Sunday, August 4, 2024

Into Utah

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We got off to an early start this morning -- 9:30, after a sleepless night, at least for me.  With our electricity problem, the RV was a little warm.  We stopped at a restaurant before we got to Salt Lake City for breakfast around 10:30, but the waitress said she was by herself, there were 7 tables in front of us, and it would be at least 45 minutes before she could take our order.  The other part of the building was a convenience store, so we bought a box of donuts and a soda, and were on our way.  Nothing like a healthy breakfast to start the day.

We crossed the Utah state line at 11:15.

We went past a bull ranch with a big bull on the sign, Grants Range Bull.  It was an eye-catcher.  We also saw some fields with long-horn steers.  But no wildlife.

 

Just outside of Brigham City, we drove beside the Great Salt Lake, which goes from Brigham City to Salt Lake City, about 50 miles, but the stretch by Brigham City has a levee between the lake and the freeway and so you really don’t get a very good look.   I got one picture of a piece of it almost to Provo, but you literally could drive through here on I-15 and not really even know it was over there.  Past the levee, there are always buildings blocking the view.

We got off of Interstate 15 at Spanish Fork and this is our scenic drive now on Highway 6/89. We continued on 89 to Manti and got an RV spot for the night at a place we had stayed before.  We had a little rain storm on 89 on our way to Manti so Joe got his windshield partly washed by nature.

Much more scenic than I-15.  

It got hot today, mid-90s before the rainstorm.  It continued to rain a little, off and on, after we got off the road.  We drove 292 miles today but got off the road about 3:15, so we made pretty good time.  We are at the Temple Hill Resort and Campground, and just up the hill is a beautiful Mormon Temple, which you can see from miles away.  

Tomorrow night we should be in Arizona.  We are definitely moving south, into the heat.  I saw something on Facebook today that said Phoenix set a record high for the day yesterday, 116.  Apache Junction was supposed to get 113 today.  I sure hope our A/C at home works well.  

 Saturday, August 3, 2024

Leaving Montana

Today we said goodbye to Yellowstone. We were out of our campsite by 9:30 and on the road.  As we came through West Yellowstone,there was a car show going on at the park and on the west end just out of town, was a “living history encampment” ( of tents)  selling Indian crafts. We drove through that tent area yesterday, but nothing was open yet. Six days at Yellowstone at our age and condition was enough. It wore us out, but we thoroughly enjoyed every day there. Highway 20 heading west out of West Yellowstone seems to be a continuation of activities. We saw an artist ranch and a couple of trail rider groups and sign that said there’s a rodeo tonight.

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We crossed the state line into Idaho at 9:40.  

When we started making our plans for this summer‘s travel, we had decided we wanted to spend some time in Montana. Our thought was that we would find a place to stay maybe for a month at a time.  Well, that didn’t work out.  Montana is such a big state that you can’t see all of it from one or two areas, so we ended up spending a week at a time at several different locations. We spent 8 weeks (55 days)  in Big Sky Country and saw a lot of wonderful things.  For the most part, the weather was very accommodating.  And we ended it with six days at Yellowstone National Park, one of our favorite places.

In my “wish library of diamond shaped warning signs” that I wish I had started, we came across a new one today:  “Recreational Crossing.”  Of course we don’t spend a lot of time in snowmobile country but we have seen snowmobile crossing signs. I guess this would include other things too. Cross-country skiing? Others?

We went through Ashton, Idaho, which proclaims itself to be the world’s largest seed potato producing area . Who knew??   

 We started seeing fields of potatoes on the southside of Idaho Falls.  

We went through Idaho Falls and continued on to Fort Hall Indian Reservation Casino where we had reservations for the night. We arrived about 12:45 and check-in wasn’t until 2:00. We called from the parking lot because we didn’t see the RV park. They first told us we couldn’t check in yet but when we went in to the reservation desk, they did let us check in.  This casino has full hook ups, so we got set up, rested for a while. For some reason, our electricity kicked off.  We thought it was the Campground, but I talked to a lady across from us and they were not having trouble so Joe started investigating and found a reset button and we were back in business. We went over to the casino for dinner, when we came back, we still had electricity, but it kicked off again after we went to bed and he could not get it to reset so we had no air conditioning for the night. With this motorhome, it has been one problem after another.

