Day 80: Yellowstone

It was a cold first night at Yellowstone, 30 degrees outside, low 40’s inside.  We did crank up the furnace for a while to take off the chill as we dressed and had breakfast, and the sun warmed things up fairly quickly into the 50’s.

We went to the visitors’ center at Canyon Village first and got some tips from a ranger about hiking trails and places to park the RV. (I had noticed coming into the park that quite a few of the parking lots and picnic grounds specified no trucks, trailers, or RV’s.)  She led us well: we drove to the South Rim Road and parked at Artist Point---plenty of room.

The view from Artist Point is featured on many paintings and posters of Yellowstone, and it is simply stunning---a view of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, with all the colored rock walls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone as backdrop.  It looks much like The Grand Canyon with rock spires and lots of tans and reds and various shades of brown in layers.  I took lots of pictures which I can’t post yet, due to limited internet, but I’ll add some later.

From there, we picked up the South Rim Trail and hiked along the canyon for a little  more than a mile, lots of ups and downs and plenty of spectacular views, and reached the viewpoint for the Upper Falls, smaller but still beautiful.  With Ranger being stuck in the camper while we hiked, we returned to the RV and found a picnic area in which to walk him and have a light lunch.

In the afternoon, we decided to drive to another area of the park, and took a northbound road toward Tower Falls.  It turned out to be a spectacular route, up through a mountain pass.  We were on the lookout for animals, and over the course of about a two-hour drive we saw mule deer, goats, bison, and even one wolf!  I also saw one grizzly bear, but it was down in the woods, off the road, and as Dan was driving the winding route, he kept his eyes on the road.  We did not actually stop to take the short hike to Tower Falls due to the fact that the place was mobbed with tourists and the parking lot was packed, as were the shoulders of the road for some distance.  We did enjoy a limited view of the rock formations around the falls and the view of the vistas across alpine meadows.

Upon our return to Canyon Campground, we pulled in at the office and took turns getting a HOT shower, which felt fabulous!

Day 79: Bozeman to Yellowstone National Park

We awoke in Fowlkes’ driveway with temperatures back down in the 40’s.   I gave Ranger a short walk, but he was eager to get back and get into the house.  He bounded in and immediately ran around to find Marjorie!  We all gathered in the kitchen for coffee and tea and more conversation, and then moved to one of the sun porches for a big breakfast.

Marjorie’s garden was truly amazing, full of perennials, herbs, and vegetables, covering most of the side yard.  She gave me the tour of it, and I made notes of several perennials that I may want to try growing at home.  Then we relaxed in a porch swing alongside the garden for more talk and some bird-watching.  Her sunflowers had been very successful, and they were full of little birds, eating the seeds.

Around noon, it was time to leave.  They travel to Florida frequently in the winter, so we may connect with them again down there.

We had only about ninety miles to drive to get to the north entrance of Yellowstone.  It had been years since I had been there, and it was as wonderful as I remembered….but also as crowded with tourists!  I had expected that since summer was gone and schools were back in session, it might be less so, but especially around Mammoth Springs, the traffic was heavy and parking spaces were not to be found.  Leaving there, we could take either of two routes to our campground, and I picked the wrong one, putting us on a road with road construction delays.  (Other than that, it was a nice route.)  We finally arrived at Canyon Village at around 4:00.

This is a huge campground, with almost 300 sites, and the sign at the entry indicated that there was no vacancy for tonight. (We had reservations, so we were fine.) When we registered, we found out that our site is in the J loop, way up the road from the office and showers, perhaps a mile to a mile and a half!  The site is, however, a good one, just a bit of a slant that required leveling, under thick pines.

As the sun went down, so did the temperatures, so a campfire was a welcome addition to our evening activities.  We had chatted with people nearby who recently bought a used Navion, a few years older than ours, and they wanted to learn more about our experiences traveling in it.  So they came over to the fire to visit and we had an enjoyable time.

There are no hook-ups at this campground, so we cannot use our little electric heater. With forecast of a low of 30, we’ll be burning up some propane with our furnace tonight!  

Day 78: Missoula to Bozeman, MT

It was again in the 40’s when we woke up in Missoula at the KOA.  There was no reason to rush in the morning as we had a fairly short drive ahead, so we had breakfast, showered, did some grocery shopping, and filled both diesel and propane before heading east on I-90 at around noon.

