Day 34 & 35 – Good Bye Yellowstone; Hello Buffalo Bill

Today our plan was to visit the Norris Basin area and it geysers, the Yellowstone River and Canyon and visit the Fishing Bridge area before we exit the park at East Yellowstone. Jack & Jo joined us from the RV Park at our hotel for breakfast and then we all headed back into the park. Our first stop was Norris Basin to check out the geysers. There was a great view of the basin from the Museum. The Museum is the only building in the park with a breezeway. We took a walk to the view some of the geysers which were smelly (sulphur) and bubbling hot. The bookstore had the patches that Nan was looking for so it was a good stop. The new recruit rangers however looked like they were not ready for prime time.


The next stop was the south rim loop along the canyon. This was one of those areas where the views got better with each stop. The lower falls was spectacular as it fell in the deep canyon. We stopped at each viewing location and found the photo ops great. we did the same for the upper falls loop. We all walked down to the brink of the falls and it was again a must see.



The drive down to Fishing Bridge was loaded with Elk and Buffalo, actually lots of Buffalo. At one point I was leading and had to stop to make sure they weren’t going to move or charge the Model A. Fortunately they stayed put as I passed by….slowly!



At Fishing Bridge, Dick wanted to change his carburetor, while we got some lunch. This solved his idling problem. The drive by Yellowstone Lake was very picturesque. In fact the wind was blowing so hard waves were crashing on the beach. It was a long ride to the East Yellowstone exit but very scenic. We stopped for a photo op at the park exit, which was a little cloudy due to the control burn forest fire the park was conducting.



Once back on the road we stayed on US RT 20. In case you weren't aware, RT 20 is called the Yellowstone Highway and goes from Massachusetts thru Yellowstone and on to Oregon.http://www.yellowstonetrail.org/index.htm) We decided on staying in Cody, WY. We just cruised along as the road was pretty straight. We got a call from Jack that we might like to stop at the Buffalo Bill Dam, which we did. We got some good travel advice from the “Dam Guy” on duty at the visitor center. Leaving the Dam we noticed the tunnels through the rocks which impressive.

Cody is a town founded by William F (Buffalo Bill) Cody. He had the Irma Hotel built for tourists when they came by train to visit Yellowstone. The bar is a beautiful Cherry piece and the focal point of the hotel. The costumed players of Buffalo Bill, the Sheriff, the bad guy and the barmaid were all part of the fun. Oh, BTW, the food was good too.

Tomorrow we will visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center before heading east.

Day 32 & 33 - Yellowstone Experience

We really enjoyed our stay at the Glacier Park Lodge as it was an unexpected treat. We enjoyed a great breakfast buffet in the dining room before heading to the next stop on our itinerary, Yellowstone National Park. We made a decision that we were going to drive straight through to Yellowstone and we did. It was a longer day than we expected, but we made it. We were able to get rooms at the Days Inn in West Yellowstone and would be ready to enter the park in the morning.

The West Yellowstone park entrance was just down the street from the hotel. We showed our passes and headed off hoping we would see the wildlife we have always heard about. It wasn’t long before we pulled off the road to watch Elk grazing. No sooner had we pulled off the road when we saw Jack & Jo pulling into the turn out too. They got an early start from their visit to Glacier National Park yesterday and were able to join us as we toured Yellowstone. Our next stop was to an area where Buffalo were also grazing. Neither of these sightings was large, but they were hopefully representative of what we might see during our visit.







Of course Yellowstone is also famous for its geysers and we saw plenty of them, in all shapes and sizes. We did the typical tourist thing and took the small loops, one of which took us to White Dome Geyser. It looked pretty cool, with its tall cone spewing steam. We were just about ready to leave when it erupted.





The Model A’s gave lots of other visitors some Kodak moments while we visited as many of the geysers, pools and mud pots as we could. We eventually wound up at Old Faithful to see the famous geyser. Needless to say, the parking lot was very crowded, but we did find parking. The new gift shop was a hit with us as we all managed to find something to take home. We did make it to Old Faithful in time to watch the eruption which was deemed “short” by the Park Ranger. It still looked good to us. Dick was experiencing some skipping in the Woody, so the O’Briens went back to the hotel to fix the problem (it turned out to be a broken spark plug). We (Doug & Nan and Jack & Jo) wanted to visit Old Faithful Hotel which was really spectacular. I’m so glad it was spared during the 1988 forest fire. The structure of the hotel was really unique and the lobby is something you have to stand in to appreciate. The Hotel also had some unique items in the gift shop which some how managed to make it into our bags.

