DAY 9 – Ending Location - Spokane, WA

     Today was my last big day of driving, only 8 hours and I would be in Washington, the state. I had a little (a lot) of trouble getting up and getting ready to leave for my drive. Something in Yellowstone set my allergies off, and I developed a cough. The allergy troubles combined with the constant changes in elevation has lead to a constant pounding of my head. Other than these two problems, I was ready for my last big day of driving.

    I checked out of my motel and headed out of town. I got about a mile out of town when I realized I forgot to get gas so I had to turn around and go back to West Yellowstone to get gas or I wasn’t going to make in to the next town.

      The driving was pretty uneventful and the scenery was similar to what I had been seeing since I got into Western Wyoming, with less snow. I was getting excited because my GPS was showing the state border approaching. I thought I was about to enter Washington, somehow I forgot about the Idaho panhandle. I got to the state line, checked my GPS, and it was showing Oregon. “I am confused I thought I was entering WA.” This was one of my more blonde moments.

     I choose the wrong day to go to Spokane, WA. Apparently there is this huge martial arts tournament going on and three-quarters of the hotels I called were full or only had a couple of rooms left for an outrageous price. Finally I found a hotel with a room at a reasonable price.

BISON OR BUFFALO - DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO CALL THEM

      Yellowstone is well known for its Buffalo herds. At times they can be massive, however on this trip the largest herd I saw was about 30. Background information

• Can weigh up to 2,000 lbs
• Can be the size of a small car a.k.a similar size to my Honda fit
• Can run over 30 miles per hour
• Injure more people than bears almost every year

     Enough with the background information, for those that don’t know this is my second trip to Yellowstone National Park. The first trip I was between 4 – 7 (I don’t remember the exact year), but I don’t remember a lot. But what I do remember are the huge herds of buffalo and the traffic jams they create. In Yellowstone there are really two things that create traffic jams (three if you count the road construction on the one section). The first is a rarer animal siteing such as a bear or wolf. The second and perhaps more common traffic issue is a buffalo in the middle of the road.

     I was in the park all of 10 mins before I encountered my first buffalo traffic jam.

     This was the first of many buffalo traffic jams. My personal favorite was the one where the buffalo was just standing in the middle of the road. He had this air about him than said I am standing in the middle of the road causing problems because I can and there is nothing you can do about it. Another favorite was the buffalo that would walk down the road in the opposite direction of traffic. These were always funny. It is instances like this that kind of make me wish I was a buffalo so I could spend my life disrupting traffic in every way imaginable. If I was a buffalo, I would try to arrange buffalo at 30 yard intervals in the road to create an obstacle course.

      After you have been in the park for over an hour, you have probably seen more than 50 buffalo. After about the second herd of adult buffalo, it gets boring and the pictures all start to look the same. It got to the point where I would say “Oh look more buffalo” and just keep driving. After visiting Mammoth Hot Springs, I decided to drive out to Roosevelt and Tower Falls. As I was driving out there, I kept seen herds of buffalo. I didn’t take any note of these herds until I noticed one herd had about 15 baby buffalo with it. That got my attention, and I was suddenly re-interested in buffalo. I pulled off the side of the road and am about 100 yards away from the buffalo and the babies (calves if you want to get technical). As I am getting the camera out of the car and changing lenses, what I assumed was the bull buffalo (this could have be the lead female, because buffalo keep pretty separated herd of male and female unless its breeding season though I didn’t know this at the time) move himself about halfway between me and babies. I was a little nervous about this but I think the buffalo and I came to an understanding, I would stay where I was and take picture and as long as I didn’t come any closer I was fine.

For more buffalo pictures please click here

DAY 7 & 8 – YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

     Since I only had two days to explore Yellowstone National Park. I had to pick and choose what activities I wanted to do carefully. So my activities were carefully planned to get the maximum viewing for my time.
     I have decided since there are so many things to tell about Yellowstone. I am going to break each thing into its own post such as an entire post is going to be devoted to bison (buffalo). Keep an I eye out over the next couple of days for these various posts.

Day 6 – Ending Location - West Yellowstone

A. Starting Location – Jackson Hole, WY

B. Visit – Grand Teton National Park

C. Ending Location – West Yellowstone, MT
     Today started just like yesterday with a later then normal start. The only difference was that today was on purpose rather than an accident. First thing I did was pack up my bags and check out of my hotel. For there, I drove into Grand Teton for my final adventures there. 

     My first stop was the visitor gift shop, I need to get my National Park visit log stamped and pick up a patch for my collection. From there, I was considering going hiking on one of the shorter mostly snow free trails. But when I got to the trailhead it was starting to snow and with wind was gusting to about 20 or 30 miles per hour. Most of this trail was though dense forest, and for safely I decided it was best no to hike the trail. I did however take time out to build a mini snowman. I wanted to build a bigger one but the snow wouldn’t pack together.

