Leaving Yellowstone

Yellowstone to Dubois, WY

Sunday morning we packed up camp to drive to Dubois, Wy. Packing up camp did not go well. William was my biggest helper. (If you know anything about our family, you know how ironic that is!)  Together we took down his tent, the girls' tent, the pop up canopy and all the other camp site things. The boys goofed off and eventually got their tent down. Elizabeth and Miriam slowly ate their breakfast. Anastaya was sent to the car in a snit because she thought I was asking too much of her to take down her tent. It had rained in the night so everything was soaked. William and I were filthy and my fingers were frozen by the time we were done.

Review of Yellowstone 2011

Yellowstone's roads are arranged in a figure eight. None of the campgrounds are especially well suited to spending the night at one place and venturing out each day to different areas. I chose Madison Campground and think it's the best of the choices. It's a half hour drive in to West Yellowstone. A 40 minute drive to Old Faithful. A one hour drive to Mammoth. Madison is up against the river and the buffalo went through the campground each morning and evening. Our spaces were in the H loop (H273 and 274) which is farthest from the entrance and closest to the river. Even though the campground was full while we were there, being on the last loop made for a peaceful experience. The kids could safely ride their scooters and skateboards around without worrying about cars. I think they put us in the perfect spot too. We were right next to the bathroom and water spigot and had a big area with no camp sites next to us so the kids could spread out and play. Since there is a limit of 6 people to a site we had to have two sites and they put us across the road from each other. It wasn't too big of a deal since the road was so quiet.

We spent three nights in the park which gave us two full days and a half day when we got there. It was the perfect amount of time to see the geysers and do a scenic drive of the upper loop. If we'd had more time, we would have gone to the Grizzly Discovery Center in West Yellowstone.  If it'd been a normal year, we'd have soaked in either the Boiling or Firehole Rivers.  Now that I've been in both the fall and the "summer" I think I prefer this time of year even though Thursday it was difficult to stay warm.  It was just SO HOT when we were there in the fall. 

At this time of year, the crowds were not bad.  We never had a problem finding a parking space anywhere we went.  It didn't feel like we were stuck on a conveyor belt of people when we visited the sites.  There were traffic delays on the roads, always caused by wildlife not by too many people.  I sure wish people would pull off the road to look at things instead of parking right in the driving lane!

Our first stop on the road was the Madison Junior Ranger Station where the kids received their junior ranger badges.

From there, it was exactly a four hour drive to the KOA in Dubois, Wy. We drove down the Firehole River Road so we could see the waterfall. I had a postcard to send to someone that featured that waterfall and I refuse to send a post card of a place I hadn't been. The water going over the falls was very brown and muddy due to all the rain lately. Once we left the Old Faithful area to get out of the park, we drove next to snow for most of the way to Dubois.

We stopped at Jackson Lake Lodge in the Tetons for lunch. We used their parking lot and bathroom and were definitely out of place. Every car that went by did some big time rubbernecking. We ate as quickly as I could get the kids out of there and set off. We stopped there because we needed to use their restroom. If I had it to do again, I would have rather used the side of the road!  The girls oohed and awed at the fancy hotel and wished we were staying there.  Not with this crowd!

I'd been looking forward to going over Togwotee Pass since reading about it last summer. The weather did not cooperate with us. It was totally foggy and we couldn't see a thing. Apparently it's a huge snowmobile area because there was hardly any snow that wasn't entirely covered in tracks. As we came down over the pass, I kept my fingers crossed that we'd encounter sunny weather. The Wind River followed us down the mountain. If there ever was a river where you could travel 10 miles by water to go 1 mile by land, the Wind River is it. It was fun to watch it meander back and forth down the valley.

As we were coming out of the mountains, Elizabeth commented that a camera can never fully capture the beauty of a scene.  It's hard to get the panoramic effect that your eyes can see.

The Dubois KOA is one of the nicest we've been to. One thing that made it especially appealing to me is that they didn't charge for each person like most do. It's right next to the Wind River and I could see that in the summer (mid June this year is NOT summer), it would be a great place to wade or let the kids float down. Our tent site was nice and spacious, which is also unusual at KOA. I could see very dark clouds following us from the mountains we'd gone over and we quickly put up the tents as soon as we arrived. The winds were picking up and the first raindrops were falling as we finished. The have an indoor pool which was perfect place for us to hide from the rain. I had time to do laundry and catch up the last few days for the blog. I thought we were in the high desert, not the rainy Pacific Northwest!

We hadn't been able to shower since Wednesday and I was so looking forward to a hot shower. The thought of that hot water kept me going on the drive.  I was almost brought to tears when I turned on the shower and after waiting for quite a while, forced myself to step into the almost warm water. As the cold water washed over me, I tried to make the best of it. After about three minutes, it either warmed up a tiny bit or I got used to it.

Since the rain just wouldn't stop, we went to Paya Deli for a pizza dinner. I don't think it would surprise anyone that tenting it in the rain is not a pleasurable experience! Everything is soaked, it's hard to stay warm and morale quickly goes down.  It was very crowded in the restaurant and we had to sit at different tables. Miriam was not very patient waiting for the pizza and when it came, she was mad because she thought other people ate too much of the cheese pizza.

In addition to the usual pepperoni and cheese, we got a half taco (taco sauce, pulled pork, bacon, olives, green chilies, pickled jalapeno, sour cream) and half BBQ chicken with pineapple

After eating, we went to ride the Jackalope in town and ate ice cream.  Elizabeth showed off the new disappearing toothpick magic trick Isaac Colson taught her to the owner of the Jackalope and her teenage son.  They were impressed and Elizabeth positively glowed.

only in Wyoming!

great small town feel!

maybe when we come back some day the arch will be complete

Dubois is located in a beautiful valley.  From what I can see through the clouds, there are snow capped peaks on two sides.  It is surrounded with weathered red rock like you'd find in Southern Utah. 

We spent the evening in the game room at the KOA to escape the rain.  When it closed at 9 pm, I sent the kids back to camp so I could upload my photos and finish up the day's blog.  We're staying at our next spot (Boyson State Park near Thermopolis) for four nights and there won't be as much to do each day.  Aunt Viv gave me a copy of the family history of Grandpa Dickson's dad and I can read to the kids about their ancestors arriving in Thermopolis years ago.  I can't wait!  I've got my fingers crossed that I won't feel so exhausted at the end of the day (but I doubt it!).  We're supposed to have thunderstorms tomorrow and then the weather looks much better.  We're sure all hoping for that!