Back to a wilderness of marvelous ferns

Day 13
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Kent, WA to Packwood, WA
119 miles

Check-out time at the Seattle-Tacoma KOA was 11 AM and we didn’t make it! Emily was exhausted after three days of sleep deprivation and we decided to let her sleep it off. By the time you feed four people breakfast, take showers and break down a household for transit, 11 AM can still seem early.

Fortunately, our planned trip today was shorter than average. Although it was just a bit longer than 100 miles, it took almost four hours because the roads to Mount Rainier were so dark and twisty (words chosen for Emily’s sake—a reference to Grey’s Anatomy). We drove much of the way at speeds below 40 MPH. The last half of the trip took us through very thick, dense, evergreen forests that reminded everyone of the places where Twin Peaks and Twilight were filmed.

Our destination was Ohanapecosh Campground on the southern edge of Mt. Rainier National Park. Words cannot do justice to the setting where we camped. Our site backed up to a 25-foot embankment at the base of which was the Ohanapecosh River, a 50-foot-wide, fast-flowing, brilliant bluish-green mountain torrent. The sound of the water rushing over rocks and logs was quite loud, yet soothing—a marked contrast to the traffic noise at the KOA in Kent.

By the time we arrived at the park, the sun had broken through the cloud cover. We have noticed a pattern in this region where days break overcast and then the sun comes out in the mid afternoon. This is the opposite of what we knew in Maryland. If you have a shot at a cloudless sky at home it is almost always at daybreak and soon thereafter.

We set up our trailer in a grove of 180-foot-tall firs and pines spaced about 5 to 30 feet apart. It was the kind of place where very little grows on the ground between the trees, and the earth was made soft under foot by a thick build-up of pine needles. Think Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland, on steroids. We had read reviews online which said Ohanapecosh was especially beautiful and we found it exceeded its reputation.

After setting up, Elliot and Frank took a 2-mile hike upstream and back through a forest of massive trees to Silver Falls, which was about 100 feet tall. Elliot said, “In Columbia, when you walk through the woods you see maybe a few really big trees; here all of them are huge.” Although it remained dry here for our first day, there is ample evidence that this was typically a very moist place. The high, dense canopy which filters out sunlight coupled with frequent rains makes this a natural habitat for mosses and ferns. Most of the forest floor was covered with ferns of many varieties, including, according to a Park Service ranger-naturalist we spoke to, licorice, sword, maidenhair, deer, lady and oak. In places where slopes faced the north, the entire forest floor was covered in a carpet of moss.

Along the way to Silver Falls, we took a short side trial to Hot Springs, a geothermal rivulet that ran downhill toward the creek. Algae in beautiful turquoise, gold and indigo hues grew in the cascading hot water.

We cooked and ate our dinner on the largest picnic table any of us had seen—it could have easily held eight people per side—only a few feet from the edge of the embankment and overlooking the river.

We then lit a campfire and roasted marshmallows. We all went to bed at 10 PM when the sun went down. Frank read to the rest of the family the first chapter of Sasquatch by Roland Smith, set in the Mount Saint Helens region (here). The campground was DARK and CHILLY overnight—perfect for sleeping.

Tomorrow: “The Mountain” (as Mt. Rainier is referred to by people throughout the Seattle region)

Cloudless in Seattle (finally!)

Day 12
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sightseeing by consensus

We slept a little later than in past days and took our time with breakfast. The morning sky was overcast, just like yesterday, but no rain.

We had a family powwow, discussed our options for ways to spend our last day in Seattle and reach a consensus. We would split up. Sessy and Elliot chose to visit the Seattle Art Museum while Frank and Emily set out to explore the Alki neighborhood in West Seattle.

The museum featured exhibits on Andy Worhal and Kurt Cobain (pictured below) that Elliot and Sessy found interesting. Cobain was a native of Washington State. They also saw myriad contemporary pieces, including a sculpture in green plastic bottles of a man, as well as some traditional, local, Native American objects, such as totem poles.