     Right as I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed a beaver lodge. I decided that since I had nothing better to do, I would hang around and watch. I spend over 30 minutes stilling there watching this lodge hoping one of the beavers would come out but alas they did not. For talking to one of the three people who stopped and asked what I was looking at, I found out that a Grizzly Bear had been seen eating from the carcass that I saw the wolves eating from.

     I drove up to the site and spend an hour sitting there watching the carcass, but nothing showed up. No Grizzly Bear, no Black Bear, and no wolves. I was sad, but I then spent the better part of the day hoping from turnoff to turnoff and scanning the woods for animals. Today was not for seeing animals; I didn’t see anything cool or interesting until my last turnoff before leaving.
     I was sitting in my car, scanning this field with my binoculars and didn’t see anything so back my car out of the space and notice 5 or 6 birds follow my car out. I had never seen any birds like these so I had to stop and take their picture. These birds had been clearly feed my humans because they came right up to meet. As I am taking their pictures, another car pulls into the parking lot, this is not just another car it is one of the park rangers. The ranger gets out of his vehicle with a angry look towards me. I am thinking, “crap he thinks I am feeding the birds”. Once he steps out of the vehicle the birds take off toward him hoping he will feed them since I am not. As they fly towards him, he realizes that I wasn’t feeding them; I was just taking advantage of the opportunity to photograph them. The ranger walks over to me and we chat for a little bit. Since I didn’t know what type of birds these where I ask him, and he tells me he has never seen them before so I get out my BORROWED bird book (Mom at least I am using it regularly and you now have an excuse to get a new one). I find out that these bird are called Yellow-Headed Blackbirds (though this name is very obvious I still had to look).

     After this, I headed out of the park and started the three hour drive to West Yellowstone. If you look at the map, it would appear that I took a very long route that is out of the way. I did, but I didn’t have a choice the roads out of the North end of Grand Teton as still closed from winter. This drive involved crossing the Teton Range. The highest point of the pass is 8,431 feet in elevation. It was kind of scary driving up the huge mountain, but the view from the top of the pass was worth it.

     The pictures do not do the pass justice. From there I made it safely to West Yellowstone, and am ready to enter Yellowstone National Park tomorrow.

P.S. Pictures are coming just bear with me.
P.S.S. Do NOT expect a blog post tomorrow. I am staying at Old Faithful Inn and will not have internet access.
P.S.S.S. I have add a page on things I have learned that I will update as I learn new things. Click Here

Day 5 – Grand Teton National Park

     Today was my first day in Grand Teton National Park. My day started later than I planned, due to my sleeping though my alarm. Thankfully, I didn’t sleeping though the whole day, I only slept until 9:00 a.m. I got the park and my first stop was the visitor center to see how the road conditions were. I asked one of the rangers about a good 6 to 8 hour hike that I could get to in my without four wheel drive and snow tires. He suggested the Jenny Lake Loop to Hidden Falls. He told me the roads that were open were snow free, so I would be good on that concern.
     I drove out to Jenny Lake and immediately encountered snow on the hiking path. I have never experienced hiking in snow and needless to say I was underprepared for the difficulties in hiking in snow and 7,000 feet. At certain points I was knee deep in snow.

     I made it about half way to Hidden Falls when I slipped on a snowy embankment and twisted my ankle. At that point I decided it was safest if I turned about and head back to my car. The close I got to the car the more my ankle hurt and it got the point I was just saying to myself “one more step and I am one step closer to being done.” At one of my rest stops, I heard this twig snap and looked up and there was an adult moose. The moose just looked at me like I was crazy and continued to eat his twigs.

     From Jenny Lake, I drove further into the park. The next stop was a overlook on the other side of Jenny Lake. At this overlook, I met an older gentleman, who was looking for someone to go snowshoeing with. My ankle was feeling better so I went with him about a mile. 

     Yesterday, this gentleman had found three wolves feeding on a kill further into the park. I followed him out to this spot and we started watching. The first thing I noticed was a heard of elk near the spot he had seen the wolves. As I was watching the elk, they took off running and I noticed a gray wolf bounding behind them. The wolf didn’t catch an elk, but it was still cool to see. The wolves then spent over an hour feeding on the same kill as yesterday.

     After the wolves, I spent the next two hours exploring the park and just viewing the sights. I will try to post pictures soon. But I have to go through 442 pictures. 

