Day 29 - Day 2 of 3 at Yellowstone National Park

I was cold last night. Not too cold but enough to wake me up every so often. Thunder woke me up at about 5:30 and then it started raining. I, unfortunately, thought very negative thoughts about the day because of the rain but, as soon as it started, it stopped!! Yay!!

We dinked around and took our time getting up and moving knowing that we had, yet, another full day here. Cool!! We decided to make our way to Old Faithful and, along the way, there was a section of hwy where there were a lot of people stopped alongside the road. That usually means a Wild Kingdom moment so we stopped and joined the crowd. It seems there was a bear down in the woods. We could bearly see him (hehehe) so Dylan decides to go exploring a bit. He found a clearing and there, in front of him was Mr. Bear tearing apart a pine tree just for the hell of it!!! Dylan was still a safe distance but all the other tourists had lost sight of him and Dylan had a perfect view from the top of a log. I joined him and we snapped away with the camera for quite a while before Mr. Bear decided to head on up the hill. Excellent!

We took off and started driving towards Old Faithful. As we round a corner, we see the top of the geyser off in the distance. Damn!!! We just missed it!!! We were in for an hour and a half wait for her to blow again. I suppose an hour and a half isn't too long to wait when you know how good she is when she does blow, huh? We decided to walk around and see all the other "thermal areas". Some of them were actually pretty cool. It's amazing how many different colors some of these pools can be. One of the geysers was blowing right as we walked by and we ended up getting a good shower from it. Not bad. We finished our tour of the "thermal areas" and went back to wait for Old Faithful to give her show. Thousands of people were waiting...and waiting....and waiting....what the hell happened to "faithful". She finally blew and everyone got their Kodak moments. We filed in behind the other human sheep and made our way to the lodge to get some food. Of course, everyone else was doing that too. I finally found a $6 hot dog and felt a little better so Dylan and I decided to hit the road. We only drove about 2 miles from Old Faithful when I spot a bike trail. There are virtually NO bike trails in Yellowstone. Why, I don't know. We stopped and rode our bikes through some very cool "thermal areas" and actually back toward Old Faithful. Had a great time and bikes are definitely the way to see these "thermal areas".

We made our way back to the truck and gathered some firewood before heading back to camp. Went for a little ride on our bikes to check out the campground. Ended up down by the lake and noticed another fantastic specimen of wildlife lying on the beach!! Once we got back to the site I festered up a dinner of rice pilaf, BBQed burgers, a few grapes and a couple beers. All good. As I write this, Dylan has a great fire going and I'm ready for another beer!!!!

....oh shit!! He just called me as I was writing this and he said that he was watching rangers trying to scare away a HUGE grizzly bear off this island in the lake....RIGHT BY THE CAMPGROUND!!!!! The rangers said yesterday that the largest grizzly in Yellowstone was spotted real close by. I wonder if this is the guy? Where's Marlin Perkins when you need him?

Addendum: I just went bookin' down to where Dylan was and shot a couple great pics of the grizzly. It seems that the rangers shot explosive shells over his head so that he wouldn't continue to the campground. They scared the shit out of him so he swam WAY out into the lake. The pics I took are of him coming ashore. A grizzly, who woulda thunk?

Ciao!!!