June 29 - Driving the Beartooth Highway and into Yellowstone

Sunday morning, we allowed ourselves to sleep in, in hopes of helping recovery. On the road by 9:30, we decided to drive the Beartooth Highway, a very scenic drive on our way to Yellowstone. First, we headed to Laurel to charge, then to Highway 212, Beartooth Highway. The sights were stunning, and the drive was fun. We reached the highest point at 10,900 feet. We were above the tree line when we spotted a family of mountain goats up there. We both HIGHLY recommend doing this drive - it truly is one of the most breathtaking scenic drives!

This wide U-shaped valley was carved by a glacier.

We saw waterfalls, big and small, throughout our drive.

Sometimes it felt like we might drive off the edge of the Earth.

We passed from Montana into Wyoming on the drive. 

At this point, we were above the tree line and in true alpine territory.

This is a high glacial lake that we could look down onto.

Here we caught a glimpse of a family of mountain goats. They were quite far away, but we (and the other tourists) kept a very respectful distance so that we didn't disturb them. There was a baby - it is that white figure on the right. There were more at this site, but I couldn't get a picture of them all.

The road led us to the northwest entrance to Yellowstone. We arrived in Yellowstone around 5pm.

First, it is important to note that Yellowstone is a massive park - I really had no appreciation for just how big it is. It is 3,472 square miles! There are numerous parts of the park and it takes literally hours to drive from one side of the park to the other. 

We were fortunate to enter where we did at the time that we did - we got to drive through Lamar Valley, famous for wildlife as the crowds were thinning and the animals were becoming more active. While we drive through, we saw at least 1000 bison, 3 coyotes, several pronghorn antelope, elk, a moose taking a swim, a marmot, mule deer, an osprey, and ground squirrels. It was truly incredible!

We came across this river that was in a hurry! Lots of elevation change making this solid whitewater.

As you can see, we were feeling better and very excited to be in Yellowstone finally!

Everywhere you looked, there was something else that was just gorgeous and unexpected.

This is the first bison we saw; he was chilling on his own in the trees. We were so excited - little did we know that we were going to be seeing a LOT of his kin very soon.

One of the many herds we saw in Lamar Valley.

This guy was grazing right on the side of the road. As you can tell, I kept my window up!

We were a part of a bison traffic jam.

Pronghorn antelope, the fastest mammal in North America

There were a lot of bison calves; sometimes they would frolic together, and it was really cute!

The second coyote we saw; the first one took me by surprise (and I thought it was a wolf) so I didn't get a picture.

Marmot

Third coyote

There were beautiful and unusual rock formations when you turned a corner. Yellowstone is truly a magical place.

Yellowstone River winding through a valley.

Mule deer

Moose taking a dip in a small lake - he was also eating aquatic plants.

Elk cow

Once we were through Lamar Valley, we decided to see Tower Falls since it was relatively close and we weren't sure if we would be back in this part of the park again.

After that, we drove to the north entrance town of Gardiner to charge and have dinner. We ate at the Iron Horse Bar & Grill (I had a great bison burger) and we scored a view of the Yellowstone River while we ate. But by this time I was a tired puppy, still not being back to full strength.

We drove to our campsite outside the park at Custer-Gallatin National Forest Eagle Creek Campground. It sat above the town of Gardiner. We had to drive over a washboard road up there, but we great views of the park from where we were. It was a very secluded campsite, with beavers in the creek behind us and a pair of elk grazing across the creek. We also heard coyotes yelping/howling about the time we were going to bed. I didn't want to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night due to the wildlife - I finally got up the courage/gave into the pain at around 4:30 when it was beginning to get light.

Our national forest campsite - it was close to primitive camping, but the views were amazing!

June 28 - Going to the Sun Road

On Saturday morning, we rose very early and managed to get to the entrance to the Going To the Sun Road at 7:05.

We drove the road, stopping along the way a few times. It was a normal mountain road until we got to the higher elevations. At that point, the road had no shoulder on either side. One side was solid rock and the other side was a low stone wall. It was twisty and turny and heart-stopping at points. We reached the high point of the road, Logan Pass by 8:30. I wanted to get my passport book stamped so we waited for 30 minutes, milling around until opening at 9. It was really busy at the information center and there wasn't any new information there, so we quickly got the stamp and then continued on. It was quite chilly up at Logan Pass at 6,600 feet. We had great views throughout the entire drive. Here is a photo dump of our drive:

We came across a beautiful river early on our drive.

