A Week of Decrompressing-White Sulpher Springs MT

June 19-25, 2016

Saturday evening after publishing the blog we had an interesting rv come in, just had to share it with everyone. The tour company is called Rotel Tours, I googled it and they are rolling hotels. Two people share a sleeping cubicle, about 3'x3'x6' and there is one communal bathroom. During the day there is bus like seating, There were 20-25 people in the group, seemed to be European, maybe German. Not sure if this is the way I'd want to travel.

Sunday morning after watching the rolling hotel get rolling we finally got rolling around 9am for our short 2 hour ride up the road. We pulled into the Conestoga Campground in White Sulpher Springs MT about 11:15am. The office was closed until 1pm so we found a site and got settled in. White Sulpher Springs is in the middle of nowhere MT and is a great place to decompress after our crazy week in Yellowstone.

Conestoga Campground is part of the Coast to Coast Resorts which we are not part of but they are also a Passport America campground which we are part of. PA rate is $19.95/night and can be used for 4 nights, with 3 nights at the regular rate of $39.95 our week stay is just under $210. They have a laundry room which we will be taking advantage of, lots of dvd's to borrow, some sites are water and electric (30amp) but we have a full hook up site with 50amp. Sites are not real spacious but it'll do for a week.

Aside from a drive to Helena to stock the pantry we didn't really do much but hang out at the park. It's was a week of decompressing, we'd been on the go since we left Cave Creek AZ on May 1st. It's was nice to just spend time reading, walking and just living. We walked every day we were there, found a real nice 5.5 mile walk and one day even got caught up in a cattle drive as cows were moved from one pasture to another one down the road a mile or so.

Our wildlife sightings for the week.

Cool scenes around the campground, all done with a pattern by the owner during the long MT winters. 

Beautiful MT scenery 

Old homestead we passed by on our walks

 Beautiful sunset in Big Sky Country

The cattle drive we got caught up in on our walk one morning

Sunday we moved over to Big Timber MT where we will be for 10 days while the holiday weekend is upon us. We do plan on a few scenic rides from there and a few other things.

Until next time...

Yellowstone

June 12-19, 2016

On Sunday we headed north into MT, another new state for us, to Gardiner the north entrance to Yellowstone. Instead of the shorter through Yellowstone we headed north out of West Yellowstone up US 191 to Bozeman, caugth I90 east to Livingston and took US 89 south to Gardiner. The ride up US 191 is breathtaking through the Gallatin National Forest. We are staying at Rocky Mountain RV Park, we chose a larger site, otherwise the sites are right on top of each other with barely any room in your yard.

Knowing we didn't want to go into Yellowstone that afternoon so we took a walk around Gardiner all the while getting messages from our friends Linda and Patrick, who were in Yellowstone visiting their daughter who is the doctor at the medical clinic at Mammoth Springs. We finally met up with them for dinner and spend a few hours catching up. Thanks for dinner Linda and Patrick, we look forward to seeing you at Gulf Waters this winter.

Monday we made our first foray into Yellowstone. We were in the park fairly early, 7am, so we were ahead of the crowds. Our first stop was in the Mammoth Hot Springs area, We hiked all around the Upper and Lower terraces.

         

 Dunraven Pass area

     


                                           Tower Fall

     Yellowstone River

On Tuesday we thought we'd take in a hike along the east rim of the Yellowstone River. This was a moderate 3.7 mile hike through mostly open areas and is located in the Tower area.

This little guy was in the same place we saw the mother bear the day before, just couldn't get a cub shot then.







When we got home we had some packages waiting at the camp store. Dave's early birthday present was in, he now has a new and better camera. With some help from our friend Ingid I went ahead and ordered him a Panasonic Luminx DMC-FZ200. He now has some learning to do.

His first pictures were of the interesting trailer next to us. It can be an ice fishing house when needed, 7 openings in the bottom for ice fishing, called an Ice Castle RV Edition.

 

Wednesday we woke up to a rainy day,  we knew there was a chance of rain so we had planned for a day off from Yellowstone. It was also our 31st anniversary so when there was a break in the rain we took a walk around town to see if any restaurant interested us. None did so we stopped at the local market and picked up dinner fixings and Ben & Jerry's ice cream for dessert. All in all a nice day and a great phone visit with our youngest son.

Thursday we didn't get an early start so thought we'd do the whole loop around Yellowstone, the roads in Yellowstone form a figure eight. Here are some pictures from our ride around the park.

 

 

For Dave's birthday on Friday we were up at 5am and in the park by 6:30am, before our hike we wanted to see a few sites that were too crowded when we drove by previously. Of course along the way we had to stop for a few critter pictures, the benefit of being in the park so early. 

We stopped at Lower and Midway Geyser Basin and beat all the crowds.

Our next stop was near the Old Faithful Lodge cabins where the trail head for Mallard Lake could be found. This was a nice hike, 3.4 miles up hill through partially burned lodge pole pines and open rocky areas. My kind of hike, uphill going in and 3.4 miles of downhill on the way out.

If you're wondering why we didn't check out Old Faithful we opted not to this visit, way too many people. We were here in Sept 2008 and saw it then when there were not the gazillion others trying to see it.

Today, Saturday, we've stayed around home getting a few things done, getting ready for our escape from here on Sunday.

Until next time...