The next three days marked the 1,600km trek across the plains from Denver to Chicago, which turned out to be surprisingly easy with the four-lane highways all the way through. I left early to try to avoid Denver traffic, and mostly succeeded, there wasn't a lot of slow traffic. I was already on the east of Denver, so I didn’t need to go near the CBD to get on my way. I took a route that led to I-70 rather than the I-76 further north that I would need to end up on, to avoid tolls, and to add some interest to the trip, which didn’t promise to have a lot to see that day.

I left before having breakfast to save time, and drove a while on I-70 before stopping in a small town called Bennett. I found a park with a parking lot next to a playground where I made some breakfast. There were a few people exercising, and after I’d eaten, I found, unusually for the US, a public toilet. From there I took some smaller roads up to I-76.

The territory was fairly flat with low rolling hills, and looked rather dry, a huge contrast from the mountains to the west of Denver, rather like the change in Alberta as you come down from the mountains. Most of Alberta, and the neighbouring provinces to the west seem to be part of this large plain that covers what’s called the US midwest as well. There were corn fields everywhere.

My first stop, at about 9.30, was Jackson Lake State Park, which was about 10km off the highway. I didn’t realise it was so far out of my way, or I might not have bothered going there. There was a campground there, next to the lake. I saw what I think were probably turkeys by the side of the road. It was quite still, and I think fairly warm too. The lake was large, though not especially interesting – I was spoiled after the mountain lakes! There seemed to be mosquitoes around.

I continued along the I-76 at 75mph, which eventually joined with I-80, which I would stay on for a very long way. It was very nice travelling long distances on the four-lane interstates. There were quite a few cars on the road, but generally it was easy driving, the main decisions to be made being when to pull out into the fast lane to pass the next truck. It was great not to have to wait for passing lanes or work out if it was safe to pass things.

I stopped for fuel at a little place called Brule, which had a service station just off the highway. Many of these places had their fuel prices on huge high poles visible from a fair way away on the highway, to lure people to take the exit and get fuel. Everywhere, petrol (gas) prices were in red, and diesel, if they sold it, was in green. Each exit had signs showing what services were available at that exit, including fuel, but you had to be careful, because some exits showed fuel available, but you had to drive for a while to get to the service station, so I looked out for those high poles right on the exit from the highway, so I could get fuel and keep going quickly. Later on I spoke to someone else who also had the same strategy!

About four hours drive from Jackson Lake was Lake McConaughy, not far off the highway. Like Jackson Lake, this also appeared to be a reservoir, with a big intake tower. It was pretty warm, and there were quite a few flies about, something which I hadn’t really noticed in the US before. I had lunch there, and while I was parked, a couple of police motor bikes came, and the police looked around and eventually left again. I’m not sure what they were looking for. Quite a few flies had got into the van while I was making and eating lunch, and it took me a few days to fully get rid of them. The view over the lake was nice, and I explored along the shore of the lake a little.

My destination that for that evening had been the cousin of the person who had the B&B in San Luis Obispo. When I had spoken to her while booking the room, she had been very friendly, and said her cousin lived in Nebraska, not far from where I would be driving. She later confirmed he was happy to have me stay there. I was a little hesitant about it, not knowing her or her cousin, but thought I could probably sleep outside in the van. I thought I would get to know her better while staying at the B&B, and get contact details for her cousin – I had his address but nothing else.

Since I wasn’t able to contact her, for unknown reasons, I didn’t feel good about just turning up to her cousin’s place, without even being able to get in touch first. So in the end I emailed her a note a couple of days before, thanking her for the offer, but saying it was a long drive to his place (which it was, I think it would have made for a pretty long day to get there), and politely declining the offer. I never got a reply to that either, and I don’t know if she even got it.

Earlier in the trip, after it seemed likely that I wouldn’t hear from her, I had been looking at places to stay along the route. There seemed to be a lot of them that were right on the interstate. I don’t know why they would do that. Also there were none that you could book ahead, that I found. But I rang one, Firefly Meadows RV Park, where the person I spoke to was pretty sure there would be no problem getting a spot on the day. I also had another place which looked promising as a backup.

I rang during the day I was travelling there, and was able to reserve a spot. I got there well before dark, and settled in. The lady there was nice, and I paid $50 to stay. There were both units and an RV park section. It was quite close to the highway, just off one of the exits, and you could hear all the traffic, and also as it got dark, there were bright lights on the intersection where that exit was, which lit the park quite a bit. Within a couple of minutes walk from the park was a service station which also had a Subway in it.

It was unusual for me to find a campground with any kind of store nearby, so I though it would be nice to have something other than tinned food for dinner for a change. I went over to the Subway, and found that they weren’t operating because their hot water heater was broken! That was a bit of a disappointment, what were the odds! Anyway I got a couple of cakes, and also a Twinkies bar, which I’d read about. Someone said they have no expiry date, though the one I bought did seem to have one. I had my usual tinned dinner, and settled down for bed. I wasn’t bothered by the traffic noise. It was actually rather restful, and the van was pretty good to block out a lot of noise. With the usual help of the noise generation app on my phone, I slept pretty well.

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It was another beautiful sunny day, the day when I had arranged to meet Shannon and her husband Bob. She had asked earlier what I’d like to do when we met up, and I wasn’t sure – I didn’t know if I’d be up for a hike after all the hiking I’d planned, but then she suggested they drive me to the top of Pike's Peak, which was 14,000 feet (4,300m), and that sounded like a pretty good idea. It would take a while to drive there and back, and so the idea was that it would be good to arrive at their place not too late.

I found a good sounding church not far from them, Redemption Parker, a non-denominational church which had a service at 9.30am. I drove out of the park, and explained at the gate that I’d wanted to get a pass for two days, but was directed to a closed park office, and offered to pay for two days then. But the person there just charged me for Sunday. Probably fair enough to get Saturday free given the run-around I’d had.

It was about 25 minutes drive from the park down to Parker, towards the far south of the Denver suburbs. The church met in a quite large cultural centre, with an impressive front. It was a good sermon and worship service. During the service, while the preacher was delivering the sermon, some deer came by the back window! I was met on the way out, I think by one of the people who was greeting people coming in for the next service, which was somewhere around 11.

From there it was only about 10 minutes drive to their place, which was in a new development. They could see out onto unbuilt land, which was nice. They came out and met me, and it was great to see them in person for the first time.

I got my things and we went off in their car pretty much right away. The trip to the peak was around an hour and three quarters. They were at the right end of the city to just keep going south to get to Pike’s Peak. We drove a good way on I-25, a 75mph four-lane interstate, till we got to Colorado Springs, then drove out to the road to the mountain. It was so popular that it was necessary to get a timed entry pass, but they had been able to get hold of one, so we went on through the entry gates, and up a steep winding road for around half an hour.

When we got to the top there was a bit of a line-up waiting for parking spots, which seemed strange since they had already implemented timed entry passes, presumably to stop running out of parking, but I guess they didn’t know how long people would stay around. We waited for our turn to get a parking spot, then got out and looked around. It was interesting being so high up, just walking around I felt a bit out of breath. There were a lot of people there, and a path going all around the summit, with a large visitor centre and the parking lot in the middle. There was snow on the ground beyond the pathways.

Apparently inside the visitor centre they sold donuts which were really nice, but we couldn’t get into the centre, as all the doors were locked. We found out from someone that there had just been an evacuation because of some kind of gas leak scare, and they had locked the building. Shannon greeted some people who had just hiked to the top (we took the easy way!), and broke the bad news to them. Shannon took some photos of me, and Bob took a couple of Shannon and me. Shannon offered a few groups to take their photos too.

