Starting Mileage leaving Bozeman: 5655
Ending Mileage arriving West Yellowstone, MT: 5737
Miles Driven: 82
Avg. MPG: 6.4
Gas Price: $4.31--West Yellowstone, MT
Overnight: West Yellowstone, Montana
Wagon Wheel Campground
Travel Day
After styling my beautifully colored "do" this morning, we left Bozeman at 9 AM. Early for us! We had a couple of hours to drive to West Yellowstone, WY.
For 2 days I have unable to get anything except a busy signal from the campground we had selected. So, thought we’d take our chances and maybe check out some of the other available campgrounds before settling in.
The drive took much longer than we had anticipated. The scenery was so overwhelmingly beautiful; we had to keep stopping to take it all in. Well, truth be told, we had to pull into turnouts often because we were holding up traffic with our gawking.
Here’s some of the pictures I was able to capture.
Check out the white-water rafters in the last two pictures of this group.
We arrived at noon. The choices of campgrounds, as expected, were not the greatest. But, we settled on the one that had the best comments about the owner’s exemplary helpfulness (the same one I had been trying to call for 2 days).
This campground is old (as are most) and the sites are very tight for today's larger rigs. But, the owner (Ken) offered to cut some branches from the pine trees, if needed. Miracle-driver Dave fit us in perfectly. As you can see from the photos, it was a tight squeeze with the slideout on one side and being able to open the RV door on the other.
The picnic table is wedged in under the beautiful pine tree—it’s like Dave’s private sun umbrella (Mini and Smookie love it, too).
The folks that are camped next to us have a Chocolate Lab. He’s so much like our beloved Bonnie. So, we are having dog-envy. They are cool with allowing us to pet him, so we're taking advantage.
The downside to this campground is that we have to pay for WiFi (not mentioned in the reviews I read or the ads). But, that seems to be the norm here in West Yellowstone. Mind you, I was totally complaining about paying for WiFi in Billings at $1.50. Now, I wish I had been more appreciative. It is $10.95 per day here. Or, you can pay $24.95 for a week. Needless to say, we are only going to sign up with one laptop--Dave's.
After getting all set up, we gobbled down leftovers for lunch. Dave took a nap and I tried to read through the sightseeing materials I had gathered at the “fly trap” at our previous campground. I had not planned any particular activities for Yellowstone because I wasn’t sure exactly what there was to visit—except scenery and Old Faithful.
Dave doesn’t really like to do the planning, so after I came up with a few things we'd both like to do, we have settled on taking three van tours of the area rather than trying to drive the route ourselves. We also want to go to the Grizzly Bear and Wolf center.
As for the scenery drives, when there is so much to absorb and the roads are really twisty-turny, Dave doesn’t get to view as much as he’d like. So, we'll fork over the big bucks and let someone else do the driving and narrating. Each tour takes a full day. Here's our choices: the Lower Loop, the Upper Loop, and the Grand Tetons. (With the current price of gas, the tours are really a bargain.) We chose a tour company that caters to smaller groups in a van (no more than 9) so that we can get into more scenic areas. The larger buses and tour groups cannot go on some of the off-the-beaten-path drives because of their size. Also, we thought the guide and fewer passengers might be more patient with our inabilities to walk fast or far. Dave is having a lot of problems with his hips on long walks and his knees on stairs. I still have to stop walking now and then and rest for a few seconds to alleviate my hip pain and then move onward. Geez--what a pair we are!
I sat down tonight to sign up for our week of WiFi, only to find out that the sight is not automatically redirecting our PC to the “signup site” as the instructions stated it would. So, I called the service desk to find out that they close at 4 PM—it was now 5 PM.
To dust off my frustration over the WiFi, we took a ride through town to check it out. We also needed to get some cash at the bank. I have never been in a town that I have driven around and around and seen nary a bank. The town is only about 10 square blocks in either direction. We finally come back to the campground to ask Ken where it was.
After finding the bank, we headed for the grocery store to get a few essentials: bread, laundry detergent, cookies and ice cream. (I am getting a little tired of giving Dairy Queen my money.)
The weather here is delightful. It is mid-80s but there is low humidity and a great breeze. This keeps us cool and comfy. I even took a little walk late in the afternoon. Shocked, aren’t ya?
I tried the WiFi again when we got back, and I was now redirected; however, I got the warning that their authentication certificate is not up-to-date. So, I wasn’t willing to pay $25 only to find out that it might wreck our laptop. I am now writing the content for the blog entries in MS Word. I’ll transfer them when I can get on. Ken told said he has been telling folks to take their laptops over to the café across the street, order a cup of coffee, and plug in for free. So, we may just do that when we get back from our sightseeing.
Well, I’ll say goodnight as we’ve had our cake and ice cream dinner. We are going to get up early to go feed bears!
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