USA Road Trip -Yellowstone National Park & Montana

  Helena, Montana Friday, August 21, 2015

Day 10 - Wednesday 19th August we slept really well in our little log porta-cabin last night and dragged our heels getting out the door, using the wifi and taking another long hot shower - just because we could! We drove the short distance from Irwin to Jackson across a scenic mountain road. Jackson is a very pretty, very touristy, small town. Everything is built around the square in the centre and everything looks as if it's been designed by a Cowboy Western TV company. It's fab! The man in the visitor centre sold us some bear spray as we will be camping in our tent in bear country for the first time tonight. Then he demonstrated how to use it and how to fight a bear if we have to. Thanks mister but lets hope we don't need to remember anything you told us. We drove to our campground a few of miles out of town and on the way we were going down a gravelly track where a herd of bison crossed our path. Wow - where are the cowboys and their lassos when you need one? After a dip in the natural hot water springs, we decided to head back into town as at 6pm every evening, the local theatre group put on a shoot-out show in the square. Quite a crowd had gathered and the cast were chatting to everyone and selling popcorn beforehand. The show was a bit cheesy but hey it was free and the young actors were enthusiastic so we enjoyed it. From there we went to the Cowboy Millennium Bar for a beer. We had heard that the bar stools were saddles and you sit at the bar as if you were on your horse. Guess what? It was true! Shame about the beer though - we didn't really like it. Whilst we were waiting for our table in the restaurant to be ready, we wandered around the town for a bit soaking up the atmosphere. This place is really designed for tourists and in the winter becomes a fabulous ski resort too. We'd love to see it covered in snow. We also found a very authentic hat shop selling genuine stetsons and cowboy hats in all shapes and sizes. They even blinged some up. We had been looking for great hats and we both found the perfect fit for us and went off to our restaurant looking more like cowboys. We fit in well now.Day 11 - Thursday 20th August Having survived a really cold night with no interruptions from any bears, we were off really early as we really wanted to get a trek in and head to Yellowstone Park. The area we were in was called Teton National Park and Jenny Lake lay a bit further up the road from where we had camped. There is still a haze hanging around from the forest fires across the mountains but it seemed to be a bit clearer this morning so we should get some nice photographs. The lake was very picturesque and we set off with our bear spray again to trek the path around it before the day got too hot. However, conscious of the time (it was taking us longer than we thought it would as we kept stopping to take photographs every 5 minutes!) we decided to take a short cut and when we were half way around, we jumped on the shuttle boat back. We left Teton and into Yellowstone. Every National Park here has an entry fee but the nice man in Jackson who had sold us our bear spray, had also helped us upgrade our original entry pass we had bought, into an annual all-Parks pass so that is going to save us a fortune! Yellowstone National Park is very different from Teton National Park. Even though we were still in the Rocky Mountains the scenery definitely took on a difference and was also very pretty. There seem to be more trees here. There is practically no towns or inhabitants either. You just get these little areas built into clearings which are like one stop shops for petrol, restaurant, gifts and groceries. We also stopped briefly as we passed an area where clearly many people stopped to look but we couldn't see what they were looking at. So we doubled back and found a thermal basin with lots of hot springs and sulphuric pools. It was very pretty. An hour later we got on our way again but as we were leaving we doubled back again. There at the side of the road was a young moose chomping away at the grass. What a day this was turning out to be. We observed for a few minutes and continued on our way to our campsite at Bridge Bay. It took us ages to find a pitch that would accommodate our tent and the car together - they like to put the car in a parking space and put the tent off to one side. But we found one and set ourselves up. It was very open where we were and we had noticed the Bison grazing amongst the trees as we came in so it was very pretty. Hopefully bears are scared of bison but we put all our food and utensils into the bear box anyway We cooked on our campfire and made hot chocolate before hitting the hard floor again. We wrapped ourselves up a bit more tonight as it was getting very cold and we got the extra blanket out! Day 12 - Friday 21st August We didn't sleep too well. Car alarms kept going off all night and we just hoped it wasn't bears breaking into peoples cars for food. We had been warned about leaving anything in your car here, the bears have learned how to break car windows to get what they want out of them. When we crawled out of bed there was ice over everything and it seems like we were the only ones up at 6am. The sunrise was pretty though and we sat in the car with the heated seats on whilst the kettle boiled. Smart! Our first stop this morning was about an hours' drive away to see The Old Faithful Geyser. Now this one is supposed to go off every 90 minutes so it was going to be a cert we would arrive 5 minutes after he had just gushed. We did. 9:30 we arrived - just as as he finished gushing so we had a full hour and a half to sit and wait for him to go again. As the crowds gathered and people sat to wait alongside us, we overheard a conversation between two couples. The young couple were telling the other couple about how they hadn't slept too well at their campsite last night as a bison was using their car as a scratching post all night - and kept setting the alarm off! Well that solved one riddle for us. Old faithful put on a show for us at 10:50am - almost exactly when they said it would. This one is real though and unlike another Geyser we knew of on the other side of the world, this one is not controlled by the people who own the land and want to sell you a ticket to see it spurt. Here, once you have paid your entry fee into the park, all the attractions inside are free. So old Faithful goes when he goes! We stopped briefly at Norris Geyser Basin too but keen to keep moving we didn't walk the entire site as it was huge and would have taken us hours. Eventually we came out of Yellowstone and into Montana. And wow! How impressed were we with Montana? It was simply stunning. Very open and wild but it had a real beauty to it that Wyoming did not. We drove for miles and miles again today and the scenery went on further than the eye could see; all of it just beautiful. In some places it has just been heart stoppingly beautiful that we really find hard to describe. Its the sense of it being so vast and so beautiful that had us in awe of it we suppose. We have taken hundreds of pictures but only put a few of them on here for you. We had both been cold last night and although we had showered at our campsites, were both felt like we needed a bed tonight so using McDonalds again a. as they are everywhere and b. as they have free wifi in them, we stopped at one along the way to find some accommodation. Air B&B to the rescue again and we headed for Helena. We had never heard of it but it turns out it's the Capital of Montana and has a population of 28,000 which is 1/10th the size of Swindon. And it's really sweet. It sits in the mountains which unfortunately had been cloaked in the haze from the forest fires as the day went on. Laura had text us to say she wouldn't be in but the house was unlocked just make ourselves at home and don't mind the dog. It amazes us how trusting people are here. Not that we are not to be trusted of course but it's great to know that places like this still exist in the world. We found her house ok and then we found her not saying just help yourself to any beer or wine you want from the fridge too! Amazing. We didn't though - we just really wanted a good shower and a cup of tea. You can take the Brits out of Britain....! Laura's house was beautiful and very homely. Later in the evening she and her boyfriend Chris came home and they were great. It really felt like we were staying with friends not complete strangers. They admitted that Laura had only just put her room on AirB&B that week and we were their very first guests. Well Laura, we really hope it wasn't so bad and that we haven't put you off doing it again! [gallery columns="4" ids="11051,11052,11053,11054,11055,11056,11057,11058,11059,11060,11061,11062,11063,11064,11065,11066,11067,11068,11069,11070,11071,11072,11073,11074,11075,11076,11077,11078,11079,11080,11081,11082,11083,11084,11085,11086,11087,11088,11089,11090,11091,11092,11093,11094,11095,11096,11097"]