Bret Hobbs' Adventure in Retirement: Yellowstone Adventure 2021

I decided to get up and shower and skip breakfast so I could get an early start on heading to Idaho Falls today. But when I went to pick up my lunch the EDR made, they convinced me to take a breakfast sandwich for the road. It looked good so I took one and ate it along the way to West Yellowstone. I wanted to get a tea and work on some checkbook reconciling before I drove down to Idaho Falls. When I reached the main gate I noticed it was backed up again and this time it looked to me to be backed up at least 2 miles into West Yellowstone. I still am amazed that people are coming to the park when so many articles have been written and video shown of the park's over crowding. I managed to squeeze through traffic, and I mean squeeze, to get my tea and to get to a parking space to work on the computer. Updating and doing the checkbook took about an hour and when I left the parking space the traffic still had not eased up. I had to go around several blocks to get through traffic and I had to make a lot of leaps across multiple lanes to get out. Once I was heading to Idaho Falls I felt a lot better, but 100's of cars were passing my going into West Yellowstone as I drove out of town. It is a mess.

Idaho Falls is about one hour and forty minutes away, but the drive is very pretty. On a clear day, which we have not had because of the fire haze, you can see the Tetons to the east while driving through Idaho. I like Idaho Falls as a town. It has a lot to offer and also some history as well. I needed to get some turmeric from Wal-Mart as my knee has been swelling some and the turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory. I also wanted to see if the book store had any new paperbacks I could add to my reading material while here. I have already gone through one book and will be completing another shortly. I also went to Cabelas to look around and use their bathroom, as they have a pretty clean bathroom. :) When your on the road it pays to note the places that have great bathrooms. :) I also went to the mall and looked around for a shirt or two. Their mall is in a lot better shape than Terre Haute's mall for sure. They have all their anchor stores still in place and many customers walking around. After doing the shopping I got gas at the Wal-Mart, $3.69 a gallon. Many of the tourist places are now charging into the $4.20's for gas. Thank you president Biden. :( Before leaving town I decided to go spend some time around the falls of Idaho Falls. I walked the river walk for a mile or so and took a few pictures, as you can see below.

After visiting the falls I headed back to the dorm. Upon getting back I checked to see how the grocery was doing. Man it was a mess. I guess the delivery truck came late and stock is stacked up everywhere. The store had a long term power outage. The tourists wiped out the drink fridge. Mark was doing his best to keep things caught up, but he said he was beat. I can believe it. So I will try to get plenty of sleep tonight because it looks like tomorrow will be a very busy day. Thanks for reading and be nice to one another.