Today we rode from West Yellowstone through the Yellowstone (car) Park into Wyoming and a town called Jackson.
Jackson - or 'Jackson Hole' is a really popular ski/snowboard destination, and features in a shit-load of snowboarding videos I've watched.
Seems it's no less popular in the Summer either... but I am skipping ahead.
We left West Yellowstone after staying in one of the shittiest hotels I have ever been in. There were BLOOD stains on the side of my mattress, and on the carpet. The carpet seemed to be made from at least 50% disguraded chewing gum it was that sticky and matted and as you can imagine felt disgusting underfoot. So much so that I put spare plastic shopping bags down over the worst spots, and washed my feet numerous times.. especially before getting into bed... given that as a kid we used to jump into cow pats bare foot for a laugh - this is really saying something!
The final straw was when I lent against the pole holding up the roof on the second story outside our door and it bent outwards, totally not connected to the roof.
But the absolute WORST thing about the room - was that it cost us FUCKING THREE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS!!!
I don't mind sleeping on a blood stained mattress, I don't mind being able to see into the roof while having a shower, I don't mind nearly taking a header onto my motorcycle a floor below; But to get fucked-over on the price as well is just icing on a shit sandwich!
Weighing up how hurt I would be falling from the first floor to the car park below, against how much money I could get in a slip and fall court case - we rolled out of the hotel late about 10:30.
We had another short day today, and took it easy as we didn't have too many kms to do. We were riding through Yellowstone (car) Park and we were hoping to take our time and see some of the awesome scenery we had seen in all of the pics I had trawled over during prep. We turned out of the hotel, and soon found out that everyone else had been lazy bastards that morning as well, as we were soon in a giant queue to get a ticket into the park.
We sat in 4 lanes of gridlocked traffic for about 20 minutes before we made it up to the ticket window. $80 USD later, and we had a yearly pass that covered us for the rest of the National Parks in America.
After leaving the ticket window, we soon ran into all the other people who had bought tickets, and joined the end of a giant line of traffic barely moving.
It was start-stop (always fun) and frigging hot in our riding gear with no airflow. This went on for about 40 minutes, leading me to remark to Megan that this place should be called Yellowstone Car Park. (Yeah - I'm fucking hilarious). Pretty soon though, the double yellow lines turned into broken, and I gunned up the deserted left lane and passed about 1/2 a kilometer of RV's, caravans and cars, before stopping again into the stop start for another 1/2 hour or so.
I had joked to Megan right at the start that there was probably a Deer on the side of the road and all the traffic was probably just rubber-neckers.
Sure enough, we soon got to the source of the problem, its was a herd of buffalo that you couldn't really see from the road - BUT - if you came to an almost complete stop - YOU STILL COULDN'T FUCKING SEE THEM!!! There was even a park official on the side of the road furiously waving the traffic with a flag to try and get people moving. I gave him a nod, and hoping to help him feel like he was actually achieving something (which he wasn't) I gunned it in second, roaring off to the deserted road in front, skimming the car who had come to a complete stop in front of me. I hope the sound of my screaming exhaust, just centimeters from the open drivers window adequately conveyed my frustration with them.
Following the buffalo debacle, the traffic was much less, but still heavy. Unbeknown to me, you can't really see much from the road in Yellowstone. Here was I thinking we would be able to pull into ample lay-bys that allowed you to take nice photos of beautiful vistas... you know - a lone deer with her fawn supping spring water in front of a beautiful mountain... and you just by chance got the whole view to yourself.... The reality was, there was a billion RV's filling the car parks, spilling out onto the roads, people and kids everywhere crossing the road without looking or caring, about the traffic, and queues to take photos at every blade of grass.
We rode past some awesome steaming Geysers and hot pools/waterfalls. I would have LOVED to check these out in more detail, but there were zero parking spaces, and we had luggage strapped to the bikes, so we could either leave the bikes, and carry everything with us for 100's of metres, or have one person stay with the bikes. That was IF we could find a park.
We decided to not stop, and just enjoy the ride. We were quite frustrated already, and pushing through tourists and getting shoved about could have honestly turned me to turn into the Ginger Hulk.
