While the entire trip was essentially "for" us, we had built in a day specifically for us to do things specifically for us. This day was that day. Leaving our Harvest Host, we headed up to the Grand Tetons for a short amount of time to be followed up by a visit through the west side of Yellowstone. The total amount of driving was our shortest day in terms of distance between one campsite and another although the time invested was going to be significantly longer. It had been years since I had been through the Tetons (did I mention at any point yet that the Tetons are my favorite?) so I was quite excited. It's sort of funny, I think... I prefer the Tetons but appreciate Yellowstone while I think Laurie would tell you that she prefers Yellowstone but appreciates the Tetons, so the day was a win-win.
The Plan for the day was a 185-mile drive (short!) from Freedom, ID to Rainbow Point Campground. Essentially. In a somewhat amusing twist, I guess, it wasn't to be that easy, but we'll get to that soon enough. Probably the most notable part of the drive itself is this: had you, not on the drive at all, known exactly when we would have been passing through West Yellowstone, you could have seen us on The Internet... YouTube specifically. My isolation experience has introduced me to the wonderful world of live cameras on YouTube. I have spent a great deal of time watching Great Lakes cargo ships, the Washington State Ferry Terminal at Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands, and a camera that inexplicably points in the general direction of the town square in West Yellowstone. If you've been there before, the camera points roughly in the direction of the antler arch. It also shows the left turn out of town towards the National Parks, which is where you could have seen us. You know, if you knew when to look for us.
A fun thing about the way Laurie and I travel is that, while we do return visit places that we know we like, we try to branch out and see some new things each time we go through a place. Keeping in mind that when we had passed through the area previously we were moving across the country and our cars were laden to the gills with our entire lives, we didn't do a lot of extra driving (off the main roads, at least) so things that are easy like Jenny Lake in the Tetons we didn't carve out time for, so we missed some of the easiest prettiest stops. Not this time. We actually went through the entry gates into the Grand Tetons National Park on this trip, so that was pretty cool. Our main destination was Jenny Lake, which was a very short drive past the gates. The main visitor area was packed to the gills, and we weren't able to find a parking spot, so we ultimately found the boat ramp, where we found a place to park right away and were able to walk right up to the lake, so that was exceedingly cool. It was outstanding to sit on the rocks off to the side of the put-in and just look at the mountains and the amazingly clear water. I could go on forever and use so many words to essentially cover the same ground, so here are some photos instead.
If our day wasn't full, I very likely could have spent all day just sitting there. As it was, we moved on down the road a short way to see the Menors Ferry area. Although we didn't get to ride on it on the day, they still run a replica of the ferry that William Menor built in a place where the Snake River was down to a single channel. I'll have to catch pictures up later, I took them on our travel camera and not on my phone, so I don't have them at my fingers just now. A fun thing to do in these areas is download the Tetons NP app which then gives you audio tours for you to listen as you walk around the sites. The last new thing we did which was perhaps ill-considered in a heavy van was a climb up to the top of Signal Mountain. The drive was rather steep, the roads fairly narrow (although sufficient), but when you got to the top, you had some neat views. We still had to carve out time to see some things in Yellowstone, so it was back on the road.
You may remember that the duration of this trip, we are needing to gas up every 100 miles or so, so we needed to get gas before we got deep into Yellowstone. This is where the funny thing happened. The gas station at which we were stopped provided some cellular signal... which allowed a message through on Laurie's phone. Once again, as with the situation when we were moving to Athens, GA, we were in Yellowstone with need to have an important conversation. In the previous instance, it was to contact U-Haul's U-Box service to tell them that, in fact, when I hired them to move our stuff to Georgia, I in fact did want them to move my stuff, not just leave it in a parking lot in Seattle. In this instance, the recreation.gov app through which we had reserved our campsite had double-booked the site we were supposed to be staying at. So while I was pumping gas, Laurie was trying to contact Rainbow Point Campground, stepping one step this way or that to find a spot that would hold a call in order to figure out what to do. Eventually, it did happen and it turned out that we had a site at a sister campground being held, so we at least had somewhere to go.
Fully fueled, with a plan B in hand, we proceeded on with the Yellowstone plan. While the Tetons were not necessarily overrun with people, the experience was not the same in Yellowstone. It wasn't the busiest that we ever saw the park, it was quite busy. We wanted to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. What that required was sitting in line for 20 minutes before we were able to take a half-spot designated for RVs, the other half which had been populated by some sort of small SUV or another. But we are an RV, so... that works. Regardless, we finally made it and headed along the walk way. Of the gobs of people that were there, about 40 percent (give or take) were not wearing masks or taking any sort of distancing precautions, so that was fun. The spring itself was very steamy on this day, but as pretty as ever. We did manage to get around with minimal close contact with people, so that was good. It's such a pretty place.
Social distancing Pro Level
For our new side trip in Yellowstone, we took the Firehole Lake and Firehole Canyon roads. Both of these are short drives, and we had no trouble doing them in The Titsworth. Both of them were well worth the time. Firehole Lake is in parts like a small version of the Grand Prismatic Spring. There was a bubbling little pond that was really cool and then also the area was peppered with small geysers (nothing like Old Faithful, tbf). We didn't get a picture of it because we didn't know to be expecting it, but we did see a really good eruption from one of them. I didn't take any photos on the Firehole Lake loop (Laurie has them all, so I'll have to catch the photos up in the future). I did take photos on the Firehole Canyon loop. It was a very pretty drive with views like this:
With the change in our camp destination, we decided to jump out of Yellowstone maybe a little earlier than we might have and went to find our replacement site. As we were heading on a fairly long drive again in the morning, we gassed up and headed for Bakers Hole Campground and pulled in for the night. We had been avoiding the van a/c to conserve gas and so we had rolled the windows down a little. Why is this pertinent? Laurie and I nearly froze that night in Bakers Hole. It wasn't until the next morning when I realized that windows were still down... recommend to not do that. Aside from the fellow stalking our campsite (it was all first-come first-served unless you were booted from another site, I guess) and the freezing, the night was largely uneventful.
Road miles to home: 748
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