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Getting to Yellowstone from Great Falls was far simpler than we imagined - staying in Yellowstone on the other hand was far more difficult than we imagined… For some ridiculous reason we decided that given we’d arrived in Yellowstone and had planned to camp, that’s what we had to do, regardless of the temperature. Yep, you guessed it, it was freezing - we’re not talking a little cold, we’re talking a minimum of -15 and a maximum of -5. We wore every piece of clothing we had to bed, and still felt cold all night. To make matters worse, there were no showers, and no hot water.
The next day we went on a true adventure. We started at Mammoth Hot Springs (no there weren’t any hot springs we could use there… the minimum temperature of the water in the springs was 100 degrees!), and ended up touring through an area that was avalanche effected - we didn’t realise the path was broken and torn to pieces until it was too late (or at least we thought it was too late) to turn back) - and slipped and slid through all sorts of terrain. There were these amazing little creatures
Norris Geysers
One of the areas at Yellowstone NP (bacteria I think) called ‘thermophiles’ that thrive in the sulphur rich environments (appropriately stinky), and the whole area looked like something from another planet.
We ventured further south into the park to an area called the Norris Geysers. The geysers looked and smelled like a war zone, but more importantly, there were bison on the way there…..
Being your average Aussies, we are reasonably used to wildlife being on roads, however, bison take this to a whole new level. Firstly, they are the size of big cows (cows with horns even - bulls?), and they seem happiest running/strolling/meandering down the middle of the only road running through Yellowstone. There was about a metre of snow on either side of the road, so there wasn’t really anywhere for them (or us) to go. Anyway, we’re driving along, and can see these things in the distance. As we got closer, we realised what they were, and said, “How do you overtake a bison?” No joke, this was a serious conversation. We looked blankly at each other, and made a couple of suggestions… Do we honk them? (the immediate reaction to this suggestion was one of the biggest bison turning and
looking at us menacingly). We followed them for about 10 minutes, and every time they seemed to move into just one lane we’d get closer and try and pass, to no avail. Eventually, another car came up behind us and after overtaking us, drove really close behind the animals and just pushed through. Feeling suitably schooled in the art of overtaking, we tried the same thing - we had a couple of false starts and a couple of terrifying moments where they started charging towards the car, but eventually we made it!!
The Norris Geysers were amazing, and smelled horrendous. The National Parks authority don’t do anything to maintain any of the trails in the area, so in places where the heat from the geysers wasn’t enough to melt the snow on the paths, we were walking about a metre above the trails. Slightly slippery, but fun never the less!
We made it to Old Faithful (about 5 minutes before it erupted - perfect timing considering how freezing and blizzard-like it was). The eruption lasted around 5 minutes, and that was really it. Not a whole lot else to do in that part of the world in the
middle of a blizzard! We headed back to the campground, and when we arrived, actually toyed with the idea of camping there again that night. Fortunately (?) as we were trying to decide, a massive snowstorm blew in, and covered us and the tent in about 10cms of snow in 5 minutes…we hastily packed everything up and went to the closest town (Gardiner) and stayed in a motel!!
Next day we continued west, ended up camping in the town of Butte (not pronounced butt as we were saying, but beaut). The campground we ended up in was great (fabulous mountain views), but of course, there were other people there….Hope TV promoters who tried to convert us to their lifestyle, and well, were just generally terrifying. In their defence, they did lend us a portable electric heater for the night.
Idaho was not particularly exciting, however did send chills down both our spines.
Somehow we managed to drive through the Idaho ‘panhandle’ region which is mostly renowned as the home of the 'mountain men'. These are basically the guys who live in the mountains in weird cabins thinking the FBI are going to raid them. This was really brought
Do you want to go to this bar
You will be allright the barman was armed to our attention when we stopped in a small town (Clark Fork) for a break and we found a delightful sign on a bar door stating that patrons were not allowed to being weapons inside. About 5 seconds later I saw the publican in full camo gear with what looked like a holstered pistol on his hip. Strangely enough we didn’t feel the need to linger…
Leaving Idaho and arriving in Western Washington wasn’t as exciting as we would have liked, and we were lucky enough to get to drive through about 150kms of ‘badlands’ (flat, dry, windy prairies). First place of interest we got to was the Grand Coulee Dam, and that was cool. Enormous, and excessively security conscious, but still cool. The security guards were amazing. You aren’t allowed to take anything into the visitors centre at all, but the security guards were far too busy to have any concern about what visitors were up to. All three of them (none of whom weighed less than about 200kg) were heavily involved in discussing the requirements for that evening’s bbq! They had the pig (yes, a whole pig), and just needed to work out how much bbq sauce
Camping at Spokane
With the only thing you need.....beer! they would need.
We camped in Spokane that night (in the city and on the edge of a beautiful river) and were again confronted by the excess of RVs over here (BYO satellite TV dish)! Not a particularly interesting city, but a good stop on the way to our destination……
Seattle!!! Our first real city experience since leaving Australia. We stayed in a great little hostel on the waterfront, and walked what seemed like 100kms a day! We did all the usual touristy stuff…saw the Space Needle, went to the Pike Place Markets (and yes, they did throw fish), went to a great exhibition at the art museum (Roman artefacts from the Louvre), went on a ferry ride to a beautiful trendy island (where I was crapped on by a seagull!). Importantly, we (well I) shopped! Nine West is ridiculously cheap here ($40 a pair), and the flagship store of Nordstrom is also in Seattle. Everything was great, until I realised the bag I wanted to buy was $19000. That was the end of the shopping.
Then off to San Francisco…….
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