RV Day 8 - so far

A cold night, but a bright sunny morning at our spot on the hillside. We had breakfast, left a bottle of wine and a note for the Rancher, and headed back down the gravel track to the main road. We never did see anyone...

After many miles of prairie, we've arrived in Great Falls Montana in time for coffee. There's always one sweet spot in a city however many strip mall car showrooms you have to drive past on the outskirts to get to it - and this one is Gibson Park by the Missouri River - a beautiful green swathe of trees, duck pond, bandstand, playground, and (hallelujah!) a cafe with an outside deck and wireless service. So here we are at the "Park and Ponder" sitting with enormous mugs of latte, while Tom whoops it up on the adventure playground. I heard my first news bulletin in 7 days on the car radio this morning, and it seemed to be from another planet.

RV Day 7 - Livingston to "Camp Ranch" near Monarch: Mile 459

Our day began early - at 6am precisly - with a small and happy voice saying brightly: "C'mon guys - its swimming pool time". We groaned and told him that the pool didn't open for another three hours. Such are the benefits of staying at a KOA "Kampground" of America, which looks slightly Soviet when written down, but has loads of facilities. After breakfast, PT took Tom to the pool while I tried and failed to make the WiFi work. We were hoping to Skype some grandparents but it was not to be.

First stop; Livingston up the road and what a delight it was. It's a genuine Western Town, with handsome fake fronts and wide streets and ancient adverts faded into the brick. Main Street aims right at the mountains and there is a grand railway station; a remnant of the days when Livingston was an important staging post on the frontier. Now it is a museum - and a terrific one at that - with lots of old railway memorabilia and photos of Livingston looking pretty much the same in 1890. I liked the photos of the "skyscraper" dorm carriages where the railroad workers lived as they laid the track West.

A friendly lady had come up for a chat as we refuelled the RV ($140 - good for about 350 miles) and recommended a lunch spot. We found it behind an unpreposesing bar with a blank, windowless frontage. To be honest it looked like the last place either of us would ever go (PT says, it looked just like an old IRA pub),
but we strode in to be greeted cheerily by the barmaid and the restaurant staff in the back who served us a hamburger (T), a fish sandwich (P) and a roast beef sandwich with gravy for me, or as it was called on the menu, a "French dip with Aujus". It was the real McCoy in a terrific town that is gradually seeing its storefronts become chi-chi espresso bars. We stopped at one though (inevitably) and an older chap with a grey beard and twinkly eyes entertained Tom with some great sleight-of-hand tricks, which had T looking completely amazed - especially when he poked T's tummy and it squeaked! Tom took him extremely seriously but was a little put out when he declined to make our coffee cups disappear...

Then began the longest drive of the trip so far; north on Route 89 through rolling prairies of the deepest most dazzling green either of us had ever seen; puffy "Simpsons" clouds (you have to see the opening credits) hovering in the clean blue sky. We passed little communities with the original small cabins lining the road, most in disrepair or used for storage of some sort, but relics of the first settlers in this part of America. It really wasn't that long ago that this area was only really inhabited by Indians. Neither of us knew what to expect from this bit of the journey as we were avoiding the more obvious tourist attractions in Bozeman and Helena, and the Freeway that linked them. But this has really been a glimpse of what most of Montana must be like: huge blue skies over wide, rolling prairie and very few people (only 800,000 in the whole state) and I for one loved the chance to lose ourselves in the middle of this emptiness. Not far out of Livingston we saw a huge eagle perched imperiously on a fence post right by the road watching the world go by. When we left the prairie and headed up into the mountains again, we saw a big grey wolf crossing the road in front of us, and as we slowed down, a second one trotted across and they vanished into the pine forest.

We had one slight problem in that when I was calling the handful of campgrounds in the area, they all seemed to be out of business. We got a call back from one friendly guy though who said although his place was actually a "cattle camp" and not a campground, we were welcome to come and park.

So here we are, three miles off the highway up a gravel track with a couple of cabins next to us, used by the cowboys who look after the herd here. We haven't seen a soul though. The owner told us on the phone where to come and we found a level place to stop, but he hasn't been by and we maybe won't see him at all. So we are having a glass of wine and watching the pink embers of the sunset behind the mountains, while the last few birds sign off for the night outside. Lovely spot.

