From Yellowstone to Primus

Hey everybody,

Whoa… I have to say, it’s going to be hard to top three national parks in one week.  I  mean, I’ve seen some cool stuff on this trip, but the natural beauty that’s crammed into Montana and especially Wyoming is unbelievable.  When I drove into Yellowstone National Park, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  It’s one of those places that you hear so much about that you almost expect to be disappointed, but that was far from the case.  When I drove over a hill and finally got my first view of Yellowstone Lake, I laughed.  I don’t know if this happens to everybody, but there are times when I’ll see or experience something so spectacular that it just invokes a strange, giddy laughter.  It’s some sort of primal euphoria, I suppose.  Well, there were plenty of those moments not only in Yellowstone but in the other national parks I visited over the course of the following week.  The pictures, and there are quite a few of them, do not do them justice by any stretch.  If you don’t like lakes, wildlife, and long views of nature, though, you can skip the pictures and go hook yourself back up to Skynet.  The only downside of that first night at Yellowstone is that I wasn’t exactly prepared for the temperature to dip below freezing while I was camping out near Bridge Bay.  There are a few thoughts that go through your mind when it’s 30 degrees in your tent you can’t sleep at 2 AM, such as “Why can’t I feel my face” or “Why didn’t I spend the extra 30 bucks for the better sleeping bag” or “What would Bear Grylls do” but after a few minutes of pondering that last question I couldn’t see how it would help the situation if I were to drink my own piss.

Nice Tetons The next day I drove out to Idaho Falls to pick up ChrisP (Crispy) who had driven out from the bay area to spend the week with me in this spectacular part of the country.  Our first destination was Victor, Idaho, home of Grand Teton brewing.  When I decided to take this road trip across the U.S., one of the first places I put on my must-see list was this brewery.  Every beer they produce that I’ve tried has been great, and the range of brews we sampled at their taproom did not disappoint.  Best beer I’ve had on this trip, hands-down, across the board.  We then drove into Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is a town that people with lots of money use as a jumping-off point for skiing in the winter and visiting parks in the summer.  From there the first park on our circuit was Grand Teton, which is named after the mountain range that it encompasses.  It’s much smaller than Yellowstone so we had plenty of time to get out and hike around a lake or two and up one of the larger hills for some great views of the valley and the mountains.

The next day it was back to Yellowstone for a full day wandering around all possible roads in that park.  There are a ton of beautiful meadows, rivers and lakes in that park, and some really interesing sulfuric pools, but the one place that unexpectedly ranked toward the top was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  It sports some really interesting colors in the rock that are reminiscent of the southwest along with a beautiful blue river and waterfall.  What I would say is that you can avoid is pretty much the entire north loop, although we did see a couple of black bear cubs roaming in the grass.  Of course, we had to check out Old Faithful geyser, the iconic emblem of the park.  It’s obviously the most visited part of the park as evidenced by the two lodges, restaurant, and general store within a couple hundred yards of the geyser.  They’ve even set up rows of benches so that the hundreds of people waiting for an eruption have someplace to sit.  And believe me, when you get a load of some of the characters sitting around the geyser it’s hard to believe that they made it on foot from the parking lot.  Anyhow, the eruption itself was cool, but I wouldn’t place it anywhere near the top of the list of the attractions of the park.  People like predictability, I suppose.

The next day we drove to Missoula, where the plan was to visit a couple of breweries and then check out the Primus concert that was being held outside of Big Sky brewing.  We hadn’t bought any tickets, but Crispy was sure that we could get them at the door because “Who’s going to see Primus in Montana?  It’s Montana!”  Well apparently there are more than 3000 fans of Primus in the Missoula area because the show was sold out, which led to Angry Crispy making an appearance for about 15 minutes.  Everything worked out ok though… we bought a six-pack and hung out in the parking lot for the entire concert where we could hear perfectly and see everything, only smaller. In the span of two days we saw a moose, bison, bears, and Wynona’s big brown beaver.  Also, here’s an interesting fact about Missoula… it has a population of 75,000 and 5 breweries in town with another 5 in the surrounding area.  Yeah.  We liked Missoula.

