Posted in: Exploring Colorado

The Hunt for Large Items

If you’ve seen my personal Facebook, you have probably seen pictures of Will next to large objects. We’ve been trying to find quirky stops and large objects every place we go, some places have a lot more to see than others. For Denver, we had an entire morning mapped out with ideas from RoadsideAmerica.com.

Because it was just the boys and I, we didn’t stop and get out of the truck at all the items on our list. Some of the areas were a little questionable and I wasn’t comfortable getting out of the car. We drove through some really nice areas of town, some not so nice areas of town, and past several homeless camps. It was a little eye opening for the boys and a learning experience as well.

We did end up being able to stop at 4 different locations for the pictures. One of the favorites for everyone was a giant milk jug. It is an ice cream store, so of course we tried their ice cream. I think the boys’ next favorite was either the dog at the humane shelter or the big blue bear.

Some of the other objects we saw (but I was driving and couldn’t grab a picture) was a 3 legged chair, a dust pan and broom, and a smoke stack painted like a No. 2 pencil.

It’s been really fun trying to see quirky objects in the different towns we go to.

Posted in: Exploring Colorado, Food, Museums & Tours

Laundry, Candy, and Rocks

We started the morning doing laundry at the campground. It’s a pretty nice set up and we had it all to ourselves for the majority of the time.

When Ben was done with work for the day, we went on a candy factory tour. The tour was at Hammond’s Candies. The tour consisted of a video and then a walking tour. They are known for their candy canes (the large shiny ones you see at Christmas time). Their candies are carried in several stores, including Williams-Sonoma and Target (Wonderland section at Christmas). It is all made by hand!

We got to see them making candy while we were there. It seems like Covid hit them hard, as the tour guide stated they were down half of their cooks. I have a video up with clips from the tour (it’s about 4 minutes long) on the YouTube channel.

Everyone got a piece of candy at the end of the tour, which conveniently ends in the shop! We bought a few different kinds of candy to try, including a chocolate filled candy cane. I haven’t seen the filled candy canes in stores near us, so I was really excited to try it.

Afterwards Ben wanted to see Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater. I typed in Red Rock Park and ended up in Boulder near some apartments, which by the way is not where the amphitheater is. Whoops. I never would have guessed that there was a Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater and a Red Rocks Park as separate places, or that not adding on amphitheater would change my directions so much. So, we had a 40 minute detour…well more like an 80 minute detour since we had to drive back to our original starting spot. Apparently, I have not gotten that much better at directions as I have aged.

We finally made it to the amphitheater and it was really neat to see. The color of the rocks was amazing, as well as the shape of them just jutting forth. It must be an incredible place to go to a concert. It was a little crowded with visitors and people getting graduation pictures, so we didn’t stay too long.

Posted in: Costco, Exploring Colorado, Sightseeing

Exploring Downtown Denver

Yesterday we arrived at our new campground and got set up. We ran into town and stopped at Ben’s favorite store (Costco) for some groceries. We also stopped at Kings Soopers for the rest of our groceries. Nick had been wanting to see the new Scooby Doo movie, so we rented it from Redbox at the store. We all really enjoyed the movie and it was nice to have a relaxing evening. I’ve loved Scooby for years (and years…let’s not count the number of years) and now the boys do too.

Ben took the day off of work so he could explore Denver with us. Our first venture out (besides grocery stores) was to downtown Denver. We decided to walk the 16th Street Mall. It is a street that has a lot of shops and food options. We browsed, window shopped, saw Union Station, and picked up some postcards.

There were a lot of food options on this street. We ended up trying a few different items. We tried a new flavor of cupcake (Raspberry Almond Poppy Seed), a spicy breakfast burrito, and Will tried a Korean BBQ cup.

All in all, it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Posted in: Car Ride Games, Exploring Wyoming, Rest Stop/Welcome Center/Visitor Center

Moving Day and Boondocking

On the road again. Our app said it was 12 hours to our next stop, so we were going to break it into two days of driving. One of the first rest stops had a Rattlesnake Area sign. We didn’t stay there long. Wyoming was pretty desolate in terms of rest stops. I would say 3/4 of the rest stops were closed on our path. If you are driving through soon, stop when you see gas and bathrooms when you can, because there were incredibly long stretches between available stops.

