Yellowstone to Idaho Falls, ID
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The weather report had predicted a cold morning (below 20) but it turned out to be much warmer. It was definitely warmer than yesterday. And the clouds were breaking up and the sun came out! Sure, when we’re leaving. But we figured the roads would be clear and we’d go out the west gate. We got what we thought would be a last shower in and got the trailer ready to go. It always takes a bit longer than you think it will to do that. But we hit the road about 10:15.
First stop, of course, in town for coffee. That took a bit longer than planned since they screwed up Les’ order and he had to go back and have them try again.
The booth lady had no interest in Les’ banter. She was the least friendly so far. But we went on happily anyway. Clear roads through Mammoth Hot Springs and sunny skies with patchy clouds. We figured we were golden. But on the road to the Norris Basin, we started getting ice on the roads. Clearly there had been some ‘weather’ in the night. So it made for a bit of a nail biter for Les. There weren’t many people on the road luckily, but it seemed like anytime the road narrowed and twisted around a mountain, suddenly there everyone was.
There was only one brief moment where the tires slipped, and things got really interesting. But once we got past Norris, it was pretty much clear sailing. We saw a group of about 4 or 5 bison on the way to the turn to the west gate at Madison.
From Madison to the west gate was a new road for us, including last time. It follows a river out. We stopped briefly to take a few pictures along the way but mostly just motored along. West Yellowstone, the town past the gate, had lots of hotels and tour offices and such. A lot more than Gardiner. It would appear that West Yellowstone is the ‘primary’ entrance.
We headed off towards Idaho Falls. The only real risk on this route was the mountain range just past West Yellowstone where the pass is close to 7000 feet. But the west gate is too, so we were already up there and the roads were clear. We barely noticed it. Where it actually did get interesting was farther down towards Idaho Falls where we caught up to some dark clouds we had been eyeing and got hit with a rain/snow combination that was looking pretty nasty for a bit, but after about 10 minutes we were past it, the skies cleared, and we had sun the rest of the way.
We had a choice. Push really hard to Boise and then try to get home tomorrow. Or take it more easy, stop in Twin Falls and Boardman, and get home on Saturday. We chose the latter. And for a very good reason. It was game 5 of the Dodgers/Giants playoff series. We wanted to watch it. Les reminded me that on our earlier trip, every so often we’d ‘come in from the cold’ and stay in a hotel. Why not do that tonight so we can see the game? Well, why not? So we found a hotel that was only about $10 more than the RV park we had been staying in (the Red Lion in Idaho Falls) and settled in to watch the game. We microwaved the remains of the agglutinated mass from last night for dinner. The Dodgers won to clinch the series, although a dubious check swing call (or lack of one) put an asterisk on the victory.
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