Day 96 ~ Sunday, September 6 - We are in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The weatherman predicted the temperature to go down to 30 degrees and he was close. It got down to 28 degrees. That's pretty cold. The skies are just slightly cloudy and the temperature rises very quickly. We are at about 7100 feet altitude so we have mountain weather. Cool and crisp

By the Way: the picture in the header is of Mt. McKinley that I got off of the web. We never did see it due to the clouds.

We checked the internet website for "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks" for their schedule of services in Colter Bay and discovered that they offered three services on Sunday. We opted for the ten o'clock service held in the amphitheater in the village. The eight o'clock service was too early and too cold.

After the ACMNP service we headed on over to the marina and purchased tickets for the Jackson Lake boat tour for 3:15 today. We headed on back to the campsite for a really nice breakfast and another Ronald L. Dart Bible study recording. A good Sunday morning and another chance to thank God for His abundant grace and mercy, this great country, the wonderful National Parks and gorgeous weather.

The boat tour around Jackson Lake was very much like the one Diane and I took when we were here the last time. A most enjoyable hour and a half narrated scenic trip with history lessons about Jackson Hole and geological lessons about how the mountains and lake were formed. The mountains are not volcanic. They were pushed up millions of years ago by the plates jamming against each other and they are young mountains, hence the sharper peaks. I think this type of mountains are much prettier than volcanic mountains such as Mt. McKinley and Mt. Rainier. Just my opinion. The boat tour made us a little bit smarter, but we're old and will forget most of it by next Tuesday.

After we got back to shore, we headed to Jackson Lake Lodge to check out the restaurant. On the way, a black bear crossed the road right in front of us. Cool! Our first bear sighting in Wyoming. We can't prove it because we couldn't get the cameras out fast enough. He was quick.

The Jackson Lake Lodge has a fancy dining room and a diner-style cafe that served simple American food. We're simple Americans, so dinner it is. Chili, mac and cheese, cole slaw, burgers and locally brewed beer that was very good. Tasted a lot like Sam Adams. Simple food that hit the spot with simple people. Yum.

We took off from the Lodge and headed south a bit looking for wild animals in a couple of popular viewing areas. No animals were sighted and it was getting dark and late so back to the campground we went. In the campground we saw another gray fox. Could have been the same fox we saw the first time yesterday. Clearly has the fox face, but it was larger than normal and gray. We do believe it was a fox though and not a wolf. It is really dark about eight o'clock now and we have to be on the lookout for Bigfoot and his friends. I've seen the movies. I know he's out there somewhere.

A glass of peppermint Schnapps and another episode of "Once Upon a Time" (season one, I'm trying to catch up) was a good combination before bedtime. It's going to be stinkin' cold again tonight. I hope we don't freeze. It's probably raining everywhere in Alaska.

Day 97 ~ Monday, September 7 - Wow! Two nights in a row the temperature got down to 28 degrees. At six in the morning we ran out of propane and I had to go out in the 31 degree air and change tanks. We use the oven to keep us warm by setting it to 180 degrees and leaving the door propped open about three inches. We always have the upper two trailer vents open so we won't die from lack of oxygen. We've done this many times in the past 42 years without any problems. Keeps us from freezing. This morning I dug out our small catalytic propane heater and tried it out on the low setting of 4000btu and that seems to be pretty good. We'll use that tonight to keep us warmer and without any fumes.

It is noon and the temperature is a cool 54 degrees with no clouds whatsoever. Beautiful day. We are all climbing into the truck for a road trip to Yellowstone. Should be fun. Yellowstone is about an hour's drive north of here.

Yellowstone was right where we left it in 2002 and Old Faithful is still faithful, almost. The lousy thing went off ten minutes early and we saw it erupting as we were walking across the parking lot. Rats! We had to wait 90 minutes for the next eruption so we visited the Visitor Center, the Lodge and gift shop and walked around the Old Faithful complex. It is a very large area capable of handling a lot of people and there were a lot of people. A bunch of idiots sitting around waiting for a geyser to erupt. It did. Back in the sixties, it used to erupt every sixty some minutes, but there was a shift below the ground and that extended the time between eruptions to about 90 minutes. No matter, it puts on quite a show.