Leaving Old Faithful we followed the Lower Loop Road which was going to take us through an area where large amounts of Buffalo were reported. Not only were there buffalo, we also saw more elk and even a BEAR. Yes, a bear! Well, OK so it was a guy dressed in a bear suit. It turned out to be the funniest thing of the day, thanks to Chris Klingel, the ultimate Chicago Bear fan. We would have missed this performance if we hadn’t turned around to take some pictures of Elk on the side of the road.

We left Chris and his bear suit, still laughing, and we soon came upon a large heard of buffalo that were grazing and crossing the street. We had to wait for them to move. Nan was so busy taking pictures that she didn’t see the two buffalo that were right beside her door. Hello! But please go away. Park Rangers soon came to get them moving off the road by using their cruisers PA to make clicking noises that got them moving. We ran into two more of these large herds that caused the same traffic jam. Fortunately we were heading the opposite direction as the line of traffic was very, very long.

Buy the time we got back to West Yellowstone it was 7:30 PM and we met the O’Briens at the Montana Steak House. Tomorrow it would be back to Yellowstone for more sightseeing.

Day 31 - Road to the Sun

We left Pincher Creek heading south towards the US border and Glacier National Park. The weather was over cast with some light showers as we were driving. What a bummer as we sure would like sunny weather for visiting the park. We arrived in time to see a video on the park. Of course the highlight of this park is the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This is listed as one of the most beautiful roads in the world and was high on our list of activities on our trip.

Let me say right off that if you are in this area you MUST drive this road or take a ride in one of the cool looking park tour buses that will let you take all the pictures you want without having to worry about driving. The mountains are very large and ominous looking, so Dick was a little hesitant on taking the Model A’s over the top. I assured him the drive wouldn’t be any trouble for them. The other nice surprise was that the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day.

At first I was a little concerned the speed limit was 45 MPH, that turned out not to be a problem at all as the actual speed was less than that and there were so many turn outs for pictures. Our first turn out was a good one as when we parked everyone was taking pictures of a bear walking down by the water’s edge. Nan and Dick had cameras out and were snapping away. Fortunately the bear was at the bottom of very rocky cliff from our parking spot. In addition Edsel made friends with Nomad the Gnome from Minnesota. What a special day for them.


Our Model A’s were also a hit as every where we stopped people gathered around to take pictures. The reason we stopped so much was the scenery. Every turn revealed a new spectacular site. The only down side was there was considerable road work underway and the Model A’s got pretty dirty, on the other hand traffic moved slowly so we weren’t a hindrance to traffic flow. The Model A’s made it up and over Logan Pass (6646 ft) without any problems. It was all down hill from there on, now we just had to hope the brakes worked. They did.

I can’t tell you how many pictures Nan took, but it must have been a lot as I don’t think the camera was ever out of her hand. We did talk to Jack & Jo. It seems they were in the visitor center just after we headed out on the Road. Since larger RVs can’t do the road, they were going to take the classic bus ride the next day. We finished up the drive by having lunch at the Lake MacDonald Jammin Joe Cafe. We also decided to check out the very impressive lodge. We couldn't help taking a walk around and through the place. We even parked the Model A's in front for a picture. Those classic lodges are nice, too bad they get booked up so far in advance.





Leaving the park the first thing we needed was ice cream which we found at West Glacier entrance. Umm, that was good. Leaving West Glacier I headed east towards East Glacier. Later, talking with Dick, I realized that he was trying to get me to go a different direction, but his CB was not working. Our change in plans to do Yellowstone on the way home had me mixed up on routes on how we would head to Yellowstone. We did arrive in East Glacier and the selection of places to stay was slim. Dick suggested we try the historic Glacier Park Lodge. I was not hopeful as these places fill up long in advance. Well, guess what, they had two rooms and we were home for the night. What a surprise. These old hotels were built at a time when only the rich could afford to stay here. It was a a beautiful place.

What an ending to a spectacular day of Model A’ing.

