Boats, Animals and just plain beautiful country!

for 2 weeks we were in Yellowstone with no connection. This is the second part of a larger yellowstone piece so make sure you read the one before this (older than this one) before you tackle this one)

We had a late breakfast and headed down to the post office. Stan’s glasses came but my medicine (for which I authorized special overnight shipping) was still a no-show. I figured that I would go back when the afternoon delivery came in.

When we left the post office, we headed across the parking lot to the Yellowstone Lake Hotel and got coffee. We sat on the benches on the front porch for a while and then walked down to the lake and sat on benches right on the water. It was a beautiful sunny dry cool day. The sun felt really warm on the body and the coffee tasted good. As we left to return to the parking lot, Stan saw a poster for a photo safari that peaked his interest.

We left Lake and headed for the Marina. We were interested in checking out both the lake boat tour and the boat rentals. The tours were sold out for today but we started thinking about tomorrow. They had a pretty wide open schedule tomorrow so we booked the first tour of the day; 9:15. They do not take reservations for the boat rentals so we figured that we will take the boat tour first and then if our interest is on the increase after that we will rent a boat for a couple of hours. We sat by the water and went over our options for the rest of the week since Stan was really interested in the photo safari and we still have to go up to the Lamar Valley on our last animal search of the trip.

We settled on the boat tour and rentals tomorrow (Friday) then the Lamar trip on Saturday. Stan will take the Photo Safari on Sunday (5:30 to 11 with breakfast provided) leaving us with Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon available for whatever we feel is the most important. Sunday has to contain some time to ready the ship and the troops for transport on Monday AM. We hope we can get an early start on Monday and drive over to Rapid City. If we get there in a reasonable time we might try to redo the Mt. Rushmore evening ceremony that we got rained out of.

While Stan was signing on for the Photo Safari, Cheryl and I took a swipe at the gift shop. We bought some t-shirts and on our way out found some other things that we just had to buy so we returned to the register and cashed out some more. I had joked with the man at the cash register when we went through the first time about the amount of change I had in my pocket. I paid for part of the first items with change and joked with the guy that I wasn’t going to leave until he took all of the change including a bunch of pennies. When I came back the second time, I started with the change and when the smoke cleared, I had no more change.

Stan took a walk along Fishing Bridge and part of Yellowstone Lake. Cheryl and I decided o over to the Lake Lodge for lunch but when we got there, we discovered that the lodge cafeteria was closed from 2:30 to 4:30. That didn’t make us real happy but we left and headed back to the Marina to see if there was anywhere to eat there. Finding none, we headed for Fishing Bridge and found a lunch counter in the back.

We looked over the menu and tried to order hamburgers but were told they would only cook them well done. Once again (this is by far not the first time for this puppy) we told them that well done was not satisfactory so we ordered the beef brisket sandwich. GOOD CHOICE! The brisket was nicely cooked and when mixed with the BBQ Sauce provided a delicious meal.

We headed back to the camper with the express desire to sit out on our deck and soak up some sunshine. Just as I got settled, I remembered that I still had to return to the post office before it closed to check on my medicine again. I jumped in the car and headed over to lake arriving at the 5 minute to closing mark. Alas, no mail. Exasperated, I drove back to Fishing Bridge and stopped at the pay phone and called Medco. After a bit of time, I talked to someone there. We went through all of the information and he told me that UPS had been trying to deliver the package for 2 days.

After much discussion, he called UPS and put me on the phone with them. I talked with UPS for quite some time and learned all of the reasons why this whole thing didn’t work. It seems that the delivery went to some universal park mail system and no one would take the package. I gave all of the information that they mail mistress gave me to give them telling me that this system is foolproof (I ain’t seen a system that couldn’t be cobbled up). No one would accept the package so it went back to the UPS site at Bozeman, Montana. The UPS elf tried to contact Bozeman but didn’t have a working phone number (??).

She said she could email the information to Bozeman and the elfs at Bozeman would call me to make the arrangements. “Did I have a phone number where I could be reached??”

“Actually, no. There is no cell phone reception around here.” I gave her the phone number of the pay phone and she said they would call me within the hour (it took about a half hour). They agreed to change the address on the package and deliver it to the campground. I crossed my fingers for luck and thanked her profusely.

Back at camp, we prepared for the next day. We went to the ranger talk. The ranger was a school teacher in Seattle. He taught science in high school and was a ranger here for 37 summers. He talked about Yellowstone Lake. He talked about the lake itself and the volcanic eruption and glaciers that created and sculpted it. He was really interesting and it was obvious that he must be a really good teacher. We heard from another ranger that the seniors fought to get into his classes when most seniors are only interested in sliding through their senior years. He told us he was leaving to back to Seattle some day next week and would get home the day before school started. As much as he loved teaching kids in high school, he loved Yellowstone more and did not want to lose a day that he could spend here.

