PTParaD TRs and Shenanigans

[Part-Time Paradise]

Day 6

Today we moved camp from Colter Bay RV Park to Gros Ventre (pronounced grow vont) CG on the south side of the park. We broke camp around 9:30 and pulled into check in at GVCG around 11. They asked us to wait in the amphitheater lot until 12 while they cleared the CG for the day. The hosts were super friendly and apologetic for not being ready even though we showed up an hour early. They even came to our door in the parking lot at 1145 and told us we were good to come and check in. Bravo camphosts.

Something we've noticed is the vastly different personalities of the park. Up at Colter Bay, it's relatively calm and Jackson Lake is the focal point. Towards Jackson and Signal Mountain Lodges there is a lot of hustle and bustle around the lodges, but still calm on the trails and overlooks. Towards the south by Jenny Lake, it's absolute madness. Then the whole eastern road, which GVCG is off of, almost desolate other than folks driving from A to B. It seems everyone staying in Jackson, WY or is riding a tour bus comes as far as Jenny Lake and stops.

Anyway, after setting up at GVCG we laid low playing cards and the kids rode their bikes. Just before dinner time, met our guide from Triangle X ranch for a dinner float on the Snake River.

We rode in vans upriver to the dinner site. It was choice of steak or chicken with green beans, roasted potatoes, salad, and cookies. The steak was a nice medium rare and seasoned well. After we filled up on grub, we hit the river.






Some very impressive views of the mountains and just a beautiful, mostly-wild river. We also saw beavers, osprey, and many water fowl. It was quite the experience.

After our 10 miles on the river everyone was pooped. We headed back to the camper and flipped out for tomorrow.

We're going to "rope drop" (aka get there before sunrise) at the famous Moulton Barn and then try to beat the crowd to Jenny Lake for a few hikes. Of course I can't sleep, but that'll be a problem I'm a few hours from now.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

We're all a little sleepy back at the camper, but some inspirational views this morning.






Dealing with truck maintenance issues

I think we have a solution, but supply chain issues are not making it easy or cheap. Definitely falling into the conundrum of pick 2: good, cheap, fast.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Emissions issue with the truck. Derating imminent. Closest shop that would even make time to plug in the scan tool and guess what was wrong with it was 2 hours away in Idaho. Yadda yadda yadda, the truck is fixed, my bank account is several thousand dollars lighter, and the vacation is resuming with only losing one day.

Everyone is tired, but the kids hung in there as the adults figured everything out.

If you're ever near Idaho Falls and need your truck worked on, gas or diesel, I know a guy. The shop was excruciatingly gracious to work us in and then let us camp out like hobos in the waiting room.

We depart Grand Teton for Yellowstone tomorrow. Hopefully better times are in store.

 

[jbrostek]

Oh man that always sucks when on vacation. At least it could be repaired? Hope the rest of your journey goes well.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Day 8

Friday we intended to get in line at the dump station at 9. Gros Ventre CG has two dumps. However, one is out of service. It used to be open 24/7 and you didn't have to be staying at the CG to use it. Evidently a patron decided to see if a rock could fit in the pipe, which it did and is now stuck too far down to be retrieved without digging up everything. As this occurred, the NPS discovered that the leech field for the dump's septic is failing. So the NPS decided that only 43 people a day can dump. You have to make a reservation and the dump is only open 7-5 each day and all 43 of you want to dump at the same time.

Well, we woke up late which was nice anyway. As we were getting moving DD says she isn't feeling good now . So a fourth of the workforce was on the couch with a bucket while DW was spending half her time tending to DD and trying to wrap up everything inside to get moving. Around 10 we made it to the dump station line. Only 4 in front of us. From there, the drive to Yellowstone was thankfully uneventful.

We are staying in Fishing Bridge RV park. It's the only CG with FHU and is completely big rig friendly. It was also remodeled last year so everything is paved and new. Good and bad. I'll take a pic this morning to show you.

While eating a late lunch DD went down . She cleaned up and crawled into bed. Which tethered is to the rig for most of the day. Around 6 DD emerged feeling better. We loaded up and drove a short distance to the Mud Volcano area.





Video of the Dragon's Mouth Spring.

