Tonight I’m in West Yellowstone. Today started out quite cold, even in Pocatello where I started from. By the time I got to West Yellowstone, I was reconsidering whether or not this was a good idea…

Something funny happened about 15 miles from West Yellowstone. A herd of cows wound up on the wrong (road) side of a ranch fence, and cowboys on horseback were rounding them up to get them back on the right side of the fence. The herd was off the road by the time I drove by, but it was still pretty amusing. Apparently, when one cow decides to do something, the others will follow. So there’s no such thing as a “small” escape.

My clothes are relatively warm (though I didn’t have my heavy coat on), but the big problem is my ears. Despite having a closed-face helmet, there’s enough airflow in there that my ears were getting very cold. There was originally foam around the visor, but that has flaked away over time, and now there is apparently a big enough gap for lots of cold air to get in. There’s a motorcycle shop in town, and I’ll see if there’s anything they can do tomorrow (Monday).

Speaking of Monday, there’s a 20% chance of rain and the high is only going to be 63 degrees. Tuesday will be even colder at 61. Then the temperatures are supposed to rise a bit, with 68 on Wednesday and 70 on Thursday (when I’m leaving).

I’ll decide whether I’ll risk the cold in Bighorn later on…

As planned, I’m in Pocatello, Idaho tonight. Tomorrow I’ll drive the rest of the way to Yellowstone, where I’ve booked four nights at the Hibernation Station. There isn’t really anything to report, since it was 290 miles on Interstate 84. I did update the Crater Lake post with lots of pictures, so check it out! Also, for some reason, comments were disabled on that post. That should be fixed now, so feel free to send some feedback…

I had hoped to do the drive from Crater Lake to Yellowstone in 3 relatively easy segments of around 275 miles each. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things worked out…

I left Crater Lake Friday morning, in 38 degree weather (the cold weather that moved into Crater Lake on Thursday seems to have settled in). There aren’t any major roads heading east from Crater Lake – I would need to go way out of my way, up to Portland, if I wanted to pick up the nearest Interstate (I-84). Instead, I took the back roads through the mountains.

While the drive was scenic, there were very few inhabited areas (towns of more than 100 people). The first sizable town was Vail, OR – population 1700. I decided to continue an additional 15 miles to Ontario, OR – population 11,300 – on the border with Idaho, making today’s mileage a little over 350. That seems to have been a mistake.

I’d rank Ontario just above Lovelock, Nevada as one of the least-appealing places I’ve been. Driving down the side street to the (overpriced) Holiday Inn, several toothless children came running out and tried to climb onto / into the Atom – while I was driving down the road! After discovering the prices (apparently this place takes FULL advantage of being the first wide spot in the road), I checked with several other motels to try to find a reasonable rate, which turned out to be impossible. Even the Best Western’s rooms started at $91 and went up from there.

After getting a room at America’s Best Value Inn (hint – it isn’t), I unloaded the Atom – no elevator, long hallway, lots of luggage as I didn’t want to leave anything in the car as it didn’t feel safe. After dropping the luggage off in my room, I went in search of food. The closest place was a Denny’s, which is usually good for decent, if uninspired, food. Every single adult customer in there was WAY larger than me, and for those of you who know me, you know I’m definitely “above average”. Even some of the children in there were bigger than me!

Anyway, I have reasonable Internet access here, but I only checked my email, visited the Atom forums to see what’s new, and made this post. I have lots of pictures from Crater Lake, but I’m just too tired.

Tomorrow I plan on driving around 250 miles to Pocatello, ID. That should all be on the Interstate (I-84 and I-86). Pocatello is large enough that I should be able to get a good hotel room at a reasonable price, and also try to track down a decent meal. I’ll probably post my Crater Lake pictures Saturday night.

With any luck, I’ll drive from Pocatello to West Yellowstone on Sunday, and then have a nice quiet few days in Yellowstone.

I’m at Crater Lake for the second of 2 days here. There isn’t actually any Internet access here, hence the abbreviated post.

I’ll update this once I’m down off the mountain on Friday night.

