THE SOLDAN FAMILY 2003 YELLOWSTONE/TETONS TRIP
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This is the story of our summer (03) RV journey across the country from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Yellowstone National Park in a rented RV. The party included Ted (me) and Alice Soldan, Howard and Erna Soldan (my parents), and Panzer, our 100 pound German Shepherd. We drove to Minneapolis in our Dodge Caravan with the back seat removed for transporting gear. The morning that we left, everyone piled their gear behind the van , and it was my job to make it all fit. Panzer’s kennel took up about 1/3 of the space available. It looked impossible at first, but with some stuffing and grunting, everything and everyone had a place to ride.
We left early on May 29, 2003, and drove straight to Minneapolis, where we had reserved rooms at the Thunderbird Hotel, right next to the Mall of America. We checked in, cleaned up, and headed to the most fashionable shopping address in the world. None of us was very impressed. After about an hour of wandering around (it is easy to get lost in that place) we headed back to the hotel, and had a birthday dinner. (It was my Dad’s birthday) The next morning, we left bright and early for Twin City Alignment, where we were to pick up a Cruise America RV, and leave our van.
They were working on getting the RV ready for us when we got there. After about an hour of signing papers and becoming oriented to the vehicle, we were loaded up and ready to go. Almost as soon as we got on the highway, it became obvious that the front end wasn't working right. We called Cruise America from our first fuel stop and waited an hour on hold until an agent came on the line to help us. He directed us to a repair place and made an appointment for us for the next morning. We continued on driving to Lake Carlos State Park in MN, where we spent our first night getting moved into the RV and organized to live there for two weeks.
Panzer is not a great traveler. He hates to be left behind, but is nervous enough on the trips that he often doesn’t eat. Sometimes, I even have to sit with him and encourage him to finish his food.
We spent about half of the next day on a wild goose chase trying to find the place Cruise America sent us for the repair. When we learned they had sent us to the wrong city, we called back, and they found another place about 20 miles away, so we headed that way. The service people at this place were great. They put one new tire on the front, and installed our spare in place of the other front tire. Both old tires were shot and were causing the front end to shake alarmingly. We were on the road shortly after noon, heading west.
The RV performed much better with the new tires, but the fuel economy was not great, about 5 MPG, and since the tank only held about 20 gallons, we had to stop to and refuel often. That allowed dogs and people the chance to walk around every hour or so, which was a real plus. I drove, and Alice navigated, and before long, we were buzzing off and on the highway with the ease of practiced RV veterans.
We had hoped to make it into Montana for the next night, but instead decided to stay at the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. A friend from Michigan Tech had recommended that we stop here if we had a chance, and we were pleased to find such a nice park right on our route. Behind the park Visitor's Center there was a neat little log cabin that was the main house on Teddy's Maltese Cross Ranch, his first ranch in North Dakota, and we enjoyed seeing what a 'home on the range" was like back then. Mom and Dad consented to pose in front of it, so we could show you what it looked like. We were also fortunate to enough learn about a bird walk in the park early the next morning, and spent a pleasant, although kind of chilly, hour learning about birds from local birding experts before we took off for Yellowstone. Lucky thing Alice had an extra Patagonia fleece, a rain jacket, and hat in her pack, or we would have been too cold to complete the walk. Even with the extra gear we were glad to get back into the warm RV and continue westward.
On our way out of the park we spent a little time watching some prairie dogs scamper around a "dog town" that was right at the side of the road. We were so close we could see them blink, laughed at their antics, and found them thoroughly charming. The day trip from Teddy R. NP to Yellowstone was a long one, and we made many stops along the way for fuel and food, as well as one to look at the mighty Yellowstone River. Everyone seemed pretty happy to be close to our first Yellowstone destination. By the time we arrived at the North Entrance of the park, we felt like we were almost there, except that Yellowstone is big , encompassing parts of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and we still had about 50 miles to drive. We got to our campsite at Fishing Bridge late (after 10 PM) and tired, hooked up the RV, and went right to bed. We really slept well that night. When we woke up it was cold inside, there was lots of snow on the ground outside, and we learned the furnace had died in the night. That meant another half day shot hunting up a mechanic to fix it, driving there and spending the time to get it fixed. As things turned out, the fix-it place was a parking lot of an IMAX Theatre in West Yellowstone. While the mechanic worked on the furnace, we ate lunch, and bought tickets to see "Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West" at the IMAX. The mechanic finished just before the movie started, so we locked up the RV and all went to enjoy the movie.
