One Man, One Dog, One Car to Yellowstone

[Old Henry]

When my wife and her sister went to their mom's for the week to help her with stuff I decided to do something I'd never done before - a road trip all by myself. Except for my nightly 30-60 minute cruise in "Old Henry" all of my driving has been with and for others, including driving my 10 kids to all 48 contiguous states, driving 13 members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Salt Lake City in my van for 6+ years, and recent road trips in Old Henry with the "Queen Mothers" in the back seat. Neighbor guys had told of the one man motorcycle road trips they'd taken and I wondered if I might like it. So, I gave it a whirl - 859 miles to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks in three days starting Monday, Memorial Day. This is the story in pictures. (Please pardon some wide ones but the landscape panorama shots just didn't seem right at 800 wide.) There are 8 photos with Pepe in them. Can you find them all?

Here is Pepe, Old Henry, and me starting out.



Nothing of much consequence until we reached Afton, Wyoming with its famous Antler Arch.



In Afton I spent about 30 minutes on my one and only repair - getting the window in my door back in its channel so I could roll it up and down.



Next stop was Jackson Hole, Wyoming where we stayed for the night. This is just one of 4 antler arches at each corner of the town square. You may have guessed that Gaston, the villain in Beauty and the Beast was from Wyoming as he sang, "I use antlers in all of my decorating." (No, the girl wasn't with me. As I said, I was alone, except for Pepe.)



Next morning we headed for Grand Teton National Park.


There's a great little one way drive along my favorite lake - Jenny Lake.



One of the things I love about Jenny Lake is that it goes right up to the base of the Tetons.



Although Pepe had his nice big soft bed on the seat right next to me he much preferred riding right on top of me which I didn't mind a bit.



North of Jenny Lake is the huge Jackson Lake still in the Teton park.


Then we were into Yellowstone park.

I'm afraid I didn't get out at Old Faithful geyser to wait for it to blow. It's not as faithful as it used to be. But, in the parking lot I saw something that was way more interesting to me - a Stallion three wheel motorcycle that I'd never seen before.



I think we crossed the continental divide 4 or 5 times driving through the park.


Had to take at least one picture of Old Henry by some steaming ground since that's what the park is most famous for.


"Oh, Give Me a Home, Where the . . ." you know the rest. Except, these critters that are most often called buffalo are not buffalo, they are bison. Buffalo are those critters that wander the serengeti of the African plains.


A road carved out of the cliff above the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.



The east side of Yellowstone is very different from the west side - beautiful green flowing hills rather than dense forests.


Last time I was in Yellowstone was at the end of the biggest forest fire they ever had in 1988. In 24 years since most of the burned out areas have new trees that have grown up from the ashes about 8-12 feet tall. Pretty cool to see the natural regeneration of the forest.



The east side of the park got up higher and had much more snow still on the ground.



The Yellowstone River meandering its way away from Yellowstone Lake.


It was funny that so many places along the road people were stopped and bunched together in groups with their spotting scopes, huge binoculars, and cameras with lenses a couple of feet long trying to get a glimpse of the wild life such as this elk that was just in one parking lot where we were about the only ones to see it 15 feet out the window. (I think the elk was surprised to see Pepe that looked pretty much like the elk but much smaller. See the resemblance?)


Got back to the motel in Jackson Hole late Tuesday night after 13 hours of driving through the parks. Next day headed home but not without stopping at this amazing place.

You 1939 fans will love this. This is diner number 1107 built by the Jerry O’Mahony Co. of Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1939. It then went to the 1939 New York world's fair and thereafter spent 14 years in Fall River, Mass. (Anyone in Fall River remember Al McDermott's diner with the moniker "Justly Famous since 1939"?) It was then bought by Tommy Borodemus and moved to Middletown, RI where he operated it as "Tommy's Deluxe Diner" until 2006 (any RI reds remember it?) when it was moved to the little town of Oakley, UT, pop. 948, an hour from my house. It has been fully restored and re-named the "Road Island Diner" in honor of its journey from there across the country to Oakley. It really took me back today for my first visit there and I will return again with a load of folks in my car and hopefully some others. (Read more here: http://www.roadislanddiner.com/history.html)



Well, so, my take on the trip:
It was extrodinarily relaxing (except for the 30 minutes I chased Pepe all around Mammoth Hot Springs trying to get him back in the car while the car sat idling with the door open on the side of the road ). It was so wonderful to just do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it without worrying about how everyone else in the group felt about it. I could live off of bags of Turtles candy and salted cashews if I wanted to and go to bed when I wanted and sleep as long as I wanted.

All in all, I'm pretty sure that when my wife leaves again for "family duties" I will definitely do this again.

P.S. One strange thing about this whole trip - of the hundreds if not thousands of cars I saw on the trip I never saw one single classic car anywhere, on the road or off. Maybe I'm just too weird to be doing this sort of thing. Doesn't matter, I'm doing it again.

Prior road trips:

Death Valley in February 2012: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62705

Pike's Peak in July 2011: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19141

Route 66 in April 2010: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57511