6/29/09

Our first night sleeping in Yellowstone was good. I have switched over into camping time by going to bed just after dark around 10:30 pm and waking up around 8:00 am whereas Kat is still on party time going to bed around 1:30 am and waking around 10:00 am.
I sat around this morning reading and doing some of the fun activities in the travel books that Cara got us for our trip while waiting for Kat to get up. Once up we packed our backpacks with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, snacks, water, cameras, sunscreen, and most importantly, bug spray, put on our walking shoes and set out.
We had gone to the Visitor’s Center yesterday and got a map of the day hiking trails in this area. A few of them are closed this time of year due to “bear activity” so from the three that were left, we chose to do two of them today.
The first trailhead started 3 miles east of where we are staying and it was a somewhat sketchy walk to it as we had to walk along the highway to get there. We had fun though stopping often to take photos and enjoy the views. They haven’t seemed to get old at all yet though I can’t imagine they ever would.
We reached the Strom Point trailhead just as some big storm clouds were moving in which made me nervous as not only did we not bring jackets or even sweatshirts of any kind on the hike, we didn’t cover the hole in the roof of the Winnie from where the vent cover blew off. We crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t rain and set out on the trail.
About 10 minutes into the 2.8 mile loop we came across a bison drinking from a pond. Well, we decided it was a bison but now are wondering if it was a buffalo; we don’t know the difference and since we don’t have internet or cell service here we can’t Google it to find out.
Many photos of the big animal later we continued on. The trail swept through a large meadow, through a thick forest and came out on the cliffs above the lake. We sat and ate lunch on the edge of the cliff which was incredible. From there the trial followed the lake for a bit where we found a large rock with about 5 or 6 marmots playing. Now, if you know Kat well you know that she has a bit of an obsession with rodents for some reason. I honestly have never seen someone get so excited about seeing a squirrel, gopher, chipmunk, and now marmot. I am not even sure those are all in the rodent family but they should be. Anyways, we stopped for a good 10 min so Kat could fill up the memory card on her camera with Marmots in every angle possible and then some.
Continuing on we looped back around into the forest again then came back out into the meadow where the bison/buffalo was still hanging out and back onto the highway and headed back towards our camp.
A mile from our camp we hit our second trailhead called the Pelican Creek Trail. This was a much shorter trail, just 1.3 miles but was still just as beautiful through a forest where we saw a lark elk and a ton of the biggest ants I have seen and down to another beach where we sat and ate some snacks and I expressed to Kat the shock in the fact that I had just hiked 10 miles and was still ready for more.
Back onto the highway and back to our camp, 5 hours and 12 miles later, we sat around, uploaded pictures from our cameras to our computers, where, again, I had to hear about how “cute and cuddly” marmots are and how “don’t you just want to take one home and snuggle with it?” many times over.
We have spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, watching Stand By Me and waiting for the hot water heater to heat up so we can take some much more than ever needed showers later. I also climbed up onto the roof and rigged a very temporary cover over the vent. It hasn’t rained yet but the clouds are still creeping in and I’d rather do it now than wake up to rain falling on me.
We are dirty, sore, hungry and having the best time ever. We are looking forward to heading to Montana tomorrow. Hopefully we will also find an RV shop that has a cover for us.