No Shag!

Or sofa, or recliners, or chairs or coffee table, either. Hurrah, hurrah, Ken's Carri-Lite rig has finally arrived after 14 weeks of waiting [over four of them spent living, for free and with full hookups, at the back lot of Ray Citte (pronounced "city") RV dealership in Ogden, UT].

All the design amenities we asked for were done to our specs--the higher-quality sculpted carpet instead of an awful shag (which some moron at Carriage has decided is all they'll use in future models), the valence fabrics we requested, single-pane windows, no interior border trim, no furniture except the dining room table, etc.

The checkin process went well--no damage to be found from transit--but there are a few glitches that the dealer needs to follow up on, such as a missing bedspread, a missing side table, a missing window covering on an interior door, and a blown fuse that needs to be replaced.

The rig goes into the service bay today for its dealer once-over (checking refer, furnace, systems, etc.) before Ken “takes delivery” (exchanges money and signatures) on the rig. Then we’ll spend the next week deep cleaning, moving into, and testing out all the systems ourselves, and maybe it’s on to Oregon at last! We're both looking forward to getting our stuff out of storage and increasing our combined living space this week. My little 28' Arctic Fox has been great, but it's still quite a shoebox for two people, a cat, a fullsize computer, and a LifeCycle!

The first sighting as she's pulled into the RV dealership. Ken's truck is also all white, so this is pretty close to what she'll look like when he's pulling--only he's bought a gorgeous 2011 Ford.

Ken chats with the driver, Reg, who got the rig to us within two days from Elkhart, IN. Reg does this for a living all summer long, then stops for the winter. He's a real talker and loves his work, driving an average of 600 miles a day. He kept raving about how well this particular rig handled in heavy winds across Wyoming, saying it "is very well balanced" and "I didn't even know it was there--no sway at all." That is very good news considering it weighs 13,500 pounds dry and could be over 17,000 pounds when fully loaded with water and possessions. (For comparison, my rig is about 11,000 pounds loaded.)

Ken requested no decals or paint on the exterior because decals usually peel and look ugly after two years, and paints (especially dark ones) ultimately cause the underlying gelcoat to crack and craze from heat absorption. We therefore had no idea what this 37-foot roving wall would look like when we ordered it, and had already jokingly dubbed her The White Cliffs of Dover. But with only classic black accents from the windows, awnings, a/c cover, clips, etc., it actually looks pretty clean and sleek to us. Our salesman, Gary, laughingly commented, "It looks like it could belong to a movie star."

The rear of the rig is all windows; this is where a custom computer desk will look out from.

Only a living room (tall), kitchen (small), and bedroom (large) window on this side...the rest of this wall is covered with cabinets on the inside.

Carriage's innovative full-wall slideout, fully slid out. While several motorhome models have full-wall slides, it takes some special engineering to make them happen on a fifth wheel--note the wall narrows for the stairs and therefore slides out over them. Other fifth wheels avoid the stairs by using multiple slideouts, such as one for the bedroom at the top, and one or two in the kitchen/living space at the bottom. Having one huge slideout makes for a very spacious, clean-lined interior, with a wide hallway from living space to bedroom.

The other two slideouts, popped out. The nearer one is the bed, the farther one is the dining/sofa area.

At last, to the inside... Here's the living area with the slideouts pulled in for travel. Fortunately, the rig is nearly 8-1/2 feet wide, which means there are a few extra inches of room for us to squeeze through the kitchen into the living space if we decide to park and leave the slides in for the night (such as at a Walmart). We can still get to the sink, upper cabinets, and TV if needed. (The refer is to the immediate right and is always accessible.)

The same area with the slides opened up. The far wall is waiting for the custom desk. The space at the left beyond the dining table will soon have a power-reclining, two-seater loveseat for watching the (sheesh!) 40" TV directly across the room. We're also getting two chairs to use alternately at the desk and dining table.

Another view of the living space. The TV comes with a Blue-Ray player, multiple speakers, and a subwoofer for that "full home theater experience" from Sony. All that's missing is a Wii!

The kitchen with its island and many cabinets, including an appliance garage to keep that coffee pot off the counter. The tall cabinets down the hallway are all wardrobe and storage space--we omitted the washer and dryer and gained even more room. The scrap of carpet at the entry way comes up once we move in--they provide it to help protect the flooring before a rig is sold.

The lovely sculpted carpet, at the hallway. In this photo, the full-wall slide is stored for travel; the door to the right is a walk-through bathroom, which allows access to the toilet and bedroom when we stop for a break.

