Yellowstone, Cody, Thermopolis & Buffalo

On Friday morning, about 7:00 AM, we left our motel in West Yellowstone, (The Alpine Motel), and headed into the park. It had dropped below freezing during the night, and as we drove towards Old Faithful, the warmer water in the Madison River was covered in mist, and it drifted across the road. (I borrowed this pic from Google.)

As we went further into the park, the temperature continued to drop, going as low as 29 degrees. As we drove by the lower geyser basin, it got so foggy that we had to slow below 10 mph. When we finally reached the upper basin and Old Faithful, the temperature had risen to 35 degrees and the fog had dissipated.

Since we didn’t have breakfast at our hotel, we decided to eat at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge dining room. All of the other dining options were buffet only, but the Snow Lodge had an à la carte menu, and I had my heart set on their Bison Hash Skillet. Unfortunately, they were out of bison, so we had a pretty unremarkable breakfast.

After breakfast we headed over to see the Old Faithful geyser, only to find a thousand people heading our way. We didn’t know the schedule, and had missed the 9 AM eruption. That was OK; it’s Old Faithful; it’ll be back soon. While we waited, we walked the boardwalk trail around the upper geyser basin. 

Of the twenty or so geysers on the walk, two of them went off while we were there, but not when we were standing right next to them. For instance one sign said “Erupts every two to five hours.” Do you wait or you go on. We went on, and so we only saw the eruptions from a distance.

Finally, we noticed people lining up around Old Faithful, so we made our way off the hill, and found a seat. After about 15 minutes, it erupted again, right on schedule. (We walked through the Visitors’ Center on the way back to the car, where we saw a sandwich board advertising the next eruption, with a plus or minus of 7 minutes. Apparently we were the only people there that day that didn’t know exactly when it was going to go off.

I’ve seen Old Faithful at least twice before; once as a child and once on a Northwest road trip with Kathy. Even though I knew what to expect, I still found it shockingly awe inspiring.

Throughout the afternoon, we drove around Lake Yellowstone, and out the East entrance towards Cody, Wyoming, crossing the Continental Divide. Once we passed it, we could immediately see the river, next to the road, flowing east instead of west.

We got to our hotel around 4:30, and although we were really tired we went out again to get some dinner, and walk through town. The town is named for “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and it still contains his original hotel, named after his wife Irma. I got a picture of Kathy, with the statue of Bill, out in front of the hotel.

Since I missed my bison hash for breakfast, I was determined to at least have a bison burger for dinner. We found one at the Proud Cut Saloon.

The bison burger was great, with bacon, barbecue sauce, thick-cut bacon, and two huge onion rings. I had to remove the onion rings before I could even get the burger in my mouth. When we left, both of us were stuffed.

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel. It was pretty minimal; toast, coffee, orange juice and some yoghurt. The hotel we stayed at, the King’s Inn, is owned by a big game hunter, and the lobby is filled with stuffed animals. Kathy posed with the elephant…

…while I got a picture with the giant crocodile. 

We got a little later start this morning. Our first stop was Thermopolis, Wyoming, where we topped off our slim breakfast with some Egg McMuffins at McDonalds. Thus fortified, we headed across town to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. 

In the car, we’re listening the Micheal Crichton’s Jurassic Park, so we were already pumped. Interestingly, one exhibit points out that Crichton based his large, human-sized predators on a dinosaur named Deinonychus. In the book, though, Crichton chose the name Velociraptor because he felt it sounded much more dramatic and scarier than Deinonychus. The T-Rex is still the T-Rex, though.

After leaving the Center, we drove to the other side of town to Hot Springs State Park. Besides having the largest natural mineral hot springs in the world, the state park is also the home of Wyoming’s official bison herd. We drove through the park on several of the different (sometimes gravel) roads, and found a small herd of about fifteen animals. All of them were sleeping except for one, which seemed to be keeping guard.

The State Park maintains a public bath house where they cool the natural water at 104 degrees. You can soak in the pool for free. I had seen pictures of the natural outdoor pool, but had heard it was closed until September 25. Since it was the 26th, I was hoping it would be open, however the construction still isn’t finished. We looked at the small indoor pool, but it was pretty crowded, so we decided to skip it. Here’s a picture of the travertine ledges produced by the hot springs from just across the Big Horn River.

