Day 65 - Over 10,000 miles on the trip!

 Today got off to an early start.  The boys’ room didn’t have a shade over window so when the sun came up, we were up.  That’s ok though since we had a lot of driving to do, might as well get an early start on it.  We started our day with another breakfast of champions, eggs, pancakes,  and leftover pizza.  We added some apples in there for good measure.

After breakfast, we walked outside and were greeted with the most “fresh” smelling air I’ve ever experienced.  It had rained throughout the night and the smell of the rain on the grass just smelled like the “fresh rain” scents you find in stores.  It was pretty incredible.  After enjoying that briefly, we packed up and hit the dirt road to get our drive started.

As we drove, we continued to see signs for Wheat Mountain - a local bakery.  As you may have noticed, we’re pretty big fans of baked goods so when we drove by it, we decided that it was worth investigating.  Upon investigation, we found that it’s apparently a bakery for either lumberjacks, giants, or people with tapeworms.  The portions were RIDICULOUS!  Needless to say, that didn’t deter us so I got a cinnamon roll with maple and bacon (yes, you read that right!), the boys got a brownie, and Amy got an orange/cranberry scone.  After that we got back on the road.

We kept on driving and went through what seemed like twelve different National Forests.  We also entered a new state - Wyoming.  There was plenty of nature to see including bald eagles, osprey, and a large red shouldered hawk.  As evidenced by both the fishing raptors and the number of fishermen in the river, there were also apparently a number of fish in the streams.  We actually spoke with a group of fishermen at one of our brief stops to find out that they too were from North Carolina!  

Eventually, we came to a stop at the entrance to, drumroll please, Yellowstone National Park!  There were some pretty long lines to get in, but that wasn’t a surprise to us.  They moved quickly enough and soon we were in the park.  We tried to stop at the Upper Painted Pots location, but it was crowded and with Dover attached, it was nearly impossible to find a parking spot so we carried on.  Shortly thereafter, we encountered our first wildlife jam, a lone bison.  The boys were pretty excited, but being the driver, it wasn’t worth the jam up it created.

Soon we hit our second jam which also appeared to be three bison in the difference.  However, as we approached, I asked "Are you sure those are bison?" to which I got the response “Those are bears!”.  It turned out to be a mama grizzly and two cubs and they were just the right distance away to enjoy seeing them.

We ran into a couple other traffic jams, but not bad and soon we were almost to camp when Amy chimes in with, "I think those cars coming at us have snow on them".   I responded, "Nah couldn't be, it’s 60 degrees".  Very soon we learned that indeed there was snow on the cars coming at them and it wasn’t long before Rover and Dover, as well as the road we were driving in, also had a layer of snow (technically freezing rain/hail?) on them.  Needless to say, having a slippery road in Yellowstone traffic wasn’t the stress reduction I needed!  Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go and we made it to camp down in the Grant Village Campground.

Unfortunately, we pulled into camp with it POURING down rain and the car thermometer reading 35 deg.  The camping area had numerous rivers flowing through it as the rain found its way through camp, but thankfully our site was largely spared.  While we likely should have waited for the rain to abate, we set up the camper in the rainstorm.  Once it was set up, it was great to get into the camper and 1) get out of the rain and 2) be EXTREMELY glad that we weren’t trying to do all of this in a tent.

After preparing and eating a dinner of rice, beans, peas, carrots, and chips/salsa, we managed to convince the boys (myself included) to go driving around Yellowstone to see something.  It looked like if we left right then, we could just catch Old Faithful.  We were right that the timing was close, we were wrong that we could catch it - we missed it by less than 5 minutes.  Since it was another ~90 minutes before it erupted again, we drove up to the Middle Basin.  The view wasn’t great because with the weather rolling through, we were trying to look at everything effectively through a low lying cloud (AKA fog).  However, we could feel the energy of the springs combined with the cooling breeze.  Sebastian described it as "The steam felt like a shower room but then people would open the door and let in the cold"

After a bit of exploring at the basin, we made it back to Old Faithful with plenty of time for the “9 pm showing”.  Old Faithful did its thing as predicted and another generation got to experience the geyser.  It is incredible to remind yourself that the whole park sits on a super-volcano and that at least some of that energy is being released on a daily basis all around the park.  

Due to staying up to see Old Faithful, it was a pretty late night for us.  We drove back to camp, changed into pajamas, enjoyed some of my dessert cinnamon roll (so good!), and quickly were asleep.  That was a pretty full day for a “transfer” day!

Total miles - 10,140

# States/Provinces - 18 / 2