The bedroom with the slides pulled in. Note the unique folding bed. This room has two opposing slides, and they've created a fabric-hinged mattress to allow the queen bed to fold up 6" at the foot so the slides can meet. A big drawer is under the bed for storage.

The bedroom with the slides out. That empty far corner is THE reason why Ken bought this floorplan--it's the only one out there that actually has enough extra space in a bedroom to house his LifeCycle in a permanent and out of the way location. He'll store it against the wall and pull it out into the open space for us to ride in the morning. That corner is usually spec'd for a computer desk or side chair and ottoman, which we of course omitted.

Another view of the bedroom cabinets--with a second TV that's almost too small to see from the head of the bed eight feet away!

Ken in his new home, checking out the owner's manual.

Yellowstone: Roosevelt Country

Roosevelt Country is less frequented by tourists because it has few geological features marked out for walking and viewing, but people love driving through here because bison hang out this time of year and bear sightings can be common. There's also lots of fly-fishing, the Roosevelt Lodge (a quaint turn of the century log structure with a stand-up bar and seated dining), tiny log cabins for rent by tourists or use by employees, and horses and "stagecoach" rides for hire (in roofed, open-sided, horse-drawn, Yellowstone-yellow metal coach-lookalikes pulled across the plains and meadows of the area--think Yellow Cab meets Walls Fargo). This huge area is in the northeast corner of the park. Another wonderfully sunny day to enjoy.

Lamar Valley Bison. Note all the people on the beach of the river. By the time you get to that level, you're so low to the opposing bank that the bison become just humps of brown above the grassline.


Cruising across the river...and stopping.

Another bison jam, this time near Silver Gate, the northeast entrance of the park.

These bones have been here so long that a trail spur leads to them. We presumed it was a sheep or elk, but it may have been a hiker.

Yellowstone River, as seen from the Specimen Ridge trail.

Columns of rock, possibly basalt, line the upper canyon of the river here. They reminded me of enormous pencils stacked against a wall.

Munch time for a bird.

Another view of the Yellowstone River, this time from the hill at the end of the trail; the little bit of rapids is from the creek spillout of Tower Falls to the west (right). In the center of the shot, at the far side of the curve in the water, is a small beachhead and low cliff area...

...which is just about where I was standing for this photo of the river looking the other direction. The tallest part of the hill in the background is the end of the Specimen Ridge trail hike where we were in the previous photos.

Tower Falls from the viewing platform. Sadly, the trail to the base of the falls was closed by storm damage.

A black bear claws and digs at the earth on an embankment near the road. Cars were backed up ten deep and people were out of them, getting photos, way too close...

...as seen here when the bear started shambling up to cross the road. You can barely see its back and ears behind the tall grass beyond the Elk Creek sign, but I'll be those folks ten feet away got a good angle. Note that one lady high-tailing it across the street. The bear took little notice of any of them, and we left everyone flocking to the other side of the street to follow it for more photos.

Yellowstone: Canyon Country

The "grand canyon of Yellowstone" is what keeps people coming to Canyon Country--a deep, creamy yellow canyon carved by the Yellowstone River, direct from where it starts miles away at a placid Lake Yellowstone, before it becomes a raging force down two falls (Upper and Lower), and wends north to ultimately meet the Missouri. Other highlights are Hayden Valley, a lovely green swath full of bison this time of year, and a particularly pungent collection of hot springs.

All artists love Lower Falls, here seen from a north rim pullout. There are also lots of viewing places down near the head (brink) of the falls along a winding trail down. The south side of the canyon offers its own views, some with boardwalk steps that cling to the side of the canyon.

Yellowstone Canyon, as seen from the brink of Lower Falls. The sun that day was glorious.

A bison jam in Hayden Valley: traffic is stopped for two miles in both directions.

Bison were meandering across the road toward grazing lands along the river. They do this a lot--back and forth throughout the day.

Although it ultimately took us 40 minutes to get past the moving blockade, it was hard to get irritated at the delay...I'd rather stop for bison than for 5 0'clock traffic any day.

Two babies. The caramel-brown one is younger, a later arrival that may have trouble in the winter if it doesn't get really strong really soon.

No worries for this crowd even with cars piling up on the road. The dust cloud is from a bison rolling in a wallow.

This pair forced us to a halt by walking directly in front of our truck--and stopping! Note the size difference of the male (back) and the female (front). She looked straight at us as they paused for a bit, then they slowly moved on as if hitched together. Those two people up ahead are park employees. They show up at heavy traffic stoppages to make sure animals like bison and bears aren't harassed by photo-hungry tourists and that no one is injured; they don't do much to hurry or guide the animals along. Critters run the show in Yellowstone.

