Whew, a long but beautiful drive as we dodged storms to left and the right of us. 9 1/2 hours later and almost 800 kilometres or 500 miles later we arrived safely at our next lay over stop here in Little Diamond Lake in Newport, Washington. This includes leaving Idaho, driving mainly on Montana, then crossing back into Idaho (a crazy shaped state) before crossing the last bridge into not only Newport but a new time zone, one hour back. Why do this all in one stretch and break away from our rule of no more than 3 hours of driving or 300 miles? Well, this was a test to see how we could deal with a longer drive, that and we wanted to get the lion’s share of the driving coming back out of the way.
So how did we do, well pretty good actually, well we did better than the truck with our a/c dying about 2/3’s in. The drive was pretty demanding on the truck with towing through many mountain summits, we pushed it hard. I believe what happened is that the systems were working so hard that the a/c compressor became overheated and a sensor shut it down before any damage. I will confirm this with the dealer at time of service. That said, all my other readings like, engine and oil temps all stayed level without any cautions. I turned off the a/c for about an hour and a bit and when we were about a half hour away, I switched it back on and we were back in business, so all good.
A few pics of our last few days. We stayed close to home on our day 5 and enjoyed the nature around us at the campground. I think this is a good campground for those visiting Yellowstone. It is about 25 minutes out of the west gate and offer good size, treed sites with full hook ups (50/30) all for about 85.00 / night (at this time of year). I did do a comparison to the KOA parks closer to the West Gate and the prices there were closer to 150.00 /night.
The campground here in Newport is a partnership park with KOA and Thousand Trails. There is distinct sections between each, the TT sites seem to be larger with more trees between the sites. The hookups are water and 30 amp power, no sewage. So for us great for a few nights as we typically fill our tanks by the end of the third day, so our two nights works perfectly. More on our stay here later.
Again, our pics of the last few days…
The Snake River.
Fly fishing is huge here. I’ve yet to see anyone catch anything
New office/store at the RV grounds
Laundry, bathhouse with ping pong and horseshoe pitch.
Our corner site, number 58.
Scenic driving
Storms to the left and right of us, pleasant weather for our route.
Crossing into Washington State.
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