RealImaginaryWest 2017 Lite Day 3 – Roasting in the Badlands & Relief in the Black Hills

After a very early start at Badlands National Park, we packed up camp and made a short hike at Saddle Pass, followed by hikes on the Notch, Window, and Door Trails. Before driving the Badlands Loop Road and heading to Wall Drug, we returned to Cedar Pass Campground to get showers. After lunch and a couple of hours perusing Wall Drug, we took I-90 to Rapid City and SD-79 & SD-36 into the Black Hills and Custer State Park. Finally we followed US-16A to Bismarck Lake Campground near Custer in Black Hills National Forest.

Well today had a pretty good start with a rather dry finish… I suppose another way of putting it would be, “The Great Plains strike again!” Let me start at the beginning…

Sunrise at Badlands National Park

It all started at about 4:30am for me. I didn’t quite sleep as long as I’d hoped, but I did feel OK. The eastern horizon was already alight with the impending sunrise and birds were up singing. And just like last night, except in reverse, the moon was close to setting in the west.

Since we got to bed fairly early the night before and the forecast high would likely surpass the century mark, I woke Becky. It wasn’t supposed to get truly hot until late morning or noon. If we got up now, we could do some hiking and beat the heat as well as the crowds. While Becky moseyed to the restroom and got herself ready for the day, I packed up the tent and everything inside. We might come back later to cook or take showers, but there was no need to leave the tent up since it was already bone dry. I’m proud to say I had our bedding and tent all packed up solo in 25 minutes.

Just as the sun began to peek through the clouds over the Badlands wall, I ran off and shot a panorama of the brilliant sunrise! There were some reds but mostly oranges and violets. I would have shot the moonset too, but clouds on the western horizon totally obscured it.

Saddle Pass Trail

 

Looking up the Saddle Pass Trail in Badlands National Park. Blue markers help to identify the trail amid the indistinct terrain.
Looking up the Saddle Pass Trail. Blue markers help to identify the trail amid the indistinct terrain.

We were on the road before 6am and drove the short distance to the Saddle Pass Trailhead. The temperature was comfortable for now, around 70 degrees and low humidity. The Saddle Pass Trail is short at only 1/3 mile, but it’s a steep 216-foot climb up to the top of the Badlands wall.

We were on the road before 6am and drove the short distance to the Saddle Pass Trailhead. The temperature was comfortable for now, around 70 degrees and low humidity. The Saddle Pass Trail is short at only 1/3 mile, but it’s a steep 216-foot climb up to the top of the Badlands wall.

We started up the trail around 6am. It starts out exceptionally steep and has loose gravel footing. We were nearly halfway up when Becky decided she couldn’t go any further. It was just too much for her first thing in the morning. All the literature promised 360-degree views, so I decided to continue up to the top. The view did not disappoint!

Looking south from Saddle Pass in Badlands National Park.
Looking south from Saddle Pass. The tiny black thing in the parking lot near the tree is our car!

After shooting a few photos, one of the car from all the way up on top, I headed back down. There’s a trail that runs along the top of the Badlands wall, but I didn’t check it out because I wanted to make sure Becky was OK. I was off the trail and back at the car just 45 minutes after we arrived. Becky was starting to feel better and suggested that she probably just needed something to eat to get her energy up. While I’d guess our bodies were still on our usual Eastern Time Zone schedule, it was probably just too quick of a start to the day for her.

Up to the Door/Window/Notch Trailhead

A bighorn sheep rests in morning shade north of Cedar Pass along the Badlands Loop Road in Badlands National Park.
A bighorn sheep rests in morning shade along the Badlands Loop Road on our way to the Door/Window/Notch Trailhead.

When we visited Badlands back in 2015, our only real hike here was the Door Trail. The same trailhead actually has two other trails, the super short Window Trail, and the more challenging Notch Trail. None of the three trails are particularly long, so we had plenty of time to do all three if we wanted to. The sky was crystal clear with bright sunshine now, but the temperature was still comfortable.