Frank and Emily parked along Alki Avenue near Alki Beach and took a walk. This neighborhood felt very “Californian” to Frank. A sandy beach along Puget Sound with the Seattle Skyline to the east provided a focal point for an eclectic mix of houses, apartment buildings and small businesses that stretched for several miles along an uninterrupted right-of-way. Very steep hills extended up several hundred feet starting from just across the road from the beach. Many hundreds of buildings dotted the hillsides on terraced lots that gave almost all of them views of the water below. Emily and Frank ran up some public stairs to the top of the neighborhood and then found their way back down the narrow, twisting streets. Once back down at beach level, we watched several games of 2-on-2 volleyball that were being played by men and women alike. Some games were obviously very competitive and the level of play was quite high.

Frank and Emily’s trip back to pick up Sessy and Elliot was delayed by a Saturday morning traffic jam caused by the Seattle Marathon. We saw bib numbers as high as 13,700, and judging by the number of people running on the double-decked portion of Washington Route 99, a main drag along the Seattle waterfront, we had no trouble believing that thirteen thousand people were participating.

Once reunited, we set out for REI headquarters on Yale Avenue. As it turns out, REI is only one of dozens of major corporations that started in the Seattle area. Others include Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft, Expedia, Jones Soda, Mikes Hard Lemonade, Cray, Amazon.com, Nordstrom, Union Bay, T-Mobile, Weyerhaeuser, Tommy Bahama, Nintendo, Cinnabon, Costco, Eddie Bauer, Red Robin, Alaska Airlines and UPS.

REI’s flagship store was Mecca for granolas. The store is housed in a very large, four-story building that covers an entire city block, but the building, including the entrance is nearly completely obscured by a thick grove of conifers. As visitors walk through the trees, they hear and then see a waterfall that sets the mood for the retail experience inside.

The interior, built entirely of wood, is four stories tall with an open core that allows the whole place to remain bathed in natural light. It’s a great place to buy outdoor products and clothing. The College Park and Rockville, Maryland, stores are nice, but their not even in the same league as the Seattle store. Frank bought some pedals for his beach cruiser, cycling gloves and a couple pairs of wool socks.

By the time we headed for our next planned stop—Leavenworth, Washington—the clouds had lifted and bright sunshine bathed Seattle. Leavenworth, located in the Cascades Mountains, was celebrating its annual wine and food festival today. We started driving in that direction but decided that it was too late in the day to drive 100 miles each way, so we turned around and headed back to Bellevue instead. Bellevue was built on Microsoft’s successes and is similar in appearance to Reston, Virginia.

We decided to eat dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Maggiano’s Little Italy. As we enjoyed some delicious Italian food, we noticed how many young families were in the restaurant. The area had an air of sophistication and wealth that we expected it would. What surprised us was how many living units appeared to be vacant. There must have been a dozen highrise apartment and condo buildings in downtown Bellevue that were obviously empty or close to it. We surmised that Microsoft enjoyed strong growth until the crash and the fate of land developers followed suit. We thought it would take many years for all of the available housing to be fully occupied.

We did some grocery shopping and drove back to our campground and did some laundry before heading to the relative wilderness of Mt. Rainier tomorrow. Emily and Frank took a walk along the Green River levee near our campground just as the sun was setting and snapped a photo of tomorrow’s destination.

Sightseeing in the land of Starbucks

Day 11
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sightseeing in Seattle

We woke to a 56-degrees, diaphanous, misty drizzle that was so light it would have taken a half-hour to get a person’s shoulders wet. It probably sounds worse than it was. By the time we finished breakfast, it had stopped and soon after the streets were dry.

The forecast was for overcast skies and temps in the mid 60s and no rain, so we decided to make today our sightseeing day in Seattle. We essentially repeated the rounds that Frank and Bob made two days ago, but Frank benefited from experience and was able to improve it a little.

We parked near the southern end of First Avenue and boarded the ferry to Bainbridge Island as pedestrians. Frank knew that we could get by on the island without a car and walking on board saved some money. The four of us spent two hours touring Winslow. We ate a snack and drank coffee at Bainbridge Bakers before returning to Seattle on the 2:05 ferry.

