The only snake I like is a river in Idaho. The river, or more specifically, a campground right on the river, was the reason for our pre-dawn reveille this morning. We broke camp in a record-setting 1/2 hour in the dark and were rolling northwest toward Idaho by 5:45 am, just as the first drops of rain started to fall on the Heber Valley.
The kids reclined their seats and resumed their sleep while Karen and I listened to Morning Edition on NPR. It had been more than a week since I listened to any public radio, or even browsed the news. I wish I could say that the morning report was enlightening and that I discovered something I’d missed, but the coverage primarily focused on the upcoming presidential elections (pun intended). When we lost the FM station, I just turned it off.
In Pocatello, ID, Karen climbed behind the wheel of the van for the first time. Ever. Our trip reports were seriously overdue, so I needed to log some time in the passenger seat. I don’t recommend looking at a screen in a rocking van for any length of time. That hard-learned lesson should help motivate me to get the reports done in a more timely fashion!
Welcome to a fisherman's paradise.
Our friend George Putnam had recommended Riverside Campground along the banks of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Island Pond, ID. It would be a perfect location to get some fishing done and a nice launching pad for a jaunt into Yellowstone. This being a Friday in August, we figured that the campground might fill up quickly, so we dashed north from Idaho Falls and arrived around 10:45 AM to grab a site. Our camp set-up times are getting better with each deployment and by 12:15, we had set up camp, eaten lunch, and were piling back into the van. The day was nice and we figured Friday would be less crowded than Saturday at Yellowstone, so we sped north.
We stopped for coffee at a small espresso shack in West Yellowstone before entering the park. Karen learned from the owner/barista that we had chosen a good day. Saturdays, as one would expect, were always busy. But they paled in comparison to Tuesdays. Apparently, everyone expects the park to be full on the weekends, so they plan to go on a Tuesday, when a logical mind believes it should be less crowded. The problem is, park goers all seem to think the same way and on Tuesdays, the line to get into the park extends miles, all the way through town. Which, if you happen to own an espresso stand on that very same route, can be a wonderful thing.
Yellowstone lived up to its billing. It is gorgeous, filled with animals, and unbelievably crowded. We felt it was our duty as Americans to see Old Faithful erupt and we took our place in the circle surrounding the hole with about 10,000 other iPhone and iPad wielding tourists. A pair of hikers sat in front of us and one of them, wearing a hat that said “hiker trash” and sporting a huge tattoo across her back of the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, accurately remarked that nobody was watching this with their own eyes! Then she picked up her iPhone and pointed it at the Geyser. As a selfie-hater who takes the occasional selfie, I can relate.
Busted.
The line to get out of the Old Faithful parking lot reminded me of leaving Foxboro after a Patriots game. There were seriously thousands of people leaving all at once. The mind-blowing thing is that instead of this happening only a handful of times per year at Foxboro, these traffic jams probably occur every 90 minutes at Yellowstone (which is Old Faithful’s period between eruptions.)
NASCAR or Geologic event?
We traveled the entire great loop, stopping to admire boiling hot springs, Yellowstone Lake, and herds of bison. We saw a grizzly climbing way up on the side of a mountain, watched a bald eagle fly over the van, observed ospreys hunting over the river, and admired a family of elk. We also tried to categorize the 732 species of wildlife of another variety: the Harley Rider on his/her way home from Sturgis.
This looks like one of Kellan's marshmallows.
Heading down toward the river to check out a bison.
Now you tell us!
This place is lousy with Bison.
A postcard perfect day in Yellowstone.
The first of many crossings of the divide. Not a selfie!
By the time we got back to our campsite, we had driven one of our biggest days yet. We had left at 5:45 AM, spent an hour and a half at our campsite, and didn’t get back from Yellowstone until 7:30 pm. We boiled some tortellini and broccoli for the kids and Karen and I tucked into some bison sausages that were delicious, savoring both the taste and the irony.
Look at the bison sausage, ignore the snake sticker. And what ever you do, don't open that cooler.
Our neat little campsite in Idaho. Note that we decided to put up the canopy on the front of the tent tonight!
We cleaned the camp carefully and put everything back in the van to keep the nosy local bruins away. They’ll probably visit anyway.
Tomorrow morning, I plan to get up early to fish the Henry's Fork for the second time in my life.