Day 34 (Wowed by Yellowstone)

Day 34
July 25, 2006
Yellowstone’s bottom loop

The overnight low was 45 degrees and the day broke with a thin fog and light dew—the first manifestation of humidity we’d experienced in about three weeks. By 9 AM, the fog had burned off and the forested campground was under a pure, blue sky, the likes of which we only see on crisp October mornings in Maryland. Again we were smitten with the high desert summer climate—what’s not to like?

Yellowstone’s roads are arranged in a huge figure 8 and we are camping at about 6 o’clock on the bottom circle. After breakfast we loaded into the car and headed north (clockwise) around the bottom circle of the figure eight, past Old Faithful, to the Biscuit Basin area. After talking it over at breakfast, we concluded that there is no efficient way to drive the entire distance of the figure 8 over several days without doing some backtracking. Our plan was to drive the bottom loop today and the upper one tomorrow. This means tomorrow will be a lot of driving, and, no matter which way to take to get back to the campsite, we will have to repeat some drives we’ve already made. Oh well, it can’t be helped, and there are certainly worse places to drive a second time.

The Biscuit Basin is an active hot springs area that runs alongside the Firehole River. We took a 3-mile hike originating there to Mystic Falls, which are about 500 feet high and cascade down several steps to the caldera floor below. It was an easy and beautiful walk through a burned and naturally reforested shallow canyon.

We continued our way around the loop, stopping for a picnic lunch at Fountain Paint Pot, and at several other places. The “lower west side,” as we’ve come to call it, had a very different look and character than the east side. It took ALL DAY to drive the lower loop, and we didn’t even stop to see everything! This is a huge park.

On the way back down the lower east side, we passed Yellowstone Canyon and Falls but we didn’t stop because we plan to hit that tomorrow morning. We then paralleled the Yellowstone River for many miles until we came upon Yellowstone Lake. We had seen the lake before, but not as close up and not with low light (late afternoon). Both the river and the lake were extremely picturesque. Twice during that leg of the drive we encountered huge bison walking right in the road. They were creating backups in both directions, and didn’t seem phased one bit by the hundreds of photos being snapped by vehicle occupants through their open car windows.

We saw a moose, female, in the mid afternoon, but she was too far from the road for us to get a good look at her, and so many elk that we are no longer slowing down for a look. We would like to see a male moose with a full rack. Perhaps tomorrow.

Most of the staff at the stores and restaurants in Yellowstone are retirees that RV full time and work retail jobs for the season to bring some money in and so that they can have a free RV site with full hookups. It’s weird to see so many seniors working cash registers. You can tell that most of them are underemployed, and therefore provide great service (one made change for Sessy using mental arithmetic—a skill not exhibited by a cashier in Central Maryland for decades).

We showered in the coin operated showers and did some laundry near the Grant Village Campground and then made sloppy Joes, with ground bison, of course, and stir-fried broccoli for dinner. Frank thinks were becoming cave people. We’ve had bison for dinner two nights in a row and today his mild-mannered, CPA wife bought some beef jerky for the first time in her life, tore open the bag and started gnawing it with very little fanfare. When Frank pointed out to Sessy that he had never seen her eat jerky before, she replied, “I think I needed some protein.” She bought two more pouches of it today.