It got quite cool overnight, it must have gone down to the single digits. It stayed rather cool in the morning until suddenly the wind picked up and blasted us with warm air. The kids really wanted campfires but with all the one night stays we didn’t really have time, but decided with the cooler temperatures we would get one going in the morning. Kids roasted some marshmallows, and we checked out the campground and the lake more and headed on our way. The first 20 to 30 kms of the trip was pretty much all downhill. The scenery was absolutely spectacular with huge towering cliffs on either side. The temperatures quickly claimed into the low 30C as we got lower. We then existed out into open plains. The scenery here was also one of the most spectacular so far on the trip. The area was very arid, almost desert like with tumble weeds.
We drove about an hour past the very small community of Winchester into Thermopolis. The temperatures was now close to 36 degrees, the highest we’ve ever seen on our van’s outdoor temperature gauge. Thermopolis was an Oasis in the desert, with greenery, trees, and a lot of shade (which were very rare after leaving Big Horn) and a river running through it. We had planned for a rest stop here and entered the free State Park indoor/outdoor hot spring. After no showers the day before it was just what we needed. The lady at the front desk mentioned that there is a 20 min limit for people entering the pools and that it starts when you get into the pool room (likely to stop people from overheating in the 104 F pools and to control the crowds. Being mid day during the week there were very few people there. After a shower in the change room we entered the pools. The shade in the outdoor pool was much appreciated. We met a local couple who said this was the only State park in Wyoming that was free because when the Natives had sold the land to the Government they stipulated that the hot springs to be freely accessible to the public. They also mentioned that they had 4 months of snow on the ground here, which was hard to believe considering the very arid climate in the summer!
After the hot springs and feeling rejuvenated we walked over to the covered picnic area and had lunch. Katherine went to get groceries while we continued to eat under the picnic area and stay cool. After Katherine returned we went for a quick around the outdoor natural thermal pools/waterfalls, by which point everyone was getting overheated and needed to get back into our air conditioned vehicle. We also still had a 3.5 hour drive to get to Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park and it was already 2PM so we needed to keep going. We stopped at the gas station nearby and fuelled up and also got everyone cold drinks.
We then continued our drive until we soon reached Wind Canyon, which was absolutely stunning. It was really the very few ways around the mountain range and followed the river that flowed to Thermopolis. The train was on one side of the canyon while the highway was on the other. This was probably one of the most spectacular places I had ever been to. The towering cliffs were so dramatic. We all agreed this was much more impressive than the much talked about needles highway we had just done the day before. It was also a strange illusion as we appeared to be going downhill but the river was flowing the other direction. We then saw a train emerge from a tunnel on the opposite side as we entered multiple short tunnels. After going through the canyon we emerged out into the open plains again and saw the dam that held back all the water prior to the canyon creating the Boysen reservoir. The dam created a huge reservoir, which was a state park. It was much needed water in the desert and was a state park all around it with camp grounds (although at 36 degrees C and little to no shade a lot of these campgrounds looked very very hot. At least there were many beaches along the reservoir. We continued our drive through the dry plains. I couldn’t imagine living in an area so hot and dry with little to no shade anywhere you looked. The scenery however was just so spectacular in all directions. Very different from what we were used to back home!
We continued our drive through more beautiful scenery. We could begin to see what we assumed were the Teton ranges in the distance. We passed by the National Museum of Military Vehicles, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It would have been a neat stop if only we had the time. As it was we had underestimated the drive for the day and was going to be arriving to our campground past 7PM, something we had wanted to avoid after having done it for a couple campgrounds before. Unfortunately this meant we couldn’t really afford to stop in many of these places past Thermopolis. To be honest there wasn’t a lot of places to stop, and the temperature was also still quite high. We saw many impressive homes and very unique hills. After more than 2 hours of driving we went through the town of Dubois, and saw a sign at the grocery store that said they sold bear spray so we turned around to get some as we realized we didn’t have any. We thought it might be cheaper than getting it at the park, but it was still $50 US for a can. Everyone needed a bathroom break at this point, and we stopped by the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive centre around the block but it had closed a 5PM (about 40 min prior), you had to pay to enter, and we didn’t really have the time. We got back into the van and continued on.
We had quite the climb and decent as we got near Grand Teton National Park. It was a beautiful spot and we kept our eyes open for wildlife but we didn’t see any. We eventually got to the gate to the national park, where there was a line up of a few cars in front of us. By this time it was getting close to 7PM, and today was the day we had to book the Victoria campgrounds along the Great Ocean Road in Australia at 7PM MT, something we were planning on doing before we left on the trip but they had issues with their booking system and had to delay the start of the reservation window and do it in a staggered approach. Thankfully we had good cell reception and after Katherine got both our phones “in the queue” after passing through the gate we were able to get the two campgrounds we needed to. There was one more campground we needed to get but that reservation window wasn’t going to open until the following week on the 23rd of August. We checked the campground availability later that night and found out all the campgrounds that became available were fully booked for the days we needed. Phew! Booking campgrounds for peak season is now just like booking concert tickets and something we’ve been needing to do months in advance.
We drove through more specular scenery in the National Park, but again we had no time to stop. We eventually arrived to our campground after hours where we found directions to head straight to the site we booked. After the debacle of the first campground of the trip, we had already looked up what site we needed to go to but it was nice for them to have a piece of paper with our name and site number at the entrance.
We had about an hour of day light left so we quickly set up camp and had dinner at our Jenny Lake camp site. The campground volunteer stopped by during this time and gave us a welcome and went over the rules for us. They were very serious about bear safety and we were to leave basically absolutely nothing outside, and were not to even have our water bottles in our tent. All dishwashing water was to be flushed down the toilet. There was no dishwashing sink and this set up wasn’t the greatest. You would think for such a popular campground they would have had a better system. We then learned the showers were in a separate building from the bathroom across from us, and they were $5 US each for 5 to 7 min. Yikes! For us family of 5 it would be $25 US just to shower. It was however a very quiet campground as everyone was there for the hiking experience and not there to just have fun camping like many other campgrounds (ie Jellystone campground in Sioux Falls!).
Trip Around The World 
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