So we left Silvergate and headed East, the direction home. We wanted to drive the Beartooth Highway en route. Well, Louie did. I was happy to let him drive as I don’t like windy roads!
Oh! I forgot to add this photo from the previous post. Our “Cabin” at the Grizzly Lodge. (You can see it behind the car and the awning).
It wasn’t quite as nice of a drive on the Beartooth as we’d experienced before because there was CONSTRUCTION and we were stopped for awhile at first. But finally we got going and as always, the views were amazing.
We always pass places that look like nice hikes and places to camp, but we never do much as we are en route. Such beautiful sights just off the road though!
You can see the road there! This was the top, the Beartooth Pass.
Louie wanted to stand on the snow.
There were a lot of motorcycle riders around, probably on their way to the super spreading event at Sturgis. We tried to keep our distance.
The highway ends in Red Lodge and we stopped there for lunch at a place called the Red Box Drive-In. I think I got fried shrimp and fries?
We kept driving then (I drove for awhile, since we were out of the crazy roads) and headed into the Bighorn mountains. We had reserved a spot at Island Park Campground in the Bighorn Mountains. It was a small campground down several miles of dirt road, and we were a little worried about the rain, but the place was great once we got there.
It was a vault toilet only place but the toilets were clean and the host was really nice. We tried to just relax and enjoy the evening. We were right by a pond with a little meadow on the other side.
We walked down to the pond—you can see the tent back up in the trees.
At night we heard something splashing around in the water and I shined my light towards it. We saw a pair of eyes glowing at us, which was sort of terrifying at first. Finally we discovered it was just a deer so that wasn’t too scary!
The next day we continued driving through the Bighorn Mountains, and took a side road called the Crazy Woman Canyon Drive. I wasn’t “crazy” about the name, but the drive was very cool. You definitely wouldn’t want to drive it in anything without higher clearance though. There were some campsites along the way and nice places to fish probably.
Pretty cool as you can tell! We enjoyed the drive though it had some technical parts.
After that, well, we headed to Nebraska. We did have to go through South Dakota briefly, but didn’t stay long (we were sort of boycotting South Dakota because they didn’t think COVID was real) and ended our evening at Chadron State Park in Nebraska. We set up our tent and went for a short hike on the Black Hills Overlook Trail.
There was really interesting scenery! We also ran into a family who were from Missouri—they saw our license plate and struck up a conversation with us.
We enjoyed a nice campfire and a good night’s sleep.
The next day we packed up and headed for our last official stop: Carhenge. Carhenge is a bit out of the way but not if you plan on it. Interesting fact (which I learned later) is that my dad spent a week or two in the area at Alliance helping on a combine crew one summer when he was in college. That was before Carhenge was made so he didn’t get to see it.
We were glad we made this stop. It was ridiculous but really cool and fun.
And that was it. After visiting Carhenge, we drove along the Sandhills Scenic Byway through Nebraska for a few hours—definitely nicer than just driving on I-80, and then we joined the interstate and headed to Missouri. We stayed a motel past Kansas City which I have blocked (we were not impressed and would not recommend) the name of in my head, though we had delicious Thai takeout nearby, and then got home around noon the next day. The cats were safe and sound but happy to see us, and we were glad to be home and safe. Time went by and it didn’t seem we caught COVID on our trip, and I was glad we went. It was just what we needed at the time, both to get out of the house and see other places, and to be able to leave the house without being really scared and panicky. I think we were as safe from COVID as we could be, and we never set foot inside a building without a mask on.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip! Until the next one…it’ll be regular blog posts for awhile now.
I am aware of the fact that over a month has gone by since the last trip recap, but I have had this on my to-do list and so today I shall proceed. Life has been pretty busy at home, even without the usual concert schedule (mostly because I still managed to take on more work, which is both great and not great.)
We woke up at Bridge Bay Campground again, for our last full day in the park. Our plan was to go early to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and hike the South Rim to Clear Lake Trail we had done about 5 years before.
You can’t get from Bridge Bay to the Canyon area without running into a bison jam though.
Or without seeing one just out standing in his field. This one had some branches stuck on his horns, how embarrassing for him.
We easily found the place to park (I remembered it from the previous time) and set off on our hike. I believe it was supposed to be about 5 miles RT or so. The beginning was beautiful, with great views of the Falls, Canyon, and the Yellowstone River. Some of the path seemed different than before and I think they had rerouted some of it and fixed up other parts. Also Uncle Tom’s Stairs were closed, but I had decided after last time that I was done climbing up and down those stairs anyway. (It’s not the climb, it’s that they are open metal stairs along the side of a steep cliff near a rushing River.)
This was the sort of view along the way.
Now, this was one of the more crowded hikes, as we figured. We did have masks on for the crowded parts, though not enough other people did. Another note: if you are a hiker or a walker, don’t take the shortcut paths that the park service has worked so hard on marking with signs NOT to take, take the slightly longer way so they can grow out the vegetation and stop the erosion. I get so annoyed when people can’t just walk around, especially when it is really clear you are supposed to.
We saw a little deer along the way as well. I think it was a few here, but only one in my photo. I suppose one of the downsides of waiting over 2 months to write a blog post is that I’m going, hmm, how many deer were there, was this near where I stopped to pee in the woods? and truthfully, who knows. Maybe Louie has pictures, but he is just as behind at going through them as me!
The South Rim trail meanders along the South Rim of the Canyon. (And yes, there is a North Rim which we visited the previous year and weren’t planning to bother with this time.) You can drive and park at various lookouts but it’s much nicer if you are able to just walk.
There are varying rumors and stories of how the name Yellowstone came to be. One is because of the yellow rocks by the Canyon area. I would buy it!
You can see we are getting farther from the Falls.
Selfie! I believe this was at Artist Point, the most popular lookout along the South Rim.
Next the trail meanders into the woods and heads towards Lily Lake (and then Clear Lake).
The trail also goes by a variety of thermal features. It wasn’t as magical this time through, probably because we’d already seen them, and also it was getting HOT! and it was very sunny.
There were some people annoyingly camped out along the lake, not camped literally, but they had chairs and were just hanging out for whatever reason, and they were sitting in a way that they tended to be in almost any photo you tried to take. Which is super obnoxious when you are still 2 miles from the parking lot!
Anyway, Clear Lake is green and is pretty acidic due to the thermal activity and whatnot. I’m not a geologist, but it’s something like that.
Then we walked through the blinding sunlight to get back to the parking area. We decided after that to walk to the Brink of the Upper Falls since it had been closed the previous year for construction. It was a neat little walk because it went over what used to be a bridge taken by cars but was now just a footbridge. The bridge was built in the 1890’s first as a wooden arch bridge and then was replaced by this one in 1914-1915. It is no longer used by cars—I know I read somewhere when it was replaced for car use but I can’t find it now.
Anyway, it was a fairly short walk (less than a mile?) to the Brink of the Upper Falls and we were glad we popped over. You can also imagine the Brink was crazy busy, probably the most crowded place we had been.
After that we headed south. We didn’t have any more specific plans but thought it would be fun to drive to the South entrance of the park so that we would have driven every mile of the main roads during our 10 nights here.
We made some stops along the way at random places.
I think this might have been Lewis Lake or another Lake and I looked up and realized the trees were just like that!
As we got further south we could see the Tetons and suddenly regretted we hadn’t decided to spend some time there. Don’t get me wrong, we loved our Yellowstone time, but there are always more places to visit, and now we want to see the Tetons again. I think another year, after COVID is done will be better, as it’s a smaller park with more people crowded into a smaller area.