There were sweeping views all around. It seemed amazing you could just drive to the top of a "14-er"!

We set off down again after a while. The descent was very steep, with a low speed limit, and even in first gear Shannon had to use the brakes a lot. Part way down the descent, at Glen Cove, there was a kiosk where people were checking the temperature of each vehicle’s brakes, and telling them to stop and let them cool down if needed. Shannon’s brakes were fairly hot, and they told us to park for 10 minutes before going on. We decided to stop for the facilities and have a late lunch there, which we'd had to postpone since the visitor centre was closed, and it was getting on for 3. There was quite a nice little cafe there, and we waited about 15 minutes for them to prepare our lunch, then ate it there.

Further down, we stopped by the picturesque Crystal Reservoir, with some lovely autumn trees and the mountains in the distance. From there we drove back to their place. As we were getting close, Shannon pointed out little animals, I think they were prairie dogs along the side of the road. I couldn’t see them at first, but as I looked out, I started spotting them.

We parted, and I drove back to Cherry Creek. My usual Bible study started at 6.30, and arrived back a bit before that, so I parked at a spot overlooking the reservoir and had a bit of a walk around there, then drove back to my campsite to have the Bible study – I was keen not to have to find the spot in the dark again!

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I awoke and made breakfast, witnessing a beautiful scene with the sun starting to come onto the mountains. It was still pretty chilly.

I drove back to the highway and headed north, destination Rocky Mountain National Park. I went through a fair sized place called Leadville, where I got fuel. From there it was about a two hour drive to the park entrance, going up and over another pass, by Copper Mountain, another ski resort, briefly back onto I-70, with a long climb up and over another range, then through some little towns, and by the large Lake Granby before getting to the town of Grand Lake.

The town was next to two lakes, Shadow Mountain Lake, which the road went by, and Grand Lake itself. As with many lakes, a lot of the lake shore had houses along it, which would have had lovely views. It was pretty just from the road too.

The National Park entrance was just out of Grand Lake, and I arrived about 11, and as I recall it didn’t take long to get through. They checked my timed entry pass, which allowed me to enter between 10 and 12, and off I went. My pass also covered the Bear Lake area, which was part of the park, but apparently so popular that you had to explicitly get a pass for that area. You could get a pass without that area, perhaps there were more limited numbers of people allowed in there. I wasn’t sure if I also had to get to Bear Lake by 12, and along the way I asked another visitor who also had a Bear Lake pass, who said that you could enter Bear Lake any time. So I didn’t rush my trip to Bear Lake, which was probably a good thing, but it turned out this advice was wrong!

The road was quite windy in some places, as it got up to nearly 12,000 feet again. In some places there was still ice along the sides of the roads, and I think the temperature outside was around one or two degrees. I stopped for the views at a few places, and went for a short walk at a spot that was near the highest point of the road. This was cold and extremely windy!

Everyone was rugged up, fighting against the wind on the walk to the summit. It was only about 15 minutes. There were some large rocks at the top which you could climb up, but you had to be very careful with balance, with the gusting wind!

I got to the entrance to the Bear Lake road, about 1pm, and there found out that I had needed to be there by 12. Thankfully after 2pm if you had the pass to go in, you could enter, even if it wasn’t your time slot. So I turned back a little way to Beaver Meadows to make some lunch, along what turned out to be a pretty awful dirt road, so I found a car park close to the entrance. You couldn’t walk in the meadows, but it was a nice view, and the day had turned out beautifully sunny again.

I arrived back at the entry gate as close to 2pm as I could manage, thinking there might be a line up of other people wanting to get in. There were in fact a few cars queued up already when I got there a couple of minutes after 2, so I think that was indeed the case, but I got through fairly quickly thankfully. The road went to a car park part way along, which had signs saying that the car park at the end, by Bear Lake, was full, and to take the shuttle bus. So I hopped on one, which I think was waiting there, and was the only passenger! No one else turned up, so I had a nice chat with the driver as he drove there. There was in fact space in the end car park, and he said that they never take the signs down!

Bear Lake was pretty, with pine trees around it, and some autumn colour here and there, probably aspens. It was at 9,500 feet, and again I had a hike to 10,000 feet, a similar hike to the one the previous day, also through some beautiful autumn colour, and mountain scenes. It took about three quarters of an hour to get to the destination, Emerald Lake.

On the way, I passed Nymph Lake, a little one with water lilies on it, then Dream Lake, with a beautiful blue-green glacier colour, and mountains in the background, then on to Emerald Lake itself.

I arrived just in time to see the sun still on it, showing its emerald colour, before the sun sank behind the mountains that surrounded it. It was a fairly small lake, in a kind of crater, and I climbed a fair way up a rocky incline to get a look at it from above.

After hiking back, and catching the return shuttle bus, it was time to get to my campground for the night, in Denver, about two hours drive away.

The route went through Estes Park, and then down a one-lane-each-way road with quite a lot of traffic on it, and some line-ups when slow vehicles were in front. From there I think I went through the city of Boulder, then onto more major highways through Denver to Cherry Creek State park, a bit south of the CBD, to the East entrance, with its own intersection on the four-lane highway going by it. I knew I needed a parks pass as well as having paid for camping, so when I came to the entrance gate, I asked the person there if I could pay for a two-day pass. He said I should try the camping office.

I arrived near sunset, maybe around 6.45pm, and I was keen to get to the campground before dark, as it gets harder to find things, and to back the van in, if it’s a narrow spot. So I set off to find the office, using oogle to find the park office, and did eventually get there – the park is huge – and found it had closed a couple of hours ago! I ended up in some parking area where I had to get out and remove a traffic cone to get out again, and then set off in search of the campground, which I also had trouble finding, while I got increasingly frustrated as the light faded.

I did eventually find the campground, then I set about trying to find my site. There were a number of different loops, each for a range of camp sites, but nowhere could I find a loop with my site on it, 150. None of them went up as high as that. I finally found a camp host caravan, and thank the Lord was able to rustle up the camp host, though it was probably after 7 by then. She tried to explain to me where the site was, but I couldn’t work it out from her directions, and so far as I could see, I had explored each loop.

So she very kindly got dressed for going outside and came and walked over to the loop to show me where it was – it was quite close to where I was as it turned out, but in a different direction I hadn’t tried. It was a bit of a maze. The camp host for that area was there to show me the site, so thankfully I finally parked in the pull-through spot for my van. I was relieved to finally be there! It was all fairly open, as was sometimes the case with places that had pull-through sites. As usual, I set off to find the facilities. I found that the toilet block nearest to my camping area was out of order, so had to use the one about 5 minutes walk away. I attached my very handy little magnetic camping light onto the side of the van to help me find it in the dark when I came back.

The facilities I ended up using seemed to be the main ones, and were pretty good. Some reviewers had mentioned hearing sirens, and there were highways running along two sides of the park, but I had picked a site that looked to be further away from the roads, and I don’t remember hearing much noise. I made dinner and settled down for the night, it had been a big day.

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I left Rifle Falls a bit before seven, about 10 minutes later than I had planned. I had timed bookings for two things that day, and needed to make sure I made them on time. Both these hikes were very popular, and required booking a particular time window to get there. First up was the Hanging Lake hike near Glenwood Springs, about an hour’s drive away. My friend Shannon who lives in Colorado said, if you see one thing see this, so I made sure I did!

