We decided to drive. Of course driving would mean we would lose a couple of precious days of time we could otherwise be spending in God's country. But flying had its hassles. Would there be unexpected problems with our camping gear (fuel bottles, backcountry stove, etc.?). Although the chance was slight, what if our backpacks, fully loaded with everything we needed for our camping trip, arrived late or not at all? We had backcountry reservations, trailhead shuttle reservations, lodging reservations; any luggage delays would end our plans for a backcountry hike across the parks southeast quadrant - the Cascade Corner. A call to the airline indicated that rental money for the full cost of missing gear would not be available (they said in the event of delayed luggage, they would offer us a meager sum for rental of equipment - well, they didn't say it was meager - but it WAS). We weren't willing to take the chance. There were other disadvantages to flying, besides. We'd have to rent a car for two weeks, which would mean certain restrictions on our explore-all-mountain-two-tracks mentality. We also wouldn't be able to take our more luxurious "car camping" items (car camping (v): camping within sight of your vehicle, usually in close proximity to such luxury items as bathrooms with running water and a camp store) such as our two-burner stove and folding lounge chairs.

So driving it was. We were shocked and horrified to discover that there is no highway running straight from Houston to the Yellowstone Country. What an oversight! About the best we could do was a series of step-like maneuvers: due north, due west, due north, due west, for approximately 1700 miles. Our journey north and west would take us through the Southern Pine forests and Post Oak Savannah of eastern Texas; the plains of northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado; and the high, sage-covered plateaus of Wyoming before entering the mountainous northwest of Wyoming: the heart of Yellowstone Country.

We left Houston Friday after work and drove into Oklahoma. The six-hour head start will work out well; we should be passing through Denver Saturday evening, so we have planned to stay with a friend, a college roommate of Angela's, overnight. A good day's drive from Denver will put us in Jackson, Wyoming, the southern gateway to Grand Teton National Park, by late afternoon.

Friday's drive was uneventful, boring even. Of course, uneventful is good. Boring isn't so bad; at least the passenger can catch up on some long overdue reading. We stayed in Ardmore Friday night, about 30 miles north of the Red River and Texas's northern border. The scenery of most interest to us as we passed through Okie the next morning was an outcrop of limestone substantial enough to be considered a mountain. The Arbuckle Mountains were to be the last vertiginous relief we would see until our first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.

Of course, what is a road trip without an unexpected detour? Just north of the Kansas/Oklahoma border I-35 becomes a toll road (the Kansas turnpike). Angela was driving. What I, as navigator extraordinaire, failed to recall was that I-35 turned northwest towards Topeka. We should have merged onto north-bound I-135 just south of Wichita. Well, between my napping and my confidence that I had our route clearly envisioned in the map in my head, we missed the turnoff. I awoke from a cat-nap, startled to see that we were still on a toll road. A glance at the map (what a brilliant idea) confirmed that we were about 60 miles east of where we should have been. To compound this unfortunate situation, the next exit was 30 miles away. We ended up in Emporia, about 80 miles east of I-135. It took an hour, plus some, driving west on county and state roads to get back on track.

The mountains loomed ahead in the distance, a hazy purple backdrop to a green landscape of irrigated fields. We had crossed the plains and welcomed the transition into some new scenery. Subaru's with rocket boxes and bike racks became the predominantly driven vehicle, and we began to feel as though this was a place we could really fit in. We arrived in Denver about when we expected to, thanks to the unaccounted for time change as we crossed from Central to Mountain Time. We found Lisa's apartment, in a renewed area downtown, and enjoyed some catching-up and home-cooked Quesadillas. Lisa has two young cats, which were a great source of entertainment. Cats love to chase the beam from a laser-pointer.

Today we would breathe the crisp mountain air and feast our eyes upon an awesome wilderness. But first we had to drive the 100 miles north to Cheyenne then westward and upward, past the intermittent ranges that make up the Medicine Bow - Routt National Forest, past solitary Elk Mountain, which looms above the sage-covered land like an ancient sentinel, and through the dry Great Divide Basin to Rock Springs where we would turn north towards Jackson Hole. Red Desert, Table Rock, and Bitter Creek: appropriate names for the sleepy oil towns we passed by.

State Highway 191 north of Rock Springs roughly parallels the continental divide 20 to 30 miles to the east. About 60 miles north of Rock Springs, the featureless landscape is broken by the ragged spires of the Wind River Range to the north and east, including Gannett Peak at 13,804 feet, the highest piece of land in Wyoming. Highway 191 takes a long, gradual turn towards the west and passes through a portion of the Gros Ventre ("Gro Vaunt") range and down to the Snake River and its valley. As we passed through the Gros Ventre range the sagebrush began to yield to fir, spruce, aspen, and cottonwood trees. The willows and aspens were just beginning to display their seasonal yellow.

We refueled and picked up some camping supplies just before driving through downtown Jackson to the information center, past the famous elk antler arches at the Town Square. Jackson borders the National Elk Refuge, where about half of the 15,000 strong Jackson Hole Elk Herd winters. Supplemental feed is provided to the herd because about two-thirds of the Elk's natural winter range has been lost to development. Each spring, boy scouts gather the antlers dropped by the Elk in March and sell them to raise funds. There were a dozen or so people in the range as we drove by, perhaps searching for an overlooked treasure.

