July 16, 2006 at 2:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are back in contact with the world. At this moment, we are making an afternoon camp in the parking lot of the Menor Historical Site, just 1/2 mile north of Moose, in the Grand Tetons National Park. The mountains are looming to our west, just out the dinette window where I am sitting catching up on work.
The past four days have been great, and there’s much to tell. I will try to backfill some blog entries tonight and tomorrow. In short:
1) I took over 500 photos, of which some are now in our Flickr album.
2) Yellowstone was crowded and, although a terrific place to visit, will not be on our top ten list of national parks we most like to go. Yes, we saw geysers, bison, pronghorns, and many other creatures. The park is so big (size of Connecticut) that we were only able to see a tiny fraction in three nights. But in that short time we managed to get caught in a couple of huge traffic jams, the parking lots were all overflowing, and even the 7 a.m. ranger walk was attended by over 50 people. We got up every day at 5:30 to beat the crowds, and it was a drag to find full parking lots everywhere by 8 a.m. If we come back, it will be in the off-season.
3) My Mac’s internal hard drive died on Friday, but fortunately I had a full backup made on July 4, and I had enough warning of the problem to save most of the intervening work as well. It’s now completely un-bootable, but I am fine, working off Eleanor’s laptop with all my data on the external backup drive. However, I was not able to retrieve about 100 great photos from Glacier National Park before the main drive died. I still hope to do that when we reach a service center in Denver. Have you remembered to backup your data lately?
4) Jackson WY campgrounds are incredibly expensive ($52 per night with Good Sam discount) so we are going to head to Idaho today to get cheaper camping in Victor.
5) We managed to run over a 1″ drywall screw in a campground in Grand Tetons, which meant an emergency trip to the service center in the park. The tire is unrepairable, so we are on the spare at the moment. How did a drywall screw end up in the center of a huge National Park?
July 13, 2006 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Places to go
I have to admit that I arrived in Yellowstone with less than the appropriate attitude. Part of it was my fault: I never took the time to research the park before we arrived, and so I was repeatedly surprised by things that I should have expected.
As we passed through the North Entrance, I was expecting to drive a few miles to our campground and settle in before the thunderstorms arrived. But Yellowstone is a park the size of Connecticut, and so I should not have been surprised to see a sign advising us that the drive to Bridge Bay Campground was 62 miles further down a twisting road with a speed limit of 35-45 MPH.
Along the way, we passed through Mammoth Hot Springs, the northernmost of several “villages” that exist inside the park. To visit a park the size of Yellowstone (we belatedly discovered) you need to pick an area you want to explore and then choose a village nearby. Otherwise, you’ll spend all day driving around the park. It is typically 35-50 miles between villages, and traffic sometimes moves slowly in the peak months of July and August.
Bison can cause huge backups in the summer
It moves even slower when a bison crosses the road. We got caught in a series of thunderstorms, with small hail — which always strikes fear into the heart of an Airstream owner — and then of course, a bison showed up somewhere, and all traffic stopped dead. There’s nothing like watching hail hit your trailer in a mile-long traffic jam with no way to escape. So we arrived much later than we expected, and I was not feeling very upbeat about it.
We found Susan and Adam in their campground, 2 miles from ours, but they had decided to depart in the morning, so that was the last we saw of them. We were sorry to see them go, but glad they felt they had a great adventure with us the past ten days.
Knowing that crowds and traffic were going to be problems, we woke at 5:30 the next morning so we could get to a Ranger-guided hike at 7:00, about ten miles away. We figured the early start time would allow us to see lots of wildlife, and it would keep the crowds away. We were wrong on both counts. Over fifty people showed up, and the fog was so dense we couldn’t see anything most of the time. There’s no chance of spotting much wildlife with fifty people tromping around anyway …
Dropping in on the other roadside sights worked better for us. We hit the Sulphur Cauldron, the Mud Pots, and a few geysers, did a little more hiking, and then we started to feel that you can only look at so much belching mud in one day. We collapsed in the trailer for lunch and a nap (for me).
In the afternoon we were surprised by Wendimere “The Health Chic” and Bill, who we had met in Salem just a couple of weeks ago. We spent an hour chatting with them and talked about meeting up again in Florida, where they live. From here the plan is a quiet evening in, some movies, and early bedtime … because tomorrow will be another early day.
July 12, 2006 at 10:00 am · Filed under Uncategorized
We are heading out this morning to Yellowstone National Park, 100 miles south of here. We’ll probably be unable to blog for a couple of days, because we are staying in the center of the park where only analog phone service exists. Yellowstone has been the subject of a few well-publicized cell phone towers, but in reality it is unlikely we’ll find any coverage (except at Old Faithful).
Rich C is heading to Bozeman for maintenance. We’ll meet Adam and Susan in the park and report back when we emerge, probably by Friday.
July 11, 2006 at 5:25 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s a fine day here in southern Montana. This really is a beautiful state and worthy of many weeks of exploration, if not months. I’m sorry we aren’t taking more time here, but we will just need to come back again later.
