Seattle to Saratoga Springs Raid to Rendezvous – Day 3

Awake early in Idaho Falls and it’s another great day. A quick stop for supplies at local supermarket where almost every customer stopped to talk about our cars…it’s becoming part of our daily schedule.

The decision was made for us to lead the caravan and luckily Uschi had made excellent notes for us to follow to Yellowstone and off we went in the lead.

It would be impossible to describe what a beautiful drive we had from 26 on to 89 and 191 up to Yellowstone. The winding roads along the Snake River were a blast to drive and a delight to the eyes.

Luckily, all the cars ran well and for the first time no problems…large or small to slow us down, so it was an easy ride.

  This is inside Yellowstone, roads clear but ground still covered with snow in early June. 

I was completely unprepared for Yellowstone. I thought it was a little place with Old Faithful to see and off you go. I didn’t realize it was 750,000 acres, hundreds of miles of roads and Old Faithful would be possibly the least amazing thing we’d see.

 Old Faithful     Walli and Kiki in the June snow at Yellowstone…just crazy how much is covered with snow still. 

There are fields of smoking geysers bubbling, looking like they might blow any moment, nobody really knows. The amount of the park still covered by snow. And the wildlife…there were bison everywhere and some alongside the road reminded us of how small we were. As we were leaving the park, a large female moose emerged from the woods right in front of Axel. His avoidance braking tested all our brake systems. He got by and I had to wait as she eyed me and when she looked away, I rolled past too. In the woods was her calf who came out after we had all moved by.

Now, why were we driving out of the park? Well, we hadn’t booked a campsite and all of them were rented by the time we got there. When you think that there are at least a dozen camping areas in the park with hundreds of camping spaces this seemed impossible to me. However, the park was full of visitors. The in park hotels were booked up of $350-$650 a night rooms…what do you think everybody else thought they’d try? So we headed out the west gate and found a place for our first camp out. It was fun. We set up our tents and started on dinner. After a long day, eating a meal outdoors and hanging out around the table was a great way to end the day.

  Walli and KiKis car unpacked to camp.
I end with these observations about 2CVs, gleaned from today’s leg. Driving a 2CV is like sailing. You know where you want to go, but you can’t rush anything. You’ll get there, but you have little control over when. Also, be prepared to make more frequent stops going long distances in a 2CV. There is, it seems, a sympathetic vibration in a 2CV which helps the body process food/coffee intake much faster than happens regularly.

Today, we have gone about a third of our trip. Tomorrow will be a long day, much driving and sightseeing in Yellowstone before heading out the east gate to Cody, but now it’s time to sleep.

[Read the story about the complete trip here.]