Day 29: Big Rocks

We started our day traveling 4:30 hours to Grand Teton National. Park Alie and I were here in our previous visit to Montana thus we did not feel we needed to explore the park as thoroughly as we have previous ones. The fact is Tetons is a very small park in comparison there are a few trails here and there but they are relatively longer ones and we had arrived later in the day, about 3:30. Thus we went down the road that is closed in the winter and it took us to Jenny Lake there we enjoyed a much closer view of the Tetons then we have previously seen and found it very interesting to see the park not covered entirely in snow. Alie and agreed that we preferred the snowy cliffs to the bare ones we saw today. It also helped that during the winter Tetons is much less crowded.

The real adventure started when we had to travel to West Yellowstone for our place to stay. It is only about 60 miles from Jenny Lake, but the quickest rout is via the John Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Highway. This small stretch of road connects Yellowstone and the Tetons. Once we hit Yellowstone it was rather dark and forced us to be fairly slow so we could react to wildlife crossings and such. It also did not help that through out the day the GPS mount kept falling from its perch and possibly damaging it. Through our journey through the two parks we could not get decent satellite reception for any long period of time. Alie and I are hoping that it is the geography of the parks that was preventing it and not some greater threat.

But that was a small problem compared to an RV that was a head of us for most of the park. It stopped suddenly in front of us; both Alie and I thought she was pulling over to appreciate the very last traces of lights and the coming stars in an awkward place. It did not occur to us that there was some other reason until Alie spotted a HUGE dark shape walking away from the RV. The woman driving it was going slowly but ending up smacking into a Buffalo head on. The beast survived and wandered into the wilderness, the woman was shaken, but not hurt. The RV however was a different story. The diriver side lights were all busted and broken. The hood was crumpled and leaking anti freeze. Someone follow alie and I in a black suburban went a head to call a ranger, since no one got cell service, while alie and I stayed with the woman,apparently her first time in the park, until the Ranger arrived. It was only a few minuets and then we were on our way to battle again the the GPS.

Results it did not really know where our hotel was, nor did it know where we were. Obvious not good. Nevertheless it still calculates routes even when it cannot find satellites, under s different setting, and has very detailed mpas of the entire US built in. so worse comes to worse we can use it as a portable MapQuest or such; hopefully it will not come to that. Tomorrow will see how it fairs. It its still acting up will call Garmin and see what they can do for us. Ibelieve its still under warrenty.

Due to the GPS malfunction the stats are not completely accurate but they provide data that I deem good enough. Tomorrow we do Yellowstone’s Mammoth Springs and then head to Bozeman to the see Grandparent Howards! We are very excited!!!

BEHOLD The Return of the MAP:


47% of the country!
Distance: 613.0mi
Overall Average: 78.5mph
Moving Average: 87.2mph
Moving time: 7h 1m
Stopped 45m 44s
Total: 7h 47m