South again, to Sand Dunes National Park. A dramatic drive across huge, open plains with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising gradually from the valley floor on the left. In the distance, nestled at the foot of the hills, we could see the sand dunes as we approached. All the sand from the surrounding mountains gets washed into the valley, then the regular strong wind blows it all down to the corner where the huge dunes form. We set up camp, waited for the sun to chill out a bit, then hiked up the dunes to watch the sunset. Way across on the other side of the valley, a couple of thunderstorms were rolling southwards, making for a pretty atmospheric evening. We decided that we liked this camp so much that we’d stay another night, so we spent a day relaxing, reading, and had a wander up the river that runs along the foot of the dunes.
Wednesday 20th
Into New Mexico! We weren’t originally planning to come this far south, but on recommendation from Ben and Rosie, and with a pinch of wanting to bag an extra state, we thought we’d pop over the border to Taos. The drive to Taos took us past a load of random homesteads – families set up for remote, desert living. Some really run down, and some clearly belonging to old hippies that have been here for a long time; from school buses converted into houses to smart solar panelled eco-dwellings made from adobe and glass. We stopped in Taos for lunch, had a look around at the numerous galleries and bought a couple of souvenirs. We decided that there wasn’t much extra to be gained from staying for a night, so we turned back on ourselves, over the impressive Rio Grande Canyon, and on towards Durango. With hindsight, and reading the guides, we should have stopped in at Taos Pueblo just north of Taos – the longest continuously inhabited settlement in America – but we just drove by without knowing about it. Should try to read up a bit further ahead.
A long drive through Carson National Forest brought us to a campsite at Heron Lake State Park – a pretty much empty gravel site on the edge of a lake.
Rode another of Colorado’s top ten trails this morning – the start of the Monarch Crest trail, and then breaking off left down Fosse Creek. Rose wasn’t riding, so she took the van round to pick us up at the bottom, which meant a short bit of climbing for us – with stunning views – and then 9 miles of downhill. Probably the best ride I have ever had in my life. Real mountains, dry, dusty trail, incredible scenery, fast technical downhill that just went on and on and on. Two more pinch punctures – I’m getting good at quick tube changes!
Colorado definitely deserves its title as the mountain bike centre of the world. There are so many amazing trails – we’re only managing to scratch the surface. It feels awesome to have been able to get a taster – I wonder if I’ll ever be back?
Time for a shower, which meant heading east into a small town called Salida to find a motel. In the afternoon, we wandered round the place, did a round of laundry, and then had a meal out. Salida is yet another Colorado mountain bike town – filled with a mix of hippies, cyclists and old timers. Met a couple in a cafe who are cycling down from Montana to Mexico and had a quick chat.
Drove up over Cottonwood Pass – the highest the van has been so far on this trip, an altitude of over 12000 feet. And then all the way down the other side to Crested Butte, one of Colorado’s many mountain bike towns.
Introduced J&H to The Great American Breakfast at Paradise Café, then headed on up into the hills through Mount Crested Butte, to find somewhere to spend the night. Found a wild National Forest site, perched on the side of Gothic Mountain, along a bumpy dirt track. I’d spotted that the local ski centre was doing free chairlift rides in the evening, so we all had a few hours riding the downhill trails of the bike park. Thunderstorms around the local hills meant that the usual free-Friday night crowds weren’t around, and it wasn’t too hot. My bike is still just about holding together, it’s pretty old and tired now. No idea what I’m going to do with it when we go through the next phase of selling / giving things away in September, to thin possessions down for our trip south. I managed to get two pinch punctures during the evening, broke a tube valve, and a pump. Awesome riding though – typical bike park trails – a range of smooth swoopy berms and rougher technical bumpy stuff through aspen groves.
Saturday 16th
We’d come up this valley to be near a trail called the “401” – one of Colorado’s ten best mountain bike rides. We took the van a short way further up the road and parked up. The ride starts with a couple of miles of tough climbing – a bit of dirt road and then singletrack to the high point at about 11000 feet. Pretty hard work riding at this altitude, but incredible scenery. Then perhaps 6 miles of downhill, skimming along the side of the valley, looking out over amazing views, swooping and twisting through chest-high wild flowers. They say that the height of the wild flowers is a prediction for the depth of snow that’s going to settle in the coming winter. Left Rose and Helen at the bottom of the trail while we rode back up the road to get the van.
