Jellystone (aka Yellowstone)

We arrived in Yellowstone Friday evening, let me just say one thing Marc and I have only camped twice before and that was with friends who knew what they were doing. It took me about 30 min to setup the tent. (Which I think was awesome) Dinner and clean up took a while cause you can’t leave anything around for the bears to eat. 

As the sun went down boy did it get cold brrr. Marc and I joined sleeping bags together to try and stay warm which worked but it was still extremely cold (around 0 Celsius). During the night I thought I heard I bear so freaked myself out thinking it was going to come and attack us… I woke marc up as I was so scared and Marc said I was silly and to go back to sleep but it took a while as I was shaking with fear, it’s the most scared I think I have ever been! Marc said I was shaking like a little Chawawa.

 

First day at Yellowstone was a Massive day of sightseeing; sulfur pools, paint pots, mud volcanoes, geysers etc. both Marc and I were really surprised just how much volcanic activity there was. 

 

Must admit most of the sights were pretty smelly, quote of the day from Marc at the dragons breath sight (a big cave with sulfur steam) "Looks like a giant asshole that’s just farting out eggs" ha ha ha.

 

I also saw my very first bear finally; I was very excited a little grizzly. 

Old faithful was cool but still a little disappointing after seeing all of the other geysers it did not go for as long but they advise that every eruption is different ours was just lacking some gumption.

The second night was another really cold night and I think I should have looked into the altitude thing a bit better and I probably would have been more prepared for the cold.  That morning we ran the canyon area. It was an awesome run but much further then I originally thought. We took off on the road before we reached our first sight ‘Inspiration point’, it was a lovely spot along Yellowstone canyon where you could see the river run through. Next we took off along the north rim trail for some cross-country running. It was loads of fun, along the way we could see into the canyon and got some great views. We ran all the way down to the lower falls, which were amazing so much water flowing from the river into the canyon, all the rivers were flowing very fast due to the late melt and large snow falls. 

 The afternoon we had booked an hour trail ride and western cookout up at Roosevelt about 30 min away. On our drive there we saw more buffalo and another grizzly bear! Marc thinks the buffalo are paid to stand around the park in specific spots for the tourists… you see them so randomly it’s hard to think that they just want to hang out so close to all the people.

 The trail ride was very slow and the saddles were very uncomfortable however the scenery was still really nice. Marc rode Gator a pony with an attitude who kept stealing grass. I rode Ug who was very ugly but also extremely docile. When we arrived at the cookout it was really big 2 groups of riders and about 6 wagons of people came out for the food. The food was pretty good and we met a man and his son who were also on a road trip. During the cookout a musician played and a storm tried to roll in but ended up blowing away. It was fun but looking forward to a real horse ride at some other stage on the trip.

Monday we decided to have a rest day. We slept in till about 10pm then went to the central hub for showers and to do some laundry. Considering we had to pay for showers Marc and I had not had a shower for the last three days and were very dirty. The shower was awesome and worth every penny ($3.58 each). After our very long showers we did some laundry and just hung out it was very relaxing. It was the 4^th of July however it did not seem to be very big at Yellowstone so nothing major was planned for that night. The weather report said 40% chance of rain so Marc and I thought we would pack up the tent early.  Packing up the tent was really hard, not only were we being attacked by mozzies but we ended up rolling the tent up three times… third time because I had left my sunnies in the tent oops… it was funny but Marc was a little frustrated to say the least. 

That night a big thunderstorm rolled in Marc and I were really happy in the van knowing that we would not have to pack up a wet tent the next day.  That night we just relaxed drank some beer in the van.