Island Park and Northeast Idaho

An American Pelican near the Snake River in Island Park ID

On June 2nd, 2012, we headed out of West Yellowstone, towards our new home for the week, The Island Park Village Resort http://www.islandparkvillageresort.com/ . We decided to use a week from our time share bank and get off the road to pamper ourselves a bit. This place is a bit of heaven. A condo community surrounded by a golf course and with tennis, swimming pool, sauna, bikes, you name it, at your finger tips. We thought it'd be fun to just hang out and explore a place we'd never even heard of. Well, lots of other folks from nearby and way far away have heard of Island Park. If you fly fish this is ground zero! There were people all over in the rivers doing the national sport here. Food? If you like Trout (as Mary Ann does), you've come to ground zero for the local delicacy. The little Island Park Lodge http://www.islandparklodge.org/index.html serves up some of the best we tried. I even had some fresh Halibut, and it was perfect also. This is not upscale cooking, but cooking with the freshest ingredients and keeping the preparation basic to let the natural flavors come through. Simple idea, but not so easy to execute! The Trout is caught within a few miles of this place. On my birthday, Mary Ann had to come up with the best burger place around (my usual request for my birthday and New Years Eve dinner). That honor went to Boondocks.  A great, juicy burger and a glass of wine....ahhh. Life is good. 

Boondocks

There are many more surprisingly good eating places in this mostly rural vacation spot. We're looking to a return sometime to try some. Our week off the road, with Harvey parked basically right in front of our condo, went by like a flash. We toured around the area lakes and streams, crossed over the beautiful Snake River a lot, saw another moose on a hike, and drove down to Idaho Falls ( a mere 60 miles to civilization) for some shopping, banking, and a quick look around. On the morning of the 5th of June, we woke up to a pretty solid snow, so we had a snow day. We put on a fire in the fireplace and didn't work much. It was pretty surreal talking to people in Texas who were complaining about the 100+ degree temperatures though. Our next move, after this little vacation from the rigors of our chosen lifestyle (we kid!) is to go back around to do that extended visit of The Tetons. After all, we're still in the area. Only trouble is we can't seem to find a good place to stay near Jackson Hole. Mary Ann was browsing some magazines when she stumbled onto an ad in the back of one of them. It read something like..MOOSE CREEK RANCH, weddings, events, horseback riding, beautiful setting, 3 rv hookups. She showed it to me and said, "Call. Maybe this is the place we're looking for." I did. It was. Can't wait to tell you about it next.....

Yellowstone...We bear all on this one

Bubbling minerals from beneath Yellowstone's surface

It's May 29th, 2012, and we are driving from Themopolis,WY. now, trying to beat those feisty and harried TOURISTS into Yellowstone! The race was on. We are taking the Southern route in, through The Grand Teton National Park, and up, because the East entrance was still closed due to heavy snow from the previous few days. Harvey's wheels were burning up the road so fast, we both were reminded of our first (and the newbiest of newbie) long trip on
to San Fransisco three years ago. Dallas to Marin County in about four days. What were we thinking? Driving as if possessed by the ghost of Evel Knievel. When we first layed eyes on The Tetons, we just came back to our good senses and remembered why we RV...and we slooowwwed down to bask in the amazing sight out our left windows. Mary Ann said, "We are coming back over here for a closer and longer visit." The rest of the drive up into Yellowstone was awe inspiring too. There were tall trees, beautiful lakes, and the mountains seemed to be closing in with every mile. Our first night in Yellowstone was at a park that has no hook ups (for you non RV'ers, electricity, water, sewer connection) at all. You're totally using all your internal systems, and it was wonderful. We were parked near the big lake and there were great views all around. We had dinner, took a little hike, and read a bit, then turned out the lights early for our first day of seeing the park. Goodnight.......WHOA! What was that bump?

Mama Grizzly print (measured
 more than 10 inches)
on Harvey's door....WHOA!

We both felt something shake Harvey just as we were falling asleep. It stopped, so we continued into the dream state. The next morning, I opened the door and noticed a print on it,  a bear print. A BIG print..from a BIG bear! We reported it to a ranger, and he said they'd like to see the picture. A mama Grizzly had been seen around the camp but, so far, had not tried to make any contact. Well, we decided to leave it alone, but here's the proof. 

Other than that excitement, we did see more bears...from afar. Some cubs were spotted playing near the road near us, we saw lots of Buffalo and Elk, and toured all corners of the park for the next three days. After the first night, we moved to an RV sight that does have all the amenities. We should have stayed where we started out. This RV park was four times more expensive, very cramped, and not nearly as scenic. By the way, I wouldn't say we had the place to ourselves, but it was not very crowded at that early part of the season, and our rush to get there was unfounded. Yellowstone is huge, unique, and quite beautiful. Would we visit again? Maybe, but only after we'd seen all the others national parks.

