Tue, 7/8/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Mike feeling worse this morning so I took him over to the Lake clinic—only a couple of miles away. Three hours and lots of drugs later, we head back home. He slept off and on the rest of the day. A beautiful day—probably in the low 80s. Hopefully he’ll start feeling better soon. Heard a wolf early last night. I guess there are around 11 packs in the park.

Hot Spring in the Fire Hole Lake Area

Mon, 7/7/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Mike still feeling not so great, so we just hung out today. Partly cloudy but warm—70s. Finished the book “It Happened in Yellowstone” and Mike emptied our grey water tanks and hauled them in the tote to the dump station. Walked up to the visitor center and back. Looks like they’re not even going to start fixing the sewer problem until Wednesday. Guess they’re going to have to excavate. They did give us a two-night credit. Mike bought a CD re tourist facilities in Yellowstone. Guess we’ll watch that tonight.

Sun, 7/6/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Decided to kick back today. Mike still not feeling great and I couldn’t sleep most of last night so we both felt drained. Did some housekeeping chores and read our books. I finished the book about John Colter. Very interesting. Would love to have met him. The campground we’re in has full hook-ups, but someone down the way in our loop lost part of his sewer hose down the sewer at his site and it has clogged the whole system. So, we’re not supposed to use the sewer (sigh). We have our 20-gallon “tote” which we can empty our tanks into and then pull it behind the truck to the dump station. We won’t need it for our black water tank, but we will for the grey water tanks. Mike is not too happy because we wanted full hook-ups so we wouldn’t have to worry about these chores. Oh well, it’s all good. Salads for dinner tonight. Low 70s today and cloudy.

Sat, 7/5/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Heard wolves howling this morning at about 3:00 a.m. Eerie and awesome at the same time. And they were very close. Decided to drive back to Old Faithful to try and get on the computer. Found a spot on top of a mountain with a strong signal so pulled over there. That didn’t work, so on to Old Faithful. Ended up calling the bank to do my transfers. Stopped at the Old Faithful store and bought a couple of sandwiches and then went on to Fire Hole Lake. Drove around this side road where there are really pretty hot springs. There are a lot of little fresh water streams in this area. Mike stuck his hand in one (which he shouldn’t have done) and said it was probably 85 degrees. So, I guess the hot springs and thermals in the area heat the streams. We spotted a sand hill crane (thought they were only in Florida). Stopped at a picnic area on the Fire Hole River and ate our sandwiches. Really windy. Left there and drove over to the Trooper/Ranger Museum and then back to the campground. Spotted a wolf near LeHardy Rapids sauntering up a hill. Left-overs for dinner.. A nice day today—upper 70s—but windy.

Officer's Quarters, Fort Yellowstone

Fri, 7/4/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Mike made French toast this morning and we put in our John Phillip Sousa CD and got in the spirit. This is a great CD, played by the Marine Corps Band I think. Early afternoon we went to the laundry here in the campground and got that out of the way. It’s a really nice laundry but a mad house. Then we just kicked back and read and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Mike not feeling real great. Around 5:30 we drove over to Lake Lodge and had dinner. Then watched the 4th of July “parade”. Sat on some rocks in front of the Lodge with a great view of the lake. It was put on by the employees of Lake Lodge. Nice and warm today, but a lot of clouds.

Thu, 7/3/08
Yellowstone NP, WY: Got a fairly early start this morning and drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs. This is located on the north side of the park and it’s also where the main park headquarters and historic Fort Yellowstone are located. We walked around Fort Yellowstone first. For 30 years the US Army—namely the Calvary—managed and administered the park. The Calvary came in around 1888 after having problems with poachers, looters, and squatters. After that the Park Service was started and they took over. It took 2 hours to get over there. ( This park is huge—about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.) And it was very different over in that area of the park—more desert-like buttes. The drive over was fantastic. The road between Roosevelt-Tower and Canyon is the highest in the park. Pretty high up and no guard rails in places. And I was driving. We saw a black bear and her cub, two elk, two deer, two more black bears, and a grizzly was near the road in a wooded area, bringing traffic to a halt, but we never did see him. After Fort Yellowstone we walked around Mammoth Hot Springs. In the early days of the park people used to bathe in these springs. Drove out to the north entrance and took some pictures of the stone Roosevelt Arch at this entrance. Drove into the little town of Gardiner, MT. Cute little place. Had lunch at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel which was great. On the way back we took a side dirt road up to Blacktail Plateau. Beautiful up there—lots of wild flowers. Stopped at Undine Falls, Tower Falls, and finally at a picnic area to relax and have a soda. Back to the campground finally. A ten-hour day today. I don’t know how people come in here for a day and think they’ve seen it all. It’s huge.

