A prismatic stroll among fumaroles

There is no question: Yellowstone NP is simply gorgeous. We reached the western entrance of the park two days ago and spent three days sightseeing. Only half of the park is currently open, the rest will open by mid May, because of the snow. We saw plenty of geysers, steam vents and fumaroles; eerie, surreal environment, rocks of all colours and turquoise bubbling pools and boiling rivers; I was expecting some hobbits to appear on our path any time… We saw wildlife too: bisons, elks, moose and a coyote, and a glimpse of a bear with two cubs. We spent a night in the only open campground of the park, by the north entrance. It was almost full, so once again we got one of the last spots available. This campground has restrooms with running water, but no showers, unfortunately. It rained most part of the night and then it started snowing. This morning, everything was covered in a thin layer of snow. We were fortunate to be sleeping in our heated camper and not in a tent, as some people did. Another few days and we will will be able to fill our water tank and have running water in the camper at all time. We have a water heater, so we will have hot water too, the ultimate luxury. We are also very fortunate to visit all these parks off-season. I cannot imagine how it can be in the summer vacation, with crowds of people all over the place. There are on average 7’000 vehicles in Yellowstone on a daily basis in the summer. Cannot imagine being part of that crowd! 

No camp sites in sight

What is this law called? Murphy’s? Like when you do not need something, it is all over the place, and it mysteriously vanishes when you actually DO need it… This law proved right once again in Moab, Utah. All along the way to Moab, there were plenty of camp sites, on average two or three per town, mostly empty because the RVying season has not started yet. After visiting Monument Valley and camping in a small town called Mexican Hat in the middle of nowhere, we decided to head to Moab, the entry point for both Arches and Canyonlands NP. We arrived at Moab at about 11am and checked the first camp site in town. Fully booked… all right… let’s try the next one, fully booked again… there was a Jeep safari in town for the Easter weekend in Moab, and hundreds and hundreds of Jeeps were gathering at this very place. Too bad for us, all camp sites and hotels were fully booked. We decided to visit Arches NP and check the camp sites in the park. Fully booked again; however, we got a list of camp sites at the Visitor Center. After visiting the park, we started to check these camp sites, along the Colorado river, all already full. We were considering spending the night on a Walmart parking (although there is no Walmart in Moab), when as a last chance we decided to head to Canyonlands and check a 56 places camp site there. We were lucky enough to get one of the last spots available at 7pm, which is quite late by camping standards. It was a beautiful place on the top of the canyon, very atmospheric, but not electricity hook up, which is fine for one night; and no water, which is also theoretically fine if only we had planned for it. We had not filled our water tank yet, because it might still freeze at night, so we had only a few gallons of water with us. We managed and bought a water tank with a tap the very next day so now we are prepared to camp in the wilderness. Usually, camp sites with all amenities, like electricity and water hook up as well as toilets, hot showers, wifi and laundry are in town and look like parking lots. There are always very clean and great to stay at. However, camp sites outside of towns are located in nicer places, but lack everything else. There is a choice to make, and we will probably alternate. We are now through with canyons, arches and other geological oddities and will go to Grand Teton and Yellowstone NP in the next days. Last night we spent the night in a camp site in Dinosaur, 100 spots, we were the only ones… things are back to normal.

Mesa Verde

Nous sommes parties le 10 avril 2014 pour notre long voyage. Je crois que c’était un peu émouvant. Nous avons dit au revoir à Jessica et Walter, puis nous nous sommes dirigées vers Glenwood Spings, un petit village en pleines Montagnes Rocheuses avec comme son nom l’indique des sources d’eau chaudes. On est arrivées à 16h dans le camping et pour moi c’était la première fois que je dormais dans le camping car et moi fois on y dort très bien.

Quand on roule au Colorado, avec les montagnes, la rivière, les rails de train ou le train, les plateaux on a l’impression qu’à chaque moment on va voir débarquer Lucky Luke poursuivant les Daltons qui se sont échappés de leur prison… Les plateaux au Colorado sont entre 2200 et 2700 mètres et on voit les montagnes qui sont au dessus de 4000 mètres.

Lundi 14 avril on a visité le parc national de Mesa Verde. C’est un parc où sont conservées des maisons troglodytes des Indiens : les Pueblones. Les Pueblones ont habité 700 ans à Mesa Verde et ils sont partis en 1300. Ils étaient environs 35 000 à vivre dans cette montagne. Tout d’abord le paysage est magnifique. Le parc est sur une montagne et on voit à 360 degrés. On peut y voir les montagnes du Colorado, les rochers de l’Utah, la plaine du Nouveau Mexique et l’Arizona. Les maisons des indiens étaient creusées dans le sol (Pit house) pour avoir plus chaud.  C’était très intéressant de se plonger dans la culture des ‘’anciens’’ américains.

