2024
ROAD TRIP
DAY FOUR
Eagle, ID — Gardiner, MT
432 miles
We started day four in much the same way that we started all of the other days: we woke up. We grabbed our stuff and headed to mass, which was in the same cathedral that the wedding had been in. Then we headed off to the bride’s parents’ house (the Osmer’s house) for an after wedding brunch. They have an absolutely stunning house that Mrs. Osmer designed herself. Anna took many mental notes while walking around the beautiful house, and Jack thought about money and the effects of not having it.
We had planned to leave at 11, so at 11:20 we went to say goodbye to Ellie and Rafael, but they told us that they were going to leave soon, so we decided to wait a bit longer and see them off. While Ellie was packing up, Rafael swore us to secrecy, and then told us what he did the morning before the wedding: apparently, he decided it was a good idea to drop his cousins off at the river so that they could go tubing for a bit before the wedding. So far so good. When he got there and started helping them onto the tubes, however, he realized that water safety was not one of their strong suits. Thinking quickly, he decided to go with them, just to make sure none of them died. He collected all of the phones and put them into a baggie, then helped his aunt onto a tube. Before he could hand her the four year old that was supposed to go with her, she pushed off, and started drifting away. She called to him, but by that point Rafael would have needed to throw the kid at her, so he grabbed his tube and boarded it while holding his four year old cousin in one arm and the bag of phones in the other. He pushed off after his aunt and realized right then that the bag of phones was not sealed properly. At this point he was holding the bag of phones above his head, hugging the child to himself with his knees, and paddling desperately with his free hand. Of course, he was on a circular tube, and so he started spinning instead of moving forward in a straight line. Eventually, after much struggling, he managed to splash his way over to his aunt, and he handed over his cousin.
The rest of the trip was completely uneventful. Until he decided that he needed to go back in order to make it to his wedding on time. He waved to his cousins and pulled his tube over at the next beach. When he turned back to look at his cousins, he saw them pass by, one by one. He started yelling at them, but by that point they were too far gone to come back to where he was. “Next beach! Next beach!” Rafael yelled when it became abundantly clear that they were not even trying to get to him. Unfortunately, his cousins thought he said: “Last beach!” and so when Rafael arrived at the next beach, they were not waiting for him. Rafael continued on, becoming more and more worried as each beach was cousin-free. His worry was heightened by the fact that he knew, though his cousins did not, that this particular river ended in a waterfall. He found his cousins an hour later, looking immensely pleased with themselves for having pulled over successfully. They all rushed back, and Rafael managed to be on time for his wedding, pulling his pants on as he rushed into the church. Okay, he exaggerated the last part a bit, but he said it felt like that. We agreed not to tell Ellie, so we’re putting it here instead. Don’t tell her.
Thirty minutes later, the happy couple were waving and hugging their family goodbye, ready to head up to Alaska for their honeymoon. Ellie told us that they were going to a small island that was accessible only by boat and which had almost nothing of civilization on it, and that Rafael was going to catch fish for their dinner. Rafael told us that this was true, but also that there was a five star resort on a nearby island just in case of an emergency.
Now that the newly weds were gone, all we had to do before we left was to thank our hosts. The Osmer’s were super nice, and when we told them that our next stop was Yellowstone National Park, they insisted that we take as much of the leftover food as we could carry. Mr. Osmer also tried to give us one of their coffee makers, but we explained to him that our car would probably blow a fuse if we tried to plug it in, and that there probably weren’t very many outlets in Yellowstone. We ended up taking several bagels, a couple donuts, a bag of chicken, and a bag of carnitas, which were leftover from the wedding dinner. Thanking them profusely, we finally left the Osmer’s residence at 12:30 and started on our way to the west entrance to Yellowstone.
Our plan for Yellowstone was as follows: arrive at the west gate a couple of hours before sunset. Get into the park for free because it was National Park Day, and all of the national parks were free to enter that day. Drive through the park toward the north gate and check out some of the features on our way. Exit the north gate of the park and find a free camping spot just outside the park in order that we might wake up early the next morning and get into the park before the rangers showed up at the entrance, thereby getting in for free again. It was a fool-proof plan.
The drive to Yellowstone was fairly uneventful. We started in the desert, and then the surroundings gradually got more and more pretty as we approached the park. While in the desert, we passed two different cars that made our car look like a luxury vehicle, at least in terms of smoke production.
We also received another Venmo payment while in Idaho! This time it was the most money we had ever received at one time from a Venmo payment, a total of 25 dollars. This made the rest of the drive feel just exactly that much cheaper, which is a wonderful feeling.
Our route took us all the way across Idaho, and then up into Montana for just a second in order to enter the park. When we got to the gate, the friendly park ranger informed us that although it was free to enter today, it would cost us money to enter the park tomorrow. We looked at each other and winked and giggled, and then we nodded solemnly to the ranger and passed into the park. WE knew what we were doing. WE weren’t going to pay if we could help it. Pretty soon after entering the park, we also entered Wyoming, which had a big nice sign welcoming us in.
The first real encounter that we had in Yellowstone was a bunch of elk off to the side by a river. Pretty quickly after that we almost ran into another elk that was slowly meandering across the road. We were very glad to be on our side of the road, because the other side of the road was blocked up for at least a mile, since everyone stopped to look at the elk. We continued on, passing car after car and thinking just how lucky we were that we weren’t trying to leave the park through the west entrance.
