April Expenses

April was a travel month, so we expect our expenses to be higher during a travel month. And sure enough, they were higher.

But when you consider that we started the month in Ottawa, then went to Nova Scotia, then Las Vegas, then drove 1,500 miles (2,400 kms) and saw a whole pile of things along the way, the amount we spent for the month was pretty darn reasonable!

If yesterday was any indication, then this is going to be a great summer!

We spent most of the day cleaning the cobwebs out of our house trailer as it's been shut down and unoccupied for the winter. We also got the water turned back on for our trailer and the office canteen building, and that went very smoothly. Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to, with the exception of a minor leak in one of the toilet tanks.

Oh, and our great horned owl is back, and we think she's got two little ones this year!

Terrible road, and Sherman has an injury...

We crossed the border yesterday and have arrived at our summer job at Cabri Regional Park. We even brought some beautiful weather up here with us because it's the warmest we've been since we left Las Vegas two weeks ago!

But, the trip was not the smoothest...

Overnight camping for $3.00

We're almost "home". Home for us, is Cabri Regional Park in Saskatchewan where we are the park managers for the summer season. We're only 45 miles (70 kms) from the Canadian border as I write this, and we'll cross the border this morning.

Then, a few hours more and we'll arrive at the park. We don't actually start work until Friday, so this gives us a little time to get things organized and clean up Sherman.

Just a little more Yellowstone, and then hit the road.

We decided to go back into the park yesterday morning to see the upper and lower terraces of the Mammoth Hot Springs area. It was only a few miles, so not much of a detour. Plus, we didn't have to do much of a drive towards Saskatchewan if we didn't really want to.

So we spent a couple more hours at Yellowstone National Park.

Old Faithful and Grizzly Bears!

This is our second post of the day, so before you carry on with this post, you may want to check out the first part of our one day visit to Yellowstone National park...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/04/one-day-in-yellowstone-national-park.html

Okay. Now that you've read that, lets continue with the rest of our day.

One day in Yellowstone National Park...

We had a busy day yesterday, and took a lot of photos. So we're going to break this into two posts. That means you'll get to see more of Yellowstone later today!

There's so much to see in Yellowstone, and only part of the park is open at this time of year. Really, things don't get into full swing here until mid May. But we're only passing through and wouldn't have had enough time to see anything more anyhow.

Further north brings...more snow!

The road from Jackson, Wyoming north into Yellowstone National Park is still closed for the season, so we had to do a little detour west into Idaho and then north. Really changeable weather and scenery, even during that fairly short drive.

Some areas had fresh snow, while others were green as could be with new leaves coming out on the trees.

Usually, we win. But sometimes...

We've had three beautiful boondocking sites in a row, and so I guess we were due for a bad one.

It wasn't so much that it was bad, it was just so difficult to find a suitable overnight spot near Jackson, Wyoming...and then when we did get all settled, we almost got kicked out!

Lots of boondocking opportunities

Yesterday, we did 139 miles (222 kms) and saw lots of opportunity for free camping. Again, it's too bad that we can't take advantage of these spots, but we know now that we'll have to make it back to this area again.

1,000 miles from home

Yesterday, we did another 151 miles (242 kms) and when I sat down to calculate the remaining distance to our home at Cabri, Saskatchewan the GPS told me that it was exactly 1,000 miles (1,600 kms).

Speaking of miles, Sherman's odometer clicked over to 80,000 miles (128,000 kms) yesterday. And, he'll be 20 years old this year! He's still lookin' pretty good, isn't he?

Camping at 8,000 feet!

(This is the second blog post today because we're getting caught up from not having any internet access. You can see the earlier post here if you missed it.)

We left Kodachrome Basin State Park yesterday (Tuesday) at around 9:00am, but without any idea as to where to stop for the night. We're trying to do minimum 120 miles (200 kms) per day, but there's so much to see along the way.

A great day in Kodachrome Basin State Park

(Written Tuesday April 21st)

We thought we were meeting for a 9:00am group hike yesterday morning, and we were there on time. But I guess some people thought it was 10:00am, and so it was after 9:30am by the time everyone was ready. That's the problem with doing group activities! Anyway, we finally got out on the trails.

There are a lot of hiking trails here at Kodachrome Basin State Park, and not very many people.

Arrived at Kodachrome Basin State Park

(Written Monday April 20, 8:00am).

We left Zion National Park on Sunday at just before 8:00am, heading for Kodachrome Basin State Park. We had to go through a 1.1 mile (1.8 km) long tunnel, and because we are wider than 7'6", we had to buy a tunnel pass for $15 USD (19 CAD) and they close the tunnel to opposing traffic so that we drive right through the middle. The tunnel only opens at 8:00am.

There was surprisingly little traffic.

Fantastic 8 mile (13 km) hike in Zion National Park

Up at 6:00am yesterday (Saturday) morning. This was a special free entrance weekend at National Parks in the United States, so we expected things to be a lot busier than normal. The first shuttle bus leaves the visitor's center at 7:00am, so we wanted to be as close to that as possible.

We ended up on the 7:30am shuttle, and we were at the trailhead for 8:00am.