Good morning!
I actually made it to Ennis, Montana last night before finding a great little campsite right on the Madison River. Ennis is a nice little western town with great shops and coffee places with wifi access. Yes!
I got a bit of a late start this morning as I was up chatting with two gentlemen I met in the campground - Tom and Paul from Cincinnati. They are cycling across the country together ‘for the experience’. Ha, they are having a blast and left the wife’s and kids behind. They have had their mishaps though and had great fun telling me about Tom’s seeming ability to ‘shit’ his wallet which he had thought lost to him until it was discovered accidentally in his lower drawers lol. Paul is an ex-cop and I can’t remember what Tom does. Great guys and I had a blast swapping travel stories.
I’m off very soon for Yellowstone and can’t wait to get there. I’m going to see ‘Old Faithful’ this morning. And, I’ll see where the road takes me after that....
I loved Yellowstone National Park, but was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that were there. Wow! I had been told a lot of people visited the park but really had no idea of what that meant. I entered the park at the west gate and headed for Old Faithful. What normally should haven taken an hour turned into a 2.5 hour stop and start fest. Some of that were the bison making their way across the roadways and the rest were people pulling on and off the road and any number of points entroute. The park is quite large and all the major attractions are accessed by road.
Old Faithful was very cool as you can see from the picture. You can also see a small portion of the total number of people viewing the geyser action at that time. I timed it quite well actually and within minutes of setting up the camera we were into the full eruption. The main spout peaks off in waves and there is a lot of steam and hollering from the crowd lol. The parking lot for this one attraction is the size of four gigantic Walmarts all put together and if I’m not mistaken the Old Faithful goes off approximately every hour 24/7. Mr. Finnigan missed it as he was stuck in the car. No dogs allowed, but at least it was a coolish day.
My next main stop (there were many minor excursions throughout the day), was at the ‘Grand Canyon of Yellowstone’. I was told that this was a ‘must see’ and they were right. Thanks for this Steve. From the Lower Waterfall the Yellowstone River flows in a mad rush down between majestic canyon walls with steam vents on either side. The kaleidosc
ope of colors, sights, and sounds made the trip most worthwhile. I almost didn’t go as the weather had turned bad and it was raining so heavily I had considered booting it east to Cody, but I’m quite glad curiosity got the better of me this time.
I didn’t see the whole park, but there are many cool things to see like the Dragon’s Pot, or the Mud Volcano, or the stinky cauldrons of sulphur. One of the cutest things was when I stopped on the side of the road at Yellowstone Lake, just before leaving the park and there were so many frogs croaking that you could hardly hear for the racket! It’s a cool place, but I would still consider the Waterton Lakes National Park my favorite so far. I guess the high number of people and vehicles and general chaos didn’t work quite so well for me.
Next Stop: Cody, Wyoming
Distance: 343 kilometers
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