After getting all the way south, we headed back up north towards Bridge Bay again. There was a gravel bar along the Lake that Louie wanted to check out—it was a long gravel bar that you could walk along.
Anyway, we finally got back to our tent site and we were early enough that we took showers with our portable shower set up.
We had an early night, with a nice fire first to burn up all the wood.
The next morning we packed up and headed out. Our end of the day stop would be out the Northeast Gate of the Park, a cabin in a tiny town called Silvergate. But first, some stops along the way, of course!
We had to go by Mammoth again in order to get out of the park through the north (the more direct route was closed due to construction). We went into Gardiner again if I recall and thought we’d get another smoothie but the place wasn’t open yet. We also checked email and such and then headed towards our hike destination for the (early afternoon) day. Slough Creek Road. People said it was a great road for seeing wildlife in the morning and evening, but it was the heat of the day. Oh well.
I wasn’t feeling too good by now for whatever reason, maybe too many peanut butter sandwiches and peanuts, but we decided to do the hike—it was an out-and-back, and we were only planning to hike about 4 miles. The hike could continue for miles and miles and one could backpack, and we definitely saw people in the parking lot returning from and getting ready for such hikes.
In any case, I was a little crabby for this hike: it was hot, I was tired (we both were) but you know what, the scenery sure was beautiful! So we hiked along, and at one point a guy was coming towards us and he stopped and was telling us that there was a young black bear that had been on the path and he managed to scare it off the path finally by throwing rocks towards it and he thought it wasn’t following him anymore. I was confused by what he saying at first and asked did he want us to hike with him but he said, no, he was just telling us, that we might see it, and if we got the Ranger cabin and didn’t see it we probably were fine. Okay! So Louie wasn’t sure if I’d want to continue, but I figured, well, we’ve got our bear spray, that guy didn’t seem too scared, and he said the bear wasn’t bothering him too much. So off we went, singing and talking to make noise.
This may have been some of the most gorgeous scenery in the park. Well, with the exception of the Lake Yellowstone area.
So we saw the cabin, and that was basically where we planned to turn around. We hadn’t seen the bear yet, and I thought, well, maybe we’d better do our plan and turn back in case going on meant we DID see the bear. We also ran into a father-son hiking team and were telling them what we’d heard but they already knew and had had a bear story of their own. Well, we went on our separate ways, and we turned back, and then suddenly, Louie saw the bear, up on a ridge right near the trail. So we stopped and watched, and then lost him for a minute, and then he was right up on the trail ahead of us.
So we had choices to make, do we stay nearby to keep an eye on the bear, who seemed to be slowly meandering down the exact path we needed to take, or did we stay 100 yards away, but then we might lose track of the bear and inadvertently get closer again? We decided to stay as far away as we could keep him in sight. We figured the bear knew we were there, but the bear didn’t seem bothered by us, so we wanted to keep it that way. We kept talking and saying nice things about him while walking down the path slowly. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the bear had gone off the path quite some distance, so we slowly walked by (and then walked backwards for some time) until we felt a safe distance had passed. It was scary but thrilling!
Here’s a video of it!
We finished up the hike then, telling a few more hikers we passed about the bear so they would be ready, and then got back in the car. We headed through Lamar Valley again…it was getting gloomy with rain looking likely, so we decided to head out to Silvergate, with the idea we might come back in later. Along the way we saw that a couple on a motorcycle had left a small bag at a parking pullout as they left and we tried to get their attention to tell them. Louie was honking and we were waving, and we almost caught them but they sped off. We felt bad for them, and we felt bad because people around us might have thought we were jerks…we may have yelled at them just in front of a bison jam, but then we never did get them to understand, and then we felt bad all around: that a motorcycle couple would think we would be angry at them and honking for that reason, that we missed enjoying the bison jam because we were trying to get their attention to tell them they left a bag on the ground, and ugh, just tired and probably the aftermath of seeing the bear.
So we went to the Grizzly Lodge in Silvergate, and checked in to our cabin. Their COVID protocol seemed to be to sort of avoid people but not wear a mask. It was a bit strange. We also met an old couple who seemed nice enough but told us that there weren’t any restaurants in Silvergate open past 5 pm and also the man was wearing a MAGA hat, which didn’t make us feel very good. It turned out he was lying or mistaken and that in fact there was a nice restaurant right next to the hotel than served dinner until normal dinner hours.
Our cabin was cute, but wasn’t really a cabin as I was imagining as it was right next to the hotel.
We got cleaned up and then went for dinner at the Log Cabin Cafe. We ate outside and we felt okay about this because we could see that the tables were well spaced out. The rain seemed to have either passed through or missed us, so it was a nice evening, except for some mosquitoes.
I
I had the trout dinner and it was delicious. This was the first time we had eaten at a sit-down restaurant since Atlanta in March, and it was really nice to have somebody bring your food and drinks and then take your dishes away!
The next morning we ate breakfast there and it wasn’t quite as good due to the service. The server was overwhelmed (I think they must have been understaffed) but we still got a decent meal outside, but it started pouring right after we ate and I’m sure some outside people got wet.
We had originally thought we might go back into the park but once we left we were done. It was time to move on and start heading home.
Okay, I’m going to stop there and leave one more post to get us home. Keep your eyes peeled, it won’t be long!
Okay, let’s continue the trip recaps. When I left off on the last post, I was enjoying an evening sleeping in a bed rather than an air mattress on the ground. The Historic Madison Hotel was very nice. They claim to be the oldest hotel in West Yellowstone that is still operating as a hotel, and we did stay in the historic part (there is a new addition part that is around back and didn’t look like anything special.) Reviews said the hotel was loud, but I slept great!
The hotel gives you a coupon for $10 off breakfast or dinner at the restaurant next door, the Timberline Cafe, which claims to be (it may well be true, I just don’t know!) the oldest restaurant in West Yellowstone operating still operating as a restaurant. West Yellowstone had a mask ordinance inside and required masks, but to eat at a restaurant would mean taking it off, so no. We were able to order takeout, and ate our eggs and potatoes outside on the balcony again.
We checked out of the hotel and then headed for the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. My dad had visited Yellowstone in February (in the before times) and had said it was well worth a visit, so we made plans to stop. It was a sunny day and you could tell it was going to be hot. I couldn’t find my hat, so we popped into a souvenir shop to get a new one. After that, we walked over to the Center.
There was a short line to get in, and mostly people were distancing (it was outdoors). The law was to wear face masks while inside, or standing in line outside of somewhere, but naturally there were some special snowflakes who weren’t and also a few under the nose types. We steered clear as best as we could. I think especially looking back, knowing what the scientific evidence for masks, even cloth masks, now, we definitely felt good about our mask wearing and felt good and continue to feel good about avoiding indoor dining or removing masks inside. Anyway!
This is a cool place. Your ticket could be used for two days but we weren’t planning to return. We poked around the indoor museum very briefly, lots of interesting displays, some taxidermy of course, and then went outside. The Center has wolves and bears that for various reasons, can’t live in the wild so they live there. They had a large area for the bears and would have one or two bears out for public viewing at a time. After 45 minutes or an hour, they would switch out the bears. It was a lot of fun to see the bears lumbering around, and to see the crows hanging around waiting to get their food, very brave crows!
The Center is basically just a very small zoo, so it’s easy to wander around quickly. The wolf pens are opposite the bear area so we could easily go back and forth depending on where the action was. The Center wasn’t too busy and so it was easy enough to distance from other people.
We enjoyed watching the wolves interact with each other. I believe there were three different enclosures for the wolves, one had young wolves and the mom would be allowed in occasionally, and two others with adults. The people who worked there would set out antlers and raw meat and then let the wolves out to discover them. We joked that the wolves would be going crazy wondering how they’d missed the deer that was obviously just there.