Next on our drive after Old Faithful were the Fountain Paint Pots and one of the creepiest places on this planet, the Geyser Basin, where all of this weird colorful crap is oozing from the ground via fissures that vent sulphur gas and make the whole area smell like a giant fart. Gregg and I both found out that we could fart here and couldn't smell it. Cool. Diane loves this particular walk and we've been here in June, July, August and now September. September is the best because the pots are getting drier and they plop mud, not water. Diane was ecstatic.

On our way out of Yellowstone, we had to stop and take pictures of a half dozen Elk crossing the road. These guys walked very slowly so the drivers could see them. They looked both ways to be sure they did indeed stop all the traffic. They owned the road and intended to cross it and stop all the cars in the process. Success! In Michigan, the dumb ass deer run across the road so fast the drivers don't see them until it's too late. They should try the Elk way and give drivers a chance to stop. Dumb ass Michigan deer.

We got back to the campsite about 8:30 pm and way too late to run the generator even though most of this camping loop was empty. Today is Labor Day and tomorrow is back to work / school and folks had to get back home. We could hear generators running in other loops where campers refuse to observe the rules and be courteous to other campers. I guess 8 am to 8 pm isn't long enough for some folks.

We've been watching old episodes of Ally McBeal; funny and stupid show. In case you don't know, Calista Flockhart, who played Ally is married to Harrison Ford and they live here in Jackson Hole. The boat captain told a great story yesterday about Harrison Ford being part of a mountain rescue a year ago. He's an expert helicopter pilot. Anyway, this is the perfect place to live. Expensive because a lot of Hollywood people moved here and drove up the real estate prices. We just visit every few dozen years. I'll drink to that. Jack Daniel, neat. Good night, Irene, good night.

Day 98 ~ Tuesday, September 8 - The small propane heater worked quite well, but ran out of gas in the one-pound cylinder about six in the morning. I swapped in a new one and went back to bed for a couple more hours. The extra blanket I threw over us last night was another good idea. Layered warmth.

Gregg and Gale said goodbye this morning and headed back toward Michigan. Gale has a doctor's appointment on the 14th and they need to make tracks. Diane and I are now on our own, again, to finish the trip. We decided to stay here for two more days if we can get an electric site for tomorrow so Diane can do her work and I can fart around. The weather is perfect with sunny skies and warm sixties. Beautiful.

After a two-hour generator run and breakfast, we signed up for one more day in this campsite and checked on an open site for tomorrow in the RV Campground, with full hookups, that is separate from this campground and right next to it. No luck; that campground is 100% reserved until the end of the season. That's okay because those sites are expensive at $46 per night senior rate compared to the twelve bucks we are paying now for the rustic camping. And the RV sites are much smaller and the whole campground is loaded with big rigs and old people. We did find out that there are some electric sites in our campground, but we'll have to check back tomorrow morning after the eleven checkout to see if we can get a site. I hope so. I love this park and want to linger longer.

At about one o'clock, Diane and I set out on a road trip to see touristy stuff south of Colter Bay Village. We hung a right onto US89, drove past Jackson Lake Lodge and turned right onto Teton Park Road which took us across the top the Jackson Lake Dam to a parking lot on the south side. The truck waited for us in the parking lot while we walked around and took pictures of the dam and the exiting water that feeds the Snake River flowing east and then turning south toward South America. I don't think it goes that far.

Our next stop was at Signal Mountain resort on the southeast corner Jackson Lake not far at all from the dam. There is a lodge, store, gas station and restaurant there. We checked out the second-floor lobby of the small lodge with its large windows overlooking the lake. Great view. Could sit here for hours. This is a nice old-fashioned lodge. An affordable restaurant, bar and two shops are in the next building over.

Our next stop was at Jenny Lake Lodge located on a one-way side road going south. The lodge now rents cabins and has a small, gourmet restaurant. It is a small, picturesque and quiet place. We could spend a week here easily. The drive in and out on the one-way Jenny Lake Road along Jenny Lake is absolutely beautiful. There is a pull-out on the lake that is the best in the park with short stone walls, benches and walkways along the lake. Wonderful! Another place one could sit for hours and contemplate the infinite while watching the lake dry up and the mountains turn to sand. That may take a while.