Once back downtown, we caught a bus to the vicinity of the Space Needle. Frank decided to skip a trip to the top in favor of reading a magazine and listening to a Bolivian band dressed in traditional red ponchos playing italaques (pictured), violins, guitars and mandolins—very cool.

We rode Seattle’s monorail from City Center, as the former World’s Fair district is now known, to a mall located a few blocks from the Pike Place Market. As is the case with almost any aspect of the city you care to measure, Seattle’s open-air markets are much more robust and apparently healthy than those in Baltimore and DC. Seattle is clearly a bustling, vibrant, vigorous city that has held on to its middle class. It’s amazing to see how wonderful a middle-class city can be.

We toured the market, watched the guys toss fish and then found a seafood restaurant for dinner. We were amazed that we could find a table with a view of Puget Sound at 6 PM on a Friday night—no waiting. The food was quite good and the atmosphere was informal but view brought it up a notch.

After dinner bought some tee shirts, produce and walked to the first Starbucks store. It was actually surprisingly unadorned and small. The store opened in 1971 and gave birth to the largest coffee company in the world. Perhaps the thing that made it interesting was the prominent use of the Starbucks legacy logo.

It was a great first day of vacation as a family.

From bachelor to family man

Day 10
Thursday, June 24, 2010
A day of air travel and errands

Bob and Frank had a spectacular trip together. We got along well and agreed on most things. It went quickly. Now, today, Frank will transition from bachelor to family man again. No complaints reference that. We still have three weeks of travel and lots of sightseeing to go.

We slept a little later than usual, waking at about 6:30 this morning. The overnight air in Seattle was cool, dry and crisp. Perfect sleeping weather. Frank only hopes that this best-of-the-year-so-far weather will hold out until his family can join him.

After we straightened and cleaned the trailer and minivan, Frank drove Bob to the Sea-Tac Airport and bid him farewell. It was hard for both of us to say goodbye. We saw so many things and shared so many incredible experiences that we didn’t want it to come to an end. We agreed that this was a great vacation—one that we won’t soon forget.

Frank then took the car to a carwash. It looked like it had been driven 3,500 miles! What an improvement! He then drove around until he found Gina’s Barber Shop and stopped in for a shearing.  Gina, the proprietor, was clearly a journeyman with the clippers. What an improvement!

Frank spent the rest of the day killing time. He visited a model home park and looked at new, nicely-appointed 3k square foot single-family houses located in a good school district for $399k! He also took a walk on a rail trail that runs alongside the campground. It was perfect conditions for a walk.

The family arrived safely and we went out for dinner before returning to the trailer. We’re a little more crowded in the trailer than Bob and Frank were, but it’s a happy crowded. Sessy and the kids, who were still on East Coast time and had had a long day of travel, went to sleep before the sun went down (9:30). Frank stayed up a while. We all slept well in the cool summer air of Seattle.

Playing hooky on the last day of school

Day 9
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sightseeing in Seattle

We took our time this morning, blogging and catching up on Facebook and the news. We commented to each other that neither of us has missed TV at all over the past week. It’s amazing how many other things you do when you don’t watch any TV!

Today was the last day of school in Howard County. Elliot and Emily will go for three hours and then it will be summer. Tomorrow they will fly to Seattle to meet Frank and accompany him to Canada and, eventually, home. This meant that today was Bob’s last day on the road with Frank. As such, Frank told Bob that it was his call as to what we would do and see today.

Bob said that our planned search for Big Foot has been officially called off because Frank refuses to don the female Big Foot suit. Bob said he could not wear the suit because he was already tasked with videography. Bob then fired Frank as his wingman saying if he won’t wear the suit he can’t be counted on when the chips are down. Our first squabble in 3,300 miles…

Instead we planned to take the ferry from the wharf in downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island and back. Ferries are a way of life in the Seattle area where large peninsulas and islands are home to thousands of people who would be physically cut off except for seaborne transportation. The boat we took was huge—at least as big as the Staten Island Ferry boats. Unlike the New York ferries, these boats can haul cars and they are not free. Our roundtrip with a car and two people cost $35. When in the open air on the bow of the boat, even with sunshine, it was very chilly. The water under us had to be frigid.