Panzer quickly learned that even if he got left behind in the RV, he could exploit the screen door opening to get his nose and ears outside. He managed to open the door a couple of times.
We spent five nights at Yellowstone. The Park is set up so you can drive to an area with lots of activities, spend some time there, and either go on, or go back to the campground. During one daytrip, we stopped the RV and took a picture of a place that was part of the ’88 fire, and the regeneration of vegetation that's occurred in the area since then. The young trees are about 6’ tall now, and are so thick it is hard to walk through them.
The thermal features in the park were really fascinating. There are four different kinds. Geysers are probably the most well known. They're seen when steam and water spurt out of a hot underground reservoir that has a constricted opening. Hot springs are a lot like geysers except their openings to the surface aren't constricted. Fumaroles are like geysers, except only a small amount of water gets into their hot underground channels, and is released only as steam. They're actually Yellowstone's hottest hydrothermal features. Mudpots are sulfuric acid hot springs that break rock into clay that then bubbles up to release a variety of gases formed below the surface. Here are some of our favorite 'thermal' photos.
Mom and Alice look over the railing at Fountain Paint Pots (mudpots).
On a walkway at another of the geyser basins, the crew observes an active steam vent.
Many of Yellowstone’s hot springs show amazing colors, due to the different bacteria that prefer specific temperatures of water.
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In this geyser basin, a patient tourist (guess who) awaits the eruption of a small geyser called Mustard Spring. Her patience is rewarded.
Old Faithful is unusual among geysers because of its regular eruption. This is the most visited site in Yellowstone, and it's sometimes more fun to watch the expressions of the people during an eruption than it is to watch the geyser. Old Faithful erupts about every 90 minutes, and sprays water up to 180 feet in the air. Even though the weather was a little cold that day, Mom and Dad seemed pretty satisfied with the show.
Early on our trek to Canyon Village, we stopped at a small turnout on the Yellowstone River to look at Le Hardy Rapids. Since it was early in spring the rivers were all still quite high. We also stopped at the areas called Mud Volcano and Sulfur Caldron. Thermal activity just below the surface makes the ground so hot that vegetation has a hard time growing here. We tried to keep upwind of these lakes if possible, because of the strong sulfur smell.
We all enjoyed the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River a lot. Here is one of the many scenic overlooks in the canyon, and another view of the river flowing through the canyon. We'd never actually thought about it until we saw it, but there really IS a lot of yellow stone ...duh! Looking up the canyon we had an awesome view of the Lower Falls. Just visible in the lower part of the picture is the Red Rock Point Trail to a scenic overlook of the Lower Falls . This trail drops 500 feet in 3/8 mile, but we decided to try it. It was quite a hike and all four of us were pretty tired when we got back up to the parking lot, but the view was clearly worth the climb. Many people take pictures here, and we were no exception. While Dad and Mom rested, Alice and I hiked to the Brink of the Lower Falls, another 600 foot climb down (and up), and a truly awesome place where you can almost reach out and touch the river where 37,000 gallon of water plunge over the brink of the 308 foot cliff each second. Here is another view of tourists enjoying the power of these falls.
We rarely got a picture of the whole hiking crew, so at the next overlook, we talked a friendly man into snapping a picture of all four of us. Alice also stopped long enough for me to take this shot of her next to the canyon. In addition to the yellow stone, this area had many shades of pink that she thought were especially pretty. According to the Park Rangers, Artist’s Point is one of the most photographed views in the park. It is easy to see why.
