Since we’ve been on the road touring Yellowstone for the last three days, we decided to pay for another day here at Rex Hale Campground, and just relax for the day and maybe plan our next move.
So we got up late and just hung out in the campground. I used some of the time to wash a few sections of the Coach and then the Harley.
I also downloaded all the Road Mate DVR clips onto the laptop. I’ve been using it in the Silverado on our trips through Yellowstone but I don’t think the 2-minute video clips are conducive to using on the blog since most of the files are between 200 and 300 MB in size. I wrote about purchasing this while we were at the FCRV Campvention Rally in Gillette. As I mentioned in that post: “These devices normally mount on your dashboard or windshield to record your trip. The advertisement claims that they are designed for your security, protection, and save the best memories of your trip.” This is all good, but I don’t think I can use any of it in the blog unless I can get the sizing down. More on this in the future maybe…
We also took a long walk and checked out the North Fork Shoshone river that runs next to the campground…
Our grandson Kaan played a lot of MineCraft on his X-Box during the day.
Here he took a break from his video games and played with little Coach…
Little Coach has Kaan down for the count.
And later we burned, I mean toasted, a few marshmallows to make some S’mores.
Kaan toasting some marshmallows (again).
Life is good…
This is how little Coach enjoys a campfire.
And that was our day. Hope yours was good too 🙂
Authors Note: Almost caught up now… check back for an update on our moving day (2 Aug) to Thermopolis, WY where we are now…
On Thursday the 30th we got an earlier start to the day and decided we were finally going to finish the lower loop by turning left at Fishing Bridge and go past Old Faithful, which we saw on our first day.
We drove the 16 miles from our campground to the East Entrance again.
By the way – Here’s a sign listing all the campgrounds within the park. Most are managed by a subcontractor called Xanterra Parks & Resorts Inc. It would be nice to stay at one of the campgrounds within the park and cut down the travel time. We have to travel about 27 miles from the East Entrance to Fishing Bridge over Sylvan Pass each day. But that’s OK 🙂
Campground sign at the East Entrance to Yellowstone NP.
This time we took the 1 mile turnoff up Late Butte Overlook when we got close to Yellowstone Lake. We’d passed this Overlook on our other trips into the park.
As I mentioned before, the east side still shows heavy fire damage from the 1988 ‘Summer of Fire‘.
Kaan, Stilla, and little Coach at Lake Butte Overlook, Yellowstone NP.David, Stilla, and little Coach at Lake Butte Overlook, Yellowstone NP.Odd looking burnt tree at Lake Butte Overlook, Yellowstone NP.
After crossing Fishing Bridge, we turned west to do our clockwise lower loop tour.
By the way – I think they need to rename Fishing Bridge to “No-Fishing Bridge” since it is permanently closed to fishing. That’s just false advertising, don’t you think?
We stopped along the lake a couple more times since the route skirts the northwest edge of the lake until you get to West Thumb.
Here’s another picture of one of the cool old buses that still take people on tours. We saw these many times during our visit to the park. A 1936 National Park Bus.
We passed by Old Faithful since we saw it on Monday and stopped at Black Sand Basin… one of the many geyser stops along the route.
And we stopped at more geysers…
And waterfalls…
And more geysers…
Here’s an Elk trying to hide during the day from the masses of people trying to take pictures (us included).
During one of our stops, Kaan was startled by this female Elk hanging out in a heavily wooded pull-off.
And here’s some more pictures of geysers and stuff we took during our tour of the lower loop around Yellowstone… because you just can’t get enough, right?
We wanted to stop and go swimming but didn’t have the foresight to bring any swim gear 🙁
And we made it! We finally completed the entire lower loop. I think we put about 150 miles on the truck today. Tomorrow, our goal will be the upper loop. We relaxed for the evening with a campfire back at Rex Hale National Forest Campgound.