We made it to the parking lot around 7am, still well ahead of the crowds. We started with the Notch Trail, which is only 1.5 miles round trip. It winds through a small canyon for about 1/3 mile or so, and then there’s a ladder that takes you up to the rim so you can continue through a slightly larger canyon. We somehow missed the ladder, and realized it when the trail suddenly ended at an impasse. We could hear people just above us, so we retraced our steps. Turns out we followed a wash and went right past the ladder. It’s pretty easy to get disoriented and lose trails here! Almost all of them, including Notch, are actually marked with stakes at regular intervals so you can tell you’re going the right way.

Becky awaits my return as I hike the section of the Notch Trail above the ladder.
Becky awaits my return as I hike the section of the Notch Trail above the ladder.

A Perilous Wrong Turn

Becky took a look at the ladder and gave it a nope. I’m afraid of heights and didn’t find it at all intimidating. The easy slope and the grip of my hiking boots made it easy to walk upright the entire way.

I then made my way around the rim and came across some signs that got me confused. One said “KEEP RIGHT”, and the other was an arrow pointing at what I thought was the way to go. I’d heard the Notch Trail could be challenging, but I was surprised it would go right up this steep wash. I forgot to even look for a marker stake. Before I knew it, the wash got too steep and too loose to safely go any further—obviously a dead end!

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest 2017 Lite Day 3 – Roasting in the Badlands & Relief in the Black Hills

RealImaginarySmokies Day 6 – Exploring the Ghost Town of Elkmont & Cruising the Cherohala Skyway

We departed Elkmont and got stuck in traffic for 90 minutes heading up to cross the park on Newfound Gap Road. We then drove US-74 west to NC-28 and NC-143 to Robbinsville. Finally, we drove the spectacular Cherohala Skyway across to Indian Boundary Campground in Cherokee National Forest.

Do We Have a Mouse?

It’s always a good night for me when it’s warm enough that I don’t need to wear socks. Last night was one of those nights. At 4:45 I was awake, and amid the still darkness, I wondered if we had caught our mouse. We’d been trying to catch him for the last two days to no avail. He thwarted our first attempt and managed to make off with every bit of the bait.

After finding my socks inside my sleeping bag, I quietly exited the tent, trying not to disturb Becky. I walked up to the car, turned on my LED lantern, pulled on the car door handle AND—it was locked! Crap! Forgot about that…this was certainly less dramatic than I’d imagined!

Our second, somewhat more improvised mouse trap lying behind the driver seat (Photo by Becky)

I retrieved my keys from the tent, unlocked the car this time (that Toyota beep is awful loud in a dead-silent campground!), pulled on the handle AND—saw that the bottle and the sticky trap were still together, but totally jostled out of position from where I had wedged it on the floor behind the driver’s seat. The outside fringe of the sticky trap had been gnawed around, just like the day before, and then I saw the box rock! The mouse was still there, but was he inside?

I slowly picked up the trap and peered in through the front—and sure enough, a long tiny tail on a little tiny mouse about two or three inches long was stuck inside! YES!!! We finally got him!!! He was small enough that he probably would have been able to get inside the bottle and eat the bait with no problem had I not added the sticky trap as an extra hurdle. I set the trap down on the picnic table and went over to the tent to share my jubilation with Becky. “We got him! Do you want to see it?”

Now What?

When Becky said no, my mind moved on to letting him out of the trap. I hadn’t given much thought to this until now—and I felt profoundly sad and even guilty. This poor scared, tiny little creature was stuck in my trap and no longer in my car, but now I have no idea how to let him go. While he was obviously quite strong to be able to jostle a 12-ounce glass bottle around, he was too delicate for me to free from the sticky trap without some serious injury; furthermore, I’d probably get my fingers bitten up in the process. I could just leave him for a predator, but chances are that it too would get stuck in the trap, or worse yet the bait in the bottle could attract a black bear to investigate.

I was all out of ideas, I had no Internet service and therefore no Google, and it was still before 5am…so I asked Becky what I should do. She told me to just put him in the dumpster. 🙁 I felt terrible about it, but that’s what I did. I hoped he would break loose in there, but I didn’t think that was likely.

I concluded that I hate these sticky traps, and that I’m never going to use one again. I have no idea what I could have done better to deal with a mouse taking up residence in our car on a camping trip, but I knew the way I chose was too inhumane to use it again. (UPDATE: I Googled later and found out that you can release a mouse from a sticky trap, but it’s not very easy to pull off on the road. If I’d known, I’d have tried to get him out.)

