CASCADES TO THE ROCKIES

I don’t know why we had never been to Crater Lake before. We just skirted it on past trips. What a cool place. My knees have been giving me problems since my hike in Glacier or we would have done a lot more hiking around the lake. 

The morning we were leaving the park our Saturn decided to die. My brother-in-law (a much better mechanic than I)  was heading back to California and not even out of sight when it stopped running. We have still been using it but have to push start it. I push and Gaila pops the clutch. She is getting better at it all the time. The first time she didn’t have it in gear. I’ll have to put a starter in it when we get home, I just don’t feel like climbing under it and dealing with it on the road. 

This traveling is wonderful. Gaila used to complain that I drank too much coffee but now she has decided “If I can’t beat ‘em, I’ll join ‘em.” As you can see by the picture we have a supply wagon full of coffee that shadows us wherever we go. 

Once we reached the Eastern side of the Cascades in Oregon there was a dramatic change in scenery. It is very dry and rolling terrain. A lot of second gear climbing but not a chore with an air conditioned motorhome. I think it might have been a bit more difficult with a covered wagon full of arrows. Idaho flattens right out and we watched ranchers combining and haying this year’s last cutting. 

We followed “Goodale’s Cutoff” http://www.idahohistory.net/OTgoodale.html one of many shortcuts along the historic Oregon Trail. We visited Craters of the Moon National Monument and hiked through a lava tube 60 ft. deep and 800 ft. long. Blistering hot up top on the lava field and amazingly cool through the tube. Pigeons were roosted in the cool tubes which proves that birds are not stupid.

Fifty miles west of Idaho Falls, ID the Rockies come into view. You can see from the bottom of the Wind River Range up into Yellowstone, with the Grand Tetons anchoring the center of the horizon. This area is the largest volcanic region in the world and the surrounding landscape make it evident. 

Teton Pass into Jackson Hole, WY is a first gear, slow climb up, and a first gear, fast, sphincter tightening ride down the other side.

Jackson Hole was a unique, small western town when I was a kid but I see no resemblance today. We drove through quickly and I think I will just drive around it in the future. We camped just inside Grand Teton National Park and ate breakfast the next morning with the mountains framing our motorhome picture window. Not a cloud in the sky, four moose in the field and me pushing a Saturn through the campground as Gaila pops the clutch. Is that sucking the juice out of life, or what?

Yellowstone is closing up for the winter and although the weather is perfect, they must know from the past that it’s going to get cold soon. 

September has always been a golden time of year to travel. Once school starts around the country the vacationing traffic thins considerably. But I am noticing a silent invasion. It is getting much busier during the fall. It is the invasion of the boomerang gang (boomers). As the Geritol Posse grows, the busier recreational destinations are becoming in the fall season. Maybe with global warming we will have extended fall seasons that will accommodate larger crowds. 

The other thing you have to deal with at the end of the season in National Parks are some cranky rangers. They have spent the last several months answering every stupid question imaginable and they just can’t take it anymore. I just love stopping at the Visitor Centers and asking really stupid questions to see how many of them I can push over the edge. 

That’s all for now out here in the Wild West. Keep Smilin’, Dick