4/15/2015

We left Shedd, Oregon March 30th and spent a week at the Puyallup Fairgrounds visiting with family and friends and taking care of a little business. We had Easter dinner with Penny's family on Sunday.

On April 6th we left Puyallup and headed towards Yellowstone for another season. We got to Maryhill State Park, near the Dalles Oregon, that afternoon and parked. We intended to stay for a couple of days, since we don't like driving every day. Unfortunately, someone decided to play with their guns starting about 10:30 that night. We don't know whether it was a park visitor or someone who lives near the park but we decided we didn't need to stay where idiots like to shoot weapons into the dark of night. So, we left the next morning.

We got to Farewell Bend State Park near Ontario, Oregon that afternoon about 2 p.m. We got the same spot we had when we stopped there on our way west in October and though numerous rigs came in each evening for the night, we never had anyone parked within a couple spaces of us. We stayed there for three nights, giving us time to do a little sightseeing. Four miles northwest of the park is a town called Huntington, Oregon. There are a couple of cement making plants there, one of which is closed and falling apart, the other is operational. We assume that is where most of the residents of this small town make their living. There is also an old cemetery on a hill east of the town that originated during the Oregon Trail days. It was a pleasant drive on a beautiful day.

From there we headed to Declo, Idaho for just one night, since the campground is close enough to the freeway, that the noise can be a bit of a nuisance.

We intended to go only as far as West Yellowstone, but we arrived there early in the afternoon and had time to drive the rest of the way to Gardiner. We could have gone through the park to get to Gardiner, which could have been faster, but the road between Norris Geyser Basin and Mammoth Hot Springs has not yet been paved and we didn't want to drag the trailer through a mud pit to get to our destination. The drive around through Bozeman added a couple hours to our trip but it was still pleasant. We got to Gardiner about 4:15 p.m. Two couples that we will be working with had already arrived earlier that day. One had come through the park and said the road was drivable as long as it wasn't wet. Hopefully it will be dry when we move down to the campground, since that's the way we will want to go.

When we arrived last year, the park had 130% of its normal snow pack and there was four feet of snow in the campground. The snow pack this year is less than 75% of normal and from what our friends that drove through the park said, there is no snow in the campground this year.

Hopefully, the fire season won't be too bad.

Today it's snowing off and on with gusty winds. Not much is sticking at the elevation we're at, but we can see it accumulating on the hills around us. We hope to get a hike in tomorrow, before we have to check in for orientation on Friday morning.