We continued driving south and back onto Teton Park Road to the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center by Moose. After stopping at the Visitor Center, we pulled back onto the road only to have a couple Pronghorn Sheep cut us off. It was fast and we have no pictures to prove it, but they were there just the same. We know exactly what they were because we had just read all about them at the Visitor Center. They look just like the pictures too.

We passed thru Moose, located north across the road, which is headquarters to some of the many water rafting and boat excursion companies here in the park. Diane had post cards to mail, but the Post Office was closed - only open M-F 11:30 - 1:00 - great hours. The cards would have been post marked with Moose, Wyoming. How cool, but nope.

Our next drive thru was Dormans with a store, gas station, chuck wagon dinner place, pizzeria and more boat renting and touring companies. It was a little after five and we were tempted by the pizzeria. Sixteen bucks for a twelve incher. No, we had dinner food back at the trailer so we started back.

Along the way back, we passed a long stretch of open range and small ranches and saw wild Pronghorn Sheep again, horses in the fenced ranches and several small herds of about 50-60 grazing bison in the open range areas. A fantastic late-afternoon, sunny drive back to the Colter Bay Campground.

We stopped at the Convenience Store in Colter Bay and stocked up on bread, nuts and a couple of ice cream treats for dessert. Diane made a great dinner and chili for tomorrow while I farted around on the computer downloading pictures from the camera and renaming them and drank a Grand Teton Brewing Mountain Brewed Amber Ale and ate cashews. Dinner was good with our drumstick ice cream for dessert followed up with old TV shows and a glass of Captain Morgan Parrot Bay Mango flavored Rum before bed. Just another perfect day in a perfect National Park.

Day 99 ~ Wednesday, September 9 - Holy Moses! Four days in a row with a 28 degree low nighttime temperature. Welcome to the mountains in September. Once again, we awoke to beautiful sunny skies and quickly rising temperatures. Wow! This is going to be another great day.

As we planned, I made a nice breakfast (omelet, pancakes from yesterday, and sausage), and we packed up the trailer to leave Loop O and see if we could get an electric site. Okay, sites with electric were now open in Loop J and we got a really nice one right next to the restroom and water. Great! We parked the trailer on J198 and set up Diane's remote office. All worked perfectly with a really good Verizon link to the internet. All is well. Diane is working and I am typing this. The sunshine is amazing. Life is good. This loop is so much better than Loop O. all of the sites are very large, paved and flat.

I took a three mile hike thru the campground and to Jackson Lake and around Colter Bay Village, stopped by the general store and bought muffins for breakfast tomorrow. The weather was absolutely wonderful all day today with sunshine and warm enough temperatures to warrant the wearing of shorts. Great walk and good exercise for this old body. When I got back to the campsite about five o'clock, a beer, pipe smoking, old newspaper reading and relaxing in the sunshine finished off the afternoon and perfect camping day for me.

The chili and kale salad that Diane made yesterday was our dinner tonight. Good and hot. An after dinner walk around a couple loops, some rice pudding for dessert, some old TV shows and a couple fingers of Jim Beam Apple hooch on the rocks finished the day. Oh, and I can make ice when we have electricity. We'll be warmer and more comfortable with the heater going. BTW: the electric hookup for this site costs us a $26 premium over our rustic site. Worth it. No farting around with the generator and propane heater and breathing exhaust fumes all night long and killing brain cells. We already lost enough cells due to old age and being from Michigan.

Day 100 ~ Thursday, September 10 - Well, that 90-day vacation is now a 100-day vacation and growing. Time sure flies when you're having fun, and we are. Breakfast was easy with orange juice, almond poppy seed muffins that I bought yesterday, yogurt, prunes and coffee. As Lindsay would say, muffins are just an excuse for eating cake for breakfast.

