One of the joys of traveling, for us, is to find those amazing spots that we discover unexpectedly. One of the major pains, as you who have traveled for longer periods know all too well, is doing your laundry. You either have to pay a fortune for someone else to do it or you have to suffer through the indignities of a humid, crowded laundromat, sitting on a very uncomfortable chair, counting the minutes, and hoping that your clothes will actually be dry (and not shrunken) when your time is up.
Yesterday, we discovered the best kept secret in Yellowstone National Park. There are great lodges here. Old Faithful Inn is beyond compare—a multi-storied log edifice that defies imagination and always looks on the inside like Disneyland on a holiday weekend. Lake Hotel is all yellow and white, with light oak floors and wicker furniture, and somewhat fewer people. But, our favorite, by far, is Lake Lodge. It’s a slightly smaller log building with killer views of Yellowstone Lake and a super comfy (and deserted) huge lobby with heavy, stuffed leather furniture and western throw rugs.
We became even more enamoured of Lake Lodge when we discovered a laundromat just off the main lobby. It was clean and deserted. So I brought our overweight bag of dirties to the best laundromat on the planet. After loading up two loads, I went out into the lobby and I took my Kindle and plunked down in an extremely comfortable large leather chair (complete with ottoman) in front of a huge stone fireplace with a blazing fire and waited out my cycle. I didn’t even have to complain when I had to run an extra cycle to finish drying our towels. Definitely the best laundromat on the planet! If it weren’t so far away, I’d consider a weekly visit.
An important lesson we have learned is to pay attention to generator rules. Many RV’s have small (but extremely noisy) generators to provide them with electricity. We use our extra batteries and our solar panels for the same thing. Some national parks do not allow generators in certain parts of their campgrounds and some allow them for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. Unfortunately, our current campground allows them to run for 12 hours a day. Imagine walking in the DooDah Parade in Pasadena with a 100 person leaf-blower precision marching team. Maybe a slight exaggeration. You get the idea. Oh, well. Next time, we’ll pay more attention to campground descriptions….
The other day we got to experience a glorious thunder storm (glorious because they’re so rare in our usual environments). Manskills describes the sound of heavy rain on our roof as something like 1,000 castanets clacking at one time. Incredible. Listening to that sound inside your cozy trailer—it doesn’t get any better. It also drowns out generators…
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