Travel Day

I didn't post anything yesterday because our trip to the north-east side of Yellowstone didn't amount to much. Beautiful drive, but really nothing of interest to see except for Mammoth Hot Springs. Here is a picture looking east, supposedly you are looking at the heart of the caldera.
 

Here is a view from the northeast side.

 This is the main springs of the Mammoth Hot Springs. After seeing so many geysers, hot springs, mud pots - everyone looks the same. We enjoyed our time at Yellowstone and am glad we finally got the experience the beauty of the area, but it's time to move on.

We were on the road by 6 a.m. this morning heading northwest - mainly north. Arrived at our destination at 1 p.m. and got set up. According to our research on the internet, there is a winery located close to where we are staying, but after driving about 10 miles out of town, located the address up a tiny, steep driveway, the winery is no longer in business. We knocked on the door of this very nice house and the people were quite pleasant and friendly. They said the winery has been out of business for some time.   So headed back to town and a fruit stand that advertised cherries, which we bought a gallon bag filled with very flavorful cherries.

This is our new home for 3 nights. Can you guess where we are at now and what we will be seeing tomorrow? If not, come back for the next posting and I will fill you in.

Grand Tetons and Jackson

Woke up to cloudy skies and a few rain showers, so didn't head out bright and early. Our plan for the day was to drive south through Yellowstone to Grand Teton NP then on to Jackson to play tourist. We were making pretty good time traveling through Yellowstone until we rounded a corner and came to a road block - well 2 road blocks that were bigger than we were, so waited until they moved a little more then went around behind them. It's like they know what they are doing in blocking traffic. They just stood there and watched both sides.

Since it was overcast and a rainy day, the Grand Tetons were not so grand, but we did get to see them. The pictures just didn't come out very good at all.

Getting into Jackson, we stopped at the city square where they have these antler arches.

Jim playing tourist for me to take his picture.

And by chance it just happened to be lunch time, so had to head to the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar for hamburgers and a beer.

 The only time I can get Jim in a saddle is when there is a Bud Light in front of him on the bar!

 It's a neat bar with the all the bar stools as saddles.

Where's the horse?

Walked around Jackson looking in the art galleries. There some really great paintings in the stores, some really talented artists. Most of the paintings are of the Grand Tetons of course. Not much else to do so drove up the west side of the Tetons to West Yellowstone back to the RV.

Old Faithful & More

Bright & early this morning (7a.m.) we headed out for Yellowstone, which the west entrance is about 2-3 miles from the RV park. Needless to say it was cold - about 47 degrees, so we were bundled up (not use to cold weather at this point.) We headed for Old Faithful first thing because we knew that would be crowded later in the day. On the way we stopped at the Midway Geyser Basin and walked around the geysers there. Here it shows the hot water from the geyser running into the river.

 Jim found a way to warm up. 

Looking back over the river, it shows plenty of the steam from geysers. There were geysers everywhere.

Made it to Old Faithful about 30 minutes before the schedule time for it's show, so didn't have to wait long. Spent the time in the Visitor Center, then went out and sat and waited for the show to begin. Here is Old Faithful just sitting there very peaceful.

This is the show it put on. It was impressive and lasted about two minutes. Glad we got to see it.

From there we drove around through West Thumb and up the west side of Yellowstone Lake. What a huge and beautiful lake. Our next stop was the Mud Volcano, where the ground just bubbles with this smelly mud. Interesting.

In walking down from the hill we climbed to see the Sulphur Caldron and Mud Volcano this is the view off to the east. Beautiful country.

 Back in the Lincoln to continue going north, we couldn't figure why traffic had stopped. Well, we finally figured out why, a bison decided to lead the southbound traffic at his pace.

I finally had my close encounter with a bison as he walked by our vehicle going in the opposite direction.

 There he goes!

Our next stop was a viewing point for the Upper Falls.

 From the viewing point we drove around to the river side and hiked down to the brink of the Upper Falls. It was about 1/8 mile down. It was a good view to look down the falls of 109 feet. Then we went farther up the road to hike down 3/8 mile (and I mean down as in steep) to see the brink of the Lower Falls which fall 308 feet. Here is a picture looking over the falls.

The water from the falls then go through what they call Yellowstone Grand Canyon.  The hike back up that 3/8 mile sure felt like 3 miles, we worked off the cheeseburger we had for lunch.

These pictures are only a sampling of over 100 pictures I took. We stopped a couple other places on the way back to the RV, but nothing spectacular. The weather warmed up to 86 degrees from the 47 when we started out, so turned into another beautiful day. We are about to head outside to enjoy the evening on our patio. Another real early start tomorrow.

West Yellowstone Arrival

In my last post while we were at Terry Bison Ranch in Cheyenne, I mentioned going for a bison dinner. Well I want to tell you that the dinner was fabulous. Jim and I shared a bison sirloin dinner and the bison short ribs. The sirloin was great - lots of flavor and tender, but the short ribs were out of this world good. I don't know if it was because the bison was great or if it was the BBQ sauce, either way, they were fabulous. Now we can say we have eaten bison.

