Month: October 2023

Road Trip U.S.A. – The Northern Loop of Yellowstone, an Encounter with a Bear, and a Grand Canyon

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Leaving the Grand Tetons

Yellowstone National Park is GIGANTIC. There’s no other way to put it, except to use capital letters. And especially when you have just arrived from the much smaller Grand Teton National Park.

It’s an easy trip from Jackson up to Yellowstone. You drive through the eastern side of the Grand Teton National Park (beautiful views of the Grand Teton peak itself, which does tower above the others). We had previously explored the western side so it was interesting to see the other part of the park. The granite mountains looked like rows of jagged shark teeth biting the blue sky.

After a while, the Tetons peter out, and you leave the park for a few miles – only to enter Yellowstone, the oldest of all the national parks (although I think Hot Springs also claims that honor…). It is gorgeous. We drove along a river and through a canyon, on to West Thumb, which is part of the massive Yellowstone Lake. Nothing here is small.

We finally reached the Bay Bridge Campground, where the person checking us in was from Melbourne, Florida! In keeping with everything in Yellowstone, the campground was huge, but each site was a good size and it was a great place for people watching. For example, the European threesome of two men and a woman – one of whom jumped rope for at least 30 minutes before dinner while the woman looked on wearing a fur vest. We even saw a few other rooftop tents.

We set up camp at what was to be our home for the next three nights, taking particular advantage of the built in bear box, which made a great pantry. We then drove to the Lake Lodge, the closest of the lodges where we sat on the porch with a drink (and Wi-Fi) enjoying the views of the lake.

Sleep that night was not easy. It started off with the sound of some creature making high pitched noises and grating sounds. I was terrified that the empty water cooler (BTW, a completely useless purchase, gallon jugs work way better) was being dragged around by some unspecified creature of the night. J asked if we should look out of the tent to see what was going on, and my response was “absolutely not.”

The next morning I noticed one of the logs that delineated the parking area by our site bore fresh (and large) scratch marks, and heard one of our neighbors saying they had seen a mother bear and her cub visiting the campground right by our tents. This was not reassuring.

Our first day we decided to explore the northern loop, parts of which are among the least traveled. This took us by the Mud Volcano – a nice boardwalk passing over the steaming and roiling fumeroles and mud pots. You have the sense of earth moving under your feet.

From there, we drove through the Hayden Valley, lush green and yellow grasses – flat plains with brown mountains in the background. The yellow tones coordinated well with the sulphur from the geothermal activity. There we saw a herd of bison wading in the ponds. We stayed at the prescribed distance, mindful of the five people last year who were gored by bison.

Canyon Village was our next stop. It’s a very large “town” in that part of the park where we indulged in some souvenir shopping, followed by a drive along a very windy road and a high pass to Tower Roosevelt, on the way to Mammoth Springs.

The one thing not to go see in Yellowstone- the petrified redwood tree. After seeing numerous signs advertising it, I had visions of a preserved and immense tree….only to find something that looks like a stump of tree rock at the end of a dirt road.

Mammoth Hot Springs consists of hot springs bubbling up into layers of calcium that form terraces of white travertine. It’s a lot like Pamukkale in Turkey, which we saw in 1989. In the 19th century people would dip objects into the hot springs to coat them in travertine and apparently you can still find some of these objects in antique shops. They don’t let you do that anymore.

From the marbled Mammoth Springs we worked our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is an amazing gorge, turquoise water below, a huge waterfall, and gradated orange and grey cliffs. It’s possibly the most beautiful area in the whole park.

And on the way back we encountered a female elk crossing the road right in front of us. That was a precursor to the next day.

Road Trip U.S.A. – A Taste of the Tetons

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Jackson Hole may be best known for skiing, but snowless summer months offer plenty of entertainment.

Although we are hardly equestrians, J and I have gone horseback riding during many of our travels. So far we have managed trail rides in South Africa (that one also involved zebras), Hawaii, Russia, Croatia, and Arizona, to name a few. The Tetons seemed an appropriate addition.

We met up with our niece, F (who really does live near Nice, France), as she was the only of our family group willing to brave the large four legged creatures that were to take us up one of the nearby mountains. She rode a very hungry “Chuckles,” J had a chunky “OT” (for Overtime), and I was blessed with Rhinestone. Apparently the trail company has over a thousand horses between Grand Teton National Park and one other location. Beautiful wildflowers, including lots of Indian Paintbrush, which is the Wyoming state flower. My favorite part was when our guide instructed us to get a move on so our horses weren’t spooked by the nearby bear cub who had climbed a tree, with Mama Bear right below.

