Super 8 Riverton Wy

So here we are, we just started our climbing oddessy, although there has been no climbing yet.... We arrive here at Lander, wy late last night and woke up to a very cold and rainny day, the idea is to run some erands today and hit the climbing gym here in town. Tommorrow we shall see how the weather is and amaybe hit the real rock!!
ta-ta....

... and drove there around 8:30pm. We talked with a guy, Tim, from Texas who camped at the site for several nights. Susan asked him about bears in the area. Tim said a bear rubbed against his tent the night before. We left the parking lot without looking back and searched for a motel room.

Fortunately, the Downtown Motel had rooms available. The decor was early tag sale from the 50's and 60's.

Still, it was better to sleep in a bed without the bears.

A full day on the bus retracing a large part of the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails has me exhausted, and I didn't have to push a cart 20 miles today. I have a new appreciation for the tribulations and determination of the emigrants heading west. Life must have been really bad to motivate an individual and/or family to push into the unknown in the manner they did.

I had no idea that the Mormons paid ...

... conversation, and an indoor guestroom provided welcome hospitality.  Lots of catching up.


Next day, which was yesterday, we headed out late (11) further south for miles and miles along the Salmon River.  Mountain views, narrow canyons, areas of broad green and further south, broad high desert.  Across lava fields, with distant extinct volcanoes.  Through Idaho Falls and into Wyoming from the back of the Tetons.  Held up for a half hour ...

We saw sign, near dark for Sacajawea Grave site, went looking but couldn't find it.

LINK

Another Link

... to stop at the Flying J to fuel up.

Boy is this Flying J a mess. It is the worst entry/exit place we have ever encountered and it gets really tight trying to handle truckers, RVer's and autos all at the same time when there is barely enough room for the trucker to pull a tight "S" turn off the main drag then into Flying J at the same time the others are trying to fuel and leave. Then I saw this RVer pulling a trailer pull out with his fuel cap dangling on ...

Today was a traveling day getting closer to Yellowstone. Wyoming is a beautiful state with the landscape changing almost at every turn. We made a stop at Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis Wyoming. We went to a mineral hot springs and soaked in the hot mineral waters it was wonderful. We started to stay there for the night but ...

... s wonderful dad passed away late last summer. The summer had happy moments, though. I drove (yes, drove) to DC for my best friend's bachelorette party and we drove back through Niagara and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Our border crossing back into the US was a bit tricky, especially when they asked us such stumpers as "where do you live?" and "where do you work?" Hmmm...good ones, Mr. Border Guard. For some reason they didn't believe we had once ...

... cold temperature). The geyser was higher and longer by at least double, what we had seen yesterday afternoon. After a pretty good breakfast buffet at the Lodge we headed south out of Yellowstone toward the Grand Tetons. Today's drive was magnificent. I don't think I have ever seen any more spectacular mountains than the Tetons. We stopped often and took many pictures, even hit two visitor centers before we headed down to Jackson (or ...

... to Grand Tetons. It's a little humourous (in a Bart Simpson kind of way) that Americans welcome you to the Grand Tetons in their very non-french accent, and there's not even the slightest smirk on their faces to indicate they know they're welcoming you to a couple of mountains named after boobs. They do know that, right? The views in Grand Teton National Park (adjacent park to the South of Yellowstone) were outstanding ...