Tuesday, September 10th - We arrived at the Red Rock RV Resort that is located about 20 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday, September 10th. The drive from Columbia Falls was about seven hours long, but it was peaceful and beautiful. We drove along lesser-traveled roads in the countryside and did not transit any large metropolitan areas except for Butte, Montana and that was on Interstate 90, a major freeway. A great trip. Bob and Charlotte Capp had already arrived at the Red Rock RV Park, so we set up the RV together. This resort is located five miles off the main highway and is extremely quiet with the most friendly management. We met managers Brian and Lorrayne who are some of the most friendly people we have met on our trip. They made us feel welcome and made our trip super-enjoyable; they even lent us their kayaks for our trip down Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. 

Bob and I flew the drone and took some photos and videos of the RV park and the surrounding area. We gave copies of these photos to Brian and Lorrayne and they like them. They even gave me a RV Resort hat for the effort. Super-nice people. 

Wednesday, September 11th - Our first whole day near Yellowstone was rainy, so we decided to take a driving tour to Mesa falls. On the way, we “scoped out” a place where we had been told that we could kayak Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. Easy access and a nice place to leave our Toyota to shuttle back to the truck. We then drove to Upper Mesa Falls. We toured the falls and the Capps were impressed with the site and the beautiful falls. Lots of great photos and a nice tour of the visitor’s center. The national parks service was also installing two concrete restrooms, so it was fun to watch them being lowered into place with a large crane. We talked to the ranger about the programs to take students to the Mesa Falls scenic byway at the expense of the National Parks Service; pretty neat to have funded field trips for fourth graders. On the way home, we stopped and had a very nice Mexican food lunch near Island Park. Later that afternoon, we drove into West Yellowstone (about 20 miles) to see the town and also visit the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center is definitely worth the $14 entry fee. We were there a little late in the day, so our tickets were good for two days. This allowed us to come on Thursday to see the new river otter center at the park. We saw grizzly bears, wolves, and all sorts of raptors. We got to take some great photos of these animals. 

Thursday, September 12th – We checked weather reports and found that this day was going to be pretty nice, so we headed for West Yellowstone to visit the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center’s new river otter display. It was fun to see these creatures in a near-natural environment. We then traveled to Yellowstone to see the thermal and geyser activities near Old Faithful Geyser and the Grand Prismatic Spring. We were treated to a beautiful day and great photos of the thermal activity sites near Old Faithful. We watched Old Faithful erupt two times and toured the historic Old Faithful Lodge/Hotel. It was a great day and lots of fun. Be sure to see the photos of these sites. 

Friday, September 13th – Kayaking on Henry’s Fork of the Snake River that was recommended by Brian and Lorrayne at the RV Park. They even let us use their personal kayaks; super nice. The water in this river is crystal clear and full of life. I, personally, saw several trout in the 20-24 inch range. Lisa also saw several red salmon that were swimming up the river to spawn. The trip of about five miles was an easy “down-stream” drift. In a couple places, Bob Capp and I “bottomed-out” with the kayaks and had to get out and walk them downstream to deeper water. Coming around a turn in the river, Lisa found a bull moose standing in the water just about 30 feet in front of her.  It was spectacular.  She move to the middle of the river and I moved closer to the shore to get some video. We have some great video of the five moose that we encountered along the way, so be sure to take a look at the video of the drift. About 20 minutes later, Bob Capp and I came across a female moose walking across the river. As we drifted we found that we were on a convergence course with this moose. As we got close to the moose, the moose panicked and ran right in front of Bob. Pretty neat video and a little nerve-racking too. When we arrive at our get-out spot, we saw three moose that were running in the river; they can really run in the water. A female and baby moose were chasing a bull moose away from them. It appears that it is the “rutting season” and the female did not want any part of the male moose. She chased the male all the way across the river and up a nearby hill; pretty impressive to see. We really enjoyed this kayaking trip and got to see all sorts of wildlife. 

Saturday, September 14th – Bob and Charlotte Capp needed to be in Auburn, California for an appointment on Monday, so they decided to leave on Saturday and drive to Winnemucca, Nevada for the night. They would then drive the remainder of the distance to Auburn on Sunday. It was sad to see them leave; we had had so much fun at Glacier and West Yellowstone with them. They left at about 9:30 in the morning. Lisa and I spent some time improving our storage use of the garage portion of the RV. After that, since we had the kayaks on the truck, we decided to go kayaking on Henry’s Lake. Since it was later in the day, the winds had come up and this made kayaking less pleasant, so we aborted and went back to the RV.  We then took a walk over to Henry’s Lake. We watched as ten horsemen arrive to herd cattle across the open land. It was fun to watch. After this, we packed the garage with the kayaks and prepared the RV for our drive to Ogden, Utah tomorrow. In the evening, we put on a drone demonstration for Brian, Lorrayne and several other friendly campers at the resort.  Several voice a desire to purchase a Mavic2 Pro drone.