Fall for Me Two

We spent 9 days moving around in the RV. The original plan had been to rent the vehicle from Salt Lake City in Utah and travel through Idaho to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and then southeast through Wyoming and ending in Colorado. The hefty one-way charge for returning the RV in Colorado unfortunately rendered our plan too expensive. So we had to backtrack and return it in Salt Lake City instead.

The wonderful thing about USA is that each state is so unique, that it's like visiting a different country each time you cross a state line. This applies not only to the history and culture of the place, but also the weather.

Leaving the snowy fields of Montana, we watched (and cheered) as the neverending snowfall gradually gave way to clear blue skies and we could feel the warmth of the sunshine starting to penetrate through the vehicle windows once again.

The moody skies and dark waters along the last stretch of road in Montana

Welcome to sunny Idaho!

GREEN fields!

Having had a pretty good experience camping for free at the South Tourist Park in Idaho Falls, we returned to our beside-the-toilet spot for another night of FOC camping.

That's our RV in the prime spot again. Shameless.

Everybody likes basking by the river in the afternoon sun

Enjoying the scene (while trying not to step on duck poop.. )

On our first night at South Tourist Park, the sunset didn't seem very spectacular. But this time, the sun sure put up a good show, using the sky as a backdrop and the river as a stage.

Turning the sky into orange taffy

The reeds doing their sun salutations

Ducks basking in the last long rays for the day

I spotted a little busy body furiously paddling across the water. I thought it was a duck with its head in the water at first but as it approached the bank and the head didn't come up, I realised that it was a beaver! Oooooh! It was too dark to snap a shot of the semi-submerged creature and I couldn't zoom in much with my wide-angle lens, so no photos of this busy little guy. I tried following it along the bank and scouting around for its dam where it disappeared into the reeds, but to no avail. Anyway, here's a free photo courtesy of the National Parks Services, which shows exactly how Mr Beaver was paddling away when I saw him.

Just keep goin', just keep goin'...

A spotlight shining through the gap of the reed curtains

One final strip of illumination before darkness falls

It sure beats watching a sunset from your office cubicle.

Fall For Me

Free campgrounds are a blessing. And not just some creepy empty parking lot at the end of a dirt road dotted with potholes or inaccessible in early spring. But real campgrounds specifically designed as RV parks, which tired travelers can use free of charge. All it takes is some goodwill on the part of the city council.

We were suitably impressed by the North and South Tourist Parks in Idaho Falls. We read a few online reviews of these places and decided on the latter for its scenic location along the Snake River.

When we got there, we were hit by a strong whiff of poop which lingered in the air and started harbouring fears of our sewerage pipe leaking. The stink turned out to be from the park's residents, namely ducks and geese. But hey, wildlife in our backyard - pretty cool! We were pleasantly surprised to find free amenities like taps which provided fresh drinking water and clean albeit non-portable water, clean restrooms and even a dump if visitors wished to flush out their tanks. Now, if only there was free WiFi...

No, not as in the cartoon. That's in Colorado.

If you want a good spot, you gotta get there early to "chope". To other campers, a prime spot is one that is as far away from the main road, entrance or amenities as possible. To a Singaporean, the best spot is the one right next to the:

The prime spot - right next to the TOILETS!

South Tourist Park photographs beautifully.






Waking up to a wonderful river view? Priceless. Literally.

The Gypsy Life

Life on the go is really fun.

We rented an RV for 9 days and explored the Salt Lake area, Idaho Falls and the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks from this box on wheels. Renting an RV is an expensive affair:

First you need to pay rental for the vehicle itself. Funnily enough, bigger RVs for 4-5 persons cost less than one that fits 2-3 persons. In the RV world, ours was classified as a Type B Motorhome - i.e. a 2-in-1 vehicle and apartment. Some of the trailers, which are separate compartments hooked to an independent vehicle (usually a pick-up truck like a Dodge), looked like something out of a Transformers movie! Just press a button and you have an extra room here and there, and a porch, and a deck, etc. Wow.

Then, the price includes a limited number of miles. So you need to plan your entire route in advance and decide whether you need to purchase extra miles in advance at a lower price than if you paid for them upon returning the vehicle. We chalked up a bit of extra mileage cos of unexpected winter road closures, zipping back and forth over the state lines of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

Thirdly, the RV is a serious gas guzzler. A full tank set us back by more than US$50 each time.

Finally, getting an RV does not replace the cost of paying for accommodation. RV parks can charge an outrageous amount for a full hook-up (i.e. water, electricity, WiFi and dump facilities) but since it was still early in the season, we managed to get a couple of good discounts. Also because many of the RV parks were just starting to get into the swing of business and were only half-functioning (e.g. no fresh water cos the pipes were iced up, shower stalls under renovation, credit card facilities not available, etc.) It helped that some kind campers contributed information on free campgrounds online, which helped cut down the parking costs a bit.

Dan spent a fair amount of time researching and comparing prices online before we decided to make a booking. It almost broke the bank, but it would be an experience we would never be able to get driving around Southeast Asia, so we went for it.

The apartment we rented

Of course, someone needed to do the driving. And I'm mighty proud of the hub for taking this on and doing really well. He also learnt a few things from manuevering the massive load:

DC: Baby, when you get pregnant, I'll be totally sympathetic when you tell me that you feel like a whale.

YL: Huh? What's that got to do with anything?

DC: Cos it's so difficult moving this massive RV around. And that's what pregnancy must feel like.

