The Rim - Wyoming

Smoky Grand Tetons

We packed up and moved yesterday morning from Gardiner, Montana traveling all the way through Yellowstone National Park, onto the John D Rockefeller Parkway which connects Yellowstone with The Grand Teton National Park, drove on through the Tetons, then into Jackson Hole and Jackson, south out of Jackson to southeast to Bondurant, Wyoming.  We are 45 minutes southeast of Jackson, and on top of the world.  Our altitude is 8331 feet, lovely to be up on the Gros Ventre Range of the Rocky Mountains, but cold.  In a campground called - appropriately - The Rim.  Us and 3 others are here - it is open all year, the campers who come here in the winter are for snowmobiling, hiking, snowshowing, hunting, wildlife watching.  If it got to 22 last night and it's Sept 13th, can you imagine what it would be like in January?  BRRRRR.

Great sunset last night on the Rim

Yesterday's drive through the southern part of Yellowstone was what we think Alaska would be like - could not see past the deep forest of pine trees.  We did cross the Continental Divide 3 times while driving south, passed Old Faithful (not geysering) and pretty Lewis Lake. Seems to be more hiking on the south side of Yellowstone.  We both agreed that staying on the north end of Yellowstone was ideal - much more to see, more wildlife, more vista views.  Would have had to travel about 2 hours just to see geysers or Mammoth Springs.  Good choice.  The ah-ha we got when we crossed out of Yellowstone onto the Parkway - you had a vista view of the Tetons in front of you with Jackson Lake below it.  However.  Very very smoky/hazy.  There is a wildfire -called Horsethief Canyon Wildfire - raging just 5 miles south of Jackson.  The entire Jackson Hole was smoky.  Barely see the Tetons.  Found out that if we would have gone on to Cody like original plans - we would have been diverted due to this fire.  Once we turned south out of Jackson the smoke seemed to clear up.  Until about 4pm when the wind shifted and blew all that smoke here.  You could see huge clouds of smoke just drifting to us, yuck. And stink.  This morning with zero wind, no smoke, crystal clear out.  We really have had great luck with this trip - have managed to dodge wildfires, if we reversed our trip and come down the eastern side of Utah at the end, we would have seen alot of burned out areas.

View Looking out RV to Meadow and pond

We have a lovely site, looking out over a meadow, lots of birds for Grace to yell at.  Very very quiet, hoping to hear coyotes or wolves last night - got a couple more nights for that - hopefully.Will visit the town of Pinedale to sightsee and do some shopping, then move on southeast towards Vernal, Utah - about half way to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. We will follow this US Route 191 now until we get near Tucson, Arizona in about a month.

In the meantime, we wait for the sun to warm us up and the water hoses to get unfrozen - and hope tonight isn't as bad.  Forecast is for 35 tonight - we'll see.