Montana | CasaRodante - Our House on Wheels

Due to campground scheduling, we headed south from the West Yellowstone area to end up by Lower Mesa Falls in Idaho. We are due to be there 3 nights and the campground is right by the lower falls but about 1000′ above them. There was no cell service but MANY mosquitos! The campground had electric but no sewer or dump. It was very cool and wet with rain on and off. Perfect weather for those pesky ones!

We took a drive to the upper falls (1 mile) to see them and hike to the lower falls (more than 1 mile):

Upper Mesa Falls

Lower Mesa Falls

Part way through our stay at the falls we had to move campsites as Marcia couldn’t get sites for consecutive days. One of the sites she got was a double spot so we stayed together in that one:

We enjoyed the time in the area, we even went down to the local town (Ashton ID) for eating and supplies. We also found a spot near a river where people fed the fish in the stream. We even saw a bunch of bald eagles. But as always it becomes time to leave. Back north we go!

Here is shot of our trailer while our friends were following us:

Oddly enough we ended up going through Island Park ID for the third time! Island Park boasts having the longest main street in the world! The actual town is 34 miles long but just over 500 feet wide. This was done during a time when liquor could only be sold in the city limits and there were lots of businesses that used that to their advantage and it appears to have not changed!

Before we got back to West Yellowstone we turned west toward our next stop. We ended up at the Lewis and Clark Caverns Campground. Right after we got there we were inundated with snow! Not real snow but it looked like snow. It was coming from the Cottonwood trees all through the campground:

There are some caverns to explore here at the park but we looked at the description of the hikes. Strenuous, crawling, butt-scooting, etc. Not quite what we were up to doing. The Chen’s went on and did it and we watched their dog for them. From their descriptions, it appeared to be a good choice not to go, but they did enjoy it!

The weather was really nice there!

We left our spot by the lake to meet the Chen’s for the beginning of our adventures. They had actually driven right by our spot a day earlier but we had coordinated our first night near West Yellowstone. As we were traveling to the meetup we stopped for lunch in Island Park ID and found out they were about 12 miles south of us. From there we drove to our first spot, Lonesomehurst campground. It was a very nice USFS campground with only about 1-2 miles of gravel to get to it after a paved road. It was nice and cool and the forecast called for rain the next few days. We decided to hit Yellowstone the next day.

The forecast was for rain most of the day but we headed out anyway. Since there was no one vehicle that could handle 9 people and 1 dog, we took both vehicles. We had heard that Yellowstone was very busy, very likely due to the time of the season we were there so we had a plan. However, when we got to the gate and didn’t see a line waiting, and due to the inclement weather we changed the plan and headed for Old Faithful:

By the time we were at Old Faithful, it was POURING rain! We couldn’t really get out to see anything so we drove the loop road. We stopped for some lunch at Lake Lodge since we could not picnic anywhere and we were able to dry out a bit. The rain had not let up for about 2 hours.

After lunch, we continued our drive and the weather cleared quite a bit where it was more time without rain that with. We saw a lot of animals, we stopped at Yellowstone falls and even saw a bear with cub along the road on the way back, throwing in a coyote for good measure!

Day 2 we had to do some laundry so the Chen’s did their own thing. We were able to head back into the park in the afternoon. Since it was the middle of June and we were so far north, it didn’t get dark until 10 pm so we had a lot of time.

We went on a few different roads and stops as the first day. This time we saw falls, hot pools, hot pots, other geothermal events and a mother dear with her baby. We think the latter may have been only hours old.