There’s a load more riding here, but we need to keep moving. It’s the same story with everywhere we’ve been – it would be easy to spend days, even weeks, getting to know a place and meeting people, but with limited time, we’re choosing to just get a taster of each spot. So we headed on south through Gunnison towards Salida – over the top of Monarch pass then found a campsite nearby. I was just starting my shower out of the back of van when the rain clouds opened – Jon and Rose put the awning up. The rain didn’t last long, and by the end of the evening we were sat around the camp fire, burning the cardboard bike boxes that we’d been lugging around ever since J&H arrived.
Wowzers. So it’s been over ten days since I managed to sit down and get some writing done. So this post and the next few are being uploaded from Zion in Utah … split into a number of separate posts since we have, again, gazillions of photos. Our buddies Jon and Helen have been with us since the 12th, and we’ve been busy.
Tuesday 12th
We descended from the hills into Denver to shop for cowboy boots and sun hats, and to get some internet time. As part of the sun hat hunt, we visited a huge outdoor store filled with not only all the hunting, fishing and camping gear that’s ever existed, but also every North American animal stuffed and put up somewhere on the walls. Four wolves chased an elk across the wall as we came in. Across the back of the store, trout, salmon and walleye eyed us up from huge tanks. In the evening we picked up Jon and Helen from the airport – I drive loops around the arrivals area while Rose waits inside. Helen has a cousin who lives in Boulder, so we are staying with them for a couple of nights – Rosie and Ben.
Wednesday 13th
Hiked up Boulder Flatirons – great big slabs of rock guarding over the town of Boulder. The Rocky Mountains here rise straight out of the prairies, so the view from the top was pretty impressive. In the evening we explored Boulder’s Pearl Street, browsed around a bookstore and had dinner out in town at a local brewery.
Thursday 14th
Jon and Helen brought their bikes over with them – Colorado has some of the best mountain biking in the world – and Ben had suggested we ride a local trail called Betasso, so we drove a few minutes out of town to do that. 8 hot and dusty miles later we were back at the van – a good ride – the altitude really makes a difference! Denver calls itself the “mile high city”, and here in the hills it’s riding at over 8000 feet. We stopped to wash off in Boulder Creek, then filled up with fuel for the drive west – over plains not far from where we were a few days ago at Eleven Mile Lake – an area called South Park. Through Buena Vista and up into Cottonwood Pass, where we found a nice camp in the National Forest by a stream. In Colorado you can just camp anywhere in a National Forest which is handy. J&H are sleeping in the tent they brought with them, so we need to find sites that work with a tent as well as the van.
Frustrating day today. It’s been too long since I spent a load of energy. Sitting in the van, and sitting around camp for too many days. It’s relaxing, but after a while I get all antsy and need to get the blood pumping. I’d read that there was some good riding in the State Park, so I headed out on a random track – Mule Deer trail – which turned out to be an awesome 9 mile loop of singletrack through beautiful alpine forest and meadows. I certainly felt the 9,000 foot altitude, but it didn’t take too long to readjust. Back at the van feeling much revitalised, I freshened up under the camp shower and made dinner as the sun set over the aspen trees.
Sunday 10th August
Another day of surprises! One of the great things about being on the road with no particular agenda is that unexpected things always creep up on you. Today we planned to get some more time at the library, and then scoot south over the Interstate 70 to another campground where we could get a shower, but that’s not quite what happened.
We did spend some time at the library, where, it being closed on a Sunday, we had to sit outside to use the WiFi. I had a long chat with a guy in the car park about the settling of The West while Rose did some research. I feel like I’ve not absorbed as much local history and culture as I would have liked on this trip – I’m going to have to stock up on books and catch up retrospectively when we have lots more reading time on the boat. We headed south and somewhere around Black Hawk, a crazy town that seems to be purely casinos and hotels, we missed the turning to the i70 and ended up in Clear Creek Canyon. Which turned out to be an awesome drive through a twisty gorge of red and golden rocks, next to the tumbling creek. Lots of people were out – fly fishing, running, climbing and enjoying their day off. It’s funny how I look forward to weekdays now since everywhere is less busy.
