Day 6 of 16-West Yellowstone

I enjoy being the first one up. I don’t want Dave to have to wake me up to start the morning chores, so I make it a point to get up 30 minutes ahead of schedule and take down my tent. (Also I get warmer working.) But today a group of 4 beat me at my game and went for a pre-dawn walk to see the sunrise at the lake. I would have joined them if I didn’t fear being late back to camp. Breakfast today was “toad in the hole” (or “one-eyed jacks)—you cut a circular hole with a jar lid into slices of stale French bread, and fry an egg in the middle. Fry the cut out pieces in butter. We cut melons up and boiled water for the ever-important cowboy coffee or tea to complete the meal.  The same group of young elk and momma elk from last night came right up to the campsite to graze, so everyone got pictures.

Today we headed north to Canyon Village in Yellowstone, with a stop at Mud Volcano for a short hike. On the way we saw a herd of bison, and the German girls above all went nuts with pictures like it was the animal lottery. They gave me a bad time for not being excited. So I took a few pics. I’ve seen a lot of bison in Calif-- I was hoping for at moose or bear.

At Canyon Village we were let off for a 4-5 hour hike along the north rim of the Yellowstone River starting at Artists point (gorgeous red rocks and a waterfall in the distance). A relatively easy hike led us to Uncle Tom’s trail, where they have built 300 stairs down mid-slope. I skipped the stairs (knees) so walked the rim almost to the other side, where I wished that was the pickup point. Took lots of waterfall pix, but we had too much time for this hike.

Next is West Yellowstone which will be my first good access to wifi will be in this town.

In West Yellowstone we had a long dinner break (on your own) and I found wifi at McD's finally. Caught up with some long overdue emails and phone calls and ran out of time to post this blog! We dropped off passengers to see a real Montana rodeo at 8pm, and I got ready for another marathon evening drive while others in the bus rested or read. In two hours the rodeo was letting out, so we made "the miracle" setting up the beds for a long trip south to Utah. I set my GPS to Salt Lake City and started out the gate for the freeway. Some people talked to me on and off last night and made the trip shorter. I stopped briefly to let passengers pee at a rest stop, and the next stop was for Dave to fill up the bus. I went to bed and woke up at the Great Salt Lake!