We have stayed at KOAs (Kampground of America) for the first 8 nights of this trip. At a family owned KOA, you at least know what you are getting. Most have pools, all have WiFi. Staff is usually friendly. You can book online. It's peace of mind when you don't know if another campground is going to be good. West Yellowstone's KOA is not family owned, it's resort style with outrageous prices ($39 for non-electric before my 10% discount). So for my $35 plus tax, I expect that I should be able to get online when I need to, but even right next to the camp store, it was hard to stay connected.
I did manage to post day 5's events, and I did manage to book a hotel room near Denver for - get this - $32 a night after tax through Priceline.com. Just a few dollars more than our campsite tonight. Way to go Shatner, you truly are the Priceline Negotiator. Just don't perform Rocketman again, OK?
Day 6 involved a drive around the lower loop of Yellowstone. I got to see a lot of geysers and hot spots, including the one and only Old Faithful. So, before I get into that, I would just like to say that the NPS has gotten a bit carried away in accommodating guests. There are many more places to stay right next to the geyser. In my opinion, it's way to built up. But that's just me. After a 5 minute search for a parking spot, we literally got to Old Faithful just as it was starting to erupt...
My favorite part of the day wasn't Old Faithful, but rather instead the view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone featuring a view of the lower falls which we saw from afar as well as right at the brink:
Day 7 was our final full day in Yellowstone, and of course we took the upper loop. The big feature of this loop was definitely Mammoth Hot Springs, which is just an unbelievable display of the activity of this park...
We swung around the upper loop and found an amazing view just beyond Tower Village. This point wasn't even indicated on the map, but I was very glad that we stopped.
After a dip in the pool, we head to West Yellowstone, MT to watch the fireworks. Since they were at 10pm, we killed time by grabbing a pizza and heading over to the Yellowstone Trading Post to watch their 17 year old IMAX movie (still good though). There was a distant lightning storm occurring, making the fireworks even more cool to watch. For a town of less than 2,000 people, they certainly know how to keep the tourists happy as it was a lot better than I thought it would be.
Day 8, AKA today, was an early rise with a nasty tent from the previous night's thunderstorm. We stayed dry, but the tent was a mess. I was not in the best of moods, but that changed quickly with a drive through the south part of Yellowstone and a drive through Grand Teton National Park.
Yellowstone has some amazing views and features, but as far as mountain views are concerned, it is hard to beat the Tetons.
We continued down US-191 through Wyoming down by the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area into Utah. It was a bit rugged and uncivilized around there, but we eventually returned to civilization in Vernal, Utah where we are spending the night before doing the US-40 drive through the Rockies en route to the Denver and Boulder areas where we will spend a couple nights. Yes, we are making our way back east, but we will take our time unlike the first three days when we were doing 600 mile chunks per day to get out there.
As always, you can check out the entire photo album on Flickr. The adventure continues tomorrow morning...
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