Day 8- Sunday, June 30
Camp: Upper Teton View campsite, WY
Tourist attraction, car tires and passenger seat belt error came on, I pulled over and checked everything, it was false alarm. I made it through Jacksonville and to the north toward Teton National Park but I didn't drive inside the park. Teton is majestic but tourist season is the worst time. I made it to the campsite with a view of Teton if I walk a short distance. It was quiet first and had my first bear encounter in less than an hour, big brown fluffy, Twlya chased, I was worried for her and screamed, bear was scared and scared and climbed the tree and waited until Twyla returned. Not sure this is considered good news for having a strong dog or it was just a incompetent bear!
Two nice neighbors in the beginning, , two more came, cooked and left, two more noisy neighbors came by later and camped after 11:30 pm!
Day 9- Monday, July 1
Camp: USF road, near Teton pass, ID
I am in one of the most beautiful camps of this trip. Near a beautiful creek but more important, it is really cool.
This morning I woke up soon, hit the road before breakfast, enjoyed empty Teton overlooks, After a while tourists started filling up the road for Yellowstone, in hurry and passing by and breaking the speed limit and any other possible laws. I decided this will not be an enjoyable visit with this crowd, so I planned to do it at a later time. I headed to Idaho, changed oil and rotated tires. My odometer hit the 4500 miles mark since the last oil change, which wasn't very long time ago.
The map promised a free campsite next to nice pain campground, I wasn't sure if it is any good and I made a mistake going to the paid campground first. Obviously it was too civilized and comfortable to be free so turned around and finally I found this beautiful campground.
The weather forecast was a light rain but it soon turned to hail but we managed it.
This is Ansel Adam's view. The Grand Teton and the Snake River.
If I want to memorize this trip with one photo, this would be my pick.
I love how she is untroubled, in peace, as if there is no trouble in this world
Day 10- Tuesday, July 2
Camp: Henrys Lake, ID
I started the day with clean-ups. Twyla almost got a rabbit in our morning walk. Short drive to Walmart and got some groceries, no water refill so I just got a gallon for emergency. Another short drive to this campsite. First nicer campsites were taken, so I drove a little more off-roading high clearance steep road and made myself home. It appears to be quiet and nice, but it will be cold. Me and Bobby McGee hits hard this evening.
What is that gray thing in the bush?
It's a rabbit !! I am gonna get it!!!
Day 11- Wednesday, July 3,
Camp: Red Canyon RD, MT
Woke up to very nice weather in Henrys Lake, spent all morning working on July courses- Drove a short distance to a campground in Montana but it was full and I also didn’t like the vibe- Drove to another campground in Red Canyon Montana and found this campsite, there was another more beautiful site next to this but there was a sign asking to camp at least 30 ft away from the creek and I decided all together give that spot a chance to recover, but it is very likely someone will take it and sure enough someone did a few hours later. This is the first camp in this trip that doesn’t seem to have mosquitoes or maybe the insect repellent (permethrin) that I sprayed this morning is working. No wind either. It will be another chilly night. I am planning to stay here for one more night because tomorrow is July 4 and most people are outside so most campsites are full I’m guessing. I didn't bring my down sleeping bag in this trip and all I have is a one layer synthetic blanket which is supposed to be good down to ~55, but there are nights that go down to a little above freezing and this light blanket is not a good choice. Fortunately I packed warm clothes just in case and sure they keep me cozy and comfortable.
Day 12- Thursday, July 4,
Camp:Red Canyon RD, MT
It was cold night, so I woke up very cold. I had to turn the stove on. My initial plan was to stay here today and take a rest but it turned out this is trailhead so I had a lot of visitors this morning. I decided to hit the road and take a look around and see if there is another campsite and what are attractions around the area. I drove north. Between Big Sky and Bozeman looks very popular. It is national Forest. I think it’s called Galatin National Forest and I saw many fisherman on the bank of the river. The other campsite looked very busy. I didn’t continue until the end of the road, 3 miles of dirt with a lot of pump And I saw many cars driving there so I simply turned around and returned to my previous campsite. I’m also having problems with Internet even though I had full coverage on the road I couldn’t get into my email and apparently it is Mint Mobile problem and I saw SSN alert, but I couldn’t check it, hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow. I am planning to hit the road early morning tomorrow. This time I camped on the Creek side, which is more beautiful.