Wed, 7/2/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: I walked up to the Visitor’s Center this morning while Mike was getting the marinade ready for the chicken we’re having for dinner tonight. I bought two books—one about John Colter’s time in the Rockies and the other entitled “It Happened in Yellowstone”. John Colter was part of the Lewis & Clark Expedition and on the return trip he requested to be relieved of his duties, which both Captains readily agreed. He went back into this wild, uninhabited area and did some amazing things. The one thing that puts me in awe of him was a trip he made for the fur trading post owned by Manuel Lisa. In the winter of 1807-1808 he covered over 500 miles on foot and alone—visiting various Indian villages and camps to let them know of the new trading post. He started north of what is now Billings and traveled west along the Shoshone River, into what is now Yellowstone, south into the Tetons and the Jackson area, and then back—in the winter, on foot, and alone. Amazing!

I thought it was a little chilly this morning, but lots of people were walking around in shorts and tee shirts. Walked back and sat outside and started reading the book about John Coulter and Mike started the one on Yellowstone. In the afternoon we took a trail that leaves the campground and intersects the Eaton trail. This trail goes from Fishing Bridge on the Yellowstone all the way to Canyon City—16 miles. Follows the Yellowstone all the way—through prime bear country. We saw lots of bison droppings along the trail. 100 people got gored by Bison last summer. The trail starts out though a beautiful pine and spruce forest next to the Yellowstone River. On the river side there were a lot of old growth trees. The further along the trail we got we saw more scat—some of it pretty fresh—and we weren’t sure what left it. It wasn’t bison. Not sure what bear scat looks like. So we turned around and headed back. Followed a little road for a while off the trail which led to an old cabin. Back to the campground and we had grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and Italian vegetables for dinner.

Tue, 7/1/08

Yellowstone NP: WY: An iffy morning this morning so we decided to drive into Cody and get on the computer and do some grocery shopping. It’s 80 miles to Cody from here and will probably take two hours to get there. The speed limit in the park is 45 MPH and through the Shoshone National Forest it’s 50. A beautiful drive though. It was in the 50s when we left and in the 80s in Cody. We found a wi-fi spot outside a Comfort Inn and were able to get on from their parking lot. We had lunch at the Silver Dollar in Cody and then drove out west of town to the original town site of Cody which had a bunch of old buildings on it that we thought might be interesting. Turns out all these buildings are authentic from different parts of Wyoming which were disassembled and reassembled at this site. One was a saloon where the Hole in the Wall Gang used to hang out. Also a couple of cabins where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to hide out. There was an old school cabin called “The Coffin School” (1884). It was called that because the guy who originally owned the cabin died there of gangrene after he cut himself in the leg while hewing logs. Depressing name though. There were 26 buildings in all, plus a lot of different wagons from the 1800s. The neatest thing though is the little cemetery on this site. There are six graves there—all exhumed from other locations and reburied here. One of the graves was of Jeremiah “Liver Eating” Johnson. He died in California at the age of 76 and was moved to this site in 1974. Robert Redford was a pall bearer at this service. Of course he played him in the movie. This guy did all kinds of things after his “mountain man” days. He was born in New Jersey in 1824, had been a trapper, hunter, army scout, marshal, and Civil War veteran. Over 2000 people showed up for his reburial—the largest burial service in the history of Wyoming. Probably because Robert Redford was there. And in some of the buildings was displayed all kinds of buffalo coats, Indian clothing, saddles, tack—all kinds of artifacts from the period. Another cabin there was the home of Curly—one of Custer’s Crow Indian scouts. The guy that started this was an archaeologist for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody. He realized that old historical buildings and associated material were rapidly disappearing from the landscape. So in 1967 work began to gather the historic buildings and relics to be displayed at this site on the west side of Cody, which was the area Buffalo Bill and his associates had chosen for the first town site of Cody in 1895. A great place. After we left the “Old Trail Town” we went to Wal Mart to do our grocery shopping—what a let down. Then drove back and hit a thunder storm at Sylvan Pass. Temperature dropped 30 degrees.