Bainbridge Island has a vacation town feel to it. It is quite large and has a number of small towns, each with a main drag lined with quaint stores. There are very few franchises or big box stores there. We spoke to several residents who said both the cost of living and quality of life are high on Bainbridge. Many Bainbridge residents take the ferry as pedestrians and either walk, bike or take public transportation to jobs in Seattle. There is no extra charge for bringing a bike on board.

Frank had been curious about Bainbridge Island for a long time so he wanted to spend some time exploring. We found it to be heavily treed throughout with varying population densities. In places there were multiple-family dwellings, single-family dwellings on 1-acre lots and farms. We window-shopped and ate lunch in Winslow, the town where the ferry lands. Frank said Bainbridge will go on the list of places he would consider living in the future.

After returning to Seattle, we drove a few blocks to Safeco Field and bought tickets to the Mariners-Cubs game. Just as in Baltimore, Philadelphia and many other cities, Seattle has built two new stadia next to each other, one for football and one for baseball. Both are attractive, but nothing that special. The baseball stadium has a retractable roof to allow for play on rainy days. The football stadium has a roof over most of the stands, but not the field. This is sort of ironic because it rains a lot more here during football season than baseball season.

We next parked our car for the day in the football stadium’s parking lot and set out northward on foot toward the other attractions that interested us. Seattle’s downtown is more linear than most cities, stretching roughly 2 miles along the shore of Elliott Bay/Puget Sound (Elliott Bay is close in and Puget Sound is farther out, but it’s the same bit of water, similar to Baltimore Harbor and Chesapeake bay). There are some very tall buildings in Seattle. Six are more than 60 stories tall and several others are more than 50 stories. We learned today that the Space Needle, at slightly more than 600 feet is the seventh tallest structure in Seattle. The skyline is impressive as viewed from the water.

In Seattle, the avenues run parallel to the Bay’s shoreline (north and south) and the streets run perpendicular to it. The vast majority of both are numbered. There are a few named streets in the center city. Many are “ways” instead of “streets.”

We walked up First Avenue until we hopped on a free bus traveling in the direction we were headed. We got off near the Space Needle, waited in line, bought tickets and went to the top. The Space Needle was built in 1962 as part of the World’s Fair that year. The area around the Needle, also built for the fair, is showing its age. This is not the first time we’ve seen former World’s Fair districts that looked tattered and sad years later. The weather was atypically clear and sunny for Seattle. Locals told us that today was the first day this year that reached 75 degrees and that they have had a lot of rain this spring (where have we heard that before on this trip?) We went outside onto the observation deck and snapped pictures in every direction. Nice experience.

As we left the Needle, we ran into Frank’s high school classmate, Erik Thomas, who lives in Bellingham, Washington, 90 miles north of Seattle, and who was touring the World’s Fair area with his sister and nephew who were visiting from Japan. Later, Erik and the nephew joined us at the Mariner’s game. It was good to see him again, although Frank was puzzled as to why he looks older and Erik doesn’t!

We then walked to Pike Place where a famous and popular, open-air fish market is located. Workers on the public’s side of the counter take orders from customers and then shout the orders to their co-workers behind the counter. Once the order has been packaged, the workers behind the counter throw, sometimes with some velocity, the bag of fish to the workers in front of the counter. This spectacle of yelling and tossing fish around has made an everyday retail stand a renowned sensation that travel and management books have detailed. We watched for about 5 minutes, smiled a bit and moved on.

We continued along the two miles or so to the baseball stadium, Safeco Field, and arrived in time to hear the national anthem and see the first pitch. The Mariners won by a score of 8 to 1 and the Mariner’s pitcher, Cliff Lee, threw a solid, complete game.

