A Day of Wildlife

We set off early on a day to be filled with wildlife viewing and the rest of our sites of Yellowstone. It did not disappoint! Shortly into our trip we came upon a wildlife traffic jam.....what were they looking at? We were skeptical since we had come up on quite a few and they had mostly been Elk and bison and not to be Yellowstone snobs but we had gotten to the point where these were pretty commonplace and not really worth stopping for. But this time we were pretty high in the mountains so this was likely something different. We pulled off at a turnoff and low and behold, they had been look at a grizzly with two of her cubs! But they had just run back into the woods. Darn! Then all of the sudden, they came back out and went down the hill and proceeded down the road. Everyone jumped back into their cars. We slowly made it up to where the bears were. So cool, they were slowly making their way down the road, eating dandelions as they went. I jumped out and got a lot of nice shots. I stayed on the opposite side of the road and close to our car but there were some crazies who got right in front of them! Insane! Then a dog barked, from a car next to me. The mother grizzly shot her head up to look and I jumped back in the car! You could tell it was a little dog too. :) But she must have known too because she went back to her feast of dandelions.

From there we went to Mammoth to see the mammoth thermal features which were also so cool! We had some huckleberry ice cream too! Yum! Wish we had that in VA.

Next on the agenda was a drive through the Lamar Valley around dusk for wildlife viewing. I was hoping to see a pack of wolves as this was the best place to find them. We drove along and saw a couple of spots where people were set up with their spotting scopes, they were looking for the wolves too. You would think that we could have picked one of those spots where they were on level ground, but instead we waited and decided on one where they were up on top of a big hill that didn't necessarily have a trail up to it! And of course, I am on vacation so I only brought my flip flops! But we went up to join the crowd. Off in the distance there was a herd of bison, a grizzly which we could see with the binoculars, and they had found a couple of wolves but I never did see them, they were just into the edge of the woods pacing back and forth. I wonder if they were stalking the bison??? That would have just been too awesome to see them take one down! Someone the day before told us that they had seen a grizzly take a bison down!

Well, you know we couldn't stay out of trouble there! While I was searching the fields with the binoculars, I heard some guy come up to Matt and ask him where he was headed. Oh no, a hitchhiker! And he was headed almost back to where we were going which was easily more than an hour back. This guy was maybe in his early 20s and he had climbed this massive hill with his backpack to look for a ride! Now, I have no problem with giving a guy a ride, but there was something not right with this one. But the deal was set and we set off back down the hill with no trail. And despite my best efforts, I landed on my butt! It was VERY slippery!! But other than a few bruises on my butt and one on my arm from getting slammed by my camera, I was fine. :)

When we got down to the car we were trying to make enough room in the car for Bradley and his stuff. I was trying to talk to him to assess his "deal" when I heard some come up behind us and say, "Are you Bradley?". I turned around to see two Park Rangers standing there. My first thought was "Oh good!" Which quickly turned to the thought of "Who was this guy anyway that the rangers were out looking for him!!!!"?

We never got the full story but it seems that Bradley was working at Lake Lodge preparing food for workers there and why he was backpacking there, I don't know, but he apparently had been with a group of people who didn't really know him and he had decided to just take off on his own. There must have been enough concern to send rangers looking for him. At that point, I didn't care because he wasn't our problem anymore. He decided to go with the Rangers!

So, by the end of the day we had seen 2 Black bears, 4 Grizzlies, a coyote, a gray fox, a jack rabbit, lots of pronghorn, and lots more bison (including as herd crossing the road in front of us!)

