Trip inauguration

Four days on the road so far.  This trip will be about ten weeks, if it goes according to my rather vague plans.  Which are subject to change–indeed, have changed already.

Day 1:  Got out about 11, which is not bad given the prep for a long trip is more elaborate than for the shorter ones I’ve been doing.  Headed east across the Oregon desert; should have gotten fuel in Roseburg, but didn’t realize that in time.  Ended driving down to Chiliquin to get diesel, then back up to the road for Burns.  This added an hour to my driving time, so didn’t get to my goal until 7:30–a rest area east of Burns that is growing on me as a stopping place.  Not overly busy, all the amenities, and a walking trail I discovered on this trip.  CJ and I didn’t go far, but it’s nice walking in the desert in the morning.  Here are a couple of pictures from that walk.

Day2:  intended to head for a campground in an area of Idaho called, for unknown reasons, Cape Horn.  It’s a bit west of Stanley, and I had camped up there a couple of times in my youth; I was curious to see it again.  But when I got to Horseshoe Bend, there was a travel advisory– the road was closed between Garden Valley and Lowman.  Turned out it was because of a fire, the Pioneer fire.  I had been smelling smoke since Ontario, but hadn’t done any research about it.

Anyway, I decided to err on the side of caution, so headed through Boise and east on I-84.  Smoke was pretty bad, and the temperature hovered in the high 90s, so I was not inclined to stop.  Dithered awhile about what route to take from there, but more or less decided to head toward West Yellowstone.  Stayed that night in a private campground north of Mountain Home.  It was actually quite pleasant.  Had a pool that I was too tired to sample, and a lounge with TV that ditto.  Here’s a picture of the van in situ.  With the bib on to block the setting sun and electricity for AC, it was a relief to just relax.

Day 3:  Took the direct route across Idaho for Rexburg–MUCH nicer than I-84.  The smoke gradually lessened as I went east, which was a relief.  Stopped near the entrance to the Craters of the Moon for nostalgia’s sake and picked up a nice piece of lava with lichen as a souvenir.

While I was there, another van pulled up behind me and a bunch of people piled out.

Turned out they were from Italy.  Tried to communicate with my Spanish, which would have worked a lot better if I could remember more.  Talk about rusty.  But smiles are good.

Finally made it to the mountains that afternoon.  Found a wonderful cmpground on the way up to West Yellowstone called Riverside, and got a perfect spot in the campground.  There was a chance of thunderstorms, and every now and then a few drops fell, so I deployed the awning and sat outside, with this view.

There’s a little private path down to the river, with this at the end of it.

Yes, that’s Shadow up on the rock to the left.

Again I put on the bib, and because it was still pretty warm, opened the front windows.  The cats loved the combination of protection and view.

However, there turned out to be a flaw in this scenario.  I took CJ for a nice long walk around the campground, and when I got back Phantom had his head poked out the window and Shadow was nowhere to be seen.  Fortunately I spotted him in a few minutes hiding in the bushes

And he kindly allowed me to approach him and pick him up, to my relief.

Here’s another view of the river, complete with American flag.

 

I would have loved to stay an extra night, but in the interest of actually making it to Connecticut some day, drove on the next day.

Day 4: I was really glad I had stopped ath the first campground I came to once in the mountains, because it got progressively more populated and smokier as I went north.  Apparentlythere was another large fire just to the west of the park, and five new small fires started by lightening the night before in the park.  Nonetheless, the drive was beautiful, though my pictures are all a bit hazy from the smoke.

Stopped for lunch overlooking the river.  Took an extra picture of the cliffs that give it its name.

My intention was to drive on through the park without stopping, because I wasn’t there to visit the park–it was just the most direct mountain route up to I-94.  And I stuck with that until I got off the main loop, even refraining from stopping where I saw others stopped for a bighorn sheep.  However, once I headed out the Lamar valley toward the northeast entrance, it was all over.  First this group of buffalo

Then these antelope

They are there if you look carefully–the white spots on the hillside.

Then another bunch of buffalo by the river

 

The scene was so picturesque that it was a bit of a head trip seeing them move around.

Finally made it out of the park and stopped at the first campground I came to, just outside Cooke City.  Very high–I could feel the altitude every time I moved around.  All kinds of warnings about bear country–no tents or soft-sided rigs allowed, and the camp host came around with a whole spiel about cleaning up immediately after eating etc.  Here’s my site

Note the loose cat.  I let them out for a few hours, but didn’t feed them first.  By the time the camp host came around, they were back inside–and a good thing too, or he’d have busted me for having pets out off leash.  The bear safe turned out to be a perfect place to stash the cats overnight.  I had been concerned about just setting them out in their crates as I usually do, what with all the bear warnings (the host said they’d had a grizzly in camp the night before.)  It rained, heavily at times, during the night, and the safe kept them both safe and dry.

Well, this has been nice and long in the doing,  I’m still a day behind, but need to get on the road (it’s now Day 6 of the trip).  I’ll have to post again in a few days, and try to catch up to myself then.