Authors Note: It is now Monday morning on the 3rd of August and we are in Thermopolis, WY. I’ll try to catch you up with our Yellowstone trip as soon as possible… we didn’t have internet or cell phone coverage the entire time we were at our campground, and only very limited phone connectivity while touring the park.
Check back in for our 31 July northern loop tour which includes Mammoth Hot Springs.
It’s been quite awhile since my last post. We’ve been off the grid without internet or cell phone service since Wednesday the 29th. We left the Ponderosa RV Park in Cody on Wednesday to find one of the campgrounds we scoped out on our first trip into Yellowstone NP that I wrote about HERE. We wanted to be closer to the park so we could take day trips in the Silverado without having to drive over 50 miles just to get to the East Entrance. We did three more trips into Yellowstone on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of July.
But first, I’d like to say – Although this blog is read by family, friends, acquaintances, and even some folks I haven’t yet met; one of the main reasons I do this blog is to provide for a personal record of our adventures and to save these memories for future posterity. In many ways, I think this blog is better than a photo album. Therefore, I’d like to catch you up on our three days in Yellowstone and post some of the many pictures that we took, which constitute our most precious memories into separate posts… one for each day we toured Yellowstone with our grandson. Hopefully, we (and our grandson) can look back on these memories in the years to come in order to relive our travels and adventures.
With that said, let me begin on July 29th (Wednesday) by sharing the nice campground we found just 16 miles from the East Entrance. The Rex Hale Campground is in the Shoshone National Forest.
We scored a 50 Amp site with water. Yes, I said a 50 Amp site… something that’s almost unheard of in national forest campgrounds We took site 11.
The nightly fee was only $10 since I have a disabled veterans golden access pass.
The camp hosts were the nicest couple. Gene and Kay Onstine. Gene told us they’ve been hosting here for years. He took the time to point out some of the rock formations and the ‘faces’ you could see with a little imagination.
Here’s our site… We left the slides in and the satellite dish down while we were away because the camp host warned us about hefty gusts of wind that come through the canyon without warning.
And our view…
Our closest neighbor was this deer in our ‘backyard’…
After we got set up in our site we decided to drive on into Yellowstone even though we knew it was a late start. This time we took our little dog “Coach” along.
Today, we wanted to turn right at Fishing Bridge and see how much of the lower loop we could do in a counter-clockwise fashion. You may recall that we tried the clockwise direction on our Monday trip, but we only made it as far as Old Faithful before the rain and lateness of the day forced us to turn back. Well, today wasn’t much different (except the weather was nice) because we only made it as far as Canyon Village before it got too late to continue on.
But before we even got very far out of the campground… I ran out of gas in the Silverado!
Out of gas.
We were only a mile (or less) from the gas station at Pahaska Tepee which is only a couple miles from the East Entrance.
We forgot to fuel up before we hooked up the truck behind the Coach to tow it to the campground. We thought about it when we unhooked the truck but figured we could make it to the nearest gas station. Luckily, I had a gallon can (empty of course) and I was able to flag down the first car that came by. The nice couple took my gas can, filled it up, and brought it back to us in a matter of 10 minutes. I was tempted to download the Harley to go get gas, but didn’t have to, thanks to the nice couple in their Porsche Cayenne that stopped to help us.
And then we toured around the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River area. There were several different pullouts, loops, and scenic drives in and around this beautiful ‘grand’ area of Yellowstone Park.
At the Canyon Village area, we toured the gift shop, general store, and visitors center.
We saw buffalo, antelope, elk, and even bears throughout the day. The bears were too far off to get a good picture.
And here’s some more pictures back at our campground in the evening.
Another great evening with a full moon.
Author’s note: It’s late Sunday night as I finish up this post and we are in Thermopolis, WY. I’ll try to get caught up as soon as possible with Yellowstone posts about the 30th, 31st, and then our day of ‘just hanging around’ the campground on the 1st of August. Then I have to catch you up on our trip here to Thermopolis on the 2nd.