The canyon road funneled us all the way back to Denver, which was way off route and there were no campgrounds anywhere nearby, so we decided to head further south west to a state park and a likely looking site. After an hour or driving, along a twisty, narrow dirt track by the site of the Platte River, we ended up at Platte River Campground … not much more than a dusty parking space and a few tent pitches. Checking my phone again, I realise that the Platte River Campground I was looking at was in Michigan. Oops. Was a nice drive, anyway.
So we came up with a new plan. Across the mountains to another State Park. We took an unpaved road up onto the hill which wound its way through empty wilderness and dead fire-destroyed trees for miles and miles. Every now and then we passed a parked truck, where a couple of guys were shooting guns – I assume at targets. We also passed a number of mountain bikers loaded with gear. Stopping to chat briefly to a chap at a junction, we learnt that they were part of a 500 mile race from Denver to Durango. Hardcore. Pretty miserable for them this afternoon though – the skies opened and poured with rain, turning the dirt road into a river and making for some slippery driving. Pretty dramatic though. We even passed an area where it looked like it had snowed, or maybe hail. Eventually we ended up at Eleven Mile State Park, surrounding a reservoir. The setting sun dropped below the dark cloud cover and gave us an awesome light show.
Oh yeah, and last night we had the police disturb us around midnight. We were parked up in a quiet layby, fast asleep, when a car pulled up with all its lights ablaze. I’m a good sleeper, but something woke me up before the car pulled to a stop. I poked my head through the back door to a cop asking what we were up to. I gave him our story, he took my licence and came back a couple of minutes later – all ok – wishing us a good night.
Monday 11th August
So nice to be back out in open country. The majority of our campgrounds on this trip have been tucked away in the trees, without much view of the sky or surrounding mountains, which means it gets dark early, and we don’t see the sun until quite late in the morning. This place is a huge flat valley, nestled in between the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, about 60 miles southwest of Denver. There are no trees, just lumps of granite amongst the grassland, which reminds me a bit of Joshua Tree NP. We had a relaxing day, out on the water in the kayaks and relaxing in camp.
I fiddled a bit more with the shortwave radio and laptop, receiving weather faxes. When we’re out at sea, away from phone and VHF radio reception, the shortwave radio is the only way we’re going to be able to get weather forecasts, so I’m testing out the gear and getting practice to make sure everything works OK. I’ve been trying at a number of remote places, but have generally had reception problems – but here I finally managed to receive clear, complete faxes. Looks like Hurricane Julio is sat just above Hawaii, tracking north. The rest of the eastern Pacific looks pretty chilled out though.
I’m still deliberating whether to get a satellite phone for when we head south, which would let us download weather files by email, as well as stay in touch with family. Not cheap though. Also trying to decide what to do about a life raft. We already have an inflatable dinghy to use as a tender, but it’s not a survival craft by any stretch of the imagination. Usually people also have a dedicated inflatable life raft, either stowed below in a tough bag, or up on deck in a canister. Life rafts need to be serviced every year, and cost a bomb … and from what I’ve been reading, are not anywhere near 100% reliable, especially after a few months in the sun. They sometimes don’t inflate, and sometimes leak badly once inflated. If we’re going to be spending a bunch of money, I’m thinking it might be better to get a hard dinghy that converts into a lifeboat – something like the Portland Pudgy. Nothing to inflate, nothing to leak, a more robust tender than an inflatable would be, and would also hold its value.
Tuesday 12th August
We’re on the way to pick up Jon and Helen from Denver! They are going to be with us for three weeks, as we journey down through Colorado, Utah, Nevada and maybe a bit of Arizona. We’ve been looking forward to them joining us, it’s going to be rad. Hopefully lots of hiking, biking and adventure, as well as seeing some of the most dramatic scenery in the USA.
Got up early this morning – before the dawn – and watched the sun come up over the mountains, burning off the wisps of mist on the lake. I keep saying it, but I love early morings. As Henry David Thoreau says in his classic “Walden”, which I’m gradually working through,
“The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some park of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.”
