The trip was a huge success! We covered roughly 2700 miles in 10 days, 2-1/2 days up and 2-1/2 days back. We saw more than we expected and did more than expected, family and kids were all great.
Drive Up
Left at ~4:30 PM on Tuesday, drove until about 2:00 AM to Deeth, NV, an area I rather like pulling over and camping. My usual spot was blocked and the backup was flooded with a small river running across the run (fun surprise at 2:30 AM!). We went for a new plan C and had a good night's sleep.
In the morning we had a relatively easy drive up to Ketchum, ID. It was great watchin
g the
Sawtooth Range get larger as we app
roached. We arrived around 2:30 PM and broke out the bikes and had a nice ride and stroll through Ketchum as well as spen
ding some time by the river with the girls who started the first of their many sessions of throwing rocks in the river there. After grabbing some soup and rolls from the local grocery, we headed up over Galena Summit toward Stanley, closer yet to the really dramatic bits of the Sawtooths. We drove up toward Red Fish Lake, which is a pretty rough dirt road and camped out shortly before the lake. It was a brief but peaceful and quiet camp. There was a bit of snow falling in the morning though it didn't stick.
We then headed up toward Salmon, ID, a drive I've done many times before and still enjoy. We had lunch next to the Big Hole River in Montana near Wise River and played for a little bit. We
got back in the truck and headed over through the Pintlar scenic route toward Anaconda and then toward Butte on Interstate and up to Helena, arriving around 4:30 PM PST to a whole bunch of family and a big dinner. All my brothers (Pip, Kevin, Andy, & Sam) were there with their wives or girlfriend along with my mom (Diana), and dad (Leo) and my step-mom, Chris. It was a great time though Andy's kids were a bit under the weather so they didn't make it up that night.
Friday was an assorted day including going to the local exploratory museum for the kids and we finally got all the grandkids together at my mom's house, in fact, the grandparents even offered to watch the kids while the parents went to dinner at the local 'On Broadway.'
I have a feeling it might have been a bit like Lord of the Flies while we were gone but I think it was still fun.
Saturday Chris and the other grandparents and moms had coordinated a gargantuan 2 year olds' birthday party at the Great Northern Carousel.
Rick and Mary Jane drove down from Kalispell for this and the kids, parents, and grandparents had a great time. After the kids woke up from their much needed naps we drove
out to Leo & Chris' house toward Clancy. There the kids explored the creek, got wet, swung on the tire swing, a
nd had a tea party in the tent in the back yard.
Sunday was the start of Part 2 of the reunion, with a convoy of sorts driving to Island Park, ID. We stopped in Ennis, MT for lunch.
I had completely forgotten what a beautiful area this is and after lunch we let the kids run around in the park in town. The dads and uncles played with the kids while the moms checked out the local stores. After an extended break and some now-tired kids, we got back on the road for the remainder of the easy drive to Island Park, ID. I had never been there but it turns out you can see the Tetons from there, across a huge valley so on a map if you locate Grand Teton National Park and then look west, you'll see the Island Park area. Apparently it's quite popular with fishermen, snowmobilers, and ATV riders. You have the Centennial mountains to the northwest not far away and lots of water and pine trees. We had a wonderful 4 bedroom cabin that slept everyone except for those with trailers/RVs. The trailer folk had water and power and the place even had a hot tub and washer/dryer!
Monday morning we did the caravan to West Yellowstone, about 45 minutes away, and crawled through the first 20 miles of the park as the Yellowstone first-timers gawked at Elk and Bison (never mind the fact that there would be hundreds coming up just a few miles later). We headed toward Old Faithful Inn for a view of the iconic geyser and a walk around the others. We snapped lots of pictures,
had a nice lunch in the big dining room, and afterward some did a loop through the park and others headed back to put the tired kiddos to bed. That evening, like many of the others, we had nice campfires and Chris brought s'more fixings so we indulged. Later some of us took advantage of the hot tub.