Day 2 Follies

Day 2 was full of follies. I woke up with a migraine because we didn’t have the RV leveled properly and the way we were sleeping in the bed caused our feet to be much higher than our heads! But I had to shake that one off because I had to do a phone interview for a job! Matt took the kids out to the Grant visitor center while I did that. Katie had a long conversation with the Ranger about what would happen if the Grizzlies that were frequenting our campground ate her.
We rushed back to the visitor center after lunch in the RV to see a Ranger talk on all the wildlife in the park and the best place to see them. It ended up being about ground squirrels and rodents. Not what WE want to see!
Our laundry was starting to pile up so while I went to the laundry center Matt was going to take the kids on a boat cruise on the lake. Well, he took a wrong turn and instead of going the 20 miles to Bridge Bay all of the sudden he was at Old Faithful! So, they decided to just go see Old Faithful instead, even though we had already paid for the boat cruise. They lucked out, it was just about to go off (it goes off every 90 minutes) but Matt was on the phone about the broken down 4Runner and when they turned around to walk towards the geyser, it was just finishing up. J But they walked around and saw some of the many other geysers there in the basin and even saw Castle go off which only goes off every 20 hours or so!
I, on the other hand, got sunburned waiting for them because if I stood in the shade the skeeters would have devoured me! J That night we cooked steaks and potatoes out on the grill for a nice dinner.
Yesterday (Tuesday), we slept in a little and then ventured off to Old Faithful to really see it this time! SO MANY people! We did get to see it. AND Kyle finally found his Yellowstone wallet that we have been looking EVERYWHERE for! Just as I was taking pictures of Old Faithful going off, my camera battery went dead. Ugh, the day had just begun for picture taking! I had just put that battery in too. Oh well.
From there, we ventured North stopping at all the little geyser, paint pot, and what not basins along the way. All of which involved half to 1 mile loop walks around on the boardwalks out in the sun to see the features. My children aren’t too fond of getting hot and thirsty, but they enjoyed seeing the neat bubbling mud and steaming holes in the ground. That is until we got to one of the last……Now, I LOVE Yellowstone National Park, the scientist in me is fascinated by the super volcano and all its features, and I appreciate all the warnings they give you at each location for dangers in the area due to the thermal activity, wildlife dangers, etc. so that they can keep it as wild and natural as possible, BUT at this particular location (Artist Paint Pots) WE GOT TAKEN! They left a few of the dangers out! It said it was a third of a mile to the site and given that it was late in the afternoon, early in the evening, against my better judgement, we started the trek. We quickly realized that there were skeeters swarming us, but we trekked on. By the time we got to the site we realized that not only were we going to have to fight off HUGE blood sucking swarms of skeeters but we would have hike up a mountain to see the features. Katie was already freaking out because of the “moschitos” and worried they would drink all of her blood and give her some horrible disease and I don’t think she had stopped running the whole way. So she and I walked over a short distance to at least see something and all it was was dried mud! We high tailed it back to the car! But the three guys went ahead up the mountain. Matt said that Kyle ran the whole way back and that if it had been the great train race, he would have set records! And of course, that caused him to have a bloody nose in the car and all I had to give him was a receipt I had in my purse! WE ARE TAKING BUG SPRAY TODAY!
As we got closer to camp last at about 11:30pm we saw lots of downed trees and leaves from a storm and it was raining. OH NO! We had left the windows open in the RV! Luckily, it was still standing and there was minor water that made it’s way in. We crashed for the night.

Our First full day at Yellowstone!

We had a great day today! We had to check out of our campsite at Canyon but before we headed to Grant, we did some touring around the Canyon area. We went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It is spectacular. The Yellowstone river has cut a canyon much like the Colorado. I have lots of pictures posted here. (haven't gotten pics uploaded yet, coming soon)

Matt and Carter took a long hike along the rim and even went down to the brink of the lower falls which is quite a trek. One of those that have warnings for people with heart and lung conditions and what not!

Kyle searched the gift shops for that elusive wallet that he wants, but no luck on that front yet.

When we got to Grant there was a long line for check in and mosquitos the size of horse flys! But the campground is wonderful. Tall pines and our site is overlooking the Yellowstone lake, with lots of pines in between, but we can walk right down through them to get to the lake!!! When we checked in they told us that they had 2 Grizzly sightings in the campground yesterday and one already today. This should be interesting!

Well, hopefully I will get these pictures uploaded, I have cell phone service here but I am having trouble with my computer talking to my phone!

Pushing On.....

