Author: Jennifer

Sept 21 – We started the day driving through Arches. We did a couple of hikes there. Then we headed to Canyonlands. Dane was awed and said it was stunning and better than Arches. We did one hike there. In some pics, you can see a dirt road. Tomorrow we are getting a permit to drive down it and another permit to cycle it. We talked to a ranger, and we were going to bike down, but they suggested we drive it if we had 4-wheel drive.  I asked, “A Suburban will be ok on that road?” They assured me it would be fine. So we will drive down, bike ride once we are in the canyon, then drive back up. It is a 103-mile loop, but we’ll do an out-and-back, with the distance determined by how we feel. I included some pics of this dirt road.

On the way back from Canyonlands. We drove down Potash Road. I had heard it was interesting. It ran along the river, so we got some pics of that. And we saw petroglyphs.  

We finished the night eating at the Moab Brewery, and we both got Bang Bang Shrimp tacos. They were the best I have ever had!

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Today we made it to Moab. We are staying three nights here in a little cabin. This is the longest we’ve stayed in one place. We immediately rode our bikes on some of the bike path. Then we did a quick drive through Arches National Park. Dane said it was spectacular and the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. I fully expect him to say that again when we make our way to southwest CO. I was here several years ago with photography friends, focusing on photographing the area. I didn’t take any photos of the scenery today. We were scouting out which hikes looked the best, and I will shoot some photos then. But anything I shoot on my phone this trip won’t hold a candle to my previous photos. We went to the main drag and had dinner. We have many ideas for what we hope to do tomorrow, but we’re still undecided. We will see what tomorrow brings.

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September 19 – Hwy 191 was indeed scenic. Most of the time, the weather was good. But as we crossed one of the mountains, it started pouring rain. Then within two miles the temps dropped from 65 to 35, and the rain turned to sleet. Dane was filming it. At the end, you hear me say, “Dane, I need…” and the video cuts out. I believe we were both becoming concerned. If the video had continued, you would have heard me say, “Dane, I need to know how to switch this vehicle to 4-wheel drive.” We were on our way to being on a solid sheet of wet ice, the slipperiest kind. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how either. Thankfully, just as quickly as things went bad, they improved. We started down, temps were rising, and the sun came out. We now have educated ourselves and know how to switch to AWD, 4WD, and 4WL on the go. Neither of us expected things to change so fast that we wouldn’t have time to research it.  

Dane loved the views and thought this was the most beautiful drive yet. I got some photos, but we were often on a curvy two-lane road with no shoulder whatsoever. It had pullouts, but they didn’t always line up with the best views.  

We made it to Green River, UT, and are in a Comfort Inn tonight. We had dinner overlooking the river at a Navajo Indian restaurant. We loved it!  

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Day 10 – Sept 18 We woke up to bad weather, with about a five-hour window without rain forecasted. We jumped on a trail in Idaho and got our 5 miles in. Then we drove to Grand Teton NP in WY to ride.  We rode from Moose to Jenny Lake, then turned around, and ah, oh, the sky looked bad.  We started riding back as fast as we could, but heavy winds and rain caught us. It actually was fun. A ride we will never forget!

We spent the afternoon doing laundry. Some chores follow you on vacation.

We love Idaho! Yesterday we had pizza at O’Rourke’s.  It was excellent. They had two signed Peyton Manning jerseys on the wall, one Volunteer and one Colts. The waitress didn’t know whether Peyton had ever been there. Tonight we are splurging and having prime rib at Teton Moose. Driggs is a quaint, slightly off-the-beaten-path western town.   We prefer the quiet to West Yellowstone or Jackson Hole.

Tomorrow we head south towards Moab, UT. We plan to travel via scenic Hwy 191, so we don’t expect to make it all the way there.

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Sept 17 – Day 9. September 17th, we left Ennis, Montana, and went back to Yellowstone. We stopped in West Yellowstone, and I got a picture of my Huckleberry. Then we entered on the west side and made our way to Old Faithful. Along the way, we stopped at various scenic pullouts and took pictures. It was cloudy, but with some blue skies and a bit of sun shining through. So it made for good photography. Just before we got to Old Faithful, we got an alarm on our phones notifying us of flash flooding. We just missed the geyser blowing, so we toured the famous inn. We left, and it started to pour, so we put on our rain gear, grabbed umbrellas, and waited for Old Faithful to blow. I have some nice Shower Pass brand foul weather gear for cycling that I bought many, many years ago for a cycling trip where we had to ride rain or shine. I remember joking at the time that it was one of those things you buy but hope to never use. It has traveled the world, and now they finally are being used. The white skies made for lackluster photos. It was fun nonetheless. Again, the weather made for lackluster photos. Then we headed to the Grand Teton NP area.  