The temperature was a warmer 32 degrees last night instead of the previous days' low of 28 degrees. After breakfast the temperature rose quickly up to 50 with the sun pushing it right along. Just another sunny day in paradise. We headed down to the campground check-in place and paid up for one last night here in this wonderful National Park. This will be day number six here. Now we are in vacation mode and not trip mode. Much more comfortable and relaxing in one of God's best creations. Personally, I love this

Diane and I gathered up our dirty laundry and headed down to the village to the laundromat. As we waited for the washers and dryers to do their thing, we played a game of cribbage outside on the picnic table. The temperature was already in the high sixties. We spotted a red fox walk right up between the buildings about twenty feet away from us. He looked around and headed back. He was a really beautiful young creature, rather skinny with a long bushy tail. Our third fox sighting here in Grand Teton.

After the laundry thing, we drove back to the trailer, dumped off the clean clothes, talked with one of our neighbors and headed back to the village and Jackson Lake. We walked around and took more pictures of the marina with the Teton mountains in the background. We then drove thru the parking lot and down the road to the day-use picnic area next to the lake. There we spent a couple hours eating lunch (BLT sandwiches that Diane whipped up back at the trailer) playing cribbage (I won), taking more pictures of Jackson Lake and the mountains and watching people and dogs play in the ice-cold water. The sun was very bright and hot like a clear summer day and here we are in September. Just gorgeous weather for the past six days.

On our way back to the campground, we stopped by the general store for some ice cream, a part of the food group for old people, I think. We certainly don't want to take any chances on missing this important food. The peanut butter ice cream was great.

Well, back to the trailer we went for some relaxing in the late afternoon sun with a beer at my side, computer on my lap and Diane playing solitaire on our patio. This has been a truly great day. We plan to leave tomorrow for the long trip back to Michigan.

A quick update on the truck's cooling system and heater core leak: The damn thing is still leaking, but not much more than a gallon per day. We did run into an overheating problem when we were in Yellowstone the other day and had to put in a quart of drinking water from bottles to get the temperature down enough to find a water spigot in a nearby campground where we put in about two gallons of water. I forgot to check the water level that morning before we left on that rather long road trip. I put in the last two of six stop leak pills. I don't know what's going to happen on the way back home. Keep adding water I suppose. We'll see.

It's six-thirty and the air cooled down quickly to the current 72 degrees as the sun drops down and we are sitting in the shade of the lodge pole pine trees. Chilly enough for us old farts to put on long pants and long sleeve shirts.

Dinner tonight is chili topped with cheddar cheese and sour cream, again. Really good stuff with a beer and some crackers. I did a lot of updates to the this travel log and added pictures for this week and some for last week. Now its time for some old TV show viewing and a glass of some alcoholic libation before bedtime.

Day 101 ~ Friday, September 11 - It was a little warmer last night and only got down to 34 degrees. It's 56 degrees under very sunny skies, again. It is so nice here, we hate to leave, but homeward bound we must go. We have a route planned, so off we go at about eleven thirty onto northbound US-89 toward Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is an amazing place. There is so much to see there it takes weeks just to enjoy the highlights.

As we drove past Lewis Lake, we stopped to take pictures and then proceeded north. We were looking for a Post Office but didn't find one in Grant Village. We approached the junction of highway 20 coming from the west where we turned right onto highway 14 heading around the western and then northern side of Yellowstone Lake. The first tiny settlement of West Thumb did not have a Post Office. Nor did Bridge Bay Marina and Campground further up the road. Our next stop was in the Lake Area (stupid name) where there is the Yellowstone Lake Hotel and Cabins (ugly cabins) and a dumpy post office that was open. Oh goodie! Off goes the mail. Take that off our list of things to do today.

We stopped at a lot of picnic area pull-outs to take pictures of the beautiful lake with weird geyser-like activity on the northwestern shore. The weather was wonderful with temperatures in the high sixties and lots of sunshine. This is a very difficult place to leave behind.

The following pictures are shown in chronological order as we drove out of the park.

The drive east out of Yellowstone on US14 toward Cody was absolutely spectacular. We drove miles and miles thru a beautiful canyon, then by Buffalo Bill State Park and Reservoir, thru three tunnels into Cody, Wyoming, and past Stampede Park where all the famous rodeos take place.

where we visited Old Trail Town which is a collection of historic western buildings and artifacts, a.k.a. an outdoor museum. They gathered up old log buildings from all over and relocated them here and loaded them up with old western junk. Lots of stuff regarding Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- their cabins and the saloon and the Hole in the Wall Saloon with bullet holes in the doors were all there. There are numerous old wagons of all kinds. They even relocated some graves of famous frontier people. Very interesting place.