The mind is fresh, with none of the half-finished threads of thought that collect during the day to distract from peacefully absorbing the surroundings. The fizz of mental activity has not yet begun and the body is (usually) well rested. I make a coffee, have a stretch, listen to other creatures waking up, and just watch the world.
After a long day of driving we pulled into North Platte to find somewhere to stay and something to eat. Ended up at a great little motel where we cleaned up, and then popped down the road to a Taco John’s for a quesadilla. The past few days we’ve not been cooking much, we’ve been eating breakfast in camp then snacking during the day, and eating out in the evenings. It’s not easy to find decent, healthy food on the road out here, so we’re going to do a shop tomorrow and start cooking again.
Motel at North PlatteAn abandoned grain elevator
Thursday was another long day on the road – closing off our Nebraska experience and heading into Colorado. I was expecting to be driving through the same kind of open grassland landscapes that we saw when going east through South Dakota, the state just north of here, but the cornfields and agriculture in Nebraska extend a lot further west.
Someone left a chicken at the rest areaCorn, corn, cornHello Colorado!
The skies were awesome. Driving into Colorado we saw a huge thunderstorm ahead – from about 20 miles away, the beast covered over a quarter of the horizon. The clouds were changing every minute as the storm developed. It looked pretty menacing. Not sure if we were heading into the belly of a full-on mid-west summer tornado, we flipped the radio on to get a weather update. Sure enough, the music was interrupted regularly by storm warning broadcasts. The storm was due to pass south of us by a few miles, with winds of up to 65 mph forecast, and golf ball sized hailstones being reported.
We cut through the trailing corner of the storm, and got our fair share of wind and rain before we popped out the other side for the final run into Denver. Driving straight through the city, we headed up into the Golden Gate Canyon State Park to look for a campsite. The site in the State Park was fully booked, but the ranger directed us down the road a short way to a National Forest site which still had a few places free. I’m sensing the outdoorsy and adventure vibe here – much like Montana and Wyoming – lots of cars and pickups with high-end mountain bikes on the back. Not so many kayaks or boats though. I think it’s going to be a bit harder to find free camp sites, so we may have to plan a bit more and book ahead.
Friday was a nice leisurely day, hanging around camp, tidying up the van, and making an excursion to a local library just down the road for Rose to do some stuff online. It feels a little strange to be right in the middle of beautiful mountain country and not walking, biking or getting out at all but it’s just nice to be stopped still for a while, recovering from a few long days of driving.
On Sunday we packed up camp early and set off south from Neys, through Thunder Bay, down to Duluth. This time we didn’t get searched at the border!
Border guard: “Why do you have an RV, sir?”
Me: “Because we’re on a road trip, camping in it”
“I don’t quite understand you, sir”
Turns out he misread my passport and thought I had an “R Visa” …
I declared the few vegetables we had, most of which we kept, but the tomatoes were a no-no. We pulled over and I dutifully took the two juicy fruit into the office and left them on the counter for the customs officer to put in the bin. Rules eh.
Driving through Grand Marais, we spotted a craft fair and heard music, so pulled over to see what was going on. We walked around the town for a bit, I had a dip in the cold lake to freshen up, we picked up a couple of “world famous fish burgers” and hit the road again. We spent the evening wandering around the Canal Park region of Duluth – by one of the entrances that ships use to get from Lake Superior into the gargantuan Duluth docks (great suggestion Gerry – we’d missed this one our way up). The whole town seemed to be out enjoying the warm evening sun, the bars and the waterfront. Coming into dock after a day on the lake was a Pearson 36-2 – same as our boat, Rafiki. Had a quick peek in the good nautical history museum before finding a quiet place by the side of the road to spend the night.
In the evening we’d spotted a likely looking café for breakfast, so we swung past on our way to spend the day in the library where we caught up on emails and used the internet. A few hours later we’d had our fill so headed across the water into Wisconsin, the town of Superior, and the road leading south – within minutes the town was behind us and we were back in the middle of nowhere. As the sun dropped behind the trees, we pulled into Lakeview campground, by Balsam Lake.
Up early the next morning with the sun, I spent some time on the campsite Wi-Fi catching up with buddies on Skype and getting a bit of work done as the day awoke around me. As I was tapping away on the laptop, a flock of red-headed cranes honked low overhead on their way to the lake. Magic.
