Lake Lodge - Yellowstone National Park to Jackson, Wyoming
Miles Driven Today:
119 miles
Total Miles of Trip:  
4,788 miles
Hours on the Road:  
9:00 hours
Started At:  
8:15 am
Stopped for the Day:  
5:15 pm
    Today we were heading out of Yellowstone National Park and into the Grand Tetons National Park, immediately to the south.  We followed Yellowstone Lake on around and we surprised to find that the lake was edged with other geysers and hot pots.  The West Thumb area of the lake is a crater within a crater, a second volcanic explosion that occurred within the crater that forms Yellowstone Lake. Even in the lake, there are areas where geysers erupt and steam rises.
    We also stopped at the waterfalls of Lewis Lake, an area Ben remembered as being particularly striking.  It is still beautiful but, this time, there were several hundred tourists all trying to get the same perfect picture so we didn't linger.  We were planning to meet the Howells and the Jesters at Flagg Ranch, just inside the Tetons National Park. Also joining us for the day was Clair Carlson, a Model T friend who lives in Jackson Hole, WY.  
Driving it Home
Montana Majestic Mountain T Tour
On The Road Again
Yellowstone then Home
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   Contact Us      About Ben & Nancy
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Runs great...
  ....Drive it home.
Runs great...
      ....Drive it home.
West Thumb Geyser Basin at Yellowstone Lake
Day 50 - Thursday, August 12, 2010
Getting to Anchorage
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The Jeffers were still touring in Yellowstone so the rest of us started out into the amazing Grand Tetons.  
    The first place Clair took us was to the University of Wyoming-National Park Service Research Center along the banks of Jackson Lake.  The Center is housed in the former Berol summer home (the Berols were the people who made the yellow #2 pencils), a large log home with an amazing view of the mountains across the lake.  The home was built in the 1930's and willed to the National Park Service at their death.  Clair had arranged a tour of the house for us.  Dr. Hank Harlow heads up the research at this beautiful place each summer and he and others get to live and work here each summer.
    The interesting thing about the Tetons is that the terrain on the Eastern side is very flat.  Flat, flat, flat, then boom!  Great jagged mountains sticking up to the sky.  No rounded edges from glaciers here!  There are no roads crossing them, no passes that early settlers took to get to the other side.  You can go north or south and get around them but you can't drive through them.
    After lunch and a visit to the Indian Arts Museum at the Colter Bay Visitor's Center, we drove the T's up Signal Mountain Road, a rise of 1,000 feet through a pine forest to the summit.  We had been told that it was a gravel road so the guys were disappointed that it was paved.  The Teton Park Road runs parallel to the mountains and lakes so there were lots of stops for pictures.  But you can drive this beautiful road without stopping and still be awe-struck by what you see.  
   Around 4:00 pm, dark clouds started settling down on the peaks and the wind picked up.  We scooted on toward Jackson where we are settled in for the night.  There is a lot to see here that we didn't see but we are going our separate ways  tomorrow.  We are less than two weeks from home now and we hear it is a lot warmer in Texas.  Our friend Tommy Supak, home from Glacier, advised us to turn around before it was too late.  But if our T continues to do as well as it is, we will continue to "Drive It Home."
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Yellowstone Lake - Elevation about 7,600 ft.
The West Thumb Geyser Basin,  Yellowstone National Park
The lake at West Thumb.  Small geysers dot the lake shore, incl
One of the larger pools at West Thumb.   The deep blue indicate
The waterfalls at Lewis Lake.  We followed the river  on out of
Clair Carlson’s 1918 Woody  on the road up to the  WU-NPS Resea
The Grand Tetons from Jenny Lake.  The dark clouds are closing