Okay, we left Camp Utmost in Greenough after the project in June. Since we had a week off and were so close to a couple of National Parks, we decided to go see Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We drove to Island Park, Idaho and stayed for two days at an RV park while we visited Yellowstone.

 We divided Yellowstone into a two-day adventure. We drove to the Western entrance and drove to Madison where you turn either to the North or the South.  We turned North and did the northern loop the first day.  We stopped and hiked to see Gibbon Falls, one of many waterfalls or cascades within Yellowstone. 

 From Gibbon Falls, we stopped at Beryl Springs.  This is one of the hottest springs within Yellowstone.  The temperature is usually between 188 and 192 degrees. The color of the spring, shown in the next picture, resembles the color of a beryl stone from which it gets its name. 

 When we reached Norris, we decided to take the route that goes counter-clockwise and went to the Canyon Village gift shop. We stopped to take a picture of the current state of the volcano that shaped Yellowstone.  They (who are they?) calculate that when Yellowstone erupted, the caldera was over 30 miles across and spewed about 240 cubic miles of rock, ash and debris. In contrast, Mount Saint Helens that erupted in 1980 spewed about 0.75 cubic miles of debris. The next picture shows an overview of Yellowstone today and then Tower Falls.

When we reached the next major intersection at Tower-Roosevelt, we turned east towards the Eastern entrance. We were told this was the “Serengeti” of Yellowstone. On this drive we saw thousands of Bison. A few of the pictures show some close up and some from a distance.

We continued our counter-clockwise travel to Mammoth Hot Springs. This was a cascade of minerals that have come collected over the years. The next picture is a selfie picture of these springs and one of the Hot Springs itself. We had to be in at least one picture to prove we were really there.

To end the day we drove by the Museum of the National Park Ranger and then headed back to the motorhome.

The next day we again entered by the western entrance and then took the southern route once we reached Madison. We took the side route along Firehole canyon where again there was a cascade type of waterfall.

The southern route was traveling from one geyser to another. You would drive to a parking area and then walk to a geyser, or a steamy mud pit (called a paint pot). Some of the geysers were erupting continually but only going up from about a foot to ten feet tall. Others were erupting on a cyclical basis that would be hours apart. This is how Old Faithful erupts. They will post an anticipated time for the next eruption and you can come back to that area or wait. Old faithful used to be on a regular schedule, but due to an earthquake in 1959, it is a little harder to predict the exact time. We did stay to watch Old Faithful.

The landscape around all the hot water pools was pretty barren as can be seen in the next few pictures. They have erected walkways around some of the pools and other areas to protect the people. One of the rangers told a story about a man who was walking his unleased Labrador retriever on one of the walkways years ago. The dog saw a pool of water, and like most dogs of that breed ran over to frolic in the water. The man went after the dog to try to save him, but they both were scalded so badly that they died.  They no longer allow dogs.

Some of the pools were very colorful and clear. The beauty of the pools disguised the danger of the hot water.  You could see down in many of the pools as the water was very clear. It looked like a great place to swim, but if you did it would be your last.

Overall, the trip to Yellowstone was amazing. When we had taken the cruise to New Zealand, we visited a place that was similar, but much smaller. You can look up that place by searching for Whakarewarewa.com.

We then moved the motorhome down to Idaho Falls, Idaho.  The falls in the downtown area was very impressive. We hike around the falls and enjoyed the scenery. The falls have a unique power system. Their generators are horizontal rather than vertical. That means that power is generated when water flows through them rather than falling down on them. A picture of the falls is attached.

There were some interesting sculptures around the falls as well.

We drove to the Grand Tetons first stopping at Jackson Hole. When we were at Camp Utmost in Greenough, Montana, we were told there were a lot of moose around the area. Well, we finally got to see some moose at Jackson Hole. They were a little stiff, but we did see some.

Grand Teton National Park is a mountain range with the Tetons and a large area of plains.  The mountains were snow capped and all around the Teton park road, you had excellent views of the mountains.  We did stop at Jenny Lake for a side trip and rode a boat across the lake and hiked to some waterfalls.

We also got to see some bears while touring the Tetons, but they were also a little stiff.

After we finished, we drove back to the motorhome and prepped for the trip to our next project in Turner, Oregon. This was just below Salem, the capital of Oregon. Stay tuned for the recap of that project.