Palisades Reservoir

On Sunday morning we packed up the camper and drove 55 miles to a Forest Service campground at the base of the dam on Palisades Reservoir.  We are about 15 miles from the Wyoming border right alongside the Snake River.  The water management folks have been letting water out of the reservoir at a greater rate than normal, which causes the Snake River to be higher and faster than normal.  The snow pack up in the Tetons is much higher than usual and the weather has been cooler than normal.  The concern is that a sudden warming spell will melt the snow at a faster rate than normal which would create flooding conditions if there wasn’t enough room in the reservoir for the extra water.  Here is a picture of our campground taken from the road at the top of the dam.

We got here Sunday afternoon and set up in an electric site at the far end of the campground.  That is us all by ourselves in the top center of the picture (the little white dot). 

Rates for Senior Citizens here are $8.00 a night.  (There are advantages to old age .)   We could have set up in one of the “boondock” sites closer to the water and in the trees, but I wanted to try out my new DirectTV setup and needed a steady flow of electricity.  I got the dish mounted on the tripod stand and connected the cable to the cable TV connection on the camper.  I set the dish in the general direction of the satellite and hoped for the best.  Aiming the dish requires the efforts of two persons, one to watch some numbers on the TV screen and the other to fine tune the dish aiming.  After several tries, we got no numbers indicating the presence of a satellite.  So I brought the cable through the front door and hooked it directly into the receiver.  Viola!  We got numbers.  So I started testing cables in the audio visual cabinet.  It turns out the cable wired into the camper was not carrying the signal, even though it worked great in the last campground when we hooked up to the campground cable system.  So after a lot of close inspection of the bowels of the camper by removing several cover panels in the basement , I found a way to feed the cable through to the AV cabinet.  A little final adjusting and we had satellite TV.  So here we are in a great campground by a scenic river with electricity, satellite TV, and (thanks to my Verizon air card) internet access.  Life is good.

On Monday I had a work assignment about 40 miles away at a rural lodge and cabins.  It took me a little over an hour to get that done and then back to the campground for lunch with my sweetie.  After lunch, we took the pooches on a day trip to a nearby wilderness campground intended for smaller campers than ours.  We went on a short hike with the dogs and came back to the campground to prepare dinner. 

It started raining Monday evening and has been raining pretty steady ever since until now, which is about noon on Tuesday.  I am glad we got the TV thing going, because cabin fever would set in quick if I was shut inside and didn’t have some form of entertainment.  When we check to see if the puppies want to go for a walk, they go to the doorway of the camper, look out at the rain and turn around and curl up on the floor (Sammy) and on the couch (Annie).  Smart dogs!  It is supposed to clear up tomorrow.  Maybe I can get in a little fishing.  We are headed home on Thursday.  The next trip is scheduled for June 12th.  Catch up with you then.