I should mention there are also some large birds you can see, some Bald Eagles and other birds, each with their own issue that keeps them from being able to survive in the wild, and an otter area, and a few more things.
After we finished at the Center, it was lunch time! The best place we could tell was the Taco Bus again: outdoor seating, quick and easy, delicious.
After lunch, it was time to head back into the park. Our plan was to go to Bridge Bay Campground first and set up in our new tent site, and then see what to do next. It was probably at least 1 1/2 hours drive to Bridge Bay from West Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a few of these guys in the road, at Hayden Valley.
And then we were right behind them.
After the fun of the Bison Jam, we made it to the Lake and then to our campground. We had camped at Bridge Bay years ago and liked it, so we were hoping to enjoy it as well this time. We did get lucky and were in a tent-only loop, which was up into the woods a bit, though…very hilly. The bathroom was uphill quite a bit, but not far, but our site ended up being on a ridiculous slope. It was probably about 20 yards downhill to our tent, which had to be where it was because there wasn’t anywhere else remotely flat. We did have a tiny view of the lake, but the hilliness of the site was not great. So, the steep downhill to the tent, then the picnic table was on such an incline that I couldn’t even use the stove on it, and then uphill further back up to the bear box, and the fire pit was in a fairly flat area, flat enough to put two chairs on one side but not flat enough to have chairs all around. Basically the site was pretty terrible, but the area of the campground was much nicer and it was more private than Madison, so it seemed like an upgrade. It was supposedly a large tent site and the area we put our small tent in just barely made it, however. Not super pleased, again.
But, whatever. We are in Yellowstone, right, and that’s what mattered! We set up a few things, and then headed back out for some geysers. We had a plan to end up the evening at Grand Prismatic Spring to hopefully avoid the most of the crowds, and there were a few neat stops in between.
We drove to Black Sand Basin, which is near the Old Faithful Area. We bypassed a few stops we would plan to do next. We saw some great springs and geysers and pools there, and then headed to Biscuit Basin. Neither place was very busy at all, which was great. We then wanted to hike up to the overlook of Grand Prismatic, which is a relatively new legal hike. The information I’d read said short hike, which was both true and not true: it led us stupidly to think we didn’t even need to bring water. We did, but we lived, at least.
I highly recommend this hike. You park at the Fairy Falls Trailhead and it’s about 2 miles. It’s not very shaded until the end, and then it’s steep, so do bring water. It was pretty busy for it being so late in the day so I can only imagine how busy it would be earlier. This is a better late in the day hike, because in the morning they say the steam coming off the Spring obscures the colors. It was beautiful to see up there, though seemed quite small, which it isn’t!
That’s my new hat which I bought in the morning.
We enjoyed the view, and then headed back to the car and glugged water.
Next we went to Grand Prismatic up close. We made the mistake of thinking at close to 7 pm that the parking lot would be a good idea. It worked out and we got a spot but we probably would have saved time parking along the road and walking in. This was definitely a good time to see the Spring but it was the most crowded place we had been in Yellowstone!
I recommend doing the order we did as well, because you see the Spring from above and THEN you see it up close. You can’t get a picture of the whole thing because it is unbelievably large, and unbelievably amazing. And along the edges by the boardwalk you’ll see the footprints of bison…and hopefully no people! It’s worth fighting the crowds in ordinary times, and we were glad we made the effort. There were quite a cast of characters around taking pictures as well, people dressed to the nines as if they had just stepped out of a limo or were doing modeling, and people setting up to try to take sunset pictures.
We headed back then, as we figured we had about an hour drive. Amazingly it was a full moon that night, and Louie was thrilled to try to get some pictures over the Lake. I snapped a few with my phone (he uses a fancy DSLR camera and knows much more than I do about photography.)
It was dark by then so we wanted to make an easy dinner. We had the worst dinner ever: we had decided to try some Spaghetti-o type thing but from Trader Joe’s. So I made that, plus a can of lima beans…I enjoy frozen lima beans and had bought some canned ones thinking they would be okay. OMG this was disgusting. It tasted like the “O’s” were in ketchup and the lima beans were just disgusting. Plus I’d been cooking on the stove and the pan kept sliding off because the picnic table was too slanted. It was just awful. We choked it down because we didn’t want to waste it, but trust me: don’t buy either product.
Our site at Bridge Bay. Honestly, if it had been a bit more level it would have been a really lovely site. The trees, there was a good bit of space (of course it was all a steep incline, but you know, space!)…and you could even see the Lake through it.
Anyway, the next morning we had our breakfast and headed to West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is one of my favorite basins because it is right alongside the Lake.
This was the famous “Fishing Cone” but mostly submerged. Back in the old days people would stand on it, fish, catch a fish, and then dip the fish into the cone to cook it! Now that would be totally illegal and ill-advised, and yes, people did get injured, and they also damaged the cone. The Lake water was pretty high though due to heavy snows and such so the cone was mostly submerged.
After getting our fill of the West Thumb Geyser Basin we took a little hike up to Lake Overlook. It leaves across the road from the parking lot and it is just over 2 miles. It was a very nice hike. We kept thinking it would rain on us but it didn’t. You get to the top and there is a nice view of the lake, hence the name.
After that hike we saw a sign for Duck Lake so we did that too, just over a mile. It was nice, but you could see the highway from the Lake so, less exciting, in my opinion.
We ate a bit of lunch and then drove to the DeLacy Trailhead to hike to Shoshone Lake. Shoshone Lake is the largest lake in the 48 states NOT accessible by road, so we wanted to check it out. There are several trails that will take you there, and there’s even a Geyser Basin, but we decided to do the most direct and shortest route, which was 3 miles each way (not much elevation change.)
We enjoyed this hike immensely. We passed only a few people on the way out and there were bugs (that was the biggest downside) but it was very enjoyable.
We got to the lakeside and were amazed by how big it seemed! There were a few other parties out there, and the trail would have continued various directions, but we just stopped to enjoy the lake. One guy was wading out pretty far into the water –evidently it stayed fairly shallow even far out. I didn’t do that, but I did take my shoes and socks off and step into the water…oh it was refreshing and the sand was just rough enough to feel terrific on my sore feet.
Normally while hiking I resist taking off my shoes to get my toes wet because I worry it’ll never be quite right again with my socks on. It was totally fine: smart wool socks combined with a pretty dry air meant I was able to get my feet rinsed off and back into my shoes quite easily.
On our way back another couple wanted to hike with us: I guess they were worried about bears…they never really said but just ended up hiking right behind us and then didn’t want to pass when we offered. We chatted a bit, though we felt at times maybe they were hiking a little bit close. It did make the 3 miles back go quickly.
So what to do next, that was the question! We decided to double back and head towards Bridge Bay again. We got close and then decided to head to Mud Volcano just a couple of miles past it. Mud Volcano is one of my favorite places, because on our first trip we had a wonderful visit there with a bunch of bison! We have never seen them there again, but always hope.
The Park was trying to get people to do things like only go one-way. Most were following these rules, even though technically it was the opposite of the way we would have preferred and there was a place where a one-way meant doubling back.
You can see the sky looks a bit foreboding…we were thinking, nah, it’s looked like that all day, and so we kept looking at the thermal features and taking pictures. Finally it started drizzling, and we could hear thunder and ran for the car!
We ended up driving through a hailstorm! It was very exciting for a short period of time. We got back to our campsite and the rain hadn’t gotten there yet…Louie and I made a quick decision to put up the tarp over our picnic table so we could be out of the rain, and we worked very quickly and got it up just before the rain started! It was wonderful timing. Luckily it was a very brief storm, so we were able to make and enjoy a nice campfire as well.