On our way up to Mammoth Hot Springs, we stopped at this neat turnaround to stretch our legs and marvel at the huge boulders. At Mammoth, we found another friendly soul willing to take our picture in front of Minerva Terrrace, which was named for the Roman goddess of artists and sculptors. Mom lives dangerously putting her leg next to the 'boiling' mineral water that is sculpting Palette Spring at Mammoth. It looks as though it would be very hot, but in reality this one was just luke warm. There are lots of features to see at Mammoth, but seeing them requires quite a bit of walking. Here are the intrepid hikers traversing yet another stairway on their way to the Upper Terrace. This picture shows how the water has moved since the walkway was constructed. Further on, a section of the walk had to be closed because the water covered the entire boardwalk. Dad and I stopped to enjoy a view on the Upper Terraces of a feature called New Blue Spring. The highest terrace is pale blue, but this picture does not do justice to the amazing colors here. On our Upper Terrace walk this formation, called Orange Spring Mound was one of our favorites. Instead of forming terraces as showed earlier, this one looked to us like a frozen geyser.
On our way back to the RV after our hike, Dad pointed out two elk placidly grazing in the green area between lanes of traffic at Mammoth. A closer view of the elk shows just how docile they really are. This is of course a lie. Wild animals are unpredictable, as we learned minutes after this picture was taken. I was walking back from the Post Office across the road, when the elk in the foreground thought I was a little too close and charged me! No pictures recorded the expressions of either me or the elk, but Mom and Dad said they were watching and holding their breath.
While Dad rested in the RV, Alice, Mom and I hiked the Porcelain Basin loop. The colors made by the heat-loving bacteria (thermophiles) were beautiful.
Later all four of us hiked the Upper Geyser Basin loop near Old Faithful. The complex of buildings surrounding Old Faithful is visible in the upper part of this picture. These buildings were nearly lost during the fire of 1988. We were lucky enough to catch this small geyser erupting. Turning around during our hike, we caught another eruption of Old Faithful from a distance.
Here are some of the Upper Geyser Basin sights.
Spasmodic Geyser
Belgian Spring
Chromatic Pool (I think.)
Grotto Geyser (I think)
Morning Glory Pool
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Punch Bowl Spring
Here we are at a pullout at one of the Continental Divide signs. We learned that the divide is a line running down the backbone of the country where water flowing on the west side flows to the Pacific Ocean, and on the other side to the Atlantic Ocean. Panzer was along in the RV while we were getting this picture taken. He was watching us from the driver's seat, and managed to speed things up by honking the horn!
Grand Tetons National Park, Wyomimg. The Heron Pond and Swan Lake 3 mile hike was recommended to us by the receptionist at the RV park, and since we arrived before check-in time, we were able to enjoy it even before we settled in at our RV site in Colter Bay. To our surprise, we found that we had the trail almost to ourselves. Even though we didn't see many people (only 7 in the 3 miles), we saw lots of waterfowl on this hike, including Canada geese, several varieties of ducks, killdeer, and a flock of over 60 American White Pelicans. I remembered to put my lightweight binoculars in my pack before we left, so we were able to get a good look at the wildlife.
Another morning at Colter Bay, we did their Lakeshore Trail 2 mile hike which followed the shoreline of Colter Bay, and the perimeter of a small forested peninsula. This hike gave us many more lovely views of the mountains, again without other groups of hikers nearby, as you can see from this photo of Dad, ,Mom, and Alice on the trail. Here's another of me on the lakeshore
Captain Rowdy was one of our hosts on a boat tour of Jackson Lake that allowed us to see the Grand Tetons up close and personal. There was also a tour guide on the trip who told us about the geology of the area as well as the history of local forest fire damage.
Colter Bay had a very nice Visitor Center that included a pretty extensive Indian Arts Museum. We enjoyed their videos of the area, and a Ranger tour of the museum. Alice especially enjoyed talking with the guest resident artist who specialized in American Indian beadwork.
One day we drove south to the Jenny Lake area where we caught a shuttle boat to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point Trailhead. All four of us hiked the well-worn 1-mile round trip path to Hidden Falls, where there was a pleasant rest area with a close view of the falls. Alice and I left Mom and Dad to enjoy the fresh, misty air there, hiked up the steeper, more rugged, trail to Inspiration Point, and then looped back (the entire loop was another 1.2 miles) to the falls overlook, so all of us could walk back to the shuttle together.
