Yellowstone NP

North America
July 25th 2006

Published: July 27th 2006

Edit Blog Post

Lani

View from hotel room

In Billings, MT. Good thing I didn't camp this night.

I’m lying in my tent. Alone. Lonely. It’s not even dark yet but it’s kind of chilly outside and I don’t have the energy or the motivation to start a fire. It’s 2055. I am homesick. Well, not so much sick for my home (I’m not), but sick for my family. It will be nice to arrive in California and see Shay, then a week later, Kelci is moving out there. I arrived at Yellowstone yesterday via Beartooth Pass from Montana. Yellowstone is beautiful. I wish I had someone to share it with, namely, Jim. His father died last night and I wish I could be with him to console him some. I wish he could be here with me. The beauty of this place and going on all the hikes, that I am to chicken (of bears) to go on alone, would help him get through this. I am also getting a little road weary. Living out of a car is demanding. So is camping for long periods of time, especially in my little tent. I can’t even call him when I want. I am staying at Tower Fall campground which has no signal. If I want a signal, I

On the way to Beartooth Pass

have to drive about 50 miles (this place is HUGE). I bought a rip off phone card and I can walk down to the phone and stand there and talk to him with an audience. The phone is right outside the nosy campground hosts trailer. The host wrote me a “warning” today because I didn’t put the strip off the envelope on the stake at my site. He got my $$, I really don’t know why he is so worried about it. Since I am in bear country, I had to pack all my toiletries, food, drinks, and cooler in the trunk. Including bottled water. Evidently, bears have become connoisseurs of water. I probably walked over 6 miles today and saw all the major sites in Yellowstone (one of which is stupid tourists) and some of the minor ones. A word of advice, come in the off season. The roads are jammed with stupid people. It isn’t hard to get away from them once you get about ½ mile away from any parking area. I got very lucky today and pretty much walked up, front row, to Old Faithful and she went off within 10 minutes. Unfortunately, since I had

Beartooth Pass

a signal for the 10 minutes I was waiting, I called Jim and that is when he told me about his dad. It was a very sad eruption. I did get some good pictures of it though. And I bolted before it totally finished, so I beat the crowd out. Nice. I also want to point out that the route I took to get to Yellowstone (Beartooth Pass) was about 100 miles out of my way, but it was so worth it. It has to be one of TOP passes /roads ever, in my book (thank you, traveling guy that works at Tupelo Honey Café in Asheville, for that tip). And it was cool. As a matter of fact, Yellowstone is pretty cool too. I think the highs have only been in the high 70’s.

Additional photos below

Photos: 65, Displayed: 24