I don’t remember whether it was this night or the next night when Louie had to go get ice. This was one of the downsides of being in the middle of nowhere and not having phone service because it shows you how much you depend on it. He took the car and I had a guidebook to look at while he was gone, because he wanted to go get ice for the cooler from the front office. Well, he ended up being gone a long time. How long, I’m not sure…because I only had my guidebook. I ended up getting really worried and freaked out and somehow had convinced myself he had been eaten by bears and wouldn’t make it back, and was getting seriously panicked when he finally got back. I was so mad! He explained they didn’t have a functioning ice machine at the office so he had to go to Fishing Bridge which was “only 10 to 15 minutes” so that meant like 30 minutes, and there I am, no phone, no kindle, no nothing! I didn’t even know how much time had passed except that it hadn’t been dark and it was dark by the time he returned. Granted, I shouldn’t have worried so much, but with the pandemic, normal stress levels are high, and stress just goes into panic mode entirely too easily. I just don’t remember if this was the second night at Bridge Bay or the third night (I think the third night, because of the rain, but here we are on the second night and I’m telling you…it’s also very possible we set the tarp up earlier in the day and I’m forgetting about it…either way, when we set it up, it rained immediately after), and it doesn’t matter. It may seem like we are just having fun exploring, but trust me when I say normal was hard to come by and though we had some wonderful moments, we had some really hard moments too, for things that should have been easier.
What’s left? One more night in Bridge Bay, and then a night in Silver Gate, then a night in the Bighorn Mountains further East in Wyoming, and then a night in Nebraska…so lots more to go! One more full day in the park though, and I’ll start with that next blog post: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
When you visit Yellowstone during a pandemic, you try to avoid the busiest parts at the busiest times. Louie and I decided that we were visiting, rather than the best of Yellowstone, either the worst or the least of Yellowstone. And we still loved it! Sometimes you think of Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic, but there are so many other magical and beautiful places to go.
I was checking my notes now and I had thought my previous blog post finished up our time at Madison, but NO we still have the Bunsen Peak day to go!
We had decided for our last full day in the Madison area that we wanted to hike up Bunsen Peak and perhaps also to Osprey Falls after that. Well, Louie definitely wanted to add on Osprey Falls but I wasn’t sure, so we decided maybe we’d split up at that point. Bunsen Peak was back north along the Grand Loop Road where we had driven quite a bit the past few days, so it was in familiar territory.
We got to the trailhead easily, but then realized there weren’t any bathrooms nearby and needed to double back to find one. I was worried we’d lose our parking spot but nature was calling! We visited the Sheepeater Picnic area (note to readers, picnic areas always have vault toilets, which aren’t great but ARE useful at times) and one of the most delightful things was that several marmots were out playing around. Another delightful thing was that the toilets had just been cleaned.
I don’t have a zoom lens like Louie does—these were just from my phone. So the picture isn’t that clear, but trust me, marmots are really cute. Don’t get close to them and feed them please, don’t do that with any wild animals.
We headed back to Bunsen (about ten minutes?) and found parking again easily (unlike some National Parks, Yellowstone doesn’t get really crowded until after 10 am, maybe even 11, because it is just so big). And we headed up the trail. It was only about 2. 2 miles up to the top of Bunsen Peak, and you could just go back down, but you can also continue down the back way, and then to Osprey Falls. So we got to the top probably in just over an hour, I can’t remember. Maybe slightly longer. It was fairly scenic on the way up with particularly nice views of the Mammoth area from way up high. The trail was partly shaded, which was nice because it was quite sunny. We got passed by a few people but it wasn’t too crowded at all.
The white part you see towards the middle of the photograph is, I believe, part of Mammoth Hot Springs.
As it seems with many mountains in Yellowstone, there was a radio tower on top of Bunsen Peak as well, along with a little building. You had to walk up though, you couldn’t drive up like Mount Washburn.
At the top we did the usual, reapplied bug spray and sun screen, ate lunch, took pictures, checked email (yes, actually, because you get service up at the top of mountains, ha!)…
Another couple offered to take our picture and I was a bit hesitant, but we wiped down the phone after. Look at that view!
After we spent some time at the top, it was time to head on. The back side of Bunsen wasn’t as well traveled, but still seemed to see plenty of action. There were parts that had obviously burned at some point in the not-so-distant past.
Going up is always tough for me, but going down has its own challenges. I decided I wasn’t going to continue to Osprey Falls because of the elevation change that would be required (it was only about 3 more miles but down and up about 950 feet which I just wasn’t feeling). Louie and I decided to split up at a point when there was a turn. The route back was about 3 very flat miles, so I could easily walk that alone, except for the bear worries.
We got the turnoff and ended up seeing another couple. I asked them if I could tag along on their return trip and they readily agreed, so I didn’t have to walk alone. Louie headed off on his own (the couple were affiliated with the park, naturalists, and they didn’t think he should worry too much about doing that part of the trail alone) and I walked back with them. We stayed a bit apart but chatted: they lived in Gardiner and she worked as a naturalist and he was an engineer working online who also loved taking pictures of birds. They had been out birding on their hike, trying to get good pictures of an Osprey nest.
This part of the hike was doubletrack, an old road of sorts I suppose. People can bike on it as well.
It was nice chatting with people who weren’t Louie (no offense to Louie, simply that we had been spending all of our time together for days and weeks!) and the last miles flew by.
I got back to the car and made myself comfortable to wait for Louie. I read and drank cold water for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours until he got back. He said he really enjoyed the hike and the falls were beautiful, so I’m glad we did our plan.
What next, we thought? Well, we had gone north so many times…it was time to head south and visit some geysers. The south part of the part is where most of the geyser activity is, and as a result, most of the traffic. But it was nearly 4 pm when we got far enough south, and our first stop was Firehole Canyon Drive.
We did a quick stop at Fountain Flat Drive, where there is a picnic area and supposedly loads of wildlife at certain times of day. It was quite hot still so nobody was around, but we enjoyed this small hot spring. It was really neat because well…it was just this one tiny spring on the side of a perfectly normal looking river.
Then we visited the Fountain Paint Pots, which were fantastic. It must have been pushing 5 pm by then and the traffic was really clearing out. We got prime parking in the lot, and though the boardwalks weren’t empty, they weren’t bad, and we wore masks.
(In case you are unfamiliar with Yellowstone’s boardwalks, there are pretty much boardwalks everywhere you are walking over hot spring or geyser areas. It is great to see all the features from a safer setting.)
Then we hit up Firehole Lake Drive and saw more amazing hot springs and thermal features. Geysers erupt occasionally, hot springs are hot, paint pots bubble, there are all of these different technical terms, but the gist is: they are amazing with all the various colors and textures and smells.
Firehole Lake Drive is fun because you drive and park and drive and park and get out a bunch, and we kept running into the same people at each stop. I imagine during busier times of day the parking might be more difficult, but it was after 6 pm and for Yellowstone, that’s the end of the day and so many people have left.
We didn’t catch any eruptions really, but we weren’t worried about that. Maybe another time, when we feel like just sitting and waiting, but Louie and I aren’t that into geysers so much as just seeing all the different weird pools and run offs.
Anyway, after that we decided to head back to have dinner and relax.
It was our last night at Madison Campground, and we weren’t too sad about it either. You can see how crowded things were, and it had been some time since we had had showers.
We decided to visit the Old Faithful area early in the morning. We got up very early the next day and headed over—it was probably only about 20-30 minutes drive.
