Day 26 - West Yellowstone, Montana to Eagle Creek Campground, Wyoming - 150 Miles

This evening, which is to say yesterday evening, we did a bit of “dry” camping along the Shoshone River when we left Yellowstone Park by the eastern entrance. It was late afternoon, and we had been on the road from about 10:00 a.m. when we left the Yellowstone Historic Center Museum in the town of West Yellowstone. So when the afternoon was getting on toward 4:00 p.m., and we came across one of those lovely brown, U. S. Forest Service signs announcing, “Eagle Creek Campground” just ahead, we made a snap decision and pulled off the highway to check it out.

As soon we pulled in, we came abreast of a middle-aged couple walking through the camp, and they recommended that we stay since the camp’s proximity to the Shoshone River made it extra nice. So we drove down a few spaces, found one we liked for its levelness, and stayed. There’s absolutely no amenities other than the scenery, but that we have in abundance, along with burbling river sounds, loads of filtered sunlight, and a friendly neighborhood.

If you only knew, you’d realize that we fully deserve a nice camp after the day we’ve had traveling through Yellowstone. This morning we thought we'd sail right through the park on our way from the west entrance to the east entrance, even though we knew we had to pass “Old Faithful” in the bargain. But our first task of the morning was to visit the fine museum in West Yellowstone that is devoted to all aspects of Yellowstone Park and the public's insatiable appetite for visiting.

"You probably know that a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, John Colter, was the first white man to view the area now known as Yellowstone Park when he was trapping in the west after the successful completion of his job with the Corps of Discovery. But after returning and reporting what he had seen, he was widely disbelieved, and his momentous discovery was then derisively known as "Colter's Hell.

Fast forward to the post Civil War era, and after more than half a century of exploration and Yellowstone boosterism, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the paperwork that made Colter's Hell the new national park of Yellowstone. After that, there was an increasing flood of tourists to the area. This period of the exploration and development of park amenities and support features is what the West Yellowstone museum so thoroughly and expertly displays. Everything from the 19th century freight wagons used to haul in supplies, to the stagecoaches and early buses that ferried tourists around the park, to mementos of the trains and airplanes that brought tourists from around the world to the park gates, are wonderfully explained and portrayed. Should you ever travel through West Yellowstone, we enthusiastically encourage you to visit the museum. It's right on the park entrance road.

We left the museum around 10:00 a.m., hoping that we were still early enough to avoid the biggest rush of the day. And indeed, for the first ten miles, we really made great time. But then we rounded a bend and came up against a line of cars reminiscent of the construction zone lineup from the day before.

The line was moving so slowly that we thought there must be an accident up ahead, which, in the absence of construction zone markers, seemed the only reason the traffic would be virtually at a standstill. Every once in a while we’d be stopped completely for many minutes. But most of the time we’d be creeping forward at a pace roughly approximating the walking speed of a ninety-year old.

Strangely, every once in a while, the speed of the captive automobiles and RVs would suddenly increase to near normal for a half mile or so, only to suddenly be brought up short again. By the time we’d been at it for approaching an hour, and we hadn’t even gone 14 miles, I was scouting ahead for a turnout, which I planned to use to the reverse direction and head back to West Yellowstone.

I figured, I could probably go north out of West Yellowstone until I reached Bozeman, Montana, then I could go east on Interstate 90 until I hit Columbus, Montana. There I could turn south again and, taking Highways 78 and 212 to Red Lodge, then 296 east for a bit, I would be in Cody by nightfall. The distance would be maybe twice the 150 miles I expected to travel through the park to Cody, but then I wouldn’t be doing it at 3 miles per hour.

As expected, when I ran the idea past Concetta she voted no. Okay, I said, but at this rate it will take us a week to go the 150 miles to Cody. Instead of abandoning the whole eastward crawl, Concetta suggested that we plug in our book on CD, and just enjoy the beautiful scenery, made more enjoyable since it would be like watching a turtle race. And that’s what we did.

When we were nearly to Madison Junction we finally found out what had been causing the massive traffic jam. It turned out to be a female antelope or moose. The creature had set up her mealtime munching right beside the road, and our lame-brained fellow travelers, and at this point we can’t blame just one or two, for it must have been dozens, decided that it would be okay to stop or slow down to take a photo of the browsing creature. THIS WAS THE ONLY HOLD-UP THAT HAD COST US AN ENTIRE HOUR OF TRAVEL TIME! Once the cars were past the browser, traffic sped up to normal levels.

Okay, I’ve certainly met people as dumb as the ones with whom we traveled Yellowstone Park’s southern route today. You probably have, too. But this wasn’t the end of the story. We mercifully found ourselves restored to normal travel speeds for just a brief period of time before we hit yet another near standstill blockage. And once again, after we had wasted yet ANOTHER hour traveling some sixteen miles, we discovered that the holdup was nothing more than a group of buffalo feeding on grass near enough to the highway to cause the brainless to come to a halt to photograph them out the car windows.