Onwards to Stillwater, where we spent a couple of hours – Rose doing the laundry and me working on the van. Up in Thunder Bay, we’d left the fridge running for too long one evening, completely flattening the van battery. Seems we killed it, now it won’t hold charge properly. I bought a new battery and relegated the old one to be our domestic back-up battery. I discovered that the van already has a split-charge distribution unit under the hood from its “Department of Electricity and Communications” days, which made the process pretty straightforward. The fridge is now wired up to the second battery, which charges when the van runs and disconnects when we’re stopped. I’ve also installed one of the cabin fans we picked up in Duluth, as we’re heading back into the hot country.
From Stillwater we drove south past Minneapolis, into Iowa, and past Des Moines, dropping off the interstate onto a back road when we turned west, through miles and miles of corn fields, every stem exactly the same height as its neighbour. Healthy looking cobs sit half way up, harvest season must be soon. Grain silos stand proud on the horizon, big fat torpedoes ready to shoot off into space. Each silo has a barn nuzzling at their base, sometimes old, “rustic” timber barns falling apart at the seams, sometimes shiny and new painted in red and white. Always red and white. Maybe someone got a job lot price on red paint. Dead straight roads, every now and then a pair of 90 degree bends as the direct line is diverted by an unavoidable hurdle – usually not obvious – perhaps an obstinate landowner? Huge industrial grain elevators at each meeting of railway and town, where the local produce is loaded onto mile-long trains and carted away across America.
Humid air, hazy sky, a warm breeze. We pulled off the road for a few minutes to soak up the dusk sounds of Iowa. Corn rustling in the wind sounds like a stream, the background to a cacophony of chirping crickets. Fireflies sparkle by the roadside and way across the fields, a bit like phosphorescence on the sea.
In camp, at Prairie Rose State Park, the rain begins. We’d eaten at a small-town bar in Panoma, so we’d arrived late, and just went to bed. At midnight I was woken by a splitting crash just outside, and fat heavy raindrops on the van roof. Thunderstorm!
It’s now Thursday, we’ve just crossed the Missouri River, the border between Iowa and Nebraska – heading west. Agriculture is definitely numero uno round here. Towns are full of ag equipment dealers, selling all shapes and sizes of huge machinery. There’s a general store, a gas station, and some houses. We felt all eyes on us as we walked in the door of Corner Café in North Bend – “you’re not from round here” … the coffee was shocking so we’re now stopped in Grand Island, Nebraska, for a real one. Looks like we could be in Denver late tomorrow if we keep on truckin’.
The alarm I’d set to wake me up to see the sun rise over the Tetons did its job, but the mountains were still asleep under a thick blanket of cloud, so I tucked back in for a few more minutes shut-eye. That was almost a week ago! Since leaving the Tetons we’ve crossed half of America, and still have a couple of days to go before Thunder Bay. The Grand Teton Range is on the far western side of Wyoming – the last we see of the Rockies as we head east. The rest of Wyoming, at least the centre section that we drove across, is just empty grassland and ranches.
[Friday 18th] We spent the night in Casper, one of the larger towns in the state, so that Rose could go to “the west’s leading ranch outfitters” to buy some cowboy boots. Even though they had the biggest selection we’ve ever seen, nothing had that special feel so we left empty handed.
The next day took us to the edge of Wyoming – open, empty land covered in sweet yellow clover grass, as though the hills had been dusted with yellow powder. It’s a lot hotter out here than in the mountains. As soon as we crossed over the state border into South Dakota, we climbed into the Black Hills, where it cooled down quickly. The Black Hills are full of history – Indian sacred grounds and hunting lands, and of course the subsequent clashes with the settlers once gold was found here in the 19th century. We drove through the town of Custer (of Custer’s Last Stand) and past Mt. Rushmore, into Custer State Park where we planned to stay the night. Driving through the park we ended up on a tight, winding mountain road with tunnels and “pig tail” bridges – it turns out that this road was built in the early 20th century purely as an engineering challenge.