It seems like it should be on a Disney ride queue with the water and sound, but totally natural.

This is my first time here. It is unreal to see a total hellscape in the foreground with breathtaking mountain views in the background. It is unfathomable this is a natural place.




On the way back we hit a pull out the went down to the Yellowstone river. The river is really moving right now. The river is beautiful and we watched cutthroat trout jumping up the rapids to get to their spawning sites. I wasn't fast enough on the camera trigger to catch one jumping, but it was crazy.


Jump fishy!

 

[bama_ed]

Looks like a wonderful family adventure, Jack. ED

 

[friendofeeyore]

Thank you! Your family trip was wonderful, but sorry the kids had a few rough days. The picture of your rig in front of the mountain was breath taking! In fact, all of the pictures were great!!

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Day 9

Our first stop was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Pictures do not do justice to the canyon nor the upper or lower falls. The canyon is so deep it made me dizzy/lose my bearings for a second when I looked down. It is amazing. The hike down to the "brink of the lower falls" is super steep, but worth the price of admission.


NPS estimates there was 65k gal/sec going over the falls that day.

Then in the afternoon it was back to more geysers and thermal thingamajigs.


Then we finished the evening with dinner and ice cream at the fishing bridge general store.

Check out these prices

I'm going to have to pull some of that diesel to make it to civilization. My wallet is already crying

 

[jbrostek]

It's times like that when I am glad to have that aux tank and try to top off where its cheaper.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Day 10. July 3, 2022 (running behind so adding the date)


Today we focused on the southwest side of the park, mostly the Old Faithful basin. Oh did we make a mistake. We took for granted how the closures and metering of guests actually reduced the amount of people in the park and this area is the most popular stuff in the park.

We had to contend with overstuffed parking lots, inconsiderate people left and right, and it was the first day of the vacation that I felt the urge to rush to get in line or to the next thing to beat the next guy. I didn't like it one bit. That aside, we have the advantage of being in zero rush and being able to stay late than all the day travelers, so we just tried our best to fight those urges and ignore the clowns. It was still a great day.

Looking through the photos, I guess I didn't take much of Old Faithful geyser basin. It's all on DW's big camera. We saw all the things on that side of the park.

We did dinner at the Old Faithful Inn Dining Room. They always have a buffet, but used to have a menu before COVID/work shortage/supply issues/inflation... whatever the excuse is anymore... But all we could get was the buffet. Food was good and service was good, but the buffet line was painfully slow. I don't know if it was a function of too many people at the buffet (since no menu to order from) or people need to be retrained on how to efficiently fill a plate. We waited about 10-20 minutes to wind our way through the line.

The setting was worth the price of admission. Such a cool building.

After dinner we went back to Grand Prismatic overlook to avoid the crowds. Another hike worth the walk.


After that we went back to the camper, loosened our belts from dinner and enjoyed a quiet night.

 

[tigger92662]

The well known dish is the Signal Mountain of Nachos

Big pile of nachos, hmm, that looks familiar.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Falling further behind. We were way off the grid for a day and activities are stacking up

Day 11 - July 4, 2022

I didn't see a single moose or elk shooting off roman candles. Wyoming is supposed to be a fireworks mecca.

On July 2, the North Loop of Yellowstone reopened. So we decided to head to Mammoth Hot Springs and drive the remainder of the loop.


The Roaring Mountain. Not so noisy now, but still crazy that the minerals in the steam killed all the vegetation and caused all the erosion


One of the springs at Mammoth. The picture doesn't help at all, but the whole place looks like Carlsbad Caverns with all of the deposits and formations.

The rest of the northern loop is totally different than the park. It's sweeping hills and lots of elevation. I think we climbed over 9500 feet at one point. We saw 2 bears, but they were camera shy. We did stop and catch a picture at Tower Falls. Impressive for its small stature.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Day 12 - July 5, 2022

This was a sad day to leave Yellowstone. Our eventual destination was Custer SP, but 12 hours in the truck wasn't happening. So a halfway point in Bighorn National Forest was the compromise.

We packed up and got on the road by 8 with the truck pointed east. The east entrance (heads towards Cody, WY) is stunningly beautiful, but it was quite a workout pulling the 5er over it. Lots of elevation, once again.

