Guess what... it's really cold at night in Yellowstone!!

Day 3, August 21

Yellowstone. We began our day by pretty much just trying to stay alive after nearly freezing to death last night! So, when you finally decide to get up and go to the bathroom, you better be committed to it. When you wake up in an aluminum trailer at 7000 feet elevation, you can see your breath. That's because IT'S COLD. So by the time you just about think your bladder is going to explode, you make the decision. I'm gettin' up. You quickly unzip the sleeping bag and try to put some clothes on... scratch that, you already have ALL of your clothes on.

Cold aside, staying outside Cooke City was really fun and I'd do it again. We got up this morning and packed up the trailer and drove the 1/2 mile into town where we ate at a local bakery. It was a really cool place because you could buy biscuits and gravy, a cinnamon roll, climbing or avalanche rescue gear, and motor oil... ALL IN THE SAME PLACE!! Who says a bakery can't multitask? Seriously, the food was great and most importantly it was warm plus they had a computer there where we were able to check our email for the first time of the trip.

We took a few more minutes to walk around Cooke City and went into their local grocery store where we bought food to get us through the next few days in the park. It was a cool little grocery store like you'd have seen 50 years ago. More like a general store but it was just a little place with a lot of charm so we lingered a while... oh, and it was warm.

Finally, we felt like we were stocked for a few days in the park as we didn't know what, if anything, would be available in the park. It turns out, they have everything there including restaurants, bars, gas stations etc. So, we were well prepared anyway. By the way, our definition of "well prepared" is an 8 pack of buns, peanut butter, licorice, doritos, and of course some Mt. Dew. Not exactly a balanced diet, but oh well.

We entered the park from the NE corner at a cost of only $25 for a 1 week pass which was also good for Grand Teton NP. We drove through the park and were talking about some of the animals we hoped we'd see there. As luck would have it, we had only been in the park about a 1/2 hour when we saw our first bear. It was a long way off but a bear none the less. Throughout the remainder of the 3 days we were in the park, we saw: Moose, Bear, Coyote, Deer, Antelope, and hundreds of Bison.

We found a campsite at the Canyon campground which is on the East side of the Yellowstone inner loop. It's a very nice campground but, like the night before, it has no electrical service to the individual campsites which meant two more miserably cold nights coming our way. Otherwise, it was a very cool place to stay as they had a whole complex next to the campground including a very nice and clean shower area (more about that later) and a restaurant with a really nice lounge area, as well as a couple of stores to shop in. Neither of us bought a sweatshirt to wear at night because we'd have had to buy a XXXL to fit over the other two sweatshirts we were already wearing to bed at night... It was cold!! The daytime temperatures were actually very nice - in the 80's but due to the near complete absence of humidity and the elevation, it just gets very cold very quickly once the sun goes down.

We decided that three days without a shower was long enough. All throughout the park, they have these huge metal containers for you to throw your trash in to keep the bears from getting it. Apparently, bears can smell food from miles away... I'm pretty sure they could smell us as we entered the park!! The nice thing about Canyon campground is that the registration building has a huge laundry and shower facility connected to it. It was really nice and clean - as nice as any campground we've stayed in and boy did we take advantage of the showers... they had warm water!! The cost of the shower was $3.25 per person which we would have gladly paid double and still gotten our money's worth. It felt so good to finally get clean and feel like a regular person again.

For the remainder of our first day in Yellowstone, we drove the East side of the loop down to Grant Campground where we ate supper at a lakeside cafe. We got to watch the sun set over Yellowstone Lake while we ate which was just spectacular to see. On the way there, we stopped at Upper Falls in the Canyon area, and also got to see several of the different sulfur pots, or as Bambi called them "stink pots". Anyone who has ever smelled sulfur knows that it has the smell of rotten eggs. These were no exception. They smelled pretty bad, but they were absolutely remarkable. The water in the pools was the most beautiful color blue and clear down to the bottom. The outside of the pool was colored with brilliant yellows, reds and oranges because of the different bacteria that live in the pools. We had no idea of all the geothermal activity under the Yellowstone area. Apparently, the entire area was once the site of a major volcano. There is a line on the map which covers a huge area of the park and denotes the outer ring of the volcano. They told us that all of the sulfur pots and guysers, including Old Faithful, are a result of this volcanic and geothermal activity brewing under the park. Very cool.

During the day, the wind was blowing quite hard and we noticed that when we got nearer the lake, there were huge whitecaps on the lake and the waves were 2-3 feet high and crashing onto shore. Later, as we drove along the lake, we had to stop for about 15 minutes as a huge pine tree had blown over onto the road just ahead of us. We got out and watched as a park ranger made quick work of the tree with an ax he had in his truck. We decided that by the looks of him, he had cut down a few trees in his day. He was really fast.

As we were leaving the restaurant at Grant campground, we thought we'd walk along the lake to the parking lot instead of taking the paved trail through the woods. As we began walking, Bambi said, "Is that a bat?" Just like that, we were nearly surrounded by bats swooping down all around us. I guess there were a lot of bugs at the edge of the water that were attracting them, but knowing Bambi's affinity for bats, and the fact that she was already turned around and half way down the wooded trail to the truck, I figured I'd take the wooded trail too. Oh, while in Yellowstone, we saw: Bear, Moose, Coyote, Deer, Antelope, Bison... and BATS!!

We ended our first night in Yellowstone by driving back to Canyon Lodge next to our campground where we sat in their beautiful lounge next to the restaurant. It was there that Bambi found her favorite spot in all of Yellowstone. It was a huge gas fireplace with a large copper chimney. They had overstuffed leather chairs which Bambi drug over to be RIGHT next to the fire and soaked up as much heat as she could before going back to the trailer.

All in all, our first day in Yellowstone was really great and we couldn't wait for the next day. Especially the part where the sun comes up and warms the earth... yeah, that part!