Us, and Rich C, parked in the otherwise empty campground
Our drive today has taken us to Lewis and Creek Caverns State Park ($18, no hookups), which was once a National Monument. It was transferred to the state of Montana in 1932 when Congress was looking for ways to pare down the National Parks budget. The caves are three miles up a twisting road from the campground. The area is very scenic and remarkably quiet.
We’ve decided to skip the cavern tour, even though Adam and Susan reported it to be a good one, because it is two hours long. Emma’s attention span in a cave is not quite that long, and we’ve seen a lot of caves in the past six months, including Oregon Caves, Mammoth Cave, Lehman Cave, and Kartchner Cavern. Instead, we’re taking a quiet afternoon around the Airstream.
I’ve been meaning to share a small tip for camping this time of year: be careful for wasps at your campsite. Last week at the Corps of Engineers campground in Pasco, WA, I opened the cover to the electrical hookup in campsite #46, and was immediately stung twice by wasps. We retreated to another site.
Even though the stings hurt, I was sort of happy to be the recipient of them. Rich C is allergic to insect stings and it would have been much worse for him. I didn’t want to have to inject him with an Epi-Pen. Carol gave me some topical pain reliever (benzocaine or something similar) and it worked very quickly.
This experience actually paid off just a couple of days later when Rich C opened another electrical hookup cover at another campground. Just before opening it, he thought, “Hmmm…. maybe there are wasps in here, too.” So he opened it cautiously, and sure enough, there were unhappy wasps. He ran fast and was lucky not to be stung.
Photo by Scott Fassett
July 11, 2006 at 7:59 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Monday was a chance for everyone to figure out their new plans. Since Bert & Janie are leaving today for up to five months, we have decided to leave the rest of Glacier for another visit.
Susan and Adam decided to start heading south toward Wyoming. They only have a few more days before they have to park the C and fly home, and they would like to see some of Yellowstone. They left Monday afternoon.
We are going to follow them today (Tuesday) and catch up in Yellowstone on Wednesday. Tonight we’ve got a nice state park picked out in southern Montana.
Rich C is going to go the same way, but he’s already left early this morning. We should re-group with him tonight. His friends Tom and Shane decided to head up to Banff for a few days, so other than a brief visit yesterday afternoon, we won’t be seeing them. They will be flying back out of Seattle this weekend.
Bert & Janie are leaving this morning too. We are both parked in the driveway, hitched up and just about ready to go. Watching Bert & Janie, I am reminded of how much work it is to get an entire house secured before an extended trip. They’ve been checking items off their lists for days, arranging for mail forwarding, turning off appliances and water, setting out supplies for contingencies … it seems endless. We used to do that too, before every trip.
My major prep was putting in a 12-hour day at the “office” yesterday. The World Headquarters of Airstream Life magazine were located in Bert & Janie’s living room for the day, where I could borrow his broadband Internet connection. I like having a portable office. Everything I need, including whatever current projects and paperwork I have, fits in a medium-sized blue backpack. I just sling it over my shoulder and head to my dinette, the local coffee shop, or a lawn chair outside.
If Emma wakes up soon, we’ll be able to follow Bert & Janie for a few miles, but Emma seems determined to sleep in today. We’ll be the last people here in the driveway today, looking forward to seeing our friends again tonight and tomorrow for more adventures.
July 10, 2006 at 1:07 pm · Filed under Places to go
You may have noticed that I didn’t post last night. There’s a good reason for that: total exhaustion. Following Bert’s recommendation, we all got up at 6 a.m. and were driving toward Glacier by 7:30, to beat the crowds. Glacier is getting sadly overcrowded on the only road that goes through the park, namely “Going To The Sun Road.” An early start saves a lot of time by avoiding the traffic.
One of our first views from the hike. Click to enlarge
Now, the plan was supposed to be that we would spot a car at a hairpin turn in Going To The Sun Road, then proceed up to the Visitor’s Center at Logan Pass, and hike generally downhill for about eight miles along the Highline Trail back to the first car. However, Bert somewhat underestimated the mileage for the hike … which turned out to be about 12 miles … and also neglected to mention that about 1/3 of the hike was along trail with 1,000 foot drops along the left edge.
This made for a spectacular view, but a nerve-wracking hike for Eleanor and I. Emma is a superb hiker, and can easily cover six miles in a half day, but we’ve never even dreamed of taking her 12 miles! Plus, we had to hold her hand tightly through some tricky spots. I was envisioning her slipping down the nearly-vertical slope and jumping down after her, so at times my grip was tight.
Lake McDonald in the background. Click to enlarge
But Emma was a trouper. Not only did she safely hike 12 miles with 600 feet of vertical gain and 2900 feet of descent, on a day that approached 90 degrees, but she did it in good spirits … wearing sandals. (I was wearing sandals too, and neither of us had a blister or even a sore toe.) Not bad for a six-year-old, eh? We’re very proud of her, and our hiking partners Adam, Susan, and Bert were very impressed. Bert was so impressed that wrote about Emma in his blog, which you can read by clicking here.
