Beginning the Long Drive Home

I checked at the ranger station for road closures before our long drive out. I was reading the board when the ranger came out. He said "can you believe it?" I was unsure of what he was talking about, and he explained that snow was on its way. Sure enough, I checked the weather and there was a chance of snow. The temperatures had dropped by 15 degrees from the previous day. I thought its a good time to get out of here as I was thinking of all of the required snow chain signs in the area.

We went back to the trailer to get ready for the next morning. We had done a good job conserving energy(we had no electric). The picture shows the solar panel which I guess wasn't big enough. Come to find out the heater fan works off of the battery. We checked the batteries and one was almost empty and the other was 1/3 full. The most important thing we need from the trailer battery is it runs the trailers brakes. It was going to be a cold night in the trailer. Thank goodness we carried all the blankets up to Yellowstone because we used them all.

We got on the road early. It was very cold and foggy. The heat vents made fantastic scenery. We were lucky that the road that is normally closed was opened for the holiday weekend. This saved us 14 miles of driving and a road that crossed the continental divide twice with elevations of over 8,000 feet. We felt lucky until we went through the road that was opened! You earned that 14 miles that was saved. It was a one land dirt road and luckily we were early enough that no other RV was coming the other way.

We travelled through a few states this day, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and ended up in Utah. We stopped at a Wal-mart and restocked. When I entered the trailer you could see the result of that one lane dirt road. My makeup was all over the place. It had fallen out of its drawer, and was close to the hole in the floor for the toilet hoses.

Ugggh!! I had put my jewelry in that drawer this morning! I had even had the thought "should I leave all my jewelry in that drawer?" Then I reasoned with myself that we were stopping at truck stops and it wasn't the best to be decked out with all my goods. I know everyone is thinking why would anyone bring all their jewelry to Yellowstone. Well I did, and wore it all until that day. After some serious panic and anguish I found all of my jewelry. Gerald seriously thought he was ripping that toilet out right there in the Wal-mart parking lot to find my jewelry. We all know that he had all the tools to do it.