Glacier National Park was the next destination, which was supposed to be the likeliest place for us to see some bears.  The main road going through the park was closed about halfway up the mountain due to the fact that snow was still blocking the road, but again… lakes, waterfalls, and forests provided a fantastic backdrop.  We drove around the park and up to one of the more remote areas with some unexpectedly rough dirt roads over to Bowman Lake while I profusely apologized to my car the entire way.  It poured rain on and off all day so the driving conditions were tougher than normal.  When we finally got to the lake, though, we had one of those sublime periods of complete stillness in nature, where there are no other people around and it’s just you and an entire lake.  That’s until the dad and his two little kids came out from the parking lot to try and catch some fish for the evening.  It had been a really long day and it was already 7 PM when we decided to head back toward some sort of civilized society where we could find lodging.

I’m going to take a minute now to tell you how much I love my Garmin GPS.  That thing has been a rock-solid partner for me the entire trip and has led me out of some really weird jams.  I do talk back to it sometimes, especially when it’s telling me to make a u-turn where I can’t make a u-turn.  I should’ve never switched the voice to a UK-English female.  I thought it’d be sexier, but instead it sounds more stern and matronly. It makes me feel like a disappointment when I miss an exit.  Anyhow, the one problem with Garmin is that it knows almost too much.  It has a database of all sorts of crazy roads that you would never take unless you had a detailed topographical map.  So when you tell it that you want to head toward Whitefish, it tries to find the most direct route, which can involve strange forest roads with names like “NF-1629.”  So we’re driving down one of these dirt roads and it’s getting on in the evening and we’re pulling out some maps and figuring out if Garmin is full of shit and we turn the corner and there’s this huge four-legged monster running down the road and it tears off into the forest and Crispy and I flip out because WE JUST SAW A FUCKING GRIZZLY BEAR!!!!   YAAAAAAH!  That thing had to be at least 4 feet high at the shoulder on four legs and was hauling ass at about 15 miles an hour.  Dude… I was so amped.  There was no trace after it leaped into the trees so we continued up the road for another 10 miles or so until we found out… it was snowed in.  I’m talking a wall of snow completely blocking the road going up the mountain through the pass.  I can’t really blame that on Garmin but dammit, now we had to turn around and drive all the way back to the park entrance about 40 miles away.  So we’re driving back down the dirt road, frustrated, looking at maps, getting hungry, and I turn the corner and THERE’S ANOTHER FUCKING BLACK BEAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PATH!  It turns around and starts tearing down the road while Crispy and me are fumbling for the camera and then it’s gone into the forest.  Dammit!  Bears!  That one was smaller than the first but nevertheless a godless killing machine.  And yes, it was exactly that awesome.

We spent the night in Whitefish, another small, friendly mountain town where I’d be happy to return, then headed back to Missoula which I’m sure is a surprise to no one.  Hey, there were a couple of breweries that we didn’t try the first time.  Then came the turd-like part of the week:  the drive through Idaho.  I’m sure that there are nice parts to Idaho, maybe Sun Valley or someplace in the north, but if anyone ever asks you to drive across the south or west of Idaho, tell them you’ll fly.  The one notable destination across central Idaho is the Craters of the Moon National Monument, an expanse of volcanic rock and ash encompassing 75 square miles.  I’ll be honest, after what we saw the previous few days we were underwhelmed, but I think you’ll agree after watching the following video that Craters of the Moon has at least one spectacular view:

http://youtu.be/gffKf4MdBvQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gffKf4MdBvQ

So after an eventful night listening to the hypnotic sounds of meth heads outside the Motel 6 in Twin Falls, Crispy and I had to part ways, and I spent all day driving through more uninspiring territory in Idaho and eastern Oregon.  Well, at least I have these pictures to look back on.  Enjoy!

Take ‘er easy,
Dave