Yellowstone

I don't even know where to begin with this entry. I am in Yellowstone now and have not been able to update the blog. They told me there is no internet access in the park. Well, there is if you are the park service, but not for visitors. Much of the time out here I have had no phone signal. When I do have signal, it has been in roam. Today I found a good signal so I am connecting to the internet through my phone. It seems to be working well.

I left Sheridan Friday morning and headed to Cody. The drive through the Bighorns was spectacular. I find myself using awesome and spectacular many times through out the day. I just run out of words to describe some of the things I have seen in the last week. I continued my non-interstate ways and took 14 and 14A to Cody. I found snow in the middle of July at about 9500 feet. Quite a bit of it actually.

From Cody I headed to Yellowstone. Todd Hill told me that was a nice drive. The man is right. The Shoshone river valley was a great lead-in to Yellowstone.

I am amazed at the varying terrain out here. I expected trees and mountains, but there are lakes, rivers, prairies, geysers, canyons, fire devastated areas and more. All of these areas are a unique place to me and I want to spend time in all of them.

I spent Friday evening at the Old Faithful area. My first rain of the trip hit hard about 30 seconds before the geyser spouted. I have some pictures, but not sure how good they will be.

Saturday morning I took it easy. I spent half an hour cleaning the cameras from the rain ordeal, I found a place to shower and do laundry, filled up the Jeep, and bought some ice and a cup of coffee. I then drove back to the Old Faithful area and spent the rest of the day exploring geysers and hot pools from there through West Thumb and back to camp.

Camp is at the Bridge Bay campground (yes, I am back in the tent) and I am staying there through Sunday night. It is fairly crowded, but not too chaotic. I have been very happy to set up camp and leave it there for a few nights. There is a resident bison that was hanging out in the campground Saturday morning. I can't believe how close I have been to a few elk and many bison.

This morning I drove North to the Canyon area and spent hours driving through the canyon and taking pictures. The picture at left is from Artist Point. If 1% of my pictures do justice to what is out here I will be thrilled.

I am glad to hear from those of you that are following this. I think of 100 things to write each day, but don't have the memory or the time to get them all in here. This has been a very emotional trip for me. Time alone and time out here have me all over the map. It's a good experience so far. I hope I am better for it when I return.

Songs of the day:

• Friday - Morphine - Mile High
• Saturday - Al Hirt - Java
• Sunday - Haven't heard it yet

Learnings/Thoughts:

• Every small town has one 95 year old guy that weighs 85 pounds and wears a seed cap. He drives a burgundy Buick that is 10 - 25 years old, and he drives down the road at 15 miles an hour. Where are all these old guys going? Why do they all drive burgundy Buicks?
• There are a LOT of Japanese tourists out here.
• I am taking so many pictures that the Japanese have been saying "He take rot of picture".
• I am changing the name of my cooler to "ice melter" - it is small, but melts 6-8 pounds of ice per day .
• The tent can withstand very high winds.
• The blog tool posts the times 2 hours earlier (3 hours in central zone) than I actually post them.
• Driving through a small Wyoming town with KC and the Sunshine Band playing just seems wrong. I did it, but it felt wrong.
• Deep breath......relax.

I have no idea when I will be able to update this again. I may head to Grand Teton tomorrow (or maybe I won't) and I will post another entry when opportunity allows. Thanks again for the emails and text messages.

Darcy - Thank you for this.

Tom