Tuesday Andy & Sherri, Sam & Alexis, and Carrie headed up toward Big Sky for a rafting drip down the Gallatin. The others went for a drive down to Harriman State Park, a gorgeous area south of Island Park with available cabins for rent.
Quite beautiful and serene, with terrific views of the river. During that afternoon we lost a few members of our party as Pip & Alayne had to fly out of SLC that evening, Diana had to go to work that afternoon back in Helena, and Rick & MJ had to return to Kalispell for work. The smaller group still had fun but it was clearly approaching the end of the reunion.
Wednesday morning we did the cleanup and loaded up our respective vehicles for the return routes. Carrie & I opted to give Yellowstone another try since we didn't get to see or do much in the park the first try and we weren't on a particularly pressing schedule. After another tedious first 1.5 hours to go 20 miles, we took the Canyon Loop which would take us toward Fishing Bridge and Yellowstone Lake. Shortly before getting to the Lake we saw a bunch of cars stopped and I spotted a big Grizzly bear napping in the shade. We pulled over as soon as we could and Carrie and Sadie went back to check it out. At last we got to see a Grizzly bear but it wasn't entirely satisfying. We kept going to Yellowstone Lake and stopped at the Hotel, which is just a bit across the way from the cabins we stayed at many years ago. The Hotel, while grand from the outside, was a bit disappointing in side. We had lunch while overlooking the lake which was outstanding in vistas. Afterward we got some ice cream for desert before the girls were scheduled for a big nap and I'd keep driving through Teton National Park.
The views of the mountains are amazing, and it doesn't take a long time to drive through the park so if you're in the area, it's highly worthwhile. We stopped and took pictures of the mountains and Jackson Lake as we had some outstanding lighting in the partly cloudy late afternoon sun.
Not long after the lake, several cars were pulled over and I spotted the Grizzly mulling around int he grass.
There wasn't room for me to pull over so I started snapping pictures like mad out the window while driving (I know, not the safest thing but it was only 5 mph). When we had a chance we pulled over and checked the photos, turned out that a few were pretty okay and there was a special surprise picture, there were two cubs in one photo with their ears poking above the sage brush!
We continued on to Jackson, WY where we stopped and walked around and went to Wort's Silver Dollar Bar & Grill inside the Wort Hotel for dinner (which was outstanding!). After dinner a storm was clearly moving in so we got back on the road to head over Teton Pass. I wasn't worried about pulling the pass for elevation as it's about the same as the Sierra Nevada passes that I've pulled many a time, however it's pretty steep, most of it with a 10% grade. The rain was coming down pretty hard and it was dropping to about 40 degrees near the top. This was the first time I wished I had a bigger truck, namely a turbo-diesel but my F-150 did it and was fine afterward. As we got to the bottom the campground I located on the iPhone was there and had a couple of sites available so we pulled in and put the girls to bed.
The next day was the long haul leaving the Teton mountain range to go through the south central part of Idaho, mostly flat agricultural country and then down highway 93 to Jackpot and intersecting Interstate 80 at Wells, NV. This was a highly uneventful drive once we got to Idaho Falls and past and I drove across most of Nevada at night which I rather enjoy. We stopped near the Highway 95 intersection and camped out on some public land and had one of the best views of the sky you could ask for--high desert with no moon makes for amazing star displays!
In the morning we packed up and headed into Reno to an old haunt of ours, Peg's Glorified Ham and Eggs and had a huge and delicious breakfast. We made one more stop at the top of Donner Pass to commemorate our trip and recollect what we'd seen and done.
It was a great trip, and was truly hard to come home and admit that the trip was over. We'll have more trips this summer, extended weekends, mostly, but this was our big one for the year and will serve as a great reminder of why we love the west, the camaraderie of my immediate family traveling together, and the adventure of traveling and camping with the Airstream!
Many thanks to everyone for contributing their photos to the collective pool. We got some good ones! If you'd like to see more of the photos, please follow this link.