Albertson's in Cody was a kind sight for reasonably priced food. We also stopped in Worland, WY for fuel and lunch in the rig before heading back into the wild.

I picked this stopover mostly because it was halfway, but also it's next to Leigh Creek Dump Station. It is a free dump station run by the Forest Service right off the road. It has 3 lanes each with dump, wash water, and fresh water. It might be one of the nicest dump stations I've ever seen.

Instead of humping a full tank of fresh up the mountain we filled at the dump station and found a spot nearby to empty the tanks in the morning on the way out.

Here's what we settled on

Great spot. At 9242'. I was out of breath several times.

We had a quiet night playing baseball, cards, and making a good dinner until some uninvited neighbors crashed the party...

So many mosquitoes!

Day 12 - July 6, 2022

Travel day again. We got moving in the morning and hit the dump station on the way out of the forest. Once we got out of the mountains, the drive was pretty boring. Just wide open I-90 in eastern WY.

We arrived to our site in Game Lodge Campground in Custer State Park as a storm was brewing. The site was way out of level. The auto leveling jacks errored out 3 times and we had to readjust and hook up twice.

On the last attempt, it started absolutely raining sideways. The jacks finally could come to an agreement with the laws physics and find level.

It doesn't look it, but the right side of the drive is about 4 inches lower than the left.

For dinner, we headed to Legion Lake Lodge here in the SP. Probably the best meal we've had on the trip and still a good buy. The chicken fried steak with bacon gravy was wonderful. We really enjoy this park.

Stay tuned for the next installment that involves cow pies and hail.

 

[team bradfield]

if you like fishing, stockade lake, northern pike and yellow perch were plentyful last year, best hikes are sunday gulch trail and beaver pond trail, watch for rogue bison and a prairie dog town

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

One more day of fun in real time followed by travel days. I'm so far behind and between bad internet and some hard travel days I'm going to pause updating until I'm back at the house.

However, here's the view for tonight. The infamous Nomad View in the Buffalo Gap Natl Grassland near Badlands Natl Park:

 

[Stratman50th]

This has really been a lot of fun to follow. Except for the few feel bad issues it looks like the kids are having a ball.
It reminds me of my family road trip we took in 1976. We were in the car and camped at hotels along the way. Maryland to Arizona, almost the same route as you guys. I was 16 and got a lot of driving experience in cross country.
I think it was the most memorable trip I've ever taken. Devil's Tower, Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, Wall drug! Yellowstone was by far my favorite. It was quite the experience. My wife has never been and it's on our post-retirement bucket list to take the coach and do it slowly.
Thanks so very much for posting!

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

This has really been a lot of fun to follow. Except for the few feel bad issues it looks like the kids are having a ball.
It reminds me of my family road trip we took in 1976. We were in the car and camped at hotels along the way. Maryland to Arizona video almost the same route as you guys. I was 16 and got a lot of driving experience in cross country.
I think it was the most memorable trip I've ever taken. Devil's Tower, Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, Wall drug! Yellowstone was by far my favorite. It was quite the experience. My wife has never been and it's on our post-retirement bucket list to take the coach and do it slowly.
Thanks so very much for posting!

Thanks for following. I have 2 more days at Custer to report, today at Badlands/Minuteman Missile, and 2 days to get home.

I just can't justify the thumb work on the phone. Need my keyboard to maintain my sanity

 

[bama_ed]

This has really been a lot of fun to follow. Except for the few feel bad issues it looks like the kids are having a ball.
It reminds me of my family road trip we took in 1976. We were in the car and camped at hotels along the way. Maryland to Arizona, almost the same route as you guys. I was 16 and got a lot of driving experience in cross country.

Jack I caught the later posts but I'll go back to the earlier ones. It does indeed look epic. ED

 

[Stratman50th]

We were not a camping family Ed. The first "camper", or more precisely the first people to spend time in a campground plugged into sewer, water and 50amp service was us.

 

[bama_ed]

We were not a camping family Ed. The first "camper", or more precisely the first people to spend time in a campground plugged into sewer, water and 50amp service was us.

Haha. Got it. I thought you were camping enthusiasts who set up the pup tents on the king sized beds.