Lisa & Bud Gould's Travel Blog

We left Butte early this morning and drove to the west entrance of Yellowstone NP. Since we spent a few days here a couple years ago, we did not intend to stay very long, only a few hours. We stopped at Old Faithful geyser, but it was so packed with people that we did not even park. We went to west Thumb Geyser Basin which has a very nice boardwalk around several geyser pools. Then we found a camp store that had some well deserved ice cream bars! We were disappointed that we did not see the herds of bison this time. We only saw one lone bull out in the woods all by himself. Saw some deer and a few prong horned antelopes. So, we traveled on the Grand Teton NP. I screwed up and drove the main road between Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP instead of the more scenic route between the Snake River and the mountains. Anyway, we got to Jackson Hole around 4:30 PM and stopped at the visitor center to research and select a hotel. We will stay here tomorrow night also. Tomorrow we will explore Grand Teton and try to find some wildlife, especially moose and bison. I posted today's pictures to the Picassa web site about an hour ago.

Today was a very good but long day. We took a shortcut to the 'Going to the Sun Road', but, we were very close to Canada and decided to go to the Waterton, Alberta section of the park. No problems with Canadian Customs going in, but, they do ask a lot of questions. No problems with US Customs coming back, but, they are slow. Waterton is very nice, with a very clean village, and spectacular views of the lake and mountains. After a couple hours there, we returned to the US and visited the Many Glaciers section. After that we went to the Two Medicine section. All these places have great scenery. We took a lot of photos, but they just don't do justice to the real thing. I posted most of the pictures to picassaweb.google.com/budgould earlier. I have not edited them or put captions on most of them. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. So, tomorrow we hit the'Going to the Sun' highway. Then we look for another hotel and plan the next few days.

Some things I forgot to mention last night - we got Mary Ann a thimble from North Dakota - if you like horse back riding, TR NP is the place to go, we must have seen well over a hundred folks on horses around the park, usually in groups of 10 to 20 -

So, we have stopped for the night at Browning, MT, about 12 miles from the Glacier NP east entrance. All of the lodges in the park are sold out tonight, but, we will stop at some of them tomorrow and try to get rooms in the park. It was a nice drive here except that we left I94 after about 30 miles and the rest of the trip was on two lane roads - about 100 miles on MT 200S and MT 13, and then US 2 for about 350 miles. The speed limit was mostly 75 except going through small towns and villages where it dropped to 25 mph. Since this is Sunday we pretty much had the road to ourselves. The largest crop we saw along the way was hay, more large round bales of hay then there were people. Not much wildlife except for one deer the crossed the road 50 yards or so in front of us. Lots of dead critters along the road, mostly raccoons. We did hit one bird early this morning and I believe it was a quail when I pulled it out of the grill. We passed several clusters of wind mills, most of them were not turning even though there was lots of wind. There seems to miles and miles of abandoned railway cars parked on sidings along the road. Saw many running trains on the main line parallel to US 2. Long trains with a lot of cars, but, it is hard to determine if the cars are empty or full.

Tonight we will plan our activities for tomorrow in the park and try to figure out where to stay for the next few nights.

We have stopped for the night in Valley City, ND, about 60 miles west of Fargo. Not much going on in this state. Most of the exits off I94 have a sign that reads "NO SERVICE". So, it's a good place to keep your eye on your fuel gauge and lodging needs.

When we left Mauston, WI, about 9 AM this morning it was raining like crazy, a real gully washer. Since I had fresh Rain-X on my windshield, I was not very concerned about visibility. It only lasted about 45 minutes and the really bad storms were south and east of us. We did run into scattered thunder showers all day though. Still a good travel day and we are pretty much on schedule.

Well, here it is Friday already. My last work day for this trip. It's been a productive trip, but, glad it is over. The Odyssey is covered with about 1/8 inch layer of pollen from various trees in the area. I think it's bothering both of us as far as sinus drainage and sneezing goes. After work I'm going to find a car wash and try to get the worst of it off. Even the inside of the vehicle is covered with a thin yellow layer.
So, tomorrow we will head for Quantico, about 80 miles north or here, and visit the Museum of the Marine Corps. After that we will head to Manassas, about another 50 miles or so, to visit the Civil War battlefields there. We expect to get back on the road about mid-afternoon. We will be about 400 miles from Columbus so we will stay somewhere in between overnight and probably get to Columbus around noon on Sunday. Lisa will probably want to head for the large Asian Grocery store in downtown Columbus. Then, I'm pretty sure we will head for Dublin to visit Lawrence or to Hilliard to visit Lee or most likely both. Then we will only be a little over an hour from Dayton. So, we should be back home in Dayton on Sunday afternoon or evening.