It was past seven o'clock and we needed to pound down some dinner and find a campground for the night. We checked in at the Visitor Center in Cody for local info. Right around the corner was the Sunset House family dining were we enjoyed a very good meal. While we were eating, a guy dressed up as Buffalo Bill came in with his family to eat. He must have been from one of the street gunfight sideshows they have here, but he threw us for a loop for a minute. Afterwards, we called the Ponderosa Campground and the KOA Campground and nobody answered the phones. The Ponderosa was right next door to the restaurant, so we drove over and found a "Full" sign. Oh, well.

We drove back west out of Cody to Buffalo Bill State Park where we found the last open campsite. Rustic camping with clean pit toilets, paved roads and large paved pull-thru sites right on the reservoir.

We took a huge number of pictures today and I downloaded them from the camera to the computer then started the renaming process which sometimes takes a long time. Diane went to bed early. I drank a beer and watched another episode of "Once Upon a Time", season one. I took a quick walk outside and was wowed with the night skies here and the milky way in all its splendor - another great view here in the wild west. This is a quiet campground and the warmer nighttime temperatures made for a very restful night.

Day 102 ~ Saturday, September 12 - It was 54 degrees outside at eight in the morning. Haven't seen that in quite a while. It only got down to 51 degrees last night and we didn't need any extra heat at all in the trailer. Super! I did have to run the generator for a couple hours to get the refrigerator cold again.

We didn't drive very far yesterday, I knew that would happen. Trying to get thru Yellowstone quickly isn't ever going to happen. Too much to see. Well, here we are in Cody, Wyoming, and we are going to hang out here today and go to the Collegiate Rodeo tonight. High on the list of things to do while we are "Out West".

Our late night arrival into the State Park campground was quick and dirty with no jack stands or trailer disconnect, so our departure this morning was easy after some picture taking and a walk down to the reservoir / lake. This whole area is very arid and desert like. There are sunflowers growing wild by the water shoreline. Very pretty. The ground is very dry. The water is cold.

This campground has three loops. One loop has electric and is 100% reserved and occupied, so we can't stay there. There are lots of empty sites in the other two loops, but we decided to drive back into Cody and see if Ponderosa Campground has any room for us. It was a quick half-hour drive that should have only taken fifteen minutes if we didn't stop so many times to take pictures of the Shoshone river down in the canyon with the dam and power plant. We could live here.

Ponderosa Campground did indeed have a site for us right across from the restrooms and showers. Perfect. This is a very nice campground and has what we need including tickets to the rodeo tonight for ten bucks each. Done deal. The weather here today is perfect with full sunshine and NO clouds whatsoever and 80 degrees which we have not seen on this 101-day trip. Now it's time to buy groceries and fill up the truck's gas tank for $2.759 per gallon. We can live with that.

We have talked to so many of our camping neighbors in the past week and everybody wants to know about our Alaska adventures. So, we burn up a lot of time telling them, honestly. Go to Alaska and take a boatload of money and plan on a month in Alaska itself. The food is expensive. The gas stations are far apart in Canada and expensive. Camping is abundant and cheap. It's cold. The early sunrise and late sunset will drive you insane. It's a tough drive. Make sure your vehicle is in very good condition. Take your time and enjoy. I'm off track here.

After our Walmart adventure and a really great dinner with a game of cribbage and a beer we had a rodeo to attend. This was a collegiate rodeo with all young college kids participating. It was fun, fun, fun, until one of the kids got kicked in the melon by a bull. These bulls were huge, mean and unrideable. This sport is so much more dangerous than football and it is such a big sport out here. Stampede Park in Cody is the rodeo capital of the world and has a rodeo every night in the summer. It is crazy popular.

The rodeo started at seven and was over a little after ten. It was just a short drive back to the campground for a shower, some alcoholic beverage, computer work, more old TV show viewing then off to bed. Tomorrow is Sunday and we need to do some serious driving eastward toward home.