Yellowstone National Park

A quick “Hello” from Yellowstone National Park!  Fast Fact:  Yellowstone is the first national park – established in March, 1872.

 It was less than a 2-hour drive Sunday morning from Bozeman to Gardiner, the gateway town to Yellowstone at the northwest entrance.  We loved the drive once we turned south off I-90.  The next hour had us following the Yellowstone River with no mountains – just an even, 2-lane road lined with ranches and more fly-fishing places.  The Yellowstone River seemed to be heaven for kayakers and fly-fishermen.

We are at the Rocky Mountain RV Park in this quaint little town of Gardiner.  After getting set up, we still had a good part of the afternoon left and we couldn’t wait to get into the park.

I have to admit, the weather in Seattle, plus the long drive on Thursday (when we broke the wiper), and sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lot left us both a little weary.  At one point on Friday Mike said it would be a 28 hr. drive home, and home was sounding pretty appealing. 

But we got to Yellowstone and immediately our batteries became recharged.  Maybe it was the easy drive in.  Or the nice campsite we have. Or the fact that when Mike backed the RV into our spot perfectly (first time we haven’t had a pull-thru) without having to do any adjusting, the guy said he should hire Mike to park other people’s RV’s.  Whatever the cause, we are so excited to be here.  When telling people about our adventure plans before we even left, we would always mention Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore as places we had never been to and if we didn’t see anything else, we would get to these two places.  So it is like the feeling we had on the beach in California – we made it!

We naively thought we would drive right to the “big show” – Old Faithful.  When we entered the park we discovered it was another hour and a half to get there and we had dinner plans at 6 so we just did some driving around and scoping out the campground we hope to get into on Tuesday.  Just the little bit we saw makes us anxious for Monday morning!   As you can see from the few pictures today, we did get out at several spots.

Our dinner plans were with Janice and Bill Laye.  Janice is Aunt Leslie’s sister and she has worked at Yellowstone for 27 years.  She is the executive assistant to the Superintendent of the Park.  (I hope I got that title right.  She said she got a promotion last year!)  Janice is originally from Michigan, but Bill was born and raised out here.  We ate at a great local spot – Cowboy’s.  While Janice was giving me expert advice about everything we should see and do in Yellowstone and beyond, Bill and Mike talked about hunting and the outdoors.

We plan to get an early start Monday morning, as there is so much to see and do!

Pictures today are:  a Montana state road sign - an arrowhead.  If the State of Michigan has a suggestion box, I’m going to write a note that we need to designate our state roads by the outline of the mitten!;  The Roosevelt Arch at the northwest entrance to Yellowstone.  The little speck on the left side is me. The cornerstone of the arch was laid by Teddy Roosevelt in 1903.  Visitors would arrive in Gardiner by train, climb into horse-drawn coaches and enter the park through this arch;   elk in the campground we hope to move to on Tuesday!;  a bison near the bathrooms at a picnic area.  We almost missed him and think many others didn’t see him as no one was taking pictures;  us at Canary Spring.  It looks like ice, but it is a hot spring.  I can't wait to learn more about all this at the visitor centers tomorrow.;  an unobstructed view of Canary Spring;  what the spring looks like from the top;  these warning signs are all over the boardwalks through the hydrothermal areas.  I am older, and hopefully a little wiser, so I did not touch the water, but just put my hand near the surface and could feel the heat;  our view out our front window at the campground;  with Janice and Bill; and a picture from the backseat as Janice was taking us back after dinner!