Shelly
Today we drove the 90 miles to see Old Faithful in Yellowstone. D did today’s driving and gave Sam a break. We drove through the Bridger-Teton National Forest and got to an elevation of 9,600 feet. Lots of snow still on the ground even though it’s in the 50’s. On Friday the boys are doing a full day fly fishing day with a guide. So Sam and I hope to make it back to the forest for some hiking with Patty.
We are super glad we bought the “America the Beautiful” pass for entry to all the national parks and monuments. It’s $80. Most admissions about $30/car. So after today we would already be up to $90 (Badlands, Grand Teton, Yellowstone…not even counting us getting in free at Mt.Rushmore). Score!
We made a couple stops for pictures as we drove through Grand Teton. D teased E for all the pictures he took. But every time we turned around, it was just more beautiful things.
Our first stop in Yellowstone was Old Faithful. We timed it just right. We only had about a 15 minute wait for it to go off. Pretty amazing stuff and so much water.
On the Covid 19 front, most things were closed and the things that were open in Yellowstone were really capacity limited. 2 people at a time in a 3 stall bathroom and 6 people total in the bigger gift shop that was open. But there really weren’t that many people there. The parking lots were pretty wide open.
But we decided to practice extreme social distancing for lunch. We drove about 30 miles back to Yellowstone Lake and found a completely forgotten about picnic site with a short trail to a deserted lake beach, complete with black lava sand. After we ate our sandwiches we explored the beach and all the guys practiced skipping stones across the glassy water.
E had been a little upset we hadn’t seen a bear yet. But then he started seeing warning signs about the bears and finally agreed that it’s a good thing we’ve avoided them so far…and you better believe we had fun making bear noises in the woods 😀
We stopped at Colter Bay in Grand Teton on our way back to the Ranch. We didn’t have any cell service all day (yay!). So I couldn’t check on their dog friendlyness. Unfortunately dogs can only go where cars can go. That’s no fun. So we just took some pictures, walked around the marina and headed back to the Ranch.
What We're Eating:
Breakfast: Breakfast buritoes, oatmeal and Pop Tarts
Lunch: We took sandwiches with us and at in Yellowstone
Dinner: BBQ Meatballs and tots ... with mandatory s’mores
Temperatures: pretty chilly (41) in the AM, 60’s in Yellowstone, mid 70’s in Grand Teton
Drive Time: who knows. We did a lot of stopping. But I think it was about 3 hours to Old Faithful
Total Miles to Date: _________________
