Yellowstone and the days thereafter

The Paragraph about Yellowstone
After coming in the Northeast Entrance, we traveled along the park road to the Mammoth Hot Springs Junction. This route provided us with sights of bison as well as a Yellowstone wolf. The scenery was gorgeous, with snowcapped peaks on either side of us as we drove along. The mountain streams that ran along the road were at full capacity and turned and roiled over the rocks and waterfalls. We crossed the Yellowstone River just before we arrived in Mammoth on a bridge hundreds of feet above a steep gorge. We drove through the small village there and parked the bus at the Upper Terrace. Hiking around the side of the mountain there was a lot of fun and we were able to photograph several of the geologic oddities in the area. In some places the springs created large mounds as they deposited the dissolved minerals on the surface and other places, large elevated terraces were formed which held large pools of steaming water. These pools were particularly beautiful because they are home to bacteria which thrive in the scalding temperatures and color the pools in hues of blue, green, yellow and brown. I loved looking across the pools and seeing the snowy peaks on the horizon! After our hike around the terraces, we returned to the bus to find a family admiring it. We were more than happy to show them all the tricks it does, including popping the tent up! They enjoyed the show and even took a picture with us, but we regret that we didn’t get a photo on our camera! (If you guys read this, could you please send that picture to me at spboone@gmail.com? Thanks!) They gave us a tip about how to shower for free at Old Faithful so we headed south through the park after making about three trips around Mammoth to get gas and find an ATM. The drive south from Mammoth to Old Faithful takes you through several basins where there are steaming pools and creeks that run into the river. Some of the geysers and fumaroles are off in the distance and it’s an awe inspiring sight to see the steam rise across the valley. We passed through Norris and Madison Junctions and followed the river south towards Old Faithful. It was getting to be late afternoon and we were aching for a shower. Upon arrival there, we packed up my backpack with the essential shower items and sneaked around the lodges there trying to find the showers our new friends told us about. (We couldn’t seem to find them anywhere!) Because we were tired and hungry and it was getting rather late, we gave up and drove south to Grant Village where we hoped to find a camping site. No such luck. When we arrived there, the entire village was still snowed in! The coin showers there were not open either, so we had no choice but to drive further south. As we drove, the snow was increasingly deep and the temperature kept dropping. The last resort for camping in the park, Lewis Lake, was frozen solid and the road was not even plowed into the campground. So our nerves were getting frayed and patience was running thin right about then. We were over 50 miles from the nearest campground in the park, so we opted for going south into Grand Teton National Park to find a camping spot. We left the park and drove toward Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The Paragraph about Grand Tetons
The atlas we picked up in West Virginia showed there to be a half dozen campgrounds in the Tetons, so we figured we would have good luck finding a place to rest for the night. As we headed into the Tetons, we saw that the lakes there were frozen solid as well. The first 3 campgrounds we tried were just as snowed in as the ones in Yellowstone. We had driven about 100 miles from Old Faithful and the sun was beginning to drop between the peaks of the Tetons. (Patience was really beginning to run thin at this point.) At long last we finally found a campground that was open at Signal Mountain, along the southern shores of Jackson Lake.
The Paragraph about Camping at Signal Mountain
We joyfully entered the campground and were pleased to find about 4 empty spots. Driving through the campground, we saw several people with cameras in hand waving excitedly. Soon, we spotted a large moose munching on some branches between the campsites! We spotted a site beside 2 girls that we had seen on the road earlier. Cricker immediately parked the bus. As soon as I looked around, I noticed that our campsite was completely flooded due to a large glacier that was posed just up the hill. I protested, but he insisted that we were staying there and making friends with our neighbors. So we set up camp and I started making some dinner, which ended up being the other steak from Aunt Connie, which we diced up and fried with potatoes, carrots and onions. After filling our stomachs, our new friends, Liz and Steph invited us over to share their campfire, because our fire ring was completely flooded out. We enjoyed the company and it was fun to meet other people doing a cross country adventure! It was especially neat that they were two girls being adventurous on their own. We were complaining that we hadn’t showered in almost a week and they told us about a hostel in Jackson Hole where we could get a hot shower for six bucks. I knew immediately where we would be headed in the morning. They were heading out early on the way to Utah, so we got up early to get a picture with them. This was definitely the coldest night we have experienced. The condensation on the inside of the bus was frozen to all the surfaces, and after we got on the road it began to melt and dripped all over the place. After cleaning up the dinner mess and packing up, we took a few pictures and left the campground. The drive south to Jackson was beautiful with the Tetons shimmering in the early morning sun. The mountains are breathtaking, not only because of their size, but because they have no foothills and rise directly out of the ground to heights of twelve and thirteen thousand feet. Its almost a surreal sight.