On the Road to Yellowstone..Spring/Summer 2012

Mt. Rushmore at night

After another quick stop in Omaha, we stayed basically along the same route that Lewis and Clark took, up the Missouri River basin through Nebraska and then a left in Sioux City,Iowa to pick up Interstate 80 and then toward South Dakota. It's now mid May 2012, and our next overnight stop was a little detour off I-80 to South Dakota's capital city of Pierre. We noticed an RV parking area right on the banks of the Missouri before you drive over the bridge into the town center. There was no one else there but after checking around, we found a space that actually had electricity and water that worked and we hooked up. After making dinner at home, we drove into town and looked at all the cozy little houses, the state capital building and offices, and saw the little movie theater with a nice sized crowd waiting in line to buy tickets. Of course this was our chance to interact with the locals so we got in line and went to the movies. It's a small town so we saw nobody texting in the theater, no one talked loud when the show began, nearly everyone smiled, and a few of them even said "hi", probably wondering who we were. We notice that sort of thing a lot in small towns we visit. We're still not used to it either, coming from the big city. There is a difference. It's a little perk for being on the road...like going back in time. Anyway, the next morning, after looking around at the park near our camp and reading the signs about the Lewis and Clark Expedition camping there too, over 200 years ago, we headed back toward I-80 to pick up our trek west to Rapid City.
We made our next major stop in Rapid City, after a night in Wall, SD to visit the famous Wall Drug. This place has been around with highway signs on I-80 since the 1930's. Some folks think it a tourist trap, but we found it fun and worth the stop. It covers about a third of the little town center, offers 5 cent coffee and handmade donuts in the morning, and, well there's so much stuff about it on the web, you can look for yourself http://www.walldrug.com/t-history.aspx/ .
Rapid city is a good sized town of around 70,000 and is the gateway to Mount Rushmore and The Black Hills. Our visits (twice, once during the day and also at night!) were awe inspiring...better than the pictures you see! We took a day trip to The Badlands National Park and did a little hiking, and spent quite a bit of time exploring the revitalized downtown in Rapid City. There are neat restaurants (best one we stopped in was Tallys Silver Spoon http://tallyssilverspoon.com/#f07/custom_plain),

President Reagan in front of Tallys Silver Spoon

shops, and park areas all around, and the town has a very good and active feel, even at night. There are statues of the presidents scattered all over downtown, with lots of benches to sit and pass the time at a bit slower pace than the big city (here we go again). Next, it's on to Sheridan, Wyoming, another surprisingly cool little city. This place has lots of uptown vibe also, especially for a much smaller population center (around 17,000). Sheridan's city center boasts lots of good eateries and coffee places (if you're there, check out Red Velvet http://www.facebook.com/RedVelvetBakeryAndTapas). We even walked in to one eating place and noticed the baked goods for sale in their little bakery section. We asked if they could bake us some fresh bread (we were having a tough time finding some REAL bread, without any funny stuff in it!!) and they did. We picked it up the next morning, and they told us they baked two loaves for us. It was still warm. Need we say any more? After exploring downtown, it was time for another day trip. This time to The Bighorn National Forest. This drive takes you through some of the most scenic and diverse land that we visited in the gorgeous State of Wyoming. No photos can do it justice, and the main attraction was our first Moose sighting! We were driving back towards home and there he (or she) was, just standing in a field, not too far off the road. Another traveler stopped, walked over to us and looked quizzically..."Is that a........M? "Yep! We both replied at the same time." We stared a few moments and then back on our way. He looked almost out of place to us. It could almost have been an Elephant or Giraffe. We've seen several more since, but that first one was really neat. After a week in Sheridan and getting to really know the place, it was finally time to start moving closer to Yellowstone. We wanted to get there before the big tourist rush because we'd heard the stories of rush hour like traffic.

The drive between Sheridan and Thermopolis, with a short stop in the cool little town of Buffalo, was harrowing. Harvey had no problem climbing the 10,000 foot pass with Smarty in tow, but near the top we ran into a rain, wind, and snow storm that was blowing good sized rocks (one about 10 inches diameter) on to the road. They were falling off the sides of the steep cliffs and besides the fact that we were on a narrow, two lane winding road, chiseled along the mountain, there was nowhere to go except over the cliff. We did make it through with a sigh of relief.

Downtown Buffalo,Wy

 Soon after that, we reached Thermopolis, Wyoming, to visit the mineral baths. This was a very fun place to spend a night or two. Besides their quaint little downtown area with  a couple of good restaurants, the state park mineral baths are locally famous and terrific. To be fair to all and to follow the wishes of the Indian tribes in the area who lent the land, everyone gets 20 minutes in the water. Not sure if they're as therapeutic as some think, but it sure feels terrific to soak in 104 degree mineral water for awhile. While relaxing in the hot water, we were disrupted by a scene straight out of one of the Chevy Chase Vacation movies! A family from Wisconsin all jumped into the pool at the same time, announcing.."We're goin' to Yellowstone and all have to be back in the car and dried off in 30 minutes!! We can drive two more hours before stopping again. HURRY!!!" Whew, our leisurely trip towards Yellowstone suddenly notched way up into another gear. Gotta beat those tourists!!!!!!!!!!!! We managed to calm ourselves down, but did leave the next morning and dead-headed straight to Yellowstone.