Okay, we left Camp Utmost in Greenough after the project in June. Since we had a week off and were so close to a couple of National Parks, we decided to go see Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We drove to Island Park, Idaho and stayed for two days at an RV park while we visited Yellowstone.

 We divided Yellowstone into a two-day adventure. We drove to the Western entrance and drove to Madison where you turn either to the North or the South.  We turned North and did the northern loop the first day.  We stopped and hiked to see Gibbon Falls, one of many waterfalls or cascades within Yellowstone. 

 From Gibbon Falls, we stopped at Beryl Springs.  This is one of the hottest springs within Yellowstone.  The temperature is usually between 188 and 192 degrees. The color of the spring, shown in the next picture, resembles the color of a beryl stone from which it gets its name. 

 When we reached Norris, we decided to take the route that goes counter-clockwise and went to the Canyon Village gift shop. We stopped to take a picture of the current state of the volcano that shaped Yellowstone.  They (who are they?) calculate that when Yellowstone erupted, the caldera was over 30 miles across and spewed about 240 cubic miles of rock, ash and debris. In contrast, Mount Saint Helens that erupted in 1980 spewed about 0.75 cubic miles of debris. The next picture shows an overview of Yellowstone today and then Tower Falls.

When we reached the next major intersection at Tower-Roosevelt, we turned east towards the Eastern entrance. We were told this was the “Serengeti” of Yellowstone. On this drive we saw thousands of Bison. A few of the pictures show some close up and some from a distance.

We continued our counter-clockwise travel to Mammoth Hot Springs. This was a cascade of minerals that have come collected over the years. The next picture is a selfie picture of these springs and one of the Hot Springs itself. We had to be in at least one picture to prove we were really there.

To end the day we drove by the Museum of the National Park Ranger and then headed back to the motorhome.

The next day we again entered by the western entrance and then took the southern route once we reached Madison. We took the side route along Firehole canyon where again there was a cascade type of waterfall.

The southern route was traveling from one geyser to another. You would drive to a parking area and then walk to a geyser, or a steamy mud pit (called a paint pot). Some of the geysers were erupting continually but only going up from about a foot to ten feet tall. Others were erupting on a cyclical basis that would be hours apart. This is how Old Faithful erupts. They will post an anticipated time for the next eruption and you can come back to that area or wait. Old faithful used to be on a regular schedule, but due to an earthquake in 1959, it is a little harder to predict the exact time. We did stay to watch Old Faithful.

The landscape around all the hot water pools was pretty barren as can be seen in the next few pictures. They have erected walkways around some of the pools and other areas to protect the people. One of the rangers told a story about a man who was walking his unleased Labrador retriever on one of the walkways years ago. The dog saw a pool of water, and like most dogs of that breed ran over to frolic in the water. The man went after the dog to try to save him, but they both were scalded so badly that they died.  They no longer allow dogs.

Some of the pools were very colorful and clear. The beauty of the pools disguised the danger of the hot water.  You could see down in many of the pools as the water was very clear. It looked like a great place to swim, but if you did it would be your last.

Overall, the trip to Yellowstone was amazing. When we had taken the cruise to New Zealand, we visited a place that was similar, but much smaller. You can look up that place by searching for Whakarewarewa.com.

We then moved the motorhome down to Idaho Falls, Idaho.  The falls in the downtown area was very impressive. We hike around the falls and enjoyed the scenery. The falls have a unique power system. Their generators are horizontal rather than vertical. That means that power is generated when water flows through them rather than falling down on them. A picture of the falls is attached.

There were some interesting sculptures around the falls as well.

We drove to the Grand Tetons first stopping at Jackson Hole. When we were at Camp Utmost in Greenough, Montana, we were told there were a lot of moose around the area. Well, we finally got to see some moose at Jackson Hole. They were a little stiff, but we did see some.

Grand Teton National Park is a mountain range with the Tetons and a large area of plains.  The mountains were snow capped and all around the Teton park road, you had excellent views of the mountains.  We did stop at Jenny Lake for a side trip and rode a boat across the lake and hiked to some waterfalls.

We also got to see some bears while touring the Tetons, but they were also a little stiff.

After we finished, we drove back to the motorhome and prepped for the trip to our next project in Turner, Oregon. This was just below Salem, the capital of Oregon. Stay tuned for the recap of that project.

June was a little different than most.  Gail had to go back to North Carolina to give her sister a break and help get her mom settled into an independent living facility.  Her sister had helped their mom move and get her old house emptied and move to the new facility.  Gail’s sister’s daughter was also expecting at any time, so it was to also allow her sister to spend some time with the new grandchild when he was born.  This left me at Camp Bighorn and having to drive about 120 miles to the next project at Camp Utmost in Greenough, Montana.

This was the first time I have driven to a project by myself.  After hooking up at Camp Bighorn in Plains, Montana, I then proceeded to Camp Utmost.  We had taken a weekend trip to the camp, so we knew what to expect when we got there and where I had to park.  The trip there went without a hitch and I arrived early in the afternoon, squeezed the motorhome into one of the parking places and met with the director.