The happy driverman

There were a couple of nights where finding a place to park for the night proved to be a challenge. There were no campgrounds open in Grand Teton and within close proximity of the park. Even the helpful guy at the visitor centre was at a loss for suggestions. In the end, we camped out in a supermaket parking lot. We found slight comfort in knowing that we weren't the only squatters there that night. Even though we had bought alot of groceries from the supermarket earlier that day, we still felt rather guilty and scooted off at 5am the next day to a less obvious spot. The wildlife observation area was pretty adequate and provided us with a wonderful view of the sunrise while we brushed our teeth.

Trying to blend in with the wildlife.

Cooking turned out to be pretty fun! We had pasta... lots of pasta. It was mostly my job to cook and Dan to wash up - but sometimes we swapped roles cos he makes a pretty mean pot of instant noodles.

The chef hard at work

I'm pretty pleased at rediscovering some basic cooking skills, which regressed and went into hibernation after home economics lessons ended in lower secondary school. I did get an 'A' in home econs after all. And I remember baking alot - just for fun - with friends during those old school days (yes, for those who did this particular Facebook quiz, SCGS girls do gather at each other's houses to bake cookies and cakes.) Well, it proved good enough for the hubby to chow down!

When you're wife puts her cooking before you, you EAT IT.

Every night, after the washing up is done, we turn up the thermostat to make the RV nice and toasty and invite one of our friends to join us for dessert. Sometimes, one of them volunteers by jumping out of the open freezer earlier in the day when the vehicle is in motion. The volunteer is the chosen one. If not, we just pick from our selection.

Ben and Jerry are friends, not food. Riiiiight.

At the same time, out come the lappies and this is pretty much the scene until (a) we run out of battery cos we're at some free campground with no hook-up facilities, or (b) we get our money's worth of electricity and WiFi by surfing and sorting out our photos till we nod off at the table.

Surf for all it's worth!

Then it's the last stop before going to bed:

Use me! Not!

But we can't bring ourselves to pee and poop in our own backyard. Cos the thought of driving around with your ex-bodily contents swishing around in the tank is seriously rather gross. Not to mention having to dispose of it yourself before returning the RV 9 days later. So we braved the cold and made dashes for the RV park's restrooms in our slippers. There were a couple of times when it was waaaay too cold to go out early in the morning or late at night, so we succumbed to doing a few Number 1s in our RV loo.

Dashing through the snow...

Then we climb into the sleeping compartment, struggle into our navy blue sleepsacks (sorta like sleeping bags but without the padding) and looking like a pair of blue cocoons, we knock out for the night.

Come to bed NOW!

Life on the go is fun. If we stayed here, I think I would love to get our own RV!

RV there yet?

From Wikipedia: In North American the term recreational vehicle, and its acronym RV, are generally used to refer to an enclosed piece of equipment synchronously used as both a vehicle and a temporary travel home.

We got a RV from Salt Lake City for 8 days, which should be enough to allow us to visit (yet) another 2 National Parks - The Grand Teton and Yellowstone. We could have driven and gotten motel stays like what we have been doing, of course, but one of the purposes of our trip is also to try new experiences that we normally would not be able to get at home. First thing that really hit us about the RV was its size.

One of the smallest RVs is the biggest vehicle I ever drove

I mean, we drive a Suzuki Swift back in Singapore. And so far, we've only needed to rent Compact or Economy cars to get around. The RV is probably 4 times the size of any of the cars we've driven - I felt like such a bug.

Splat!

The size of the RV makes the rear-view mirror pretty useless. So I also had to learn how to use only the 2 side mirrors to tell if there are other vehicles coming up beside me.

Oops! Big truck coming!

The second thing about the RV is how compact the interior is. Our RV can comfortably sleep 4-5 pax, which was just nice for all of us.

We have a "bedroom" near the rear of the RV, right next to the toilet/shower cubicle.

The rear bedroom, which became our "bag dump"

Facing the back of the RV

Facing the front

Then, moving towards the front of the vehicle, we have a wash basin, stove, kitchen sink, refrigerator, freezer, sitting/dining area, then the driver and vehicle commander's seats. The sitting/dining area can also be converted to bedspace, and there is one queen-sized bed above the cab as well.

A skylight above the bed above the cab! And windows too!

The third thing about using the RV is resource management. The RV comes with a fresh water tank, a grey water tank and a black water tank. Fresh water is what we normally use from the taps. The grey water tank contains water that we have used for washing dishes, brushing our teeth, shower, etc. The black water tank contains all sorts of pea and sheet from the toilets. Obviously, we need to constantly top up the freshwater tank, and dispose of the contents of the other two.

One bathroom shared by all of us. A tough juggle for fresh water, grey and black!

In addition to water and waste management, we also have to work under limited power sources. The thermostat runs on propane, as does the stove. The refrigerator runs on a mixture of battry and gas, whichever is more energy efficient. Visits to RV campsites are therefore a necessary part of renting an RV. Sure, we try to manage our costs by sleeping in free campgrounds - either in approved park spaces or the "unauthorised, one-eye closed" carparks of the nearest supermarket, but we also alternate those with campsites that offer hookups, so that we are able to tap on additional electricity to power our laptops, charge our cameras and phones, obtain fresh water, and also to dump the our waste.


Clearing the waste from our RV:

Step 1: Wear your gloves, and grab the same sewage hose that everyone who rented the RV before me has been using



















Step 2: Connect one end to the designated dump point, and the other to the waste tanks. Black water first, then grey water - so that the grey water also rinses the hose














Step 3: Open the valve and watch in horror as the hose leaks while it empties your waste.













All in all, renting an RV is a pretty interesting experience. It's a little scary at first, but you learn to manage. And it is great, as long as you have good friends with whom you can get comfortable with, and not worry about nudity or snoring. So far, it's been a great time!

Ben & Jerry - Our friends who travelled with us