Yellowstone Adventure - Preparations

We are about to embark on another RV adventure - this time to Yellowstone National Park and points in-between. Although we have both visited Yellowstone several times starting as young children, it's been at least 30 years since we were last there, so it's about time to see it again.

We had originally planned starting south and working our way north, but had to change our plans due to the large Rim Fire raging around Yosemite National Park and closing Tioga Pass.
 
It's not just the flames that's a problem, but also the smoke plume causing the air quality northward past even Reno to reach "unhealthful" levels. Consequently, we've decided to reverse directions and head northeast first and then work back southwest. Besides (we rationalize) we'll be in a better position for taking advantage of the nice Fall weather. The map below shows an approximate route and some points of interest along the way.

"Shoulder" season (Spring and Fall) is a great time to travel - the weather is good and the crowds are thinner. Ahhh... the joys of retirement.



As usual, we have upgraded our technology and gathered information to scope out possible places to see and things to do. Since we are planning to stay at several US Forest Service Campgrounds, which are not always on well marked roads, we both installed GPS navigational systems on our smart phones. Peter installed MapQuest on his iPhone and I installed MapFactor. Of the two, MapQuest has the nicer interface, so I may download the MapQuest for Android.

There are two advantages of using GPS systems:

1. The maps are downloaded in advance so you don't need Internet connectivity
2. They will guide you to any GPS coordinates in the world.

However, using GPS coordinates ain't quite as easy as it sounds. While they are always expressed in terms of latitude and longitude, the format of the coordinates can vary depending on your device and the system you are using.  Yesterday while transferring the coordinates of Granite Hot Springs my phone kept placing the hot springs somewhere on the broader between Mongolia and China, exactly 180˚ around the globe. Although I would like to visit Mongolia, it's not in the plan for this trip, so I knew something was wrong.

This morning in an "Ah Ha!" moment, I realized I needed a "-" minus sign in front of my longitude numbers (- for west of Greenwich Prime Meridian and + for east). Those Brits were so clever figuring out navigation for their navy.

Okay... here's the resources we've gathered for this trip. First books from Amazon:

Your Guide to the National Parks

Montana, Wyoming & Idaho Camping

Guide to Free Campgrounds

In the "Free Campgrounds", not all of the ones listed are free, but they are all either free or very cheap. Below are more materials we ordered from the Yellowstone Association and AAA.

Yellowstone Association's Deluxe Trip Planner package

Regional and state maps from AAA

State Tour Books from AAA

... And for the long hours of driving, audio books checked out of our local library. You'll notice one is a standard CD based audio book and the other two are Playaways, solid-state audio players about the size of a deck of cards. David says they don't skip like a CD can over a bumpy road. We're looking forward to trying them out.
Our provisions and supplies have been assembled. All we have to do is check out the IQ and start loading it so we can get the Escape Pod rolling after the Labor Day craziness is over.

The Escape Pod awaits our next adventure.