I've gotten a little behind, so this is the last three days and is a bit long.
Monday
After breakfast and much appreciated showers at the Bear Canyon RV Park, we headed into Bozeman, MT, bright and early Monday morning. Bozeman is my kind of town, an espresso bar on every other corner and a bike shop on the corners in between. We were looking to get the warped bicycle wheels trued. I actually started earlier, by calling several shops to find out if they could do it. We got an affirmative reaction from Ownenhouse Cycles. So that's where we went. They are actually part of Owenhouse Hardware, but in a separate building from the hardware store. They sell bicycles and small power equipment, generators, chain saws and the like.
It was actually quite a good bike shop, with three mechanics, several good lines of bicycles and a very complete accessories department. I asked how they were associated with the hardware store. It turns out the hardware store is over 100 years old and always sold bicycles, as they did back then. The bike business just got big enough to split off into its own store in the 60s. They also used to be the local International Harvester dealer and when IH went out of business, they had an empty building just when the bikes got big.
It turned out that my wheel was toast. The force of breaking the nipple also stretched and cracked the rim, so a new wheel was in order. They had a good, moderately priced one in stock. Ellen's wheel could be trued. They told us to come back around 1 PM, so off we went to do other errands—first stop coffee. The nearest spot was Rockford Coffee Roasters. It was a good latte, could have been a bit stronger. Ellen's black coffee was a Brazilian, but was served a bit too hot.
We needed groceries. There was a Safeway at the other end of Main Street, so that's where we headed. Also, the Bozeman Food-Coop is right across the street. It was really a cooperative, but looked like a smaller local version of Whole Foods, rather than a funky storefront out of the 60s. They still had lots of stuff in bulk. We managed to get some good fruit, including some perfectly ripe peaches, some burgers from locally raised cattle, some local, cream-on-top, no-homogenized, organic milk and a few other things. Then it was off to the Safeway for the rest.
We went back to Owenhouse before 1 PM, but the wheels weren't quite done, so off to lunch. The Food Coop also has a downtown deli and it was next door to the bike shop. A couple of good sandwiches later, the wheels were ready and it was off to Yellowstone.
We went into the park at the original North Entrance, through the stone gates and followed the river to the Mammoth Hot Springs campground, where we got a site overlooking the meadow that ran down to the road and over to the Gardner River and a huge dry valley beyond. It was right next to a campground host site and it turned out to be a good choice. After we set up Speedy, I put the bikes back together and adjusted the brakes. They are both a bit worse for wear, but are once again ridable.
By then it was time for dinner and those local burgers. I grilled them up with some pepper jack cheese and freshly toasted ciabatta rolls and Ellen made a delicious warm potato salad. With a view over the meadow to the evening sun-lit hills, what could be better.
After dinner it was off to the evening ranger talk. They start them late at Mammoth, 9 PM. But a young, earnest ranger told us all about bison. The main takeaway—they are big ... and strong. The last anecdote was about a YouTube clip taken at the park. It showed a bison walking past a line of cars coming toward the camera. When the animal reached the car ahead of the camera, a hand came out the window and touched the bison, who reacted by kicking in the side of the car.
Tuesday
We started out early to catch the morning ranger-led hike through the Mammoth Hot Springs. We weren't sure how long it would take to walk up to the meeting point, so left around 8:30 AM (for a 9:30 walk) and found the poorly marked trail from the campground the Park Headquarters area next to springs. It didn't take long to get to the top, stopping only to look at an elk, but it was all uphill. We stopped at the Visitor Center and the Mammoth General Store and made our way to the base of the springs.
Mammoth Hot Springs is in an unusual area in Yellowstone, emanating from limestone, the hot water is charged with carbon dioxide and dissolved limestone. As it comes out, it quickly precipitates into calcium carbonate as soft travertine, forming terraces rimed with stalactites and mounded hills as it flows downhill. It can build up inches of material per week.
We walked through this large array of terraces, hot pools and springs with the ranger and about 40 other people. It was all very interesting, but also very crowded. At one point we intersected with two busloads of Chinese tourists. This was also our first introduction to Yellowstone crowds. Later our campground host neighbor told us that was nothing; it was estimated that a million people were in the park on July 15th.
It is also much hotter than we anticipated, not due to the hot springs, so we trundled back to camp and hung out for the rest of the day. It was an interesting hang-out. As we were sitting at our site picnic table, an elk doe and her fawn came strolling around the host's RV in the next site. The fawn lay down at their doorstep while mom proceeded to munch away at the grass outside the site. After a while, they slowly ate their way towards us, with the doe ending up about three feet away from the picnic table, munching on a bush. By this time Ellen was in the street taking pictures, but I was still sitting at the table. It was time to move away ... slowly. They finally moved on through to the next site and up through the campground.
Not much later, a small herd of elk came up through the meadow to feed on the same bush next to our site. We saw several more groups move through the meadow as evening came.
We had a nice salad for dinner, although the avocado Ellen bought on Monday was nowhere to be found. Hopefully, it is not hidden away in some cranny in Speedy.
Wednesday
We moved on from Mammoth today, as it was really on the northern edge of the park and far from most other things. Since it seems that the campgrounds are still filling early, we got an early start and drove to the small campground near Tower Falls. The entrance sign said that the campground was full, but we went in anyway, assuming it was still up from last night. We found several sites available, picked one, filled out the self-registration form, locked the bikes to the picnic table and went off to look at the falls. They were okay, tall but not spectacular and also quite crowded.
We then headed out to the Lamar Valley looking for wildlife and we found it. As we were going along the road a solo bison came sauntering along in the opposite lane, stopping traffic. It was definitely up-close, but not car-kicking close. It was only a taste of views to come. The Lamar Valley must be the current home to a large portion of the Yellowstone bison herd. We surely saw a thousand in many groups along the banks of the Lamar River. We also saw several groups of pronghorn antelope, a few mule deer and many fly-fishermen. The Lamar is evidently one of the most popular fly-fishing areas in the park. As it was mid-day, we didn't see any predators, wolves and bear, but we are going back early tomorrow to look again.
Later in the day we drove over Dunraven Pass, the highest in the park, to Canyon Village. It was as crowded as a big mall at Christmas time. We stopped in the visitor center to see the exhibits on Yellowstone as a super-volcano and then went off to drive along the North RIm Drive to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone Lower Falls, which was impressive as were the crowds. Finding parking at the various overlooks was sometimes a challenge. I can't imagine what it must be like mid-season. It had me almost heading back to Glacier.
Finally, before driving back over Dunraven Pass to the Tower Falls campground, we took advantage of the Canyon Campground showers. We have running cold water taps and vault toilets here at Tower.
Tomorrow, it is an early morning pass through Lamar Valley, another drive over the pass and on to the Norris Springs for a few days, hopefully, to visit the geysers and other hot stuff.
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