June 9. Arrive at Estes Park

 We only have about a 4 hour drive today so we’re pretty leisurely about getting on the road.  Nick heats up our leftover pizza on the grill outside our KOA cabin.  I’m so glad we haven’t been staying in these places very much!  But it was nice to not have to take the tent down this morning.  

This part of Wyoming is flat, flat, flat.  We’ve seen lots of flat land but most of it has been with sagebrush and dry.  This is flat and green.  Still sparsely populated.  Northern Iowa and parts of Illinois are flat like this but growing corn.  Then there is the flat like this and growing wheat in Kansas.  

Hidden Brain entertains us through the flat miles.  

Then all of a sudden everything changes and we’re in the mountains again.  

We follow a pretty mountain stream through the valley for an hour or so.  How is it through all those curvy, beautiful miles, I didn’t take any pictures….

We go through Greely, Co.  Wow.  People, cars, chains that I recognize.  Haven’t been in a city this large for a couple of weeks.  On to Estes Park.  Oh, all the tourists and all the tourist shops.  But we’re not like them.  We don’t stop to poke around in the shops.  We go through town to our digs for the next 3 nights.  Oh we have arrived at civilization.  A hot tub in our room, a king sized bed.  A shower in our room.  Even a microwave and refrigerator.  And a gas fire place.  Pam, who checks us in gives us some ideas of restaurants and a hike to do this afternoon.  Oh and if the elk are wandering through between our cabin and the main house, go around behind the house rather than next to them as this time of the year they can be quite aggressive.  Three mule deer have wandered through since we arrived.  They are a bit bigger than the deer that come through our yard at home and have bigger ears and a thicker coat.  

We haven’t had lunch so go to “I Need Pie bakery and diner” that was recommended by Pam.  We were warned that the servings are huge so we share a meatloaf platter and each have a piece of pie.  They were out of rhubarb but did have strawberry rhubarb.  Nick had a peanut butter pie.  

We then took the suggested hike/walk at Lilly Lake.  It is a part of the National Park System but located outside of the main park.  

 

A bag of popcorn, soak in the hot tub and we’re happy campers.  Hmmmm, make that happy cabiners at the Mountain Shadows resort.

June 8. Driving day on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park

 We wake up and it’s raining.  Packing up a campsite in the rain is the pits.   It slows down to a light sprinkle.  Let’s forget about making breakfast, pack up as quickly as we can and get on the road.  Working together,  we got the camp completely broken down and the car packed up in about 30 minutes.  We stopped at the camp store where Nick could get some coffee.  It also had a gift shop area.  I think the coffee place and the gift shop are in cahoots as it took a really long time. For Nick to get his coffee.  In the meantime, I racked up over $100 at the gift shop.  I didn’t buy things at the earlier National Parks because I didn’t want to lug them all over creation.  And  Andy is going to be here in a few months and will need to take Miami gifts back to Japan.  Those little pot scrubbers shaped like bear and elk are light and will pack easily.  Been thinking about getting David a stuffed animal, a mug and some earrings for me….. We had to go to a different camp store to get a book that I saw there and hadn’t seen anywhere else.  “Whose Baby Butt is it?  Hopefully all 3 of my grandchildren will like it.  

Even in the rain, the Tetons are beautiful.

 Today we’re driving to Douglas, WY which is just a stop to break up the drive to Rocky Mountain National Park.  It’s about a 6 hour drive.  Early in our drive, we come across colorful, eroded bluffs.  Remind me a bit of the Badlands.  Towns are far apart.  We planned ahead better and filled the gas tank as we were leaving the Tetons.  Population of Kemouth - 8!  I knew Wyoming was sparsely populated but wow! Can’t even marry the girl next door.  

We. Have lunch in Riverton. This actually is big enough to have some chain restaurants.  Yelp helps us find a local place that looks interesting.  Beans and Cuisine.  Good choice.  I had a gyro and Nick had a chicken curry sandwich.  

Now we’re in the. Flatlands.  We can spot the. Showers from miles away.  We listen to an entire Nero Wolf  detective book.  Guess what? He figures it out!

We’re easing back into civilization by staying at a KOA in a cabin.  At least I get a hot shower.  Oh it feels sooooo good.  Second private campground where the pool isn’t functioning.  But there is a miniature golf course.  Sure am glad we haven’t been staying in  KOAs this whole time.  There is actually an Indian restaurant here connected to a motel.  They serve steak and curries.  We go for the Indian cuisine and are quite happy with our decision.  The waiter, who looked like he was from India, kept asking us if the food was ok and seemed extremely pleased that we liked it.  Could be a hard sell in this part of the country.  I have noticed since we got to Wyoming that it is very common for people to openly pray before they start eating their restaurant meals.  

June 7. Second day at Yellowstone

 We’re in for a lot of driving today.

Our first stop is  at Yellowstone Lake which is the highest crater lake in the Americas.  It was formed by two separate volcanic eruptions several thousand years apart.  There continues to be hydrothermal  activity at the bottom of the lake which keeps the temperature of the water a bit warmer than just melted snow.  There are several hot pots next to the lake in the area where we stopped and some just off shore.  A bagel of kayaks paddled by.  That does look like a beautiful place to paddle.

  We stop at the Southern Rim lookout but it is starting to rain.  We decide to catch it on the way back.  We have been very lucky weather-wise.  Really mostly clear days everyday!  

Our drive takes us up over the continental divide at 8859’ at the Dunraven Pass.  The expanses below are good places to spot wildlife.  There are pullouts with people lined up with cameras and special equipment for spying those elusive bears, elk, buffalo and deer.  A sign saying to be careful as wildgame is on the road.  It’s a moveable sign and a little further on there are buffalo ambling along side the road.  Okay, I’ll take a picture of that.

