#39 Yellowstone

The next day we headed out to Yellowstone National Park. We had made the reservations and prepaid back in March. We were about two days late but we were staying for 2 weeks so it was ok. I called 2 days back to let them know we were late arriving. They said its good I called because it’s the busy season and if they don’t see you at 5pm on the day of your arrival they give your reservation away. All I could think of was the Seinfeld episode with rental car. He was telling the agent the absurdity of how we clearly have two different definitions of what the word reserved means. The recreation.gov person reminded me to carefully read my contract where I checked that I had read and fully understood all the terms. I said fine I’ll take your word for it. But just to be sure we are 2 days late and we are en route. They said we will note you called but you need to let the park ranger know to be sure. I called the park ranger and got the automated voicemail. I thought I was gonna die. I left a message and later the ranger called me and said she would email the campground host. I thanked her and pointed out how weird the whole not really a reservation system was. She agreed it was weird and she apologized for the system and this gave me comfort. About an hour into Yellowstone we were overheating even though I had installed the new thermostat. I pulled over and removed it and we stayed cool until we got near Sylvan pass which is about 9,000 feet. I got pretty warm even without the thermostat but it cooled off just by pulling over and resting for a while. We got to our site and settled in for 2 weeks. We stayed at a place called 3 mile campground which ( can you guess) how far from the Yellowstone east entrance gate.

Our Yellowstone campground was what most people would call No Frills. We did reserve it five months earlier and we didn't know anything but it was available and there was little to no vacancy at the other RV places in the park. There was plenty of good parts but there were some negatives. We found the site to be very adequate and large and very much out in the country and so that's all good. It offers a tall pole to hang garbage, a bear proof metal food storage bin, a fire pit and a picnic table. We were very near a river that was Beautiful. Everywhere you looked it was gorgeous. We were about 30 miles south of fishing Bridge which is the first civilized part of Yellowstone you get to. When I made the reservation I could see it was basically a glorified boondock site but in a real park so it’s not like you’re running from the law. It was 10 per night and in comparison the famous lodges which were more like 300 per night were all sold out even back in March. I figured every few days I would just hook up and ride to the other side of the park and dump tanks and that’s not ideal but for the piece I figured it would be fine. As we settled in I asked the campground host where the dump station was for the campground and he said there isn't one. He said there was one 30 miles east towards a Cody or you could go 30 miles west to fishing Bridge. This sort of took me by surprise but here we go. So the site had no fresh water or dump and it had no electricity no internet no TV stations no radio stations no cell service but it had grizzlies and lots of natural beauty so that’s why I really came this way anyway. It was fine it just took some effort to get used to. I had tested the solar panels but now it seemed like a good time to install them permanently. Using the solar power we were totally off-grid and once in a blue moon we would use the generator. Things went very well and about every 3 to 4 days we would go to Cody Wyoming and dump tanks and fill our tank with fresh water. We used the Buffalo Bill state park about 10 miles west of Cody. It was 10 dollars to use the dump station and 17 to stay all night so we would make a weekend out of it. I guess it was just nice to chill and have a dump station at your disposal and we would go into Cody for groceries and loiter at McDonald's for the free internet. One trick I developed was to have Savannah take a shower while we were at the dump station. This way the shower water just flowed right out the drain into the dump rather than holding it. This is only ok if no one is waiting for you to finish dumping. Cody was a nice little town and we went to the rodeo. Savannah will sometimes say, “Hey this ain’t my first Rodeo ya know. “ I reminded her that this was in fact her first Rodeo. She loved it and we all had a good time. I wanted to use the 2 weeks here to receive mail and any packages I might want.

We did several excursions into Yellowstone and the first one was a kind of a counterclockwise Loop to fishing bridge to Old Faithful to Norris and then back home. All along the way we stopped and saw all kinds of boiling mud and clear pools of near boiling water. The whole place seems like another planet. The whole park sits on top of a Caldera and so you try not to think about it but if it blew its top like Mt St Helens it would ruin our vacation and most of Wyoming would be a crater We loved seeing Old Faithful perform and had a pricey dinner at the Lodge. We figured it was okay because it was really famous and beautiful and we might never be there again. We could use that rationalization every day so one has to be careful with the spending. We found out you could take a shower at fishing bridge for 4.25 each and so we thought we would do that on the way home. They close at 9pm and we left Norris geyser at about 7pm to hit the showers. Its only 30 miles away but we hit a wildlife traffic jam halfway and they were closed by the time we got there. You have to be patient at Yellowstone because sometimes a herd of Buffalo just start moseying down the road and you have to kind pf just wait it out. They are royalty in the park so you just have to wait. At some point you will see a park ranger ride by and I assume they are herding them off to the shoulder to get the traffic moving again. The 30 miles took 2 hours so oh well everybody put on some extra deodorant and we’ll go into Cody soon enough. We try not to use our waste our water to shower until we get close to going into town. It is better used for drinking, cooking, hand washing and toilet flushing as a priority. In between excursions I would work on the RV systems to make improvements and went fishing a little.

Savannah and I went kayaking down the river several times and she just loved it. It was very serene and very exciting in some spots. We would put the kayaks in at the beginning place and then put the bicycles in the truck drive the down the road about a mile or so and park. We would ride the bikes back to the campsite where we left the Kayaks. We put into the river and enjoy the ride and get out of the river when we saw the truck. We did it at least twice that's the kind of stuff we did.

When we dropped of the truck there were some people hanging out at the river recreation area. When we played down the river back to the truck they were gone. I looked at the way the left their fire pit and I was ashamed of the human race. I cleaned it up so the wild animals would hate us so much for destroying their pristine habitat.

Our second Excursion was a few days later and we went to fishing bridge and then up towards Yellowstone Canyon, which they call it the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was pretty and we went to see lots of waterfalls lots of buffaloes. We got a big kick out of the Buffaloes because they run the place and when they decide to cross the road and block the road everybody just has to get over it and wait. This guy decided to walk down the double yellow line for about 15 minutes shutting down all the cars for a mile. When we got near him he just looked like us like he saw no difference between asphalt and dirt and he was heading over towards the Great Order of the Buffalo Men lodge for a beer.