We definitely beat the crowds. It was around 7 am when we got there and hardly anybody was around. We wandered the boardwalks looking at the dozens and dozens and dozens of geysers in the area. I believe one could spend all day just at this one stop, but we never do! We had seen Old Faithful erupt on a previous visit so that wasn’t our goal this time.
Grotto Geyser above
Hmm, this might have been Castle Geyser?
A sign for the times, for sure!
We were lucky enough to catch Daisy Geyser erupt but we were a little bit away and I didn’t take any good pictures. Next we made a quick stop back to Fountain Flats Drive and did a short hike to Ojo Caliente, probably about 1/2 mile each way. And then we went to pack up our tent and go to West Yellowstone.
We are kind of experts at tent camping now (haha) and got packed up quickly. It was about a 20-30 minute drive to the West Entrance of the park and West Yellowstone, and I wanted to do laundry before we did anything else, so we found a laundromat first. We decided to eat lunch while we were doing laundry so we got takeout from a nearby place called Ernie’s. It wasn’t crowded but the people in the kitchen weren’t wearing masks we could see, but we decided to risk it anyway as it was right within walking distance of where we were and we didn’t want to try to find something else. Sigh. I enjoyed a nice salmon sandwich, if I recall, with potato chips and a Diet Coke.
After lunch and laundry (it’s always nice to start fresh again with clothes on a long trip!) we headed a bit north to visit the Earthquake Lake area. I’d read it was an interesting place to visit to learn about the Hebgen Lake Earthquake from 1959 where 28 people from a campground died. I didn’t realize there was a whole driving tour with various stops, so we started making the stops and had a nice afternoon learning all about the earthquake. The scenery was beautiful, the stops were interesting, and the story is just tragic and awful. To me, it always seemed particularly terrible to die while on a vacation, and there were just some awful stories from the survivors. And here we are, on vacation during a pandemic…I found it all very emotional and difficult but I’m really glad we made the stops.
The trees are where the lake took over: there wasn’t a lake there before the earthquake.
We took a slightly different route back to West Yellowstone after finishing the tour (it ends at the Visitor’s Center about 30 miles from West Yellowstone) and I didn’t realize we would go into Idaho! This was exciting for me because I didn’t think I had been to Idaho before, so we made sure to stop and get out of the car briefly.
Then we headed to our hotel for the night in West Yellowstone. I’d reserved a historic room at the Historic Old Madison Hotel. The downside was that our room only had a tub, but the upside was that there were showers in the hall one could use. That was our first stop the showers!
After we got ourselves presentable, we went to walk around town and get dinner. We had dinner from the Taco Bus, a place where you go into a bus to order your food…it’s sort of a Taco Truck but a little different. We sat at a picnic table outside to eat. Then we had ice cream after dinner, and then hung out on the lovely balcony upstairs at our hotel and enjoyed watching the traffic go by and the nice air.
There was another woman outside as well, and she was friendly enough, but we overheard her on the phone with a friend complaining that the hotel didn’t even have TV and that she didn’t like Yellowstone as much as the Black Hills because all they did was sit and wait for Old Faithful to erupt and it was super boring.
I think that’s a good place to leave you for today! Looking ahead: wolves and bears and more hot springs!
I am finally ready to write about the next few days of our trip. We are back home and work is crazy…I’ve been teaching about 22 hours a week and adding more. I’m also taking advantage of a variety of online seminars and workshops to improve and inspire my teaching (since, that’s all there is here. Hopefully someday there will be live performances again but it should be known that the live music and live theater business is currently dead and numerous family members and friends are completely out of work and scrambling to make ends meet.)
So, part 1 here. We drove from St Louis to Yellowstone National Park. I was not under the impression that Yellowstone would be less busy than in normal years, because I knew that visitation was slightly UP but I also knew there wouldn’t be large tour buses of tourists and I knew that it was easy to avoid people if you avoided certain areas at certain times…plus the park is outdoors.
We spent the night camping at Buffalo Bill State Park (normally in my head I substitute “bison” for “buffalo” but don’t do that in this case.) We left and headed west to Yellowstone National Park, only about 1 hour away.
The trick to a park like Yellowstone is to be eager to stop and get out of the car. Along the drive there are numerous small pull offs and each one is there for a reason. It’s easy to want to just sit in the car, but if you get out and look at the sign and admire the scenery (or take pictures) you’ll really get a lot more enjoyment out of it.
Before officially entering the park we had to stop for a bathroom break (have I mentioned how often I have to stop? I never think of it until I can’t just go, like on road trips…also it’s important to hydrate when at high altitudes, which Yellowstone is.)
Our general plan for this first day was to get to our campsite at Madison Campground by late afternoon. We were entering the park at about 11 am, and decided we would do a short hike at Storm Point on our way. This was a hike we’d done the previous year, but it was both easy and really beautiful so we thought it would be a nice “stretch your legs” hike. It was! Even though we made a few mistakes at the beginning…we decided to do the loop hike the opposite direction from the previous year, but we didn’t realize maybe the hike had been slightly rerouted due to a creek crossing and the reverse direction we took wasn’t actually the official trail and we had to do a little bushwhacking to find our way(this is a bit of foreshadowing….this turned out to be an error we made again later). Not very smart! It was also a bit buggy, which wasn’t my favorite, but hey, still better than Missouri, right? The views at the farthest point of the trail, Storm Point, are really gorgeous. You can see Lake Yellowstone and all of the mountains around. We also got to walk down to a little beach by the Lake, which led to Louie asking my favorite question of the vacation: while gesturing at a medium-sized group of ducks he asked, “why are there ducks here?”.
You can see some “thermal features” along the water there. You might think that all of the geysers and such are well labeled and in popular areas such as Old Faithful, but there are thermal features all over, and I love being on a hike, hearing something gurgling and saying “aha, a thermal feature!” Or seeing some “evidence of thermal activity”, another favorite.
This was the little beach area where Louie questioned the existence of the ducks.
We ate our picnic lunch along the way as well, but I think we didn’t enjoy this hike as well as last year because there were a lot of people on it. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, because a lot for a Yellowstone hike means maybe you see 20 to 30 people, but in these COVID times that seems like a lot!
We headed on our way then, just stopping at little things along the way to Madison Campground.
This was Beryl Springs, which is one of the hottest springs in the park. It’s a little pull off, but you see the steam before you park.
We checked into Madison Campground, our home for the next four nights. We hadn’t stayed here before. I had reserved a small tent site, and let me tell you, emphasis on small. Normally I have poo-pooed people who complain about National Park Campgrounds being jammed in too close together. That was my mistake. This site was outrageous. We were basically next to neighbors on both sides, just crammed in the middle of two campsites, with no sense of privacy (not even the pretend privacy of a campground). This was, other than the location being in Yellowstone, possibly the worst campsite I have ever had. For the record (again, the record), you don’t get to pick your campsite at Yellowstone. I’m not sure how they are assigned, but I definitely got unlucky. I have been lucky many times in the past though so I guess it evens out.
In any case, as we pulled up to our site, it started raining. We thought, let’s get the tent down before the ground gets wet. Which in theory might work, and we did it, we put the tent up in record time, but then it started pouring rain, even tiny hail, and it was a horrible storm and of course the ground was wet anyway. That always makes dinner difficult, so we though, hey we are only 30 minutes from West Yellowstone, let’s go there. So we did, but in these COVID times, you can’t just go get food. It was cold, rainy, and nothing appealed and it all just seemed too difficult. The only drive-through, McDonalds, was backed up a block down the street, so we decided to go back to the campground and eat in the car. We drank beers in the car (we decided with the keys out of the ignition there was no one who could argue we were intending to drive) and had hummus and pita chips.