It was just before sunrise when I set out. There was no mobile coverage in the park, so I couldn’t set up Google maps. I thought from memory that I needed to continue further along the road that I was on, so I set off, but after a few minutes it became clear this wasn’t it, it turned into a dirt road or hit a dead end or something. So then I rushed back, well aware of the time ticking. It turned out I needed to go back a bit, then turn off, but without Google I'm pretty sure I ended up going the long way around, back through Rifle and along the I-70 to Glenwood Springs, then to the trailhead.

It was an interesting drive, following the Colorado River again, ending up going through a bit of a canyon, then the trail parking lot actually had its own exit off the highway, going under the highway. Oddly you could only get back onto the other side of the highway, not the same side, though this suited me, as I was wanting to go back to another highway afterwards. The Colorado River was right next to the parking area. They checked my pass, and I parked and started up the trail.

I was running a bit later than I’d planned, so I hot footed it up the hike. It was quite a steep climb to the lake, and took me about 45 minutes pushing pretty hard, which was significantly less time than AllTrails had suggested. The hike was up through an impressive narrow canyon, with great views of it as you gained altitude. There were falls near the top, then I came out to the lake itself. It’s called Hanging Lake because the lake is perched on the edge of the cliff face.

The lake was pretty, with some small waterfalls running into it, and reflections of the impressive cliffs of higher parts of the canyon walls above it. When I got there, around 9am, the sun was shining on the canyon walls, but not on the lake itself yet. There weren’t a lot of people around, which was nice. I stayed there a little while, then headed down again, in about half an hour, back to the river and parking lot.

Next up was the Maroon Bells hike. To get there, you had to catch a shuttle bus from a ski resort near the famous town of Aspen, called Aspen Highlands. The problem was that there was limited parking for the shuttle bus there. It wasn’t clear if the parking would accommodate the van, and also whether there would be parking spaces available when I got there. I found a number I could ring, and found out that the maximum length for a vehicle in the car park was something like 21 feet, and my van was 20 feet, so it would just fit! But there was some question as to whether there would be parking available.

I had found there was a shuttle bus going from the town of Aspen to this resort where you could then catch the other shuttle bus, and I thought that would be a safer plan. But when I asked about that, it turned out there was nowhere to park in Aspen to get this bus, and you would have to take a bus from another parking lot further out, to then get to Aspen, then bus #2 to the Highlands, then bus #3 to the start of the hike! This seemed like it would take forever, and I didn’t have a lot of time. I was considering scrapping the whole thing, but I decided to go to the Aspen Highlands car park (or “parking garage” as they call them in the US), and see if I could get a park for the Maroon Bells bus, and if not, do something else.

All this took a while on the phone, but I eventually set off. I couldn’t find this parking garage on Google Maps, so I drove to where I thought the resort was. I think because one of the URLs for the website that talked about the parking mentioned Snowmass, I ended up in Snowmass Village, from a turn-off on the highway, a bit before Aspen. It was a little drive to get to the village, with a detour because of roadworks, and I found myself on a road with a shopping centre, some villas, and a multi-storey car park. After going around and not finding anything else, I thought the car park must be where I needed to park.

So I went in, and this turned out to be a mistake! A 20’ van in a tight multi-storey car park was not a good thing. I was starting to think that this was not the place, and wondering what to do. I ended up driving into a dead-end, with the only option to back out, and trying to work out if I could ring someone to find out whether this really was the place. There was a phone nearby, but I wasn’t sure that it looked like a proper phone that would get me through to someone. Just then, what seemed like some kind of hidden door opened, and a car came out of it, and headed for me. I was blocking his exit, so I got out and went up to him to see if he could help me.

I think the Lord must have sent him just at that time, because he was very helpful. He told me that this wasn’t the place, and knew where the right parking lot was, and knew what to look for on Google to get me there. He told me I could back out and down a little way, and then turn to get out the exit. I was very thankful! I drove down the exit ramp, which had tight curves and was extremely narrow. I was nearly out, when I heard a horrible scraping noise – some part of the van had scraped against the concrete side of the tunnel! I wondered what on earth I’d done to the van.

I escaped from the parking lot, and drove out towards the other car park, which turned out to be in another little resort about 25 minutes drive away, back out and onto the highway, then in again to the other resort. I was pretty stressed, because it was getting nearer and nearer to when the shuttle bus would depart, and I think there were no second chances, if you missed it, that was it, unless there were any spots from people who hadn’t turned up on the next one. I was starting to wonder if I should even try to get to the other car park, and if it would be just as bad.

I went anyway, and when I got a chance, pulled over to inspect the damage. I couldn’t see anything. I figured in the end that I had scraped the corner of the running board, but that had already had a corner scraped off when I got it, so I just scraped it a bit more. I was very thankful the Lord had protected me! I got to the other resort, which was just by itself more or less I think, not in a town, and the car park had a big area that was in the open. The spaces were tight, but I found a spot with two empty spaces next to each other! I gratefully parked there, and headed quickly into the resort.

I found my way to the ticket place about 15 minutes before the bus left, and thankfully was able to get the ticket and be at the bus stop in time. In the back of my mind I was wondering how easy it would be to get out of the parking spot if someone parked next to me, but on I went anyway.

The bus wound up to a high lake, Maroon Lake, at about 9,500 feet. It was a beautiful sunny day, again, and there were some lovely views. There was a recorded commentary on the bus, and the guy was talking about the “14-ers”, mountains of 14,000 feet and above, that some people climbed. He strongly recommended not to do this unless you were experienced in doing that. I had asked Shannon about the idea of climbing one of these, and she had recommended against it, since I might get altitude sickness at that height, not being used to the elevation. The announcer said there was one 14-er that was easier to climb than others, if someone had to climb one. He said even he got part way up, until he discovered how much he liked oxygen!

The bus took around 25 minutes, and I got to the lake about 12.40. It was pretty, with mountains behind, and lush vegetation, with lovely aspen trees (from which the town was named I guess), bright yellow in their autumn hues. The mountains behind were called the Maroon Bells, because they had a bit of a maroon tinge to them. They were very majestic, with a bit of snow, and the colourful aspen trees growing up the lower slopes. The water level of the lake was down quite a lot. Apparently the reflections looked amazing when the water was still, but it was a bit windy. The water was a lovely glacier colour though, and it was all very pretty.

There were quite a few people around, but I was headed yet higher, to Crater Lake, elevation 10,000 feet. I was getting more used to hiking at those altitudes. I’d found I was getting a bit dizzy sometimes when I’d been hiking then stopped for a while, but if I forcibly breathed in and out fast, I was ok. I wasn’t sure if that was just my body not being used to heights. Perhaps it was heart related, since I did discover I had a very narrowed artery not long after I got back. But thank the Lord it was manageable while I was there. I was pretty pleased to be able to do a fairly strenuous hike from 9,500 feet to 10,000.

The hike took around 45 minutes, and was absolutely stunning, worth all the stress and trouble! It wound up through what looked like a birch forest, but I’m pretty sure it was aspen, which apparently looks quite like birch. It was wonderful walking through all the yellow foliage on this beautifully sunny day, with views of the majestic peaks, and the trees growing up the lower slopes in the distance. I came out onto the lake, which didn’t have a lot of water in it, but I was closer to the peaks I’d seen in the distance. I had thought of hiking further, but I still had a lot of driving to do before reaching my final destination of Twin Lakes for the day.

I’d brought a sandwich and drink for lunch, and had them there, enjoying the sunshine and the views. After hiking back down through the beauty, and having another look around the lower lake, I joined the line for a bus back. I was able to get on the next one that came along, and get back to the resort, and to the parking lot. Thank the Lord, the space next to me was still empty, so I was able to get out easily.