Next up was a drive around the beautiful Lake Jennie loop. It was rainy but that didn’t keep us from enjoying sandwiches and a beer at Dornans, a long time Jackson establishment. And saw another bear. Bears were sort of a theme in the Tetons.

The afternoon saw a short but fun Lake Phelps hike. This part of the park is on the Lawrence Rockefeller Preserve. The Rockefellers, who had built a large estate on the property, donated it all to the park on the condition that all man made structures were to be torn down and the area returned to nature. Towering mountains peering over at a serene mountain lake. And on the way back we encountered a very large moose.

The following day, which was beautifully sunny, our hiking party consisted of my sister in law, T, J and me. I think the others were turned off by the fact the trail bore the auspicious name, Death Canyon. After driving through some of the many road construction sites (it seems as though most of the USA is currently building roads), we entered the park and ventured just beyond Phelps Lake. The trail starts wooded and a bit of an uphill, and then a very steep downhill, which you unfortunately know you will face up on the way back. You cross a number of boulder fields, but the trail is so well constructed you aren’t even aware of the exposure. Meadows of yellow daisies and purple thistles (which are not native, apparently), periwinkle blue flowers that looked like bluebells, and deep purple wild snapdragons. We walked alongside a river that cascaded into waterfalls before encountering a long uphill slog to the saddle right below Static Peak, at the patrol station. We keep going until the IPhone promised us we were at 8000 feet. I’m not sure what our total elevation gain was but it seemed considerable.

We pulled out our Maasai blanket from Tanzania and had a great picnic, which fortified us for a fast downhill followed by the uphill section we knew was coming. 

We couldn’t leave Jackson without some exploration of the town. Yes, we did see the iconic antler arches, browsed through a mountaineering store, and took advantage of the Snake River Brewery.

A very fun spot, and even the fact I left a hiking sock in T’s dryer didn’t seem that important. I guess it met up with the hat left in the Yorkshire Dales and the visor left in Hot Springs. I’m considering a blog post called “things I left behind on sabbatical.”

Road Trip U.S.A. – Camping and Canyons in a Rooftop Tent

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Once we left Golden, CO the temperature had crept far enough below three digits that we had no excuses left. Rooftop tent camping had to begin. After all, we had already lumbered a couple of thousand miles from Florida with the thing stuck on top of our car roof. It was time to do something with it.

Another set point on our road trip was the start date of an AirBnb in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where we were meeting up with family members. Hence, day 1 of camping had to be somewhere between Golden and there.

We managed to reserve a Hipcamp in Buford Canyon, Wyoming, just west of Cheyenne. After a quick stop at a Colorado grocery store (with the unlikely name of “King Soopers” – but that was actually a Kroger’s), we had miles of driving north through Colorado. The burgeoning development outside of Denver reminds me in an unfortunate way of Florida, but then we shifted into high prairie and desert, multiple shades of yellow. Plus the wind picked up…no wonder Kansas had a song called Dust in the Wind. (Incidentally, the Spotify playlist for Kansas contains only two tolerable songs. It was J’s bright idea that’s what we should listen to while driving across the prairies.)

We stopped at the very modern Wyoming State Welcome Center. It’s more like a museum than a welcome center, with lots of interesting displays. The wind blew everything off our picnic table…

We decided to drive through Cheyenne, but there wasn’t much to see other than the capitol building and a very inactive downtown. Even though it was Sunday, I don’t think that was the problem.

Our campsite was about a mile off of the very heavily trafficked I-80. This part of the country is apparently home to the freight train industry with one plus mile long trains. I didn’t even know such things existed.

The campsite was absolutely stunning. A beautiful shelter for a picnic table, with a “designed by” plaque commemorating the architect. A spotless composting toilet and two sites with tiny houses. We set up camp, and walked around the interesting rock formations on the property, and over the ladder the owner had placed to allow entry into state land and the canyon itself.

After a brief scare when we couldn’t get the lighter to work we managed a pretty good first night camping dinner of steak and asparagus. The night sky was a spectacular tapestry of silver and black. The only downside was the I-80 traffic and train noise, which was constant. But it was more than made up for by the convenient and beautiful location. Elevation was about 7600-7800, and we could feel it.

The next day was a long day of driving the length of Wyoming. After we broke down camp, we drove through high desert with the Wind River mountain range on one side. Unfortunately much of the drive was on I-80, with 18 wheelers careening in the wind, and my fingers were sore afterwards from my white knuckled driving.

