Advertisement
Published: September 8th 2011
Edit Blog Post
We left Drigg for another long day of travel which was broken up by visiting Teton and Yellowstone.
Teton was an area of soaring mountain peaks, another truly beautiful lake (but nothing compared to Crater Lake) only spoilt by all the boats and yachts that were moored there. In a way it was a shame as this park seemed to be used just as a cut through to Yellowstone mainly, rather than being enjoyed in it’s own right. However as it led straight into Yellowstone Park I guess this is to be expected in a way.
We were only visiting the West Yellowstone area today as the road we needed to take to our camp site led out from there, but it was the geyser area with Old Faithfull in it so we were quite excited about that and decided to stop and see it and explore the rest properly tomorrow. We turned off to the car park and drove into what seemed like Disney does Yellowstone! The parking area was HUGE and there were thousands of cars and people, souvenir shops, a petrol station, cafes etc which was all a bit of a shock after the low key
approach in the other parks we had visited. All we needed was for Yogi Bear to make an appearance - sadly he did not.
We managed to find a space and followed the crowds to the viewing area, as it happened we had fallen in lucky with our timing as Old Faithfull was due to blow! Right the way round the rim were benches which were all full of people waiting for the big event so we stood behind but right in the centre and after about 15 minutes and lots of teasing bubbling and the odd small jet up it went!
However the wind was blowing in our direction so all we could really see was lots of steam! Everyone started cheering but then we all got showered, it was really funny all the people on the benches started squawking and trying to get out of the way, the water was only luke warm so it wasn’t a problem but they really shifted!. All in all due to the wind I have to say it was a bit of a let down but I’m sure the people who were at the sides got a better view and
no doubt had a great laugh at what was going on in our area.
We passed through the town of West Yellowstone which was a real cowboy tourist trap, then Virginia City and Nevada City both of which were tiny little original wild west towns (with tourist re-enactment stuff) and then found the Kampground of America site we were staying at. Well to say my face fell was probably an understatement, it was small (fine), quite a few kids and probably great if you had kids as the play area was quite good, there was a toilet block (with 2 loos with doors and 1 with half of one) – a good walk away and a sign saying no swimming in the lake only fishing – the lake looked like an old quarry so who would want to swim in it is beyond me! Our cabin (aka the wooden hut) was right near the road which we knew about, but was not near the loos which it was supposed to be and it was bloody freezing! (not fine!!)
We drove up the road to find grub and came across 1 bar (the only thing for miles) so ate
there and returned to sit in our hut as it was far too cold to sit outside without coats, blankets and a roaring fire. Went to bed (in our sleeping bags) and lay there listening to a child screaming its head off, lesson learnt we do NOT do camping!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0347s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb