Walter Johnson Park, Coffeyville, Kansas

Our weather has improved since we first arrived in Coffeyville, Kansas. The first week here we had more rain than we had seen in the last couple of years and it was very humid. Now we have settled into sunny, warm weather and the humidity has dropped some. Hope it lasts.
We are staying at Walter Johnson Park, which has campsites with water and electric. Most of the others here are also working at Amazon.com for the season. Since the park is on the edge of town everything is close by. The park is named for a former Washington Senators pitcher and one of the first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He lived in Coffeyville during the off season. He played in the Major League between 1907 and 1927 and set many pitching records, some of which remained unbroken for more than 50 years. Besides the campground there is a playground, picnic area, horseshoe pits, baseball fields and buildings used during the fair.

Our campsite

View of part of the campground. Some of the sites are under pecan trees.

Looking towards the playground and picnic area.

As you can see from this picture taken in the park, they had a major flood here last year. When the local refinery shut down for the flood, a valve was left open and 90,000 gallons of oil were spilled into the flood waters. The oil company had to purchase almost 400 homes that were damaged and tear them down.

Trip from West to Coffeyville

We left West Y on August 31 and traveled three days to get to Coffeeville, KS where we will be for a while. It was a faster trip than we normally like, but we were trying to stay ahead of a weather front.

We traveled through YNP one more time, for this year, and went out the south entrance where we enjoyed a distant view of the Tetons blanketed in low clouds.




Traveling on US 26 in Wyoming, we went over Togwotee Pass at 9658 feet. Right near there we were fortunate to see a mother grizzly with two cubs.

Even as we left the Rockies behind, it was a scenic route.

The great plains extending ahead of us.

In these wide open spaces, you can see distant storms, while enjoying blue skies overhead.

Since there was a weather front following us, it made for interesting cloud formations.

Our Last Week in Yellowstone Area

Our last week in West Yellowstone we had another visit from friends. What a treat to be able to share the area with Jean and Joe. Along with other places we have already posted here, we visited Big Springs and The St. Anthony Sand Dunes, both in Idaho. Big Springs is the primary source of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River. It is one of the largest freshwater springs in North America with a daily flow of 120,000,000 gallons of water (yes, it's that many zeros) at 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Look at our previous post on Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, which are on Henrys Fork, to better see the volume of water.

At Big Springs, water runs out of the side hill. The water is very clear, which makes it easy to see the fish which are plentiful here.

It was impressive to see sand dunes in this part of the country near St. Anthony. They cover about 175 square miles with dunes ranging from 50 to 400 feet tall.

Claudia and Jean atop one of the sand dunes.


The view from the top.

We also visited YNP with them which we always enjoy. Our trip that day took us on the lower loop where we visited many of the geothermal areas.

Grand Prismatic Spring.

Bacteria grows in the warm water creating the greens and oranges.

This pool was very deep

Spasm Geyser

Female elk in the Madison River.

Old Bison Bull having a drink