Great Alaskan Road Trip: Week 4 Roundup

The Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone’s North Entrance – “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People”

Each Friday, I post some relevant (and not-so-relevant) stats about the trip, as well as a little write-up of what it’s like to live out of a van for weeks on end. Here’s where we are overall:

• Total miles driven: 2778
• Total days on the road: 25
• Total miles hiked: 48.7

Here are some interesting stats for this week:

• Fuel stops: 2 (diesel: $4.39 / gallon in Mammoth Springs, WY – yikes!; $3.99 in Helena, MT)
• Technical issues: 1 (We ran the battery down, way down, on a cold night due to running the heat all night.  It uses propane for fuel, but the fan is electric.  Plus we didn’t drive very much that day so the house battery wasn’t fully charged.  Unlike on the boat, we just have the one house battery.  It’s not something that needs to be fixed, just something we need to be aware of – on days where we don’t drive much we will need to top off the battery with the generator if we plan on using the heater.)
• Items Lost or Stolen: 1 (On a wet morning, Kevin laid our outdoor mat on the picnic table at our Canyon campsite to dry before we left to sightsee for the day.  We were staying another 2 nights, so we figured we could leave it at the site – lots of people leave chairs and other stuff.  We didn’t think anyone would even notice it lying flat on the table.  We were wrong.  When we came back our mat was gone.  I optimistically checked with the campground office to see if anyone had brought it in to the lost and found but no luck.  Bummer!)
• National Park Service sites visited: 1 (Yellowstone)
• Elk/Bison/Deer sighted: too many to count – we did see this female elk and calf on our way out of Yellowstone, right by the roadside
• Moose sighted: 0 (their numbers are down over the past 20 years due to the 1988 Yellowstone fire, so there aren’t very many in this park) 
• Wolves sighted: 1 (probably – but it could have been a coyote)
• Birds of Prey sighted: 1 osprey (in Yellowstone) and 1 golden eagle (eating roadkill on Interstate 90 in Montana)
• Bears sighted: 4 (Finally!  All were grizzlies – two cubs.)

As I mentioned, our mat was stolen early in the week.  It wasn’t an expensive one – just one of those black rubber outdoor ones with the pins sticking up so you can scrape off mud and stuff.  We didn’t realize what an important piece of equipment it was until it was gone and we were tracking in dirt, mud, rocks, snow – you name it – in the treads of our shoes.  We have a kitchen-type mat just inside the door as well (it’s what I call a “two-mat system”), and we take off our shoes inside for the most part but when you only have about fifteen square feet of floor space a little dirt goes a long way.

Well, there weren’t any mats to be bought within Yellowstone park (more about the shopping situation in Yellowstone in a bit), so once we were back in the real world (Bozeman, MT) we hit the Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s looking for a replacement.  We wanted the same kind we had before because it could be rolled up for storage and because those little rubber pins were better than anything else at scraping the muck off the soles of our shoes.  (I know, I’m picky like that).  We struck out at Target and Home Depot – lots of mats but not the one I wanted.  At the Bozeman Lowe’s we could see an empty space on the shelf – our type of mat was out of stock.  The clerk looked it up in their system and said they had 3 left at their store in Helena – where we were headed anyway.  Stopped in at the Helena Lowe’s on our way into town and replaced the stupid mat.  Only eight bucks and worth its weight in gold.  (Note the brand-spanking-new proper hiking footwear as well – we hit Tom’s and REI while in Bozeman, too.  Bring on the blisters.)

It was great to get some shopping done; we also hit a grocery store on our way out of Yellowstone – our cupboards were nearly bare after five days in the park.  We had checked out several of the general stores in the park (at Canyon, Mammoth, and Tower Falls) looking for salad fixings and decent lunchmeat.  But all we found were convenience foods (mac & cheese, ramen, bologna) and junk food.  Also odd -- they only sold Pepsi soft drink products; no Coca-Cola.  It was weird because we know there is a fantastic full grocery store inside Grand Canyon National Park, and the store in Grand Teton was well-stocked as well.  We just wonder where on earth all the park employees buy their groceries.  Do they have to shop outside the park?  (Maybe the general stores at Old Faithful or Grant Village had more options – we didn’t visit those.  But I would recommend if you come to Yellowstone to camp, you’d better bring all the food you need for the duration of your stay unless you want to dine on Doritos and doughnuts, or eat at the restaurants.)

On the road to Glacier

We are now at an RV park just outside the entrance to Glacier National Park.  Just in case the grocery situation is similar in this park, our fridge is stocked with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, brie, kalamata olives and whatever else we felt we couldn’t live without.  Oh, and our mat gets rolled up and stowed in the van even if we are just driving to dinner for an hour.  We’re not taking any chances with this one.