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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. I am repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)
Cindy’s Post
There are so many people visiting national parks this year that all the reservable camping spaces within Yellowstone were already booked up as soon as reservations opened in February. We were fortunate to get a dry-camping reservation for the first night of our week-long intended stay at a Shoshone National Forest campground just three miles east of the Yellowstone Park entrance. We were a bit nervous about having only one night reserved, but many of the spots in this same campground were First Come First Serve. That meant that all we had to do was hope at least one person would be leaving a FCFS spot the second day so we could snag it.
Our luck turned out even better than we had imagined. Not only did we snag a FCFS spot the second day, but it was the best spot in the campground, isolated in the trees on the river side with no one around us. We had our generator for air conditioning when we needed it. Water was a bit of a hassle because there was only one water source for the campground and it was a hand pump well. We filled up two five-gallon water containers at a time and then used a drill pump to transfer the water into our fresh water tank. We had to do that about once per day. But other than that, it was just like home! Haha! We did choose to take hot showers outside to insure our grey water tank didn’t overflow, but that was kinda fun with our outdoor utilities shower on our trailer, in complete privacy because no one could see us from the rear of the trailer. Only a mile away was Buffalo Bill Cody’s original hunting lodge, now restaurant, store and gift shop, which was really convenient to refill our drinking water jugs and buy ice for the day-cooler in our truck.
We were a bit skeptical about Yellowstone because we had been told it would be crowded, but getting to Old Faithful early made all the difference. What an experience to be standing on an active volcano, steam boiling up all around you and as far as the eye could see! The entire center of this huge national park is an active volcano, which could explode again at any time, but hasn’t exploded in 640,000 years because it is “letting off steam” through all its geysers and other hydrothermal features. We walked the four mile boardwalk in the Lower Basin where Old Faithful is.
Interestingly, Old Faithful is in just one of the many centers of activity in the park, all the rest having their own special features, visitor centers and campgrounds, etc. They are scattered all over the huge park, which takes up most of the northwest corner of Wyoming. So we couldn’t see it all. But we did take a hike on another day to a natural bridge, which was a bit more isolated with far fewer people than at Old Faithful. Through our drives in the park we saw lots of bison (buffalo), and some elk, deer, marmots, and bears.
Leaving Three Mile Campground, we spent another night in the town of Cody’s Walmart parking lot – those are turning into our reliable, free, overnight go-to’s, and restocked our supplies. Then we took a scenic drive through the Big Horn mountains (tallest peak approaching 10,000 feet), which made us feel like we could be ambushed by gun-toting outlaws at every turn because it was so reminiscent of cowboy movie settings. Wyoming is huge on rodeos and cowboys, just like you would imagine.
We are now on our way to Mt. Rushmore, having spent the night in Buffalo, Wyoming at an expensive campground with full hookups in hopes of good internet for my French class on Zoom this morning. However, the internet was weak so we are now using the Buffalo Public Library’s excellent internet! I reserved a private room for my class. This is a great option for future internet needs – public libraries!
RICK’S UPDATE
We were not able to make a reservation inside the park at Yellowstone but we did have a reservation for our first night at a campground three miles from the east entrance to the park, aptly named Three Mile Campground! There were a number of sites in the campground that are available on a first come basis and can not be reserved. Our hope was that we would be able to get into one of these spots after our first night. As it turned out, the campground was not very full and we had many sites to choose from. We found a perfect site to set up in for the rest of our stay. There was no power nor water to the sites so we would be dry camping while we were there. We could get water from an old style hand pump well and haul it in our water jugs to transfer into the tank. We use a small pump I power with my cordless drill to transfer the water from the jugs to our tank. (Harbor Freight sells the pumps for about ten dollars.) We used our generator to keep the batteries charged and to supply any AC power needs while we were there. Bears were a concern in the area so there was bear fencing around most of the perimeter of the campground and each site had a metal bear proof food storage box. Fortunately we did not have any bear encounters while we were in the campground.
Just before the entrance to the park is the Pahaska Tepee Lodge, which was built by William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill. We had a lunch there of buffalo quesadillas at the recommendation of our waiter, and they were very tasty.
Cody built the lodge in 1904 to be used by travelers coming to visit the park. He also lead hunting trips into the park for various celebrities of the day. I read that Cody once hosted Prince Albert of Monaco on a bear hunt in the park. It is known as arguably the most famous hunt in Wyoming history. Cody celebrated a kill on the hunt by torching a pine tree. Boys will be boys… Cody mostly became famous because of his traveling wild west show that he started in 1883. The show ran until 1913 when it fell into bankruptcy. By then, the show had played across the US and Europe and though it was a hit, it was very expensive to put on, costing as much as $4000 a day just to keep afloat.