We had bought a bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans on Friday and played “Name That Jelly Bean” a couple times during the car ride. Ben was the game show host and tossed a jelly bean to a person. They had to guess the flavor of the jelly bean. If you got the flavor right, you got to go again. As the game progressed, Ben became more strict with the names of the jelly beans.

We tried going through Cheyenne, WY for food and to stretch our legs before calling it a night. There were several neat looking spots, but no place really big enough for us to park while we were towing the RV. We had called several Walmarts, BassPro, Cabela’s, and even Mendard’s, but none of them near us offered overnight parking. Most cited city ordinances.

We finally found a Welcome Center/Rest stop outside of Cheyenne. It was located off of 25 (5611 High Plains Road, Cheyenne, WY). It was a really large welcome center. Although we arrived after the lobby closed, the bathrooms were still open. There is an RV dump station, a pet exercise area (with poop bags), WiFi in the lobby, and 20ish parking spots for trucks/RVs. There is also a car parking lot. There is a walking trail around the outside area, and a nice flat area by the RV/truck parking where we had a picnic dinner. The rest stop also maps available. To make it easier for guests after hours, they had envelopes made up by the doors that contained a Wyoming Travel Guide, Highway Map, and a Road Trip Guide.

Welcome Center/Rest Stop

Originally, it was going to be a boring peanut butter sandwich dinner since we were unable to stop in Cheyenne. However, Uber Eats delivered there! It was amazing to have hot food delivered to the rest stop.

The rest stop was brightly lit and felt safe. We all had pretty good night’s sleep for heading out for our next campground.

Settled In For The Night

Co & Propane Gas Detector

Did you know that you can set off your CO/Propane detector by using Lysol? Me either!

Well, now I know. We had bought the kids new blankets and I sprayed them so they could use them that night (it’s been chilly). Suddenly the alarm started blaring. I had no idea that spraying the Lysol would set it off.

I did some reading online and supposedly Febreze, passing gas right next to it, the RV batteries getting warm and emitting odor/gas, bug sprays, sunscreen/spray, hair spray, even some cooking sprays can all set it off.

We even spilled a little bit of an alcoholic drink near it, and it went off as well! It is starting to remind me of the smoke detector in the kitchen of the house. Anytime the oven got over 375 degrees F, it went off.

It certainly has been an experience learning the idiosyncrasies of our RV. Although, to be fair, it hasn’t been too bad so far. Just a little ear splitting at times. 🙂

Posted in: Campground Review, Exploring Montana, Exploring Wyoming

Yellowstone RV Park Campground: Campground Review

For our time near Yellowstone National Park, we stayed in Gardiner, Montana at the Yellowstone RV Park. It offers spots anywhere from tent camping to large Class A’s. Most of the spots are back-ins, although they do have some pull-throughs.

Pros: Near the river, close to town, close to north entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The campground also has laundry facilities, showers, a playground, and a grass area with waste bags for furry friends. They do take a AAA or Good Sam discount (at the time of our booking).

Cons: Tighter spots, steeper hill down into the campground.

Laundry is $1.50/load for the washer and dryer. Washer is on the smaller capacity size, but the driers are normal/larger sized. Two loads of wash fit in one drier. There are 2 laundry facilities and bath showers, one at either end of the campground.

Each campsite has a picnic table. There are no fires/fire rings allowed, however you can bring a propane fire pit. They allow mats/rugs outside, but do ask you to move them off the grass since they water it each day.

They do work hard at maintaining the park. They were watering the grass everyday and mowed/trimmed. It seemed nicely kept. It was very convenient to go into the park or into town.

I have a video of the drive into the campground, and a video of the boys’ walking tour of the campground up on YouTube.