On I went, through the picturesque town of Aspen, and then up towards Independence Pass, one of the highest paved roads in the state, topping out at a bit over 12,000 feet. The road ran through beautiful countryside past Aspen, and I found a spot I could stop and go in and look at the foliage and a river going by.

I stopped a few times to admire the view of the valley below, getting further away as I climbed. The top of the pass was above the tree line, and just before getting to the top, I joined a line of cars that were stopped. I got chatting with the person in the car next to me while we waited. From questioning one or two people who had walked to the top and were coming back, we found out that there had been an accident at the top, it sounded like maybe it was a car hitting a cyclist. After a while we saw a helicopter come in and airlift someone out.

We were waiting for half an hour or so, then we got to go on, and wind down the other side. I made good use of the van’s gears to save the brakes. They worked very well going down hills in a lot of places, without much need to use the brakes, just changing up or down depending on the amount of slope. It seemed to have very good engine braking abilities. If I used the brakes too much, occasionally the van would enter some kind of special mode where it would change down gears automatically whenever I put on the brakes. Maybe it detected that the brakes were getting hot. It was pretty heavy-handed, so I worked the gears myself so I got to choose when to change gears.

The grasses above the tree line were changing colour as well, and made for a beautiful landscape. I wound my way through some hairpin bends, and at about 5.30 entered the tiny but beautiful town of Twin Lakes, also with a lot of wonderful yellow autumn foliage. It’s funny that some people in North America talked disparagingly of “just yellow” colours – they seemed to like the oranges and reds better, but coming from somewhere with very little colour, yellow was just fine too!

There was a little general store, and I went in there and found some interesting looking things that I could have as a snack or for breakfast. I got some $10 notes because I wasn’t sure if I would need to pay cash for staying in the Colorado parks. That was another state that charged both for camping, and also for entering the park. I walked a little way along a small track on the other side of the road from the store, then drove a bit further to a parking lot by the lake, which was a beautiful sight with the trees, and mountains behind it. The town was at an elevation of around 9,000 feet, making it the highest place I stayed, I think.

I drove a little further to see the second of the twin lakes, down a road owned by a power station, which people could drive on. They wanted money to park there, which I was only wanting to do briefly, and I moved on to another parking spot further on, to get more views of the lake. One of the mountains in the background had some snow on it. My campsite for the evening was one I had booked on HipCamp, a free camping site with pretty much no facilities. I had tossed up camping there, rather than somewhere a bit more civilised, but I couldn’t resist the idea of free camping out in the country with no neighbours.

I found my way to the place, following the instructions given by my host. It was on a flat area with no trees or bushes to speak of, just grassland, surrounded by mountains and hills on all sides, some closer, some further away. There were quite a few houses scattered distantly around, and the dirt track went by the tiny house of my host. She had told me she was away. She hadn’t mentioned exactly where to park, but since it was free camping, I assumed I could go anywhere in the area. There was a sign saying Private Property, which I assumed was hers. I found a spot off one of the tracks that was level and looked like a parking spot for a van or caravan, maybe half a mile from her hut, and proceeded to settle in, ready to cook dinner. I was catching up on the phone with someone in Australia while I was getting organised.

Then I noticed a ute driving up towards me, and a guy came out, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t unfriendly, and he made some comment about me being the last one or something, which I didn’t really understand. I said I was camping in Angie’s campground, and he said that her land was just by her house, and this was his land. I apologised, and he was very nice about it, and we chatted for a little, when he found out where I was from.

So I drove back and looked for somewhere near her house to park, and settled on a spot that looked like it would work. There was just a chemical toilet (not smelly like the pit ones), and no potable water. I knew that there was no water beforehand, and I had a big container of water with a spigot, that I’d filled up in Phoenix, as a backup for anywhere there wasn’t water. This was the first (and I think only) time I used it, but it came in very handy for filling my three water bottles, brushing my teeth, and cooking my porridge and tea in the morning.

It was I think around freezing, but unlike the other places where I’d been out and it was cold, there was a decent wind blowing too, which made a huge difference. Instead of just being a bit nippy, even with my big jacket, I was able to stand outside just long enough to heat up a tin, and then had to get into the van. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything colder! It was quite an experience to sleep out by myself in the mountains like that. Once in the van I wasn’t cold, with my thermals and sleeping bag.

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I left the RV park very early, around 6am. It was the only place I stayed that I didn’t see in daylight when I arrived or when I left. I didn’t take the time to eat breakfast – my plan was to bring some granola bars along on the first hike. They were quite nourishing, and worked well for snacks while hiking a few times. My first destination was Arches National Park, and particularly the parking lot right at the end of the main park road, an area called Devil’s Garden, where there was a four hour hike visiting quite a number of arches.

Arches National Park had implemented timed entry bookings, where you had to specify an actual time window when you would go in, and only a certain number of them were released. A few parks were doing this. This made quite a decent difference to the parking – though some places were still full, it wasn’t as ridiculously overcrowded as some other parks. If you got into this park before 7am you didn’t have to book. I also wanted to make sure there was parking at the parking lot, so I aimed to get there by about 6.20, which would have meant leaving about 5.30am, but I still got to the end parking lot before 7, leaving around 6. I had tried to book a site in the campground that was right at the end of the park, by the trailhead, but all sites had sold out in seconds when bookings were opened some months before.

Leaving the RV park I went through the maze of streets again back to the main highway, retracing my steps a bit towards where I’d been, but then turning off just out of Moab. There didn’t seem to be anyone at the park gates at that hour, so I went straight through. There were quite a few other cars coming in, even at 6am. The road wound steeply up the side of a hill, then levelled out a bit after that. It slowly got light as I drove through the park, and when I arrived at the car park, there was still plenty of parking, and I packed my water, some granola bars and some fruit, and started on the hike.

The first arch, Landscape Arch, was only about 15 minutes walk in, and I arrived just as the sun was rising, which made for some good photos. The advice I’d read had been to take the trail clockwise, but I ended up mistakenly taking it anti-clockwise. It was called a primitive trail, and that was perhaps rather optimistic. I had taken the precaution of downloading the trail on the AllTrails app, so that I could follow along on the map to see where I was relative to the trail. Some parts of the trail were fairly easy to follow, but others involved scrambling up rock faces, with very little in the way of markings.

As hiked, I met a German couple who were stumped, they couldn’t find where the track went from where they were. Even with the app we struggled to find the trail. It turned out we needed to go up some bare rock, then do a hairpin bend on that rock, then head the other way, with no markers I could see to guide us. I don’t know how any of us would have found the track if not for the app. Going the other way would probably have been easier, perhaps that’s one reason they recommended going clockwise. We walked and talked for a while; it was nice to chat with them.

An hour of walking from Landscape Arch took me to Private Arch, on a bit of a spur track. Around here I met another family, who were very friendly, and we spoke for quite a while, and walked together for a while. It was so nice to chat with a few people on the trail. Everyone was friendly, and seemed not to be swearing or taking God’s name in vain.

While walking between the arches, there were sometimes great views over the surrounding area – not so much canyons here, as plains and hills in the distance, with interesting rock formations.

Off a bit of a walk from this arch was Dark Angel, which turned out to be a tall pillar of rock, but I thought it was another arch, and hiked close up to it. I could have just looked at it from a distance if I’d known it wasn’t an arch! Around there, going back to the main track, I got a bit lost, trying to take a short cut back to the main track. I ended up scrambling down some fairly steep rock faces, while looking at the GPS to work out how to get to the track. There were some quite large rock formations that made it hard to just make a beeline to where I needed to go.