Remember folks: keep your food safe in hard-sided lockable containers, and don’t leave your car open long enough for wildlife to move into your car for the winter. They can make a real mess, and it’s hard to get rid of them. Out West they have a saying, “A fed bear is a dead bear,” and that seems to be true for all wildlife. I know this experience has made us extra careful on the road and at home.

Shooting Elkmont

After crawling back into bed, I got up again when my alarm went off at 6:30. This was our last day here at Elkmont, and I wanted to take advantage of the still air and soft, even, early light to shoot some panoramas of our campsite and the abandoned buildings. Even the slightest breeze makes it difficult to get a clear 360° image, and the winds have been almost nonexistent first thing in the morning. I had my pano rig set up not long after first light, and thought that shooting our campsite from the top of our picnic table would offer a good vantage point. This is usually no big deal, but today I did something stupid and earned my injury for the week…

The Picnic Table Incident

I was standing on top of the picnic table next to my camera and decided to walk around and check the leveling on my panoramic head…I took my first step, and realized I had made a terrible mistake! As I set my foot down onto nothing, I thought, “Oh no, well I guess I better be ready to land on the bench!” And then I realized…I’d missed the bench! I was going all the way down! In this split second, I realized I’d better be ready so I don’t twist my body all up and really get myself hurt.

So I came down on the one foot, turning myself enough that my upper body continued to fall backwards, past the bench. This saved me from bumping my head, tearing my groin, or twisting a joint, but it meant breaking my fall with my legs on the bench and my hands on the rocky ground! Ach! And when I landed, I looked up just in time to see my camera and tripod coming down after me!

Thankfully, everything landed softly on top of me. No damage came to my equipment or me, save for one sore wrist and a gravel rash on my hands. After the adrenaline passed a bit, I of course set up again and got my shot on top of the picnic table. Then I moved on to the Elkmont Historic District…

360-degree panorama of Site N1 in Elkmont Campground. Click and drag to look around. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

The Saga of Elkmont’s Appalachian Club and the Creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Elkmont’s oldest structure, the Levi Trentham cabin in Daisy Town, built in 1830

The Sneed cabin in Elkmont’s Daisy Town district

The Hidgon cabin in Elkmont’s Daisy Town district

A children’s playhouse in Elkmont’s Daisy Town district called “Adamless Eden”

I know that heading is a mouthful, but there’s a story here with all of these abandoned buildings and the old cemetery I found on Tuesday. You see, back in 1908, Colonel Wilson B. Townsend set up a logging camp where Elkmont Campground is today. Lumber was transferred to his sawmill by a railroad he built and extended to Knoxville. When most of the timber was gone, Townsend advertised Elkmont as a mountain getaway. In 1910 he sold land to an affluent group of Knoxville outdoor enthusiasts who formed the Appalachian Club. They built the Appalachian Clubhouse and several vacation cabins, creating the small neighborhoods of Daisy Town, Millionaires Row, and Society Hill.

In the 1920s, the young National Park Service sought to create a national park in the Eastern United States. The movement to create one in the Great Smoky Mountains was started by certain members of the Appalachian Club. Due to maneuvering by politically influential members who desired to create a national forest rather than a national park, cabin owners in Elkmont were allowed to obtain lifetime leases when the park was created in 1937. Meanwhile, residents in less affluent areas like Cades Cove were flat-out evicted through eminent domain.

The last lease in Elkmont expired in 2001, which would have allowed the park to proceed with demolition plans it had at inception. However, some leaseholders’ descendants succeeded at placing Elkmont on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. This caused a 15-year debate that finally resulted in the preservation of most of Daisy Town and two other structures further up the mountain. The rest of the buildings will be demolished early in 2017.

I unfortunately did not get to photograph inside any of the abandoned cabins, as all were posted with “NO TRESPASSING” signs, and several of them had collapsed floors and roofs. Things were still plenty creepy though! I did, however, shoot a panorama inside the Appalachian Clubhouse, which was restored in 2009. This was thanks to a ranger who was kind enough to let me in while he performed some maintenance.