First days on the road

We left Boulder on Thursday morning heading to Glennwood Springs, about 150 miles to the West, in the Rocky Mountains. The highway goes through some passes that are over 3’000  meters high. We camped in Glennwood Springs, in a camp ground a little outside town, with electricity and hot showers. We are a bit off-season, so we were almost alone in the camping ground, very nice! We hooked our camper to the electricity plug and got electricity and heating all night without exhausting our battery. We are almost mid April but there is still snow high in the mountains and nights can be a little cold, so heating is definitely not a luxury. The next day we headed to Salida, 150 miles to the South where we met again with Jessica and Walter. We stayed at Walter’s sister, Debbie and her husband Jerry. They have a very nice house surrounded by plenty of land and with a gorgeous view on the Rocky Mountains, at 2’300 meters high. On Saturday we did some sightseeing, visited a very charming village called Twin Lakes and soaked in Mount Princeton hot springs, in a creek. There are about 56 peaks over 4’000 meters in the Rocky Mountains and some towns are well above 3’000 meters. The tree line is also above 3’000 meters, much higher than in the Alps, this explains why some towns are so high up. These towns were created in the late 19th century a the time of the gold and silver rush and have this peculiar look of pioneer towns, like in the cartoons, very atmospheric, very Far West kind of. We are now heading to Mesa Verde National Park and Monument Valley.

Time has come

Here we are! Day D has come. We crossed the pond on April 2 to Denver, Colorado. We are currently staying at Jessica and Walter’s, long time friends of Xénia D. Jessica and Walter have given us a magnificent welcome at their home in Boulder, a beautiful city close to Denver, at the feet of the Rocky mountains. They even let us one of their cars to use for our various errands. Walter went with us on Thursday to tour the various car dealers in the Boulder/Denver area. Surprisingly, the smaller the van, the most expensive, because small vans are fuel efficient, easier to drive and therefore in high demand. So smaller vans, the size we commonly see in Europe are actually difficult to find. But we found one on the Internet on Thursday morning and went immediately to see it. We did a test drive to check how comfortable we were with driving it, checked the engine on and made an offer. We also checked other campers, bigger, with more space to live but the driving was quite cumbersome. We  have to keep in mind our 30’000 miles journey on narrow and bumpy roads. By Friday afternoon, the deal was done. Now we need to wait for the vehicle to be titled and get the licence plates of Colorado before we can actually embark on our journey. We hope to be done with all this paperwork by Friday latest.

In the meantime, we started to do some shopping, some mont-bell jackets, very thin but very warm, and the basics to live in a small van for a year. Space is very limited, so we need to think twice before buying stuff. We can take only what is absolutely necessary, no more. Jessica and Walter took us to a baseball game on Sunday and to some sight seeing in the mountains. We cruised across the Rocky Mountains National Park on Monday, very scenic, gorgeous, there is still plenty of snow and the lakes are still mostly frozen… I hope we are not going to freeze when we camp in the van…. 

The Pleasureway

Nous sommes arrivées il y a quatre jours, mercredi 2 Avril 2014. Nous avons très bien été accueillies par Jessica et Walter dans leur maison de Boulder, Colorado. Je connais Jessica depuis 20 ans, nous sommes rencontrées en France pendant qu’elle étudiait.

Dès le lendemain avec Walter, après quelques recherches internet et quelques coups de téléphone nous avons rencontrer des « car dealers » correspondant à ceux que nous avions trouvés sur le net.

Le premier véhicule nous a beaucoup plu. Il s’agit d’un modèle de 1998, le PLEASUREWAY. C’est un gros van, où on peut faire la cuisine dedans, dormir et il y a une toilette et une douche. Il est très facile à conduire, comme une grosse voiture, et on s’imaginait dans les Andes le piloter très facilement.

Nous sommes allés chez plusieurs revendeur et on a conduit un 25 feet (environ 7,60 mètres) ce n’est pas du tout la même chose, c’est comme si on conduisait un camion.

Le lendemain matin, après moult négociations sur le prix ; plus le van est petit plus il est cher… nous nous sommes décidées pour le PLEASUREWAY. Le véhicule fait 19 feet (5,80m), il est parfait !

On a un véhicule pour faire notre Panamericaine !