Wyoming

 Wyoming 

 Hello All, 

 We're now in Idaho after spending about a week in Wyoming.  Whew, two more national parks and much more. Every state seems different.  Almost like they each have their own personality.  Wyoming is very friendly and vast.  And much more beautiful than I would have expected.

Mike's parents lived in Rawlings for a number of years soon after they were married and before he was born.  We spent an interesting couple of hours in that small town trying to get information as to which building was the drug store where his father worked.  It's still there but it took us a while to figure it all out. 

We first went to the library, and they sent us to the museum where an old guy, who is the local historian, gave us all kinds of information.  It was fun.....sorta like detective work.  We were even able to look at old phone books from the 30's and though we didn't find the "Hughes" listing we did find good friends of their's that lived there during the same era.  Fun. We spent a couple days heading north to the two national parks, Grand Teton and Yellowstone.  The night before we entered GTNP we stayed at a National Forest Service camp called Pinnacle.  It was named for the rock formation that towered over the stream that ran into the beautiful Brooks Lake that had another big rock formation right behind it as well.  What a truly beautiful place.  I think it was probably the most beautiful place we've ever actually camped.  And there was literally a TON of firewood available.  Always a plus.  Fishing right nearby.....private......and the most mosquitoes we've ever seen.  They were thick.  Like a nightmare of the worst kind.  They didn't bite us much after we lathered on the deet but they drove you totally nuts with flying in your eyes, etc.  I think it truly could drive a person mad.  They finally went to bed and we were able to enjoy a nice fire. We spent two nights in the Tetons.  

What a beautiful mountain range and such a pretty park.  The Snake River is so snakey and the lakes are pristine.....wow.  It was also fun to go into Jackson Hole and have lunch and watch the tourists.  (We don't consider ourselves tourists....we are travelers.)  The campground was super crowded and had so many giant motor homes and fifth wheels we could not believe it!  Generators running like crazy...it was nuts.  These rigs are already 40 or more feet long and they're towing a big car or a trailer with "toys" like bikes, a small car and/or an ATV.  All the push outs were pushed out right into the little road we had to drive down to our site and when a big Winnebago needed to be towed through this mess because of some engine problem.......well.......the tow truck driver deserves a medal.  We were camped right at a shape turn and it was pretty interesting to watch the whole operation.  

We have a friend (HI Debbie) who just went to work for the National Forest Service at the Inyo Nat. Forest in Calif. and I took lots of photos of the gyrations of the vehicles for her to get a feel for the challenges of designing a campground.  Whew! Grand Teton National Park is practically right next to the southern end of Yellowstone.  We headed up there in the am so we could get a campsite in one of the smaller campgrounds that doesn't take reservations.  We felt lucky to find a spot.  We had reservations for the next night further north.  Yellowstone is huge and the main roads within the park form a figure 8.  We saw most of the lower (or southern) half of the 8 in the two days we spent there.  

There truly is a ton of wildlife in the park.  We saw hundreds of bison.  Many of them right next to us in a parking lot or crossing the road.  They are so much bigger in person in the wild than any I've ever seen before.  And they go exactly where they want to.  It's a riot when they're walking down the road, really slowly, and you can do nothing except follow behind and wait until they decide to head off into the grass.  

They are pretty cute from behind......they kinda sway when they walk.  They seemed to like to sit by the steamy pools that are all over the park.  I truly wonder if they fall through the unstable ground that is everywhere and perish.  Wouldn't be surprised. We made it up to the grand canyon of Yellowstone and the famous falls.  It really is a picture perfect place.  Beautiful.  

We also saw moose and elk but I was unable to get any photos.  No bears though.  Which is okay by me.....apparently the grizzlies are doing really well and wander through the campgrounds on a regular basis.  We saw a large herd of elk that were starting to cross the Yellowstone River.  And this morning, as we were leaving, there was a mother moose with two young in a field near the road.  In both cases there were so many cars stopped all over the place and no safe area we could pull off so we just saw and drove on.  Would have been great photos but oh well.....have to just remember.  

Today we came out the west entrance from Yellowstone, drove through a little corner of Montana and entered Idaho.  It's very beautiful in the eastern part of the state.  Lots of places to camp and rivers, lakes, etc.  We hurried through except we did stop to hike to Mesa Falls.  We accidently went to the smaller of the two falls but that's ok.  It was pretty anyway.  

Then we went to some town and got an oil change for big rig so she's all happy once again.  Also Walmart for a few things and are now near Craters of the Moon National Monument.  We will go there tomorrow on our way to Ketchum (Sun Valley) and go on the scenic hiway through the Sawtooth Range on our way to Boise.  So that's it.  

Good night, Gayle (and Mike who is sleeping and I'm jealous)