Yellowstone - Day 8

June 29, 2013…We broke camp in West Yellowstone and headed south in the church van.  As we left the city I spied some awesome trash receptacles.  They are all painted beautifully with lovely artwork.  An idea to tuck away in the brain for another time.  We made a quick, three mile side trip to Idaho to add that state to our travel list of states traveled and photo op at the Entering Idaho sign and were off to another day in Yellowstone.

Cruising through Yellowstone we made several stops at waterfalls, look-outs, and various other awesome sights. All of a sudden we came upon lots of parked cars and knew something good was happening!  It was bison.  A big mixed  herd of bison were to our left in a big meadow.  We pulled up and got out to take pictures.  As we were admiring them, all of a sudden they decided to cross the road.  Right in front of us!!  There was some distance between the car ahead of us and the church van.  Many of them crossed directly between our two vehicles.  We were all out of the van at that point and just backed up and huddled close to the side of the church van.  Bison crossed and crossed.  Bulls, females, young ones, and the cutest little calves you ever did see! 

They crossed in front of us for several minutes and headed to the meadow to our right.  Some made cute little grunting noises and some made what I would call a moo in cow-talk.  We were enchanted!  I filmed and snapped photos over and over.  After most of them crossed into the meadow they headed to the small river and crossed it into the next meadow.  We just couldn’t get enough of watching them!  Sandy and I counted and both came up with about 70 adults and 20 claves.  How lucky we were to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

Soon we were back in a paint pot area and walking the boardwalk amongst bubbling mud, small geysers, and lots of thermal features.  There is just so much for my eyes to see and I can’t get enough!  What must those early pioneers have thought when they came across this extraordinary landscape?  It boggles the mind to imagine.  Perhaps, if they were overly religious or quite superstitious that they may have thought they had reached Hell.  Hot, dry, bubbling, scalding, water that stinks, burns, and cascades everywhere.  Wow!

At one of the three Continental Divide stops we crossed we saw a little pond with lily pads. In this little pond were lots of leeches and no fishes. Ewww!  We looked and took pics and headed on to the next stop in Moran, WY at our next campsite.  On the way out of the park we came upon an accident scene.  A white Blazer-like car had crossed the center line and went nose first down an extremely steep embankment and some pine trees stopped it from going down into a lake.  Rather scary because a few minutes later and he may have hit us crossing over.  I hope there was no one hurt.

We arrived at Flagg Ranch campsite and I gotta say, we are disappointed in this campsite.  It has no electricity, no lights, and no wi-fi, and the biggest mosquitos we have ever seen!  They are deadly!  The bathrooms are not nearly as clean as we want them to be and some of us wish we were not staying here but there are not other options. We will live through this!  But not having internet is about killing us!

We ate a delicious supper of cheesy, broccoli and potato soup and called it a day.  In the darkest place on earth I have ever seen, without lights in our cabins or street lights on their drives!  Not darkest Africa, but certainly darkest Wyoming!