RV Day Six. Canyon to Livingstone - Wyoming to Montana! Mile 315

After the storms, I was minded to be cowardly, but as the sky cleared, Richard reminded me that I had found the entry in our Guide Book that said "if you only do one hike in Yellowstone, do this one". Turning north out of the park, we stopped at Dunraven Pass (elevation 8,600 feet) to walk the Mount Washburn Trail. The book promised that "from the summit, the park will lie before you like a map on a table". Indeed as we climbed, with the boys' handy GPS tracker showing us that we made it to 9,876 feet, you could look out over meadows and pine forests to see ranges of snow-capped peaks all around, even look down to the great green gash in the earth that marked yesterday's Yellowstone Canyon. What the book didn't mention was that as we hiked, it was mostly in snow, and on snow, and through snow banks several feet thick, sometimes chunks of snow wedged sideways onto very steep slopes. It was quite an experience, and we felt pretty proud of T for doing it. And thankful that for some reason, this was the day we all decided to wear solid hiking boots. We didn't quite make it to the top, but stopped at a fantastic outlook, ate our sandwiches crammed onto a rock shelf out of reach of the wind, and went down again twice as fast, in the company of a couple of lovely lads from Illinois who were making their way south from a trip to the Canadian Rockies. (M & D, Richard got all misty-eyed nostalgic for your time in the Rockies). It was the toughest walk we've done so far, and as I write, I am still somewhat wobbly legged, having realised that my knees are also over forty - and feeling it!

We headed north out of the park. Stopping only at the sight of a grizzly bear near the roadside - which makes our Yellowstone count 1 grizzly, 1 wolf, 1 moose, some elk, some bison, 1 mule deer, 3 pronghorn deer, 1 very fat marmot, lots of chipmunk, red squirrel, and lots and lots of mosquitos...

..And having driven through the wonderfully named Paradise Valley just short of Livington Montana, we have JUST posted all our blogs so far. This is our first campsite with connections to electricity and water. Luxury. Plus Tom has discovered the playground, the go-karts for hire (thanks Dad!) and I have promised to take him to the miniscule swimming pool tomorrow morning.

RV Day Five. Madison to Canyon.

The big walk today was along the South Rim of the Yellowstone Canyon - not awesome and massive in the heart of nowhere like the Grand Canyon -- but still grand and inspiring just like the famous Thomas Moran paintings in the Renwick Museum back home. The waterfall is one of those things that it's hard to believe is real (you'll have seen it in pictures, and to the spoiled modern mind it looks computer-digitized). The park leaflet says it's a longer fall than Niagara and I believe it.

The walk became a super hike as we started yomping in woods along the South Rim with the crowds, then up to a higher trail beyond Artists' Point, skipping along the rim with more terrifying glimpses of the Canyon dropping away below our feet, and then up and onto a couple of gorgeous lakes. Lily Pad Lake was just as it sounds. Clear Lake was pretty enough to entice us in to paddle, and even more fun when we realised it had thermal springs bubbling up through it. (Tom - "it's farting!") We walked up into meadows full of wildflowers that did make me run down the path singing "the hills are alive.... with the Sound of Music". Luckily, groaning from the men soon put a stop to that. We kept scanning for the promised grizzly bear sightings, but no dice. Wearily, happily, home to an Asian noodle meal out of a bag. And when Tom was finally fast asleep, Richard and I watched as the sky turned dark and a dramatic lightning storm blew up. Glad to be smugly safe in the RV rather than in all the tents around us...

RV Day Four. Grant Village to Madison. Mile 193

PT writes..
We woke at eight, leapt out of bed, realised it was seven, but oops, we'd done it. So off to Old Faithful again bright and early, this time yomping up pine woods overlooking it, and this time it was much more impressive. Then it was a day's tour of geysers, thermal springs, mud holes, waterfalls, sulphur fumes, you name it, our RV was parked next door. Highlights included the Solitary Geyser up above Old Faithful. No not the old bloke in a raincoat, a rather splendid bright blue pool in the middle of nowhere that suddenly shot out silver plumes.[R adds: this was actually rather dramatic. It performs every five minutes and we had seen it bubble about in rather muted fashion a few times. I was all set to go but Philippa said "lets see one more" and we had the place to ourselves so we wandered about close to the rim of the pool. There were a few bubbles glooping up and all of a sudden it blew up so dramatically that both PT and I expected to be boiled alive at any moment (T was in a tree somewhere). The fact that we had found this geyser by chance and we were the only ones there when it blew, made it somehow much more dramatic and dangerous than Old Faithful, despite the fact that Old F is so much bigger.] We saw the Fountain Paint Pots where next to the Red Geyser bubbling up spurts of bright pink mud we found two big Bison having a spa cure. PT spotted a lone wolf in the meadow. And we loved the amazing circus-named Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest big blue pool of spurting steam, with bronze, orange, and chocolate rings of molten stuff around it. We enjoyed it most for the realisation that you could stand in the right position and get your glasses totally steamed up; it was an extra laugh seeing Tom wearing Richard's glasses in an effort to get the sensation just right.

