Zion National Park

We arrived in Utah Saturday evening. The RV park that we chose is within 13 miles of Zion National Park. We stayed at Zion River Resort RV Park & Campground. This RV campground was very nice and highly recommend it for anyone visiting this area.

We drove into Springdale for dinner and ate at Oscar’s. The food was great and the atmosphere was phenomenal. We ate outside on the patio with a view of the Zion. The white wine margarita wasn’t bad either.

We got an early start on Sunday morning and headed straight for the Narrows Bottom-Up hike. Jeff and I thought how striking the difference was with this trail from what we had done only a few days before. Just a few days earlier, we were hiking in the snow in the Tetons. And, now we were hiking in the Virgin River through canyons in 90 degree weather.
In the Narrows, you navigate in and along a river, crossing from shore to shore through water mid-calf to mid-thigh deep. The river is the trail. The river was a bit cool at first but after a while we got used to the temperature. And, when returning back to the trail, the temperature felt great as the heat really increased by that time. Unfortunately, the hike back was also more congested with a lot more people so there was the additional hassle of going around people while trying to navigate our way through the river.
After the hike, we decided to have lunch at the Zion Park Lodge. After that we attempted the hike to Angel’s Landing. We began the Angel’s Landing 5-mile hike around 2 pm and the heat was at it’s peak. I could not tolerate the heat combined with the extremely tough all uphill hike so we stopped prior to making it half way up and we returned back to the camper. I felt pretty dehydrated even though I drank a lot of water on the way up and back down. After a shower and a nap, we went out for dinner in Springdale.

We wanted to go to Bryce Canyon on Monday but decided instead to stay at Zion since we had not seen everything we wanted the day before. We drove through the east side of the park through the tunnel. We also hiked the Emerald Pools loop after lunch at Oscar’s.
After the hike, we headed back to the camper and I made an appointment for a massage at the RV resort where we were staying. We grilled our dinner at the RV and relaxed for the evening as we planned to begin our journey back home on Tuesday morning.

The trip has been wonderful. My only complaint is that there isn’t more time to do all that we wanted to do. There is so much to see in this beautiful country and simply not enough time to do it all. I hope to bring our daughters out here in a few years when they are a bit older and could appreciate everything a little more than they could now.

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park, MT

We drove to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park in Montana today. It was a beautiful drive to and from the park and we spotted a coyote on the way home too. Today was my first time to go "splunking."

We stopped at Eino's in West Yellowstone for dinner. And, again, the food was great!

Tomorrow morning we are heading south towards the Grand Canyon. We have enjoyed our stay in West Yellowstone but have decided it's time to move on to another location before all of our time is gone.

Below are a few pics from our visit to the Caverns today.

Yellowstone...Round Two

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.The winds will blow their own freshness into you... while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.~~John Muir

For anyone who has never been to Yellowstone, it is hard to describe the vastness of this park. Just to get from one side of the park to the other takes a good bit of time to drive. There isn't enough time to do all of the things we want to do in this area so we spent the day today hitting some of the "tourist" hot spots in the park. As of today, we've now driven through every entrance to the park. We had lunch at the Yellowstone Lake Lodge and dinner at the Roosevelt Lodge. We visited the Midway Geiser Basin, West Thumb Geiser Basin, Lake Village, Mud Volcano, Tower Fall, and the Beartooth Highway outside of the northeast entrance to the park. There are no words to describe the beauty we witnessed so I'll just share some pictures with everyone. We plan to rest tomorrow and then leave West Yellowstone to travel south on Saturday.

Grand Teton National Park

If you aren't religious when you come out here, you will be after you leave and have seen this place.~~quote from Jeff

We relaxed on Tuesday morning for the most part. We got some groceries and Jeff washed the RV and the jeep. We passed through road construction on the way in and both the Jeep and the RV were filthy. So, Jeff decided to clean them up.

Afterwards, we decided to hop in the jeep and drive to Jackson, Wyoming. Our plan was to get a hotel room for the night and go hiking on Wednesday morning in Grand Teton National Park. We ended up getting a room for the night at a bed & breakfast, The Alpine House, in downtown Jackson. We had dinner at Skyhigh Pizza and then explored around town.

We had breakfast early in the a.m. Wednesday morning and then we headed straight to Grand Teton National Park. We opted for a hike from Jenny Lake. We paid for a ferry ride across the lake and then hiked to the falls, Inspiration Point and on to the lake. The total hiking trip was 17 miles. Our legs were so tired when we were done but the hike was worth it. It was definitely the most scenic and beautiful hike that Jeff and I have been on to date. We actually had to hike through the snow towards the top of the mountains. That was tough hiking. It was slippery in places and very hard to keep our footing. The lake that we hiked to was still frozen. But, we made it through the entire hike and recommend it to anyone who makes the trip to the Tetons. We saw moose and a variety of small animals on the trail. We spotted a wolf on the way back to our RV as we drove through Yellowstone also. The only animal we haven’t seen yet is a grizzly bear. Unfortunately, a local man was attacked by one this morning as he was jogging in Teton National Park. He surprised a bear and her cubs. Luckily, he was not killed.

