(If you're reading this, it means I haven't edited the photos, so read it again later when I have access to a more modern computer and hopefully a couple of the pictures will have improve a little.)
Next morning we were up early, and found a bakery in Jackson to buy some lunch to take with us on our ride into Yellowstone National Park.
First port of call was the turnoff into Grand Teton National Park. At the other national parks we'd been to, we'd paid cash for the cheapest entry, which for Zion and Bryce Canyon was $12/person, for which they issued a 7 day entry permit, although we only stayed a few hours. The Entry to Grand Teton/Yellowstone was $20/person. The lady at the gate taking entry fees said something about an annual pass, which was $80 and would let us both in to any other national parks. I said, if only someone had told me at the first national park we got to how much the permits were going to cost, I'd have bought one at the start of the trip. "do you still have your receipts?". Sure did, I just stuffed them all into the map window on the tankbag. She said there's an expiry date on the bottom. We'd gone through Zion and Bryce Canyon 6 days earlier, so the expiry on those was for tomorrow. No problem she said. They're still valid so I can sell you an annual pass, and refund these two already paid for passes, so the entry fee today was $32 total, and that would cover us for any other parks we went through. Sweet.. on with the ride.
It was bleak but dry as we wound our way through through the next 150 miles of 45MPH zones. Occasional sprinklings of precipitation, but no rain set in.
Passed by an elk refuge
Saw some Grizzly Bears. well.. at least their bums. A mum and 3 cubs.
steam from hot volcanic mud pits
Bison shedding their winter coats
Out the western exit of Yellowstone we ran through a valley or series of valleys north
The rain was very cooperative. It rained on the hills but stayed off the road just a couple of km away.
As a boy growing up in the 1970s, Fonzie and Evel Knievel were major influences on my life, and probably responsible for any interest in motorcycles, so a visit to the grave of Robert Knievel in Butte MT (his hometown) was a must do.
Now if you refer back to my post from 3 days previous, Evel Knievel had attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon in his steam powered skycycle rocket. At that time, a monument was commissioned to be placed at the Snake River Canyon to commemorate that mile long jump. A space in the centre of the stone was left blank to record his demise. But he survived, and the feat was never achived, so the memorial was put into storage and taken out 33 years later when he passed away. The blank side of the stone was used for his memorial, and the snake river canyon jump engraving remains on the other side.