As his talk went on, he noticeably kept looking towards the sky. At the end of the talk, he told the audience that this was a special night. The sky was so very clear and the stars were so bright that he wanted to run a special impromptu talk on the constellations. He told the people that were interested to follow him down to the beach and told everyone else thanks for attending his lecture. Just about 90% of the attendees headed for the beach. Those smart enough to bring along a flash light stood to the side and lit the path for the rest of us who were confident enough of the path to dare do it without a light. When we all reached the beach, he said that he figured about 50 people would come to the beach not everyone at the lecture (he even hinted that we had picked up a few more people on the way).

He used a bright green laser pointer to point out the constellations and told stories about them (the pointer didn’t really reach the stars but there was enough moisture and dust in the air to show a green line in the direction he was pointing). I live away from town and get more stars than you see in town but this was spectacular! Every star was bright and crisp and the spiral of the Milky Way was clear as can be. We saw the big dipper just as it looks from our front door (except waaaay brighter).

We headed home from the lecture and went right to bed. We got up, had breakfast and set about to make a lunch. Our plan was to take the lake tour when the marina opened at 9 and then to rent a motor boat and explore the lake ourselves.

The tour was ok. Not much better. It was a one hour tour. The boat came out of the marine, rode across the front of the Yellowstone Hotel passing by the lodge, gas station and general store the passed by the oldest ranger station in the world, sort of checked out the Yellowstone River outlet (over to Fishing Bridge) and took a loop around Stephenson Island and returned to the marina. We got coffee in the store and sat out watching the boats come and go.

Then we rented our boat. It is an 18 foot aluminum boat with a 40 horse motor; basic but nice. They gave us the usual lecture (common sense) and told us where we could go and not go. This is a very large lake and we had a very small area to explore. It was just about the same area as the tour took us except that we did get some area beyond the Island. A chop had begun to develop but it wasn’t bad. We headed out to a point of land that demarked the furthest left we could go then headed for Steamboat Point across the lake which demarked the other right side boundary.

We passed along the island disappointed that the 2 moose that had lived on the island all summer had swum to the shore 2 days before. We had hoped to see the moose but that won’t happen now. We missed everything. The Obamas were here last week but only for a couple of hours and over at Old Faithful. We may have seen Martha Stewart but weren’t close enough to know for sure. We saw this boat with a bunch of people on it and inquired as to its availability. We were told that it was a park service boat that was used to gillnet the lake trout and it was never used for civilian rides. The people on the boat certainly weren’t park service people. Later we heard that Martha Stewart was in the park and went out on the park service boat. Coincidence?? I think not!

I did question why they would take Martha S. on a gillnetting boat. Gillnets do not require any bait?

Along the far shore, we were sheltered from the wind. The water was calm as glass so we turned off the motor and prepared for lunch (they would not allow us to beach the boat to have lunch). We drifted in the warm sun, got lazy and almost fell asleep. Eventually we fired up the motor and headed down the shoreline. Cheryl took a turn at the wheel and drove her first (but I am sure not her last) boat. We found a large rock formation in the water that was covered with birds. I had thought it was another of the park’s rental boats fishing but as we got closer, Cheryl pointed out to me that it was a rock. We avoided it…big time. If you damage the prop on the boat, you pay for it. I certainly didn’t want that. We had what looked like a brand new prop (the fin under the prop was broken in half so I assume that the original prop was destroyed too).

On the way back in, we found a log floating in the middle of the lake and pulled it into the boat. We continued back doing the “Top Gun” buzz of the Yellowstone Hotel. Of course, when you have to stay 300 yards off shore, it looses something. The people on the deck by the water didn’t even know they were being buzzed.

When we arrived at our slip, the girl on duty tied up our boat and remarked: “Oh, you brought me a log!!” She seemed happy that we had cleared the lake of this obstacle but offered no medals or free meals.

Afterwards, I headed away from camp to get a picture I have been coveting since we got here. It is a picture of a small evergreen tree on a little tiny island off the shore. I clambered over the bankings and driftwood and got my picture then returned to camp. After supper, we headed over to the ranger talk and heard all about the family of birds that contains ravens, crows, jays, magpies and nuthatches. She told us all about these birds without ever once using the word “Nevermore” or mentioning Edgar Allen.