The rocks in the river were very colorful.

I couldn't get enough of the beautiful blues and greens in this river.

There was no room for error on this road - Leon did a great job maneuvering through the entire road.

We drove all the way to the other side of the park to St. Mary, the east entrance to Glacier NP. We looked for a lunch place there, but the "town" was extremely small and choices were poor. Instead, we decided to hold until we returned to Apgar. We made our own picnic lunch by the lake at a nice picnic area with clean restrooms. 

Just as we were about to pull out of the picnic area, Leon spotted a grizzly bear just across the road from us! We were able to get a quick pic - we were very excited! There were knowledgeable people there who scared the bear back into the woods.

After that, we returned to our campsite, and it started raining. Since we didn't feel up to hiking yet, we decided to hit the road towards Yellowstone a day early. We decided it would be good to get as close as we could since it was at least 6 hours away.

As Leon drove, I looked for a hotel outside of Yellowstone. We charged in Missoula, and had pizza by the slice at a hip pizza place. We reached Butte to stay at a convention hotel that was quite nice. We realized quickly that the closer you get to Yellowstone, the price of hotels rose, so Butte was as close as could bear to pay. After showers, we got to bed by 10, ready to drive into Yellowstone the next day. We were both still ailing from the illness we had shared - mostly with coughing and congestion. I was very glad to be in a real bed to get a good night's sleep!

June 26 - Back to the USA

On Thursday morning, we got up - I think I had turned the corner by this time. So while I was still taking cold medicine regularly, my energy was returning. We continued to drive through the Canadian mountain east, stopping at Christina Lake to charge and for lunch. Charging there was tricky due to no cell service. We found free Wi-Fi at the Christina Lake Welcome Center and it all worked out, but we were worried for a little bit that we were going to be stranded with no way to charge.

Before we left, I got one more Tim Horton's fix - a crueller (not pictured because I ate it too quickly) and TimBits!

We got back on the road and crossed back into the US in Idaho; there wasn't anyone else at the crossing when we arrived. They checked our passports and then waived us on through.

We were in Idaho for about an hour before we crossed into Montana.

Montana was beautiful - we mostly drove through farmland growing canola (actually rapeseed that is pressed into canola). It truly is Big Sky Country!

We stayed in a tiny town, Troy MT in a small hotel that night. Not much to choose from, restaurant wise, but we found a place that had passable food. After dinner, we got showers and headed to bed on the early side. We were both still feeling less than 100%, so we needed all the rest we could get.

June 25 - Gotta Go!

We took our time packing in the morning and got going around 11:00 with no issues. Leon appeared to be feeling better and slept well, but I was not feeling better and had not slept well due to all of the congestion and coughing. The flatbread place we planned to eat at was closed so we got in the car and started heading east, with Leon driving.

We stopped for lunch at a Bistro in a Vancouver suburb. It was pretty good and we found a pharmacy to get me some medicine that might help with my symptoms. They had a spare selection, so we got what looked might work and got back on the highway. We drove east to Keremeos where we planned to stay, arriving around 5:00. Leon was able to drive all the way without issues, so clearly he is close to 100% since he's napped every afternoon for the previous 4 days. Wildlife sightings were limited to a few eagles. The mountains were nice, especially as we got farther east.

We had dinner at the Indian place next to the hotel and it wasn't nearly as good as the previous afternoon. We did some planning for tomorrow and relaxed in the room until we went to bed on the early side.  

June 24 - One better, one worse

Leon woke up feeling a little better, but I felt quite a bit worse. We had another quiet day to try to rest and heal as much as possible. We started to get ourselves organized and ready to leave tomorrow - we were very grateful that our VRBO hosts did our laundry for us! 

We altered our plans for the next few days to make them as easy as possible, assuming we still wouldn't be 100% but knowing we had to get moving in the direction of Glacier National Park. Consequently, we changed our plan to that we wouldn't drive across Alberta Province and into Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada). Instead, we would drop back into the US in Idaho and head east to Glacier.

We stayed in until we had an early dinner at an Indian place we walked to. Leon ate tandoori wings and both shared my dish, which was a paneer in tomato curry sauce. It was truly exceptional. We agreed the sauce was some of the best we've ever had. We took leftovers home and Leon had a little later in the evening. We did some of our packing before we went to bed.