Yellowstone National Park - July 5-10, 2006

It’s just a short, scenic drive from Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone. We’d heard stories about the tourists and traffic jams so we were gratified when our initial trip through the park went smoothly. Because we were in the motor-beast and pulling the Durango, we decided to drive directly to our next destination without making any stops. We’d save the sightseeing for another day.

Driving through, we couldn’t help but notice how the park is recovering from the devastating forest fires of 1988. I never realized what huge sections of Yellowstone were blackened by the fires that year. Even though it’s been 18 years, you can still see acres of small lodgepole pines that have grown up since that summer. Scattered among the smaller trees are the charred remains of the big trees that were destroyed. It’s all still beautiful in its way, but a dramatic reminder of how widespread the devastation was that year.

All the stories you’ve heard about the wildlife in Yellowstone are true. We’d only gone a few miles inside the park when we had to stop to allow a doe and her fawn to cross the road and it’s common to see large herds of elk and buffalo grazing along the highway. They all seem relatively unconcerned with the many tourists that stop to watch and take pictures. A pair of bald eagles had set up housekeeping in a nest just a few feet from the road. The park service had posted a helpful sign asking cars not to stop along that stretch of highway, but the result was a stream of vehicles that slowed to a snail’s pace as they tried to catch sight of them. Again, the eagles perched on the nest appeared oblivious to the cars below.

Our home base for this part of our trip was several miles from the park along the Madison River. This area is known for world-class fly fishing and every day we saw dozens of anglers along the river, either fishing from the shore or navigating their boats down the rapids. This is cattle ranching country with golden plains that stretch up to the mountains in the distance. We made a couple of trips to the little town of Ennis where we played a round of golf and enjoyed lunch at an old-fashioned drugstore/soda fountain. We also had some real decent Chinese food in a western bar with a restaurant in the back. A few miles up the road are the old silver mining towns of Virginia City and Nevada City. In Virginia City we saw the old building where four outlaws were strung up from a beam by a band of local vigilantes. Their graves are now a tourist attraction at the local boot hill.

Because we were quite a distance from Yellowstone, we only took one trip back for a closer look at the attractions there. We spent a day checking out Old Faithful and many of the other geothermal phenomena in that area. It’s quite amazing to see all of the bubbling, smoking, gushing, and blowing out of the ground! It’s humid, hot and everything smells like sulphur. And of course, you’re experiencing all of this with thousands of other people. I preferred trying to imagine what it must have been like to come upon this scene 150 years ago when this was truly a wilderness. I know we missed lots of other great Yellowstone sights, but we’ll save these for a future trip.

Next, we’re headed up towards Butte, MT. This RV park was quite remote; we had to drive over 25 miles to the nearest “real” grocery store. We made a plan to try to stick closer to the trappings of civilization. . . Check back to see if we're successful.