Day Twenty-Eight: Yellowstone

Hi there!

Sorry I didn’t post last night. Tim and I decided to camp last night to save money on lodging. It was still $27 to rent a space, but it was a lot cheaper than a motel at least. While camping really isn’t conducive to typing away on a computer, that’s not the only reason I didn’t update. To be honest, we went to see Eclipse last night at 10 pm, so by the time we got back to the camp site and put up our tent and stuff it was around 1 am. The last thing I wanted to do after that was to get on the computer. But don’t worry, you didn’t really miss anything. Seeing Eclipse was actually the most exciting thing we did yesterday, as the rest of the time was spent driving. We made it all the way from Seattle to Butte, Montana (which Tim and I pronounced “Butt” just for the fun of it). We saw a lot of pretty scenery (Montana is very hilly and is covered in multiple shades of green), but for the most part it was just miles and miles of road. As for Eclipse, it was alright. Being a fan of the books tends to make me pretty critical of the movie versions. But I guess they did the best they could, and the main gist of the story was covered. But this isn’t a blog about the Twilight series, so moving right along…

Today was much more interesting! It got off to a bit of a rocky start, since both Tim and I slept poorly and were thus in very bad moods. Note for future reference: going to sleep in a tent, on an air mattress that is too small, at 1 am- mixed with freezing temperatures- all makes for a restless night. After quick showers and a slow pack-up we were on the road… well after 10 am. Luckily it was only a 2 and a half hour drive to Yellowstone from Butte. I know what you’re thinking… “ONLY 2 and a half hours?!” Well, let me tell you, after all the driving we did the day before, this was nothing! Plus, it was worth the trip!

Yellowstone is a wonderful place! Besides the glaciers and hot springs (which are awesome- we even got to see Old Faithful erupt!) there are lakes, rivers, waterfalls and, perhaps most exciting, wildlife! We had so many cool experiences with the animals at Yellowstone that we would never have had elsewhere. There were little groups of what I think were Pronghorns, but Tim insisted they were Elk. I still think he’s wrong, especially since we actually saw a male Elk later and he didn’t look anything like the female animals we had seen earlier. Tim got a great picture of that Elk sticking his tongue out! I have to say though that the coolest thing was the Bison! The first time we saw them there were HUGE herds of them along both sides of the road. There must have been at least 60 of them, including little baby Bison! The closest one was literally three feet away from us as we drove past. So awesome! The second time we saw some Bison there was one standing in the grass right next to a pull-off station. He was just looking at the road, watching the cars pass like it was his job. We didn’t get a picture of this guy, but he reminded me of those guards that stand in front of the Castle in England who aren’t supposed to move. Our last experience with a Bison was probably the best of them all. This guy was just walking, as Bison so often do. The only thing that made this particular walk noteworthy was that he was walking in the middle of the road! Let me elaborate: he was going the wrong way in the right lane, heading dead-on into oncoming traffic. On top of that, he looked as if he did this all the time! I say that because he seemed to be staying in the center of the lane, keeping an equal distance from the yellow line all the way along the significantly winding road… looking for all the world like he was quite familiar with this road and he was wondering what all of us were doing on his road. Seriously, when he saw us he didn’t stop or hesitate, or even move. He just kept on walking… or as Tim put it “hoofing it”… expecting we would realize our mistake and get out of his way. As we passed him on the left I put my window down, and I swear I could have reached out and touched him if I had been so inclined. I wasn’t.

So that was our day. We are now about to settle down here in Greybull for the night. I will be driving the 6 hours to Mt. Rushmore tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and great deal of coffee in the morning. Fun…

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Love from Greybull, WY!