From there it was on to Double-O Arch, which had two arches one above the other, and another half hour took me to a part of the track where there were two branches to see a couple more arches.

Partition Arch had one very large hole in a rock face, and a smaller one. There were quite a few people around by this time, and I couldn’t get a shot of the arches without someone in one of the holes, though I came close. Someone had decided to sit in one of the holes, which didn’t help!

Navajo Arch was amazing – it was huge, and you could get right under it, and walk either side. Back I went then to Landscape Arch where the loop had split off, and back to the parking lot around 11.30. I’d been about four and a half hours.

I’d started later and taken longer than my tentative schedule, so I didn’t do all the other hikes I had planned, which wasn’t unusual. I did the hike to Delicate Arch, which took about 50 minutes round trip. It involved hiking a fair way up a very large sloping area of bare rock, and the sun was quite warm by that time. Toward the end there was a narrow track that looked to be cut into the rock.

I got to the arch, and there was a group of school students there, but they left after a while and I had the arch to myself for a few minutes, which was great. It was an enormously high arch, and indeed it did look quite delicate for its size.

After having lunch nearby, it was getting time then to drive on to Colorado where I was to spend the night. On the way out of the park I stopped at a panorama point, and to see an interesting rock balanced on a pillar, then started in on the three hour drive. I made my way out of the park, back onto the highway, then out to I-70 again, which I would stay on for a couple of hours or more, driving at 80mph till the border, then 75mph in Colorado.

It was quite an experience driving the van along this part, which was quite open and also fairly desert-like, with some rock formations in places. What made it memorable was the gusty side wind, which was very strong, and would just suddenly hit the van, and make it feel like someone was shoving it. I couldn’t take my eyes off the road for a second, being prepared for a shove any time, to react and stay on the road. I was glad when that part was over! Thankfully the wind died down after an hour or so.

Once again I joined the Colorado River along the highway, then came into the town of Rifle, and turned off up into more lush looking territory as I went up the hill to the park, passing a reservoir along the way. I arrived at the campground at Rifle Falls State Park around 6pm. It was a rather anomalous campground: there were powered sites, but only a pit toilet, without even a washbasin. Thankfully the toilet didn’t smell bad, like some of the other pit toilets I’d been to. There were a few spots for RVs, not really much privacy, but it was a nice quiet place without many people.

The best thing about it was that a few minutes walk from where I was parked was a beautiful waterfall, with three prongs coming down, and a lot of water. There were paths going around it, and even into a recess behind one of the falls where you could go and see the falls from behind. There were a few shallow caves, and some nice views when I went up to the top of the falls. Apparently they had generated hydroelectric power from the river there at one stage, quite a long while ago. After having a good look around I made some dinner and settled in for the night – a much cooler one than the previous night!

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I left early, somewhere around 7am, and drove two and a half hours or so to Canyonlands National Park. The drive was through some rather desert-like landscapes, with with low, rather eroded-looking hills. I did a short stretch in the middle at 80mph on highway I-70, then turned off south for the last part, where it started looking more canyon-like.

The turn off to Canyonlands had some impressive formations along it, and the road wound up, with a great view after a hairpin bend, of the road and canyon area below.

I arrived at the entrance to the park, to be greeted with signs marking how long it would take to get to the gate if the traffic was banked up to that point – I passed the two hour sign, and I think then stopped with traffic backed up to the one our sign. I wasn’t happy! But they were pessimistic signs, I think it took about 25 minutes to get through the gate.

It was getting toward 10 as I got in and went to the short hike to Mesa Arch. There was an amazing view over large areas of canyons, very dry, I’m not sure if there was any vegetation. The arch itself was quite impressive, and I got some good photos of it, with some of the distant background, and some nice morning light on it.

From there I headed to the end of the main park road, to Grand View Point. The car parks was full, and there were vehicles parked just off the road wherever they could find a spot. Some spots off the road were too sloping to park the van, but I ended up finding a spot I could fit into, thank the Lord.

There was an hour or so hike along the edge of a canyon, with spectacular views over the desert, with its striking red-brown colours, appearing almost completely devoid of vegetation. Near the end of the walk was a large rock that people could get up on, and take photos. There were a group of youngish people on there, and I waited my turn and got up there when they’d finished.

The whole park was quite elevated I think, around 6,000 feet. I drove back towards the park entry, and off another smaller offshoot road, to have a look at Upheaval Dome, an interesting area with white coloured rock, about 15 minutes from the parking lot.

Back on the road a bit from there was Whale Rock, another fairly short hike. There was more vegetation in some of these areas. I met someone while walking and had a nice little chat along the hike. The people were quite friendly.

Lunch was at an overlook off the road. It was quite windy, though a warm and sunny day. From there, on the way back to the park entrance, I stopped at an offshoot to see the Green River Overlook. There was a river winding through the barren desert canyons, and it did indeed look green!

Further toward the entrance again I came to The Neck, and Shaeffer Canyon overlook, looking down over the edge of the canyon to an almost impossible-looking road winding, serpentine-like, down into the canyon, with a lot of switchbacks, then for what looked like an enormous distance along the relatively flat canyon floor. I could see cars driving along the road, slowly. I spoke with someone who had driven it the previous day, who said he left the 4WD in first gear basically the whole way down.

On to the visitor centre I went, and took a last look at the canyon, then headed off to the rather strangely named Dead Horse Point State Park. I had read that this was a great place to see the sunset. It was about half an hour’s drive from Canyonlands, getting me there a bit after 4. My national parks pass had got me into Canyonlands, but this was a state park, so I had to pay entry. It was quite a small park, but spectacular. I was glad it was small, because I was keeping an eye on the fuel gauge. It had suddenly and drastically reduced the distance to empty it was showing, which was perhaps now about 80 miles. This was still plenty to get to Moab where I was going, but I didn’t want to see any more sudden drops, and there wasn’t too much room for error if I had taken a wrong turn going to Moab or something, and gone well out of my way.

The park was on something of a spit of land projecting into the deep canyon below. There was a nice overlook into the canyon near the visitor centre, then I drove a few kilometres to the end of the road, on the point that projected into the canyon. One of the nice things about the park was that it wasn’t too crowded. It was much less popular than Canyonlands, and parking was fairly easy. There were views of the canyon most of the way around. Sunset wasn’t till about 7.20, so I had time to do some walking. There was a trail that went around the canyon edge, I think all the way around. I walked some of this, to a spot where there was just a narrow neck of land with the road crossing it, and you could see into the canyon quite easily from both sides.

It was a beautiful place: the colours, especially in the afternoon light, were wonderful – lovely reds, oranges and browns, with the Colorado River running through the canyon on one side, with a strip of green alongside it. I kept seeing the Colorado River in so many places I went! The colours got more beautiful as sunset approached. I scouted out somewhere which would be nice to see the sunset from, then went off to make dinner. I took one of the camp chairs out to a place with a nice view, and had a very scenic dinner! It was one of the few times while I was in the van that I didn’t have dinner at a campground.

There were quite a few people there to see the sunset. It was lovely to see, though I think the lead up to it was even more beautiful. I stayed for a little while after sunset, wondering if there would be a mass exodus at some point, and wanting to get out before then. I drove to Moab, mostly in the dark, keeping a close eye on the fuel, and glad that it was downhill a lot of the way. I was very glad to get to a service station, and have it accept my card (not all did!), and fuel up.

