This blog entry is coming to you from Missoula, Montana.  It is now July 29, 2009.  Since the last installment we have been in Cody, Wyoming for one night, Yellowstone National Park for two weeks, Grand Teton National Park for six nights, and Dillon, Montana for three nights.  Here's the rundown of our enjoyments.

Cody, Wyoming - Got in an accident in the Ponderosa RV Park - see picture.  Yes, the old man managed to put a little ding in the side of the HH, and do some damage to the Cody, Wyoming electric company's property at he same time.  What fun.  I ran into an electrical junction box, and moved it about 6-8 inches above the ground it was originally placed in.  Big doin's here.  The Cody police department, Officer Harris, responded to the problem.  Full report, in triplicate, along with another 4-page form I get to fill out and send to the Wyoming DOT.  Real big doin's.  Next was the guy from the power company who explained that the box I hit carries the electricity for half the citizens of Cody, Wyoming.  Huge doin's.  Imagine why they put such an important box of stuff right next to the driveway in an RV park where rookies like me would be driving past every 30 minutes.  Unbelievable, awesome doin's.  BTW - Coors played no part in the accident, but had a large role in the aftermath.


We were more than anxious to vacate our spot in Cody, and head for the scenic confines of Yellowstone National Park.  Up early, and out of Cody.  Pretty drive up the valley toward Yellowstone.  My Senior Pass worked perfectly, getting us into the park via the East Entrance.  The gateway has not changed since the park opened.  What was once ample room for a horse and buggy to enter, now afforded me and my HH at least 1.5 inch on either side.  Made it without a scratch.  Up and over Sylvan Pass without a problem.  On the downside of the pass, we encountered our first "bearjam".  Whenever a bear is seen from the road, the first people to see him stop (in the road, off the road, whatever), jump out, and start pointing at the beast.  Next, the first 50 cars from either direction stop also, making sure that everybody else will have no choice but to enjoy this rare viewing opportunity.  This time it was a black bear, 20 yards from the road, eating whatever bears eat, and ignoring us humans.  After clearing this jam, and within a mile of our campground, we came upon a "buffalojam".  That's right, cars on the road, not moving, and buffalo on the side wondering what humans really do. 

We arrived at the campground rather early, despite the jams, and were assigned a site on a corner lot.  We were worried about maneuvering the HH because we had heard lots of stories about how little room there really is in the Fishing Bridge campground of Yellowstone.  The position of the lot facilitated easier movement, and we were soon parked smartly for our two week stay.

 
Overall, Yellowstone is the number one place.  With it's geysers and other thermal phenomena, it has more of these than the rest of the world combined.  We saw Old Faithful go off on two different days, and saw lots of other geysers, hotsprings, mudpots, and fumeroles (holes in the ground with hot smelly gas coming out).  It's scary to stand there and look at the stuff and think about the power that goes in to making all this happen.  One day, as Kay and I were walking around one of the thermal sites, Kay heard a little kid ask his mother, "Mom, how did they make Yellowstone?"   Six Flags went out of their way on this one!  Of course Yellowstone isn't limited to the thermal stuff.  Have to admire the lesser attractions like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, or the beautiful Lake Yellowstone, or Firehole Canyon, or the surrounding mountains, or the plants and animals that live, walk and swim in this wonderland. 

Some of the highlights of our stay were wildlife oriented.  We saw hundreds of bison, and were treated to watching dozens of them just take off and swim the Yellowstone River one afternoon.  Mostly moms and babies, they just decided to run to the river's edge, jump in, swim the swift current to the other side and shake it off when they got there.  Really cool.


On one of our first days, we went to a ranger program that started at 7AM at the Grizzly Overlook in Hayden Valley.  The theme of the talk and walk was the wildlife of the area, and in particular in Hayden valley.  Everything can be seen in the valley, including bison, bear, elk, deer, wolves, and numerous other species.  On our morning walk we saw a coyote howling atop a nearby hill, a river otter, and some wolves in the far distance that looked more like fleas in my binoculars.  It was a very interesting program.  Guida, our guide ranger, even picked up a pile of buffalo dung to show us.  Those in the crowd who expressed revolt at the sight were quieted by Guida, who assured them that what she held was merely plant tissues that had passed through a buffalo.  No big deal.

