Grand Teton and Yellowstone National parks

The drive from Jackson, WY to the Grand Teton National park was short and I drove to Colters Bay and checked into a tent cabin.  The scenery in this in Grand Teton National Park is awesome and I have always loved this area. After unloading the bike, I went out and drove around a bit and did a little site seeing.  I then came back to the cabin to pick up some clean clothes and was about to leave to go take a shower when a camp employee, his name was Pete, drove up on a golf cart.  He was a retiree from Texas and saw my plates and stopped by to chat.  We talked for 30 min about Texas, my trip, how he and his wife spend the summers in their RV traveling.  This summer a friend of his, who works for the park service, talked him into working at Teton National Park.  Pete said so far he was enjoying the summer. The work was easy and he and his wife got to stay for free at the RV park, and all the local activities, rafting, boat tours, etc. were also free to employees. I asked Pete for a suggestion of a good place to eat and he suggested Leek’s Marina Pizzeria, a mile down the road.

After the great chat with Pete, I headed down to the Laundromat where they had showers available. The cost was $3.75 for a shower and I got there just in time. Right behind me came 3 van loads of high school age kids all piling out of the van to come take showers.  Just as I was going into the shower, I heard one of the employees at the Laundromat say, “oh no, this is going to be fun”

After my shower, I drove over to Leek’s Marina and ran into another guy on an old Harley Roadster.  He had seen me pull up and as I walked by he called out.  I went over and he asked where I was from, where I was going, and the usual stuff. I told him about my trip and he thought that was awesome. He told me I was going to love the ride over Bear Tooth pass. He said it just opened up a couple of weeks ago and there was still a ton of snow up there.

After dinner, I drove over to the Grand Teton Lodge.  The lodge has this amazing view of the Teton’s from the dining room and the bar.   I went into the bar and ordered a beer and noticed there were a lot of people out on the patio/balcony with binoculars looking at something. I asked the bartender what was going on and I guess there had been a bear out in the valley with two cubs and the bear had been trying to chase down a young moose but didn’t have any luck.

I finished the beer and called it a night.

View from Leek's Marina

View from Leek's Marina

Yellowstone National Park

I woke up real early Friday morning and began the drive to Yellowstone Park. I was afraid that with it being a holiday weekend, the campgrounds would be full.  When I reached the park and reached higher altitudes, I was amazed at how much snow was still on the ground and in the forests.  

I found a camp spot at Bay Bridge campground. The campground was pretty full but they still had some tent spots available.  I quickly set up camp and then went out to do some site seeing.  I hiked and saw the sites from noon until 8 PM.  Once back at my campsite, I started a fire and just relaxed. I was beat from the busy day of all that walking.

 

Friday night was by far the coldest night, while sleeping in a tent, this trip. I woke up in the middle of the night and had to put more clothes on and even then I was still cold. I got up at 6:30 AM after not getting much sleep and was on the road by 7:00. 

The plan was to see old faithful and a few other geyser basins and waterfalls before heading out of the park. It was so cold Saturday morning and my gloves are not that warm, that I had to stop every 5 miles and warm my hands up by the exhaust of my bike.  I stopped at one the geyser basins and walked around for a bit looking at the thermal pools and stuff. I finally made it to Old Faithful and after having some breakfast and watching the geyser erupt, it was much warmer. I checked out a few more sites and headed for the parks northeast exit.

As I had been told, Bear Tooth pass was spectacular. You would not have believed it was the middle of summer by how much snow was still in mountains along the pass. There was one spot where there were people hiking up the mountain and snowboarding, sledding, and skiing back down.

 
 

Once out of the pass on the Montana side, I drove hard for Billings, MT. When I got there, I started to get worried that I wouldn’t find a motel/hotel as each one I stopped at, didn't have any vacancy, even the nasty looking ones.  I finally found a cheap hotel on the east side of town.

An Observation

It’s amazing how people who otherwise are probably smart people, suddenly turn into complete idiot’s when they are in a national park. They will be driving along and see a buffalo alongside the road and slam on the brakes and come to a complete stop right in the middle of the road. Before long, some other idiot has done the same thing in the opposite lane and soon the road is blocked by morons snapping pictures while blocking all traffic, when all they had to do was drive 50 yards more to where there was a pullout for them to pull over, out of way of traffic and from there they could walk a very short distance to where they could take their pictures.  These people could have just seen a herd of 300 buffalo and no more than 3 miles down the road see a lone loan buffalo and repeat the same process above and act like it’s the first buffalo they have ever seen. In fact, I am convinced that you could pull over and get out of your car and start pointing and taking pictures of absolutely nothing and before long, you would have a crowd of people pulled over and pointing and taking pictures of nothing just because they believe that if you are doing it, there must be something out there.