Today we are meeting our travel buddies in Jackson, WY for a week of photography. We have rental units in Wilson, WY and West Yellowstone. We will be using another vehicle so the van will be parked except for the one transition day. Temps at night are below freezing so we spent an hour this morning winterizing. We have never done this ourselves having taken our first Roadtrek to the dealer for this. We have been carrying RV winterizing fluid since Chamberlain. It turned out to be a lengthy but fairly painless process. This is good because we still have the trip home and need to ‘unwinterize’
Today is sunny and cool and still windy. Yesterday’s haze / smoke has disappeared. We entered Yellowstone via the East Gate, an area of the park we have never done before. But first we had to climb over the Sylvan Pass at 8800′ with its spectacular views of Lake Yellowstone and a lovely drive along the eastern shore. The picnic area on the lake presented us with our first ‘parking lot’ bison.
Just prior to Bridge Bay a beautiful 10 point elk bull gave us a roadside opportunity for photography. Other than a kestrel, we haven’t seen much else.
We stopped at West Thumb for a washroom ( not being able to use our own now) and a walk around the geothermal pools. West Thumb is actually a caldera within the caldera and much deeper than the lake itself. These pools are audibly bubbling and steaming.
We have done these before and at the same time of the year but in the rain and much colder. There are a lot more people here too… must have something to do with covid. One thing we have noted are the number of families still travelling with school age children.. covid again?
We stopped at Lewis Lake picnic area for our last lunch out of the van for a week. Going to miss that actually. Still very windy and quite incredibly very hazy again.
Heartbreaking. We just passed into the Tetons. Beautiful Jackson lake is almost dry.. no global warming here. And it’s so hazy you can barely see those usually glorious mountains. It’s very dry but the autumn colors are pretty.
Disappointing too are the number of cars in the park and Jackson might as well be NYC.
We have reunited with our dear friends and celebrating two birthdays tonight, one past and one still to come.
Louise and Brian McLeod Travel Blog 
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