The Great Escape - Days 3+4 Grand Teton National Park.

We're spending Friday night through Sunday morning at the Colter Bay Village RV Campground.

Not a bad facility, somewhat level sites, carved out of a thickly forested section of land right by Colter Bay.  Full hookups.  Wifi only works in certain spots such as the laundry room, restaurant, and the guest lodge.  4G coverage is crap, even with the WeBoost.  Had three bars 4G LTE but no internet, my guess is the local tower is saturated.  Oh well.

There's good 4G coverage on the roads within the park, in spots.

We arrived under heavily overcast skies and cool temperatures.  Cagers were infesting all the roads of course so that was a detractor.  Still, it's weekend traffic in a popular National Park, am sure it's much worse at nearby Yellowstone NP.

The light was terrible and conditions hazy for pictures Friday afternoon:

 Near the boat ramp at the Colter Bay Marina

 Views from near Jackson Lake Lodge, I think.

 Large peak on left is Grand Teton, the large and highest

one on the right is Mt Moran

 Pano shot on the way to Jenny Lake area

Martha and I did the whole loop, checking out possibly shooting locations for the next day.  Back at camp, we relaxed a bit after dinner and then headed out to the nearby "beach" next to the campground hoping for a Sunset shot.

This time of year, the sun sets north of this angle on the

nearby mountains.

The next day, I didn't get up till around 7AM.  Martha was off on a walk to achieve her daily 10K steps with the Fitbit; so I went back to the shoreline to see what I could see:

 The Grand Teton Range and its reflection on a puddle

Getting back to the RV, I geared up and road Scarlett out to the point near Jenny Lake that Martha and I had selected.  Martha was still on her walk and arranging a boat ride for herself in the afternoon.

 Pano of same spot from yesterday afternoon to highlight

the differences in lightining.

 Part of Grand Teton peak

 To the north of Grand Teton, Storm Point and Mount St. John

Retracing my route, I detoured the six miles or so to ride up to the summit of Signal Mountain, hoping for nice views.

At the very summit, there was a good view of the valley below but as you can see, not much of the mountain range to the west.

Descending just a little bit, there's the Jackson Lake Overlook which after a short walk, offers nicer views of the mountain range:

 The highest peak is Mt. Moran

The road up to the summit of Signal Mountain is slightly twisty with a few blind curves so you have to watch out for unwary and clueless cagers stradding both sides of the narrow two lane road.

Back on Teton Park Road, I stopped one more time for a last shot of Grand Teton hoping for a water reflection but no joy there.

Rode on back to the campground, only stalled once for a traffic jam involving a large delivery truck and a car.  Not sure what the hell caused the jam but it's part and parcel of the overcrowded conditions our more popular National Parks are enduring.

We'd originally planned on staying Sunday night as well but I think we'll leave early Sunday morning and get a good start (plus hopefully avoid the heavy traffic congestion for which Yellowstone is known for) to find a BLM boondocking spot somewhere halfway to Helena, Montana.

The Great Escape - Day 2: Wyoming Frontier Prison and an overnight in Lander.

After an uneventful night in the RV (glad I decided to deploy the catalytic propane heater, it got cold enough), we woke with the sun and broke camp after a leisurely breakfast.

We drove on to Rawlings and visited the Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum.  The guided tour is $10 a person and it's worth it.  Good tour with some good information.  Even Patrick was motivated to ask questions.

 A picture of the prison when it was being used.

 It hasn't changed much, more additions to be sure as 

it grew but the main section remains the same.

The museum itself is free to look around but it's quite small and includes displays of the Peace Officer Museum.  Take the guided tour, you get to see the prison blocks.

Here's a view of Block A.  It was quite cool inside, even though it was warm sunshine outside.  Environmental conditions for the prisoners were not good, to put it lightly.

We toured two more blocks and then walked through the mess hall with its bolted onto the floor metal furniture.  The artwork on the walls was done by one of the prisoners.

Here's a view of the Julien Gallows mechanism.  The platform on top is where the prisoner sentenced to death by hanging stood in the floor above.  The collapsible timbers would be yanked out of support by the rope you see.

To spare a guard or executioner the angst of actually pulling a lever to activate the above mechanism; water would be placed into the bucket seen below, as it drained it would reach the point where counter-weights would be activated, pulling the rope and removing the support from underneath the prisoner's weight.