Then we ended up in the north west of the park, at Madison Campground. No big shakes in the tourist guides. But actually.... gorgeous wide lazy blue river curving through shocking green meadows in the shadow of the canyon. Lots of chaps standing midstream... flyfishing... We saw elk.. chipmunks..gophers.. and a clutch of bison... two of whom then decided to walk up to the campsite. We followed suit, had a lovely tortilla supper cooked by Richard, and then the adults watched with delight and a cold beer each as Tom made friends with the large family next door and went off shrieking and giggling through the pine trees for a good half hour. A lovely end to another busy day.

RV Day Three - Signal Mountain to Grant Village. Mile 100

R writes... Brrrr. These mountain nights are COLD. We go to bed a little too hot after a sunny day with temperatures in the low eighties, but overnight it drops into the forties and so do we! Tom gets bundled up when he goes to bed but Philippa and I feel in need of an extra blanket at times, and we have not quite got the right setting for the heater, so we woke this morning feeling a little cool, while T slept on under his layers. So, this called for porridge, with maple syrup rather than golden, in a nod to our geography.



There are endless trails to choose from but after breakfast we headed north to Swan Lake in the hope of seeing, er swans, but also bears and moose and elk and all the other critters. The walk began by the lake and then headed up into meadows sprinkled with big yellow daisies and blue flowers which Philippa says are lupins. I'll take her word for it. For much of the time we were the only people on the trail and everyone has made such a fuss about the number of Grizzlies around that we were scanning very carefully. We met a family coming the other way who said they had seen bears on the other side of the lake, but when we got there, the brown things we could see moving around in the distance turned out to be, ahem, Canada Geese. A little further on there was a placid Elk grazing by the trail who couldn't care less that we were gawping at him.

Swan Lake is rather lovely. Serene and glassy, half covered with lilly pads, stretching off to green meadows and snowy foothills off in the distance. Crossing the spit to Colter Bay we saw white pelicans bobbing about - imagine that! I hadn't thought we would see them here. In a fit of nerdy over-preparedness (and remembering a close shave in Yosemite last year where we lost the path and were heading into the wilderness) I brought along a little GPS unit I bought years ago for trekking, and Tom navigated us back. "Zero point nine five to go now!". We had a strange lunch in the Colter Bay cafe and delighted once again in the holiday-job service. Young, friendly staff all doing tourist jobs for the summer with attention spans that don't quite, ooh look there's a geyser. And talking of geysers, we finally crossed the border into Yellowstone and went straight to Old Faithful. We waited for it to geyse (yes I know, but it sounds like it should be a word) on the benches arranged around it, watching it bubble up a couple of times before it finally blew. I thought it would fire steam violently from the hole and hadn't expected such gentle white froth. Back to the campsite. Bed, heater up a bit. Night all.

RV Day Two - Sunday 22nd June - mile 17.9 - Gros Vent to Signal Mountain

PT writes...

















This was a day on the tourist trail but a lovely one. Driving northwest down a back road to get to the national park, we saw our first herd of bison, including a young lame one that hopped happily across the road ahead of us. Inside the park, we stocked up on a few essentials at the store, including lots more water, a corkscrew (we're sure a European RV would have put this into Kitchen Essentials!), and a posh coffee to go. At noon, we were in the very last parking spot at Jenny Lake, I got to put together our first camping picnic, and we took a small ferry boat across the lake to the trailhead.

It ended up being quite a big hike, only about three miles, but up up and up to the Hidden Falls, then to Inspiration Point where you could see the ferry like a tiny toy below, then on into Cascade Canyon. Tom loved the chipmunks that checked up on us when we stopped for lunch, and was thrilled to find more and more patches of snow (yes snowball fights were had). We loved seeing a big fat marmot scurry away from us, and then tipped off by another hiker, we were able to look across the river, and see tucked into the tall grass behind an old tree stump, the chocolatey brown head of a moose sound asleep. A total thrill. Yomped back down the hill, over the lake, into the RV, up the road, and we got the last campsite place in the woods at Signal Mountain, where we've eaten hot dogs and cheerfully watched through the fine mesh of the living space the mosquitos desperate to dine on us. Top count was thirty just inches from my face but yeh-hey, you can't get me (for once). I think I would be much too much of a wuss to camp. Off north again tomorrow - for the Yellowstone Experience. Good night.

RV Day One - Sat 21st June - the longest day

PT writes...

My longest day began with the least sleep as I lay awake in our cabin in Jackson Hole agonising about work decisions and details, and worked myself into a lather about it. I made the mistake of looking at the clock, realising I'd gone to bed at ten and was still awake at two, then made it worse by reminding myself that in my head it was Washington time, and so actually FOUR in the morning. Not a good way to start - but actually, looking back now, it was such a reminder that the holiday was coming right on time.

