September 18, 2007 — On the way over to Jackson, Wyoming, we took Teton Pass. The steep grade was interesting for towing our camper over — especially on the downhill side!
We’re camped right next to the Snake River. We walked down to the water’s edge shortly after we got here and saw a couple of boats of fishermen floating downstream.
September 19, 2007:
The new visitor center at the Moose entrance to Grand Teton National Park has only been open a few weeks. It is quite impressive, and, given the volume of visitors through here, sorely needed.
The “courtyard” going into the visitor center.
The visitor center includes a very modern museum/interpretive center. In this photo, Karen is standing on top of a set of video panels showing the role of fire in the park’s natural cycle. There were several of these floor video panels, each showing the same video, I think, but sequenced so it seems like they are all different. Instinctively, it just feels wrong to walk on the displays, but that is what they are designed for or there would be a barrier to keep people off.
There were quite a few bronze statues depicting different parts of the history of what is now the park.
The Tetons, looking across Jenny Lake. We walked a trail later in the day that goes up the notch on the left into Cascade Canyon.
On the trail, headed first to Hidden Falls.
There are some huge trees in the park.
Hidden Falls
A British couple that had road the same boat across Jenny Lake took this photo for me after I had offered to take one of them with their camera. We ran into them again later in town.
Fall colors on the way up. On this trail, it is a constant climb up to and a little past Inspiration Point, which is about a mile in. Then it levels out in Cascade Canyon. We hiked a ways into the canyon, but turned back because we were at our limit for distance and we also had to get back to ensure a ride back across the lake. We ended up doing about 5 miles all told, which is an improvement for us.
This is the toughest part of the trail — not for the faint of heat or those who fear heights. There is a long drop-off at this point. Sensible shoes highly recommended! — although we saw people with smooth soled shoes and even sandals! These folks were very tentative coming down, especially the last guy. He kept very close to the inside wall and even then almost fell when he got down to safety at the point where we were standing.
We had been there before and went up — and down — with no problem.
One of the few pictures of me — I take most of the pictures.
After we got to Inspiration Point, we continued a ways, but were planning to turn back before too long as we had already done a lot better than we had thought we would. Along the way, several people returning told us about 3 moose off the trail a ways ahead so we kept plodding along. We finally found them. They were a ways off the trail laying down. We couldn’t see them very well, but I was able to enhance this photo to bring out the rack on this bull moose.
Looking back up behind us as we headed back down the trail.
Coming back across Jenny Lake.
After the hike, we drove north a ways in the park. This is at Oxbow Bend turnout near Moran Junction.
Continue reading about Travel Journal — Snake River and Grand Teton National Park
This morning, we stopped at Norris Geyser Basin, but don’t have any pictures because we were a little out of routine getting going in the morning. As a result, Karen brought out my camera, but I hadn’t put the memory card back in it. We discovered it wasn’t in the camera after Norris. There was another smaller point-and-shoot camera in the truck that had another memory card in it that would work in my Pentax, though the card had much less capacity.
Tower Falls — another disappointment. There is a sign at Tower Falls that points to the overlook, but the part of the sign that says how far it is to the falls itself was covered with a piece of wood. We didn’t even notice, though. We had been to the base of the falls a number of times in the past, so really didn’t need to know how far it was. However, when we were about half way there, the trail was blocked by a barricade. A sign that said the trail beyond that point was closed due to erosion. So we turned around and went back. This picture is from the Tower Falls overlook.
After Tower Falls, we drove up the road to the northeast entrance a ways, had lunch and saw several hundred — maybe over a thousand — buffalo. On the way back, just before Tower Falls, we saw some bighorn sheep. This female was just stepping off a wall along the side of the road. I shot the picture from the driver’s seat of the truck, trying to compose it in such a way that the road and wall didn’t show much, if any.
This young male was very close to the female, just on the other side of the wall.
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone — Someone wisely refrained from going after their cap - outside the barriers, too close to the edge, and on unstable, gravelly soil. Just before this, we saw an overweight man climb over the railing very close to the brink of the canyon to retrieve his cap. Luckily, nothing happened.
Looking down the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone from an observation point on the north side of the canyon.
This view is from another observation point further up the canyon, again looking downstream. This is a composite of several images.
Twisted and gnarled tree roots, with a rock gripped in them.
Lower Falls of the Yellowstone
Steps going down to the observation point where the previous picture was taken. This was at the end of a trail with quite a few switchbacks and a bit of a climb.