Here's the chamber where the prisoner to be hung stood.  The eyelet above Martha is the original eyelet to which the hangman's noose was attached.  The platform, demonstrated secure by the tour guide first, is stood upon by Martha.

Also in the Death Row building, was what eventually replaced the gallows as the instrument of death for prisoners given the death penalty.  The Gas Chamber.

 A bit morbid yes, but you can picture how

the prisoner sat inside before the locked him

into the sealed chamber and he waited for death

A good tour, and a good motivator to stay out of prison!  The prison is quite large but it's delapidated conditions in the other sections precluded our touring them due to safe concerns.

On an unrelated note, the museum also houses several antelope statues, mostly colorfully painted.  This one caught my eye due to its detail and depth.

After the museum tour, we left Rawling and had lunch at the side of US 287 shortly afterwards.

We then drove towards Lander, Wyoming on US287, arriving sometime before 4PM after a bit of wandering lost due to both googlemaps and Waze app having problems finding the Lander City Park.

They allow RVs to dry camp in the park for a maximum of three days for free, such a deal.

 Lander City Park, next to which flows the Middle Popo Agie River.

The name is native american for "Gurgling River"

Later on, Martha and I headed out on Wyoming Highway 131 towards Sinks Canyon State Park.  However, as we entered the park we found ourselves exiting it almost within 2 minutes!  Then we were within the Shoshone National Forest.

The nicely paved and twisty road climbed ever higher until we reached Frye Lake.  There was RV camping at the lake but we didn't wander next to it to check for cellular signal.

The sunset was not going to be a colorful one so we elected to drive back into town, stopping a couple of times for pics but ending up with only this one worth publishing:

Back in Lander, we returned to the City Park and Martha cooked us dinner and we settled in for an early night.  Tired.  Tomorrow, the Grand Teton National Park.

The Great Escape - Day 1: Vedauwoo Campground and a couple of Monuments

Day one of a trip that will have us crossing the country into the NW corner of the State of Washington by RV, sailing to Alaska by cruise ship and flying back to WA from Fairbanks.

We drove Umarang, the URRV, north from the Denver Metro Cesspool using I-25 to cross into Wyoming and heading west on I-80.

We kept it a short driving day, a little over 3 hours and found us a nice dry campsite at the Vedauboo Campground right off exit 329 along the I-80 super slab.

Work and relaxation was the order of the afternoon as Martha, Patrick and I worked out the logistics of setting up the RV for the night. 

Even found, with enough sunlight, the HF solar panels can provide enough power to the inverter to power the LED TV and we watched a little bit of a downloaded movie using Patrick's laptop.

Martha and I also hiked around the campground area as there's cool rock formations and trails to be enjoyed.

As the golden hour approached, Martha and I headed out on Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol Sidecar Rig to search for a sunset spot.

Mistakenly I chose to head west on I-80, completely missing the turn for Blair road which is a better way to cruise west instead of the super slab!  Still, the next exit was exit 323 and we paid a brief visit to the Lincoln Highway Memorial, a monument to Abraham Lincoln for his 150th birthday.

The head originally stood at the highest point of the coast to coast Lincoln Highway.

We took FR 709 back towards our campsite, a nice dirt road that somewhat parallels the I-80 super slab and is much more enjoyable a road.  Heavily wooded on both sides, we could see the rock formations near our campsite for guidance and ended up crossing under I-80 and near the Ames Monument as sunset approached.

I figured on using the Ames Monument as a foreground object along with Scarlett and Martha:

We rode back to camp, crossing under I-80 once more at the 329 exit and were soon back with Uma and Patrick.

This is what we saw as we dismounted from Scarlett, right at the campsite.

An easy first day of travel, no rush, we don't check-in to Colter Bay RV Park inside the Grand Teton National Park until Friday this week.

A Couple of Nice Sunsets.....

Yep, more Sunset pictures.

It's been quite hot here on the Colorado Front Range this week, leading one to ride when things cool off.

There's also several fires going on around the state, the one that made the news being the 416 Fire in the SW portion of the state.

It's led to more smoke particulate in the air I believe, and while we could do without the fires, one beneficial side effect is more colorful sunsets.

June 13:

 

June 15:

 The cesspool that is Denver doesn't look bad from a distance