We got up early today and headed up to the Lamar Valley. This is the only section of the park we haven’t covered. In fact, in three trips here, I have never been there so off we went. First we had to maneuver through the biggest buffalo jam we have yet seen. The buffalo were coming out of the woods down a steep banking and collecting on the road. A ranger in a car with the siren blaring was trying to drive them off the road. As soon as he went by, they would return to the road. Unfortunately, he had a large number of them running down the road trying to get away from the noise. Those of us in cars were a little worried that the bison would turn on us to relieve the frustration brought on by the ranger. It did not seem like the best solution to the problem.

One female was running down the centerline between rows of cars looking over her shoulder at the ranger car and was coming right at the front of my car. At the last second, she turned, saw me and almost fell over trying to avoid a collision. It was mayhem on roads and the trouble was created by the rangers; protectors of the wildlife. We ran into a similar situation in Custer and eventually all of the buffalo came out of the woods, crossed the road and began to graze in a large field. Believe me, no one minds being held up by a buffalo herd, especially when you are in the middle of it and the buffalo are no more than 2 or 3 feet away.

Lamar valley is a really nice drive. There are vast open areas with trees and some of the most beautiful rivers you could imagine complete with an overabundance of fly fishermen. If you ever saw the movie “a River Runs Through It” you would appreciate the type of rivers that abound here. Part of the park in this area is actually in Montana and that is where the movie was filmed (if I remember right). We saw a few animals but nothing new. We met up with some birders who tried to point out a sand crane (I don’t think that is the Vlasic Pickle Bird) but they had big spotting scopes and we had measly binoculars and could not find them.

We drove out the Northeast Gate of the park and drove through a couple of small towns that seemed to specialize in guiding fishermen and outfitting them. We did find a small café that advertised trout on the menu so we did what every tourist should do…bought the trout. It was pan fried just like I remembered doing as a child and was just a delicious. They served it with a nice salad and eventually brought us some homemade white bread that was equally as good.

It brought back memories of my childhood. We used to camp in places that were out of the way (and I mean out of the way). My favorite thing to do was sometime we were there, I would get up early and take the boat and go out fishing. When I got back, I would clean and scale the fish, wrap them with bacon then cover them with aluminum foil and drop them into the coals of a fire I had built. I would also make biscuit dough and put that in aluminum foil and cook it in the fire. I would then get everyone up and hand them a plate with a foil packet of fish and a packet of biscuit.

Well, we ran into another buffalo jam on our way back and were delayed. We are back now and will clean up the leftovers of the last 2 days for supper. Tomorrow is our last day and I am sure that getting ready to go will take up much of it. I do hope to get out for one last tour but I may not. I have not felt well the last several days. I think the altitude is getting the best of me and some sinus problems are making everything worse. One good thing about getting on the road is that I will be able to upload this. 12 pages are too much for one chapter. Bye

Ok, I haven’t had much of a chance to upload anything here. We have no signal!!! None whatsoever! Nada! That is why this section is so long. I apologize, I don’t like it either but what can one do??

Our time here is at an end. Stan is out taking the photo safari. He was up at 5 and out by 5:20 so we climbed back into bed and napped. Once we got up, we made coffee and breakfast and started to get everything ready to leave tomorrow. The addition of an extra person and a stay of 2 weeks with basically no rest days left everything in somewhat of a mess so this morning was a good time to get it back into shape. As we usually do with company, we gave Stan the bedroom in the back so he could have a place of his own. We lived in the front section which is also the living room, kitchen and dining room. The bed clothes went into the cab when we weren’t sleeping and my clothes went into the entertainment center leaving Stan with a closet and 2 drawers. I will continue to live out of the entertainment center on the way home rather than move things around again.

We had to reorganize things. I had 2 pair of cowboy boots, 2 pair of sneakers (one good, one for wet muddy days) and a pair of hiking boots (I had a second pair of hiking boots as I had bought a new pair and have not yet used them). Cheryl had sneakers, hiking boots and one pair of cowboy boots. She kept the sneakers for the ride home and we stored everything else under the back bed along with all of the literature and maps we picked up along the way. Now that the time is done, I am anxious to get home. I do enjoy the drive and the feeling of being on the road. We have a good time counting off the miles and the states. Watching the navigation system march us across the computer screen. I installed the Delorme software upgrade for the trip home. I was reluctant to run the program while we were driving out and didn’t know just what would happen to my library of routes. Last years upgrade had some things that people didn’t like and I didn’t see the bulletin boards about this years upgrade.