Not planning ahead, being naïve travellers, means that when we come across interesting things it’s much more of a surprise. So far we’ve not really been planning anything, other than a general trend towards the north and east. Yeah, we may have missed things along the way, but we don’t want to be just jumping from one tourist spot to the next.
As the sun disappeared we found the last available camp site in the park, and cooked up some chilli and rice. At about midnight we were woken by an amazing storm – huge lighting flashes and booming thunder. And then hail hammering down on the roof of the van, so hard I was expecting to find dents all over it in the morning.
[Saturday 19th] On Saturday we bimbled around the wildlife loop in the state park, seeing more buffalo, plenty of deer and a prairie dog town. I’d seen that there were some mountain bike trails in the Black Hills, and I was desperate to get out on the bike again. But without any internet connection and pretty poor information from the visitor centre, I had to take my chances and head off on a hiking trail – up to Cathedral Spires. Turned out to be a fun hour. Hot! Heading back towards the Crazy Horse memorial we passed Sylvan Lake which looked too tempting to pass by without a quick paddle, so we popped the kayaks in, powered across the lake, and had a swim.
Cathedral Spires, Black Hills, SDSylvan Lake, Black Hills, SD
Late afternoon we wandered around the Crazy Horse visitor centre. The memorial is of one of the Lakota Indian chiefs – as a response to the building of the Mt. Rushmore memorial which commemorates the first four American presidents, “so that the white man knows that the Red man had great leaders too”. It’s a huge undertaking, started in the forties, to sculpt a whole mountain into a statue of the chief riding a horse – the biggest sculpture in the world.
As the evening set in, we grabbed a bite to eat in Custer and then carried on east out to the Badlands National Park. The park campground as described in our National Parks book is “primitive” – it’s just a ring of grass in the middle of the grassland, with a couple of long drop toilets and a bunch of picnic tables under sun shades. Not a single tree, which makes it completely different from every other campground we’ve been to. Still mosquitoes though … how do they survive out here?!
Sunset as we approach Badlands NP
Chatted late into the night with a bunch of other young travellers – one guy from San Francisco heading to Harvard in Boston to spend a few years studying architecture, a young couple driving around the US for a couple of months, almost the same route as us but in reverse – again from the bay area in California, two brothers from Florida headed for college in Missoula, Montana, and a girl from Iowa who was taking a weekend break from her job as a National Park environmental worker in Minnesota. Normally the US and Canadian campgrounds are quite anti-social; everyone has their own pitch with table and fire ring, a good distance apart to give some privacy. It means you don’t really get to meet people, which is a shame. Here you could pitch up anywhere you wanted, no fire rings, and shared tables. Everyone had been travelling for days and was keen for conversation with a new bunch of people.
[Sunday 20th] Explored the Badlands in the morning, in the searing heat. Not a breath of wind, and 100-plus degrees made it sweaty, sticky work. The only way to get a breeze, or any shade, was to get moving in the van with the windows all open, so we didn’t dawdle. Sheltering from the sun, sweltering and sweating in our plastic van seats, we slithered across the rest of South Dakota – miles and miles of empty grasslands, turning into wheat fields, and then corn fields further east.
Everything here is geared towards farming. The fields are huge, but there seem to be separate farmhouses every few miles, so the farms themselves can’t be that big. It’s all very well kept, with perfectly mown road verges (I suppose they have the equipment and the time!), neat barns and grain silos, and huge immaculate lawns in front of every house. And of course each property proudly flies the stars and stripes outside. On and on and on. It’s given me a chance to catch up with learning Spanish – I bought some bigger speakers and wired one up to the radio so that it’s a bit easier to hear while we’re blasting along with the windows down.
My other goal for the summer, to learn the Ukelele, hasn’t been progressing so well. I’ve got three basic chords dialled, but that was a month ago and not much has happened since. The same three notes strummed over and over again isn’t the best soundtrack to a summer evening in a remote campsite, especially when we have neighbours.