It was 95° when we got to the campground and we had some wind during the night but no rain. We drove 151 miles today. We should make it to Utah tomorrow.

 Friday, August 2, 2024

Catch Up Day

We actually took the day off today.  We stayed at the RV until about noon, then drove into West Yellowstone to check out the route we will be taking out of here.  I mentioned a road just inside the park that we hadn't driven, so we went through the entrance and took that road, which led to the river behind us.  Then we drove on up to the Madison River area to see if there was any action.  We did see 2 cow elk crossing the river, but there was a maintenance worker spraying weeds along the highway and he waved us on, yelling at us to go on so we didn't get to see them very well.  Joe went on up and turned around, and we could see them in the distance, but they were across the river by then.  I wanted to get a picture of them in the river.

We went back to West Yellowstone and had lunch.  My knees are really bothering me today.  I had planned to shop the gift store next to the restaurant but I couldn't walk very well, so we went back to the RV.   We watched the baseball game, then drove back into town for a quick dinner.  On the way home, Joe found another couple of roads that we had not driven, so we checked them out, but no wildlife.

We are moving on tomorrow.  It's getting warmer here -- high of 90 today, but we still are in the 40s at night.  We know we are heading into heat from this point on, but it's time to head toward Arizona.

 Thursday, August 1, 2024

Yellowstone Falls

The temperature range today was 39 to 84.  I heard the furnace running during the night.  It was almost 11:30 when we went into the park this morning, but the lines were a lot shorter.  We’re both tired this morning so we’re planning on a shorter day.

OK, so you wanted more buffalo pictures -- here you go.  These are scattered around on both sides of Yellowstone Street in West Yellowstone, three of them are at the museum along with the big statue of the bear.   I love these painted animals like this.

We came back along the Madison river, got stuck in the normal traffic jam. We came through here at 5 miles an hour. Finally, we got up to the point of interest -- one lone cow elk decided to cross the road right in front of a couple cars in front of us.  Once the elk cleared the road and moved into the trees, traffic started moving and we made progress. 

Madison River is looking pretty this morning with the sun glistening off of the waves. This is a pretty drive even though it does take longer than it should. It only took us 30 minutes this morning to get through there.

Here is the pasture where the elk have usually been grazing in the evening.  Tonight they were not there.

We stopped at the Upper Brink of the Yellowstone Falls and I made it down to that lookout and to the second one.  The first one you really couldn’t see much, but the second one had a decent view. There was a lower deck as well where you could really see the face of it, but I couldn’t walk down there.  Having bad knees, it certainly puts a restriction on life

When I got back to the Jeep, it was time for ibuprophen!

This is the bridge over Yellowstone River right before it starts narrowing for the falls 

We then drove to the Lower Falls. This is a very popular place, little bit of a back up getting into the parking lot, but we got very lucky and got the very first handicap spot. We both made it down to the viewpoint. It’s a really awesome place and the canyon walls are what they call artist paintbrush.  Joe found us a bench in the shade and we waited it out until we got to sit there and just look at the falls.  This was my third walk of the day and probably the last one, but it was certainly worth it and I would not have wanted us to leave here without seeing this beautiful falls again

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Back out on the main road, we saw two foxes -- one of them on the road and the other one under a bush, the one under the bush eventually crossed the road .  Then we started seeing Buffalo. And geese.  Next stop -- Fishing Bridge to get some lunch.

About 3 o’clock we left Fishing Bridge General Store, having had lunch there, to go bear hunting. We’ve heard about some bears toward the East Entrance and our waitress here gave us a little more information so we’re on our way to find the bears.  We spent an hour and a half on that mission. We drove out east about 15 miles, went up a look-out and found no bears anywhere.  But we had a great view of the lake.  This information "sign" was interesting about the area.