The Paragraph about Jackson
It took about 45 minutes to get to Jackson from where we camped. As we rode into town, there were people all over the streets carrying huge elk antlers. We soon found out that there was an auction going on and it appeared to be ran by the Boy Scouts. The Anvil Hotel was on the main thoroughfare and we made it our first stop. The hostel was in the basement and we paid for our showers and received a warm towel, which was a pleasant surprise! We spend about 30 relaxing minutes soaking up the hot water and finally got out looking like prunes. Feeling amazingly refreshed, we cruised around the town checking out the sights and parked the bus on a side street. We walked around for a few hours and checked out some of the local shops. We ended up buying a sticker for the bus and then heading north again towards Yellowstone.
The Paragraph about Old Faithful and the ride up to Mammoth Hot Springs
We drove north, this time with the Tetons on our left for about an hour and came back through the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The drive to West Thumb and Grant Village was about twenty miles and was the snowiest portion of the park. We stopped and snapped a few pictures beside the road at a snow bank that was higher than the bus. We drove past West Thumb and continued on to Old Faithful. The afternoon sun and sunny skies made a perfect setting to sit down and relax for a few hours. We took our shoes off and sat on the board walk with our backs resting on the benches and let our feet dangle over the edge. We had just missed the geyser erupting so we had about an hour to wait until it would go off again. We had prepared for the wait and brought snacks and drinks and kicked back in the sun. When the eruption finally happened, it was without a doubt the most peaceful thing I have ever experienced. Its hard to describe with words and the pictures don’t give an accurate depiction of the experience. I highly recommend visiting this natural wonder to anyone. We sat around for a while and enjoyed the setting sun after everyone cleared out and then headed north again towards Mammoth Hot Springs. The drive there was just as fun the second time around and we snapped lots more pictures. By the time we got there, the campground had filled up so we headed towards Gardiner and out the north entrance to the park. The north entrance to the park is marked by a huge stone gate which you drive through, it is pretty neat and towers about fifty feet above you as you drive under it.
The Canyon Campground
We drove through Gardiner without finding a campground and continued on the road towards Livingston, Montana until we came into the Gallatin National Forest. We spotted a nice little campground there and pulled in for the night. It was set against the backdrop of a large hill and towering cliffs above. There were huge boulders that had tumbled down from the cliffs scattered around the campground and we got some neat pictures of the bus in between them. We met a guy that was driving an old red VW golf at a campsite not far from ours and he came over after we cooked dinner to hang out. We found out that he was from Maine and had an internship in Yellowstone for the summer, but couldn’t get in his housing until Monday so he was camping out for the weekend. For dinner, I made a cheese quesadilla and had a grilled turkey sandwich. Cricker made some concoction he called hobos. He claimed to like it a lot but I wasn’t so impressed. It could have just been his cooking skills though, because the ingredients all sounded good. We got up fairly early Sunday morning and packed up our camp and drove north once again. We were hoping to find some hot springs to sit in and relax, but the only ones we found were part of a resort and we were looking for a more natural setting.
The ride to Missoula
The drive to Livingston from our camp took about an hour and it was all gorgeous Big Sky country. I especially enjoyed the ranches and barns that we saw along the road. Once we got to Livingston, we picked up I-90 towards Missoula. Since we didn’t find any hot springs and we were on the road fairly early, we decided to try and make it to Missoula for the evening because I had found out there was an REI store there. The stretch of I-90 between Livingston and Missoula has a pretty sizeable uphill section but we made decent time in the bus. The weather was still beautiful and the temperature got pretty warm so before long we both had our shirts off and were sweating a bit. By the time we rolled into Missoula and found the REI, they had been closed for about ten minutes. We were disappointed but we called our friend Andy that lives in Yakima, Washington to tell him we were in Missoula. He was pretty excited to hear we were so close so he took Monday off work to be able to hang out with us. We decided to try to drive as close as we could to Yakima and then finish the drive in the morning, as it was about five hours. Somehow in the course of things, we missed a critical turn and drove about one hundred miles south in Montana, with a huge mountain range between us and Idaho. There were no connecting roads to get us back on track so we had to drive nearly all the way back to Missoula to pick up our road. So we wasted a good three hours doing that and used up nearly all the daylight, even though we entered the Pacific Time Zone once we made it to Idaho. The drive on Highway 12 through Idaho was a lot of fun, with a long downhill stretch and plenty of curves. The bus handled them well and we made excellent time. We saw all kinds of wild life cross the road in front of us, including an elk, moose, black bear and plenty of deer! We stopped for the night about thirty miles from the Washington border near Lewiston, Idaho at a pull off beside the road.
This catches us up to Sunday night. I apologize for the long delay in this post, but we have been making a lot of stops and spending time with friends the last few days and I’ve been putting off writing as well. I’m still a few days behind but hopefully I can motivate myself to finish it up this afternoon. I’m writing this as we pass through Portland, Oregon. ( Sorry Karen we didn’t stop but it looked like a really cool city!) Stay Tuned!
Also as a side note, it is really fun for us to hear about who all is reading this but we don’t have that many followers on the blog page. So if you would like to give us a shout you can shoot me an email at spboone@gmail.com and we would love to hear from you! Thanks guys.