SUMMARY OF CAMPGROUND:

Our rating: 3-3.5 out of 5 hitches

Cell Phone Reception: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile

Laundry: Yes

Bathrooms/Showers: Yes

RV Sites: Back-in, some pull-throughs

Pop Up Tents/Gazebos/Outdoor Rugs On Site: No tents, rugs ok but have to be moved for watering each day

Amenities: Picnic Tables, Free Cable, playground

Cabins: No

Tent Camping: Yes

Full Hook-ups: Yes. Most 30 amp sites, limited 50 amp sites.

Pool: No

WiFi: Yes

Food On-Site: No, but close to town/restaurants

Camp Store: No

Fishing: No

Posted in: Animal Sightings, Sightseeing

Elk are aggressive…

when nursing.

We were walking around town and strolled on down to see the Roosevelt Arch. It is a pretty neat piece of architecture. Ben especially loved the doors.

As we were walking back towards where we parked the truck, we heard high pitched animal calls. We looked towards the park and we saw three baby elk running towards the Arch. We heard an answering call and saw two momma elk strolling out from a side parking area, relatively close to us. We backed up to give them room.

One of the babies met his/her mom in front of us. The baby must have been very, very hungry because they about tackled the mom to nurse.

The video is up on our YouTube channel!

Posted in: Exploring Montana, National Parks

Yellowstone & Gardiner, Montana

We stayed just outside of Gardiner, Montana. We were a mile from the North entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

The town of Gardiner isn’t very large, but it has most of the things you need. The town is split over the Yellowstone River, so it is set in a really pretty location. There is a gas station a few miles out of town, but there is also one right in the middle of town. There is a small bookstore/coffee shop, which has a decent selection of local touristy books, some fun reading books, a few kids books (mostly younger kids). For more book options, there were also a few Little Libraries/Free Library stands around town. Will found a new book to read! On the other side of the river, closer to the park, is another coffee shop/cafe. There are several souvenir type of stores, our favorite being the t-shirt shop.

The grocery store/market has a decent selection. The prices are a little higher than a chain store, but most of the time the difference wasn’t horrible. There are several restaurants and a couple of food trucks as well. You won’t go hungry!

They sell blocks of ice here! I don’t know why, but I got a kick out of this.

There is a small hardware store. The Chamber of Commerce in town offers free maps, guides, and a kid’s activity booklet.

There was also another coffee shop and a pharmacy, but they (with a couple of other shops) burned down 4 days before we arrived. The fire department still had sprinklers on the site when we first got into town.

Because it is in Montana, masks are required indoors. I loved this. It made me feel better about having to go into stores when everyone was wearing a mask.

Even when just in town, you can see some of the animals people come to the park for. We frequently had elk in our campground and in town. We even saw a bald eagle sitting on a tree by the river. It was a pretty location.
If you wanted a bigger store like Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, or Target, then you could drive into Bozeman. It was about 1 1/2 hours each way.

I felt that it was a good location for seeing Yellowstone too. No matter where you are in the park for your stay, you will be driving at least an hour to see some of the sights. By staying in town, I felt it was easier for us to get groceries and to do things ours of the park.

Posted in: Animal Sightings, Exploring Wyoming, Hiking, National Parks, Sightseeing

Impromptu Trip To Grand Tetons

Yesterday was a stay in the RV and do budget/bills/etc. kind of day. When Ben was finished with work, he came out and announced he wanted to go see the Grand Tetons.

Ok…great. It’s just a 3.5-4 hour road trip (each way). So, we buckled up and started driving. To get there, you basically drive through Yellowstone, which was packed. I haven’t seen so many people since we’ve been here. I’m glad we saw most of the sights last week! It’s been really helpful to get up early and see things before lunch time, which is when it seems more people come into the park.

It rained on us for part of the drive. We got to see the Continental Divide in two different elevations during our drive, which was a nice learning opportunity.

Once at the Grand Tetons park, we went to Signal Mountain and drove to the top to the overlook. Of course, it started raining again, with thunder and some lightening. We did get some views of the Tetons, but it was cloudy.