The weather was clearing as we came through, and the Tetons would peek out between the clouds. Tomorrow’s forecast is clear between 10 and 3. There are bike paths everywhere. We cannot wait to ride! 

We are staying in Driggs, Idaho, at the Teton TeePee Lodge. It is an old 1970s ski lodge that has been updated. It is a giant teepee, like a lobby of sorts, with rooms around it. It would be a great place for a large group to stay. It has great outdoor seating areas.

We love Idaho! Every other place we have been to was nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.  This area is nice to visit and looks like it would be fun to live here, too.

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Sept 16 – We slept in and had a relaxing morning. We didn’t head out until just before lunch. We met Dane’s brother, Todd, and his wife, Shauna, for lunch at a saloon. The food was good, and I enjoyed meeting them. Originally from Plymouth, England, Shauna moved to Camden, SC, in 1990 to train and race horses. They are both well-traveled, and it was fun to hear about some of their experiences.

We then visited Virginia City, an Old West town founded after one of the richest gold strikes in the Rockies. It served as Montana’s capital for 10 years. As we walked around, we toured a beautiful Episcopal Church and saw an interesting way to water plants using an upside-down bottle. We also toured the town in a vintage fire engine and learned about the area’s history before heading to Nevada City, a ghost town about a mile away. This is not a real ghost town but a historical museum. They moved historic Gold Rush buildings from all over Montana. It is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but we explored the outskirts. It looks like it has an operating hotel and old miners’ cabins (with modern conveniences) that they rent when it is open.

We rode our bicycles around the neighborhood to check off Montana! It was windy, and we were not excited to ride, but we really enjoyed it once we got out there. Cycling is often like that. I discovered my cell phone has an action-cam photo option, so we played with it some. It makes us look like we are going very fast. We were not. I think I will stick with regular panning in the future. Oh, and I included a photo of a house in the neighborhood that we rode past. They had two kites tied to their house, and you can see that, because it was so windy, they were flying on their own.

Since we have a nice kitchen, we picked up roasted chicken and salads from the grocery store, which is within walking distance of our house. We enjoyed a healthy, quick, easy dinner. We’re also boiling eggs to keep in our cooler for snacks over the next few days. 

We booked a room in Alta, WY, for the upcoming two nights. It is 37 miles from Jackson Hole, but rooms there were hard to come by and/or overpriced. We plan to travel through Yellowstone and Grand Teton on the way there. It is 15 miles from Victor, ID. The Grand Teton NP and Victor, ID both have incredible paved rail trails. We really, really hope the weather works out. It looks very iffy. We have our rain gear and will make the best of it.

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We had a nice start to the day with breakfast and enjoyed the company of llamas, chickens, and goats at the camp where we stayed.  We entered the park through the east entrance.  It started with a scenic drive of the north side of Yellowstone Lake. We headed north to loop the park counterclockwise.  Highlights included seeing buffalo in Hayden Valley, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Mammoth Hot Springs area, the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance, and the North Geyser Basin. And somewhere in all that, we had a picnic lunch. Then we headed to the exit the park via the west side to West Yellowstone, which was slow, stop-and-go traffic for miles and miles. The rest of the day, traffic was no problem.  Dane set a record for the farthest distance walked in a day in the last 5 years.  Yellowstone lived up to everything we have heard. 

We have been flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to places to stay. West Yellowstone was fully booked.  We were getting worried and finally found a place near Dane’s brother in MT, about an hour away. When we got there, we couldn’t have been happier. It is a dream apartment in the basement of a house. Every rinky-dink place we passed on the way said, “no vacancy”. We could not have been more fortunate.

When we leave here, we plan to go back through the Yellowstone area again.  We want to see Old Faithful. We only had one quarter of the loop left, and that was the only “can’t miss” place we didn’t see.  It was a busy day!!  So, we tentatively plan to go back there, then exit south toward the Grand Tetons area.  The main thing we really want to do is ride a greenway that is in and around that park.  The weather forecast isn’t good right now, though.  But we had a beautiful sunny day when rain, wind, and hail were forecasted in SD.

We are going to spend two nights here. We plan to eat with his brother and his wife, bike in MT, and go to some old West towns in the area.   Anytime we stay two nights in one place, it is restful!