The next morning we got up early. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time we went to sleep so it wasn’t too wet around…it was time to hit the trails and the Grand Loop Road again. We decided to start “easy” with a short hike up to Monument Geyser Basin—2 miles RT which seems easy, but it was very steep! I was definitely feeling the altitude and huffing and puffing but at least it wasn’t too long. The hike was lovely, with conifers all around and lots of rocks. Monument Geyser Basin has some dormant geysers but lots of huffing and puffing from them, with cone geysers, some mudpots and plenty of gurgling and steam. All in a private setting, no boardwalks or fences, just a few branches blocking off where is likely safe to walk and common sense (that you don’t get close to geysers because the ground around them can be very thin).
We enjoyed a little snack while watching the action. We probably only saw about 3 or 4 other small groups of hikers on this hike.
The hike DOWN was much easier, and soon we were back at the car. We decided to continue heading north and just do stops along the way, so that’s what we did. I have a book called “Yellowstone Treasures” by Janet Chappelle which tells you every pull off and what there is there, so that was quite useful on this trip.
Chocolate Pots—unmarked pulloff with some cool brown thermal features.
Frying Pan Spring. This has a boardwalk to it. I was entertained by passing a woman holding a large bag of Bugles for her trip to the Spring. To be clear: these springs tend to stink, and aren’t the sort of thing you want to snack while watching, but to each their own.
This was the kiosk at the pulloff for Obsidian Cliffs, which is the oldest of its kind in the park. It was built in the National Park Service Rustic style, also called “Parkitecture.”
We decided to go all the way to Mammoth Hot Springs and do another hike there, the Beaver Ponds Hike. It was busy when we got there around 2:30, but we found parking eventually (just be willing to walk more!). We masked up and headed for our trail head. The hike was a 5 mile loop and had some elevation at the beginning but wasn’t too bad throughout, according to the information I had.
The view of Mammoth Hot Springs as we were going by.
We climbed a bit and ran into a couple of teenagers coming back towards us asking about the trail…they had lost it further up and wondered if we knew. We did not, but said we thought we were on the right trail and that was that. A bit later we saw what we thought they might have done wrong (there was a turnout one way to an overlook, the other way to continue the trail) but weren’t sure how they could have missed it. In any case we followed along, enjoying the hike, and even saw a few coyotes (I think?) at one point (which we realized were hunting a marmot…which yes, it’s the circle of life but I don’t enjoy watching animals try to kill other animals.)
If you look closely you can see the coyote. Louie probably has better pictures from his DSLR.
We got to the Beaver Ponds (two of them, I think? ) and kind of followed around.
Suddenly we found ourselves on a trail that seemed less traveled and started to worry we had taken a wrong turn. It didn’t seem super wrong, just a little wrong, so we kept going, and found ourselves going up this steep trail on the side of the trail that was just covered with animal poop (elk, likely) and that’s when we thought, this doesn’t seem right. I had a picture of the map and we looked at it, but it didn’t help. I started panicking. I think I may have started saying, oh my god we are lost in Yellowstone and we are going to die out here and nobody knows where we are and was really starting to have a panic attack. We should have turned around, but we thought we could find the trail. I thought I didn’t even have a topographic map and it was just frankly, really terrifying. I knew if we headed east we would eventually hit the Old Gardiner Road but I didn’t know how far that would be nor if it would be easy to get to, but that was all I could think…
Louie stayed calm and tried to get me calm, and we were on a sort of trail, because there were footprints here and there, but we just couldn’t get going the right way. Finally he got some cell services and could see our location on the maps, and he was able to see where the trail was compared to where we were! Unfortunately, it was up a very steep hill, which had a variety of ways up but they all seemed to be absolutely terrifying (to me) paths made by the elk. I kept having to stop and was really on the verge of absolutely full on panic, but after some harrowing minutes (maybe even an hour, I don’t even know, I couldn’t think straight) we made it up this horrible hill and over the ridge and then finally back on the trail.
Here’s the thing you should know: before the trip I downloaded two apps on my phone, and both had the complete trail system of the park on them, one with the trails marked, one with topographical maps. Both of them show your location in real time on the map, and neither require cell service, only GPS. But in my panic, I didn’t think of trying them out. I also didn’t think of using the GyPSy app we had been using, which ALSO knows our location, and incidentally, has trail maps on it. So I had my phone, with nearly full service, but didn’t have the calm mind to use it to try to help ourselves. Louie did want to sit down and just regroup but I just couldn’t do it.
I will tell you, I was never so happy to be back on a trail. I don’t know why I got so absolutely panicked but it turned out okay and I definitely overreacted. I think it was because the pandemic has just left me so constantly stressed that I didn’t have anything left.
We were both incredibly happy when the town and the Hot Springs were in view!
We passed by (carefully) some elk in town (this is super normal, it is weird if you DON’T see elk in the town of Mammoth. And then decided to take a look at the Upper Loop Drive. There was a place where normally you can drive through but for some reason was closed to cars, so we decided to walk it instead. After that we visited Canary Spring, one of our favorites from the previous year (we stayed a night in Mammoth). It’s an amazing spring going down over the terraces. We did notice some parts that had been active the previous year weren’t this year, but I can’t believe that apparently now Canary Spring has gone dormant! Although I think it was a bit drier from my pictures, it was still really amazing. (They say the only constant in Yellowstone is change, and that one spring will go dormant but another will start up again).
Finally we decided we’d better head back to the campground to make dinner. It took over an hour to drive back—we saw a few more elk along the way but nothing too crazy. We made a fire and made dinner and hung out a bit before going to “bed.” Oh, and I think it HAD rained/stormed at the campground but luckily we had a rain free day—the clouds looked menacing on our Mammoth hike but luckily it held off: we had enough challenges there already!
The next day we headed north from the campground again, and just figured we’d make a lot of stops as well and do a hike or two later in the day further along. First we made a quick stop at Terrace Springs and enjoyed being among the first there.
Our next stop was Gibbon Falls. It was a very busy parking area especially for the early hour so we kept our distance.
We did manage to get a selfie with the falls.
Then we decided to hit Artists Paint Pots. It was already a fairly crowded area but we got a space. It wasn’t too crowded other than the parking lot (which is quite small.)
There are a ton of thermal features here and a gorgeous mountain range for the backdrop.
We visited Sheepeater Cliffs (we almost didn’t do this because it seemed to just be a picnic area, but it was awesome.)
We drove past Mammoth then, and decided to leave the park to go into the town of Gardiner to check email and such. (Also Louie hoped to see Elk in the river along the way.) It was very exciting to get LTE service in town (which is only 5 miles from Mammoth).
Terrible picture, but the lions outside of the Post Office are wearing masks, you can see.
Elk near the Roosevelt Arch, which is at the North Entrance.
We got a fruit smoothie in Gardiner at a sort of food truck and walked around a bit. Then we headed back to the park, and on the drive back in we did see a bunch of elk down near the river—it was a hot day and there were dozens of them enjoying the water. I wondered if some of the trails we were accidentally or on purpose following during our hike the day before would have led us to the river?
We watched for awhile and then headed on.
We drove the Blacktail Plateau Drive which was pretty but had no wildlife sightings other than a strange bird. I think it was too hot for the animals, but we figured we’d try it anyway.
We had decided to do the Lost Lake/Petrified Forest Loop Hike. I’d thought we could start from Roosevelt, but it really was closed (COVID) so we started the Petrified Forest instead. This was a 3 mile round trip hike with some elevation. What I didn’t realized was the second half was mostly uphill and ALL in the sun, so it was less pleasant. I also should have had my hiking sticks in places, because I got a bit scared and cranky. The first part of the hike was lovely, by a beautiful lake, down through a wooded forest, into the Roosevelt area, full of cabins, and not much else.