Update – LOTS of pictures:

Wizard Island as seen from the Crater Lake Lodge. As you can see, visibility wasn’t the greatest today – there was a bit of smoke from wildfires burning to the north, and it was also somewhat overcast and hazy.

This is the same evergreen from my visit 5 years ago. It has lost some more living pieces. I suspect that it is being harmed by people climbing on / around it (you can see where some of the roots are exposed).

Moonrise over Crater Lake. Shot hand-held with a multi-second exposure. The moon is rising through clouds to the east, where there was a thunderstorm.

This is the view of the other side of Wizard Island. You can’t see it in this photo, but the Crater Lake Lodge is on the rim, about 1/3 of the way from the right side of the picture.

This is the crater at the top of Wizard Island. Wizard is a secondary volcanic cone within the main cone that is Crater Lake. There’s even a tertiary cone on the side of the island.

There are a number of these structures on the tops of the higher mountains around the lake. They’re fire lookout / ranger stations, and you can hike up to some of them. The view must be spectacular (I didn’t try the climb), but I wouldn’t want to be up there during a lightning storm!

These are some of the rocks on the side of the caldera (crater wall). You can clearly see the volcanic origin of these rocks. Elsewhere, there are a variety of other types of rocks, including sandstone.

This is one of the many types of birds that call Crater Lake home.

There was a group of chipmunks running around one of the parking areas, begging for food and coming within a foot or so of the people that were feeding them. The newspaper and guide everyone receives upon entering the park explains why feeding (any) animals in the park is a bad idea, but some people just don’t get it. After a bit of waiting, I found one in a natural habitat.

There is still a good amount of snow left over from last winter in the park. This picture shows several patches of snow on the sides of one of the mountains. During one of the ranger talks, the ranger said that they were still giving snowshoe tours of the park in the middle of July! This past winter, the park received a total of 53 FEET of snow (the average is 44 feet). In some areas, there is still snow on the side of the road, as well as on the walls and shoreline of the crater.

Is this the mountain from the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark? No, it is one of the Scott Bluffs.

This is Phantom Ship, the other island in Crater Lake. You can see the amount of haze that was in the air.

This is Vidae Falls, one of a number of waterfalls in the park. The water comes from springs way up on the side of the mountain, and runs downhill away from the lake.

Here’s the obligatory picture of my car, since this is the Atom Across America blog, after all.

I’m making another cross-country journey – from Oregon to New York!

Tom Smurzynski of Unique Fabricating has been working his magic on my Atom for quite a few months now. In addition to a number of top-secret upgrades (which I’ll reveal in future posts), he has had the car apart for a total inspection, and any part which could have possibly become worn has been replaced with premium-quality new parts. Here’s a pair of pictures of my Atom near the final disassembly:

I’ll be flying out to Oregon on Monday, September 12th and will pick up the car on the 13th. I expect to be going over everything that has been done on the car with Tom for the whole day on the 13th, so I’ll be staying in Medford the night of the 13th.

On the 14th, I’ll be driving the Atom up to Crater Lake for two days as a shakedown, just as I did on my very first Atom trip.

After that, I’ll probably return to Medford to have Tom go over any issues, as well as a torque check on all the critical bolts.

I then plan to drive to Yellowstone National Park, as I did on my second Atom trip. I expect to spend 4 or 5 days exploring the park this time, unlike the “Yellowstone in 1.5 days” rush tour that I did last time. From there, I’ll move on to Bear Tooth Scenic Highway and Bighorn National Forest – this time I’ve packed cold weather gear! The last time I was there, also in mid-September, temperatures dropped below freezing at the highest altitudes and I nearly froze. Also, this time I’ll have a pair of video cameras documenting the drive and should get some spectacular footage of the switchbacks on US 14, which I’ve referred to in the past as “America’s Stelvio“.

From there, I’ll probably head southeast toward Arkansas to visit friends and get some great BBQ, taking my time along the way. Unlike the previous trips, I don’t have a detailed itinerary this time – in the past, I’ve driven through very bad weather in order to keep up with the posted schedule.

As I move across country, I’ll post updates and pictures, as well as letting you know where I expect to be over the next few days. As always, the Atom Across America Hotline phone – 551-580-0100 – will be updated with information as well. See you on the road!