Travelogues
2008 Rocky Mountains Trip

Wednesday, September 17

 

Today was primarily a travel day. We had 300 miles to West Yellowstone, and the first 60 were back down the Salmon River canyon to Challis. Driving up to Stanley on the highway was somewhat slow because the road was narrow and there were lots of curves. Driving north on the highway was much worse because the highway was still narrow, but this time we were on the outside edge next to the river. The highway generally didn't have a shoulder at all so there was no room for error. That meant a very slow ride down to Challis.

From Challis, it was an easy drive to West Yellowstone. The pass was much easier than going south over Galena Pass from Stanley. It meant some backtracking, but I think it was still faster and easier.

The most interesting thing on the drive was a super secure facility out in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. It was INL (Idaho National Laboratory) and covers 890 square miles. In 1951, the first electrical power was generated from atomic energy. The first fatal nuclear accident also occurred at the facility in 1961 when they had a core meltdown and explosion. With all the security, it was a little spooky driving by this huge facility.

We checked in to our campsite at the Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone. We had planned to go shopping and buy groceries, but when we saw all the rain in the forecast, we decided we should see the park while the weather was still good. When we got to the Madison Campground, we saw RVs lined up waiting for campsites. That was very unusual for September and got us thinking about trying to stay in Norris as we had planned. We drove to Norris and discovered the campground was already full. When we checked our favorite "A" loop down by the meadow where we watched all the elk and bison, we discovered there were very few, if any, campsites big enough for the motorhome and Explorer. That sent immediate ripples through the rest of our plans.

We got back to West Yellowstone about 8:00 and decided to try to find the same restaurant we liked on our last trip. We found it easily and discovered it was called Bullwinkle's. It was the haystack onion rings that brought us back, but the trout was excellent this time also.

Now, we just need to figure out how we're going to deal with the campsite issues...