Reasons for having an RV: no packing and unpacking, our own pillows, better lighting, nightstands on either side of the bed, a refrigerator for leftovers and breakfasts, and we'll each have our own desk.
Steve is hogging the tiny table and I'm blogging typing on a pile of pillows.
I'm reaching back to Saturday to get all our exploits in. Steve went on two additional adventures on Saturday. He visited EBR1 - Experimental Breeder Reactor 1. It was the first electricity generating power plant and was decommissioned in 1964. It's part of the Idaho National Laboratory. Wikipedia has a nice page on it.
After that, he headed back to Craters of the Moon to take a 3 hour evening hike, starting at 7 pm. He was hoping to take pictures of stars, but the hike ended before it was really dark enough. He did get a picture of a night blooming flower.
On a two and a half week trip, you either pack a lot of luggage or you do laundry. We usually choose laundry. So Sunday was a designated laundry day. We had checked on line and there was a laudromat in Arco, Idaho. We even drove by and checked their hours - 8 am to 8 pm 7 days a week. Good to go. So bright and early Sunday we have breakfast, load up the car and head for the laudromat. We go in and Steve notes there is no detergent or change available. He heads for the gas station/convenience store next door and I load up washers.
Time for plan B. No detergent available. Unload the washers, pack up the car, and head for Idaho Falls. Steve decides we should stop at the first grocery store we see in Idaho Falls and pick up detergent and a few extra items we need. He pulls in at an Albertson's and parks in front of the laundromat next door. Bingo! He gets the laundry out while I run into Albertson's.
The washers are tiny. We have three loads. The instructions want you to put powder detergent in one container at the beginning of a cycle or liquid in a different spot after the first rinse. I bought pods good for a single load. No place to put them. Steve decides he'll watch the loads and put the pods in appropriately. There are signs around telling us not to use extra detergent as the water is soft. Can you see where this is going? Yup, had to send each load through an entire second cycle to get all the soap out.
Once we get everything in the dryer, Steve has me check on restaurants for lunch. Urban Spoon (iPhone app) says there's a good mexican place at the end of the strip mall. Yeah. Only it's closed on Sunday. We pass another restaurant closed on Sunday and I'm beginning to worry. But the next recommendation from Urban Spoon, Smitty's, is open and doing a good business. We have a good lunch. By the way, in this part of the country, one of the sides available is tater tots, as in "Do you want chips, fries, or tots with that?"
Then it's on to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. I swear the scenery changes by state. California was fertile fields followed by pine forested mountains. When the pine forests changed to desert, we were in Nevada. When irrigated farming started (and casinos stopped) we were in Idaho. For the last bit of Idaho, irrigation wasn't required, but they were looking hard for flat spaces to farm. When we ran out of farmland and were back in pine forested mountains, we had entered Wyoming.
I've heard of Jackson Hole, usually in terms of skiing. Turns out hole is a term for valley, so this is the Jackson Valley, one side of which is the Grand Tetons. There is a town called Jackson and a Jackson Hole ski resort. Both of which seem very touristy. Jeremy, Marilyn and John, this area reminds me of New Zealand. Even part of the Snake River here looks like the braided rivers there. And Jackson reminds me of Queensland. Too many tourists, too many shops. The antler arches are different, though.
We saw a number of these. But this is what we came for:
a bear and her cub
Monday morning, Steve is awake early (5 am-ish) and heads out to take sunrise pictures. Blessedly he lets me sleep.
He manages to catch the sunrise and some mule deer.
And this bird. He got the name of it from a park ranger later, but he's now asleep, so I'll pass that information along later. But it's a neat photo.
I'm awake by the time Steve returns. He has plans to hike at Jenny Lake today. Sounds doable. We walk up to the Lodge for breakfast; we're staying in a "cabin" - motel like unit. The walk up to the lodge and back tires me out and I realize that my cold needs more sleep. I urge Steve to go hiking and am almost asleep bfore the door closes. I really did need the sleep; I sleep all day.
Steve has a great day and take lots of pictures. Unfortunately, some of them don't want to transfer to my computer. But here's some of what he saw:
Jackson Lake
Jenny Lake
The chapel was built before the land became National Park Land. The park was established in the early 1920's consisting of only the actual mountains. When John D. Rockefeller, Jr. visited around 1926, he realized that more area needed to be preserved and started buying up land. He tried for 20 years to get the government to accept the land as a gift. In the meantime, he built lodges and other items needed and established the company that runs the lodges today. In the 50's, the government finally accepted all this land into the national park.
Tomorrow we're going to try a float trip!
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