether or not we would go to this museum was the Grumman TBM-3 Avenger that they had on display. This particular Avenger flew off of the deck of the USS Wasp (CV-18) the same aircraft carrier that Bob's dad was on flying the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver. This Avenger, flying of the USS Wasp on July 28, 1945 sank two Japanese ships on the same day, a light cruiser and a destroyer escort. 9.386 were built and today only 42 remain airworthy, as this one is.

Here is a P-63, one of only 3 that are airworthy.

Here is "Old Yeller", a modified P-51D that still holds the record from LA to Daytona Beach for a prop airplane that it set in 1985.

Here is a Howard DGA-15, a custom 1940 airplane so named that when the manufacturer got it registered he called it a Howard after himself and said it was a Darn Good Airplane (DGA) that was built to carry 15 cases of rum in its cargo area so it became a Howard DGA-15.

We had never seen Hitler postage stamps which were on display in the upstairs portion of the museum.

They also had memorabilia from all Wars and we had never seen Civil War rations as displayed here.

Finally, we had never seen a picture of a sonic boom that they also had. This photo won first prize in the Science and Technology Division of the Photo 2000 contest. We remember hearing sonic booms a lot when growing up but not so much anymore.

We are so lucky to see this great country of ours at a slow enough pace that we have time for small town treasures like this that we probably would not have been able to see. It is also great to be able to have some time between museums so that you can fully absorb all of the information. When we have tried to go to museums back to back to back we find ourselves glossing over some of the information.


Photos from this adventure have been added to Flickr.com in the Idaho Falls set.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Camas National Wildlife Refuge

Since we had a lot of extra time in the Idaho Falls area we decided to visit the Camas National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). During migration season April-May and in October this place is hopping with tundra and trumpeter swans, geese, ducks and other migratory birds. About half the area is water with the remaining grass fields and farming which supports the migration population. Our first stop at these places is usually the visitor center or headquarters or office so we followed the signs to the office. There was a great handicapped ramp there but nobody in the office. We guess Judy of Travels with Emma was not working here or else the office would have been opened :-)


There was a sign near the parking area with some maps so we took off walking on the trails. We talked with a guy who was also walking the trails and he told us the migration season had passed, which we expected, and that it was not a very good day for birding. We are just getting started with birding so we were happy when we saw a couple of birds that were new to us, the female black headed grosbeak which we did not get a good picture of, and a common nighthawk showing here.

We confess we had to send the blurry photo of the grosbeak and a better photo of the nighthawk to the aforementioned Judy of Travels with Emma for help in identifying them. It was good that we did because we might not have correctly identified them without her, thanks again Judy!


When we started out on the trails we were in the shade and there was a nice breeze. As we progressed we were out in the open and the breeze went away and we started getting hot. We don't handle the heat very well so we decided to drive to the ponds. We drove along the main canal thinking it was the way to go and we drove and drove but saw nothing but the grass lands and farm fields so we turned around. We then proceeded to try every other road in the area but every one of those roads had a sign saying no unauthorized entry. Without someone to talk to in the office and nobody else around we gave up and headed home.


It was still a great day but we wished we had seen the rest of the NWR.




Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Update on our replacement window

The good news is that our replacement window has been manufactured and will ship soon. The bad news is that it will take time to get here. The really bad news is the whole process about which we are going to comment on.


Hardly anybody keeps inventory on hand anymore, at least for the big stuff, so the parts have to be made on demand just like our replacement window 3 weeks after receipt of order. The other component of the whole 'getting a window replaced' scenario is that most companies have contracted out the ordering process to a third party and this applies here. The sad part in our case was that the windows was completed by the manufacturer and then shipped to that third party so that they could ship it to Idaho. To us this is utterly ridiculous, but maybe we just are getting a little antsy. 


We originally planned on being in Idaho Falls for 5 days and at most a week depending on the weather here and at West Yellowstone. Tomorrow will be 6 weeks that we have been here. We lost almost 2 weeks for the repair that did not work and now more than three weeks to get the window made and then to be delivered. We had to cancel Bob's fishing trip in Canada with some friends he used to work with. Luckily we only had campground reservations and no deposits but Bob was looking forward to that fishing trip and seeing some old friends. Now instead of a leisurely jaunt across Montana and North Dakota and Minnesota we have to move every 2-3 days just to make our reservations on the North Shore of Lake Superior because you don't want to start jacking with trying to get parks in the summer along the North Shore. We found that out the hard way when we tried to make reservations.