We were impressed with the turnout that the Mariners, a last-place team, got on a Wednesday night. It was a lot more people than the Orioles draw. There were quite a few Cubs fans, but, still, we got to see firsthand how poorly the O’s are being supported these days.

We drove back to the campground and collapsed in our bunks. It was a great day to not be in school.

Where the rubber meets the road

Day 8
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Coeur d’Alene, ID to Kent, WA
329 miles

You have to have wheels if you’re going to keep rolling and the time came today to replace the bologna skins that were passing for tires on the trailer. We now know better than most that there are a lot of Interstate miles where you wouldn’t want to change a tire on the side of the road. So, we took the advice of the proprietors of the Coeur d’Alene Camping Resort and drove strait to the Les Schwab Tire Center in Cd’A (as the local abbreviate it) and had new rubber installed. But not before Frank took an early morning walk around the 62-acre campground and snapped some keepers of the morning scene.

With the new tires spinning, we set out on the last leg of our trek to the Pacific Ocean. Frank thought Cd’A was a pretty ugly town in a beautiful setting. Picture upper Ritchie Highway with mountains and pine trees. The best part of the town, from what we saw, was the area where we camped, to its east, closer to 4th of July Pass.

Bob said that the same guy who named that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland probably named Coeur d’Alene.

We were a bit surprised by how Cd’A and Spokane, Washington, had grown together. Spokane, a much larger city, is about 30 miles to the west of Cd’A. Last time Frank passed through those parts, there was much more of a margin between the two. Spokane looked like a bonefide city, albeit a small one. It had a center-city core with old, tall buildings and aging infrastructure from an era when more attention was given to details in order to provide a polished, stylish, dignified look (picture DC street lamps and bridge railings).

In no more than 15 miles west of Spokane, the climate appeared to change rapidly from a misty, greenscape to an arid, cloudless expanse of brown grasses. Frank commented that we easily could have been back in parts of South Dakota based on how it looked. The desert conditions stayed consistent until we reached the Cascade Mountains.

We saw an entire, 100-car freight train on the horizon today. It was while we were driving on I-90 toward The Columbia River. It had two locomotives pulling and one in the rear pushing. Most East Coast kids have never seen such. Cool.

We were impressed with the watershed of the Columbia River. It is very wide and deep. The Columbia is a linear oasis through some of the most arid land we saw on this trip and its waters are used to irrigate hundreds of thousands of farmland acres to its east. Land that would be uninhabited and fallow if not for the mighty Columbia.

I-90 crosses the Columbia on steel bridge. Westbound traffic then climbs a tremendous grade that lasted for more than 15 minutes to a summit known as Ryegrass Pass. We passed tractor-trailers that were going as slow as 20 MPH. At one point, we were down to 40 MPH. The strange thing was there were no switchbacks. It was essentially a straightaway climb up a sloping hill that was at least 10 miles long.  At he top we got our first glimpse of the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainer to the west. Sideling Hill on I-68 is sort of the same, but Ryegrass was of a much larger scale and you can't see Mount Rainer from the top.

The desert continued for a while beyond the Columbia River, then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared. Within the space of three miles, we went from no trees to thick groves of conifers as we transitioned to the Cascades region. The Cascades are so abrupt and so high that they trap almost all of the moisture as weather systems move to the east, creating a desert just to their east more than 100 miles wide. Apparently what moisture does get carried over the mountains gets trapped by the next mountain range, near Coeur d’Alene, in the Idaho Panhandle. This makes the northwest a weather zebra!

The building of I-90 through the Cascades was an engineering feat. Starting in Seattle, near sea level, the road climbs for more than 30 miles to a point between two mountains known as Snoqualmie Pass, then it curves left and right dozens of times as it winds its way down the other side. “Flat ground” to the east of the Cascades is noticeably higher than it is west of them. Bob and Frank took a bunch of windshield shots as we wound our way west toward the top. We then coasted forever into Seattle—wished we had a skateboard!