The pair paused and looked at us again near the other side of the road. Still no moving for our truck until they were completely off the pavement...with the male's butt within scritching distance through my window (no, I didn't).

The bison seemed to enjoy walk into traffic and stopping. This one held up the line for several minutes. Another stood in front of a motorhome for more than ten minutes before it decided to move on. Generally neither lane of traffic could move, because a bison is just as likely to turn around and go back as to continue the way it is facing. A little later another one stopped in the road because its right forefoot was sore...it held it up gingerly and finally limped away and paused again just a short distance from the road for another rest.

Canyon Country has its own set of hot springs and fumaroles with interesting names like Mud Volcano and Sour Spring. This is Dragon's Mouth, a wonderfully noisy and active spring that spits water through the opening in belching, steaming waves. The entire area is highly sulfurous, making a great stench as well.

Bison own the land...even along a walk that thousands of people use to reach other springs in the area. This one just hung around his wallow, chewing cud and flicking dust onto his back with his tail.

I could have been at a zoo taking his photo, except that there's no fence between us. Thank goodness for zooms.

Churning Caldron [sic], one of the many appropriately named hot springs in this area. This spring was really fun to watch--it boiled up incessantly like some soup gone mad.

Sulfur Spring, one of the world's most acidic bodies of water. It's pH is like battery acid. The gorgeous hills in the backdrop are at the edge of Yellowstone's famous caldera--volcanic crater--that extends for miles. That hill there is actually still rising and falling like an inflating and deflating balloon because of the volcanic action that continues beneath Yellowstone.

Another view of the Yellowstone River. Beyond the falls, it's generally shallow, wide, and quiet, with very few rapids.

Yellowstone: Mammoth Country

To me, the name Mammoth Country conjures images of woolly elephants roaming expansive plains, or at least the bones of the same found in layer after layer of sediment. Here in Yellowstone it just means BIG, in reference to the heaping mounds of calcium and limestone deposits built by boiling, mineral-laden springs that have seeped and flowed and deposited their microscopic debris over the millennia. It's like an inside-out cavern creation--hot water instead of cold, flowing bottom up instead of dripping top down, exposed to the air instead of hidden underground.

The area is appropriately called "terraces," and they change all the time...the water temps, winds, and general surface structure make the water flow in different directions even day to day. Sometimes the water flows in the same swath long enough for its minerals to form ridges that become ledges and walls, creating shallow or deep pools. You can always tell an active or "live" part of a terrace spring: colors like orange, brown, or yellows (created by heat-loving micro-critters) and slick, bright white (too hot to sustain life, pure calcium deposits) show areas that are thriving with water flow. Areas of gray, boulder-like color, and dry white spots no longer have water over them, leaving the mineral deposits behind in "dead" hills that might come alive again at any time as the waters shift.

This year this area of activity is quiet--no burping mud pits, hissing fumaroles, or exploding geysers. The waters bubble a little (activity has been bigger in previous years), you can sometimes hear the water dribble off a ledge, but it's mostly flow of a quarter inch of water down a wall. The usual smell of sulfur and other minerals pervades.

The terraces seen from a distance--not very inspiring until you get up close.

At the upper terraces.

"I told you the earth was flat!" Water streams over an unseen terraced edge.

Another angle of the top terrace pool, with lovely Mt. Everts in the background. That mountain was our view from the campground, less than a mile north of here.

The other side of the terraced pool.

A little farther down.

Snow white and boiling hot.

At the lower terraces. Orange means microbes, white means none, but hot water was still flowing.


A fantastic expanse of dry, "dead" calcium deposits was right next to wet, living flows.

A close-up of Palette Springs in this area--the living and the dead.

A cascade of water at the top of the lower terrace, also visible two shots above.

In the Norris region of Mammoth Country, you can enjoy nearly two miles of boardwalk over geyser territory.

Loved the colors of this mini marsh among the gray grounds surrounding it.


Two crystal-clear springs shimmer in the sun. They're only about two feet wide.

A distance shot of Mt. Bunsen, a hill we later hiked.

The early part of the trail.

Urg...it got steeper pretty quick.

Two miles later, we reach the top for spectacular views of the valley. We're looking toward the same road where I snapped the shot of Bunsen from a distance. It's the main thoroughfare through Mammoth Country.

More fire damage and recovery.

At the top of Bunsen is an communications center--microwave, cell, etc. Note the federally-funded antenna made of a Home Depot bucket and foil tape.