 
In addition to driving around and seeing the beautiful scenery, we took some time to ride our bikes and take some hikes.  We took a bike ride to Lone Star Geyser, which is near Old Faithful, but back in the woods where you have to do something extra to go see it.  It is a beautiful 2.5 mile ride to the geyser, following the fabulous Firehole River on the way.  It is supposed to go off every couple of hours, so we packed our lunch and went to see it.  Our luck changed on this day, and we got to see the full eruption of the geyser, starting only about 10 minutes after our arrival.   Perfect timing.  See picture below of the Geezer and the Geyser.

One of our favorites (especially Kay's favorite) is the White Pelican.  There are lots of these in the park - they actually breed on an island in Lake Yellowstone.  These are large, friendly-looking birds.  Their pastime consists of floating effortlessly down the Yellowstone River looking for a bite to eat.  Whenever they feel like they have gone far enough, they just take off, fly back up-river, and repeat the process.  Kay just likes to sit and watch them do their thing.




Another of our favorites was the hike to Crystal Lake.  This is another 5 mile round trip, but this one is entirely on foot - no bikes.  Nice walk to a nice lake on a beautiful day.  Along the trail I did find the wolf track that you see in the picture.  Of course Kay doesn't believe it is really a wolf, preferring to believe that it was just somebody's dog or something like that.  The phone in the picture is almost 4" long.   What do you think?


One of our last nights at Yellowstone we went on a wagon trip to a Cowboy Cookout at the Roosevelt Lodge area.   Seemed a little hokie at first, but it was really fun.  Fun to ride in a horse-drawn wagon, through wonderful scenery, to all the ribeye steak you can eat. 

We stayed busy every day of our two weeks in Yellowstone.  We saw something new, different, and wonderful almost every step of the way.  Two weeks is about the minimum that should be planned to really see a lot of Yellowstone.  We hope we get a chance to go back another day.

After two glorious weeks in Yellowstone, we reluctantly packed our stuff, hitched up the HH, and headed down the road to Grand Teton National Park.  It is only 100 miles from the Fishing Bridge to the Gros Ventre campground on the south end of Grand Teton NP, but it drives like 500.  As you are heading southbound through the southern end of Yellowstone, there is a flashing sign that says there is construction ahead, expect delays, and "The pavement ends in 32 miles".  They were not kidding.  At the start of the construction area there is a bridge being refurbished, and it is cut down to just one narrow lane.  They have flagmen on either side who meter the traffic in opposite directions.  First they let about 300 cars go in one direction, and then 300 in the other.  Queues at either end can run into the miles in length.  Exacerbating the problem was a bearjam about a quarter of a mile north of the bridge.  We sat for quite a while at the head of the southbound queue, waiting for the northbound cars to creep past the bear lookers.  Oh well, could have been worse.......and it got that way.  When they say the pavement ends, they mean it.  We endured a dozen miles of rough, washboard, nasty stuff that wouldn't be tolerated in the hinterlands of rural Nebraska.  It was a miracle that nothing in the trailer shook loose from the cupboards.  I was just glad to get through it with all eight tires still inflated.

As bad as the road and traffic was, its memory is quickly erased by the first sight of the Tetons.  This is absolutely the most magnificent looking range of mountains anywhere that I have seen.  There are no buffering foothills to get you accustomed to the sight.  Just the Snake River, and then they just rise up and take your breath away.  Along this road we saw our first moose - a female - dining on some kind of aquatic plants near the edge of the Snake River. 

Our campground got its name from its location along the bank of the Gros Ventre River.  Gros Ventre is French for "big belly".  It seems that the French explorers encountered some Indians nearby who were making arced signs with their hands in front of their stomachs, making a perfect charade game visage of a fat person.  It stuck, and therefore the name.  This was also our first attempt at "dry camping".  Dry camping means that you have no utility hook-ups at all.  The trailer is nicely self-contained, so we really didn't suffer at all.  Of course we had the generator to provide some of the really basic necessities, e.g. the microwave to heat up leftovers.

