Day 66 - Yellowstone at last
I don’t know what I have done to anger the weather gods, but after almost three straight days of rain while we were in Olympic, Yellowstone looks to have a similar forecast. I woke up this morning SO cold. It rained off and on most of the night and temperatures hung in the mid 30s. While it’s great to not be in a tent, it was still rough to sleep in. So, I broke down and turned on the heat in the camper. I didn’t have it on for long, but to warm up my core temperature for a bit felt so good.
The family as a whole got a LATE start to the day - they must be enjoying the cold weather for sleeping. In fact, Sebastian slept until almost 8:30! We decided to let him sleep despite the fact that the only open spot in the rain was supposed to be this morning. Oh well, we’ll get to see it or we won’t. We started our day with cereal and leftovers (rice for Amy and cinnamon roll for me - who got the better deal?) before we started to drive around this massive park.
Since we had seen (sort of) the springs the prior day, we headed east toward Fishing Bridge. We briefly glimpsed an elk in woods, but not a great view. However, once we hit the Hayden valley, we found the wildlife - there were bison all over the valley.
We stopped at the mud pots and explored them, while keeping an eye on a few bison that were VERY close to the pots - seemingly looking for a hot tub to enjoy the day!
We continued our drive to Yellowstone falls with continued bison spottings along the way. They sure seemed to have a healthy herd. At Yellowstone Falls, we grabbed a couple of pictures, but for me the most important one was the full family togehter with the falls in the background. This picture is now a 3rd generation picture. My dad and his family went when he was younger, I went with my parents and grandparents when I was young, and now we’ve been there together. Geologically speaking, it’s still changing, but it sure doesn’t look much different to me.
After the falls we stopped near the Tower Falls area for a picnic lunch. The area was nice for a picnic, but it wasn’t exactly serene as it was surrounded by the construction crews repairing the roads from the flooding. But it was a nice picnic all the same. However, there were some very food-aggressive squirrels which were described as "Walking squirrel pancakes". If you weren’t diligent, they would grab your food - all part of habituation sadly. PSA for you all - don’t feed the wildlife.
After the picnic, we debated heading home, but since the weather had unexpectdly cooperated, we decided to try to check out toward the Lamar Valley. We also hoped to find where Amy and I camped so many years ago, but alas we failed in this regard. However, the valley didn’t fail us from a wildlife perspective and it appeared to be exploding with bison. This was the first chance to get a really good view of the babies so that was neat to see. After a while though we realized that we were not going to find the campground and were heading for the northeast exit so we turned around and started our long road back to camp.
If you couldn’t hear completely, Robinson’s quote was “That was too close for me” It was too close for all over - I personally was really holding my breath hoping he wasn’t looking to scratch an itch. Seriously though, I’ve been to Yellowstone three times and each time I’ve had something like this. So, if you visit, maybe get a rental car. You’ll be a lot less nervous!
On our way back, we decided to stop at the Canyon Village education center to get some souvenirs, see what we could be educated on, and ask the rangers where we could see the elk since we really hadn’t seen them yet. They said to continue to explore the valley, but also around our campsite. They were surprised that we hadn’t seen one up close yet, but I guess that’s just a bit of bad luck. So, we tried to keep exploring and went toward
We continued south, back to camp, and the weather continued to cooperate and we continued to see bison, though not nearly as close. As we got close to camp, we decided to stop in the West Thumb area since it was right next to camp and we didn’t want to risk bad weather in the morning. We did the loop around which gave the boys a chance to see the clarity and amazing colors of the hot springs. There was also the “Fishing geyser” which the old fishermen used to use to put their fish over to cook them with the heat of the magma earth. While this tradition has stopped (apparently it could actually damage the geyser), it’s a cool (or wicket hot!) way to cook.
With the West Thumb area explored, we finally headed back to home. We’re exhausted, but it was such a nice treat to get a day of nice weather at Yellowstone!
Total miles - 10,269
# States/Provinces - 18 / 2
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