July 21, 2016
Bish's RV Super Center
Idaho Falls, ID

Well it's been an  exciting few days.... we called Bish's RV Super Center as planned on Monday morning and they had us bring the RV right in. They performed a diagnostic, created an estimate, and got the repair approved through our extended warranty company (hallelujah, its never worked that easy)... They had a compatible power transfer switch on hand and completed the repair by about 5 pm. When we drove to the service bay to hook up the RV there was a puddle of hydraulic fluid around one of the front jacks (not good).  We left the RV there and asked the Tech to do a diagnostic in the morning for that repair. In the meantime, with no place to live we booked a room at a nearby Fairfield Inn. The next morning we came in to Bish's and were told the front landing jack assembly needed to be replaced and it will take 2 to 3 weeks to get the part (What the F....?). We immediately contacted DRV in Howe, IN, the manufacturer of our RV and discussed the situation with them. They said it should only require the replacement of the hydraulic cylinder and they had that part in stock and could overnight it to us. Of course we did that and received the part the next morning and a nice repair procedure document with pictures so even a dummy like me could follow it....
That night, they parked the RV in their lot and hooked it up to power and allowed us to stay in it over night. The next day we waited and waited for them to work on the RV but apparently the Tech was assigned a repair to do before he could start ours and it kept going south on him. When 5 pm rolled around we lost our cool and went in to have a talk with them. Marilyn very politely chewed them up and spit them out :>)  we left with their profuse apologies and a guarantee they would start our repair at 8 am in the morning. Sure enough, they were there at 8 am, we had a short discussion about how they were going to do the repair (we were testing them to ensure they had read the procedure) and then we left to go spend the day in Idaho Falls.

Idaho Falls is a nice little town with these pretty falls in the middle of town. It is a small town but has many restaurants and hotels. It is home to the Idaho National Lab which I had become familiar with while working at DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation.

After lunch we decided to go by Bish's to see how things were going. To our surprise the RV was back in the overnight parking spot and we were pleasantly surprised to see they were done. We checked it over and set it up to spend the night.

The Level Up System did not successfully complete the leveling process but the RV appears to be level. It could be the gravel lot creating a problem (who knows, I'll have to research that) but we're going to move on to Pocatello tomorrow.

July 17, 2016
Wakeside Lake RV Park
Rexburg, ID

The best laid plans....... Yesterday was an exciting day. During one of the many power outages at Fishing Bridge I decided to run my generator so we had power and also to give it the monthly maintenance run. After about 45 minutes the power shut off while the generator was still running (not good). I turned it off and  back on but still no power. I decided to turn off the generator and then switch on the main power again from the power pedestal. When I did that I heard a strange noise and then a loud hum. It was then that I heard Marilyn inside yelling something about smoke. I quickly turned everything off and went inside. Sure enough there was smoke. I called the Park Office and they sent down a guy to check their pedestal and of course they said their side was good. I went down to the small RV Service Center and had a Tech come to the site. Here is a picture of what he found:

This is the Power Transfer Relay Switch and all the power for the RV travels through here (great single point of failure). The wire that is fried goes to the main breaker panel. Strangely enough when I had the power on none of the circuit breakers tripped and power continued to work inside the RV (very strange). The Techs at Fishing Bridge said this repair was beyond their capabilities and they recommended we take the RV to a shop in Idaho Falls. Of course this all happened around 5 pm on Saturday and no place was open. We decided to book a reservation at the closest RV Park to the repair shop. So today we cancelled our 2 week stay in the  Grand Tetons, packed up, and traveled 140 miles out the west side of Yellowstone and south on US 20 to Wakeside Lake RV Park in Rexburg, ID.

This is a small park with all gravel pull through sites.

And it borders a small manmade lake.

We have reservations here through Tuesday and other reservations at another Park in Idaho Falls until Friday... beyond that we'll have to figure out the next steps, and of course everything is dependent upon how quickly the repairs can be done. Currently, the only power we have is 120V via an extension cord coming into the RV and a maze of 3 way plugs and short extension cords. This provides us with a little light, fridge, coffee maker, fans (did I mention the temp here is 90 degrees), and phone chargers. At least we have Wi-Fi. We might last a day or two like this but anything more than that and we will have to move into a motel....fun,  fun, fun till your daddy takes your power away......

Currently I'm looking for that juicer so I can make some lemonade, so far no luck. Marilyn likes the fact that the repair shop is also the largest RV Dealer in Idaho.... there may be a Motorhome in our future ;>)

Stay tuned......

