Ah, hotel showers and free breakfasts. The girls could probably stay here for another week.
Made it to Glacier NP. Well the heat is quite a surprise. In the 90s. Our campsite is heavily wooded but we have some optimism that Starlink will work.
Gallatin Forest ended up being a no-go. Our reserved site was blah. We drove up the mountain looking for a dispersed site. We found a few that had great views but they also had an unwelcome committee of huge fly-bee things. Josie was not having that at all. Ed threw in the towel in this one and we headed into Helena where we have a hotel room for the night.
It was a bit chilly last night, had a light rain.
Took a little drive into Lamar Valley and saw hundreds of bison in the valley and along the side of the road. Volume up on the videos for full effect!
It rained a little last night which thwarted our efforts to spend time by the fire and set up the tent. We did manage to get the Starlink set up. So we had some soaked chairs and firebox and Ed decided to sleep in the truck (also because this site did not provide a tent pad so we weren’t sure a tent was “allowed”; we are in an RV loop.
The plan today is to head into Jackson, scout the National Forest and then to Yellowstone, which to date is still my favorite, though I have yet to see wolves, which are my most beloved.
Walking and shopping around Jackson:
Last year we stopped in a leather shop, called Hide Out Leather. Josie and I fell in love with these Rex rabbit headbands. We didn’t get them, sadly, but, we found the shop online and ordered two online. We stopped back in the shop and bought two more (a dusky purple and a black one, Josie says we’re going to share them). The store owner, Jamie, told us that back in 1990 Ronald Reagan came into the store and Nancy a red leather jacket. Unbeknownst to Jamie, secret service had locked the doors to the shop while RR walked around and introduced himself and offered photo ops. Not carrying a wallet of his own, secret service paid his bill and he left to face a cheering crowd. Her stories continued: years later, Hilary Clinton came into the store, “buying one of everything”. She returned shortly thereafter and tried to return everything and they told her no!! A while later, the secret service agents came back trying to return everything and again the store refused, being a small-business depending on every sale they make.
Spent a good amount of time in Jackson and blew our window today to explore the national forest. We went to a visitor center here in Grand Teton (read: gift shop) and then Schwabacher’s Landing.
The weather cannot be more perfect. It’s sunny with a gentle warmth mixed with a cool breeze. After packing up the camp site we went driving through the national forest on access roads looking for dispersed (read: free, isolated, zero accommodations) to perhaps check out on our way back. One road took us down to a little lake where we launched our drone for a look-see. Drone footage to come later. Our plans to stop at UWyo have been thwarted by us not realizing it’s Sunday and the campus gift shop is closed. But there’s a restaurant in town we’ve visited serval times that we plan on visiting.
Quick stop to visit University of Wyoming
We made it to Grand Teton NP around 8pm. Our campground is Gros Ventre. We’re only going to be here for the night, check out the park tomorrow and go into Jackson for a while before making the epic (lol one-hour) drive to Yellowstone.
We moved a little quicker this morning. The campground was nice, especially our neck of the woods where we were alone (RVs want full hookups by the lake). Our not-even-rookie mistake: we forgot to put our trash bag away. So critters tore into it (they really liked lunchable nacho chips) and this morning we got to witness what a million ants on garbage looks like. We are now off to bear country and won’t make that mistake again!!!! We are looking at a 8 hour drive to Laramie, WY, camping in the national forest.
Medicine Bow National Forest, Tie City Campground, Site 14
We got in so late we didn’t really get to see where we were at. We set up the camper and Ed set up the tent. The campsite itself was nicely elevated and very spacious, but close to very active and loud train tracks.
6pm, arrived at Prairie Rose State Park, set up the tent at our site, now a quick grocery run.
Our plan was to leave at 4 but we are just hitting the road now. Packing kids and snacks and camera equipment and hiking gear is hard. We have a site at Indiana Dunes National Park for the night and we hit the road again in the morning
10pm CST we made it. We can’t see a darn thing but the camp site seems pretty nice. The tent pad is a nice secluded distance from the truck so Ed will have peace and we won’t hear 🪚🪵
We’ll update in the morning with pics.
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