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Published: September 4th 2014
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Photos from this day at Yellowstonw National Park Well, we started this YYNP trip with little or no expectations of everything going smoothly so we'd be ready to enjoy whatever happens. We arrived in Bozeman, Montana, anticipating a prolonged stay at the airline's customer service counter. Again we were not disappointed. Because of air-travel snafu we learned on our connecting flight in Denver that the airline screwed up our connections both coming and going. The only way they could correct the problem and still get us on the plane was to register us with special stow-away privileges or something. They told us the Yosemite leg of our trip was still messed up in their system so we should stop at customer service when we landed in Bozeman to get it corrected.
Delta blamed US Airways and US Air blamed Delta --or was it United. After about an hour of shifting blame and shrugging shoulders they sent us away in our rental without a solution. I was on the phone with US Air--actually more on hold-- for the whole trip from the airport to our hotel in Gardiner, a bit over an hour long. Just before we got to Gardiner we lost phone service and left the
conversation unsure if we had a ride home. No problem. Yellowstone is an amazing place to get stuck.
Oh, did I mention the airlines also lost one of our suitcases, the one with my clothes and tripod? Well, re-reading above I can see I didn't. I had no qualms about facing Yellowstone naked, but not without a tripod. Not to worry, they assured me. They figured out that the lost piece never made the plane in Denver --at least not
ourplane. They were looking in the baggage claim areas of San Francisco and San Diego to see if an unclaimed bag was circling the turnstile. They promised to bring it to our hotel when they found it. I assured them that I worried about the success of their mission, and Barb and I left for our first taste of Yellowstone.
Gardiner, Montana, is named after Johnson Gardner (I leave it to the readers to investigate why there is no "i" in the namesake of the town and admonish them not to take the first account they read or hear as the truth). It is an absolutely great town and everyone
in it seemed especially warm and wonderful. It is the north gate of Yellowstone and the only entrance open all year. The park starts at the Roosevelt Arch (photos #1 & 2).
Just inside the park is the town of Mammoth Hot Springs, where the
elk roam free. In fact it was rut season and the mornings heard the sounds of bull elk instead of roosters. We knew we wouldn't get too far into the park before we ran out of daylight; we knew we had three full days and another morning to taste the fruits of this international mecca. We were thrilled to be among humans who drifted toward the spiritual side of our existence because of the proximity and concentration on the natural beauty that surrounds us here.
Photos 5, 7 & 9 show some of Mammoth Hot Springs below the amazing hill of oozing-earth-innards. With night falling and handhelds becoming more difficult we went back to Gardiner to eat.
After checking our room we stopped at the desk to mention that the airlines might be dropping off our lost luggage and asked would they accept it in our absence. We then went for a quick look in the gift shop. When we returned to our room it took us at least ten minutes before we noticed the missing suitcase standing at the foot of the bed where we had to walk around it several times each. It arrived while we were buying t-shirts. We had a couple drinks and tried to stifle the thought that everything will go more smoothly tomorrow.
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