Our Saturday night destination was Buffalo, Wyoming, the home of the streaming series Longmire. (I’ve never seen it, but it is a big deal there.) Leaving Thermopolis, we took Highway 20 to Worland, where we had lunch at a great Mexican restaurant named Los Tapatios (4.7 on Google Maps). Then, we turned off on  US-16 East, called the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway, and followed it through the Big Horn Mountains. This drive is one of the most dramatic we’ve taken. 

We got to Buffalo before 5:00 PM, checked into our room, and then drove into the two-block downtown area to walk around. Both of us were still satisfied from lunch, so we didn’t eat dinner. By 6:00 PM we were back in our room. Since I missed the hot springs soak, I sat in the hotel’s hot tub for a bit, and then caught up on the blog.

Tomorrow we’ll be heading for the Devil’s Tower, featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and then on to Mt. Rushmore.  

Boise & The Craters of the Moon

The hotel breakfast in Burns opened at 6:30 in the morning, and we were there right on time. We left by 8:00 AM, headed for Boise, Idaho. In Boise we had two tasks: 1) to get some Idaho Trader Joe’s bags, and 2) to visit Kathryn Rodgers, an OCC colleague, who abandoned the OC for the great outdoors of Idaho, along with her boyfriend Peter.

We got to Boise around noon and headed for Trader Joe’s, which is right downtown. We both lived in Boise in the fall and winter of 1970, when it was definitely less crowded. The downtown traffic now rivals anything in Southern California. Kathryn, who now teaches at Boise State University, has a house close to downtown, and mostly rides her bike everywhere.

We met at Tin Roof Tacos (which was good and inexpensive), and spent the afternoon catching up with Kathryn and getting to know Peter. Like OCC, Boise State’s enrollment has declined for Computer Science majors. This whole year, all of her classes are online, so she only needs to go to the campus for the weekly department meeting. Also like OCC, she’s doing a lot of work, designing her classes to make sure that the students are engaged in the age of AI.

Finally, she really seems to be enjoying herself; she is teaching several exercise classes at two gyms, and she and Peter are really taking advantage of the outdoors. On Thursday, for instance, they are going rafting on the Snake River. We also got to see pictures of both of them hang gliding from the town of Murren in Switzerland down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley. 

In Boise we stayed at the Hyatt Place/Town Center, where we had a wonderful room. This was only two blocks from the Shiloh House where we both lived in the fall of 1970. We drove by and found that the old, early 1900’s farmhouse was gone, and a modern dental practice building had taken its place. For dinner, we went to Jersey Mike’s, got a Philadelphia Cheese Steak sandwich to share, took it back to our room, and spent the evening reading. Not night owls, the Gilberts.

Craters of the Moon

Thursday was another long driving day. We were at the hotel breakfast before 6:30. (We both thought that it was excellent; if you’re in Boise, we recommend it.) Our first stop was the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preservation Area. 

The Monument consists of recent lava beds (within the last two thousand years). It’s interesting to think that these lava beds are younger than the Sequoias that we saw last week. There is a nice driving loop, with handicap-accessible paved trails, elevated over the lava flows. The monoliths behind Kathy are crater fragments rafted to their location by the lava flows.

Each trail is signed and marked, explaining the different kinds of lava, cinder cones, and so on. For instance, the smooth ropy lava shown below is called pahoehoe. (A lot of the lava vocabulary is in Hawaiian, since that’s where we have the most consistent, contemporary lava flows.)

The pahoehoe lava also comes in several different varieties. I liked the slab-like one below best. It almost looks like ancient Cuneiform tablets.

We stayed at Craters of the Moon until about 1:00 PM, and then set out for West Yellowstone, where we’ll spend the night. The first town we drove through, Arco, Idaho, is famous for being the first town to be entirely powered by nuclear energy, for one hour, on July 17th, 1955. I had originally planned to spend the night there. Kathy told me she was happy we didn’t. 

Tomorrow, we’re driving through Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming. See you all there.

Klamath Falls, Crater Lake, Bend & Burns

On Monday, our drive from Grass Valley to Klamath Falls Oregon was uneventful. Going north, we took Highway 99, then Interstate 5 through Shasta, and turned off for Oregon at Weed. We stopped on the way in Oroville California at Jen’s Cafe for breakfast.

