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Published: August 24th 2013
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We’re not sure whether it was the Mexican food or some sort of violent reaction to having our core body temperatures severely reduced for an extended period of time, but boy were we gassy this morning! It’s a good thing we really love each other - unlucky for the people sitting next to us at the
Thermopolis Cafe. We opted to order two breakfasts and “share”. Sharing... this is a newer concept for Jon. Luckily, we get to continue to learn things about each other now that we’re happily married. I’m currently embarking on a 12 step sharing programme with him.
Before leaving Thermopolis, we popped into the
Dinosaur Museum. As Dorothy might say to Toto, Pre-Mesozoic fossils, Devonian fish and an Archaeopteryx specimen - oh my. What a surprise of a place. Completely unassuming from the outside and a treasure trove on the inside.
On our way out of town, we picked up a key to a gate at the end of a dirt road about 21.7 miles, or thereabouts, north west of Thermopolis. We were heading out on an adventure to see Legen
d Rock and a variety of petroglyphs dating hundreds of years old to the more
The JonJon
A sneak peak of Jon's inspired navigational skills. recent and popular form of
petroglyphography... “George loves Kate 4-ever”. We drove down a gravel road for a long time through very desolate lands and upon arrival were struck with probably the same age old questions many others have asked themselves... Who did this originally and why? Who found this and what were they doing out here? And, what type of person would graffiti this? Until then we noticed some of the “graffiti” was dated. 1908 graffiti. If it’s that old, does it still count as graffiti? If George loved Kate in 1908, is that now part of the historic record? Dudes, my mind was literally exploding from the power of this information. Alternatively, I could have just had a dehydration headache from the heat and been jumpy due to the impending doom of a rattlesnake which I was sure was waiting for us under each new rock or bush. Either way, we were out of there. Returning our key to some bucket at the gate and hitting that gravel road again for a 30 minute bumpy ride (past a military installation - it turns out - with fighter jets taking off) and back to the paved road to take
A petroglyph
I suppose if I had to sit in a valley waiting for dinner to wander through, I'd start seeing things and scratching my visions into these rocks too. us back to civilization... a word I am using loosely to describe our next stop in Meeteetse.
Meeteetse was really amazing. An old time cowboy town complete with original wooden boardwalks and horse posts, a cowboy bar with a gun for a door handle and a cowboy bartender. We stopped at the chocalatier for some truffles made by a cowboy (huckleberry, key lime, focaccia, Coors and prickly pear flavoured) I guess when he’s not out on the range. Then we moseyed on over to the Cowboy Bar. The owner was in and speaking to the guys at the table behind us. Earwigging, I learned the bar was over 120 years old, it is the only place Butch Cassidy had ever been arrested and the bullet holes in the walls are original. The former cowboy come bartender was a hoot. Once he warmed up and we got him talking, there was nothing he wasn’t going to tell us, it seemed. We saw pictures of his 6 year old son in his cowboy hat, we heard the story of how he was driven to divorce due to his wife’s inability to not be a back seat driver (nice touch given we’re
on our honeymoon roadtrip... but whatever) and we learned about his love and devotion for Bush - George Bush - and were “entertained” by his lynching jokes about democrats. CHECK PLEASE!
Eventually, we had arrived at
Yellowstone National Park. On our virgin drive through the park we clocked a wolf, a herd of bison and potentially spotted a bear - although it was quite a ways away and we didn’t have our binoculars out in time like the others lined up on the side of the road. One aspect of this park neither of us had taken into account was just how ENORMOUS the place is. The main road going through the park is 142 miles long. So although we had arrived at the east entrance, we still had a fair distance to travel before we got to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel at the north end of the park. Luckily, it was still relatively early in the day and we stopped along the way to take pics and go on a few short interpretive walks.
Our first main stopping point was the Mud Volcano and the muddy (sulfuric) hot springs. This place is really a whole different
world. As we walked along the boardwalk with other tourists widely ranging in age, ethnicity and size, a lone bison strolled across our path. He must have been lumbering along on his way to meet up with his mates - the herd we saw on our way in. All the while there were steaming pools of water and bubbling sulfuric mud gurgling away along side of us.
Mammoth Hot Springs is known for the hot spring, obviously, but also for the elk that roam down to the valley around the hotel. We checked into the hotel, dropped our bags in the very warm un-air-conditioned room and headed over to the general store for a couple of cold beers (Old Faithful Ale - gotta be done) and some fresh cherries. We grabbed ourselves a seat outside with our little treats and waited for these elk. Turns out we were more tired than we thought and we dragged ourselves to bed pretty early too tired to even bother with dinner and not having seen one elk.
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