Triumph, ID

We made it to Ross' last week, Tuesday. What a great part of the world. Mountains surround his house, which is in a small town of only 60 people. Nearby are great little towns of about 6000 people, Hailey and Ketchum. Very quaint little towns with very few chain stores in them. The weather is great...80's during the day and sunny, and 50's at night (high desert). And just outside his door are tons of mountain bike, hiking, and motorcycle trails that seem to never end! And apparently there are no rattlesnakes in this area (the elevation is too high), and no bears to speak of. Although there was a mountain lion attack on a deer last month:( But Ross has found his home here, and it's beautiful. Bob is pretty fond of the biking and motorcycling too!

Steve, Ross' landlord also lives on the property (great guy), and every night he feeds the magpies out of his hand! He's a fascinating man...was in the merchant marines, and has been here a long time. He has lots of stories.On the way here, we stopped in Yellowstone NP for a night, and spent 2 days exploring

the park. What a fascinating place. Waylon saw snow for the first time! Saw lots of bison, several walking alongside the road, a few elk, and fortunately, no grizzly bears (or even black bears). Although, signs all around our campground warned against leaving food out because of the grizzlies. We met a great young couple from San Francisco that were bicycling from his parents in Casper, WY to San Francisco. They were on day 15, and having a blast. Bob was so jealous...he even asked me to drive the rest of the way to Idaho so that he could ride with them. No. Sorry.We started our job this week, working for a great guy, very laid back. One day we delivered a bunch of bikes to various clients, then another day we cleaned patio furniture, built 2 bikes, and sorted through xmas lights. Pretty simple work, and it gives us something to do a couple hours a day. The camper is doing well, considering.

Waylon is having the time of his life playing with Dude and the other dogs here (it's a very dog-friendly area), and is trying to talk us into a sister... We're still debating. There is a full time job at the local animal shelter that I may check out; don't think we have enough room for all the dogs I'd want to bring home tho... We'll see. And the truck is having a "check engine" issue which we had looked at in Cody, WY, and have another appointment here tomorrow. Hopefully nothing serious. Did I talk about Cody? We went to a rodeo there...what a blast. My first one, and I loved it. Hailey has one over July 4th that we'll check out.Anyway, we're here for the summer, and all very happy to be here. Internet is iffy at best, and phone service is hit and miss out here in the sticks.

Forgot to include this pic in out Wisconsin post...me and Grampa golfing (and Bob too).

And this last pic is from the top of the mountain overlooking Ross' house...you can barely make out the 5th wheel. Bob and Ross rode motorcycles up there. Did I mention the boys are having a blast?

The Black Hills

We got our house back!!! And it's mostly fixed... Left Elkhart last Friday, drove to Kansas City to visit with Billy and Susie for the weekend, and as usual, drank too much beer. And had a gas. Then spent the better part of last week outrunning t-storms and tornados! Drove across Iowa and South Dakota through cell after cell and finally got out of the nasty midwest summer weather.

We stopped at Wall Drug, SD, then drove through Bear Country USA in Rapid City, SD. Very cool...lots of grizzly & black bears roaming freely, elk, reindeer, mountain lions, wolves, foxes, coyotes...it's a big park that you drive through (windows rolled up) and the animals are just walking about. Waylon was a little intimidated! We're now camped in Sturgis, SD in one of the coolest campgrounds we've been at! They had a steak bar-b-q last night, and one of the men, Bill Reed, was singing old country music; turns out he was a songwriter and toured for many years with the Nashville crowd, and had lots of stories. And the people here are very young old people! Wish we could stay longer, but we need to get to Idaho. (Rush-No-More Campground).

Went to Sturgis, Spearfish Canyon and Deadwood today. Spearfish was gorgeous, and we don't know why they call these the Black Hills...they're mountains. It's Wild Bill days in Deadwood this weekend, so they played out some shoot-em-ups and had live music on the street. And I was even able to drop some $ at a blackjack table. We're camped next to Dale Gribble (for any King of the Hill fans)...he sounds just like him! None of our pictures from today turned out for some reason. Tomorrow it's on to Yellowstone.

Stuck in Indiana with a bug in my banana...
So we made it, finally, to Elkhart, IN to drop off the camper for a boatload of repairs on 5/9/08. We then drove to Appleton, WI for 2-1/2 weeks to visit with friends and family. Had a great time, but didn't get to spend enough time with anyone as we rushed around to catch up with as many people as possible. It felt a bit like the Christmas rush! Then drove back to Elkhart 1-1/2 weeks ago, thinking they weren't working on the camper without us there. Good thing too...they fixed a lot of stuff, but also trashed other things in the process. So then they'd have to repair their screw-ups. It's been a nightmare, but it looks like there's an end in sight. We should be able to leave tomorrow. They have one more item to fix, and said they would be finished by noon. That remains to be seen. They told us the same thing last Friday! We're both very frustrated, but after 4 weeks, we think we'll have our house back. No pictures to post, just wanted to update. As we begin having fun again, we'll take pictures and write better stories, I hope!