Two hundred miles and four hours later, we pulled into the driveway of Charless and Marjorie Fowlkes in Bozeman.  This was something Kelly arranged; we had never met them.  They are the parents of a good friend of Michael and Kelly, and the two of them had stayed at Fowlkes’ when they drove east from San Diego last year.  Kelly felt sure that we would enjoy each other’s company, so she emailed them and they encouraged us to stop in.

We started with a brief tour of their unique house, which they designed and built themselves (literally).  It is heated by solar energy, with huge windows on one side within which are a series of large white tubes that are filled with water.  The sun heats the water which warms the house. There are heavy curtains that automatically roll down to cover the windows when a thermostat indicates that more heat is being lost than gained through the windows.   Since it does get very cold in the winter in Bozeman, they have a wood stove as back-up for those days when it is cloudy and/or below zero.  In addition, the house is designed with small gathering areas on each of three floors and with several decks that looked out on the woods behind and the beautiful garden on the side.  It is “upside-down” in the sense that the bedrooms are the bottom, then various other rooms on the second floor, and kitchen and dining at the top where it is sunny and (in the summer) warm.

We relaxed on a shady deck and had cold drinks. (It was in the upper 70’s after that cold start to the day.)  Charless and Dan talked boats… and more boats…and more boats.  We heard about their adventures traveling all over the world and camping/boating all over the US; they have been retired since 1999.  Then we had a delicious dinner and more conversation, and Marjorie and I walked Ranger on the paths of a nearby park.  Then it was time to plug in the RV and go to bed.

Ranger took to them immediately and seemed to enjoy having a whole house to walk around in after all these weeks in the little RV.  He also enjoyed stretching out on the deck and surveying the neighborhood from his sunny perch.  All in all, he behaved himself admirably!

Day 77: Washington to Idaho to Montana

This was one of the prettier drives of the trip, from Fields Spring State Park, along Route 12 through Idaho, to Missoula, Montana.

Shortly after leaving the Clarkston WA/ Lewiston ID area, Route 12 followed the Clearwater River, aptly named.  The river wound between mountains, and so did the road, of course, making for slow driving but beautiful scenery as we left the dry brown fields behind and got into forested area.

About a halfway across we entered Clearwater National Forest and for many miles there were few towns, but  higher mountains and many rocky creeks.  The road now followed the Lochwa River, another rocky, fast-running river, which looked like a postcard setting for people fly-fishing, and indeed we did pass quite a few people doing just that.

A long drive up took us over the top of Lolo Pass, over 5000 feet, and then we wound down again, crossing into Montana, into a new time zone, and toward Missoula.

Even with the time change, we arrived early enough to check into a KOA, do laundry, and have dinner. It was nice to have it stay light until almost 9:00 again.

Day 76: Still at Fields Spring (Labor Day weekend)

A cold morning, one when staying in a warm bed would have been nice.  However, Ranger needed his walk, so we headed out in the 45 degree air.  I ran the furnace for a little while on our return, to take the chill off inside the RV.

This continued to be an amazingly quiet state park on a long holiday weekend.  This morning, a number of people camping on the loop left so we were down to just four or five occupied sites.  That did change over the course of the day, however, as new people arrived to fill in.

We took a shorter hike today, about an hour and a half, again following some of the cross-country ski trails.  We did have fairly good luck with bird-watching, considering how few birds we have seen along the way on this trip.  There were turkeys and grouse, as we have seen regularly at this campground, but also a towhee, a pewee, and a sapsucker.  Still no sightings of chukars, which I had hoped to add to the bird list for the trip.

The temperatures remained in the low 60’s all afternoon, but with the sun shining, it was comfortable reading outside… and napping a little as well.

If I walk over near the park office, I can pick up emails on my phone, both gmail and MBC mail, but it’s not enough to post my blog, so I’ll have some catching up to do tomorrow when we are in Missoula, Montana.  Meanwhile, the temperatures are already dropping after our dinner of cheeseburgers and beans, so I think it will be another night of snugging down under the warm blankets for a good night’s sleep in the quiet of Fields Spring. 

Day 75: Fields Spring State Park

I awoke, looked out the window, and there were about six ruffed grouse pecking along the ground in our site.  Nice start to the day.   Ranger and I also saw quite a few turkeys on our morning walk.

