Traveling to Yellowstone

9/11/2008 Sorry it has taken so long to get this on the blog. Where we are staying I can not connect to the Internet and I am sitting in the car out on the main street of Gardiner, MT using the Super 8 Motel's wireless connection. Anyway I'll post something about the trip into Yellowstone later. So this will be a quick post.



9/9/2008 On our way to Yellowstone National Park
Today we left Glacier NP behind us and headed for Yellowstone National Park. The park is very vast and beautiful and our next trip to the park I think we will stay on the eastern side to allow us to view the "Many Glacier" road and sites and also the Waterton Lakes National Park - the Canadian park to the north.

Our trip to Yellowstone took us along part of one of Montana's Scenic Loops. From our campsite in West Glacier we headed East along RT 2. We admired again the mountains until they abruptly change to the rolling hills of the high plains. We head into the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and at Browning headed south on 89. The scenery all along the next 100 miles consists of cattle pastures, golden (or at least to me they are golden) hay pastures, and wheat fields (very large wheat fields) and views of the Rocky Mountain Front and the Swan Mountain Ranges. Some of these mountains soar to an elevation of 8800 feet with Rocky Mountain at a height of 9392. These are all on our right as we travel and provides a great traveling companion. This is all Lewis and Clark country and is the most north the adventurers traveled.

On 89 we head through Dupyer then Choteau (named after a French Trader). Both of these towns have a very western flavor and there isn't a chain store to be found. Although we do not stop, a number of the stores looked like promising stops. At Choteau we change routes to 287 heading south which also follows I-15 for a number of miles, then back on 287 until it reaches I-90. West on I-90 then south on 89 until we get to our destination, Gardiner, MT.

The memory of this scenic portion of the trip will stay with us. The Mountains are simply breathtaking and with the plains in front of them creates an even more dramatic view. Along the way we view cattle, horses (many horses), deer, and antelope. Carmen has to take pictures of all of them, good thing I have plenty of batteries.

While we were on the northern portion of 287, we come across a 15 mile section of the road that is being rebuilt. I mean completely rebuild, down to a new gravel base. We have to wait about 5 minutes for the pilot vehicle to get back to bring us through the construction. I'm doing 20 mph and Carmen is making sure I don't drive to fast. The bumps and vibration cause a pack of cupcakes to shake off of the counter onto the floor open slightly and strew the candy buttons to go all over the floor. Good think we have a small vacuum with us.

The road along 89 from I-90 is also filled with jagged mountain peaks with grassy valleys that are very scenic. Just before getting to Gardiner, we see three different bison (buffalo if you prefer) herds. I even stopped in the middle of the road for one of the herds so Carmen can get a picture. Good think no one was behind us.

We reached out camp site (Yellowstone RV Park) in Gardnier around 6:30 PM and settled in. The sites are a little narrow, I could spit on our neighbors, but out the back window is the Yellowstone River. What a site. Think I might do some fishing before I leave. Can you say trout for dinner?

Tomorrow we head into Yellowstone for our first view of the upper loop. (We've been to the lower loop but not the upper loop.) And hope to see many animals.


Carmen writes:
We are on our way once again and it is a beautiful day and getting warmer as the day goes along and I can tell that because I can lean out the window to take pictures and not freeze. It is very beautiful with the mountains and grass lands. You can see for miles over the plains with the mountains behind. Again another exciting day with wildlife to be seen. Per usual we, oh sorry, I have to take pictures of old barns, trains and rivers and of course the plains and mountains. It is all so beautiful it is hard to decide what to take pictures of so with the digital camera I take it all. We, oh sorry, I used three batteries in Bob's camera and took over 1435 great picture, of course it was kind of a bumpy road we were on and probably half are blurry.

Today I got to sit and just ride because all of the roads we were on were two lanes and I don't drive the RV on two lanes. But I still gave Bob a lot of advice on how to drive and when to slow down.

Out of all the pictures I took I hope I got a clear one of the antelope, bisons and 6 bucks with huge racks. All along the Yellowstone River there is a lot of fishing.

Another fun day!

Bob:
With all of the pictures Carmen took it was difficult to pick only a couple, but these are indicative of the trip. Hope you enjoy them.