Arrival at Yellowstone National Park

No Roof!

2019-09-02 Monday (Labor Day)

We left Jefferson Lake this morning promptly at 10:30, and headed north on US 20 toward West Yellowstone. My thinking was, I couldn’t really expect to get reservations in Yellowstone National Park (I’d done a lot of research a few months back, and with the Jeep, there were limited sites available that we would fit into). But I figured that a lot of folks would be checking out of their campsites on Labor Day morning, because of the end of the long holiday weekend. My destination was Baker’s Hole, a National Forest Service campground only 3 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone; and the west entrance is the closest entrance in the park to the main two scenic  loops which make up the park’s interior (only 14 miles, if I remember correctly.) Last year, we were 3 miles outside the east entrance; but it took an hour just to get to the main loop. This should be much quicker.

Despite stopping on the road when we saw an RV dump sign (the Jefferson Lake campground had no dump) and handling that little chore, we arrived at Baker’s Hole Campground at 1:00 pm. I was right; there were plenty of empty campsites, and we were lucky enough to get a pull-through site, meaning that when we are ready to leave, we can just hook up the Jeep and drive out of the site. We get half off with our senior national park card, but we are paying $8 extra/night to have an electric hookup. But for a campsite in the pine woods, with no close-by neighbors (the sites are very spacious), and electricity, and only 3 miles from our daily goal, we are very pleased indeed.

After unhooking the Jeep and settling in, we had some lunch and gave Cassie a good long walk around the campground. Then, at about 3:00ish, we threw some drinks and snacks into the Jeep, along with “shower bags”, and we headed for Yellowstone. The shower bags were because YNP has public pay showers in a number of different locations, and we figured if we were in the right place at the right time, we’d take showers. Oh—and the BEST thing we did—my idea, was we took the roof off the Jeep! So as we drove into the park, the glorious air was all around us, and we could see the mountains by looking up, instead of having to peer sideways through the windows! 

It was loads of fun driving along the Madison River with the breeze blowing and the sun shining on the river running through meadows and pine woods. We felt on top of the world! We stopped at a cascading pool, Beryl Pool, Gibbon Falls, and then decided to walk on a path to some paint pots and geysers. While there, we heard someone talking about Steamboat Geyser, which was due to erupt any day now, about 400 feet into the air. She said it makes small eruptions every 12 minutes or so, but that everyone is waiting for the big one! Steamboat was only a few more miles down the road, and we did walk the path to get to it, but it was a little disappointing. It wasn’t being very eruptive, and the most interesting things were the people who were sitting in their camp chairs, just waiting for the big eruption. There were at least a dozen of these folks, taking up most of the viewing platform. But we got tired of waiting, and walked back to the car.

By this time, it was almost 7:00 pm, and we were getting hungry (pretzels and ritz crackers with cheese were no longer helping stave off the desire for a meal.) We gave up the idea of making it all the way around to Hayden Valley at dusk to see the animals (it would have been hours to get home if we did), and instead we just retraced our tracks. But we weren’t entirely disappointed in the animals— we passed a buffalo determinedly walking down the side of the road, and we saw a herd of elk in one of the meadows along the Madison River. We got back to the RV at 8pm, put the roof back onto the Jeep, and came in for some dinner.

A couple of fun tidbits: We met a couple at the first cascading pool we stopped at, and chatted for a few minutes. We then ran into them at 3 other stops along our route! Also, when we got to the Norris Geyser Basin (where Steamboat Geyser is), we had to wait for a parking space because a car was being loaded onto a flatbed truck to be towed away. Needless to say, this can cause a mess in the small parking lot areas in Yellowstone. We ended up taking the space after the car was out of it, and then the owner came up to us to say he’d lived in Flemington, NJ for a while! We exchanged a few comments and then went to see Steamboat. We stopped briefly to sit and rest during that walk, and were joined on the bench by a nice couple who, seeing Joe’s t-shirt, asked when he had been to the Galapagos? He hadn’t, of course, but this started a whole conversation about “doing it all while you still can,” to quote this other woman. They seemed very lovely, and later I said to Joey, maybe we should vacation with THEM for a while!  Finally, as we left Norris Basin, we ran into that first couple again, and they asked us where we were heading next. When we said the Olympic Peninsula, the young people near us said, “You’re heading for our back yard!” So Joey asked, “Can we give you a call? What’s for dinner?” We had fun shmoozing with all these people— not our usual style, really. Back in the Norris Geyser Basin parking lot, I noticed a number of cars completely covered with protective covers, and realized these must belong to the folks waiting for the big eruption! This was because signs at the gate said “Caution—Steam from Steamboat Geyser can contain chemicals which can damage your car’s paint.” I guess these people were just truly optimists, that the fallout from the geyser would get that far!

Tomorrow our plan is to head in the opposite direction, toward Old Faithful and all of the geothermal places where we couldn’t visit last year. We’ve already noted that there are far fewer people in the park than last August, when we could hardly move. I’m playing the license-plate game, too— I’m going to see if I can get all the states JUST in Yellowstone. So far, I think I have almost half of them! (Including Alaska—they are parked across from us!) 

One last note: there is no cell reception in our campsite, and none throughout Yellowstone. We are passing through West Yellowstone every day, and the phone is able to work better, so I will try to upload from there. But pictures are probably a lost cause for now!