We rode our way through the rest of the Park, the Guysers being the most interesting things we saw, the rest of the time, the road was flanked by small pines, but we crossed / rode beside the river a lot of the time which was very pleasant. I saw some people fishing, and gently patted the fishing rod strapped to my top box. Soon... very soon.
We came out at the Grand Tetons National Park and were treated to an amazing view across the lake to the rugged mountain tops. They really looked amazing, and we had some sun on them despite the indifferent weather coming from the East.
We flanked these mountains for an hour or so, crossing a large grassy plain near Jackson airport.
A few 10's of kilometers later, we arrived in Jackson.
The main street was crawling with tourists, who showed little regard for the pedestrian crossing or traffic lights. At one stage - If I wanted to - I could have swerved a little and smacked a guys phone out of his selfie stick.
We rode to our Motel, checked in and grabbed some lunch.
We jumped on the restaurants wifi, as we had some serious planning to do. We'd been trying for two days to find a Cabin where we could stay for a couple of days that wasn't too expensive where I could take advantage of the awesome trout fishing. We've also done over 5,000km and a few days off would be nice to have. Bikes need a bit of a clean - I'm getting sick of the smell of slowly roasting bugs on the oil cooler.
After two hours and two beers, we have significantly changed our mud-map for the next week or so.
There were no suitable cabins on a river in Wyoming, Montana or Idaho. It was the week after the 4th of July, and families were still on holidays. Most places were booked until late July.
The only place we could find something was in Colorado in a week or so's time. We hadn't really planned to go to Colorado and to go there now would require a week of back tracking later on.
Our original plan was to go through Utah, and then West to Vegas, Death Valley and Yosemite.
To make things go in more of a loop, we decided to head westwards now through Idaho, drop down to Vegas and then loop back though the bottom of Utah and east to Colorado. This would save us at least 3-4days of back tracking from Colorado back west to Vegas.
With this new plan sketched in the dirt, we made some motel bookings for tomorrow night and the next 2 nights to Vegas and tumbled into bed.
Jackson - or 'Jackson Hole' is a really popular ski/snowboard destination, and features in a shit-load of snowboarding videos I've watched.
Seems it's no less popular in the Summer either... but I am skipping ahead.
We left West Yellowstone after staying in one of the shittiest hotels I have ever been in. There were BLOOD stains on the side of my mattress, and on the carpet. The carpet seemed to be made from at least 50% disguraded chewing gum it was that sticky and matted and as you can imagine felt disgusting underfoot. So much so that I put spare plastic shopping bags down over the worst spots, and washed my feet numerous times.. especially before getting into bed... given that as a kid we used to jump into cow pats bare foot for a laugh - this is really saying something!
The final straw was when I lent against the pole holding up the roof on the second story outside our door and it bent outwards, totally not connected to the roof.
But the absolute WORST thing about the room - was that it cost us FUCKING THREE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS!!!
I don't mind sleeping on a blood stained mattress, I don't mind being able to see into the roof while having a shower, I don't mind nearly taking a header onto my motorcycle a floor below; But to get fucked-over on the price as well is just icing on a shit sandwich!
Weighing up how hurt I would be falling from the first floor to the car park below, against how much money I could get in a slip and fall court case - we rolled out of the hotel late about 10:30.
We had another short day today, and took it easy as we didn't have too many kms to do. We were riding through Yellowstone (car) Park and we were hoping to take our time and see some of the awesome scenery we had seen in all of the pics I had trawled over during prep. We turned out of the hotel, and soon found out that everyone else had been lazy bastards that morning as well, as we were soon in a giant queue to get a ticket into the park.
We sat in 4 lanes of gridlocked traffic for about 20 minutes before we made it up to the ticket window. $80 USD later, and we had a yearly pass that covered us for the rest of the National Parks in America.
After leaving the ticket window, we soon ran into all the other people who had bought tickets, and joined the end of a giant line of traffic barely moving.
It was start-stop (always fun) and frigging hot in our riding gear with no airflow. This went on for about 40 minutes, leading me to remark to Megan that this place should be called Yellowstone Car Park. (Yeah - I'm fucking hilarious). Pretty soon though, the double yellow lines turned into broken, and I gunned up the deserted left lane and passed about 1/2 a kilometer of RV's, caravans and cars, before stopping again into the stop start for another 1/2 hour or so.
