Manly Roadtrip Adventure – Day 1

Today is day one of my 2011 Road Trip Adventure to Yellowstone!

The last time I was in Yellowstone was when I was 12 and we drove through it on the way back from West Virginia where we lived for a year back to Spokane.

I really don’t recall much about the trip with the exception of bears sitting on the side of the road hoping to be thrown food and the smell of the sulphur pots.

This year I’ll be exploring it on my own, camping in a few campgrounds in the park.

But, it’s something like 14 hours from Vancouver to Yellowstone, so I broke the travel there up over two days. Today was from Vancouver to Missoula by way of Steptoe Butte State Park in Washington (map below).

Steptoe Butte is what remains of a large outcropping in the middle of the Palouse after the glaciers came through and smoothed everything down. And, in their wake, left lots and lots of rich soil which became the Palouse.

It’s off the beaten path, north of Colfax, Washington and I grew up just an hour north of it, but I’d never been to it. I only went this time on a recommendation of a friend (thanks, Gordon!) who said it’s worth checking out. And it is!

The view down from it is a 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside. It’s very impressive.

Visibility on this particular day wasn’t great, but it was pretty good.

Here are a couple of pictures. First to the east and the next to the north.

From there, I drove up to Spokane then out I-90 to Missoula where I’m now holed up in motel.

I had to try four different motels because Missoula has stuff going on! Freshman orientation, a long range rifle competition, a rodeo and a couple other things. Motel rooms are in short supply!

Tomorrow will be about 4.5 hours in to Yellowstone plus whatever it takes me to get to my campground. Probably another hour. It should be a great day!

I don’t expect to have wireless to post much of anything from here on out, but I hope to post more when I get back!