Never a Wrong Turn (Ever): Yellowstone Park and River

What a rack!

These elk were munching on lawns in Gardner, MT. What a way to cut down on lawn mower gas fumes!

Upper falls

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Grizzly bear fuzzies

      On Friday, Laura was our gracious and experienced tour guide through parts of Yellowstone Park. I had been on the main North to South road before, but hadn't gone off the beaten path to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. As the pictures show, it is very picturesque. The canyon pictures are taken from Artist's Point which is the most photographed place in Yellowstone. (Can't be too far off the beaten path!) We drove a loop that included canyons, rivers, and large expanses of grassland. This route doesn't take you by many of the spectacular "paint pots" but we will go there later. Typical of Yellowstone and other national parks, we came around a corner to see traffic stopped in both directions and about 50 people on the side of the road taking pictures. I included a picture from this cacaphony in the pictures above, that has a grizzly mother and two cubs. I have cropped and zoomed in to pick up the bears in the photo, but they were so far away that the photo is pretty blury. At first, I only thought about how stupid it is to just stop in the middle of the road and then get out of your car in the presence of a grizzly mother and cubs. At any point she could have felt the need to protect her cubs and then someone would get hurt. Later, while in a large parking lot at Canyon City, I was looking at the license plates on cars which reminded me that people travel from all over the world to see the park.   Most of these travelers only see animals in the zoo and seeing animals in their natural habitat may be a once in a lifetime phenomena that not everyone gets to experience. I decided to be a little more understanding of the seemingly stupid decisions they make.
     I included a picture of a fly fisherman because he was so cute. He is from Germany and obviously went to a store where he bought everything necessary to fly fish, including pants, shirt, vest, boots, hat, net, pole and reel, and I am sure a large assortment of flies. He was having a ball. I chuckle because I started fly fishing at a young age and it never dawned on me that I would need such fancy gear. However, he was enjoying his "American" experience. And I guess selling everything you could imagine to a tourist willing to spend the money is the American experience.
     After spending most of the day driving, we stopped at "Boiling River" for a hot springs soak. This place has hot springs flowing into the Boiling River which is a normally cold river. The current is very strong, and the entering hot springs are very hot - hot enough to remove your skin. Everybody walks (stumbles) down the river to where they find a comfortable mix of hot and cold water. We sat where I would get a wave of hotter water, and then a wave of colder water, keeping my temperature just right. (Goldilocks would have loved it.) You had to keep your feet anchored to the bottom or the current took you away. Mike, who almost never floats, had problems with this and floated to the end of the rocked-in safety area and got out with the help of a woman there. It's nice to know that even his heavy bones can float sometimes! It was a wonderful way to end a touring day!
    We relaxed on Saturday, napping, reading and talking. Then on Sunday, we rented float tubes and spent four hours floating on the Yellowstone River. It is a mostly peaceful river with a couple of white water bumps too small to qualify as rapids. Laura used her inflatible kayak and was able to paddle circles around our tubes. At the end, Mike and I held on to the kayak and she paddled and paddled as hard as she could to get us into shore. I think that was above and beyond the call of duty for a hostess! Once, when mother nature called, I stopped on the bank to enter some bushes. As I did an enourmous swarm of bugs rose from the bushes just as I was taking in a breath. Again, I ate about 5 or 6 bugs. I am going to have to start keeping track of which bugs taste the best.
    We left Laura's car at the getting out place, and when we got there, she remembered that she left the keys in our truck parked at the getting in place. Again, due to the kindness of locals, this was no problem. Another couple was driving up to the same place to pick up their boat trailer and they gave us a ride to the truck. For about two hours we had been watching a storm approach and hoping that we could get out before it arrived. We just made it! While driving the 10 miles to the truck, huge raindrops began falling. Thunder and lightning illuminated the sky and woke up any sleeping insects and the wind roared down the valley. Mike was sitting with the floating devices and had quite a time trying to keep all three from blowing away. He also had to endure a lot of blowing dust. It was powerful, and lasted all of twenty minutes. Then the sun returned.
    We have been hanging around at Laura's waiting for another sister, Eileen, to arrive on Wednesday. I am sure that on Thursday we will have more grand adventures. Until then we are just chilling out and enjoying it.