Day 12: 5/29/15 (Yellowstone)
92 miles
Sorry we were playing catch up - we posted days 10, 11, & 12 all on the same day
We decided not to set
an alarm for this morning so we could “sleep in” since we didn’t get the
greatest night’s sleep in the car the night before. Our plan wasn’t too successful because we
woke up at 8am anyways. We slowly
crawled out of our warm sleeping bags into the cold morning air to start making
breakfast. We cooked up some bacon and
eggs with toast – and we’d say we did a fine job given the fact that we only
had a camp stove/utensils. When we
finally got on the road, our first stop was just a few miles from our
campsite. We made it to the Norris
Geyser Basin just in time for the Ranger talk about the wildlife in
Yellowstone. We were hoping to get some
insider tips for spotting bears and wolves, but it ended up being a safety talk
for the most part. Afterwards we asked
specifically where we could find some more animals and we were directed towards
two different valleys in the park. We
spent the rest of our time here checking out the geysers and fumaroles. One geyser, Steamboat, is the tallest in the
world when it erupts, though its eruptions are totally unpredictable. The timespan between the last two was 9 years,
but we got to see a mini eruption which occurs much more frequently.
Further up the road, we pulled off to see a cliff side and we were greeted by two deer on the side of the road. We stalked them just a bit to get a few pictures before moving on. The cliff had a really neat structure because there were both horizontal and vertical fissures which made it look like the whole thing was made out of building blocks. When we reached Mammoth Hot Springs we kind of just stumbled upon it. There was sort of a downtown with a few stores, hotels, and other buildings and tons of elk just chilling on the grass so we chilled with them. We parked our butts on the steps of a nearby building, had a few snacks, and just watched the elk (and the idiots getting dangerously close to them). The males are only just starting to grow their antlers so they don’t appear as intimidating as they do when they have full-fledged antlers which is probably why people weren’t scared to get close. To the idiots’ benefit the elk were grazing right next to the sidewalk, but still, you should stand right in front of a wild animal – can you tell we took a safety lesson! Once we regained our energy, we headed over to the hot springs to walk around. There were a lot of cascading terraces, but it appeared that there was a lack of water flow because a lot of the area was dry.
We got back on the road and made some peanut butter and fluff sandwiches for lunch. Another stop along the route was a petrified redwood which was caused by volcanic eruptions in the past. The have the tree trunk well-guarded so you can’t touch it or take any pieces, but we climbed up around the gates and found another little stump of a petrified tree, and close by was a little piece that we took as a souvenir – shhh! A little further up was a wildlife jam – these are like traffic jams, but they are caused by the excitement over spotting a hard-to-find animal or some close up action. In this case, there was a black bear up on the hill and we caught a quick glance, but didn’t decide to stop. Rico wanted to feel more accomplished by finding a bear all on his own. The rest of the drive was gorgeous we were climbing higher and higher up a mountain so you could see down into the valleys and far out to the mountains in the distance. Around one corner we noticed a couple looking down the cliff so we pulled off to check it out. They pointed out some marmots which was fun because we hadn’t seen any yet. They are kind of like a little beaver-groundhog thing. We ended our trip at Hayden Valley and watched some buffalo and elk for a while waiting to see if anything would happen – it didn’t.
For dinner we
reheated our foil pouches from the night before and then made some more corn
and veggies. We also hard boiled the
other eggs we had to have for breakfast the next morning since we were planning
on being up early. We wanted to get an
early start so we’d have a better chance of seeing animals.
Fact:
When you see four
women and one man pile out of a car with a Utah license plate you can’t help
but think sister wives….
Lesson:
If you come across an
open shower facility in Yellowstone, seriously consider springing the $4
otherwise you may end up without a shower for two nights (not saying that’s
what happened…)
Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian
Love it!
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