As we drive, we’re listening to John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley on Audible. Talking about American diners, he wrote: At the roadsides I never had a really good dinner or a really bad breakfast," So far, we agree. Our breakfasts, especially in the out-of-the way places, have been excellent.

In Klamath Falls we got to the Golden West Motel before our room was ready. So, we decided to go looking for the falls. It turns out that there are no falls in Klamath Falls. I was misinformed. Instead, there are a set of uninspiring rapids on the Link River which connects Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes.

To actually find the rapids and the Link River, we drove around for an hour. Google Maps directed us to dead ends, and the paper map we had didn’t make much sense. We finally found the Link River Trail by trial and error and had a nice couple-hour walk. Unfortunately we only were able to actually reach the river itself in one spot.

For dinner we had pizza, which was OK, but uninspiring.

Crater Lake and Bend

Early to bed, early to rise. We were up and on the road by 6:30 AM on Tuesday, headed for Crater Lake National Park. Having both lived in Oregon for several years, it’s surprising that neither of us had been there. We got to the park a little before 8:00 AM. There were no rangers manning the entrance, so we drove right in.

One thing that surprised us, is how little traffic we encountered, not only at Crater Lake, but everywhere, once we got off the main roads. I often wonder if reliance on Google Maps is directing everyone off of the older byways. Along the way, we saw several charming motels that we wished we had known about, but since they don’t appear on Booking.com, they are essentially invisible.

When we finally got to the lake it was awe inspiring. On the way to Crater Lake we didn’t find any place to eat breakfast. However, when we got there, we found that Crater Lake Lodge was serving breakfast in their elegant dining room

During breakfast we read the brochure about the lake. I didn’t know that it was the crater of a collapsing volcano. For some reason, I always thought it was a meteor crater. After breakfast we drove half-way around the lake, stopping at all of the turnouts, admiring the crystal clear water.

Leaving the lake, we drove north to Bend, Oregon. One of Kathy’s goals on the trip is to collect all of the different local variations of Trader Joe’s shopping bags. Here are the ones she got in Bend.

Leaving Bend, we set out for the city of Burns, in the center of eastern Oregon.

Burns Oregon

In October of 1970 I was a deacon at the Shiloh House in Boise Idaho, with Peter David as the pastor. Being a deacon mostly meant that I needed to oversee the work that put food on the table. 

One day, George Bryson, who was the pastor of the Shiloh House in Burns Oregon, drove to Boise and told us about a work opportunity in Burns, working on a potato harvesting combine. I gathered up four or five of the brothers and we went over there to work.

It was exhausting, backbreaking work, and after only a single day, I gathered up my crew and we hitched back to Boise. The interesting thing was that the two girls who were living at the Burns house, my future wife Kathy and Patty Reams, had worked on the combines for a whole week before throwing in the towel. 

The name of the ranch where we worked was called the Silver Creek Ranch. Sure enough, as we drove into Burns we found the sign right off the highway where it stood 56 years ago.

That’s not all, though. A year or so ago, when the producers of the documentary A Band Called Lovesong were interviewing Jesus People veterans, Kathy wrote and told them about the first time she heard the band. The Burns house features prominently in that story.

I think you'll get a kick out of my first memory of Love Song:

It was the late summer of 1970 when this x-Hippie Earth Mother turned Christian Oregon Mountain Woman was living in a vintage duplex in the High-Desert-Cowboy-Country town of Burns, Oregon. Our communal house, one of many throughout the US, was a part of a Jesus Communal ministry called Shiloh, a Jesus People extension of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

A real Oregon Mountain Woman befriended us and decided we needed meat. With lots of shotguns to share, she took the brothers out hunting. All they came back with was a big box of smelly jackrabbits. The brothers double-dared me to skin the rabbits. And then they left me alone in the kitchen.

To keep me company, they brought in a cassette player that contained the sweetest music I had ever heard by a band called Love Song. Singing along, I skinned every last one of those ugly rabbits, cooked them, shredded the meat, and served Mexican-spiced rabbit for dinner.

Little did I know at that same time my future in-laws, Dean and Jean Gilbert, had turned their home at the Maranatha Apartments in Costa Mesa, California into a mini Jesus commune by inviting Love Song’s Chuck, Tommy, Jay, Fred, and John to live there with them.