After a slow start to the day, breakfast and reading, we headed out about 11:00 on the trails.  Much of our walk was on cross-country ski trails which are wide and easy to follow.  As our goal was the top of Puffer Butte, it was uphill for about an hour, with some confusion as to where we were, as the paths criss-crossed all over the area.  We did eventually reach the ski hut at the top, where we had a great view of the folded mountains in the distance with larger peaks in the distance. 

The hike down was, of course, easier, though the 2 ½ hours of walking left us ready for some relaxation.  So after a late lunch, we rested and read for much of the afternoon.  The weather was partly cloudy, with a few threatening clouds passing overhead from time to time but no actual rain, and the temperatures were around 70.

In late afternoon, we noticed that our neighbors had started a campfire, and yes, the campfire ban had been lifted.  We visited with the group of guys who were here for a weekend of fishing (young man, his father and his two uncles) around their campfire, and later the couple in the trailer across the way also came over.  So it was a festive evening around the fire.  Joe fried fish that they had caught just a few hours before, and they were delicious.

Day 74: Memaloose State Park (Mosier OR) to Fields Spring State Park (Anatone WA)

It was a day of long hot miles and wide dry expanses.

We left Memaloose fairly early, knowing that we had about 300 miles to cover.  The route continued along I-84 and followed the Columbia River.  A stop in the town of The Dalles allowed us to restock groceries and fill with diesel and we continued on our way.

There was a striking contrast between the blue of the river and the brown of the hills on either side of it.  The hills were dry and rounded with some dark rock outcroppings. There were several large dams along the way, and there were large barges transporting loads along the Columbia.  Wind farms were frequent along the ridges.   After almost 100 miles, the road left the river and we drove through typical western landscape, flat and dry, taking I-395 northwest and connecting with Route 730.

Route 730 again ran along the Columbia River, and here the contrast with blue and brown was even more pronounced.  The road ran high above the river, and in one place we passed a marina with sailboats and saw people windsurfing----both seemed strange in this desolate landscape.  Eventually the hills became lower again, and we were back to flat, dry land.

Where the Walla Walla River entered the Columbia, we turned onto Route 12 heading east.  This was agricultural land, with rolling hills and small farming towns.  We weren’t sure what crop had already been harvested here, perhaps wheat, but the fields had been cut and there were many boxy straw bales piled along the way.  There were no rest areas and really no place to pull off for lunch, so we refueled both RV and us at Walla Walla, a rare lunch at  McDonalds.

Where Route 127 went off to the north, the hills began to increase in size, and the road began to be windy again.  We climbed to Alpowa summit (2785 feet) and the long, long drive down hill from there ended with, once again, the surprising blue of a wide river, this time the Snake River.  At the town of Clarkston, on the Idaho border, we turned off on state route 129 for the last 27 miles.

That road started out fine, but after about five miles, it turned into the hills and climbed…and climbed…and climbed, switchback after switchback.  When it seemed we could go no higher, the road straightened and flattened, and we were, I assume, at the top of a butte.  Shortly before we expected to see the park, we noticed that there was the dark green of trees up ahead, and yes, Fields Spring State Park is shady and green.  When we stepped out of the RV at our site, the air was cool. 

This is not a park you would just happen upon----it’s way off the beaten track.  The campground host said that it would not be full for the holiday weekend (amazing), even though there are only twenty sites.  Indeed, by nightfall, there were only about six sites occupied (others had reserved signs on them, so a few more may arrive still).  The host explained that this park gets its greatest use in the winter months when it’s very popular for cross-country skiers.   At this time of year, of course, the ski trails are hiking trails, so we will get out and about a little tomorrow.

Meanwhile, while Dan was chatting with some neighbors about fishing, Ranger went crazy barking and pointing toward the woods behind the RV.  There was a group of ruffed grouse moving through the underbrush.  We also saw a flock of wild turkeys, and the campground host said we would also see chukars.  So the bird-watching here will be somewhat better than in some other places we have been on this trip.

No electricity, no water hook-ups here, but what a contrast to our campsite at Memaloose.  After dark, the only light to be seen was at the bathhouse----no car and truck headlights shining into the RV window.  And total silence!