Tetons, July 2026

 

In late June we took a three week trip, mini vacation for us in a sense, which ended with a visit to the Tetons (before we moved on to Salt Lake City and then back to the Sacramento Area.  So we left Henry's Lake, and drove to a place called, "The Big Eddy"

The Big Eddy is BLM land, and can handle a good dozen or more campers.  This is our first (and last) time there, and there were 3-4 tents, about 5 RV's, and a car or two which had people camping in them.  The road leading to the Big Eddy is not smooth...it was wet, had a number of pot holes, and just a road that Marcia has a hard time going on (effects of MS.)  We have been on worse...but she likes better than this.  The other thing is that the next morning, I had to find a car wash in Driggs to clean off all the mud that was along our running board, tire wells, sides of the van, etc.

The first picture shows the BLM area with the Tetons in the distance.  The afternoon we arrived at the Big Eddy, the Tetons were covered with clouds...so this was taken the next morning as we were leaving.  Below is a camera close up of the west side of the Tetons.

The ride from Driggs to Teton National Park is a good hour, and is a lovely drive.  As you get closer to Jackson Hole, the traffic gets pretty busy.  First on our list was find a campground to empty our waste tanks.  We KNOW we can go 8 days, but I prefer, while on the road, to empty on the 5th or 6th day, just to be sure we don't "spill over".  We choose Gros Ventre Campground, the easiest access campground between Jackson and Tetons NP.  We were blessed with this view...

 We have only seen a few Moose in all of our travels.  But we never saw this...

 ...a Mama Moose nursing a baby Moose.  How cool is that????

What follows next are various pictures of the Tetons

 

After the Tetons, we spent 2 days and 1 night in Salt Lake City and headed to the Sacramento area.  It was July 3rd when we headed back, stayed in the Wendover area, then proceeded to Arny and Sandy's house...arriving on the afternoon of July 4th.  Gave Indy her Thunder Wunder to keep her calm, and she made it through the BAMS and BANGS of the 4th of July...the SIXTH 4th of July that we had with our little girl who came into our lives on July 4, 2020.  Hence, the name Indy...short for Independence.

Next...blog about my eye glasses experience. 

 

 

6 Days, 5 Nights

YES, we are HOME in Florida!  Give me a few days to unpack, acclimate back to summer high temps and normal high humidity (it is midnight and currently 80 degrees with 90% humidity), and I will write a few blogs to fill in some huge gaps...including the trip back home.

Amazingly, we left Sacramento Area Sunday morning.  Camped (free BLM land) the first night outside Ely Nevada where temps were comfortable...but the Ward Fire was blazing away just outside of Ely.  I will share those dramatic pictures another day...   The second night we stopped in Fruita Colorado where again, night time temps were comfortable.  The third night we camped at Quinter Kansas (city park, free) where surprisingly, the temps were very comfortable, and our hamburgers from the DQ (Dairy Queen) were very very good.  The fourth night we stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Alma Arkansas, just outside of Fort Smith, where we enjoyed a nice dinner with family, and suffered through our first night of high temps and humidity. Our last night we stopped at Cracker Barrel in Hattiesburg Mississippi after stopping in Pine Bluff (for those who forgot or did not know, I lived in Pine Bluff for nearly 23 years and was the Library Director there for most of those years) to visit with our good friend Jana who worked at the Library for much of my tenure.  After a dinner that she cooked, we headed for a rest area in southeast Arkansas, but decided to continue, despite nightfall, to Magee Mississippi to sleep in a Walmart parking lot...but much to our surprise, they don't allow overnight parking at this Walmart (despite what RVParky says), so we continued on to the Cracker Barrel in Hattiesburg where it was midnight when we stopped for another muggy, hot night.  Our sixth night was going to be in Tallahassee, but we decided that since we got to Florida early enough, we would continue to drive to our Condo (Home) and get some comfortable sleep.  This trip was the quickest we had ever done between Sacramento and Florida.

Yes, I owe blogs dealing with...

Mom

Addie's Birthday

Maintenance on Campervan

Indy's friends

Trip home

New Glasses

???  (anything else I think of) 

Broken Eyeglasses

Was cleaning my eyeglasses this evening and broke the bridge holding the two lenses apart at the exact length for making the progressive lens work.  Hard to do a blog with lots of pics of Teton National Park wearing sunglasses, so that will be put off for few days.

We are near Idaho Falls, headed to Salt Lake City...I hope to get a replacement made for pickup on Thursday.  I doubt I will do the blog on thr Tetons until Friday, maybe Saturday.  

 

Old Faithful - 2026

 

Old Faithful just started to erupt as I was walking up to the Visitor's Center.

Always interesting to watch these eruptions...they are all so different yet the same.  The eruption starts, it goes higher and higher and higher, then it settles down and starts lowering and lowering.  The stream of hot water goes from 100 to 200 feet high, expelling 3,500 to 8,000 gallons of water.  All of this happens withing a 2-5 minute time period.  These eruptions take place about 20 times each day, within an interval of around 60-90 minutes.

