Boating in Grand Teton National Park

We are tempted to stay another day here at Fremont Lake but the delights of Grant Teton and Yellowstone still await us and we are running out of time. We rise late and wash Monty in the washing up bowl while the other two make us breakfast.

We drive North, and make good time from Pinedale so decide to stop off briefly at “The Spotted Horse Ranch”, where we are scheduled to spend a week in 5 or 6 days’ time. We meet Kevin the manager, Christian who heads up the wrangler team, and Zach one of the wranglers. It all looks tickety-boo, and the kids’ excitement levels rise discernibly now that they have something tangible in their heads to look forward to.

We move on, though, and pass through Jackson Hole, which we all recognise from Christmas 2007. We continue North into Grand Teton National Park and after an hour or so, we finally reach Colter Bay campsite; another public site with no hook-ups, but huge and not one of our favourites. But here there is a bit more “stuff”, so we can hire boats and kayaks for the next day.

Sarah and Eliza are tasked with making a fire while I cook. It starts ok but soon goes out and Monty and I rescue it just in time (I won’t hear the last of that one). We end up eating in the dark, to an accompaniment of 20 or so concerned fellow campers who are wandering about looking for their lost dog “Ace”, a sheepdog with only three legs. Some concerned soul had heard their dog barking, felt sorry for it, and had let it out, and Ace then disappeared over the horizon, never to be seen again. The initial search goes on all night, which becomes slightly tiresome towards the early hours, and the dog is actually never found, as far as we know. Not ideal, at least not for Ace or the dispossessed family, but perhaps quite jolly for the local bears and wolves.

The next day we rent a motorboat, which packs a fair punch with a 9bhp engine, and could probably exceed 10 knots with a following wind. We find a deserted island for breakfast
and Sarah goes swimming, which given the temperature of the water impresses everyone. Then we get out the fishing gear and the worms. Eliza likes that bit.
A Golden Eagle watches over us and we buzz about in the boat trying to get a better look.
Finally it flies off, and we stop for lunch.

Once full of fizzy drink and chocolate, everyone has a go at driving. Eliza whistles constantly;
Monty sticks out his tongue.

This arrangement is predictably chaotic, and in due course I have to tow us out of trouble.
Sarah recalls my description of the “pista” technique that Pelicano used back in Corcovado and she tries this with the 9bhp that we are packing, only forgets one crucial part which is that you pull the propeller out of the water before beaching. This leads to an engine stalled in the drive position which takes a bit of fiddling to get started again.
We all go swimming here, and the water is indeed super-cold, but very refreshing. Afterwards, Jemima and Eliza want to push the boat off, so I oblige, but add a bit of fun by ramming the 9bhp into reverse on full throttle just as the beach lets us go. Jemima lets go straight away, having had 10 years’ experience of this kind of jape, but Eliza holds on grimly until a worried Mum pulls her on-board. Jemima is left behind on the beach
but rather touchingly, Monty gets highly worked up and insists that we go back.

We return the boat after a full day, return to the campsite, and prepare for an early start to Yellowstone the next day.

Fremont Lake - we head north

We leave Browne Lake reluctantly, wondering rather if we have found the most perfect campsite, and whether we will regret leaving this place behind. But in truth we have probably exhausted its attractions and it is time to move on. Our plan is not to go far, and just find somewhere on the lake at Flaming Gorge within an hour or so of Browne Lake. I am tired, so let Eliza drive for a while.

As we drive on, though, we realise that the best part of this Park is now behind us. We are now back in the desert, and all the camp sites are full of people with huge boats that use the lake for general gadding about. We drive on, for miles and miles and miles, and ultimately resolve just to give up looking for somewhere nice, get some miles under our belts and see if we can get up towards Jackson Hole, and the attendant delights of the Tetons and Yellowstone. The kids end up watching Star Wars in the back. Eventually, the desert gives way gradually to green stuff, and Sarah spies another lake on the map which looks good and should have some camp sites around it. More following our noses, but as the afternoon turns to evening, we find Fremont Lake campsite and Site number 11. A corker this one, with a great firepit and terrific view of the Lake. The bear warning signs are getting more and more serious and I wander down to a neighbouring site to get some intel from the locals. The message is yes, there are bears here, and yes they are grizzlies, but you should be just fine. The chap I ask eventually admits to having been “cuddled” by one at some stage in the past, so I am not sure that his advice was super-trustworthy, but we sit outside by the fire anyway and indulge in some Pinot Noir from a it further west. The kids simply go feral.

Flaming Gorge – we enter bear country

We leave the world of “hook-ups” behind and head for the wilderness. A “full hook-up” is an RV-er’s term for an arrangement whereby one plugs in one’s water, electricity and plumbing to an assortment of various plugs next to your site. All very convenient, and it means that you have the facility to shower, wash up, charge our multitude of electrical appliances, toast bread, and most importantly make coffee. I am in charge of the plugging and the unplugging. The girls help me here and there, and Monty loves watching the black and grey water emptying process. Other than driving the Reconnaissance Vehicle, these are my only jobs. At the first RV site (Zion), I was given the laundry job too, but I applied Clarkson philosophy and lost all the clothes. Completely disappeared – mountains of kids’ underwear and a couple of Sarah’s shirts. I am not given this task again.