360-degree panoramas of abandoned vacation cabins in Elkmont’s Society Hill district. Click and drag to look around & click the arrows to see a different location. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 6 – Exploring the Ghost Town of Elkmont & Cruising the Cherohala Skyway

RealImaginarySmokies Day 4 – Mouse In Our Car

Nothing important happened today…because we now have a mouse living in our car…and Becky got hit in the face…it wasn’t me, I swear!

Thinking Back to Last Night

When I got up this morning, my first thought on the way to the restroom was to get a fire going to cook up some hot dogs for breakfast. This was simple enough…until I started rummaging through the car to gather up some buns and condiments…and then I recalled a couple of things from last night…

It was well after dark when we got back from our hike yesterday. While we prepared dinner, Becky drew my attention to a ragged paper towel lying in the back of the car. She thought it looked like an animal did it and suggested that we may have a mouse. I was too tired and didn’t even want to consider the possibility, so I blew it off. Another thing I remembered was that a couple of my hot dog buns looked like a chunk had fallen off, but I was tired and it was super dark—so I blew that off too. Either way, we ate dinner, packed up the car, and everything seemed totally fine…

My hot dog buns! 😮

Well, this morning I knew that Becky was right…my hot dog buns were obviously compromised (and I ate some last night, ewww!!!) and now that I knew to look, I’d found what were probably mouse droppings. Uggghhh. Not good!

Assessing the Situation

A mouse was living in our car, and dug around in the foam under the seat!

Right away, we began taking things out for inspection. Our breakfast fire was burning well right now and I was too hungry and frustrated to be all that useful. So Becky told me to roast a couple of hot dogs and eat them (sans bun, obviously) while she continued with the car. There were signs that the mouse had been all over our stuff in the back, but thankfully our utensils were all packed into hard cases and the only food he got into was my hot dog buns. He also dug quite a bit into the foam on the bottom of the driver seat, probably looking to make a nest.

Normally the hot dog buns would have been packed into another hard-sided tub like the utensils, but Becky had packed the costumes she’d made for Saturday’s Star Wars party in it instead. We bought most of our groceries for the week in Knoxville on the way to the park, and since the food tub was already occupied, the non-refrigerated stuff just sat in a grocery bag. Since mice are often looking for warm places to winter, and are constantly looking for food, our car had to look like the jackpot to our furry little friend.

Even after turning the car upside down (and banging on the driver seat in case he’d made a nest inside), we figured he was hiding safely in any number of nooks and crannies we didn’t know about. This mouse was going to continue making a mess of our car if we didn’t get him out, and the only way that was going to happen was if we trapped him. I sat down to think and make a list…

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 4 – Mouse In Our Car

RealImaginaryWest Day 12 – Too High & Too Dry at Grand Teton National Park

A late start put us in a bind for parking at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center. We were not here long, however, and we did not get to go hiking—but that had nothing to do with parking. Rather, we spent most of the day in Jackson after a visit to St. John’s Medical Center. We returned briefly to Jenny Lake late in the afternoon before heading back to Colter Bay Village. (Ignore the map for now…Google Maps is being dumb 😛 )

Travel Is a Learning Experience

Yes, folks, they say experience is the best teacher. On certain days of this trip, we’ve definitely had an experience that taught us something we’ll never forget. Back in South Dakota, we learned that it’s really nice to have a contingency plan if a thunderstorm rolls through when we’re camping on the Great Plains. Just a couple of days ago, I learned that my lack of planning can easily result in an overtired and unhappy Becky. And this morning, I learned something about spending time at altitude that I will never ever forget. I suppose the “they” who said that experience is the best teacher could also say that travel is the best way to gain experience.

Today’s lesson culminated this afternoon. I say culminated, because the lesson had actually started way back when we arrived in Yellowstone—I just didn’t know. Remember those headaches I’d mentioned over the last two days or so? Yeah, well I went to sleep last night with one, and it was still lingering when I woke up this morning. I’ll explain the connection in a bit…

Slow Start

Yesterday we left Yellowstone National Park and set up camp in Colter Bay Campground in Grand Teton National Park. It was a smooth and uneventful day beyond a little sightseeing. We spent most of the day relaxing and just setting up camp for the next couple of days. We even got to bed at a good time, about 10pm. Aside from the headache I went to bed with, I felt pretty good, and just chalked it up to our altitude at 6,800 feet. Becky too wasn’t feeling 100% herself. Either way, I thought a good night’s sleep would have us feeling better this morning, and we’d get an early start.

