US Road Trip – 1979

Mon Sept 10th

Got car serviced, tow-hitch fitted, picked up caravan

Lin and I had been living in an apartment in Burnsville near Minneapolis for several months, and John and Caro had just arrived from London for their first US holiday. We were planning on a long road trip with a rented ‘popup’ caravan, so John and I took the car into a garage in Minneapolis to fit a tow-hitch, and give it the once-over.

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Tue Sept 11th

Drive from Burnsville to South Dakota

Set off early in the morning, and headed down the Interstate 35, then picked up the I-90 at Albert Lea and headed west. Fairly boring drive, enlivened by the signs for Wall Drug every few miles… some describing the attractions, others counting down the miles.

We learned that Wall Drug had become more than a drug store… it had coffee shops, restaurants, clothing stores, fossil shops, art galleries, picnic areas, a dinosaur park, and all manner of souvenir shops and tourist tat.

As a quick aside, many years later we were living in Holland and saw this outside the main station in Amsterdam.

Anyway, we continued on the I-90, crossing the wide Missouri River, and decided to stop soon afterwards in South Dakota’s Badlands. The day had been fairly overcast, but shortly after we arrived, the low evening Sun came out and lit up the nearer hills in a spectacular display.

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Wed Sept 12th

Bad Lands, Devil’s Tower, Bighorn Mountains

And this is what the same Badlands looked like the next morning under under dull skies!

Back onto the I-90 and by the time we reached Wall, we were ready for breakfast, and of course one place was uppermost in our minds… “Let’s go somewhere else” we all said! After breakfast we continued west, and then having recently seen “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, we decided to detour north to see the Devil’s Tower. It was quite spectacular and well worth the small detour.

Then back on the I-90 towards the Bighorn Mountains. We found a campsite near Buffalo, had dinner, and sat around a bonfire drinking beers.

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Thu Sept 13th

Bighorn Mountains, Yellowstone.

We started off under leaden skies, and it was cold. We quickly found ourselves gaining altitude, and the car, fully laden and towing our rented caravan, was struggling on the hills. I had a suspicion that the air-conditioning was permanently on, and the heating system just blended warm air with cold air. John agreed that this was an insane system, so we stopped and just pulled the a/c fuse out. Suddenly the car had power to spare!

We continued up the Bighorn Mountains and it started raining, then the rain turned to wet snow, and it was settling in places. We eventually crested the Bighorns, and dropped down where the weather was much better. We crossed the bighorn River, and then had lunch at Cody.

There were storms around as we approached Yellowstone, but the weather was fine as we arrived. We paid our entrance fee at the east entrance, and headed anti-clockwise around Yellowstone Lake to the campsite at West Thumb.

We did a little exploring in the remaining daylight, and then we prepared for the night, which meant after we’d eaten, getting rid of any food that might tempt a bear to investigate. For us, this meant putting meats and cheeses inside the car. For the backpackers, this meant putting their food in a plastic bag and hanging it from a high branch of a tree (and well away from their tents). It got very cold overnight and at one point, Lin found herself frozen to the side of the canvas!

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Fri Sept 14th

My birthday. Mud Volcano area, Yellowstone Canyon and the Lower Falls, Petrified Tree, Minerva Terrace, and the Norris Geyser basin.

My birthday present from Lin was a Casio calculator that could be programmed to play tunes. The soundtrack for the day was a tinny da da-da da-dahh dahh!

The excitement of being somewhere like Yellowstone was palpable, and we couldn’t wait to get started. The nearest attraction was the Mud Volcano area, where we seemed to walk miles, including walking past a grazing Bison.

Then we drove up to Yellowstone Canyon, and we decided to do the Uncle Tom’s Trail down to the Lower Falls. I remember a strategically positioned wooden toilet hut part way down, and instead of water in the bowl, there was a hole in the bottom, and then perhaps 200 foot of daylight, down to the river below. It was a stiff climb back, but Lin was up it like a gazelle… she’d given up smoking some months before, and was really feeling the benefit!

Drove up to Tower-Roosevelt and checked-out the Petrified Tree, then east towards the village of Mammoth Hot Springs, where we walked all around Minerva Terrace.

We then headed back south to the Norris Geyser basin, and waited for The Echinus Geyser to erupt, which was pretty good!

We also did Fountain Paint Pots, Grand Prismatics, and ended up at Old Faithful. Unfortunately we’d just missed an eruption, and unlike the Echinus Geyser, it was a little too organised, and you couldn’t get very close to it, so we decided not to wait for the next one.

