Day 21-22: Yellowstone

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Day 21 dawned chilly and damp, as we had experienced a typical mountain thunderstorm the night before, during dinner, followed  by a beautiful rainbow. We up-ended our tents, attempting to let the bottoms of them dry out a bit, while we had breakfast. We then packed them up, albeit still a little damp.

Based on the weather, the lack of shoulder, and the traffic, it was a unanimous decision to sag to Yellowstone.

Initily Sue and Lisa rode in the back of the pick-up with the bikes while the rest of the crew crammed into the 2-seat cab with our two wonderful mascot dogs, Frankie and Pearl. It’s hard to imagine fitting 4 women in the back seat, plus two dogs (no room to fit more than Leslie, the driver and Pete in the front seat!) Now that you’ve got that image in your head, guess what happened next? It started to rain! Now Sue and Lisa were added to the mix in the back seat! Yes…you heard that right…there were now SIX of us, plus two dogs in the back seat! Good thing we like each other! Lots of giggles and shouts, “look at that!” while the person sitting on the floor craned her neck to try and see what everyone was talking about…mostly nothing, just teasing!


But once inside the park, we stopped to see our first bison grazing on the side of the road, and walked to see some amazing geysers and thermal mudpots, and the “Grand Canyon” of Yellowstone, a stupendous gorge carved out by a 380 ft waterfall.






We then checked 4 of the group into their cabin abode for the evening and Sue, Leslie, Lisa and Sue headed down the road to the campground/trailer park, only to find that we couldn’t check in without Stephanie, who had made the reservation! Boo! Back to the cabins to pick everyone up to return to the campground for dinner (interrupting their evening cocktail…boo again!) Everyone helped set up camp and gathered firewood for the evening. Following a feast prepared by Pete, we enjoyed another evening of music by the Beba Trio (Leslie and Sue on guitar and vocals and Pete on his electric stand-up base/vocals.) Singing around the campfire, indeed!


The next morning dawned not only damp, but with a forcast of rain, so most of us decided to take a much-needed day of rest. But the two Sues and Lisa decided to take a 6.5 mile hike, only to be caught in a downpour on the way back. But it was worth it! Beautiful views of mountain wildflowers and geysers, and we even saw a couple of elk peaking out at us. Not to mention a couple of chipmunks who came out to tease Pearl as we walked by.


In short, we were all “wowed” by Yellowstone and vowed to come back one day! 

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