The Wyoming Leg of the Adventure

I am in love with Wyoming.  This is such a beautiful place.  If you have not come to Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons or Jackson Hole Wyoming you must make a trip here.

During our time in Cody, Wyoming we visited Yellowstone, the first visit we left at 6:30 in the morning and drove to the North end of the park from the East side traveled south through the park.  This leg took us about 12 hours with all the stops for photos on the way.  The temps in the park when we arrived were a chilly 23 degrees.  Once in the park we saw the Bison and a Bald Eagle.

It was overwhelming the beauty and unspoiled land.  We were a bit disappointed in the burn areas which looked bad.  From what we are to understand lightning strikes cause the forests to burn and the park service allows it to burn itself out.  Which then creates new habitats for animals and replenishes the soils.  In addition, there are seed pods from the trees which cannot open without intense heat and the fires allows these pods to open and then new trees sprout up.   We finally got back to the RV around 9:00 p.m. and opted to take the next day off because we were so tired.

In town we found a cute little Italian Restaurant which was fabulous and family owned.  The owner was an old Rodeo guy.  We sat next to two guys who just been out hunting Elk.  (Darn they didn't get one) Sorry that's me the Vegetarian talking.  Anyway, we started talking to them and it turns out the one guy lived in Torrance and just moved to Arizona, small world.

During our time in Cody we also did the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  A must see for anyone in the area.  It will take you 2 days to really go through it and see everything.  There is an Indian heritage wing, Yellowstone wing and one wing with over 3500 guns.   It was amazing.

Here's the link:  http://www.bbhc.org/

After a second day in Yellowstone we were truly exhausted but saw the beautiful Geysers and bubbling sulfur pools.  It truly made me understand how alive our Earth is.

We packed up and moved to a campground in the southern part of the Grand Tetons, named Gros Ventre  (pronounced Gro Von)  It is absolutely beautiful.  The leaves are changing to the colors of Fall. The following pictures are from the area around our campsite and 50 yards from us is a river.  As you can see there are few campers here and when people are here the sites are far apart, so lots of space.  Downside is it's primitive camping, which means we are self contained and have to go dump our tanks about every 3 days and fill up the water tank.  In addition we are running on a generator which uses diesel fuel from our tank.  We might have to go into town to get more fuel.  It is so worth the little bit of inconvenience to stay here.

The park is full of photographers who go out like us and do photography in the morning and evening.   When we drive down the road when you see a group of cars along the road it's usually an animal in the area and there are dozens of camera clicking away.  This is where professional photographers and amateur picture takers all band together to get that perfect shot.

Now we are running around getting moose, bear and elk shots to post.  This adventure is truly a gift.  One I know we will treasure forever.  We hope you are enjoying some of these blog posts and pictures.  I am trying to get things put on as I can.  Right now our connection is a little sketchy but we're dealing with it.  

More to come...

Yellowstone and Gran Teton animal and Geyser shots

Click on the link below for a slide show of some of the current pictures Tom and I have taken.  This first photos are from Yellowstone and the photos of the moose are in our campground in the Grand Tetons. More photos to come !!!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/100518153875957627148/Yellowstone?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzC892atMmyyQE#slideshow/5656031266964118290

Driving through Montana toward Yellowstone

Sunday - Monday Sept 18 and 19


Spent the day driving from Missoula, Montana to what we hoped would be Cody, Wyoming.  Along the way we encountered a Prison Museum in Deere Lodge Montana.
    Facts:  the Old Montana Prison was built by inmate labor, this turn-of-the-century fortress was home to at least one member of Butch Cassidy's "Wild Bunch".  

It was really creepy walking through the hallways and into the cells, but it was interesting all at the same time.  The conditions were less than I could imagine living in.  We went down to "The Hole" where they put prisoners in solitary confinement and that was little much for me being claustrophobic.  


After we left Deere Lodge we traveled to Bozeman, Montana.  Just outside of the town there, we almost missed it, was the Grizzly Encounter, as seen on NATGEO TV.  We stopped there and saw Brutus the bear and Sheena.  What magnificent creatures bears are.  Just to be in there watching them was amazing.  

The wind was whipping around us and Tom was getting tired so we stopped and fueled up.  We spent our first night as Wal-Martians in a Wal-Mart parking lot along side a couple other rigs.  It wasn't so bad until the guy who cleans the parking lot did a couple of laps around the motorhome with his sweeper at 3:30 in the morning.  We ended up getting up around 4:30 am and heading to Cody.  

Currently in Missoula

We are currently in Missoula Montana for a little rest and business.  Travel day tomorrow to Yellowstone National Park.  One of the first stops we plan to make on this adventure.  Check back for updates.  I will try to post daily or every other day on the blog to not get behind.   Thanks for traveling along with us.

Our Big Fork Adventure Continued.....

The following  day we headed out early to Glacier National Park for our day in the Park and our drive to on the Going to the Sun road.  This drive was beautiful with lots of great picture opportunities. 

The waterfalls looked and sounded fabulous, as we hiked a little closer to them one could feel the chill come from the water.   It was truly a breath of fresh air because it was really warm up there in the park that day, close to 86 degrees.   The glaciers were truly melting.  We filled our water bottles with glacier water and drank it as fast as we could, ice cold and refreshing.   There were some guys diving in the ice cold water and swimming around a bit.  They couldn’t stay in long that’s for sure.    

Our Big Fork Adventure

We arrived in Big Fork on The Flathead River, to a beautiful place, I will call paradise.  A new friend to us on this adventure has a house on the lake which has a motorhome pad.   This is most defiantly paradise in Montana.   We were greeted by the locals, Bambi and her mom.  

We had dinner on the porch with a burning orange and red sunset.  An eagle graced us with his presence and then  glided away.  

Some turkeys came to greet us too.  They were very cute.  All we did was shoot them with the camera.  No turkey dinners here !!!

The New Beginning

The summer came to an end Idaho for us a little bittersweet if you ask me.  We packed the truck with a lot less stuff then we had when we left Redondo Beach, that's for sure.  After many ebay sales, craigslist listings, and yard sales we downsized even more.  Now our stuff is in a safe place waiting for our return after our adventure.   We now begin living the dream of traveling this country, meeting people, seeing what there is to see, learning about our history and ourselves.

The final month went faster than expected.  I (Lorraine) had the single best summer I ever could have had with a terrific brother who I got to spend time with like I never have before.  It's a summer I will cherish forever.  It made the beginning of this trip the best way to start.  We had great BBQ's on the weekends, spent mother's day, father's day and the 4th of July together.  It was quite a summer.  Thanks to them for the hospitality.  I could not be happier right now. 

 My brother and his wife (above)

Here we are on the last weekend saying bye.  Verlin (in the riding gear), Jan, Tom !!  Chloe is the Brown dog  and Hunter is the blonde dog.   

More updates this weekend about our boat trips on the lake, our trip to Glacier National Park and our Zip Line Tour...coming soon!!!!