Just before leaving South Dakota we found a motel for the night, in Watertown, where we had a wonderfully refreshing shower, and caught up with emails. We’d thought that we’d get internet on our phones in the USA, but we’ve not actually had data reception since we left Washington weeks ago (which is one reason why I’ve only been able to update the blog every few days, at coffee shops). The states we’ve been through appear not to have any T-Mobile coverage – we can get other networks, but it turns out that using data on other networks is deemed “domestic roaming” and there’s a 50Mb data limit which we burnt through pretty quickly. Rubbish. But not really a problem. The National Geographic Adventure Atlas of USA and Canada (thanks mum!) has been our only guide – a really good one, with campgrounds and points of interest.
[Monday 21st] We stayed at the motel for most of the morning, spending time online, researching future trips and getting various online jobs done – things like recording a change of address with the California DMV so that I can then renew the boat’s biannual registration. And ordering some electric fans to get some air moving in the van at night! We’ll get them delivered to a town ahead of us, and pick them up on the way back from Canada.
Road tripping is actually really time consuming. I’d thought that we’d get much more time to do things other than drive, but that’s not been the case at all. To cover 10,000 miles in 3 months we need to average over 100 miles a day, and with a few rest days that quickly goes up for the days we’re driving. We’d originally planned 6,000 miles in total, but after 6 weeks we’ve already covered 5,400 miles. The van’s running well. Needed to top up with oil today, but otherwise all A-OK. So glad to have a fridge on board; means we can keep food fresh, have cool drinks during the day, and cold(ish) beers in the evening.
Right now we’re driving through St. Cloud in Minnesota – still stinkin’ hot – gotta go, my turn at the wheel is coming up.
Time for more mountains! We left the campground at about 9 this morning, not too shabby, and headed south to the Grand Teton National Park which butts up against the southern end of Yellowstone. We’re pretty much ready to start our mission east across the prairies to Thunder Bay, but can’t miss the Tetons as we’re right next door, and who knows when or if we’re going to be coming this way ever again. We decided to swing by and spend a day in the park. Yesterday I mentioned we’re feeling a little blasé about mountains and forests and beautiful views – but coming up to the Teton Range blew all that away, as every new mountain range appears to do. These peaks are stunning, rising more than 3,000 feet directly from the flat valley floor, with no foothills. They look amazing for climbing. I’ll definitely be coming back here with a climbing buddy someday.
Wanting some exercise but not an epic lung-buster up the side of a Teton, we walked a few miles around Jenny Lake, the scenic centre of the park. A passing ranger told us there was a grizzly bear just a quarter mile down the trail, so we kept our eyes peeled and ears pricked for any furry action, but didn’t end up seeing anything. Shame, it would have been awesome to see one up close in the wild.
As we were getting ready to walk around the lake, we had a quick chat with a lady that was touring America with a young lad in tow, maybe ten years old. We reckon it was probably her grandson. She, like us, didn’t have much of a plan. Each time they got to a junction she’d ask him “which way?” – he’d make a decision, and off they went. What an adventure!
Spent the rest of the afternoon sat in the sun, drawing mountains, and sewing up the umpteenth tear in my shorts. Gonna see if I can get another two months out of them. The fabric is so thin, I’m not sure I want to put them in the laundry in case they can’t handle the spin cycle. I don’t think Rose is going to let me wear the same shorts without washing them for 8 more weeks though. Watch this space.
Not having had a shower for three long, hot days, it was time to freshen up – we found some pay showers in Colter Bay village in the centre of the park, stocked up on a few cold treats at the general store next door, and then rustled up a feast of vegetable fajitas in a car park overlooking the mountains. I don’t think the Americans are used to seeing people cooking in car parks, squatting on the floor with a wok sizzling away. Doing the same in France I remember plenty of friendly “bon appetites”, but here everyone pretends not to notice us as they climb out of their cars, wander a few yards, take a snap with their iPhone, get back in the car and drive on to the next spot on the map.
I’m now sitting in the van at Togwotee pass, watching the sun go down behind the peaks of the Tetons in the distance. We’re on the Continental Divide, again. We’ve been back and forth over this line maybe twenty times over the last couple of weeks. On the west side all water flows down into the Pacific, and on the east side it has more of a journey ahead of it – flowing either into the Atlantic, into Hudson Bay or the Arctic. A ridge dividing two watersheds isn’t a strange concept, but for some reason I’m captivated by this line that traces a path all the way from the top of Canada down to Mexico, a single continuous line meandering over the peaks and crests of the Rocky Mountains. We don’t have anything like it in Europe – sure there are some huge rivers like the Rhine and the Rhone – but not like America which is such a clearly defined north-south continent, holding apart two oceans.