So entering the world of camping proper is a different kettle of fish. In a 30 foot RV, it is never going to be roughing it exactly, and we still have our gas fridge and cooker. However, we no longer have our electrical mattress inflaters (separate) and the kids seemed to have played with them before we left the world of hook-ups, so Sarah is now committed to sleeping on top of a convex mound, while I slumber at the bottom of a concave pit.

We left Moab with a plan to head for somewhere where nobody else goes and we found it – Browne Lake in Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area.
The weird thing about this one was that Sarah saw some pictures of a campsite on the internet in the Flaming Gorge area that looked cool, but there was no clue where this place actually was.
We stopped here and there and looked at a few places (Eliza , ibid), but finally found this site on a lake 10 miles down a dirt road off the main highway.
We were up at 8000 feet or something so the morning temperature in the Reconnaissance Vehicle went from well over 100 degrees (Moab) to 55 degrees (Browne Lake) overnight. In due course, at Yellowstone this reaches 43. We stayed here for a couple of nights and only on the second day Sarah realised that our very site was actually the one from which the internet photo had been taken. A great, peaceful place where we spent the days walking, playing in the lake, hunting for bears, collecting firewood and generally having a very chilled time.

Flaming Gorge - Eliza’s Blog again

Mima and I woke up and then Monty and we all went to give Mummy and Daddy a hug and wake them up too. We took a picture of my shoes which got chewed in Las Vegas by an escalator. Daddy said "that could have been messy Eliza".
Then um Monty and Mima went back into their beds and started to play. But I stayed with Mummy and Daddy and kept on hugging them. I was very very very hungry and my tummy started hurting. Daddy went to make breakfast with Mima and Monty while I was with mummy. I went to eat a banana because I was so hungry but then I started feeling a bit sick and Mummy tucked me up in bed. We had no medicine so Mummy couldn’t give me any medicine. Daddy didn’t know that I felt sick and then Daddy said ‘are you alright?’ and I said ‘I feel sick’ and daddy said if you eat some breakfast then you might feel better. I tried to eat some breakfast but then I felt even more sick. Mummy brought me a bowl and I was sick in it straight away. It was all bananary and mummy said ‘ Well you didn’t like that banana much did you.’

Then Monty and Jemima and Daddy went out for a bear hunt and to get some wood for the fire. I fell asleep and mummy was on the computer and then a humming bird flew in to the RV. Mummy tried to wake me up to see it but I was fast asleep. Then the Humming bird got really scared and Mummy tried to catch it and then she caught it and she let it outside. Before she let it out she took some pictures of it and it was a very beautiful humming bird and it was making little tweety noises and Mummy felt very sorry for it.

Then I woke up, Mummy said that she had seen a humming bird and that it had come in and that she had caught it and let it go again and she said ’ do you feel better?’ Then Mummy said do you want something to eat. Do you want a cookie or some pasta or some grapes or an apple and I said “oh yes please” and then I was better.
Later on we played on the bridge.

Collecting firewood (Monty)

We went to collect wood one morning. On the way Daddy did some jumping and Mima said ooooh can I video you please and so Daddy did the jumping again.
When we got wood I said to Daddy can this wood be my boat please and so we made a boat out of the wood. We found a nail and banged the nail in the boat with the hammer and put a sail on made from a bin. Then we went to the lake to sail the boat but it didn’t work very well.

Flaming Gorge - Eliza’s Blog

Daddy and Mummy woke up at five o’clock in the morning and drove us to the forest while we were asleep in our beds. We slept for three hours until eight o’ clock and then we woke up and had breakfast in a big café. We started off on our own in the restaurant then a few more people came and more people came and more and more until the restaurant was full. Monty had one egg, Eliza had one egg and Daddy had two eggs and we all had some bacon and toast and hash browns. Mummy had a western omelette and Mima had a ham and cheese omelette. After breakfast we helped mummy find some camp sites.

First we found one near a really big lake that was very crowded and it had lots of boats there. But we all decided that it was a bit toooo crowded. So then we carried on and we had two more hours to get to a different campsite with a little pond and beautiful flowers around it and we went up to the top of the camp site but we thought it was a bit too crowded too.

So we carried on and had a half an hour drive to the first Bear Country camp site so we went inside and looked for some spaces, it was a bit crowded but um there were a few spaces though.
We had a little explore around the camp site and Mummy decided that it wasn’t such a good camp site because it wasn’t near water so we went on and had another half an hour drive to a brown sign and we thought it might have been a camp site, it was a very long drive down a bumpy track to the camp site and right at the end there were quad bikers and they were in front and one got stuck and then carried on behind us when his mates carried on without him so we let him past and we found out that his friends were waiting for him after all.