Click here to see photos from Day 8

Click for7-second video of Dragons Mouth Spring

We crossed into Wyoming and were immediately greeted by an information center that was like a small museum with free guidebooks, postcards, and stickers. Shortly thereafter, Devil’s Tower came into view. The movie Close Encounters of a Third Kind came out when I was in the 5th grade, and I loved it. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I even had a Close Encounters belt buckle. The Devil’s Tower figured prominently in that movie, so this was my favorite thing so far. We stopped and took pictures as we drove towards it, then more as we hiked the loop around it. I climbed a little to touch it. Beyond that, you had to be a true climber.  I did take photos of a couple of folks we saw climbing it. That is not and will never be on my bucket list. We also saw a mule deer, just off the trail. As we left the park, there was a huge line of cars to get in. I am so glad we got an early start. We drove right up to it. We saw signs that said 75 minutes (as we zipped past them) and realized they sometimes had long lines, and we couldn’t imagine waiting that long. I would rather deal with cold, cloudy, and windy weather during the off-season than wait times like that. As we left the park, we passed a field full of prairie dogs. The Native Americans called it Bear Lodge, and somehow, in translation, it became Devil’s Tower. I took a photo of a sign about that.  It is kind of interesting.

We pulled off the Interstate to grab a snack from the back of the car and saw some train tracks. There was a BNSF yard there, and they had over 100 locomotives parked in a line.  Dane was filming a video of those, and I was going to pick him up down the road. There was a curve, so he had no idea how long it was or how many.  Meanwhile, I saw a train coming from the other direction. So I jumped out and got a video of it for Ryan. Dane got a big kick from all the train action. 

The beauty around us has been magnificent. We will make it to Yellowstone tomorrow. We have not even gotten to the good stuff. We stopped and took photos at some of the pullouts.

We found a place to stay in Wapiti, WY. We passed through Cody and stopped at Legacy Butcher and Burger. Dane had a bison burger, and I had a Philly Cheesesteak.

My nephew was flying back from Banff to Houston today. I just talked to him, and he flew over Wyoming. He and I share our locations on Google Maps, so he could see where I was. He had WiFi on the plane and thought he was going to fly right over us, but the plane turned. Still, you have to marvel at the technology.

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And maybe a few are interested…

Click here to see nearly 3 min video of train for Ryan

Day 6 – We needed a reset day, and today was it. The pics include some of the bungalow we are staying in. We slept in, then drove a scenic route to Spearfish, SD. We made stops at a few waterfalls. Along the roads in SD, there are diamond-shaped white signs that feature a red “X” with the phrase “X Marks the Spot.” One side of the sign reads “THINK!” while the reverse side reads “WHY DIE?” Both sides include the phrase “Drive Safely.” They place a sign for each life lost in a traffic accident at that location. It is meant to be a memorial and a safety warning. Family members of victims can request that a sign not be put up or that it be removed. It seems to be customary to place flowers/wreaths on them. In TN, there would be so many signs that I doubt that would work. In Costa Rica, they paint hearts on the road. I liked that idea.

In Spearfish, we went to the DC Booth Fish Hatchery. This was the first hatchery in the West. We toured the first Superintendent’s house. It was elegant for the time. They also displayed a fish railcar. We visited another hatchery last year at Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee.   

From there, we headed to Sturgis. We visited the motorcycle museum. I always loved motorcycles and subscribed to motorcycling magazines growing up. This was a flashback. I will spare you the photos. The museum displayed many cool bikes and provided good historical information. I did include a few photos. One with a mirror behind the bike so you can see Dane and me, too. Also, if anyone reading this watches Heartland, the motorcycle in this photo is the type Ty worked on in the early seasons. The other is of a motorcycle that is the same age as I am.

I also gave my bicycle a good cleaning. The powdery dirt here makes a big mess of a bicycle.

Click here to see a few photos from today

Day 5 – We rode the Mickelson Trail. It runs from Edgemont to Deadwood and is109 miles long. It is beyond awesome! We rode from Rochford to Mystic, through three tunnels, and back. There are many fun people here – cyclists, 4×4 off-roaders, and equestrians.

Changing places every day has worn us out. We have decided to stay two nights here, mainly to relax. But there is plenty to do near Deadwood, Spearfish, and Sturgis if we get rested and want some action. 

I did not take many photos today, and there is not much to tell. Mostly, I took photos along the trail. I got a few good ones of Dane. Other than that, there are a few pictures of cows along the road. Many cows here are free-range. They have roundups at certain times, and everyone is honest. Also, I included photos of a backyard that backed up to the trail we rode. This little yard had a greenhouse and a small pond with ducks, chickens, and turkeys. I thought it was interesting.

Click here to see some photos from today