Two years later I would marry their son, Stephen Gilbert, and I have loved him and the Love Song ever since!

On one of Kathy’s old letters to her parents, from October 1970, we found the address of the Burns house, and went to look at it. The old duplex was no longer there after 56 years. It has been replaced with a nice, new house. Oh well, time marches on.

We’re staying at the Rory and Ryan Inn just outside of Burns, in Hines Oregon. It’s a nice place, with a pool, a spa, and free breakfast. After looking for the Burns Shiloh House, we went to a local restaurant, the Pine Room, and had a nice, filling dinner.

In the morning, we’ll head for Boise to visit one of my old colleagues, Kathryn Rogers, who now teaches Computer Science at Boise State University.

Gold Rush Country

Today we are leaving Yosemite. Before leaving the Park, we took one last hike to the bottom of Bridalveil Falls. As you can see, there’s not much water left. (Yosemite Falls, by our lodge, was completely dry.)

Leaving the park, we had no cell phone service and our car navigation wasn’t working. Unfortunately, I hadn’t looked up the route ahead of time. I wanted to leave by the north entrance, going on Highway 120 to Groveland. Instead, we ended up leaving the same way we came in. In Mariposa we stopped for breakfast at the Miner’s Roadhouse. The food was definitely better than the breakfast we’d had yesterday at the park.

Heading north out of Mariposa, one of the things I wanted to do was to see where my great-great-great grandfather, David H. Gilbert, had settled when he came to California. In the spring of 1852 he left his home in Leonidas, Michigan and set out for the gold fields of California, with his pregnant wife Margua, who gave birth to my great-great grandfather Marion near Salt Lake City.

When they finally arrived in California, he purchased a small mining claim in Michigan Bar, southeast of Sacramento on the Consumnes River. In August of 1856, David wrote home to his family in Michigan:

I halve been mining this year and have done very well part of the time and a part of the time nothing done very well. At the beginning of the year took up a claim and worked it six weeks. And took out $900 for the three of us. And then I sold my interest for $250. I was coming home on the next boat but gave it up until next spring.

He never made it back to Michigan. In the same letter he wrote “It is summer here year around. It is one of the most pleasant country’s that I have ever saw or heard of.” Instead of Michigan, the family headed for Santa Cruz where David started a General Store.

Looking at Wikipedia, I found that Michigan Bar had been destroyed by the introduction of hydraulic mining in the late 1800s. So, leaving Mariposa, we turned north on Highway 49 and headed into the foothills. One of the first towns we drove through was Angel’s Camp, where we stopped for an ice cream.

Angel’s Camp is the backdrop for Mark Twain’s short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Every year the town has an annual Jumping Frog Jubilee, and the winning frog is given a brass plaque on the sidewalk. For instance, in 1959 the frog “Two Snap” won with a jump of over 16 feet.

Angel’s Camp is charming, but still feels really authentic. This week is the homecoming week for Bret Harte High School; there were banners over the main street, and every store had a poster with the name of one of the football players. The team is named, naturally, the Mighty Bullfrogs. We spent an hour walking around, looking at the historic buildings, like Angels Hotel, built in 1855, where Samuel Clemens first heard the jumping frog story. 

One of the apps I use a lot on my phone is Libby. Libby allows you to check out e-books and audio books for free from the library. All you need is a library card. (I have Orange County, Newport Beach and LA County cards, so I can check out books from all three libraries.) Leaving Angels Camp, I checked out Twain’s short story and we listened to it as we headed towards Grass Valley, driving through the tiny, rural towns.

In Grass Valley we’re staying at the Sierra Mountain Inn, a cute set of cottages, a few blocks from downtown. We got here about 4:00 PM, unloaded the car, and went out for a walk.

The town is cute, with a lot Gold Rush era buildings, but it just doesn’t seem as authentic as Angel’s Camp. There are a lot of jewelers, boutiques, and restaurants, all with Newport Beach prices. 

On our way back to the Inn, I found the local Elks’ Lodge. I belong to a weekly men’s Bible study at St. Andrews Church. One of the guys, Ed DuPont, is an Elk, and each month he takes us to the Newport Beach Lodge for Taco Tuesday.