We all agreed on a name for the Bounder as we walked into dinner last night. ERVE!

We pushed on through the night. Our adventures continued but on a somewhat smaller scale. Thank goodness!

Matt and I trying to fill the water tank at midnight at a Flying J amongst a bajillion truckers, weaving Erve in between them to get to the spigot and then again to get to the dump station. Scraping the massive carnage of bugs from the front of Erve.

Saturday morning we entered the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming and stopped at a scenic overlook to eat our breakfast. Heaven on earth! The air temp was cooler than our AC and the air was fresher than could be (certainly better than bleach!) The views of the snowcapped mountains and wildflowers were stunning. I could live here.

Then as we drove through the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming we stopped to let Erve recover from the long uphills and go touch some snow. Matt took the kids to go touch the snow and just as they crested the hill a VERY LOUD alarm went off in Erve! I could smell LP so I went to reset the LP detector but it didn't help. I was sure that Erve was going to blow any minute so I ran out to get Matt. I ran towards where they were and as soon as I saw them I started yelling, they couldn't hear me. I finally got Carter's attention and I waved for them to come back. He happily waved back at me. Finally Matt looked up from his camera and I yelled as loud as I could. Eventually he recognized my agitated state and put down his camera and they all started running back. Couldn't you hear that? I asked. Carter said, "Yes, but Dad said it wasn't our RV". By now, others were running back to the one other RV in the parking lot and lots of other people were just staring. Turns out it was the carbon monoxide detector. We had the windows open because it was so nice outside and when we stopped, the exhaust fumes came in the back window. So, since we had become the spectacle at the scenic overlook rather than the scenery, we decided to move on. :S

Over the mountains we went and as we came down off the mountain all of a sudden, I heard a flapping noise and then I thought it was on the roof. Oh no! The awning had come loose. It was VERY VERY windy in these parts and it must have been just too much for it to handle. So, we pulled over and extended the awning and rolled 'er back up. And onward we went.......

........and eventually made it to Cody, WY and picked up our rental car. They were out of the economy car we had reserved so we were forced to upgrade to a SUV, a Dodge Journey which is a really nice car, but that was another $10 a day plus multiple other $10 a day that we weren't anticipating. It got to be quite expensive. And who knows what kind of repair bill is waiting for us back in Wisconsin! But at least we won't be driving Erve around Yellowstone!

As we drove into the park for our first night at Canyon we encounter several wildlife traffic jams!! Yeah! this is looking good. This is what I am looking forward to most on our trip.

Holiday Roooaaaad!

Somewhere in the night we became the Griswolds! Today has been one epic after another. We stopped about 5 am this morning to get gas, dump our tanks which mysteriously were full???? Never did figure out how that happened but they were. We took care of all out business and I took the wheel. As we started to pull out of the gas station things just didn't seem right. The RV wheels were squeaking and felt like they were pulling. We began examining things and discovered that the back wheels on the 4Runner weren't turning. They had been but now that we had been sitting, they were refusing to go any further! Matt unhitched it and drove it around a bit and they turned but still didn't seem right. We hitched it back up and tried again. NOPE, still wouldn't turn. We went back and forth several times. Finally we decided to take it to the nearest Toyota dealer 18 miles away. Matt drove the 4Runner and I followed in the RV. We finally figured out that the auxiliary brake system must have overcooked the brakes and there was several different kinds of fluid spewn on the back of the truck. The dealer couldn't do anything with it for several days so we just left it with them in Janesville, Wisconsin and Bounded on! And Bound we did right on through Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Somewhere towards the end of Minnesota, those Griswolds showed up again. We kept hearing a banging and I went back and searched through all of the cabinets and tried to determine what it could be. I thought I had found it several times, but it kept coming back. Then Matt looked in his side mirror at the right time and noticed that the slide awning was unrolling a little bit and then snapping back, the banging. So, we stopped on the side of the road and he climbed on top to inspect it with no luck. We traveled on. Then all of the sudden another bang. We all looked at each other, what was that?! Oh no! The bottle of bleach that I bought to do our laundry in that fancy washer/dryer in the RV had come out of the cabinet and splattered all over the floor! I immediately went back to clean it up. It was a mess, and VERY noxious!!! And it quickly became evident that not only had it landed on my new green bath mat but it also splattered on the bedroom carpet and the bed. ugh!!! While I was cleaning that up, Matt got a bright idea about how to fix the awning so back on the side of the road and up top he went. I was ready to pass out from the bleach fumes. We opened up all the windows and traveled down the road for a bit to air her out. As I was sitting in the front seat with my eyes closed trying to regain my senses, I couldn't get the tune....Holiday Road from National Lampoon's family vacation out of my head so I decided to log on and find it to post on FB only to find out that Allison had already sent it to me! How funny!!