I also stopped on information panel on the side of the road this time and it is very interesting event that happened in 1959. apparently this place had very strong earthquake and basically the campsite I’m in is kind of boundary between two different geological regions so this is like a landslide, and it can happen again.
Part of the road today was inside Yellowstone National Park. It’s basically busy part of it and probably not very interesting but from the side it looked beautiful. There was a little pond and I saw a deer drinking. I think they are just looking for food and enjoying this weather. I also had a quick Stop in West Yellowstone. I was just trying to see if there is any network coverage in West Yellowstone but it was the same problem. I had full network coverage but no Internet access and I noticed the city is crazy busy people were all over the place, and even though it was very small town, roads are blocked so I struggled to find my way out and it took a while.
Day 13- Friday, July 5,
Camp: Eagle Creek, MT
Today was very long day early morning I broke up the camp. It was very nice camp, and I had a nice neighbor. I drew all day. On my way there were a lot of people camping all over the place even though it says you should camp in designated sides, but there were people outside and I’m guessing this is because of this fourth of July holiday. A lot of people are out there and they couldn’t find good campsite.
I drove to Bozeman and went into REI. This was my first time in real REI store after being a customer for 8 years. I always shop online and this time it was nice experience to go inside store. I mainly needed a national park pass just in case I go inside any of those national parks. I also got emergency blankets because I lost my main emergency blanket so I got two of those thin lightweight blankets. Hopefully they will do the job. I stopped at Walmart after that and shopped some groceries. I also bought two Montana stickers, because, I am thinking this was my highest latitude for this trip after Boseman I turned south and right now I am in Gardiner Montana which is basically Yellowstone's north entrance, so I’m very close to Yellowstone. I am a little hesitant but I will try to head out early morning tomorrow so I can get inside park early morning and hopefully, leave the crowd behind. When you get close to these tourist destinations, this is real problem. I’m guessing I will make through Yellowstone. I will likely go south again but we’ll see how it goes. I don’t think with this crowd I will stay more than one day around Yellowstone but who knows. I also had to go up and down a little because I came here for this campsite but the road didn’t look very well and GPS track was flimsy a lot. I lost my network coverage and my map so I couldn’t find this campsite. Then I returned to other campsites, I think it’s around 30 miles north of here, but it turned out those are like one campsite only and it looked like it was inside private property. I’m not sure but it didn’t look good so I returned here but this time I checked this entire area on satellite map and I figured out where it is. Before all of this I headed to another BLM campsite but it wasn’t nice. It was like RV town. Campsites were cramped like10 feet apart, like a can of sardines. I was driving very slow and I noticed another driver right behind me. It’s like shoulder to shoulder one of those people in hurry, but it was close enough to my exit and this is off Road so I pulled over and the other car passed by and I thought I left them and I noticed they are one of those unexperienced people. They didn’t know what’s going on, so they were following the same route, and again they just didn’t leave my shoulder. I saw another car coming in front of us and it was narrow off road track so I pulled over just to make sure the other car can make it through and this genius behind me passed by at high speed passed. They almost knocked the other car to the rocks, but he turned on grass and made it through, I was happy they passed me and I found a nice campsite. While I was unpacking they came back, the same car and probably the same driver, and it turned out they want to camp right in front of me. A combination of being newbie and arrogant is not a healthy combination so I left that nice flat campsite with good view and continued all the way up. I made it here which is more inside tree line. It’s very like the bear habitat, yeah close to Yellowstone and Rockies in Montana so anyway. It’s quiet here it’s not level at all. I am inclined, but it is just one night sleep and tomorrow we will head to Yellowstone.
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