Wyoming Bound

Lake Coeur d'Alene

My ultimate destination on this leg of the trip is Yellowstone National Park. However there's a whole lot of Washington, a bit of Idaho and a bunch of Montana between here and there. Central Washington, dry and a bit dull in most cases was quite hazy with several active wildfires burning. It didn't impact my travels, but it was impressive to see all the smoke in the air. I pretty much got through Washington as quickly as possible and really didn't make any significant stop till Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The huge beautiful lake and the continuing sunshine made for a great two-day paddle stop. This is a beautiful area and I'd love to come back and do some more paddling.

My well-traveled little boat

Continuing eastward, I rapidly passed through through the rest of Idaho and cut the corner of Montana on my way to the West Gate of Yellowstone. My good friends Craig and Karen from the Cape were here on vacation and I was looking forward to spending a couple of days with them before returning home. I was on a schedule now as I had promised to come in and sub for a day at Waterford. Yellowstone was amazing and I took lots of pictures. I had last visited the park some 15 or so years earlier on a winter ski trip so it was fun to see the place without snow on the ground. We did a couple of excellent day hikes and of course visited the prolific thermal features. After Iceland and Lassen, I felt like I was seeing the real stuff now. If I had been able to spend a couple more days I probably would have paid the eight dollars to get a permit to put my boat into the lake. Yellowstone is an incredible place, I hope it doesn't blow up soon...

The visit was too short and all too soon I was driving past the beautiful Tetons and heading back to SLC. Best September ever.