On The Move, Now in Utah, Long Post

I left you on our last night in Missoula.  The next morning we headed over to Emigrant, MT in the Paradise Valley which has the Yellowstone River running up through it.  Yet another beautiful Montana valley.  We stayed at Yellowstone Edge RV Park, about 35 miles north of YNP and somehow lucked into a huge pull in site right on the river with a big concrete patio, you know even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then:-)

Along the way

Pulling into our site

 

We got situated in our site and before we knew it HH was upon us, and the rain was threatening.

But we lucked out, and although it rained for about 30 minutes, the wind cooperated so we were able to put out our awning and sit underneath.

It threatened us for awhile longer, but we stayed dry and were able to ride it out.

So the next day would be a big day.  We were off by 0450am because we wanted to be in the park for the sunrise.  It is always nerve-racking driving in the dark with so many animals around, but we are careful.  We could see the hint of the sunrise as we made our way into Lamar Valley.

We made it to a nice pull off for our breakfast, bacon and tomato on English muffins, and with this view and this hour and being in the park again, it was absolutely gourmet!

Lots of bison were moving around, but we saw a commotion about a mile down the road and went over there, sure enough a bunch of folks were watching a pack of wolves.  We love seeing the wolves, and over the many years of visiting here we've seen quite a few, a few moving along together, maybe 4-5 over a kill, a glimpse of one or two in the distance, but this morning was special, we saw 12 wolves together!  And in talking with one of the "wolfers", he said it was only about half of the pack which consisted of at least 25 wolves, the largest pack in the park.  Still they were a long way off, perhaps a half to three quarters of a mile or so.  Jan tried to work her new diopter that fits her iPhone onto our spotting scope, but with the fact it was 34 degrees, and she hadn't had a lot of practice the pics didn't turn out all that great, but you can certainly make out a bunch of wolves.  I know she'll get better and better with this device.

We had planned to stay in the park all day and make the whole circuit, but a lot of construction is underway, in fact we had to wait almost 20 minutes at a road closure even before sunrise, so we opted to do the Beartooth Highway instead.  Charles Kuralt called it the most beautiful roadway in America, and we sure agree, we have done it numerous times in each direction, and even on our motorcycle, and it never gets old.  It had been several years since we drove it last, and the weather was spectacular, so no time like the present:-)

It turned out perfectly, and the fact there was so little traffic really put the icing on the cake!

We needed to find somewhere for our picnic lunch, and sure enough Jan spied a spot down off the road with a very rough entry road to keep most folks out:-)  With a view and out of the wind, it accomplished all those things, we had the world to ourselves.

Then only one more thing to do, come down the side of the mountain, very pretty, but a bit nerve-racking for me.

We even found a nice place for coffee on the way back.

If you remember Yellowstone had horrific flooding a little over a year ago, it took out the Northern entrance road, stranded tons of people, did damage to the Northeast entrance road, both Red Lodge and Gardiner sustained serious damage to homes and businesses, and the signs of the flooding are still apparent.  Since we went into the park in the dark we wanted to go back and see the new Northern entrance road in the light, and tied it into having lunch in Gardiner.  We have visited the park many, many times, and used the North entrance many times.  There used to be a one way dirt road that followed an old stagecoach path that you could drive, and we had numerous times, from Mammoth down to the North entrance.  That is the road that they widened and paved to make a new and permanent North entrance to the park, and so far the old road, the hot springs, and the Mammoth campground are closed.  The new entrance road was opened Oct 30th, about 4 months after the flooding, amazing.

So after a good lunch in town, 

Bison and elk chili

we drove into the park.  This is a view from the new entrance road high on the mountain and you can see the original road that is closed below.

Jan made a wonderful beef and broccoli stir fry for dinner!

The happy chef

A few more things to do before we left.  Bozeman is actually just a touch closer to this campground than Ennis, so into town we went for our last time, Jan got her hair cut, we hit Costco, the grocery store, and of course we had to have some sushi for lunch:-)

The new coif

That finished our time in Montana, off to Henry's Lake State Park.  One of our favorites with some caveats, it has a magnificent view, all paved roads and sites, but only a few with sewer, and they charge double the rate for anyone other than Idaho residents, then tack on another $7/day park entrance fee, bringing the rate for a water and electric site to $76/night, in a state park!!

We thought we'd maybe fish the upper Madison from here, but all reports were that things are still aggravatingly slow, so we went to Island Park, ID for lunch on the Henry's Fork.

The next day we did a loop drive around by Quake Lake, Hebgen Lake into West Yellowstone and back around to Henry's Lake, stopped for coffee overlooking the entrance to Hebgen Lake.

Then our time in Idaho was over and southward we went to Tremonton, UT for two nights.  We stayed at Aspen Grove RV Park, a very nice, all paved, mostly pull through park, with wide, wide, and long, long concrete sites, really nice!

And at a rest area along the way we found our second one of these guys!  We haven't seen any praying mantises in years.

So now we are in Heber City for a week with a lot to do, more to follow:-)