We left Cheyenne early Sat. a.m. and had a pretty easy drive to Billings, MT about 450+ miles. Didn't hit much traffic and the road was quite pleasant. When we arrived and got set up for the night, we took off to visit Yellowstone Winery, they make the wine there in Billings from grapes they get from Washington. Jim couldn't find any red wine he liked, but I came away with 6 bottles of 2 different whites, they were quite good.

We parked at the KOA RV Park in Billings which is right on the Yellowstone River.

Our site was nice with a patio, swing and table (picture is kinda hard to see).

Here's a better picture of Jim enjoying the swing.

 While sitting outside in the evening, we were surprised to see a deer come right in the park with all the people and cars around to have his dinner.

This morning we headed out of Billings to West Yellowstone, only a 233 mile trip. Arrived around noon, so had time to walk into town to visit all the tourist stores and we also went through the museum to gather our history lesson for the day.

 We are staying at the Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park, which is quite nice.

Our site is long enough for the coach and Lincoln to park on, with a nice patio area. 

 Here is a look at the park streets.

Jim is setting up the Weber grill, so that's my hint to head inside and get the pork ribs ready to get on the coals. Tomorrow we head head out for our first full day of viewing Yellowstone. There will be no trail hiking because we just heard at the museum that a hiker had an encounter with a bear and did not survive. Jim and I already have had our lifetime encounter with a bear at Sequoia NP and do not want to repeat that.

Four States in Two Days!

Finally I have a few minutes to write about our adventures in traveling 4 states in 2 days. We left Tucson on Thurs. morning, only about 1 hour later than planned because we discovered an engine coolant leak going into the Aqua Hot (hot water heater). After contacting Newell to find out how to solve the issue (by shutting off 2 valves), we were on our way East then North.

Our first stop was Albuquerque, where we arrived at 7pm, got set up and was enjoying a bit of relaxation after a 455 mile drive, when all of a sudden the power went out. At first we thought it was the park, but we discovered that we were the only ones without power. We had electrical problems with the our main power transfer box. So since it was quite hot, we turned on our generator so the A/C could run and had dinner and went to bed, to call Newell again in the morning to find out how to fix.

But by morning the power was working again, so we decided to head out at 6:15 am to head further North. But by the time we got about 10 miles we had to pull over to the side of the road 2 times to close a bay door (outside storage door). Finally we just took an exit for a frontage road and found all the bay doors were locked except the one that kept opening and we couldn't unlock them. So - called Newell again. After working on this issue for about 1/2 hour with Newell tech, a big truck with flashing lights pulled up behind us. New Mexico DOT have what they call Courtesy Patrol to help people that are broken down along side the road. He proceeded to help us solve the problem - replace one little 15amp fuse. The problem was we just couldn't get to it, but finally did. We are forever thankful for Everett Quintana the Courtesy Patrol Driver that helped us. What a great service.

Now we are finally on our way north I25, only 1 1/2 hours later. Our next stop - Cheyenne, WY a mere 562 miles. First off we ran into an accident that just happen on the Interstate, which slowed us down a bit. But after that it was clear sailing through Pueblo, CO, then we hit heavy traffic at Colorado Springs all the way through to Cheyenne. At Denver that traffic was stop and go way south of the city, so we took the express toll road all the way around the city. Traffic was light and we just sailed through the 45 mile bypass at a cost of approx $80-$100 toll fee. We won't know until we get it in the mail. They charge an arm and a leg for 5 axle vehicles.

We thought that getting north of Denver the traffic would lighten up - no way. It was still slow going and stopping at times until we pulled off at exit 2 in Wyoming. After 8 3/4 hours driving we were so happy to get to our destination, set up and pull out a bottle of wine to ease the stress.

Today, we walked around the Ranch then headed into Cheyenne to see what that was like. We are staying at the Terry Bison Ranch RV Park about 9 miles south of Cheyenne and it's a real working ranch with all the animals.

 Jim talking with the little donkey.

A face that a only a mother would love.

 Jim had a real connection with the ostrich, in fact this ostrich is doing a dance for him where he (or she) squatted down and danced his (or her) feathers back and forth to each side. Don't know what it meant, but it was quite different.

 There are horses, pigs, goats, chickens and of course bison. The only way you can see the bison though is to take their train ride to go out in the fields, which we weren't going to pay $12 each just to see some bison, which we will see in Yellowstone.

The Ranch and RV Park are quite rustic and would not qualify to receive 5 stars, but everyone is friendly and it's quite different.

 Went into old downtown Cheyenne and saw many old buildings.

Went to the Railroad Depot Museum, which was quite informative.

Walked around town (which after traveling for 2 days felt quite good), up to the State Capital building.

 Then took a tour through the historical Governor's Mansion.

See the photo below this one to describe what the train engine is.

 Not much else we could find to see in Cheyenne. It is the largest city in Wyoming at only about 62,000 population. Tonight we are headed over to the Senator's Steakhouse and Brass Buffalo Saloon (located here on the Ranch) for an authentic Bison Sirloin dinner. A must experience.

Tomorrow we head out early for a stopover at Billings, MT on our way to Yellowstone. Stay tuned for our continued saga.