Wagon Wheel Campground, West Yellowstone, MT

After three action packed days in Yellowstone National Park, today Dave and I are relaxing in our motorhome in West Yellowstone.  We went for a bicycle ride this morning before it got too windy.  We rode through an area of very nice log houses with big porches.  I could just picture myself sitting there all summer, but not in the winter, of course!

Beautiful mountain scenery on the road to Henry's Lake State Park.

After lunch in the RV, we drove on Highway 20 back towards Island Park.  We drove five miles south to check out RedRock RV Park.  We didn't take any pictures, but it looked like a nice enough park located in a meadow surrounded by mountains.  The sites were smallish and close together, but roomy enough for big rigs. 

Henry's Lake with campground in the middle left of the photo.

Then we drove to Henry Lake State Park.  This park surprised us because all it consisted of was the lake, a day-use boating area, and a campground.  The campground was out in the open with very few trees, which we like because we like to get satellite and we LOVE to look at the stars and watch the meteor showers.  It was windy at the park, but it's windy everywhere around here today.  Sadly, the park doesn't offer sewer hookups, but it has water and both 30 and 50 amp electric hookups.  Our Verizon phones received 2 bars of 3G service at Henry's Lake Campground.

The following pictures are of Wagon Wheel Campground, West Yellowstone

After looking around at most of the RV parks in West Yellowstone, we are happy that we ended up at Wagon Wheel (http://www.wagonwheelrv.com/).  The people that run it are super-nice, we got the best site for big rigs (#2), and we have full hookups with 50 amp.  The only thing we lack is satellite because there are too many big trees blocking our signal.  But those trees aren't all bad because they provide a little shade and serve to somewhat block our neighbors from our site (and sight).

The site to our right and our site face an empty parking lot at a Mormon meeting house.  It's been empty all week, but I suspect it will be filled tomorrow morning!

 Wagon Wheels

A view down one of the streets of the campground.

The sites are located off to the right and left.  This is a small campground but the best amenity is that it is located right in downtown West Yellowstone, only about six blocks from all the stores and activities and from the national park entrance.

The park has a limited game room

Adequate laundry facilities

Clean restrooms and showers

Even a tub full of flowers!

I always consult  http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ the RV Park Review website when trying to plan where to stay.  Not every park is included, but the reviews give me a good idea about prices and desirability of the parks.  Most reviews include a link to the campground's website and show a list of other towns nearby with RV parks.

Our rig in site #2 at Wagon Wheel Campground

It will be interesting to contrast this RV park with the more expensive, upscale Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park where we will spend Sunday and Monday nights. 

North Yellowstone Circle Tour

Donna K, you are the lucky winner of the "name that picture" contest.  You have won a chance to see this feature for yourself when you and Russ visit Yellowstone in September!  You are absolutely correct, that was a picture from the Mud Volcano.  Here's the whole picture:

Dave and I finally wised up and entered the park earlier today.  We got to the entry at 8:30am and didn't have put up with any traffic jams.  We drove the 14 miles to Madison in 20 minutes, a new record for us.

Today we headed north to Mammoth Hot Springs, then on to Tower Junction, east to the Lamar Valley, back to Tower, south to Canyon, west to Norris, and back to Madison and then our home-away-from-home at West Yellowstone.  Dave put a map on his blog so check it out if you want to visualize our route. 

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.  First, Mammoth Hot Springs, which we were surprised to find was mostly dormant and dry.

Minerva's Terrace

Mound Terrace

Liberty Cap, a dormant hot springs cone

Elk hanging out at Fort Yellowstone

On the way to Roosevelt we saw a coyote hunting along the road.

Wildflowers at our picnic stop in the Lamar Valley

...and a hungry raven

The scenic Lamar Valley

Another coyote on the prowl

Following daddy!

Headed towards Tower Fall, took the Calcite Springs Loop Trail and got a great view of the Yellowstone River.

Our first-ever view of Rocky Mountain big horned sheep!   

More wildflowers

Then on to Tower Falls!

We were pretty tired by now, but we made one last stop at Artists' Paintpots.

Yellowstone--Day Two

Thursday morning started out like a rerun of Wednesday.  As Dave put it in his blog title yesterday, we were buffaloed!  Evidently the bison like to hang out around the Madison River during May and June.  Today it took us 2 hours to go the 14 miles from our RV park in West Yellowstone to Madison Junction.  We turned south again and the traffic picked up with only an occasional bison traffic stop. 

Starting our day with the bison.

We had in mind to go to Yellowstone Lake and take the boat cruise.  We thought the last cruise was at 1:15 and there was no way we could make it there, so we spent some time at Grant Village and had our picnic lunch near the Grant campground.  We drove through the campground and dreamt about whether or not our big motorhome would fit in the sites there and how many days we would be willing to survive without any hookups or cell phone service. 

Snow along the highway around the Continental Divide area.

After our Grant Village tour, Dave and I visited West Thumb Geyser Basin.  This was a treat because we got some great views of the geysers and Yellowstone Lake.  Rain clouds loomed overhead, but we felt only a few drops of rain.

West Thumb Geyser Basin with Yellowstone Lake in the background.

Collapsing Pool

That's not snow, it is calcified minerals from the thermal activity.

Yellowstone Lake

After reluctantly leaving the West Thumb, we drove on and visited Bridge Bay, Lakes Village, and Fishing Bridge.  We were interested in Fishing Bridge RV Park because that's the only park inside Yellowstone that offers full hookups.  Yes, it's kind of a parking lot (with trees) and yes, the sites are very close together, but hey, it has full hookups and new 50-amp electric service.  No cell service, though.  Our only problem is that Fishing Bridge is over 7700 feet high, which is a bit too high for Dave and his compromised lungs to breathe comfortably. 

After Fishing Bridge we headed on to the Canyon District but first we had to make a stop at an unexpected geyser thermal area. 

The aptly-named Dragon's Mouth Spring

Our day wasn't finished yet, but I've run out of time and the ability to upload more pictures tonight.  Now I have two more sets of pictures to write about in the near future!

Here's an easy  question for anyone who has visited Yellowstone.  Identify the following:

Old Faithful

Dave and I were surprised that the 30 mile trip from West Yellowstone to the Old Faithful area took three hours, and that's with no stops.  The traffic was very slow due to bison being seen near the road. 

Proof that we were there!

Our entry into the park was uneventful and a nice stranger took our picture.  We breezed through the entry station after showing our senior pass.  We sailed along, thinking that this part of the park didn't look all that different than the highway that we were on before we entered the park.  Then all of a sudden, we started crawling along at about five miles per hour.

Finally we saw why the cars were going so slow--bison along the road.  That's the Madison River in the background.

A pretty setting for the bison.  Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam!

We also saw a couple of elk.

We finally made it to Old Faithful.  After the three hour car trip, we were more than ready for a potty stop and then to eat the lunch we had brought along.  We joined the people flocking towards Old Faithful.  At about 1:30, the geyser faithfully "went off".

After seeing that magnificent sight, we took the walk around Old Faithful and were impressed by some of the other thermal features.

Scenery along the Old Faithful walk.

Blue Star Spring

Yellow stone!

We watched Old Faithful go off again at 3 pm after we visited the Education Center.  This time we had a front row seat, but we didn't think this time was quite as impressive as our first viewing.

 

In the midst of all the steam and mud pots, I was delighted to see these wild flowers.

On the way back to West Yellowstone, Dave and I stopped at some of the other geysers in the basin.  I'll share those pictures tomorrow.  Stay tuned!