Day 8 - Yellowstone - Ketchum, ID

Day 8

May, 29^th 2012

West Yellowstone to Ketchum, ID

Bye, bye little wood cabin. It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been real fun.

After Kyle jump started his morning with a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle, we entered the West entrance of Yellowstone park for the last time. This time we were making our way from the West Entrance to the South Entrance toward Grand Tetons National Park. We got to wind through some of our favorite parts of the park. Saw a gang of Bison( thanks for the correct terminology Katie Lovett) bigger than we had before. Probably about 25 of them all together.

Bison!

And for those of you who are sick of hearing about bison
 here are some non-bison creatures! We think these were elk....

Driving down one of the open stretches in the road – Kyle had half his body out the sunroof in a search for bears since we had not seen one yet. "WHERE ARE THE BEARS?!?!" Looking backwards, the wind whips Kyle’s sunglasses and they fly right off! He ducks down into the car, "my sunglasses flew off! Turn around!" Since we were going at least 45mpg the glasses were a good quarter mile back on the road. Ali flipped a b’ on the road and headed back for the glasses. Of course, we had not seen any cars around until right when we get near the glasses. They are there, lying in the middle of the road, and five cars are coming straight for them. We watched the first car go over them. Wooooosh. Safe. Not run over. The second – safe. The third – safe. The fourth…safe but barely. And then came a mini van. Seems like these mini vans keep coming into our paths. The van was headed straight for the glasses and it looked like its left tire was going to crunch them. Wooooosh. The car passed and the glasses were still lying there fully intact. Must have missed them by mere inches. Kyle ran across the road and grabbed ‘em. Lucky boy. His sweet aviators walked away with only a slight scratch of a battle wound on the lens.

Almost to the entrance of Grand Tetons we had to make a little pit stop to go back a few decades to 1975 when Scott McCarty (Kyle's dad) spent his junior summer of college working in between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons at a place called Flagg Ranch pumping gas and busing tables. So just to get a little perspective Kyle pumped some gas and bused some tables at that very same ranch. Chiggity check out the evidence.

Or shall I say pumping diesel.

There weren’t too many tables to bus… but Kyle handled it.
 His previous busing experience at the Red Lobster certainly helped.

GRAND TETONS

Rachel Besnoff highly recommended the Tetons as this is her favorite national park. We honored her by listening to some Ludacris while touring the park.  Although there were no Phat Rabbits to be seen, the rivers certainly Splashed Waterfalls.  Bugs were aplenty as Kyle exclaimed "Get Off Me!" as a large one got in his ear.  A cool fact about the area we had just been through, and the entire state of Montana has only one Area Code. Ok. enough Luda references.

The mountains are fabulous. I think we were finally glad it had snowed since the mountain peaks looked so awesome covered in snow.

Kyle about to get run over by some intense cyclists.

We stopped at one of the lookout points to get a better view and we meet the worlds most British couple. I think they said Cheerio at least three times. They were very nice and offered to take our pictures.

Drive to Ketchum, ID HIGHLIGHTS:

• We were killing it on MPG for a while with a high of 52.1. Once we got on the highway it went down a bit…
• We hit the first desert since leaving North Carolina and got to climb back up from the Yellowstone low of 33 degrees to 78 degrees.
•  We stopped at a Subway that had a drive through!!!!! That’s almost as crazy as ice cream at Subway. Also… better late than never but the guy offered us a Subway frequent buyer card. WTF? Where was that offer about 15 sandwiches ago. For those frequent Subwayers out there – get the card! Once you spend a certain amount of subway dollars you get a free sub. 
• We passed Craters of the Moon monument. At first, Kyle thought it was just the left over damage of nuclear testing since there is absolutely NOTHING out there along highway 20  from Idaho Falls til we hit the 75.  It was weeeeeeeird lookin.   

 

• We passed through a town named for Kyle's dog, Rigby.  He is from there and saved the town from disaster in the late 17th century from fire.  Not really. But Rigby is such a good dawg, he deserves a town named for him.

Ketchum, ID – Beyer Style

Ali’s Dad’s best friend (dating back to 7^th grade) – Bob Beyer – has a second home in Ketchum Idaho and he so kindly let us stay in his guesthouse which is an incredible ski lodge cabin right at the bottom of the slopes. The slopes are not so snowy right now… but it is so cool to see the area and it’s a great place for summer fun like biking, hiking, running, exploring, etc!

The guesthouse aka Village at Greyhawk is so well decorated and Bob truly spoiled us. We get to the house – after his e-mail with perfectly laid out directions and paragraphs describing the surrounding dining and hiking options and the house is fully stocked! A plate of baked goods, two bottles of wine, fresh chips and salsa out laid out for us. Thanks Bob! Oh and then we opened the fridge and freezer – orange juice, eggs, beer, Ben and Jerry’s. Kyle immediately said – any type of vegetable cooking and healthy eating can start... right AFTER this.

 

 

Ali was pumped to do some serious cooking! 

Since Kyle found out Ali had not seen past the 2^nd Harry Potter movie (crime!) he convinced her that needed to be done. So after cooking up a mound of veggies the Harry Potter bonanza began. I say bonanza because we didn’t just watch the 1^st and 2^nd movies that night, we then proceeded to watch the 3^rd and 4^th the next day. Truly basking in summer laziness. To all that know Ali well – it is nearly impossible to get her to sit still for more than an hour so props to Kyle and J.K. Rowling for getting her to just sit back, reeeeeelax, and watch.

Looking forward to a few relaxing, homey, non-driving days in IDAHO! Thanks again Beyer family for all your generosity. You’ve truly spoiled us.

Oh and a shoutout to Dave Soto aka the CHAMP.  He suggested a visit to Spokane. "But, be sure to bring guns. SpoKompton is dangerous year-round."  Looking at a map and realizing Kyle gets enough of Compton by going to USC, we passed.  It's the thought that counts.

Driving stats:

Drive time (from West Yellowstone – through Grand Tetons to Ketchum) 7 hrs. and 45 mins. 

Day mileage: 374

Total mileage: 3078