Something Stinks

Yesterday after Darlie came out of the bathroom she said, "something stinks."  I replied, "should I be surprised?"  She said, "No.  Really.  Something stinks."  I mixed up some of the brew we put down the toilet to deal with such matters.  When I poured it in and flushed, it blasted right back out at me.  We must have a back up.  

Our camp

For those who have no idea how an RV toilet works, it is basically a hole that leads to a tank under the floor.  When you push the flush peddle the contents drop down this hole into the tank.  There happens to be an elbow that can catch matter and plug things up.  After astute analysis of the situation  I determined that is what has happened to our system.  The problem now is that our toilet isn't like the one at home where you pull out the plunger and pump away.  This toilet has no water in it.  You have to run water in to the bowl with the foot peddle partially depressed adding enough to successfully wash deposits down the hole.  Our problem occurred when one of us didn't fill the bowl sufficiently to accomplish the job.

Black Eyed Susan

So how do you handle a situation like this?  Well you could put on a rubber glove and probe down in the hole to see if you can dislodge the clog.  That idea quickly gave me a mental image of an arm stuck in said hole.  I could imagine rescue personnel coming in to extract me laughing uncontrollably as they discussed how to get me loose.  I quickly shelved that idea.

I decided to cut a piece off one of our water hoses and use it like a rotor router to dislodge the clog.  It worked.  I hated to ruin a perfectly good hose to accomplish this but the bright side is I have a handy dislodging tool for the next back up.

Teton Sunset

We have always enjoyed viewing wildlife out here in the west.  Yellowstone and Grand Tetons always teams with such critters causing traffic jams as people leap from their cars to take pictures.

This year however, we have been unable to locate many animals.  Where have they gone?  A park ranger said the predators had a very good winter.  Since the reintroduction of wolves to these parks the number of elk has dropped dramatically.  Rangers claim they were too numerous and numbers had to be reduced for the health of the herd.

Fat and Happy

We have been leaving just before sunset and driving back roads to known areas where elk and other wildlife can be seen.   There has been little to see.   We drove 70 miles last night until after dark searching for elk.  Places where we had seen them in the past failed to produce.  Darlie, armed with her camera, was on alert the whole time hoping to get that perfect shot.  Our efforts produced one photo of a distant elk.  

We see more wildlife in our backyard than we have seen here this trip.  It is difficult to imagine so many thousands of acres of land without anything visible.  We saw a few birds and ground squirrels and the herd of buffalo that occupy the same field day and night along the Rt 191.  At home I see alligators, otters, raccoons, opossums, herons, ibis, lizards and even a green iguana now and then right out my back window.   The plus side though is that it is much cooler here right now.  We were down into the 30s last night.

Western Bluebird

We have enjoyed our week here traveling dirt roads exploring.  The view of the mountains changes with the day.  We love it here.  But time has come to move on.  We have no destination in mind.  We think we will wander over into Idaho.  I need to get an oil change and have my exhaust brake checked.   This area has little to offer in those kinds of services.  We will probably go to Idaho Falls or somewhere nearby to find a Ford dealer for service.   I made reservations for July 4th weekend in Dillon, MT. .  We don't want to find ourselves without a place to stay over the busy holiday.  There are a few things in that area to explore while we are there.  From there who knows?  We have traveled this area extensively so there are few new things to go see.  We will just bump along until we find something interesting.