We got back to the Inn at about 6:00 PM. In the morning we’re headed to Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Yosemite National Park

Rather than eat breakfast in Kings Canyon, we ate some string cheese, and headed for Yosemite at about 7:30 AM, planning to find a restaurant on the way. When we got to Fresno, Kathy asked Google for “breakfast near us” and found a place named Early Birds Cafe that was rated 4.9 (out of 5). It was a few miles off of the freeway, but it was totally worth it. Kathy had a spinach and mushroom scramble with orange juice, and I had the chilaquiles and decaf. 

We got to our hotel, the Yosemite Valley Lodge, a little after noon. Our room wasn’t ready yet, but we were able to register and get our parking pass. Once we parked the car we boarded the free Yosemite Shuttle Bus.

We were hurrying because I’d made lunch reservations for 2:45 at the famous Ahwahnee Hotel, and it was after one when we got on the Shuttle. This 1927 “Parkitecture” gem was Stanley Kubrick’s inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in his film The Shining. As you can see from the picture below, the dining room is very impressive. Both of us thought that it reminded us a little of La Posada, a similar “Harvey House” Hotel in Winslow, Arizona.

There were no reservations available for the formal dinner, and, I didn’t pack my tuxedo anyway. We started lunch with French onion soup, which was great. 

For our entree, Kathy had salmon and I had braised beef. The food was artfully prepared and presented, but definitely a splurge.

After lunch we wandered around the Ahwanhee for a while. I took the picture of Kathy with Half Dome in the back, which appears at the beginning of this entry. We got back to the lodge at about 6:00 PM, picked up our keys, unpacked our car, and turned in.

Saturday, September 19th

We awoke on Saturday a little before dawn, got dressed, and went next door to the Basecamp Eatery two plain but filling breakfast sandwiches, a little coffee and some orange juice. Next door at the main registration desk we got tickets for the 11:00 AM Yosemite Valley Tram Tour. Our room has a little patio with a table and two chairs, overlooking one of the trails across from Lower Yosemite Falls. Since we had three hours until the tram tour, we decided to take a walk. The picture below is facing towards El Capitan. 

Walking around several meadows, and crossing the Merced river, the light in the morning is quiet and peaceful. This is the view in the other direction, towards Half Dome.

On the other side of the river we found the Yosemite Chapel, the only building remaining from the Old Yosemite Village. It is the oldest structure in Yosemite Valley. Built in 1879 near the foot of the Four Mile Trail, it was moved to its current location in 1901. The National Park Service relocated other buildings from the Old Village such as the Wells Fargo station and the jail.

When we got back from our walk, it was time for our tram tour, conducted by NPS Ranger Leo, who was an engaging speaker. The tour left the lodge at 11:00 and our first stop was El Capitan. Leo told us the history of the rock climbers who had first scaled the rock. Although Leo and some of the others saw some climbers just starting out, I could never see them. Kathy brought binoculars with us, but we didn’t take them on the tour.

By this time, the day, which had started out clear and cloudless, became quite hazy, and both of us could smell smoke. We asked Leo and he told us that the Dome fire in the southern part of the park was blowing the smoke towards Yosemite Valley. When we got to the Tunnel View turnoff, to look back towards Half Dome, the smoke was really apparent.

When the tour was done, a little after one, both of us were really hungry. Kathy had enjoyed the pizza we had at the Wuksachi Pizza Deck in Sequoia, and so she was thrilled to hear that there was a similar one in Curry Village. The tour had left us off at the lodge, so we hopped back on the Shuttle and headed over.

Unfortunately, it was Saturday, and the park was overflowing. This line just to order pizza stretched across the deck and out to the sidewalk; easily 50 people. We got in line and waited for about a half hour. When we hadn’t moved at all, we gave up and went into the camp store and bought chicken Caesar wraps, which killed our immediate hunger.

Kathy noticed that the Basecamp Eatery, back at the lodge, had pizza, so we got back on the Shuttle and headed home. When we got there, I had a cheeseburger and fries and Kathy had a small pepperoni pizza with some soup. It wasn’t bad, but not picture worthy.

In the morning, we’ll be leaving Yosemite and heading for our next stop, Grass Valley and Gold Rush country. My great-great grandfather came to California during that time, and settled near there in Gridley, California.