The road between the Tetons and Yellowstone is called the John D Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. Unless I was mistaken, the Rockefellers were reasonably well off. So can someone explain to me while that stretch of road was pockmarked with holes, dusted with plenty of loose gravel, and in spots covered with a substantial layer of mud? There were times that the only thing keeping the bus from getting stuck was forward momentum.
As if that wasn’t excitement enough, we started seeing patches of snow beside the road, and soon the falling drizzle turned to sporadic bursts of falling snow.
Well, we wanted an adventure, didn’t we?
When we came to the park entrance, we told the rangerette on duty that we had no snow chains. She looked a little dubious and suggested we get where we were going toute suite. So, we raced through the southern stretch of the park, trying to find an open campground. Several of them don’t open until later in June, so we had to go 45 miles into the park to find a site. On the way, we noted places we wanted to visit the following day, and stopped very briefly for pictures when we just couldn’t resist. We saw a bison right beside the road…
… and later saw a coyote under similar circumstances.
We finally reached the Madison Campground without being caught in a blizzard, but upon checkin we found out that temps were due to reach 30 F overnight, and the drizzle continued to fall, so we expected to awaken to a fresh dusting of snow in the morning. Ahh well, the bus was working again, and we had full tanks of gas, propane, and water, so we felt prepared for most conditions.