The night was very cold in the campground. Someone had heard of a forecast down in the 30's and I believe it. I had many layers of clothes on under my sleeping bag and pulled my riding jacket over the top of the bag to try and stay comfortable. But the morning dawned bright and pr0mised to be a nice day. We had our group campsite for two nights so we didn't need to tear down our tents this morning which was nice.
We met over at the Lake Side Inn cafeteria for breakfast. A few of the less hardy Fossils had stayed in a cabin there. After a gas fill we split up into smaller groups to tour the park. Whereas I know best of the trip I took, I will write of my adventure.
Steve and I have been to Yellowstone before and wanted to be sure and to make the largest amount of the big picture and not necessarily hit every viewing area. If someone were to stop at every stop Yellowstone has to offer he would need to stay in the park a week or two. So, Steve & I decided to make the large loop in a counterclockwise direction. If you have not been to Yellowstone you may not know that the highway around the center of the park is a huge figure 8 with many sight seeing areas along those main routes. The guys who spent more times at the sights only made a loop in the bottom half of the figure 8.
The road to the top right hand corner of the large loop from our camprground on the middle of the eastern side is very dramatic with steep drives and curves through majestic mountains with great long distance views. Though I had been to the park twice before decades earlier, somehow I had never been on this road. Before taking this road I was under the mistaken impression that Yellowstone was only a place for viewing dramatic natural wonders but didn't really have good motorcycle roads. Man, was I wrong! This route is an excellent motorcycle road and I was very happy to learn of it's existance. The end of the road in the top right of the figure 8 is Tower Falls. The falls is nice, not the most dramatic falls you will see but quite nice.
Next was across the top of the figure 8 from Tower west to Mammoth Hot Springs. The hot springs is very dramatic of what can be best described as what looks like a giant mountain of very colorfull salt with bubbling hot water with colorfull pools at each spring. Very interesting.
Then we headed south along the west side from Mammoth to Old Faithful. This sounds easy to write of but actually takes a long time of mountain driving in traffic. The views are always great, of course. Also, Steve & I were getting hungry and Steve needed gas so we stopped at a couple of places looking for both but found neither. Gas and food are only available at the select larger venues of the camp. We arrived at the Old Faithfull complex mid afternoon and filled up and eat at a gift shop/cafe. We then left the bikes there and began to walk along the boardwalk which runs for a long ways amoungst the many lesser known geysers and hot spring pools to the west of Old Faithfull. We walked for quite a long ways along this path and we could have probably made a day of it as the walks seemed to go on forever.
Back on the bikes we started the final leg of the loop along the bottom and up the right along the Yellowstone Lake. The lake is huge and one of the most beautiful lakes you will ever see anywhere. It is really dramatic to see the huge expanse of perfect blue water up against distant mountains. The lake shore at places are thetall pines found throughout the park, at places there are green grassy pastures running gentle up to the blue waters. As mentioned, very beautiful.
Steve & I were the first group to arrive at camp at I would guess was around 6:00 PM. I took the time to buy somemore firewood and call home. No cellphone or internet access in the park, so used an old fashioned phone booth. The rest of the groups were back within the hour and had all had similar stories of riding and viewing this amazing park. Animals we saw were Buffalo (we actually got guite tired of the buffalo because of their tendencies to walk on the roads) One group was stuck behind a buffalo herd for almost an hour. Also saw Elk and Bear.
Supper was back at the Lake Inn cafeteria. Bible study was Acts 9 the road to Damascus.
Tomorrow is more driving in Yellowstone and then across the BearTooth Pass to Red Lodge Montana.