We checked out a state park that wasn’t too nice and then settled on a KOA campground in Kent, an industrialized suburb along I-5 to the south of Seattle and near the Seattle-Tacoma airport. KOAs are like McDonalds—nothing special but no surprises. The weather was beautiful; about 73 degrees and sunny with very low humidity. We heard that Baltimore and DC were suffering with 95+ temps today and felt sorry for our friends and families. We briefly considered trying to catch a Mariners game, and although we only drove 330 miles today, the thought of driving more through rush-hour traffic took the shine off that idea.

We just drove all the way across America. And except for Indianapolis and Omaha, we didn’t see any large collection people until we rolled down the hill into Seattle. 1) America is empty. 2) The people live near the oceans.

From geysers to conifers

Day 7
Monday, June 21, 2010
Moran, WY to Coeur d’Alene, ID (via Yellowstone National Park)
594 miles

We were awed by the west twice today, most notably, by Yellowstone’s beauty. In spite of the fact that Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island, its beauty, not size is what makes the biggest impression on a visitor. If it isn’t the most beautiful place in America, it must be in the top five.

Against practical advice, we planned to “see” Yellowstone in a half-day. Given that there are many hundreds of miles of roads in the park, this was, to say the least, an ambitious undertaking. Nonetheless, when you’re 2,000 miles from home and 28 miles from one of America’s most revered national treasures, it’s hard to drive by without stopping to take a look.

We awoke before dawn on the longest day of the year and bugged out of our campsite an hour later, arriving at the Yellowstone’s south entrance before 6:30. The roads in Yellowstone are arranged in a figure 8. Based on past experience, Frank knew that the most notable features were on the “lower east side” and “upper west side” with one significant exception; Old Faithful is on the lower west side. We entered through the park’s south entrance at the 6 o’clock position on the lower circle and drove clockwise 17 miles to Old Faithful, parked the minivan and trailer in the “bus, RV and trailer” area and walked toward the geyser. Approximately 60 seconds after we arrived in the most advantageous position for viewing, it erupted for about 3 minutes. A stroke of good fortune given our tight schedule and the geyser’s variable eruption interval of 35-90 minutes. Our total time there: 12 minutes.

After backtracking the 17 miles, we started up the lower east side where we took in West Thumb Basin, Sulfur Pits (stinky-ous maximous!), Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone River and Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. Yellowstone Falls and the canyon below it are breathtakingly beautiful. The canyon is narrow compared to other canyons we’ve seen and its walls are composed of nearly vertical yellowish rock that sports bands of color ranging from beige to yellow (of course) to burnt orange to gold to brown. One Dutch family asked Frank to take their picture and when the mother checked the results, she said “That’s going to be our Christmas picture.” Nice choice. Until he saw Yellowstone Canyon, Bob thought that Big Sur on the California coast topped anything we had seen on this trip. No longer!

We finished off our whirlwind tour of America’s first national park at 11:45 AM in its far northwestern corner in an area known as Mammoth Hot Springs. This was quite impressive, if we do say so ourselves, given that we had driven more than 100 miles within the park and stopped dozens of times to photograph scenery and wild animals including buffalo, elk and mule deer.

Our journey today took us across several notable lines. First, we crisscrossed the Continental Divide several times, next we crossed the route where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce led his native people in an attempt to escape the U.S. Army, followed by the 49th Parallel, the point halfway between the equator and North Pole, and finally the Pacific Time zone boundary.

The rest of the day was dedicated to driving north and then west. We followed the Gardiner River on Highway 89 to Livingston, Montana, where we joined our old friend, I-90. It was after merging onto I-90 that we were awed by the West for a second time today—this time by its vast distances. After some quick navigational calculations, we realized that our original plan of reaching Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was not going to be easy. We knew we were joining I-90 halfway across Montana, so it was a shock to see mile marker 330 (miles count down east to west) and to realize that it was more than 400 miles from Livingston to Coeur d’Alene. Then we remembered that we would be crossing into the Pacific Time zone, this was summer solstice and we were above the 49th Parallel (longer days in summer), so we decided to go for it.