We’re sealed up against a plague of mosquitoes (again), but up here at over 9,000 feet it’s cool enough to have the van closed all night. It’s a clear sky, I think the weather pattern has changed. If it’s a clear dawn it’s going to be a stunning light show on the Tetons over on the other side of Jackson Hole, so I’m setting an alarm to see if I can catch it.
Not wanting to hang around for a second day at the festival, we packed up on Sunday morning and made our way south towards Yellowstone. Leaving Butte, the mountains changed character yet again. Nestled among the trees on the hills around the highway were hundreds of squashed round boulders, sat on their narrow ends – just like a plague of huge, swollen ticks gorging themselves on the folds of the mountain.
Early afternoon we arrived in West Yellowstone, on the border of the national park. We poked our noses into the park to see what the story was with camping, but as we’d expected, it was busy busy and all campgrounds were full. There are a few that allow reservations – which I’m sure would book up months ahead of time – but all the others are first come first served, sometimes filling up early in the morning. So we turned around back into town, found a campground, got settled with some lunch and then set out to explore the place. Lots of tourist tat everywhere – but not too many tourists – I guess they must all be in the park filling up those camp sites. The heat of the last few days is generating plenty of thunderstorms, this evening we sat outside the Buffalo Grill drinking our beers in the rain, hoping optimistically that it was going to stop and dry out before our tacos arrived. It didn’t, so we ate inside.
Monday / Tuesday
The battle plan for Monday was to get up early and go straight into the park to find a camp site. We arrived at Norris campground, pretty much right in the middle of the park, at 9am, and found a few free spots, vacated by early risers. Wanting 3 days in the park, we booked in for a couple of nights, paying the usual $20 per night in a little cardboard self-registration envelope. After a quick coffee it was time to explore the park.
The next couple of days were a blur of geothermal sites; hot springs, geysers, steam vents, mud pots, boiling pools – all a bit overwhelming, but very impressive. The park does well to soak up the 3 million people that come here each year; most geyser areas are quite large with trails and walkways over the fragile earth that go on for at least a mile or so. But it still felt busier than any of the other parks we’ve been to. Most car parks had a queue of people waiting to get in. All very well organised, just like the other US National Parks.
The range of springs, vents, pots and pools was unbelievable; with different coloured bacteria living in different temperatures. The Morning Glory pool was stunning. These pictures are not enhanced. The colours really were like that. Amazing.
And the prismatic spring blew me away. From way up the road, as we approached, we could see steam just like with all the other geyser sites, but here there was so much colour in the spring below that the steam itself was coloured in vivid orange, turquoise and yellow.
We managed to dodge the thunderstorms and get enough sun to take a bunch of pictures. Too many pictures. I often wonder why I don’t just download professional photos of the tourist sights. They can do better than I can, and it would leave me to just soak it all in without having to think about getting my own shots. But no, just like the gazillions of other snap-happy tourists, there we were, going for the best angle, best lighting, click click click.
Waiting for geysers to erupt is a funny game. Some of them are predicable, to a point. Sometimes the expected eruption times are posted by the rangers. Some geysers erupt pretty often, perhaps every few minutes, so it’s easy to catch it in action. Others erupt once every few hours, plus or minus an hour or so, and if you want to catch these doing their thing you need to get there early and just wait. And some only erupt following earthquakes, or only once or twice a century. We didn’t get any of the predictions, and just followed our noses around the park, but still managed to see a fair few geysers spouting and hissing into the sky. Perhaps the most impressive was Riverside Geyser, where (following a tip-off from a well prepared German) we waited about half an hour for it to spew its insides out all over the river.
For us, the rest of the park – the wildlife, the scenery, the history – took second place to the geothermal sights. Sure, we saw bison, elk, a bunch of small rodenty things, some birds, impressive cliffs, waterfalls and canyons, but that’s “just more nature”. Having been amongst jaw-droppingly beautiful country for over a month now, I think we’re actually getting a little desensitised.
Road and Ocean 