This area had a terrible fire some years ago.  The burnout is heartbreaking.

From the lookout, Joe spotted something in the far distance through the binoculars that was moving. We think it was probably elk but they were too far away to distinguish.  That was the end of our hunt. We stopped back by Fishing Bridge for an ice cream cone and then  we are headed out to finish today. It’s 5:00  and we’re again heading further away from the campground.  We made a run through the Baybridge Marina parking lot looking for our nice bull elks, but they weren’t there. I thought they must be out playing hide and seek with the Bears but right after we pulled back out onto the highway, one of the bulls showed up.  He was very cooperative, even crossed the road in front of us, we were lucky -- right place right time

We passed the turnoff to Old Faithful but were too tired to even think about turning in.  Then we drove through the geyser basin.  That's always interesting, and always a lot of traffic.

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We turned on our Madison Road at 6:20, the earliest we’ve made it all week. We had high hopes of getting through here without too much delay.  We thought we were going to get through unscathed, but about halfway across we saw brake lights. It was only about a 12 minute delay, but it sure felt longer. There were 3 cow elk lying on an island in river on the other side of the road, after Madison River crossed the road.  We don’t know where the rest of that herd went, but these three found themselves a nice, cool  spot.

We had found a truck parking area just outside of town with good cell signal so we have stopped there the last two nights and uploaded our pictures for the day.  After that, we got to the campground just after seven, weary travel folks. 170 miles today, and this was supposed to be an easy day.

 Wednesday, July 31, 2024

A long Day

The "campground full" sign was out last night when we came back from our little drive, so it was good that we got our rearranging done early. We have been having to run the furnace at night.  It gets in the 40s at night, and 70s during the day.  Just about perfect.

We got into a pretty long line entering the park, probably 15 to 20 minutes but by 10:35 we were inside the park. We no sooner got past the Wyoming state line and we hit another traffic jam. We finally got to the pasture along the end of Madison River and could see a big herd of elk grazing where we’ve been seeing them every night.  Apparently that’s the traffic jam. It’s now 11:15 so it took 40 minutes to go 8 miles in the park.  A park ranger was waving people on by the time we got to  

the jam.

At 11:25 we made the turn at Madison intersection.  Our plan today was to drive through Lamar Valley to the Northeast Entrance, then turn around and drive to Mammoth and the North Entrance, then try to find those bears we've heard about on up highway 89.  We knew we had lots of miles ahead of us.  There is no easy way to see this park -- it's lots of miles to everything and everywhere.

There’s a really pretty falls on this stretch of road between Madison and Norris named Gibbons Falls but there’s always such a crowd there and it’s a pretty good walk to where you can get a picture so I’m thinking that’s probably not going to happen this time.  But we see lots of other falls, we that's ok.    Joe drove and drove, and finally came to the drive up the Crittendon Road to the top of Mount Washburn, which is 10,342 feet. It was a bit washboardy. Joe thought with this amount of traffic they could probably grade it more than once a year. There were no moose bears or elk at the top of this mountain but it was a bit brisk up here.  We were above the tree line, so it was pretty barren up here.   But there were great views.

We topped out about 8,800 -- that was as far as the road went.  You had to hike the rest of it which we did not do.    We saw three patches of snow from up here on distant mountains.

After we stop for a hotdog at Tower Junction, we turned onto the NE. Entrance Rd.  We could see a few trail riders off in the distance.

 Shortly after that, we saw our first buffalo of the day and then got stopped by a Buffalo jam for a few minutes while they all crossed the road.  About a half mile up the road there was another small herd crossing the road so we got to stop again here.  A few miles further, we found another herd. These were right across the river. There were people on this side of the river, and there were Buffalo fairly close to them, also on this side of the river. 

Buffalo were scattered for miles along this valley and river.  We saw hundreds, if not thousands, of buffs today.

This one I could almost have reached out and touched.  You can see my mirror in the picture.  And if you want more buffalo pictures, we have them!!