Mountain Goats resting nearby. Click to enlarge.
This was more than a hike, it was an adventure. Bert, being a former ranger in the park, was full of interesting information about the wildlife, plants, geology, and history of the park. We really got more than our money’s worth out of the day.
The historic chalet, about 6.7 miles down the hike. Click to enlarge.
The best thing about this hike may have been the ending: just a few hundred feet short of the trail’s end, when we were all hot and sticky, we found this superb cool stream. I immediately ran down and dunked my head in the water. Ahhhhhhh…. Bert and Adam quickly followed suit, and Emma filled her hat with water and poured it over her head. At point, we all felt refreshed enough to hike a few more miles.
I have posted an entire new album of photos from this hike on Flickr. Click here to see the pictures. If you can’t browse the pictures now, suffice to say that Glacier is a wonderful park, huge, gorgeous, and filled with waterfalls from the melting snow.
Another view from High Line Trail. Click to enlarge
Glacier is also logistically tricky. To see it, you really need to go hiking. Driving the Going To The Sun Road is great and there are many pullouts to see waterfalls, goats, and fantastic views, but that’s only a tiny sampling of what the park has to offer. And it’s a huge park — just driving from the West Glacier entrance to Logan Pass is over 20 miles.
We can’t tow the Airstreams through the park. Our next goal would be to travel to the east side, where Many Glacier can be found, but since we have to detour around the park, this would be at least a three-hour trip. After thinking about it, we’ve decided that we are satisfied with our very full day and we will save the rest of the park for another visit.
Today will be a work day and then tomorrow we plan to start heading south to Yellowstone. Adam and Susan have already headed out, since they have less time than we do. We’ll caravan with Rich C. Bert & Janie are heading out too, for several months of work on the road writing and photographing subjects from Montana to Nova Scotia, and then down the east coast. We are hoping to meet them again in Maine, in September.
Last night, after getting the second car and driving to the West Entrance, it was about 7:30 pm. We drove over to Kalispell (35 miles away — things are spread out in Montana) for pizza at Moose’s Saloon. If you ever get to Kalispell, check this place out. It looks disreputable, but the pizza is great and the atmosphere is fun. The floor is covered in sawdust and peanut shells, the music is loud, and it’s a great place to get the two things Bert wanted most after our 12 miles of hiking: pizza and beer.
When we finally emerged from Moose’s, it was 10 pm and the sun had just set. It wasn’t completely dark until 10:30. In this time of year, Montana seems to understand that your days will be full, and it obliges with plenty of sunlight.
July 8, 2006 at 10:17 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We’ve arrived at Bert & Janie’s house in Bigfork, near Flathead Lake. The drive up was fine, but fraught with construction zones. Arriving at Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi (just behind our own Lake Champlain in Vermont), we were greeted with spectacular views of mountains and blue water.
We got all the Airstreams parked in and around the driveway — 4 in all, counting Bert & Janie’s. Rich is parked down below the driveway in a secluded spot, we are in the circle drive, and Adam and Susan are in front of the garage. Bert tried to get a photo of all four from the roof of his house, but it was impossible with the trees and obstacles.
Bert took Susan, Adam and me out for a boat ride on the river. We spotted some young eagles, a couple of blue herons, and two osprey in their nest. Bert was our personal tour guide for the trip, which last for a couple of hours. I think Susan and Adam are beginning to see why courtesy parking is so cool.
I also spotted signs of an old practice: farmers using junked cars to shore up the river embankments. Kind of incongruous with the beautiful scenery here in Montana.
Dinner was shared at the picnic table in the middle of the driveway. We had a nice time but the mosquitoes have appeared, and eventually we fled to the house for watermelon. Bert shared with us his basement “natural history museum” (bear skulls, photos, artifacts, etc), and then it was 9 p.m., time to start the bedtime process with Emma.
Tomorrow Rich C is going to relocate to Big Arm State Park, nearby, for a couple of nights. He’ll meet up with his friends from the east coast and then rejoin us later. Our plan is to get up EARLY and head to Glacier National Park around 7 a.m. Bert has a big hike planned for us. He says we’re going to look for pikas, but there should be more than just those furry little rodents to check out. We’ll also drive the Going To The Sun Road. It should be marvelous, if Emma can hold up. If not, we have some backup plans. I expect great photos to come out of this hike.
Other items: Eleanor was up till midnight doing the laundry. Susan and Adam never did do theirs. The next morning, Adam and I were asking ourselves, “So why did we go to the commercial campground??” Instead of paying $38, we could have had the same water and electric hookups in a more scenic State Park for about $20.
Blog reader Peter suggested we use a 120v to 12v adapter so that we can inflate the tires on the driver’s side of the trailer. Then we can use any convenient extension core. Good idea. Today I borrowed Adam’s 120v compressor to inflate the tires. One had only 47.5 lbs in it (it should have had 60 lbs) so I’ll be keeping an eye on that one.
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