West Trip...Day 4

Where do I begin with day four??

We started off on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning enjoying worship on the bus.
 Our itinerary reads "Today we travel down the Wyoming highway enjoying the beautiful scenery as we travel to Jackson Hole. Enjoy supper at the Bar J Chuckwagon this evening".

We soon entered the Bighorn National Forest and I recall from that trip years ago that these mountains were very beautiful. I remember my Dad especially loving this area. He even wrote a song about Wyoming back in his young days.

The scenery was beautiful but.....

about an hour or two into our morning the bus overheated and some smoke started rolling from the back of the bus. Our onboard mechanic Crist, (his wife Edna says he can fix about anything) crawls under the bus to check things out and discovers a hole in a pipe which is causing a loss of fluid.

Well, to make a long story short, after several hours of trying this and that to fix it, a state trooper or maybe it was a park ranger came along and gave Dave a ride back to a town where he was able to get what was needed to do the repair properly.

Now being broke down is never fun but it was amazing how many people stopped to see if they could help including some firefighters who donated anti-freeze and containers of water to refill the radiator. I'm fairly certain the people who stopped have never seen anyone broke down still in good spirits and having fun.

The most amazing was a young couple who stopped because she recognized the Pioneer Trail Bus. I guess they used to live in our area and moved to Wyoming. It was discovered she was a relative to my sister Carolyn's neighbor. It's a small world!

 

 

Eventually Dave gets back with what is needed and the repair is made and we are on our way but hours behind schedule. Unfortunately we are going to miss our supper at the Bar J Chuckwagon and now we just want to get to Jackson Hole where we are spending the night.

 

 

 So instead of a nice leisurely drive across the mountains stopping at overlooks to enjoy the views, its become a 'pedal to the metal' kind of day. So all of my pictures were shot out of the window not exactly resulting in good quality photos but I'm posting a few of the better ones. Hopefully it will give you an idea of how beautiful Wyoming is. For me Wyoming had the best scenery, only second to the Canadian Rockies which were my favorite.

 

 

 

One breathtaking area we drove through was Ten Sleep Canyon. This was one of the most beautiful sections crossing the Bighorns. I wish my pictures would do it justice but they don't.

 

 

 

 

 

Wind River Canyon

Another spectacular place was the Wind River Canyon.

 

 The sheer rock walls tower over 2,000 feet above the valley floor on either side of the canyon. An illusion makes it appear as if the river is running uphill.

 

 

 

Boysen Dam

 

After the Bighorns and the canyons we entered a more desert looking area with rolling hills, plateaus, and sage brush.

 

 

Togwotee Pass

Late afternoon we took a short break at the Continental Divide. 

The Continental Divide is a line that cuts from north to south through North America. The streams on the west side flow to the Pacific while the streams on the east side flow towards the Atlantic. We crossed this line several times in various places.

 

 

 

 

Fireweed is the flower of the day.

 

 

 

 We arrive in the Tetons just as the sun was setting providing us with a glorious sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally after a long day we reached our hotel in Jackson Hole Wyoming ready for a good night's rest and then off too our next location.....Yellowstone.