Day 30 – Roaming Roadblocks

We left Golden, BC with the intentions of getting as close to Glacier National Park as we could. We were in the mountains and I have to tell you that it was pretty chilly the first thing in the morning. We continued on Hwy 1 and we hadn’t been on the road long when Dick called over the CB that he saw a bear. So we did a quick U-Turn (no penalty for this one) and returned to catch some pictures of Bear #9 (we found that out later) munching on berries on the side of the road. What a special treat to see.

The mountains that surrounded us were just amazing. We were in awe of them as they are so different than the mountains back east. We left Banff and took Hwy 40 south toward the US border. This road paralleled the mountains. We weren’t on this road long before we started to see sheep (or goats, we weren’t sure.) The further we went the more we saw and eventually they started blocking the road. These guys were a little skittish and you had to be careful and watch their actions. This scenario played out a number of times. We stopped again at a rocky area and there were two large Big Horn Sheep keeping an eye on us. We learned that the ones we had been seeing were females and their young. What a sight.

We stopped in the little town of Longview for, what else, ice cream. While we were there we met an elderly gentleman named Loren Fuller, who had restored a number of Fords, including the 1928 Tudor he had while he was in high school. He had pictures of the other cars he had which had been modified with V8s and modern drive train. As Nan said, with the long distances between towns up here and the straight roads, it was probably a necessity. Leaving Longview, we headed straight to Pincher Creek for our overnight.

Day 29 - Bumps in the Road

The first thing Dick did in the morning was to check the repair and the J-B Weld looked great. Jack & Jo returned in the motorhome which gave Jack a chance to do some tinkering with the Model A again. While they were putting the radiator together I needed to replace my inverter for the CB. Of course, I needed a few items so Jack and I went to Home Depot and got what we needed. With all our projects fixed we finally got on the road at 10 AM.

The drive was pretty smooth and we were making good time. We were cruising along when I spotted a sign for an Auto Museum so we pulled in for a visit. The front collection focused on 57 Chevys and the main area had 3 Model A’s along with a good variety of other makes. An area of parts was fun to poke through and the outside lot was full of unrestored beauties waiting for the right person to come along who needed a project.

We continued our ride east and soaked in the scenery, it was really a sight to see. We went through what looked like avalanche tunnels. I guess this area does get lots of snow.

Our route took us along the shore of Shuswap Lake which was not only very large but very picturesque. Things were looking good until someone pulled out in front of me and I had to hit the brakes and swerve, unfortunately I hit a hole at the same time. The car seemed to pull to the left after that so Dick, Jack & I checked the steering and brakes. The only thing that appeared to wrong was the left brake was tighter that the right. We did some adjustments and there was no more pulling so off we went.

We stopped for the night in Golden, BC after going over Rogers Pass and crossing the time zone. The scenery all day was really very impressive and we are looking forward to getting to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.

Day 28 - On the Road Again...almost

Back on terra-firma again. The cruise was nice, but it was good to be back and return to the Model A’s. I’m still trying to figure out how come we had so many bags coming off the ship? Oh well, they did all fit in the Model A. We (Lindens, O’Briens, and Jack & Jo, in the motorhome) left the Cruisepark and headed towards Hope, BC. The drive was pretty easy, with few hills so it was an easy drive for the Model A’s. The only concern was the heat, as the area was having an unseasonably hot day. We left Hope after lunch and set our sites on Kamloops for our over night stop.

Things were going along pretty well, but as we headed east the hills turned into some serious grades which saw the temperature gauges rise. About three quarters of the way up the first grade Dick pulled over and had to add water, after that we continued onward and upward. The further east we went, the more the temperature rose. So it was no surprise that Dick had to stop three more times to add water. We were adding water the third time when we saw water coming out between the top tank and the shell. Only now Jack was able to see daylight at the tank neck. No wonder the Woody was losing water, as soon as it heated up it just flowed out the neck.

It was late Saturday (4:45 PM) when we got to Kamloops and the radiator shop was closed. Jack and I thought that J-B Weld would fix the problem so we all went to Canadian Tire to get our supplies. With the shell off we cleaned the neck inside and out and did the repair with J-B Weld. It looked real good after we finished. We all went to dinner and let the repair set overnight just to make sure the repair was fully cured. We would finish the repair tomorrow morning before heading off to the Canadian Rockies.