Back at West Thumb campsite, we went to the camp shop to see if they had a heater to buy; they didn’t but they sold us a gas lamp that they said would give off some heat. It was marginal, but it allowed us to spend the evening playing cards.

All in all, not a bad way to spend my birthday.

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Sat Sept 15th

Yellowstone to the Grand Tetons, Jackson

Left Yellowstone by the south entrance, pausing at the camp shop to get our money back on the lamp! We headed down to the Grand Tetons, where we stopped for pics of Mount Owen and the Snake River. Stopped at Jackson for lunch. Most memorable was the central square where each entrance was an arch made of deer antlers. Tasteful!

Stopped at a real wilderness camp site in the mountains near Bondurant, where the only other people there were bivouacking, and they had a deer hanging from a tree. Sat around a bonfire again, and shared beers with our neighbours.

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Sun Sept 16th

Flaming Gorge, lots of prairie, Rocky Mountain NP.

Had breakfast en-route, crossed into Utah and drove through Flaming Gorge, named because of the dramatic red rocks.

Saw Pronghorn Deer and many prairie dogs. I couldn’t get near enough to the prairie dogs to take a pic, but John presumably being more stealthy than me, managed to get one. I took a photo of the striking Whitely Peak.

Saw the classic American train, the California Zephyr in the late afternoon as we were getting close to our destination.

Finally got to Rocky Mountain National Park, and checked into the Lakeshore RV Park near Lake Granby. Drove into the Western styled town of Grand Lake for dinner.

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Mon Sept 17th

Drove into the National Park, walked to Dream Lake

Set off after breakfast on Highway 34 gaining altitude all the time, until we came to an overlook down to the Colorado River valley below us, when I realised that I didn’t have my camera (!).

Drove twenty miles back to the campsite cursing silently… or maybe not silently, and picked up the camera. As the road got higher and higher, the car started running rougher and rougher. I decided that at 12,500 feet it was probably an altitude thing, but decided to drive into Estes Park and have the car checked. We wasted an hour or so waiting, but it turned out to be some dirt in the fuel filter, so it was worth it.

We returned to the National Park, and now driving in arctic tundra, and well above the tree line. We took the Bear Lake Road and parked the car at the Bear Lake trail-head. We skirted Bear Lake itself, and walked firstly to Nymph Lake, and then to today’s destination, Dream Lake, but because we’d lost time, the sun had set behind the mountains by the time we’d got there.

Nearly walked into a mule deer on the way back to the car!

Dinner in Grand Lake again. We’d heard about the rutting calls of the male deer, so we drove out to a meadow to listen, but instead heard just complete and utter silence.

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Tue Sept 18th

Drove into the National Park again, walked to Dream Lake (again) and then onwards to The Loch.

The drive was essentially the same as the previous day, but now without forgotten cameras and car problems. We walked to Dream Lake again and saw it as it should have been the previous day, and then onwards (and upwards) to The Loch.

It was a nice walk in a beautiful and pristine wilderness. Not a trivial undertaking though… probably around 8 miles on rough terrain, at an average elevation of 10,000 ft, and with a 600 ft height gain. And I recall that John was due to have surgery on his foot when he and Caro got back. Bone spur?

A last visit to Grand Lake for dinner.

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Wed Sept 19th

Lake Granby to Idaho Springs

We could have taken the mountain route, but as we were towing a caravan, we elected for the easier drive. Still very scenic though.

A shortish drive, so we got to Idaho Springs in mid-afternoon. We found a surprisingly central camp-site, and parked the caravan. We checked-out the Argo Goldmine which looked like a relic from the nineteenth century, and then found a really good rock shop where I bought a piece of gold ore, essentially a slice of quartz complete with fragments of gold, silver, lead and pyrites.

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Thu Sept 20th

Idaho Springs to Burnsville

We took the busy I-70 through Denver, and then picked up the I-76 going north-east, and then the I-80 eastbound through Nebraska as far as Des Moines in Iowa. It was long day’s drive and I think John and Caro took stints of driving. Most of the journey (Especially Nebraska) was very boring and of course all US roads were then subject to a 55 mph limit… which apparently was enforced, although I confess that we didn’t see the police cars hiding behind road signs, rocks and bushes that we’d been warned about.

We Turned north on the I-35 at Des Moines. It was already quite dark, and at one point (I think John was driving) I said “take the next exit and pull over”. He did and we all got out, and my suspicions were confirmed… we could see the Aurora Borealis! I did take a photo of it, but the slide processing service I used must have discarded it thinking it was an unexposed frame.

Got back to Burnsville very late.

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