It's not just about a bike

21 July 2018

Day twenty Fireside RV park, Buffalo springs to Fishing Bridge RV park - 137 miles

Today’s adventure took us into Yellowstone National Park. This is America's oldest National Park and if today was anything to go by, the busiest.
We got rolling just before 8am and after a couple of photo stops of Grand Teton on the way.

Final views of Grand Teton

We arrived at our first stop for the day the Old Faithful area. I was planning on visiting some other parts of the park but by the time we had got Fiona underway with her junior ranger program and gone for a walk we didn’t manage to hit up much else in the park. Though that just gives us an excuse to come back to see more.

Old Faithful

Old Faithful was worth the wait though, I personally enjoyed seeing the other smaller geysers on the walk we did along with the hot pools.

more colours

Even more cool colours!

The other thing that we did today was cross the continental divide 5 times. I did manage to get this photo of Baby Groot about to cross the divide for the fifth time.

Baby Groot could use a little more power at this height.

Trip Stats

Total miles 4521
Bear count
13 black
0 brown

20 July 2018

Day nineteen Idaho Falls to Fireside RV park, Buffalo springs - 166 miles

Today we crossed out of Idaho and into Wyoming. We were heading to Grand Teton National Park. After a false start heading towards the park on a road that RV’s are not allowed on we made it into the park.
(Pic)
We enjoyed a fantastic hike around Jenny lake with a boat ride at the end. Grandma and Granddad Dennis saw a black bear and we all saw another bear further along the trail.
(Pic)
The park was impressive and we also saw some Pronghorn, Deer and I think a fox. All in all a great day in the park.

Trip Stats

Total miles 4384
Bear count
13 black
0 brown

18 July 2018

Day eighteen Mountain Home to Idaho Falls - 227 miles

The days are starting to blur a little, especially when we started driving on US20 again today. Then we started up into some foothills and the scenery changed considerably.

You can see the road we drove in the distance.

Our big stop for the day was Craters of the moon National monument. Again we found ourselves saying Wow what an incredible place.

Our first sight of the lava.

Witches broom

More lava

hiking up a cinder cone

Lava bomb

Tree molds

Tree mold

The weather was once again amazing, we have really been lucking out on this trip. Our day finished up a campsite in Idaho Falls (Snake River RV Park and campground), this site has a pool so we took advantage, it also has all you can eat pancakes in the morning.

Trip Stats

Total miles 4218
Bear count
11 black
0 brown

17 July 2018

Day seventeen Bend to Mountain Home - 365 miles

Today was a lot of driving and not much else. It was also the warmest day so far.

Yep it's a little warm here.

We had breakfast out, at a great diner in Bend called Sargent's Cafe. Following breakfast it was off to Fred Meyer for a little shopping and to refuel baby Groot.
We then hit the road at around 10am and drove mostly on highway 20 which was flatish and straight for around 120 miles.

First stop, no photo from lunch time it was too warm :D

Then more undulating and twisty for the next 120miles. Soon after that we crossed over into Idaho. Interstate 84 was smooth and fast, I didn’t know the speed limit was 80mph on the Interstate, I’m not comfortable driving that fast in Baby Groot but 75mph is great.
We also crossed over onto Mountain Time so are now only one time zone away from Amanda :D

Trip Stats

Total miles 3991

Bear count
11 black,
0 brown

16 July 2018

Day sixteen Stewart state park campground to Bend - 190miles

Today was a volcano day, we started off at gorge near where we camped. It is thought that it was created by a lava tube collapsing.

Collapsed Lava tube

The gorge

Next on our trip was Crater Lake NP. WOW! On a bluebird day the views were simply amazing.

Wizard Island

Panoramic shot

more pretty flowers

Following Crater Lake we headed to an old lava river cave, which is a mile long lava tube. It was 42F in the tube or cold compared to the 90F outside. we had a blast!