Yellowstone
7/15
Talk about rugged. No WiFi in this whole park, so I will have to post all of this later. Yesterday we drove through Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley and got caught in a couple of buffalo jams. Seeing bison kind of close with binoculars just does not compare to having them surround your car and look you right in the eye at about a foot’s distance. We saw lots of red dogs, which is what they call baby bison, and some were nursing right in the road. The kids were out of their seats, hanging out the window taking pictures and surveying the action. I was told that these jams can leave you in your car for 3 or 4 hours in August, but we only waited 20 minutes or so each time. We were lucky to get right up close to two coyotes, too, and I saw a big grizzly.
On our way back at 10 p.m. we stopped in West Thumb to see if there might be any animals at the geysers, since we’d seen so much scat when were there. The place was empty of people and there were a bunch of elk and their babies grazing among the geysers. It was this steaming darkness with the elk moving slowly through, outlined by the evening sky and the lit by a perfect full moon. I have seen few things that beautiful.
Esme and Stephen are so excited when they meet other kids. We had a little campfire with the kids at the neighboring campsite one night. We ate kosher s’mores with them and then they left early the next morning so they could get to the next place by the Sabbath. We did not even see the third son until later in the night when he emerged bespectacled and extremely chatty from the tent. Apparently nature is not really his thing, so he mostly stays in the car or tent and reads. They had “mosquito hour” every night from about 7 to 8:30 in which they sat in the van and drank soda and watched movies. They have no TV at home because they go to a Yeshiva that prohibits television, so they were pretty darn happy about mosquito hour. This was a dad with his three sons doing a 7 week cross-country tour in one tent with a minivan. They spend every Sabbath in a town either at a hotel or with an orthodox family somewhere. My brain hurts just thinking about the planning and execution.
Today we move to a new campsite and plan to see Midway Geyser Basin on the way. After that we will set up camp and either hang out or try the lower falls hike at Canyon or head out of the park to the Grizzly Wolf Discovery Center in the town of West Yellowstone. A couple here in the laundromat told me about that. They work here in the summer, having retired, sold their house in Connecticut, bought a motor home and headed out to tour the U.S. They thought it would take a year and they have been traveling for six. They say they still have not seen all they want to see.