(The lake wasn’t lost at all, very easy to find!)
A few people were around working, and we asked directions to get to the other side of the hike. The area seemed a bit post-apocalyptic with all the buildings being completely abandoned. The next part of the hike was not my favorite and was lots of climbing with not much shade, and it was the heat of the day. I don’t remember Yellowstone being so hot, but this visit it was!
Anyway, we did check a few times to make sure we were still on the trail, using my excellent maps with my GPS, and it was uneventful in that way.
After the hike we had time to visit Lamar Valley briefly and see the bison. There are just hundreds of them, and I always enjoy seeing them.
We thought we might have a 2 1/2 hour drive back home (I think it ended up being about 2) so we had to leave before too long. We did get in a nice bison jam, and at one point a bison was walking down the road right in front of us. We’d heard they can travel up to 35 mph, but this guy was just going about 3 mph…finally he got over into the other lane and Louie though it was safe enough to pass. He wasn’t actually sure about it, and it is a little nerve wracking driving by the bison but the fellow didn’t seem to mind us slowing driving by.
We made very few stops on the way back, but did stop at Apollinaris Spring. It was a place that you used to be able to drink the spring water and had this amazing stone work around it. Now it’s all overgrown, but it was beautiful in a haunting way. Yellowstone has natural beauty, and also quite a long history (and before it became a park too, you’ll read things about Native Americans living on this land long before, but then you’ll also read about how “nobody lived here” which is…GRRRR.)
Don’t mind Louie being on the edge of my photo.
It was just off the road, not well marked, and we initially didn’t stop because we didn’t see anything there. Another random Yellowstone find that we really enjoyed (and NOBODY was there except us and the mosquitoes).
Then it was dinner time, and campfire time. The good thing about having squeezed into our tiny spot was that it was easy to bring things from the car to the picnic table. And luckily, each night the people right by us were perfectly nice and not too loud (other than one night when were near a snorer, who I was convinced was a bison briefly).
I’ll stop there and you can wait a few weeks (maybe not that long!) for the next installment of our trip! One more night in the Madison area, then a night in West Yellowstone, and then over to Bridge Bay campground. Check out the map of Yellowstone to get a sense.
Sometime in early May, when we were all really stuck inside the house, I saw something on Facebook about camping in Yellowstone, and I thought, yes, why not! So even though at the time I actually thought there was no way we would even be allowed to travel cross country in late July, I booked several nights camping (with fully refundable reservations) and then I started to plan out a two week road trip getting there and back.
I titled the document, Yellowstone…or not. Because I didn’t want to get too excited about it, and well, because I didn’t think it would happen. But planning the trip gave me something to do, and something to think might maybe happen. As it got closer, I started to worry that even though we COULD go, maybe we shouldn’t. Would it be a stupid thing to do? After all, there are people that don’t wear masks and go out to eat as if nothing has changed, when still most of my friends are unemployed or underemployed, and entire sectors of the country (the arts and music in particular) have completely shut down, with absolutely no end in sight. (It is worth noting that this week alone I have lost four weeks of theater work that I would have had in the fall.)
But we decided to go. Louie and I decided that yes, maybe it was a stupid thing to do, and yes, we were upping our COVID risk, but we would do our best to be safe, we would always wear masks inside, near people, and we would never eat in a restaurant or spend any significant amount of time inside near people. Additionally, we planned to try to social distance outside as much as possible and avoid the busiest places at the busiest times. I was under no impression than Yellowstone wasn’t busy at this time: I had read online that that visitation from UP from normal years, and that the area was completely slammed, but I also knew if we set out on foot, perhaps 50 yards from our car, crowds would dissipate and I knew that the Park was huge and we could get away from people no matter how busy it was.
We set out on the morning on a Saturday and headed west. We had packed a good amount of our food for the trip though we planned to get takeout here and there and do a few drive-throughs along the way as well. The first day we had about an 11 hour drive planned, from St Louis to Bridgeport, Nebraska. It was a long day driving, but we listened to the 1619 Podcast and enjoyed the scenery. If you let yourself enjoy the scenery, Missouri is nice and Nebraska is actually quite beautiful with the cornfields and the open skies.
We stopped a few times along the way, lunch at McDonalds (did the drive thru, ate outside out of car), snacks and cold drinks from the cooler. We got to Bridgeport around 8:00 and first ended up at the wrong motel! Somehow in inputting the address I had put the Meadowlark Motel instead of the Meadowpark Hotel and we ended up about 1/2 mile from where we wanted to be (at a motel that didn’t look like I thought it should, nor was it very nice, plus no reservation..then I realized, oh, this is entirely the wrong place yet somehow the name is so similar, which frankly is just really weird.) Nonetheless we ended up at the motel I had booked which was perfectly nice. It was part of an RV Park as well, so we were in one of a small amount of very decent motel rooms which overlooked a nice grassy area. We relaxed outside of our room enjoying the fresh air for a bit before going to sleep.
The next morning we found a nearby Taco John’s for breakfast. Last year we had inadvertently discovered Taco John’s and their Potato Ole’s and fallen in love, and we made a point a few times to visit this summer when possible (there are none near St Louis.)
We drove about an hour west in Nebraska until we reached our first quasi-destination for the day. Chimney Rock! Now, there wasn’t much to do, but last summer we had driven by in the night and this summer I wanted us to see it during the day.
Chimney Rock was a famous landmark for people on the Oregon Trail back in the day. There’s a lot of Oregon Trail history in this area (and really, the land is very beautiful) which is both cool to read about but then you start feeling kind of weird and awful about the idea of settlers and all of the colonization taking place back then…being taught all of this land was open and nobody lived on it, when in fact, there were tens of thousands of Native Americans already living there.
But it is a kind of cool landmark. There was an RV Park right next to it which looked like the place to stay if you really liked Chimney Rock.
Next we drove on into the empty space towards Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. I thought we should see a different National Monument in Nebraska than last year and as always the National Parks Service did a good job. The drive north from the Scottsbluff area was really beautiful, full of nothingness and cell towers and farmland, but gorgeous (in an understated way, not in an obvious Montana way). At one point the birds were really on the road and didn’t like to get out of the way of the car and that led to a rather upsetting moment and after that we honked the horn every time. Finally we arrived at Agate Fossil Beds, and not a moment too soon as I really had to go the bathroom by then. The tough part of road trips is that you never realize how often you use the bathroom until you can’t just go whenever you want.
The visitor’s center was closed, but they had nice portapotties out front and there was a ranger there as well giving out maps and information. We did the two trails there and learned about the area and why it is a National Monument. The first trail we did was the Fossil Hills Trail which is about 2.7 miles. Back closer to 1900 men found a lot of the fossils in the area and excavated them (with horse and wagon) and took them to various museums further east. Nowadays we tend to leave the fossils in place for further study but back then it was thought to collect them for museums for people to visit more easily. Many of these fossils were of animals that are now extinct but that lived long after the dinosaurs, bear dogs, giant pigs, small rhinoceroses, and land beavers. We had learned about some of these animals at the museum in Branson the year before as well, so it was nice to see them again in a more reputable source.
This was part of where the fossils had been. It was a neat hike up a large hill.
Doesn’t this just scream “America” at you? Of course some of us know that America means more than wheatfields and cowboy hats, but it’s very “Americana” I guess.
The first of many selfies we took on the trip. Hardly anybody was around, though we did pass a few people on the hike. We had our masks handy, though I don’t know if taking it in and out of your pocket is actually that effective?
