Summer 2008 Trip: Day 35 – To Butte, MT via the Dairy Queen in Bozeman

Hit the road this morning from camp and made the trip to Old Faithful in Yellowstone (through road construction, where I met a nice older couple from West Virginia). From there, I decided to take a small detour through Bozeman, MT to get some ice cream (I should have stopped at the Cold Stone Creamery though) and continued on to Butte. Tonight, I’m spending the evening and likely into early morning holed up in a hotel room editing pictures. Nothing to exciting today really; check out flickr tomorrow for pictures.

Day 35 - to Butte, MT via the Dairy Queen in Bozeman

Travel Distance: 251 miles

Summer 2008 Trip: Day 34 – Grand Teton National Park

Sunrise was not nearly as impressive this morning as it was yesterday or the day before, unfortunately, there was a low hanging cloud that diffused most of the light. I took a few shots anyway, then headed down to the previous morning’s spot to show it to Sarah. Apparently, she’d already been there 4 years ago or so with her family.

Back to camp for a nap (is anyone noticing a trend?) and we headed into the park (for what will be my last time, this trip at least) and decided to defy the predictions of thunderstorms and go on the hike I’d been planning on doing, through Cascade Canyon.

Now, to get to Cascade Canyon, there are a couple of options. You can take a boat across the lake for $5 each way, or you can hike a few miles from the Jenny Lake Visitor Center to the mouth of the canyon. Well, you can bet on which one we did. Thirteen miles of hiking later, we came to the mutual conclusion that 13 miles at a go was too much. My knees were killing me (I only made it with the aid of my trekking poles) and she has a wonderful assortment of blisters on her feet.

And that’s how we came to pitch a tent at 6:30 in the evening, ready to call it a day in what is apparently a primo mosquito breeding ground. A hasty dinner eaten inside the Jeep and now we’re simply reading to pass the time until it is dark enough to go to sleep (and hopefully the kids in the RV parked across the campground will stop screaming by then).

No sunrise in the morning for me (at least I hope not to be awake to see it) and tomorrow when we break camp (hopefully amid fewer mosquitos, we’re passing through the southwest portion of Yellowstone on our way to Glacier. It’ll be a short traveling day as my intent is to get a hotel room mid-afternoon and get to work on editing all the photos from Yellowstone and Grand Teton (there’s a ton).

Picture 3

Travel Distance: 78 miles and another 13 miles on foot