We stopped in town to wander the interesting little shops and to find some breakfast. I was surprised by the vast quantity of Indian memorabilia in the stores. I knew this was cowboy country, but the level of Indian kitsch was disturbing to me somehow. It felt like going to Germany and seeing little boutiques selling toy yarmulkes and dreidels. Maybe that’s just me.

We finally got on the road, crossing east through Wyoming. We climbed through the Bighorn Mountains pass and made our way to a small town named Dayton. From there, we used the GPS and a software package named Route 66 to pick a backroad route towards the city Sheridan. Finding the first turn was a little tricky, but we did locate it and started down the road, watching our progress on the GPS. However, we were surprised when the paved road ended and became dirt and gravel. Hrm, well, the GPS still shows us on track, and this little stretch was only four miles until the next turn, so sure, why not?

After a bouncy stretch down washboard gravel roads, we found the expected turn. Which was also a gravel road, this one five miles.

Take a minute to appreciate the juxtaposition of the scene; bouncing down gravel roads past fields, cattle, crops and farmhouses, navigating via GPS and mapping software on a laptop. Laugh it up.

We soon found our next turn. Yes, you guessed it, also a gravel road, this one eleven miles long. No point turning back now. Except, of course, it started raining. I could picture making the phone call, “Hello, AAA? We’re on this gravel road, well, it’s several gravel roads, really. (pause) No ma’am, we’re not drunk.” Remember the car wash of the morning? Long gone.

Eventually we made it to Sheridan, and returned to the shameless decadence of paved roads. From there we continued east, passing a massive coal quarry, and twice passing unbelievably long trains of nothing but coal cars.

By afternoon, we had reached our destination for the day, Devils Tower National Monument. We found a spot in the campground in the park, and decided to use the late afternoon sunlight to hike the Red Beds Trail that circles around the entire tower. The view of the tower in the setting sunlight was amazing, and so inspirational that we kept the Close Encounters jokes to a minimum.

Hiking through the woods, we spotted a deer about 40 feet away, who stared right at us, and still decided to continue coming our direction.

While taking pictures of the tower, we saw several large birds riding the thermals on the sunny side of the cliff wall. As we hiked deeper into the woods around the base of the tower, we spotted a dead tree with a flock of the birds resting; I think they were turkey vultures.

Also on the trail, we saw several rabbits, which I referred to as “bunny rabbits” several times until I could hear in my head the voice of our friend Owen saying “They’re called rabbits. Only children call them bunnies.”

And then in the pasture between the two and our campground, there was a large colony of prairie dogs that chirped in warning as we walked near.

This was a nice little campground, although it was situated between a field of mooing cows and a nearby KOA campground which seemed to have 70s rock music playing through a PA system, a strange mixture.

After breaking camp, we headed south in Yellowstone, towards Old Faithful. We wandered about the Old Faithful Inn for a bit, which was just a wonderful property. The Inn was celebrating its centennial this year, and I only wished some of my photographs of the interior had turned out better, but the light spilling through the windows washed out the shots. We got the expected time for the next eruption of Old Faithful and decided to hike along a trail and up a nearby hill to a suggested observation point for the eruption. Right on time, steam and then boiling water jetted out of the small spout. The view from the observation point was wonderful and certainly worth the hike.

While we were up there, we met three women who worked in the park. After watching the eruption, we decided to hike along the trail with them a little further. All three of them strongly recommended working in a national park for a summer (or more), and it sounded like a great job for a mobile nature-lover, even working in a cafeteria or gift shop. We followed the trail to Solitary Geyser and watched it bubble and erupt briefly.

From there, we separated from our new friends, and walked off trail for a bit, slowly making a curved path back to the Inn and Visitor Center. During the walk, we had to tightrope walk along many fallen trees to avoid tramping through a marsh, but we managed to stay mostly dry. The best part of this unplanned excursion was that we stumbled across a pile of dry bones from some dead creature. Being minor anatomy geeks, we were excited to be identifying which bones were what and what kind of creature they came from. Our best guess was an elk, and we even brought a vertebra back with us.

After lunch at the Snow Lodge, we started moving north through the park, stopping at several of the featured hot springs and geysers. The cold, damp weather meant we were often viewing grey plumes of steam against a grey sky so a number of the photos didn’t turn out as nice as we would have liked. But, walking around the sites was nice, and the scenery was just wonderful, despite the weather. We experienced the full complement of “thermal events”, geysers, hot springs, fumeroles and mud pots.

The landscape inside the park changed from geysers and hotsprings to deep forest to sweeping grassy valley.

As we made our way towards the northeast corner of the park, we also got many more glimpses of assorted wildlife, including an enormous raven, many bison, an elk and her calf, and a group of three male elk with full racks of antlers.

Eventually, we left the park via the northeast entrance and wound our way towards Cody, WY. The road out of the park dipped up briefly into Montana, but not enough to count it as another state we’ve visited yet. Once back in Wyoming we followed route 196 through the Shoshone forest and some dramatic (and gorgeous) scenery. Although the sky behind us was filled with black clouds, driving eastwards kept us ahead of the storm, and there was even a rainbow ahead for encouragement.