The Ancients Beavers made these spiral burrows. This was on the second trail we did called the Daemonelix Trail, only about 1 mile. The heat of the day was getting to us by now (it was noon or so by now) and the sun was hot! We really enjoyed our visit to the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. It’s too bad the visitor’s center/museum was closed because we peeked in and saw some nice looking displays, but we doubt we will go back—it wasn’t too out of the way, but it was a bit out of the way from anything!
Next we were headed to Wyoming. Our destination for the evening was a campsite at Boysen State Park’s Lower Wind River Campground. We drove about 4 or so more hours, many of them on roads that were under construction, but Wyoming is so beautiful we hardly even minded.
We got to Boysen around 5 pm and found our campsite easily. It was a small campground, with water and vault toilets (that means, they don’t flush, they sort of compost and are totally decent when they aren’t used very much). We had a nice site near the river, but the downside was that the campground was right near a highway. I’d thought the traffic would die down overnight but I’m not sure it did.
We set up our tent and then explored Boysen State Park further. There is a gorgeous reservoir formed by a dam in the Canyon. I think the Park is mostly used for water recreation, but it was really gorgeous.
Right near our campsite.
I loved our campsite. We weren’t right by the water (I’d had a hard time deciding which site to reserve and possibly should have picked the one over, but we were Site 13 and it ended up being quite nice.)
Just a cool rock formation with the Forester. And below, the sun over Boysen Reservoir.
An excellent selfie by the Wind River, in the possibly better campsite (which was unoccupied). We were right near a few tunnels as well, a couple for the road and a couple for the train, which was neat to watch coming in and out of the tunnel.
We made our first camping meal of mac and cheese with tuna and canned peas (what can I say, we eat like kings while camping) and made a fire. They didn’t actually sell firewood at the campground which is unusual but we found a bit to burn and the camp host said we could have a few logs and we took her up on it. We would have enjoyed the evening more with a few less biting flies though, and turned in on the early side.
The next morning we had to pack up the tent. We were off to nearby Thermopolis next to visit Hot Springs State Park.
The town of Thermopolis feels like a throw back from the 70s or 80s. Lots of independent motels and in the park there are two privately owned hot springs play areas which feel very 80s with music, water slides, pools and more. But our destination ended up being the public baths, because you get a free 20 minute soak, it was outdoors for the most part and it wasn’t crowded at all. We hit the jackpot because we could also shower for free while there!
The hot springs in Thermopolis are formed differently than the hot springs in Yellowstone but I have already forgotten the difference. The park was lovely, not crowded and was nice to just wander around. There is also a scenic drive and a bison herd!
We walked across this bridge.
The colors caused by the various organism in the hot waters are really gorgeous. The round building in the background is Hellie’s Teepee Pool, one of the privately owned pool/bath places.
More hot springs.
One of the neat things is when you find evidence of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. These stairs were built to help people get to the hot springs here and soak in the water I guess. Back in the day (1920-1950’s) people went more crazy over hot springs and would even camp in the area in order to take advantage of them. (Sometimes I feel like I’m failing a test when I am trying to remember what we saw in order to tell you. I do write some things down, but not everything. I don’t recall exactly what these steps were to, but I do recall they were built by the CCC and that I always enjoy a good set of stone stairs).
We drove up the scenic drive. There was also hiking to be done, but it was hot and we didn’t feel like doing more than just walking around after having showered and cleaned up! We also found the bison herd but they weren’t too close to the road so we just said hello from the car (not really, but yes) and moved on, knowing there would be more to see in Yellowstone!
We had to stop for pictures by this crazy thing. It was called the Teepee Fountain and what will blow your mind is that it is sort of man-made.
This sign shows how it initially looked and the water has done the rest over the years! It was built in 1909 to vent steam and over the years the mineral deposits from the water have built it up.
Our last stop in Thermopolis was just down by the river again.
After that, we hit the road again, headed to Cody, Wyoming. People on Trip Advisor love the town of Cody, and the one thing we would like to do someday but we didn’t want to do this time was visit the museums. Cody has what they call “5 museums in 1” about the west: history, art, weapons, and more, and supposedly the museums are Smithsonian quality. I didn’t think a pandemic was the best time to visit a museum that they say you should devote the whole day to, so we just stopped by and then had camping reservations at nearby Buffalo Bill State Park.
When we got to Cody we saw a sign for Mexican Tacos from a Truck (living the dream) and so we screeched to a halt and quickly ordered. We ate outside at a picnic table surrounded by a parking lot and it was glorious. You had your usual suspects, the people who didn’t wear masks when ordering (the people in the truck were wearing masks) and then the guy who left his truck idling the whole time he waited on his order (there was nobody in the truck and no, it just doesn’t take that long to cool your vehicle back down, but eating next to an idling truck sure is less comfortable). Perhaps this is why we didn’t like Cody that much: the people. After our late lunch we picked up a few supplies at the grocery story, which thankfully had a mask requirement, and then we walked around the downtown area a bit. We didn’t feel terribly welcome for the most part because we saw just a few too many t-shirts about how the current president was the best, and so after an hour or wandering or so (and wondering if it would rain) we continued on our own way.
We stopped at the Buffalo Bill Dam next. It was just starting to storm when we got there, so we stayed in the Visitor’s Center a littel longer than I might have liked, but it wasn’t too busy and there were some very interesting exhibits and a short movie telling you how the dam was made. (Hint: it was very difficult to make and went way over budget). One thing I noticed was how many casualties were acceptable—these days people don’t expect any casualties during construction jobs but back 100 years ago dozens of people would get hurt and/or die, no big deal, seemingly. Nowadays we only expect that for school children from gunshots, I guess.
The storm passed fairly quickly and then it was hot again. I didn’t get many pictures for two reasons: fear of heights, and being a little too close to the dam for good pictures.
Our next stop for the day was our campground at Buffalo Bill State Park. We had a site booked at the North Shore Campground, and it was a beautiful location! The weird thing about this campground was that the water was centrally located in one place that wasn’t really walking distance from the site. Our site was a walk-in tent site and was an absolutely gorgeous location, though. (The next morning we had a bit of a miscommunication and I regret not understanding that Louie thought we should stay longer, whereas I was in “go-go” mode and wanted to get to Yellowstone. This ended up with us having an argument and both feeling bad..it’s hard for me sometimes to just be in the moment and relax when I know so many places the early bird gets the worm and waiting too long means that you end up with huge crowds, but this wasn’t that case and we should have stayed longer…vacations can be hard, especially camping vacations! But I digress…well, one more digression is that I was super stressed going into this trip about COVID and whether we even had the moral right to go on vacation, and that was hard to deal with also…)
The view of where we parked versus where our campsite was. Now, we have learned over the years to always stake the tent down. Children, let me tell you, you must always stake your tent down as well as you possibly can. Never say, oh, it’s very pleasant now. It could storm or be windy at any point and you will regret it if you don’t tie your tent down the very best way you can. We have learned though, so we did it, and we were very glad later, because the wind picked up tremendously and this was one of the windiest sites we had ever had!
But it was gorgeous. Right by the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, and very private too. There were wooden fences around it too.
For this campground they did sell firewood but we weren’t sure if they would so we bought some in Cody, just in case. You never know, and it usually turns out if we don’t have wood it isn’t there but if we do we shouldn’t have bought it and would have gotten a better deal at the campground.
After unpacking the tent we went out to do a little exploring in the area but realized truly the best view was from our campsite (Tent Site 4), so we went back. That’s when the wind had really picked up and we knew if we hadn’t tied everything down as well we easily could have lost the tent! But it was totally fine and we made a dinner (in the wind, it was tough!) and again went to bed early to finally get out of the wind.
I’ll leave this blog post here. Next stop: Yellowstone!