From the Tetons we headed back north and then east through Yellowstone on our way to Mount Rushmore, and found this big fellow blocking our way, looking at us as if to say, "What are you doing on my road?" He meandered along just ahead of us for quite awhile, and then took an off-road detour into the woods. We saw many bison on the trip, including pretty good-sized herds of bison "parents" watching their new calves, but this guy was our favorite.
The drive from the Tetons to the campground we planned to stay at near Mount Rushmore was long, but we made it in a day, arriving early enough to go to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Borglum Museum in the evening. We had our supper in the cafeteria there, enjoyed the Avenue of Flags, and visited the museum, where we saw a film on how the memorial was carved.
The next morning we headed east again toward the Badlands National Park in South Dakota with Panzer riding shotgun.
On our way, we saw the Crazy Horse Memorial, but only from a distance. It would have been nice to stop and learn more about it, but we simply didn't have the time.
We stayed at a Badlands National Park campground near Cedar Pass Lodge, and toured the area from there. The Badlands Loop Road offered many interesting overlooks such as these allowing us a good view of the interesting geology and incredible colors. The Loop Road led us to a famous tourist spot where we saw the sights and had a bite to eat. "Where the hell Is Wall Drug, anyway?" Here is Dad enjoying the view.
Early the morning that we left the Badlands, we attended a Ranger guided hike, on the Door Trail, and learned a little about the geology of the region.
From the Badlands, we moved on to Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the Corn Palace. Panzer and I did some serious resting that evening in Mitchell's KOA campground. This was fortunate, because we had a thunderstorm that kept us up for a good part of the night. Thunderstorms are not Panzer's idea of a good time. In fact they terrify him. He trembles, and tries to crawl into all sorts of non-doggie places, like the tiny aisle in Mom's and Dad's RV bedroom, and probably right into their bed if I hadn't caught him in time. He finally wound up squeezing into the space under the platform that is made when the RV dinette table is converted into a bed. Alice snoozed on the bed, pet him, and "held his paw" until the storm abated. What a dandy he is. For a 100-pound protection dog, he sure is a chicken when it comes to thunder and lightening.
While we were touring Wall Drug, Mom found a brochure advertising the Sertoma Butterfly House in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was right on our way from Mitchell to Minneapolis, and sounded interesting, so we decided to stop there for a driving break. What a neat place! It was a greenhouse type room about twice the size of our house and had butterflies from all over the world. The entrance was through an airlock so the butterflies wouldn't escape, and once inside you could wander among the plants and look at the butterflies close up. Alice went nuts with the camera, and I can't say I blame her. We all had fun. I met a neat little boy there who taught me how to pick up the butterflies, and from then on I was hooked. Here are some (yes, only some) of our favorite photos.
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When we left Sioux Falls, the next stop was Minneapolis, where we dropped off the RV, picked up our van, and headed home. We were nearing the end of the trip about suppertime, and getting hungry when we remembered a special place to eat, right on the way. Well, almost. Anyway, we decided to take Mom and Dad out to eat at Henry's (Never) Inn in Rockland, MI. It was Friday, and Henry's is well known for its great Friday night buffet. I think Mom and Dad, who thoroughly enjoy eating out city-style, probably thought, yeah, right, a good buffet in this backwoods town. They were polite, though, and didn't comment. That is, not until they started the buffet. Keep in mind that this place is truly "Yooper unique". The salad bar is on a piece of plywood on top of a chest-type freezer, the desserts are on a pool table, usually in use for playing a hot game of pool, but on Friday night covered with a protective tablecloth, and Henry is cooking in a lumberjack style kitchen. Dad actually had to carve his own ham (no carving chef here), he went back several times for more, I might add. Mom's crowning comment was "I hope I don't get full too fast, so that I can keep enjoying this". We agreed that after all the miles we'd covered, it was ironic that the best meal we had on this vacation was basically in our own backyard. Go figure. Or maybe I should say "Go Rockland!"
