We packed up early on the morning we were to leave Yellowstone. I always hate packing to come home, and the camp had a somber mood that morning. That is until a huge black bear wandered right through the campground. It came to within 30 yards of our vehicle, sniffed around a tent adjacent to ours (the folks inside never knew it), lumbered past the restroom and off into the woods. As soon as we pulled out of the Canyon parking lot we spotted a pack of wolves working through the meadows at the junction. Two of our coolest wildlife encounters came on the day we were leaving. We had to drive to the west side of the park because the Lehardy fire still had the roads closed near Fishing Bridge. We drove down through Grand Teton National Park, on over to Dubois where we had a great meal at the Cowboy Cafe and picked up the interstate near Rawlins for the long drive home. We took a different route this time so we could see some new country. We drove down through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas – all except Texas were new states for me.
The Cowboy Cafe in Dubois, WY.
I’ve put together this Top Ten list for our trip. Much of it will only be amusing to those of us who were there, but you might find something useful such as which rest areas to avoid, a good place to grab some grub, etc.
1. Best Food: The best food of the whole trip came at the Cowboy Cafe in Dubois, WY. We hadn’t planned to stop there, but it looked pretty good and some other place we tried to eat at was closed. Definitely try the shrimp quesadillas and one of their pies. I really liked Dubois (once I found a place to park), and I’d like to launch some excursions into the Wind Rivers from there sometime. The best camp meal was probably the beef stew Mrs. Meeks (my mother-in-law) whipped up, but the coolest was the pan-fried brook trout the girls and I brought in. I’m not crazy about any of the restaurants inside the park we tried, but the Lake Hotel’s restaurants was probably best of those. The best local beer we tried was Moose Drool.
2. World’s Absolute Worst Coffee: We found it!! It resides in a gas station in Clayton, New Mexico. From the taste of it, you can probably enjoy a cup from the exact same batch we had. I think it had already been on the burner for a couple months when I poured my cup back in August. I’ve never tried to drink coffee that was so thick, burned and rancid. It was horrible. I never put cream in mine, but I poured it to that stuff. It didn’t really help, but I needed the caffeine. Luckily, all the impurities had burned off weeks before, so I was left with almost pure caffeine.
Continue reading Summer 2008 Yellowstone Photo Series: Final Shots and Top Ten