We spent a couple of days exploring the park seeing the geysers, mud pools and the hot pools. We saw lots of bison, some bears, deer, mountain goats and some marmots. When we went to visit the old faithful geyser we were rewarded with a stellar performance just a few minutes after our arrival, and we witnessed the stream of steam and water shooting 200 feet into the air. It is interesting to think about the fact that while you are in Yellowstone you are perched on top of an active, super volcano. Should it erupt, it would have devastating effects to the US and the world.
There was a nice 4 mile walk along a boardwalk that winds past many of the geysers and other thermal features, accompanied by an audio narration we listened to from Cindy’s iPad. There are numerous signs to remind visitors not to step off the walkways as the earth around the entire area can be very thin and a person could break through and suffer a very unpleasant death. There is a memorial there to a 12 year old boy who perished by straying from the walkway and falling into a thermal feature there in 1970.
As we drove through the park we often encountered traffic jams that usually were caused by people stopping in the middle of the road to look at and photograph wildlife. The bison were particularly plentiful and we saw many of them lying by the side of the road seemingly oblivious to the tourists stopped on the road snapping photos. The scene reminded me of the last time I had visited the park as a 12 year old while on a cross country road trip with my mom and stepfather. Back then people were a lot more casual with the wildlife. We had bears coming up to the car where my sister and I would feed them cookies through a partially opened window. Fortunately no one died.
It was nice to spend a few extra days in the area just relaxing and not having anywhere to be. When we left the campground after a 5 day stay, we went back some 50 miles along highway 14 to the town of Cody. Along the way to the town we traveled on the Buffalo Bill Scenic Highway, we passed the Buffalo Bill State Park and of course, the Buffalo Bill Dam. In the town of Cody the theme continues with a Buffalo Bill museum, statues and and various wild west themed restaurants and hotels. Cody has a large rodeo arena and a billboard advertised that they have a rodeo competition every night of the year!
While we were in Cody we decided it was time to run the truck and trailer through a car wash. We found one of the self serve types that you drive into and use a pressure wand to wash your vehicle. It was tall enough and appeared to have just enough room to get in and out of the lot safely so we went for it. After pumping a large volume of quarters into the machine and both Cindy and I scrubbing and spraying, both the trailer and truck were looking much better.
We decided to stay in a local Walmart parking lot that night in Cody. One of the travel app’s we are using for finding places to stay indicated that they allowed overnight parking. This was the third time we stayed in a Walmart lot on this adventure. It is really convenient if you are on the road between destinations and just want to get some rest before continuing on. It is free to stay there and the store benefits from the extra business they get from the campers that re-supply in their store. Walmart normally has huge parking lots and there is plenty of room well out of the way to park RV’s and big rigs. It is not uncommon to see 20 or more RV’s show up during the night.
This particular night I struck up a conversation with an elderly man and his wife who were staying overnight in their conversion van close by us. He was sitting in a motorized wheel chair and had a ball cap on that said “Vietnam veteran.” He was proud to say that the VA paid for his special wheel chair that was light enough he could easily load it on the back of his van when he was on the road. He told me that he and his wife were on a permanent road trip, currently headed for Louisiana. He introduced himself as John but said he prefers the nickname Long John Silver. Ha! As it happens, Long John was a lifelong sailor and he had owned many different sailboats over the years. He said that his favorite boat of all of them was his Pacific Seacraft Dana 24 that he had sailed for many years in the Gulf and the Caribbean. He got a kick out of the fact that we also own a Pacific Seacraft and we shared some stories of mis-adventures in our boats.
A little later, Cindy and I took a walk to find a place to eat and ended up at Bubba’s BBQ. It seemed like the right choice for dinner when visiting in the town of Cody. Should you find yourself in Cody we would highly recommend it. We might have been considered suspicious outsiders except that when I brought up the lack of ammunition availability for the gun we brought with us, the waitress perked up and became our best friend for the rest of our dinner. She told a story of moving to Cody from Pennsylvania with her boyfriend who was drawn to Cody by the excellent hunting opportunities.
As we walked to the restaurant we passed the 6 Gun Motel and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. There was an axe throwing venue and a historical gun shooting range where you could shoot antique weapons including the Gatling and other types of machine guns. Oh my but these folks really know how to have a good time!
