Day 13

 June 29 (Grand Teton National Park, WY)

After breaking down the rest of camp and saying goodbye to this beautiful place (and looking one more time up the adjacent mountain for one of the tardy mountain sheep)...

we headed into the town of Custer for breakfast. This was just our third meal on the road, and it was perfect! We ate at a tiny coffee/breakfast drive-thru called the Miner's Cup - as we travelled further westward, we found that these small drive-thru coffee spots were everywhere. Happily, most of them were local businesses (not many corporate coffee joints).

Today's drive was 450 miles, and it was seamless. The kids were great once again, digging into their Playaways and absorbing the beautiful landscapes we moved through (and occasionally falling asleep).

It is comforting seeing them getting used to these long drives, because we have a bunch more on the way home back east. Preparing for the drive last night, Cassandra and I reflect on how we planned each leg based on a camperless-drive (where we would move with more speed and efficiency) and how much longer (and tougher) it is pulling a camper along.  We obviously aren't going to readjust our schedule for the rest of this trip, but this will be useful knowledge to keep in our minds as we plan future trips (which are presenting themselves all over the place through these first two weeks: circum-northeast; Great Lakes region; Lewis and Clark trail, to name a few...). 

We arrived at Grand Teton National Park around 7:30pm, made a simple dinner, then spent the evening eating smores (and marshmallows) and chatting around the campfire when Brad arrived around 8:30. It felt pretty surreal hanging out around the campfire so comfortably and casually with Brad a halfway across the United States! 

Through the planning on this trip, I was curious where we would intersect with Brad (because we never planned that far - I shared our itinerary and played it by ear): what a beautiful place for us to meet! He shared some highlights from his own cross-country (and back) journey, and a bit about Donner Memorial State Park (CA) and Farewell Bend State Park (OR), two places we will be visiting on our way west and back. This was when I learned about the Donner party... Brad mentioned that our campfire was his first through his trip and that it was nice finding some home-style comforts at this point of his journey. That warmed my heart in the spirit of friendship and fellowship, for it affirmed Cassandra and my efforts so far on this trip.

Now, we get to settle in to our first extended stay of our journey.

This was a good day.

But a little more on Grand Teton: on June 13, Yellowstone National Park was closed due to a one-in-five-hundred year flooding event that occurred along the Yellowstone River. When we planned this trip, we chose to camp in Grand Teton National Park for the proximity to Yellowstone per advise from Big Meadows (Shenandoah) neighbors and friends Dana and Billie summer 2021. We intended to visit Yellowstone at least two days and would determine when and where as we got closer to our arrival. However, upon learning about the flooding and closure of Yellowstone, Cassandra and I decided to focus our attention entirely on Grand Teton and leave the uncertainty of Yellowstone to other time. Admittedly, it was disappointing to cut out one of our focal points of the trip - Grand Teton was our gateway to Yellowstone - so as we approached Grant Teton, we kept our ear to what was happening in Yellowstone just in case we decided to get back at it. Upon our arrival on June 29, the southern loop of Yellowstone was reopened, but the park was implementing restricted entry to the park based on license plate numbers. We presumed there would be major traffic, long lines, and understandable-disorder in the park and surrounding areas. Couple that with the graceful beauty of the Teton mountain peaks, we recommitted ourselves entirely to our present location.