So we went on and saw free spaces and we saw a river right next to them and we parked our RV in the one that was next to the river but then we explored and walked to the pond and we saw reallllly cool place so daddy and Monty and Mima went to get the RV and me and mummy stayed by the space in case any body arrived. So daddy and Monty and Mima took aggggggges and me and mummy had enough to talk about all the things we saw on the holiday. It was really cold when we were talking so we started to run about in circles. Then finally Daddy and Mima and Monty came. And then daddy went past the bit were mummy wanted him to go and he went round to the other bit of the parking space and he parked there instead.

Then we put the yellow things under the wheels for our first time, it was cool. Daddy went forward a bit and he put the wheels on top of the yellow things and it stayed high.

So then we had a picnic which mummy made for lunch. Then we balanced on the fence and walked and we came to a path and the path was a walk so we followed the path and the path ended by the pond where the cows were.
There was lots of long grass there and it was as tall as Monty and Monty couldn’t see anything. We had to cross two rivers and we jumped over one and we went over a really wobbly bridge but luckily nobody fell in. When we passed the bridge we saw some footprints, mummy spotted some heron kind of footprints and deer footprints and Jemima found some cow footprints but we didn’t find any bears.

Mummy found some sticks in the pond so we all used them as spears. We carried on and there were lots if holes in the ground and we used our sticks as balancers. We balanced ourselves on them and Jemima used them to check if the cow poo was new cow poo or not by poking the stick in the crust.

Then we went on and climbed some rocks. Mummy and Monty were climbing rocks too, we stopped and saw an eagle flying around, it landed in the water so we thought it might be a fish eagle. There was a very smelly fishy smell so we tried to find a dead fish or fish bones that the eagle had dropped but we couldn’t.

And then we carried on and we went scrambling a bit on the rocks. While me Mima and Daddy were scrambling, Monty and Mummy found a hammer and a bear clue. Then mummy and Monty caught up with us so we all carried on and went to a bridge with a good rubber ring place to slide down. Daddy said it was a bit too rocky for a rubber ring ride so we decided that we maybe wouldn’t do it so that we wouldn’t pop our rubber ring. Then we had a stick race and Jemima’s stick won and Eliza’s was second and daddy’s was last. Mummy and Monty didn’t do it they were the judges instead of being a racer. Then mummy saw a really really big dandelion clock and me Mima Monty and mummy blew it out all together and we made a special little wish.

We came back to the RV and we lit a really big fire. First it started out as a teeny flame then we put some watery stuff on it that helped it light then me Monty and Daddy said that we should poke the fire and get our sticks on fire while Mummy was asleep because it was her special evening.

Then Monty decided to throw his stick in the fire because his stick didn’t go on fire but I kept mine in case it got really hot and then it managed to get on fire and that did happen. Mummy had a special grey stick that she thought she was going to burn but Monty asked if he could borrow it to poke with so mummy finally said yes and Monty and me got the fire going again. I put lots of wood in the big pocket of my stripey jumper that I got from the Scilly Isles. I put all the wood in the fire and the fire started going really well then Mummy joined in because she wanted to help and she was the best mummy in the world then because she got the fire going really really well with all the wood.

Then we made a special dinner for Mummy, the starter was chicken noodle soup it was very nice we drank it all up. Mummy said she had always wanted us to try it but we said no because we were being cheeky cheeky chip monks. Then we went back to the fire and the fire was out again and me and Monty got it working again and Daddy decided he wanted to cook steak so we cooked Mummy steak and the potatoes were nearly ready that had been put in the fire ages ago. The steak was ready really quickly and Daddy made it really nice for Mummy, Mummy enjoyed her special evening very much.

Then just before it was time to go to bed Daddy did a very very long wee on the fire and Monty did part of it too. It was really really funny and lots of smoke came up and it was smelly. Then we went to bed and we all fell asleep. The end.

Hope you enjoyed my blog.

Our special nights (Jemima)

Each evening since we have been in the RV, we have all had a special afternoon or night where it goes, in line, Mummy, [Daddy], Monty, Eliza, Jemima. For example, the first night Mummy had a night when she didn’t do anything. We cooked her tomato soup with Basil and cheese, then for Main Course we cooked her chicken and rice and for pudding me Monty and Eliza enjoyed chocolate chip cookies.

Then it was my special night at Moab and they made me a special bed to sit in while they made tomato soup for starter, then spaghetti with tuna for Main Course, then very rich chocolate brownies for pudding (I could hardly eat them because they were so rich).

I like doing special evenings because it is fun to make people happy that they don’t have to do everything every night. And I like cooking myself as it is fun shopping and making pancakes and stuff like that. I have learnt how to cook and do all the washing up how sometimes it can be a bit busy to do cutting, cooking, and other things like that.