Some of the area looked like what I would call salt flats. Very desolate, with tiny hamlets of only 100-200 people. I especially liked the truck stop called “Stinker.” We even went through a small town called Eden, which had a few green fields.

Eventually we climbed higher and higher, suddenly saw evergreens, and the next thing we knew we were approaching the Tetons and Jackson.

We located our AirBnb in Teton Village, a major ski resort with lots of condos. What a change from what we had been driving through. J and I managed to get cleaned up – after a night of camping and days of driving we were pretty grimy – and rendezvoused with family. Time for a few days of real R&R – hiking and the like, and a nice break from the road.

Road Trip U.S.A. – Zipping Our Way Over the Plains, Via A World Class Art Museum

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One of the nice things about road trips is the freedom to stop where you want. OK, we did have certain set spots where our arrival time was sacrosanct (e.g., our campsite in Yellowstone), but between here and there there was a bit of flexibility.

One of those unplanned adventures resulted from our last minute decision to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art located in, of all places, Bentonville, Arkansas. Created by Alice Walton of Wal-Mart fame, it is the repository of an immense collection of American art of all genres and periods, and since there is free admission, it is an enormous gift to the public. One of her goals was to give access to art to those who had not had it before, and the visitors to the museum are a truly eclectic group.

Getting there entailed a trip through the mountain ranges bordering Hot Springs, the first being the Ouachita Mountains (and national forest). A sign aptly described the roads as “steep and crooked.” The mountains were heavily wooded, but occasionally opened up for vistas of multiple levels of ridges. Reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountains, except the color scheme was dark green textured against a blue sky. I don’t have any photos of the drive – I was too preoccupied with hanging on for dear life! The Ouachita were followed by another set of mountains – the Boston Mountains (who knows the reason for the name?) – which were still steep but with more gradual curves. The Boston Mountains took us into Bentonville, where we made a beeline for the museum.

Bentonville was surprisingly interesting. The museum area is a city unto itself, replete with apartment buildings, retail, sports fields, something called the Scott Family Museum (or Amazeum?), and, of course, the Wal-Mart Museum. But Crystal Bridges was our goal. It’s being doubled, if not more, in size, so there’s a lot of construction going on. The structure – low buildings bordered by lagoons and flowing water, blends into the landscape like a Frank Lloyd Wright building – sort of the opposite of the Guggenheim in Bilbao. The interior feels warm in tone and the art is thematically organized by great motifs in American art. There are also hiking trails and sculpture gardens, none of which we had time to sample – we had to reach Wichita!

If you wonder why the eagerness to reach Wichita, one of our non-negotiable times was to make it to Golden, Colorado for a party our friends D & D were hosting. And Wichita looked like the mid-point. Miles and miles of corn fields, peppered with occasional oil drills. I never thought of oil drilling as a family business before….but I guess that’s the whole Beverly Hillbillies idea . . . Blue sky backed the fields and prairies. It was an exciting moment when we encountered a curve in the road.

It turns out Kansas has great rest stops – probably because there are so few towns. My favorite was the one apparently erected in honor of the Benders, a 19th century family who lured unsuspecting travelers, and served them a meal in front of a curtain. In the meantime, one of the family would hide behind the curtain, cosh the unfortunate guests, and steal all their possessions. After the mysterious disappearance of a number of travelers the Benders went on the lam and no one knows what happened to them.

We stayed at a motel in Wichita just off the interstate. It was still too hot to pop up the rooftop tent and try our luck. We were so sick of driving by this point that we walked to the “Irish” pub next door. the only thing Irish was Guinness on tap. All the food was Mexican.

We got an early start the next day – there were still a lot of hours to go before Golden. More and more Kansas fields – we stopped in the charming town of Selina, which had some of the best Art Deco architecture I’ve seen anywhere. Lots of restaurants and a 1931 movie theater still operating as a theater. And we were able to purchase a “Tomahawk” steak as a house gift for D & D. Somehow that seemed an appropriate choice coming from Kansas.

Miles and miles more of driving, with little traffic until we hit Denver, where rain and a navigational error didn’t make it any easier.

But we made it to Golden just in time for the party which featured one of D & D’s friends, singer/songwriter Lynn Drury of New Orleans, who performed with the beautiful mountains in the background.

What better spot for a brief hiatus with friends before hitting the Wild West of Wyoming.