I like all of the changes they have added since I bought my version in 2006. I pretty much know where I am going but it is always nice to see your progress. That has always been a problem as mile markers go down heading west and south letting you know just where you are in each state. North and east are problems though as you start at mile 1 and there is nothing to tell you where the end is. It has improved. If you have a good road atlas, it will give you the exit numbers which now in most cases are the mile markers of that exit. The interstate system has been changing the exit numbers to reflect the mile markers. You have probably noticed that on the Maine Turnpike.

The nav system also helps when you have a bunch of turns in a short time. The screen tells you what your next turn is and the turn after that as well as how many miles and how long. The screen can be set to different scales. I like a fairly small scale. The computer then shows you all of the towns, lakes, rivers and roads along the way and you can follow them on the road. You can also use it like the smaller dash mounted units to find your way to places you don’t know how to get to. I usually look up the directions at home and then leave the computer at home. In the motorhome, I have a table set up in between the seats for the computer. Both Cheryl and I can see it and use it. In the car it is very difficult. My computer is very large and there is no where to put it except on the passenger seat or on the passengers lap (that is also the person we refer to as the navigator so I guess it is appropriate).

Well, we made it through the day. The deck is cleaned off and everything put away, the interior is cleaned up and everything stored away and we are about as ready to go as we can be.

Stan came back from his photo safari so excited it was fun to watch. Not only had the guide been a photographer that has spent his last 12 summers taking tourists on photo tours but he helped his “guidees” to better understand the art of photography and also great insight on how to use their cameras. Stan had not had his camera very long and the guide showed him a lot about how his camera worked and how to use it. They saw a lot of different animals. The guide seemed to know where everything could be found and took them to a lot of places. Only 4 people signed up for the tour so everyone got the personal touch.

After he told us all about his photo session, we drove over to Old Faithful for one last time. We got there just in time to see it erupt then walked over to the Old Faithful Inn. We had an “End of the Trip” celebration and imbibed in their lunch buffet. The menu was a little limited and basically the same price as the buffet so we buffeted. They had a soup du jour and a buffalo chili with great huge chunks of buffalo and no heat whatsoever. They had a nice salad bar with spring greens but NO ONIONS. The salad bar also included cole slaw and macaroni salad (both good). For entrees, they had a rice pilaf, bbq shredded chicken (on a 7 grain roll if you wanted one) and pan fried trout (it was not pan fried but institutionally prepared but still very good). They had tartar sauce but it didn’t show up until after I had finished eating, excellent corn muffins (that were only replenished as we were finishing up (didn’t stop me from trying them...excellant. Warm and moist…the lateness of the corn muffin made sure that my butter was nice and soft). There was a very nice apple crisp for dessert. All in all a great meal and Jeff, our waiter from Texas (with the accent to prove it), and a very nice Bulgarian college graduate keeping us in water made the meal a true enjoyment.

Then we conducted some business over the phone and called my mother to see how everything back home was doing. She told us another tale of woe about how hot and humid it was. She does not like the hot/humid weather but is glad she has air conditioners. She has been using them throughout this heat wave. We told her that it had been 61 when we drove over but had increased all the way to 75….everyone was complaining about the heat.

During dinner we talked about the things we missed when we were on the road (the hot humid weather was not one of them). Tuttle’s corn came to the top of the list along with seafood. The rule of thumb is to never repeat NEVER order seafood in the middle of the country. Trout is not seafood but locally caught and delicious, obviously not to be included in the rule. Corn is not revered around the country as a table vegetable like it is back home. Yes, you do find some farm stands that sell corn but they are few and far between and no matter how much they are revered there, their corn does not hold a candle to either of the Tuttles (Red Barn or Riverside Farm).

Things are winding down around here. The summer people are leaving one by one to return to their jobs. Many of them are teachers (who else can take the summer off to go off to the woods). We find many rangers that have been here for many years. Many of them leave at the last minute because they just don’t want to leave. It is easy to love this place. I first came here in 1984 with Marianna, Ivy and Brad. We had a bad experience as a grizzly attacked a camper in our campground. We woke in the morning to see all of the rangers carrying guns and a large bear trap on a trailer. We tried to sleep in the car but that didn’t work; 4 people in a car when you can’t open any of the windows is pretty stuffy. The next night, Marianna and I slept in the tent and the kids slept in the car but unlike the other times they slept in the car, they were restless, kept calling out and opening the door. We left after 3 days and finished our vacation in Jackson Hole.

3 years ago, Cheryl and I spent 6 days here on our way back from Alaska. We had a wonderful time but didn’t have a car requiring us to break camp every day and drive the camper around the park. We knew we had to come back so this time we came for 2 weeks. Guess what? It still wasn’t enough. We didn’t take much time off but continue to come up short. I guess the only way to handle this is to become rangers and come here for the summer. Sometime.