Since it looks like we will be here another few days we have some eating and sightseeing planned.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, Part 2

Continuing our adventure along the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway that began with this blog entry, after we viewed Upper Mesa Falls we toured the Big Falls Inn originally built as an office and residence for workers by the Snake River Power and Light Company it evolved into a well known waystation along the Yellowstone Highway.

Inside the Inn there were mounted heads of moose, deer, pronghorn. The highlight though was the back room with its display cases. Here is one showing various sized claws, the size of the grizzly claw is frightening.

Here is one showing various sized talons, the size of the golden eagle talon compared to the bald eagle is amazing.

After we left the Upper Mesa Falls area we saw more great snow capped mountains in the distance on our way to Harriman State Park.

Harriman State Park is the site of the Harriman Ranch, the Harrimans of Union Pacific fame. This ranch was their retreat and the State Park has restored and maintained some of the old buildings to the point that you can rent the cabins. The gal in the park headquarters lived in one of the houses as did the gal at the desk in the Big Falls Inn along with the park manager. You can also rent horses  and enjoy the park on horseback. Here are a couple views of the buildings.

Being so remote and with so much water nearby with Silver Lake and Henry's Fork River the place is a bird watchers paradise. Although for us it was more a bird listeners paradise as we heard countless different chirpings but only saw fleeting images of birds as they flew by or jumped from tree limb to tree limb. We did hear a trumpeter swan and an eagle but was unable to get any good pictures. We were able to walk along a trail along Silver Lake.

After all this sightseeing we were getting hungry so we stopped at Big Jud's Country Diner in Ashton for lupper. What is lupper you ask? If brunch is the combo of breakfast and lunch we have started calling lupper the combo of lunch and supper. A lot of times we have two meal days where our breakfast is late enough to be called brunch and our lunch is late enough to be called lupper.


But enough about that, Big Jud's serves up an amazing hamburger. It was featured on Man versus Food on the Travel Channel and you can get a 1 lb burger or the even larger Man vs Food special and if you finish them you can get your picture on the wall but don't mess with such nonsense. Bob got a double cheeseburger and Jo got a single mushroom swiss and they were both amazing and very filling. The fries are fresh cut from Idaho potatoes and they were terrific but only order a small order for two people as the portions are huge. We really like In-N-Out burgers as you know if you have been following our blog but we feel this was just as good or better than In-N-Out. There is another location of Jud's closer to Idaho Falls and we plan to go there again before we continue our journey. The third location is in Boise. We still want to try Jim Dixon's favorite burger place, the Haunted Hamburger in Jerome AZ, which he says is also better than In-N-Out. 


It is tough to be full-timers that is for sure.


Photos from this adventure have been uploaded to Flickr.com in the Idaho Falls set.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, Part 1

With a longer than expected stay in Idaho Falls due to our broken window replacement we decided to go on a sightseeing trip that is longer than we normally do. We have gotten into the habit of half day trips not day trips and the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway was a full day trip. We will break our adventure into two parts so as not to be too long or boring. Part 1 deals with our drive there and Lower Mesa Falls and Upper Mesa Falls. Part 2 will deal with the Inn at Upper Mesa Falls and the Harriman State Park and a great place to eat which you have to try.


We had previously mentioned how cold and rainy and windy it was in Idaho Falls. Turns out we were lucky as the area north of Idaho Falls where we were heading, including the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, got snow over the Memorial Day weekend. Here is how the Grand Tetons looked along our drive along the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway with a fresh coat of snow. It felt so strange to see snow capped mountains and wearing shorts and t-shirts.

We next came across the Lower Mesa Falls, a viewpoint that is accessible a short walk from the parking lot.

We then came across the hit of the drive, the Upper Mesa Falls, about 1 mile from the Lower Mesa Falls. What is neat about the Upper Mesa Falls is that the walkway is right next to the Henrys Fork of the Snake River before it cascades over the falls.

