June 7 ---- More of Yellowstone National Forest
Monday, June 07, 2010
It was still raining and cold this morning. We did not get cold last night. I added a blanket on the bottom and at afghan on top of our trav-a-sack. We were both warm and cozy and slept well last night. The hard part was getting out of the warm bed. We wanted to get an early start out of the park.
When we got back in last night from our venture though the park we could not find the cell phone. We looked and looked. I had finally had a signal down near Old Faithful and had used the phone. We had gotten out to see some animals on the way back and thought we might have dropped it. We kept looking and feeling more panicky every minute. Of course it is our communication with home and family. We need that. I had checked my pockets by feeling the outside of the pants I had been wearing and later decided to go down in the pockets and check. It was deep inside my pocket. Thank you Lord was all we could say. We were so relieved.
We decided we did not want to be cold and wet any longer, so we turned three nights into two nights and drove through another part of the park to leave. It was truly a different type of beauty. We saw some more of those boiling, bubbling pools, but these did not smell very good. They smelled like sulfur. Some were coming out of canyons.
We went up to much higher plains. It was a breath taking drive. Harry asked the attendant at the camp ground about road work on the road he planned to take. He said that it shouldn't be much of a delay. It turned out to be a 15 minute delay for road work and then we were going again.
Soon into the trip traffic slowed again. For nearly an hour, we barley moved. We wondered if it was more road work, but just kept creeping along. When we finally were able to see what the problem was, a herd of bison was slowly moving on both sides of the road and in the middle of it. People were taking pictures and having to wait until they moved out of the way letting just one or two cars pass at a time. The animals truly own Yellowstone. People have to give them the right of way. There was one old one that looked like it was about all he could do just to walk along. There were little calves along with many grown bison.
After a little progress, we see the traffic slowed again and many stopped. It was the bear that we had been looking for. Harry was able to get a picture from the window. It isn’t very close up, but I believe we will be able to identify it. I am glad we got to see at least one bear on our trip through Yellowstone.
Somewhere on that mountain we saw the Yellowstone River. How can there be so much water on the mountain? I don’t know, but it was there. Yellowstone Lake also covered a huge area. I almost felt like I was looking at an ocean. Part of the lake was still frozen over. I have to use my imagination to see what it would have looked like with sunshine gleaming down on it, since we were still traveling through rain which was close to being snow.
As we climbed higher and higher on the mountain, we began to see snow at the sides of the road. Higher still and snow was everywhere except on the road.
One thing Harry is not fond of is going down big mountains, but he had another one today. The road moved along beside a deep canyon and then next to the canyon was another huge mountain. We keep moving along very slowly. After many wonderful sites, and much gripping of the steering wheel we were down the mountain.
We moved on out of the national forest. We ate lunch just outside Yellowstone at Pahaska Tepee Resort. We enjoyed our first buffalo burger. After eating lunch, we drove on to Cody, Wyoming. We are camping for the night at Ponderosa campground. We will move on in the morning. It sure felt good to have a shower and have a warm camper. I like having electricity and heat.
Our next point of interest is Mount Rushmore and maybe some other attractions around it. Harry said that we should be able to get two thirds of the way there tomorrow. Traveling east instead of west makes us feel closer to home.
The Internet Connection is very weak so the posting will have to wait. I am wondering if the problem is on my computer receiving end.
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