One of the first days there we went to nearby Teton Village.  This is a high-dollar ski area that features a gondola ride that rises over 4000' from the 7000' town to the top of the 11000'+ mountain.  They said that the thing would carry 100 people.  I am glad that there weren't that many people there on the day we went.  Old Larry isn't too fond of these kinds of things.  Although we enjoyed the whole thing, Larry was happy to have both feet firmly planted back on the earthquake prone ground.  The picture below was taken looking behind us as we went up the cable.  We are about 1/3 of the way up in the picture.


Probably the highpoint of our stay at GTNP was our morning float down the Snake River.  It isn't really white water, but is pretty swift.  The primary objective of the float is to observe wildlife and drink in the glory of the mountains.  We saw a number of waterfowl, and no less than three bald eagles.  This was really thrilling for us, as this was the closest we had ever been to one of the great birds.  I got some nice pictures of the Tetons from the river, including the one below.




Some other highlights of our stay at Grand Teton NP was our 12-mile bike hike from the Moose Entry Station to South Jenny Lake and back.  We made the 12 miles with no problem and  the best part was that we got back to the truck just ahead of a down pouring rainstorm.  Also fun was a boat ride across Jenny Lake and a rather strenuous hike up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point.  We pretty much got to see all there was to see in the park.  Of course you continuously look at the overwhelming feature you see from everywhere - The Tetons.

Jackson, Wyoming is a fun place.  We had a few drinks there, and few good meals there, went to the Saturday morning farmers' market, and even saw a shootout (staged) in the street.  Larry had the best Mexican meal EVER at The Merry Piglet.  Mahi-Mahi fajitas were magnificent.  The brisket and beer at the Snake River Brewery weren't bad, either.

Back-to-back stays at two of the most wonderful national parks anywhere have us spoiled.  What can top these?  Guess we will have to head north and give Glacier NP a chance.

Sunday morning we hitched up once again and headed for Dillon, Montana.  This will be our first night ever under the Big Sky.  Nice drive following the Snake River all the way to Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Yes, the Snake goes over Idaho Falls.  Even got to see some potato fields on the way through the corner of Idaho.  For the record, Larry is more excited about potato fields than Kay.  Dillon is located on a flat river plane between mountains to the east and west.  Nice RV park, and nice to have electricity again, not to mention high speed internet. 

Really only had two days to tour this area, and with two weeks worth of laundry to do, and some grocery shopping, we were lucky to see some stuff.  On the first day - after the laundry and grocery runs - we went to Bannack State Historical Park.  This is a gold rush era ghost town about 25 miles west of Dillon.  Really a neat, well preserved little town. 

On our full day we decided to go east to Nevada City and Virginia City.  Nevada City is another ghost town and Virginia City pretty much is too, but they have made it more into a tourist destination.  Now that we have internet again, I decided to look at Google Maps to figure out how to get to Nevada City.  Of course the primary route circumvents the intervening mountains on the north side, using all paved state roads.  That's cool, but not too adventurous.  Google Maps shows an alternate route taking some roads all named after creeks - Stone Creek, Cottonwood Creek, etc.  Decided to just take that scenic route over and then the easy way home.  Brilliant.  The first part of the scenic route was an unpaved road (expected), but was fairly smooth and plenty wide.  Soon we began a climb into the mountains, but the road was still fairly smooth and fairly wide.  Soon we were a long way into the mountains and came upon a large mining area very high in the mountains.  It appeared to be idle, with no work going on.  As soon as we passed the mining area, the road began to narrow dramatically.  Also, the little red lines that show the roads on the truck navigator screen (and serve to reassure the driver) began to go away, or at least significantly diverge from the indicated location of the truck.  Shortly, the narrowing road became two ruts on the side of the mountain.  Next came some turns that we weren't expecting.  At one point we actually backed down a road for a couple blocks after we reasoned that this would be smart.  After some really astute dead reckoning, and some incredibly good luck, the white knuckled driver and his navigating spouse found the way down the mountain on the other side.  As we gingerly picked our way down the mountain on the path they call a road we swore an oath never to leave a paved road in Montana again.  Just to put this into perspective - On the entire 50+ mile journey through the mountains we never encountered another operating vehicle.  Only Texas folk are dumb enough to go this way.
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Anyway, we did some panning for garnets in the Ruby River Reservoir on the other side and had some fun in the ghost towns.  Really wish we had more time in Dillon.  Fly fishing is supposed to be some of the best in the world.  Guess it will be an excuse to come back.