Continuing on the walkway you arrive at the top of the falls.

There was so much water flowing over the 114 feet high, 200 feet wide falls that a rainbow was always present while we were there.

Further down the walkway you get a better view of the falls which is the second largest undisturbed falls in the Columbia River System.

We are so lucky to live this lifestyle and be able to see just how great and beautiful this country is. We owe our freedom to those we honored on Memorial Day as we are the land of the free because of the brave. We should honor them everyday, not just on Memorial Day.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Movies and Genealogy

It has been cold and rainy here in Idaho Falls the last few days with overnight lows in the mid 30's and highs in the mid 50's so we haven't done much. We did get out to see a couple of movies, The Avengers and Men in Black 3. Our movie rating scale is based on our Netflix ratings; 5 - loved it, 4 - really liked it, 3 - liked it, 2 - did not like it but finished, and finally the dreaded 1 star - did not like it and did not finish it.


We really liked The Avengers, even more so than Men in Black 3.

The Avengers get together only when needed in an emergency. It was good to see the actors that have played some of the Marvel characters also appear in this movie and we must say they finally got someone that could play The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo. It was a fun time with a movie with lots of action so we give it 4 stars.


While Men in Black 3 was good at times it kind of dragged.

We liked all the characters but it could have been better. Josh Brolin did an uncanny job as the younger Agent K and was the highlight of the movie. With all time travel movies you must suspend belief as you enter the show. All in all we liked it and give it 3 stars.


We also have been taking advantage of the LDS Family History Center which is about 5 minutes from our park. We are making a lot of progress with finding our ancestors.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Added new gadget - Bob's State Maps

We have sold our soul to Google, there we admitted it!! We have an android phone and tablet, we use Google's Blogger, Google Docs, Google Maps, GMail etc. As mentioned in the posting on desktop/laptop vs tablets Bob keeps track of things to see and places to eat in both Google Docs and Google Maps but quickly ran into a limit of 200 items on one Google Map. Bob likes to look at a state map while planning our travels and if there are a lot of markers he may adjust our trip. If there was more than 200 items on a map you had to advance the page which made it difficult to remember which maps had more than 200. The first workaround was to have multiple maps like Arizona - 1st 200 and Arizona - 2nd 200. This wasn't ideal so Bob kept looking for an alternative.


He found one with http://mapchannels.com/ that solves the 200 limit. So Bob is now working on adding the states, starting first with the ones that we will be visiting next. The gadget is located on the left of our blog towards the bottom below our Followers and above the list of blogs that we follow, showing here:

Eventually all the states will be a channel on http://mapchannels.com/. We thought it might be interesting for our readers to see what info Bob has collected. The neat thing about the interface is once you launch the map in the upper right corner you can enter a location, say Idaho Falls on the Idaho map, and it will zoom to that location. You can mouseover any marker and see what that marker is. There is a reset button just below that if you would like to see the entire State again. The neat thing for the map generator is that you can add entries to Google Maps to your hearts content and all will end up on the same map. Also a daily feed can be set up so changes made will be no more than a day old.

Over time we will be adding more google maps to mapchannels. We would welcome any favorite spots to add to a map that we have missed.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Attention Green Chile Lovers

Green Chile Hollandaise, we are not kidding. We saw a very unique menu item at Cedric's Family Restaurant in Idaho Falls and Bob just had to try it, a Southwest Benedict. What is a Southwest Benedict you say? Well a Southwest Benedict is potato pancakes instead of an english muffin, topped with pork carnitas instead of ham and then guacamole and cheese. Then topped with an egg and smothered with the aforementioned green chile hollandaise. This dish is a winner and should be on any green chile lover's list of place to visit. Here is a view of Cedric's Family Restaurant so you won't miss it.

Wanna get sconed? We had previously blogged about how good the scones were at Cedrics and we just have to mention them again. Scones are an option instead of toast and yes you should get scones every chance you can. Here is a look at what their scones look like.

Here is the t-shirt that everybody there wears.