I also took a picture of this park sign (Below) in Yellowstone on the way back to our RV. Now, isn’t a sad fact that they actually have to post a sign telling people not to “molest” the animals!

Yellowstone

Take Nothing But Pictures….
Waste Nothing But Time….
Leave Nothing But Footprints.

Originally, we planned to travel up I-90 but it was closed due to flooding in some areas. So, we took the road through Big Horn which was definitely in our favor. The drive through Big Horn was beautiful.

We got the RV checked in and set off to explore afterwards. Our first stop, of course, was Old Faithful. Before checking out Old Faithful, Jeff took me by the dorm he stayed in when he worked at Yellowstone 16 years ago. Then, we watched Old Faithful Geyser erupt and then we walked around the geyser basin. We ate dinner at a restaurant located near Old Faithful Inn and then we walked in the Old Faithful Inn and looked around before heading back to the camper for the evening. Our bodies are slowly adjusting to the different time zone but we are still feeling the effects of the long journey here as well.

Monday, the day of our 13th wedding anniversary, was busy. We hiked around the south rim of Yellowstone Canyon in the morning. Yellowstone Canyon is breathtaking! We even saw a rainbow at the base of the falls. Our next stop was Mammoth Hot Springs. After a quick tour there, we went outside of the north side of the park and drove through Gardiner, Montana, and on to Bozeman, and then drove through Big Sky, Montana, before ending up at Eino’s for dinner. Eino’s is an interesting place. It’s definitely not fancy and certainly not much to look at from the road. You select your own meat (we chose T-Bones) for your meal and then you cook them yourself. Eino’s provides the spices and sauces for you to fix the steak to your liking. We timed our visit perfectly. We were the only customers at that time so we had the whole place to ourselves. It was a perfect and private anniversary dinner. As we were about to finish up dinner, I decided to play a song on the jukebox. I selected “Still the One” by Orleans. Jeff had never really listened to the lyrics before. He did tonight. Needless to say, he got a laugh from it. And, he plans to post his own story of our anniversary celebration. He said it needed it's own separate discussion on our blog. :-)

You're still the one

That makes me laugh

Still the one

That's my better half

We're still having fun

And you're still the one

You're still the one

That makes me strong

Still the one I want to take along

We're still having fun

And you're still the one (yes you are)

We stopped briefly in West Yellowstone and visited some of the shops before retiring at the RV to end the day.

Almost there.....

We left home around 8:30 am to drive to Huntsville. We were delayed two hours thanks to traffic in Atlanta. We met Harold & Gail around 3 pm to drop off the girls. Jeff and I continued on with our trip after saying goodbye.

We could not believe our eyes when we spotted some Bison in a pasture in Tennessee. We laughed at the idea that we were driving all the way to Yellowstone and here were Bison in the southeast.

We stopped in New Baden, IL, to refuel and we passed a McDonalds that was designed in the old 50s style.

Jeff was on a mission for the first day. He didn't stop driving until 3:30 am. We stopped at a rest stop in IO and then continued on first thing Saturday morning. On our first day, we drove through seven states...started out in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. In all, Jeff drove around 1,100 miles.

We spent Saturday continuing our journey to Wyoming. We drove through South Dakota and the Badlands. We plan to stop at the Badlands on the way back home. We ended our journey on Saturday at the Big Horn Mountain KOA campground in Sheridan, Wyoming. We were both so ready to be out of the RV for a while but at the same time, we both wanted a meal out. We ate dinner at the Historic Sheridan Inn Rib & Chop House. The babyback ribs were awesome. The community is currently refurbishing the Inn. After the Inn was built in the late 1800s, Buffalo Bill Cody leased the building interior. He also hired his Wild West Show performers from the front porch. The restaurant and the quaint downtown area was the perfect end to a very long day.

We finish our trip tomorrow to West Yellowstone.

I wanted an adventure...

And, it appears I’ll be getting one.

I live in the southeastern part of the United States. The temperature here has been in the high 80s to low 90s since March. I don’t think we ever saw snow even during the winter months here.

Above is a picture of Teton pass taken today from a webcam….this is where we’ll be driving through this weekend. Jeff has never driven the RV in the snow so that alone will be an adventure. We’ll be packing for the cold temps but I have to admit that my southern fanny may not be quite prepared for what it’s about to encounter.