Shortly after, we stopped for gas, the first real meal in 24 hours and to let Matt run. Now, we trek on through South Dakota looking for our next adventure and trying to out run those Griswolds!

Here we go!

After several hours of driving we were on the PA turnpike and the sun was starting to set. Matt was getting weary of driving the big beast through all the traffic and the mountains. Plus, because of all the last minute stuff to do, I had yet to drive it. The last thing I wanted to do was have to drive it for the first time in the middle of the night! So, I took the wheel. Not more than a couple miles from the rest stop....the construction started. Nothing like driving a 36ft bus with a SUV in tow for the first time in two narrow lanes with jersey walls on either side and LOTS of 18 wheelers all around. ugh! But I survived, and so did the RV. :) When we finally broke out of that mess, cruising the open road wasn't so bad. I had never looked into a big rig eye to eye with the driver as he went by! We pushed on.....After about 280 miles I got to go in the back and sleep while Matt took over and Carter took over as co-pilot. That was much better than trying to rest in a cramped mini-van! Although, I will tell you making sandwiches for dinner while bouncing down the highway is a skill that will take awhile to perfect!

Plans

Nothing goes as planned! In January we planned to go to Yellowstone for our summer vacation. BUT there were no lodging reservations available. So, we decided to camp in our tent. I made reservations for a tent site at Grant which is on Yellowstone Lake in the National Park. We decided that this would be a good time to upgrade our tent as some spring camping in Shenandoah had left it a little tattered. So, I did lots of research and settled on one. Order it. Received it. It still is in the box it arrived in. BECAUSE.....a couple weeks before we were to leave for Yellowstone, we decided we needed to buy an RV instead! Still not sure where this idea came from but when we decide to do something, we usually focus on it and do it quick. So a week and half before our departure date, June 23rd, we took ownership of a 1999 Bounder 36S. That's right, a 36 foot Bus! Well, that meant that we needed to tow a vehicle to get around Yellowstone. We considered renting one out there but at $400 - $500 for the week we decided it was more cost effective to purchase a cheap used car. And that is right, of all of our cars, none of them were suitable for towing! We searched and searched and one day got lucky. A 1994 Toyota 4Runner popped up on craigslist. It was in Sterling and had the tow equipment already on it. So we rushed up there to beat another guy to it. Success! Everything was falling into place. That is, until the 23rd drew nearer. The auxiliary brake system for the RV to the "toad" was proving to be a bear as well as a million little things on the RV that we just couldn't get done. Again, we lucked out. Anita told us about an RV guy and he spent a day and a half on our RV helping us get it ready. Still Matt and my Dad as well as Matt's Dad spent several of the last few nights until midnight working on hooking up the tow bar, and that brake system. FINALLY, the 23rd of June arrives. BUT it was taking us longer to get everything done. We were to leave about 3pm and head to Wolftrap for Frampton openning for YES then head off into the sunset. BUT we weren't ready. SO Matt, Carter, and Kyle went to the concert and Dad and I stayed behind to finish up the brake system. At Midnight we had success with the brakes and a short while later the boys returned. BUT we decided to wait until the next day to set off.

SO, about 1pm on the 24th we finally set off for Yellowstone in the Bounder with the 4Runner in tow. Through D.C. traffic in 100 degree heat! The hottest day of the year so far no less. IT WAS HOT!