We have eaten at a lot of great places but the sheer genius of the Southwest Benedict and the decadence of the scones make this one of our favorite finds since we began full-timing almost 3 years ago.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Yellowstone Bear World

We finally made it to Yellowstone Bear World after our earlier trip when it was closed and we are glad that we did. There is more to be seen than just bears as the site included bison, elk and a rare white elk, moose, mountain goats, deer, turkeys, petting zoo, amusement park and the requisite gift shop.


We have to admit that it was hard to get a good picture even at 5mph to get the right zoom and focus especially after we were told the black bears like to crawl into the bed of pickups. We just got our new cover and we were not about to take chances so we did not stop or roll down the windows. There are almost 50 bears at the site including some bear cubs who were removed from their mother at 6 weeks to protect them from the older males who would have killed them. Here are the bear cubs.

Here is the rare White Elk which are so rare that 1 in 6 million exist in the wild. An interesting fact is that the elk's antlers are the fastest known growing cells in the world and can grow up to 2 inches per day.

The American Bison is North America's largest animal.

Not really goats but members of the group known as goat-antelopes is the Mountain Goat.

But we came to see bears and did we ever. We have a lot more mental pictures than we took due to the difficulty in getting the right shot. But we think we did pretty good. We noticed a lot of the top halves of metal culverts that the bears use for shade. Here is a bear in one of the culverts.

Here are more bear pictures. The first one thinks our truck bed looks appealing :-)

If we had left when we had planned to with no broken window incident then we never would have seen this great place. Photos from this visit have been uploaded to Flickr.com in the Idaho Falls set.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo'

Something We Don't Normally See

Being originally from the Midwest and now from Texas and we have been in a lot of Wal-Mart Supercenters but this is something we did not expect to see. This is from a Emergency Food Preparedness display in the Idaho Falls Wal-Mart.

We were surprised not only that the display was in a Wal-Mart but also the variety. Here is a complete kit.

Butter powder, whole eggs, wow!!

Bob once went on a fly in fishing trip to Canada and to reduce weight they bought some powdered items but they insisted on real butter. Real butter helped the powdered potatoes, not sure what powdered butter on powdered potatoes would have been like.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Window Update

Window repair went badly so now we are getting a new window; that is the good news!


The bad news is that it takes 3 weeks to get a new window. We will be extending our stay at the campground as we wait for the new window. The really bad news is that we will have to cancel Bob's fishing trip in Canada. We should be able to be back on our planned itinerary after the fishing trip barring any future issues.


There are a lot worse places to spend almost an extra month so we will be OK. We already have mentioned a couple of things that we would like to do including Yellowstone Bear World and the Legacy of Flight Museum in Rexburg. There are great places to eat also.


Wherever we are are we sightsee and eat, Idaho Falls is great on both counts.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo

Tautphaus Park Zoo

As our stay in Idaho Falls is hopefully coming to an end the weather of course warmed up nicely, in fact the forecast was for a high of 80 yesterday so we figured that would be a great zoo day. After a great breakfast at Cedric's we headed to the Tautphaus Park Zoo. We have maintained our Friends of the Zoo membership at the Kansas City Zoo to support that Zoo which we like a lot and also for the Reciprocal Zoo program which gives you discounts on the entrance fee. It used to be free entrance but a lot of Zoos have started charging half price entrance fees. We were very surprised when it was free admittance.


The Tautphaus Park Zoo hosts Idaho's largest wildlife collection and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Highlights had to be the flock of threatened African penguins showing here. 

What we cannot show is the another highlight, that being the newborn wallaby babies. The fence interfered with our camera focusing so we ended up with a blurry mess. Speaking of camera issues sometimes when you take a photo through glass you end up with a reflection. Now we normally don't like to clutter our blog with photos of ourselves but this time we just could not resist. Here we are reflected in a glass partition, our day at the zoo.

Of course we had to get a photo of the big cats, this time lions sleeping.

You could say it was raining cats and dogs as here is the New Guinea Singing Dog. New Guinea Singing Dogs are named for their distinctive and melodious howl, which is characterized by a sharp increase in pitch at the start and very high frequencies at the end.

Well that wraps up our visit to the Zoo. All photos from this visit have been uploaded to Flickr.com in the Idaho Falls set.


The End

Till next time,


Bob and Jo