Bison and Geysers and Bears, Oh My!

 June 18, 2014, Yellowstone National Park

The weather here has been changeable, from brief sunshine to sleet and snow. The days have been windy and the nights cold, even getting down to freezing. Our RV park has asked that we unhook our water at night and turn it off at the spigot. How this is supposed to help them prevent freezing is beyond me, but they will charge you $50 if you don't do it and the pipe freezes. So we do it. This is a huge park, with over 200 spots. There is a constant flow of rigs in and out coming and going from all over the country. The number of different states spotted here has been more than I have ever seen anywhere else, which gives credence to the claim that this is the most visited National Park. Even now, in June with the weather the way it is, the park is crowded with people and their vehicles. I can't imagine what it will be like in another month when the season really gets started.

We came in through the south entrance, taking our time and stopping at Old Faithful since it was on the way. The RV parking lot is huge and there was a lot of room when we arrived. When we left several hours later it wasn't so empty. We timed it pretty well for the geyser, only having to wait about 30 minutes for it to go off. The timing is not so precise and seems to be an hour plus or minus 10 minutes.

Old Faithful

Watching Old Faithful

 Of course there is an 800 number you can call, and a web site and a twitter feed to get the estimates. I suppose there is also an app for it. There is an app called Oh, Ranger, which supposedly can give you information on the parks, assuming there is cell service, which there is little of. In fact there are some places in the park where they specifically tell you that there is no cell service and no WiFi, just so you can bond with nature. God help you if you end up bonding with a bear. Which is why they sell $37 cans of bear repellent. The cans are large, like hairspray, and the instructions say "very effective", but start spraying early and often. Can you spray aiming backwards as you run like hell forwards? By the way, bear spray is the only "weapon" you are allowed to take into Canada.

Gift Shop Girl

Speaking of bears, I would like to see one, just so I can put it in the blog that I did. It's one of those Yellowstone critters you need to say you saw. Bison are old hat. You practically trip over them around here. Nature Girl is not excited by the idea of bears. She says she likes her bison "over there" and her bears "in cages". We did get to see the iconic scene of bison crossing the road and the tourists stopping to take pictures.

Nature Girl was driving at the time. Since she'd recently been watching YouTube videos of tourists being tossed around by bison she was a little tense. But the bison and the tourists behaved and we passed peacefully.

Bison Selfie

Old Faithful Lodge

Interior of the Lodge

We ate lunch at the Old Faithful Lodge, which gave us both a little twinge of Grand Canyon nostalgia. The lodge reminded us a little of El Tovar, but we missed the view of the canyon. The food was acceptable. We split a burger and fries and that was plenty for us.

Burger with Applewood Bacon

Roasted Red Pepper and Gouda Soup (picture of Soup Girl actually eating the soup removed by request)

The following day we backtracked down toward Old Faithful to catch the sights we passed by on the way in. Again, it was a cold and blustery day with rain sprinkles on and off. None of which deters either tourists or fishermen. The cold did have an unfortunate effect on the viewing. The clouds of vapor obscured a lot of the pools that we were trying to see.

Tourists in the Mist

 We did find one geyser, called Pink Cone, which was going off continually while we were there. This geyser is a little off the beaten path, by which I mean there were only a half-dozen people there, not 200.

Pink Cone Geyser

One scene which surprised me a little is the amount of deadwood around. There was a massive fire back in '88 and I guess this is the remains of that fire. I had thought that there would have been more progress made in replanting, either naturally or man-aided. There are stands of young pine which the park management has allowed to reseed naturally, but these stands of trees look very crowded together and it seems some thinning would be in order. Maybe this is part of the "natural" recovery process. Maybe I should ask Oh, Ranger.

Tomorrow should be better weather. Today we stayed home, watched it snow, did laundry and went to the library for WiFi. The Internet is very problematic here. It's poor in the camp because it's a party line for over 200 rigs. But it isn't much better at the library. It will seemingly cut out at the passing of a cloud or a gust of wind. I couldn't live here because of that. On the plus side, in Montana you can buy your groceries and beer/wine in the same store. One stop shopping, what a concept.

The north loop is on the travelogue for tomorrow. The mud volcano calls to Spa Girl. Here are more pictures of steaming holes in the ground. The areas around these holes are littered with bison dung. They come in at night to get warm. I don't blame them.

The orange areas are created by bacteria living in the pool. Thousands of tiny flies live on top of these bacteria mats

Davy,  Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier (TV show, 1955. Had my own coonskin cap)