Friday in Yellowstone

Spent this day enjoying Yellowstone National Park.  After finding a great coffee shop in West Yellowstone (Morning Glory) aand a delicious bakery (Woodside Bakery) with incredible cinnamon rolls, we headed for the west entrance.  Our first stop was a meadow with a bison herd.  Great photo ops.  We were able to get up very close. Then we hiked a trail to Fairy Falls with some beautiful geyser pools and mineral lakes and gurgling, bubbling mud pots.  Then on to Old Faithful where we toured the beautiful Yellowstone Old Faithful Lodge that offers rooms from $103 (with shared bath) to $512 (the penthouse with a view of the geyser), then waited on cold benches with a hundred or so others for the scheduled eruption of the most famous geyser in the world.  On the return trip to West Yellowstone and our rv park, we had to drive slowly through an area where the bison herds use the park road as their own thoroughfare.  After a stop at the local Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, we headed for camp and a cold beer.  The weather continues to be unseasonably cold: hovering in the forties with windchills making it feel like the thirties.  Tomorrow promises to be a bit less cloudy and a few degrees warmer.

Paula met a friendly Taliban on the trail

Thar she blows!

Fairy Falls

Mineral deposit art

A wonderful Yellowstone vista

Tatonka!

Baby bison

We drove from Twin Falls, ID, to West Yellowstone, traveling via Hwys 84, 86, 15 and  20.  The terrain is flat, lush, irrigated farm and ranch land for half of the way, then gradually becoming forested and mountainous once you leave Idaho Falls and continue on 20.  We enjoyed mostly cloudy weather with a smattering of sunshine.  Once we arrived at the KOA in West Yellowstone, there were periods of hail and what appeared to be embryonic snowflakes.  Our son, Matt, pulled in shortly after we did and tried to unwind from his five-hour motorcycle ride through rain, hail and cold headwinds.  After thawing out, he joined us for a quick tour of the quaint town of West Yellowstone, which is literally the gateway to the park.  The town is outfitted for tourists with numerous, restaurants, bars and a zillion gift shops with clever T-shirts emblazoned with bear photos that say: "I eat tourists, marinated in bear spray."

Matt's bike

Need this for Search and Rescue

View from campsite

Clifford imitating bison

Today's leg was our longest slog: about 560 miles and nine hours in the saddle with a few stops for meals and restrooms. Consequently, we didn't have time for photos.  (Just one of the rig parked in the Twin Falls KOA.)  The weather was mostly cloudy and quite windy.  When we left Boomtown, the flags were stiff and pointing north.  Even the birds were all flying in the same direction. Crossing HWY 80 to Wells, NV, we noticed some turbulence but managed to hold it steady.  Heading from Wells north on HWY 93, the tail wind helped.  There were dark clouds and rain most of the way.  We ate dinner at the Depot Cafe in Twin Falls--established in 1917.  I imagine the cooking hasn't changed much in the intervening years, and we would give it only two stars.  Paula's steak was tough and fried in generous grease.  My "fish platter" would have served as good bait for bottom fishing--even Clifford turned up his nose at the leftovers.

  Tomorrow we head to West Yellowstone and the rendezvous with our son, Matt.  He is spending tonight at a motel in Cody, WY, trying to dry out from the drenching he received on his motorcycle ride from Sheridan, WY.

On Tuesday we completed the Lower Lake to Boomtown, NV, leg of the journey.  We had to stop in Rocklin to exchange a faulty barbecue at Camping World.  But after wrangling with the sales manager for a while, we managed to get almost full value for the Cuisinart (wouldn't recommend one!) and applied that to a Weber Q200, a solid piece of work that could handle a small steer. The KOA at Boomtown was quiet and restful, allowing us to prepare for the long stretch tomorrow that will take us all the way to Twin Falls, ID.  We took a stroll after dinner and discovered some old western ruins nearby that were an interesting juxtaposition near the casino and a fairly new Cabela's.

Boomtown Casino

The old homestead

Old meets new

Cabela's in the distance

First Leg: Utterly Blessed Farm, Lower Lake

After driving south on 101 through torrential rain (well, continuous, anyway), we arrived in Lower Lake at my daughter, Chris's, farm.  She and our son-in-law John and our two granddaughters, Kyrstyn and Kynnedy, raise Nigerian Dwarf goats, Sarama chickens, and a variety of other miscellaneous critters.  One of the photos below shows a goat called Tuscany which was a Grand Champion recently at the Red Bluff Goat Show.  Another shows Kyrstyn participating in a mock arrest for her Explorers group.  We'll be heading for Reno in the morning and the Boomtown KOA.

Kyrstyn, Chris, Kynnedy (Paula in back)

Chickens and Goats

Baby goats

Adult moms

Tuscany, the Grand Champion yearling

This is the second major escapade in our "Foxy Ford": i.e., Arctic Fox 22GQ, pulled by our Ford 250 Super Duty diesel beast.  We will travel to Yellowstone National Park, via Reno, NV, and Twin Falls, ID.  There we will rendezvous with our son, Matt, who is having his own adventure on his BMW motorcycle visiting his wife, Jennifer, who is in Sheridan, WY, on a month-long art residency. We will first visit our daughter, Chris, and her family in Lower Lake, CA, on our first leg.  So check out our daily blog and photos to follow and live this adventure vicariously.