Moab was quite a decent sized place, and I drove through what seemed like a labyrinth of streets to get to the RV park where I was staying, called Pack Creek campground. I’d asked the owner if there would be any problems getting there late, and their main concern had been that I might have trouble backing into the site without much lighting. I did try to get to campgrounds in the daylight to avoid this, but most of the campgrounds I’d been to didn’t have much lighting, and I was pretty used to backing into sites by then.

As it turned out, the main problem was actually finding the site! I tried to follow what I’d seen on the map as the way to the site, and ended up in some corner of the park which clearly wasn’t what I was looking for. The signs marking the site numbers were at the back of each site, making them hard to see in the dark. Eventually I found it by seeing where it was in relation to one of the toilet blocks, and getting out and having a look at the site numbers at the back until I found it. The sites were wide, and backing in was the easy part!

My windscreen was looking into the back window of the caravan parked behind me, so it wasn’t very private, but I pulled the curtains before I went to bed. It was a very warm night, especially since only two or three nights previously it had been regularly around freezing. This night was about 20 degrees, and I slept with only a sheet in my summer pyjamas, instead of thermals, winter PJs, and a sleeping bag for extra warmth!

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From Wolf Den I drove through Wyoming for a while, before crossing briefly into Idaho, through hills which were quite barren, then along the edge of Bear Lake in Utah, which was pretty large – I could see the hills on the other side quite a distance away. I stopped in Bear Lake State Park Marina, off the main highway in a town called Garden City, and found they wanted payment to enter the park. The area was unstaffed, but unlike some other states, rather than wanting you to put cash in an envelope, they had an electronic payment system, so I could get a pass that way. I think this was one of the several places I noticed where they had tyre spikes to stop people coming in the exit. You could drive out with no problem, but woe betide your tyres if you drove in that way!

There was a large parking lot and a marina, and a bit of a beach along the lake nearby. I walked around for a little while, admiring the yellow flowers growing by the water, and noticing the hills behind the lake, which had copses of red trees along them. I’m not sure what they were, but they were very colourful, and I don’t think I ever saw them up close, but there were a lot of them here and there in that area. It was a partly cloudy day, and a pretty area.

I was running low on supplies, so I visited a “market” in the town – what the US seems to call small independent supermarkets, and got more tins for dinner, and lunch meat and other groceries. The town was supposed to be famous for its raspberry shakes, and I’d read an article discussing the pros and cons of the different spots. Well, there were plenty of signs advertising them, but from what I could see, each and every place that was advertising them was closed! I tried a few, and nothing was open. I guess they operated only during the school holiday season.

While planning, I’d found that near my route was a rather strange named park called Unita-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, which sounded quite nice, and not a big detour to go through it, so I drove off in that direction. I hadn’t realised that this was actually quite high up! After driving through some flat country, with mountains in the distance, entering Wyoming again, then back to Utah, the road started to climb up into them.

There were signs saying you needed to pay to park there, and I wasn’t sure if my US National Parks pass would cover it. I pulled over into an information bay to see if I could find out anything about that, and met another man there. He thought that my pass would be ok, and I had suspected that too, since it was a national forest, and I proceeded on. I passed an area with beautiful yellow grasses near a place called Sulphur Campground, and kept on to Mirror Lake.

Just before the lake, I stopped by a little heart-shaped lake called Butterfly Lake, with beautiful reflections. The area was at around 10,000 feet, and the van was working really hard to get up the steep gradients to get there. It probably didn’t help that it had lower than usual octane petrol in it.

In most of the US, the normal unleaded was sold as 87 octane (which is like our 91 apparently, they measure it differently), but places in Utah were selling 85 octane as their standard petrol. Apparently some places at higher altitudes did that, because you could get away with lower octane petrol when higher up. Also most petrol in the US was mixed with ethanol, and some places sold non-ethanol fuel at a premium.

After a while I got up to the lake, which wasn’t mirror-like at all, because there was a bit of a wind blowing, but it was a pretty spot. I parked and put my America the Beautiful parks pass card on the dash, and made some lunch. I found a bench near the lake, and ate there. There were bits of sun coming and going, with dark clouds around.

The weather was changing constantly at that altitude. I went for a little walk along the lake, admiring more of the yellow grasses, then drove up a little higher to a vantage point looking out over the lake and mountains beyond. There was quite a lot of forest around, I think pine trees, but about half of the trees were dead. Perhaps that was because the weather got quite fierce at that altitude. I could see drifts of rain coming and going across the mountains.

The road climbed steeply through some switchbacks, and I found myself at Bald Mountain Pass, about 10,700 feet (3,260m), apparently the highest paved road in Utah. I stopped to look at the view, then continued on down the other side of the mountain. On the way down I visited the pretty Upper Provo Falls, then as I got lower, I started seeing the hillsides covered with the red trees again, a spectacular sight, but I was struggling to find anywhere to pull off the road to take a photo.

A couple of kilometres before Kamas I saw a lovely scene with the red hills and some farm houses in the foreground, and pulled into a driveway to take a photo. Wouldn’t the occupant of the house be coming out just then! He pulled alongside me and asked me something along the lines of if he could help me. I explained that I was just pulling in to take a photo and asked if that was ok, and he said yes. Then he was having a bit of trouble getting out of the driveway with me there, so he asked me if I’d pull forward a bit. It was a rather steep driveway and I was a bit concerned I wouldn’t be able to back out again, but I went a bit further down, then got the photos I wanted.

I managed to get out again and back onto the main road, not so easy with all the traffic coming and going. From there I went through the towns of Kamas and Francis, approaching the Jordanelle Reservoir, which was pretty large, and quite a dramatic sight with flowers in the foreground, and dark mountains behind. I could see ski runs on the mountains (though without snow at that time of year), so it must have been quite high still.

There was an overlook a bit further along where I could see the whole reservoir, and a four-lane highway in the distance, which I was to join shortly. Somewhere along here Google took me along a small, low speed limit side road to avoid traffic, but I eventually ended up on the highway, which went along to Deer Creek Reservoir, where I stopped at a state park to have a quick look around, with more hills in the background dotted with patches of red trees.

I’d read about Bridal Veil Falls being quite pretty, just off the highway a bit further along. I turned off onto a small road off the highway, and parked near the falls, which had a couple of levels of waterfall which did look rather like a bridal veil. I walked along a track next to the falls for a little way. I was not enthusiastic about Google's choice of having me turn left across four lanes of fast moving traffic to get back onto the highway, with no obvious place to stop in the middle. This was a bit tricky in a not very nimble campervan, but I managed to get across after a while thank the Lord.

The highway went into the city of Provo, a fairly large place, where I joined with the Interstate I-15, with some very interesting driving indeed. Usually when an Interstate went through a major city, they would lower the speed limit to maybe 55mph (88km/h) where there were a lot of entries and exits, but here the speed limit was 70mph (112km/h), four or five lanes each way, with lanes coming and going for different exits, cars changing lanes continuously, and I wasn’t the slowest vehicle, so I was in one of the middle lanes.

Usually I was one of the slowest vehicles, keeping the speed limit, which most people didn’t, and it was fairly easy just driving in the right lane and passing trucks every so often, but there was more to look out for in the middle lanes. It sometimes felt a little vulnerable venturing out into the middle lanes, when there was fast traffic. People were also zooming by at different speeds, and some were going slowly, and I had to continuously look in the mirrors at the lanes either side so I knew whether I could change lanes to pass someone, and not be run down by a fast person zooming up. It was pretty exacting, I had to concentrate hard, and was glad when I was through that bit!