After 12 hours of exploring and driving, we pulled in to a state park and choose a campsite on the bluff next to the Buffalo Bill reservoir. The wind was fierce enough that we closed the pop-top before sleeping, but it was a beautiful spot. We sat in the shelter of the bus drinking tea and watched the lake, clouds, and hills merge into dark grey night.

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.

Later in the day, we got the call from the mechanic about the bus. Indeed, the alternator had died. The bearings had gone, which is why jumping the bus wouldn’t even work, because the alternator wouldn’t turn at all. New alternator and drive belt required. The mechanic said they could get the parts early the next morning and get us on the road by 10:00 am. People I talked to in town had only good things to say about this shop, so all I could do was wait and hope for the best. That, and find a hotel room for the night.

On that topic, let’s talk about what a hotel with “internet access” means. For some hotels, it apparently means “We have a four-year-old generic PC in the lobby that you can use to surf the web.” At least one hotel advertised “internet access” when what they meant was “there is wireless access in the lobby only”. Several hotels have advertised “internet access” and when you investigate they explain “Sure, just plug your modem into the phone line in your room and you can get on the internet.” If any of you reading this believe high-speed net access is ubiquitous in the US, I’m here to tell you otherwise. In fact, even dial-up can be a challenge. I called Earthlink to find out what the local dial-up number would be. The entire state of Wyoming is area code 307. For that area code, Earthlink has a single dial-up number, 201-0020. However, when I tried to call that number, I got a fast “beep, beep, beep” before I even finished dialing. I checked the phonebook, and the 201 exchange was valid. I even tried variations on dialing, like 1-201-0020 and 1-307-201-0020. Nope, nadda, zip. And all the Earthlink people could say is “Well, it *should* work.” Very helpful.

No pictures today. If you’re bummed, imagine how we feel. Oh well, in the grand scheme of things, an alternator is an easy thing to repair, and not wildly expensive. And I’ll say again how fortunate this happened as close to a big city as it did. If they can really get us on the road by 10:00 am, I’ll be quite impressed. It’s better than hitting a moose and totaling the bus. Although that might at least mean some spectacular pictures.

With a recommendation like that, who could resist? So, first thing in the morning, we proceed along towards Soda Springs. We quickly found a sign pointing us to the geyser, which was apparently behind the parking lot for a bar and a movie theater on Main Street. We found a sign post that explains how the spring was first found, and also mentions in passing that the spring has long since been capped and a timer releases the valve every hour to produce a geyser. The first *man-made* geyser. Ahh, raw, unfettered wilderness.

Traveling along these rural backroads has been interesting. We’ve seen a number of “towns” small enough that they have no stop light, and a single convenience store that also served as the local post office. The one we stopped at today even had horseshoes for sale. Not as a novelty, but boxes of real, nail-them-into-horses’-feet horseshoes, available in a number of sizes. Try finding that at Fry’s.

From there, we crossed from Idaho into Wyoming (another new state for me) and headed north on Route 89, alongside the Snake River. We stopped in Jackson for a bit, site of the Jackson Hole ski resort. We wandered the touristy strips, which reminded me greatly of some of the Colorado ski resort towns I’ve seen. We also found an independent music store which also had computers you could rent time on, as well as some free ethernet cables where you could plug in your own computer. Sweet! So, we brought the PowerBooks from the bus and got online for the first time in five whole days! Mainly I spent the time posting the travelogue from the previous days.

From Jackson we headed north into the Grand Teton National Park, towards the far north edge of the park where we would camp on the shore of Jackson Lake.

Along the way we spotted a moose and her calf grazing in a meadow and stopped to take about 200 photos.

Once again, the evening campfire started with a single match. My Camp Fu is strong. All those times watching Dan and/or Ed start beach bonfires really paid off. Thanks, guys! Just as were we getting ready to stop watching the fire and go to sleep, lightning started appearing in the distance, with low, slow thunder rolling in seconds later. We watched it move nearer and nearer, and decided to start moving gear from the picnic table into the bus and closing up the popup top. Sure enough, within minutes rain started falling in earnest and we moved into the bus, listening to the droplets drum on the roof and watching the fire struggle against the rain.

It feels like there are still seven days of hard driving to get to Memphis from here, and we have eleven days left in which to do it. As it is, we’ve pretty much ruled out Chicago on this trip. From here we’ll head north to Yellowstone, then across Wyoming into South Dakota and the Badlands National Park. Then down through Nebraska, across Missouri and down into Tennessee and into Memphis. So, where to spend the free time? On one hand, I don’t want to be late getting to Memphis, but on the other I want to make the most of seeing these sites and there’s no real benefit to arriving in Memphis too early. I mean, I know I’ll visit Memphis again, but the Grand Tetons I’m not so sure about. So, we may spend tomorrow doing a raft trip on the Snake River and easing into Yellowstone and that’s about it. Not a lot of mileage, but it seems like a really great place to spend one of those “extra” days.