Yellowstone National Park "Taster's Menu"

Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018

I described this morning’s dilemma at the end of yesterday’s blog-- I simply did NOT know what to do today! Plus I felt a little cranky/anxious, because I had no idea where we’d spend the night. I did not have any fantasies that we would find a campsite inside the park if we went there-- they sell out months in advance, and for the “walk in” sites, we are much too late risers to get there ahead of anyone else wanting one of the few that might be available. I browsed through one of the Cody visitor guides I’d picked up the day before, and found one or two things I hadn’t known about which sounded interesting. So going back to Cody was one possibility. Joey, however, voted for going into the park, so that is what we did.

At Yellowstone Lake

I did have the idea, however, that perhaps this campground was not sold out for tonight. So I walked Cassie around the loop (there are only 20 sites) to see. I was thrilled to find a choice of three or four sites which were not reserved for tonight (ours was, so we couldn’t keep this one.) I talked to the campground host, and he told me that one of the sites I thought was NOT empty, was going to BE empty, and it is one of the nicest, RIGHT on the river! So I paid in advance for the site, and at his suggestion, we left a lawn chair in the site to prove we’d really been there. Then I felt much more secure leaving for the day, knowing we had a place to come “home” to.

View at Rim of Upper Falls

Yellowstone! We’d been here 7 years ago in 2011, and thanks in no small part to my own blogging, we remember it in great detail. We were here in September then, and it was much less crowded than today, so it’s a good thing we didn’t feel any pressure to “do” all the major attractions-- some of them were literally impossible to drive into because the parking lots was so packed. A few other roads we passed had signs saying “No RVs or Buses.” Although I can guess why they have done this, I certainly do not remember these signs from 7 years ago! So we simply played it all by ear, and had a

lovely day.

The drive from the East Gate to the first “junction” of the park took a full hour-- We stopped when we got to Yellowstone Lake to admire it and take a couple of photos, and there was also some road work which forced us to drive slowly. But the scenery was beautiful and we were happy just to be there. We turned north at Fishing Bridge and drove toward Yellowstone Falls. But the tightly packed parking lot kept us from the view at Artist’s Point. We did stop, however, at the brink of the upper falls, and it was just as mesmerizing as ever. From there we skipped the drive along the North Rim of the “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone"-- I can’t remember if it said No RVs or not, but we’d done it last time and have the osprey photos to prove it! When we got to Canyon Village, it was already about 2pm (we’d stopped for some lunch along the way.) (Here is the link to my 2011 blog, with photos of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and the waterfall. )

This guy was so close, I could have put my Spartans cap on his head!

OH! I forgot the main thing that “delayed” us on that segment of road-- Bison!!! The first one was quite unexpected, we drove past a couple of stopped cars and suddenly were passing a lone bull, who was browsing on the edge of the road. We pulled over a little way up, and waited for him to mosey on right past us. Cassie was VERY interested! A few miles further down the road, we encountered another loner coming toward us. Traffic was stopped on both sides of the road, because he was in the middle. He ended up walked right between the front of our truck and the car ahead of us, and then next to us-- i could literally have reached out the window and touched him! He was NOT that interested in us, however, because he immediately found a tree right next to the road and started rubbing his head along it. He did look kind of shaggy, for sure! But he was just SO close, it was fantastic.

My window was OPEN when he went past!

Then a few more miles up, we pulled over to see some mud pots. On the other side of the road was part of the Hayden Valley, and there were quite a few bison down there. I took some good photos with my good camera (which has a great zoom), because they were grazing in an area with steam rising out of the ground around them. It seemed like such an iconic Bison photo! And then there turned out to be one curled up right near the boardwalk as we walked up to see the mudpots. There were a lot of people, but we felt very happy to be with bison and mudpots.

By 2:00 we figured we’d better just loop around the southern part of the Great Loop, because it would be hours before we’d be back to our campsite. This route took us past a lot of hot springs and geyser basins. We stopped at the Upper Geyser Basin and enjoyed walking that loop, which included bubbling mud, clear hot springs, and an erupting geyser. I was annoyed that several of my favorite roads said “No RVs.” We are certainly returning here as soon as we start towing a car behind us, which should be SOON. Obviously it would make this part 100 times easier to navigate and enjoy.

Ultimately, we just had to keep driving, because it got later and later. We stopped at a pull-out near Old Faithful to try to make use of the 3 bars of phone service which suddenly appeared, and the wifi which also was supposed to be there. But our phone calls would not go through, and my Facebook update didn’t upload. So we just kept going-- past Grant Village, past more geothermal features, along the western shore of Yellowstone Lake, and finally back toward the East Gate. By this time it was after 6:00. And then we came upon a crowd of cars parked along the road, and lots of people, and figured it was another animal jam. Sure enough, there was an elk grazing not far from the road. I pulled over (I was driving) and jumped out with my good camera, and zoomed in for some photos. This guy was BIG-- he had a rack of antlers which was quite astonishing-- 12 or 14 points, I’m not sure, but I counted at least 6 on one side. That took up another 10 minutes, and then we kept going. We did encounter some folks watching and photographing a mountain goat, too-- but I didn’t get out and Joey couldn’t get the camera fast enough before he (the goat)

disappeared behind some trees.

And so we drove for what seemed like a VERY long time, and finally got back to the East Gate, and to our campground 5 minutes later. Essentially, today we had a "taster's menu" of Yellowstone-- a little bit of everything, but not a full meal of anything! A little bit of river, a little bit of waterfalls, a little hot springs and mud pots and other "thermal activity," an erupting geyser, and of course, some excellent wildlife encounters with bison and even an elk. If you like to hike, and want to see everything, you really need an entire week here. I feel we had a superlative visit in 2011, so at least I don't think we actually MISSED anything, but we didn't really immerse ourselves in any one thing in particular either.

Elk

 

And now we are ensconced all cozy with the river RIGHT behind our bedroom. Tomorrow we will head back into the park again and try to see some of the geyser basins (hoping that they will be less crowded earlier in the day) and whatever else looks interesting to us, before heading out of the West Gate into Idaho. And then we’ll see what we’ll do next. I would like to have some wifi and/or a telephone connection, that’s for sure, but it will depend on where we spend the night, I guess. We’ve never been to West Yellowstone, either, so that may be interesting. It’s amazing how unscheduled this vacation is turning out to be!

Oh--one other cute thing we saw. We'd seen a lot of info (including a video in the Cody Museum) about not leaving food anywhere because of the bears. But they also mentioned how ravens are very good at finding food and stealing it, and that some even have learned to unzip zippers! Well, at one stop, we saw this sight-- some folks had some things on their car roof, and there was a visible chips-type plastic bag. And there were three ravens on top, cawing and making a very concerted effort to get through the netting and into the food! I took this photo before Joe chased them away! (They were annoyed, and cawed at him, "Didn't you read the instructions about not annoying the wildlife??)

Ravens on a car roof, scavenging for food