July 3 - 14, 2016
Fishing Bridge  RV Park
Yellowstone National Park

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since my last update but the time has gone quickly. As expected we have had no access to Wi-Fi or Cellular Data so I haven't been able to post any updates until now. We are currently back in Jackson Hole at a hotel (w/ Wi-Fi) with Sydney and Evan. They have a flight back to LA tomorrow morning at 8 am.
We had an exciting first week with Julie, Greg, and Katy. We caravanned around Yellowstone and saw all the major (and a lot of minor) attractions. We were able to see so many different types of wild animals.... Bison, Elk, Deer, Coyote, and Bear. In fact the Bison are so plentiful and wander everywhere, we got to the point where we made fun of the newbies that pulled over and ran to see them. As Julie put it, the landscape is like something from another world. Many geysers, hot springs, and thermal vents made you feel like you were walking around on Mars. Of course they were also quite beautiful and we can honestly say Yellowstone now tops our list of most favorite place. I took hundreds of pictures so it was difficult to narrow them down to a few for this blog, but here they are:

The grandkids at Yellowstone Lake:

The Mud Volcanoes:

Many gorgeous canyons an rivers:

Julie even brought kid friendly fireworks for the fourth......

Of course Old Faithful.....

The amazing colors of the hot springs...

My favorite, the Grand Prismatic....

Upper Falls.....one of several beautiful waterfalls.

The eerie and strange rock formations in Mammoth....

More beautiful views..

Oh yeah... Bison

The rustic and beautiful Old Faithful Lodge....

And of course the view of Old Faithful from the Lodge....

As the sign says... The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone...another favorite of ours.

I can't count the number of Bison burgers Sydney ate at each of the 8 or so Lodge restaurants ;>)

And when it rains....and it rains a lot, there's plenty of time for Yellowstone Monopoly....

It has been a whirlwind visit and I can't believe we are almost done visiting the one site Marilyn and I wanted to see most. I know everyone had a fun and memorable visit and hopefully the kids came away with a better appreciation for wildlife and this beautiful country of ours.

We will be here in Yellowstone until 7-20 and then move south into the Grand Tetons.... back to back National Parks, can't beat that. I can't tell you how much we have saved using Marilyn's Senior Pass (free entry into all National Parks), and in a few weeks I'll be able to get mine ;>)

July 1, 2016
Fishing Bridge RV Park
Yellowstone National Park

We drove 77 miles west from Cody on US 14. We passed through 3 tunnels and drove along side of Buffalo Bill Dam & Reservoir. The route was uphill and passed through some beautiful hills and mountains. We followed the Shoshone river for much of the route.

We entered Yellowstone National Park.

We traveled another 30 miles up over Sylvan Pass (8,500 feet) and came down to Yellowstone Lake. This lake is the largest I've seen short of the Great Lakes..

Finally we came to Fishing Bridge RV Park.

Fishing Bridge is a beautiful area near the center of the Park. It has a large campground, Grocery, Restaurant, Gas Station, Gift Shop, Amphitheatre, laundry, bath houses, and of course restrooms.

The RV sites are all back in and even though they claim to be big rig friendly, we learned first hand that many sites are impossible to get our 40 foot RV into. The first site we were assigned was one such site. I tried several times to back the rig in and it just wasn't going to work. The roads are fairly narrow and the trees right up to the road make it difficult to impossible to maneuver the RV back into the site. After giving up, we called the registration office and they gave us another site to try. That site worked for us and we successfully got into the site.

We have a nice secluded patio area and Marilyn jazzed it up with a lot of 4th of July decorations.......

So far we have seen several Bison. In fact today, 7-2-16, as we were getting Julie's RV  in her site, we drove by a Bison sitting along side the road in the RV park.

As I said Julie and her family will be spending the first week with us and as I write this blog we are sitting in a hotel in Jackson Hole with Sydney and Even who just flew here from San Diego to spend 2 weeks here with us while their parents are spending time in Switzerland taking care of some family business. So we are having a small reunion here in Yellowstone.

Unfortunately there is no WiFi here in Yellowstone and the Verizon cell service is hit or miss. The only way I could do this blog was because we are staying the night at a hotel because we didn't want to drive back through the Park after dark since the kids flight came in at night. All that to say it may be some time before I get another chance to do a blog update.....but I'll try to do one the first chance I get...I'msure we'll have lots of pictures and exciting things to show you....