Within just a few miles west of Missoula, Montana, the grassy, mostly treeless hills gave way to ever steeper mountains with more and more pines, hemlocks, cedars and spruce. The sky gradually went from mostly sun and a few high, broken clouds to mostly cloudy to low, drizzly, patchy fogginess. It was raining atop Lookout Pass at the Montana/Idaho border.

We lumbered into our campground about an hour before dusk. Coeur d’Alene Camping Resort was the first private campground on our trip. Private campgrounds run the full gamut from stellar to scary. You always have to palpate the redneck quotient and be prepared to drive on if necessary. No worries there. CCR was as titled—beautiful, serene, clean and friendly. Just what we were looking for after our 15-hour manic marathon.

Two fathers connect with Mother Nature

Day 6
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Wyoming

We would like to set the record straight. Wyoming is cold. It was 29 degrees here overnight. It snowed here three days ago. Frank's brother, Jeff, told us that measureable snowfall has occured on every calendar day in Yellowstone National Park, a short distance to the north.  In the interest of safety, we decided not to light the lantern before bed, but Frank lit it at 4:30 this morning. At 5:30, he got up and lit the burners on the propane stove. We were in survival mode. When you travel to Wyoming, leave your Speedo at home.

We left the campsite at 7 AM in order to be at the Jenny Lake Ranger Station by 8 and register for a ranger-guided walk up to Inspiration Point. The day dawned completely clear and on the way from Colter Bay to Jenny Lake we stopped in a half dozen places to take photos. At one point we saw two moose cross the road and in another we saw a large herd of elk. We are pleased to report that we didn’t kill any of them.

The things that make Teton grand are the way the mountains jut up out of flat ground—they are a mile taller than the valley floor to their east, including Jenny Lake—and that the upper two thirds of their peaks are pure, snow-capped stone. We met a man from Silver Spring, Maryland, today who grew up in Switzerland and he said that nothing in his country of birth is any more dramatic or beautiful than the Grand Teton Range. That’s pretty high praise, huh?

We purchased a one-way ticket for a passenger ferry ride across the lake and hiked the mile up to Inspiration Point, which is 420 feet above Jenny. On the way we passed Hidden Falls on Cascade Creek where visitors from all over the world took turns snapping photos for each other.

We chose to hike back to the ranger station on a trail that skirted the south shore of Jenny Lake. Just when we thought we had taken the ultimate photo and could safely put our cameras away, we would walk another 100 yards and see another sight that couldn’t be left unphotographed. Bob shot more than 200 pictures today as we walked 4-plus miles; Frank was impressed by Grandpa Bob’s stamina although he did notice that Bob lost the spring in his step by evening. Another night sleeping without heat in the upper twenties should be just the cure for his stiff muscles!

After the hike we drove 30 miles south to Jackson and had an excellent, late lunch at the Snake River Brewing Company. While dining, we asked our waitress if she knew of a gym, YMCA or indoor pool that might allow two dirtball campers to shower for price (many national park campgrounds, including Colter Bay, don’t have bathhouses). She said that the only place she could think of was the White Buffalo Club located a few blocks away. She said she paid $10 each time she worked out. We figured that if worse came to worse we would each pay $10 and shower. Actually, although ten bucks seemed a little steep, Bob smelled so rank that Frank was willing to pay for both of them. Bob called and they said we could shower there. No mention of a price was made on the phone. To put it mildly, we struck pay dirt. It was the nicest shower facility either of us had seen. Each shower had its own master bathroom type set-up. It was beautiful and functional—one of the best things that happened to us on this trip!

We did a little shopping in the town square and then headed back to our Jackson Hole campground. Jackson is a moneyed town with high-end shops and picturesque streets surrounded on three sides by steep hills, some of which have ski slopes on them. Many of the sidewalks are wooden planks.

We were sitting in our campsite about two hours before dark when we heard a gust of wind coming through the trees from a distance. The sound became progressively louder for at least three minutes before the wind reached us. We soon discovered that it was a weak front passing through. No rain, just some low, fast-moving clouds followed shortly thereafter by clear skies and cooler temperatures. What a strange and unusual experience.

