Monday, Sept. 20 - This morning we pulled out of the beautiful Grand Tetons National Park, after a quick stop at the General Store for donuts (not as good as Tim Horton's, though). We decided to head east to the town of Thermapolis, home of the world's largest mineral hot springs. We seem to be closing these national parks as we leave -- end of September they start shutting down most of the campgrounds. We saw one deer this morning, just as we pulled out of the campground. The fall colors are something to see, though, with the mixture of reds, oranges and yellows amongst the green pine trees.
Unfortunately, these pictures really do not show the richness of the mountainsides. We went over Togwotee Pass, elev. 9658, seemed like we climbed for the first 30 miles after leaving the park (Hwy 26). This highway has open range and we came upon some cattle grazing right beside the road. Luckily, none decided to head across as we passed.
The scenery along this highway was beautiful. This is the Teton National Forest. We spotted a wolf crossing an open field. We headed into Riverton, then turned north through Shoshoni to Thermapolis. This drive took us past Boysen State Park and Boysen Lake, which was pretty good-sized. This highway follows the Wind River for miles and miles, and I think we crossed it about 10 times. It eventually changes names to the Big Horn River. The Big Horn River is one of the few North-flowing rivers in the U.S. It joins the Yellowstone River in Montana, which joins the Missouri River near North Dakota, which eventually joins the Mississippi River. What a roundabout course it takes!
This scenic byway took us through tunnels, one right after the other, in Wind River Canyon. We had had the 3-tunnel thing once before, on the way to Cody just after the Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir.
The wind really blew through this canyon, and it was all Joe could do to keep us on the road. The scenery was beautiful, and there were some campgrounds along the river, but we knew it would be too windy for us there, so we drove on into Thermapolis.
The printing on the big rock says "World's Largest Thermal Hot Springs."
We decided to stay at the Fountain of Youth RV park because it has a hot pools right in the campground. It was 85 degrees today, so we were not too sure about getting into the water, but we finally braved the elements and got in, about 5:00 p.m.
We missed Mazie here because she had been going with us to the hot springs most of the trip. Marilyn joined us on the last one, so we missed here too, but we were on our own here. This one has a fountain with water flowing up into it, too.
At night they light it up with red lights and it looks like hot coals at the bottom. Very pretty. We went back into the water a second time about 7:30 p.m., but my swimsuit wasn't quite dry so I was a little reluctant. And we knew it was going to be a cold walk back to the camper. But it was fun. Of course, these mineral hot springs always smell like rotten eggs, so we took showers after both dips.
Joe picked up a paper this morning and saw that the "managed fire" in Yellowstone that we had seen on Wed. had pushed beyond the "contained" line and was not an uncontained fire, due to the high winds and dry weather that we had experienced there all week. Lightning had started the fire last Tuesday, the day before we saw it, and we assumed it had been started on purpose, but now we know that just because it is a "managed" fire does not mean that. I don't know if "controlled burn," like we see in Arizona has the same meaning or not. Hopefully, they will get it under control quickly.
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