We
didn’t get up until 8am that morning. Twelve hours of no electronics or
communication with the outside world. We were both refreshed and
ready to figure out the day. After a breakfast of bacon and hash browns,
we headed out to get everything uncovered. There was a minimum of
five inches but hard to tell because the wind had blown a lot of it
around. Hannah had to climb on her cooler to get the solar panels (even
though there was no obvious sun) uncovered. We jumped in the truck to go
check out the implications of the storm. As we approached the
campground information kiosk, we quickly discovered that we were locked
into the campground. We were stranded at Yellowstone National Park. We
could think of a lot worse things! They weren’t letting anyone out and
all the roads to and from Yellowstone were closed. We talked to the nice
ladies and reported that we had failed to locate the white goat.
We
headed back to Blue and did some more cleaning and organizing. Then we
collected icicles to add to the cooler because most of the food had thawed. Then we settled in and started our Bible study. About an hour
later a man from the National Park service came and informed us that we
could leave the park through the west exit but we could not come back.
The drive out was insanely beautiful. We stopped to get some pictures of
the herd of elks and got yelled at by an employee driving by. When we
were almost to the entrance texts started coming in. Unfortunately, we
were back in the real world. We were surprised when we got to the gate
that was a huge line of cars at the gate heading in.
The sun was out and
the temperature was rising so we headed back to Idaho down Route 20.
After a few miles the roads were completely clear.
At one point, we
looked east and saw the Grand Tetons. After much speculation, we decided
to take the shorter route, it was very strange directions that was
looping us back out of town the way we came from and we found ourselves
on a road that ended but luckily we could still go the direction we
needed to, only to find out that there were flag construction workers
directing traffic. It was by the grace of God that they had the oncoming
traffic stopped. That was a pretty country drive with the Grand Tetons
in sight most of the time.
The
roads were really clear so Hannah decide to take Teton Pass. It had 10%
grades and was an exciting ride. It was also an incredible drive. We made it
to Jackson, Wyoming around 3pm. In two days, we been in Washington,
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, back to Montana, back to Wyoming, back to
Montana, then back to Idaho, and then Wyoming.
Hannah met with the leaders from the BTF about job perspective while we were in Jackson. Around 4pm she came out and we headed to the Grand Tetons. As we were driving in there was a crowd around the bridge taking pictures out over the water. There was a moose! It was a bull moose that was “guarding” a mama and baby. Someone before us had seen them but we only saw the bull moose. Hannah dropped Ann off and went and parked and met her back at the moose who had laid down and settled in for the night. We walked back to the Visitor’s Center and got our passport stamps and a couple souvenirs. We talked to a ranger about route options.
On
the way out, we stopped at the Elk Wildlife Refuge pull off and ordered
burgers from Liberty Burgers in Jackson. Once back in Jackson, we found
a parking spot and walked down a small strip to pick them up. They were
pretty decent burgers.
We were on the road again with a fishery as our destination for the night. Finally we were headed east. We were about thirty minutes away from our destination when the snow started to fall and it was getting dark. We found their destination from the road in the dark and snow luckily we could tell that it was closed before we tried to pull in. Ann frantically started searching for another place. She found the US Land Bureau grounds and we turned down the road but found a place to call and realized it was the gas station we had just passed a few miles back. Hannah did a u-turn and we headed back. Ann jumped out to get our reservation and her knee went out. Hannah filled Zita (truck) up with gas and went in and took care of the reservations as Ann worked on getting her knee back in. We drove up the hill to our spot only to find out someone else had their truck parked in it. Hannah went back down and got a different site and found out there were no bathrooms and the water hookups were not an option. As we were getting everything hooked up we heard a pack of coyotes across the highway.
This round we had electricity, gas wasn’t working again, no bathrooms and it was snowing again. That was fun. Ann started to plan for tomorrow when she discovered that I-80 was closed due to accidents and weather. It went from bad to worse. First we had three options one being going back up to I-90 but by morning the I-90 was the only option showing up on Google maps and at one point it said we had no options.
