Day 1 June 17th Denver to Rock Springs, WY
Chels is already freaking out because of the heat and packing. (I had to change clothes in the van because I was soo hot) We got all packed up, got the GPS and Sirius Radio and of course the traveling guitar…and hit the open road. Wyoming was very windy so the kite flying was amazing. We ended the day setting up the tent on a random road and watching the sunset.
Day 2 June 18th Rock Springs, WY to Grand Teton NP
Driving to Jackson Hole there was approximately 75 miles of construction, one gas station and no bathrooms. But the Wind River Range is gorgeous! We were on a scenic byway with tons of antelopes and averaging 27 mpg. Pinedale is a very cute town! “Jacob get it!!” exclaims Chelsey as she sees a moose swimming across the river. The van is starting to act up…but the park is amazing! It seems as thought the mountains rise up endlessly from complete flatness. There have bear and moose jams on the hwy. We road our bikes from Jackson Lake/Single Mountain (where we are camping for the night) to Jenny Lake for a total of 20 miles. Now the mosquitoes are eating us so off to bed we go. We listened to kids sing us to sleep this night.
Day 3 June 19th Teton NP
We decided to try to get the van to town to get it fixed. We turned the key and nothing happened. We got it jumped twice but did not make it very far. We pulled off on the side of the road and people thought we were spotting some wildlife and no we were broken down. We rode our bikes to Jenny Lake Lodge and called for a tow. 3 hours later (it was only supposed to be an hour) a truck showed up and we went into Jackson. The tow guy was weird and called us suckers for being teachers. But everyone in Jackson was so nice…all wanting to give us rides places so that we would have to ride our bikes everywhere. We rode our bikes and walked all around town. Chels accidentally spit on another biker…oops! We went to a little league baseball game, ate at pizza hut, and looked at all the cute shops. We stayed at a hotel and ended the hard day with much needed beer and cable TV.
Day 4 June 20th Teton to Yellowstone
Because the tow guy took 3 hours to get us- the van was fixed this morning. We picked it up, gassed up, picked up our tent (we got a citation for leaving a cooler out- that is breaking the beer caution rules!) and we headed to Yellowstone. We got denied for a camp spot when we got there so we are going to spend the night in the van. We drove to Old Faithful and put our tourist caps on. We walked the boardwalk and saw Castle, Old Faithful (2), Daisy, Grotto, Riverside, and the Grand go off. The Grand and Riverside were probably our favorites. The Giant and Morning Glory pools are amazing! We meet some sketchy oil rig workers and spotted a black bear on the hill side- far far away. It rained so we ate supper in the van and became geyser hunters. We had an ice cream picnic at Riverside after racing there on our bikes to get there right when it started. It was sweet. We went to the Grand, the largest predictable geyser in the world. We ended the night looking at gift shops, Old Faithful going off at sun down and crawling into the back of the van to sleep in a sketchy parking lot.
Day 5 June 21st Yellowstone to Cooke City, MT
Today we saw: beaver, bison, deer, elk, bearish (2 bear jams), antelope, hawk (grabbing something out of the air), coyote, fox, big horn sheep, cranes, moose…whoa!! Today we looked at more geysers at Black Sand Basin and Biscuit Basin. We saw Excelsior geyser crater- Amazing, some mud pots, and Spasm geyser go off. We saw tons of bison, almost a bear (the ranger would not let us get out of our car) and hiked to the upper and lower falls. We hiked 328 stairs to the lower falls. We ended the tourist part in Mammoth Springs (nothing special there). We noticed the amazing re-growth of the new trees coming in from the fire. There was also a bison jam going over a pass out of the valley. I guess he closed down the road for hours. We headed east through the Lamar Valley which is Beautiful!! There are rolling green hills, streams and mountains all in one spot. In the valley we saw bison breeding grounds, 2 more bear jams (we really need binoculars), moose (2 different times- a mom and baby and then a bull), huge elk and a giant sweeping valley with snowcapped mountain vistas. We camped in a campground but were a little nervous because there are signs EVERYWHERE about grizzly bears significant in this area. There is a $150 fine if you leave food or water unattended in your camp spot. Soooo we slept in the van.