The view of the Teton Range is dramatic. The rugged pinnacles jut skyward from the valley floor with no foothills, capturing the imagination and defying one to grow tired of gazing upon them. The taller peaks include Grand Teton at nearly 14,000 feet, Mount Owen, South and Middle Teton, Teewinot, and massive Mount Moran which contains an unusual feature: a vertical black dike that appears to slice the mountain in two. At their base lie picturesque Phelps, Taggert, Bradley, Jenny, Leigh, and Jackson Lakes. Jackson Lake is the largest and owes that, in part, to a dam built before the park was created to store water and control the Snake River for irrigation. Agreements made with landowners in the park's early history still leave them in control of the flow released from the dam. In fact, no park is quite like Grand Teton in the concessions made to cattlemen as a part of agreements that allowed the peaceful establishment of the then controversial park, which was only about one-third the size of today's park. Much is owed to John D. Rockefeller Jr., who secretly bought up land surrounding the park and turned it over to the park by 1950 in another storm of controversy.

We turned left at Moose Junction onto Teton Park Road, admiring the views of the Tetons. The diabase dike in Mount Moran particularly fascinated Angela (of course). I was hoping to spot some Moose, a goal of mine for this vacation, and kept my eyes peeled. No Moose spotting today - mabye tomorrow.

The Jenny Lake campground was booked, despite the open sign at the park entrance, so we drove north to Signal Mountain campground near the southeast shore of Jackson Lake, which was also booked. The ranger informed us that there were campsites at Colter Bay, the next campsite up the road. The park did not seem busy enough to book all but two campgrounds, but they start to close sections of the campgrounds this time of year. Two loops at Colter Bay were already closed for the season, but it was not difficult to find a good site. We arrived at about 6 p.m., which left just enough light to set up the tent. I left Angela to finish arranging our bedding so I could pick up some firewood and goods for S'mores at the campground's General Store. We ate dinner in our folding lounge chairs by the fire and retired after experimenting with some twilight photography.

We were anxious to move on, so we packed up camp without eating breakfast and drove down to the Visitor's Center, which had an interesting Indian artifact exhibit. We had a hearty breakfast at the Chuck Wagon Grill, which was certainly more enjoyable than cooking breakfast in the drizzle (so much for roughing it), and decided to drive on to Yellowstone to get in early enough to be sure to get into the campground at Grant Village, some 40 miles north.

We found a site at the Grant Village campground without any problem and pitched the tent. We also stopped by the Village's backcountry office to pick up our backcountry permit. We particularly enjoyed the mandatory video on what to do to be eaten by bears, drown, get hypothermia, or fall into a thermal feature. Want to see a bear in the wilderness? Leave a trail of food all the way from your trailhead right up to your tent door, and be sure to bring all your food into your tent for the night, because otherwise the bears might just kind of hang out without letting you know of their presence. You are sure to be treated to a fun-filled adventure that will be exciting for the whole family!

There was a lightning-caused fire in the backcountry (one of several active fires in the park), somewhere around Union Falls which was on our planned route, so we had to change our starting trailhead to the ranger station at the far southeast corner of the park and change our first night's campsite. This wasn't total news to me, as I'd kept an eye on the situation over the internet, but I was hoping that by the time we arrived the fire danger would be reduced and the trail would be open. I had called the transportation company that was providing our trailhead shuttle in advance for just such a contingency. Although the drive around would be much longer, they said it wouldn't be a problem, just explain to the driver. I was uneasy about it, because it seemed that such an extension to the travel time should naturally result in a higher fare and shouldn't be left to the driver to figure out.

The West Thumb Geyser Basin (so named because it overlooks the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake) is nearby so we made that our first geothermal sightseeing stop. It had been raining lightly off and on most of the day, but it seemed to get worse just as we pulled in and parked. No matter, that is what rain gear is for. The lake provides a spectacular backdrop to the blue and emerald pools, even on a cloudy day. The hot springs and geysers at West Thumb pour an average of 3,100 gallons of hot water into the lake each day, yet the lake here is only 45 degrees in the summer. A feature called Fishing Cone is perhaps the most famous of the geysers here. A photographer was sitting on the boardwalk in the wind-driven rain with his raingear, hat, and gloves, apparently waiting for it to erupt. The poor guy looked absolutely frigid - I hope he ended up getting his shot. The tale surrounding fishing cone is that one could catch a trout, swing the pole around, and cook it in the boiling pool. Early park visitors often dressed in a cook's hat and apron to have their pictures taken by the "Fish Pot".

After our walking tour of the West Thumb, we continued driving roughly northeast along the shore of Yellowstone Lake, towards Lake Village. Once we drove beyond the relatively sheltered West Thumb, the wind whipped the lake into a frenzy - I felt as though I was standing on the shores of Lake Michigan during a November storm. We pulled off at a small picnic area along the shore called Pumice Point and spent a little time on the shoreline. Angela, of course, looked for interesting rocks. I sat on a driftwood log and just relaxed. We did not find any Pumice.

We took a driving tour around the Lake Village area, past the Victorian Lake Hotel and rustic Lake Lodge, and spent a little time in the gift shop of the General Store. Natural Bridge was our next destination. Natural Bridge is not as nearly as spectacular as the great sandstone arches of the southwest, but it is still a very pleasant place to spend some time. The arch, 51 feet high, spans 29 feet across a small creek and has a single spruce tree growing in the center of the bridge. There was once a horse trail across the top, and the second park superintendent, Philetus Norris, proposed constructing a stagecoach road over it. Fortunately, that never happened.

We stopped by the West Thumb Geyser Basin on the way back to Grant Village. I wanted to take a few more pictures because the sky was clearing and the light was much better. The stop was rewarding because I got the shots and saw our first Elk.