Well, we didn’t. I could have felt better, but I felt mostly OK. Becky wasn’t feeling all that great. So rather than arriving bright and early at Jenny Lake to take a shuttle boat across to hike Cascade Canyon, we slept in. This sounds nicer than it felt, since our air mattress was almost completely flat. Becky suspected a slow leak, but I thought tired batteries could also be the culprit. I think we finally got on the road around 10am.

The views of the Tetons along the way were incredible! The morning sun lit Mount Moran and Grand Teton in a totally spectacular and yet totally different way than we saw near dusk the night before. At this point I was totally engaged in the scenery and my photography, as usual…and my morning meh feeling was no longer on my mind.

Mt. Moran as we passed the Willow Flats Overlook, where we stopped last night on the way to Signal Mountain

Grand Teton dominating over the Teton Park Road and the Potholes Turnout

Arriving at Jenny Lake…Sort Of

We arrived at the parking area near the Jenny Lake Visitor Center and the place was completely packed. I knew this was a popular area, but I had no idea how much demand exceeded supply. As Becky drove around the parking lot hunting for a space, I began feeling more and more woozy. I’m sure winding around wasn’t helping, but my heart was starting to beat faster now too. After we passed Willow Flats I noticed I felt a little short of breath and used my albuterol inhaler which helps with my asthma. That can raise my heartbeat, but not usually this much. Things did not feel right and seemed to be getting worse. I told Becky that she had to stop the car. Since there were no parking spaces anywhere in sight, she was a little confused. I told her to just stop somewhere that cars could still pass, because I felt terrible and needed to stop moving.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 12 – Too High & Too Dry at Grand Teton National Park

RealImaginaryWest Day 8 – Buttes, Sulfur & Bear Traffic in Yellowstone

After packing up at the Ponderosa Campground, we got breakfast and hung out a bit in Downtown Cody. Then we stopped by the ginormous Buffalo Bill Center of the West—which was way way bigger than we expected! Next, we drove into Yellowstone National Park, making a quick stop at the Lake Butte Overlook to watch a thunderstorm across Yellowstone Lake. Lastly, we got stuck in bear/bison traffic near the Sulphur Caldron and Hayden Valley on our way to camp at Canyon Campground. This taught us that carpe tempore is the rule when passing restrooms…or trees……

Calm Night in Cody

Today we go from roughly 5,000 feet in elevation at the Ponderosa Campground in Cody, to 7,900 feet at Canyon Village in Yellowstone National Park. Altitude tends to catch up with flatlanders like us above 7,000 feet—also the days and especially the nights are much cooler…eek!

The sun was up around 6am at the Ponderosa Campground, and so was I. We were both fairly well-rested thanks to the calmness of the night. Not only was the weather perfect, but our 60 young neighbors from Teens Westward Bound were awesome too. It was clear that this was a great group of kids! At 6:30 they received their wakeup call from the trip captain: “It’s time to get up, little darlin’s!” she repeated kindly in her North Carolina accent, walking about the camp. I got a chance to talk to her later and ask a few questions. I was especially interested in how they handled inclement weather, as De Smet a few days before was still fresh in mind. They all camped out in the open on tarps and sleeping bags, which meant even less shelter than we had in our tent.

She explained that they had about a week left on a 23-day road trip. They were headed back home to Charlotte, North Carolina through the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore, after already touring the Southwest and California. Young people are not selected willy nilly for this program—these were responsible, academically successful youths. The group from the looks was about 70% girls and 30% boys. Everyone was taught to tarp up properly so that nobody got wet or blew away. The whole purpose of the trip, besides seeing the Western United States, was teaching each and every one of them, from high school sophomore to entering college freshman, that they could do pretty much anything they set out to do!

From what I could see, that thought had sunk in. The group was two weeks from leaving home, and they each awoke without a complaint, in spite of possible homesickness, and even if some of them looked like they could have used a couple more hours asleep.

