We had a super efficient travel day when we left Yellowstone! We pulled out of that quiet campground at the crack of dawn, drove through the park on it narrow and winding road (amazingly, towing the trailer), used the dump station and potable water at a campground in the park, and then drove straight to and through Grand Teton National Park, not even stopping to take a photo—all so we could grab a boondocking site in the Bridger-Teton National Forest right outside the park entrance.
Success—in that we found a boondocking site among the gobs of people here, but bummer that it’s not one of the few with an incredible view of the Teton mountain range. When the sun rises from here it lights them up like they’re on fire. I’ll have to sneak over to one of the other campsites in the morning to take a photo.
Here on Banjo and my morning walk you can see the very peak of one of the Tetons glowing like that. I didn’t enhance this photo, seriously.
The views are amazing everywhere (just not from our campsite). When we go our for a hike, we have to park on the road because the trailhead parking lots are all full, but we made it through Taggert Lake trail where we watched a fox hunt in the tall grass just as Banjo does, and we ate a snack in the only private little spot left on the lake. Every now and then not a soul was in sight.
We also hiked around Moose Pond, but we got lost on the trails and arrived at 10:00 am, so all the moose were gone. We’ll try again.
And here’s the campsite, with the dirt road behind the trailer and the Tetons behind that. The National Forest has marked off each site, some in a dirt parking lot-type area all squeezed in, but ours is a big clearing surrounded by trees off by itself. Apparently no sites were marked in the past, and people crammed their RVs in right next to each other like books in a bookcase.
We’re grateful for the new rules, especially because this year the campgrounds in the park are all on a reservation basis only, so even more people are looking to boondock.
Here’s the other end of our campsite, where I’ve set up a mock scene to deter anyone from coming in while we’re gone and setting up camp beside us. There should be only one RV per site, but I bet people are pushing that as much as they can. Man there are as many people here as there are in Yellowstone.
Tracy’s been doing a ton of driving and map-studying and basically making sure I see every possible site in these national parks, and he’s wearing us all out.
Banjo doesn’t get to go in the park, but she wears herself out lying in the sunshine and dirt. This photo is deceptive: she’s actually only light brown now. A pale Doberman, maybe.
This evening we’re going to try to go to a “meet and greet” (at a nearby campground) that’s being hosted by a couple we’ve watched via YouTube for years as they travel in their Airstream—Long Long Honeymoon is their channel. We’ll see how crowded the campground amphitheater is as to whether we stay. I’d really like to meet other full-timers so I can make more friends, and I know Tracy gets a kick out of the guy on this channel who has a weird sense of humor.
But … we have to deal with crowds enough as it is, passing them on trails, waiting in lines to read signs, and waiting waiting waiting for parking spaces. If this event is crowded, too, we’re outta there.
Tiny House Update
The pink tiny house has an office outside, which would seem implausible and impractical, but there’s also the pink sofa, so I’m just going with it.
The table and chair legs are made from fine wire that I couldn’t keep straight as I was working with it, much less shape it into anything sturdy or glue it on the floor. These things are designed to sit on workbenches, not travel down gravel roads bumping in an RV shower. But that makes it all the more challenging.
