I wrote my last post on Sunday, which was Father’s Day. I had a relaxing day starting with a fantastic Formula One race at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. I followed that with the Moto GP race in Germany. Donna went for a walk in the morning and got her exercise in.

To cap off Father’s Day, I grilled a ribeye steak we bought from Bob Ower – his cattle are fed sprouted barley, a superfood. I wrote about his process with the barley in this post.

We went to Smith’s Grocery on Monday and stocked up the pantry, refrigerator and freezer with food. I found a whole chicken for $2.59! After getting the groceries put away, I got Donna’s bike prepped and she went for a 15-mile ride up Yellowstone Road. She fought a headwind all the way out to the north end of the road and had the wind at her back on the return.

While she was out doing that, I broke down the chicken and put the parts in the freezer for a total of four meals. I’m getting pretty good at the process. Then I set up my amp and pedal board and played my guitar for about half an hour. I wanted to get a good feel for the strings I was using before I replaced them with the strings I got from Curt Mangan.

The strings I was using were a standard nickel coated 10-46 set I bought online from an outfit in San Diego called Webstrings. They claim they are made in the USA, but don’t reveal which factory makes the strings or whether they’re assembled with USA sourced wire. When I bought these strings, they had a incredible deal on bulk purchases and I bought two dozen sets. The set I put on my Gibson ES-339 a few weeks ago was my last full set. I have five packs of strings left, but each pack was opened so I could rob the high “E” string. I broke five “E” strings out of the 19 sets I used – that’s over a 20% failure rate. I rarely break guitar strings. Most of these breakages happened when first tuning up to pitch or shortly thereafter. These strings sound okay, but they obviously have a quality issue.

The funny thing is, I bought a bulk pack from Gibson when we were in Memphis. Their 10-set bulk pack comes with two extra high “E” and “B” strings ( the two thinnest strings). But I don’t recall ever breaking a Gibson string.

I took a break (no pun intended) and changed to the Curt Mangan (CM) strings. The first thing I noticed was the brighter finish on the CM strings. The nickel finish was so bright, they were almost white compared to the Webstrings. I gave them a good stretch and tuned them up to pitch. When I started to play, I found out that brightness wasn’t only in the appearance – the tone was noticeably brighter than the Webstrings. Chords sounded cleaner with distinct note definition. I know strings are a small part of the equation when it comes to guitar tone, but the difference was there – it wasn’t my imagination. Now I’ll have to see how well these strings hold up. Curt Mangan sells six-packs of string sets for around $7 per set – and he only uses USA-sourced material, no imported wire.

Tuesday morning we hit the road just after 9am. Packing and getting road-ready is much easier and faster these days as we are traveling lighter and I don’t have to pack and secure the trailer. We drove back toward downtown to hit the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center for fuel. I topped up with 60 gallons at $3.58/gallon – gulp.

We headed north on US191 – it was mostly flat sagebrush country. It was very rural with miles of road without any dwellings. Donna started keeping track of antelope sightings for something to do. By the time we reached Pinedale, she was up to 80 antelope or so. She eventually lost count around 122 sightings and I’m sure we missed as many as we saw. Most of the antelope we saw weren’t in the open sagebrush country – they were more concentrated around ranch land and towns. There are better food sources and access to water there – that’s my theory.

US191 follows the Green River for a while, then we entered the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The scenery changed to pine trees and steep mountains on either side of the highway. We could see snow still on the tops of the Grand Tetons. The road followed the Hoback River and was very scenic. We didn’t have any long grades, just a few short climbs and descents. I think we topped out at just over 7,000 feet above sea level.

At the junction with US89, we turned west. US89 follows the Snake River through the National Forest. At the town of Alpine, we hit US26 which runs alongside the Palisades Reservoir. We saw several RVs camped along the huge reservoir – it looked like dispersed dry-camping was allowed. It was a very scenic area and I wouldn’t mind stopping off there next time we are in this neck of the woods. The southern tip of the reservoir is in Wyoming while the majority of it is in Idaho. We crossed the border and soon after, we exited the National Forest at Swan Valley. The landscape became more agricultural as we neared our destination.

Our stopping point was Juniper Campground – a county park – at the Ririe Reservoir. The nearest town is Ririe (Rye-ree) a few miles away. It’s a very small town with no real shopping or grocery store. For groceries, we’ll go to Idaho Falls, about 17 miles away.

Juniper Campground has three loops of RV sites – “A”, “B” and “C” loops. The “A” loop sites are reservation only and are fully booked up. The “B” and “C” loops are first come – first served. Full hook-ups are $25/night. Some sites are 30-amp electric service while most also have 50-amp service. We heard about this place from our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer and took a chance on finding an open site. We found site B20 open and snagged it.

There were a couple of other open sites in the loop, but one was a handicap access site and the other wasn’t very level and didn’t have any shade. Once I checked the satellite reception in B20, we were good to go. It was about a 250-mile travel day and that’s about as far as I want to drive the coach. Ozark the cat was asleep most of the day after having dramamine for breakfast.

I paid for 14 nights here – that’s the stay limit. This will get us through the Fourth of July weekend. It’s always hard to find an open campsite over the holiday weekend. Jeff and Deb Spencer are due to arrive here from Yellowstone next Monday and they plan to stay for a week.

We’re at an elevation of 5,200 feet above sea level and it’s much cooler here. Upper 70s are forecast for next couple of days, but it’ll warm up after that. Next week we’ll probably see 90s and stay hot through the Fourth of July weekend. Our loosely drawn plans will have us heading west across Idaho and I hope to make a stop in Emmett, Idaho to visit my buddy from San Diego, Tye Moody. Tye sold his house in Bay Park and moved to Emmett last year.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!