Our last big drive

Note: I am working on our Yellowstone blog posts - I took over 500 pictures, so it will take me a bit to sift through them now that I have good internet!!  In the meantime, enjoy some more lovely pictures taken out the window of the truck as we drive across the country! 

We made (hopefully) our last big drive yesterday. It took us 12 hours (including stopping to fuel up and to have lunch/take a nap/play with the kitties) to get from West Yellowstone, Montana to Boulder, Colorado.

Rolling farmland with the Tetons in the background

One of the lessons we have learned on this trip is to not just trust the navigation system (aka Lola) in the truck to get us where we need to go. So, now we use a 3 prong approach - the nav system, the atlas, and printed directions via google maps. I'm really glad that we did that for this trip because Lola wanted us to go an extra couple hundred miles on freeways instead of more direct highways. She estimated it would have taken us 14 hours with no stops to get here!  This is the same Lola who took us on a tiny goat path in northern California that no matter what I did, I couldn't get google maps to even recognize as a road (after the fact, of course).  She's crazy - I think she is out to get us!

A rustic looking house? I dunno, but I thought it looked cool all alone out in the field. 

I was still nervous taking smaller highways though. I had no idea what sort of scary situation we might find ourselves in. But, I did feel good that at no time did we ever get off a highway (or interstate)

Can you tell how much the road goes up and down? It was like a roller coaster for the fur-babies. I told them to put their paws in the air but they didn't listen to me. 

It turns out that not only were the roads GREAT (no cars, easy and fun to drive), but eastern Idaho and western Wyoming are BEAUTIFUL. I couldn't quite capture it, but the rolling farmland with picturesque farmhouses and the Tetons in the distance were amazing. Especially when the early morning sun peeked out behind the clouds. WOW! 

Even fueling up we get a view of the Tetons!

After we left the rolling farmlands we entered the Teton pass which was the steepest grade we have experienced so far. At times is was 10%! But, it was also fairly curvy so we never really taxed the engine as we slowly curved up and then back down the mountain pass.

Going through the pass

As you start to come back down the pass, you get this great view of the valley below. 

Even western Wyoming gets great mountain views! 

Wyoming's view of the Tetons

But then, before you know it (well, probably an hour or two), you end up in the vast nothing that makes up the rest of Wyoming (or at least what we saw on I-80 as we made our way across the state).

Flat and brown

One thing that I saw over and over along the freeway and highways (besides several antelope!!, which apparently are not actually antelope) were these crazy "fences." I actually started noticing them here and there in Eastern Oregon, and then along all the roads we took from there to here. They were mostly these slanted tall wood (sometimes metal) things that didn't touch.  It obviously wasn't keeping something contained, and Jason and I came up with a lot of theories as to what they were for (starting a war with Idaho (no! Udaho!)), stopping tumbleweeds, deer deterrents, etc.  When I finally got good enough cell signal, I looked it up. One of Jason's theories - that they were there to prevent blowing snow to get on the roads - was correct.  I suppose if I have ever lived somewhere that gets a ton of snow I would have known about this. But, if you didn't know about it, now you do! 

Crazy fence! What are you???

We finally made it to our campground, which is a bit....interesting. There will be more on that later. For now, here is a picture of the sunset behind the mountains from our campsite last night. 

Gorgeous sunset behind the rockies complete with a lovely lake view

This morning we woke up eager to explore and have fun in Colorado. But first, Kora gets some daddy snuggle time!

Good morning!!