After carefully driving back down (strangely enough there were less people going up the mountain in the rain), we saw an adult male elk with large antlers. Around Yellowstone we had only seen young males with smaller antlers. It was pretty cool!

We stopped at the visitor center to try to get a better view of the mountains as it had cleared up a little bit. It was pretty late by this time, so we stopped at their restaurant/cafe for some food. It was all take out, with ordering and pick up outside. Word of advice: bring your own food! The food was ok (not great, not even on the better side of good, but just ok), but I think this was the most expensive meal we’ve had so far. $9 for a hot dog (did come with vegetable side). They were the only option we saw though, so if you don’t bring your own food, you don’t have a lot of options.

The Grand Tetons were pretty and they have some large lakes there as well which would probably be great for boating and fishing. However, I am glad we spent most of our time in Yellowstone. I loved seeing the geysers and hot springs, plus there are so many trails. We didn’t get to check out Tetons’ trails though because it started raining on us again and it was another 4 hour drive back home.

We read in our National Parks book a little about the Tetons. They got their name from French trappers/explorers and were named “trois tetons”, or the three nipples. The boys found this extremely funny.

Posted in: Food

Target Run and Tater Tot Dip for Dinner

The boys and I drove the 1.5 hours into Bozeman to go to Target. Our mission? Blackout curtains. Yesterday the RV got super hot with the sun. It was in the upper 80’s and no clouds to block the sun. We are only on 30 amp service, so we can only run one air conditioner, and it was struggling to keep up in the sun and the heat. After doing some research, it seemed the blackout curtains would help. We did use them at the house, but mostly for light purposes, not necessarily heat blocking purposes.

The Target was huge, but strangely limited in shoes (Nick needs a new pair already) and matching blackout curtains. I finally found some cream colored ones for the living area/kitchen and liners for the kids room (I have special ones ordered that are cut to size and will form fit their windows).

Right now they are held up by binder clips and thumb tacks. I will have to tackle figuring out a long term solution later. (There are not a lot of studs in these walls to hang curtain rods.)

I used the heat gun to check the before and after temperatures and even the towel I had hung across the window before the curtains helped a lot.

Using the oven or stove really heats up the RV. Luckily we had brought our InstantPot* and air fryer. Unfortunately, the air fryer will trip the electric if I run it on 30 amps with the air on. Even with the microwave off, lights off, and coffee pot unplugged, it still tripped it. The InstantPot works great though! We were feeling like an unhealthy, snacks kind of dinner, so we ran to the store for supplies. I had no idea what I was making, so we kind of made it up on the fly.

I cooked the chicken in the InstantPot with some water and salsa. Once it was done, I shredded it. I then moved everything to the cast iron skillet (I didn’t bring a casserole dish with us). I rubbed butter over the skillet to help it not stick, layered the shredded chicken, then some salsa, red peppers, corn, and finally cheese and tater tots. I baked it until heated through. I sprinkled a little more cheese on top and served with corn/tortilla chips. I wished I would have remembered to buy sour cream to dollop on top! It still hit the spot though.

Chicken and Tater Tot Dip by Sarah Tepe

You will need:

  • 4 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
  • Large jar of mild salsa (we like the chunky kind)
  • 1 bag frozen tater tots
  • 1 bell pepper, diced
  • Shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 bag frozen corn
  • Tortilla/corn chips
  • Optional: sour cream
  • Misc.: InstantPot, oven safe skillet or casserole dish

Directions:

  • Add chicken with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 jar of the salsa to the InstantPot.
  • Cook on high pressure for 25 minutes.
  • Release steam.
  • Drain if needed and shred chicken (you want it to be bite sized pieces once shredded).
  • Layer the chicken on the bottom of a baking dish/casserole dish/large oven safe skillet.
  • Next layer corn, diced peppers, shredded cheese, and tater tots.
  • Using the oven, bake at 350 until heated through, about 20 minutes.
  • Top with more shredded cheese and sour cream, if desired.
  • Serve with tortilla chips.

*Affiliate Link

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