The Interstate continued on to Las Vegas eventually, but I turned off to go towards the RV park where I’d booked in, at the rather strangely named town of Helper. I wound through hills, with a train line next to the road, and it was getting toward 7 as I started to enter some interesting looking canyon-like territory, and arrived at Blue Cut RV park after a bit more driving. This was off the main highway, though there was a rather main looking road running near it, and also the train line wasn’t far away, but the trains didn’t seem to run very often, I think I heard only one or two, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road. There didn't seem to be any RV parks in the area that weren't near the train line. Opposite the park was an impressive rock face. At night it looked as thought maybe it was lit up somehow.

I had spoken to the owner when I booked, a few months back, and she was very friendly. I contacted her on the day to make sure it was ok to arrive lateish, and she was fine with that, and said to message her when I got there so she knew I’d arrived ok, which was nice. I was to pay cash in an envelope, $40, and post it in a slot. There were free showers as I recall, and a little stream running alongside the grounds. Some of the commercial RV parks had quite nice facilities, almost like a normal bathroom, with a shower, toilet and washbasin. The state and national campgrounds were a bit varied, some had large communal rooms, sometimes with shower cubicles that had curtains you could pull, and other places had individual rooms each with a toilet and washbasin – especially the ones that had unisex toilets.

After having the temperature below or around freezing the previous few nights, it was around 9 degrees at night there, which felt quite warm! The campground was around 5,500 feet (1,675m) I think, which was still quite high, but I think I was able to dispense with my sleeping bag as a doona that night. It had been a big day of very varied scenery, plains, lakes, mountains and canyons!

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In the morning, I set off early to give the Old Faithful geyser one more try before visiting Grand Teton National Park. My route took me back through Grand Prismatic Springs.

The rivers were spectacular in the early morning, with mist coming off them. They were probably quite warm. I didn’t visit the springs again, but got some great photos of the steam coming off them in the early morning as I went through.

I got to Old Faithful a bit before 8, and wouldn’t you know it, I just missed it again. I had found out you could check online when they expected the next eruption, but I had no phone service, so couldn’t check. Old Faithful didn't seem very faithful – it wasn’t meant to be apparently.

Back through West Thumb I went, then off to the south this time, to Jackson Lake, which was a beautiful sight with hills and mountains in the background, and more autumn colours in the foreground, especially yellow grasses and bushes. One of the amazing things about autumn colours in North America is that everything changes colour, not just the trees, but grass and bushes too.

I stopped again near Willow Flats, admiring the colours with the mountains behind. There were two roads that went through Grand Teton, one the main highway, and the other a smaller, more scenic route. They both started and ended at the same place, but took different routes between.

I had decided to have a look a little way down the main highway one way, then double back to the scenic route, then go back up the main highway from the southern end, about half an hour, to some scenic spots there. So my northern destination on the highway was a place called Oxbow Bend, on the Snake River, which I think is quite long, and goes through several states. It was an amazingly beautiful place, with a good sized lake, which was very still. There were more lovely red and yellow autumn colours in front, and then the mountains reflected in the lake. It was one of the most scenic places I’d been, and I spent quite a while enjoying it and taking lots of photos. There weren’t too many people there.

From there I drove back to the main entrance to the park on the scenic route. The mountains were very impressive along the route. I had planned to drive up Signal Mountain if I could. When I’d booked the 18’ campervan, I’d found something on the website about RVs not being allowed, and I emailed the park people asking if I could take the van up there. A nice lady replied, saying it was a bit of grey area with that size, and I think she said there had been a 19’ van made it up, so I could be ok. It seems that there were sharp switchbacks. With the 20’ van I’d been upgraded to, I decided it would probably be a bad idea to try.

I turned off along the Jenny Lake Scenic Drive, to get to to String Lake, where I’d planned a hike. I found a park, and set off. The hike was scenic indeed, with reflections of the high mountains, with some autumn foliage at the bottom of them, in the distance. I hiked up from String Lake to the larger Leigh Lake, then back, probably less than an hour. I followed the scenic drive further along – it was one way, and had to pass by one of the beautiful overlooks, because the car park was full. I’d wanted to have lunch at Jenny Lake. Well, that was a nice idea, but not only was the car park full, there were cars parked along the road for maybe 1km! I think it was the longest stretch of road parking I’d ever seen!

I wasn’t about to walk back 1km to see it, so I drove on a bit further and found another picnic area, with parking available. There was someone who had set up a camera on a big tripod next to a table, but it was otherwise unoccupied. It looked like the only free table, and I asked if he minded if I used it, and he was ok with that. I had a beautiful view of the mountains as I ate my sandwich.

After lunch I took the Taggart Lake Loop hike for about an hour and a half, up into the mountains a bit, which was also lovely, with more foliage, and a lake with mountain reflections.

Afterwards I thought I would give Jenny Lake another try. This time the car park still looked full, but parking was available on the road, not far from the car park, so I parked and walked down there. It was a very pretty spot, with the high mountains looming right behind it. There were light showers coming and going, with a bit of sun, which made for some beautiful light effects on the mountains. I stopped on the shore for a while and admired the view. There was a ferry running regularly across the lake for hikers to start hikes on the other side. I had been originally planning to take one of the hikes, but it was getting later in the day now, and I didn’t think I would have time.

I took a walk along the shores of the lake instead. There were picturesque steps going up a small hill next to the lake, with birches changing colour, and also colourful undergrowth. It was lovely to walk along the lake and admire the views.

From there I headed out of the park, joining the main highway again at a small town rather quaintly named Moose. I drove north up the highway to see a couple of viewpoints from that side. There was an overlook of the chain of mountains off into the distance, with sun rays shining on them. I wanted to see Schwabacher Landing. There was a quite badly maintained dirt road going down to it, and with some trepidation I manoeuvred the van down it.

I was rewarded with an amazing sight – everything seemed to be yellow! Yellow bushes, yellow grasses, yellow trees, next to a stream. The sun shone on it at times, and it looked spectacular with the dark mountains in the background. I spent a while there. I had planned to go a bit further, but time was starting to get on a bit, and I still had a couple of hours of driving from there to get to my RV park.

The route took me through Jackson, a fair sized town, and along the Snake River again. I stopped on the side of the road after a while, just before the small town of Alpine, to look down at the river, which seemed to have green water! I was seeing more and more autumn colour. There was a stand of trees along the river with yellows and oranges and reds, so beautiful! The road led down into fairly flat country, with houses and businesses here and there, and mountains in the far distance. Wolf Den RV Park came up a bit after 7, still in Wyoming, near the border with Idaho. I checked in – someone was still there at what I think was a store as well as the office.

The RV park wasn’t far from the main road, and was fairly open. I think there were mainly cabins, but a few spots for RVs, just parked next to one another without much privacy, but I was only there for the night. I cooked my dinner, and ate it with some views of the mountains in the distance. At the front of the campground was the front of a kind of stylised wild west street – just the front of a few buildings like a bank and saloon, with models of a couple of people, one an Indian in traditional dress. I admired a nice sunset before heading to bed. Sunset was getting earlier as I headed south and east, and the season was getting later, and was around 7.30pm by that time.

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I left the campground fairly early to drive an hour or so to First Baptist Church in West Yellowstone, having a quick look at one of the nearby canyon waterfalls on the way. It was another beautiful day. Coming out of the park, I could see long lines of people waiting to get in. It looked as though getting there at midday on Saturday had saved me a lot of waiting. The church was a pretty one, with a white spire. The congregation were very friendly and affectionate, as friendly as any I’d met. They invited guests to introduce themselves during the early part of the service.

