Catching Up... Part 2

Yellowstone

Yes, our one day in Yellowstone was the longest day ever. For one thing, it started at our campground on the Jackson Hole and of Grand Teton and ended in Billings, Montana, via the west entrance of Yellowstone since the south one (the one connecting it to Grand Teton) was closed. And then there was the snow driving over the pass back into Idaho, and the HOUR of traffic jam because of some bison on the road, and the scary engine stall out, and the sleet and snow (on May 2nd!), and the car in front of us on the way out of the park (at dusk, of course) hitting a deer! But for all that, we loved Yellowstone (excepting Maggie's complaints about the smell)! The geothermal activity is like nothing else we've seen, in addition to all the natural beauty. If only that campground hadn't closed this year...

Catching Up - Part 1

It's been a while since I've posted, but fortunately Marianne has been keeping you all updated. We're back on the road, heading east from the Badlands (more on that stop as well as the Black Hills to come), and I'll try to catch up on some photos from the last two weeks.

Seattle

We are so grateful for the time we had with my Mom and Dad in Seattle. Thanks for the hospitality, hanging out with Maggie, taking us to North Cascades, lots of nice meals and wine (and letting me make us all cocktails), and helping with RV repairs (can't remember the last time my Dad and I did a project together... and this one was a gross pne). And thanks to Jen and Steve and Ezra for hanging out with us so much!

Grand Teton

Marianne mentioned already how much I enjoyed the Tetons, though we didn't initially plan on spending so much time there. The way the mountains rise from the valley floor like a serrated knife blade is so striking! And the moose sightings! It would be nice to come back when we can do some bigger hikes (and there's less snow pack).

More to come...

Yellowstone

 

Yellowstone National Park was other-worldly!

But first, this is how we got there...

Back in October Matt reserved a spot at a campground in the park. He received an email in March saying they were no longer opening the campground, so our reservation was canceled. Having no option he booked a spot at Grand Teton (which I wrote about in my last post). That spot was great, but left us with an hour drive through Grand Teton into Yellowstone. The day before our visit we learned that the nearest Yellowstone entrance was still closed (we missed it by a week), and the closest open entrance to our campground was 3 hours away! Oh, dear.

So we decided to hit the road from the Tetons early, have a long day of driving and Yellowstone-seeing, and then hit the road to a parking lot instead of driving all the way back to our campsite. I (Mar) drove the first bit in the mountains and on a decline threw the RV into reverse instead of 3rd gear. It resulted in a stalled vehicle with a stuck steering wheel, which I managed to get safely to a berm before breaking down in tears. Thanks be to God for keeping us all safe! Matt took over, and back on the road were we.

First stop: the Visitors Center in West Yellowstone. We were guided by a really friendly park Ranger to drive past a buffalo carcass on the way to Old Faithful. We did not see the carcass, and were delayed almost an hour by (living) bison in the road. Hmph.

When we finally made it to Old Faithful, we learned we had missed its eruption by minutes. So we took a lovely hike past tiny geysers  and hot springs, full of color and smell (“It smells like rotten eggs!” said Maggie again and again with a pinched nose). We stood in the perfect spot to wait for Old Faithful’s 3:26 eruption....and waited. And waited. And then, he spurted. It was pretty cool!

Next was a walk around Prismatic Pools, which was cold and snowy and smelly and spectacular, again full of color. Then a walk around Painted Pools, which were so fun: gurgling and burping and spewing. Lastly, we hiked around the Upper Terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs, which offered amazing views of bacteria and mineral build-up that appeared as ice. Wow.

We left Yellowstone after 8:00 and took a long, dark drive to the nearest Costco parking lot.  Again, we're thankful God kept us safe on that drive and thankful to have seen such an amazing place.

(PS from Matt: Marianne's right that the moment the RV stalled out on her on a winding mountain road was pretty terrifying, but she was amazing under pressure. Thank God for that! I'll post some of my pictures from the Tetons and Yellowstone soon. They are amazing places - the way the Tetons rise like a serrated knife edge from the valley floor is quite epic, and those geothermal features at Yellowstone are like nothing else we've seen on this trip. I was very grumpy about that hour-long traffic jam just because of a few bison hanging out by the road, and a little bit about the snow and sleet... but it was so worth it.)