Leaving Yellowstone, Tuesday July 31st

Left early to look for the grizzlies but no luck – but we saw a huge black bear running by the side of the road, first time we saw one that close and far away they are cute but this was a big black bear, definitely one to be scared of.

No buffalo herds, but the check engine light came on.  Very nervous we are driving out of Yellowstone, no phone access and don’t want to ruin the rental.  Rick called (after I mentioned that I didn’t want to be charged for ruining the camper if we didn’t call!)  They were super nice and said it was the altitude and it should go away and not to worry and it was probably the gas too, they have 85 here and everything has a high ethonal content.  Well it hasn’t gone away…

We drove to Jackson Hole, Wy and took the ski lift tram up to the top.  Rick was very nervous but after looking over cliffs from the passenger side it didn’t bother me at all.  There isn’t much to do at the top except either go parasailing – no, or there is a teeny restaurant that serves waffles.  So we got waffles, yummy but again Rick was very nervous about the kids so we needed to get off the mountain top.  Before we left we saw a family of 5 getting ready to backpack down the mountain with sleeping bags, they didn’t look super fit and I hope they had bear spray but there is no way I would camp outside in a tent after all the creatures we’ve seen.

Then started a terrible drive down to Provo, Utah.  The highway followed the mountain range down on the west side all the way but I was really surprised at how much of a desert it is around here.  No trees, except in suburbs and no grass – no grass, it’s all brush and sandy dirt.  Not what I expected.  The drive was terrible because we were already tired and had to go through some curvy mountain passes, and the highway from Salt Lake to Provo was under construction and there was no shoulder.    

We are only in Provo for the night then off to dig for trilobites!