Sunday, May 24, 2009

Yellowstone National Park - Our 6th Visit to One of Our Favorite Places!

Saturday, May 23, 2009 – We seemed to all be in slow motion today but finally got on the road to go into Yellowstone National Park a little after 10:00 (Montana time). We drove the lower loop of the park and made stops at several geyser basins as well as the most famous of all, Old Faithful. When we arrived at the Old Faithful Lodge there was about 40 minutes before the next eruption so we decided to have some lunch. We ended up paying way too much for way too little food but I guess that is to be expected considering the location. We finished eating just in time to see Old Faithful erupt. After the eruption we walked the short loop through the geyser basin and made a stop at the beautiful Yellowstone Lodge. Although it is Memorial Day weekend there is still a lot of snow on the ground and most of the lakes are still largely frozen over. Even with all the snow on the ground it was a warm beautiful day with the exception of a very short period of rain in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone area. The buffalo were out in full force with their new calves and every buffalo sighting was accompanied by a line of cars looking and taking photographs. We returned to the RV Park at about 6:00 and Bill washed the car while I made dinner. As Bill was washing the car a man came up and asked about his fire department sticker and it turns out he not only retired from LA County Fire Department but also from the exact same station as Bill. They know many of the same guys who work at that station and battalion.


Sunday, May 24, 2009 – None of us wanted to make the entire upper loop of Yellowstone so we left the RV Park at about 9:30 with the intention of making the 50 mile drive up to Mammoth Hot Springs and then coming back to town. When we got to Norris Junction the road to Mammoth was blocked. We could not continue on to Mammoth and we did not want to take the whole loop so we turned onto a small side road to turn around. By the time we turned around all traffic was blocked in all directions and we were stuck in a line of cars for over two hours. We were told that there was a bad accident where a couple on a motorcycle ran into the back of a van. The victims were transported by ambulance from the scene of the accident to the Norris intersection and then helicopters arrived to air lift them to a trauma center. The entire incident was handled badly with hundreds of cars held up in traffic for no apparent reason. Several different people asked the ranger why we couldn’t go since the helicopters and ambulances were not moving but it seemed as if the ranger in charge didn’t like being questioned and dug in his heels and decided that no one was going anywhere until HE said so. They finally opened the intersection and we came back to town irritated but otherwise none the worse for wear. Once we got back to West Yellowstone we visited the town museum. It was small but interesting and had films about the big earthquake in Yellowstone and the devastating fires of 1988. We were very aware of the fires because we were in Yellowstone with our kids during that summer and witnessed the fires first hand. After the museum we had lunch at a local diner and then walked through some of the shops. Just as we finished lunch a storm moved in and it rained off and on the rest of the day and evening. Bill and Pam came over and we plotted out our itinerary for the next couple of days. We will leave West Yellowstone in the morning heading toward Canada. If all goes according to plan we will cross the border on Tuesday morning.

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