Switchbacks on the trail.
Continue reading about Travel Journal - Tower Falls, Big Horns, and Canyon at Yellowstone
We headed back down to Old Faithful again on our drive around the southern loop of the park. Our stop at the inn was intended to be a restroom break, but, once we got there, we decided to walk a bit of the trails in the vicinity, including a hike up to an overlook above Old Faithful.
Looking down the Firehole River from a bridge over it.
Buffalo near the trail up to the overlook.
An elk along the trail.
Old Faithful eruption viewed from about 1/2 mile away.
Solitary Geyser. In 1915, the spring was tapped with a pipe with the idea of putting some of the hot water in the park to use. The level dropped about 5 feet and what had been a calm spring became a geyser erupting every few minutes. The pipe was removed, but the disruption of the balance caused over 90 years ago continues today.
A raven that visited us at lunch.
Lake Yellowstone Hotel - a panorama. Click on image to see a larger image (it will open in a new window).
The hotel dining room.
The hotel’s “Sun Room,” adjacent to the lobby and overlooking the lake.
View of Lake Yellowstone from the shore in front of the hotel.
Churning Cauldron - The roiling of the water is not boiling; it’s huge bubbles of hot gases from deep within the earth.
This lady was way too close. If these buffalo had started running, the could have been on her before she had a chance to react. We’ve seen people who were even closer than this to buffalo.
This was a lazy day. We stayed in the campground until a little after 2 P.M. piddling with various projects. I got ahead a ways on the diary entries of Gideon Welles, the Union Navy Secretary during the American Civil War, which I am publishing day by day in my Daily Chronicles of the American Civil War, currently posting from September 1863. After that I set up our new wireless router so that Karen and I can be online at the same time. We also took a walk around the campground. The horses below were on the range land west of the campground.
Before going into the park, we went through a few of the shops in West Yellowstone. We saw some interesting things — many of them too expensive, in my view. But we restrained ourselves and didn’t buy anything before we headed into the park for dinner at Old Faithful Inn.
Construction on Old Faithful Inn started in 1903. The architect and construction crews worked through the winter to have it ready for guests in June 1904. It’s really hard to get a single picture to show what the inside of the inn is like. This picture is a composite created from 21 photos. The beams are straight, not curved. It’s an effect resulting from the blending of multiple images taken from one spot, but it does give a good idea of what the place is like.
We had dinner reservations for 6 P.M. and got there quite a bit early. It was nice to be able to just sit around and relax, looking at various things and taking pictures. The next photo is of the dining room at the inn. It’s taken from a second floor balcony that overlooks the room. Our table was the second one through the doorway at the top of the picture. The meal was good, but pricey.
Before supper we were treated to a long and impressive eruption of Old Faithful, which we viewed from the balcony over the entrance to the lobby of the inn. It had been raining not to long before this, and we were reluctant to stray too far from shelter since we didn’t have any rain gear with us.
After dinner, on the other hand, there was a very short and less powerful eruption than the previous two that we had observed this trip. I had been asked to take some pictures of a group of people, using their camera, of course. After I took the first picture, Old Faithful started erupting, 4 minutes earlier than predicted and the eruption was so brief that I was only able to get a couple of shots before it started petering out. From our experience, it usually teases the viewers by spitting and sputtering a few times before it actually erupts. This time, it started erupting with no warning.
We made it back to the campground after dark. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any wildlife on the road.
Continue reading about Back to Old Faithful Inn — for dinner
Today we drove the northern loop of Yellowstone. I’ve included several photos from the day below. We went in through West Yellowstone to Madison Junction, then north up to Norris Geyser Basin, up to Mammoth Hot Springs, out the north entrance and then back into the park. We ate lunch at a little picnic area right on the 45th parallel — halfway between the equator and the north pole. After lunch we drove down towards Tower Junction, except we took a dirt road called the Blacktail Plateau Drive. Once back on pavement, we went on past Tower, up over Dunraven Pass. By the time we got there, smoke from the wildfires in Idaho and Northern California were really reducing visibility, so we decided to save the drive to the top of Mt. Washburn for a later day. The smoke was bad enough that we could smell it inside the truck with the windows closed. After that, we completed the rest of the northern loop through Canyon Village and back to Norris.
Madison River, several miles east of the west entrance at about 7:30 AM. The air temperature was very close to freezing.
Bull elk wading in the Madison River, about 3 miles further into the park. Good sighting early in the morning — sometimes it’s the best time to see the animals.
