Saturday, July 14, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride
Today started with us waking up around 5:30am and getting ready. We packed up all of our cloths and other miscellaneous items we had out the night before. We left Ryan's house around 7:00am and he needed to fuel up. By the time he was finished with that and I had given my chain a good lubing, we set out around 7:15. We made our way toward Fort Collins where the GPS had us take HWY 287 instead of the interstate. We were glad we did since the roads were empty and we passed through some awesome terrain. We continued on to Rawlins, WY where we stopped for lunch at Subway. The weather looked like it was going to rain soon so we put on our rain gear. It ended up not raining so we ended up sweating like crazy. We eventually stopped and took the rain gear off again in an effort to cool down. After another couple hours of riding, the sky started looking very ominous as we entered the Shoshoni National Forest. We made it another half hour before we had to stop and put the rain gear back on. Fortunately we got the rain gear on when we did because it started raining immediately afterwards. We would be in rain from around 2:00 until 9:00.
When we entered the Grand Teton National Park we both bought a national park pass so we could come and go as we please through the national parks without having to pay entry each time. After entering the park we drove around through the rain without being able to see anything more than a couple hundred feet around us. We eventually stopped for gas just before entering Yellowstone. We went inside a service center there to dry off a bit and figure out what we wanted to do. If it kept pouring like this, setting up our tents and staying dry at night would be extremely difficult. We eventually decided to keep going and we'd pull over in Yellowstone and see if there were any cabins or lodges available.
We found another reservation center in Yellowstone and asked about availability but the only room available was 2.5 hours north. We hesitated for a bit and then she told us someone else had just booked the room. Before heading back out into the rain we decided we would head to the campground and hope it stopped raining for long enough to set up camp and eat.
We missed our turn to the campsite and ended up heading over to Old Faithful. As we stopped the rain finally let up. We walked around the geysers for a bit and checked out some of the old lodges there. I went into one of the gift shops to buy a fleece for the night so I wouldn't be so cold. Afterwards I realized that my park pass wasn't in my pocket where eI had hastily put it in the rain after purchasing it. It hadn't fallen out when I bought the fleece so my only thought is that it fell out when I was fueling up just before Yellowstone. By now all the service centers were closed and I'll have to figure out what to do about this tomorrow when they open up again.
We eventually made it to our campground around 9:30pm and had to set up our tents in the dark. There was some water falling from the trees but nothing too bad. We ate dinner (I had the Santa Fe Chicken from Backpackers Pantry and Ryan had the Spaghetti w/ Meat sauce from Mountain House). They were both good and it was nice to have some warm food in us. We packed up all of our food and put it in the bear box and then both headed off to bed before the rain was supposed to hit again.
I already posted a brief description about day one earlier. Here are some photos from our first day riding from Denver to Yellowstone.
Teaser photos:
Tags: motorcycle
Posted from: United States