It was time for Becky and I to get started too. We got in rather late and very tired from the big day’s drive from Rapid City and the rodeo the night before. I was so tired I didn’t even get a chance to take advantage of the electricity available here to dump my camera’s memory cards and charge a few batteries. So I took care of that while we packed up the tent. We got ourselves to breakfast at around 7:30 or 8am.

A Few Hours In Cody

Clouds rolled over Rattlesnake Mountain toward the historic buildings of Downtown Cody early in the afternoon. Peter’s Cafe is on the right about halfway to the first traffic light at 12th Street.

Becky picked out this place in Downtown Cody called Peter’s Cafe & Bakery. All of Downtown Cody is very well put together, with plenty of historic architecture along its spacious main street, Sheridan Avenue. Peter’s was in one of the old buildings here, with a standard American breakfast menu at reasonable prices. The bacon strips were huge and everything on our plate was cooked perfectly. They had a couple of book racks with great titles for customers to read while they eat, like How to Stay Humble When You’re Smarter Than Everybody Else, The Joy of Being Broke, and the one that first caught my eye, How to Share a Bad Attitude, all by Ben Goode. Hilarious stuff! I’m gonna have to check this out more when I get home.

Before we left downtown after breakfast, I shot a couple of panoramas and Becky perused some shops. We have plenty of charming old business districts like this back in Ohio, but few are this large and vibrant—and of course none have the Western flair of Cody. I particularly liked 12th & Sheridan because of the Irma—the hotel opened by Buffalo Bill Cody himself back in 1902.

360-degree panoramas of the central business district of Cody, Wyoming. Click and drag to look around & click the arrows to see a different location. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

Buffalo Bill Center of the West

The humble South Entrance understates the magnificence and expansiveness of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Before we left town, we followed a tip to check out the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. We went into the small South Entrance to pay admission, and found out that this museum is so extensive that each ticket is actually a two-day pass! We explained to the lady at the front desk, Rosalee, that not only would we not be here for two days, but we really only had two hours at most before we drove to our campground in Yellowstone National Park. She was very kind and offered for us to take a few minutes to look around without charge, in order to get a feel for all they had there so we could plan to visit on our next trip.

Let me tell you, this museum is first class, and it is huge! It is actually five museums in one. The Draper Natural History Museum explains the geology, animals, and everything else on the prairies and in the mountains of Wyoming. The Plains Indians Museum shares the history of the native tribes who inhabited the West and the effect of United States settlement. There is of course a museum about the life and legacy of the town’s namesake, Buffalo Bill Cody. They also have the Whitney Western Art Museum and the Cody Firearms Museum as well as special exhibitions. The current exhibition was a firearms loan from the Smithsonian, way back East in Washington—which felt a world away after spending a week in the West.

I’d heard the Buffalo Bill Center was a great museum, but that was an understatement! I had no idea it was on par with museums in big cities like New York or Chicago. Everything I saw here was impressive, and certainly a bargain for the price. Next time we pass through Cody, we’re certainly spending quality time here.

Before we left, I shot a couple of 360-degree panoramas outside, including the Main Entrance where the statue of Buffalo Bill stands. Afterward we re-iced the cooler and refueled to head into Yellowstone.

360-degree panoramas outside the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Click and drag to look around & click the arrows to see a different location. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

Heading Up To Yellowstone

It was just after 1pm when we left Cody, and the weather was transitioning from morning blue skies to early afternoon storms. US-14/16/20 is designated as the Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway from Cody to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Almost the entire route follows the Shoshone River through the Absaroka Mountains, passing by Buffalo Bill Dam, its giant reservoir, Buffalo Bill State Park, and eventually through the Shoshone National Forest.

Just outside Cody, the US highway enters Shoshone Canyon, snakes its way along the river, passes through three tunnels, and finally emerges just past the dam next to the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. The reservoir provides irrigation for agriculture throughout the area. It’s really gorgeous here, even on a rainy day! There are tall mountains all around with gentle brown and sagebrush prairie sloping gently upward from the lake. There were beautiful houses perched partway up the mountainsides with what I’m sure were spectacular views of the river and reservoir amid the mountains. Most land around the north side of the reservoir was part of Buffalo Bill State Park.