We find a nice picnic area and enjoy the lunch we packed this morning.  Little ground squirrels are waiting hoping that we will drop some crumbs.  

There are lots of waterfalls scattered around the park.  We stop at Tower Falls.  These are beautiful falls but we’ve seen so many really impressive ones that we just say, “Very nice!” And move on.  

At the top of the “8” is Mammoth Hot Springs.  Coming up to it, it looks like a HUGE snow wall.  I’m thinking that it is going to be something like the hot springs we saw in Turkey.  Nick’s back is hurting and the sight of all the stairs up is daunting.  There appears to be a middle level.  Nick thinks he can do that much.  We get there and it just isn’t the cool place I was envisioning.  The road to the upper section was closed  so the only way to get there was all those wooden stairs.  We’ll never know if at the top it was super cool.  We have seen so many super cool things on this adventure that if we miss one, the world won’t fall apart.  

At this point, we turn back and start retracing the Eastern side of the “8”.  There are some places that we held off on for the drive back.  At Canyon Village we try the South Rim again where it was raining this morning.  Well, it’s still sprinkling there.  (I think it may be the only part of the park where it is raining) It is an out and back road.  The end of the road is called Artist Point.  well, we have to see that!  It is really nice and the people’s emotions just seemed a bit more relaxed and happy.  People are generally friendly everywhere at the parks but there was something special here.  Everyone was smiling,, offering to take pictures for people.  

We head back to our campsite in the Tetons and plan to stop at a pizza place that is on Jackson Lake and has good reviews.  By the time we get there, it’s raining.  Glad we’re not planning to cook a meal at the campsite.  We see a bus pulling out as we pull in.  Seems that there is a back-up of orders.  We ended up getting the last 2 personal sized pizzas.  All the other sizes were already sold out.  I felt bad for the people who came in after us.  I think the bus threw their predictions off.  Also, it’s early in the season and they doxn’t have it quite down yet.  

What to do on a cold rainy evening when camping?  Hmmm.  There’s a laundromat at the visitor’s center and not only is it heated but it also has internet and we have a boat load of dirty laundry.  Now we have a pile of clean clothes and it’s bedtime.

 

June 6. Yellowstone National Park

 Everyone says that it’s best to get to Yellowstone early as it gets really crowded later in the day.  We have a light breakfast and are on the road by 8:30.  Our campsite is on the North edge of Tetons National Park which is the exit that we need to head to Yellowstone.  We go  along the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Highway which connects the two parks.  Scenery is beautiful but then there are large swaths of dead pines.  Some of them look charred and some just look dead like an insect invasion.  There are at least new trees coming in.  

Since Old Faithful is the must see of the park, we go there first.  The park is hugs so even once you’re in the park, it is still a good hour drive to get to the center with Old Faithful.  We got there without any traffic problems and found a place to park that was reasonable.  Old Faithful is slated to erupt in about 30 minutes.  That gives us time to see most of the education center.  We go out in the blaring sun with all the other tourists and wait.  At least they have benches.  A few false starts and then there she blows.  It is quite windy so it isn’t the single shot up but more a huge mass of steam and mist.  This was Nick’s first time to see it.  That can now be checked off the bucket list.  

There are lots of short trails around Old Faithful of other geysers.  Lots of bubbling and steam!  I remember it smelling really bad but the sulphuric smell was pretty minimal.  Lots of  warning signs to stay on the boardwalks.  Everyone was very compliant.  Many of the geyser pools have beautiful turquoise water.  They remind me of  some of the denotes in Yucatán, especially with the soft white material around them.  Of course, how the two are formed are very different and swimming in a denote is cool, refreshing and live giving while the swimming in a geyser would be the last hot spa of your life.  The entire area is pocked with little geysers and bubbling hot pots.  Each one is just unique enough that we stop to admire some aspect of it.  

We take enough time walking around the geyser basin that it is now  almost time  for the next  Old Faithful eruption.  This one has a much bigger audience.  I don’t know if it is the angle or just a bigger eruption but we both agree that this performance was better than the previous one.  

Can’t get the video to load.  Ugh!

We eat our packed lunch sitting in the rocking chairs outside the education center.  Good people watching!  So many languages.  T-shirts from all over.  Lots of families, people in really good shape, really overweight people, 

This park is huge!  The distance between different points of interest might be 20 or 40 miles.  The main roads in the park form an “8”. Today we’re doing the bottom part of the “8”.  We came in at the very bottom.  Going around to the left, Old Faithful is about a quarter of the way around the bottom circle.  We stop at several geyser basins  Each of them includes a walk along the boardwalk of 1/4 mile to a couple of miles.  We generally take everyone.  About the time that we’re getting jaded with the geysers, we get to Canyon Village.  (All the intersections with gift shops, restraunts, restrooms, etc are called villages.  Old Faithful Village, Lake Village, Grant Village….)  This path isn’t a boardwalk but a real dirt path lined with  stones.  We get to the look out point on the Northern Rim.  OMG and Wow! I didn’t know Yellowstone had a big canyon.  My opinion of Yellowstone just shot up a bunch of points.  

We stopped at several viewing points and I found myself taking a lot of pictures of the trees holding on for dear life.  What determination.  Some trees can peacefully grow in a yard with few challenges and then there are others that endure fires, wind, intense drought, poor to almost no soil.  I guess it is like that for people too.  I’m grateful to have a life with roots in fertile soil and challenges that I can handle.

Back to our camp home where we cook dinner and have a nice fire.