The pastor was quite old, with a long white beard, and sat on a chair to preach as I recall. He preached a good sermon. Afterwards, I talked with some of the congregation. A group of people were going to eat at a restaurant they went to every Sunday at lunchtime, and invited me. I went and ate with them, and finally had a buffalo burger, which I had been wanting to try for a while.

It was nice, though I didn’t think it tasted much different from a normal burger. After the meal, the waitress took everyone's credit cards off and processed them, then came back with the credit cards and paper receipts. We had to calculate a tip and write it on the receipt and leave it there. I was a bit concerned I would miscalculate and give too small a tip!

From there I drove back into the park, to do the lower loop. It was quick to get into the park again in the middle of the day. There were two huge loop roads, and I had done the upper loop the previous day. My route went back through Madison, so I checked into the campground as I went by. This was a much smaller affair than the Canyon one, with less facilities. It was nice though, with quite a lot of trees growing through it. There were a couple of people ahead of me, but I got checked in, and found my spot.

I kept going, back through Canyon, and I had a quick look at the falls and canyon in brighter light. From there I started the lower loop, the first destination being Yellowstone Lake. On the way I was able to spot some bison feeding in the distance.

It was a large lake, and a lovely sight in the sunshine. The road went around the edge of it for some time, before coming to West Thumb. There was an area there with more colourful steaming pools, right on the shore of the lake. There were even a few of what looked like rock pools, right in the shallow water of the lake itself, with water boiling the whole time.

Crossing the Continental Divide, the road peaked again at about 8,300 feet on the way to the famous Old Faithful geyser. There was an overpass off the road, and a huge parking lot. Clearly a lot of cars sometimes came this way! The car park wasn’t too crowded, and I was trying to find out how to actually get to the geyser itself. I found out to my sorrow that I had just missed an eruption. I just saw the tail end, as a small geyser was slowly dissipating. They were able to predict approximately when the next one would be, and it was just on sunset. I debated whether to stay around for it, but it would have involved driving back in the dusk or dark, which people had recommended against due to the risk of hitting wandering animals.

I did a bit of a walk around the area around the geyser, looking at some of the other smaller features. It was pretty in the late light, with steam coming from a lot of places. The Old Faithful Lodge, next to the main geyser, was a large wooden building, with an impressive fireplace inside, and a cafeteria and shops, some of which were closed at that hour.

Reluctantly I left, to head to the campground at Madison before dark. Along the way, I came on Grand Prismatic Springs. I’m not sure I had realised this was there, and had I known, I would have left Old Faithful a bit earlier. From a distance I could see a large amount of steam rising, lit by the last of the sunlight, and there was a steaming stream running into the river that went through there. It was an amazing place, with walkways over large expanses of shallow steaming water, some of it very colourful. The colours weren’t as striking near sunset, but it was amazing to see the sunset reflecting on the water, with the steam everywhere.

On the way to Madison, the car ahead of me slowed right down, and I did too, and there was a huge bison, right next to the road! I got to the campground safely, and made some dinner.

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I set off early for the five hour or so drive to West Yellowstone. The landscape soon became more open, with rolling hills, and some nice views here and there.

I stopped by Nevada Lake, a small lake which caught my eye because there were waves of mist rolling along it. After a while I got onto I-90, with its 80mph speed limit, which was nice, even if Google had taken me on the smallest of dirt roads for a little way to get there from another highway. Unlike the case with other highways, I wasn’t amongst the slowest vehicles on the road on 80mph highways – I was actually passing other cars sometimes. There wasn’t much traffic, and it was a nice drive.

Nearing Yellowstone I briefly stopped at Ennis, which was done up a bit to look like a frontier town. From West Yellowstone I drove to the park entrance, right on the edge of town, around 12. There weren’t a lot of people heading into the park at that time of day, so I got through the line up fairly quickly, and started driving through the park, looking for a place to have lunch. West Yellowstone is in Montana, but most of the park is in Wyoming, so I crossed over the border quite soon after entering the park.

I settled on a lunch spot at a turn-out next to the pretty Madison River which ran through the park. I had the spot to myself, and made my customary sandwich and ate it with the river view.

A bit further along was Gibbon Falls, a pretty waterfall with quite a lot of people around, and it was a bit tricky getting parking. Further along I went through Madison, which was marked on the map, but which seemed to be just basically a campground – the one where I was to stay the following night. Some parts of the park were quite populated, but other parts were quieter.

From there I arrived at Norris Geyser Basin, which has a lot of pools with thermal activity. There were loads of people there, and the car parks were full, so I had to park along the road, and walk along a track they’d set up to get there, for about 10 minutes or so. There were officials directing traffic.

As well as the pools, the place also had areas with steam coming out of them. They all smelt of sulphur, which was not very pleasant, and the trees weren’t too happy with it either. You could see a lot of dead trees around some of them. I listened to a park ranger talking about the area for a while. Apparently sometimes a pool would go dormant and trees would grow around it, then after many years it would start emitting sulphur gasses again and the trees would die.

There was a large flat area with wooden walkways along it, and more pools of interesting colours, and gasses being emitted, but the star of the show was definitely a geyser (if that’s the right way to describe it) that had kind of a moist steamy spurt pouring out of it continuously, well up into the sky. It was sunny, and the steam was making rainbows all around, which was beautiful. I took lots of photos of it. There was a walkway that went close by it, and you could get a bit wet when the wind blew it in that direction as you walked by.

From there I headed to Mammoth Hot Springs. This was less impressive but still pretty, with boardwalks to see more of the thermal activity. There was a loop you could drive on, but it said no RVs, so I gave it a miss. You could park down below and walk up though, and I had a look at some of it by foot. I guess people used to bathe in the hot springs at some point, but it didn’t look like they did now. There was a small town nearby, with shops, and I think even a church.

The road wound through pretty territory after this, with hills, a lake or two, and grasses that were starting to go yellow and orange for autumn.

Tower Fall was next on the drive, an impressive waterfall – narrow, but with a long drop. You couldn’t get very close to it. There was a general store at the parking lot there, and a nice view of the canyon the river ran through a little further along.

The road got quite high as I continued on, and there were lovely views over tree-covered hills, as I got into Canyon and checked into the campground. It was a short drive from the campground to some of the sights at at what they called the Grand Canyon of Yosemite.

It lived up to its name. It was very deep, and also long apparently, and quite colourful. There were two powerful waterfalls which were impressive to see. I was there towards sunset, and there weren’t many people around, which was great. I walked down a steep path to see a close-up view of one of the waterfalls, which was majestic, with spray coming up continuously from where it was landing. I think the area was at around 8,000 feet, and I felt it while walking back up to the top!

The campground was quite large, and had free showers! It was a bit of a walk from my site to the shower block, but it was great to just enjoy the shower while not being concerned about whether the time would run out. I think the showers closed not too long after I got in, and so I went and had a shower before I got dinner. It was one of the better facilities from the campgrounds I’d been to. This was actually the last night they were open, then they were closing for the season.

It was a chilly night, just below freezing again I think, but I was pretty warm in the van. There had been reports that there was no phone reception in most of the park, but when I was there someone said you’re out of luck unless you’re with Verizon. I noticed my phone had roamed onto that network, and I did have coverage some of the time, including while I was in this campground, which was handy for messaging people and posting the (mostly) daily updates with photos on Instagram and Facebook for people to follow along.

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