Animal Count:

• Moose – 3
• Elk – to many to count over 100
• Otter – 2
• Wolf – 1 (A ranger confimed this was a wolf, it was wearing a radio collar)
• Muskrat – 1
• Coyote – 2 (I am not entirely sure they were not wolves but coyotes are more common)
• Bison – 15
• Many types of birds

Day 4 - Ending Location – Jackson Hole, WY

     Sorry about updating a day plus a little late, but I was exhausted yesterday and fell asleep sorting my 370 pictures.

A. Cheyenne, WY
B. Jackson Hole, WY
     Last night my mother told me about these interesting rock formations called Vedauwoo. I decide since I was about 3 hours ahead of schedule I could afford to stop and see the rock formations. There was only one problem; I couldn’t find directions on how to get there on the internet. My mom told me they could be seen from the interstate so I watched for the formations. I could see them just off interstate, but had no idea how to get to them until I saw the next exit was for Vedauwoo Road. I got off the interstate and discovered an amazing place.

     Vedauwoo is well known in the rock climbing community for its climbing, but I was impressed by the amazing rock formations. To see more of my pictures from this day please click here. Most of the rock formations are located on a dirt/gravel road. As most of you know, I live on a mile long gravel driveway, so the dirt/gravel road didn’t even faze me. Even with my new car. A couple of the locals I meet while on the dirt road were impressed I made it that far with my little car.

     After Vedauwoo, I got off the interstate and continued my journey on one of the US highway (I am not sure of the number). This was an amazing drive starting with the crossing of the Continental Divide - twice. From there, I drove though the most amazing rolling hills that slowly turned into mountains or large hills. One of my favorites was the Split Rock.

     Yesterday, I traveling though the Great Plains, I had thought about what it would be like to be a early settler and traveling cross country on the Oregon Trail. What I didn’t realize that I was at times following the path of the Oregon Trail. As it turns out, Split Rock was a well know landmark on the Oregon Trail.


     From Split Rock, the terrain continued to get more rugged and I started to see more of the local wildlife. The two big ones were wild horse descend from the original Spanish ponies and Pronghorns. Finally I entered the last leg of this stage of my cross-country trek. The only places that stood in my way were the Shoshone National Forest and Teton National Forest. As I started into Shoshone I started driving up the large mountain. The higher I got the more snow appeared on the side of the roads. Thankfully the roads were cleared. At some points there was about 5 feet of snow on the sides. About 40 miles from Jackson, the sun was shining and it started to snow. Yes, SNOW. It was gorgeous, nothing interesting happened in the Teton National Forest. After leaving both forest, I got my first view of the Tetons of this trip. In reality this is my first view because I don’t remember the last visit. I stopped to take some pictures but my timing was bad since I was on the east side of the mountain and the sun was setting behind where I was shooting.
     If you want to see my most of my pictures, please see my facebook page here.
Updated Cop Count:
Kentucky - 5
Indiana - 6
Illinois - 0
Missouri – 7
Iowa – 1
Nebraska – 3
Wyoming – 4

Day 3 - Ending Location – Cheynne, WY

A. Start Location – St. Joseph, MO

B. Goal – Big Springs, NE

C. Actual – Cheynne, WY

     Last night I discovered that the infamous outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed in St. Joseph, MO. The house where he was shot has been turned into a museum and since I had some extra time I decide to swing by and see Jesse James’s house. I was not able to tour the museum because it doesn’t open until 10:00 a.m. and I didn’t could afford to wait for it to open and still make my driving goals with daylight left. But here is a picture from the outside.

     After the quick stop at the museum I was on my way. When I planned my route across country, I didn’t realize that I would be driving though Iowa until I saw the sign that said welcome to Iowa. About 10 mins. later I passed the welcome to Nebraska sign. About a mile later, I spied a sign for a Lewis and Clark Visitor Center. I decided that I had time and went for a visit. It was a small but interesting museum. The guy behind the counter thought it was interesting that I handed him my UF college ID but signed the ledger with my home as Knoxville, TN.  The picture below is a replica of the keel boat used by Lewis and Clark.

     After the museum it was just at lot of rolling hills and beautiful but empty landscape until I got to the western part of Nebraska that borders Colorado. Once I got close to Colorado, I started seeing larger hills and some rock cliffs.

     Overall, the driving was good I only drove 9 hours today with about 7 hours on the agenda for tomorrow. The wind was less of a consistent issue today; however the road contentious were worse. They were worse in the sense that the road was not smooth and this meant that my car would make funny noises due to the road. At one point I got on the interstate and was going to get off at the next exit to figure out what was causing the loud funny noise, but it stopped right after the road surface changed.

Yesterday, I posted the cop count, here is the updated list:

Kentucky - 5
Indiana - 6
Illinois - 0
Missouri – 7
Iowa – 1
Nebraska – 3
Wyoming – 0