 

I needed to go to the Visitor's Center to pick up another Jr. Ranger booklet for my Granddaughter Addie.  They also had a "Jr. Scientist" booklet too, so I think I have four, perhaps five of these now. 

As we headed back to West Yellowstone and on to Henry's Lake, we had traffic issues as we got to Biscuit Basin, Midway Geyser Basin, which includes the Grand Prismatic Spring, and the Fountain Paint Pot areas.  The worst was Midway Basin...where cars were trying to pull out and pull into various parking lots and parking areas along the roadway.

The traffic thinned as soon as we passed Midway Geyser Basin, and there are many views along the way.

One side road I would highly recommend is the Firehole Canyon Drive, just a mile or two from Madison Campground.  Autos, vans and small Class C's can make this drive, larger units will not do well.

 

This two mile one-way side road will bring you out onto the main highway.  It is a seldom used side road, compared to others, and is one of the nicer side roads in Yellowstone.

Another side road is found as you get close to the West Entrance.  It is called Riverside Drive.  It follows the main highway, and is a two-way road.  It gives you a chance to slow way down, since few take this route, and see the Madison River and the areas on the other side of the river.  

It took us just under 4 hours from when we left Henry's Lake, to when we got back. We encountered no rain along our route...but today (Saturday) we have been drenched.  Other than a trip to get Propane and a store down in Island Park, we have stayed close to Frome Park.  Doubt I will do a blog Sunday, but we do intend to move Monday to the Southwest side of the Tetons, and on Tuesday we will visit the Tetons again.

 

 

Lamar Valley, 2026

 

If you have never been to Yellowstone, do it!  Yellowstone is one of my top 5 National Parks, up there with Yosemite (my favorite), Zion, Arches, Rocky Mountain and Glacier.  Frankly I have not been to a National Park that I did not like...it is just that some are better than others.  Yellowstone is one of the best.

The red lines in the map above are the major roads of Yellowstone.  It is laid out like a figure 8 loop, with five entrances/exits, and the grand loop covers 142 miles.  To get from Henrys Lake to the West Yellowstone entrance is 20 miles.  From the entrance to grand loop is another 12 miles.  Depending on how you drive the "Loops", it is another 58 to 66 miles.  Lamar Valley is another 8-12 miles depending how deep you go into the valley.  I figured it was nearly 100 miles since we went through Mammoth Hot Springs to get there.  Our trip home was about 90 miles.  Once in the park, maximum speed limit is 45 mph, with many 35 and 25 mph zones.  All of this needs to be taken into consideration, including the 20 minute wait at the entrance to get in due to it being 10 am...so the entire trip was close to 8 hours in length.

So, next will be a few pictures BEFORE we got to Lamar Valley.

 

So these pictures take us from the West Entrance to Madison Campground Area, then up North to Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces area.  As you can see, there are many things to see, many walks to take, many views to cherish.  I have read about people who have taken a full day just to cover the area from Madison to Mammoth.

We turned right to head towards Lamar Valley, passing through the Hot Springs "mini village" where you can find a General Store, one Gas Station, a few Restaurants, and lots of bathrooms, which seemed to be the most popular of all places.

See the Elk bottom center in this picture

 

There is a large herd of Elk that are in the Mammoth Hot Springs region.  A few small groups live in the "mini village" year round.  Sometimes they are in competition with the roads you are driving on!

 

The pictures above is from Mammoth the start of Lamar Valley.  You typically see Pronghorn as you enter the Lamar Valley area...this year we saw much less than we did last year.  This group had just run down the hills to the North, went across the road, and out into the open valley.

So, WHY drive so far to Lamar Valley???  Well, there is ALWAYS the huge herd of Buffalo.  Around 2,500 Buffalo are in the Lamar Valley area.  This time of year, they have typically given birth, and the calves start thriving.  Another thing in the Lamar Valley is the Wolf.  Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, specifically Lamar Valley region, back in 1995 when 14 gray wolves were brought down from Canada.  Today there are 80 to 120 wolves, in 8-10 distinct packs.  Although they now roam through the entire park, and outside of the park, Lamar Valley is not only the best place to see them...but the premier place in the World, according to experts, to view active wolf packs.  We did not see any this trip, but saw some of the "Pros", with their fancy huge cameras, concentrating on certain areas of the valley.  In the past I did see a few wolves, but I did not get any good pictures because I don't have a "pro camera".  

At first you see the buffalo far away...but as you go deeper into Lamar Valley, they come closer to the roadway.

 

 

Not too many places you can see a Bison (Buffalo) Calf feeding from its mother...

After staying the valley for nearly 2 hours, we headed back home.  But first, I got this picture to to east where the Northeast entrance is, and where the Beartooth Highway starts.  

 On our way home, we did finally see one bear...  It is hiding in those bushes.

It RAINED much of the trip back to Henrys Lake, very hard in places...hence, no pictures after the bear.  We enjoyed our visit...you always wonder if this is your last visit when you hit your upper 90's like Marcia is getting to.  This trip was taken on Thursday.  Today, Friday, we went over to Old Faithful, a much shorter, easier trip which I will blog about tomorrow.