I had joked to Megan right at the start that there was probably a Deer on the side of the road and all the traffic was probably just rubber-neckers.
Sure enough, we soon got to the source of the problem, its was a herd of buffalo that you couldn't really see from the road - BUT - if you came to an almost complete stop - YOU STILL COULDN'T FUCKING SEE THEM!!! There was even a park official on the side of the road furiously waving the traffic with a flag to try and get people moving. I gave him a nod, and hoping to help him feel like he was actually achieving something (which he wasn't) I gunned it in second, roaring off to the deserted road in front, skimming the car who had come to a complete stop in front of me. I hope the sound of my screaming exhaust, just centimeters from the open drivers window adequately conveyed my frustration with them.
Following the buffalo debacle, the traffic was much less, but still heavy. Unbeknown to me, you can't really see much from the road in Yellowstone. Here was I thinking we would be able to pull into ample lay-bys that allowed you to take nice photos of beautiful vistas... you know - a lone deer with her fawn supping spring water in front of a beautiful mountain... and you just by chance got the whole view to yourself.... The reality was, there was a billion RV's filling the car parks, spilling out onto the roads, people and kids everywhere crossing the road without looking or caring, about the traffic, and queues to take photos at every blade of grass.
We rode past some awesome steaming Geysers and hot pools/waterfalls. I would have LOVED to check these out in more detail, but there were zero parking spaces, and we had luggage strapped to the bikes, so we could either leave the bikes, and carry everything with us for 100's of metres, or have one person stay with the bikes. That was IF we could find a park.
We decided to not stop, and just enjoy the ride. We were quite frustrated already, and pushing through tourists and getting shoved about could have honestly turned me to turn into the Ginger Hulk.
We rode our way through the rest of the Park, the Guysers being the most interesting things we saw, the rest of the time, the road was flanked by small pines, but we crossed / rode beside the river a lot of the time which was very pleasant. I saw some people fishing, and gently patted the fishing rod strapped to my top box. Soon... very soon.
We came out at the Grand Tetons National Park and were treated to an amazing view across the lake to the rugged mountain tops. They really looked amazing, and we had some sun on them despite the indifferent weather coming from the East.
We flanked these mountains for an hour or so, crossing a large grassy plain near Jackson airport.
A few 10's of kilometers later, we arrived in Jackson.
The main street was crawling with tourists, who showed little regard for the pedestrian crossing or traffic lights. At one stage - If I wanted to - I could have swerved a little and smacked a guys phone out of his selfie stick.
We rode to our Motel, checked in and grabbed some lunch.
We jumped on the restaurants wifi, as we had some serious planning to do. We'd been trying for two days to find a Cabin where we could stay for a couple of days that wasn't too expensive where I could take advantage of the awesome trout fishing. We've also done over 5,000km and a few days off would be nice to have. Bikes need a bit of a clean - I'm getting sick of the smell of slowly roasting bugs on the oil cooler.
After two hours and two beers, we have significantly changed our mud-map for the next week or so.
There were no suitable cabins on a river in Wyoming, Montana or Idaho. It was the week after the 4th of July, and families were still on holidays. Most places were booked until late July.
The only place we could find something was in Colorado in a week or so's time. We hadn't really planned to go to Colorado and to go there now would require a week of back tracking later on.
Our original plan was to go through Utah, and then West to Vegas, Death Valley and Yosemite.
To make things go in more of a loop, we decided to head westwards now through Idaho, drop down to Vegas and then loop back though the bottom of Utah and east to Colorado. This would save us at least 3-4days of back tracking from Colorado back west to Vegas.
With this new plan sketched in the dirt, we made some motel bookings for tomorrow night and the next 2 nights to Vegas and tumbled into bed.
 |
| Waiting for a Pass |
 |
| Riding next to the river |
 |
| Guysers!! |
 |
| Grand Tetons National Park |
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| Approaching Jackson, - Tetons looking on unimpressed. |
That kind of traffic (rubbernecking) is one of my pet hates - you should have also gobbed on the windscreen of the offending vehicle that was dawdling at that point. Bastards.
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