It was about 40 degrees this morning when we ventured out on a trail, Karen was glad she had picked up a pair of gloves, though I didn’t need any. It was a really pretty trail by some of the boiling mud pots and steaming water areas.
The driver in this car had obviously read the warning about buffalo being dangerous animals. As this buffalo was walking away from us as I started inching forward, the car it was walking toward started backing up! and did so several more times until traffic arriving behind him prevented it!
Deer relaxing under a trampoline in the small town of Gardiner at the north entrance to the park — there were about 4 deer in this yard.
Wandering Garter Snake at the 45th parallel. Karen spotted it while I was taking pictures and called me over. Karen had purchase a couple of small field guides yesterday, so was able to identify him even as I was snapping pictures. It was actually a very small snake.
We saw this coyote on the Blacktail Plateau Drive. It was the third one we’ve seen and the second that we’ve been able to get some good pictures of.
On our second day in Yellowstone — we counted the day we got to the campground as the first day because we got there so early — we headed south towards Old Faithful. Along the way, we came across a couple of big ol’ ravens. They certainly are a lot bigger than a common crow!
This hot little blue pool is called Firehole Spring. It is on the Firehole Lake Drive, a loop road north of Old Faithful. It erupts nearly constantly with bubbles of hot gas rising through the water causing a violent boiling like action.
The obligatory visit to Old Faithful…
… with a lot of other people — most of them taking pictures!
We spent a couple of hours in the Old Faithful area and then drove down to West Thumb and walked the loop through the West Thumb Geyser Basin.
Fishing Cone geyser on the shore of Yellowstone Lake.
Continue reading about From Madison Junction to West Thumb — Day 2 in Yellowstone
We arrived in West Yellowstone today, camping about six miles from the west gate of the park. After we got the camper set up for our stay, I ran into town to find something to anchor our new internet satellite dish as it was pretty gusty and Karen got started on laundry – one thing that it’s hard to escape from.
We made it into the park by a little before 3 o’clock and spent about 4 hours enjoying the scenery and seeing some of the animals.
Karen had put a stew in the crock pot, so when we got back to camp we had supper waiting for us.
While in town earlier in the day, I had picked up a local a newspaper. The top headline on the front page of the West Yellowstone News says, “It’s a Town in Bear Country.” The article relates two recent bear incidents in the area. In one, a grizzly was a attracted by the smell of garbage on a screened in back porch – you can guess the rest. The screen on the porch didn’t keep the grizzly out. Fortunately, he didn’t make it into the cabin. In the other incident a bear at a local campground “nipped a man sleeping outside his tent, leaving a bruise on his thigh.”
We’re currently at the campground mentioned. We’re in a hard-side camper and won’t be sleeping outside – not that we would under any other circumstances.
Karen had this to say about the incident in her blog: “….a bear had been sighted in the campground several weeks ago!!!! Some idiot decided to sleep outside of his tent and was awakened by a bear who it said “took a nip” at him. I imagine he screamed like a little school girl and scared it and it took off… he was not injured. Everyone is warned as they come into the campground to set up that you are not to leave any food out ect, not even an ice chest as it might have scents of food. You have to clean off your grill if you use it and put your grill in your car or trunk or camper overnight and not leave it outside.”
I took quite a few photos today on our drive into the park. These are some of the better ones.
From the truck we saw a coyote trotting and looking for food close to the road and Karen rolled down the window as I slowed the truck to a crawl. She snapped off about 10 photos of this as he wandered through the grasses. While I take most of the photos, sometimes while I’m driving if we see something Karen will roll her window down and start snapping. Sometimes she’ll take a photo through the front windshield, but a lot of those don’t turn out due to glare or bug splatters.
Some of the wonderful Yellowstone scenery along the Madison River — more to come.
The morning started out very cloudy with a forecast of 60% chance of rain. We had been planning on taking a 2.8 mile loop trail, but decided to wait awhile to see what the weather held for us. When the clouds lowered and it started misting, we decided to go for a drive back to Spearfish in South Dakota, do some shopping and see some different country on our way back.
On the way back it was still raining intermittently.
In one section of Wyoming 24, the fill dirt under the road had settled a lot earlier this summer. Until just the last couple of days the road had been closed as a result.
We had gone over that section of road the day before and had been wondering whether the workers would be out in this kind of weather. Having lived in this kind of country before, we were not terribly surprised to see them out in the misty fog. There is not a lot of time left before the weather could get inclement to the point that the job will have to be shutdown until late spring.
