During our time in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national park, we found a couchsurfer named Bruce. When we arrived (it was finally a bit cooler, only roundabout 30°C), it seemed there was no one at home, until he opened the door being on the way back to work. Bruce is 66 years old and to make a long story short: he is working way too much. He doesn’t only work in a hospital and has his own doctor’s office, but he also does office work until late in the evening. Before Bruce went again to work, he showed us around his house and our sleeping spot. His house is just awesome, you feel like in a mixture of an art museum, an antiquities shop and a small witch house. As we knew before, we could sleep in a tent in his garden, but we didn’t know that it was such a big and comfortable tent including a bed, chair and books. When Bruce was gone and we carried our stuff into the tent, we got to know Susan, Bruce’s girlfriend. We chatted about our travels and mainly about New Zealand, as her son is staying for one year in New Zealand. We also told her that we plan to go to the east coast and once she heard that Washington D.C. is on our route, she directly contacted her brother who lives there and asked him if he could host us there. Of course he agreed! Americans are just cool!
After a first night in the tent we drove to Grand Teton National Park the next morning, which is one of the most interesting ones in terms of landscapes in America. Basically the park includes some mountains, glaciers and glacier lakes in addition to forests which are habitat for antelopes, deers, moose, elks, wolfs and black and grizzly bears. We walked a bit along Jenny Lake in order to reach the “Hidden Falls” and Inspiration Point which offers nice views over the park. Additionally, we drove to String Lake for a swim and wildlife viewing in the evening. Unfortunately “just” moose, elks and antelopes, but no bears even though there are tons of signs “Bears with cubs crossing” in the park. Somehow we didn’t get the picture of bears with tea cups walking along the street out of our heads 🙂
Once back at home, we talked with Susan and Bruce in addition to a few other guests who were staying that night and took off to Yellowstone the next day. Unfortunately, we totally underestimated the distances, that is to say the driving time. It’s only 50 miles from Bruce to the entrance of Yellowstone, but there is so much traffic that it took 1 ½ hours. Additionally, Yellowstone is different to the other national parks, where you get around quite easy once you are inside. Not so Yellowstone. It is so huge, that one easily drives 30 miles from one attraction to another and because there are speed limits, camping busses, animals and daydreamers on the road it can easily take an hour to get there. Therefore, we basically spent the next three days in the car, without having enough time to actually get away from the main tourist paths. On the other hand, Yellowstone has a lot to offer. Not only the very famous geysers (first of all Old Faithful), but also hot pools, mud pools, fumaroles and even a grand canyon (you will find everything on the pictures). Really impressive, how much geothermal activities are going on there and also the canyon is just beautiful with different colors and water falls. Beside the Grand Canyon, the Prismatic Spring was another highlight for us. It’s a hot pool which glimmers blue and also has a lot of different colours to offer! We couldn’t resist climbing up a little hill in order to see it from a higher point of view, which was definitely worth doing. For everyone who might be in Yellowstone one day: Walk along the pool until you find a sign “do not enter”. That’s where you have to climb up 🙂 Another funny location are the mud pools, which were not too interesting compared to the ones in New Zealand, but funny enough some bisons like it there why we could observe them from very close. Another bison was walking with its calf along a street in the park, fortunately not in our direction, and caused a queue of at least a mile. Too funny!
If you plan to go there, just be careful where you’re going to stay, as it might be a longer way as you expect. On the other hand, that’s how we got accommodation in Washington D.C. why we definitely can’t complain about that!
Anyway, as we wanted to continue going north, we decided to leave Bruce‘s place one day earlier as previously planned in order to find a place to camp at the north side of the national park. Otherwise the drive north from Bruce to Glacier national park would have been too long! We told Bruce about our plan and not only that he understood our problem, he directly called a friend of his who lives north of the park, if she could host us for a night. How cool is that? That’s why we visited the Mammoth Hot Springs at our last day in the park and took a bath in a boiling river. Yes you heard right. There is a river, approximately 80°C hot, which runs into a river from a glacier. Where both meet, the water is between 20 and 50°C depending on where you place yourself. After that we drove to Marylin, around 30km outside the park.
She lives a bit off the road along a gravel road. The wooden house and the location could be a canvas. Unbelievable! The next house is maybe 500m apart and she occasionally meets wolfs, moose or bears in her garden! She and her husband own a wilderness tour guide company where one can book multi day tours through Yellowstone and other wild spots in America. We chatted with her in the evening and after a very relaxed breakfast in the morning we took off to Glacier National Park. Why we chose that? That’s another story…