Day 4 -- Idaho Falls, Idaho to Bozeman, Montana -- 211.7 Miles

Today was the the day we didn't go to Yellowstone Park. We DID travel up Interstate 20 to the town of West Yellowstone, just outside the western entrance to the Park, to have our lunch. But once lunch was over, we resisted the urge to give Yellowstone "just one more try," and instead we jumped on Route 191 that runs past the park entrance heading north as we set our sights on Bozeman, Montana for our evening camp.

Recently, as we were driving through Idaho and trying to decide if we should cut through the park and give ourselves a small advantage in our efforts to head east toward Minneapolis-Saint Paul, I asked Concetta to look up the guest count in Yellowstone Park for various months of the year. I was simply astounded. Traffic starts low through the winter and early spring months and runs around thirty thousand guests a month. By May it increases more than ten fold and you see totals like 400,000 guests a month. Then, as you tabulate guest totals for July you're often seeing counts like 800,000, even 900,000 a month. Needless to say, those totals are what finally decided us against the "shortcut." We just had to be satisfied with skirting the park to the north and turning east at Bozeman.

The first half of our journey today carried us through prime Idaho agricultural lands of potatoes, wheat and hay. The potato plants looked so healthy, that it started us wondering if we'd pass a roadside vegetable stand where we might find freshly-picked Idaho potatoes. But no such stand appeared, unfortunately. Once again seeing all the picturesque farm fields made me wish that states would offer more pullouts for photographers like me to grab a shot now and again. It's exceedingly frustrating to see a good shot but have no way snap it.

Somewhat before we reached the town of West Yellowstone, the terrain switched from gently rolling agricultural lands to craggy and mountainous forest lands full of lodge-pole pines and the occasional stands of fir and aspen. Though driving in mountainous terrain takes more concentration, you find yourself not minding tackling it at a slower pace while you enjoy the awesome vistas and the cooler mountain air.

I sought out our lunch spot specifically because we'd been there before; I knew the Yellowstone Historic Center Museum was in the middle of West Yellowstone, had a parking lot large enough for our rig, and provided easy access to surrounding shops should we want to grab a souvenir or two. Fortunately, as we rolled into town I immediately recognized where we were and was able to navigate right to our destination. We had to do some maneuvering to avoid blocking another RV in the parking lot, but that worked out okay.

Though I hadn't realized it when I chose the lunch stop, Route 191 to Bozeman lay just scant feet from where we were parked. When lunch was over, we simply rolled out of the parking lot and, moments later, we were on our way out of town.

The first thing we noticed as we headed north was that the skies ahead kept getting darker and darker. Soon the occasional rain drop showed up on the windshield followed by a dozen more. Fortunately, it never did rain hard, but the rest of the day the light over the forests and wetlands was flat, subdued, and dismal -- just the opposite one needs to take photographs. We stopped now and again to snap a few shots, but never captured much of interest.

Well, we did capture one thing of interest. As we motored beside the Gallatin River we caught up with a half dozen rubber boats full of river-rafters. Though the rafters didn't have the look of relaxed old hands, as each clutched their paddles, they seemed to be doing their best to enjoy themselves. There was no way to photograph them where we were, so Concetta and I raced down the road in their direction of travel, then pulled over where we could wait for their appearance. The light was still pretty dull, and I would of liked to have been closer to the river, but I did my best to grab a few shots of their progress downstream.

After shooting the river rafters, we stopped one more time to stretch our legs at a riverside campground. It was my intention to secure a nice river rock for my growing collection at home, especially if I could find a nice "corner rock." When you're building a river-rock piller, say one 8 feet tall, you need 32 feet of corner rocks to make the pillar look well-executed and symmetrical. Corner rocks are the most difficult to find as most rocks are strictly irregular. I also needed my rock to be some color other than volcanic gray. I nice cream color would be nice I thought, or perhaps green.

So once we had parked, Concetta and walked across the bridge to the east side of the river, then I picked my way down to the rushing water. Almost immediately I found the perfect corner rock. It's corner was very nearly a perfect 90 degrees. As a bonus, the rock was the color of vanilla ice cream.

Not wanting to take the very first rock I came to, I picked my way from bolder to bolder and got right down to the river's edge. There I encountered a small "friend" who was probably out looking for his dinner amidst the insect eggs. After snapping his photo, I bid him farewell and we each headed off in our chosen direction.

After about ten minutes of rock hunting I decided that I had seen no other rocks that were as good as the very first one I saw. So I climbed back up the bank, grabbed the perfect corner rock, and then climbed up to the road where Concetta stood chatting with a local fisherman.

And that was about it for the day. Before looking for our camp we did a bit of grocery shopping, then headed for a camp recommended by Concetta's IPhone. We hoped that the lateness of the day -- it was about 4:30 pm. -- wouldn't mean that all the spaces had been spoken for. Well, when we arrived at this first-choice camp we indeed discovered that all the spaces had been occupied or reserved. But the wonderfully friendly clerk rang one of her competitors and asked if he had a spot for us and to my relief he did. So it was back in the RV for a short 3-mile trip further east and we were soon setting up in a perfectly marvelous hilltop camp that was a tad expensive, but sported just beautiful, reasonably-spaced camp sites.

So there you have it. Tomorrow we will continue east on Interstate Route 90, the same route we used to reach our hilltop camp. Our short-term destination is roughly in the neighborhood of the Custer battlefield which lies very near our intended transition from Interstate 90 to Montana Route 212 which we hope will carry us toward Minneapolis. This is a land that is chock full of history in every direction, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get distracted by some historic site and make no progress whatsoever.

And that's it for now. The Happy Wanderers wish you exciting travels and intriguing discoveries on your adventures across America.