Beyond the reservoir, we passed into Wapiti Valley. There are plenty of guest ranches and campgrounds along the highway here that no doubt take advantage of their proximity to both Yellowstone and Cody. After a relatively straight shot from the reservoir, the valley narrows into a canyon and the road begins to wind as we enter Shoshone National Forest and the heart of the Absaroka Range. The road hugs and criss-crosses the North Fork of the Shoshone River for several miles…

Shoshone Canyon, just downstream from Buffalo Bill Dam

We got excited as we approached these two tunnels…but before we knew it, we’d already passed through more than one tunnel. When we realized another tunnel was hidden in between…we got really excited!

US-14/16/20 along the north shore of Buffalo Bill Reservoir

Driving toward the western end of Buffalo Bill Reservoir and Wapiti Valley

Just inside the Shoshone National Forest near Wapiti Wayside

And finally we saw the sign for Yellowstone National Park! At long last I had been able to achieve a nearly life-long dream to tour one of the largest, finest, most renowned parks in the world! It had taken me almost exactly 38 years to finally make the trip. Almost exactly 7 years ago I made it to my first big western national park, Yosemite, and it was positively magical! I’d hoped that Yellowstone would prove to be in its own way just as majestic, profound, and inspiring.

Entering Yellowstone National Park

The East Entrance gate at Yellowstone National Park. The entrance fee here gets you into both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Alternatively, you can get an Annual Pass like the one we bought back at Badlands National Park that gets you into all of the parks for an entire year.

The first thing I thought about when we reached the East Entrance was that it was very quiet! I expected a lot more traffic, especially in the middle of July. Maybe everyone entered through the North Entrance from Montana or flew into Jackson and entered from the south? I was pleasantly surprised to see that the park was mostly uncongested…and I was happy to know that there was a nice little campsite waiting for us in Canyon Village.

Stone guardrails like this one on the East Entrance Road line the steep edges of most roads in Yellowstone, rather than the metal ones typically used. A park should look prettier anyway, right?

Along the way in, you pass deep into virgin mountains, with the only evidence of the hand of man being the road you’re traveling. Rather than standard metal guardrails, most roads here have stone guardrails that remind you that you’re in a national park! After emerging from the giant mountains of the Absaroka Range, the view opens up and you catch your first sight of Yellowstone Lake. The lake was much much larger than I expected it to be, and the terrain around more mountainous. I don’t know why I expected something smaller…maybe it’s because any video I’ve seen just can’t do this place justice.

The entire landscape is covered mostly with sloping grasslands and forests, with occasional rock outcroppings. This was unlike what I saw frequently in the Sierra Nevada, where bald domes and half domes of sheer granite accompanied by spires decorated the landscape like a castle or cathedral.

Just 16 miles to our campground at Canyon Village! No problem, right!?

We stopped along the way at the Lake Butte Overlook, several hundred feet above the shores of Lake Yellowstone. We got an awesome view of an afternoon thunderstorm making its way down mountains on the opposite side of the lake. The area all around has obviously been burned out by a forest fire in the last few years. It felt like a worthy place to first set foot in Yellowstone National Park. After a few moments to look out and around and shoot some panoramas, we headed back down to the East Entrance Road. The road runs right below the overlook and along beaches on the lake’s north shore before coming into Fishing Bridge. We had some rain down along the beaches just before we caught the Grand Loop Road north to Canyon Village.

360-degree panoramas of the Lake Butte Overlook in Yellowstone National Park. Click and drag to look around & click the arrows to see a different location. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

Traffic Was a Real Bear

Who knew a few animals could cause such a stir?

I was able to fill the frame with this bison, it was so close to the road.

Along the road to Canyon Village, bison and elk grazed peacefully in the meadows. Motorists also sat peacefully with their cars, as we ran into our first traffic jam. So much for the park being uncongested! I knew going in that girdlock was fairly common in Yellowstone, and that it usually had nothing to do with bad driving. More often than not, traffic snarls because animals are close to the road, so massive amounts of people stop to take a look and get pictures. Sometimes the animals are on the road—and there’s no coercing a 2,000-pound wild bison to keep moving—so you just have to wait for them to cross. This traffic jam was stop and go for what seemed like miles though…so something big must have been happening!