We finally saw a pronghorn antelope walking toward us and got a good picture of him. He kept heading toward the road, getting closer to us.

We turned around at the north east entrance about 2:45.

We came back through the herds of Buffalo, had to stop again for a couple of jams.  We found the antelope again, across the road, right in the middle of all the buffalo -- just laying down.  Then we spotted five sandhill cranes which looked bigger than we had seen before -we had to turn around and glass them in order to identify them.

Our next stop was  at a pull out just to stand up and it turned out to be a pretty waterfalls. Undine Falls.  I guess we missed the sign announcing it, but as soon as I got out of the Jeep, I could hear it.  There was a little walkway with a few steps down to a viewing platform, so we got a good look.

We got to Mammoth Hot Springs about 4:15. There was a cow elk in the middle of town, standing in a green area.

That flood of 2022 really hit this area hard.  Last time, we had taken an old stagecoach road from Mammoth to Gardner.  The flood wiped out the main road and they have paved this old road and it is now the main road.  Very crooked, but the road was in good shape.  We could see parts of the old road from some of the corners.  

We stopped at a gas station and I got information from the clerk about where the bears are.  About 5:00 we started on our mission to find the Bears at Tom Minor Basin about  21 miles north of Gardner on Highway 89. The clerk at the convenience store said that the flood of 2022 had washed out the bridge and you have to go a few more miles and take a secondary road to get to the area.   Just out of town we came up on three cow elk walking in a field next to the highway, heading toward town.  If nothing else it’s a pretty drive right along the Yellowstone River.  For some reason, we always seem to find ourselves driving further away from home at 5:00. 

I thought I remembered that it was supposed to be 6 miles out of town. 

Joe put "Tom Miner Basin" in the GPS and I googled it on my phone.  The directions did not agree.  Joe's said 6 miles, and when we got to the Tom Minor Basin turn off at 6 miles, the road was closed and they are working on the bridge.  Of course, we had to drive back to the bridge just to make sure.

 

so we got back on 89 and continued on, based on my directions.  Up the road about 5 miles we turned off at the Old Yellowstone Trail Road. We crossed the Yellowstone River right before this turn off  -- Joe said,, "so that’s how this detour is getting us over the river."

We finally reached our destination. It was about 10 miles back  and we did see seven bears: two sows -- one with three cubs and the other one with two cubs -- but they were a long ways off. We could only see them through the binoculars. Fortunately there was another family there that had already found them, and they were very helpful in showing us where they were.  There were about four vehicles, another one coming in, as we were leaving. 

 Back on highway at 6:40.  The turn off was about 20 miles from Gardner, just passed Yankee Jim Canyon.  I want to write all this down in case we need to give someone else this information.  I doubt that we ever make it back to Yellowstone, but who knows????

We passed a herd of antelope and a couple herds of elk on our way back to Gardner. The last time we were in Gardner, I remember elk laying in front yards on the main road.  Now they have fenced all the yards in and so we didn’t see any elk in town. I had asked the clerk if there were still elk in town and he said yes.  He said when he meets new people, he asks them if they have met the Welcoming Committee (town elk).  We were 

back in the park at 7:00. 

I took another picture of the Hot Springs Terraces right  out of Mammoth but the light is fading.  

We saw two more antelope in the park on our way home.  We made Madison Junction at 8:15 and there was just a slight backup where the herd of elk have been every day.   We got back to the campground just before 9:00 and just before dark. A long day -- 270 miles.

We are loving the weather here and dreading the thought of the heat waiting for us in Arizona, but the time to head home is drawing near.  Our reservations here are through Friday, so on Saturday we either have to extend here or move on.  We have circled the park, but we still need to go to the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" and the Upper and Lower Falls there.  That's a "do not miss."  I'm sure Joe wants to see if those bull elk are still hanging out at Bay Bridge.  And we heard of some more bears over by the East Entrance, so that's probably on the agenda.  It's nice to have the time.