Aug 7th to 9th - Yellowstone to Idaho Falls

Aug 7th – Sat – Yellowstone
We headed back into the park this morning after stopping in town so I could post my blog. There is a one lane stretch of road construction that we had gone through on Thursday and had to go through again today. Terry timed it just right and we barely had to slow down as the traffic our way had the “Slow” sign. We returned to the Canyon area to view the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It deserves all the superlatives and we probably used most of them as we went to different viewpoints. We also stopped at an interesting education center before going to the Canyon.
The roads north & west from Canyon to Mammoth are through very different country than the geyser areas that we saw on Thursday. It was mostly forested, very hilly and went up to 8800 feet. We looked for a picnic table for lunch but settled for a tailgate lunch at a pullout. We finally saw a lot of elk – right in town in Mammoth. They were grazing and sleeping peacefully on the lawns in the medians and were “guarded” by a park ranger.
We drove to the top of the Mammoth Hot Springs and walked several boardwalks rather than walking from the bottom as the estimated minimum time to walk all the area is 2 hours. The hot springs here form terraces with many colors and little dams on the dried up areas. We stopped & walked at Norris Geyser Basin but by this time we were all getting “geysered out” so we took a short cut. We weren’t quite so lucky at the one lane construction zone but only had to wait 17 minutes.
We switched to Yahtzee tonight but Bill still made it guys against girls with a win for one person a win for the “team”. The guys won.

Aug 8th – Sun – Yellowstone
After jelly biscuits & cantaloupe for breakfast, we went into town. Terry spent some time looking for trucks on the internet while Georgia & I browsed the one store in town that we missed earlier. We drove all around the area just looking at everything and finally found some housing areas with some really nice houses. We had wondered if everyone left in the winter even though we know the park is open to snowmobiles.
We had a snacky lunch when we returned and then I did some cleaning while the others went for a bike ride. A couple from Nova Scotia stopped by to look at our map and chatted for a while. I had put a pork roast in the crock pot so with a veggie & salad from Georgia and a veggie from me it made an easy dinner.
We returned to Sequence tonight and finally played to a tie again.

Aug 9th – Mon – to Idaho Falls ID
We left just after 9 this morning (Bill & Georgia traveling with us) for a drive through beautiful scenery to Idaho. We went south through the park and encountered construction with one way traffic just at the south park entrance. We sat for about 15 minutes watching a steady line of cars coming through from the other direction. When we drove through, I counted 355 (!!) vehicles in the line waiting to come into the park. I cannot even imagine how long it would take them to get through the construction and then through the entrance.
There were a lot of people in Jackson as we drove through and we couldn’t even think about finding some place to park 2 rigs so we could have lunch. We took Hwy 89 to Hwy 26 rather than the steeper & windier Hwy 22. It follows the Snake River and is a lovely drive. We used one of the well-marked pullouts to stop and make a sandwich for lunch.
We are staying at the Snake River RV park on the north side of Idaho Falls
As soon as we set up, we went to a Chevy dealer in our search for a truck. No luck. We had seen an RV dealer with lots of Montana 5th wheels so we went there to check things out. The salesman made a few phone calls and found a Chevy dealer in Pocatello with a truck that might be available so we will check it out tomorrow.
We stopped for a few groceries but it happened to be at a WalMart with long checkout lines so Bill was really ready for happy hour when we got back. We had a late dinner but it was still nice enough to eat outside. We went through several rainstorms today but it cleared and warmed up when we got here. Back to Yahtzee tonight with the same result as before.