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 8 – Buttes, Sulfur & Bear Traffic in Yellowstone

RealImaginaryWest Day 3 – On the Banks of Plum Creek & Little Tent on the Prairie

A woman wearing a bonnet looks across Plum Creek and up a hill to a sign that marks the location of the Ingalls dugout house.

We crossed the entire state of Minnesota, stopping in Walnut Grove, the settings for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, On the Banks of Plum Creek and the Little House on the Prairie television series. We then drove to the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota.

I thought this would be a short one today, seeing as our only true destination was our next Laura Ingalls stop, Walnut Grove, Minnesota. We hadn’t planned on staying in Walnut Grove, but rather we intended to carry on to DeSmet, South Dakota, our third and final Laura Ingalls stop. We had six hours of driving to be followed by one day and two nights of exploring DeSmet and relaxing! Unfortunately, our first night in South Dakota did not go quite as we planned…which I’ll get to after a few reflections on the last of our time in Pepin, the drive across Minnesota, and our visit to the Laura Ingalls museum there in Walnut Grove.

Packing Up in Picturesque Pepin

It was our first day packing up the tent and the campsite on this trip, plus we got back to the campsite late after sailing Lake Pepin, so I was nervous about getting a jump on the day. So nervous, actually, that I didn’t bother to shoot a pano of our campsite until after we’d packed the whole thing up. Before we left, I wanted to grab a pano of the waterfront at the center of town. Plus, we had been invited by our new friends from the cruise to brunch, so we thought we’d at least take a few minutes to have coffee with them.

360-degree panorama of our campsite at Lake Pepin Campground. Click and drag to look around. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

It was funny, though…when we went to shoot the pano, we saw Maria from our cruise perusing the streets just soaking everything in and enjoying it. And Pepin really was a very special-feeling place…great for Laura Ingalls lovers, art walks, and bumming along the riverfront. It felt like being at the beach, except it was a river instead of an ocean, and it was Wisconsin instead of the East Coast. Maria hung out with us after I shot the pano, as we were looking for Dave to see if we could find a tool I use to blow the dust off of my lens. She, as everyone else but the captain on the cruise, was from Minneapolis, and told of how she worked for many years with the family business in worldwide shipping. Her family was Greek, and she ran much of the company with her brother until recently when she retired and started her own business as a wellness coach. She shared how she was always more laid back than her brother, and that she really enjoys having a much more zen lifestyle than she had with the craziness of running the shipping business. She certainly seemed to be having a wonderful weekend so far, and it was great to see someone enjoying life like she was.

360-degree panorama at First & Main in Pepin, Wisconsin. Click and drag to look around. Click the top right button to go full-screen.

We then went out to our friends’ farm, about two miles out of town. The family was extremely hospitable, and their farmhouse and all their property was beautifully manicured and had a lot of old-fashioned charm. They were a wonderful family to have met, and we really enjoyed their company! They gave us a few suggestions of sights to see in South Dakota and suggested taking in as much of the Mississippi River as we could.

A highway curves around a tree-covered bluff with a rock outcropping on top

Maiden Rock Bluff along the WI-35 west of Pepin

We decided to take their advice and proceeded to take a slightly more northern route along the river west of Pepin. Then we meandered our way across Minnesota, working our way to US-14 at Nicollet. Minnesota was all rolling hills as far as we could see. Eastern Minnesota was forested with a few farms, giving way to fewer trees and almost exclusively farmland with a few small towns here and there as we proceeded west.

A highway curves past a sign that says 'Lamberton' and a very large barn that has 'Lamberton Stockyards' painted in large lettering across the top.

Approaching Lamberton, one of several small farming towns along US-14 in the Southwest Minnesota prairieland

Walnut Grove’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum

Masonry buildings line both sides of a very wide main street in Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

Downtown Walnut Grove, two blocks off of US-14 and three blocks around the corner from the museum
Cars are parked in front of a wooden building with letters that say 'Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum'.

Outside the main building & gift shop at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota

Eventually we arrived at Walnut Grove. We may have seen about four cars for the last half of that—I’m not sure if that’s because of lack of population density and tourism, or just because it was July 4th. Either way, roads and streets were extremely quiet, and there were very few people at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, which I’m told was wall-to-wall people just the day before.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 3 – On the Banks of Plum Creek & Little Tent on the Prairie