Since I was working by myself, I worked with some other volunteers from a church just outside Missoula.  They had 8 to 10 men come and volunteer on Mondays and Wednesdays for the three weeks I was there.  That is definitely a church putting their faith in action. 

Now Greenough, Montana where the camp is located is not a city, but an area.  The nearest town was Avando. As you can see from the sign, there are more dogs in the town than people. It was also where I attended church while there.

Over the winter, the shop had been totally emptied with all the material placed in 3 of the cabins.  This allowed the volunteer workers to insulate the walls and put up sheetrock, finish and paint the walls and build new shelves and a loft to store everything.  The first week of work consisted of carrying everything from the cabins and putting the “stuff” back into the shop.  Since the configuration was different, it did not all fit into specific places. This was definitely not a “place for everything and everything in it’s place” kind of job at this time.  On and off for the three weeks, I was sorting nails, screws, carriage bolts and hex head bolts whenever I was not helping with anything else.

The first week, we also had a small church group come in and we worked to clean the cabins by vacuuming, washing all the mattresses and beds with disinfectant and generally preparing the camp for campers.  The timing for this group was good as a large youth group from Colorado came in to help the next week and now all the cabins were ready for them to occupy. 

This group helped stain all the cabins, the dining hall, the shop, the pump houses and the lodge.  They also went into Avando and stained the church there.  A small portion of them spent two days raking and picking up all the pine cones from the site and carting them down to a burn pit at the lower section of the property.  This pit was a good 10 feet wide, 25 feet long and 4 feet deep and it was filled with pine cones, scrap wood and pine needles from the job. On the last day, we set the pit on fire and it was like a small “Gehenna”.

I wouldn’t say they stained a lot, but notice the number of empty 5 gallon pails stacked at the shop at the end of the week.

After helping with the pickup of all the pine cones, pine needles and other items, I also took 3 of the young men and we worked on making more stations on their challenge course.  We buried 4 tires so that teams could craw through them, made a climbing wall, constructed an A-frame unit for climbing a rope and a rope ladder and a high/low section of 4 X 4’s for teams to race through.  Here are pictures of those items.

The last week I spent a couple of days mowing the property.  They had a unique mower arrangement.  They had a 4 foot mower attachment that could be pulled behind a riding mower.  This allowed you to cut a good 6 to 7 foot swath at a time.  That is good since there was a lot of property to mow.  I also helped extend a floating dock that was to be used for swimming at the local river.

Gail returned after the project and we were able to be on site for the first campers of the year.  By far, the most popular attraction was the water slide.  Attached are the pictures before and then during use.

We also went on a hike with one group of the campers to a waterfall that fed Holland Lake.  The lake and falls were beautiful as the pictures show.

One of the interesting things in this part of the country were the signs along the highway.  Not only did they have the English wording, but they also had the Indian words.  Boy am I glad I did not have to learn that alphabet and language. Here is an example.

From here it is off to Mission Aviation Fellowship in Nampa, Idaho, after a visit to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons.

June 2018 NC visit with Nanny, Lilly's Kindergarten graduation

For the month of June 2018, Wayne worked the project at Camp Utmost by himself while I went to visit with Nanny, see Lilly graduate from Kindergarten, and be in NC while Levi was born into the Graham family.

While there Nanny and I got some patriotic
flowers for Papa's gravesite.  And while I was
there Lilly got to visit the site for the first time
and get some life questions answered.

A trip to Dairy Queen for Lilly!

And then Aunt Margie came to town!

Of course a trip to Forest City for
an old fashioned drug store hamburger
fries and a iced tea!

Then an excursion to the 

Billy Graham Library.

What a wonderful day.

The parable of the SOWER on display
in the Billy Graham gift shop.

And then the place where Billy and Ruth

are now buried, at the Library in 

Charlotte NC.

Oh my golly!  Lilly is graduating
pre-K.  They grow up wayyyyyy
too fast.

Here are all the g'parents!

PROUD that is!

L to R:  Stephen Libby

Ramona Libby, Lilly, and me!

Catching light bugs in Aunt Linda's
backyard and thank you Aunt Linda
for braiding Lilly's hair, beautimous!

Lilly and I had to venture out to 

Harvest Time Bible Camp one day.

With friends, Naomi, Noah & Nathaniel.

Lilly's favorite spot - CAMP.

And then Levi Graham was born!

What a doll baby.

So sweet.

A cookie cutter of his daddy - Josh!

It's not a NC trip unless you go to
Buffalo Creek Vineyard.

L to R:  Nanny, Linda & me.

And of course, we gotta break in that new pool at the Fieler's house.  Up up up in the air Daddy, please!  Lilly loves swimming.

Now, Gail is on her way back to Montana to join Mr. Wayne, we will take a short jaunt to Flathead Lake, and then off to see Yellowstone and Tetons.  After that off to MAF in Nampa, Idaho.

Leaving hot weather in NC to go roast in Idaho!  Not kidding over 100 degrees but no humidity.

🌞