While the road is open now, there is only one lane open — and it is nasty muddy. It was a bit windy and cold and the flaggers were all bundled up. In just a short section of road, the truck got dirty enough that we need to take it to a car wash so that we won’t have to be careful of leaning or rubbing up against it.
On the way back from Spearfish the conditions must have been just right to entice deer to come out in the open. We counted 95 deer — almost all of them white-tails — between Belle Fourch, South Dakota, and Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, and I’m sure that there were many more that we didn’t see.
Three of them were pretty close to the road and I got some close ups of one of them. I was very pleased with her doe eyes, but when I saw the second picture, I was surprised that it looked like she was sticking her tongue out. She’s really in the middle of eating, but it is one of the oddest pictures of a deer that I’ve seen.
By the time that we got back to the campground it had cleared up considerably. Deciding to take a walk while it was clear, we first went over to the front of the KOA store. At the entrance to this campground, there are 2 artistically painted large boots. The first boot has the KOA logo on it and it is also painted on all sides.
This is the other side of it.
The other boot is also painted on all sides. The back of the boot has an image of Teddy Roosevelt and the front has an image of Sitting Bull. The side that is in this image is interesting in that it depict Devil’s Tower and above and behind it is the real Devil’s Tower.
When we got to the overflow camping area on our walk , I changed lenses on the camera replacing the telephoto zoom with the closeup zoom so that I could get more area into the shot. However, just after I did, we spooked two deer and they took off running for the national monument. I didn’t have time to switch back to the telephoto zoom, so the images of one of the deer as she ran and then jumped the fence are not as clear and crisp as I would like.
The area at the rear of the campground is by far the prettiest. It is wide open with a lot of tall cottonwood trees. One side borders the national monument and on another the campground property ends at the Belle Fourche River, with a red rock cliff on the opposite side of the river. There are a lot of photo opportunities in that part of the campground.
This photo is a twisted dead tree with the Belle Fourche (pronounced foosh) River, part of the cliff and other land in the background. The buildings in the picture are KOA Kamping Kabins.
This is a similar image, except I’ve focused in on the grasses along the river, with the background intentionally blurred.
The monument boundary fence ends right at the river and then picks up again at the top of the red rock cliff, as shown in this picture:
Every month during the summer and when weather permits, a nighttime walk is conducted on the night when the moon is full. In the morning the weather looked like it would likely cause the walk to be canceled. However, after we got back to the campground from our drive earlier in the day, the sky just got more and more clear. By the time we headed up to the trail head where we would be hiking from, the sky was almost perfectly clear. This photo was taken with my camera held in my hand, no tripod. The night by that time was too dark for any other photos without using the flash. I didn’t want to use the flash because it would momentarily impair the night vision of the other hikers.
We enjoyed the walk, though when we stopped for the park volunteer to talk, the breaks lasted too long. The temperature has dropped into the low 50’s and there was a slight wind blowing. Even though everyone had bought flashlights, the moon light was bright enough in the open areas away from the trees that you didn’t really need them. We started out on the trail at 9 P.M. and got back to the truck at 10:30 P.M.
Continue reading about Travel Journal — Rainy Day Turns Very Clear — August 28, 2007
Our drive today was a relatively short one. We went from the Rushmore Shadows campground–about 9 miles south of Rapid City, South Dakota–to the KOA that sits just outside of the fence of Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming.
Images from the I90 rest area at Sundance, Wyoming:
Silver Buffalo Berry (see reference) - silver refers to the color of the leaves of the plant
Devil’s Tower images
The camper in this image is ours, after we had set up and extended the slides. Excellent location.
This is the view from the campsite next to ours. We have a small tree across the drive that is slightly in the way of our view.
We see deer every time we go for a walk or go for a drive.
This is from the opposite side of the tower, from the parking lot at the head of one of the park’s trails.
Long before the official time for sundown, we were in the shadow of the tower.
The Devil’s Tower KOA is a very large campground with plenty of room for tenters and RVers. This is the “overflow area.”
A twilight image of the tower.
Critter count for the day (to be added later)
Disappointing, but with a potentially bright future. That’s how I would describe our impression of Lake Paradise Camping Resort, the last place that we stayed on our recent trip. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I would only give it a 2, though it bills itself on its website as a “member owned resort/campground with a five star rating.” The resort is very large and does have a number of very good camping sites. It has a lot of positive attributes, but is very obviously in a state of decline and has been for some time. (see July 26 update)
In fairness, the resort is going through a period of “extreme financial hardship” and many of the problems that we observed are probably as a result of that. It appears that an offer has been tendered by a small family investment group that may result in significant future improvements to the resort. A vote on it by the members is scheduled July 9, 2007.