Early to bed tonight. We have an ambitious itinerary planned for tomorrow.

Teton the magnificent

Day 5
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Custer, SD to Moran, WY
479 miles

In spite of the fact that the air temperature was colder last night than the night before, we were more comfortable because there was no wind and we used the furnace from the beginning. With all of the flaps zipped up it maintained an inside temperature of 60 degrees—toasty.

We awoke at 5 AM to get an early start on our long day of driving and hit the road at 6:30. On our way out, we stopped at Sylvan Lake to take advantage of the low light and windless conditions. Sylvan Lake is one of those places that can make anyone a great photographer!

We have learned to make any necessary cell calls when we’re in towns because more often than not there is no service in the vast open areas between them. When driving through Custer for the last time, Bob and Frank both called their families and caught up on news. It was good to hear their voices.

We spent the whole day crossing Wyoming. The most direct route from Custer to Grand Teton National Park passes over the Little Big Horn Mountains in northeastern Wyoming, but those peaks are where tow vehicles’ transmissions and brakes go to die, so we decided to take a slightly longer but much flatter route by way of Casper, Wyoming. This took us across the eastern part of the state on a ribbon of two-lane highway—Wyoming Routes 450, 387 and 259—that exist simply so people like us can traverse an absolutely immense, empty expanse of open range. “Nothing” and “Nowhere” have been redefined for us.

Halfway across Wyoming, with little else to do but listen to Satellite radio, Frank told Bob his whole life story. Then we rode in silence. Can we tell you how BIG Wyoming is? We drove a distance today equivalent to the distance from Baltimore to Myrtle Beach and passed through only two towns of any size, Casper, population 35k, and Riverton, population 9k. Most of the rest of the way we saw pronghorn, antelope, sage brush, snow fence the size of billboards, rocks and dust.

Oh, and one skunk. Unfortunately, Frank ran him over. We were tooling along at 80 MPH on I-25 about 20 miles outside of Casper, when the car three seconds in front of us swerved hard to the right. Frank copied the maneuver, but didn’t want to jack-knife the trailer, so he had to dampen his reaction. We got him with the left front wheel. What a mess. It smelled for 200 miles. We tried putting the windows down and using the A/C. The only thing we could do was wait for it to wear off. Bob said Frank took him out here so he could see wildlife, he didn’t know we were going to be killing it.

This was on top of an accidental killing of a bird two blocks from the Corn Palace a few days ago. Frank was going very slowly when a large black bird struck the driver’s door window. Frank saw him in the rearview mirror fluttering around on the tarmac for an instant before the car behind us finished him off. Bob said who needs a gun to hunt we you have a Honda!

As part of his life story, Frank told Bob about the several times he and Sessy stopped their car in the middle of a desolate road and took a picture of it. Bob thought that was a great idea, so we did it today. Frank put the Odyssey in park, opened both front doors, leisurely walked about 100 feet down the road and snapped several pictures of the spectacle as Bob waived. No one ever knew we did it. At one point, we drove at 75 miles per hour for seven minutes before a vehicle approached in the opposite direction.

About 35 miles east of Riverton, we got our first glimpse of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, which grew taller as we drove toward them. After Riverton, we turned more northward and paralleled the Wind River and the Front Range until we eventually turned west and lumbered up Togwottee Pass (elevation 9,658 feet). Snow was quite deep up on the mountain and we saw numerous snow mobile tracks.

Then, shortly after we crested the pass, the Teton Range appeared above the conifers in the foreground and eight hours’ of driving was suddenly worth the effort. Beauty embodied.

We will be camping at 7,000 feet tonight in the Colter Bay Campground in Grand Teton. The predicted low is 40 degrees. We don’t have electricity (which is required to run the furnace), but we’ll borrow a page from Sessy’s Aunt Barbara’s playbook and use a propane Coleman lantern to heat the trailer. We should be fine in our sleeping bags.

Frank felt very privileged to have the opportunity to come back to Grand Teton National Park because he knows how special this place is.