Yellowstone National Park

Day 19 Wyoming

North! as we progress north the Sun is setting later and later, by the time we reach Canada the the light will stay until close to midnight. We are going to have to train ourselves to sleep with the sun
Our drive time this morning was fantastically short in comparison to the five or six hour drives we have been doing, Yellowstone only took us a little over an hour. The real time consuming drive is in the park itself. Not only is Yellowstone the largest National Park, the speed limit is 45mph and the traffic is horrendous. We theorize that over 100,000 tourists are in the park at any given time. It's a steady stream of cars and RVs moving like ants through the park. Which brings me to a section I like to call "Idiots and Elk".
One downside to Yellowstone is the road system. Single file, with no shoulder. Only broken by the occasional turnout large enough for only a few cars, or one RV. Unfortunately the wildlife does not conform to the Disney philosophy, and thus are wherever the food is. We found out rather quickly that there is no reason to look for animals, just watch for the idiots stopping in the middle of the road, getting out of their cars and driving in the other lane. All for one buffalo or elk. Even though they will see hundreds more during the course of their visit. My favorite idiot tourist move was the double parking in every lot. If you parked, you almost certainly would have some jerk park right behind and block you in till they were finished taking their sweet time with whatever the attraction was.
After another hour of battling our way through the park we arrived at Norris Campground, hailed as one of the best campgrounds in the park. Due in part to being on a hill surrounded by grassy meadows and a crystal clear creek running around the base. This was all fine and dandy, our problem was the hundred thousand people also looking for campsites, and that we arrived near noon. God is watching out for us, and he also has a sense of humor. After circling a few times we spotted a fire-pitp and picnic table practically sitting in the road at an angle on the hillside. The worst campsite ever made. The site was so small our tent was up against the picnic table on one side, and the fire-pit on the other. But we had a site.
We spent the rest of the day driving south along the tourist route, stopping at all the major spots, Norris Geyser Basin, the Artists Paint-pots (clay sputter geysers) and of course Old Faithful, which turned out not to be very faithful. Ranging within 1/2 an hour from the predicted time. After watching Old Faithful go off in the rain, we decided to have dinner at the Old Faithful Lodge, and by the time we finished we watched it go off a second time.
After a long day of getting frustrated with tourists, and only seeing one lonely buffalo, we headed back to our tiny little campsite to have a beer, and go to bed.


Day 20

8:00am

Today we had no plans of getting stuck in our cruddy campsite. After being jarred awake by two people fighting over the campsite across from us I hopped in the car with a camp chair to go claim a better site. Twenty minutes, and still no available campsites, these people are ruthless! On the way back, feeling defeated, I spotted a site with no tag on the post. The people had yet to leave or wake up for that matter, but they were within sight of our site. Grabbing my camp chair I plopped down to read, waiting for them to wake up. Which turned out to be only a matter of minutes. I hurriedly jogged over to them. It was a group of three guys about our age, so I asked them if they where leaving today. No! They intended on staying another couple days. I was bummed, we would have to sleep on that darn hill another night.
To soften the blow of not getting a site Zach and I opted to make pancakes. Mornings are just better with comfort food. Half way through our meal a car rolled up occupied by the three gents I had spoken with earlier. It turns out they felt bad for us, and made it a mission to find us a campsite. They nabbed one for us just up the hill and across the street that was four times the size. We had a couple of beers left over from the night before that we gave to them with a big thank you! Strangers going out of their way to do something nice. How awesome!
After breakfast we started moving, figuring it was easier than pack everything into the car, we picked up the tent and carried it up the hill. We had a number of highly entertained people watching us move camp like this. Including the three guys down the way. Moving this way got us set up in our new campsite in about fifteen minutes. Life was good.
The rest of the afternoon we drove several loops, getting to see several of the other major features of Yellowstone National Park. Including Yellowstone Lake which had a fantastic sandbar we hiked out on, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone that has the most painted and photographed vista in the park, and some stunning waterfalls.
As we headed back towards Norris we got caught up in the largest traffic jam yet, this must be some serious wildlife. We smartly found a turnout and walked the quarter mile to whatever everyone was freaking out about. Squinting across the half mile of valley floor and up the hill we spotted him! A giant grizzly! Check him off the list, of course photographing him turned out to be a serious challenge. Even with Zachs giant lens at full optical, and digital zoom the bear was still a tiny spec on the hill. But we did it. The photo is the best we could do.
Just down the road from the Grizzly bear we had to stop again for some elk that decided the road would be a good place to hang out. We navigated past them, pulled over and got some more good photographs.
Getting back to camp we thought we were in for a quite night, a glass of box wine and sleep. Little did we know that shortly after we started eating our rice and beans, one of the guys from this morning would come up and invite us down to join them (Micheal, Cliff and Barton) in a drink and some fireside conversation. If y'all have seen "The Hangover" it's pretty much how our night went, the fragments we can remember are strange. From knives and guns, wandering drug dealers (don't worry he left frustrated we were not interested), throwing up to Zach having some sleep walking adventures.


Day 21

11:30am

Crawled out of bed regretting the night before. Youth, made for bad decisions. We spent most of the afternoon sitting around the camp nursing our hangovers and reading. I'm not planning on drinking like that again for a long while if ever. Blah!

4:30pm

Still hurting we drove up to Mammoth hot springs and hiked the short mile loop, getting some great pictures. A mile was just about all. We could handle today. After Mammoth hot springs we drove the short five miles north into Montana to grab a bite to eat in the town of Gardner, which was a pretty simple tourist town without much to offer. We settled on a small pizza place and spent the next few hours eating soup and greasy pizza (greasy foods help hangovers).
Back to camp and sleeps embrace. Tomorrow Montana.



MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 152
Total: 2730

Walking-

This trip: 9
Total:137.5