We had planned for Lake Paradise to be the first stop of the trip. However, due to a family situation that came up we canceled the reservation and detoured to Springfield, Missouri, instead. I doubt, though, that we would have had any better impression of the resort if it had been our first stop.
When we got to the security building at the entrance, the lady inside told us to pull ahead and then come back to the building to register. We made our reservations for Lake Paradise through the Coast-to-Coast system and we told her that, but she went ahead filling out the registration card without looking for any information associated with our reservation. Then she asked us how we were going to pay for it — with trip points or cash. “We already paid for it on-line,” I told her and she responded, “Oh, how did you do that?” or something to that effect. She then told us to pick any site except 1 - 15, which were reserved exclusively for resort members, and to come back to let them know which site we were in.
When we got back to the truck, Karen commented that we hadn’t gotten a map, so I went back and asked the lady in the security building for one. She gave me a really slick looking brochure — too bad so much of it wasn’t accurate any more.
The place is obviously an older campground that has seen better days. The first spot I pulled into was an easy to get into pull-through spot. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any room for our chairs or a picnic table as our door opened almost right on the road. That spot just wouldn’t do.
So off we went trying to find a spot on narrow winding roads that had been washed out in places. We’re still somewhat newbies at trying to navigate with a 32-ft long, high profile fifth wheel camper and trying to find a camping spot just wasn’t fun, especially since so many of the sites looked like they had been abandoned. We finally found a spot and backed in through a point where the tree trunks were very, very close to the camper and truck.
The resort website claims that there are 600 campsites, but far fewer than that are actually serviceable for that role.
Karen had planned to wash clothes, so one of the first things to do was find the laundry. Unfortunately, there was a sign in the window saying that it was closed due to water shortage. We were skeptical about that since there has been quite a bit of rain over the last several months, all five of the lakes had plenty of water in them, and there was no notice anywhere asking campers to conserve water because of the shortage. I later discovered that the washers were disconnected and moved away from the wall into the middle of the room. Very strange.
We found a very nice little laundromat in Oak Grove and Karen thought it was the nicest and cleanest one she had ever seen. (I’ll be doing a post on it later, with pictures.)
We stayed Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. When we got there Sunday afternoon, the trash dumpster nearest us was full with trash sitting on the ground next to it. On Monday morning, it was obvious that some critters had gotten into it as trash was strewn quite a distance around it. Sometime on Monday, the trash service collected the trash from the dumpster and the bags that were on the ground. However, the trash that was strewn by animals was not picked up until sometime on Tuesday.
The brochure said that internet access was available in the adult lounge. When I went back to the security shack, I asked the gentleman who was there if there was internet access and he said he thought that there used to be a phone connection at the adult lounge, but wasn’t sure if it was still there. We figured that it probably was a phone with a modem, which we were not interested in using if that’s all it was. However, we couldn’t find any indication of any internet access when we walked through the building.One of the best features of the resort is the swimming pool. It is absolutely huge. We were looking forward to spending some time in the pool. We often prefer to go to the pool after supper, when the sun is lower in the sky instead of directly overhead. Unfortunately, every evening that we were there, the pool was closed by the time we would have liked to have been in it and I really don’t know what time it closed. The brochure said that the pool hours were as posted at the pool, but we never saw anything about the hours — and we looked.
While doing a little on-line research for this review, I came across the following:
Growing up, my parents had a membership to this lake and I remember spending many a summer playing volleyball with friends and family on their sand volleyball court. It was laid back, fun and a perfect way to get really hot before jumping into the cool pool!
Lake Paradise has lots to offer including camping, boating, a clubhouse, restaurant and so much more. In my opinion, it’s one of the best places to own a membership.
The volleyball court and swimming pool on June 26, 2007
Note: The above image is a panoramic composite created from 34 separate images.
I will be publishing other photos of the resort in my photo galleries pages later.
The resort is located south of Oak Grove and north of Lone Jack in a rural area that is relatively close to Kansas City and it;s suburbs. While at the campground, we visited the Harry Truman Presidential Library and the National Historic Trails Museum. I’ll be posting on those later.
Continue reading about Lake Paradise Camping Resort - a review
Recent Comments