We were only driving through a small section of the park, and we weren’t planning on going on any hikes, so we weren’t sure how many things we would be able to see, but we were not disappointed. We found a small stream alongside the road that was steaming, so we immediately got out again and took a look. A small sign by the side of it warned that the ground there was hazardous thermal ground, and that it would really be wise not to walk around there. We listened to it obediently.
Before we left the stream, a small South Korean lady named Kim stopped us and asked if we knew where she was, and also to say congratulations. We thanked her, and then we explained to her which road would take her out of the park, and she explained to us that she knew that, but her navigation didn’t work and she didn’t know how to find her way without it. We explained the route again (which was, to be clear, ‘go that way and turn right at the first right; can’t miss it’) and she again explained to us, very patiently, that she already knew, she just couldn’t find her way without navigation. Then she started giving us some life advice, which was actually pretty good, for the most part. She told us that in order to be happy in our marriage, we should remember to talk together, to understand each other, and to always sleep together. Also, when informed that our marriage was to be next June, she told us that we had better ‘do it’ twice, just to be sure. We asked her what she thought of Yellowstone, and she said that it was nice, but we should go to South Korea, which she thought was the most beautiful. Then she informed us that her husband was very healthy man, very hearty, but when he turn forty-five, he got heart attack, he fall down dead. Just like that. He gone. We thanked her for the advice, wished her luck, and continued on our way. We will always remember the kind words of our friend Kim, especially right before we turn forty-five.
The next place we found was Beryl Spring, the hottest spring in Yellowstone, with water around 196 degrees Fahrenheit, or 91 degrees British Measurement. It was very cool, in the least literal sense, and only smelled faintly of eggs, which we found out later was most certainly not true at all of some of the other water sources in Yellowstone. Since there was a massive steam cloud in front of us, naturally we decided to do a bit of reading instead of looking at it, like true tourists.
There was also a rather flowery van, and Anna and Jack discussed the possible pros and cons of being in one of the most beautiful places in the world while being baked out of one’s mind.
After whetting our appetites for the park’s glories, we proceeded to the north gate of the park, outside of which we knew there would be some camping spots. At least, Anna insisted that there were going to be camping spots, and Jack said except he should see the print of the tents on the ground, and put his finger into the prints of the tents on the ground, and thrust his hand into its bear safe trash cans, he would not believe. As darkness fell over the park, we crawled closer and closer to the entrance, and to the small town of Gardiner, which was the town that was right outside the exit to the park. We passed some bison, and some more elk, and lots of cars on the road.
When we finally exited the park, we drove straight to the campground Anna had found online. The road that took us out of town and to the campground, it turns out, was unpaved. Normally when one goes camping, one brings a car that is designed for unpaved roads. It is standard camping equipment. However, we happened to have a small 1995 Toyota Camry with bad suspension and a transmission that really had to be coaxed into cooperating. Screwing our courage to the sticking place, we slowly started driving at five miles per hour up the windy, bumpy, dirt road that seemed to stretch on and on forever. Three days later, we saw a sign that said: ‘Welcome to Eagle Campground’. Right under it was another sign. This one read: ‘Full’. We drove around the whole campground, just in case the campground host didn’t know what they were talking about, but unfortunately they did; there were no open spots, although a few looked open until we got close enough to read the reserved sign that was by them. Disheartened, we continued on the windy, bumpy, dirt road in search of dispersed camping spots, which Anna insisted would be just a bit further ahead. Right past the campground, however, was a sign that said no camping for the next 1.2 miles. We decided that we should go about 1.3 miles and then reevaluate. 1.2 miles later there was another sign that said no camping for the next 3 miles. We decided to go another 3.1 miles and see what to do then. As we very slowly and very carefully drove over the dirt road (we feel we should emphasize here just exactly how bumpy the road was; most of the time it felt like we were driving over a washboard, and we expected the wheels or the exhaust pipe to fall off at any moment; there were also tons of pebbles that were nearly impossible to see, and when we would drive over them they would be flung up and they would hit the car, making us flinch every time), we passed pullout after pullout, and every time we did Anna would hop out and check the sign that every single one would have in it that would inevitably say: ‘No camping’. Finally, after what felt like hours, we found a pullout that had a couple of cars in it, and an RV as well. We pulled over and looked around for the sign that would say no camping, and lo and behold we did not find one. Hallelujah! We pitched the tent and cleared out the backseat behind the passenger side so that Anna could put the seat all the way back. It was a bit windy, and there were no stakes for the tent, so we used the bottles of coolant, gas, and windshield wiper fluid from Walmart (we knew they were smart purchases) to hold the corners of it down. Jack was super stoked to be sleeping in the tent with all of the various fumes because he secretly hoped he would get really high during the night (spoiler alert; he didn’t). Jack was a little bit worried that the tent wouldn’t be waterproof, in case it rained, but Anna told him that most of the tent would be fine, and the mesh at the top was covered by a dish rag sized fly that looked, to Jack at least, less waterproof then a sieve. Anna pointed out that Jack had been wrong about the existence of the camping spot, and so Jack decided to trust her. We bedded down for the night in relative comfort, excited for the full day ahead, and hoping against hope that no bears would come for our bags of chunks of meat that we had stuffed into the trunk of the car.