In true Lister-Thomas tradition we started the getaway with a small disaster. We took off for Florida without the daypack stuffed with cameras, binoculars and raingear - all of which we needed in our first 24 hours down south. This time I'd left my wallet at home, including my driver's licence, without which I couldn't drive at all for the whole of our three week Driving Holiday. From our first flight stop in Dallas on Friday, I'd phoned our neighbour Rula, to whom I'd given a key the day before with the words, "but you won't ever need it". She was fantastic - dropped everything, ran across the road to our house, found the licence and set off for the post office. Three hours later, I called her from the airport in Jackson to find out that the post office had said it was impossible to get it to us before we got to the RV hire centre, so she had run across Georgetown to UPS and sent it at the hugely expensive "next day delivery" rate.

As my credit card sized licence winged its way across the US in our wake, we explored a bit more of Jackson Hole. Very chic, very nice, bit too full of tourists like us, but we did our best fuelled by sourdough brunch and excellent coffees. I kept ringing the motel, and asking if the UPS delivery had arrived. It was absolutely guaranteed by 1.30pm. And after that, we'd have to go, or get behind on the holiday route, which involves four nights bookings made in Yellowstone, arranged back in February... Eventually I went into the motel again to ask in person, and as the chap at reception ushered me away with regrets that no it hadn't arrived today, a lady in the back office looked out, saw me, and pulled down a sliver of an envelope from its resting position on top of a high bookcase. Yes, the super urgent delivery, which I'd mentioned no more than four times, had in fact arrived.

Phew. Hoorah. And from then on, the day went beautifully. We got to the RV place, which was really just the drive of a roadside motel with about five vehicles lined up outside (surprisingly few in supply - R had spent ages phoning around before Christmas to secure a booking). Richard and Tom and I pretty much jumped for joy when we saw the one with our name on it, and immediately started packing it with three hundred dollars worth of groceries and treats, before even signing the hire documents.


And we were off. Heading north with the jagged peaks of the Grand Tetons rearing up on our left, the grassy valley stretched in front of us. Home for the first night was off the tourist track, at the low key campsite of Gros Ventre (GROW-vont, they tell us), with lots of space among trees, and a river rushing past swollen with snow melt at the bottom of the meadow. Tip top supper of grilled salmon, green beans, and couscous with garlic and tomato. Being nearly the longest day of the year, the blue sky was still bright when I followed Tom by closing my eyes soon after nine. I don't think Richard lasted much longer. Worn out, but really happy to be on our way.

R adds... We discovered that there are some important Knight genes running through Tom. His Granny Margaret will be pleased to learn that he can put a cherry in his mouth, with the stalk hanging out, and remove the cherry from the stone without separating the stone from the stalk. I tried it a couple of times and failed, then Tom said "I'll do it' so I humoured him, passing him a cherry, and a minute later he was handing me the stalk with the stone attached grinning. He now delights in doing this whenever he can get his hands on a cherry with a stalk. I still can't do it...

Yee Haar

At last, we're away, and we're sitting in a faux log cabin in Jackson Wyoming, poring over maps and guidebooks before sinking into bed. The day began at 0230 Wyoming time - ie 0430 Washington - when we got up, looked outside for our airport taxi and realised it wasn't there. The driver's SatNav had insisted that Cambridge Place didn't exist, so when we got him on the phone, he insisted that we were at the wrong location. When we finally got under way at some speed to the airport, Tom broke the ice, by saying "I'm Tom Ellison Lister, and I'm five, and he's Richard and he's 43, and she's Philippa and she's 42, and you do have a nice car...". Which made us all laugh, and we made it for our 0600 flight after all. Changing in Dallas three hours later. And arriving in Jackson Hole three hours after that - to find it was STILL morning - but the day's stresses wiped away by stepping out onto the tiny airfield to find snow covered mountain peaks all around us and the bluest of skies.

It is SO different. You really DO see weatherbeaten men in cowboy hats sauntering away from their pickup trucks. Saloon bars. Hunting trophies. Elk antlers. Cowboy boots. But in this town, also very pricey boutiques, chichi bars, and spa hotels tucked behind those authentic log facades.

It's our last town experience for quite a while - tomorrow we pick up the RV, pick up lots of groceries, and head north into the Grand Tetons then Yellowstone, then due north into Montana and Glacier National Park. Today it was 80 degrees here. In Glacier NP they still have snow in June. In a way, I have no idea what to expect. Which is why it's so great to be here. Whenever we get wireless, we'll keep you posted.

Much love from R and P and T xxx