Thankfully, once we had passed Old Faithful, and once we had passed the exit for the southern gate, we ended up having the highway toward the eastern gate, at times, largely to ourselves. We spent the entire rest of the day cruising along at normal speeds, stopping (in designated turnouts only) whenever we felt the need to photograph something, and enduring absolutely no traffic congestion whatsoever. My advice, should you choose to brave coming to one of American’s most popular destinations, is to enter the park via the southern or eastern gates. The northern gate is okay, or will be whenever they get the road construction done. But at all costs, avoid the western gate unless you bring a good book on CD, and don’t really mind if it takes you two hours to travel the thirty or so miles to Old Faithful and other nearby attractions.

I met several very interesting people today. Though I neglected to learn any names, they all interested me greatly. First there were the tent campers who were our next door neighbors the previous night in West Yellowstone, and who were traveling by bicycle all the way from California to Virginia. The group included a California girl, an Argentinian man who was the tent mate of the California girl, and a man from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who apparently had become acquainted with the couple on the road. He told me that he had decided to throw in his lot with them for the ride east. The first two were somewhat uncommunicative, but the rider from Philadelphia told me he just did this when he wasn't being a full-time RVer. I didn't ask him what he did for money, but he looked far too young to be retired. Maybe he was a .com millionaire, which would have made a better story.

The next traveler I met was peddling a sort of modern Soapbox-Derby car uphill and down dale and who stopped at the same wide spot in the road where we had stopped to have our lunch. As I sat eating my sandwich and drinking my coffee in the comfort of the RV, I began to wonder what sort of supplies he could actually carry in his form-fitting machine. So I resolved to go over and find out. I grabbed a bottle of water, jammed it into my back pocket, then set out to make his acquaintance.

When I approached the strange conveyance, I immediately noticed that he was asleep, perhaps taking a nap after his long climb up to the 8,541 foot Sylvan pass we were about to surmount. But he somehow became aware of me, and opened his eyes. When I asked if he needed anything, and I held out the water, he turned down my offer, telling me that he had a tube for fluids, as well as liquid sustenance, that he could access without doing anything extra.

Then, for the next few minutes, I asked about his travels and he asked about mine. When I told him that we sometimes only traveled about fifty miles per day, he smiled and told me that he usually beats that figure. Then I asked him where he was staying the night, and he told me, “Flagstaff.” I didn't want to tell him that Concetta and I in our RV would probably have trouble making flagstaff, Arizona, in under three days. I decided let the statement stand. Perhaps there actually is a Flagstaff, Wyoming, coming up ahead somewhere.

The last interesting person I met was another bicyclist whom I encountered when I stopped just over the highest part of the pass to get a photo of some lakes in the distance. He peddled up and stopped while I was standing at the overlook snapping photos. After we exchanged some pleasantries, I asked him if he was a Deutchlander since his accent sounded German. He seemed pleased by my question, and the correct pronunciation of his ethnicity. “Yes, German,” he said, his smile broad.

”Tough hill to climb,” I said.

”Yes,” he said. “But I am in training, climbing as many hills as I can. Soon I will be riding my bicycle from the very tip of Alaska to the very tip of South America.”

Naturally, I was very impressed, and I asked him to pose. I regret not learning his name, but I suppose it’s not that important. The important thing is that he was doing something that only the best among us will ever attempt. My hat is off to him and to all intrepid citizens of the world like him.

The rest of the day Concetta and I spent traveling and stopping and traveling and stopping as we encountered incredible vistas. The traffic could only be described as “slight,” and we seldom had to worry about merging back into traffic once we had pulled over for a break of some sort.

One of my favorite breaks today was in a part of the forest that had burned completely in 1988. If you remember, forty-five percent of Yellowstone Park burned that year, and though the destruction was disheartening and graphic, the rebirth of the forest has been awe-inspiring and everywhere to be seen. From among the forest-floor ashes and charred tree trunks, legions of small pines have thrust their way skyward, and are now reaching for the heavens with all the vitality of their forebears.

My other favorite stop today was when we neared the eastern park gate. Not having scored a T-shirt for Yellowstone Park yet, we determined that I should look one more time before we exited the park. We stopped at the handy trading post and there I added not one, but TWO t-shirts to my U.S. traveling wardrobe collection. And then, at Concetta’s insistence, I also grabbed a peach-flavored ice-cream cone to properly round out the day. Life is good on the road!

So now the light is fading in our primitive camp in the pines. The laptop is almost out of juice, I won’t be able to charge it, and there is no Verizon service to be had. But if you’re okay with a minimum of modern technology when you’re on the road, and the magnificence of mountain rivers and towering pines makes you happy to be alive, then we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.