Current mileage: 3678 miles
Current location:Campground in Glacier NP
Day # 15 of the no expectation vacation
On September 27 I woke up on my birthday in Cody, WY. I heard the GREAT news that the company that I work for will be getting bought by the airline Southwest. The ironic part about this was the night before I was sitting downstairs at the B&B having tea with the ladies. I was telling them that I worked for AirTran, but I would love to work for a company like SouthWest. They seem to treat their employees well, and I never hear them complaining. Well guess what, I woke up on my birthday to the news that SouthWest had bought AirTran. Man someone above sure was listening to me the night before! So not only did I get that wish, I also had a wonderful Birthday breakfast, and then I headed out of Cody to spend the day in Yellowstone. I was going to pass Yellowstone, but many people talked me into going. I can say that Yellowstone had some really cool things, but I would NEVER EVER go during tourist season. I felt that it was crowded enough during "off-season".
I entered the park from the East entrance coming from Cody, WY. The park ranger looked at me crazy when I told her I was going to tour the park for only a day, she said it couldn't be done. But as you know I like the challenge. I will later have to admit that she was right. Anyways, when I entered this was some of the first scenery that I saw. I am assuming that it was from a Forest fire in the park. I did not do my research, so I wasn't real sure, but there were lots of acreage that had been burned and unfortunately it made for some really cool pictures.
The next thing that I saw was a grizzly bear in the wild. There were tons of people stopped around this lake taking pictures so I decided to stop. Although the person taking the picture got my hand pointing towards the trees the grizzly was actually laying out by the lake on it's stomach with it's feet in the water. Apparently Grizzly bears can smell you from more than half a mile away so this distance still made me nervous. The crazy part about this is the fact that there were people from California and NY that were trying to get closer to take a picture even though there was a road stop sign that said do not go past this. Did they listen...NO!The ranger popped out of nowhere and had to explain to these "tourist" that these Grizzlies came from behind them, and there was a dead carcass they were eating, and for them to pass the sign would be a good way to get trapped by two grizzlies. I guess they thought they were in the San Diego zoo. I found that the most entertaining part of Yellowstone was to see which tourist was going to get charged by a WILD animal first, I was sure going to be there to get a picture of that! On numerous times I saw people in the woods trying to get a closer shot of a moose, or elk, or even the buffalo. I started to think that I might be able to capture the winning video to Americas Funniest Video (hoping none of these "tourist" would get hurt in the process!) I am not real sure if it is the fact that I grew up in West Virginia....but I was taught at a very young age to respect wildlife, especially if you are in their habitat! A little wilderness 101!
I shot a picture of this Buffalo from my car. He was apparently scratching his belly, and it was pretty neat to see. The crazy part once again was the fact that there were people out of their car trying to capture a better picture. No worries cause I had my camera ready to take a picture of them getting charged by a Buffalo!
There was some beautiful scenery in Yellowstone as the pictures below show.
By far the coolest thing in Yellowstone that I saw, and think everyone should see once in their life is "Old Faithful" this hole is in the middle of thermal activity and goes off around every 90 minutes. I just happened to get there right on time because it went off about 15 minutes after I arrived. I was not sure what to expect, because when I arrived I it looked like a hole that had steam coming from it. And I was thinking to myself "wow" but when it went off OMGoodness. It was crazy and last for about 3 minutes total and sprays steam and water about 100 feet in the air,. The picture below shows it at full force! Kinda crazy to know what is going on underneath our feet!
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