Day 4, Saturday, July 12, 2008 – 218 miles
20 Days on a GoldWing
Normally on Saturdays, I call my parents in the Chicago area
at 8:00 CST. Since we had wound up at the
Days Inn, I thought I would be able to surprise them and call like normal. Well,
the joke was on me as
I was unable to contact them or my siblings! I’ll let you know what was up when
I find out.
Anyhow, with the time change we caught up on some sleep and had a leisure departure at 8:30 (MT).
Today was GREAT! Since we were a good 45 minutes closer to
Yellowstone than planned, it was a
wonderful take it easy day. What beautiful sights! I’m going to have a hard
time limiting the pictures
and sadly, I can’t share the ones in my head. The speed limit was 45 so we got
excellent mileage and
were totally relaxed. We of course started out in the Grand Tetons.
I’m thinking that was post-card pretty! Up the road a bit we
entered Yellowstone Park which was beautiful
as well.
We saw such beauty I just can’t help repeating it. There
were quite a few other motorcyclists on the road and
one couple from Texas kept winding up at the same stops we did. It was kind of
like leap frog on who was there
first. We last saw them at Old Faithful getting their picture taken by the sign
so I took one too. (Coming up…)
One of the first stops was Lewis Falls. Cathy thought you needed to see them too so here they are:
Riding on through the curves trees and meadows brought us to
the Kepler Cascades which Cathy thought
you needed to see as well. (I think she enjoyed the slide show I previewed for
her.)
Moving on down the road we came to…
…being presented by our two biker friends from Texas. (The afore mentioned photo.)
Yes, that’s Old Faithful in all it’s glory. (I couldn’t just leave you hanging there could I?)
We saw some wildlife including moose, deer, antelope, ground squirrels and who knows what all.
We finally finished YNP and got to West Yellowstone. The day
was still relatively youg so we grabbed a
late lunch and went to our KOA and checked into our Kabin. We unloaded our gear
and then decided to
do another road trip! We took US-20W to Idaho so we could have bragging rights
about being there.
Not wanting to backtrack, we went North on 87 and then caught US-287 back to
West Yellowstone where
we had dinner. (I had some very expensive but tasty Elk Medallions. Since my
dietician said fillets were a
better choice for me, I assumed any high priced meat must be good for you.)
Anyhow, I digress. The little
loop was 64 miles and contained the sight of the August 17, 1959 earthquake
which dammed up the Madison
River and shifted Hebgen Lake. 28 people were killed and you can still see the
effects of the rock slide nearly
50 years later.
The Madison River is depositing the rock it picks up, downstream.
It is slowly moving the rock down and will eventually drain Earthquake Lake that was created.
Anyhow, it was back to the cabin for the night (after a bowl
of ice-cream and some conversation
with some other campers).
This was a big KOA! The rows of Kabins face each other with
parking from the back. I guess
we’re going to turn in as it’s 10:30 at this writing and I still need to upload
the files. I’m going
to close the windows as it’s getting cold and I’m sure going to keep the door
locked as I spotted
a Bobcat prowling though the Kamp! See you in the morning! It was only 218
miles today.
The Bobcat….